Category: Business

Traditional markets are acting spooked as geopolitical tensions rise. The VIX—Wall Street’s “fear gauge” measuring expected volatility in the S&P 500—surged above 35, its highest level in nearly a year, as oil prices briefly spiked toward $120 per barrel following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Stocks fell. Gold fell. Pretty much everything that was supposed to be a safe haven wasn’t.

Bitcoin, true to form, decided to go a different direction. Almost every coin in the top 10 by market capitalization opened in the green today—Tron being the lone holdout. Bitcoin is currently trading above $69,000, up nearly 4.3% today, which would sound great for holders if the longer term charts didn’t have some awkward things to say about it.

On Myriad, a prediction market run by Decrypt‘s parent company Dastan, traders are essentially split between Bitcoin pumping to $84K or dumping to $55K, with odds slightly bearish. Traders are currently pricing in odds at 57% on the downside; not exactly a ringing endorsement of this bounce.

The broader macro question of which bubble bursts first, crypto or equities, is very much alive, especially with the VIX spiking and oil markets in chaos. Bitcoin’s own volatility index, the BVIV, already peaked above 96 in early February when BTC touched $60,000, and the Crypto Fear and Greed Index has been in the fear zone for most of 2026 so far.

What happens in traditional markets this week will matter, especially considering Bitcoin is trading in a compression zone. If equities continue selling off and the VIX keeps climbing, risk assets face real pressure regardless of any intraday bounce. Traders will want to watch equity futures—they’ll act as a ceiling or floor for how far this move actually goes.

Bitcoin (BTC) price: The breakout that wasn’t

Bitcoin opened today’s session at $65,974 and is currently trading at $69,128—a 4.78% jump with an intraday high of $69,497. On the surface, that reads like bullish news, but looking at the broader picture makes this assumption more complicated.

Last week, Bitcoin printed what looked like a clean breakout above the descending triangle that’s been compressing its price since February. But the week closed with the price of Bitcoin back inside the triangle. What appeared to be a breakout was mostly a wick in the weekly charts—technically closer to an inverted doji (a candlestick with no body and big wicks), a signal that sellers absorbed all the buying pressure and rejected the move hard. The triangle swallowed the breakout whole. Today traders are trying again.

The Average Directional Index, or ADX, sits at 33.7. ADX measures trend strength on a scale from 0 to 100, with readings above 25 confirming a genuine trend is in play—and 33.7 puts Bitcoin squarely in “strong trend” territory. But the ADX during this bear run has been stronger and is receding. That’s not a confirmation that bulls have taken over, but it can be interpreted as a sign that the tug-of-war is tightening even though things don’t look good for long-term bulls at the moment.

Until Bitcoin actually escapes the triangle and holds above it, the ADX shift is a yellow light, not a green one.

The Relative Strength Index, or RSI, reads 49.3. RSI is a momentum oscillator running from 0 to 100—below 30 signals oversold conditions, above 70 signals overbought, and 50 is the neutral midpoint. At 49.3, Bitcoin is flat on the fence. It hasn’t exhausted buyers, but hasn’t attracted enough conviction to push into bullish momentum territory either. Traders typically want to see RSI clear and hold above 50 before calling a meaningful momentum shift. Right now it’s just parked there, noncommittal.

The Exponential Moving Averages, or EMAs, tell the clearest story. The 50-day EMA—which tracks average prices over the last 50 sessions to reflect medium-term momentum—is sitting below the 200-day EMA. That’s a major bearish setup considering the gap is getting wider. EMAs show trend direction by weighting recent prices more heavily, and when the short-term average is below the long-term one, it means recent price action is weaker than the broader trend.

For bears to genuinely lose their grip, Bitcoin needs more than a session spike to $69K. What bulls actually need is a series of daily closes above the descending trendline—currently running near $73,000–$75,000, close to where the 50-day EMA sits at $73,293. Bullish traders would want to see rising ADX confirming that the move has real trend strength behind it, not just a VIX-driven risk-on blip. Anything short of that, and this remains a probe of resistance inside a compression zone.

Today’s 4.78% pop gives intraday traders something to work with, but swing traders and holders are still inside a bearish structure until Bitcoin posts convincing closes above $73,000–$75,000 on volume. Lose the $65,000–$66,000 volume shelf below—the price level where most of the recent trading has concentrated—and the path toward $60,000 opens up fast.

Anthropic has turned to the federal courts to fight a sweeping blacklist by the Donald Trump administration, claiming the government branded the AI startup a national security threat in retaliation for its refusal to relax safety protocols.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in the United States District Court of Northern California, challenges actions taken after President Trump directed federal agencies in February to stop using Anthropic’s technology. This followed public comments from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who said the company would not comply with the Pentagon’s request for unrestricted access to Claude. The complaint names multiple federal agencies and senior officials as defendants, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

“The Constitution does not allow the government to wield its enormous power to punish a company for its protected speech,” attorneys for Anthropic said in the lawsuit. “No federal statute authorizes the actions taken here. Anthropic turns to the judiciary as a last resort to vindicate its rights and halt the Executive’s unlawful campaign of retaliation.”

The dispute began in January when Pentagon officials demanded AI contractors allow their systems to be used for “any lawful use,” including military applications. While Anthropic had by then already entered into a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, it refused to remove two safeguards prohibiting the use of Claude for mass domestic surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous lethal weapons systems.

“The Challenged Actions inflict immediate and irreparable harm on Anthropic; on others whose speech will be chilled; on those benefiting from the economic value the company can continue to create; and on a global public that deserves robust dialogue and debate on what AI means for warfare and surveillance,” attorneys for Anthropic stated in the lawsuit.

For AI developers, including SingularityNET CEO Ben Goertzel, the designation is an odd choice and doesn’t fit with the typical meaning of a supply chain threat, something usually reserved for software from adversaries that could contain hidden malware, viruses, or spyware.

“Anthropic not being willing to have their software used for autonomous killing or mass surveillance doesn’t seem to pose a risk of that nature,” Goertzel told Decrypt. “That just means if you want to use software for autonomous killing or mass surveillance, then buy somebody else’s software. So the logic of making it a supply chain risk eludes me.”

Goertzel said differences among leading AI models may limit the practical impact of the decision.

“In the end, Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are not that far off from each other,” he said. “As long as one of these top systems is being used by the U.S. government, it’s all about the same thing. And the intelligence agencies, under the cloak of top secret clearance, would use the software however they wanted.”

Anthropic is asking the court to declare the government’s actions unlawful and block enforcement of the “supply chain risk” designation that prevents federal agencies and Pentagon contractors from doing business with the company.

“There is no valid justification for the Challenged Actions,” the lawsuit said. “The Court should declare them unlawful and enjoin Defendants from taking any steps to implement them.”

Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Decrypt.

Even after designating Anthropic a risk to national security, Claude has been used in ongoing military operations, including by U.S. Central Command to help analyze intelligence and identify targets during strikes on Iran.

Jennifer Huddleston, a senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute, said in a statement shared with Decrypt that the case raises concerns about constitutional protections when national security claims are used to justify government action.

“While the courts have been hesitant in the past to question the government’s claims of national security concerns, the circumstances of this case certainly highlight the real risk to the First Amendment rights of Americans if the underlying considerations of such claims are not thoroughly scrutinized,” she said.

Coinbase launched futures contracts for traders across Europe, marking the first time the exchange has offered regulated crypto derivatives directly to users in the region.

The products are being progressively rolled out through Coinbase Advanced in 26 European countries, including Germany, France, and the Netherlands, offered through its MiFID II.

A license through Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID, grants firms permission to offer traditional financial products like stocks, bonds, derivatives, and similar products to EU customers. Although Coinbase is a crypto exchange and offering crypto-based derivatives, those contracts still fall under MiFID.

Coinbase said in its blog post that the offering will give European traders a regulated alternative to the offshore platforms many have historically relied on for crypto derivatives.

The new product suite includes perpetual-style futures and dated contracts with monthly or quarterly expirations. The perpetual-style contracts carry five-year expiries, while the lineup also features an equity-index product called the Mag7 + Crypto Equity Index Futures, which combines exposure to the Magnificent Seven tech stocks with crypto-linked equities and BlackRock iShares ETFs tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Leverage of up to 10 times is available on selected contracts such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, with fees as low as 0.02% per contract. Accounts can be funded in euros or USDC.

Coinbase was recently selected as one of two custodians for Morgan Stanley’s upcoming spot Bitcoin ETF. The company would custody the fund’s assets along with BNY, the bank said in an amended S-1 registration filed with the SEC.

Coinbase will have some crypto-native company in the European derivatives space. Both Crypto.com and Kraken rolled out their own offering sin May 2025.

Just last month, Coinbase repoorted at Q4 earnings miss with a $667 million loss while the price of Bitcoin slid late last year.

Coinbase said the loss stemmed from a $718 million decrease in the value of its investment portfolio, which was largely unrealized. At the same time, strategic investments, including in Circle, lost $395 million in value.

Sharplink reported a full-year loss of $734 million on Monday, indicating that its business came under pressure as Ethereum’s price tumbled last year.

In 2024, the firm notched $10.1 million in profits, before pivoting away from sports gambling marketing to become Ethereum’s second-largest corporate holder.

The Miami-based firm currently owns 867,000 Ethereum. That sum was valued around $1.75 billion on Monday, with Ethereum changing hands around $2,000, according to CoinGecko. The company’s holdings are only second to BitMine Immersion Technologies’ $9 billion stockpile, overseen by Fundstrat’s Tom Lee.

Sharplink attributed the performance to a decrease in the value of its holdings, which fell $616 million throughout the year. The loss was bolstered by a $140 million impairment charge on tokens representing staked Ethereum. That was partially offset by a $55 million net gain on conversions between the company’s holdings and such tokens.

Although Sharplink’s treasury took a hit, the company signaled that revenue from staking jumped 50% quarter-over-quarter to $15.3 million from $10.3 million. So far, the company has generated 14,500 Ethereum worth $9.4 million from staking.

“2025 was a defining year for Sharplink,” CEO Joseph Chalom said in a shareholder letter, noting that the company raised around $3.2 billion amid its pivot.

The former BlackRock executive said “short-term market volatility” can impact the company’s results, but he argued that the firm is built in a way to weather crypto’s market cycles, including Ethereum’s swoon from nearly $5,000 in August.

“We have built a platform that can perform in both strong and challenging markets,” he added. “Our strategy is consistent and designed to endure.”

At the end of last year, the company held $30.4 million in cash and stablecoins.

Sharplink shares were little changed on Monday at $7.41, according to Yahoo Finance. Over the past six months, the company’s stock price has dropped 55%, slightly outpacing Ethereum’s 53% fall over the same period of time.

Sharplink seeks revenue by participating in the process of validating transactions on Ethereum’s network, also known as staking. Beyond that, the firm has also deployed capital in decentralized finance protocols in search of higher yields.

The company currently holds 4 ETH per share. Sharplink has signaled boosting that metric further serves as its primary objective, among others like expanding partnerships within Ethereum’s ecosystem.

Consensys CEO and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, who serves as Sharplink’s Chairman, underscored the importance of Ethereum’s ecosystem amid the institutional adoption of stablecoins and tokenized assets.(Disclosure: Consensys is one of 22 investors in an editorially independent Decrypt.)

“The institutional adoption supercycle […] accelerated in 2025,” he said. “Sharplink intends to remain uniquely positioned to serve as a bridge between traditional public markets and the Ethereum opportunity.”

Vienna-based startup Atlas announced on Monday the launch of a new AI tool to automate the game development process, as game developers increasingly turn to the technology. 

The new Atlas AI Studio uses multiple AI agents to automate tasks such as generation, texturing, optimization, and engine integration, allowing artists to describe tasks in natural language. At the same time, the system builds the assets using different AI models.

“What we’ve built now, and what we are releasing, is an agentic kind of workflow builder,” Atlas founder and CEO Ben James told Decrypt. “What it does is you’re able to describe what you’re looking to build. It will go ahead and assemble a combination of different AI models to make that.”

Atlas AI Studio is now moving from closed beta to global availability through Google Cloud Marketplace. Studios including Square Enix, PARALLEL, and Ego have used the system during the beta, Atlas said. 

The launch comes as developers continue to experiment with AI across game production, while players continue to push back against its use. James argues that despite the negative view of gamers towards AI, its benefits are often overlooked.

“I think oftentimes what’s not appreciated is AI can do a lot of the non-creative aspects of game development,” James said. “Think of generating different levels of detail for an object that’s created by a human artist, but for a game to run effectively, it still needs different levels of detail, or optimizing material builds for different objects, or setting up collisions and pivot points. There’s a lot of work that AI can do in this space.”

In 2023, Cyan Worlds faced criticism after players discovered its adventure game, Firmament, used AI-assisted content, while voice actors protested the use of AI-generated voices in the shooter The Finals. 

The debate has prompted some companies to publicly reject the use of AI. In January, Warhammer 40K maker Games Workshop said it would not use generative AI in its creative design process.

James said much of the criticism centers on visible AI-generated art rather than the technical work required to prepare assets for games.

“I don’t think a gamer would have that sort of visceral reaction to knowing  AI was used so that this game could run in a more performant way, or that these assets could be used in a more optimized setting,” James said.

Copyright concerns remain central to the debate over AI in the gaming industry. James said responsibility lies with the developers using the technology.

“The onus still, to some extent, when you’re creating with AI, does fall on the creator,” James said. “So, you shouldn’t introduce IP into the system that you don’t have ownership or authority to introduce into the system.”

Nasdaq is partnering with Payward, the parent firm of crypto exchange Kraken, to develop tokenized equities that will enable “programmable investor engagement,” the exchange announced Monday.

Set to launch in the first half of 2027, the initiative aims to “modernize processes” including corporate actions, shareholder engagement, and proxy voting, Nasdaq stated in a press release. Tokenized shares would afford the holder “full legal and regulatory equivalence,” with a transfer of the token representing a transfer of the underlying security, it said.

The exchange added that the plan builds on its tokenization proposal filed with the SEC last year, which aimed to give customers the option to trade securities via traditional digital representation of ownership, with or without blockchain backing.

In a separate release, Payward explained that it would develop an “equities transformation gateway” with Nasdaq built atop its xStocks framework, enabling customers “in jurisdictions around the world where xStocks are available” to trade tokenized versions of public company shares.

“This issuer‑sponsored approach for tokenized equity securities is designed to empower public companies and enhance global accessibility to U.S. equity markets, ”said Nasdaq President Tal Cohen, adding that tokenization “has the potential to unlock the benefits of an always-on financial ecosystem—enhancing how investors access markets, how issuers engage with shareholders.”

Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, added that the initiative “expands access to public markets where traditional distribution has been limited” for international customers, while U.S. customers will benefit from “greater collateral efficiency and capital mobility across trading and financing workflows.”

Nasdaq’s move comes amid a wider push towards tokenized stocks in the TradFi world. In January, the New York Stock Exchange announced that it is developing a blockchain-based platform for trading tokenized equities, while just last week its parent company Intercontinental Exchange invested in crypto exchange OKX at a $25 billion valuation, enabling OKX users to trade tokenized stocks and derivatives listed on the NYSE from later this year.