Category: Business

  • Could You Still Retire with 1,000 XRP Amid Recent Price Crash?

    Discussions around retiring with a 1,000 $XRP investment have re-emerged despite the ongoing market-wide downturn.

    $XRP’s recent price struggles have dampened optimism among investors, particularly those hoping to retire from their $XRP holdings. With the token down 63% from its peak, most investors are focused on recovering losses rather than making profits, as the market faces one of its weakest periods in years.

    Despite this, Jake Claver maintains a long-term bullish outlook, recently arguing that patience and consistent accumulation could still pay off. In his most recent commentary, the $XRP community voice assessed the possibility of retiring with 1,000 $XRP.

    Key Points

    • $XRP currently trades at $1.32, marking a 63% drop from its $3.6 all-time high in July 2025 and a 27.7% decline in Q1 2026.
    • The token would need a 172% increase to return to its previous peak for all existing investors to break even.
    • Jake Claver believes long-term holders who have accumulated $XRP over five to eight years may still see rewards, though newer investors may need more time.
    • He projects that $XRP could reach $1,000 by 2027, depending on several factors, despite his initial 2025 timeline failing to play out.
    • At $1,000 per $XRP, 1,000 tokens would equal $1 million, but Claver believes most investors may need 10,000 tokens to actually retire comfortably.

    $XRP Suffers Market Downturn

    Claver, who serves as the CEO of Digital Ascension Group, made the latest comments during a video presentation amid $XRP’s current turbulence. For context, $XRP is still struggling through a market downturn that has weakened investor confidence.

    Right now, $XRP trades at $1.32, which marks a sharp 63% drop from its all-time high of $3.6 reached in July 2025.

    The token has also fallen 27.7% in Q1 2026 alone, putting it on track for its worst first quarter since 2018, when it dropped 74.81% after reaching a peak. To return to the $3.6 level, $XRP would need to rise by 172%, which would allow all existing investors to recover their losses.

    New $XRP Investors May Need More Patience

    Despite the current situation, Jake Claver still believes in the long-term potential of $XRP. He suggests that even holding 1,000 $XRP could still help investors push toward future financial success.

    He explained that people with less than 1,000 $XRP cannot prepare in the same way as wealthier investors who keep their holdings in cold wallets. To him, those with smaller amounts should stay patient and avoid making rushed decisions.

    He pointed out that many long-term holders have stayed in the market for five to eight years, regularly adding to their holdings through dollar-cost averaging, and putting themselves in a better position over time.

    New Investors Seeing Losses

    Claver then argued that newer investors who bought at higher prices can still do well, but they should expect to wait longer before seeing meaningful returns, especially compared to those who started earlier.

    For context, $XRP has fallen about 53.5% since the downtrend began in Q4 2025, dealing a massive blow to new investors. Specifically, someone who bought 1,000 $XRP in October 2025 at $2.84, spending $2,840, would now have holdings worth $1,320 at the current price of $1.32, indicating a loss of $1,520.

    Claver believes that such investments can still recover over time, but he clarified that this recovery may take a while and will require patience.

    Could You Retire with 1,000 $XRP?

    Claver then presented a very optimistic outlook where $XRP reaches $1,000 per token. In this case, 1,000 $XRP would be worth $1 million, which could change many people’s lives. However, he pointed out that $1 million may not be enough to retire comfortably today, especially for younger people.

    According to him, someone in their 70s might still need around $3 million to $5 million to cover living costs, especially if they live another 20 to 30 years. He added that while being a millionaire meant a lot in the 1990s, today it does not carry the same financial strength.

    As a result, Claver suggested that a more comfortable retirement today may require around $10 million. Based on this suggestion, investors would need to hold 10,000 $XRP if the price reaches $1,000 per token, giving a total value of $10 million.

    New Projected Timeline for $XRP to Hit $1,000

    Claver believes $XRP could reach $1,000 by the end of 2027, and possibly even sooner, such as in 2026, depending on factors like derivatives markets and wider adoption.

    Notably, this comes after he earlier predicted that $XRP would hit $1,000 by the end of 2025, even when it was trading around $2, which meant it would have needed a rise of about 49,900%. The prediction did not come true, as the price dropped instead. He later explained that the expected events that could have supported that rise did not happen.

    In his recent commentary, he noted that if someone holds 10,000 $XRP at $1,000 each, the total $10 million could generate about 5% yearly returns, which equals $500,000 per year. He believes this level of income would allow most people to live comfortably in many parts of the United States.

    However, he noted that expensive areas like California, New York, Las Vegas, and Miami may still require more income, while places like Dallas would allow a more comfortable lifestyle at that level.

  • Lummis says CLARITY Act will deliver ‘strongest’ developer protections

    Lummis says CLARITY Act will deliver ‘strongest’ developer protections

    US Senator Cynthia Lummis has dismissed claims that the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act fails to protect decentralized finance innovators from legal repercussions, rebutting that recent changes to the draft will make it the “strongest protection for DeFi and developers ever enacted.”

    Her comments on Friday came in direct response to crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky, who argued that Title 3 of the current draft undermines the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act — another crypto bill focused on developer protections — by subjecting non-custodial software developers to know-your-customer obligations.

    “Don’t believe the FUD,” Lummis said, adding, “We have worked on a bipartisan basis for the last few weeks to make changes to Title 3 that make this bill the strongest protection for DeFi and developers ever enacted. We have to pass the Clarity Act to get these protections.”

    The latest changes to the CLARITY Act have not been publicly released.

    Source: Cynthia Lummis

    Chervinsky said these DeFi protection provisions have been overshadowed by intense focus on stablecoin rewards provisions in the CLARITY Act.

    His biggest issue with the Senate Banking Committee’s latest CLARITY Act draft is that Title 3’s money transmitter definitions could still expose many non-custodial DeFi builders to liability.

    This is despite the CLARITY Act incorporating the BRCA in section 604, which clarifies that non-controlling developers and providers of non-custodial software are not to be treated as financial institutions subject to Bank Secrecy Act KYC obligations.

    “The biggest challenge is ensuring non-custodial software developers aren’t misclassified as money transmitters,” Chervinsky argued.

    “That’s non-negotiable for DeFi, and it’s still unsettled.”

    His concerns come amid several high-profile prosecutions and convictions of developers in the US in recent months, including Tornado Cash co-founder, Roman Storm, who was convicted in August 2025 of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business

    Related: Delaware eyes stablecoin licensing framework under banking laws

    US lawmakers have said the CLARITY Act is moving closer toward a Senate Banking Committee markup expected in April after recent bipartisan progress on stablecoin rewards provisions.

    Passage of the CLARITY Act is necessary to ensure DeFi developers are afforded legal protections under the BRCA, Lummis noted.

    Magazine: Are DeFi devs liable for the illegal activity of others on their platforms?

  • Ripple turns to AI to stress-test the XRP Ledger as institutional use cases scale

    Ripple turns to AI to stress-test the XRP Ledger as institutional use cases scale

    Ripple is overhauling how it secures the $XRP Ledger, and AI is at the center of the effort.

    Its engineering team outlined a new AI-driven security strategy for the $XRP Ledger in a detailed post earlier this week, one that integrates machine learning tools across the protocol’s entire development lifecycle.

    The strategy includes AI-assisted code scanning on every pull request, automated adversarial testing guided by threat models, and a dedicated AI-assisted red team that continuously analyzes the codebase and how features interact in real-world scenarios.

    A newly-created ‘red team’ has already identified more than 10 bugs, with low-severity issues disclosed publicly so far and the remainder being prioritized and fixed. The team uses fuzzing and automated adversarial testing to simulate attacker behavior at scale, surfacing vulnerabilities earlier and with greater coverage than traditional auditing approaches.

    “AI allows us to shift from reactive debugging to proactive, systematic discovery of vulnerabilities, strengthening the ledger faster and with greater confidence than ever before,” Ripple wrote.

    The initiative comes as the XRPL handles an increasingly complex workload. The ledger has been operating continuously since 2012, processing over 100 million ledgers and facilitating more than 3 billion transactions.

    A codebase of that age naturally reflects “design decisions made in earlier phases of the network, assumptions that held at smaller scale, and patterns that predate modern tooling.” The AI tools are designed to systematically find the edge cases and hidden failure modes that accumulate in any long-running production system.

    The strategy is built across six pillars. Beyond the AI-assisted scanning and red team, Ripple is modernizing the XRPL codebase itself to address structural issues like limited type safety and inconsistent interaction patterns between features.

    The company is expanding security collaboration with XRPL Commons, the XRPL Foundation, independent researchers, and validator operators. Standards for protocol amendments are being raised, with multiple independent security audits now required for significant changes alongside expanded bug bounties and adversarial testing environments.

    And the next XRPL release will be dedicated entirely to bug fixes and improvements without new features, a signal that the engineering team is treating the hardening effort as a near-term priority.

    The timing aligns with Ripple’s expanding institutional footprint.

    The company is currently running a pilot under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s BLOOM initiative, expanding Ripple Payments globally, pursuing an Australian financial services license, and pushing adoption of its RLUSD stablecoin.

    A ledger targeting tokenized real-world assets, central bank-backed trade finance, and enterprise payment flows needs security infrastructure that scales alongside the use cases it supports.

    The approach connects to a broader industry trend. Ethereum launched a dedicated post-quantum security hub this week backed by eight years of research and 10-plus client teams shipping weekly devnets. Google set a 2029 deadline for migrating its authentication services to quantum-resistant cryptography. Across both traditional tech and crypto, the emphasis is shifting from reactive patching to proactive, AI-augmented security engineering.

    Meanwhile, the Ripple engineering team plans to publish security criteria for new amendments in collaboration with the XRPL Foundation and share findings transparently with the community in the coming weeks.

  • Bitcoin Dips Under $67K as Geopolitical Uncertainty, Treasury Yields Spook Traders

    Bitcoin Dips Under $67K as Geopolitical Uncertainty, Treasury Yields Spook Traders

    In brief

    • Bitcoin dropped under $67,000 as Middle East tensions and rising yields pressured risk assets.
    • Over $1.33 billion was liquidated this week, with heavy leveraged positions stacked between $70,000 to $75,000.
    • Experts expect choppy near-term action with potential relief rally contingent on easing macro pressures.

    Bitcoin and the broader crypto market continue to stack losses this week as March comes to a close, with experts anticipating rangebound price action and increased volatility in the near term.

    The leading crypto dropped to lows of $66,400 Friday, Bitcoin’s lowest level since March 9. It is currently trading at $66,633, down 3.9% in the past 24 hours and 5.6% on the week, according to CoinGecko data.

    Bitcoin’s drop this week is primarily driven by macroeconomic risk-off conditions resulting from the geopolitics, involving the Middle East war, Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at cryptocurrency exchange Bitrue, told Decrypt.

    The ripple effects of this war have raised oil prices, leading to fears of sticky inflation. Though Bitcoin continues to outperform gold and the U.S. stock market since the war began on February 28, it dropped over 6% from over $75,000 to below $70,000 as the U.S. Federal Reserve kept the interest rates steady last week.

    “Like all other macro assets, Bitcoin is trading to geopolitical headlines,” Thahbib Rahman, research analyst at crypto research platform Block Scholes, told Decrypt. “Trump’s uncertain tone yesterday around the likelihood of a ceasefire coincided with Bitcoin falling to $67,000.”

    In addition to geopolitical pressure, 10-year U.S. Treasury yields rose for four consecutive weeks in response to the confusing mixed messages around the U.S.-Iran war.

    The U.S. dollar index rose 0.57% this week to 100.148, continuing to weigh down on risk assets, including Bitcoin.

    Despite Bitcoin’s relatively tiny range, extending from $72,000 to $66,200, over $1.33 billion has been liquidated this week, CoinGlass data show. That reflects “heavy leveraged positions stacked above current levels, especially $70,000 to $72,000, and up to $73,000 to $75,000, with thinner liquidity on the downside, Adziima said.

    Users of Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, turned bearish on Bitcoin’s outlook, putting a 56% chance on its next move taking it to $55,000, up 10% on the day.

    Experts continue to expect heightened volatility and a potential choppy price action in the near term, with a potential relief rally in the mid-term, contingent on easing macro and geopolitical pressures.

    “Thin weekend volume raises odds of a quick liquidity sweep lower toward $67,000 to $68,000 support first,” Adziima explained.

    From a macro perspective, Myriad users assign a 66% chance that oil’s next move could see it rally to $120, underscoring the uncertain geopolitical landscape.

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  • Morning Minute: Fannie Mae Accepts Crypto for Mortgages

    Morning Minute: Fannie Mae Accepts Crypto for Mortgages

    Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes or less, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

    GM!

    Today’s top news:

    • Crypto majors fall hard overnight on escalating war+oil concerns; BTC -4% at $66.6k
    • Fannie Mae to accept crypto collateral for mortgages w/ help from Coinbase
    • Mara sold $1.1B in Bitcoin as it pivots to AI, still holds $2.75B worth
    • Tether selects KPMG for its first official audit
    • Strategy CEO reveals that retail investors prefer STRC over MSTR

    🌎 Bitcoin Falls Ahead of Iran War “Final Blow”

    BTC fell below $67,000 overnight after Axios reported the Pentagon is actively preparing plans for a “final blow” in Iran, including ground forces and a massive bombing campaign.

    Trump posted on Truth Social that he’s extending the military pause to 10 days, citing ongoing diplomatic talks that are “going very well,” which led to a brief rebound in prices before the deeper selloff overnight.

    Now the week closes with three convergent events in a 24-hour window: a $15B options expiry on Deribit Friday morning at 8am UTC, PCE inflation data, and the expiration of Trump’s original diplomatic window.

    It’s going to be a rocky Friday.

    Key Details:

    • Bitcoin dipped to $67K Friday morning, with ETH sub-$2k; Oil +3% to $97
    • Trump posted on Truth Social extending the strike pause to 10 days, citing an Iranian government request and talks “going very well”
    • $15B in BTC options expire Friday at 8am UTC on Deribit, along with PCE data

    🏠 Fannie Mae Just Accepted Crypto as Mortgage Collateral

    The $12 trillion US residential mortgage market just formally recognized Bitcoin as a legitimate asset.

    Coinbase and Better Home & Finance launched the first Fannie Mae-conforming mortgage that lets borrowers pledge BTC or USDC as down payment collateral instead of selling.

    The primary mortgage is a standard conforming loan with all of Fannie Mae’s usual protections. Where crypto comes in is via a separate, overcollateralized loan that covers the down payment. And it has no margin calls and no forced selling on price drops.

    Here’s an example of how it works: On a $500,000 home requiring a $100,000 down payment, the buyer can pledge $250,000 in BTC to Coinbase Prime custody, receive a $100,000 loan against that collateral, use it as the down payment on a conventional $400,000 Fannie Mae mortgage. Note that the interest rates are 0.5% to 1% higher than standard.

    The Bitcoin stays intact (no sale, no taxable event) and is returned once the loan is repaid or refinanced.

    Liquidation triggers only on a 60-day payment delinquency, same as any mortgage.

    Key Details:

    • Coinbase and Better launched the first Fannie Mae-conforming crypto-backed mortgage; borrowers pledge BTC or USDC as collateral for a separate down payment loan without selling their assets
    • The structure: two loans: a standard Fannie Mae primary mortgage plus a separate overcollateralized crypto-backed loan to fund the down payment; Fannie buys the primary loan just like any conforming mortgage
    • No margin calls: if BTC drops, mortgage terms are unchanged; liquidation only triggers on 60-day payment delinquency, same as conventional mortgages
    • Rates run 0.5-1.5% higher than a standard 30-year; cold wallets excluded; collateral must be held on a US-regulated exchange (Coinbase)
    • Better CEO Vishal Garg estimates the company missed “$40 billion more of consumer demand over the past few years” without this product; 41% of American families lack the cash for a down payment despite holding other assets

    ⛏️ MARA Sold $1.1B in Bitcoin

    Bitcoin miner turned AI infrastructure player MARA sold 15,133 BTC between March 4 and March 25 for approximately $1.1B.

    The company used those proceeds to buy back roughly $1B of its own convertible notes at a 9% discount, capturing approximately $88 million in value in the process.

    The concerns here from Bitcoin enthusiasts are twofold:

    • Mara has another $2.75B in Bitcoin (38,689 BTC), still the second-largest public corporate Bitcoin holder behind Strategy’s 762,099 BTC.
    • Many other miners have also pivoted to AI data centers and infra strategies over the last year – and they may become sellers as well

    Key Details:

    • MARA sold 15,133 BTC between March 4 and March 25 for ~$1.1B; proceeds used to retire ~$1B in convertible notes
    • BTC holdings drop from 53,822 to ~38,689 BTC; MARA remains the second-largest public corporate holder behind Strategy
    • MARA stock jumped 10% in premarket Thursday

    🔒 Crypto Got Its Green Light, Privacy Developers Did Not

    Coin Center says crypto privacy tool developers are in a “very bad state” despite the most pro-crypto administration in US history.

    The DOJ continues to actively prosecute Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and the Samourai Wallet developers as unlicensed money transmitters, despite the Trump administration dropping enforcement actions against exchanges and rolling back Biden-era crypto policy across the board.

    The House version of the Clarity Act included explicit developer protections that would have prevented exactly this. The Senate let them die.

    If the Clarity Act passes without those developer shields, the message to anyone building privacy infrastructure in the US is clear: proceed at your own risk.

    Key Details:

    • Coin Center says crypto privacy developers are in a “very bad state” despite the most pro-crypto administration in US history
    • DOJ continues prosecuting Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and Samourai Wallet developers as unlicensed money transmitters — cases that predate Trump but have not been dropped
    • Coin Center’s argument: treating software publication as financial crime creates chilling uncertainty for US open-source development and drives builders offshore

    ₿ Retail Is Choosing STRC Over MSTR

    Strategy’s CEO revealed Thursday that retail investors own 80% of STRC versus 40% of MSTR common stock.

    At a $5B market cap, that’s $4 billion of retail capital in the 11.5% annual dividend product engineered to trade near its $100 par value. Strategy has raised $1.5B via STRC just this month.

    The product is available on Robinhood, Kraken, and Webull, common platforms for retail investors. Benchmark-StoneX analyst Mark Palmer said this makes sense from a risk-adjusted lens because Institutions tend to prefer MSTR’s liquidity and asymmetric upside, while retail investors are accustomed to thinking about yield.

    STRC fits that mental model. And notably, the product is starting to show up on other Bitcoin treasury firms’ balance sheets as a reserve asset – so it’s not just a consumer product.

    Key Details:

      • Strategy CEO revealed 80% of STRC is owned by retail vs. 40% of MSTR; at $5B market cap, retail holds ~$4B in the dividend product
      • MSTR is down 56% over the past six months to $134; STRC holds near $100 par and pays 11.5% annually (~$0.9583/share monthly)
      • Strategy has raised $1.5B+ via STRC this month alone – its fastest issuance pace since the product’s $2.5B public debut last July

    🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

    • Crypto majors are red again as war, energy concerns escalate; BTC -4% at $66.6k; ETH -4% at $1,990; SOL -5% at $83; HYPE -2% at $38.40
    • M (+4%), STABLE (+4%) and CC (+4%) led top movers
    • Oil +3% at $97; Gold -1% at $4,410
    • David Sacks stepped down as White House AI and crypto czar after hitting the 130-day limit for special government employees; he will stay involved as co-chair of the Science Council alongside Zuckerberg, Huang, and Andreessen
    • Tether named KPMG as the auditor for its first-ever full independent audit of USDT’s $184B in reserves; the company also engaged PwC to prep its internal systems for the processOKX said it won’t rush a US IPO, with CMO Haider Rafique telling the Digital Asset Summit “we will go public when we have confidence that we can give back shareholder value”

    Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

    Meme Coin Tracker

    • Meme majors were mostly red; DOGE -2%, SHIB -3%, PEPE -4%, TRUMP -4%, PENGU -5%, SPX -4%, FARTCOIN -3%
    • Either (+72%), Hachi (+50%) and Wojak (+20%) led top movers

    💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

    • X Money hired Benji Taylor as its new crypto-savvy design lead, former CPO at Aave Labs and design head at Coinbase’s Base
    • Ripple is rolling out AI-assisted red team security testing across the XRP Ledger

    🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

    • NFT leaders were mostly red; Punks -1% at 29 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 4.1 ETH, BAYC even at 5.25 ETH; Hypurr’s even at 409 HYPE
    • Pixel Pups (+35%) led notable movers

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  • Bitcoin Treasury Companies Pull Back in 2026 as Strategy Accelerates Purchases: Cryptoquant

    Bitcoin Treasury Companies Pull Back in 2026 as Strategy Accelerates Purchases: Cryptoquant

    Strategy purchased approximately 45,000 bitcoin over the last 30 days—its fastest accumulation pace in nearly a year—while the rest of the corporate bitcoin treasury sector bought fewer than 1,000 $BTC combined, according to a new Cryptoquant report.

    Cryptoquant Says Bitcoin Treasury Summer Is Over Outside Strategy

    The data reveals a stark split in the corporate bitcoin market. Strategy‘s buying represents its highest 30-day purchase volume since April 2025. Every other publicly traded company holding bitcoin in treasury has, by comparison, nearly stopped buying.

    Cryptoquant researchers tracked the collapse in detail. Non-Strategy treasury companies purchased a combined 1,000 $BTC in the last 30 days—a 99% decline from the August 2025 peak of 69,000 $BTC. Their share of total corporate bitcoin purchases has fallen to 2%, down from 95% in October 2024.

    Participation breadth has also narrowed. Companies outside Strategy made 13 separate bitcoin purchases over the past 30 days. At the height of what Cryptoquant called “ Bitcoin Treasury Summer” in August 2025, that figure stood at 54. The number of active buyers has dropped by 76%.

    Strategy’s buying cadence, by contrast, has stayed steady. The company has consistently executed four to five purchases per 30-day period, a rhythm that has held even as peers have stepped back.

    The gap in holdings has widened accordingly. Strategy has added 90,000 $BTC to its balance sheet so far this year. All other treasury companies combined have added a net 4,000 $BTC over the same period. Their collective share of total treasury-company holdings fell from 26% in November 2025 to 24% today.

    Strategy now holds approximately 76% of all bitcoin held by publicly listed treasury companies, according to Cryptoquant. The company’s total holdings stand at 762,099 $BTC.

    The next two largest holders are not close. According to bitcointreasuries.net, Twenty One Capital—ticker XXI—holds 43,514 $BTC, placing it second globally and ahead of MARA Holdings, which recently sold 15,133 $BTC to retire $957 million in zero-coupon convertible notes. MARA now holds 38,689 $BTC.

    Metaplanet Inc., the Japan-based firm trading under MPJPY, holds 35,102 $BTC and sits fourth. Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company holds 30,021 $BTC in fifth place, per bitcointreasuries.net data.

    Cryptoquant notes that XXI and Metaplanet together account for just 4.3% and 3.5% of total treasury-company $BTC holdings, respectively. The rest of the sector divides a shrinking slice.

    The pattern points to a bitcoin treasury sector that has consolidated around a single dominant buyer. Strategy continues to grow its position at scale. The companies that followed its model in 2025 have, for now, stopped following its pace.

    Whether that reflects balance sheet constraints, shifting capital priorities, or broader caution about bitcoin at current prices is not specified in the Cryptoquant data. What the numbers show is straightforward: one company is buying, and the rest are waiting.

    FAQ 🔎

    • What is Strategy’s current bitcoin treasury holding? Strategy holds 762,099 $BTC, representing approximately 76% of all bitcoin held by publicly listed treasury companies.
    • Why did MARA Holdings drop in the bitcoin treasury rankings? MARA sold 15,133 $BTC to repurchase $957 million in zero-coupon convertible notes, reducing its holdings to 38,689 $BTC.
    • How much bitcoin has Twenty One Capital accumulated? Twenty One Capital holds 43,514 $BTC, making it the second-largest public bitcoin treasury company globally, per Bitcointreasuries.net.
    • Are other companies still buying bitcoin for their treasuries? Corporate bitcoin purchases outside of Strategy have fallen 99% from their August 2025 peak, with just 1,000 $BTC bought collectively in the last 30 days.
  • XRP Sets up Bear Trap, Shiba Inu Bull Market Confirmed; If This Hits, Will Ethereum Hold $2,000? Crypto Market Review

    XRP Sets up Bear Trap, Shiba Inu Bull Market Confirmed; If This Hits, Will Ethereum Hold $2,000? Crypto Market Review

    $XRP is getting close to a crucial technical point, where what appears to be a downward trend could actually turn into a traditional bear trap. The asset’s price is currently in the $1.30-$1.35 range, having compressed into a tight structure close to the lower edge of its 2026 range. Ethereum, on the other hand, is actively defending the critical $2,000 level that, if broken, will start a spiral that will lead us to nowhere.

    $XRP‘s weak foundation

    From a cursory standpoint, the trend is still negative. The dominant negative structure is reinforced by the fact that $XRP is still trading below the 50, 100 and 200 EMAs, all of which are sloping downward. Recent attempts to push upward have been swiftly thwarted, and lower highs remain intact. This is precisely the kind of setting where aggressive short positioning tends to develop, particularly as the price gets closer to what seems to be a weak support zone.

    $XRP/USDT Chart by TradingView

    But the structure that is emerging here points to a more complex idea. Despite the larger downtrend, selling pressure appears to be waning, as the asset has formed a rising local trendline while holding the wider yearly low. The fact that volume has not increased much since the most recent decline suggests that the move is not very convincing. Repeated defenses of the current range, however, suggest passive accumulation, as opposed to surrender.

    $XRP Sets up Bear Trap, Shiba Inu Bull Market Confirmed; If This Hits, Will Ethereum Hold $2,000? Crypto Market Review Mystery Whale Rapidly Accumulates 35 Million in $XRP in Under Hour

    A bear trap is made possible by this combination. A surge of short entries, anticipating continuation toward $1.20 or lower, could occur if $XRP momentarily breaks below the 2026 low.

    However, those positions become vulnerable if the breakdown fails and the price swiftly returns to the range. In that case, short covering can stimulate a strong upward trend, particularly on a market that is already in a bearish position.

    Is it getting worse for Shiba Inu?

    For months, Shiba Inu has been trapped in a protracted downward trend, continuously trading below the 50, 100 and 200 EMA, all of which continue to point lower. That in and of itself indicates that the macro trend has not yet reversed.

    However, it appears that the foundation for a possible reversal is being established, based on the recent price behavior. For the first time in a long time, $SHIB is printing higher lows on the chart, which highlights the emergence of a rising local trendline. That is not just any noise. It shows that buyers are willing to intervene earlier on each dip, and that selling pressure is progressively lessening.

    Source: Coinglass

    The 50 EMA is serving as immediate dynamic resistance, as the price compresses into a tightening structure at the same time. This is a crucial requirement for any confirmation that is bullish.

    The short-term trend will change if $SHIB is able to break and stay above the 50 EMA, which is currently located between 0.0000060 and 0.0000062. The path toward the 100 EMA, which is higher and in line with earlier rejection zones, would be made possible by that action. The idea that the downtrend is losing control would be strengthened if that level was cleared.

    Not yet bull run

    Until then, this is not a confirmed bull market but rather a phase of transition. Instead of generally trending upward, the asset is stabilizing. Conviction is still low because volume is still comparatively moderate, and momentum indicators do not indicate aggressive expansion.

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    $SHIB is likely to continue moving toward higher resistance levels if it breaks above and maintains the 50 EMA. The present structure runs the risk of collapsing back into the larger downtrend and possibly returning to recent lows if it fails at this barrier once more.

    Ethereum’s most significant target

    At $2,000, Ethereum is once again testing one of its most significant levels, both technically and psychologically. The asset’s current price behavior indicates that this level is difficult to break, at least for the time being, following a protracted downtrend that forced it from above $3,000 into a compressed range close to recent lows.

    The overall framework remains pessimistic. Ethereum is still below the downward-aligned 50, 100 and 200 EMA, indicating that macro pressure is still present.

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    Over the past few months, every attempt at a rally has been stopped by lower highs, which has strengthened the prevailing trend. Nonetheless, a change in short-term dynamics brought about by the latest price action should not be disregarded.

    The development of a rising support trendline from the most recent low, close to the $1,800 area, is noteworthy. Ethereum has been printing higher lows in opposition to this structure, indicating that buyers are gradually entering the market earlier.

    Although there has not been a reversal yet, the selling momentum has definitely slowed. Demand is still present at these levels, as evidenced by the most recent decline toward $2,000, which tested and maintained that rising support.

    Losing $2,000 would still be a big risk. The current stabilization phase would be invalidated, and Ethereum would probably return to the $1,800 support area if there was a clean breakdown below the rising trendline.

    Ethereum is currently holding the line. At $2,000, the market is not exhibiting fear, but it is also not demonstrating a strong desire to rise. This puts the asset in a precarious position, where the medium-term course will probably be determined by the next big move.

  • First Sora, Now Sexy Chat? OpenAI Cancels Erotic ChatGPT Mode

    First Sora, Now Sexy Chat? OpenAI Cancels Erotic ChatGPT Mode

    In brief

    • OpenAI has reportedly halted plans to release an adult mode in ChatGPT.
    • The move follows earlier promises to allow verified adults access to more content features.
    • The reported move comes the same week that OpenAI canceled its Sora text-to-video generator.

    OpenAI has shelved plans to launch its previously announced erotic chatbot, according to a report, apparently backing away from a controversial expansion of ChatGPT that would have allowed adult users to generate sexual content.

    The reversal, first reported by the Financial Times on Thursday, follows internal concerns about the societal impact of sexualized artificial intelligence. In January, members of OpenAI’s Expert Council on Well-Being and AI reportedly warned that erotic chat features could foster unhealthy emotional dependency among users, and risk turning the chatbot into what one member described as a “sexy suicide coach.”

    OpenAI declined Decrypt’s request to comment on the status of the erotic mode, and the firm has yet to post about its fate.

    The decision to cancel what was reportedly to be called “Citron mode” comes two days after OpenAI canceled its Sora text-to-video model, as the company moves to focus development on a unified AI platform rather than a collection of specialized tools.

    The move marks a departure from the direction outlined by CEO Sam Altman as recently as October. At the time, Altman said OpenAI planned to allow verified adults to access romantic and erotic content once a robust age-verification system was in place.

    Altman described the idea as part of a broader effort to treat adult users with greater autonomy while maintaining safeguards for minors. By December, however, the timeline was pushed to 2026 as the company continued to refine its age-estimation technology.

    While OpenAI may be getting out of the adult chatbot business before it ever really got into it, AI models do not necessarily need an “erotic mode” for users to form connections with them.

    When OpenAI deprecated GPT-4o last summer, users flooded social media with calls to restore the model after saying they had formed personal and emotional relationships with the chatbot, reflecting a broader debate around erotic chatbots and how people interact with AI.

    In June, research published by researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo said 75% of participants reported turning to AI systems for emotional advice.

    At the same time, AI developers are facing growing scrutiny as lawsuits test whether conversational AI systems are responsible for reinforcing delusional beliefs or harmful behavior among vulnerable users.

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  • Trump Policy Has Crypto Privacy Developers in a ‘Very Bad State’, Says Coin Center

    Trump Policy Has Crypto Privacy Developers in a ‘Very Bad State’, Says Coin Center

    For over a year now, the White House has made strong efforts to court the crypto industry, rolling out permissive regulations that have turbocharged the sector’s integration with the U.S. economy.  

    But there’s one issue that still keeps some crypto industry leaders up at night, despite the Donald Trump administration’s many promises on the subject: protections for software developers. 

    Last year, the Trump Justice Department made multiple commitments to stop prosecuting the developers of crypto privacy software—the types of tools used to keep crypto transactions anonymous. And yet, months later, federal prosecutors sent two Bitcoin developers to prison for creating such software—and took another Ethereum developer to trial for creating similar tools. 

    The Ethereum developer, Roman Storm, was convicted on one charge and acquitted on two others. But earlier this month, the Trump DOJ filed to try him on those two charges again. 

    Those developments had crypto privacy advocates in a grim enough mood. But on Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas handed down a decision that some feel could bode even more poorly. The judge dismissed a lawsuit against the DOJ brought by a software developer, Michael Lewellen, who said he feared being prosecuted by the U.S. government for creating his own privacy tool. The judge ruled that because the Trump DOJ has said it doesn’t plan to prosecute crypto developers, the man had no standing to claim “a credible threat of prosecution.”

    The ruling has Peter Van Valkenburgh, executive director of the crypto advocacy group Coin Center, very worried. By making statements in support of software developers, but still going after some of them anyway, the Trump DOJ appears to have now stuck policy leaders like him between a rock and a hard place.

    “They can effectively go after developers when they want to go after them, and then claim to be pro-developer when they want to claim to be pro-developer,” Van Valkenburgh, who leads Washington’s longest running crypto policy think tank, told Decrypt. Coin Center was financially supporting Lewellen’s lawsuit.

    In yesterday’s ruling, Judge Reed O’Connor determined that the “core conduct” of the crypto developers thus far prosecuted by the Trump DOJ was money laundering—whereas, in yesterday’s case, plaintiff Michael Lewellen asserted he planned to run a proper, upstanding business. Because Lewellen had no intention to launder money, he should not fear an impending prosecution, O’Connor decided. 

    That particular conclusion particularly irked Van Valkenburgh, who maintains crypto developers—including those targeted by the Trump DOJ—should not be responsible for policing who ends up using their software. 

    “Michael wants to build good tools that can be used for privacy,” he said. “It is very plausible that those tools will be used for money laundering, and that then somebody will come and prosecute him.”

    Prosecutions against the developers of crypto privacy tools didn’t start under Trump. They trace back to the Joe Biden administration, which was roundly criticized by industry leaders for numerous crypto-skeptical policies. But while the current White House has taken a far friendlier tack towards digital assets, and even—theoretically—software developers, Van Valkenburgh worries the DOJ’s apparent lack of consistency on the issue might have put his priorities in a worse spot. 

    “Short term, pragmatically, maybe developers are a little safer now,” he said. “But that very same deprioritization is now making it harder for someone like Michael Llewellyn to get binding legal clarity.”

    “That’s a very bad state of the world right now,” Van Valkenburgh said.

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  • CoinDesk 20 performance update: AAVE drops 3.2% as nearly all constituents decline

    CoinDesk 20 performance update: AAVE drops 3.2% as nearly all constituents decline

    CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

    The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 1912.59, down 2.4% (-47.98) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.

    One of 20 assets is trading higher.

    Leaders: BCH (+0.8%) and CRO (-0.7%).

    Laggards: APT (-4.6%) and AAVE (-3.2%).

    The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.