Tag: CRYPTOS FoxBusiness.

Bitcoin BTC$66,299.23 is trading near $66,500 after adding 1.1% since midnight UTC and more than 5% from the weekend low of $63,000.

The crypto market is back in the middle of a trading range that has persisted since the start of February, with a volatile past week testing $70,000 to the upside and $62,500 to the downside.

Weekend price action was driven by the military strikes that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, triggering retaliatory attacks and raising concerns about potential disruption to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to trading firm QCP, the strike sparked roughly $300 million in long liquidations — but the scale of forced selling was relatively contained, suggesting markets were already positioned for a volatile weekend.

The escalation pushed investors toward traditional havens, sending gold and silver to their highest levels in more than a month. Oil surged 13% to $82 a barrel, the highest price since July 2024.

U.S. equity index futures fell, with the S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 down 1.1% and 1.5%, respectively, since midnight UTC.

The crypto market showed resilience, with most of the losses occurring on Saturday when U.S. markets were closed.

Derivatives positioning

• The fallout from the Iran war has been more contained than might have been expected. While cumulative crypto futures open interest has dropped 2% to $93.78 billion, it remains above the recent low of $92.40 billion.
• Over $300 million in leveraged bets have been liquidated by centralized exchanges in 24 hours, with bullish bets accounting for most of the tally.
• Annualized perpetual funding rates for major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether, are little changed to negative, indicating a slightly bearish bias.
• Still, the market isn’t showing signs of panic, as evidenced from the bitcoin 30-day annualized implied volatility index, BVIV. It remains steady at around 58.8%, well within the price range seen last week. The same is true for the ether volatility index.
• On Deribit, short-term bitcoin puts traded at an 8%-10% volatility premium to calls, a sign of heightened downside worries. The $60,000 put, or bearish bet, remains the most popular on the exchange.
• Block flows featured demand for bitcoin put spreads.

Token talk

• The altcoin market largely tracked bitcoin over the weekend, but one of the fastest to recover was lending token MORPHO, which continued its impressive two-week streak with a 5% jump over the past 24 hours having risen by 2.6% since midnight UTC.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens JUP, AAVE and LDO are all in the black as speculative appetite remains relatively strong despite a global shift to haven investments.
• Hyperliquid’s HYPE token surged by more than 29% on Saturday to snap February’s downtrend. While it lost 3.8% on Monday, losing 3.8% it remains above the crucial $30 level of support.
• WLFI$0.1051, the DeFi token linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s family, exentended declines, falling 2.5% of its value since midnight. It is now down by more than 44% since mid-January following a series of lower highs and lower lows.
• CoinDesk’s DeFi Select (DFX) Index is the only benchmark that is positive over the past 24 hours. The worst performing was the CoinDesk Computing Select Index (CPUS) and the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index (SCPXC), down by 1.87% and 1.71%, respectively.

The crypto market is under pressure again. Total market value has fallen to around $2.28 trillion, down more than 2% in the past 24 hours. Investors are asking the same question: Why is crypto crashing today?

Here’s what’s happening:

1. Rising Tensions in the Middle East

The biggest reason behind today’s drop is growing geopolitical tension between the United States, Israel and Iran.

Reports of military strikes and political instability have made global investors nervous. When uncertainty rises, many traders move their money out of risky assets like cryptocurrencies.

Right now, crypto is behaving like a “risk asset,” similar to stocks. In fact, Bitcoin has been moving closely with the S&P 500, showing about 78% correlation recently.

2. Bitcoin Is Leading the Drop

Bitcoin is trading around $66,200, down roughly 2–3% in 24 hours.

Ethereum has dropped to about $1,947, falling more than 4%.

Other major altcoins are also lower:

• Solana around $83
• XRP near $1.36
• Cardano around $0.27
• Dogecoin near $0.09

When Bitcoin falls, the rest of the market usually follows.

3. Fear Is Extremely High

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index is now at 15, which is labeled “Extreme Fear.”

This means investors are very worried. When fear is high, people sell faster and buy less. That increases downward pressure on prices.

The market was already nervous before this latest news. The conflict simply made things worse.

4. $130 Million in Liquidations Made It Worse

Another reason prices dropped quickly is liquidations.

Over the past 24 hours, more than $130 million worth of Bitcoin positions were liquidated. Most of these were long positions, meaning traders who were betting on higher prices got forced out.

When exchanges automatically close losing positions, it creates extra selling. This can turn a normal dip into a sharper crash.

5. Gold Is Rising While Crypto Falls

Interestingly, while crypto is dropping, gold and silver are rising sharply.

Gold jumped nearly 2% within the first hour of market opening and is now close to hitting a new all-time high. Investors often buy gold during times of war or uncertainty because it is seen as a safer store of value.

This shows that money is moving out of risky assets and into safer ones. Right now, everything depends on geopolitical news. If tensions calm down, crypto could recover. If the conflict escalates, volatility may continue.

Asian markets plunged on Monday as the fallout from US and Israeli military strikes on Iran sent oil surging, stocks tumbling, and investors scrambling for safe havens — but Bitcoin held up better than expected, trading around $66,500 after a weekend that saw it swing between $63,000 and $68,000.

With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut and Brent crude up as much as 13%, the conflict is now testing whether Bitcoin’s 24/7 liquidity makes it a crisis shock absorber or just another risk asset caught in the downdraft.

Asia Opens in the Red, Then Pares Losses

Japan’s Nikkei plunged as much as 2.15% at the open, shedding over 1,260 points. By midday, it had pared the drop to 1.66%, trading at 57,875. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 2.54%, and Singapore’s Straits Times fell 2.13%. Shanghai held up better, dipping just 0.45%.

Airline stocks across the region — Qantas, Singapore Airlines, and Japan Airlines among them — fell more than 5% as the Hormuz closure disrupted flight routes and sent fuel costs soaring. Chinese airlines were also hit hard.

Oil’s initial surge faded sharply through the session. Brent had jumped as much as 13% at the open, but WTI was up just 4.24% by midday. US equity-index futures also recovered, with the S&P 500 down 0.67% and the Dow off 0.71% — well off earlier lows of over 1%. Gold rose 1.76%.

China’s energy sector bucked the trend. PetroChina opened up 7% in Shanghai, and the CSI Energy Index jumped 5%. Korea’s Kospi, one of Asia’s top-performing markets this year, was closed Monday for a national holiday — delaying what could be a sharp reaction on Tuesday.

Bitcoin, down 2.2% on the day, outperformed the steep losses in equity futures and Asian stock benchmarks.

A Wild Weekend for Crypto

The turbulence began Saturday when US-Israeli strikes hit targets across Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Bitcoin dropped below $64,000 within hours as the total crypto market shed roughly $128 billion in value, with forced liquidations cascading across derivatives markets.

The bounce came fast. After Iranian state media confirmed Khamenei’s death, traders bet the power vacuum could accelerate de-escalation, pushing Bitcoin back above $68,000 in thin Sunday liquidity. But the optimism faded as Iran launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes across the Gulf, hitting targets in Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain, dragging the price back below $66,000 by Sunday evening in New York.

By early Monday in Asia, Bitcoin was trading at around $66,543, with a 24-hour range of $65,149 to $68,043. The 24-hour trading volume topped $43.6 billion, reflecting heightened activity as traders repositioned ahead of the US market open.

Hormuz: The Real Risk

The biggest market risk is the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 20% of global seaborne oil passes through the waterway. Digital signals indicate tanker traffic has nearly halted. At least three ships have been attacked near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Economists have warned that a sustained closure could push oil prices as high as $108 per barrel.

OPEC+ moved to ease supply fears on Sunday, announcing a production increase of 206,000 barrels per day starting in April — more than analysts had expected. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the UAE, and four other members are set to boost output. But analysts cautioned the move may offer limited relief. If Gulf flows remain constrained, additional production means little. Export routes matter more than headline output targets.

For crypto, the oil shock creates a dual threat. Higher energy prices feed directly into inflation expectations, potentially delaying Federal Reserve rate cuts that the market has been counting on. Even with OPEC+ stepping in, prolonged disruption to Hormuz could keep crude elevated long enough to push inflation readings higher, which is negative for risk assets, including Bitcoin.

Pressure Valve or Risk Asset?

The weekend reinforced Bitcoin’s evolving identity in geopolitical crises. When traditional markets are closed, crypto absorbs selling pressure from equities, bonds, and commodities. Analysts call this the “pressure valve” effect. Bitcoin is the only large liquid asset trading around the clock. It took the brunt of weekend risk-off flows. The real price discovery is expected on Monday when US equity markets and Bitcoin ETFs reopen.

That ETF dynamic adds a new variable. Spot Bitcoin ETFs drew nearly $254 million in net inflows over three sessions last week. Monday’s open could test whether institutional holders maintain positions through escalating geopolitical turmoil.

Bitcoin futures funding rates have turned sharply negative, with the CMC Crypto Fear and Greed index at 15 — deep in “Extreme Fear” territory where it has been stuck for weeks. Some analysts view this as a contrarian signal, arguing that the market is mechanically paying traders to go long.

What Comes Next

Some initial panic has faded after President Trump told the New York Times he was open to dropping sanctions on Iran if its new leadership proves pragmatic. A senior White House official also said to the press that Iran’s new interim leadership had suggested it was open to talks, and Trump said he had agreed to engage.

Some Wall Street strategists warned against buying the dip too quickly. This episode risks lasting longer than the geopolitical flare-ups investors have grown accustomed to.

For Bitcoin, which has already fallen 47% from its October all-time high of $126,000, the $60,000 support level remains the line in the sand. A break below could open the path to the mid-$50,000 range. A sustained move above $70,000, on the other hand, could trigger a short squeeze given the heavy bearish positioning currently built up in derivatives markets.

With CPI data due March 11 and the Fed decision on March 18, the crypto market faces a gauntlet of catalysts that the Iran conflict has made exponentially harder to navigate.

Michael Saylor sparked renewed speculation in the markets by sharing a new Bitcoin ($BTC) update.

Saylor’s post, which used the phrase “The Turn of the Century,” was interpreted as a sign that his company might be preparing to increase its Bitcoin holdings. In previous instances, Saylor has typically made similar posts a day before an official purchase announcement.

Strategy, founded by Saylor, currently holds a total of 717,722 $BTC. The total value of the company’s Bitcoin reserves is approximately $48.19 billion. With an average purchase cost of $76,020 and the current price around $67,170, the company’s position appears to be in an unrealized loss of approximately 11.68%. This indicates a paper loss of approximately $6.37 billion.

The performance data from the past year reveals a striking picture. While technology giants like Alphabet and NVIDIA recorded strong gains, Bitcoin lost approximately 28.7% of its value during the same period. Strategy shares, however, underperformed both Bitcoin and major technology stocks, falling by 49.3%. This is due to the company’s balance sheet being heavily dependent on Bitcoin price movements.

*This is not investment advice.

Claims that social media platform X has included the cryptocurrency sector among the banned industries under its Paid Collaboration Policy have been found to be untrue.

It has been confirmed that reports circulating within the community that the crypto sector was banned from promotion as of March 1st are not based on any new regulations.

According to web-archive records, the cryptocurrency sector has been among the “industries ineligible for paid partnership promotion” since at least June 2024. This indicates that the ban is not a new decision.

Comparing the 2024 policy text with the current most up-to-date version, there is no change regarding the cryptocurrency sector’s inclusion in the prohibited category. However, some technical and administrative updates are noteworthy:

• Previously, paid content required the use of the “#ad (Advertisement)” tag, but the new text now mandates that the content be explicitly labeled as “Ad” or “Content Promotion”.
• While notifications were previously sent via email, the new regulation stipulates that this should be done through a form.
• A provision has been added to the current policy text stating that exceptions may be granted in certain circumstances.

Posts circulating within the crypto community claiming that X has “declared the crypto sector a new off-limits industry with its latest policy” are considered misinformation in light of archival records. The crypto sector has been among the industries ineligible for paid collaboration promotions since June 2024.

*This is not investment advice.

Leading bitcoin BTC$67,086.98 treasury company Strategy has again raised the dividend on its STRC (“Stretch”) preferred series.

Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the firm lifted the annualized payout by 25 basis points to 11.5%.

While STRC to this point has performed as hoped by the company — continuing to trade in a tight range close to $100 — Strategy’s common stock, MSTR, has floundered alongside the price of bitcoin.

MSTR closed February with its eighth consecutive monthly decline, falling 14% as bitcoin tumbled nearly 20%.

Stretch is meant for steady income

Strategy describes STRC as a short-duration, high-yield savings account. This latest dividend increase marks the seventh since STRC began trading in July 2025.

A perpetual preferred stock that pays monthly cash distributions, the STRC dividend rate is set each month to help the shares trade close to their $100 par value and to limit price volatility. STRC closed at $100 on Friday but had traded somewhat below that level during part of February’s brutal month for crypto, necessitating the payout boost.

Gold pricing shifts onto blockchain networks once US futures markets close for the weekend, according to Iggy Ioppe, former chief investment officer at Credit Suisse and now chief investment officer (CIO) at liquidity infrastructure firm Theo.

CME gold futures stop trading at 5:00 pm ET on Friday and reopen at 6:00 pm ET on Sunday. During that interval, regulated futures markets are inactive and most remaining activity occurs through private over-the-counter deals in Asia that are not publicly reported. As a result, tokenized gold assets such as PAX Gold ($PAXG) and Tether Gold (XAUt) become the only continuously available trading venues.

“In terms of publicly visible price formation, onchain markets are responsible for virtually 100% of weekend price discovery,” Ioppe told Cointelegraph.

He added that when futures trading resumes, prices often align with movements that already occurred on blockchain markets. “We are seeing weekend moves reflected when CME reopens,” he said.

Related: Bitcoin price slump versus gold’s gains highlights evolving crypto market

Tokenized gold market cap jumps to $4.4 billion

The shift comes amid rising trading volume for tokenized gold. As Cointelegraph reported, tokenized gold expanded rapidly over the past year, adding nearly $2.8 billion in value and growing from about $1.6 billion to $4.4 billion in market capitalization.

The sector’s market cap rose 177%, far outpacing the broader gold market and most major spot gold ETFs, while the number of holders nearly tripled with more than 115,000 new wallets. The growth represented roughly a quarter of all net inflows into the real-world asset (RWA) sector and exceeded the combined expansion of tokenized stocks, corporate bonds and non-US Treasurys.

Trading activity also surged, with tokenized gold recording about $178 billion in 2025 volume and peaking above $126 billion in the fourth quarter. That level would make it the second-largest gold investment product globally by trading volume after SPDR Gold Shares.

Ioppe said that market makers and cross-venue liquidity providers dominate participation, arbitraging price differences between digital and traditional markets. Crypto-native macro traders also play a major role, using tokenized gold not only for exposure to bullion prices but also for collateral, hedging and yield strategies during periods of geopolitical or macroeconomic uncertainty.

“Some institutions are monitoring weekend onchain gold markets, particularly macro and cross-asset desks that track gap risk ahead of the CME reopen,” he said, noting that most institutions treat the signal as informational rather than a basis for active positioning.

Related: Middle East tensions boost gold as investors seek safe havens

24/7 tokenized gold trading lets investors manage risk

Tokenized gold markets allow for continuous trading, which offers a practical risk management advantage. If a geopolitical event occurs while futures markets are closed, traditional participants cannot adjust positions. Tokenized markets allow immediate rebalancing.

On Saturday, tokenized gold rallied as geopolitical tensions escalated following US and Israeli strikes on Iran, with investors moving into XAUT and $PAXG while Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) fell. XAUT briefly climbed above $5,450 and $PAXG neared $5,536 during the day before trimming gains, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

However, Ioppe said adoption still faces obstacles. Liquidity remains smaller than in futures or exchange-traded funds (ETFs), making large trades harder to execute without moving prices. “Regulatory clarity is improving, but fragmentation across jurisdictions slows institutional deployment. Custody, accounting, and capital rules still vary widely,” he said.

For now, tokenized gold is expected to operate alongside traditional products rather than replace them. “The most likely near-term evolution is that of tokenized and traditional markets existing in parallel, each serving a different function,” Ioppe concluded.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder

The Bitcoin ($BTC) ecosystems going through a turbulent phase amid the growing panic selling. In this respect, the surging tensions between the U.S. and Iran have raised the selling volume of the Bitcoin ($BTC) derivatives to nearly $1.8B just in 1 hour. As per the data from CryptoQuant, this signifies aggressive sell orders across the market. So, such a sudden liquidation wave reflects the significant role of geopolitical instability in shaping the outlook of the digital asset landscape.

Bitcoin Derivatives Sector Experiences Sheer Dip from 30% to 18% as U.S.-Iran Conflict Worsens

The on-chain data suggests that the Bitcoin ($BTC) derivatives sell volume has hit the staggering $1.8 mark within one hour. This sheer rise in selling pressure shows a huge impact on trader behavior within the crypto markets. Hence, the derivatives pressure index has reportedly witnessed a sharp decline from thirty percent to eighteen percent. This imbalance highlights a clear dominance of the seller in the market while short-term risk aversion is at its peak.

Aggressive Panic Selling Increases Concerns over Continuation of Downturn

According to CryptoQuant, the escalation of the U.S.-Iran conflict has fueled fear-led trading behavior. As a result of this, the derivatives markets have plunged into a panic-driven mode. At the same time, Bitcoin’s price has also dropped to nearly $60K, raising concerns among the traders. Keeping this in view, amid the choppy market conditions led by uncertainty, fear, and volatility, $BTC will likely remain down, requiring careful positioning as well as keen sentiment monitoring.

$XRP Ledger developer and Xaman founder Wietse Wind has issued an alert to the $XRP community regarding scams targeting wallet holders.

In such scams, the scammer sends fake NFTs with the intent of making an offer to an unsuspecting victim to trade something in return. According to recent reports, scammers pry at offers made from wallets for NFTs, copy or duplicate and mint from another wallet to offer to unsuspecting users for sale.

In another such scam attempt, a scammer creates a website with a fake Xaman domain and sends an offer, a pass to join a closed Xaman beta.

In this light, Wind flagged a fake Xaman $NFT in a recent tweet, warning the $XRP community that the wallet provider is not sending “passes” or “NFTs.” These, he stated, are being sent by scammers.

Wind urges $XRP holders to cancel such offers and never engage or accept. As fake $NFT offers proliferate, users are urged to exercise caution and verify wallet addresses of artists and projects before accepting any offer.

This follows similar warnings in recent times to $XRP wallet holders. Fake support accounts are flagged as one of the more common XRPL scam vectors. Genuine support will never ask for seed phrases or for users to sign a transaction or “verify” their wallets and does not contact users via X, Discord or unsolicited DMs.

Wind shares a few tips to stay safe for $XRP users: they should never engage with anything they do not trust, never accept offers they did not ask for or do not understand, use only in-app support, never share their secrets and never sign anything that feels too good to be true.

What’s coming in March?

According to the official XRPL blog, $XRP Ledger devnet is scheduled for a reset on Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

The reset will delete all ledger data in the devnet, including all accounts, transactions, balances, settings, offers, AMMs, escrows and other data.

Crypto is just a day away from the highly anticipated March 1 deadline to settle reward provisions for the Clarity Act. Analysts expect this potential development to be the main driver of markets heading into March.