Crypto Whale Shorts $445M in Bitcoin While Taking Bullish Bet on MELANIA Token, Hyperliquid Data Show

Bitcoin (BTC) has steadied since last Tuesday, bouncing to its 200-day average above $84,000 over the weekend. Still, a crypto whale has taken a contrarian stance by raising a leveraged bearish bet on BTC worth millions on Hyperliquid while betting bullish on the MELANIA token. As of writing, the whale held a short position in … Read more

21Shares to Liquidate Two Bitcoin and Ether Futures ETFs Amid Market Downturn

Crypto asset manager 21Shares is set to liquidate two actively managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to bitcoin and ether futures amid a wider market downturn. The funds slated for liquidation are the ARK 21Shares Active On-Chain Bitcoin Strategy ETF (ARKC) and the ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Ethereum Strategy ETF (ARKY). Investors can trade shares until … Read more

Coinbase Stock Decline Can’t Stop Highly Leveraged Long ETF Rollouts

Leverage Shares by Themes has launched a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) tied to the Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase (COIN) stock despite a downturn in the crypto-related shares. The Leverage Shares 2X Long Coinbase Daily ETF (COIG) is designed to deliver twice the daily return of Coinbase’s stock price, offering traders an amplified exposure to the … Read more

Gold ETFs Inflow Takes Over Bitcoin ETFs Amid Historic Rally

Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have overtaken bitcoin ETFs in assets under management as investors shift toward the traditional safe-haven asset as BTC price tumbled more than 19% over the past three months, while the precious metal climbed 12.5%. Bitcoin ETFs, which saw significant inflows following their U.S. launch in January last year, have experienced major … Read more

TON Surges 20% as Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Recovers Passport From French Authorities

The price of TON has surged more than 20% over the last 24 hours to now trade above $3.45 and have a $8.14 billion market capitalization after French authorities returned Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s passport. The move restores Durov’s ability to travel freely and marks the end of a situation that had drawn concerns from … Read more

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on the New Crypto Task Force

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, the newly named head of the regulator’s crypto task force, has long been a proponent of the crypto industry as one of the Republicans overseeing the federal securities regulator. She discussed her approach with CoinDesk in late February. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of … Read more

Court Approves 3AC’s $1.53B Claim Against FTX, Setting Up Major Creditor Battle

The Delaware bankruptcy court handling the FTX estate approved a petition on Thursday from Three Arrows Capital (3AC) to significantly expand its claim against the estate from $120 million to $1.53 billion, marking a major development in the ongoing fallout from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire. 3AC, once a dominant crypto hedge fund … Read more

Bitcoin-Related Convertible Bond ETF Comes to Market

REX Shares has launched a first-of-its-kind convertible-bonds exchange-traded fund (ETF), allowing investors exposure to the convertible debt issued by corporates to add bitcoin to their balance sheet. Called the REX Bitcoin Corporate Treasury Convertible Bond ETF (BMAX), the fund is necessarily mostly made up of convertible paper issued by Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR), by far … Read more

How Bitdeer Is Transforming Bitcoin Mining Machines

Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips form the backbone of the bitcoin (BTC) mining industry. ASIC machines are made for a single purpose: To solve Bitcoin’s SHA-256 algorithm as fast as possible in order to collect block rewards. They’re extremely good at it. One of the most widely used ASIC machines, the Antminer S19, is capable … Read more

Russia Turns to Crypto to Bypass Western Sanctions in Oil Trade: Reuters

Russia has turned to cryptocurrencies to facilitate oil trade with China and India, effectively bypassing Western sanctions in its $192 billion oil trade, Reuters reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. The country has been slowly moving deeper into the cryptocurrency space. Just this week, the Bank of Russia submitted proposals to create an experimental … Read more

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Gains 3.3% as All Twenty Assets Move Higher

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 2604.12, up 3.3% (+83.6) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday. All 20 assets are trading higher. Leaders: LINK (+9.7%) and DOT (+6.7%). Laggards: BCH (+1.3%) and UNI (+1.9%). The … Read more

ZKsync Sunsets Liquidity Rewards Program, Citing Bearish Market Conditions

Layer-2 network ZKsync has announced that it will be sunsetting the Ignite Program, which rewarded users for providing liquidity, due to bearish market conditions. “After careful consideration, the DeFi Steering Committee (DSC) has decided to not renew Ignite for Season 2 and will be sunsetting the program starting March 17th, 2025 by turning off rewards … Read more

Gold’s Historic Rally Leaves Bitcoin Behind, But the Trend May Reverse

Spot gold surpassed $3,000 an ounce for the first time before retreating to $2,990. Gold futures for April delivery also broke the $3,000 mark on Thursday. The precious metal is now up over 15% this year, driven by strong ETF inflows, geopolitical uncertainty, and continued concerns over U.S. equities amid ongoing tariff discussions by former … Read more

Crypto Daybook Americas: Gold’s Historic Rally Brings Back BTC’s ‘Store of Value’ Debate

By James Van Straten (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) The recent market turmoil might have given gold the bragging rights of being the “store of value” while “digital gold” struggles, at least for now. Gold futures for April delivery have surpassed $3,000 an ounce for the first time ever, marking a historic milestone for … Read more

AI’s Lead Over Crypto for VC Dollars Increased in Q1’25, But Does This Race Really Matter?

Crypto venture funding in the U.S. clocked in at approximately $861 million for the first three months of 2025, but was dwarfed by artificial intelligence’s nearly $20 billion haul, according to data provided by Pitchbook, showing how investors continue to show preference to AI. Data shows that investors closed 795 deals in the U.S in … Read more

Solana Inflation Reform Effort Fails on Dramatic Final Voting Day

Solana’s high staking rewards will live to inflate SOL another day. A contentious effort to reform the blockchain network’s generous inflation regime flopped on Thursday after supporters of SIMD-0228 failed to garner the supermajority they needed to implement the major economic change. The surprise result delivered a blow to the Solana power brokers who rallied … Read more

BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund Tops $1B with Ethena’s $200M Allocation

Global asset manager BlackRock’s BUIDL token, issued in partnership Securitize and backed by U.S. Treasuries, crossed the $1 billion milestone in assets on Thursday, Securitize said. Pushing the fund’s size above the threshold was a $200 million allocation this afternoon by crypto protocol Ethena, a Securitize spokesperson told CoinDesk. Ethereum blockchain data by Arkham Intelligence … Read more

Ethereum Developers Launch New Testnet for Pectra Upgrade After Earlier Setbacks

Following two problematic tests of Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade, the network’s core developers decided on Thursday to create a new testnet to demonstrate the code update a final time before deployment. “A new testnet, Hooli, is going live Monday to wrap up Pectra testing,” said Tim Beiko, who coordinates the ecosystem’s core developers at the … Read more

Tokenized Treasuries Hit Record $4.2B Market Cap as Crypto Correction Fuels Growth

As cryptocurrencies have been battered in a broad-market correction over the past weeks, digital asset investors sought refuge in tokenized U.S. Treasury products. Since late January, the combined market capitalization of Treasury-backed tokens grew $800 million to hit a fresh all-time record of $4.2 billion on Wednesday, data source rwa.xyz shows. Real-world asset platform Ondo … Read more

Bitcoin’s Role in DeFi Is ‘Untapped Opportunity,’ Binance Research Says

Bitcoin’s (BTC) role in decentralized finance (DeFi) is growing as the world’s largest cryptocurrency evolves from more than just a store of value, Binance Research said in a report Thursday. The Bitcoin network is “evolving into a broader decentralized finance ecosystem with the emergence of Bitcoin DeFi,” analyst Moulik Nagesh wrote. This is a sector … Read more

AML Bitcoin Creator Found Guilty In Pump-and-Dump Case Linked to ‘Casino Jack’

A federal jury in the Northern District of California on Wednesday convicted cryptocurrency entrepreneur Rowland Marcus Andrade of wire fraud and money laundering connected to the sale of a token called AML Bitcoin. The charges stemmed from an initial coin offering Andrade conducted for AML Bitcoin in 2017 and 2018. Early court filings covered by … Read more