The internet has always had a payments problem. HTTP moved data. SMTP moved email. But money? Money got stuck behind proprietary rails, bank integrations, and checkout forms that were never really built for a digital-first world. That gap, which the industry has spent decades papering over with varying degrees of success, is now the target of something bigger than any one company: the x402 Foundation, launched today under the Linux Foundation, with Coinbase, Cloudflare, and Stripe among its founding backers.

 

The announcement, timed to April 2 (a nod to HTTP status code 402, "Payment Required"), marks a formal step toward turning x402 into a neutral, community-governed standard. And the list of companies signing on makes it hard to dismiss as just another crypto lab experiment. Adyen, Amazon Web Services, American Express, Ant International, Google, Mastercard, Microsoft, Shopify, the Solana Foundation, Visa, and more than a dozen other names from across fintech, big tech, and crypto all attached their names to the effort.

 

What x402 Actually Does

The protocol is simple. When a client tries to access a resource gated behind x402, the server responds with the 402 Payment Required status code along with machine-readable payment instructions: amount, asset, network, recipient. The client then attaches a payment authorization header and resends the request. A facilitator verifies the payment and settles the transaction. That is the whole flow. No accounts, no subscriptions, no API keys, no manual billing cycles.

 

Coinbase launched the first version in May 2025, quietly, with the 402 HTTP status code having sat largely dormant since it was first defined in the early 1990s. Within months the protocol had processed over 100 million payments across APIs, apps, and AI agents. By December, the team shipped x402 V2, which added multi-chain support by default, cleaner separation between clients, servers, and facilitators, and the architectural foundations for session management and identity. The reference SDKs are available across TypeScript, Go, and Python.

 

Transaction costs sit near zero, with Coinbase's facilitator offering the first 1,000 transactions per month free and charging $0.001 per transaction beyond that. For micropayments, the kind worth a fraction of a cent that credit card networks have never handled well, that matters enormously. The protocol currently runs on Base, Polygon, and Solana, with stablecoins like USDC as the primary settlement layer. Future versions are designed to accommodate traditional rails as well, including ACH, SEPA, and card networks, using the same payment model.

 

Why This Moment, Why This Structure

The timing is not accidental. The push into autonomous AI agents across the industry has exposed a glaring problem: agents need to pay for things. When an AI assistant browses the web to buy something, or a trading bot needs a real-time data feed, or a robot needs to procure compute on the fly, making a human stop and authorize each payment defeats the entire point. What the industry needs is a payment primitive that works the way HTTP works: in the background, at machine speed, without friction.

 

"The internet was built on open protocols," said Jim Zemlin, CEO of the Linux Foundation, in comments tied to the launch. The Foundation's involvement is a deliberate move to ensure no single company ends up owning the payment layer of the agentic web. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince echoed that logic in September when the two companies announced their intent to launch the Foundation together: the internet's core protocols have always been governed independently, and x402 should be no different.

 

That governance structure is a meaningful part of the pitch. The x402 Foundation is framed explicitly as stewardship, not ownership. No single company controls the standard. The membership body is open to developers, startups, and enterprises. Cloudflare's alignment with the effort also signals that x402 is being treated as infrastructure at the edge level, not just a crypto developer toy. Integrating x402 into Cloudflare's edge compute and CDN stack means payment requests can slot into everyday web workflows the same way SSL became table stakes for basic security.

 

The Bigger Picture

Early use cases already live in production. Hyperbolic, an AI compute marketplace, uses x402 for AI agents paying per GPU inference session rather than committing to a monthly subscription. OpenMind has robots autonomously procuring compute and data. Cal.com embeds x402 for paid human interactions directly inside scheduling workflows. The scope of what a frictionless pay-per-use primitive unlocks is genuinely wide, and that is before the protocol adds broader identity support and more payment backends.

 

There are real risks worth naming. The protocol currently leans heavily on Coinbase's own facilitator infrastructure, which handles verification and settlement and is, today, the most mature option in the ecosystem. Cloudflare and others reduce protocol-level concentration, but early traffic still routes largely through Coinbase's stack. The facilitator is free now. That may not last indefinitely once network effects solidify. And unlike credit card networks, x402 has no network-level payment reversal. Refunds require a compensating transfer from the merchant, making the protocol closer to cash than to a reversible card transaction. For high-frequency API calls that is a feature. For consumer flows that expect buyer protections, it is a liability worth monitoring.

 

What x402 has going for it, beyond the technical architecture, is the coalition. Visa and Mastercard alongside the Solana Foundation and Polygon Labs in the same founding member list is unusual. Google Cloud's managing director for Web3 and Digital Assets called the shift toward agentic commerce a fundamental reason Google is joining, describing the need for cloud infrastructure that is as open as the protocols it supports. Whether that breadth translates into real interoperability or remains aspirational will be one of the defining stories to watch as the Foundation gets off the ground. If x402 does become foundational plumbing, the question will be who benefits most from having been at the table when the standard was written.

 

Mitsubishi Corporation, one of Japan’s largest trading and industrial companies, has adopted JPMorgan’s Kinexys blockchain network for intragroup U.S. dollar cash management across its global subsidiaries.

 

By leveraging the blockchain deposit accounts (BDAs) feature on JPMorgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments Network, Mitsubishi’s treasury team will be able to automatically move funds in real time between subsidiaries, including those in key financial centers such as Singapore, London, and New York, without the delays typically associated with traditional finance.

 

According to Kazuyoshi Kawakami, treasurer at Mitsubishi Corporation, the goal of this initiative is to strengthen the company’s liquidity management and resilience across its subsidiaries.

 

“Our liquidity management is a core source of credit strength. As we develop and operate businesses globally across a wide range of industries, it is essential that funds raised in the market and cash generated through our operations can be allocated efficiently throughout our consolidated group,” Kawakami said.

 

“As we pursue stable and sustainable growth through investment, trading, and other business activities, we believe our liquidity management must continue to evolve. Instant and programmable payments can support this while also strengthening our resilience during periods of market stress. We expect this initiative to represent an important step in enhancing our liquidity management framework.”

 

In summary, Mitsubishi Corporation is adopting JPMorgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments Network for its global subsidiaries. Because Kinexys operates automatically based on predefined conditions, Mitsubishi’s treasury team will be able to move funds in real time across subsidiaries whenever needed, 24/7, without relying on manual intervention or traditional banking networks that can involve delays.

 

What Is Kinexys?

Kinexys is an enterprise blockchain built by America’s largest bank, J.P. Morgan. It was designed to modernize how money, assets, and financial information move across institutional finance.

 

The Kinexys blockchain comprises three main components:

     1. Kinexys Digital Payments: A permissioned blockchain payments rail and deposit account ledger that enables near real-time transfers of tokenized deposits between institutional clients.

     2. Kinexys Digital Assets: A tokenization platform that brings financial assets (including funds, collateral, debt, and repo instruments) on-chain.

     3. Kinexys Liink: A scalable, permissioned network for exchanging payment-related information across institutions.

 

Since its launch in November 2024, Kinexys has recorded several notable milestones, including processing more than $1.5 trillion in cumulative value and handling approximately $5–7 billion in transactions per day. J.P. Morgan has indicated plans to increase this daily transaction volume to more than $10 billion.

 

Kinexys is also being used by several high-profile institutional clients, including Siemens, BlackRock, Qatar National Bank, and BMW.

 

 

If you’ve been following Cardano for more than five minutes, you know the running joke. Great tech, very principled, peer-reviewed everything... but also kind of just sitting by itself at lunch while Ethereum and Solana were out making friends. For years, ADA holders had to explain why their chain was “building” while everyone else was “doing.” That conversation is getting a lot easier now.

 

On February of 2026, Charles Hoskinson announced that LayerZero is being integrated into the Cardano ecosystem, sharing the groundbreaking partnership for the first time.

 

So what does this actually mean? Let’s break it down without putting you to sleep.

 

Cardano runs on something called the eUTXO model. Think of it like Bitcoin’s architecture but with smart contracts bolted on. It’s secure, it’s predictable... but it does not play nicely with account-based chains like Ethereum. Interoperability has always been kind of a mess, and Cardano has largely sat on the sidelines of the cross-chain party.

 

LayerZero approaches this challenge differently. It uses a messaging layer to send verified messages between chains, rather than relying on complex token-wrapping structures that are often targeted by hackers. That’s a big deal. No more sketchy wrapped tokens, no more liquidity scattered across isolated pools, and no more depending on some centralized bridge that could get exploited at 3am on a Tuesday.

 

That design reportedly opens access to around $80 billion in omnichain assets already connected through LayerZero standards. Eighty. Billion. Dollars. Let that number sink in. Got the gravity of it? Let's move on.

 

LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard sits at the core of the integration. The framework lets assets exist natively across several blockchains. It removes that need for wrapped tokens and avoids splitting liquidity across separate pools, a problem that I mentioned earlier But it's important enough to state twice. That structure gives more than 700 existing tokens a path onto Cardano and Cardano on to them.

 

Cardano can now communicate with Ethereum, Solana, and over 160 other networks. For developers, that’s a completely different building environment than what existed just a few months ago.

 

This LayerZero integration didn’t just come out of nowhere, it’s part of a coordinated push by what’s being called the Pentad. The Pentad includes the Input Output Group (IOG), Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, Intersect, and the Midnight Foundation. Five organizations, one shared mandate: to finally stop arguing about roadmaps and start shipping. A move that was seen by many in the ecosystem as a breath of fresh air. Well, everyone except the trolls on X that seem to relish in FUD in hopes that Elon may send them a big enough check to move out of their mom's basement. I won't mention the names, but I am sure you know who they are.

 

And the Pentad has shipped, despite the current market trend. Oracle integration via Pyth Network improves price data reliability, analytics availability through Dune Analytics increases transparency and data access, and cross-chain messaging via LayerZero lays groundwork for interoperability. That’s not a wishlist anymore, those are done.

 

Then there’s USDCx. It addresses a separate infrastructure need by bringing a tier-one stablecoin rail tied to Circle, giving Cardano a recognizable settlement asset for payments, DeFi activity, and real-world asset flows. Hoskinson described it as better than regular USDC because it adds privacy and is immutable and irreversible, you can move straight from a wallet to Coinbase or Binance with instant convertibility. He said Cardano went from signing a deal with Circle to having USDCx live on the network in 84 days, calling it the number one stablecoin on Cardano already. 84 days. That’s actually fast for anyone, let alone a blockchain project.

 

Is this all enough? Honestly. It depends who you ask. Hoskinson argued the effort has moved Cardano from being “an island” to being connected to the broader crypto market, but added that the ecosystem still needs strategic capital deployment to help applications survive and compete. Infrastructure is the foundation, not the house. Developers still need to build, users still need to show up, and liquidity still needs to actually flow... not just theoretically exist.

 

But for a chain that’s spent years being told it’s “all potential, no product,” this is a meaningful shift. A very welcome moment for those here who believe in Cardano's potential. The rails are finally there. What gets built on them is the next chapter. And that next chapter could get very interesting.

 

 

 

Aave, the leading decentralized lending protocol, has launched on X Layer, an Ethereum-based layer-2 blockchain network developed by cryptocurrency exchange OKX.

 

The launch, which took place on Monday, March 30, saw Aave v3 integrated onto X Layer. The integration is intended to expand decentralized finance (DeFi) accessibility while also supporting the growth of the X Layer ecosystem, positioning OKX further as a DeFi hub.

 

Launched in 2024 by OKX, X Layer is a layer-2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum. It is designed to enable faster, lower-cost, and more scalable transactions compared to the Ethereum mainnet. 

 

 

Rather than processing all transactions directly on Ethereum, which can be slower and more expensive, X Layer processes transactions off-chain before settling them on Ethereum. 

 

According to OKX, the network can handle transactions at an average cost of approximately $0.0005, with processing times of around 0.4 seconds. It also uses zero-knowledge (ZK) technology to verify transactions while preserving data privacy.

 

The integration of Aave with X Layer is expected to enable DeFi users to conduct activities within the OKX ecosystem, including lending and borrowing crypto assets and earning yields, without relying on cross-chain bridges or additional DeFi infrastructure. 

 

Although X Layer currently has relatively low total value locked (TVL), at around $25 million, more than 100 DeFi platforms have integrated with the network, including Aave, Uniswap, and Chainlink for oracle services. 

 

The integration of Aave into OKX’s X Layer is seen as a step toward bridging centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized finance, potentially expanding access to DeFi services for OKX users. According to reports, X Layer has also seen a 20% increase in user activity following Aave’s integration.

 

 

Aave v4 Launch

The integration of Aave into X Layer comes amid the launch of Aave v4, which went live on Ethereum on March 30.

 

Aave v4 introduces a “hub-and-spoke” architecture in which liquidity is organized into hubs connected to multiple markets. The design aims to improve capital efficiency and interoperability, and it expands the protocol’s capabilities to support additional lending types, including fixed-rate lending and real-world asset (RWA) collateral.

 

Aave is currently the largest decentralized lending protocol, with cumulative lending volume exceeding $1 trillion, total value locked (TVL) of approximately $23.9 billion, and 24-hour trading volume of around $179 million.

 

 

Prediction markets used to be weird section of the internet where die-hard political junkies placed small bets on election outcomes. That version appears to be gone. According to new data from blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, prediction markets have now cracked $20 billion in monthly trading volume, and the category driving most of that activity is not sports or elections but geopolitics.

 

That says something real about how the world has changed. Traders are no longer just wagering on who wins a Senate seat. They are pricing the odds of a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, assessing the likelihood of a Chinese military action in Taiwan, and putting money on whether Iran's Supreme Leader survives the year. These are not just fringe markets. They are, increasingly, some of the most liquid on the entire platform landscape.

 

The shift reflects a broader transformation in how both retail and institutional participants are using prediction markets. According to TRM Labs, geopolitics now accounts for the majority of activity by volume, a reversal from even 18 months ago when political elections and sports dominated the leaderboard. The firm's report points to a world in which macro uncertainty, military escalation, and trade conflict have become reliable generators of trading interest.

 

The numbers behind this story are hard to argue with. The global prediction market industry processed roughly $63.5 billion in total notional trading volume across 2025, up from about $15.8 billion the year prior. Yes, that's correct...four times the amount. In a single year. In 2022, the entire sector did around $500 million. The growth is extraordinary.

 

Two platforms sit at the center of all this. Polymarket and Kalshi together accounted for approximately 97.5 percent of total industry volume in 2025, according to aggregated data tracked by multiple research outlets. Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated exchange backed by a $1 billion Series E led by Paradigm, processed over $23 billion in notional volume last year. Polymarket, the blockchain-based platform that operates globally and recently cleared its U.S. legal hurdles following the change in administration, brought in comparable figures, though some of its reported numbers are complicated by a structural double-counting issue flagged by Paradigm in December.

 

 

By February 2026, the combined monthly run rate for the two platforms had climbed to roughly $16.8 billion, with Kalshi accounting for about $9.8 billion of that and Polymarket the remaining $7 billion. At that pace, the sector is on track to top $200 billion in annual volume, with some forecasts reaching $325 billion if growth continues. A report cited by CNBC projects prediction markets could approach $1.1 trillion in annual volume by the end of the decade.

 

What makes the TRM Labs data particularly interesting is the composition of what is being traded. The firm has been tracking prediction market activity not just for volume but for what that volume reveals about where geopolitical risk is being priced. As the Ukraine conflict has dragged on and tariff uncertainty under the current U.S. administration has remained elevated, contracts tied to those outcomes have attracted serious capital. Russia-Ukraine ceasefire contracts on Polymarket have shifted repeatedly in response to diplomatic signals, functioning in a way that closely mirrors how traditional derivatives respond to macro news. Some institutional desks now watch these contracts alongside oil futures and sovereign bond spreads.

 

The Council on Foreign Relations noted earlier this year that prediction markets had demonstrated real forecasting credibility in a high-profile case. When the Trump administration was weighing strikes on Iran's nuclear program in mid-2025, many analysts dismissed the prospect as unlikely. Prediction markets assigned a 58 percent probability to strikes by the end of that week. Seven B-2 stealth bombers were already airborne.

 

That kind of accuracy does not happen every time, and anyone betting on these platforms should know that. Liquidity constraints still limit reliability on smaller or more obscure contracts, and the platforms have faced criticism over resolution disputes and rules design that has occasionally left winning bettors on the losing side. But on major geopolitical events where information is widely available and traders are motivated to get it right, the markets have shown a notable ability to aggregate collective judgment quickly.

 

The regulatory backdrop in the United States has shifted considerably in the past year. The Biden-era hostility to prediction markets has given way to a CFTC posture that is, by most accounts, far more permissive. Polymarket, which had been operating outside the U.S. and faced a federal investigation that included a raid on its founder's apartment, was cleared to operate domestically in late 2025. Kalshi, which had won its own legal battle over political markets in late 2024, has since integrated with Robinhood and Webull, putting its contracts in front of tens of millions of retail brokerage users.

 

The competition is intensifying. DraftKings and FanDuel have entered prediction markets, though analysts have suggested the two sports betting giants may have arrived too late to challenge Polymarket and Kalshi's entrenched liquidity. CertiK, the blockchain security firm, published a report in early 2026 flagging structural questions about sustainability once platform incentives fade, and noted that wash trading had inflated some Polymarket volumes in prior periods. Those are legitimate concerns for anyone trying to assess whether the sector's growth is as clean as the headline numbers suggest.

 

Still, the direction of travel is clear. Prediction markets have moved past the stage where they can be dismissed as a gambling novelty. The data from TRM Labs, taken alongside the broader market statistics, describes a financial layer that is increasingly responsive to the same forces that move bond markets and currency pairs. Geopolitics has always moved markets. What is new is that there is now a market specifically for geopolitics itself.

 

Onchain sleuth ZachXBT has accused stablecoin issuer Circle of improperly freezing 16 hot crypto wallets. The freeze is reportedly linked to an ongoing civil case in the United States, but ZachXBT said the company failed to conduct adequate due diligence before taking action.

 

 

“An analyst with basic tools could have identified, within minutes, that these were operational business wallets from the thousands of transactions they process,” he said.

 

According to ZachXBT, the wallets were used for business purposes. “I reviewed the onchain activity, and the exchanges, casinos, and forex businesses do not appear to be related to one another,” he added.

 

The crypto investigator also criticized the judicial process that approved the freeze, calling it the “most incompetent” he has seen in more than five years of work in the field.

 

“The NY civil case is sealed and they have provided absolutely ZERO basis to freeze all of these business addresses. [...] The expert witness is liable. The judge is liable. Circle is liable,” Zach said. “This is what happens when you outsource your freezing decisions to literally any random federal judge instead of having a process,” he added.

 

Following the callout by the on-chain investigator, Circle reportedly unfroze one of 16 wallets. According to Zach, the wallet with the address "0x61f…e543," which holds 130,966 USDC and is linked to Goated, has been unfrozen. He expects more wallets to be unlocked soon.

 

The Crypto Community Reacted

The crypto community reacted with outrage, with many criticizing centralized stablecoins. “This is your 10th reminder that centrally issued stablecoins are not actually yours. They can be frozen, unlike cash,” said Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Helius Labs.

 

“I still find it hard to believe that token issuers can 'freeze' coins on EVM shitchains and call it a 'normal' feature. The CBDC is already here, and it's called USDC,” said Francis Pouliot, CEO of crypto platform Bull Bitcoin.

 

Circle’s History With Freezes

Like many centralized stablecoin issuers, Circle has a history of freezing crypto assets. In May 2025, it froze approximately $57 million in USDC linked to the memecoin project LIBRA, as well as 2,997,180 USDC held in an Ethereum address flagged for suspicious activity.

 

Most of these freezes were legally justified and are part of Circle's efforts to curb money laundering and other illicit activities on the blockchain. 

 

However, some critics have raised concerns about centralization, noting that centralized stablecoin issuers can freeze users' crypto assets at their discretion, a clear departure from the user control promised by blockchain technology.

 

 

The UK government has imposed a moratorium, or temporary ban, on cryptocurrency donations in politics following findings from an independent review. 

 

Commissioned by UK Secretary of State Steve Reed in December 2025, the Rycroft review, led by former Permanent Secretary Philip Rycroft, investigated “foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics.”

 

The findings of the review, published on Wednesday, highlighted how active hostile states are attempting to influence UK democracy and identified political crypto donations as a vulnerability. Since such donations are difficult to trace, the review recommended a temporary ban or moratorium on political crypto contributions.

 

Following a recommendation from the Rycroft Review for a ban on political crypto donations, the UK government has announced a moratorium on political cryptocurrency contributions. The ban, which takes immediate effect, was confirmed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

 

"I can tell the House we will act decisively to protect our democracy. That will include a moratorium on all political donations made through cryptocurrencies," Starmer said during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

 

Prime Minister’s Questions. Image credit: Youtube

 

In a statement on its official website, the UK government said British citizens living abroad will face an annual cap of £100,000 on donations and on regulated transactions, including loans. The government said the measure aims to "protect the country's democracy from the scourge of foreign actors and financial influence."

 

Next Stage: Bill Moves Toward Law

Although the ban is already in effect as a temporary measure, the Representation of the People Act will need to be amended for it to become permanent law. The Representation of the People Act is a UK law that governs how elections are conducted, who can vote, and how political parties operate, including rules on donations and campaign financing.

 

Once the amended bill passes both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, it will be sent to King Charles III for royal assent. On becoming a law, political entities will have a 30 day deadline to return any political crypto donations received during the moratorium period.

 

"Once the legislation comes into force, political parties and regulated entities, such as candidates and MPs, will have 30 days to return any unlawful donations received in the interim, after which enforcement action may be taken, the UK government wrote on its website."

 

This moratorium comes amid calls from top politicians in the country who have long sought a ban on political crypto donations, notable among whom are Parliament member Rushanara Ali, Matt Western, Labour MP and committee chair, among others.

 

 

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has warned crypto users about a fake token on the Tron blockchain impersonating the agency.

 

In a post on its New York X account, the FBI said some Tron users have received messages from scammers posing as the agency, asking them to complete an anti-money laundering verification to avoid having their assets frozen and falsely claiming their wallets are under investigation.

 

The FBI cautioned against falling for such scams. “If you receive a token from an account with the details below, do not provide any identifying information to any website associated with the token,” the agency said.

 

Users who have already sent their personal information to the scammers were urged to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.

 

 

Inside Crypto Phishing Scams

The launch of the fake FBI token is one of several crypto phishing scams that have emerged in recent months. These scams often involve impersonating recognized government agencies, companies, or public figures, tricking users into giving up their personal credentials.

 

According to Scam Sniffer, about 106,106 victims were affected by crypto phishing scams in 2025, resulting in losses of approximately $83.85 million. 

 

Although this represents a significant drop compared to the $494 million in losses and 332,000 victims recorded the previous year, phishing remains widely used by attackers, especially with the growing use of AI-generated phishing campaigns.

 

 

FBI Created Fake Cryptocurrency Token

In 2024, the FBI created a fake artificial intelligence–related token, called NexFundAI, an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency designed to catch scammers.

 

The NexFundAI token was part of Operation “Token Mirrors,” launched to identify and expose fraudulent market makers and manipulators, including those involved in wash trading and pump-and-dump schemes.

 

The operation was successful, as it led to the arrest of more than 18 individuals and the seizure of several million dollars from the suspects. 

 

 

A Bitcoin wallet holding 2,100 BTC (worth over $147 million) became active after more than 13 years of dormancy.

 

The wallet, identified by the address 1NB3ZXx…BQB6ZX, moved 0.00079 BTC (approximately $55.71) at 11:27 a.m. UTC on Friday, a tiny fraction of its total holdings. According to data from Bitinfocharts, the wallet received the 2,100 BTC in a single transaction on July 4, 2012.

 

At the time, Bitcoin was trading at $6.59, valuing the holdings at about $13,839. The wallet’s value has since increased by more than 10,000x, rising to over $147 million today.

 

Image credit: Bitinfocharts

 

This move did not go unnoticed in the crypto community, with many applauding the whale’s patience and others calling it one of the most effective trading strategies.

 

“13.7 years of silence… just to move $56. That’s not a sell signal — it’s a reminder of what conviction looks like in Bitcoin. From $6 to $75,000, the biggest returns didn’t come from trading… they came from time,” said Andy Wang, CEO of crypto platform HashWhale.

 

This isn’t the first Bitcoin whale wallet to be reactivated this year. In January, a 13-year-old dormant wallet moved 909 BTC, worth about $85 million, to a new address.

 

About a week ago, another Bitcoin whale that had been dormant for roughly two years transferred 343 BTC, worth approximately $23.85 million, between Binance and Cobo.

 

 

Bitcoin’s Price Action This Month

Despite experiencing significant volatility this month, Bitcoin has posted a net positive month-to-date gain.

 

Starting the month at around $67,000, Bitcoin dipped to $65,303 before surging to $74,000 days later, and was trading at $69,927 as of March 10. It also reached a peak of $75,988, with some analysts speculating about a potential breakout above $80,000.

 

According to data from CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is currently trading at around $69,807, with a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $39 billion and a market capitalization of nearly $1.396 trillion.

 

 

The Algorand Foundation, the organization behind the Algorand layer-1 blockchain network, announced on Wednesday that it is laying off 25% of its staff.

 

The foundation described the decision as “difficult” and attributed it to the downturn in the crypto market. “This decision was not taken lightly and is in response to the uncertain global macro environment as well as the broader downturn in crypto markets,” it said.

 

Describing the affected employees as “best-in-class contributors,” the foundation said it would support them through the transition. Following the layoffs, the foundation believes it is now more closely aligned with its long-term business, technology, and ecosystem goals.

 

 

 

 

About the Algorand Foundation

Founded in 2019 by MIT professor and Turing Award winner Silvio Micali, the Algorand Foundation is responsible for guiding, funding, and growing the Algorand blockchain ecosystem.

 

The aim of the foundation is to make real-world adoption of blockchain technology easier, and to build an open and accessible system where digital assets can be transferred instantly and securely.  The foundation is often described as building infrastructure for the future of finance and the broader digital economy.

 

The Algorand Foundation offers a diverse suite of blockchain-related products that serve both end users and developers in the crypto space. Some of its products include:

• Algokit: A developer toolkit designed to simplify smart contract development and deployment, as well as to help builders create applications on the Algorand blockchain.
• Rocca Wallet: A self-custodial wallet that makes it easy for both beginners and experienced users to manage their digital assets. According to the Algorand roadmap, the Rocca Wallet is expected to launch later this year.
• Commercial toolkit: A set of tools that enables enterprises to integrate the Algorand blockchain more easily into their operations.

 

The Reality of Working in the Crypto Space

While the crypto industry is known for offering some of the highest-paid and most sought-after jobs, it has recently experienced a wave of layoffs, with many companies re-pivoting and restructuring due to changing market conditions.

 

Just last month, Block Inc., the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay, cut approximately 40% of its workforce, laying off about 4,000 employees. The layoffs were part of a broader restructuring and a shift toward artificial intelligence (AI).

 

More recently, this month, the crypto exchange Crypto.com laid off around 20% of its staff as part of a strategic shift toward AI-focused operations. Web3 infrastructure company Eclipse Labs also laid off about 65% of its workforce during a major restructuring in August.

 

 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved Nasdaq’s proposal to launch a pilot program for tokenized stock trading.

 

The proposal, first filed in September 2025, sought SEC approval to allow trading of both traditional and tokenized versions of high-volume stocks on the Nasdaq exchange. With the program now approved, traders will be able to trade both traditional stocks and their tokenized counterparts on the Nasdaq. 

 

 

 

These tokenized stocks, according to the approval filing, will trade on the same order book at the same price, under the same ticker, with the same identifying number and rights as their traditional counterparts.

 

The pilot program will not be open to everyone. According to the SEC approval filing, participation will be limited to eligible participants. While Nasdaq has not disclosed the criteria, participants are likely to include Nasdaq-approved broker-dealers and firms approved by the Depository Trust Company (DTC).

 

It is also important to note that these tokenized stocks will be limited to securities in the Russell 1000 index, which tracks the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the United States, as well as exchange-traded funds that track the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indices.

 

 

The Booming Tokenized Stocks Market

The tokenized stocks and equities market has experienced a remarkable surge over the past few months, growing from around $32 million at the start of 2025 to $963 million by January 2026, an increase of approximately 3,000%. 

 

This growth has been attributed to the wider accessibility and faster settlement times offered by tokenized stocks compared with their traditional counterparts.

 

A wave of large fintech and crypto companies has also entered the tokenized equity market. In 2024, the cryptocurrency exchange Robinhood built a custom layer-2 blockchain for tokenization and began offering tokenized U.S. stocks to European users the following year.

 

Other cryptocurrency exchanges, including Kraken, Gemini, and eToro, have also begun offering tokenized U.S. stocks across multiple blockchains, such as Solana, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, and Ethereum. Most recently, Kraken, in partnership with Backed Finance, launched xChange, an on-chain trading engine for tokenized equities.

 

With the rapid attention and growth the tokenized equities market has seen, its market capitalization is projected by multiple research reports to reach trillions of dollars in the coming years.

 

 

Tally, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance platform built on Ethereum, is shutting down after five years of operation in the crypto industry.

 

The decision, according to co-founder and CEO Dennison Bertram, was driven by a lack of sustainability in the decentralized governance tooling industry. Despite its success as a DAO governance platform, Bertram said Tally had not yet realized its original vision.

 

“We have spent years championing the DAO vision. But at some point, you have to accept the world as it is, not as you hoped it would be. The reality is that we can no longer build a viable business around this,” he said.

 

Bertram also said Tally will not move forward with its ICO plans, adding that the team was not confident it could fulfill any promises it would make to token holders if it sold them tokens.

 

Prior to the announcement, Tally had built a notable presence in the crypto space, including:

• Serving over one million users, with tens of millions of tokenholder addresses participating in governance through its platform.
• Processing more than $1 billion in crypto payments and, at one point, helping secure over $80 billion through systems it supported.
• Supporting hundreds of organizations on its governance platform, including Uniswap DAO, Arbitrum, zkSync, Wormhole, and EigenLayer.

 

Reflecting on these successes, as well as Tally’s ability to avoid major security incidents and navigate regulatory uncertainty under the previous SEC chair, Tally CEO Dennison Bertram said he was “incredibly proud” of what the team had accomplished.

 

Although the team will wind down operations by the end of the month, it is working with major partners to ensure its enterprise clients continue to be served and will keep its interface live until the transition is complete.

 

 

The Crypto Community Reacted

The announcement of Tally’s shutdown was met with disappointment across the crypto community, with some describing it as the “end of an era” and others recounting their experiences using the platform during the early days of Arbitrum and Uniswap governance.

 

“I still remember writing governance proposals for Uniswap on Tally back in 2021. Those were fun times. It’s disappointing that DAOs didn’t meet expectations. While stablecoins have achieved the strongest product-market fit in crypto, I still believe DAOs will ultimately get there, though perhaps not for another three to 10 years,” said Getty Hill, CEO of DeFi trading platform Oku Trade.

 

“Human labor coordination is one of the hardest problems. DAOs will need to evolve, and their applications must improve. The 2020–2021 era of DAO governance was a lot of fun,” he added.