Crypto Market Weekly

Last week digital assets traded in a narrow range before selling off sharply Thursday following President Trump’s tariff address, unwinding a brief relief rally fueled by dovish Iran headlines earlier in the week. Bitcoin closed March with a monthly gain, snapping a five-month losing streak, though broader sentiment remained fragile with the Fear/Greed Index anchored at 28/100. On-chain, BTC daily transactions surged to new 1Y highs above 610K while active and new addresses sat near yearly lows, pointing to activity consolidating among existing participants rather than net new network growth. Ethereum continued to bleed validators, now at ~925K, even as staked ETH settled at a new ATH of ~38.5M, a divergence between supply lock-up and network engagement that widened further on the week. On the corporate and project front, IBKR moved to expand its crypto offering, Drift suffered a $270M exploit via a novel durable nonce attack vector, and Google’s quantum research team cited Algorand as one of the few blockchains to have made meaningful post-quantum cryptography progress, sending ALGO sharply higher from 1Y lows.

• • Bitcoin network activity reached new 1Y highs this week despite a compressed price range between $67-69K.Daily transactions surged from ~416K on 18-Mar to above 610K by Wednesday, though the move was accompanied by active and new addresses near yearly lows and on-chain volume remaining pinched below $50B. The divergence points to elevated activity concentrating among existing ecosystem participants, exchanges, block builders, L2 optimizers, and Lightning-based transactions, rather than net new user adoption. On the mining side, hashrate held firm above 1,000 EH/s throughout the week, and hashprice continued its 1M recovery from $0.028/TH on 1-Mar to ~$0.031-0.033/TH. On the corporate front, ASST filed for the T-Strive Digital Credit ETF (ticker: DGCR), a high-yield product targeting leveraged preferred equity in Bitcoin treasury companies including STRC and ASST’s own SATA stock.
  • Ethereum continued to paint a split picture, with staked supply at all-time highs and validators bleeding simultaneously. Daily transactions consolidated near the upper band of their 1M range above 2.30-2.37M, while on-chain volumes remained depressed and active, and new addresses tapered w/w, mirroring the dynamic seen in Bitcoin. The more notable divergence sits in validator dynamics: the count fell from ~935K at the start of the week to below 925K by Thursday, extending a 1M decline from ~957K, even as total staked ETH reached a new ATH of ~38.5M (~$79-80B). The Ethereum Foundation’s disclosed stake of $42M (20K+ ETH), part of a broader plan to eventually stake 70K ETH, contributed to the supply lock-up though it has not reversed the validator trend. Lido DAO separately proposed a one-off accumulation of 10,000 stETH to support LDO, noting net ETH staking revenues saw only an ~18% y/y decline versus a ~63% drop in LDO over the same period.

Crypto sector rebounded over the Easter break, retracing the earlier sell off during President Trump’s address to the nation. BTC remains range-bound, continuing its months-long consolidation between $65-75K. The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act. The proposal establishes the criteria for determining if state-level regulatory regimes are substantially similar to the federal framework, a designation that allows stablecoin issuers with less than $10B in outstanding supply to remain under state rather than federal supervision. The proposal distinguishes between uniform federal requirements such as 1:1 reserve backing in high-quality liquid assets and Bank Secrecy Act compliance and state calibrated requirements where local regulators maintain discretion over capital and risk management.

• • The Clarity remains stalled, with Congress currently on a two-week Easter recess. The Banking Committee is targeting late April for a potential markup. A recent stablecoin yield compromise that prohibits yield on idle stablecoin balances while permitting activity-based rewards is viewed as insufficient to bridge the divide. TD Cowen analyst notes the proposal draws objections from both crypto platforms such as Coinbase, which oppose restrictions on yield, and banks, which view activity-based stablecoin incentives as a threat to core deposits. Analyst sees late July as the most likely window for action, if any, and notes that passage would likely require Congress to override objections from both industry sides.
  • U.S. Republican Senators Bill Cassidy and Cynthia Lummis introduced the Mined in America Act to encourage domestic production and reduce reliance on foreign supply chains in the U.S. digital asset mining industry. The Act will establish a voluntary “Mined in America” certification for cryptocurrency mining facilities and mining pools. Certified facilities would be required to transition away from mining equipment manufactured by companies linked to foreign adversaries. The bill also directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to assist domestic manufacturers in developing secure and energy-efficient cryptocurrency mining equipment. Additionally, the Act codifies President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, formally establishing it within the Department of the Treasury.
  • Google Research published new estimates showing future quantum computers may break elliptic curve cryptography used in cryptocurrencies with fewer resources than previously thought. The team recommends transitioning blockchains to post-quantum cryptography and introduces a method for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities through zero-knowledge proofs.
  • Canada is moving to ban cryptocurrencies as federal political contributions as part the Strong and Free Elections Act introduced on 26-Mar, which amends the Canada Elections Act, aiming to safeguard the country’s democratic processes.
• Highlights
  • Bitcoin/DLT/DeFi
    • Mercado Libre ends homegrown crypto token Mercado Coin with lack of explanation (CoinDesk )
    • Base releases 2026 strategy (Base )
    • Ethena (ENA) provides March overview (Ethena)
    • Trump-backed American Bitcoin’s total Bitcoin reserve reaches 7K+ (X Post)
    • Drift Protocol halts activity over possible $270M exploit (Crypto Briefing )
    • Aave announces V4 launch (Aave )
    • Chainlink and Anchorage digital join as founding members of new Blockchain Leadership Fund for US digital asset and blockchain policy (Chainlink )
    • Wallet In Telegram integrates Lighter to bring telegram users access to crypto,equity perps (Lighter )
    • NK hackers likely behind the Drift exploit (CoinDesk )
    • Gnosis and Zisk partner to launch the “Ethereum Economic Zone” rollup framework (TheBlock )
  • Corporate
    • Interactive Brokers expands crypto trading in the European Economic Area (Bitcoin Magazine )
    • Crypto exchange EDX Markets, backed by Citadel, Fidelity and Charles Schwab filed for national trust bank charter (CoinDesk )
    • Metaplanet BTC holdings climb to 40.2K following 5.1K add (TheBlock )
    • Franklin Templeton launches Franklin Crypto, a new crypto unit on the heels of CoinFund acquisition (CoinDesk)
    • Financial services platform Square enables Bitcoin payments for U.S. sellers (X Post)
    • Mitsubishi Corp. set to use JPMorgan Chase’s blockchain technology for international money transfers (Nikkei)
    • Ripple Labs and Western Union to facilitate global payments through stablecoin and blockchain infrastructure (The Block)
    • A Google Quantum AI paper identifies vulnerabilities in Ethereum that place over $100B assets at potential risk (CoinDesk)
    • BNP Paribas introduces crypto-asset ETNs for retail clients in France (PR)
  • Politics/Regulation
    • Australia Digital Assets Framework Bill passes in both houses, allowing crypto platforms to obtain financial services licenses (APH.GOV)
    • Hong Kong regulators trying to advance issuance of the first batch of compliant stablecoin licenses following delays in March (Caixin)
    • ASIC imposes A$10M fine on Binance Australia Derivatives over misclassification of clients (ASIC)
    • ECB paper notes governance power in DeFi DAOs remain highly concentrated despite distributed token ownership (ECB)