Day: March 9, 2026

Amina Becomes First Regulated Bank on EU’s Blockchain Securities Platform

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Amina, a Swiss-regulated crypto bank, has joined a blockchain-based settlement platform for tokenized securities operating under the European Union’s DLT pilot regime, marking another step toward integrating digital asset infrastructure with traditional capital markets. The Zug, Switzerland-based company announced Monday that it has become a listing sponsor on the EU-regulated platform 21X, making Amina the venue’s first fully regulated bank participant. Amina said the move will allow it to support companies issuing tokenized securities on 21X through its partnership with Tokeny, a Luxembourg-based company that provides technology for creating and…

Oil chaos sends crypto and equities in opposite directions

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For nearly a decade, the prevailing wisdom has been that crypto trades in lockstep with risk assets. Stocks go down, Bitcoin goes down. Simple enough. Monday’s session just threw a wrench into that narrative. A prolonged shipping crisis in one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints sent equities tumbling at the open — while Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a handful of major altcoins climbed as if they hadn’t gotten the memo. What happened at Hormuz The Strait of Hormuz handles roughly 21% of global petroleum consumption on any given day.…

Bitcoin ETF flows drop to $619M as spiking oil prices rattle risk assets

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Bitcoin ETFs had a tale-of-two-halves kind of week. Inflows started hot at $1.44B through the first three days, then investors yanked $829M back out before Friday, leaving a net weekly total of just $619M. The culprit, as usual when markets get nervous: geopolitics. Specifically, oil prices that spiked 60% after the US attack on Iran before settling back to around $102 a barrel. When crude surges like that, risk assets across the board tend to take a hit — and Bitcoin, for all its “digital gold” branding, still trades like…

US Treasury report acknowledges legitimate uses for crypto mixers

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For the better part of three years, the US government treated crypto mixers like they were exclusively tools for money laundering. On March 5, the Treasury Department quietly published a 32-page report that essentially says: “Actually, some of this is fine.” The report to Congress formally acknowledges that mixing services serve legitimate purposes, including protecting personal wealth, shielding business payment details, and enabling anonymous charitable donations. It’s a remarkable pivot from an agency that, not long ago, was sanctioning mixer protocols and pursuing criminal charges against their developers. What the…

Zcash surges as core development team closes $25 million funding round

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Zcash (ZEC) rose 3% to approximately $216 on Monday after Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), the entity formed to advance the privacy-focused digital asset ecosystem, secured more than $25 million in a funding round that drew participation from Paradigm, a16z crypto, Winklevoss Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and other prominent crypto investors. The round also included backing from Cypherpunk Technologies, Maelstrom, Chapter One, and individual investors, including Balaji Srinivasan, David Friedberg, Haseeb Qureshi, and James Nicholas. A group of angel investors from across the crypto and technology sectors participated as well. https://t.co/MtgE0AF2eg…

XRP Price Stays Below $1.40 With 60% of Supply Now in the Red

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XRP (XRP) traded at $1.35 on Monday, a 63% drawdown from its multi-year high of $3.66 reached in July 2025. As a result, many XRP holders are sitting on significant unrealized losses, underscoring the risks facing crypto investors in bear markets. Key takeaways: XRP’s 63% drawdown from its $3.66 multi-year high has left holders with over $50 billion in unrealized losses. Key XRP levels to watch in the short term include $1.40, $1.30 and $1.27. 60% of XRP circulating supply now in the red The XRP/USD pair trades 28% below…

Arthur Hayes predicts HYPE could hit $150 by August on revenue growth, strong buybacks

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HYPE, the native asset of Hyperliquid, could rise to $150 if the platform maintains its dominance in decentralized perpetual futures and unlocks new revenue streams through permissionless markets, according to Arthur Hayes, chief investment officer at Maelstrom and co-founder of BitMEX. In a blog posted on March 9, Hayes stated that HYPE is currently undervalued relative to the revenue generated by its parent platform. Data from DefiLlama compiled on March 7 shows the protocol generates more revenue than any other DEX project outside stablecoin issuers. Approximately 97% of that revenue…

Bithumb Receives Business Suspension Notice for AML Violations

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Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, is reportedly facing a possible partial business suspension of up to six months as regulators step up enforcement over anti-money laundering controls. South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) gave Bithumb a preliminary notice of a six-month partial suspension over alleged anti-money laundering and know-your-customer failures under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, according to local media reports on Monday. The regulator reportedly cited concerns over dealings with unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers and shortcomings in customer…

How United Nations Development Programme is using blockchains for public infrastructure

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A new United Nations Development Programme report outlines how blockchain can support public systems. Public institutions are under pressure to modernize faster than their systems were built to handle. In its recent report, New Tech, New Partners: Transforming development in the digital era, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) outlines a model for using blockchains as part of a broader effort to modernize public systems. The publication showcases over 40 pilot projects around the world that apply blockchain technology to improve transparency, speed and accountability of public systems. This ranges…

Kast Stablecoin Firm Hits $600M Valuation after $80M Raise: Report

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Stablecoin payments company Kast has raised $80 million in a funding round that values the company at $600 million, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday citing people familiar with the matter. The round was co-led by QED investors and Left Lane Capital, and Kast expects an annual revenue run rate of around $100 million in 2025, according to Bloomberg. The company reportedly plans to use the funding to expand across North America, Latin America and the Middle East, while also adding staff, securing licenses and developing new products. The…