What happened in crypto in the past week? This week Bitcoin and the rest of the altcoins tested an upper limit, and retraced after failing the push. A lot of noise about crypto in many countries across the glove, with a main focus on stablecoins. TON had a decent jump up. Kelp DAO created a lot of issues in DEFI market. I found a way to expose myself to BTC via BlackRock, using Freetrade. . Feel free to check them. What else? Read below:
Bitcoin: Spot BTC ETFs are back with a bang, with $666M flowing in on Friday alone. We recently had three consecutive days of net outflows, after nice consecutive days of net inflows. US crypto adoption bounced from 7% to 12%, but most Americans still expect Bitcoin to be lower by the end of 2026. Coinbase lets you borrow against your BTC, with no fixed repayment schedule, but there is a liquidation risk if prices drops at the wrong time. Knowing how Coinbase blocked transactions in the past, chances are that you will lose your Bitcoin if sudden drops happens. Bitcoin's risk indicator just hit zero, the lowers it can go. Strategy is signaling another BTC purchase, as they hold 815K BTC, at an average cost of $75.5K, and with the Bitcoin back above that level, the treasury is back in green. Yet, after briefly going above 80K. BRC retreats back as geopolitical talks fall apart. There is a wall around $82K that is able to absorb every push at the moment. Analysts say the zone is deliberate, not reactive. After that we have $86-$88K, then $92-$94K, as the next break limits. Clearing it would require spot buying, ETF inflows and macro support simultaneously. Institutions are buying BTC five times faster than it is mined. A BTC miner just boughts a gas power plant of 505 megawatt in Ohio, for $1.5B, for AI. Bitcoin could face a quantum attack within a decade.
Ethereum: Bitmine just added $235M worth of ETH last week and now they hold over 4% of the entire ETH supply. After failing to break above 2500, right now ETH is facing downward pressure, trading around $2280-2300.
Altcoins and stablecoins: WLD is tanking despite integrations with Zoom, Docusign and Tinder. XRP got a quantum upgrade plan. AI clawed back 4% week-over-week, adding $0.7B, and now the AI sector currently ranks 11th among the 27 sectors tracked by DefiLlama's tracker in terms of returns of its individual tokens. BNB Chain added 3.8% to its market cap this week, even as RAVE dumped 90%, and BNB itself got a 4.2% boost, trading near $644 this week. Memecoins are down 5%, as rising oil prices and falling equities pressured them this week. Base introduces Base Azul, the first independent network upgrade aiming to increase chain throughput, security and decentralization, improving developer experience. Talking about Islamic finance, PUSD deployed on ADI Chain, a layer 2 built for institutional settlement in the Middle East, being backed 1:1 by Saudi riyals and UAE dirhams. Toku and Paxos integrated yield directly into stablecoin payroll wallets, so the moment your pay lands, it starts earning. Tether just froze $344M in USDT, on two Tron wallets flagged by the US law enforcement. Western Union launched USDPT, a fully backed US dollar stablecoin on Solana. The TRUMP token reached a new low, dropping 10% during its own gala. Gemini launched agentic trading, and now you can let AI trade crypto on your behalf. You may lose all your money, but you can let AI to do it instead of you, nevertheless. TON AI agents can now trade crypto on your behalf. Telegram will replace TON Foundation as the primary force behind the Open Network and become its largest validator. TON surged 36% on the news. The SEC is delaying more than two dozen prediction market ETFs, requesting more information.
- NFTs and blockchain games: I have also enjoyed playing Golem Overlord lately on Hive, and it is quite enjoyable, I would say, with no significant updates lately. On Splinterlands, we have had the Land NFT new update and improved tokenomics, and the new cards from the Conclave mini collection are up and running.
Good news: As Kalshi and Polymarket hit a combined $23.6B in monthly trading, Charles Schwab and Citadel both want it, focus being on event contracts, specifically ones that help investors hedge against elections and geopolitical risks. Prediction markets grew over 1000% in a year. Bitcoin and altcoins rallied for a second week as purchases of BTC from BlackRock, Strategy and Morgan Stanley fueled investor optimism. On top of that, Israel and Lebanon entered a two-week ceasefire, while US hostilities with Iran remain paused. Japan put government bonds on-chain as digital collateral. DoorDash is now adding stablecoins to its payments across more than forty countries. Binance US dropped its spot trading fees to nearly zero, with no makers fees and 0.02% for takers to pay. One ETF in the US now holds BTC, ETF and SOL, with staking rewards build in, with a 1% annual management fee. Visa partnered with WeFi, the Tether co-founder company, to build on-chain banking where users keep full custody of their funds at all time. Interesting! Binance built a feature for users being physically threatenedm to freeze their account for seven days.
Bad news: Lazarus Group is now hacking through Zoom calls, with a fake meeting invite, one terminal command and full access to your systems. Not only that, the malware erases itself before you notice, and the job is done. MiCA is pushing small crypto firms out of Europe, no license no EU clients, and if we look at Poland, there are around 2000 registered crypto firms, and only one holds MiCA license. Poland failed for the second time to override a presidential veto on a crypto regulation bill (also the country's largest exchange is accused of links to illicit funding, with a $330M wallet that nobody agrees on who controls it. Days after a $292M exploit, the Kelp DAO attacker moved 75K ETH to fresh wallets in a single day. Arbitrum managed to freeze a portion through an emergency vote, but the rest is already routed through protocols with no ID checks. Kelp Dao hack was executed through RPC poisoning, while they used their decentralized validator network (DVN) as a 1/1. having been warned of the risks prior. UK raids 8 illegal crypto traders, evidence seized for active criminal investigations, as zero P2P crypto traders are currently registered in the UK. JPMorgan is bitching around about DEFI main weakness, its interconnectedness, as Kelp DAO attack wiped $20B from DEFIs total value locked in a couple of days. The US crypto bill has about two weeks left to advance before its chances collapse.
- Joke of the week: A survey of over 500 institutional investors found that 31% now hold a positive outlook on crypto, compared with 25% one year ago. Most of them are planning allocations between 2% and 5%. CashApp launched bank accounts for kids as young as six, and the account can upgrade when the child is thirteen, some gaining access to Bitcoin and crypto and they can buy and sell it if they got parental consent. In Europe, 35% of the investors will switch banks for better crypto access. Spain accounted for over a third of all Euro stablecoin transactions in EU, even if France averaged more than three times Spain transaction size. But 60% still feel poorly informed about digital assets. In Korea, the new bank of Korea governor emphasizes focus on CBDCs over stablecoins. Brazil banned regulated payment providers from using crypto to settle cross border transactions.
All the best,
George
Why not...
...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Upland - a real-life virtual land) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).
...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.