Cryptopolitan

Binance’s CZ has criticized block explorers like Etherscan for displaying spam transactions from address-poisoning scams. This follows a warning Etherscan sent to users after a victim received 89 address-poisoning emails in under 30 minutes. 

According to Changpeng Zhao, existing filters are a viable solution to such problems. He asserts that solutions found on Trust Wallet “should be simple to filter them out completely.” He has also highlighted future worries about microtransactions between AI agents.

Etherscan warns users of address poisoning attacks on Ethereum

Market analysts have linked the increase in address poisoning attacks to the Fusaka upgrade, which was activated on December 3, 2025. The upgrade, meant to reduce Ethereum transaction costs, is now enabling scammers to send large volumes of poisoning transactions at a lower cost. 

Transaction spike after the Fusaka upgrade. Source: Etherscan.

According to on-chain data, 90 days after the upgrade, Ethereum’s daily transaction volume surged by 30% compared to 90 days prior. In addition, the number of new daily addresses rose by about 78%, and small-value dust transfers increased by a noticeable amount.

According to Etherscan, “Address poisoning has existed on Ethereum for several years. But incidents like this highlight how automated and high-volume these campaigns have become.”

A study analyzing address poisoning picked out 17 million poisoning attempts targeting about 1.3 million users on Ethereum, with confirmed losses of at least $79.3 million in roughly 2 years.

The scale of address poisoning activity across Ethereum and BSC. Source: Etherscan.

One unexpected discovery made by the 2025 research is that different attack groups often compete with one another. In many poisoning attacks, many attackers send their respective poison transfers to the same address at roughly the same time.

“Whoever succeeds first increases the chances that their address will later be copied,” Etherscan reports. The address below is an example of the level of competition. In this case, 13 poison transfers were sent shortly after a legitimate USDT transfer. 

Address poisoning competition scale against users. Source: Etherscan.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, initially, it may seem that address poisoning does not work, since most users will not fall for this trick. However, economics play a role in this.

In fact, the success rate for each attempt to conduct address poisoning on the Ethereum blockchain is ~0.01%. In this case, only 1 out of 10,000 users will successfully send money to the attacker.

This means that the cost of thousands of failed attempts can be easily covered by a single successful attack involving large sums.

CZ predicts AI can handle spam detection in the near future

Etherscan has provided users with tips to avoid being scammed. However, CZ has other thoughts and plans. Per Etherscan, users should first have private name tags for frequently interacted addresses. “Using a domain name such as ENS can also make addresses easier to recognize across the explorer,” they advise.

However, CZ highlights Trust Wallet’s existing filters as a model solution. He predicts AI can handle spam detection for future micro-transactions among AI agents.

A few days ago, Trust Wallet introduced address poisoning protection. Per design, this is “a new security feature that checks every destination address before you send, and warns you when something looks wrong.”

Trust Wallet runs an automatic real-time check using a database of known scams and lookalike addresses. For high-severity threats, users receive a blocking warning before a transaction is submitted. The warning includes a side-by-side comparison of the address traders are about to send and the legitimate address it mimics.

Address poisoning protection protocol. Source: Trust Wallet.

Address Poisoning Protection is available on 32 EVM chains at launch: Ethereum Mainnet, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum One, Arbitrum Nova, Avalanche, Base, among others.

Trust Wallet’s mechanism is the same reason CZ pointed it out as a good example that other wallets/explorers could emulate, especially as AI might handle more of the microtransaction spam in the future.

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TRON has joined Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program as the payments company expands coordination with blockchain, fintech, and banking participants working on digital asset payments.

The move places TRON among more than 85 companies participating in a Mastercard-led initiative to link blockchain-based payment infrastructure with existing financial networks.

According to statements from TRON DAO and Mastercard, the program is designed to support collaboration on practical use cases, including cross-border remittances, business-to-business transfers, payouts, and settlement.

Mastercard expands partner network for on-chain payments

Mastercard said the Crypto Partner Program was created to bring together crypto-native firms, payment providers, and financial institutions as digital assets move toward broader real-world use. 

TRON has joined the @Mastercard Crypto Partner Program reflecting a shared belief that the next phase of onchain payments will be built through collaboration.

As digital assets move toward real-world use, connecting blockchain infrastructure with existing payment networks… pic.twitter.com/eZMyEa3M8j

— TRON DAO (@trondao) March 13, 2026

The company explained the endeavor as a place to engage in dialogue and collaborate as blockchain-based payment activity increasingly works in tandem with traditional finance, providing the background support to real-world financial activities.

In its release, Mastercard reported that enterprise and institutional applications are becoming increasingly popular, especially for payments out, cross-border money movement, settlement, and B2B transfers. According to the company, it is aimed to integrate the speed and programmability of digital assets with the current card rails and global trade flows.

TRON DAO claimed that its involvement was based on the view that the next stage of on-chain payments will be collaborative. The organization also stated that integrating blockchain infrastructure with payment networks is increasing in importance as digital assets come to closer to usefulness.

The program expands upon previous Mastercard Bitcoin program activities, such as its Start Path accelerator track to blockchain and digital asset startups and its Engage platform, which includes a crypto card program.

Stablecoins and settlement tools form core of program

At the center of Mastercard’s broader crypto strategy is its Multi-Token Network, or MTN, which the company uses as a private settlement layer connecting tokenized bank deposits and regulated stablecoins across financial institutions. Mastercard also highlighted its Crypto Credential tool, which replaces wallet addresses with human-readable identifiers and automates compliance checks intended to reduce transaction errors.

The partner program includes exchanges and digital asset firms such as Binance, PayPal, Ripple, Circle, Gemini, Paxos, Crypto.com, OKX, and Bybit. It also includes infrastructure providers such as Fireblocks, Chainalysis, MoonPay, and Worldpay.

Mastercard’s recent product rollouts also connect to this strategy. In late February, the company launched the MetaMask Card in the United States in partnership with ConsenSys and Monavate. The card allows users to make payments with USDC, USDT, mUSD, and yield-bearing tokens, such as aUSDC, via Aave. Mastercard said the product is also active in Switzerland, the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico.

Earlier in March, Mastercard also announced that it had secured SoFi Technologies as a stablecoin settlement partner. Under that arrangement, SoFiUSD, a fully backed U.S. dollar stablecoin launched in December 2025, will serve as a settlement option within Mastercard’s payment network.

Broader strategy shift follows acquisition talks

The new partner model comes after the previous Mastercard acquisition talks with blockchain infrastructure firm Zerohash. Until late 2025, Mastercard was in the final stages of acquiring the company in a deal estimated to cost between $1.5 and $2 billion. Zerohash declined the transaction and subsequently sought a $250 million funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation.

Based on the information presented, Mastercard is considering a strategic investment in Zerohash, but no results have been validated. The company had also expressed interest in purchasing BVNK, a London-based stablecoin payments platform.

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Amazon Web Services said Friday it will put processors from Cerebras inside its data centers under a multiyear partnership focused on AI inference.

The deal gives Amazon a new way to speed up how AI models answer prompts, write code, and handle live user requests. AWS said it will use Cerebras technology, including the Wafer-Scale Engine, for inference tasks.

The companies did not share the financial terms. The setup is planned for Amazon Bedrock inside AWS data centers, putting the partnership right inside one of Amazon’s main AI products.

AWS said the system will combine Amazon Trainium-powered servers, Cerebras CS-3 systems, and Amazon’s Elastic Fabric Adapter networking.

Later this year, AWS also plans to offer leading open-source large language models and Amazon Nova on Cerebras hardware. David Brown, vice president of Compute and ML Services at AWS, said speed is still a major problem in AI inference, especially for real-time coding help and interactive apps.

David said, “Inference is where AI delivers real value to customers, but speed remains a critical bottleneck for demanding workloads like real-time coding assistance and interactive applications.”

Amazon splits prefill and decode across separate chips

AWS said the design uses a method called inference disaggregation. That means splitting AI inference into two parts. The first part is prompt processing, also called prefill. The second part is output generation, also called decode.

AWS said the two jobs behave very differently. Prefill is parallel, compute heavy, and needs moderate memory bandwidth. Decode is serial, lighter on compute, and much more dependent on memory bandwidth. Decode also takes most of the time in these cases because every output token has to be produced one by one.

That is why AWS is assigning different hardware to each stage. Trainium will handle prefill. Cerebras CS-3 will handle decode.

AWS said low-latency, high-bandwidth EFA networking will connect both sides so the system can work as one service while each processor focuses on a separate task.

David said, “What we’re building with Cerebras solves that: by splitting the inference workload across Trainium and CS-3, and connecting them with Amazon’s Elastic Fabric Adapter, each system does what it’s best at. The result will be inference that’s an order of magnitude faster and higher performance than what’s available today.”

AWS also said the service will run on the AWS Nitro System, which is the base layer for its cloud infrastructure.

That means Cerebras CS-3 systems and Trainium-powered instances are expected to operate with the same security, isolation, and consistency that AWS customers already use.

Amazon pushes Trainium harder as Nvidia faces another threat

The announcement also gives Amazon another opening to push Trainium against chips from Nvidia, AMD, and other big chip companies. AWS describes Trainium as its in-house AI chip built for scalable performance and cost efficiency across training and inference.

AWS said two major AI labs are already committed to it. Anthropic has named AWS its primary training partner and uses Trainium to train and deploy models. OpenAI will consume 2 gigawatts of Trainium capacity through AWS infrastructure for Stateful Runtime Environment, frontier models, and other advanced workloads.

AWS added that Trainium3 has seen strong adoption since its recent release, with customers across industries committing major capacity.

Cerebras is handling the decode side of the setup. AWS said CS-3 is dedicated to decoding acceleration, which gives it more room for fast output tokens. Cerebras says CS-3 is the world’s fastest AI inference system and delivers thousands of times greater memory bandwidth than the fastest GPU.

The company said reasoning models now make up a larger share of inference work and generate more tokens per request as they work through problems. Cerebras also said OpenAI, Cognition, Mistral, and others use its systems for demanding workloads, especially agentic coding.

Andrew Feldman, founder and chief executive of Cerebras Systems, said, “Partnering with AWS to build a disaggregated inference solution will bring the fastest inference to a global customer base.”

Andrew added, “Every enterprise around the world will be able to benefit from blisteringly fast inference within their existing AWS environment.”

The deal adds more pressure on Nvidia, which in December signed a $20 billion licensing agreement with Groq and plans next week to unveil a new inference system using Groq technology.

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A US appeals court moved ahead to reject a request submitted by Custodia Bank to reconsider its legal challenge against the Federal Reserve. The push was over the access to the central bank’s payment system. The dismissal marks another setback in the bank’s long-running attempt to obtain a master account.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit voted 7–3 against granting Custodia’s petition for a rehearing before the full court. The request was filed to overturn an October ruling that Reserve Banks have legal discretion to deny master accounts to institutions that are seeking direct access to the Fed’s payment infrastructure.

Fed misread the Monetary Control Act?

On Dec 15, 2025, Custodia filed its petition for rehearing. It argued that the panel misinterpreted the Monetary Control Act of 1980. The bank mentioned that the law grants eligible institutions the right to a master account. However, it also warned that the earlier ruling undermined state banking authority while raising constitutional concerns.

In a split view, Judge Timothy Tymkovich stated that the case carried major implications for financial regulation. He even argued that allowing Reserve Banks unreviewable discretion over master account approvals could conflict with federal statutes and potentially the Constitution. As of now, Custodia hasn’t issued any statement. But it is expected that the bank might continue to pursue access to the Fed’s payment system.

🚨NEW: The 10th Circuit has rejected @custodiabank’s request for a full court rehearing in its master account fight with the @federalreserve, after a panel ruled in October that Reserve Banks have legal discretion to deny master account access.

Active judges voted 7–3 against… https://t.co/SXE4qf5TBH pic.twitter.com/O9pQ9zrH5h

— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) March 13, 2026

The decision comes in when another crypto-linked institution moves closer to the US financial system. Recently, Kraken announced that it had been granted a master account through its Wyoming-based banking entity. This allowed the exchange to connect directly to the Federal Reserve’s payment rails.

According to reports, Kraken will be able to access systems such as Fedwire through the account. This will enable the exchange to transfer US dollars directly to institutional clients. It added that the system will allow real-time settlement of transactions. This will eventually reduce the need for intermediary banks. The access would initially support institutional client activity. However, it would be rolled out in phases under a one-year approval term.

The approval has now placed Kraken’s banking arm alongside traditional financial institutions that already maintain accounts with the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, the company highlighted that it would not receive the full range of privileges typically granted to conventional banks.

New framework for crypto on the way?

Crypto firms have been trying to get direct access to the Federal Reserve accounts, as this would allow them to settle payments without relying on intermediary banks. It will lower costs and speed up transactions. At the same time, banks argue that granting payment system access to a crypto-linked entity could introduce new risks into the system.

Custodia even acknowledged the Kraken’s approval in a public statement. It noted that both companies applied for Federal Reserve master accounts in late 2020. Kraken was the first crypto-native firm to apply, while Custodia filed its application shortly after it.

The Wyoming-based bank stated that it has been building stablecoins from inside the bank regulatory perimeter since 2020. It will continue down a dual path of pursuing a Fed master account. This will be done while expanding its collaborations with traditional banks in the tokenized deposit and stablecoin markets.

The Fed is reportedly working on a broader policy framework that could allow crypto companies and other nontraditional financial institutions to access so-called “skinny” master accounts. The proposal remains in early development, and regulators have not said when applications might open.

Amid approvals and rejections, the crypto market posted a mild recovery. Its cumulative market cap surged marginally over the last 24 hours to stand at $2.42 trillion. Bitcoin price is up by more than 3% over the last 7 days. BTC is trading at an average price of $70,789 at the press time.

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After days where every mention of President Trump was linked to Iran strikes and oil prices, headlines about the $TRUMP memecoin and the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files have returned to the headlines. 

It was a positive update for holders of the Trump memecoin, which returned to the green after it was announced that President Trump would invite the top 297 holders to a dinner at Mar-a-Lago.

The other update about the House Oversight Committee’s show of intent to keep digging into the Epstein files is a more ambiguous issue, especially for people like Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who believe that the Trump administration is using the Iran military conflict as a distraction from criticism of its handling of the files.

Why is the $TRUMP token gaining value despite the war?

Since the military conflict in Iran began, conspiracy theorists and political critics have suggested that the Trump administration leaned into the “war machine” to distract people from the long-awaited release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

However, today’s news headlines were dominated by prison guard testimonies and Mar-a-Lago luncheons, showing that the public’s demand for accountability is as active as ever.

The Solana-based memecoin $TRUMP witnessed a massive surge of over 50% earlier today after it was announced from the token’s team that the top 297 holders of the coin would be invited to an exclusive Gala Luncheon at the Mar-a-Lago residence on April 25, 2026.

The $TRUMP meme is back trading in the green after news of a Mar-a-Lago dinner with President Trump for top holders. Source: CoinMarketCap

The event has been explained as a high-level crypto and business conference featuring President Donald Trump as the keynote speaker. A previous dinner held last year at a Trump-owned golf club also caused a significant price increase.

Lawmakers concerned about the President profiting from the crypto industry criticized the dinner.

Prior to this spike, $TRUMP was trading near an all-time low of approximately $2.75, a 96% drop from its January 2025 peak of $75.35. However, despite this poor performance, Cryptopolitan reported that whales have been quietly accumulating the token.

Is the Iran conflict being used to hide the Epstein files?

The House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced on national television that the committee intends to bring in Tova Noel for a transcribed interview. Noel was one of the two Metropolitan Correctional Center guards on duty the night Epstein died.

Records show that Noel made a $5,000 cash deposit just ten days before Epstein’s death, which is a major red flag, but the Department of Justice allegedly never investigated it.

Comer noted that suspicious activity reports are rarely filed for sums under $10,000.

Documents suggest Noel searched Google for the “latest on Epstein in jail” just minutes before he was found dead. Comer stated that “most people on the committee aren’t confident 100% that Epstein’s death was by suicide,” and they are seeking answers on whether the government was involved in destroying or hiding evidence.

A second batch of Epstein-related documents containing FBI interview materials that allegedly implicate several high-level elites was released on March 5, but public interest in these files plummeted almost immediately as U.S. and Israeli air campaigns against Iran began dominating the news.

Senator Jeff Merkley suggested that the two events are connected, claiming the administration wanted to get the files “off the front page.”

Iran has continued to threaten that it will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed, which could drive oil prices to $120 a barrel.

General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as national security advisor for the first 22 days of the first Trump administration, made it clear that a reckoning would come for the “degenerates” that Epstein enticed.

“Make Accountability Great Again” has become a rallying cry for those who believe the still unnamed contacts of the disgraced financier must finally face the consequences of their actions.

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After the initial uproar from a March 11 report that claimed that Coinbase was lobbying Capitol Hill against a de minimis tax exemption for Bitcoin, the rhetoric has since been dialed as strong denials and context have been applied to the legislative conversation around the CLARITY Act — Armstrong and Coinbase may simply not prioritize the Bitcoin de minimis exemption because it is not its business. 

Within hours of the allegation, Coinbase’s entire policy executive bench had issued categorical denials, Jack Dorsey had nudged Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly for a response, and swaths of the Bitcoin community had drawn their conclusions.

Armstrong responded to a TFTC post that stated that Coinbase was trying to kill the Bitcoin de minimis exemption, calling the allegations “totally false.” He wrote, “I’ve spent a bunch of time lobbying for Bitcoin’s de minimis tax exemption, and will continue doing so. It’s obviously the right thing.”

What is the de minimis exemption, and why does it matter for Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is currently classified as property under the United States tax law. That means every time a holder spends it, including on routine purchases, it constitutes a taxable disposal event, requiring cost-basis tracking and capital gains reporting. 

That classification makes Bitcoin impractical as everyday money. A de minimis exemption would carve out small transactions from this requirement, treating them similarly to minor foreign currency exchanges, which already receive such relief. 

Senator Cynthia Lummis has been the most prominent champion of this reform. Her bill, introduced last July, proposed a $300 per-transaction threshold with a $5,000 annual cap on everyday crypto transactions. 

The current House framework, the CLARITY Act discussion draft, includes a stablecoin-only exemption capped at $200 for regulated, dollar-pegged tokens; however, there was no provision for Bitcoin. 

Advocacy platforms like the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) called out the absence of Bitcoin in this draft. The BPI has been active in their engagement with Congress, reaching an understanding that a de minimis exemption for stablecoins is not sufficient. The nonprofit organization is working to get the Hill to consider the exemption for Bitcoin. 

Did Coinbase actually lobby against the Bitcoin exemption?

So far, there’s no concrete evidence that Coinbase was lobbying against the Bitcoin de minimis exemption other than reports attributed to Marty Bent. 

Bent responded to Armstrong’s denial on X, stating, “I have sources that say otherwise, not you personally, but your team and/or lobbyists. Will you commit to walk away from the market structure bill if it doesn’t include the de minimis exemption for bitcoin like you did stablecoin yield?”

Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad called it “a total lie.” Vice President of US policy at Coinbase, Kara Calvert, said the claims were “categorically false,” adding that Coinbase has advocated for a de minimis exemption covering all digital assets since 2017. 

Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal stated that Coinbase had never lobbied against Bitcoin.

So far, Bent has not retracted the claim.

Frank Corva, content producer and strategist at Fedi, writing on X, may have the most logical opinion in this wildly swinging situation. 

He stated that Armstrong simply may not prioritize the Bitcoin de minimis exemption because it does not benefit Coinbase or the businesses he has interests in. Corva recalled Armstrong’s stated view that “stablecoins are the best form of money,” which would explain why Bitcoin’s inclusion in a US payments tax exemption may not be top of mind for him. 

Corva noted separately that from conversations with people close to the negotiations, the de minimis question was not even the central focus; the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) was the bigger fight.

The BRCA, which would protect non-custodial software developers from Bank Secrecy Act obligations, is the legislation that Coinbase and much of the industry have staked as a red line, as Corva says it seems to potentially be on the chopping block in the bill.

Where does Tether stand in this fight?

Through the entirety of the controversy, Tether, the issuer of USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin by market capitalization, has said nothing on the matter.

Tether does not share yields with USDT holders, unlike Circle with its USDC, so it doesn’t “have much beef in this fight.” It has no direct financial stake in whether Bitcoin gets a de minimis exemption or not, either, unlike The Bitcoin Policy Institute, Jack Dorsey’s Block, whose “Bitcoin is Everyday Money” campaign has invested in Lightning Network infrastructure, and Senator Lummis. 

The fury directed at Coinbase came from an unstated assumption that it is obligated to champion Bitcoin’s cause in Washington at all times, at the expense of its own commercial priorities.

The truth may be that you can’t run a successful company in the crypto industry while being your brother’s keeper all the time, every time.

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A school was bombed in the southern Iranian town of Minab on the first day of US and Israeli strikes against Iran. More than 175 people died, including schoolchildren. Neither Washington nor Tel Aviv has said what happened. Nobody has taken responsibility. One question keeps coming up: Did an AI system hit the wrong target?

In the first 24 hours, US forces hit around 1,000 sites, about 42 per hour. A CSET report on the 18th Airborne Corps found that with Maven Smart System, 20 people could do what used to need a 2,000-person team at the Combined Air Operations Center in Iraq. By late 2024, the US had put a large language model, the same type of software behind consumer AI chatbots, inside Maven. This was among the first wars to use that technology in targeting.

The US military says it is still looking into the Minab strike. It has not said what part, if any, the AI system had in sending a missile at that building.

The New York Times reported early on that the system may have been running on old data. Foreign correspondent Louisa Loveluck wrote on X that the strike may have been “based on intel that is a decade old,” and that anyone checking recent satellite images freely online would have seen “a school with a sports field” at one of the sites marked for attack.

Computer scientist Anh Totti Nguyen has researched where AI vision systems go wrong. His paper, “Vision language models are blind: Failing to translate detailed visual features into words,”  found that these systems often fail when two structures sit close together, and the software has to work out which is which.

Satellite images from the New York Times show the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school sitting right next to an IRGC compound in Minab,  the exact setup Nguyen’s research flagged.

Who is responsible when the AI gets it wrong?

Emilia Probasco, a former Navy officer and senior fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, said in The Four Cast podcast that the responsibility falls on the commander who gave the order. That is how the military works. She said the black box problem, not being able to see how an AI system reached its answer, is “an ongoing area of research, not a solved one.”

Before the war, Anthropic, the company whose technology sits inside Maven, got into a contract dispute with the Defense Department over two things: whether AI is reliable enough for life-or-death calls, and whether using AI to connect scattered data points turns it into a mass surveillance tool.

Probasco said both concerns hold up, but noted “the awkwardness of a private company drawing lines around how a military conducts its operations.”

Holland Michel said the conversation keeps drifting toward the worst-case picture. A machine that picks targets and fires with no human involved. That risk is real, he said, but it is not what is happening now.

“The harder, more immediate work,” he said, “is making AI systems more transparent and ensuring that humans who rely on their outputs are making genuinely informed decisions, not simply deferring to whatever the machine suggests.”

AI generated war content was also spreading fast online

BBC Verify tracked AI-made videos and doctored satellite images about the conflict that pulled in hundreds of millions of views.

Timothy Graham, a digital media researcher at the Queensland University of Technology, said: “The scale is truly alarming and this war has made it impossible to ignore now.” He added, “What used to require professional video production can now be done in minutes with AI tools. The barrier to creating convincing synthetic conflict footage has essentially collapsed.”

X said it would cut creators from its payment scheme if they posted AI-made war footage without a label. Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute who covers Iran, called it “a notable signal that they’ve noticed that this is a big problem.” Meta and TikTok did not reply when asked if they planned to do the same.

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Crypto weekend activity returns, as the markets reflect demand for continuous trading. Crypto markets are available during recent weekends with peak geopolitical turbulence. 

Crypto weekend activity picked up, as the markets drew in traders willing to get exposure to the recent effects of geopolitical uncertainty. The pattern of weekend strikes and events meant traditional markets were closed, so the immediate effect could not be traded. 

Crypto markets, however, showed no such restrictions. BTC, some tokens, tokenized RWA, prediction markets, and platforms like Hyperliquid showed stronger weekend performance. 

Crypto weekend activity serves as an emergency market

Crypto weekend activity reached its peak in 2019, according to Messari data. BTC weekend volumes reached 26% at the peak, but remain around 20% of weekly volumes as of 2026. On average, weekends move half the capital compared to weekdays. 

While BTC abandoned previous patterns of weekend rallies, the recent military action against Iran had a significant effect on trading activity, based on Messari data. When traditional markets were closed, Hyperliquid drew in trading activity, achieving $13.6B in volumes on a weekend, 6.9 times the activity of the previous weekend. 

Hyperliquid also reflected the demand for trading gold and oil futures through its HIP-3 platform. The decentralized markets showed they were extremely responsive when there was demand and the potential for a clear price direction. 

The other crypto platform to benefit from uncertainty was Polymarket, which once again took a weekly lead on Kalshi. Geopolitical events on weekends turned into a key source of clients for the otherwise slower markets. 

The 24/7 trading of crypto is showing to be a unique feature, which is not yet available on traditional markets. CME is expected to launch limited 24/7 crypto futures at the end of May, but the crypto markets are more agile with new listings. 

The other question is whether the 24/7 markets are more important for institutions or retail. Institutions may move to CME, but retail traders are also seeking opportunities, with most activity on Polymarket still linked to retail-sized positions. 

Asian markets support crypto activity

The crypto trading profile differs depending on regional engagement. On Solana, US-based activity is peak on decentralized exchanges. 

For the market as a whole, Asian markets gained more importance in the past months, displacing European trading and getting ahead of US volumes. 

Crypto activity shifted to Asian markets in the past few months, while US trading slowed down. | Source: Dune Analytics

Crypto markets show rapid shifts in sentiment and volatility levels. Despite the slide of BTC from its peak, activity did not completely die down, but instead used the available infrastructure to trade the new geopolitical reality. While BTC and crypto lost their appeal as a hedge against inflation, the opportunity for permissionless short-term trading was a key feature that kept volumes at a higher range. 

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The supply of USDC reached $81.1B, breaking a new record after the latest printing ot $500M. USDC is widely used on Ethereum, Base, Solana, and other chains, boosting derivative trading, prediction markets, and lending. 

Circle’s USDC reached a new record supply of 81.1B tokens, moving closer to USDT. The stablecoin expanded its influence in prediction markets, perpetual futures trading, and lending, while also widely replacing USDT on US and European exchanges. 

BREAKING: USDC supply reaches all-time high of $81.1 billion pic.twitter.com/Ra1UxALDbk

— Artemis (@artemis) March 13, 2026

Currently, the main competitor, USDT, carries over 183B tokens with a specific liquidity structure split between Ethereum and TRON. Circle, on the other hand, is mostly carried by Ethereum and Solana, with an emerging Base ecosystem. 

USDC is catching up with the ERC-20 version of USDT, which has a supply of 96B tokens. Previously, USDC accounted for a much smaller fraction of stablecoins, whereas in 2025, liquidity expanded with USD-denominated tokens and a range of other tokenized currencies. 

USDC may turn into an institutional token

While USDT serves international whales and retail investors, Circle focuses on its potential to become an institutional-grade platform. 

The token was expanding more aggressively in the past week, adding a total of $2B to its supply, potentially targeting large-scale institutional usage. 

CIRCLE JUST MINTED $500M USDC

Circle has minted $500M USDC in the past 24 hours – and $2 BILLION USDC in the past week.

Institutional money wants access to crypto. pic.twitter.com/eI7ZrAxzjp

— Arkham (@arkham) March 13, 2026

Stablecoin supply has been relatively flat for the past five months, with no significant minting following the October 2025 crash. The recent revival of minting coincided with a market-wide recovery and an improving sentiment. 

USDC increased its transaction velocity

The total supply of USDC is still down by 1.24% net in the past month, but activity has picked up. In the past 30 days, USDC transactions grew by 160% according to Artemis data. In the same period, USDT turnover increased by 140%. 

In the past month, over 152K users were added to Circle’s asset. Over 857K users were added in January. In total, the stablecoin has over 6.22M users and is locked in over 65,000 contract addresses. Circle’s smart contract is also often in the top 3 Ethereum gas burners, due to trading and DeFi activity. 

USDC built up a record number of users after significant new adoption in January and February. | Source: Dune Analytics

USDC now carries over 10 times the liquidity from the 2021 bull market, when the token was celebrating a supply of $8B. Currently, USDC is often used by whales to move funds to Binance or Hyperliquid. 

USDC is also boosting stablecoin supply and traffic on Solana, after the recent minting of an additional $3.5B. Solana is the main target for new minting, used for trading and payments. 

The stablecoin aims to settle payments similar to fintech apps, while also being used in decentralized apps by crypto natives. Stablecoins have reached a supply of over 319B tokens. Tether and Circle remain the leaders, but no longer monopolize the market. The share of USDT and USDC has fallen from a peak of 95% down to around 85% as of early 2026.

 

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A Singapore payments company has secured $35 million from two funding rounds in three months, with Chinese tech giant Alibaba among its backers, as it bets on stablecoin-powered settlement rails becoming the backbone of cross-border trade in Asia.

MetaComp, which describes itself as a hybrid fiat-and-crypto financial platform, closed a Pre-A+ round with participation from Alibaba and Spark Venture.

This followed a $22 million Pre-A round that wrapped up in December 2025, drawing in Eastern Bell Capital, Noah, Sky9 Capital, Freshwave Fund, and Beingboom Capital. Investment bank 100Summit Partners advised on both deals.

Alibaba’s role in the investment is being widely watched by the industry. Despite domestic restrictions on stablecoin operations in mainland China, Alibaba’s participation supports the usage of authorized offshore stablecoin rails and sends a strong message to other Chinese companies and investors.

The step implies that large Chinese internet corporations are considering regulating stablecoin infrastructure in other countries, despite Beijing’s ongoing limitations on stablecoin activities on the mainland.

The agreement is regarded as one of Asia’s largest institutional pledges to stablecoin payment infrastructure this year.

MetaComp’s available liquidity for cross-border settlement activities now exceeds $100 million, thanks to the new funding.

According to the company, it processed over $10 billion in payments and over-the-counter transactions across more than 13 stablecoins in 2025, turning a full-year net profit with monthly throughput over $1 billion.

Geopolitics driving demand

Retail clients are not served by MetaComp. Businesses are its main target, particularly institutional clients whose global supply chains require quicker settlement than conventional banks can offer.

By utilizing stablecoins, MetaComp assists in avoiding conventional banking obstacles that frequently impede Asian trade flows, including lengthy settlement cycles, exorbitant fees, and limitations on currency availability.

The current state of the world is sufficient justification for this haste, according to co-president Tin Pei Ling.

She added that stablecoins provide “almost instantaneous settlement” when access to US dollars becomes more difficult.

Chairman and co-founder Dr. Bai Bo believes MetaComp can grow to the scale of Ant Group in China or Revolut in Europe, though he was clear that the company has no plans to become a licensed bank, unlike Revolut, which holds banking licences in Europe and the UK.

Building the infrastructure

The company holds a Major Payment Institution licence from Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore for digital payment tokens and cross-border money transfers. Its affiliate, Alpha Ladder Finance, holds Capital Markets Services and Recognised Market Operator licences.

Together, the two entities allow MetaComp to offer clients end-to-end service, managing over $500 million in wealth assets for more than 1,000 institutional and accredited clients.

At the core of its offering is the StableX Network, which converts fiat currency into stablecoins in under three seconds. A compliance tool called VisionX runs alongside it to track risk.

MetaComp mainly focuses on businesses that export items from Asia to international markets. Although it only works with companies doing business outside of China in accordance with local regulations, a significant percentage of its clientele are Chinese companies doing business abroad.

MetaComp intends to expand the StableX network throughout Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East with the additional funding. In order to facilitate automated payment and wealth services powered by artificial intelligence, it is also developing what it refers to as an Agent-Skills-MCP architecture, a model based on the Model Context Protocol standard.

Tin Pei Ling summarised the company’s position: “Traditional payment systems remain constrained by multi-day settlement cycles, high costs, and limited currency coverage, and that gap is exactly what we were founded to solve.”

By 2028, the stablecoin market is expected to grow to $2 trillion, and MetaComp is setting itself up to become a major infrastructure supplier in Asia and beyond.

If MetaComp becomes a major, regulated player, strong network effects might accelerate the adoption of stablecoins throughout the region as more businesses join the ecosystem.

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Vitalik Buterin has shared concerns regarding the increasingly controversial uses of the theoretical concept of “AI safety” by companies and governments. 

Buterin explained on the social media platform X that leading companies within the AI space, like Anthropic, cannot dictate what measures are suitable or not for safety, as that leads to a system where the rules are crafted by the strongest.

Can ‘AI safety’ be used as a global dominance tool?

Vitalik Buterin recently took to the social media platform X to share his concerns about the concept of AI safety being appropriated by large corporations and national interests.

For example, Anthropic recently received praise for refusing to allow the Department of Welfare (DoW) or other government entities to use its Claude models for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weaponry.m.

However, the company also canceled its pause-on-risk safety pledge that compelled the company to unconditionally halt all training and deployment until safety measures caught up if it ever developed an AI model whose capabilities outpaced the company’s ability to prove the model was safe.

Vitalik pointed out that Anthropic’s previous criticism of its competitors for learning from Claude’s outputs drew sharp backlash from critics, particularly in China, who argued that Claude itself trained its models on the vast, public knowledge of the internet.

Anthropic claims that its problem with open-source competitors is that they lack the necessary safety guardrails and pose risks, but why does Anthropic get to decide which safety measures are suitable?

Buterin stated that Anthropic’s actions suggest a system where “rules are crafted by the strongest.”

He expressed a fear that if AI safety becomes indistinguishable from a “our company/our country deserves to run the world” mentality, it will create a more dangerous world.

He argues that if safety regulations inevitably exempt national security organizations, the regulations will become fragile. This is especially relevant as recent news confirms that major AI labs are increasingly seeking multi-billion-dollar partnerships with defense contractors to provide secure AI environments for military use.

Is restricting AI dangerous?

Years ago, Vitalik became one of the Future of Life Institute’s (FLI’s) largest donors. In 2021, he was gifted a massive supply of Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens by the token’s creators. When the dog coin bubble was at its peak, the book value was over $1 billion. Vitalik scrambled to donate the funds before interest declined and sent roughly $500 million in SHIB to FLI.

At the time, the FLI was focused on risks like bio-threats and nuclear war. However, FLI has since shifted its focus toward aggressive political action and lobbying, often pushing for regulations that Vitalik finds worrying. Specifically, he disagrees with their focus on putting guards into AI models to make them refuse “bad stuff.”

Vitalik views these restrictions as fragile solutions because they can be easily bypassed by jailbreaking or fine-tuning.

More importantly, he fears these strategies lead to a dark place where open-source AI is banned to maintain a good-guy monopoly.

Vitalik is instead advocating for a system called defensive accelerationism (d/acc). This philosophy suggests that the best way to handle dangerous technology is to build and open-source the shields first.

He recently allocated $40 million toward projects like secure hardware, biodefense, and cybersecurity to support his ideology.

Secure hardware makes computer chips unhackable, so they cannot be used for mass spying. Biodefense involves developing advanced air filtering and passive PCR testing to detect and stop pandemics early. Investments in cybersecurity will improve software verifiability so that AI-driven attacks cannot easily take down critical infrastructure.

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In an alert shared by Project 0 (P0) founder MacBrennan Peet, the executive committed to fully refund confirmed losses after attackers infiltrated its system to redirect user visits to its website to a crypto-stealing site.

The post by MacBrennan confirmed that at least one user lost $1,000 when they tried the new site “out of curiosity.”

The security incident targeting Project 0 compounds record numbers of crypto thefts by bad actors exploiting the Fusaka upgrade that was supposed to make transaction fees an afterthought for Ethereum network users, adding to a pattern of attacks targeting liquidity-rich venues.

Project 0 reports the latest DeFi domain hijack

According to the disclosure by MacBrennan, attackers gained access to the GitHub account of an application team member, which allowed them to redirect user visits between 9:45 PM and 10:19 PM. 

Although he did not specify his timezone, users who tried to visit Project 0’s website within the 40-minute attack window were directed to another website that led to the loss of at least $1,000. 

Per Defillama data, Project 0, a DeFi-native prime brokerage that lets users borrow against their entire DeFi portfolio across multiple venues, currently holds almost $90 million in total value locked (TVL), peaking above $110 million since tracking began in late 2025. The project also claims backing by Multicoin, Pantera and Solana Ventures. 

The $89 million locked in Project 0’s DeFi ecosystem was unaffected by the exploit. Source: Defillama

That level of activity and status, while attractive to users, is also a beacon for attackers looking for high-value targets. 

Cryptopolitan reported that OpenEden and BonkFun endured similar attacks when attackers compromised domains registered to the projects. 

In both cases, the attack did not affect project vaults or users’ positions, as the damage in these kinds of attacks is typically limited to website visitors during the exploit window, which is usually quickly mitigated by responsive teams. 

While the exact amount lost is still unconfirmed, MacBrennan has committed to extending refund relief to any other verified customer losses during the attack. 

Ethereum users become targets of address poisoning attacks

When Ethereum developers pushed through the Fusaka upgrade in December 2025, they touted the upgrade as the “final boss” in making mainnet transactions affordable. 

What they did not see coming was that it would become the final puzzle piece for attackers stalking high-value targets in the liquidity-rich Ethereum ecosystem, which holds almost $60 billion across DeFi protocols and over $160 billion in stablecoin market cap.  

The official Etherscan account on X called out the growing menace in its “Address Poisoning Attacks Are Rising on Ethereum” article. The report cited a 2025 study comparing poisoning attempts before and after the Fusaka upgrade to highlight the proliferation of these attacks since the December upgrade. 

Dust transfers, which are small deposits (below $0.01) meant to replace addresses in users’ transaction history with wallets controlled by the attackers, followed the trend as transaction activity on the Ethereum mainnet increased about 30% across the board in the 90 days following the Fusaka upgrade, with an accompanyong 78% increase in new address creations. 

Asset Pre-Fusaka Post-Fusaka Increase % USDT 4.2M 29.9M 612% USDC 2.6M 14.9M 473% DAI 142K 811K 470% ETH 104M 170M 62%

Table comparing the rate of address poisoning attacks before and after the Fusaka upgrade. 

It’s a numbers game

Cryptopoitan has reported several high-profile losses to the new bane of Ethereum users, with the $50 million loss from December creating the biggest headline. Apparently, the victim in the incident actually sent $50 in a test transaction to be sure they had the correct address. 

However, in the time it took to test the address and initiate the actual $50 million transfer, bad actors had punctuated the sender’s transaction history with their own dust transfers, which ultimately led to the loss. 

That incident highlights the scale and speed of these operations, as attackers actually compete to out-poison potential victims’ addresses. As Etherscan highlighted, “just two stablecoin transfers” by a user of its service triggered “more than 89 address watch alert emails.” 

Only about 1 in 10,000 attempts are successful, but when one compares the $79 million in confirmed losses across 17 million attempts targeting about 1.3 million users, the math adds up for these attackers, who incur less than $1 on each attempt. 

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Dubai’s Token2049, one of the major events in crypto this year, will be canceled due to security concerns. Recent strikes against Dubai have made the event risky, just days after organizers reassured the event would hold according to schedule. 

Dubai’s Token2049 has been delayed and pushed back to April 2027, citing security concerns. The organizers cited safety concerns for the crypto community, as the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries faced the risk of missile or drone strikes from Iran. 

The safety and experience of our community always comes first.

In collaboration with our partners and stakeholders, and in light of the ongoing uncertainty in the region and its impact on safety, international travel and logistics, TOKEN2049 Dubai will be postponed to 21–22… pic.twitter.com/Pw4k5nApQ3

— TOKEN2049 (@token2049) March 13, 2026

Just days ago, event organizers reassured crypto enthusiasts that the event would still take place. Token2049 is one of the largest crypto events, bringing around 25,000 attendees, over 500 exhibition booths, and over 300 speakers.

Last year’s event attracted 15,000 visitors and hosted Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao and Eric Trump among the speakers.

The location is also known for its lenient crypto regulations, becoming a hub for influencers to live year-round. 

Dubai status as crypto hub under siege 

Dubai emerged as one of the key conference venues despite previous disruptions by floods. Other locations may continue uninterrupted, with a Singapore venue in October. Previously, the event was pushed back in March 2020 due to the Covid pandemic disruption. 

“Dubai remains one of the most important hubs for the digital asset ecosystem. We remain confident in the city and its continued leadership as a global center for innovation and digital assets,” stated the organizers.

Just hours before the cancellation, the conference was sold out, and reassurances were sent that the event would still take place.

However, Dubai has also rolled out travel disruptions in the past week. Tickets will not be reimbursed, but will be valid for the 2027 edition, planned for April 21-22. Attendance tickets may also be transferred to the Singapore event on October 7-8. 

Other conferences were canceled due to Dubai security risks 

Crypto influencers have been relatively upbeat about Dubai, claiming the danger may be overstated. 

“Dubai is so dangerous.”

“Leave the UAE immediately.”

“Missile strikes overhead, help mom.”

Bunch of losers.

Still haven’t seen 1 reason ANY country is better, prove me wrong and I have $111 for u pic.twitter.com/Jv2JYF52ZG

— Crypto King (@Cryptoking) March 13, 2026

However, it does not take many attacks to disrupt flights. Other events have also been canceled, including the Megacampus Summit, an entrepreneurship and innovation event. The conference shifted its dates from March to September. 

Dubai authorities sent out alerts on Thursday, later reporting at least two missile strikes. This time, the strikes threatened the Dubai financial district and further threatened the location’s status as a safe haven. Dubai reported additional missile threats and another incident on Friday, just before Token2049 was canceled.

Initially, Token2049 expected the conflict to be subdued by the end of April, but moved the dates due to uncertainty. Just days ago, presenters at Token2049 declined to comment on their decision to attend, although the organizers stated the speaker and presentation floor were also full. 

The event was also charging some of the largest sponsorship fees for on-stage speakers, shedding light on the dynamics of crypto conferences. 

Despite the cancellation and geopolitical insecurity, crypto reacted with a price recovery. BTC regained the $72,000 level, and the market turned green over the past day.

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The first week of America’s war with Iran already cost taxpayers more than $11 billion, about half the total value of the government’s Bitcoin holdings, according to figures provided to Congress behind closed doors.

To put that in context, the US government has 328,372 Bitcoins, worth around $23.13 billion, as of March 13. This indicates that the combat has already used up around half of that total, or 48.9%.

At that rate, the entire Bitcoin reserve, roughly $1.88 billion every day, would be exhausted in just over 12 days.

The $11.3 billion amount does not fully cover the cost of the war, officials quickly pointed out. More information regarding the war has been demanded by lawmakers, and according to a number of congressional officials, the White House is expected to request additional funding from Congress shortly.

A $50 billion estimate has been put forward by some officials, but others claim even that might not be sufficient.

Built through seized assets and established by executive order, the government’s Bitcoin stockpile is intended to be kept indefinitely and not sold, even during times of conflict.

Democratic lawmakers have demanded that administration officials testify in public about the potential duration of the conflict and what will happen to Iran if hostilities end.

Joint US and Israeli airstrikes on February 28 marked the start of the conflict. Since then, the battle has spilled into Lebanon. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively blocked by Iran’s military retaliation. Oil prices skyrocketed as a result of the closure, with Brent crude momentarily reaching $119.50 per barrel.

According to Jake Ostroviskis, head of OTC trading at Wintermute, “the oil move matters more for cryptocurrency than the geopolitics itself.”

“If Brent stays above $80 for more than a few sessions, the re-inflation narrative hardens.”

Crypto holds steady as stock markets struggle

Despite the chaos in global markets, cryptocurrencies have held up better than stocks and bonds this month. Bitcoin has climbed nearly 8% since the first US strikes on Iran in late February, even as equity markets struggle under the weight of high oil prices. The digital currency appears to be finding a floor near $72,000.

Analysts point to one key reason for crypto’s relative strength: people in the Middle East are worried about losing access to their banks.

Bitcoin holds steady near approximately $72,000 on March 13, 2026. Source: Trading View

Stephen Coltman, head of macro at 21Shares, explained that residents of cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, who are suddenly facing the possibility of a regional war, are looking for a safe place to put their money quickly.

Stock exchanges in both cities briefly shut down at the start of the conflict, while Bitcoin kept trading around the clock.

“If you’re somebody in Dubai or Abu Dhabi and suddenly worried about losing access to the banking system and needing to leave quickly, bitcoin may appear to be an attractive place to put your assets,” Coltman said.

War spending could push Bitcoin higher, analysts say

In the long run, some analysts believe that the war expenditures themselves might raise Bitcoin.

According to Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and chief investment officer at Maelstrom, excessive military spending would compel the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and inject money into the financial system in order to fund the war effort.

When interest rates drop, investors tend to take on riskier bets, and Bitcoin has historically benefited from such circumstances. According to Hayes, this tendency has often happened in past US military conflicts.

Analysts at the London Crypto Club, David Brickell and Chris Mills, say Bitcoin wins either way the war goes. A long, drawn-out conflict would push scared investors into Bitcoin as a safe haven. A quick end to the fighting, they argue, would trigger a wave of buying as confidence returns.

James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, added that if trust in global financial systems continues to erode, assets like Bitcoin that are scarce and not controlled by any government stand to gain over the medium term.

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The United States has allowed other nations to buy Russian oil already loaded on tankers at sea, amid an ongoing war with Iran that is cutting supplies and driving up fuel prices.

While Washington insists the temporary measure will not benefit Russia, Moscow says the release of millions of barrels proves the global market cannot go without Russian crude.

U.S. lifts restrictions on Russian oil in transit

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued a general license allowing other countries to purchase Russian crude oil and petroleum products.

The document published Thursday is “authorizing the delivery and sale of crude oil and petroleum products of Russian Federation origin loaded on vessels as of March 12, 2026.”

It specifies that all relevant operations, such as safe docking and offloading, are now permitted “through 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time, April 11, 2026.”

The OFAC is clear that its license does not authorize any other prohibited transactions or activities, including those involving Iran, its government, or goods and services originating from the Islamic Republic.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the move as a “decisive step” of President Donald Trump’s administration “to promote stability in global energy markets” and “to keep prices low.”

Posting on X, he emphasized this is a “narrowly tailored, short-term measure” that will not significantly benefit the Russian government in financial terms.

.@POTUS is taking decisive steps to promote stability in global energy markets and working to keep prices low as we address the threat and instability posed by the terrorist Iranian regime.

To increase the global reach of existing supply, @USTreasury is providing a temporary…

— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (@SecScottBessent) March 12, 2026

America releases over 100 million barrels of Russian oil

Officials in Moscow are quite happy with Washington’s decision. Commenting on Telegram, Vladimir Putin’s Special Presidential Envoy on Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, stated:

“The U.S. is effectively acknowledging the obvious: without Russian oil, the global energy market cannot remain stable.”

Reposting Bessent’s announcement, the Kremlin representative highlighted that after allowing India to buy crude from Russia, the U.S. is now lifting all restrictions on approximately 100 million barrels of Russian oil that’s currently in transit.

Last week, the OFAC granted India a 30-day waiver after oil briefly surpassed $100 per barrel amid an escalating conflict in the Middle East. At the time, President Trump promised additional measures to curb price growth.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright insisted the U.S. was not giving Russia a sanctions relief, noting that “all of that oil is oil on the water that’s waiting in line to unload into China.”

“This is just expediting the flow of that oil into a refinery, it’s going to an Indian refinery instead of a Chinese refinery,” he told CNN, referring to the India authorization as a pragmatic solution “to get through these few weeks of tight energy supply.”

According to the Washington Post, the latest license will allow Russia to start selling around 128 million barrels of Russian oil that have already been loaded onto tankers, previously targeted in U.S. sanctions.

“Amid the growing energy crisis, further easing of restrictions on Russian energy sources appears increasingly inevitable, despite resistance from some in the Brussels bureaucracy,” Dmitriev added on Friday.

In a post on X, he also said:

“Russian energy is indispensable to easing the world’s largest energy crisis.”

Fuel prices across the EU have been surging after the U.S. and Israel started their strikes on Iran, giving Russia a chance to play the energy card again. Europe is phasing out oil and gas imports from Russia as part of sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine.

According to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a return to Russian fossil fuels would be a “strategic blunder” for the Union. She recently warned this would make Europe “more dependent, vulnerable, and weaker.”

Following an assessment of the situation, “EU countries confirmed that they do not observe any security of supply risks at the moment. Oil stocks remain at a high level, gas storage filling levels in the EU remain stable,” according to a statement by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy.

Meanwhile, others are already considering buying Russian oil, now that the U.S. has opened a window. According to a press report, Thailand, which used to import 50% of its oil through the now closed Strait of Hormuz, is preparing to enter into talks for the purchase of Russian crude.

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Polymarket is expanding its activity in the USA, posting a new record number of tickers traded on the platform.  

Polymarket USA has 447 active tickers, an all-time record after a period of expansion. The platform remains key for placing predictions on current events and niche markets, achieving high traffic even without the sports component. 

Polymarket US reached a record number of tickers traded after expanding conservatively in the past few months. | Source: Dune Analytics

The US branch of Polymarket still has relatively low open interest of $1.15M, with a peak of $2.5M in January, based on Dune Analytics data. However, users are testing the water with small-scale trades, creating an ecosystem of local issues. 

The growth of Polymarket USA is not tracking the exponential trend in global prediction markets. However, it shows a platform trying to take off the ground, while staying within the lines of US regulations. 

To date, the platform has processed 5.25M transactions, and around 55K daily transactions. The popularity of predictions may depend on current issues or the exposure of Polymarket. As Cryptopolitan reported, Polymarket recently partnered with Palantir to track the prediction market more accurately. 

Users continue to use privacy tunnels to access the global market even though it is banned for traders based in the USA. Still, the US-based platform is expanding through early testing and by invitations, but has already produced some insights into its limited activity.

Polymarket grows on high activity, low bets

Polymarket has turned into a mass-adoption platform, with a near-record number of wallets and daily activity. New traders not previously engaging in 2024 boosted Polymarket activity, especially driven by political predictions. 

Currently, the most common transaction range is between $10-$50, making up over 28% of trading. The inflow of USDC also improves the liquidity of the market. 

Polymarket is still showing signs of whale trading and is closely watched for potential insider wallets. 

Kalshi avoids the betting platform label

Kalshi, the main competitor of Polymarket, is currently also posting record activity. The prediction market has an advantage with a more established presence in the US market. 

Kalshi is also locked in a series of lawsuits to avoid the status of a betting platform. Despite this, individual states have defined Kalshi as a sports betting platform rather than a trading venue. 

Both Polymarket and Kalshi are not only fighting for their position on the US market, but also against competitors like DraftKings. The already established betting platforms have already completed their compliance, while the shift from trading to betting may hamper Polymarket and Kalshi. 

Prediction markets are already tapping crypto traders seeking new sources of liquidity. For mainstream adoption, however, the platforms may face more regulatory headwinds.  

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SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce spoke to the US SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee on Thursday and called for clearer, simpler disclosure standards and warned regulators against micromanaging crypto markets. She cautioned that overly explicit regulations can inadvertently disrupt capital flows in financial markets.

Drawing on the work of Adam Smith, a Scottish economist and philosopher, Peirce said regulators should be careful not to overly interfere in market outcomes.

Smith’s view, she said, was that allowing people to fulfill their ambitions in accordance with morality and socially acceptable norms makes for better personal and social well-being.

Pierce says they are still working on an innovation exemption

The SEC, Peirce says, mandates that companies invest significant time and effort in producing disclosures that sometimes add more complexity than clarity for investors. Thus, she recommended the commission reexamine and simplify the existing disclosure rules.

In her speech, she also hailed the committee’s move to address concerns about proxy voting for funds. She called the matter overdue, saying that funds often cannot gather a quorum under the Investment Company Act of 1940, which typically requires more than half the fund’s voting securities to approve certain changes. 

Retail investors, who constitute a large portion of shareholders, are far less likely to vote than institutions, Peirce noted. She said she hoped to hear about possible reforms from investors and stressed that proxy voting authority belongs to the fund, not individual investors, and must be exercised in the fund’s best interest if delegated to advisers.

She also called attention to the ongoing debate over tokenized securities and the potential for blockchain technology to play a larger role in financial infrastructure. The commission’s staff is still mulling the “innovation exemption,” which could allow small-scale trials involving tokenized securities.

Moreover, she questioned whether additional regulatory requirements are warranted for tokenized securities, noting that blockchain can be used to settle payments much faster and, in certain cases, operate without traditional intermediaries.

The SEC has taken a cautious approach in handling tokenized securities

Earlier, SEC Chair Paul Atkins had asserted that the innovation exemption would effectively create a temporary regulatory pathway that allows crypto firms to introduce new products without being fully bound by existing securities rules while regulators refine a more suitable framework. 

More recently, he added that the exemption would “facilitate limited trading of certain tokenized securities on novel platforms with an eye toward developing a long-term regulatory framework.”

He further pushed that individuals should have the option to interact with decentralized applications themselves or rely on intermediaries for custody and trading services.

Lately, more crypto companies have been venturing into tokenized equities alongside traditional financial institutions like Nasdaq and Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. With regulatory approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, these platforms will offer blockchain-enabled trading of traditional equities, placing them in direct rivalry with brokerage firms.

Kraken is still one of the companies waiting for the agency’s green light. Nonetheless, even without access to US markets, the company reported in February that its tokenized xStocks have surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume since their launch.

Chair Atkin may be moving quickly on crypto regulations overall, but when it comes to on-chain securities trading and issuance in the US, the approach has been more cautious.

Peirce had even previously offered a tempered view on the innovation exemption, speaking to those who both support and question the initiative.

“Both groups are likely to realize that the innovation exemption is not as monumental as either faction anticipated,” she said. “It would be an important step toward facilitating the integration of tokenized securities into our existing financial system, but it would not change the entire financial system overnight.”

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Palantir Technologies and Nvidia have initiated a strategic partnership to advance comprehensive AI data center provisioning for customers, from hardware procurement to application deployment. Palantir’s stock is up 1.25%, while Nvidia’s stock is down 1.54% today.

Palantir Technologies, a software development company, has teamed up with global GPU manufacturer Nvidia to advance AI data center development. The collaboration aims to roll out what the companies term “a sovereign AI operating system reference architecture,” encompassing everything from hardware procurement to software application deployment for customers.

Palantir and Nvidia advance data centers with software and hardware deployments

Palantir and Nvidia released a joint statement on Thursday, saying the framework will combine elements from both parties to ensure innovation is effective and efficient. The innovation will leverage Nvidia’s AI Infrastructure, which runs on NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra systems for AI training and inference, as well as Nvidia’s full-stack software acceleration. The architecture will also utilize Palantir’s compute infrastructure, including the platform’s automated Kubernetes hosting, Palantir Foundry services such as Build and Multipass. 

The duo also mentioned in the statement that the new infrastructure will include a unified management plane with zero-trust Kubernetes (Rubix) and autonomous deployment and lifecycle management (Apollo). The architecture will also host an AIP enterprise AI platform that interlinks large language models to organizational data and operational systems.

According to the press release, the AI OS reference architecture aims to benefit clients with high geographic distribution, GPU infrastructure, data sovereignty requirements, and latency-sensitive workflows. The novelty will allow users to have total control over their data, applications, and AI models. 

Source: Google Finance. NVIDIA and Palantir’s stock performance over the last month.

NVIDIA’s performance has been relatively stagnant in recent months. The stock is down 1.54% today and trades at $183.44 at the time of this publication, according to Google Finance. NVIDIA is up 2% in the last week and 0.18% in the last month. On the other hand, Palantir’s stock has performed notably well amid uncertainty in the global financial sector. The stock is up 1.25% today and currently trades at $153.50. Palantir is up 2% over the last five days and has surged 16.81% over the last month. 

Palantir stock surges amid tight relations with the U.S. government

Last week, Cryptopolitan reported that Palantir stock rose 15% after the U.S. launched its first strikes on Iran. The main reason for the sudden increase in investor appetite for the stock was closely tied to Palantir’s close ties with the U.S. government. The report noted that the company earns nearly 60% of its revenue from the government and has been expanding its reach in the military and intelligence departments.

The report also noted that Anthropic asked Palantir whether its AI had been used during the raid in Venezuela that captured Nicolas Maduro. Palantir strengthened its relations with the Pentagon even as other AI companies leaned more towards ethical use of AI in weapon manufacturing.

As AI continues to advance, concerns have emerged about its use cases in war and military operations. Towards the end of January, the Pentagon and Anthropic clashed over how AI tools and applications should be used in military expeditions. The AI company disagreed with the government’s alleged intent to develop AI-driven weapons and to use the technology to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens. The disagreement occurred amid a $200 million contract between the two entities. 

In a statement issued by Anthropic on March 5, the AI company claimed it received a notice from the U.S. Department of War confirming that it had been classified as a supply chain risk to America’s National Security. Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, said it is still willing to provide the necessary tools for major combat operations to the Department of War and the national security community at a reasonable cost. “Our only concerns have been our exceptions on fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance,” he said.

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Zhang Xinghua was sentenced by a Singapore court to two years in prison for trying to hide millions of stolen crypto tokens through Tornado Cash. The sentence came as global regulators published new warnings about offshore platforms that criminals use to break in undetected.

The 38-year-old pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal $6.9 million from the SafeX crypto exchange. 

Zhang was the third member of the crew that raided the SafeX vault between June and August 2025, following an issue between their employer, King Coder, and SafeX’s parent company. 

SafeX attackers moved funds through Tornado Cash 

Zhang attempted to launder funds through Tornado Cash, a platform built to hide transaction trails. However, Singapore authorities said they recovered $2.1 million in crypto tokens tied to the case. The arrest was made after SafeX’s low-balance alarm was triggered in August 2025, prompting internal checks and a police report. 

Currently, about $4.8 million remains outside Singapore’s reach because it was sent to crypto platforms outside Singapore’s legal jurisdiction. 

After further investigation, it was found that Zhang also made use of his wife’s account to pay back $95,000 worth of Bitcoin after tracking some of the money there. 

The unrecovered $4.8 million is an example of the blind spot the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) condemned in a recent report. 

While the mixer worked to hide the trail, it couldn’t prevent detection, arrest, and prosecution. What it accomplished was to create enough obstacles for nearly all the funds to stay hidden. 

What did the FATF say about offshore platforms?

In its recent report, FATF warns that offshore crypto platforms are serving as a route for money laundering across borders.

The report titled “Understanding and Mitigating the Risks of Offshore Virtual Asset Service Providers” found criminals taking advantage of places with weak or nonexistent crypto rules to move stolen funds and also fund terrorist activities. 

FATF President, Elisa de Anda Madrazo, stated plainly that “this report exposes how VASPs create blind spots that criminals are clearly exploiting.” 

The document goes ahead to show how offshore providers sometimes pose as regular customers to access services rendered by licensed exchanges, making it harder for authorities to track their transactions. 

By constantly switching blockchains and hopping between wallets, they are able to stay one step ahead of the investigation.

According to the FATF, the solution is simple: regulate crypto companies based on what they do, and not where they are based. 

Countries should require offshore service providers to obtain licenses to operate regardless of where the company’s headquarters is. 

Additionally, the FATF called for stronger penalties to be imposed on non-compliant platforms, urging better coordination between financial intelligence units across several countries. 

Does enforcement actually work?

Zhang’s arrest and prosecution show that law enforcement can be effective when they have the proper tools, even though the accused used mixers to avoid detection. 

Authorities were also able to track and recover 30% of the stolen money, and are only stopped from the remaining 70% because of regulatory gaps that FATF is trying desperately to close. 

Ultimately, this proves that regulators are working hard to ensure that they stay ahead of criminals. The HMRC’s £4.1 million tender is proof of countries working hard on clamping down on crypto crimes.

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