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The European Central Bank (ECB) is recruiting experts to help draft rules for integrating the digital euro with ATMs and card payment terminals. According to CoinDesk, the specialists will be tasked with defining how ATMs and point-of-sale terminals process digital euro payments. This work will include device connectivity, offline transaction support, and adapting existing payment standards to support the new currency. The goal is to enable users to pay with the digital euro at checkouts and withdraw it from cash machines across the eurozone.

The Bitcoin price is now more influenced by the derivatives market and institutional investor positioning than by spot demand, according to a new analysis. CoinDesk reported that global crypto commentator "Dumpling Bullish" explained that for most of Bitcoin's history, its price was determined by simple logic: limited supply and increasing demand. However, the commentator noted that this spot-driven market has evolved into a derivatives-heavy ecosystem. The influence of products like futures, perpetuals, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), structured products, and prime brokerage loans is growing. Consequently, the three most important variables for Bitcoin's price today are: - Investor risk appetite based on macroeconomic conditions - Derivatives market indicators such as open interest and funding rates - ETF fund inflows and outflows

Global investment platform Republic announced on its official blog that it has secured a strategic investment from Hamilton Lane, a Nasdaq-listed asset manager specializing in private markets. The specific amount of the investment was not disclosed. Through the investment, the two companies plan to strengthen their partnership and support ongoing innovation in tokenization, asset distribution, and access to private markets for individual investors. Republic will also use the funds to enhance its tokenization and on-chain infrastructure capabilities.

Bitcoin put options with a $20,000 strike price have attracted the third-largest amount of capital in the options market, CoinDesk reported. Citing data from the world's largest crypto options exchange, Deribit, the report noted that these put options hold a notional value of $596 million ahead of the first-quarter expiration. While call options with strike prices of $125,000 and $75,000 have the highest notional values, the extreme $20,000 strike price is drawing significant funds among put options. This suggests an increasing number of traders are preparing for an extreme downside scenario amid escalating conflicts in the Middle East, which would require the market to fall over 70% for the options to be profitable. However, the report also suggests that a significant portion of this capital is likely part of a strategy to collect premiums or capitalize on volatility, rather than a direct hedge against a crash. This activity is often a strategic move by options investors rather than a purely bearish outlook. The put/call ratio for expiring Bitcoin options on Deribit is currently 0.63, indicating a prevalence of call options.

Major League Baseball (MLB) has entered into agreements with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Polymarket regarding prediction markets. According to CoinDesk, MLB signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the CFTC to share information aimed at enhancing consumer protection. Simultaneously, it secured an exclusive prediction market partnership with Polymarket. This marks the first-ever agreement between a U.S. derivatives regulator and a professional sports organization. CFTC Commissioner Michael Selig said the MOU will help the agency protect markets and users from fraud, manipulation, and other abuses, describing it as a measure to promote the integrity and stability of professional baseball prediction markets.

Crypto asset manager Grayscale has identified Zcash (ZEC) as a noteworthy cryptocurrency, according to a post on its official X account. Grayscale noted that while Bitcoin still leads the crypto market with a share of about 90%, Zcash is a coin to watch for its potential to gradually erode this dominance. The firm explained that unlike Bitcoin, whose transaction history is completely public and transparent, Zcash allows users to conceal transaction-related information. This privacy feature is seeing increasing use, attracting new capital into the ecosystem, Grayscale added. Currently, ZEC's market capitalization is only about $4 billion, representing a market share of approximately 0.3%. However, if its market share were to expand to 5%, the value of ZEC could increase 18-fold, the asset manager projected.

Layer 1 blockchain Sui announced on March 19 that it plans to launch Hashi, a primitive for Bitcoin-backed lending built on its network. According to an official blog post, Hashi is a decentralized primitive designed to enhance the capital efficiency of Bitcoin through a trustless smart contract structure on Sui. The platform aims to improve Bitcoin's access to decentralized finance (DeFi), allowing users to leverage native BTC as collateral for on-chain financial services such as stablecoin loans, structured products, and automated collateral management. Furthermore, it offers a more secure and flexible cross-chain transfer function that moves beyond traditional wrapping methods. Hashi is scheduled to launch its devnet soon. Even before its official launch, major industry institutions including BitGo, Bullish, FalconX, and Ledger have reportedly expressed their intention to participate.

DeFi protocol Ether.fi (ETHFI) has announced a $25 million strategic investment in Nest, the tokenized real-world asset (RWA) yield protocol from Plume, to provide users with access to RWA-based yield opportunities. The integration will proceed in two stages. First, Ether.fi will focus on reallocating assets to the nBASIS vault, which is based on the USCC fund from RWA asset manager Superstate. Later, Nest's curated, custom RWA vaults will be integrated into the Ether.fi interface, offering eligible users easier exposure to institutional-grade investment returns from real-world assets. Plume co-founder Teddy Pornprinya said that while neobanks like Ether.fi attract significant retail funds, users are looking beyond simple DeFi for sustainable and diversified yield sources like RWAs. He added that trends such as increasing regulatory clarity in the U.S. and the proliferation of stablecoins will lead to greater demand for RWA vault infrastructure like Nest.

DDC Enterprise, an e-commerce company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, announced it has purchased an additional 200 BTC. This brings its total holdings to 2,383 BTC.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened lower today. - S&P 500: -0.89% - Nasdaq: -1.23% - Dow Jones: -0.91%

Binance has announced it will list The Definitive (EDGE) Pre-Market perpetual futures at 2:00 p.m. UTC on March 19. The new listing will support up to 5x leverage.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has held its benchmark deposit rate steady, a move in line with market expectations.

Tokeny, the asset tokenization firm under global asset manager Apex Group, has launched a compliance-focused blockchain named 'T-REX Ledger' in collaboration with Polygon Labs. Apex Group holds over $3 trillion in assets under management. The new blockchain is designed to allow regulated, tokenized assets to move across multiple networks without repeating investor verification and transfer restriction procedures. According to the announcement, this solves a limitation of the Ethereum-based ERC-3643 standard for permissioned tokens supporting real-world assets (RWAs). While the standard enables the issuance of compliant tokens, it cannot maintain a shared compliance status across different chains.

Nasdaq-listed browser developer Opera has proposed changing its existing cash grant agreement with Celo to an allocation of 160 million CELO tokens. Previously, the Celo Foundation paid Opera quarterly dollar-based grants in exchange for expanding the Celo ecosystem through Opera's native MiniPay wallet. The new proposal would replace these cash payments with the token allocation. If approved, the move would make Opera a major stakeholder in Celo, with the allocation representing approximately 27% of the circulating supply and 16% of the maximum supply. The tokens would be distributed over three years, and Opera's governance influence would be limited to 10% based on its staked holdings.

Evernorth Holdings, an investment firm focused on Ripple (XRP), has disclosed a valuation loss of $233.7 million for 2025 due to a decline in the asset's price. The company reported holding 473.1 million XRP as of Dec. 31, 2025. A significant portion of these holdings was acquired through open market purchases and contributions to the Ripple ecosystem.

Forward Industries, which is strategically accumulating Solana (SOL), announced it currently holds 7.013 million SOL. The company also plans to conduct a share buyback of approximately $27.4 million. To facilitate the transaction, Forward has entered into a $40 million crypto-collateralized loan agreement with Galaxy Digital, using fwdSOL as collateral.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded a net outflow of $55.69 million (83.7 billion won) on March 18, according to data compiled by Trader T. The development marks a shift from net inflows to net outflows after seven consecutive trading days. - BlackRock's ETHA: -$1.26 million - Fidelity's FETH: -$37.11 million - Bitwise's ETHW: -$4.7 million - VanEck's ETHV: -$4.8 million - BlackRock's Staking ETHB: +$1.07 million - Grayscale's ETHE: -$8.89 million

Strive, a publicly traded company, announced that it holds a total of 13,628 BTC as of March 17. The company also disclosed holdings of $50.4 million in Strategy perpetual preferred stock (STRC).

U.S. Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a net outflow of approximately $163.56 million on March 18, according to data compiled by Trader T. This marks a shift to net outflows, ending an eight-day streak of net inflows. - BlackRock's IBIT: -$33.94 million - Fidelity's FBTC: -$103.84 million - Bitwise's BITB: -$6.96 million - Grayscale's GBTC: -$18.82 million

U.S. online brokerage platform Robinhood has added support for spot trading of IMX and QNT.

NFT and blockchain game developer Animoca Brands has invested in Avalanche (AVAX) and formed a strategic partnership with Ava Labs, The Block reported. The two companies will work to expand the Avalanche ecosystem through capital investment, product integration, and advisory support. They will particularly support projects in real-world asset tokenization (RWA), entertainment, and digital identity, with a focus on expansion in Asia and the Middle East. The specific size of the investment was not disclosed.

MicroStrategy (MSTR) is on the verge of surpassing BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, in total BTC holdings, according to Bitcointreasuries. As of March 19, MicroStrategy holds 761,068 BTC ($56.2 billion), while BlackRock's IBIT holds 782,170 BTC. The gap between the two has narrowed to approximately 21,102 BTC after MicroStrategy purchased an additional 40,331 BTC over the past two weeks.

Investors are shifting capital from risky assets like Bitcoin to safe-haven stablecoins after the U.S. Federal Reserve held interest rates steady while warning of uncertainty from surging oil prices and inflation amid the conflict in the Middle East, according to an analysis by CoinDesk. The report notes that a key feature of the current market downturn is a corresponding drop in Bitcoin's dominance, which fell from 59.4% to 58.7%. Unlike past downturns, where capital from altcoins typically flowed into Bitcoin, this time funds from across the entire crypto market—including BTC—have reportedly moved into dollar-pegged tokens such as USDT and USDC.

Venus Protocol (XVS) has incurred $2.15 million in bad debt following a hack worth approximately $3.7 million last weekend, CoinDesk reported. The incident was a supply cap attack that exploited the THE token. In response, Venus has suspended lending for THE and adjusted its collateral value to zero. The protocol is now considering using its risk fund to cover the losses.

Alex Thorn, head of research at on-chain analytics firm Galaxy Digital, has analyzed the threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin, concluding that while the risk is real, market concerns are excessive. He acknowledged the theoretical risk that a sufficiently advanced quantum computer could derive private keys from exposed public keys to steal funds. However, Thorn noted that developers are already preparing countermeasures, including the introduction of post-quantum addresses and phased upgrades. He argued that the entities capable of triggering a "Q-Day"—the point at which current encryption could be broken—are currently limited to a very small number of specialized research groups. Thorn assessed the quantum risk as a long-term technological challenge that is solvable through Bitcoin's open development model, rather than an immediate existential crisis that should deter investment.