The post Why Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Prices Are Not Crashing Today? appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Cryptocurrencies defied a sweeping global market selloff on Monday as a catastrophic oil supply shock and escalating U.S.-Iran tensions sent equities tumbling, with Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP each posting modest gains even as Wall Street futures pointed to one of the worst openings in recent memory.

Crypto Holds as Equities Crater

Bitcoin traded at $66,124.97, up 1.65% over 24 hours. Ethereum added 1.08% to change hands at $1,944.62, while XRP outperformed both, climbing 1.47% over seven days to $1.34. The crypto market capitalization stood at $2.28 trillion, a striking contrast to equity futures showing the Nasdaq off 1.56%, the S&P 500 down 1.65%, the Dow shedding 2%, and the Russell 2000 hemorrhaging 3.8%.

The Oil Shock Behind the Chaos

Crude oil surged 21% at the open, with West Texas Intermediate hitting $110.99 per barrel for the first time since June 2022, now up 65% since the outbreak of the U.S.-Iran war. The trigger was the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply normally flows. 

With pipeline bypass capacity capped at 6.8 million barrels per day against a trapped flow of 19.8 million, analysts estimate a structural daily deficit of 12.7 million barrels. In nine days, an estimated 200 million barrels have failed to reach global markets. Iraq, Iran and Kuwait have collectively halted millions of barrels in daily production. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura refinery is offline. Qatar has suspended approximately 20% of global LNG supply.

A Leadership Vacuum in Tehran

Compounding the instability, Iran’s Assembly of Experts formally declared Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader on Monday, triggering street protests in Tehran and a sharp response from Washington, where President Trump had previously called a dynastic succession “unacceptable.”

Why Digital Assets Are Diverging

Against that backdrop, crypto’s divergence from equities has drawn attention. Bitcoin’s institutional positioning as a store of value is attracting defensive flows that traditionally move into gold. With oil driving inflation expectations higher, assets outside the traditional financial system are drawing fresh interest. 

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index at 17 signals extreme fear, a reading historically associated with accumulation rather than further selling. Crucially, digital assets carry no exposure to the physical infrastructure at the center of this crisis.

There are no refineries to go offline, no tankers to reroute. In a shock defined entirely by the vulnerability of physical supply chains, that detachment is proving, for now, to be an advantage.

The post Pi Network News: Why Pi Coin Fell 10% Today and What Pi Day on March 14 Means for the Price appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Pi coin dropped roughly 10% in the last 24 hours, sliding to around $0.20 after briefly touching $0.23 earlier this week. For anyone holding Pi or watching the market, here is a breakdown of why it fell and what to watch next.

The main reason: the rally ran out of steam

Pi had a strong week, climbing more than 20% before hitting a wall just above $0.21. When a coin rises that fast that quickly, short-term traders tend to sell and lock in their profits. That is exactly what happened here. The price failed to hold above an important level that traders were watching closely, and the selling accelerated from there. In simple terms, too many people tried to cash out at the same time.

The bigger picture: the whole market is nervous

Pi did not fall alone. Bitcoin slipped, the broader crypto market dipped, and the Fear and Greed Index, a measure of market sentiment, is sitting deep in Extreme Fear territory. Investors are jittery about ongoing geopolitical tensions and are waiting on a major US inflation report due March 12. 

What happens next

The price to watch is $0.20. That is the psychological support level the market is currently testing. Two scenarios are in play right now.

If Pi holds above $0.20, the coin could stabilise and trade sideways in the lead-up to Pi Day on March 14, which historically brings network announcements that can move the price.

If Pi breaks below $0.20, the next meaningful support sits around $0.15, which would represent a significant further decline from current levels.

The bottom line

This drop is a combination of profit-taking after a sharp rally and a broader market that has turned risk-averse. It is not unusual price behaviour, but the next few days are critical. Pi Day on March 14 is the nearest potential catalyst for a recovery. Until then, holding $0.20 is the number every Pi holder should be watching.

The post Eight Applications, 90% Odds and an Empty Exchange: The XRP Supply Shock Nobody Is Prepared For appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Most XRP holders are watching ETF headlines without understanding why current approvals have done almost nothing for the price. According to digital finance strategist Jake Claver, that confusion is costing investors clarity at exactly the wrong moment.

The ETFs trading today are futures-based. They never actually touch XRP. They roll contracts, collect fees, and leave the underlying supply completely undisturbed. With roughly $240 million sitting across existing futures products, the price impact has been effectively zero. That changes entirely when spot ETFs arrive.

When institutions have to actually buy

Spot ETFs operate differently. Authorized participants are legally required to purchase and hold real XRP, locked in custody with firms like Coinbase or Anchorage, backing every share issued at a mandated ratio. Every dollar of inflow means XRP physically removed from circulating supply.

Claver points out that exchange inventory is already at historically low levels. Coinbase alone has seen available XRP drop nearly 90% over recent months, down to roughly 100 million tokens. Against that backdrop, even conservative inflow estimates of $2 to $4 billion in the first year represent a serious supply problem. More aggressive projections, cited by sources including JP Morgan, suggest $5 to $8 billion could enter the market within the first 30 days alone.

“It’s like a balloon being held underwater,” Claver said. “When you let it go, it’s going to skyrocket.”

Why XRP could move faster than Bitcoin ever did

Bitcoin’s ETF approval in January 2024 took nearly a full year to translate into its full price impact, eventually reaching $100,000 in December. Claver argues XRP’s compressed timeline, thinner liquidity, and smaller exchange inventory means the same mechanics could play out in a fraction of the time.

With eight spot ETF applications currently pending SEC review, approval windows converging around late 2025, and prediction markets placing approval odds above 90%, the structural conditions are forming rapidly.

The bigger picture

Layer in RLUSD adoption, central bank digital currency pilots already running on the XRPL across multiple nations, a near-concluded SEC legal battle with Ripple, and potential major institutional partnership announcements, and Claver sees not one catalyst but several hitting simultaneously.

For long-term XRP holders, that convergence is precisely the moment they have been positioned for.

The post How Ripple Plans to Turn XRP Into the Collateral Layer of Institutional DeFi appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Ripple is quietly repositioning XRP from a cross-border payments token into the backbone of institutional decentralized finance, according to senior company executives. The shift marks one of the most important strategic pivots in the asset’s history and could fundamentally reshape how Wall Street interacts with crypto-native infrastructure.

Speaking at a recent industry event, Ripple’s Ross Edwards outlined an expanding vision for XRP that stretches well beyond its original use case of moving value across borders. While centralized exchange liquidity has historically driven XRP utility, Edwards said the company is now aggressively pushing that activity onto the XRP Ledger itself.

A lending protocol changes the calculus

The centerpiece of that push is a native lending protocol currently being launched on the XRPL. The protocol positions XRP as a source of collateral and borrowing power, opening the door to yield-generating activity that has long been the domain of Ethereum-based DeFi platforms.

“We see XRP as a huge source of capital to be lending and borrowing and using as collateral positions on chains,” Edwards said, describing a dual utility play where XRP benefits both directly and indirectly from growing on-chain activity.

Stablecoins are the missing piece

Perhaps the sharpest insight from Edwards concerns the role of stablecoins in making institutional DeFi actually work. Without them, he argued, the entire structure collapses. A bank holding tokenized real-world assets on chain has no practical way to realize cash value without a dollar-denominated stable counterpart. KYC, AML, and legacy rails make the traditional route redundant.

Ripple’s answer is RLUSD, its own stablecoin, which Edwards described as central to a new generation of tokenized asset markets, including 24/7 swap markets, on-chain distributions, and institutional lending.

The conversation has shifted, Edwards said. Two years ago, Ripple was convincing institutions to tokenize assets at all. Now it is negotiating the mechanics of how those assets generate yield, settle instantly, and operate around the clock.

For XRP holders, that is a materially different story than payments alone.

The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: One Level Stands Between Bulls and a $10,000 Drop appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Bitcoin remains trapped in a weeks-long sideways grind, with no clean break above a key resistance level that has capped rallies since April of last year. The April low from last year continues to act as a ceiling. A test of that level triggered the current pullback, and the weakness has yet to resolve.

The weekly close looms

The question heading into the weekly close is simple: can buyers hold the line, or does this drift lower? Price is currently probing the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement near $67,000, a level technicians have flagged as a potential floor for a short-term bounce. 

The broader setup through February had pointed to a possible rally first to overhead resistance, and then higher as part of a larger corrective wave structure. That thesis is still alive, but it’s under pressure.

Two paths, one decision point

If $67,000 fails to attract buyers, the next meaningful support sits in the $55,000 to $56,000 range, where a cluster of structural and Fibonacci levels converge. 

That scenario stays off the table as long as the range floor, roughly $61,400 to $62,600, holds intact. In the more constructive case, the current dip is a fourth-wave pullback within a five-wave advance, with one more high still to come. In the bearish case, the market is tracing out a fuller corrective structure that eventually tests the mid-$50,000s.

Cracks beginning to show

Weekend price action complicates the reading. The market has slipped below the lower boundary of its short-term channel, not a confirmed break, but a warning sign. The structure of the current pullback lacks the clean, three-wave characteristics that would signal a straightforward correction. Bulls still hold enough ground to make a case. But the margin for error is shrinking.