The post “Sanctuary Technology”: Vitalik Buterin Reveals What the Ethereum Foundation Will and Won’t Do appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

The Ethereum Foundation released its official mandate today – a document originally written for internal EF members that sets out what the Foundation is for, what it will focus on, and what falls outside its scope.

The core of the document is a single, unusually direct idea: Ethereum exists to be an escape hatch.

“Sanctuary Technology”

Vitalik Buterin posted the mandate himself, calling it a clarification of where EF has been heading for months.

The document describes Ethereum’s role as being “a sanctuary technology, to preserve technological self-sovereignty, to enable cooperation without coercion, domination or rugpulling” – and to ensure that “no single person, organization or ideology’s victory in cyberspace can be total.”

That framing moved fast on X, with Ethereum described as a “sanctuary technology” becoming what most people were reacting to.

The CROPS Filter

The mandate introduces a priority stack the EF calls CROPS – censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security – applied at both the protocol layer and the application layer. Projects that depend on centralized infrastructure, opaque code, or compliance baked into the chain should not expect EF backing under this framework.

1/ The Mandate clearly states what must be protected: EF will, above all else, remain focused on an Ethereum that is censorship resistant, open source, private, and secure (CROPS), in the service of user self-sovereignty, resistant to extraction and with seamless UX.

These are…

— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) March 13, 2026

The document also reaffirms the “walkaway test”: Ethereum must continue functioning even if the Foundation disappears entirely. Anything that fails that test doesn’t meet EF’s standard.

One Steward, Not the Only One

One of the more significant lines in the document was: “The Ethereum Foundation is a specific organization within Ethereum – one steward, not the sole one.”

That is a deliberate narrowing of scope. EF is not claiming ownership of Ethereum’s direction. It is claiming responsibility for a specific set of properties and stepping back from everything else.

What This Means for ETH Price

Ethereum is trading at $2,127 today, up 2.55% on the day as broader crypto markets climb. The mandate does not mention price once.

The EF is explicitly not optimizing for adoption metrics or market performance – it is building infrastructure designed to hold up regardless of where ETH trades. Whether that reads as principled or frustrating depends entirely on why you hold the asset.

The post Will the Fed Cut Rates in March and What Does It Mean for Bitcoin? appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

The US economy grew just 0.7% in Q4 2025. That number, revised down from 1.4% by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, is already trending on X and CNN is calling it “far weaker than previously reported.” With the FOMC meeting four days away on March 17-18, crypto traders have one question: does this change anything for Bitcoin?

The short answer is not yet. But the longer answer is more interesting.

The Economy Is Slowing. The Fed Can’t React.

The GDP collapse from Q3’s 4.4% pace to 0.7% in Q4 was driven by weaker exports, consumer services, government spending, and investment. A government shutdown in October and November alone knocked roughly one percentage point off growth.

Annual 2025 GDP came in at a revised 2.1%.

Yet inflation isn’t cooperating. February CPI landed at 2.4%, exactly in line with expectations. This morning, the BEA confirmed core PCE held at 3.1% in January, still well above the Fed’s 2% target. The Fed has no clean path to cut rates with prices still sticky, even as growth slows sharply.

That combination – slowing growth, stubborn inflation – is exactly what’s driving the interest in the term “stagflation 2026” this week.

What Markets Are Pricing In

With few days until the FOMC meeting, FedWatch data shows a 99.2% probability the Fed holds rates unchanged at 350-375 bps. That part seems settled.

What isn’t settled is what comes next. The GDP revision is shifting the timeline for when rate cuts might actually arrive, and traders everywhere are recalculating.

Also Read: When Will Bitcoin Bottom Out? On-Chain Data Has a Surprising Answer

Why Bitcoin Traders Are Watching Closely

Historically, Fed rate cuts are bullish for Bitcoin. Lower rates push investors toward risk assets, weaken the dollar, and increase appetite for alternatives to traditional finance. The longer the Fed holds while growth weakens, the stronger the eventual case for cuts becomes.

Bitcoin is currently trading at $73,537, up 4.42% on the day, holding its ground even as equity markets are dipping. That resilience, against a backdrop of weak growth and the US-Israel-Iran war, is what crypto traders are paying attention to right now.

The March 17-18 meeting is unlikely to deliver a cut. But with Q4 GDP at 0.7% and the economy slowing faster than expected, the question is not exactly whether the Fed cuts in 2026 – it is when.

And when that cut comes, Bitcoin will be watching.

You Might Find This Interesting: Decoupling Finally? Why Crypto Is Up 2.57% While Stocks Are Down Today

The post When Will Bitcoin Bottom Out? On-Chain Data Has a Surprising Answer appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Most traders are still waiting for Bitcoin to drop further. But the on-chain data is telling a very different story from what most people read during the crash.

According to CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost, Bitcoin’s long-term holders did not sell as aggressively as the charts suggested. In the 2025 cycle, LTHs spent 15.1M BTC in total, just below the 15.3M BTC spent during the 2021 bull run. Prior cycles saw 7.3M and 13.6M BTC spent respectively.

This comes as Bitcoin trades at $72,419, up 2.95% on the day, even as Brent crude hit $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022 and equity markets sold off on escalating Middle East tensions – a macro backdrop that would historically have dragged crypto lower with it.

The Charts Were Misleading

Part of the confusion came from Coinbase. The exchange moved approximately 800,000 BTC internally, and most of it was miscategorised as LTH supply in on-chain data. Darkfost notes that once those internal transfers are stripped out, actual long-term holder selling was likely even lower than the headline number suggests.

In other words, the panic may have been based on distorted data.

Also Read: Decoupling Finally? Why Crypto Is Up 2.57% While Stocks Are Down Today

Bitcoin’s Ownership Structure Is Changing

There’s a deeper shift happening that most retail traders aren’t factoring in. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, launched in January 2024, now hold around 1.3M BTC – roughly 6.7% of total supply. Digital asset treasury companies, including Strategy, collectively hold another 1.1M BTC, nearly 5% of supply.

These are not holders who sell on red days.

Darkfost points out that these new institutional participants are fundamentally changing what it means to be a long-term holder, and over time their growing presence could structurally reduce selling pressure across cycles.

Do You Wait for the Bottom or Do You Buy Now?

Crypto analyst Jelle has a clear view on this. During the last bull run, he began scaling out early and accelerated selling between $100K and $120K without ever calling the top.

He applies the same logic on the way down.

“I don’t care to be a hero, or to look cool by calling the bottom – I’m just here to make money,” he said, adding that his approach is to slowly build long-term exposure after a certain threshold, then ramp up buying once the bottom confirms.

The data and the strategy are pointing in the same direction.

If the data holds, the bigger risk may not be buying too early – it may be waiting for a bottom that the charts already confirmed.

The post Decoupling Finally? Why Crypto Is Up 2.57% While Stocks Are Down Today appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

While equity markets took a beating and Brent crude surged above $100 per barrel for the first time since 2022, crypto is doing the opposite. Escalating Middle East tensions and a blockage in the Strait of Hormuz sent traditional risk assets into freefall, yet the total crypto market cap climbed 2.57% to $2.46 trillion on March 13.

Bitcoin is sitting at $72,479, up 2.91% in 24 hours. Ethereum at $2,127, up 2.72%. On a day when almost nothing else was green, this is interesting.

The Correlation Data Is the Real Story

Crypto’s correlation with the S&P 500 currently sits at -14%, and against Gold it’s -34%. That is evidence that this rally wasn’t carried by broad market optimism.

Intergovernmental Blockchain advisor Anndy Lian noted that “digital assets are beginning to trade on their own fundamental narratives,” arguing this kind of independence signals a maturation that the asset class has long needed to evolve beyond its speculative ties to traditional finance.

Also Read: Did the Clarity Act Pass? Not Yet, But Banks Are Already Buying These 8 Altcoins

BlackRock Just Repackaged Ethereum

The most significant catalyst was BlackRock’s iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB), which debuted on Nasdaq on March 12 with $15.5 million in first-day volume.

Unlike previous crypto ETFs, ETHB gives investors both price exposure and staking rewards – repositioning Ethereum as a yield-bearing asset rather than a speculative play. Staking also locks up supply, which mechanically reduces sell-side pressure over time.

Altcoins Are Moving Too

Render is up 13.37% to $1.81, Layer 1 tokens advanced 1.58%, and Bitcoin dominance held steady at 58.78%, suggesting fresh capital is flowing into the broader market rather than concentrating in Bitcoin alone.

Analyst Michaël van de Poppe remains bullish, saying he expects Bitcoin to “test the highs and continue to rally towards $75,000 during this month.”

On the regulatory front, the US Senate passed a bill on March 12 blocking the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail CBDC – a clear signal of Washington’s direction on digital assets. Separately, unconfirmed reports of a zero percent crypto tax are circulating on social media, and markets appear to be pricing that in too.

The total crypto market cap is currently at $2.43T, up 2.35% on the day. With RSI sitting at a neutral 56 on the daily chart, there’s no immediate technical ceiling – the question now is whether sustained ETF inflows and policy clarity can keep the momentum going against a backdrop of rising oil and macro uncertainty.

FAQs

The post Tether Funds Ark Labs: $184B Stablecoin Giant Bets on Bitcoin’s Next Evolution appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Bitcoin has always been the most liquid digital asset on the planet. What it never had was the infrastructure to actually do something with that liquidity.

Ark Labs is building to fix that. And today, Tether backed them to do it.

Tether Leads $5.2M Seed Round for Bitcoin’s Missing Layer

Ark Labs closed a $5.2M seed round today, led by Tether, to push Arkade, a programmable execution layer built natively on Bitcoin, into its next phase. Ego Death Capital, Anchorage Digital, Epoch VC, and Ralph Ho, former VP of Finance at PayPal, also joined the round. Total institutional backing now stands at $7.7M.

The number matters less than the name on the check.

Tether, the issuer sitting behind $184 billion in USDT circulation, chose Bitcoin as its infrastructure bet.

Stablecoins Were Born on Bitcoin. Tether Wants Them Back There.

USDT didn’t originate on Ethereum. It started on Bitcoin and Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino hasn’t forgotten that.

“Stablecoins were born on Bitcoin, and expanding access on the Bitcoin network remains a priority for us,” Ardoino said. “Improving access to USD₮ on the most secure and widely recognized blockchain supports greater financial inclusion, more efficient cross-border payments, and stronger global liquidity.”

Arkade enables this by settling transactions directly on Bitcoin’s base layer – no wrapped tokens, no third-party custody, no separate chain asking for your trust.

Payments, Lending, Escrow: All on Bitcoin Rails

Ark Labs CEO Marco Argentieri has been direct about the problem his company solves.

“Bitcoin is the most liquid digital asset in the world, but it has lacked the programmable infrastructure that financial applications require,” he said. “Arkade changes that.”

The platform handles payments, lending, escrow and conditional transactions on Bitcoin. It also targets autonomous commerce – AI agents that need enforceable spending rules to operate.

The Bigger Race This Fits Into

Stablecoin legislation is moving through Washington. Ethereum and Solana have owned the programmable finance conversation for years. Tether just placed a bet that Bitcoin can enter it.

Whether Arkade delivers is a question for later. But the world’s largest stablecoin issuer publicly backing Bitcoin’s programmability layer isn’t a minor development. It’s a statement about where serious money thinks this industry is heading.

Also Read: Has Gold Price Topped? Whale Wallets Cash Out $40M in Tether Gold and PAXG

The post “Biggest Threat to Crypto”: FTX Founder Calls Out Gensler’s Secret War on the CFTC appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Sam Bankman-Fried is serving 25 years in a California federal prison, his retrial request was pushed back on, and yet the FTX founder remains one of the louder voices shaping crypto’s regulatory conversation – this time taking direct aim at Gary Gensler.

In a post on X, Bankman-Fried didn’t just credit the Trump administration for changing the SEC’s direction. He made a pointed allegation about what was happening behind closed doors under the previous chair.

Gensler’s Alleged Power Grab

“He and @SenWarren ran a covert campaign in DC to strip the CFTC of all of its power – bringing everything under his SEC,” Bankman-Fried wrote, adding that Gensler then “used that power to require licenses he was unwilling to grant.”

SBF called it the biggest threat to crypto during the Biden era and said his team spent significant time in Washington fighting it.

Whether you trust the messenger is a separate question, but the SEC-CFTC turf war over crypto jurisdiction was real and well-documented. Gensler consistently argued the SEC held broad authority over digital assets, a position the CFTC openly pushed back against throughout his tenure.

Why He’s Crediting Trump

The post opens bluntly: “How @realDonaldTrump fixed the SEC: fire Gensler, hire Atkins.”

Under Donald Trump-nominated Paul Atkins, the regulatory posture has shifted noticeably. Where Gensler leaned on enforcement as his primary tool, Atkins has committed publicly to building an actual licensing framework for crypto rather than prosecuting around the absence of one.

Still Waiting on the Judge

A day before this post went up, federal prosecutors filed their formal opposition to SBF’s retrial request, describing his arguments as “incoherent” and “fanciful.” Judge Lewis Kaplan has yet to rule. His Second Circuit appeal also remains pending, Caroline Ellison has already been released, and the White House has ruled out a pardon.

Read More: Sam Bankman-Fried Asked for a New Trial. Prosecutors Used His Own Donations to Say No.

The man giving Trump credit for fixing crypto regulation is still a long way from any exit.

The post Sam Bankman-Fried Asked for a New Trial. Prosecutors Used His Own Donations to Say No. appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Sam Bankman-Fried wanted a second chance in court. Prosecutors just made clear that it isn’t happening.

Federal prosecutors filed a court response on Wednesday opposing the FTX founder’s request for a retrial, arguing he has not shown his 2023 conviction was unfair.

The “New Witnesses” Argument Didn’t Hold Up

SBF’s February filing, submitted by his mother because he is representing himself from prison, cited two former FTX executives, Daniel Chapsky and Ryan Salame, as witnesses whose testimony could have changed the outcome of his trial.

Prosecutors rejected that. Both men were “fully known to the defense before trial,” they wrote, and could have been called at the time.

“The defense’s decision not to put the witnesses on his witness list or compel their testimony forecloses any claim that their post-trial views are newly discovered.”

The Biden Claim That Backfired

SBF also argued his prosecution was an example of Biden-era DOJ weaponization. Prosecutors called the argument “incoherent” and “fanciful,” pointing out that he was one of the largest Democratic donors in 2020 and 2022, and that his campaign finance crimes were tied directly to those contributions.

Also Read: “The Biggest Question for Crypto”: Sam Bankman-Fried Triggers AI Payments Debate

Where Things Stand Now

Bankman-Fried is currently serving his 25-year sentence at a federal correctional institution in California. His separate appeal at the Second Circuit is still pending, though judges were skeptical when arguments were heard last November.

Caroline Ellison, SBF’s former girlfriend and key prosecution witness, has already been released after 440 days in custody. A Trump pardon was also ruled out by the White House.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has yet to rule on the new trial motion.

The case is US v. Bankman-Fried, 22-cr-00673, US District Court, Southern District of New York.