The post Quadruple Witching 2026: Bitcoin’s Most Dangerous Trading Day of the Quarter Has Arrived appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

One of the most turbulent days in the financial calendar has arrived. Quadruple witching, a quarterly event where trillions of dollars in derivatives expire simultaneously, is happening today, and crypto markets are already feeling the pressure.

What Is Quadruple Witching?

Four times a year, on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, four major types of derivatives expire on the same day: stock index futures, stock index options, single stock options, and single stock futures. Traders must close, roll over, or settle all positions at once, causing a sharp surge in trading activity and often violent price swings across financial markets.

This One Breaks Every Record

Today’s expiration is not just big. According to Goldman Sachs, it is the largest ever recorded.

More than $7.1 trillion in notional options exposure is set to expire today, including roughly $5 trillion tied to the S&P 500 index alone and $880 billion linked to single stocks. December options expirations are typically the biggest of the year, but Goldman says this one eclipses all prior records.

To put the scale into context, the options expiring today represent notional exposure equal to approximately 10.2% of the total market capitalisation of the Russell 3000. That is not a quarterly routine. That is a historic event.

What History Says About Bitcoin on Witching Days

Crypto does not operate in isolation from traditional finance anymore. Bitcoin increasingly moves alongside broader risk assets, meaning sharp equity swings have a habit of spilling directly into digital markets.

Historical data from 2025 paints a consistent picture. Bitcoin tended to show muted or flat performance on quadruple witching days themselves, followed by weakness in the days and weeks after. In September last year, a sharp post-witching decline took Bitcoin from $177,000 all the way down to $108,000. In June, it drifted to a local bottom just two days after the event.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is holding around $69,800, with Ethereum at $2,134, XRP at $1.43, and Solana at $88.93. The broader market Fear and Greed Index sits at just 30, firmly in fear territory.

A Second Crypto Expiry Is Coming Next Week

Even after today passes, the market is not in the clear. A separate $13.5 billion in crypto derivatives are set to expire on Deribit on March 27, just one week away. Positioning data shows traders are leaning toward volatility strategies rather than strong directional bets, signalling the market is bracing for continued turbulence rather than a clean recovery.

The post Top Analyst Reveals What’s Next For Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Prices appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Gareth Soloway, Chief Market Strategist at VerifiedInvesting.com, is doubling down on his bullish crypto calls,  and so far, the charts are proving him right.

About a month ago, when Bitcoin had just flushed to $60,000 and retail sentiment was bearish, Soloway turned bullish. Most people thought he was wrong. 

“When I see eight out of ten comments calling me a clown, I put more money into the trade,” he explained. For Soloway, extreme retail fear is not a warning, it is an invitation.

Bitcoin: The $74,000 Line That Changes Everything

Bitcoin is now trading above $74,000, marking eight consecutive days of gains. Soloway says the level to keep an eye on is a daily close above $74,000. If that holds, the next targets are $80,000 to $85,000.

The resistance at this level is not random. Soloway traced it back to a long-term trend line connecting multiple major price pivots, a classic technical setup where old support becomes new resistance. A clean break above it, he says, opens the door to the next significant leg higher.

Ethereum: A 45% Move Could Be on the Table

Ethereum has broken out of what Soloway describes as a textbook inside bar pattern, a structure where price compresses after a strong reversal before launching higher. ETH is now trading above $3,300 and confirming the breakout.

His price targets: $2,600 to $2,800 — which from the recent consolidation low would represent a 45% move. 

Solana and XRP Join the Party

Soloway is also long Solana, currently up around 15% on the trade, with targets of $115 to $118 after clearing the $100 resistance zone.

For the XRP community, Soloway revealed he picked up XRP over the weekend after spotting the same breakout pattern forming across the chart. He is already up 10% on the position and says the setup looks nearly identical to the other trades that have worked.

Despite the short-term bullishness, Soloway is clear-eyed about the macro backdrop. The larger trend, he says, still points downward. 

The post XRP Price Direction Irrelevant as Delta-Neutral Strategies Offer 8-15% Yields, Says Former Ripple Employee appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

A former Ripple employee, William Sculley, an early Ripple insider, laid out a detailed case for why the next wave of institutional money entering crypto will not be chasing price. It will be chasing yield, and XRP sits right in the middle of that story.

“Price Doesn’t Matter”

The headline claim sounds controversial, but the logic behind it is straightforward. Sculley’s thread breaks down what are known as delta-neutral strategies, a class of trades used by the world’s biggest hedge funds, including Citadel, Millennium, and Point72, to generate steady returns regardless of which direction markets move.

Whether XRP rises 50% or falls 50%, these strategies are structured to remain balanced and still deliver. The target return? A consistent 8% to 15% annually, with none of the whipsaw risk that defines most crypto investing.

As Sculley put it plainly: “You’re not betting on price — you’re capturing spreads, fees, or premiums.”

The $2 Trillion Problem Nobody Talks About

The bigger picture Sculley paints is striking. Crypto’s total market capitalization sits at roughly $2 trillion, yet less than 5% of that capital is actively deployed in yield-generating strategies through DeFi. The overwhelming majority sits idle or earns basic returns through centralised platforms.

For context, institutional asset managers like BlackRock and PIMCO keep less than 5% of portfolios in cash. They deploy the rest. Crypto, by comparison, is almost entirely unproductive by institutional standards.

That gap, Sculley argues, is not a weakness — it is an opportunity.

Why XRP Is Central to This Shift

Sculley’s framework, which he calls Financial Grade DeFi, is about bringing institutional-calibre yield strategies fully on-chain, accessible to anyone holding crypto, with no minimums and no middlemen.

For XRP holders specifically, this reframes the entire investment case. Rather than waiting for a price catalyst, holders could soon access basis trades, covered calls, and structured products built directly around XRP, the same tools previously reserved for the ultra-wealthy.

If institutions can generate reliable, direction-independent returns using XRP as collateral, the argument for large-scale capital deployment into the asset strengthens significantly, bull market or not.

Sculley’s conclusion is measured but pointed. Institutional strategies are already moving on-chain. The infrastructure is being built now. The only open question is who benefits first — and whether everyday crypto holders position themselves before the next wave of capital arrives.

The post Why is Bitcoin Price Dropping Today: $72,500 Rejection and Support Levels to Watch appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Bitcoin is under pressure on the shorter timeframe, trading below a critical resistance zone after failing to hold recent gains. The bulls have not shown up yet and the structure points toward at least one more low before any meaningful recovery can be confirmed.

Where Bitcoin Stands Right Now

Bitcoin got rejected at the resistance zone between $70,700 and $72,500 after attempting a move higher. That zone is the single most important level on the chart right now. Without a clean and sustained break above it, the market remains in a downward consolidation pattern with bears firmly in control.

The current move lower is a three-stage structure rather than a clean downtrend, meaning a reversal is possible but needs confirmation first. That confirmation only comes from a decisive break above $70,700 to $72,500, ideally sustained across multiple candles rather than a brief spike that quickly reverses.

Until that happens the path of least resistance remains lower.

Support Levels to Watch

If Bitcoin continues lower from here the levels that matter are:

• $69,450 is the first meaningful support zone and the immediate area where buyers could attempt to step in
• $67,760 becomes relevant if $69,450 fails to hold and selling pressure accelerates
• $66,765 represents deeper support and the area where the broader structure would face a more serious test

None of these levels guarantee a bounce. They are areas where buyers have previously shown interest and where the market could attempt to stabilise.

The Two Scenarios Playing Out

If bears stay in control: Bitcoin drifts lower through $69,450 toward $67,760 without any meaningful buying response at current levels. The consolidation extends further and the recovery timeline gets pushed out.

If bulls return: Bitcoin builds a base around current levels and produces a strong move above $70,700. A sustained hold above $72,500 would be the clearest signal that the balance of power has shifted back toward buyers and a more meaningful recovery is underway.

The post BTQ Technologies Deploys First Working Quantum-Resistant Bitcoin Implementation as Core Development Stalls appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

Quantum computers cannot break Bitcoin yet. The emphasis is on yet. A Canadian technology company just became the first to deploy a working implementation of the solution Bitcoin developers have been debating for months, and it did so while the broader Bitcoin ecosystem has made virtually no progress toward the same goal.

BTQ Technologies activated Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 360 on its Bitcoin Quantum testnet this week, moving what had been a theoretical proposal into functioning, testable infrastructure available to developers, miners, and researchers right now.

Why Bitcoin Has a Quantum Problem

The issue sits inside Taproot, the upgrade Bitcoin activated in 2021 that underpins Lightning Network, BitVM, and other next-generation applications. Taproot’s design includes a mechanism that can expose public keys on-chain. When quantum computers become powerful enough to run Shor’s algorithm at scale, those exposed public keys become vulnerable to attack.

BIP 360 addresses this by introducing a new output type called Pay-to-Merkle-Root, which preserves all of Taproot’s scripting capabilities while removing the specific mechanism that creates the quantum vulnerability. It is a targeted fix rather than a rebuild.

What BTQ Actually Built

The company has implemented BIP 360 on a live testnet with more than 50 miners, over 100,000 blocks mined, and full end-to-end wallet tooling that allows users to create, fund, sign, and spend quantum-resistant transactions today.

It also includes five post-quantum signature algorithms operating inside the script tree, complete address creation, transaction construction, and confirmation capabilities.

The Timeline Problem

Bitcoin’s governance culture is deliberately conservative. SegWit took 8.5 years from concept to adoption. Taproot took 7.5 years. BIP 360 has entered the official proposal repository but Bitcoin Core has made no implementation progress.

Meanwhile US federal agencies face an April 2026 deadline to submit post-quantum transition plans. The European Union has set a 2030 quantum-resistance target for critical infrastructure. Canada’s new procurement requirements take effect next month.

BTQ’s CEO Olivier Roussy Newton framed the urgency simply: “The industry can’t afford to treat quantum resistance as a theoretical exercise.”

The quantum threat to Bitcoin is not immediate. But the time required to implement a fix, measured historically in years, suggests that waiting until the threat becomes urgent may already be waiting too long.

The post Ripple’s 2026 Digital Asset Survey: 72% of Finance Leaders Say Ignoring Digital Assets Means Falling Behind appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

A survey of more than 1,000 global finance executives has found that digital assets are no longer a speculative interest for the financial industry but an operational imperative, with nearly three quarters of respondents saying institutions that fail to offer digital asset solutions risk losing their competitive position entirely.

The survey, conducted by Ripple at the start of 2026, covered banks, asset managers, fintechs, and corporate finance departments across multiple geographies. The results paint a picture of an industry that has moved past the question of whether to adopt digital assets and is now focused on how to do so safely and at scale.

Stablecoins Lead the Demand

Among all digital asset applications, stablecoins generated the strongest consensus. Seventy-four percent of respondents said stablecoins can improve cash-flow efficiency and unlock working capital that would otherwise sit trapped in slow-moving settlement systems.

The significance of that figure lies in its context. Treasury management is one of the most conservative functions in any financial institution. Stablecoins gaining traction there signals a shift from speculative interest to practical utility, a distinction that matters considerably to regulators and institutional risk committees.

Fintechs Are Setting the Pace

Across every adoption metric in the survey, fintechs outpace both traditional financial institutions and corporates. Thirty-one percent of fintech respondents are already using stablecoins to collect payments on behalf of customers. Twenty-nine percent accept stablecoin payments directly. Nearly half are building proprietary digital asset solutions in-house.

Corporates, by contrast, are taking a more cautious approach. Seventy-four percent plan to work with external partners rather than build internally, and 71% prefer a single provider capable of handling their full digital asset infrastructure stack.

Custody Is the Critical Requirement

For institutions evaluating tokenisation of financial assets, custody ranked as the single most important partner capability, cited by 89% of respondents. Banks placed additional weight on token lifecycle management at 82% and pre-issuance structuring advisory at 85%, suggesting many institutions want experienced guidance throughout implementation rather than technology deployment alone.

Security certifications including ISO and SOC II compliance were considered important or very important by 97% of respondents across all segments, the highest-ranked consideration in the entire survey.

The post Algorand Cuts 25% of Staff the Day After SEC Confirms ALGO Is Not a Security appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

The Algorand Foundation has laid off 25% of its workforce, citing a difficult global macro environment and the broader crypto market downturn. The cuts came just one day after one of the most positive regulatory developments in the project’s history, creating a sharp contrast that the community has not missed.

The Layoffs

The Foundation confirmed the decision on X, describing it as incredibly tough but necessary to align resources with long-term priorities. The statement stressed that the affected employees had been best-in-class contributors and that the Foundation is committed to supporting them through the transition.

The organisation said it believes the restructured team now represents a more sustainable foundation for executing on Algorand’s technology, business, and ecosystem goals going forward.

“We believe that we now have a more sustainable alignment of Algorand Foundation resources with the protocol’s long-term business, technology, and ecosystem priorities. 

“These employees have been best-in-class contributors to this ecosystem and to the Foundation, and this was an incredibly tough decision. We are sincerely grateful to them, and we are, of course, committed to supporting them through this transition,” they said.

The SEC Development That Came First

One day before the layoffs, the SEC and CFTC issued their landmark joint guidance classifying a range of crypto assets as digital commodities rather than securities. ALGO was included in that classification.

Some community members initially questioned whether ALGO’s appearance in a footnote rather than the main body of the guidance diminished its significance. The Algorand Foundation pushed back on that reading directly.

The footnote placement was not a downgrade. The SEC used futures-linked tokens as examples in the main text but made explicitly clear that futures linkage is not the test for commodity status. ALGO was cited specifically to demonstrate that a token can qualify as a digital commodity without any connection to futures markets at all.

What This Means

ALGO is down on the day alongside the broader market but carries a cleaner regulatory status than it did 48 hours ago. The layoffs reflect genuine financial pressure from a difficult market environment. The SEC guidance reflects genuine progress on the regulatory front.

The post Federal Reserve Holds Rates as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP Crash: What the FOMC Decision Means for Crypto appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 3.5% to 3.75% on Tuesday, delivering exactly what markets expected but offering little of the comfort traders were hoping for. Bitcoin fell 4% to $71,417. Ethereum dropped 6.48%. XRP lost 3.66%. The total crypto market shed $2.44 trillion in value as a cascade of macro, geopolitical, and exchange-specific pressures converged in a single session.

What the Fed Actually Said

The FOMC statement acknowledged that economic activity continues to expand at a solid pace, that job gains have remained low, and that inflation remains somewhat elevated. The committee noted that uncertainty about the economic outlook is elevated and flagged the Middle East conflict as an additional variable with unclear implications for the US economy.

Ten of the eleven voting members supported holding rates unchanged. The lone dissent came from Stephen Miran, who preferred a quarter-point cut at this meeting. That single dissent is worth noting: even within the committee, there is now a visible division about whether rates should come down sooner rather than later.

The committee’s language was careful and non-committal. It would assess incoming data and adjust if risks emerge. It remains strongly committed to returning inflation to 2%. What it did not offer was any clear signal that rate cuts are coming soon, which is what markets had been hoping to hear.

Why Crypto Was Already Falling Before the Decision

The Fed statement arrived into a market that was already under pressure from multiple directions.

Earlier in the session, the US February Producer Price Index came in at 0.7% against an expected 0.3%, recording its largest monthly gain in a year. The hotter-than-expected reading pushed back expectations for rate cuts and reinforced the higher-for-longer interest rate narrative that weighs on risk assets.

Simultaneously, reports of Israeli strikes on South Pars, Iran’s largest natural gas facility supplying 70% of the country’s domestic gas, sent oil prices back above $97 per barrel and injected fresh geopolitical uncertainty into every major market. Gold fell 2%. Silver dropped 2.5%. Crypto followed.

Over $158 million in leveraged long positions were liquidated in just four hours, with the forced selling amplifying what began as a moderate correction into something considerably sharper.

Bitcoin is holding near $71,000, a level analysts have identified as critical for near-term sentiment. Whether that floor holds depends on what Jerome Powell says next.

The post Is XRP a Good Investment 2026: The Ripple Paradox Chart Explained and Fact-Checked appeared first on Coinpedia Fintech News

A detailed diagram circulating on X has reignited one of the most important debates in crypto: whether owning XRP actually benefits retail investors or simply funds Ripple Labs and its shareholders.

The chart lays out what it calls the Ripple/XRP Paradox and the argument is structured enough to be worth addressing seriously.

The Core Argument Against XRP

The diagram’s central claim is straightforward: when retail investors buy XRP, the proceeds flow to Ripple Labs, which uses that money primarily to benefit its private equity shareholders rather than token holders.

According to the chart, Ripple directs XRP sale proceeds toward stock buybacks for equity shareholders, acquisitions of companies that do not rely on XRP, litigation and operational costs, and funding innovation on other blockchains including Ethereum and Solana.

RLUSD is currently only issued on two Layer-1 networks, namely Ethereum and the XRP Ledger.

Addresses:
On XRPL:
rMxCKbEDwqr76QuheSUMdEGf4B9xJ8m5De
On Ethereum:
0x8292bb45bf1ee4d140127049757c2e0ff06317ed

Total amounts [17/03/2026]:
On XRPL: ~305,445,975 RLUSD
On… pic.twitter.com/NriaWzlVde

— Krippenreiter (@krippenreiter) March 17, 2026

It also challenges the bridge currency narrative directly, arguing that any Layer 1 gas token, and in fact any token, can technically serve as a bridge asset. XRP is not uniquely positioned in that role, it suggests.

On the XRPL’s market position, the chart claims the ledger holds less than 1% of the real world asset market, under 0.01% of stablecoin supply by usage, and is not in the top 40 blockchains by actual activity. It also notes that RLUSD, Ripple’s own stablecoin, is primarily issued on Ethereum and other chains rather than the XRP Ledger itself.

The conclusion is pointed: XRP is described as a bank-themed meme coin that finances corporate acquisitions and shareholder value rather than delivering utility to the people holding it.

Where the Numbers Are Being Challenged

Not everyone accepts the data behind those claims. Analyst Krippenreiter directly disputed two of the chart’s specific figures.

On the RLUSD claim that over 90% is issued on Ethereum and other chains, Krippenreiter said that assertion has already been proven incorrect. On the stablecoin market share figure of under 0.01%, a quick check of DefiLlama tells a different story. 

Total stablecoin market cap across all chains sits at approximately $317 billion. The XRPL’s stablecoin market cap is around $367 million, placing the real figure closer to 0.115%, more than ten times the number cited in the diagram.

The distinction matters. A chart making a provocative argument about XRP’s irrelevance carries less weight if the supporting data points are demonstrably off.

What Is Actually True

The structural argument that Ripple has used XRP sales to fund corporate operations and acquisitions that primarily benefit equity shareholders rather than token holders is not new and has been acknowledged in various forms by Ripple executives themselves. That tension is real and the debate around it is legitimate.

Whether that makes XRP worthless as an investment depends on a separate question: whether Ripple’s institutional infrastructure, growing payment volumes, and regulatory clarity create sufficient demand for the token regardless of how the proceeds are deployed internally.