Shares in Solana treasury company Upexi fell 8.16% on Tuesday after reporting a widened net loss of $109 million in its fiscal third quarter, driven by a fall in the value of its crypto holdings. 

The company reported $92.3 million in unrealized losses on digital assets, according to a filing on Tuesday. This was despite total revenue rising 46% to $4.6 million compared with the same period last year, driven by crypto staking revenue.

Upexi CEO Allan Marshall said during the earnings call that Upexi faced a challenging environment, along with the rest of the industry, but it has focused on initiatives to improve the company’s fundamentals through share buybacks and a convertible note offering to raise additional capital.

“Our fiscal third quarter was characterized by a challenging environment, most notably a continued decline in both the price of Solana and industry multiples. Both had a direct impact on our stock and were the result of a general bear market in crypto,” he said.

Source: Upexi

“While we, like any treasury company, are heavily impacted by token prices and valuation multiples, we are not simply waiting around for the environment to improve but rather are taking a proactive approach with several efforts afoot,” Marshall added.

Solana holdings increased by 9% during the quarter 

Upexi had 2.5 million Solana tokens, worth more than $238 million, in its holdings as of March 31, its results show, making it the second-largest corporate Solana treasury after Forward Industries, which holds more than 7 million tokens, according to CoinGecko.

Related: Strategy CEO Phong Le says company will sell BTC only in specific cases

Previously, its business centered on consumer products and e-commerce before publicly announcing a pivot to becoming a Solana treasury company in late April 2025.

Marshall said that, in the long term, the company expects Solana to be viewed independently of Bitcoin as investor knowledge increases and to be judged on its own underlying fundamentals.

“While we believe the biggest determinant of the price of Solana will be the price of Bitcoin over the near term, we see this changing over the next few years,” he said.

“This is primarily because Bitcoin and Solana are two completely different constructs, with the former a store of value or digital gold, and the latter a new type of computer, and one that is upgrading our antiquated financial infrastructure.”

Forward Industries, the largest Solana treasury company, has scheduled its next earnings call for Thursday. In its previous results, released in February, its revenue increased from $4.6 million to $21.4 million. The company said the increase was largely driven by staking revenue.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

The developer of a new Solana-based memecoin cashed out about $729,000 after Keith Gill’s Roaring Kitty X account posted the token’s ticker and contract address, triggering a short-lived trading frenzy before the post was deleted.

Following the now-deleted X post from Gill’s account, Red Kitten Crew (RKC) briefly surged to an $11 million market capitalization before falling about 67% to $3.6 million at the time of writing, according to Dexscreener.

The token’s developer sold about $611,000 worth of RKC and collected another $118,000 in creator fees through Pump.fun, bringing the total exit to roughly $729,000, according to blockchain analytics company Lookonchain. Lookonchain said the developer initially used 10 wallets to buy 395.18 million RKC, representing 39.52% of the token’s supply, raising concerns that the launch was dominated by creator-linked wallets before retail traders entered.

The X post marked Gill’s first activity in over 15 months and raised community concerns over a compromised account. The token’s genesis distribution suggests a coordinated sniping effort where the creator-linked wallets have front-run the community to extract value. 

The episode highlights the risks around celebrity-linked memecoin launches, where a single social media post, or a suspected account compromise, can send thinly traded tokens sharply higher before concentrated early holders sell into later buyers.

Cointelegraph reached out to Gill to find out whether he still controls his X account.

RNC token deployer’s sales. Source: Lookonchain

Gill was a retail trader and former financial analyst who was widely credited for sparking the 2021 GameStop short squeeze through viral social posts, encouraging retail traders to buy significant amounts of GameStop (GME) stock, forcing short sellers such as Citron Research to wind down their positions at a loss.

Now-deleted X post on RNK token. Source: The Roaring Kitty

Memecoin trader loses nearly $190K in 1 hour

Underscoring the perils of trading newly-launched memecoins with a highly concentrated supply, a cryptocurrency trader lost nearly $190,000 within an hour on the RKC memecoin.

Trader loses nearly $190k on RKC memecoin. Lookonchain

The unfortunate trader spent $250,000 to buy 31.15 million RKC tokens, just before Gill’s X post was deleted, leading to the trader taking a $188,600 loss, after selling his coins for just $62,200, according to Lookonchain.

Related: Kaiko flags possible front-running before Robinhood token listings 

Sniping and similar coordinated activity have been a long-standing value-extraction issue for memecoins.

On Wednesday, blockchain visualization platform Bubblemaps warned that 90 newly funded wallets bought 90% of Mystery (MYSTERY) memecoin supply at launch, describing the token’s concentration as a “textbook scam.” 

The Mystery token has since crashed by over 98%, erasing most of its peak $7.5 million market capitalization, Dexscreener data shows.

Mystery/USD, all-time chart. Source: Dexscreener

In February 2025, a cryptocurrency sniper made nearly $28 million on the Broccoli (BROCCOLI) memecoin, shortly after Binance co-founder and former CEO, Zhangpeng Zhao, revealed that his Belgian Malinois was named “Broccoli,” sparking a wave of community-driven memecoin listings on launchpad Pump.fun. 

Magazine: Bitcoiners eye ‘sell in May,’ SBF’s bid for new trial shut down: Hodler’s Digest, April 26 – May 2 

The Osmosis crypto price has surged on extreme trading volume and liquidity inflows.
Cosmos governance rejection kept Osmosis independent and stable.
Price now hinges on holding $0.065 and breaking $1 resistance.

The price of the Osmosis (OSMO) crypto has jumped sharply by nearly 200% in 24 hours, moving from a low near $0.03383 to around $1.

This sudden rally has placed the token among the strongest performers in the crypto market today, with trading activity and ecosystem developments both playing a major role in the move.

Notably, the price surge came alongside an extreme spike in trading activity, a shift in altcoin market flows, and a key governance outcome within the Cosmos ecosystem that removed uncertainty around Osmosis’s future structure.

Forces behind the Osmosis crypto price surge

One of the biggest drivers behind the sudden Osmosis crypto price surge is the dramatic rise in trading activity on the Osmosis decentralised exchange.

On-chain data shows a surge in 24-hour trading volume of more than 7,000%, reaching roughly $173.892 million, according to Coingecko data, at press time.

This level of activity is unusually high compared to the token’s typical liquidity profile and signals a sudden inflow of speculative capital.

This spike suggests that traders were actively rotating funds into Osmosis liquidity pools, likely driven by momentum strategies and short-term positioning.

When volume expands this rapidly relative to available liquidity, even moderate buying pressure can produce outsized price movements, which helps explain the sharp upward acceleration.

Another important factor is the broader market environment.

The Altcoin Season Index has risen to around 51, reflecting a mild shift in capital from major assets like Bitcoin into higher-risk altcoins.

In such an environment, mid-cap tokens tied to active ecosystems tend to experience amplified moves, and Osmosis has clearly benefited from this rotation.

The rally was also reinforced by a governance vote within the Cosmos ecosystem.

On April 17, 2026, a proposal to integrate Osmosis more directly into the Cosmos Hub narrowly failed.

While some market participants initially viewed integration as a potential long-term structural upgrade, the failure of the proposal removed uncertainty around Osmosis’s independence.

Following the vote, the Osmosis team confirmed that the network would continue operating independently, maintaining its current structure and focusing on profitability and user security.

The Cosmos Hub proposal to integrate Osmosis narrowly did not pass governance.

While this is not the outcome we thought was best for Cosmos, we want to thank the community, validators, and everyone who engaged deeply with the discussion.

Osmosis continues to operate as an…

— Osmosis 🧪 (@osmosis) April 17, 2026

This clarity appears to have reduced governance-related uncertainty and contributed to improved short-term sentiment.

At the same time, market conditions were already supportive.

The token was trading in a highly reactive range, and once momentum began building, price action accelerated quickly.

The combination of rising volume, altcoin inflows, and narrative confirmation created the conditions for a sharp upward breakout.

OSMO price outlook

From a technical perspective, the move in OSMO has the characteristics of a momentum-driven expansion phase.

The price nearly doubled in a single day, which is typically associated with speculative trading rather than gradual accumulation.

Eyes are not on the support near $0.065, which is an important level for the altcoin to maintain the bullish momentum.

If the token holds above $0.065, it could indicate consolidation after the initial spike.

A break above $1 and sustained trading above this level would suggest continuation of momentum, especially if trading volume remains elevated.

However, volume will play a decisive role in the next phase.

The same surge that pushed the Osmosis crypto upward could also reverse quickly if activity begins to fade.

A drop in trading volume below roughly $100 million would signal weakening participation and could increase the likelihood of a pullback.

If selling pressure increases, a breakdown below $0.055 would be an important bearish trigger.

Such a move would likely indicate that short-term traders are exiting positions after the sharp rally, potentially leading to a deeper retracement toward lower liquidity zones.

The value of cryptocurrency held by South Korean investors more than halved over the past year, falling to 60.6 trillion won ($41.4 billion) by the end of February 2026 from 121.8 trillion won ($83.3 billion) at the end of January 2025.

Daily trading volumes across the country’s five major exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Korbit, Coinone and Gopax, also took a hit, collapsing to $3 billion by February compared to $11.6 billion in December 2024, Korean outlet The Chosun Daily reported, citing data the Bank of Korea submitted to Rep. Cha Gyu-geun of the Rebuilding Korea Party.

Won deposits held at exchanges, a proxy for investor dry powder, also fell to 7.8 trillion won from 10.7 trillion won at end-2024. The drop is attributed to a combination of falling crypto prices and capital flowing into the stock market.

Stablecoins bucked the trend. Holdings climbed to a peak of $597 million in December from $60 million in July 2024. However, they eased to $41 million in February, a far smaller decline than the broader crypto market.

Related: South Korea seeks 20-year sentence for Delio CEO over $169M crypto fraud

Tighter AML rules threaten to push investors away

The market contraction comes as regulators prepare to tighten oversight. Financial authorities plan to implement revised AML rules in August that would require crypto transactions above 10 million won involving overseas exchanges or private wallets to be automatically flagged as suspicious.

Top Korean exchanges by volume. Source: CoinGecko

Industry body DAXA has pushed back, arguing the rule is disproportionate and could drive users to offshore platforms like Binance. The industry body said the proposal could increase suspicious transaction reports from South Korea’s five largest exchanges by 85 times, to over 5.4 million from about 63,000 cases last year, making compliance difficult in practice.

Debate over the government’s planned 22% crypto tax, set for 2027, is also intensifying. On Thursday, South Korea’s Finance Ministry confirmed for the first time that a 22% tax on crypto gains will take effect as scheduled on Jan. 1, 2027.

Related: Bithumb wins temporary court stay on South Korea suspension: Report

Samsung SDS to build South Korea’s blockchain securities platform

As Cointelegraph reported, Samsung SDS has won a contract to build and operate a blockchain-based securities platform for South Korea’s Korea Securities Depository (KSD), with the project expected to be completed by February 2027.

The move comes ahead of South Korea’s broader push to build market infrastructure for tokenized assets ahead of a new legal framework taking effect in early 2027.

Magazine: AI-driven hacks could kill DeFi — unless projects act now

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) has spiked by more than 70% over the past week as crypto traders have been paying closer attention to privacy-focused projects.

Zcash traded at about $346 on Friday, May 1, before hitting a seven-day peak of $593.86 on Wednesday. It has since settled at around $570 as of Friday, according to CoinGecko.

Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at crypto exchange Swyftx, told Cointelegraph that traders have begun paying closer attention to privacy projects “amid broader concerns about the impact of AI, quantum computing and financial surveillance on crypto.”

He added that ZEC was also boosted after Tushar Jain, the co-founder of the investment firm Multicoin Capital, said on Wednesday that it had “built a significant position” in ZEC since February.

Zcash is one of the more prominent privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, trailed by its significant rival Monero (XMR), and Jain said it is an attractive investment as “institutions will increasingly seek private assets to protect themselves” from what he claimed was a “political trend to seize private wealth.”

Several crypto firms have also recently released new privacy features. The Ethereum scaling solution Polygon launched private stablecoin payments on Sunday, while Aptos Labs’ privacy feature Confidential APT, which conceals token balances and transfer amounts, went live on the mainnet in April.

The market intelligence platform Santiment said in an X post on Wednesday that Zcash was “emphatically rebounding,” as fear of missing out and social media mentions of Zcash spiked along with its price.

Santiment pointed to a lack of government trust as a possible catalyst for the surge in interest from retail traders. 

Source: Santiment

“The crowd is increasingly viewing privacy-focused assets as a hedge against growing surveillance concerns, tighter exchange regulations and expanding AI-driven data tracking across financial platforms,” Santiment said.

Related: Dash Evolution chain integrates Zcash Orchard privacy pool

“At the same time, lower market caps across many privacy coins have traders eyeing them as high-upside momentum plays during this mild altcoin rally crypto has seen so far in May,” it added.

Zcash rally could be short-lived

Privacy was a significant investment theme for crypto in 2025, with privacy-focused tokens surging last year despite a broader downturn in the rest of the market.  

Zcash nearly crossed $700 in November, its highest price since 2018, while fellow privacy coin Monero reached a new all-time high of $797.73 in January.

However, neither held on to the gains, and Swyftx’s Hundal said that the recent rally could also be short-lived.

“Zcash’s move has some hallmarks of a narrative rotation into privacy coins,” Hundal said. “I’d be careful calling it a clean fundamental repricing just yet. We need more time to see how durable investor interest is.” 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

Tether has frozen more than $514 million in USDT across Ethereum and Tron over the past 30 days, according to onchain data from BlockSec’s USDT Freeze Tracker, highlighting the stablecoin issuer’s growing role in crypto-related enforcement actions.

As of Friday, the tool shows 370 addresses blacklisted in that period, including 328 on Tron and 42 on Ethereum, with about $505.9 million frozen on Tron and $8.73 million on Ethereum.

The figures indicate that most recent enforcement activity is concentrated on Tron and highlight how often the world’s largest stablecoin issuer is intervening onchain to immobilize funds flagged as high-risk or linked to investigations.

The recent activity also builds on a pattern of increasingly frequent enforcement. BlockSec’s analysis of 2025 data found that Tether blacklisted 4,163 unique addresses across Ethereum and Tron, freezing a total of $1.26 billion in USDT. The current pace of freezes suggests Tether could exceed that total in blacklisted USDT well before the end of the year.

Of the $1.26 billion of frozen assets in 2025, more than half (about $698 million) was later destroyed via the contracts’ “destroyBlackFunds” function, and only 3.6% of those addresses were subsequently removed from the blacklist, indicating that once imposed, freezes are rarely reversed.

Tether blacklisting activity accelerates in 2026

A separate study of 2023-2025 trends estimated that Tether immobilized roughly $3.3 billion across 7,268 addresses in those three years, far outpacing rival stablecoin issuer Circle over the same horizon.

USDT Freeze Tracker. Source: BlockSec

Tether has also disclosed larger aggregate totals and detailed some of the cases behind them. In February, the company said it had frozen about $4.2 billion in tokens in three years over links to illicit activity, with some $3.5 billion of that amount locked since 2023 as authorities increased efforts to curb crypto-related crime.

In April, Tether said it worked with the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and law enforcement agencies to freeze more than $344 million in USDT across two Tron addresses that US officials said were linked to suspected sanctions evasion involving Iran, while in February, Tether helped authorities to seize over $61 million in USDT linked to so-called pig butchering scams.

Related: Tether reports $1.04B profit in Q1 as Treasury holdings reach $141B

Stablecoin blacklists fuel wider freeze debate

The growing scale of blacklisting and related seizures has fed into a broader debate over how far crypto issuers and protocols should go in stopping suspect flows.

Some projects in decentralized finance, for example, have used upgradeable contracts and admin controls to halt or recover funds in major exploit cases, raising questions about who decides when such powers are used.

In stablecoins, where issuers such as Tether retain direct control over minting and burning mechanisms, onchain data and enforcement disclosures show that blacklisting and freezes are now used regularly in fraud, sanctions and scam investigations.

Tether and the Tron network did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s requests for comment.

Market Moves: Why is Ethereum Foundation selling? BTC futures warning signs

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Bitcoin dominance climbed to 61% on Wednesday, its highest level since November 2025. The metric has risen from 58.44% at the start of April, proving that the bullish trend continues to favor BTC over the wider crypto market.

In the last two months, altcoin volumes on Binance also increased by 49%, while 12.6% of altcoins on Binance reclaimed their 200-day simple moving average (SMA). 

Bitcoin dominance, one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Altcoins show early signs of recovery

Crypto analyst Darkfost said Bitcoin has gained 36% since its Feb. 6 lows at $60,000, helping push its dominance to 61.3%. 

While altcoins spent much of that period under pressure, TOTAL3, which tracks the crypto market cap excluding Bitcoin and Ether, rose by 17% to a two-month high of $765 billion. The recovery pace of altcoins lagged behind BTC, but several indicators have started to improve.

TOTAL3, one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Data from CryptoQuant showed that trading activity in the altcoin market was slowly increasing. Their volume share on Binance climbed to 49% on Wednesday, up from 31% in March, when measured against the combined BTC and ETH futures trading volumes. The rise points to growing participation outside of Bitcoin and Ether after several months of capital concentration in the two largest crypto assets.

Darkfost added that the shift still looks moderate and is far from the aggressive rotation phases seen during the altcoin rally in 2024. 

Altcoin dominance by volume. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Zcash price may hit $800 as $2.7B hedge fund reveals ‘significant position’ in ZEC

Exchange volume trends point to a rotation

Market analyst CW8900 pointed to the rising activity on centralized exchanges (CEX) as another sign of improving participation beyond Bitcoin. According to the analyst, altcoin trading volume, excluding the five largest cryptocurrencies, has increased steadily over the past few weeks.

CEX volume ratio vs. Top 5 crypto. Source: CryptoQuant

The 90-day AltSeason Index also climbed to 28.6, its fastest recovery in months. The index tracks whether a majority of altcoins outperform Bitcoin over a set period. Readings above 75 are associated with stronger altcoin cycles. However, CW8900 added, 

“The indicator also shows that there was no real AltSeason in this cycle. The period when the AltSeason Index reached its highest point was early 2024, and even that value was relatively low compared to previous AltSeasons.”

CryptoQuant data also showed improvements across the altcoin market after months of heavy underperformance against Bitcoin. The average altcoin now trades 23.47% below its 200-day simple moving average, rising from 44.4% earlier in the cycle. Similar readings previously appeared near the end of late-stage bear markets in 2022.

Altcoin performance, on average, relative to the 200-day SMA. Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Crypto Fear and Greed Index turns neutral for first time since January: Is $100K BTC next?

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Zcash (ZEC) has outperformed the broader crypto market over the past month, rising by over 125% compared to an average 15% gain for most coins.

ZEC/USD versus TOTAL crypto market cap 3o-day performance chart. Source: TradingView

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency may rally further in the coming weeks as a mix of bullish technical and fundamental catalysts converges.

Key takeaways:

US crypto hedge fund Multicoin Capital revealed it has been buying ZEC since February.Robinhood will list ZEC as Zcash’s network activity has been booming in the past weeks.ZEC technicals are painting a 40% rally setup.

Multicoin disclosure boosts ZEC momentum

On Tuesday, Multicoin Capital, a US-based crypto hedge fund managing $2.687 billion in assets, revealed a “significant position” in ZEC, fueling speculation that institutional investors are warming up to privacy-focused digital assets again.

Its co-founder, Tushar Jain, revealed that the firm had been accumulating ZEC since February.

Jain described Zcash as “the most direct public market vehicle” for exposure to private, censorship-resistant and seizure-resistant money, framing the investment as a bet on rising demand for financial sovereignty and cypherpunk-style privacy tools.

Source: X

ZEC has rallied by over 43% in the past 24 hours, showing that traders have interpreted the Multicoin announcement as institutional validation of the privacy coin narrative.

ZEC’s flag breakout hints at further gains

From a technical perspective, Zcash has entered the breakout phase of a prevailing bull flag pattern on the weekly chart.

A bull flag forms when the price consolidates lower within a descending parallel channel after a strong uptrend. It resolves when the price breaks above the channel’s upper trendline and rises by as much as the previous uptrend’s height.

ZEC/USDT weekly chart. Source: TradingView

Applying that rule to ZEC’s chart puts its breakout target near $800. As of Wednesday, Zcash traded as high as $607, leaving the token on track to test the bull flag’s measured upside target located roughly 40% above.

Zcash’s weekly relative strength index (RSI), a momentum indicator that measures whether an asset is overbought or oversold, also suggests the rally may continue.

The RSI currently remains just below 70, a level traders typically associate with overheated market conditions, indicating ZEC may still have room to climb before buyers show signs of exhaustion.

BitMEX Co-Founder Arthur Hayes said ZEC’s target is 10% of Bitcoin’s market capitalization, a scenario that would imply a multi-trillion-dollar valuation for ZEC and prices potentially ranging between $8,000 and $10,000 per coin based on current supply levels.

Source: X

Robinhood listing, tightening ZEC supply adds tailwinds

Zcash’s breakout also has fundamental support.

ZEC has rallied alongside the broader crypto market as US–Iran peace-deal hopes improve risk appetite, mirroring patterns in early April.

Its Robinhood listing on April 23 added another tailwind by opening spot access to 25.9 million funded users, including those in stricter jurisdictions like New York.

Meanwhile, more than 30% of circulating ZEC now sits in shielded addresses, according to data resource ZecHub.WIKI. This tightening supply shows a big jump in demand for private on-chain transactions over the past year.

Zcash shielded supply weekly chart. Source: ZecHub.WIKI

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Ether’s (ETH) surge to $2,390 on Monday pushed its value above its realized price, implying that the average holder of ETH is now back in profit. But is this enough for the ETH bulls to reach $3,000?

Key takeaways:

Ether holders are back in profit, increasing chances for more upside.Ether’s bull flag chart pattern is targeting $3,000.A big potential sell wall exists around $2,800, with 7.1 million ETH on the line.

Ether price rises above its cost basis

Data from TradingView shows that Ether’s price had risen 21% to $2,340 on Monday from its local low of $1,940 reached on March 29.

This rally has seen ETH rise above its realized price, or the average cost basis of all moved ETH, currently at $2,320, according to data from Glassnode.

Related: Ethereum Foundation sells another 10,000 ETH to BitMine in third OTC deal

The average ETH holder returning to profit after unrealized losses provides meaningful financial relief for many holders, and perhaps a bullish outlook.

Historically, breaking above this level shifts market sentiment from fear to greed, reducing sell pressure from underwater holders. This often fuels bullish momentum, attracting new buyers and short squeezes.

The chart below shows that when the price reclaimed its realized price in May 2025 after trading below it for roughly two months, it went on to rally 173% to its $4,950 all-time high from $1,800. The gains were 58% after ETH/USD reclaimed its cost basis in early 2023. 

Ethereum: Key pricing levels. Source: Glassnode

Therefore, holding above $2,300 is crucial for the bulls and for a potential retest at $3,000.

Analyst Dami-Defi said that a break above the $2,400-$2,600 would trigger the “most violent move of the year” toward $3,000.

“Once we break $2,400 we will catapult violently to $2,800 – $3,000.”

ETH/USD weekly chart. Source: X/Dami-Defi

As Cointelegraph reported, the ETH/USD pair must overcome resistance at $2,400 to confirm a trend change.

ETH price technical analysis: Bull flag targets $3,000

Ether’s price action has formed a bull flag chart pattern on the daily chart (see below). The price is retesting the $2,350 resistance, where the flag’s upper boundary and the 100-day exponential moving average (EMA) converge. 

A daily candlestick close above this level would open the way toward the measured target at $3,018, roughly 30% above the current price. 

ETH/USD 12-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The daily relative strength index has increased to 56 from near oversold conditions at 36 in late March, suggesting that ETH bulls are returning to the market.

Trader and analyst Cohelson David said a broadening wedge pattern on the 12-hour chart projects an ETH price breakout toward $3,000.

ETH/USD 12-hour chart. Source: X/Cohelson David

However, Ether’s cost basis distribution data shows that investors hold about 7.1 million ETH at an average cost of between $2,750 and $2,850, creating a potential resistance zone.

This concentration suggests that many investors may sell at breakeven, potentially stalling Ether’s upward move.

Ethereum cost basis distribution chart. Source: Glassnode

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Stablecoins, the name given to cryptocurrencies pegged to the price of a stable asset such as the US dollar or gold, have outgrown their label as they become part of the global financial system, said Robert Hackett, head of special projects at a16z crypto. 

Hackett said in a report on Friday that the term “stablecoins” was coined in crypto’s early years, when wild volatility defined the space and the tokens were created to maintain stable value and encourage their use for everyday financial activity.

“The name was straightforward, if slightly defensive: not a volatile coin, but a stable one. It described the problem it solved perfectly. But the technology has since outgrown the label,” he said.

“Stability is now table stakes. It’s a prerequisite, and not the point. The question is no longer ‘will it hold its value?’ But ‘what else can we build with it?’” Hackett added. 

“That’s why the name stablecoin is outdated now: It still points to the original problem it was designed to solve, not the platform it has become. The term frames the category as a patch rather than a new primitive.”

Stablecoins have emerged as a key use case for crypto. The global market has grown to more than $321 billion, according to DefiLlama. Adoption is also expanding across economies as banks and institutions seek to use the technology for faster payments and other benefits.

John Palmer, a developer and brand adviser, made a similar argument on Thursday and said it “feels like a bug” to call them stablecoins because “stablecoins will probably 10x the impact of crypto thus far and deserve to have a self-defined and non-reactionary name.”

Source: John Palmer

The stablecoin name will likely linger 

Hackett said a rebrand to a term that better captures the essence of the technology, such as “digital cash” or “programmable money,” is too clunky to use. 

Related: Stablecoins overtake Bitcoin in Latin America crypto purchases — Bitso 

At the same time, he argued that the first term that gains traction with a new technology often sticks, such as email, which no longer operates like traditional mail, or horsepower when describing a car’s engine power.

“Stablecoins will probably follow the same quirky etymological path. The skeuomorphic name may linger long after it stops being descriptive. Or it may gradually fade as we simply speak of digital dollars, digital euros and other onchain assets,” Hackett said. 

“Most likely though, the technology will disappear into the background entirely and become just how money works, the same way we stopped saying electric lighting once that newfangled gadgetry became the default. Now they’re just lights.”

Magazine: AI-driven hacks could kill DeFi — unless projects act now 

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.