Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan argued that the U.S. military strikes on Iran announced on a Sunday morning pushed crypto and onchain finance into a central role for global price discovery. He wrote that traditional markets were largely closed while crypto venues, tokenized gold, and prediction markets saw surging activity. Hougan now believes professional traders and institutions effectively have no choice but to adopt onchain finance tools.

On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump criticized banks for blocking progress on the Senate’s crypto market structure legislation over restrictions on stablecoin yield payments. He warned that attempts to undermine the GENIUS Act and delay the CLARITY Act are unacceptable, and urged banks to reach an agreement with the crypto industry. Lawmakers and industry groups remain divided over whether the bill should ban all stablecoin yield, leaving the legislation stalled in the Senate.

Ethena's ENA token climbed back above the $0.1 mark as its daily trading volume rose 66% and prices advanced 5.08%. Open Interest increased 11.55% while the token rebounded from support near $0.094, but technical signals suggested this move could be a short-lived retracement toward $0.120-$0.125 rather than a sustained bullish reversal.

According to analyst Darkfost, roughly 38% of altcoins are currently trading near their all‑time lows, surpassing the stress levels seen after the FTX collapse and signaling widespread structural weakness. The total crypto market cap excluding the top 10 assets has dropped toward about $169 billion, with prices sitting below key weekly moving averages and pressing into a critical support region. These conditions reflect fragile liquidity, cautious investor positioning, and a lack of sustained capital rotation into higher‑beta crypto assets.

Billionaire investor Ray Dalio told the All-In Podcast on Tuesday that Bitcoin should not be relied on as a long-term store of value or safe-haven, stressing that central banks overwhelmingly favor gold. He questioned Bitcoin's privacy, its vulnerability to future quantum computing, and its correlation with tech stocks, while reiterating gold's role as the most established form of money in times of geopolitical and economic stress.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to introduce a framework for U.S. crypto perpetual futures within the next month, according to Chairman Michael Selig. The move aims to recapture trading activity that has shifted to offshore exchanges and make these leveraged, non-expiring contracts more accessible to domestic, including retail, traders while regulators and lawmakers continue to debate broader digital asset rules.

Since the start of 2026, Shiba Inu's exchange balances have fallen by more than 1.6 trillion SHIB, shrinking total reserves on major platforms to about 80.9 trillion tokens. While this decline suggests more holders may be moving SHIB into longer-term storage, futures positioning shows a higher short ratio around 0.91 and recent price pressure near $0.000006.

As of March 4, 2026, U.S. lawmakers remain divided over whether stablecoin issuers and crypto platforms may provide yield-style incentives to users, leaving the CLARITY Act stuck in the Senate after a strong bipartisan vote in the House. Representative French Hill is urging senators to accept the House-approved language, while traders on platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket are still assigning notable odds that the bill will be enacted in 2026.