XRP traded largely sideways Monday as the broader crypto market showed signs of hesitation and fading momentum. Data cited by analyst Ali Martinez, based on Santiment metrics, showed XRP network activity falling by nearly 50% over the past two weeks. Active addresses declined from 50,000 to around 25,000 over the same period.

Strategy added 520 BTC and increased its USD reserve by $300 million to $1.4 billion. The company said it plans to keep replenishing the cash buffer to support the credit quality of its Digital Credit securities. The update also put its Bitcoin reserve at 847,363 BTC, according to Michael Saylor’s post on X.

Trading activity in prediction markets has risen 393 times over the past two years, but large companies are increasingly bringing the products in-house. Charles Schwab and BetConstruct AI said they would each launch “yes-or-no” event trading on their own platforms. The shift suggests event-based trading is spreading beyond specialist startups and into established brokerages and gaming firms.

Bitcoin has lagged equities as expectations for Federal Reserve rate hikes have risen, Grayscale Investments said. The firm argued bitcoin could narrow that performance gap if policymakers refrain from raising rates. In its view, shifting rate expectations have contributed to diverging moves across bitcoin, stocks and gold.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao described the current Bitcoin downturn as a typical four-year cycle, arguing that each cycle establishes a higher floor. He framed the pullback as relatively mild compared with prior drawdowns. Zhao said the key point is that the cycle’s floor keeps rising.

Franklin Templeton is moving beyond experimentation with digital assets by launching a new crypto-focused division. The $1.78 trillion asset manager has completed its acquisition of 250 Digital. The new unit, Franklin Crypto, will target clients such as sovereign wealth funds and pension plans.

A wallet tied to Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin’s HashFlare fraud became active for the first time in more than three years. The activity comes as federal prosecutors appeal what they call a “lenient” sentence and press for 10-year prison terms for the two Estonian nationals. The case centers on a $577 million crypto-mining Ponzi scheme that prosecutors say defrauded 440,000 investors.

Ethereum is trading near a supply area, and a TradingView analyst says price action is shaping into a short-biased setup. If the bearish structure holds, the analyst points to downside levels around $1,562-$1,500. The view hinges on whether ETH can hold near its reaction area or breaks lower.