CME Group reported that with the launch of Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar token futures in February 2025, its crypto derivatives now reference more than 75% of total market capitalization. The firm said average daily open interest in its broader cryptocurrency suite, which also includes BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP contracts, was close to $25 billion in 2025, alongside a record average daily volume of 278,300 contracts worth about $12 billion notionally.

On Monday, Nasdaq was reported to have asked the SEC to approve new yes-or-no binary options contracts tied to the Nasdaq 100 Index and its micro version. The proposed "Outcome Related Options" would trade between $0.01 and $1 in a structure similar to prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi, and could bring event-style products directly into the listed equity index options market if approved.

After the Wall Street session opened on Monday, Bitcoin climbed toward $70,000, gaining more than 5% and reaching its highest level since Feb. 25. The move followed a stronger-than-expected US manufacturing PMI reading above 50, which signaled renewed industrial expansion and helped overshadow worries linked to Middle East tensions, even as US equities struggled.

ProCap Financial reported on Monday that it purchased 450 Bitcoin during the latest market pullback, raising its total holdings to 5,457 BTC while lowering its average cost per coin. Over the past 10 days, the Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury firm also repurchased 782,408 shares at prices well below its net asset value in an effort to shrink the discount between market price and underlying assets.

On March 1, 2026, a fire triggered by external impacts at an Amazon Web Services data center in the Middle East led to a full power shutdown in ME-CENTRAL-1 and ME-SOUTH-1, disrupting services such as Claude, ChatGPT and AWS Bedrock. AWS reports that restoration will take many hours as teams await fire department clearance and assess potential storage damage, while investors react to regional military tensions with higher oil and gold prices and renewed gains in major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.

Over the weekend, escalating conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran coincided with more than 472 million XRP, valued at about $652 million, moving to Binance, according to CryptoQuant data. XRP’s price swung between $1.27 and $1.43 before stabilizing near $1.35, while large inflows and modest ETF subscriptions have raised questions about potential short-term selling pressure and market direction.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig has appointed former federal prosecutor and private sector litigator David Miller to lead the agency's enforcement division. Miller previously worked at Greenberg Traurig, Morgan Lewis and the U.S. Department of Justice, focusing on commodities, securities, digital assets and national security, and will oversee enforcement as the CFTC takes on a larger role in crypto and prediction markets. His arrival coincides with shifting enforcement priorities and staffing questions at both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On 2 March 2026, Pi Network entered a pivotal stage, enforcing a mandatory node upgrade toward Protocol v23 while preparing to launch its decentralized exchange on 12 March 2026. The project reports over 16.2 million mainnet migrations, 17.7 million KYC-verified users, more than 421,000 active nodes and 300+ mainnet apps, with circulating supply at roughly 9.3–9.4 billion PI out of 100 billion. PI changes hands around $0.16–$0.19, down over 90% from its $2.10 peak in February 2025, and analysts are divided on whether upcoming upgrades and the DEX can offset dilution risks from unreleased tokens.