Trading

Morgan Stanley has proposed launching a spot Bitcoin ETF with a 0.14% fee, as outlined in its latest S-1 registration statement filed on Friday. The fee would sit one basis point below the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF and 11 basis points under BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, potentially intensifying price competition among US spot Bitcoin funds.

Ethereum (ETH) fell 5% on March 26 and failed to retake $2.2k, putting renewed pressure on the $2k level as liquidations and staking exits rose. Long liquidations reached about $112 million the next day, while an early holder sold 7,302 ETH at $2,073 and the validator exit queue jumped from 288 to 63k in under a week. Despite the stress, exchange balances hit a 10-year low and net withdrawals included $1.67 billion on March 22, a setup that could support a rebound if selling pressure fades.

Siren (SIREN), a Binance-based memecoin, extended its sell-off by more than 62% across the last two trading days, trading at $0.875 at press time. Over a 24-hour window, its market cap fell from $1.835 billion to $637.42 million, while volume slipped 14.81% to $90.87 million. Derivatives data also leaned bearish, with $2.94 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours and short-side positioning outweighing longs at key levels.

Bitcoin slid to $65,530 on Friday after trading near $71,300 on Thursday, an 8% drop that coincided with broader risk-off moves tied to US economic uncertainty and the Israel-Iran war. Options pricing on Deribit implied a 53% probability that BTC remains under $66,000 by April 24, while $210 million in leveraged long BTC futures was liquidated and the $18.6 billion monthly options expiry left most calls worthless.

Bitcoin slipped to around $67,500, two days after topping $72,000, as miners moved 5,450 BTC (about $373 million) to centralized exchanges on 26 March. The flow marked a six-day high and adds to short-term downside risk while traders focus on an ascending support that has sparked five rallies since 6 February 2026.

GameStop disclosed that it pledged 4,709 of its 4,710 Bitcoin to Coinbase as collateral for an over-the-counter covered call strategy, rather than selling the holdings. The options carried strike prices of $105,000 to $110,000 per BTC and ran through March 27, 2026, with Bitcoin around $66,000–$67,000 at the time described. The filing also reported a $0.7 million options liability and a $2.3 million unrealized gain, while reclassifying the collateralized BTC into a $368.3 million digital asset receivable as of January 31, 2026.

Ripple said it is deploying AI tools throughout the XRP Ledger development lifecycle to surface vulnerabilities earlier and improve reliability, including an AI-supported red team that has found more than 10 bugs. In derivatives, XRP open interest on Binance rose 14.8% over 24 hours to its highest level since early March, even as long liquidations hit over $2.5 million on March 18, around $2.45 million on March 21, and about $2.15 million on March 26.

Bitcoin and Ethereum have stayed in a tight range for more than 50 days, but derivatives positioning accelerated in the third week of March. On March 16, combined BTC and ETH perpetual-futures open interest rose to about $30 billion, the highest level since late January. The move included BTC open interest at $23 billion and ETH nearing $16 billion, alongside a weekly surge concentrated on Binance.

XRP is trading around $1.33 and remains boxed between roughly $1.25 support and $1.50 resistance as buyers continue to struggle to clear the upper level. Separately, t54.ai says AI-driven "agent commerce" on the XRP Ledger is expanding, while an S-4 filing indicates Evernorth Holdings holds 473 million XRP valued at about $685 million ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing.

Bitcoin spot ETF flows have started to stabilize after weeks of outflows, with cumulative inflows recovering by nearly $3 billion since late February. Even so, positioning data indicates many holders remain at a loss, as an estimated average cost basis near $82,000 sits above BTC's roughly $63,000–$69,000 trading band while price action continues to consolidate.