The crypto market strengthened this week, but global headwinds continued to be a factor because of the Middle East conflict (oil price increase), lower than expected U.S. GDP data and uncertainty surrounding tariff levels. Positivity in the market was the GENIUS Act entering its full implementation phase – 1:1 reserves, consumer protection and stablecoin rules clarification. The CLARITY Act gained ground as Senators agreed on key language in the act, specifically on stablecoin yields.
Voting on this bill is moving closer every week as the U.S. regulatory bodies are reducing enforcement and encouraging institutional buying, improving overall market sentiment.
250m USD Single Day Spot ETFs Inflows
In the past few days, spot ETFs saw significant inflows with up to 250m USD single-day increases, led by BlackRock’s IBIT. On-chain activity was robust with strong whale buys and increased stablecoin use, signaling that the market is absorbing short-term volatility and supporting maturity fundamentals.
Sectors that were clear leaders in the past week (and the last month) were RWAs and Cross-chain DeFi. These sectors remained at the top of crypto rotation because of their strong fundamentals and efficiency.
Bitcoin Volatility Levels Off
The leading cryptocurrency had a volatile week as it fluctuated between 67k USD and its current price of 71.2k USD. The price was down over 4% for the week but bounced yesterday and retraced its weekly losses. The rise was attributed to the U.S. stating a de-escalation of the Middle East tensions, which reflected corporate treasuries buying large amounts of BTC, and miner selling pressure being reduced to multi-year lows (the difficulty level dropped almost 8%).
BTC spot ETFs experienced net inflows from last Saturday, continuing their 4-week positive streak. Almost 2 billion USD has been injected as institutional demand remains strong, but it is still below previous inflow cycles. Analysts have stated that BTC recovery will remain gradual with incremental inflows for at least the next few weeks.
Morgan Stanley has changed its stance on owning their own BTC ETFs and has filed with the SEC this week. The company has 7t USD under management and could bring over 160m USD to the market on the launch date (analysts’ estimated demand).
Booming DeFi Sets NEW Ethereum Records
Ethereum fundamentals continue to surge as daily active addresses were around 2m users and smart contracts were over 40m a day, highlighting booming DeFi and NFT usage. These surpassed records set in the 2021 bull market, reflecting genuine user engagement and heavy reliance on ETH for complex DeFi apps. The DeFi sector, mainly L2 solutions, manages millions of transactions a day at lower costs, but a considerable number of transactions are still done on the ETH mainnet (boosting overall data).
Ethereum ETFs were quite volatile as they suffered net outflows of 234m USD for the week.
Earlier in the month, inflows were positive but pulled back around March 20th. BlackRock introduced the new ETHB ETF this month, which could turn outflows around, but institutional interest was cautious. This ETF accounts for almost 95% of its staking and 80% of its staking rewards (3.1% annual yield). The outflows this week caused ETH to drop dramatically early in the week (12%) but recovered slightly on the 24th, bouncing 6% and currently trading at 2.1k USD.
Cross-chain Sector Quietly Gaining Ground
The Cross-chain sector is responsible for strong infrastructure plays that take fragmented data on multi-chain networks and make them usable. The demand across the major chains is growing, and so are trusted, secure and fast bridges that can manage the growing number of transactions.
A token that has been around since 2020, DeXe (DEXE) has surged to almost 200% in the past month and is up 32% for the week. The market discovered the power of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which allow communities to launch and manage their own decentralized groups across most networks. Large corporations are adopting DAO structures for their treasuries, and these DAOs have regulatory features built into their structures.
Another interesting token that was launched in early February 2026 is Tria (TRIA). The token has emerged as one of the new “crypto neobanks” that unifies spending, earning and trading over 200+ blockchains, where users can maintain full control of their keys and get a bank-like interface. The company has over 200k users and has traded over 100m USD since its launch. Tria is a small token with a market cap of 80m USD, but it is trading around 33% of its market cap daily and is up 20% for the week.
RWAs Continue to Push Up
The Real-World Asset sector continues to move from speculative interest to demand-driven utility. The sector is experiencing high institutional adoption, intense project development and the introduction of DAO organizations that democratize on-chain trading.
The Dusk Network (DUSK) was a standout this week as it gained 28% (53% in the past month). The company allows institutions to issue and trade tokenized credit, securities and other on-chain assets. DUSK prides itself on security (XSC, Zedger, Citadel protocols) and is popular with institutions because transactions are private without data leaks. The recent Aegis upgrade, launched earlier this month, improved node security and scalability for institutions.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) launched in January of 2025 and has a market cap of 9.9b USD. This token has rocketed to the forefront of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) because of their transparency on-chain, non-custodial trading. The L1 hybrid blockchain boasts high-frequency (low latency) listing of permissionless RWA perps and replaces Automated Market Makers (AMMs) because of a high-performance order book. HYPE is not a pure RWA chain but has gained recognition as a leader in TradFi of tokenized commodities and assets. The token was up 30% in the past month but has pulled back and is down 6% for the week.
The cryptocurrency ecosystem rotation continues to favor a handful of sectors to which capital is flowing. Within the sectors, there are many standout projects that are solving tangible issues, and these continue to gain interest. Investors seem to be choosing utility over hype and noise.
