Market Overview
Bitcoin is holding steady near $66,500 after a volatile weekend that saw a flash crash to $63,000 following US/Israel strikes on Iran . The total market saw over $128 billion in liquidations, but prices have since stabilized . Analysts note Bitcoin has declined for five consecutive months, a pattern seen only once before in late 2018 .
Institutional Adoption Accelerates
· Morgan Stanley is applying for a national trust bank charter to offer crypto custody, trading, and staking services to investment clients
· Citi plans to launch institutional-grade Bitcoin custody later this year, integrating digital assets with its $30 trillion in traditional client assets
· Barclays is evaluating a blockchain-based payments platform and has issued an RFI to tech providers
Corporate Bitcoin
Michael Saylor's Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) purchased another 3,015 BTC for $204 million between February 23 and March 1, marking its 10th consecutive weekly purchase. The company now holds 720,737 BTC acquired at an average price of $75,985 .
Platform Policy Updates
X (Twitter) now requires "Paid Partnership" labels for sponsored content. After an initial policy error suggesting a crypto promotion ban, X clarified that crypto ads remain allowed except in the EU, UK, and Australia due to local regulations .
Technical Developments
· Vitalik Buterin outlined Ethereum's execution layer roadmap, proposing to replace the EVM with RISC-V architecture and upgrade the state tree structure via EIP-7864
· A Bitcoin developer challenged BIP-110 by writing a 66kB image directly to the blockchain without using OP_RETURN or Taproot
ETF Flows
US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw modest outflows of $0.21 billion in February amid the price decline, while Solana ETFs attracted $63 million in inflows .