Wall Street legend Stanley Druckenmiller just tossed a polite grenade into the 
global payments debate, predicting that within 10 to 15 years the machinery 
moving money around the planet won’t rely on SWIFT wires or card networks—but 
on blockchain-powered stablecoins that settle transactions faster, cheaper, 
and without bankers checking the clock. Faster, Cheaper Payments? 
Druckenmiller […]

Wall Street Titan Druckenmiller Predicts Stablecoins Will Power the Future of Global Payments

The past week recorded a significant change in the Bitcoin price action, where 
there was a momentum-driven rally to the upside of the charts. As of Tuesday, 
March 10, this move had boosted the flagship cryptocurrency tp reclaim its 
previous psychological $70,000 level. Interestingly, the Bitcoin price would 
go on to reach about $74,000 on Friday. While this might be good for Bitcoin, 
if at all in the short term, data from a recent on-chain evaluation has been 
published, leading to the suspicious conclusion that Bitcoin&#8217;s market 
participants are currently not as enthusiastic as they should be. Related 
Reading: Bitcoin Price From $70,000 To $110,000 In 2 Months? Analyst Reveals 
How Negative Funding Rates On Binance Reveal Increasing Short Positioning In 
an X post on March 13, pseudonymous on-chain analyst Darkfost reveals that 
there is a widespread wave of cautious pessimism in the Bitcoin market, 
despite the most recent bullish performance. As noted by the crypto expert, 
every rebound of the BTC price seen in March seems merely to be opportunities 
for short positioning, rather than clear recovery movements. For this reason, 
there has been a progressive display of negative funding rates on the Binance 
exchange for close to a week, as shown by the Bitcoin: Funding Rates &#8211; Binance 
metric. Darkfost points out that this is reflected in the extreme readings 
obtained on the Funding Rates metric, with funding rates slipping under -0.006 
both on the 10th and 11th of March. According to the analyst, this 
significantly negative level indicates that most of the positions currently 
open on Binance are biased towards shorts, as high skepticism remains among 
investors on the tenability of Bitcoin’s recovery taking place in the near- 
term. Related Reading: Bitcoin Eyes Gold’s Crown As Institutional Money 
Quietly Shifts Extreme Bearish Sentiment Could Trigger Counterintuitive 
Bullish Move Interestingly, Darkfost references historical data to explain 
that the Bitcoin market could still see a sharp inflow of bullish momentum. 
This is because, when most traders open clusters of short positions, they open 
the market to an increasing possibility of a short squeeze. According to 
history, Darkfost explains that “when funding rates reach extreme levels or 
when a strong market consensus forms, it is often too late to position in that 
direction.” Hence, in the scenario where the Bitcoin price can sustain its 
recent upside movement, a short squeeze would likely occur. As a result, all 
of the sell-side liquidity currently sitting above Bitcoin&#8217;s market price 
would become converted to fuel for the upside move, and this in turn could 
cause the liquidation of even more short positions, further reinforcing the 
bullish move. Barring a definite move occurring, market participants are 
therefore advised to retain a more cautious stance in their dealings. As of 
press time, the Bitcoin price trades at $70,852 following a 1.09% loss over 
the past 24-hours. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com

Bitcoin Market Remains Pessimistic Despite Price Reclaiming $70k

This week’s developments highlight the growing intersection of macro markets, 
regulation, and institutional crypto adoption. U.S. Treasury yields remain 
elevated amid oil tensions and political uncertainty around the Federal 
Reserve. Regulators took a major step toward unified oversight as the SEC and 
CFTC agreed to coordinate on digital asset rules. Bitcoin also reached a 
historic […]

Bitcoin Supply Hits 20 Million Coin Mark, Mastercard Launches Massive Crypto Partner Program, and More – Week In Review

A single historical parallel is driving one analyst&#8217;s bold call on XRP — and 
it hinges on a rally that hasn&#8217;t happened yet. Related Reading: Ghana’s Crypto 
Push Begins As 11 Companies Enter SEC Sandbox Channel Pattern Tracks 9 Months 
Of Price Action Chartist Celal Kucuker has mapped out a descending channel 
that has guided XRP&#8217;s price movements since the token hit a record high of 
$3.6 in July 2025. The channel has two boundaries: a lower trendline that 
dates back even further — to when XRP pulled back from $3.4 in January 2025 — 
and an upper trendline that formed after the July peak. Together, they&#8217;ve 
boxed in the token&#8217;s price for the better part of nine months. Two of 
Kucuker&#8217;s projected targets within that channel have already been hit. XRP 
climbed to $2.4 in January 2026, touching the upper trendline, then reversed 
and fell to $1.1 in early February, landing near the lower boundary. Both 
moves played out largely as the analyst had outlined. XRP is now trading 
around $1.41, down 24% since the start of the year. Ripple XRP 2.40$ ☑️ 1.10$ 
☑️ 1.80$ ⌛️ 0.90$ ⌛️ 8.60$ ⌛️ September &#8211; December pic.twitter.com/dFilurLCVC 
— Celal Kucuker (@CelalKucuker) March 13, 2026 Two More Moves Before A 
Potential Breakout According to Kucuker&#8217;s roadmap, the price action isn&#8217;t done 
yet. He expects XRP to bounce toward $1.8 — a retest of the upper trendline — 
before pulling back again to around $0.9, which would mark another touch of 
the lower boundary and potentially push the token below the $1 mark. Only 
after that final retest, in his view, does the setup for a breakout emerge. 
When that breakout comes, Kucuker puts the upside target at $8.6. He projects 
that move to unfold between September and December 2026. From the estimated 
breakout price, that would represent a gain of 330%. That percentage isn&#8217;t 
arbitrary. It mirrors what XRP did the last time it broke out of a similar 
structure. After clearing a comparable descending channel in November 2024, 
the token climbed 330% to reach $3.4 by January 2025. The current projection 
applies that same multiplier to the new setup. Broader Market Adds To 
Uncertainty The crypto market hasn&#8217;t made things easy. Reports indicate the 
global crypto market cap has dropped 18% since January, falling to roughly 
$2.4 trillion. XRP&#8217;s losses have outpaced that decline. Related Reading: 
Bitcoin Climbs Back To $73,000 As Short Squeeze Wipes Out $246M In Futures 
Bets None of that, on its own, derails a technical forecast built on chart 
patterns rather than macro conditions. But the scale of the projected move — 
from a potential low near $0.9 to a target of $8.6 — would require sustained 
buying pressure over several months, with few major disruptions along the way. 
Kucuker has not specified a timeline for the near-term moves to $1.8 and $0.9. 
Those steps are treated as preconditions, not endpoints. The $8.6 figure only 
comes into play after the channel is broken to the upside. As of March 14, XRP 
continues to trade well within the channel&#8217;s boundaries, with the next key 
level — the $1.8 upper trendline retest — still ahead. Featured image from 
Shutterstock, chart from TradingView

XRP Chart History Sparks Speculation Of $8.6 Price Target

Bitcoin traded at $70,795 on March 14, 2026, with a market capitalization of 
$1.41 trillion and 24-hour trading volume of $49.48 billion. The 
cryptocurrency moved within an intraday range between $70,416 and $73,838 
while technical indicators across major timeframes reflected a neutral market 
structure. Bitcoin Chart Outlook On the daily chart, bitcoin continues to 
trade […]

Cryptocurrency price in NZD