A fresh round of XRP speculation is building around an old question: what 
happens if SWIFT’s modernization push ends up intersecting with infrastructure 
built for blockchain-based settlement? In a post on X on March 10, DropCoin 
developer Bird argued that the market may be underestimating how ISO 20022, 
tokenization, and shared-ledger infrastructure could eventually strengthen the 
case for the XRP Ledger in institutional finance. Bird’s core point is not 
that SWIFT is about to replace its own network with XRP or the XRP Ledger. It 
is that the direction of travel across global payments increasingly points 
toward a split between messaging and settlement, with SWIFT preserving its 
role as the coordination layer while value moves across newer rails. “My 
thoughts on SWIFT potentially utilising the XRP Ledger don’t come from random 
speculation,” Bird wrote. “They come from watching how the infrastructure 
around global payments has been evolving over the last several years. First, 
SWIFT themselves have repeatedly demonstrated and showcased blockchain 
partners involved in their experiments around cross border payments, 
tokenisation and interoperability.” Related Reading: XRP Bollinger Bands Are 
Squeezing—Volatility Incoming? Could SWIFT’s Strategy Be Bullish For XRP 
Price? That framing matters because Bird is not building the argument around a 
single rumor or one-off partnership. Instead, he points to overlap between 
firms appearing in SWIFT-related blockchain experiments and companies that 
already have ties to Ripple or infrastructure connected to the XRP Ledger. In 
his view, that overlap is not proof of future integration, but it is enough to 
keep the possibility on the table. The second pillar of the argument is 
SWIFT’s ISO 20022 transition, which Bird describes as the largest upgrade in 
the network’s history. His reading is that modernized messaging standards are 
arriving just as finance moves toward tokenized assets, instant settlement, 
and interoperable liquidity networks. In that environment, the market may be 
too focused on whether SWIFT will “use XRP” directly, and not focused enough 
on the possibility that blockchain-based settlement layers could sit alongside 
SWIFT’s messaging stack. Bird put it more bluntly in a longer passage: “SWIFT 
could continue acting as the secure messaging layer, while financial 
institutions settle value using tokenised assets on networks such as the XRP 
Ledger. In that model, XRP can function as a neutral bridge asset for 
liquidity and settlement, while SWIFT continues orchestrating the 
communication between banks through ISO 20022 messaging. In other words, 
messaging and settlement don’t have to live in the same system.” That hybrid 
model is the heart of the thesis. Rather than a winner-takes-all contest 
between legacy finance and crypto rails, Bird sees a more incremental 
institutional architecture taking shape, one in which large incumbents adapt 
to avoid disintermediation. He argues that SWIFT has a strong incentive to do 
exactly that, since its historical dominance came from controlling the 
messaging layer while the economics of settlement are now being challenged by 
faster and more flexible systems. Related Reading: XRP Accumulation Signal? 
Binance Withdrawals Jump, ETF Demand Grows He also points to what he views as 
the clearest signal in the debate: SWIFT’s recent confirmation that it is 
adding a blockchain-based shared ledger to its infrastructure stack to support 
the onchain movement of regulated tokenized value across its network of more 
than 11,500 financial institutions. For Bird, that does not confirm XRP’s 
role, but it does confirm the broader direction. “SWIFT is clearly preparing 
for a world where tokenised assets move across blockchain infrastructure, 
while they continue operating as the global coordination and messaging layer,” 
he wrote. “In that kind of architecture, messaging and settlement become two 
separate layers of the financial system. Which means settlement could occur on 
specialised blockchain networks designed for liquidity and asset movement, 
while SWIFT continues coordinating communication between institutions.” Bird 
is careful to stress that he has no insider knowledge and no visibility into 
the final architecture. That caveat is doing real work here. His post is not 
evidence of an imminent SWIFT-XRP integration. It is an argument that the 
industry’s incentives, the technical direction of payment infrastructure, and 
SWIFT’s own public moves all make the idea less far-fetched than the market 
may assume, in his opinion. At press time, XRP traded at $1.3896. Featured 
image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

SWIFT, ISO 20022, And XRP: Is The Market Missing A Price Catalyst?

In a plot twist that reads like a cautionary tale from the School of Hard 
Knocks on Ethereum, a trader managed to vaporize roughly $50 million in 
seconds after reportedly clicking through a slippage warning on the Aave 
app—and the blockchain, as always, kept the receipts. $50M Swap Gone Wrong On 
March 12, 2026, a […]

From $50M to $36K: The Aave Trade That Fed Ethereum’s MEV Machines

The iShares Staked Ethereum Trust will distribute staking rewards on a monthly 
basis from institutional-grade Ethereum validators run by Figment, Galaxy 
Digital and Attestant.

BlackRock’s staked Ethereum ETF sees $15.5M volume on debut

A new analysis from crypto analytics platform CoinCodex paints a grim picture 
for Shiba Inu (SHIB) investors who are still holding out hope for a repeat of 
past highs this year. According to the AI platform, SHIB is highly unlikely to 
approach, let alone reach its 2021 all-time high in 2026. The dog-themed meme 
coin has been volatile, with analysts indicating that its broader outlook 
remains largely bearish. CoinCodex’s recent price forecast for Shiba Inu 
offers little optimism for the popular meme coin in the near term. The AI 
algorithm, which factors in historical price behavior, market volatility, and 
Bitcoin halving cycles, concludes that SHIB has no realistic path to regaining 
its all-time high in 2026. Shiba Inu Unlikely To Reach ATH In 2026 Notably, 
Shiba Inu hit an ATH of approximately $0.000088 in 2021, a level it has failed 
to revisit in years. As of March 12, 2026, the meme coin trades around 
$0.0000058, which puts it more than 93% below that historic peak. Closing that 
gap would require a staggering price rally of roughly 1,400%, which is about 
15x its current price. Related Reading: Shiba Inu Whales Are On The Move 
Again, But In What Direction? CoinCodex notes that the broader market picture 
for SHIB is broadly negative across almost every key metric. Currently, 
sentiment is 71% bearish and 29% bullish, and the Fear and Greed Index sits at 
15, placing the market in extreme fear territory. In the past 30 days, SHIB 
has closed green only 11 times, meaning it posted gains on just 37% of trading 
days. Volatility is also elevated at 6.8%, reflecting sharp price swings 
without any sustained upward direction. Additionally, technical indicators are 
stacking up heavily on the bearish side, with CoinCodex showing 20 sell 
signals for Shiba Inu compared to just 8 buy signals. Furthermore, SHIB’s 
50-day Simple Moving Average (SMA) sits at $0.0000065, and the 200-day SMA at 
$0.0000093, both well above the current price and equally pointing toward 
continued selling pressure. CoinCodex also highlights that Shiba Inu’s 14-day 
Relative Strength Index (RSI) currently reads at 42.89, landing in neutral 
territory but trending toward the lower end of the scale. Alongside the moving 
averages, this reading illustrates a glaring weakness in momentum with no 
clear signal that buyers are ready to step in and push prices toward ATH 
levels. CoinCodex Reveals Long Road Ahead For SHIB CoinCodex’s short-term 
projections offer modest upside from current levels, with the one-month 
forecast showing a potential gain of around 6.76% to $0.0000061. However, that 
mild optimism fades quickly, as the AI model projects SHIB could end 2026 
below where it trades today. Related Reading: Analyst Shares The Best Time To 
Buy Shiba Inu, And The Best Time To Sell The longer-term outlook also does 
little to encourage investors and holders. Any meaningful price recovery is 
not expected to happen until well into the 2040s, and even the most optimistic 
long-range forecast still falls short of the 2021 all-time high. Adding to 
this lackluster outlook, CoinCodex notes that Shiba Inu’s support and 
resistance levels are compressed into a very tight range, suggesting that the 
market has little room for a breakout in either direction. For now, SHIB 
remains range-bound, with no evident short-term catalyst strong enough to 
propel it back to its historic peak. Featured image from Adobe Stock, chart 
from Tradingview.com

Don’t Hold Your Breath: AI Prediction Says Shiba Inu Won’t Hit All-Time High This Year

Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a regulatory sandbox 
framework under the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act. Sandbox Duration and 
Transition Paths Ghana’s Securities and Exchange Commission has taken another 
step in shaping the country’s digital asset landscape by announcing the 
operational rollout of its regulatory sandbox framework under the Virtual 
Asset Service Providers […]

Cryptocurrency price in SEK