The Wall Street banking giant has been accelerating its foray into crypto, 
filing to launch Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETFs in January.

Morgan Stanley applies for OCC bank charter to custody crypto

Ripple’s chief legal officer is challenging claims that cryptocurrency lacks 
real-world utility, pointing to rising U.S. merchant adoption and growing 
consumer reliance as evidence that digital assets are becoming embedded in 
everyday commerce. Ripple’s Legal Chief Challenges Media Narrative on Crypto 
Utility Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty, who also serves as 
President of the […]

Ripple Legal Chief Challenges ‘Crypto Is Useless’ Narrative as US Usage Continues Climbing

The latest Jane Street debate on X is meeting a blunt rebuttal from Ari Paul. 
The BlockTower founder, who says he used to work as a Wall Street market maker 
15 years ago, argues that Bitcoin’s failure to push higher is better explained 
by spot sell-side than by a long-running suppression campaign. Paul’s answer 
was direct. “In short: no,” he wrote, before adding that market makers do 
“game the system” in many ways, but that in liquid products such as BTC ETFs, 
the effect is usually limited to “meaningful but small costs to consumers,” 
not a lasting distortion of the underlying asset price. He framed the 
distinction as one between short-term microstructure games and a broader claim 
that one firm kept Bitcoin from reaching far higher levels. Bitcoin 
Manipulation? Small Moves, Fast Reversions To make that case, Paul pointed to 
the kind of behavior traders on desks know well. “For example, market makers 
may manipulate the price to run stop limit orders,” he wrote. “But that’s 
typically on an intraday timeframe. So they might run an asset like MSFT or 
BTC 2% in a weak market to trigger stops, then a few seconds or minutes later, 
the price is mostly back to where it was before.” In his telling, that is 
still manipulation, but it is not the same as structurally pinning Bitcoin 
below some imagined fair value for months. Related Reading: Bitcoin Spot 
Volumes Sink To 2024 Lows As Coinbase Selling Pressure Eases That argument 
lands against a more conspiratorial narrative now circulating online, why 
Bitcoin is not already at $150,000. Paul’s pushback does not deny that large 
Wall Street firms can shape short-term trading conditions. It rejects the 
stronger claim that such activity is the central explanation for Bitcoin’s 
broader price path. Paul’s core point was much less dramatic. “Why is BTC 
down? Because OGs sold tens of thousands of coins, and not enough people 
wanted to buy them.” That line closely matched the view from renowned on-chain 
analyst James Check, who argued that “Jane Street didn’t suppress the Bitcoin 
price” and that “HODLers all did,” by selling large amounts of spot into the 
market. Jane Street didn&#8217;t suppress the Bitcoin price folks. HODLers all did. 
It&#8217;s just not that hard, stop summoning your inner salty goldbug but blaming 
manipulators. People. Sold. A. Fucktonne. Of. Spot. Bitcoin. 
https://t.co/CrWgPUzUFP pic.twitter.com/N3VhgYjKhm — _Checkmate 🟠🔑⚡☢️🛢️ 
(@_Checkmatey_) February 26, 2026 He added: “My point has always been the 
same; manipulation is a thing that has always, will always, and is indeed the 
literal job of large wall street firms. However, you do not need that as the 
central argument to explain why the price didn&#8217;t go higher, nor why it went 
lower. That can be well and truly explained by looking at spot sell-side.” 
Paul did leave room for exceptions. He wrote that there are rare cases where 
Wall Street manipulates an asset in major ways over a longer period, but said 
those cases are uncommon because they are risky and harder to profit from than 
people assume. Related Reading: Is Jane Street Why Bitcoin Isn’t At $150K? 
Expert Debunks The Myth “There are rare exceptions where Wall Street 
manipulates an asset in major ways longer term, but this is quite rare because 
it’s very risky and not as easy as it looks to profit. 99% of the time that an 
asset isn’t moving like you want and people are crying “manipulation”, it’s 
best to embrace the cognitive dissonance, avoid the “easy way out” of blaming 
manipulation,” Paul wrote. That leaves the current Jane Street argument in a 
narrower frame. Yes, large firms can influence intraday flows, liquidity, and 
execution quality. But based on Paul’s account, that is a long way from 
proving that one market maker is the reason Bitcoin is not trading materially 
higher. Notably, the Jane Street theory picked up fresh attention after 
Terraform Labs’ wind-down administrator sued the firm in Manhattan federal 
court, alleging insider trading tied to Terra’s 2022 collapse. The complaint 
says Jane Street used a private chat called “Bryce’s Secret” to obtain non- 
public information and alleges an 85 million UST trade on Curve that helped 
trigger a selloff; Jane Street has denied wrongdoing and called the case 
opportunistic. At press time, BTC traded at $66,090. Featured image created 
with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Bitcoin Manipulation By Jane Street? Ex-Wall Street Market Maker Says No

Ethereum is attempting to stabilize around the $2,000 level as the broader 
crypto market shows tentative signs of relief. After weeks of persistent 
pressure, price action has paused its decline, but sentiment remains fragile. 
The recent rebound has helped ease immediate downside momentum, yet the 
technical structure still reflects a market recovering from significant damage 
rather than entering a confirmed uptrend. Related Reading: Engine Stalled: How 
The $8 Billion ‘October Shock’ Left Bitcoin’s Spot Market In A Liquidity Trap 
According to a CryptoQuant analyst, Ethereum endured a severe liquidation- 
driven sell-off in recent weeks, falling sharply from local highs near $3,300 
to lows around the $1,850 region. The intensity of this move becomes 
particularly evident when analyzing the Net Taker Volume (30-day moving 
average), a metric that measures aggressive market order activity. In 
February, this indicator plunged to its most negative level since last 
November, highlighting the dominance of aggressive sellers during the decline. 
Such extreme negative readings typically reflect panic-driven execution rather 
than orderly repositioning. When taker volume skews heavily to the sell side, 
it often signals forced exits, stop-outs, and cascading liquidations across 
derivatives markets. While Ethereum’s attempt to hold $2,000 suggests that 
immediate selling pressure may be easing, the underlying data confirms that 
the market recently absorbed one of its most intense bouts of downside 
aggression in months. Net Taker Volume Signals Capitulation — But Not 
Confirmation The dominance of towering red bars in Ethereum’s Net Taker Volume 
underscores how aggressively sellers controlled the order books during the 
recent decline. When taker sell orders consistently exceed taker buy orders by 
such a magnitude, it reflects urgency. This is not passive distribution; it is 
market participants hitting bids aggressively, often under stress. The 
combination of panic-driven exits, systematic short positioning, and forced 
long liquidations likely amplified the move from $3,300 to sub-$1,900 levels. 
Notably, the only meaningful cluster of green bars — representing aggressive 
buying — emerged in mid-January, coinciding with Ethereum’s local peak near 
$3,400. That brief resurgence in demand failed to sustain itself, after which 
sell-side momentum reasserted control. Structurally, this pattern suggests 
that upside liquidity was exhausted before a broader deleveraging cycle 
unfolded. Extreme negative Net Taker Volume readings are often associated with 
capitulation phases. Historically, such flushes can mark exhaustion points, as 
aggressive sellers eventually deplete themselves. However, capitulation alone 
does not confirm reversal. For a structural shift to materialize, the 
imbalance must normalize. A contraction in red bars followed by sustained 
green dominance would signal renewed conviction from aggressive buyers. 
Related Reading: The $2,000 Fault Line: Why Ethereum’s Record Volatility 
Signals An Imminent Explosion Ethereum Struggles To Reclaim $2,000 As 
Downtrend Persists Ethereum remains structurally weak despite brief 
stabilization attempts near the $2,000 level. The chart shows a clear 
breakdown from the $3,400–$3,600 region earlier this year, followed by a 
sequence of lower highs and lower lows — a textbook downtrend formation. The 
recent bounce has not altered this structure. Price is currently trading below 
the 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day moving averages, all of which are sloping 
downward. This alignment confirms bearish momentum across short-, medium-, and 
long-term horizons. Notably, the 50-day average has accelerated lower, 
reflecting sustained selling pressure rather than a temporary liquidity 
vacuum. Related Reading: Digital Gold Is Dead: The Institutional Architecture 
Binding Bitcoin To The Nasdaq In The 2026 Downturn The sharp decline toward 
the $1,850 zone was accompanied by a significant spike in volume, suggesting 
forced liquidations and aggressive distribution. Since then, volume has 
moderated during consolidation, indicating that while panic may have eased, 
conviction among buyers remains limited. Technically, $2,000 functions as a 
psychological pivot rather than confirmed support. A sustained move above the 
50-day average would be required to signal improving momentum. Conversely, 
failure to hold the current range could reopen downside risk toward deeper 
liquidity pockets. Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com

Ethereum’s Market Order Imbalance Hits Record Negatives: $1,850 Is Now The Line In The Sand

Bitcoin’s notorious four-year boom-and-bust cycle may be losing its grip as 
institutional demand, deeper liquidity, and shifting ownership patterns 
reshape market dynamics, potentially redefining how investors position bitcoin 
in long-term portfolios, according to Fidelity’s analysis. Fidelity: Bitcoin 
Is No Longer Just a Trade — It’s Emerging as a Core Long-Term Portfolio Asset 
Bitcoin’s long-standing four-year […]

Cryptocurrency price in UAH