Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is urging the Ethereum ecosystem to treat 
oracle design and decentralization as a priority security problem, warning 
that key parts of DeFi’s stack still hide uncomfortable fragilities behind the 
industry’s recent growth. In a post outlining how the Ethereum Foundation is 
thinking about DeFi, Buterin framed decentralized finance as “a central part 
of the value that Ethereum provides” and argued that its next phase must pair 
renewed innovation with a harder line on security and centralization risks. 
“Defi is a central part of the value that Ethereum provides. Financial 
empowerment is a central part of what it means to have agency and freedom in 
our current world. Finance is far from the only thing that Ethereum is good 
for, but it is an important thing,” Buterin wrote, positioning DeFi not as a 
side quest, but as one of Ethereum’s flagship deliverables. Related Reading: 
Ethereum’s Legal Status Gains Clarity After SEC Leadership Signal Ethereum 
Foundation’s DeFi Crackdown: No Centralized Shortcuts Buterin’s thesis has two 
edges. The first is aspirational: DeFi should return to the early-era 
willingness to invent new primitives rather than iterating on the same product 
shapes. He pointed to AMMs as an example of the kind of paradigm shift he 
wants developers to chase again, arguing that teams should “dig a layer 
deeper” than surface-level improvements like “make a better stablecoin” and 
instead attack the underlying financial problems: risk management and hedging 
future expenses with new mechanisms. The second edge is a filter. Buterin said 
the Ethereum Foundation is not looking to support “onchain finance” or “defi” 
indiscriminately, but to push toward a narrower vision: “permissionless, open- 
source, private, security-first global finance that maximizes people&#8217;s control 
over their own assets, minimizes centralized chokepoints and trusted third 
parties, and democratizes risk management and wealth building … as well as 
payments.” A key standard in that vision is operational resilience. Buterin 
said the ecosystem should prefer protocols that “pass the walkaway test”: 
systems that keep functioning even if the founding team disappears overnight 
or worse, “becomes hostile / compromised without warning.” It’s a stark 
yardstick in a sector where governance keys, upgrade mechanisms, and offchain 
dependencies often concentrate power long after a protocol looks 
“decentralized” in marketing. Related Reading: Ethereum Price Holds Key 5-Year 
Demand Area Amid Heavy Whale Transfers Where the alarm bell rings loudest is 
oracles: the bridge between onchain logic and offchain reality. In a list of 
priority areas, Buterin singled out “oracle security and decentralization,” 
adding a blunt aside: “there&#8217;s A LOT of skeletons in the closet here, we as an 
ecosystem really need to point a big eye of sauron at it for a while.” The 
line is telling: it implies risks that are known, tolerated, or under- 
discussed, despite oracles sitting on the critical path for lending, 
stablecoins, derivatives, and liquidations. Buterin framed DeFi as a “complex 
toolchain” that mixes onchain components with user-side and other offchain 
pieces — wallets, local agents, and more. His roadmap-like list reflects that 
breadth: classic security work such as audits, standards, and wallet-side 
safeguards; newer approaches like “AI-assisted formal verification” and “user- 
side agents as safeguards”; privacy for both payments and more complex 
positions, including the question of what a “maximally privacy-preserving CDP” 
would look like; and renewed emphasis on open source licensing and 
forkability. The closing message is permissive but not passive. Ethereum will 
always allow people to deploy “insecure protocols” or systems that embed 
“ultimately unneeded centralized trust in the name of convenience,” Buterin 
wrote, as well as what he called “dopamine-maximizing gambleslop.” But he 
signaled the Foundation’s intent to actively collaborate with builders aligned 
around minimizing intermediaries and maximizing user agency, with the aim of 
making that version of DeFi not just Ethereum’s best option, but “a globally 
compelling way to manage funds” for anyone who values those properties. At 
press time, ETH traded at $1,912. Featured image created with DALL.E, chart 
from TradingView.com

Ethereum DeFi Warning: Vitalik Flags Oracles As A Hidden Time Bomb

Ripple is accelerating its push into institutional finance after deploying 
roughly $4 billion in acquisitions, as CEO Brad Garlinghouse positions the 
blockchain firm as core infrastructure linking traditional markets with 
digital assets. Ripple Channels Billions Into Powering the Next Era of 
Corporate Digital Assets, CEO Details Corporate adoption of digital assets 
continues to accelerate as […]

Ripple Deploys Billions to Transform Global Finance, CEO Says He’s ‘Incredibly Excited’

CFTC chair Mike Selig said the agency established a prediction markets 
advisory to help catch insider traders, warning there would be consequences.

Kalshi boots a US politician off the platform for insider trading

Tether’s market capitalization has declined for a second straight month, a 
rare occurrence last seen after the 2022 Terra collapse. This contraction, 
alongside muted bitcoin ETF demand, points to fragile market conditions. 
Stablecoin Slowdown Signals Crypto Capital Outflows Tether ( USDT) is flashing 
a signal the crypto market hasn’t seen in years. The world’s largest […]

USDT Market Capitalization Drops by Over $3 Billion, Raising Market Concerns

According to a new forecast from an Elliott Wave analyst, the Bitcoin price 
could be gearing up for more pain as bearish pressures continue to weigh 
heavily on it. As a final bear market move, the analyst has projected that 
Bitcoin could crash by more than 14% from its current price near $65,000. 
Bitcoin Price Readies For Final Bear Market Plunge Elliott Wave Strategy, a 
market expert on X who focuses primarily on Elliott Wave structures and 
analysis, has warned that Bitcoin is entering its final leg down of its 
current bear market cycle. In his updated post, the analyst declared that 
BTC’s corrective Wave 4 structure has ended precisely as projected. He 
summarized the outlook bluntly, stating that the relief phase is finally over 
and Wave 5 is now in motion. Related Reading: Bitcoin Dominance To Experience 
Major Crash? Pundit Shares What This Would Mean The accompanying TradingView 
chart shows Wave 5 beginning at the end of a triangle formation, which marked 
Wave 4. The projected target for the final wave has been clearly defined, with 
the first measured move expected to drag Bitcoin’s price down toward the 1.0 
Fibonacci Retracement level at $60,385. Elliott Wave Strategy has also 
forecasted a potential market bottom. He expects Bitcoin to decline further to 
the next bearish target at $55,759, marked by the 1.618 Fibonacci level. Based 
on the expert’s analysis, BTC’s current structure shows no clear signs of a 
possible recovery until it completes its correction. As a result, the analyst 
has urged investors and traders to brace for the potential decline to $55,759, 
which could wipe out more than 55% of BTC’s value from its ATH levels above 
$126,000. A Recap Of Bitcoin’s Wave 4 Performance Based on the wave count 
displayed on the Elliott Wave Strategy’s chart, Bitcoin has already completed 
Waves 1 through 4 of a five-wave bearish impulse. The structure shows an 
earlier price breakdown from above $90,000, slicing through the 0.382 
retracement at $90,601 before accelerating below $75,300, which coincided with 
the 0.5 retracement level. Following this, Bitcoin continued its downward 
spiral below the 0.382 Fibonacci Retracement at $71,689.20, marking the start 
of the Wave 4 consolidation. Related Reading: Here’s What’s Driving The 
Bitcoin Price Crash Toward $60,0000 In a previous analysis, Elliott Wave 
Strategy noted that Bitcoin had already entered its corrective Wave 4 
structure as of February 12. He warned that the temporary rally above $71,000 
that preceded the onset of Wave 4 should not be mistaken for a new bull market 
cycle, reinforcing his predominantly bearish stance on BTC. The now-completed 
Wave 4 triangle has been capped by descending resistance near $70,000 and 
supported by a rising trendline around $66,000. Elliott Wave Strategy 
characterized this trendline as a classic bearish continuation pattern, 
suggesting further downside pressure for BTC’s already weak price. Featured 
image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com

Cryptocurrency price in VEF