Summary
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The crypto market remained range-bound and weak overall this week, with both Bitcoin and Ethereum posting pullbacks of varying degrees, while market sentiment stayed in the Fear zone.
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Trending tokens were highly active, with ACX, LOBSTER, and PIXEL posting strong gains, as AI-, SocialFi-, and Meme-related narratives gained traction.
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Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East continued to disrupt global markets, intensifying the battle over oil prices, while Bitcoin traded in a narrow range near the USD 70,000 level.
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Driven by regional safe-haven demand and capital transfer needs, stablecoin demand in Dubai rose significantly, with more than 2.3 billion USDC minted over the past week.
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Pump.fun has registered multiple blockchain-related subdomains, leading the market to speculate that it may expand from a Solana-only platform into a multi-chain ecosystem.
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Capital activity on Solana remained elevated, with stablecoin market capitalization rising to USD 15.6 billion and Jito TVL increasing to USD 1.114 billion.
Market Overview
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BTC Market Update — BTC declined 4.39% this week. It is currently trading at USD 69,348.02, down 0.75% over the past 24 hours, with short-term price action still leaning weak. From the market structure, BTC saw a pullback after previously consolidating at higher levels, and over the past 7 days it has generally remained in a downward range-bound pattern, while market sentiment has also stayed cautious. With the Fear & Greed Index currently at just 25, risk appetite has not yet meaningfully recovered, suggesting BTC may continue to consolidate within a range in the short term. If trading volume rebounds and BTC reclaims the USD 70,000 level, prices may gradually recover; otherwise, BTC may continue to fluctuate repeatedly within the current range.
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ETH Market Update — ETH declined 4.56% this week and is currently trading at USD 2,027.75, up slightly by 0.13% over the past 24 hours, though its overall performance over the past 7 days still fell short of expectations for a solid rebound. From a price-action perspective, ETH remains in a weak and range-bound phase. Although there are signs of short-term stabilization, the overall recovery remains limited. Combined with broader market data, the Altcoin Season Index currently stands at 39, indicating that risk appetite for non-Bitcoin assets has not yet materially improved, which is also constraining ETH’s rebound potential. If ETH can hold the key USD 2,000 level and market sentiment continues to recover, it may gradually move higher to test stronger resistance zones.
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Altcoins — Major altcoins showed mixed performance this week, with some projects rising against the broader trend. Based on the available data, among mainstream assets, Hyperliquid (HYPE) posted the strongest 7-day gain of 14.07%, while Solana (SOL) fell 5.51%, Cardano (ADA) declined 5.36%, and Dogecoin (DOGE) dropped 4.64%. Overall, most major altcoins remain under pressure.
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Stablecoins — Total stablecoin market capitalization currently stands at USD 314.8 billion, with stablecoins such as USDC and USDe continuing to attract strong market attention.
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Gas Fees — Ethereum network gas fees edged slightly lower this week. As of March 12, the average daily gas fee stood at 0.04 Gwei.
Trending Tokens
This week, AI- and SocialFi-related narratives remained in focus. As multi-chain ecosystems such as BNB gained momentum, some niche sectors posted standout performance. That said, it is worth noting that the trading ranges of major coins such as ETH and BTC narrowed overall, with volume also easing slightly. Broad-based altcoin strength still depends on major assets as an anchor, while short-term momentum chasing remains strong and localized volatility in certain projects is elevated. Below is a breakdown of these assets.
ACX Across Protocol（+82.14%，Market Cap: $44.13M）
According to Gate market data, ACX is currently priced at USD 0.06102, up 82.14% over the past 24 hours. Across Protocol is an innovative cross-chain interoperability solution designed to enable efficient and low-cost transactions across different blockchains.
The core driver behind ACX’s sharp rally was a major proposal introduced by Across Protocol between March 11 and March 12, 2026. The proposal would transform the project from DAO governance into a U.S.-registered company and allow ACX holders to either exchange their tokens for company equity or redeem them for USDC at a 25% premium. This sudden structural shift gave ACX two underlying anchors, corporate equity and cash redemption, which directly ignited strong bullish sentiment in the secondary market.
龙虾 龙虾（+61.00%，Market Cap: $19.38m）
According to Gate market data, LOBSTER is currently priced at USD 0.019543, up 61.0% over the past 24 hours. LOBSTER is a Chinese meme coin with strong popularity and community consensus within the BSC ecosystem.
The main reason behind LOBSTER’s rise is its close association with the recently surging OpenClaw AI agent software narrative. According to multiple major media reports and on-chain monitoring, LOBSTER’s market capitalization rose from roughly USD 1.8 million to USD 18 million within just a few days, representing an almost 10x increase. However, it is important to note that it remains a typical Chinese meme coin, lacking practical utility and fundamental value support, and therefore carries very high risks of extreme volatility and fading liquidity.
PIXEL Pixels（+46.26%，Market Cap: $11.08m）
According to Gate market data, PIXEL is currently priced at USD 0.014034, up 46.26% over the past 24 hours. Pixels (PIXEL) is a Web3 open-world social farming game built on Ronin, centered around farming, exploration, creation, and social interaction. By leveraging blockchain technology, it allows players to truly own and trade in-game assets while earning rewards through quests and NFT-based gameplay.
PIXEL’s recent surge can mainly be attributed to a short-term speculation wave driven by capital inflows, amplified by sector momentum and improving market sentiment. Multi-period moving averages show a strong bullish alignment, prices have repeatedly set new monthly highs, and Bollinger Bands have widened, indicating significantly stronger volatility and upward momentum.
Key Market Data Highlights
Iran Conflict Shifts Toward an Oil Price Battle, While Crypto Trades Sideways Awaiting Direction
On March 12, the situation involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran entered a new phase. Under U.S. leadership, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced the release of 400 million barrels of emergency oil reserves to stabilize the energy market, marking the largest such release in history. At the same time, Trump stated that the war could “end very soon.” Iran, however, warned that oil prices could rise to USD 200 per barrel and said storage capacity in the Gulf region was nearing saturation, making it difficult for large volumes of supply to enter the market. Meanwhile, two oil tankers in the northern Gulf were attacked, raising concerns over shipping security and briefly pushing international oil prices above USD 90. On the diplomatic front, Iran for the first time proposed potential ceasefire conditions, including recognition of its legitimate rights, compensation, and international security guarantees. In the crypto market, although Bitcoin ETF flows turned net positive again, BTC continued to trade in a narrow range near USD 70,000.
Overall, the current geopolitical conflict is gradually shifting into a contest over energy prices and financial markets. The U.S. release of strategic reserves is intended to suppress oil prices and inflation expectations while stabilizing U.S. equities and global risk assets. Iran, meanwhile, is attempting to gain greater leverage in negotiations by raising oil price expectations and increasing shipping risks in the Gulf. In the short term, if oil prices continue to rise, this could further intensify global inflation pressures, affect Fed policy expectations, and create phased pressure on risk assets. For the crypto market, against a backdrop of rising macro uncertainty, Bitcoin has not yet developed a clear safe-haven profile and instead remains in a high-level consolidation structure, suggesting the market is still waiting for fresh macro or liquidity catalysts.
Dubai Stablecoin Demand Surges, With More Than 2.3 Billion USDC Minted Over the Past Week
On March 12, according to local sources in the UAE, uncertainty surrounding the geopolitical situation in the Middle East has led to a marked increase in demand for stablecoins in Dubai, with OTC desks seeing a large number of investor inquiries related to USDC. Due to the relatively low efficiency of local bank wire transfers, some large-scale capital has started shifting toward on-chain settlement and transfers. At the same time, on-chain data also shows synchronized growth in stablecoin demand. According to DeFiLlama, USDC supply increased by about 3.03% over the past week, equivalent to roughly USD 2.36 billion, reflecting accelerating capital inflows into the stablecoin market.
This phenomenon shows that stablecoins are increasingly taking on the role of an “on-chain U.S. dollar liquidity tool” during periods of geopolitical uncertainty. When traditional financial systems face friction due to cross-border transfer inefficiencies, banking restrictions, or market risks, stablecoins can provide faster settlement speeds and greater capital accessibility, making them a natural channel for short-term hedging and liquidity transfers. At the same time, this further confirms that stablecoins are evolving from being merely a medium for crypto trading into tools for cross-border capital flows and digital dollar substitution within the global financial system.
Pump.fun Registers Subdomains for Base, BSC, Monad, and Ethereum, Potentially Expanding to Additional Networks
On March 12, according to SolanaFloor, meme token launch platform Pump.fun has registered related subdomains for Base, BSC, Monad, and Ethereum, suggesting that it may be planning to expand into a multi-chain ecosystem. At the same time, Pump.fun removed the “Solana” location tag from its X (formerly Twitter) profile, a change that further strengthened market speculation that it is transitioning from a Solana-only platform into a broader multi-chain platform.
If Pump.fun moves forward with multi-chain expansion, it may signal that competition among meme asset launch platforms is shifting from single-ecosystem competition to cross-chain liquidity competition. Over the past year, Pump.fun’s success has depended heavily on Solana’s low fees and high transaction efficiency. However, as user adoption and meme trading activity continue to rise on chains such as Base and BSC, deploying across multiple chains could help it broaden its user base and capture more on-chain liquidity. This also reflects how the business model of meme asset issuance platforms is gradually becoming more platformized, attracting creators and speculative capital by offering one-stop token issuance, liquidity bootstrapping, and trading infrastructure.
Focus of the Week
Solana Stablecoin Market Cap Rises to USD 15.6 Billion, On-Chain Capital Activity Remains Elevated
Over the past week, on-chain capital activity on Solana remained strong. According to the latest data from DeFiLlama, stablecoin market capitalization on Solana has risen to USD 15.639 billion, up another 1.65% over the past 7 days. At the same time, total value locked (TVL) in Solana DeFi has reached USD 11.387 billion, keeping it firmly among the leading public blockchains. This suggests that despite the broader market remaining in a volatile consolidation phase, capital has not materially exited the Solana ecosystem and instead continues to show strong demand across payments, trading, and DeFi use cases.
From a trading perspective, Solana recorded USD 2.198 billion in DEX volume over the past 24 hours and USD 14.23 billion over the past 7 days. It also saw 2.42 million active addresses over the past 24 hours and as many as 87.27 million daily transactions, indicating that user participation and capital turnover efficiency remain elevated. For investors, an expanding stablecoin market cap often implies abundant on-chain liquidity, while high active address counts and high-frequency transaction volumes further reinforce Solana’s fundamentals as a high-performance trading-oriented public chain. If this trend continues, the Solana ecosystem could remain well-positioned to attract additional capital during the next phase of market recovery.
Jito TVL Rises to USD 1.114 Billion as Liquid Staking and the MEV Model Continue to Attract Capital
According to the latest data from DeFiLlama, the Solana ecosystem’s liquid staking protocol Jito has seen its total value locked (TVL) rise to USD 1.114 billion. Over the past 24 hours, it generated USD 2.11 million in fees and USD 87,800 in protocol revenue, while the current average staking yield stands at about 5.93%. As one of the most representative liquid staking protocols in the Solana ecosystem, Jito continues to attract users to deposit SOL in exchange for staking assets that offer both liquidity and yield.
Jito’s core appeal lies in the fact that it does not simply provide traditional staking returns. Instead, it combines liquid staking with an MEV revenue-sharing mechanism, allowing users who hold jitoSOL to earn both base staking rewards and additional returns generated by on-chain ordering value. This higher-capital-efficiency yield model has allowed Jito to continue attracting market attention as the Solana ecosystem recovers. As on-chain trading activity remains elevated, protocols like Jito, which combine infrastructure attributes with yield enhancement, are likely to continue benefiting from the broader expansion of the Solana ecosystem and may also create more upside potential for related governance tokens and DeFi composability on-chain.
Market Sentiment Recovers from Extreme Fear, with the CMC Fear & Greed Index Rising to 25
From an overall sentiment perspective, the latest CoinMarketCap data shows that the crypto Fear & Greed Index has recovered to 25/100, improving from the previous Extreme Fear zone, though it still remains in Fear territory. This suggests that while the market has not yet entered a fully optimistic phase, investor risk appetite has begun to improve at the margin, and capital sentiment is gradually shifting from defensive positioning toward tentative re-entry.
At the same time, CMC data shows that total crypto market capitalization currently stands at about USD 2.35 trillion, with 24-hour trading volume reaching USD 107.22 billion and Bitcoin dominance at 58.5%. This indicates that Bitcoin still maintains strong market leadership, though altcoin activity is gradually recovering. For the broader market, this kind of “sentiment recovery without overheating” phase often means structural opportunities are beginning to emerge, especially for public chains and DeFi sectors with stronger fundamentals and steadily improving on-chain data. If the macro environment and market risk appetite continue to improve, the currently low but recovering sentiment indicators may provide the emotional foundation for the next leg higher in the crypto market.
Funding Weekly Recap
According to RootData, between March 5 and March 12, 2026, fundraising activity in crypto and related sectors continued to advance. Capital mainly flowed into stablecoin payments, institutional-grade trading infrastructure, and privacy technology, showing that investors are still actively allocating into digital asset financial services and core infrastructure. Below are the top three fundraising rounds of the week:
KAST
Announced an USD 80 million Series A round on March 9, at a post-money valuation of USD 600 million, with investors including QED Investors and Left Lane Capital.
KAST is a crypto financial services project focused on stablecoin payments and financial infrastructure. It aims to improve capital efficiency for users in on-chain and cross-border scenarios through more efficient digital asset payment and account systems.
Crossover Markets
Announced a USD 31 million Series B round on March 5, at a post-money valuation of USD 200 million. The round was led by Tradeweb Markets, with participation from institutions including Wintermute.
Crossover Markets is a company focused on institutional-grade digital asset trading infrastructure, primarily providing efficient and low-latency execution services for professional trading institutions and aiming to make it easier for institutional capital to enter the crypto market.
Zcash Open Development Lab
Announced a USD 25 million seed round on March 9, with participation from well-known institutions including Paradigm and Andreessen Horowitz.
Zcash Open Development Lab is a development organization focused on privacy technology and the Zcash ecosystem. It primarily supports research and development in privacy-preserving technologies and related infrastructure, helping advance the privacy sector within the crypto industry.
Next Week to Watch
Token Unlocks
According to Tokenomist data, the market will see several major token unlocks over the next 7 days (2026.03.12 – 2026.03.19). The top three are as follows:
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WBT will unlock approximately USD 4.52 billion worth of tokens, representing 38.2% of its circulating supply.
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BARD will unlock approximately USD 32.28 million worth of tokens, representing 13.3% of its circulating supply.
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CONX will unlock approximately USD 15.38 million worth of tokens, representing 50.2% of its circulating supply.
References:
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Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/BTC_USDT
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Farside Investors, https://farside.co.uk/btc/
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Gate, https://www.gate.com/trade/ETH_USDT
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Gate, https://www.gate.com/crypto-market-data
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DeFiLlama, https://defillama.com/stablecoins
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Etherscan, https://etherscan.io/gastracker
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Coingecoko, https://www.coingecko.com/en/cryptocurrency-heatmap
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The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383595/tom-lees-bitmine-88-million-eth
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The Block, https://www.theblock.co/post/383711/polymarket-third-party-vulnerability-hack
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Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/12/24/trump-media-shuffles-2-000-btc-after-fresh-bitcoin-inflows
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Rootdata, https://www.rootdata.com/Fundraising
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Tokenomist, https://tokenomist.ai/
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Deribit, https://www.deribit.com/statistics/BTC/metrics/options
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X, https://x.com/AustinBarack/status/2003902632973275405?s=20
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CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/nvidia-buying-ai-chip-startup-groq-for-about-20-billion-biggest-deal.html
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