Week in review: a $76,000 test and tokenisation on Nasdaq

Bitcoin hit $76k; difficulty fell; SEC okayed tokenised stocks on Nasdaq; China purged OpenClaw.

Bitcoin briefly tested $76,000, mining difficulty fell 7.7%, SEC cleared Nasdaq to trade tokenised equities, Chinese users began mass deletions of OpenClaw, and other highlights from the week.

Up to $76,000 and back

The leading cryptocurrency started Monday with conviction, jumping from $71,000 to $74,000 within a day. The next day the asset continued its rally, rising towards $76,000 for the first time since early February.

By Wednesday, 18 March, the uptrend stalled amid an escalation in the Middle East and rising oil prices. 

Investors’ caution was compounded by a meeting of the Fed, at which the regulator kept the policy rate at 3.5–3.75%. Although widely expected, such decisions typically prompt risk-asset restraint.

By late Thursday bitcoin had surrendered its recent gains, falling to $69,000. From then until week’s end it traded in a $68,000–$70,000 range.

At the time of writing, bitcoin trades at $68,800, down 4% over the past seven days.

The broader crypto market largely followed suit. Ethereum hovered around $2,000, slipping just 1% week-on-week.

Despite bitcoin’s lacklustre price action, inflows into spot ETFs persisted for a fourth straight week. From 16 to 20 March the products attracted a net $95m.

Ethereum funds, however, broke a three-week streak, recording $59m of outflows.

Total crypto market capitalisation stands at $2.44trn, with BTC dominance at 56.5% and ETH at 10.3%.

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index remains in extreme fear at 10 points.

A deep difficulty correction

On 21 March, after the latest adjustment, bitcoin mining difficulty fell by 7.76% to 133.79 T.

It was the second-deepest drop this year: on 7 February the metric plunged by more than 11% after equipment was shut down during a U.S. winter storm.

Network hashrate has also been sliding. After peaking at 1.15 ZH/s in mid-October 2025, it fell to 940 EH/s.

The easier difficulty prompted a rebound in hashprice to $32 per PH/s per day. Industry watchers see roughly $40 per PH/s per day as a breakeven level for miners’ profitability.

According to TheEnergyMag, of the 14 largest public U.S. mining companies, only IREN and American Bitcoin Corp, affiliated with Donald Trump’s family, are currently mining profitably.       

Per _checkonchain, as of 22 March the average cost to produce one bitcoin exceeds $82,000. With spot prices around $69,000, miners are taking roughly a 15% loss per block.

Higher oil prices, which raise electricity costs, are weighing on the sector. In response, some participants are selling assets and shifting capacity to higher-margin AI services.

What to discuss with friends?

• The OP_NET team will launch smart contracts on the Bitcoin network.
• The Turing Award was awarded for achievements in quantum information for the first time.
• TRON’s share of stablecoin transactions plunged to 14%.
• Confirmation times between Ethereum and L2 will be cut by 98%.

Tokenisation on Nasdaq 

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Nasdaq’s proposal to trade tokenised shares. The initiative will cover products from the Russell 1000 index and a number of ETFs. 

Tokenised assets will retain all the attributes of their traditional counterparts, including shareholder rights, tickers and trading priorities. Clearing and settlement will still run through the traditional market infrastructure. 

Mechanically, brokers will be able to add special flags to RWA orders when entering them. After execution, Nasdaq will send an instruction to the Depository Trust Company. If the latter cannot process the request due to network or other constraints, settlement will proceed in the standard format without tokens.

The SEC stressed that placing a security on a blockchain does not change its legal status — the asset remains a share, not a technology instrument.

“This is not just a rule change. This is Wall Street’s official embrace of tokenisation,” said an analyst under the nickname Crypto Patel.

Also this week, Commission chair Paul Atkins unveiled a new token taxonomy and an updated reading of investment contracts.

Under the new approach, the regulator identifies four categories of assets that are not deemed securities:

• digital goods;
• digital collectibles;
• digital instruments;
• payment stablecoins (in accordance with the GENIUS Act).

According to Atkins, only one class of assets falls under securities law — “digital securities”. These refer solely to tokenised versions of traditional financial instruments.

In addition, the SEC head announced work on Regulation Crypto Assets, a rulebook intended to provide the industry with transparent, legal ways to raise capital. It foresees exemptions for startups and fundraising, as well as a “safe harbour” for investment contracts.

Delete OpenClaw

Amid a sharp reversal in sentiment toward OpenClaw, a tool for building AI agents, Chinese social networks saw the emergence of paid services offering to remove the app — which many users had earlier paid to install.

For example, a Shanghai-based Alibaba user nicknamed mojito lime water offered to uninstall the utility for 299 yuan ($43.55), and had already completed several orders. 

The mass exodus from OpenClaw began after a warning from China’s National Computer Emergency Response Center, which said the programme’s default security settings were exceedingly weak.

The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology announced an initiative to develop standards for OpenClaw-based agents to address opaque decision-making mechanisms.

Several Chinese universities also issued warnings about the programme. They recommend using only the latest official version, restricting the app’s internet access and closely controlling permissions.

Outside China, there were reports of OpenClaw being used for phishing campaigns and to steal cryptocurrencies from developers.

According to OX Security, scammers created fake GitHub accounts, opened discussions in controlled repositories and tagged dozens of other users. Messages claimed they had been selected to receive $5,000 in CLAW tokens.

Victims were directed to a malicious website where they were prompted to connect a wallet to “claim a reward”. The page almost perfectly mirrored OpenClaw’s official website.

From tokens to digital equities

Equities and commodities continue to gain traction on-chain. Thanks to tokenised real-world markets, open interest (OI) on HIP-3 at the Hyperliquid exchange hit a record $1.43bn.

In the six months since the new format launched, the metric has risen more than 100-fold.

Trade.xyz, a platform from Hyperunit, leads the segment. It accounts for nearly 90% of total OI, with daily volumes reaching $22bn.

Only seven of the venue’s top-30 instruments are crypto pairs. The rest are traditional assets, including popular oil grades and trading indices.

On 18 March, S&P Dow Jones Indices licensed Trade.xyz to launch the first official perpetual contracts on the S&P 500 index. In the first four trading days, the product’s OI exceeded $52m and daily turnover reached $22m.

The appeal of non-crypto derivatives stems from 24/7 trading. The ability to trade on weekends and after traditional exchanges close is drawing in a fresh audience beyond the crypto community.

Also on ForkLog:

• Aster launched an ultra-fast private blockchain for a perp DEX.
• BIS: retail investors bought $70bn of gold via ETFs in six months.
• Sloptracing. Users criticised Nvidia’s DLSS 5 AI technology.
• A brain implant helped paralysed people type on a virtual keyboard.

Grinex enables card deposits

The cryptocurrency exchange Grinex has added the ability to buy digital assets with a bank card. The feature is available to verified users.

At the first stage, card payments support purchases of the rouble stablecoin A7A5. Once credited, the token can be exchanged for USDT and other assets.

The top-up fee is 0.5%. Funds are credited to the balance immediately after payment confirmation.

“All payments go through verified payment services. No risks associated with intermediaries and P2P,” the blog says.

The minimum deposit is 1,000 roubles; the maximum is 600,000 roubles. The limit is set by the bank and applies to both a single payment and a user’s total monthly turnover.

The service is available to verified individuals with a PSB bank card. Other banks are not yet supported. Card withdrawals are in development.

What else to read?

ForkLog examined the technological and economic features of the leading dollar-pegged stablecoins and their current standing among the top projects by market capitalisation. 

Why resistance to digitalisation is becoming a mark of elitism, how the “new Luddites” are fighting for the right to anonymity, and why cash is turning into a tool of political protest.