Week in review: Tornado Cash sanctions lifted, SEC drops appeal against Ripple, and “whale hunting” on Hyperliquid

The U.S. Department of Justice lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash, the SEC dropped its appeal in the case against Ripple, Hyperliquid enabled “whale hunting,” and other highlights of the week.

Is the bull market over?

Bitcoin started the week around $82,500, extending the prior week’s sideways drift.

On March 18, CryptoQuant head Ki Young Ju said the bull trend had ended, with 6–12 months of bearish or sideways action ahead.

#Bitcoin bull cycle is over, expecting 6–12 months of bearish or sideways price action. pic.twitter.com/f80bnNhjy4

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) March 17, 2025

His colleagues, by contrast, pointed to positive short- and medium-term prospects, citing a decline in open interest on bitcoin futures.

On March 19, after the announcement of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s key rate, bitcoin got a lift. Overnight on March 20 the price hit a local high near $86,800, but within a day fell back to about $84,000.

Amid the rate release, former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes said bitcoin was unlikely to retrace to $77,000. In his view, quantitative tightening is “effectively over,” which could ease liquidity pressures and support risk assets such as cryptocurrencies.

According to Material Indicators, potential bitcoin upside is constrained by market manipulation by one or more large players.

If you are wondering why Bitcoin price hasn’t been able to rally past $87.5k yet, the reason is price suppression from Spoofy the Whale. pic.twitter.com/hxvgaWINtN

— Material Indicators (@MI_Algos) March 20, 2025

“If you are wondering why the price of bitcoin still hasn’t been able to rise above $87,500, the reason is suppression by a spoofing whale,” they wrote.

This refers to manipulating prices by placing large limit buy or sell orders that the trader does not intend to execute. The orders are cancelled once the desired price move is achieved.

In discussion, Material Indicators’ experts agreed that the multi-month support around $76,000 was too flimsy for a strong bounce. Nor is the impulse from the Fed’s last meeting enough to spark a major rally.

CryptoQuant flagged that the Bitcoin Bull Score fell to a two-year low of 20. Historically, strong rallies occur only when the metric exceeds 60.

Bitcoin Bull Score is at a two-year low of 20.

Bitcoin’s down 23% from its peak, and history shows strong rallies only happen when the score is above 60.

Extended low scores often come with bear markets. pic.twitter.com/3OK5g9gibN

— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) March 20, 2025

“Extended periods of low readings most often accompany bear markets,” they said.

At the time of writing, the leading cryptocurrency trades at $85,220, up about 2% on the week. The fear and greed index stands at 30.

For Ethereum, the week began near $1,900. After the Fed meeting, the price rose to a local high around $2,050.

Over the next 24 hours, quotations slipped back below $2,000.

Standard Chartered analysts revised their 2025 Ethereum price forecast down from $10,000 to $4,000.

At press time, Ethereum trades at $2,001, up 5.4% for the week.

All top-10 assets by market capitalization showed gains.

Leaders included TRX (+6.1%), ETH (+5.4%) and XRP (+4.6%).

Tornado Cash freed from U.S. Justice Department sanctions

On March 21, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lifted economic sanctions on Tornado Cash.

More than 100 Ethereum addresses were removed from the sanctions lists. According to the ministry, the decision followed a “review of new legal and policy issues” related to crypto businesses.

The project was sanctioned by OFAC in August 2022 for its role in money laundering. U.S. authorities say more than $7 billion has flowed through the service since launch. Hackers from North Korea’s Lazarus group used Tornado Cash, among others.

On August 12, 2022, one of the mixer’s creators, developer Alexey Pertsev, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in laundering and concealing illicit financial flows.

All company property, user funds and Tornado Cash’s source code in the U.S. and abroad were blocked, and U.S. residents and citizens were prohibited from using the service.

On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the sanctions due to “overreach” by OFAC and returned the case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas for further proceedings. Soon after, Pertsev said he would be released on February 7.

Ripple becomes the plaintiff in the case against the SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission abandoned its appeal in the case against Ripple.

This is it – the moment we’ve been waiting for. The SEC will drop its appeal – a resounding victory for Ripple, for crypto, every way you look at it.

The future is bright. Let’s build. pic.twitter.com/7WsD0C92Cm

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) March 19, 2025

“Reflecting on what happened today, it seems perfectly clear to me that the case was doomed from the start. In many ways, it was the first major shot in the war against cryptocurrencies,” said the fintech company’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse.

In December 2020, the SEC sued Ripple, accusing the company of selling unregistered securities in the form of XRP worth $1.3 billion. Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen were also named as defendants.

In autumn 2023, the Commission withdrew its lawsuit against the company’s founders. The parties reached a settlement, ruling out further charges on previous grounds.

In August 2024, Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres issued a final ruling in the case, fining Ripple $125 million. In October, the SEC appealed the verdict.

Thereafter, the agency moved to appeal prior court decisions concerning the distribution of XRP.

With the Commission’s retreat, the initiative shifts to Ripple. Chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty said the firm would consider how to “best file a cross-appeal” against the SEC.

Garlinghouse stressed optimism as the litigation with the SEC wraps up and noted that Ripple has yet to decide whether to withdraw its own complaint against the agency.

He said the company has spent over $150 million on legal battles and “wouldn’t mind” getting back the $125 million fine paid at the Commission’s behest. The amount remains in an escrow account.

On the news, XRP spiked above $2.50, later stabilizing around $2.40.

What to discuss with friends?

• Jameson Lopp proposed burning quantum-vulnerable bitcoins.
• The annual Nvidia 2025 conference: new AI chips, PCs, robots, partnerships.
• Trump’s ex-wife stood up for “Bitcoin Jesus” Roger Ver.
• The Briton who lost a hard drive with 7,500 BTC will appeal to the ECHR.

Pump.fun and Raydium become rivals

On March 20, the “meme-token factory” Pump.fun announced the launch of its own decentralized exchange (DEX), PumpSwap, on Solana.

Meme tokens sourcing liquidity through Pump.fun are now listed automatically on PumpSwap. Previously, coins migrated to Raydium.

The “meme-token factory” said the new DEX “works similarly to Raydium V4 and Uniswap V2,” focusing on simplifying trading for users.

According to the company, the previous migration model “created friction, slowed the cadence of new projects and scared off newcomers.” Tokens now move instantly and without fees.

The PumpSwap release coincided with Raydium’s announcement of its own meme-coin launch platform called LaunchLab — a Pump.fun rival.

The stand-off between the two players could significantly reshape Solana DeFi amid declining trading volumes in meme coins, a trend observed since January.

The Block’s GMCI Meme index has dropped by 90% relative to December peaks, signalling a cooling of interest in such high-risk assets.

Late last year, the gauge was up 550%, but by March its readings had eased to 80%.

Also on ForkLog:

• Solana celebrated its fifth anniversary: from COVID-19 to the U.S. crypto reserve.
• EOS will change its name to Vaulta and launch a new token.
• The SEC excluded a link between PoW mining and securities.
• Developers of the MegaETH rollup launched a public testnet.

Hyperliquid makes “whale hunting” easier

A Hyperliquid monitoring option allows public tracking of whale operations to analyse the liquidation level of their positions.

Such transparency enables coordinated action by groups of traders, who can deliberately target large players’ stop levels.

Analysts at 10x Research see scope for a shift in the balance of power between categories of the platform’s clients. But the extent of the phenomenon still needs to be assessed, they added.

HYPE Reloaded: Is the Dip a New Entry Point?

?1-14) March has historically been a turning point for asset prices, and last year was no exception. While consensus remained bullish, we turned cautious in March 2024, correctly anticipating the start of an eight-month consolidation… pic.twitter.com/2THlqUSIAe

— 10x Research (@10x_Research) March 17, 2025

The analysts drew parallels with the confrontation between Reddit’s WallStreetBets community and Wall Street hedge funds over GameStop shares.

The 10x Research comment came in response to user CBB’s proposal to liquidate a whale through collective effort.

lmfao we might have some ammo coming in https://t.co/GS68ksb4aC pic.twitter.com/ExYHfg36M0

— CBB (bera era) (@Cbb0fe) March 16, 2025

The reference was to a player who on March 16 opened a short of 4,442 BTC with 40x leverage at $84,043, with a liquidation level at $85,592.

According to the analysts’ observations, the call was heard — within minutes bitcoin jumped 2.5%, helped by those who responded to CBB’s post.

To avoid a negative scenario, the whale increased the position to 6,210 BTC (~$524 million), and later closed the short himself, locking in approximately $7.9 million in profit. Spot prices did not reach his liquidation level of $85,556.99.

What else to read?

In a new piece, we spoke with blockchain lawyer and Aurum partner Sergey Ostrovsky about the legal crisis in decentralised autonomous organisations and the shift to third-generation DAOs.

Together with Everscale representatives, we explained how obligations work in the Governance 3.0 system and how to apply for project funding.

Amid the symbiosis of current AI and DeFi trends, we described new functions in financial applications and their impact on users and the industry.

In our regular digest, we compiled the key cybersecurity events of the week.