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What if Bitcoin was about to rewrite history… alone? While stock markets plummet in free fall and gold takes a pause after its last glow, the first cryptocurrency proudly holds its head high. It no longer clings to the wheel of its elders. No. It gallops ahead. A phenomenon that some already describe as the great decoupling. A new era where Bitcoin no longer follows anyone, not even gold. And in the distance, like a star in the sky of financial imagination: 100,000 dollars. Analyst fantasy? Leap of faith? Or simply the logical continuation of a scenario already written… The scenario could have looked like a remake of 2020: shocking announcement from the White House, panic in the markets , massive sell-off of risky assets. And yet… Bitcoin held strong. While American stock markets were down 10.65% and gold, despite a historic peak of $3,167, was down 4.8%, BTC climbed 4.5%, once again crossing the $84,700 mark. On X, James Seyffart is astonished: I am really a bit shocked by Bitcoin’s resilience. I never believed it would hold above $80,000 in such a massive sell-off of risky assets… Even gold is down? The same sentiment is echoed by Crypto Rover, who exclaims: American stocks are crashing. Gold is crashing. Bitcoin is rising. An incredible force! This is where enters an old couple from the financial world: gold and Bitcoin. The famous “gold leads, Bitcoin follows“, a theory that has returned like an obsessive refrain among analysts. What if history were to repeat itself? In 2019 already, gold rose by 15%… before the Bitcoin price exploded by +170%. This time, some, like MacroScope, see in a return to 100K “a strong signal that a new long-term movement is underway“. A passing of the torch. A rite of passage. The mythical barrier of $100,000 is no longer just a shiny number that dazzles in the dreams of maximalists. It’s a milestone, a signal. For some, crossing it would mark the beginning of a new long-term cycle, a cycle where Bitcoin definitively emancipates itself from its status as an alternative asset to become… an obvious choice. But beware of the sirens. The BTC/XAU ratio, which measures Bitcoin’s strength against gold, shows a bearish fractal, identical to the one that preceded a massive drop in 2021. If the scenario repeats itself, a correction towards $65,000, even $20,000, is not excluded. Yes, even in this golden dream, the ground can shift beneath our feet. And as if that weren’t enough, the economic horizon remains turbulent: the Fed curbs enthusiasm, pushes back hopes for rate cuts, while Donald Trump raises the threat of a global trade war. So, dream or reality, is this threshold of $100,000? One thing is certain: Bitcoin is in the process of inventing its own grammar. It writes its score against the clock. And while indexes stumble, precious metals hesitate, it carves its path towards the unknown, altitude, audacity. For Arthur Hayes, this rising tension orchestrated by Trump could well become the very essence of a new bullish cycle: “ the tariffs will propel gold and Bitcoin to new heights.” The best may still be to come.

The sudden calm that falls on a network as active as XRP is never insignificant. After a spectacular rally at the end of 2024, Ripple’s blockchain is experiencing a steep decline in its activity. This retreat of 65% in just a few weeks is not merely a simple adjustment. It reveals a worrying loss of momentum and raises concerns about the market’s solidity. Behind the numbers, it is an entire speculative dynamic that seems to be faltering. On January 16, 2025, the XRP network recorded 63,389 active addresses in a single day, according to data from CryptoQuant. Barely two and a half months later, on April 3, this figure had dropped to 22,859 addresses, marking a spectacular decline of 65%. This sudden drop marks a sharp break with the euphoric period observed between November 2024 and mid-January 2025, where network activity had surged by 432.6%, driven by a wave of speculative optimism. Indeed, this period “followed a cycle of intense speculative interest” motivated by the anticipation “of a pro-crypto presidency” likely to favor Ripple. The signals of cooling are multiple and converging. Here are the main ones: This decrease in on-chain activity reveals a widespread retreat of interest in XRP in the short term. It is not solely explained by external factors, but also by the internal structure of the market itself, which seems to have been overheated during the year-end rally. Beyond the drop in activity, another indicator deserves attention: the structure of capital investment. According to data from Glassnode , the realized capitalization of XRP surged from $30.1 billion to $64.2 billion in just six months. However, more than 62.8% of this capitalization is now held by investors who bought their XRP crypto during this narrow window of speculation between November 2024 and January 2025. In other words, a majority of current holders have invested at relatively high price levels. This recent concentration of wealth creates a risk of fragility. In the event of a prolonged correction or a sudden drop in price, these investors, having a high average purchase cost, are likely to liquidate their positions quickly. This could fuel cascading sell-offs, which would accelerate price declines and exacerbate volatility. Such a phenomenon is even more likely as these new entrants are mostly individual investors, less experienced and more reactive to fear or frustration. The implications of this dynamic are numerous. Firstly, the XRP market becomes mechanically more unstable, as it relies on a base of crypto investors with low resilience. Secondly, any attempt at recovery could be hampered by persistent selling pressure, as current holders look to disengage without loss. Finally, this situation raises questions about the sustainability of Ripple ‘s growth model. Without solid fundamentals or concrete adoption, a return to stability could require much more than a simple technical rebound.

Since Ripple’s inception, its innovativeness in fin-tech has been centralized around augmenting global payments. In the referential talk by SMQKE , Marcus Treacher, the ex-head of the Ripple tech team, shed more light on the company’s consistent and long-standing position about ISO 20022 —a standard that could potentially be the next big thing in global financial messaging. SMQKE has also pointed out that the ISO 20022 protocol, which enables data to be shared among financial systems without any interruptions, appeared in 2004—the year of Ripple’s establishment. This parallelism, as argued by SMQKE, is something worthy of citation. As other companies are still trying to adopt the new compliance framework, Ripple has never ceased to make everything ready for compliance from the beginning till now. “We’ve always had a real focus on removing all that friction,” Treacher said, emphasizing the company’s intent from the beginning. RippleNet, established in 2016 and 2017, was a direct response of Ripple to the fragmented condition of the market of cross-border transactions. It took on a logical supervision layer, which was a good fit for the ISO 20022’s call for uniform, enriched financial messaging. RippleNet was always focused on and prioritized the accuracy and complement of the data parallel to the payments it handled. Each traditional SWIFT and TIPS network is still using old messages that they operate with. Ripple, in turn, migrated to the new standard with compatibility in mind. Despite this, the U.S. Federal Reserve is not free of the problem with the old infrastructure. ISO 20022 is a standard that addresses these issues, and Ripple has not only accepted the transformation but has also welcomed the shift. Treacher emphasized that Ripple’s idea was more of making the process of moving across borders simple, better than anything to a certain technology. At first, XRP was used for liquidity provision between different fiat currencies, and then later, its role was taken by the Interledger Protocol , which was faster for fiat-to-fiat transactions. Pegah Soltani, Ripple’s Head of Payments Products, echoed this focus in a separate interview shared by SMQKE. She described ISO 20022 as a global standard that boosts competition, encourages innovation, and delivers better data within each transaction. Her comments underscore Ripple’s broader ambition to not just be compliant—but influential. After protocol integration, Ripple’s advancement didn’t come to a standstill. As an example, RLUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin, was brought to the Ripple Payments system by the company in April 2025. The coin, which was released just the past December, has a market capitalization of $250 million. Still, not everything has been smooth sailing. XRP, Ripple native token, is 5.25% surge amidst the President Donald Trump announced a new wave of tariffs, triggering market-wide concerns.

Despite the market volatility and the instability of the economy, Michael Saylor has again voiced his opinion regarding the inherent value of Bitcoin (BTC). According to Saylor , BTC price fluctuations are not a drawback at all. He firmly believes that the digital currency’s utility is the one and only factor that leads to the fluctuations. “Doesn’t mean it’s correlated long-term—just means it’s always available,” Saylor said in response to questions over its stock-like behavior. Bitcoin trades all day, every day. Unlike traditional assets, it never sleeps. That availability opens it up to sharper market reactions, especially in times of panic. But Saylor believes these moment-to-moment fluctuations don’t undercut its deeper value. Long-term, the dips don’t dent the core. Dave Portnoy, known for his love of meme coins and market antics, had questioned why Bitcoin often moves in sync with the US stock market. He argued that for a supposedly independent asset, Bitcoin sure does mimic Wall Street’s mood swings. That observation sparked Saylor’s latest defense of Bitcoin’s character. Saylor’s recent remarks came just after he compared Bitcoin favorably to physical commodities like gold. He pointed out that Bitcoin has a serious advantage—it’s untouched by tariffs. As Donald Trump’s new wave of tariffs on imported goods shakes up markets, Bitcoin, immune from such rules, stands apart. These tariffs, introduced as a tit-for-tat against foreign policies, have stirred fresh economic uncertainty. They’ve added pressure on commodities already under strain. In this context, Bitcoin’s lack of physical form and borderless nature offer a unique shelter, a feature Saylor is keen to highlight. According to Arthur Hayes , ex-CEO of BitMEX, the imbalance and the increased volatility are the main reasons why the Bitcoin surged. Hayes claims that the situation would cause the governments to print more money to cover the distortions they have initiated themselves, thus getting the investors to come on board with Bitcoin. For him, a fall in the Dollar’s value and the disinvestment in tech stocks by foreign entities are contributing to a stronger Bitcoin mid-term prospect. Back in August 2020, Strategy, previously known as MicroStrategy, made its debut into Bitcoin. The trend has been fully aligned from that moment. Right now, Strategy has 528,185 BTC, which makes it the largest corporate Bitcoin holder globally. Moreover, Strategy is one of the most recent convertible bond issuers and has raised around $9 billion. Saylor’s conviction in Bitcoin hasn’t wavered. On March 15, 2025, he posted a tweet that drew attention far and wide. Bitcoin is an Orange Dwarf—the brightest object in the financial system—growing stronger, hotter, and denser as it attracts capital. Orange dwarfs are very constant and enduring like the idea of Saylor for Bitcoin. The analogy was liked by the crypto community, which showed a sense of not just standing through the change but increasing in spirit.

Bitcoin ATM scams are on the rise, with North Dakota witnessing an uptick in crime across several counties. According to reports, scammers have been calling residents, urging them to pay certain legal fees in Bitcoin and some other gift cards for missing jury duties. According to several reports coming out of Stanley County, the Sheriff’s Office told the United Judicial System (UJS) that it had received more than 30 reports regarding suspicious phone calls over the last few days. Most of the callers have been telling Stanley County residents that there is a $2,000 warrant for their arrest, instructing them to visit local convenience stores to send money using digital assets like Bitcoin. According to the Chief Deputy of the Stanley County Sheriff’s Office, Greg Swanson, these criminals have various methods of carrying out their activities, using scare tactics as the major example. “They would keep them on the phone while they drove to the bitcoin machine and tell them how to go about this action,” Swanson said. He also added that the scammers have been trying to use the Sheriff’s Office phone numbers to appear legitimate. Some scammers have also been using the Sheriff’s Office’s logo when sending scam emails in an apparent effort to appear legitimate and convincing, the Chief Deputy mentioned. The UJS have also alerted the general public to the growing menace of calls for missing jury duties for subsequent payments, telling them that they would never call anyone regarding jury duty. “We would never call someone, we certainly would never ever demand money over the phone, we wouldn’t accept or look for things such as bitcoins, cryptocurrencies, those are really big red flags,” Greg Sattizahn, the state court administrator for UJS said. The scam has been netting the criminals some heavy amounts, with one Stanley County resident noting that he lost $4,000 to the scammers. While the Sheriff’s office continues to investigate, it has yet to find any suspects. According to Jesse Schmidt from the Better Business Bureau South Dakota Region, criminals usually swing for a home run when carrying out their scams. He mentioned the way they carry out their crimes, noting that they prey on people’s ignorance to make money. “These scams are dialing for dollars, they are placing hundreds if not thousands of phone calls a day, all they need is for a few people to send them hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time then they’re going to move on to the next caller,” said Schmidt. Meanwhile, AARP has called for regulation of cryptocurrency kiosks amid growing concern over the increase in fraud. The group is calling on North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong to sign a bill that will regulate the kiosks’ activities. According to an FBI report in 2023, Americans lost about $5.6 billion to cryptocurrency scams, with North Dakota losing $6 million. House Bill 1447 would allow the state to protect consumers by licensing cryptocurrency kiosk operators, displaying fraud warnings on the machines, and mandating the operators to enable compulsory printed receipts detailing the full transaction information. “These machines look like ATMs, and so people are inserting their money, thinking it’s secure,” said Janelle Moos, advocacy director for AARP North Dakota. Janelle Moos added that once users send digital assets into a scammer’s wallet, the money is gone, noting that there is no way to track it. She noted that the criminals have realized this and are using this tool to scam residents in the state out of their hard-earned cash. AARP also mentioned that the bill would offer important safeguards and help protect the older population and other vulnerable consumers in North Dakota from falling victim to crypto scams. Cryptopolitan Academy: Coming Soon - A New Way to Earn Passive Income with DeFi in 2025. Learn More