On March 2, 2026, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer, Eric Halem, was convicted of kidnapping and robbery for orchestrating a $350,000 Bitcoin theft from a 17-year-old in a Koreatown high-rise. The December 28, 2024 crime involved a fake police raid using vests, handcuffs, and threats of severe violence to force the victim to hand over a crypto hard drive. Halem, who resigned from the LAPD in 2022 but was still an active reserve officer at the time, faces sentencing on March 31, 2026.

Best Buy reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted diluted EPS of $2.61, beating the $2.47 consensus, while revenue of $13.81 billion came in slightly below the $13.91 billion estimate. The retailer improved its operating margin to 5.2% from 1.6% a year earlier and issued fiscal 2027 guidance calling for $41.2 billion to $42.1 billion in revenue and adjusted EPS of $6.30 to $6.60.

XRP Ledger has recorded a sharp jump in payment volume to around 1.2 billion XRP, representing a 400% increase over prior daily levels. While XRP price remains stuck in a broader downtrend beneath key moving averages, the surge in on-chain activity is coinciding with attempts to form a local base. Market participants are watching whether this renewed ledger usage can overcome resistance and support a more durable recovery.

Cardano's ADA token is trading near $0.2646 after breaking below the $0.27 level, with on-chain data showing mid-sized and large holders reducing positions. Charles Hoskinson has sharply criticised the proposed CLARITY Act, arguing it would default most digital assets to securities status and harm US crypto innovation. Traders are watching resistance around $0.29–$0.30 and key support near $0.28, with downside levels seen at $0.25 and below if selling persists.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Bybit reported that its AI-assisted risk monitoring system disrupted or stopped more than $300 million in suspected scam-related withdrawals. The platform said around $500 million in withdrawals were flagged overall, protecting over 4,000 users, many of whom canceled transfers after receiving real-time alerts.

Ethereum (ETH) is preparing the ‘Glamsterdam’ upgrade, which Vitalik Buterin detailed in a March 2 post, introducing ePBS (enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) to curb block builder centralization. The roadmap also features FOCIL for multi-party transaction inclusion, encrypted mempools to mitigate toxic MEV, and longer-term ideas for more distributed block construction inspired by systems like BitTorrent.

Ethereum is approaching an unprecedented seventh straight monthly decline while large holders between 100K and 1M ETH continue trimming positions. At the same time, the network's real-world asset segment has grown to more than $15 billion in total value locked, led by tokenized Treasuries, gold products, and institutional funds. Key technical levels now sit around $2,150 on the downside and $2,400–$2,500 on the upside as traders weigh price weakness against rising on-chain adoption.

According to Elliptic, Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex recorded a 700% surge in net outflows to nearly $3 million in the 48 hours following coordinated US and Israeli military strikes, even as local trading volumes dropped around 80% amid internet restrictions. Iran's central bank ordered major platforms to suspend USDT/toman pairs, while Elliptic and TRM Labs data indicate rising exposure to illicit or sanctioned activity and a potential liquidity crunch for domestic exchanges.