Ethereum's daily active addresses fell 45% from 1,329,193 on Feb. 7 to 746,062 by March 3, despite nearing its all-time high of 1,420,187 addresses recorded on Dec. 9, 2022, Etherscan data show. ETH jumped 6.62% within 24 hours on March 3 to trade at $2,078, while perpetual futures open interest rose 8.8% and funding rates climbed 21%, signaling increased leveraged long positioning. The price later stood at $2,150.35, with an intraday high of $2,153.65 and a low of $1,947.76, as traders watched the $2,000–$2,200 support area and eyed resistance near $2,150 with a potential upside target around $2,300. Technical analysis shows ETH trading below its 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages, with a failure to hold current support potentially exposing downside toward the $1,900 and $1,725 regions.

Bitmine has accumulated more than 4.4 million ETH within six months under chairman Tom Lee, amassing over $13 billion in ETH and cash to become the second largest digital asset treasury holder behind Strategy, according to the firm's disclosures. The company has staked over 3 million ETH via its MAVAN validator network and is generating about $171 million in annualized rewards, though it holds over $8 billion in unrealized losses as ETH traded below $2,000 by early 2026. Arkham data show Bitmine now controls roughly 3.66% of Ethereum's circulating supply, and Lee has broadened the balance sheet with a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, the company founded by MrBeast. Crypto trader Andrew Kang has publicly criticized Lee's strategy even as Bitmine targets about 5% of Ethereum's total supply through continued purchases and staking.

Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) now supports Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC) on Monad, enabling more than $5 billion in Bitcoin-backed liquidity to flow into the Monad DeFi ecosystem, Monad announced Monday. The integration allows cbBTC holders to move tokens directly into Monad-based applications, with early adopters Curvance and Neverland launching cbBTC markets for lending, borrowing, trading, and structured products on the EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain. Chainlink CCIP uses multiple tiers of decentralized validation and Coinbase's Cross-Chain Token standard to help preserve wrapped asset supply integrity across networks. LINK traded at $8.99, up about 5%, with support at $8.83 and resistance in the $9.20–$9.50 range, while Chainlink ETFs have absorbed 1.16% of total LINK supply.

Western Union will launch USDPT, a stablecoin issued on the Solana blockchain, with Crossmint providing wallet infrastructure and payment APIs linked to Western Union's Digital Asset Network, Solana Payments reports. The stablecoin will be redeemable for cash at 360,000 locations across more than 200 countries.

Coinbase announced it will launch spot trading for Limitless (LMTS), a social prediction protocol, on March 5, 2026. The LMTSUSD pair is scheduled to open on or after 9:00 AM PT, subject to sufficient liquidity. Trading will be available only in jurisdictions where Coinbase supports it.

Binance Alpha listed 10 new Ondo tokenized securities, including HOODon, COINon, ORCLon, SLVon, INTCon, PLTRon, MUon, MSTRon, BABAon and IAUon. The platform now offers 20 Ondo tokenized securities in total.

The Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) plans to end its engagement with the Aave DAO and wind down operations over the next four months, following a closely contested Temp Check vote on the "Aave Will Win" funding proposal that seeks to allocate up to $42.5 million in stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens to Aave Labs. The measure passed with 52.58% support, 42% opposed and 5.42% abstentions, a result ACI said highlighted governance concerns including participation by Labs-linked addresses in voting on their own budget. ACI intends to submit an Aave Improvement Proposal to halt its GHO funding stream, return 120 days of payments to the Aave treasury and reduce its AAVE vesting stream via LlamaPay, while the governance process continues through subsequent ARFC, offchain and onchain AIP stages. AAVE traded around $109 after the announcement, down about 4% in 24 hours, while Aave remains one of the largest DeFi protocols with $26.51 billion in total value locked, DeFiLlama data show.

Finance coach and XRP commentator Coach JV said sustained price appreciation for XRP and Bitcoin will come from regulatory clarity and resulting capital flows rather than social media hype, citing the proposed Digital Asset Market Clarity Act as a potential turning point. Under this framework, Bitcoin could be used more widely as institutional collateral while XRP could expand as regulated liquidity infrastructure, opening the way for institutional balance sheet exposure, banking integration, ETF growth, and broader corporate use, he argued. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in mid-February there was an 80% chance U.S. President Donald Trump would sign the bill by April 2026 and later referenced prediction market data indicating odds closer to 90%, as the legislation advances toward a Senate Banking Committee markup. Some analysts and AI-driven forecasts suggest XRP, currently trading around $1.35, could climb into the $5–$10 range with basic clarity, $15–$30 if adopted by major Tier-1 banks, and above $100 if it becomes a core liquidity tool in the U.S. banking system, though Coach JV maintains investors should focus on policy shifts and liquidity rather than specific price targets.