Ondo, canton sidestep macro concerns with institutional deals as bitcoin, ether slide

By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bearish macro headlines dominate crypto market sentiment, as they have done for most of the month, but concrete updates advancing mainstream blockchain adoption still have the ability to resonate with investors.

That's evident from the 7% gain in Canton Network's CC token over the past 24 hours. It's the second-best-performing top-100 token by market value, behind Ondo Network's ONDO token, which has risen 9%.

CC's upswing follows Visa's announcement that it joined Canton Network as a super validator, helping secure and validate transactions on the blockchain.

The move is pivotal because it brings a global payments giant onto a privacy-preserving network specifically built for institutions that want to transact on the blockchain without exposing sensitive data to other network participants.

Visa will help "extend privacy‑preserving blockchain infrastructure to banks and financial institutions around the world," the firm said in an official announcement.

Privacy is widely seen as a key requirement for broader institutional adoption of the technology. At Consensus Hong Kong in February, investment banking giant JPMorgan and crypto firms Abraxas and B2C2 emphasized the need for privacy-preserving infrastructure, noting that institutions are unlikely to transact at scale on fully transparent networks where sensitive financial data could be exposed.

ONDO, too, is rallying primarily due to its pole position in the real-world asset tokenization sector, underscored by the early-week news of its partnership with Franklin Templeton to tokenize traditional assets.

The broader market remains under pressure due to geopolitical tensions and oil prices, which have traders pricing a Fed rate hike in two weeks.

Bitcoin BTC$66,710.26 has dropped over 3% to $66,800 alognside similar losses in ether (ETH) and XRP (XRP). Solana's SOL token fell over 5% and the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) lost 3% decline.

According to Marex, renewed outflows from spot ETFs are weighing on bitcoin.

"ETF outflows have returned in size, which removes a steady bid from the tape and makes dips feel less protected," Marex's analysts said in a morning note.

They added that with the quarterly options expiry out of the way, the market is more exposed to the real catalysts again: oil, war headlines, rates and risk appetite.

Speaking of risk appetite, it could remain weak as government bond yields across the advanced world, including the U.S. and Japan, are rising again. Stay alert!

Read more: For analysis of today's activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today

What to Watch

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Crypto
  • Nothing scheduled.
• Macro
  • March 27, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Michigan Consumer Sentiment Final for March est. 55.5 (Prev. 56.6)
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • March 27: Sphere 3D (ANY), post-market, -$4.68
  • March 27: Bonk Inc (BNKK), post-market
  • March 27: Mawson Infrastructure Group (MIGI), post-market, -$10.40
  • March 27: ZeroStack (ZSTK), post-market, -$1.97

Token Events

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Governance votes & calls
  • March 27: Aave to host its first quarterly livestream.
• Unlocks
  • No major unlocks.
• Token Launches
  • No major token launches.

Conferences

For a more comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk's "Crypto Week Ahead".

• Day 5 of 7 Polish Blockchain Week (Warsaw)
• Day 1 of 2: Penn Blockchain Conference 2026 (Pennsylvania)

Market Movements

• BTC is down 6.13% from 4 p.m. ET Thursday at $66,329.42 (24hrs: -4.44%)
• ETH is down 8.13% at $1,987.25 (24hrs: -4.27%)
• CoinDesk 20 is down 3.34% at 1,909.22 (24hrs: -3.86%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.74%
• BTC funding rate is at -0.0097% (-10.5930% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is up 0.10% at 100.00
• Gold futures are unchanged at $4,460.60
• Silver futures are unchanged at $68.82
• Nikkei 225 closed down 0.43% at 53,373.07
• Hang Seng closed up 0.38% at 24,951.88
• FTSE is down 0.69% at 9,902.97
• Euro Stoxx 50 is down 1.39% at 5,488.69
• DJIA closed on Thursday down 1.01% at 45,960.11
• S&P 500 closed down 1.74% at 6,477.16
• Nasdaq Composite closed down 2.38% at 21,408.08
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 1.53% at 31,887.52
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.44% at 3,481.68
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is up 9 bps at 4.42%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are down 0.51% at 6,492.00
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are down 0.71% at 23,624.25
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are down 0.48% at 46,009.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 58.49% (-0.61%)
• Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.02996 (0.07%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 994 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $31.97
• Total fees: 2.37 BTC / $164,687
• CME Futures Open Interest: 118,140 BTC
• BTC priced in gold: 15.1 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 4.44%

Technical Analysis

• The chart shows bitcoin's daily price swings in candlestick format since July last year.
• BTC has slipped to support of the trendline from Feb. 6 low, characterizing the price bounce within the broader downtrend.
• Should the support give way, we could see a deeper selloff that could test dip demand around February lows near $60,000.
• The latest pattern is similar to the one seen through December and January, which ended up deepening the selloff.

Crypto Equities

• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Thursday at $173.38 (–4.26%), –1.72% at $170.39 in pre-market
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $19.61 (–8.06%), –1.33% at $19.35
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $8.58 (+3.62%), –0.58% at $8.53
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $14.01 (–7.62%), –0.18% at $13.98
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.79 (–7.39%), –0.51% at $15.71
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $9.30 (–6.63%), –0.54% at $9.25
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $6.85 (–6.04%)
• CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $37.08 (–7.99%)
• Circle Internet Group (CRCL): closed at $98.27 (–5.38%), –2.35% at $95.96
• Bullish (BLSH): closed at $36.44 (–2.64%), –0.93% at $36.10

Crypto Treasury Companies

• Strategy (MSTR): closed at $132.93 (–4.46%), –0.99% at $131.61
• Strive Asset Management (ASST): closed at $10.41 (–4.06%), –1.15% at $10.29
• SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $6.53 (–10.30%), –0.61% at $6.49
• Upexi (UPXI): closed at $1.07 (–10.08%), +1.87% at $1.09
• Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.16 (–3.33%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$171.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $56.14 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flows: -$92.5 million
• Cumulative net flows: $11.6 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~5.76 million

Source: Farside Investors

While You Were Sleeping

• Israel goes after Iran’s weapons in a wide-scale attack (The Wall Street Journal): In the Gulf, Kuwait said two of its ports were hit on Friday. The Pentagon is considering sending 10,000 more ground troops to the Middle East.
• Stocks fall as China trade probe adds to war gloom (Bloomberg): U.S. stocks head for their longest streak of weekly losses since 2022 as traders grew more nervous about a protracted Middle East war, while China tensed its trade dispute with the U.S. Bonds fell globally.