Bitcoin finally began gaining momentum into the green again this week, rising from the mid-65,000s on Monday to the low 70,000s by Thursday’s U.S. close. It started near 65,700 on March 2, moved steadily through 68,000 to 69,000 on March 3, then jumped to about 74,000 on March 4 before settling between 71,000 and 73,000 on March 5. Given this, Bitcoin is up approximately 8-10 percent compared to last week, climbing back above mid-February levels. Many macro and sell-side analysts see this as an early sign of a higher low after February’s drop. Volatility remains high, with large daily swings likely driven by short covering, ETF flows, and geopolitical news rather than by a clear trend.
Ethereum has also risen, albeit more slowly. ETH traded between 1,940 and 1,960 on March 2, then pushed past 2,000, briefly reaching 2,180 to 2,200 midweek before settling near 2,120 to 2,130 on March 5. YCharts data shows ETH at about 1,938 on March 2 and 2,125.83 by March 5, a roughly 10 percent gain over the period, though it’s still slightly below its level from a year ago. This move comes from a mix of short liquidations and renewed institutional interest. One report noted an 11 percent rally to around 2,192, driven by wiping out over 100 million dollars in short positions and increased spot ETF inflows. On shorter time frames, the price has started to stabilize near 2,100, which many traders see as a pivot level that could lead to tests of 2,300 to 2,400 if macro conditions allow.
For stablecoins and DeFi, the story this past year has been shifting from being tokenized stores of value to becoming core market infrastructure. Stablecoin evolution in 2026 shows how institutional-grade DeFi protocols and stronger on-chain collateral frameworks are putting stablecoins at the center of lending, derivatives, and cross-venue liquidity, rather than acting as passive stores of value between trades. Additional analysis whats next for stablecoins and on-chain settlement shows that as more regulated players join DeFi networks, demand is shifting toward tokens that can serve as settlement assets, collateral, and gateways to tokenized treasury and credit markets. This creates a landscape where stablecoin flows increasingly resemble traditional money-market behavior, with vaults, wrappers, and RWA-backed structures handling the yield work behind the scenes while users interact with simple dollar-like balances.
At the broader Crypto–TradFi level, early March commentary from policy forums and market analysts suggests that 2026 is a turning point for convergence. The World Economic Forum’s digital-asset outlook highlights that major banks are now issuing deposit tokens on public chains and integrating tokenized services such as 24/7 USD clearing and real-time cross-border liquidity into their core infrastructure, rather than treating them as isolated pilots. At the same time, reports on DeFi and institutional adoption note that Wall Street desks are increasingly using on-chain tools, stablecoins, tokenized funds, and permissioned DeFi to find yield and manage collateral, even when the client-facing product appears to be a traditional fixed-income or money-market vehicle. Together with this week’s bounce in BTC and ETH, this supports a story in which prices may be exiting a corrective phase as the structural role of on-chain rails in global finance becomes more complex and mature.