Metaplanet said it purchased 5,075 bitcoin in the first quarter of 2026 for about $405.5 million, bringing its treasury to 40,177 BTC as of March 31. The company said the coins were bought at an average price of approximately $79,898, taking total bitcoin investment to roughly $4.2 billion with a cumulative average of $104,106 per BTC. It also reported a 2.8% "BTC Yield" for the three months ended March 31 and 876 "BTC Gain" for the quarter.

Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority has published an Exchange Services Rulebook that sets governance, disclosure, and risk-control requirements for licensed VASPs offering margin trading and crypto derivatives. The framework includes 24-hour settlement expectations, suitability checks before opening margin accounts, and VARA powers to suspend trading or change margin requirements. It also introduces conduct and surveillance obligations, plus board independence and compensation-reporting requirements.

Midas said it raised $50 million in a Series A led by RRE and Creandum, with additional backing from a mix of crypto and institutional investors. The company also unveiled Midas Staked Liquidity, a redemption facility with up to $40 million of initial capacity aimed at delivering instant liquidity for tokenized assets across DeFi and CeFi venues.

Binance Australia Derivatives was ordered by the Federal Court to pay AUD 10 million ($6.9 million) after admitting it wrongly treated 524 retail clients as wholesale investors over a nine-month period. The misclassification meant customers accessed high-risk crypto derivatives without required protections, with reported losses of AUD 8.66 million ($5.9 million) and fees of AUD 3.9 million ($2.7 million).

Bernstein analysts said bitcoin appears to have formed a cyclical bottom and reiterated an outperform rating on Strategy, projecting 226% upside from Monday's close of $138.20 to a $450 target. They argued STRC preferred shares are central to Strategy's capital model, helping it fund BTC purchases with non-dilutive, permanent capital as it continues to build its holdings.

Delaware lawmakers introduced two bills Monday aimed at licensing payment stablecoin issuers and digital asset service providers, while also letting state-chartered banks hold and administer digital assets in a fiduciary role. SB 19 would set a state licensing regime with reserve, redemption-timing, capital, AML, and data-privacy requirements, and SB 16 would modernize Delaware's banking code for the first time since 1981 by defining digital assets and treating them as personal property.

Digital asset investment products took in $230 million in net inflows for the week ended March 21, after tallying $635 million in the first two days. Midweek, flows flipped as markets read the FOMC meeting as a "hawkish pause," leading to $405 million of outflows. Bitcoin products captured most activity with $219 million of inflows, while Ethereum funds saw $27.5 million of outflows.

Bernstein said Circle (CRCL) and Coinbase (COIN) remain the most direct ways to gain exposure to stablecoin growth, pointing to their shared USDC ecosystem. The firm argued that agentic machine payments could become an additional upside lever, though activity is still small, with Coinbase's x402 processing about $25 million over the past 30 days and Stripe's MPP seeing $5,000 in its first week.

A cross-party parliamentary committee in the UK has urged the government to immediately halt cryptocurrency donations to political parties through a binding moratorium added to the Representation of the People Bill. Lawmakers argue that crypto contributions pose an unacceptably high risk to electoral integrity, especially through mixers, privacy tools and AI-driven micro-donations below the £500 disclosure threshold. The proposals emerge as UK political donations reportedly approached £65 million in 2025, including a £3 million contribution from crypto investor Christopher Harborne.