Bitcoin came under notable selling pressure following heightened geopolitical concerns stemming from the escalating conflict between Russia and the United States over nuclear threats.

Despite the bearish momentum, the cryptocurrency has now reached a key support zone, expected to hold in the short term.

Technical Analysis

By ShayanMarkets

The Daily Chart

After a prolonged consolidation within the $116K–$123K range, BTC encountered heavy selling pressure, driven by escalating concerns over the Russia–US nuclear conflict. This led to a breakdown below the critical $114K support, sparking fear and uncertainty in the market.

However, BTC has now approached a major support zone between $111K and $112K, an area defined by the lower boundary of a multi-month ascending channel and a key previous swing high.

This confluence of technical support is likely to attract patient buyers, potentially initiating a bullish consolidation phase. Still, if the price fails to hold above this region, a rapid decline toward the psychological $100K level could follow.

The 4-Hour Chart

On the lower timeframe, Bitcoin’s breakdown from the bullish flag pattern marks a bearish technical signal, confirming the pattern’s failure. The sharp rejection from the flag’s upper boundary triggered a steep decline, bringing the price to a critical support near the $112K zone, which also aligns with the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level. This particular one often acts as a magnet for short-term bullish reactions.

As long as the price holds above this range, a corrective bounce is likely. However, if bearish momentum persists, another sell-off targeting a sweep below $111K–$112K may occur. Until then, short-term consolidation remains the most probable outcome.

On-chain Analysis

By ShayanMarkets

The Exchange Netflow indicator shows that 16,417 BTC flowed into exchanges yesterday, the highest daily net inflow since mid-July. This suggests a significant number of holders are moving their Bitcoin to exchanges, typically a precursor to selling activity.

At the same time, the Exchange Whale Ratio surged above 0.70, indicating that the majority of these deposits came from large holders (whales). Historically, when whale-dominated inflows coincide with elevated exchange activity, the market often faces increased selling pressure and price declines.

If this trend continues and whales persist in depositing BTC at this pace, further downside risk could follow. Such activity may reflect profit-taking, preparation for a correction, or strategic reallocation in anticipation of near-term volatility.

Just over a year after the Dencun upgrade gave Layer 2 networks a massive boost, and only months before the much-anticipated Fusaka release, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin floated a bold proposal.

In an April forum post, he suggested the network could eventually replace its longtime workhorse, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), with RISC-V, a low-level, open-source instruction set architecture.

The Allure of a New Foundation

For those unfamiliar, the EVM is the execution engine powering every smart contract on Ethereum. It translates Solidity code into machine-level instructions and governs how contracts interact. It’s been the backbone of Ethereum since its inception. So when Buterin brought up the idea of swapping it out, it sent ripples through the community.

His reasoning is rooted in long-term scalability:

“The beam chain effort holds great promise for simplifying the consensus layer,” he wrote. “But for the execution layer to see similar gains, this kind of radical change may be the only viable path.”

Buterin argued that a RISC-V-based virtual machine could drastically speed up zero-knowledge proof generation by up to 100 times. This could be a game-changer for zk-rollups, which are seen as Ethereum’s best shot at scaling securely. By removing the need to translate code twice, from Solidity to EVM, and then to zk-friendly formats, RISC-V could streamline proof generation and reduce computational costs.

However, it’s one thing to float an idea, and it’s another to overhaul the very heart of the Ethereum ecosystem. Stuart Popejoy, co-founder and CEO of proof-of-work Layer 1 blockchain Kadena, was blunt about the scale of disruption:

“There’s no future in which there’s a large short-term disruption because it couldn’t possibly happen fast,” he told CryptoPotato. “A ‘better’ system would have to run in parallel for years as well as accumulate the network effects the EVM has.”

Popejoy, whose platform’s Chainweb EVM testnet recently went live, argues that replacing the EVM isn’t like switching out a database or upgrading a protocol. It’s like asking the internet to replace HTTP; theoretically possible but practically absurd.

That doesn’t mean the idea lacks merit. According to blockchain researcher Blessing Onuogu, the proposal is “complex and ambitious” but could lead to a “more scalable and efficient Ethereum.” She believes RISC-V’s performance potential might allow for more sophisticated smart contracts, ones that currently strain the EVM’s stack-based architecture.

The technical advantages of RISC-V aren’t in question. It’s open, customizable, and already used in projects like Nervos. It’s also friendly to parallel execution and zero-knowledge applications.

“ZK-STARK and ZK-SNARK rollups could reduce proving times and costs,” noted pseudonymous developer Block.nm. “With register-based execution, it’s easier to write provable programs.”

However, integrating RISC-V into Ethereum is not just a software upgrade. It’s a full ecosystem reboot. To start, smart contracts are immutable. You can’t just migrate them. As Popejoy explained, “Existing state is cryptographically tied to specific addresses on the EVM.” Rewriting contracts from scratch would be mandatory. So would re-auditing them.

And herein lies a deeper challenge: the loss of a decade’s worth of security insights.

“We’d reset 10 years of accumulated security knowledge to zero,” Popejoy warned. “We have learned a lot about the EVM; all of this would become irrelevant.”

Compatibility concerns also extend to Ethereum’s L2s. Fraud proofs on Optimism and Arbitrum rely on L1 executing EVM bytecode to validate rollup transactions. Swap out the EVM, and you break that.

“You’d have to build a full EVM interpreter in RISC-V,” Popejoy noted. “That defeats the purpose of making it cheaper and faster.”

If that’s not feasible, then L2s may be forced to become sovereign chains, splintering the ecosystem and breaking composability.

So What’s the Path Forward?

Most experts agree: there is no clean break. The only realistic scenario, according to some, involves dual-VM support for at least a decade. New contracts could use the faster RISC-V architecture while legacy ones would continue running on the EVM. Over time, developers might migrate voluntarily if the benefits are clear and the tooling is robust.

“Dual VM support would give developers flexibility,” Onuogu said. “It allows time to adapt and ensures continuity.” She emphasized the need for a gradual rollout, similar to how zk-rollups were introduced without disrupting existing apps.

Meanwhile, L2 developers should already be preparing. Block.nm recommends investing in modular architectures today, abstracting proof systems, decoupling settlement layers, and experimenting with alternate compilers like LLVM IR and WebAssembly. “Don’t rely exclusively on Solidity,” they cautioned.

But even with preparation, the migration won’t be easy. Ethereum is home to tens of thousands of apps, billions in value, and millions of users. Each has different dependencies. A new VM must somehow honor those relationships or risk fragmenting the community. And yet, the conversation around replacing the EVM reflects a larger truth: Ethereum must evolve.

While the Dencun and Pectra upgrades addressed key bottlenecks, they only pushed scaling so far. The network’s base layer is still burdened by complexity, slow execution, and monolithic design. As Buterin and others have noted, long-term sustainability may demand simpler, cleaner architecture, especially with competitors like Solana, Sui, and modular rollup frameworks chipping away at Ethereum’s dominance.

That’s why proposals like EIP-7983, which caps gas usage per transaction, are gaining momentum. They promise greater predictability, faster block propagation, and better support for zk execution, all while minimizing disruption. These incremental changes are a reflection of Ethereum’s emerging design ethos: simplify where possible, preserve where necessary.

RISC-V is no silver bullet, though. And as Popejoy said, it may never replace the EVM. But it opens the door to experimentation. If Ethereum wants to remain the world’s leading programmable blockchain, it can’t rest on its legacy stack.

“Ethereum’s evolution isn’t about replacing everything we’ve built,” Onuogu concluded. “It’s about building what comes next, carefully, openly, and with the whole ecosystem in mind.”

That evolution may take 10 years or more, but it looks like it has already begun.

In today’s highly interconnected economy, the need for quick, effective, and transparent payment solutions has reached an all-time high.

From corporate finance and worldwide supply chains to workers and online commerce, countless individuals rely on daily cross-border payments, which is where stablecoins have stepped up.

How Stablecoins Are Changing The Global Payments System

Stablecoins are digital assets created and stored on the blockchain, designed to maintain a stable value by being pegged to a reserve asset, most commonly fiat currency, such as the US dollar or the Euro.

Due to the implied resilience from this fact, they offer greater price stability than other cryptocurrencies, making them a good entry point into the crypto universe for more risk-averse individuals or institutions.

These assets have been gaining significant traction across Web2 and Web3, and their increasing usage is further bolstered by their ability to enable more efficient cross-border payments, offer near-instant settlements, reduce costs, and be available 24/7.

Stablecoins like USDT, USDC, and RLUSD, as well as region-specific tokens, are being integrated into wallets and payments platforms worldwide, particularly in areas where the local currency experiences greater volatility.

Ripple’s New Value Report for 2025: Stablecoin Trends in Business and Beyond found that finance leaders worldwide are suggesting that stablecoins will primarily be used in international, consumer-to-business, and vendor-to-supplier payments.

Some Popular Stablecoins For Business Payouts In 2025

Fiat-pegged assets can differ in various ways, including market availability, liquidity, supported blockchains, and more, so businesses and individuals should carefully consider how they can best serve the use case they are looking for.

Here are some examples of stablecoin and cross-border payment providers reshaping the landscape of how payments are made around the world:

• Tether (USDT)
  – most widely used and largest by market cap ($163B+ at print time, as per data from CoinMarketCap)
  – popular in emerging markets where access to USD is limited
  – integrated into most major crypto exchanges and peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms
• Circle (USDC)
  – insured by cash-equivalent reserves
  – compliant and partnered with goliaths such as Visa, Stripe, and more
  – widespread use for business-to-business (B2B) payments
• Ripple (RLUSD)
  – backed by a segregated reserve of cash and cash equivalents
  – supports third-party payments globally, emerging markets included
  – integrated into a licensed cross-border payments solution – Ripple Payments

Traditional Finance and Stablecoins

A growing number of traditional finance (TradFi) transnational payment providers have begun incorporating stablecoins into their operations to provide more options for their customers and improve their internal treasury payments.

Visa has been settling transactions in stablecoins since 2023, and to date, over $225 million has been processed through this method. Moreover, they have facilitated nearly $100B in purchases of cryptocurrencies and over $25 billion in such spending.

Mastercard very recently announced an end-to-end payments system using stablecoins, and WorldPay has plans to enable payouts in this asset class to global enterprises.

Businesses are also exploring how these assets can enhance their cross-border capabilities. Sending a wire transfer across the globe via traditional methods typically takes 3-5 business days to settle, and it also incurs high fees.

By turning to stablecoins, entities using them can take advantage of precisely tracking their funds, near-instant settlement times, and reduced reliance on intermediaries. At the same time, this is possible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The growth of this asset class has been quite notable, as it has exploded from around $130 billion at the start of last year to over $265 billion as of today, according to data from DefiLlama.