Bitcoin final leverage flush below $80K is possible, warns analyst

Robinhood is deepening its foray into prediction markets by partnering with Susquehanna International Group to launch a new joint venture that will establish a futures, derivatives exchange, and clearinghouse.

In a statement released Tuesday, Robinhood said that the joint venture will be controlled by Robinhood Markets Inc. and will acquire MIAXdx, Derivatives Clearing Organization and Swap Execution Facility from Miami International Holdings. MIAXdx is a designated contract market licensed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Under the plan, MIAX will retain a 10% equity stake in the new exchange. Susquehanna will serve as a day-one liquidity provider, with additional liquidity partners to follow. The new exchange is expected to offer futures and derivative products, including prediction markets, and is set to begin operations in 2026.

"Robinhood is seeing strong customer demand for prediction markets, and we’re excited to build on that momentum," JB Mackenzie, VP and general manager of futures and international at Robinhood, said in the statement. “Our investment in infrastructure will position us to deliver an even better experience and more innovative products for customers.”

Robinhood noted that prediction markets have become its fastest-growing product line by revenue, with more than 9 billion contracts traded by over 1 million customers to date. The Block has reached out to Robinhood for further details on the upcoming exchange.

In March, Robinhood partnered with Kalshi to launch a prediction-markets hub within its app via Robinhood Derivatives, covering U.S. politics, macroeconomic indicators, and sports. In August, it rolled out sports-related markets tied to the NFL and NCAA football, also in collaboration with Kalshi.

Analysts at Bernstein said earlier this month that prediction markets are evolving beyond simple event betting into broader information trading venues. The analysts observed surging volumes across platforms like Robinhood and Kalshi, suggesting growing mainstream acceptance of prediction markets.

U.S.-regulated Kalshi has outpaced rival Polymarket in monthly volume since September, according to The Block's dashboard. In October, Kalshi recorded $4.4 billion in volume, compared with Polymarket's $3.02 billion.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

XRP price started a steady increase above $2.150. The price is now consolidating gains and might aim for another increase if it clears $2.250.

• XRP price started a fresh increase above the $2.20 zone.
• The price is now trading above $2.180 and the 100-hourly Simple Moving Average.
• There is a bullish trend line forming with support at $2.170 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair (data source from Kraken).
• The pair could continue to move up if it clears $2.250.

XRP Price Eyes More Gains

XRP price started a decent upward move above $2.050 and $2.080, beating Bitcoin and Ethereum. The price gained pace for a clear move above the $2.150 resistance.

The bulls even pumped the price above the $2.20 barrier. A high was formed at $2.286 and the price started a short-term downside correction. There was a move toward the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $1.817 swing low to the $2.286 high.

The price is now trading above $2.180 and the 100-hourly Simple Moving Average. Besides, there is a bullish trend line forming with support at $2.170 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair.

If there is a fresh upward move, the price might face resistance near the $2.250 level. The first major resistance is near the $2.280 level, above which the price could rise and test $2.320. A clear move above the $2.320 resistance might send the price toward the $2.420 resistance. Any more gains might send the price toward the $2.450 resistance. The next major hurdle for the bulls might be near $2.50.

Another Drop?

If XRP fails to clear the $2.250 resistance zone, it could start a fresh decline. Initial support on the downside is near the $2.170 level and the trend line. The next major support is near the $2.120 level.

If there is a downside break and a close below the $2.120 level, the price might continue to decline toward $2.050 and the 50% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $1.817 swing low to the $2.286 high. The next major support sits near the $2.00 zone, below which the price could continue lower toward $1.9250.

Technical Indicators

Hourly MACD – The MACD for XRP/USD is now gaining pace in the bullish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for XRP/USD is now above the 50 level.

Major Support Levels – $2.170 and $2.120.

Major Resistance Levels – $2.250 and $2.320.

Global liquidity specialist Michael Howell used an appearance on the Bankless podcast to deliver a clear, if uncomfortable, message for risk assets: the post-GFC “everything bubble” is ending as the global refinancing machine rolls over, and crypto is late in that cycle rather than at the start of a fresh one.

Howell’s starting point is his own definition of liquidity, which diverges sharply from textbook aggregates like M2. “This is the flow of money through global financial markets,” he said. It is not bank deposits in the real economy, but “money that is in the financial markets… it looks at the repo markets, it considers shadow banking,” and “pretty much begins where conventional M2 definitions end.” On his Global Liquidity Index, weekly global liquidity was under $100 trillion in 2010 and now sits “just under $200 trillion” – a doubling in a decade and a half.

Howell Flags Liquidity Peak

What matters most to him, however, is not the level but the momentum of that liquidity. Howell has identified a remarkably stable 65-month global liquidity cycle that he interprets as a debt-refinancing rhythm. Capital markets, he argues, are no longer primarily about funding new investment: “Something like 70 to 80% of transactions… are debt refinancing transactions. They’re not about raising new capital.”

In that world, “debt needs liquidity for rollovers but actually liquidity needs debt,” because roughly three-quarters of global lending is now collateral-backed. The result, as he puts it bluntly, is that “ironically it’s old debt that finances new liquidity.”

To capture the systemic tension, Howell tracks a debt-to-liquidity ratio for advanced economies: the total public and private debt stock divided by the pool of refinancing liquidity. The ratio averages about two times and tends to mean-revert. When it drops well below that level, liquidity is abundant and “you get asset bubbles.” When it rises significantly above, “you start to see a stretched debt-liquidity ratio and you get financing tensions or refinancing tensions and you can see those basically morph into financial crisis.”

Right now, he says, “we’re transitioning, unfortunately, out of a period that I’ve labeled the everything bubble,” a phase where liquidity was abundant relative to debt after repeated rounds of QE and emergency support. The COVID era deepened that imbalance by encouraging borrowers to “term out” debt at near-zero rates. “A lot of the debt that then existed was refinanced back into the late 2020s at low interest rates,” he noted. That created a visible “debt maturity wall” later this decade: heavy refinancing needs now coming due into a much tighter funding environment.

Shorter-term, Howell is focused on the interaction between Federal Reserve liquidity operations, the rebuilding of the US Treasury General Account and growing stress in repo markets. SOFR, which “you’d actually expect to trade below Fed funds” because it is collateralized, has repeatedly traded above its normal range. “We’ve started to see these repo spreads blow out,” he warned, adding that “it’s not really the extent of these spikes… it’s really the frequency that’s the most important factor.” If trade fails and leveraged positions begin to unwind, “it’s going to turn quite ugly and that could be the start of the end of the cycle.”

Inside his four liquidity regimes – rebound, calm, speculation and turbulence – Howell places the US firmly in “speculation,” with Europe and parts of Asia in “late calm.” Historically, early and mid-upswings favor equities and credit, peaks favor commodities and real assets, downswings favor cash and then long-duration government bonds.

The Impact On The Crypto Market

Crypto, in his work, straddles categories. “Crypto generally behaves a little bit like a tech stock and a little bit like a commodity,” he said. For Bitcoin specifically, “about 40–45% of the drivers… are global liquidity factors,” with most of the rest split between gold-like behavior and pure risk appetite.

On the popular notion of a hardwired four-year Bitcoin halving cycle, Howell is unconvinced. “I don’t really see any evidence of that four-year cycle,” he said, arguing that the 65-month global liquidity/debt-refinancing cycle is the more robust driver. With that cycle projected to peak around now, crypto looks “late stage in the crypto cycle. So it could be over but it might not be.”

The structural backdrop, in his view, is unambiguous: “The trend towards monetary inflation… is slated to continue for another two or three decades at least.” Against that, he argues, investors “have to have” monetary-inflation hedges: “It’s not Bitcoin or gold. [It’s] Bitcoin and gold.”

Tactically, though, he is cautious. “We’ve not turned bearish risk-off yet, but we are not bullish short-term,” he said – and suggested that upcoming weakness in risk assets might be “a good time to pick up some more” of those long-term hedges.

At press time, the total crypto market cap was at $2.96 trillion.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) may only be years away from mainstream adoption, according to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov. However, significant regulatory and institutional hurdles must still be cleared before it can achieve global scale.

“I think we’re about 30% of the way there,” Nazarov said during an interview with MN Capital founder Michael van de Poppe published to YouTube on Tuesday.

DeFi, which is peer-to-peer financial services built on blockchain networks, could reach 50% global adoption once clearer regulation and legislation can explain why it is reliable, according to Nazarov. 

Other industry executives have shared a similar view. Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov said in February that the biggest hurdles to DeFi adoption come from regulatory and legal uncertainty, as well as the need to comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements.

He also pointed to issues around liquidity and transparency of transactions and technical security risks.

US government approving DeFi may start a domino effect

Nazarov said that clarity will start with the US and spread quickly. “A lot of governments follow what the US does because they want to be compatible with the US financial system,” he said.

Cathie Wood's Ark Invest continued to increase its exposure to crypto-related stocks on Tuesday, amid falling prices and a broader crypto market downturn.

According to its trade filing, Ark Invest purchased $13.5 million worth of Block. Inc shares, $7.6 million worth of Circle Internet Group and $3.86 million worth of Coinbase shares across several of its exchange-traded funds on Tuesday.

Ark bought the three companies' shares mostly through the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK). As of Tuesday, Coinbase represents the fund's fourth-largest holding worth $391 million, accounting for roughly 5.22% of its portfolio. ARKK also holds $179 million worth of Circle, representing 2.39% of the fund. ARKK has $85.2 million worth of Block.

On Tuesday, Ark Invest also added $1.52 million worth of Bullish stock, $878,794 in Robinhood Markets and $2.8 million worth of its own Ark-21Shares spot bitcoin ETF.

The company has steadily added more crypto-related stocks to its ETFs in recent weeks, taking advantage of their recent market underperformance.

Block, the crypto-focused financial services and tech company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, closed up 2.96% on Tuesday at $63.69, but remains down 20.54% in the past month. USDC issuer Circle fell 3.62% yesterday to $70.11, which is 51% lower than its price a month ago. Coinbase also dipped 0.72% on Tuesday and 30% in the past month.

The drop in crypto-related stocks coincides with an ongoing crypto market depreciation primarily due to thin liquidity and uncertainty over the macroeconomic environment. Bitcoin is currently trading at $87,948, down from its $126,000 all-time high recorded just six weeks ago.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The Texas state government has made a major Bitcoin move, snapping up $5 million worth of shares in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with another $5 million lined up for a self-custodied Bitcoin buy. 

The government made the purchase on Nov. 20, with the move highlighted via X on Tuesday by Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council.

Bratcher said that the Texas government will eventually “self-custody Bitcoin,” but as it’s still finalizing the process, the initial $5 million “allocation was made with BlackRock's IBIT ETF.” 

“$10M is allocated from general revenue but not all $10M has been allocated,” he added.