**Bitcoin has demonstrated remarkable stability compared to traditional risk assets during recent market turmoil, driven by geopolitical tensions and an oil shock.**

**In brief**
- Oil prices are climbing back toward $100 a barrel as tensions around the Strait of Hormuz escalate.
- Bitcoin remains range-bound after months of deleveraging earlier this year.
- Analysts say this week’s flash PMI data could shape expectations for interest rates and risk assets.

Bitcoin has fallen over the past week, but its declines have been less severe than the broader equity drawdown since the Iran conflict began on February 28.

The world’s largest crypto traded around $68,000 on Sunday, down roughly 2% over the past 24 hours and about 6% over the past seven days, according to CoinGecko data.

The move comes as the Iran war entered its fourth week, pushing crude prices higher and contributing to a broader pullback in risk assets by Friday.

That geopolitical backdrop worsened over the weekend after U.S. President Donald Trump gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face U.S. strikes on Iranian power plants, prompting Tehran to threaten to completely shut the vital oil shipping route and target U.S.-linked energy infrastructure across the region.

U.S. stocks have fallen for four consecutive weeks, with the S&P 500 last week breaking below its 200-day moving average, a key technical level closely watched by institutional investors, for the first time since March of last year.

Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are down about 4% to 5% this month, according to Google Finance data.

Energy has been the only major sector to rise during the period as oil prices begin climbing back toward $100 a barrel.

Still, Bitcoin’s monthly decline has been more modest than the drop in equities, posting a loss of just 0.2%, a shift some market participants attribute to earlier deleveraging in the crypto market and continued institutional participation.

**Bitcoin Trails Money Supply Growth as Energy Costs and Rates Bite**
Bitcoin is trading at a steep discount to global liquidity trends, according to new analysis from CF Benchmarks, even as macro headwinds tied to energy prices and monetary policy complicate the outlook for risk assets and economic growth.

Global M2 money supply has risen about 12% since mid-2025, while Bitcoin has fallen roughly 35% over the same period, the Kraken-owned index provider said.

One model cited in its report, published Thursday, implies a “fair value” of about $136,000, compared w...

“After undergoing several rounds of deleveraging in recent months, Bitcoin has materially outperformed traditional assets on a risk-adjusted basis since the start of the Iran war,” John O’Loghlen, managing director for APAC at Coinbase, told Decrypt.

He added that as oil becomes “an active transmission channel for global inflation,” the firm is seeing rising institutional inflows into crypto assets and U.S. Bitcoin ETFs.

“There are early signs the crypto market might now be past peak pessimism,” O’Loghlen said. “However, stronger participation will be required for a more durable rally.”

While macro conditions are driving broader market sentiment, experts say the crypto market itself is flashing signs of resilience rather than heavy distribution.

“The crypto market is in a steady consolidation phase, with clear signs of institutional strength and accumulation,” Nischal Shetty, founder of WazirX, told Decrypt.

He added that Bitcoin has been holding support near the lower end of its recent range while facing resistance near recent highs, signalling buyers remain active despite macro uncertainty.

A mid-March ChainCheck report from VanEck found that long-term holder selling has slowed, with transfer volume declining across older coins, a sign that experienced investors are reducing distribution pressure.

Analysts say the next move for Bitcoin will likely depend on macroeconomic data in the coming week, including flash PMI readings from major economies and further moves in oil prices, which are increasingly shaping expectations for inflation and interest rates.

Earlier deleveraging and continued institutional participation have helped keep Bitcoin more stable than other risk assets during the recent macro-driven selloff.

Bitcoin's Resilience Shines: Outperforming Stocks Amid Oil Shock and Geopolitical Tensions

**Tacit knowledge**—the unspoken expertise that experts carry but can't fully articulate—is a major bottleneck for AI agents in large enterprises. According to Interloom's CEO, up to **70% of operational decisions are undocumented**, making automation challenging.

Interloom, a Munich-based startup, has raised **$16.5 million in venture capital** to tackle this issue. The funding round was led by DN Capital, with participation from Bek Ventures and existing investor Air Street Capital. This follows a $3 million seed round announced in March 2024, though the company's valuation remains undisclosed.

### The Problem: AI Agents Lack Corporate Memory

Fabian Jakobi, Interloom's founder and CEO, explains that when a complex support ticket arrives, veteran staffers know the workarounds and resolutions from experience, not manuals. "The most important person at the bank is the person who knows whether the documentation is right or not," Jakobi told Fortune. "They're often the lowest paid. But they determine quality."

### Interloom's Solution: Building a 'Context Graph'

Interloom's approach involves ingesting millions of operational records—such as support emails, service tickets, and call transcripts—to create a **'context graph'**. This continuously updated map shows how problems are actually resolved within an organization, similar to how Google Maps learns optimal routes from traffic data. It guides AI agents and new employees by mapping the paths experts take.

### Real-World Applications and Success Stories

Interloom's software is already live with several large European enterprises:
- At **Commerzbank**, it analyzed millions of customer support emails and reduced the gap between documented and actual operational knowledge from about 50% to 5%.
- At **Volkswagen**, it processes customer support tickets.
- At **Zurich Insurance**, Interloom won a company-wide AI competition for an underwriting use case, beating out 2,000 other AI-native startups.

Jakobi emphasizes that underwriting decisions reflect a company's specific risk appetite and institutional knowledge, which general-purpose AI models lack. "The Zurich underwriter knows how their broker chat underwriting works much better than Accenture does," he said, targeting large consulting firms.

### Investor Confidence and Market Timing

Investors back Interloom's thesis. Guy Ward Thomas of DN Capital stated, "an agent is only as good as the expert decisions it can rely on." Mehmet Atici of Bek Ventures, who previously backed UiPath, noted that AI is unlocking a new wave of enterprise automation adoption.

Timing is key: the **'Great Retirement'** sees about 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring daily in the U.S., taking decades of institutional knowledge with them—just as companies scale AI deployment.

### Competitive Landscape and Future Plans

Jakobi sees inertia as the biggest rival, with enterprises assuming operations will continue unchanged. Interloom's next product is a **'Chief of Staff'** layer for real-time visibility into AI agent performance, including version control for processes.

While companies like OpenAI, ServiceNow, and Microsoft work on similar AI agent management layers, Jakobi believes Interloom's context graph provides a distinct advantage by offering insight across entire complex processes.

In large enterprises, up to 70% of processes are not documented, hobbling AI agents, Interloom's CEO says.

How This AI Startup Just Raised $16.5M to Solve the 'Tacit Knowledge' Crisis in Enterprises

The first few months of 2026 have forced the Ethereum community into deep introspection—moving beyond price movements and technical upgrades to question the network's fundamental purpose.

Even before this year, there was a sense that Ethereum was entering a new growth phase, driven not by crypto-native users but by institutions and technology. Neobanks were expected to onboard millions by abstracting away wallet complexity and gas fees. In this vision, Ethereum would operate invisibly beneath the surface, powering a new financial stack that looked nothing like traditional crypto.

This vision has been shaped by years of upgrades aimed at improving user experience and reducing costs. Innovations like **proto-danksharding**, introduced in the Dencun upgrade, significantly lowered fees for layer 2 networks by increasing data availability for transactions. Ongoing base-layer improvements have made transactions more efficient, moving Ethereum closer to a model where users interact with applications without understanding the underlying infrastructure.

But this narrative shifted dramatically in early 2026, refocusing attention on Ethereum's core roadmap.

## The L2 Debate: Scaling or Fragmenting?

Earlier this year, Ethereum co-founder **Vitalik Buterin** delivered a sharp reality check: "You are not scaling Ethereum." This comment cut through what had been a largely celebratory conversation around rollups—layer-2 (L2) networks that process transactions off-chain before bundling them back onto Ethereum's main chain.

Buterin's critique went beyond general progress concerns. He argued that many current L2 designs are drifting away from Ethereum's core model, relying on **centralized components** and **siloed environments** that don't fully inherit the base chain's guarantees. The concern wasn't that L2s exist, but that their current form may not deliver the scaling Ethereum was meant to achieve.

This highlighted growing unease about **fragmentation across L2s**, inconsistent security assumptions, and reliance on centralized components—issues that were beginning to look less like temporary trade-offs and more like structural risks. Ethereum, in trying to scale outward, risked losing the very properties that made it valuable: **strong security**, **decentralization**, and its role as a shared, neutral settlement layer.

L2 teams responded by recalibrating rather than pushing back. Some acknowledged the critique and leaned into specialization—privacy, consumer apps, or unique execution environments—rather than simply acting as cheaper Ethereum clones. Others defended their role more forcefully, arguing that high-throughput environments remain essential.

Ethereum's base layer has made incremental progress too. Recent upgrades like December's **Fusaka hard fork** increased data capacity and efficiency, allowing more transactions to be processed while lowering costs.

![Ethereum's daily transaction spike (Etherscan.io)](https://www.coindesk.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.sanity.io%2Fimages%2Fs3y3vcno%2Fproduction%2F89fc2db2ab636f70f27640ae84da9e759e3803a6-1200x1100.png%3Fauto%3Dformat&w=3840&q=75)

This tense episode established that Ethereum's path forward requires a delicate balance between base-layer upgrades and specialized rollups that can grow the ecosystem without breaking its foundational security.

According to 21shares, "The year ahead is likely to mark Ethereum's **L2 consolidation**: a leaner, more resilient layer anchored by ETH-aligned, exchange-backed, and high-performance networks."

## The Quantum Threat: From Distant Concern to Urgent Priority

Simultaneously, another issue moved up the priority list: **Quantum Computing**. The Ethereum Foundation signaled a shift in posture, elevating efforts like 'LeanVM' and post-quantum signature schemes. What was once treated as a distant, academic concern is now being folded into near-term planning.

The implication is clear: Ethereum is no longer just building for the next market cycle, but for threats that could fundamentally break its cryptographic assumptions. The foundation has established dedicated research efforts focused specifically on **post-quantum security**, and Vitalik Buterin has outlined a roadmap to protect the blockchain from quantum computer risks.

## Internal Shakeup: Leadership Changes Signal Broader Recalibration

If scaling exposed cracks in Ethereum's present and quantum risk cast a shadow over its future, internal changes added another layer of complexity. The departure of **Tomasz Stańczak** as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation marked more than a leadership reshuffle. At a moment when the network faces technical, strategic, and philosophical reevaluations, even subtle shifts at the top signal broader recalibration.

The move came as a surprise in an ecosystem that favors continuity. Stańczak had only stepped into the role about a year earlier, following Aya Miyaguchi's long-standing tenure. The rapid turnover hinted at deeper internal reassessment as the foundation reevaluates priorities amid growing demands for scaling, security, and Ethereum's potential role in new frontiers like artificial intelligence.

## Ethereum as AI's 'Trust Layer'

AI has become impossible to ignore, shaping a separate line of thinking for Ethereum. Buterin outlined how Ethereum could play a foundational role in artificial intelligence's future—extending beyond payments or DeFi into a world where Ethereum acts as a **coordination layer for decentralized AI systems**, enabling verifiable outputs, trust-minimized data sharing, and machine-to-machine economic activity.

This push didn't emerge overnight. Early last year, the foundation spun up a dedicated decentralized AI research unit (dAI) exploring how the network could support autonomous agents and machine-to-machine economies. What felt experimental then has accelerated into something more deliberate in 2026, with the foundation increasingly framing Ethereum as a potential **"trust layer" for AI**: a system for verifying outputs, coordinating agents, and anchoring an ecosystem largely controlled by centralized players.

This represents an ambitious expansion of scope, placing Ethereum at the intersection of two of today's most consequential technologies.

The first three months of 2026 suggest that Ethereum no longer has the luxury of tackling these questions in isolation—they're converging. The network is being pulled in multiple directions, each with its own urgency, and the balancing act is becoming harder to ignore. Unlike previous cycles where narratives shifted with prices, current issues feel deeper—less about momentum and more about structure.

These tensions will continue shaping Ethereum's trajectory in the months ahead. In the immediate term, focus remains on scaling the base layer, with the upcoming **Glamsterdam upgrade** expected to accelerate that effort. This upgrade will likely become a litmus test for Ethereum's ability to evolve into a robust, quantum-secure "trust layer" capable of anchoring the global AI economy.

While upgrades have improved efficiency and lowered costs, the ecosystem faces deeper structural questions around fragmentation, security, and purpose, even as it continues prioritizing base-layer scaling.

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