March Madness?

The worst of the winter weather should soon be behind us, which naturally leads to hopes that the crypto market might also be in for a thaw. Today’s forward guidance looks at whether the pattern of March in mid-term years being positive for prices might hold up and what could spark any rally that might see fit to put in an appearance.

If you’ve been keeping up with the crypto headlines this week, then you may also have noticed how the industry’s shadier side has once again been on display. Insider trading has very much been flavour of the month and there’s a glut of dirty laundry that needs to be aired. Read all about it below.

But of course, while the bad guys have been up to their usual tricks, there are still some saints left in crypto… right?

📉 Vitalik is DUMPING ETH 📉

Let’s face it, crypto founders dumping tokens isn’t exactly anything new. But then, Ethereum creator, all-round gigabrain and cat T-shirt enjoyoor Vitalik Buterin is not your average crypto founder, So, on the face of it, the sight of him offloading some of his ETH is enough to set off palpitations.

As you might have guessed though, there’s a lot more to this story than the headline suggests and so, in today’s video, we dig into what’s been going on. Yes, Vitalik is indeed selling off some of his enormous ETH bags, but the reasons why are intriguing and, Vitalik being Vitalik, it’s not the signal of the end times approaching that some might have you believe. Nevertheless, things aren’t all sunshine and roses as far as Ethereum is concerned, and so we also take a look at where the project currently stands as the icy winds of crypto winter chill us all to the bone.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

Seasonality is the idea that, at certain times of the year, prices tend to rise or fall depending on various factors. As Ben Cowen recently pointed out, the crypto market is entering a period of seasonality where prices have historically risen, specifically the month of March in mid-term election years. Before you get too excited, history suggests this potential March rally will fade by April.

This begs the question of what exactly the potential March rally will look like, and what could trigger it. If the recent bounce is anything to go by, then the potential March rally could be one where altcoins significantly outperform BTC, and even other large caps like ETH and SOL. This is evidenced by the fact that Bitcoin Dominance has quietly been falling in recent weeks.

This is further evidenced by the fact that OTHERS Dominance appears to be on the brink of a breakout after consolidating since October 2025. To be clear, the drop in Bitcoin Dominance, as well as the rise in OTHERS Dominance, is partially due to the increase in stablecoin market cap and tokenized RWAs, but it’s also partially due to an increase in the prices of some smaller altcoins.

If you look at the top performing cryptos over the last seven days on CoinGecko, you’ll quickly notice that over a dozen alts have rallied by double digits, and all of them are outside of the top ten by market cap. Meanwhile, BTC, ETH, XRP, and SOL have barely budged by comparison. Again, this kind of altcoin outperformance would likely continue in the event of a March rally.

This begs another question, and that’s why these smaller altcoins have rallied so much. There seem to be two reasons. The first is that most of these smaller altcoins have been falling for months, in many cases years. The result is that many traders have been shorting them, and the outcome is a massive short squeeze when prices rise even slightly, as we’ve seen.

The second reason is that many of these smaller altcoins have been changing their tokenomics to address the steady increase in supply that’s supposedly been suppressing prices and scaring retail investors away. Two examples are Aptos and Polkadot, which are close to introducing tokenomics changes. It should come as no surprise then that APT and DOT rallied a lot last week.

But again, before you get too excited, it’s worth keeping in mind that supply isn’t the problem at this point, and arguably hasn’t been for most of the cycle. For many cryptos, the increase in supply was small in dollar terms. The problem was a lack of demand. This is something we discovered repeatedly when doing deep dives into altcoins on the Coin Bureau Club.

In other words, these altcoins are mostly rallying because they’re being heavily shorted, just like crypto stocks. The changes to tokenomics were just the trigger for the short squeeze, and are unlikely to alter the fundamental reason why these altcoins have struggled, which is a lack of spot buying. This is precisely why prices are likely to continue falling after any rallies in March.

This begs the bigger question, and that’s what the trigger for a March rally could be. There are many potential answers here. One is that the ISM manufacturing and/or ISM services PMIs for February come in higher than expected next week. As some of you will know, there has historically been a strong correlation between ISM PMIs and crypto prices.

As such, a rise in either or both of the two ISMs could result in a crypto rally. The question in that case is whether this rally would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, or a genuine causal relationship. What’s interesting is that the correlation could reappear, but because of a different causal factor - an increase in tax refunds as a result of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill passed last year.

This increase in tax refunds could boost economic and market liquidity, assuming this money gets spent and invested, which could be a big assumption at this stage. That’s because multiple indicators such as consumer sentiment have been falling for months, presumably because of concerns around the job market. This means many tax funds may be saved rather than spent.

Even so, it’s likely that some of these tax refunds would find their way into the markets and the economy. If crypto-specific catalysts like tokenomics changes continue to trigger short squeezes in altcoins while ISM data comes in higher than expected, then some of those tax refunds could flow into crypto. FYI, most tax refunds are reportedly expected to be handed out in March.

With all of that being said, the escalation between the US and Iran over the weekend means that the following week is likely to be extremely bearish, even if March turns out to be bullish overall. But if the escalation continues and the conflict becomes truly regional, a March rally is off the table. The silver lining is that this could result in an early bear market bottom, according to Bob Loukas.

In sum then, March is off to a bad start, but could turn out to be a good month for the crypto market due to seasonality, as well as crypto and macro factors, but continued political and/or geopolitical black swans could derail the early signs of seasonality we’ve seen in recent days.

👮 Crypto's Insider Trading Problem 👮

Shady shenanigans in crypto have had a big week.

We saw three major stories on insider trading break out into the open - all of which remind us once again that the industry’s oldest problem is quite a way from being solved.

The first story concerns an investigative report by onchain sleuth ZachXBT looking into insider trading activity on Axiom, a Solana-based trading platform backed by Y Combinator. The report alleges that multiple Axiom employees have been systematically abusing internal tools to spy on users' private wallets and trade on that information since early 2025.

The key named accused is Broox Bauer, a senior business development (BD) employee at Axiom. According to ZachXBT, Bauer used Axiom's internal dashboards to look up any user by referral code, wallet address, or user ID. This reportedly revealed user’s entire wallet history, linked accounts, and connected addresses.

Besides the obvious doxxing concerns, this information allows bad actors to monitor and make coordinated trades on token launches and buys from influencers and KOLs, some of whom are known for pumping and dumping on their followers. Privileged access to this info was reportedly shared with a small, close-knit group of associates and colleagues.

While Axiom immediately distanced itself by stating it was "shocked and disappointed" to learn of the incident, it’s fair to state that the company has shouldered some responsibility for the incident. Notably, ZachXBT claims there were no meaningful access controls or monitoring systems in place at Axiom. He also noted that the level of internal data access granted to BD and moderator-level employees was unusual.

For what it’s worth, there’s no evidence to suggest this behaviour was condoned by the company. Axiom has since stated that it has "removed access to these tools" while promising to "investigate and hold the offending parties responsible." ZachXBT also noted that Bauer was based in New York, highlighting that the SDNY potentially has jurisdiction over the case. If you’ve been around long enough, you may remember that the SDNY is the same office that brought the first-ever crypto insider trading case (against OpenSea’s Nathaniel Chastain) in 2022.

Ironically, in what appears to be a scene out of the movie Inception, ZachXBT’s investigation into Axiom itself became a vehicle for insider trading in the days before the report’s publication. You see, a few days before its release, Zach had posted a tweet teasing the incoming report.

As with anything crypto-related these days, someone managed to create a Polymarket prediction market for people looking to bet on which company Zach would expose in the investigative report. The prediction market contract generated over $30 million in trading volume. But more importantly, just hours before the report was published, two wallets placed huge bets on Axiom and walked away with six figures in profit. One of them made the bet when odds on Axiom were below 14%. In other words: people were likely insider trading on a bet about insider trading. ZachXBT himself has acknowledged that information about his investigation "may have been inevitably leaked" due to the need to interview multiple people during the process. Now, these wallets are next on the onchain sleuth’s hit list.

No rest for the wicked, it would seem!

Speaking of prediction markets, the next shady story of the week relates to the first-ever public enforcement actions taken by prediction marketplace Kalshi against insider trading.

Specifically, Kalshi highlighted actions against two instances of insider trading on its platform. The first enforcement action was against Artem Kaptur, an editor for MrBeast's show, whose wallet was flagged for statistically anomalous, "near-perfect trading success on markets with low odds." Kaptur reportedly placed about $4,000 in bets on markets related to upcoming MrBeast videos, while having obvious access to non-public information about what would happen in those videos. Kalshi froze his account, issued a two-year suspension, fined him just over $20,000 and reported the case to the CFTC.

The second enforcement action was against Kyle Langford, a 24-year-old California Republican gubernatorial candidate, who publicly bet on his own race. Kalshi banned him for five years and fined just over $2,000 for wagering approximately $200 on his own candidacy and promoting the bet on social media. The company also disclosed that it has opened more than 200 insider trading investigations in the past year.

The final story of the week is another massive one. This one is about Jane Street, one of the most powerful high-frequency trading firms in the world.

You see, roughly two days before the Axiom story broke, Terraform Labs' bankruptcy administrator filed a lawsuit against Jane Street. The lawsuit accuses the firm of having used insider information to front-run trades that accelerated the catastrophic collapse of TerraUSD and LUNA in May 2022.

Specifically, it claims that a wallet linked to Jane Street had used material nonpublic information from Terraform insiders to unwind hundreds of millions of dollars in exposure just 10 minutes after Terraform had quietly withdrawn 150 million TerraUSD from the Curve3pool liquidity platform. The lawsuit argues this helped trigger the market panic that knocked UST off its dollar peg and ultimately brought the entire Terra ecosystem down.

While Jane Street has categorically denied the allegations, the lawsuit highlights how even Wall Street titans may not be immune to this sort of unethical behaviour.

Now, as we know, insider trading isn't exactly a new problem in the industry. It’s been exactly four years since the DOJ brought its first crypto insider trading case. In the time since, the industry has matured quite a bit with regulated access to ETFs for BTC and altcoins now available. However, as these instances point out, the industry’s response to unethical behaviour is still lacking.

The uncomfortable truth is that for the industry to go truly (and safely) mainstream – we need guardrails, both the infrastructure kind and the regulatory kind.

Thankfully, there’s been progress on both fronts. For instance, Kalshi’s proactive crackdown on instances of insider trading on its platform is a much-needed self-regulatory move, while the presence and development of sophisticated onchain analytical tools is another welcome development. Meanwhile, US federal agencies are also being proactive. For instance, at the time of writing, there’s legislative action looking to prohibit federal elected officials, political appointees, and executive branch employees from trading on prediction markets.

While the stories we’ve seen this week point to gaps in enforcement and protection, there’s still hope left. We suspect the odds of such incidents going unpunished will significantly drop in the days ahead. While it might spoil the party for some in the short term, it’s massively bullish for the health of the industry in the long term.

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🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

Coin Bureau Main Channel

* Crypto Midterms: How massive crypto political funding could reshape US elections?

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* Digital To Physical: The systemic market shift you need to know!
* Citrini Report: AI-driven economic crisis by 2028!

🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* An In-Depth Review Of Gemini’s Fees, Security, And Trading Features In 2026
* Top Wallets to Secure Your BNB Tokens in 2026
* Review Of Bitget’s Copy Trading Platform: Honest Insights Before You Copy In 2026
* Is Atomic Wallet Worth It? A Detailed Review of Features and Security Risks (2026 Updated)

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

Crypto markets are like the open ocean. You don’t control the waves, only your position size. Survival through volatility is what earns you the right to catch the next bull run.

“You can’t predict. You can prepare” - Howard Marks

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.