Weekly Wrap-Up: Tornado Cash Sanctions Lifted, SEC Drops Ripple Case, and Whale Watching Trends in Hyperliquid

The U.S. Treasury has lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash, the SEC has dropped its appeal in the case against Ripple, and developments such as Hyperliquid’s «whale hunting» initiative highlighted other notable events from the past week.

Bitcoin commenced the week around $82,500, maintaining the sideways trend observed at the end of the previous week.

On March 18, CryptoQuant’s CEO, Ki Young Ju, announced that the bullish trend for Bitcoin had concluded, predicting a bear market or sideways trading for the next 6 to 12 months.

The #Bitcoin bull cycle has come to an end, anticipating 6-12 months of bearish or sideways price movement.

In contrast, some of his colleagues noted positive short- to medium-term prospects for Bitcoin, citing a decline in open interest for Bitcoin futures.

On March 19, following the announcement of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s key interest rate, Bitcoin experienced a positive surge. By the night of March 20, the price peaked at around $86,800 but reverted to approximately $84,000 within a day.

In light of the interest rate data, former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes indicated that Bitcoin is unlikely to drop to $77,000. He believes that quantitative tightening is «effectively finished,» which could ease liquidity pressures and support riskier assets like cryptocurrencies.

Material Indicators experts noted that market manipulations by one or more large players might limit Bitcoin’s potential growth.

«If you’re wondering why Bitcoin hasn’t risen above $87,500 yet, it’s due to suppression by a spoofing whale,» they stated.

This refers to the practice of manipulating prices through large limit buy or sell orders that the perpetrator does not intend to execute, which are canceled once the price movement target is reached.

In discussions, Material Indicators analysts agreed that the multi-month support level at $76,000 was insufficiently strong for a significant rebound. Additionally, the momentum from the recent Fed meeting does not appear capable of driving substantial growth.

CryptoQuant analysts pointed out that the Bitcoin Bull Score has fallen to a two-year low of 20. Historically, significant rallies have occurred only when this metric surpassed 60.

Bitcoin Bull Score stands at a two-year low of 20. Bitcoin’s value has dropped 23% from its peak, and history indicates strong rallies tend to only happen with scores above 60. Extended low scores frequently coincide with bear markets.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $85,220, reflecting a weekly gain of about 2%. The Fear and Greed Index registered at 30.

Ethereum’s week started at $1,900. Following the Fed meeting, it rose, reaching a local peak of around $2,050, but prices fell back below $2,000 within the next day.

Analysts at Standard Chartered have revised their Ethereum price forecast for 2025, reducing it from $10,000 to $4,000.

As of the latest update, Ethereum was trading at $2,001, having increased by 5.4% over the week.

All assets in the top 10 by market capitalization showed positive trends, with TRX (+6.1%), ETH (+5.4%), and XRP (+4.6%) leading the growth.

On March 21, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) lifted economic sanctions on Tornado Cash, removing over 100 Ethereum addresses from its blacklist. The decision was made following a «review of new legal and political considerations» pertaining to crypto businesses.

Tornado Cash was sanctioned by OFAC in August 2022 for its involvement in money laundering. U.S. authorities reported that more than $7 billion had been processed through the service since its inception, including by North Korean hackers from the Lazarus Group.

On August 12, 2022, one of the mixer’s creators, Alexey Pertsev, was arrested in Amsterdam on suspicion of money laundering and concealing illicit financial flows.

All assets of the company, user funds, and the Tornado Cash source code were blocked in the U.S. and elsewhere, while residents and citizens were prohibited from using the service.

On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the sanctions due to OFAC «overstepping its authority» and remanded the case to the Western District of Texas for further proceedings. Shortly thereafter, Pertsev announced that he would be released on February 7.

The SEC has also decided to withdraw its appeal in the case against Ripple.

«Looking back, it’s clear to me that the case was destined to fail from the outset. In many ways, it was the first major shot in the war against cryptocurrencies,» stated Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of the fintech company.

In December 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple, accusing the company of selling unregistered securities in the form of XRP worth $1.3 billion. The case also named Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen as defendants.

In fall 2023, the SEC dropped its charges against the company’s founders, and both parties reached a settlement that precluded further accusations on the original basis.

In August 2024, Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York issued a final ruling, fining Ripple $125 million. In October, the SEC appealed the verdict.

Subsequently, the agency took steps to challenge previous court rulings regarding XRP distribution.

With the SEC’s withdrawal of claims, the initiative now rests with Ripple. The company’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, mentioned that they will consider the «best way to file a counter-appeal» against the SEC.

Garlinghouse expressed optimism following the conclusion of the legal battles with the SEC, and noted that Ripple had not yet decided whether to withdraw its own complaint against the agency.

He indicated that the company had spent over $150 million on legal disputes and «would not mind» recovering the $125 million fine paid to the Commission. That amount is currently held in an escrow account.

Following the news, XRP surged above $2.50 but later stabilized around $2.40.

On March 20, the “meme token factory” Pump.fun announced the launch of its decentralized exchange (DEX), PumpSwap, on Solana.

Now, meme tokens that borrow liquidity via Pump.fun are automatically listed on PumpSwap. Previously, the coins were migrated to Raydium.

The meme token factory stated that the new DEX “operates similarly to Raydium V4 and Uniswap V2,” with a focus on streamlining trading for users.

According to the company, the previous migration model «created inconveniences, slowed the dynamics of new projects, and deterred newcomers.” Now tokens move instantly and without fees.

The launch of PumpSwap coincided with Raydium’s announcement of its own launchpad for meme coins named LaunchLab, a competitor to Pump.fun.

The confrontation between the two players could significantly alter the DeFi landscape on Solana amidst the decline in trading volumes for «meme coins,» which has been observed since January.

According to The Block, the GMCI Meme Coin Index has dropped by 90% from its peak levels in December, indicating a cooling interest in such high-risk assets.

At the end of last year, the metric had shown a growth of 550%, but in March its values fell to 80%.

Hyperliquid’s monitoring option allows public tracking of whale operations to analyze the level of their position liquidations.

This level of transparency creates opportunities for coordinated actions among groups of traders, who might intentionally target stop-loss levels of larger players.

10x Research analysts view the recent developments as a potential shift in the balance of power among the platform’s client categories. However, the extent of this phenomenon is yet to be assessed, they added.

In their latest insights, the experts drew parallels to the confrontation between the WallStreetBets community on Reddit and hedge funds on Wall Street regarding GameStop stock.

The comments from 10x Research came in response to a suggestion from user CBB to collectively liquidate a whale.

On March 16, this player opened a short position on 4,442 BTC with 40x leverage at a price of $84,043, with a liquidation level set at $85,592.

According to analysts’ observations, the call was heeded — within minutes, Bitcoin surged by 2.5%, aided by those who responded to CBB’s message.

To avoid a negative scenario, the whale increased their position to 6,210 BTC (~$524 million) and later closed the short themselves, locking in a profit of approximately $7.9 million. Spot market prices did not reach the liquidation level of their position at $85,556.99.

A new material covers a discussion with blockchain lawyer and Aurum partner Sergey Ostrovsky about the legal crisis in decentralized autonomous organizations and the transition to third-generation DAOs.

Together with representatives from Everscale, we explored how obligations function within the Governance 3.0 management system and how to apply for project funding.

In light of the synergy between current trends in AI and DeFi, new functionalities in financial applications and their impact on users and the industry have been discussed.

The traditional weekly digest compiled the key cybersecurity events.