Brent crude climbed to $116 after strikes targeted oil refineries and gas plants across the Middle East.

FTX Token (FTT) traded around $0.28 as the broader crypto market remained under pressure, with the token down about 2% over the past 24 hours. FTX Recovery Trust said it will start a $2.2 billion distribution to approved creditors on March 31, 2026, marking the fourth payout round tied to the exchange's Chapter 11 bankruptcy process. The record date for this distribution was February 14, 2026. Payments to verified claim holders are scheduled to begin March 31 and are expected to be delivered within 13 business days via designated providers. FTX's creditor repayments stem from the exchange's late-2022 bankruptcy filing after Sam Bankman-Fried's business empire collapsed. Bankman-Fried was convicted on multiple charges related to the failure and is serving a 25-year prison sentence. The saga is also set to be dramatized in a Netflix miniseries titled 'The Altruists', which includes a depiction of Caroline Ellison. Bankman-Fried has recently claimed the exchange was never insolvent. Market focus is now on whether the coming payout could add fresh selling pressure to FTT. The token, once central to the FTX ecosystem, has fallen from highs above $85 to near-zero levels and remains highly sensitive to bankruptcy-related headlines. Traders are watching the October 2025 low near $0.24 as a potential downside target if creditor selling accelerates. On-chain data indicates at least 38.3k wallet addresses hold FTT. Some market participants see scope for a rebound if broader conditions stabilize and the bankruptcy process moves toward closure, with upside levels discussed around $0.50 and the psychological $1 mark. Technically, indicators lean cautious ahead of the March 31 distribution. The daily RSI is near 42 and trending lower toward oversold territory. MACD suggests mild bullish momentum, though the histogram is weakening. FTT is down roughly 22% over the past month as altcoins face persistent bearish pressure. If selling intensifies into the distribution window, a retest of the $0.24 area remains a key risk.

ChainCatcher reports that Hyperinsight data show the "Strategy Counterparty" address (0x94d3…) rolled its BTC and ETH short positions in quick succession within about 10 minutes, adding new shorts of 214.60 BTC (about $14.51 million) and 3,488.85 ETH (about $6.69 million). Total short exposure has now expanded to $130 million. After the increase, the address's BTC short position grew to $81.31 million, with the average entry price reduced to $71,159.60. It currently shows an unrealized profit of $1.738 million (+85.53%), ranking as the largest on-chain BTC short position. The ETH short position rose to $48.08 million, with the average entry price lowered to $2,198.89, and an unrealized profit of $1.023 million (+53.18%).

S&P Dow Jones Indices said on March 18 that it has licensed the S&P 500 index to Trade.xyz, which will issue S&P 500 perpetual contracts on the Hyperliquid blockchain. The deal is a first for S&P: its flagship index brand has never before been licensed to an onchain protocol. The shift is notable not only for what is being launched, but for how it happened. This time, S&P initiated the relationship and granted its brand to a decentralized protocol. The perpetual contract is collateralized with USDC, available to non-U.S. investors, trades 24/7, and carries no expiry. S&P Global noted in its release that traditional markets see more than $1 trillion of S&P 500-related exposure traded daily. A small slice of that access is now moving onchain. The bigger message is demand: traditional finance is increasingly leaning on onchain infrastructure to reach users and time windows it has historically missed. Hyperliquid's recent data helps explain the choice. HIP3, Hyperliquid's permissionless perpetual-futures deployment protocol, launched in 2025 and allows anyone to create new markets. Trade.xyz is built on HIP3 and is its largest market creator, representing about 90% of HIP3's total open interest, according to The Block. Adoption has been rapid. At HIP3's mainnet launch on Oct. 13, 2025, locked value was near zero. Two weeks later it reached $70 million. By Jan. 27, 2026, it had climbed to $793 million, a month-over-month increase of more than 200%. The Block reported on March 15 that HIP3 hit a new all-time high of $1.43 billion locked. From mainnet launch, that's more than 100x growth in six months. A key driver has been non-crypto markets. Among HIP3's top 30 markets, only seven are crypto pairs; the other 23 track traditional assets. The largest is XYZ100, a Nasdaq100-tracking contract with $213 million in open interest. Next is CL, tracking WTI crude oil, with $170 million. Brent crude, the S&P 500, gold, and silver follow. BTC and ETH sit in seventh and eighth. In other words, none of the top six markets are crypto. One event accelerated this structure. On March 9, tensions escalated in Iran while traditional futures markets were closed for the weekend. AMBCrypto reported that daily volume in the crude contract CLUSDC jumped from roughly $21 million to more than $1.2 billion. DL News said Hyperliquid's crude oil volume briefly exceeded BTC, making it the second-largest market after perpetual BTC. CoinDesk added that HIP3 accounted for nearly 80% of Hyperliquid's total platform volume that day. The trade-off is simple: geopolitical shocks don't wait for Monday. When legacy venues close, Hyperliquid remains open for oil and equity index exposure, and traders have been routing capital to the always-on venue. Trade.xyz's own growth has been steep since launching in October 2025. The platform has surpassed $100 billion in cumulative trading volume and is running at an annualized pace above $600 billion. It posted a daily peak of $2.05 billion on Jan. 31, 2026. Live Bitcoin News reported $720 million in volume over the weekend of March 8, a new HIP3 weekend record. In about five months, it scaled from zero to more than $100 billion in cumulative volume. That trajectory now ties directly to S&P's official authorization. In the announcement, S&P DJI Chief Product and Operations Officer Cameron Drinkwater avoided cautious language such as "we are exploring blockchain" and instead said: "Digital-native investors deserve institutional-grade standards equal to those of traditional investors." The framing treats onchain traders as a mature investor segment, not a niche experiment. Hyperliquid's business model adds to the narrative. Substack writer Lex estimates Hyperliquid generates roughly $550 million in annual revenue, carries a fully diluted valuation around $40 billion, and commands about 60% of the decentralized derivatives market. Unlike most crypto projects, Hyperliquid has taken no VC funding—no institutions and no private sale. Its HYPE token launched in November 2024 and distributed 31% via airdrop to about 94,000 early users, worth roughly $1.2 billion at the time. Tokenomics.com estimates HYPE holders earn around $65 million per month from trading-fee revenue and profit distributions from the HLP liquidity pool. The pitch: growth is product-led, with incentives aligned to community holders. Set against the traditional benchmark, the contrast is stark. CME's S&P 500 E-mini futures require an initial margin of about $5,060, a futures broker account, and full KYC, with trading running Sunday through Friday for 23 hours a day. Trade.xyz's S&P perpetual uses USDC margin, connects through onchain wallets, and runs 24/7. Both track the same index using the same officially licensed S&P data. CME's access point is New York; Trade.xyz's is anywhere with an internet connection. Market reaction followed the launch. CoinGecko data shows HYPE rose 14.7% on the day the S&P 500 perpetual debuted, taking its market cap to about $10 billion and placing it 14th in crypto. For a blockchain-based exchange that has never taken a dollar of VC money, securing the official license for the world's most followed stock index is a milestone. In Trade.xyz's release, COO and Chief Legal Advisor Collins Belton called the S&P 500 a "natural starting point"—and left open what comes next.

ChainCatcher cited Coinglass data showing $61.71 million in leveraged positions were liquidated globally over the past hour. Long liquidations accounted for $59.76 million, while shorts totaled $1.95 million. By asset, BTC liquidations reached $43.39 million and ETH came in at $15.85 million.

Odaily Planet Daily cited Coinglass data showing total crypto-market liquidations reached $61.71 million over the past hour. Long positions accounted for $59.76 million, while shorts totaled $1.95 million. By asset, BTC saw $43.39 million in liquidations and ETH recorded $15.85 million.

ChainThink, March 19 — Hyperinsight data show spot gold briefly fell about 2%, dipping below $4,750 per ounce and triggering on-chain long liquidations. A major long whale address (0x21e) was liquidated twice over the past half hour, losing 318 gold tokens worth roughly $1.53 million, and has now fully closed the position. The second-largest on-chain gold long (0x773) is also approaching liquidation, with a $4.69 million position built at an average price of $5,214 and a liquidation level at $4,687.50. Unrealized losses stand near $420,000, a 228% drawdown, making it the closest to liquidation among addresses holding more than $1 million.

PayPal said it has widened access to its stablecoin services, extending support to an additional 68 countries.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the rise in energy costs tied to the U.S.-Israel conflict involving Iran is likely to add upward pressure to inflation.