Bitcoin Dips Nearly 2% in 15 Minutes, Now Trading at $68,894

March 22 — Per The Block, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty underwent an adjustment at block height 941,472 (March 21), dropping 7.76% to 133.79 trillion tera hashes per second (TH/s). The network’s current seven-day average hash rate stands at 937.76 exa hashes per second (EH/s). This marks the second-largest difficulty drop this year, trailing only the 11.16% decline recorded on February 7. In February, JPMorgan analysts estimated Bitcoin mining costs had fallen from $90,000 to $77,000 amid exits by high-cost operators, though costs still remain above spot prices. The latest adjustment not only reflects periodic price pressure but also signals a structural shift: an increasing number of publicly traded mining firms are pivoting their infrastructure from Bitcoin mining to AI hashpower services. Core Scientific has stated plans to sell most of its Bitcoin treasury by 2026 to fund expansion into AI and high-performance computing. Bitdeer fully liquidated its Bitcoin reserves in February

March 22 – Per on-chain analyst Wu Jinyan’s monitoring, the Venus attacker swapped all BNB, BTC, and CAKE obtained from the prior attack for ETH five hours ago, then cross-chained the funds to the Ethereum network. Specifically, 2,178 BNB, 20 BTC, and 1.466 million CAKE were converted into 2,257.3 ETH, valued at roughly $4.72 million. On-chain data shows the attacker initially invested around $9.92 million in the attack but has only withdrawn ETH worth approximately $5 million so far. Whether the attacker collaborated with a centralized exchange to execute long/short trades on related assets for extra gains remains unconfirmed.

**March 22 –** Per alternative data, the cryptocurrency Fear & Greed Index registered 10 today, down from 12 yesterday—deepening the market’s “extreme fear” sentiment. *Note:* The index (scaled 0–100) is weighted by six components: - Volatility (25%) - Market Trading Volume (25%) - Social Media Hype (15%) - Market Surveys (15%) - Bitcoin Dominance (10%) - Google Trends Analysis (10%) ### Key adjustments for American news style: 1. **Core info frontloaded**: Dates + key number (index reading) lead the line, with a concise link to sentiment. 2. **Natural phrasing**: Replaced "according to" with "per" (common in data-driven briefs); "intensifying" → "deepening" (more intuitive for sentiment shifts). 3. **Readability**: Split components into bullet points (Americans prefer scannable formatting for reference notes). 4. **Standard terminology**: Used "Fear & Greed Index" (industry standard, no extra quotes for the name). No Chinese characters included, aligned wit

March 22nd — Per Coinglass data, total crypto network liquidations hit $254 million over the past four hours. Long positions accounted for $236 million of the wiped-out value, while short positions made up the remaining $17.73 million.

On March 22, Onchain Lens monitoring data shows a whale created a new wallet "0x18e" and opened an 80,000 HYPE token long position (about $3 million) with 10x leverage. Currently, the whale holds a total of 739,000 HYPE token long positions (about $28.98 million) across 4 wallets—all with 10x leverage. They also hold 45,562 HYPE spot tokens (about $1.79 million).

March 22nd: Garrett Jin, agent for "BTC OG Insider Whale," tweeted that Trump has demanded Iran fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours. The situation has escalated as expected, with three key impacts: - Iran had been in low-key talks with Japan over "ship-by-ship passage" and allowed a Greek vessel to transit the strait for the first time since March 2. This ultimatum has effectively ended that diplomatic workaround. - Targeting power plants signals the conflict is expanding to civilian infrastructure. This won’t crush Iran—instead, it will harden its stance, raising the odds of a prolonged war. - The Oil Volatility Index (OVX) has climbed to 93, while the VIX stands at 24 (nearly a 4:1 ratio). Oil price volatility has spiked sharply, but stock market volatility hasn’t fully priced this in yet. Oil prices are rising, volatility is mounting, and the conflict cycle is lengthening.