Italy Refuses Landing of US Military Aircraft at Italian Air Base

March 31st: U.S. consumer confidence ticked up slightly in March, The Conference Board reported, rising 0.8 points to 91.8 from February’s 91.0. The Present Situation Index—tracking consumers’ assessments of current business and labor market conditions—climbed 4.6 points to 123.3. By contrast, the Expectations Index fell 1.7 points to 70.9. Upward cost pressures from tariff pass-through and surging oil prices have emerged in other metrics, including inflation expectations. “Consumer confidence edged up again slightly in March, driven mostly by improved views of current conditions that offset a modest weakening in future expectations,” said Dana M. Peterson, Chief Economist at The Conference Board. “Three of five sub-indexes improved this month, marking the second straight modest gain in overall confidence. Still, the index has trended downward overall since 2021.” Data also shows that amid the oil price shock tied to the Iran conflict, consumers’ average and median 12-month in

On March 31, Warren Buffett warned that growing ties between the banking system and non-bank institutions are revealing signs of fragility in the financial system. He emphasized the Federal Reserve’s top priority should be safeguarding financial stability, noting firms like JPMorgan Chase are economic linchpins processing trillions of dollars in daily fund flows. “They’re intertwined—problems at one institution can spread to others,” Buffett told CNBC in a Tuesday interview. Recent credit market defaults have stoked concerns about balance sheet risks at banks and private credit funds, shaking investor sentiment. Buffett noted that widespread market panic could trigger rapid investor withdrawals. (FXStreet)

On March 31, per BitcoinTreasuries.NET tracking, Strategy’s issued preferred stock—STRC—raised funds to purchase over 250 Bitcoin within just 25 minutes of trading.

On March 31, Bitget data shows U.S. equities opened higher and extended gains: the Nasdaq rose 2%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow) was up 1.4%.

On March 31, Alex Thorn—Galaxy’s Research Director—posted on X, stating: “This Google quantum paper is critical because researchers have broken through in circuit optimization. Prior schemes (per Litinski 2023, photonic architecture) needed roughly 9 million physical qubits. This study’s circuit, however, is expected to run Shor’s algorithm with ~500,000 physical qubits under reasonable conditions—and it uses a superconducting architecture aligned with Google’s own processor specs. That’s a ~20x optimization boost for circuit design. The progress comes partly from a more optimal layout and partly from hardware assumptions that better match real-world limits. Still, core engineering hurdles—error correction, decoherence, gate fidelity—haven’t changed. The team developed these circuits but didn’t share specifics. Instead, they proved their existence via “responsible disclosure” using zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP): outsiders can verify their conclusions without seeing the actual

Per Coinglass data as of March 31, Coinbase’s Bitcoin Premium Index has stayed in negative territory for 13 straight days, currently at -0.0903% — amid subdued buying power in the U.S. market. The index tracks the spread between Coinbase’s Bitcoin price and the global market average. A negative reading typically signals: - Greater selling pressure in the U.S. market - Reduced investor risk appetite - Elevated market risk aversion - Capital outflows ### Notes on U.S. language habits: - Used **"straight days"** (more conversational than "consecutive days" in news) - Swapped **"spread"** (standard financial term for price difference) for "difference" - Used **"reading"** (common for index values) instead of repeating "negative premium" - Added a colon + bullet points (simpler for quick info, U.S. news style) - Dropped "st" in "March 31" (casual/concise for alerts) - Replaced "rise in" with **"elevated"** (more precise for market metrics) - Used **"amid"** (flow