Bitcoin and major cryptocurrencies saw a recovery this week after the initial shockwaves caused by the outbreak of the US-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Bitcoin (BTC) initially fell to $63,245 on Sunday, before briefly climbing back to $73,000 on Thursday, helped by renewed demand from U.S.-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which recorded $1.1 billion in net weekly entries until Thursday.
In the broader DeFi space, Aave’s governance conflict continued, with the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) declaring that it would not renew its engagement with the Aave DAO and planned to wind down its operations within the next four months.
Aave Chan Initiative to Leave Aave DAO After Governance Conflict Over Funding
ACI, a major governance delegate and service provider within the Aave ecosystem, has stated that it will not renew its engagement with the Aave DAO and plans to wind down its activities within the next four months.
In a statement Tuesday, ACI founder Marc Zeller said the organization would continue its governance activities and fulfill its outstanding commitments before transferring its infrastructure and responsibilities to the DAO or successor suppliers.
“The Aave Chan Initiative was built for Aave. Without a future in the Aave ecosystem, the name no longer applies. ACI will end when our obligations end,” Zeller wrote.
ACI said its decision to withdraw was driven by concerns about governance standards and voting dynamics during the proposal process, marking a significant shift in Aave’s governance landscape as its financing plan moves to the next stage.
Strive Strategist Says AI Deflation Could Push Bitcoin to $11M by 2036
According to a report from Strive strategist Joe Burnett, technological deflation driven by artificial intelligence could help push Bitcoin above $10 million within a decade by putting pressure on central banks to continue increasing the money supply.
Burnett, Strive’s vice president of Bitcoin strategy, said in a report published Monday that faster productivity gains thanks to AI will lower prices of goods and services, reducing margins and prompting policymakers to respond with sustained monetary expansion. His “base case” calls for Bitcoin (BTC) to reach $11 million in the first quarter of 2036, he writes.
“My base case for Q1 2036 is $11 million per Bitcoin.”
The forecasts are based on a set of aggressive assumptions, including that Bitcoin would reach approximately 12% of the value of global financial assets and that global wealth would reach 7% per year through 2036. With Bitcoin currently representing approximately 0.2% of all financial assets, this would imply a 176-fold increase in Bitcoin’s market capitalization over the next decade to $230 trillion.
Predictions would imply that Bitcoin will become the dominant global reserve asset with structurally loose monetary policy over the next decade, Nic Puckrin, co-founder and principal market analyst at educational platform Coin Bureau, told Cointelegraph.
“Forecasts imply that Bitcoin would become approximately 10 times larger than the current US money supply M2, almost four times larger than the current US stock market, and almost double the current global GDP.”
The forecast would also imply a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 53% per year, which is not unprecedented given Bitcoin’s average CAGR of 60% between 2015 and 2024, but a slowdown can be expected due to its larger market capitalization, Puckrin added.
Shawn Young, chief analyst at MEXC Research, agrees, warning that the forecast would imply a “whopping” 16,318% increase for Bitcoin over the next decade, which seems unlikely due to Bitcoin’s declining volatility.
“The more liquidity that institutional and retail investors pour into the asset, the less likely it is that large price increases will be recorded,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding that “the realistic price range is at most $1 million.”
Stablecoin inflows rebound to $1.7 billion as Washington fights over yield rules
According to a new report from Messari, weekly stablecoin net inflows rebounded last week as on-chain activity accelerated even as U.S. lawmakers and banking groups argued over whether third parties should be allowed to pay for stablecoin yield.
Weekly stablecoin net inflows accelerated to $1.7 billion, a 414.5% week-over-week increase, according to the report published Wednesday.
The recovery pushed the 30-day average to a positive $162.5 million in daily inflows. Trading volumes increased by 6.3%, while average transaction size continued to decline, reflecting renewed demand for stablecoin issuance and “heightened” on-chain activity among retail investors, according to the report.
Stablecoin inflows track new stablecoins entering circulation after accounting for redemptions.
This increase follows a weaker period earlier in the year. Messari data showed $249 million in weekly inflows two weeks earlier and $4.4 billion in net outflows in the 30 days to February 18.
Solv Protocol Offers 10% Bounty After $2.7M Vault Exploit
Bitcoin-based decentralized finance platform Solv Protocol claims one of its token vaults was exploited for $2.7 million and offered the attacker a 10% bounty in exchange for returning the stolen funds.
Solve said in an X post on Thursday that fewer than 10 of its users were affected, but that would cover the loss of 38.05 Solv Protocol BTC (SolvBTC), a token linked to Bitcoin (BTC).
The project added that it had implemented measures to prevent the attack from happening again and was investigating the exploit with crypto security companies Hypernative, SlowMist and CertiK.
Solv allows users to deposit Bitcoin for the Solv BTC protocol, which they can then use to lend, borrow, or stake on other blockchains. The project has 24,226 Bitcoins worth over $1.7 billion and claims to be the largest project. on-chain Bitcoin reserve.
Solv has not confirmed how the exploit occurred, but two crypto security researchers said it came from a vulnerability in one of Solv’s smart contracts that allowed the attacker to create excessive amounts of a token used on the protocol.
The attacker exploited the vulnerability 22 times before trading hundreds of millions of tokens for just over 38 SolvBTC, according to to the co-founder of CD Security, Chris Dior.
Bybit claims new anti-fraud system stopped $300 million in risky withdrawals in Q4 2025
Bybit said it blocked or disrupted more than $300 million in suspected scam-related withdrawals in the fourth quarter of 2025 after deploying an AI-assisted risk monitoring system designed to flag malicious transactions before funds leave the exchange.
In a business blog jobBybit said its system flagged around $500 million in withdrawal requests during the quarter and that more than 4,000 users were “protected” after the platform issued real-time risk alerts or blocked transactions outright.
David Zong, Bybit Group’s head of risk control, told Cointelegraph that much of the $300 million total reflects withdrawals that users voluntarily canceled after seeing warnings, meaning the funds remained in their accounts rather than requiring recovery or refund.
“Since the withdrawals were stopped before completion, the funds did not require recovery or reimbursement. They remained in the users’ accounts at all times.”
Bybit said the system also identified 350 high-risk investment fraud addresses that protected 8,000 users from potential withdrawal losses during the previous quarter. It also thwarted more than 3 million credential stuffing attacks attempted by hackers throughout 2025.
Cryptocurrency hacks resulted in $3.4 billion in losses in 2025, as hackers focused on large crypto entities.
DeFi Market Overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap ended the week in the green.
The River token (RIVER) rose 94% as the biggest gainer of the week, followed by the Humanity Protocol token (H), up 39% over the past week.
Thank you for reading our summary of this week’s most notable DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, ideas and information about this dynamically evolving space.
