Interactive Brokers, a global brokerage that recorded $9.3 billion in revenue for 2024, is expanding its altcoin offerings to include four new tokens.

According to a March 26 announcement, the platform has added Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), XRP (XRP), and Dogecoin (DOGE) for trading. The four coins have a combined market capitalization of $267.2 billion at this writing.

The additions double Interactive’s crypto offerings to traders. Since 2021, it has enabled trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) pairs.

Both trading and custody services will be provided through Paxos Trust Company or Zero Hash LLC. Zero Hash said in a press release that as of June 2024, it had processed $20 billion in transactions across 200 countries.

Financial firms have been expanding crypto token offerings. On March 25, Nubank announced the addition of ADA, Near Protocol (NEAR), Cosmos (ATOM), and Algorand (ALGO) to its over 100 million clients in Latin America. US exchange Kraken has been steadily adding memecoins for a number of months, while Binance introduced a way for community members to vote on the listing and delisting of tokens.

Amidst an increasingly competitive crypto market, Interactive Brokers is promising low transaction fees — 0.12% to 0.18% per transaction value with a minimum of $1.75 per trade. The brokerage still faces competition from exchanges that offer “pro” platforms with similar charges.

Related: CZ admits Binance token listing process is flawed, needs reform

Crypto markets see more regulation, more adoption

Companies’ moves to expand crypto offerings comes amid a broader shift in how nation-states engage with the industry — moving toward collaboration rather than outright suppression. The European Union’s MiCA regulation has delivered in a clearer framework for crypto companies operating in that region, while the United States has been betting on the use of stablecoins to preserve the dollar global dominance.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped cases against a number of crypto companies, and the US Congress is currently working on stablecoin and market structure legislations.

Although crypto markets have recenlty experienced turbulence due to uncertainty surrounding US tariffs and fears of recession, institutional investors still appear optimistic crypto investments. Since debuting in January 2024, Bitcoin exchange traded-funds have attracted a cumulative net inflow of $36 billion, according to SoSoValue.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

Ether (ETH) price reclaimed the $2,000 support on March 24 but remains 18% below the $2,500 level seen three weeks ago. Data shows Ether has underperformed the altcoin market by 14% over the past 30 days, leading traders to question whether the altcoin can regain bullish momentum and which factors might drive a trend reversal.

Ether/USD (left) vs. total altcoin capitalization, USD (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Ether appears well-positioned to attract institutional demand and significantly reduce the FUD that has limited its upside potential. Critics have long argued that the Ethereum ecosystem lags behind competitors in overall user experience and still offers limited base-layer scalability, which has negatively impacted network fees and transaction efficiency. 

Will the Ethereum Pectra upgrade impact ETH price?

Many of the Ethereum network’s challenges are expected to be addressed in the upcoming Pectra network upgrade, scheduled for late April or early June. Among the proposed changes is a doubling of the data that can be included in each block, which should help lower fees for rollups and privacy-focused mechanisms. Additionally, the cost of call data will increase, encouraging developers to adopt blobs—a more efficient method for data storage.

Another notable improvement in the upcoming upgrade is the introduction of smart accounts, which allow wallets to function like smart contracts during transactions. This enables gas fee sponsorship, passkey authentication, and batch transactions. Additionally, several other enhancements focus on optimizing staking deposits and withdrawals, providing greater flexibility, and extending block history for smart contracts that rely on past data.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, set a $5,000 price target for ETH on March 25, stating that it should significantly outperform competitor Solana (SOL).

Source: CryptoHayes

Regardless of the rationale behind Arthur’s price prediction, ETH options traders do not share the same bullish sentiment. The Sept. 26 call (buy) option with a $5,000 strike price costs only $35.40, implying extremely low odds. However, Ethereum remains the undisputed leader in smart contract deposits and is the only altcoin with a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the US, currently holding $8.9 billion in assets under management.

Ethereum TVL growth and reduced ETH supply on exchanges

Ethereum’s network boasts a total value locked (TVL) of $52.5 billion, significantly surpassing Solana’s $7 billion. More importantly, deposits on the Ethereum network grew 10% over the past 30 days, reaching 25.4 million ETH, while Solana saw an 8% decline over the same period. Notable highlights on Ethereum include Sky (formerly Maker), which saw a 17% increase in deposits, and Ethena, whose TVL surged by 38% in 30 days.

Ether balance on exchanges, ETH. Source: Glassnode

The Ether supply on exchanges stood at 16.9 million ETH on March 25, just 3.5% above its five-year low of 16.32 million ETH, according to Glassnode data. This trend suggests that investors are withdrawing from exchanges, signaling a long-term capital commitment. Similarly, flows into spot Ether ETFs remained relatively muted on March 24 and March 25, in contrast to the $316 million in net outflows accumulated since March 10.

Related: Ethereum devs prepare final Pectra test before mainnet launch

Lastly, the Ethereum network is gaining momentum in the Real World Asset (RWA) industry, particularly after the BlackRock BUILD fund surpassed $1.5 billion in capitalization. The Ethereum ecosystem, including its layer-2 scalability solutions, accounts for over 80% of this market, according to RWA.XYZ data, underscoring Ethereum’s dominance in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space.

Ether’s price drop below $1,900 on March 10 likely reflected overly bearish expectations. However, the tide appears to have turned as the Ethereum network demonstrated resilience, and traders continued to withdraw from exchanges, setting the stage for a potential rally toward $2,500.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks are down after tech giant Microsoft reportedly scrapped plans to invest in new artificial intelligence data centers in the US and Europe, citing a potential oversupply, according to a report by Bloomberg and data from Google Finance.

Shares of crypto miners Bitfarms, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Hut 8, Marathon Digital and Riot dropped between 4% and 12% in tandem with the news, the data showed.

The stock price retrenchments highlight cryptocurrency miners’ increased dependence on business from artificial intelligence models after the Bitcoin network’s April 2024 “halving” cut into mining revenues.

CORZ intraday performance on the Nasdaq. Source: Google Finance

Miners are “diversifying into AI data-center hosting as a way to expand revenue and repurpose existing infrastructure for high-performance computing,” Coin Metrics said in a March report.

For example, in June 2024, Core Scientific pledged 200 megawatts of hardware capacity to support CoreWeave’s artificial intelligence workloads.

In August 2024, asset manager VanEck said Bitcoin mining stocks could collectively see a roughly $37 billion bump to market capitalizations if they invest heavily in supporting AI.

Nevertheless, miners have struggled this year as declining crypto prices worsen pressures on businesses already impacted by April’s halving, JPMorgan said in March. Waning demand for AI data centers could add further strain.

Bitcoin miners could see gains in valuation from pivoting to AI. Source: VanEck

Related: Bet more on the Bitcoin miners cashing in on AI

Cutting back on compute

On March 26, analysts at TD Cowen said Microsoft had abandoned plans to build several new data centers that would have generated some 2 gigawatts of power, according to Bloomberg. 

The analysts reportedly attributed Microsoft’s pullback to a perceived oversupply of computing capacity for AI models, as well as the tech giant’s decision to forgo some planned collaborations with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. 

In the past six months, Microsoft has canceled various data center leases and delayed plans to onboard more capacity, according to Bloomberg. 

Microsoft’s data center investments are expected to slow further in the second half of 2025 as the company finishes $80 billion in planned buildouts and pivots to outfitting existing centers with hardware and equipment, Bloomberg said. 

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge