Ripple expanded its institutional payments platform to support broader stablecoin workflows for banks and fintech firms, including collection, custody, conversion and payout functions within a single infrastructure layer, the company said. Ripple said its Ripple Payments network now operates across more than 60 global markets, has processed over $100 billion in transactions, and connects institutions directly to blockchain settlement rails rather than traditional correspondent banking chains. CoinMarketCap data showed Ripple's RLUSD dollar-pegged stablecoin reached roughly 1.5 billion tokens in circulating supply, and the company has been integrating the asset more deeply into its payment environment as a digital dollar bridge for settlements. The expansion comes as U.S. regulators, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, advance conditional national trust bank charters for crypto firms such as the planned Ripple National Trust Bank, and as policymakers continue to debate stablecoin oversight, reserve rules and operational standards.

Dogecoin rose sharply over the past 24 hours toward the $0.095–$0.10 range, trading around $0.09677 with increased volume across major exchanges, market data show. Onchain analytics provider Santiment reports social discussions around altcoins and altseason have dropped to historically low levels, with retail sentiment deeply bearish and past cycles showing DOGE prices rebounded roughly 15% after similar extremes. On the daily chart, DOGE is testing a descending trendline that has capped gains for months, with resistance around $0.1040 and the $0.1050–$0.1080 zone, while support sits near $0.092 and $0.088; a close above $0.1060 would mark a technical breakout, analysts say.

Social media discussions about altcoin season have dropped to their lowest level in two years, market intelligence platform Santiment reported, noting that past periods of unusually low "altseason" mentions have often preceded major altcoin rallies. Santiment data show that weekly references to altcoin season, when compared with price moves in Dogecoin and other meme coins, tended to spike near market tops, while sharp drops in chatter have historically appeared close to market bottoms. The Altcoin Season Index currently stands around 43, well below the 75 threshold used to signal a full altcoin cycle, indicating that most altcoins continue to lag Bitcoin as traders wait on crypto forums and Reddit for a further Bitcoin move before a broader rotation. Total crypto market capitalization recently rose about 2% in one day to roughly $2.45 trillion after Donald Trump called on U.S. lawmakers to finalize crypto market structure rules, with Bitcoin gaining nearly 6% and large-cap altcoins such as Ethereum and XRP advancing between 3% and 9%.

Western Union plans to launch USDPT, a USD-pegged stablecoin, on the Solana blockchain. The token is positioned as a competitor to RLUSD in the dollar-denominated digital asset space.

Western Union plans to launch the U.S. Dollar Payment Token (USDPT) on the Solana blockchain, positioning it against Ripple Labs' RLUSD, Solana Daily reported on X on March 5, 2026. The global payment company is partnering with Crossmint to provide digital wallets, payment integration APIs for businesses, and backend infrastructure for token issuance and redemption across Western Union's network in more than 200 countries. USDPT will be redeemable at 360,000 cash locations worldwide, linking digital assets with physical cash access. The initiative follows an initial announcement in October 2025, and market observers note USDPT could intensify competition in the stablecoin sector if users favor Solana's speed and low transaction fees over existing offerings including RLUSD, USDT, USDC and PayPal's stablecoin.

An address labeled "ETH Swing Master" (0xa5b0) holds a 15x leveraged ETH long on Hyperliquid with roughly 70,000 ETH in notional exposure worth about $144 million at an average entry of $1,991, generating around $9.2 million in unrealized profit, Coinbob data cited by BlockBeats show on March 5. The address opened a BTC long on March 3 near short-term lows, accumulating about $47.1 million in BTC at $68,170, now showing a paper gain of roughly $2.8 million. Together, the positions make the address the largest BTC and ETH long on Hyperliquid with combined unrealized profits above $11 million, and the address has not closed either position. BlockBeats also noted the whale ran an ETH long exceeding $100 million late last year, closed it in February, and has received fund transfers from Matrixport-linked addresses.

Two wallets linked to Cumberland withdrew 46,620 ETH valued at $98.8M from Binance, Coinbase, and Copper over the past 16 hours, the original report shows. The withdrawals suggest notable institutional-sized flows across these platforms during this period.

Stablecoin transactions on Solana reached $650 billion in February, more than double the network's previous monthly record and the highest among all blockchains during the period, Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl said. The surge marks a shift from memecoin-driven trading toward payments and SOL-stablecoin usage on the L1 network. Solana now holds the fourth-largest share of overall stablecoin supply and ranks second in USDC circulation, TheBlockCo data show.

Solana recorded $650 billion in stablecoin transaction volume in February, the highest monthly stablecoin volume on any blockchain during that period, Allium data cited by Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl show. Standard Chartered noted that activity is shifting from memecoin trading toward micropayments and SOL–stablecoin decentralized exchange pairs, with Solana's low fees and high throughput supporting frequent, small onchain transfers. Commentators cautioned that internal transfers, automated activity, MEV, or incentives can inflate volume and that raw volume does not equate to revenue or service quality. At the time of the report, SOL was trading above $90, FXLeaders data show.