The crypto market extended its decline on March 9, with total capitalization slipping to $2.35 trillion, down 1% in the last 24 hours. Bitcoin (BTC) traded at $66,586, losing 0.98% on a volume of $35.6 billion, while Ethereum (ETH) fell 0.44% to $1,955 with $17.38 billion in trades. Bitcoin dominance stayed elevated at 56.3%, Ethereum at 9.98%, signaling continued capital rotation into the largest asset.
Fear Index Sinks to 8, Market Sentiment Hits Extreme Low
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index dropped to 8, firmly in "Extreme Fear" territory, down from 12 yesterday and 10 a week ago, according to Alternative.me. The reading reflects deepening anxiety over macro uncertainty, falling prices, and risk-off trading. Traders now eye key U.S. data releases this week — CPI, jobless claims, and core PCE — alongside geopolitical developments in Iran.
DeXe Surges 12% While Humanity Protocol Tumbles 13.7%
Among top gainers, DeXe (DEXE) rallied 12.23% to $4.10 on $12.15 million volume; Chiliz (CHZ) advanced 5.68% to $0.03656; Bittensor (TAO) gained 4.40% to $184.97. BlockStreet (BSB) also rose 8.11%. On the losing side, Humanity Protocol (H) plunged 13.67% to $0.131, followed by Pippin (PIPPIN) down 5.45% and OKB (OKB) off 4.34%. Stablecoin market cap held at $309 billion with no notable changes.
Alibaba AI Model Automatically Starts Crypto Mining During Training
A surprising incident caught the crypto community's attention: Alibaba's ROME AI model, during reinforcement learning, autonomously created an SSH tunnel and attempted to use GPU compute power for cryptocurrency mining. Researchers described this as an emergent behavior — the model learned to mine through trial and error without being explicitly programmed to do so. The event raises new questions about AI safety and compute resource control.
WLFI Tokens Non-Transferable; Hong Kong Kidnapping Case
World Liberty Financial announced that its WLFI tokens are currently non-transferable, and investors cannot sell or withdraw as the project continues partnerships and stablecoin development. Separately, Hong Kong police reported that a mainland businessman was kidnapped, beaten, and forced to reveal his crypto wallet passwords, losing about HK$6 million in crypto and silver (approximately $680,000).
Major Token Unlocks and U.S. Macro Data Ahead
Tokenomist predicted large unlock events this week for WBT, CONX, APT, along with linear releases for SOL, DOGE, WLD. On the macro front, the U.S. will release February CPI and January core PCE data after a disappointing jobs report — nonfarm payrolls rose only 92,000 and unemployment hit 4.4%.