The crypto market staged a strong comeback on March 17. Bitcoin climbed 4.58% to $75,925, approaching the $76K threshold. Ether jumped 8.45% to $2,363, outpacing BTC. The total market capitalization reached $2.65 trillion, up 3.6%, with trading volume at $154 billion.
Major Coins Rally: XRP Up 8.8%, Solana Gains 4%
XRP rose 8.78% to $1.57, and Solana added 4.09% to $95.68. Bitcoin dominance remained elevated at 56.9%, while Ethereum accounted for 10.7%. The Polkadot ecosystem and XRP Ledger ecosystem were the top-performing sectors.
Altcoins See Sharp Divergence: Zcash Skyrockets, TRUMP Dips
Top gainers: Zcash (ZEC) surged 20.50% to $276.56, FET rallied 18.49% to $0.2322, and PEPE jumped 13.94% to $0.053985. On the losing side, River (RIVER) dropped 14.74% to $19.42, Official Trump (TRUMP) fell 7.09% to $3.88, and Morpho (MORPHO) slipped 5% to $1.83.
Fear Index Improves to 28, Sentiment Still Cautious
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index rose to 28 (Fear) from 23 yesterday, and from 13 last week and 8 earlier this month. The improvement reflects fading panic driven by short-term price recovery, yet investors remain wary amid macro uncertainty and volatility.
DeFi and Stablecoins: DeFi Market Cap Up 4.1%
Stablecoin market cap barely changed at $312 billion, with volume of $127 billion. DeFi market cap grew 4.1% to $55.68 billion, representing a 2.1% share of the total crypto market. DeFi trading volume reached $5.2 billion.
Notable Headlines: SEC Rule Proposal, Bitdeer Mined 705 BTC
Metaplex Foundation partnered with K Wave Media to tokenize Korean cultural IP. Bitdeer reported February hashrate of 68 EH/s, mining 705 BTC and advancing its AI cloud business. Coinbase added Perle (PRL) to its roadmap. YZi Labs led a $52 million investment in RoboForce for industrial robots. Basque police in Spain investigated 541 crypto-related cases. The U.S. SEC proposed to restrict Rule 15c2-11 to equities, excluding crypto assets, with a 60-day comment period.