Bitcoin to outperform gold soon, FBI busts $46M crypto heist: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 1 – 7

Lyn Alden tips Bitcoin outperforming gold over next ‘two to three years’

Bitcoin is likely to outperform gold on price performance through to 2029 after gold’s strong recent rally, says macroeconomist Lyn Alden.

“If I had to bet Bitcoin versus gold over the next two to three years, I would bet Bitcoin,” Alden said on the New Era Finance podcast on Wednesday.

“Gun to my head, if I had to say which one I think outperforms, I would say Bitcoin,” she added.

“It’s usually a pendulum between the two. If gold has gone up as much as it did, the entire diminishing return story per cycle is going to be erased in the coming one, too.”

Many crypto industry executives, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, have predicted that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 with clearer regulations taking shape in the US, which Armstrong called a “bellwether for the rest of the G20.”

FBI arrests custody company CEO‘s son over alleged $46M crypto theft

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that it had made an arrest related to the theft of more than $46 million in cryptocurrency from the US Marshals Service.

In a Thursday X post, FBI Director Kash Patel said that the bureau had arrested John Daghita, the son of Command Services & Support (CMDSS) president Dean Daghita, after he allegedly gained unauthorized access to wallets managed under the federal asset protection program. Patel said the arrest was carried out by the “French Gendarmerie’s premier elite tactical unit” with the FBI on the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean.

Patel’s social media post with a photo of a handcuffed Daghita, also included a photo of a suitcase containing cash, several thumb drives, a phone and three devices resembling Trezor hardware wallets. The FBI director did not disclose whether any of the stolen funds had been recovered.

SEC ends case against Justin Sun with $10M settlement

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has ended its lawsuit against crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun with a $10 million settlement, wrapping up a three-year legal battle over alleged fraud and securities laws violations.

The SEC said in a letter to a Manhattan federal court on Thursday that Rainberry, one of Sun’s companies, would pay a $10 million fine, and claims against Sun and his companies, the Tron Foundation and BitTorrent Foundation would be dropped.

Sun and his companies did not admit or deny the SEC’s allegations, the agency said in the letter.

The SEC lawsuit, first filed in March 2023, accused Sun, Rainberry, the Tron Foundation and the BitTorrent Foundation of selling unregistered securities via the Tronixand BitTorrenttokens and engaging in “manipulative wash trading” of TRX.

IRS proposes mandating electronic delivery of tax forms for crypto

The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is seeking to require electronic delivery of tax forms to crypto exchange users.

Under the current rules, exchanges are required to provide paper copies of tax form 1099-DA, the IRS tax form used to document crypto transactions from a centralized exchange or broker, if users request paper forms.

The proposed new rules, slated to be published on Friday, remove this requirement and allow brokers to “terminate” their relationships with existing clients if they refuse electronic delivery of tax forms.

Additionally, the IRS proposal would prohibit users from retroactively revoking consent for electronic forms.

X allows paid crypto promotions but bans them in EU, UK

Social media platform X has lifted its global ban on paid crypto and gambling promotions under a new labeling policy, but such ads remain restricted in certain jurisdictions, including the UK, the European Union and Australia.

Under the updated rules, influencers are responsible for ensuring paid crypto partnerships are not visible in those markets, which have stricter financial promotion laws.

X, formerly Twitter, has long been the go-to platform for crypto companies, projects and communities to communicate.

The platform’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said the feature aims to encourage people to build their businesses on X while ensuring they are transparent with their followers.

February crypto losses hit lowest level since March 2025, says PeckShield

Crypto hacks and scams resulted in $26.5 million in losses in February, the lowest monthly total since March 2025, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield.

Out of 15 instances in February, only two accounted for most of the month’s losses, with the largest being the $10 million theft from YieldBlox’s DAO-managed lending pool via a price manipulation attack on Feb. 21, PeckShield reported in an X post on Sunday.

The second-largest exploit targeted the decentralized identity protocol IoTeX, which lost about $8.9 million to a private key exploit on Feb. 21. Overall, February’s total represents a 69.2% month-on-month decrease from January, which recorded just over $86 million in losses.

A PeckShield spokesperson told Cointelegraph that “mega-hacks,” such as the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025, didn’t inflate last month’s statistics, and market volatility led to a significant cooling period in exploit activity.

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $67,998, Ether (ETH) at $1,976 and XRP at $1.36. The total market cap is at $2.32 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Humanity Protocol (H) at 38.42%, Pi (PI) at 36.21% and OKB (OKB) at 28.32%The top three altcoin losers of the week are pippin (PIPPIN) at 44.32%, Decred (DCR) at 12.32% and World Liberty Financial (WLFI) at 10.93%. For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“The U.S. needs to get Market Structure done, ASAP. The Banks are hitting record profits, and we are not going to allow them to undermine our powerful Crypto Agenda that will end up going to China, and other Countries if we don’t get The Clarity Act taken care of.”

Donald Trump, US President

“There’s been an investing cycle, Bitcoin goes up three years in a row, goes down pretty massively in that fourth year. 2026 is that fourth year. So that’s why we are in a Bitcoin bear market. So I think we can overcomplicate it. Now I think we are making a bottom.”

Jan van Eck, VanEck CEO

“However, our broader allocation framework still classifies Bitcoin as being in a bear market regime, meaning any bullish exposure remains tactical rather than structural.”

10x Research analysts

“If I had to bet Bitcoin versus gold over the next two to three years, I would bet Bitcoin,”

Lyn Alden, macroeconomist

“This is quite an impressive experiment. Vibe-coding the entire 2030 roadmap within weeks.”

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum co-founder

“The caveat to that is the simple fact that next week we will print a death cross between the 21 and 100 Week MAs, and that will likely be a precursor to the next leg down unless we get a major bullish catalyst.”

Keith Alan, cofounder of Material Indicators

Top Prediction of The Week

When buying Bitcoin, don’t expect profit for at least 3 years: Data

Bitcoingets a bad name among some investors due to its steep double-digit drawdowns that punish late buyers, but data suggests the outcome can change with time.

Since 2017, investors who bought BTC near the market highs faced losses of about 40%–50% in the next two years, but data shows many of those positions turned profitable when held for longer than three years.

Top FUD of The Week

Grok delivers viral vulgar roasts of Musk, Netanyahu and Starmer

xAI’s chatbot Grok has sparked widespread buzz on X after delivering a series of explicit roasts targeting high-profile figures like Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The exchanges began after users prompted Grok to produce “extremely vulgar” roasts of political leaders and public figures. The chatbot responded with profanity-filled insults directed at several well-known individuals.

Ex-CFO sentenced to two years after diverting $35M to crypto venture

A Seattle judge has sentenced the former chief financial officer of a local startup to two years in prison following his conviction for wire fraud related to a cryptocurrency business.

In a Thursday notice, the US Justice Department said Nevin Shetty would serve two years in prison after he “secretly moved approximately $35 million in company funds to a cryptocurrency platform he controlled as a side business.” He moved the funds to the HighTower Treasury platform in 2022 before a crypto market downturn, resulting in the disclosure of the transfer.

According to the DOJ, Shetty was able to transfer the funds without any executives or board members at the Seattle startup knowing about it, then using the money to invest in “high-yield DeFi lending protocols that promised to generate returns of 20% or more.” He initially earned $133,000 in the first month before the collapse of the Terra ecosystem contributed to a significant market downturn.

Curve Finance accuses PancakeSwap of copying its code

The team behind the Curve Finance decentralized finance (DeFi) platform accused the PancakeSwap decentralized exchange (DEX) of using its code without the proper licensing.

The code is tied to the “StableSwap” feature used for swapping stablecoins and “tightly-pegged” assets on PancakeSwap Infinity, the latest version of the PancakeSwap DEX.

“If you want to enjoy using stableswap without legal problems and to borrow some of our expertise to keep users SAFU, you still can contact us for licensing and collaboration,” the Curve team said on X.

The debate over Bitcoin’s four-year cycle is over: Benjamin Cowen

Bitcoin is in a “bear market year” but October could mark a key turning point, says Benjamin Cowen.

What’s a ‘Network State’ and are there real-life examples? Big Questions

For many in the crypto community, escaping from the control of traditional state authority is as important as making loads of money.

Bitcoin may face hard fork over any attempt to freeze Satoshi’s coins

Bitcoin faces an impossible choice: Confiscate Satoshi’s coins or lose them to a quantum attack. A Bitcoin Core dev says a hard fork would resolve the problem.

Editorial Staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.

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