Today's news tips:
South Korea blocks 17 unregistered virtual asset companies including KuCoin and MEXC
GameStop Adds Bitcoin to Company Reserve Assets
USDC Treasury minted 300 million new USDC on Ethereum early this morning
US SEC terminates investigation into Immutable and related parties, finding no violations
Ripple to Recover $75 Million Court Fine from SEC, Withdraw Appeal
Regulatory/Macro
North Carolina proposes to allow pension funds to invest in crypto assets up to 5%
North Carolina lawmakers submitted two bills to the House of Representatives and the Senate, proposing to allow some pension funds to be invested in crypto assets, up to 5%. Congressman Brenden Jones proposed the "State Investment Modernization Act" (HB 506), and the Senate submitted a similar bill SB 709. These bills aim to establish an independent "investment agency" to manage various fund investments, including state retirement funds. The bill stipulates that investment institutions can invest funds in digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and NFTs, and must adopt secure custody solutions while evaluating the risks and returns of assets. Previously, North Carolina had submitted relevant bills to authorize state finance officials to invest in Bitcoin. Crypto assets are becoming an investment direction that legislators in various states in the United States are paying attention to. Earlier news, North Carolina's Bitcoin Reserve Act proposed to authorize 10% of public funds to purchase Bitcoin.
South Korea blocks 17 unregistered virtual asset companies including KuCoin and MEXC
At the request of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIU) of South Korea, Google LLC has imposed domestic access restrictions on Google Play apps of 17 overseas virtual asset service providers that are not registered in South Korea since March 25. These service providers include KuCoin, MEXC, etc. Users will not be able to install new related applications, and existing users will not be able to update. According to the Specific Financial Transaction Information Reporting and Use Act, unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers that provide services to Korean users, such as providing Korean websites, holding events to attract Korean customers, or supporting Korean won payments, must fulfill their registration obligations, otherwise they will face imprisonment of up to 5 years or a fine of up to 50 million won. In addition, FIU has transferred some unregistered service providers to investigation agencies and continues to take measures to prevent users from being harmed due to information leaks or financial losses.
Asset management giant Fidelity Investments is moving forward with issuing its own stablecoin as part of its strategy to expand digital assets, according to the Financial Times. The stablecoin will be managed in its digital asset division and is currently in the advanced stages of testing.
GameStop Adds Bitcoin to Company Reserve Assets
According to GameStop's official announcement, the company's board of directors unanimously approved an update to its investment policy on March 25, Eastern Time, to include Bitcoin as one of the company's reserve assets.
According to the SEC's official website, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Cryptocurrency Working Group announced that it will hold four new rounds of roundtable meetings from April to June 2025, covering topics such as crypto trading, custody, asset tokenization and DeFi. The time and topics of the four public roundtable meetings are: "Tailored Regulation for Crypto Trading" on April 11, "Key Issues for Custodians" on April 25, "Asset Chain Integration with Traditional Finance" on May 12, and "DeFi and the American Spirit" on June 6. Commissioner Hester Peirce called this "a clear spring sprint to crypto", marking the SEC's new direction from law enforcement to cooperation and a clear regulatory framework. The meeting will be open to the public and live online.
Viewpoint
According to Matrixport analysis, Bitcoin is currently approaching a breakout of a key downward trend line that has been suppressing prices since the market sell-off around the time of Trump's inauguration. Currently, Bitcoin is forming a "high compact flag", a technical pattern that is often seen as a bullish continuation pattern. The report points out that Bitcoin has broken through the initial downward trend line (white line) and is testing a more important resistance level (gray line). If it succeeds in breaking through, it will send a signal that downside risks have been significantly alleviated. Combined with the dovish tone of the Federal Reserve's FOMC meeting, the market environment has become more favorable, and this change has also been further verified on the technical side.
According to Grayscale's latest research report, in the first quarter of 2025, the overall cryptocurrency market pulled back, in line with the performance of technology stocks and other high-risk assets. Bitcoin network activity indicators are generally healthy, and the number of addresses holding balances of more than $1 hit a new high of 48 million, indicating that its "value storage" attribute has attracted more demand. However, the number of active users of smart contract platforms remained stable, and due to the slowdown of Memecoin trading on the Solana chain, its monthly active users in the ecosystem fell from 140 million in the fourth quarter of last year to an average of 90 million this quarter. The report pointed out that blockchain application layer assets (such as financial, consumer culture, and service assets) generated a total of more than $2 billion in revenue this quarter, of which the Solana platform contributed approximately $390 million, accounting for nearly half of the total revenue of smart contract platforms. At the same time, Grayscale readjusted the Top 20 list of crypto assets, adding Maple (SYRUP), Geodnet (GEOD), and Story Protocol (IP). Grayscale believes that the growth of these emerging non-speculative use cases reflects the maturity of the crypto industry, and is optimistic about the future development of Ethereum expansion solutions, the combination of blockchain and AI, and DeFi and staking-related protocols.
Kain Warwick, founder of Synthetix, shared his views on market makers. He pointed out that some market makers manipulated prices through low liquidity markets, used loans and options arbitrage, and even sold discounted tokens before the token generation event (TGE) and quickly sold them after driving up prices. He mentioned that Synthetix was manipulated by DWF Labs, which brought short-term liquidity but was not good for the long-term development of tokens. He called on investors to be wary of projects sending large amounts of tokens to market makers and demanded more transparency.
Augustine Fan, head of research at SignalPlus, said that despite continued concerns about a slowdown in the U.S. economy, the market could gradually rebound from last week's downturn and is expected to maintain a modest recovery by the end of the month. He pointed out that the "Liberation Day" tariff policy that Trump plans to announce on April 2 will be the next important catalyst. If the tariff policy is mild, it may repair the recent technical losses of U.S. stocks and drive a rebound in global markets, especially with the recent rise in EU and Chinese stocks. Fan also mentioned that cryptocurrencies will continue to closely follow the performance of the stock market in the short term and currently lack unique market drivers. However, the recent M&A dynamics of Coinbase and Kraken have given people confidence in the long-term bull market prospects of the crypto market.
Project News
Abracadabra has repurchased $6.5 million of MIM and covered 50% of the hacker attack losses
According to the official news of Abracadabra Money, its gmCauldrons product suite was hacked yesterday, causing the protocol to lose about $13 million in MIM tokens. Other products were not affected. Abracadabra DAO has begun to take measures to deal with this incident, including using $19 million in assets from the DAO treasury to repay part of the losses. It has repurchased $6.5 million in MIM and covered 50% of the total losses. The remaining part will be gradually absorbed in the coming months and is expected to be completed in mid-2025. In the coming months, Abracadabra will focus on four major directions: treasury remediation plan, Berachain expansion, Nibiru ecological deployment, and Purrswap protocol incubation. The treasury will continue to support the stability of MIM tokens while reducing market volatility through phased operations. The expansion of Berachain and Nibiru will introduce new Cauldrons and stablecoin trading functions to promote ecological innovation. In addition, the Purrswap protocol is about to be launched and will become the first stablecoin trading platform on HyperEVM. Earlier news, Paidun: GMX and MIM Spell hacker attack losses have reached about $13 million.
Celo officially transforms into Ethereum Layer2 network, adopting Optimism OP Stack
According to The Block, the Celo blockchain officially transformed from an independent Layer 1 to an Ethereum Layer 2 network on March 26, using Optimism's OP Stack technology. The migration aims to improve scalability and interoperability and connect to the Ethereum ecosystem. After the transformation, Celo has advantages such as native bridging and 1-second block generation, and Aave, Uniswap, etc. are the first partners.
According to the announcement of GoPlus Security, the first batch of $GPS token repurchase has been executed, and the current cumulative repurchase amount has reached 34,906,177. The repurchase is still in progress, and all tokens will be destroyed after the repurchase is completed.
Movement wallet address received 10 million MOVE from Binance in the early morning
According to Onchain Lens, the strategic reserve wallet of the Movement Foundation received 10 million MOVE tokens from Binance in the early hours of this morning, which is equivalent to about 5.47 million US dollars at the current price. Yesterday, the foundation announced that it would buy back $38 million worth of MOVE tokens within three months. This move was due to the recovery of funds from a market maker suspected of misconduct.
Nubank now supports four new tokens: ADA, NEAR, ATOM and ALGO
Nubank Cripto, a cryptocurrency trading platform launched by Brazilian digital bank Nubank, has added four new tokens: Cardano (ADA), Near Protocol (NEAR), Cosmos (ATOM) and Algorand (ALGO), enriching the original investment portfolio of 16 assets. The platform has also recently added 11 USDC trading pairs and provides an annualized 4% fixed return to users holding more than 10 USDC.
US SEC terminates investigation into Immutable and related parties, finding no violations
According to VentureBeat, Immutable announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially terminated its investigation into it and related parties, found no violations, and will not take further action. This marks the official closure of last year's Wells notice (a preview of possible litigation). Robbie Ferguson, president of Immutable, said that this move brings regulatory clarity to the Web3 gaming industry and is expected to drive more institutional investment, especially in the in-game purchase market worth more than $200 billion, which will unlock huge opportunities.
Ripple to Recover $75 Million Court Fine from SEC, Withdraw Appeal
According to CoinDesk, Ripple has reached a preliminary settlement agreement with the SEC, in which the SEC agreed to return $75 million of the $125 million fine imposed by the court last year, retaining only $50 million to close the case. In exchange, Ripple will withdraw its cross-appeal. The proposed settlement still needs to be approved by the court and the commission, and may mark the end of the long-standing legal dispute between the two parties.
Important data
According to Ai Yi's monitoring, the address 0x15B...8BE1e recharged 22,000 ETH to Binance 5 minutes ago, worth about 45.35 million US dollars. The address withdrew 20,592 stETH from Bybit between March 14 and 15 and redeemed it through Lido. If it is sold now, it will realize a profit of more than 3.248 million US dollars, with a two-week return rate of 8.28%.
USDC Treasury minted 300 million new USDC on Ethereum early this morning
According to Whale Alert monitoring, on-chain data shows that at 3:43, 3:57 and 4:28 am Beijing time today, USDC issuer USDC Treasury minted 100,000,000 USDC on Ethereum respectively, with a total of approximately $300 million worth of USDC minted in three times. In addition, at 7:03 this morning, USDC Treasury minted another 65 million USDC on Ethereum.
Financing
Blockchain game Immortal Rising 2 completes $3 million in financing, TGE scheduled for March 27
Immortal Rising 2, a dark fantasy blockchain game from Solarium Labs, successfully completed a $3 million financing led by Solarium Labs before TGE (March 27) and successfully completed NFT sales. Investors in this round of financing also include Spartan Group, Immutable, MARBLEX, Comma3 Ventures, Sovrun, 32-Bit Ventures, Notch Ventures, Cristian Manea, Niels de Ruiter and other Web3 institutions and angel investors. The new funds will be used to expand the ecosystem and enhance gameplay.
Chronicle, an Ethereum-based oracle service, raises $12 million in seed funding led by Strobe
Chronicle, an oracle service on the Ethereum chain, has completed a $12 million seed round of financing, led by Strobe (formerly Blocktower Venture Capital), with participation from Brevan Howard, 6th Man Ventures and others. The new funds are intended to support its service provision for data infrastructure for tokenized assets.
