Today's news tips:
South Korea's central bank: Never considered adding Bitcoin to foreign exchange reserves
US Treasury Secretary: No guarantee that the US will not fall into recession
Brazilian lawmaker introduces bill to legalize Bitcoin wage payments
CZ: AI agents do not need to issue tokens for every project, but should focus on practicality
BNB Chain surpasses Solana in 24-hour DEX trading volume
The Solayer team transferred 6.9 million LAYER to Binance, worth $8 million
Binance to List StraitsX USD (XUSD)
Regulatory/Macro
Trump's ex-wife calls on the US president to "drop the lawsuit against Roger Ver"
According to Bitcoin.com, last Sunday, Marla Maples, the second wife of US President Donald Trump, posted on the social media platform X, calling on Trump and his team to drop the lawsuit against early Bitcoin investor Roger Ver. The video about Roger Ver's philanthropy was widely circulated on the Internet, and the disseminators included Ryan Fournier, co-founder of "Students for Trump". Last week, a group of international supporters released a video showing Roger Ver's philanthropy. Trump's ex-wife Marla Maples forwarded Fournier's post to her 61,500 followers on the X platform on Sunday. Maples added: "Share more about calling for the withdrawal of the prosecution of Roger Ver." She mentioned US Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Counsel Dave Warrington, Elon Musk, and President Trump's @realDonaldTrump X account in the message. Roger Ver was arrested in Spain in May last year and was charged by the United States with suspected mail fraud, tax evasion and filing false tax returns. He is known as "Bitcoin Jesus" online and is the former CEO of digital wallet developer Bitcoin.com.
South Korea's central bank: Never considered adding Bitcoin to foreign exchange reserves
According to the Korea Economic Television, the Bank of Korea has made it clear that it has "never considered including Bitcoin in its foreign exchange reserves." In response to a written inquiry from Cha Gwi-geun, a member of the National Assembly and a member of the Planning and Finance Committee, the Bank of Korea said on the 16th, "We believe that the issue of including Bitcoin in foreign exchange reserves needs to be treated with caution." This is the first time that the Bank of Korea has expressed its position on the issue of Bitcoin reserves. The first reason for the Bank of Korea's negative attitude is the high volatility of Bitcoin prices. In response, the Bank of Korea pointed out that "if the virtual asset market becomes unstable, Bitcoin may face the risk of a sharp increase in transaction costs during the cash conversion process." In addition, the Bank of Korea also stated, "We believe that Bitcoin does not meet the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s foreign exchange reserve calculation standards." For these reasons, the Bank of Korea replied, "So far, we have never discussed or considered including Bitcoin in our foreign exchange reserves." The Bank of Korea also added, "It is understood that some countries such as the Czech Republic and Brazil have a positive attitude towards this, but the European Central Bank (ECB), the Swiss National Bank and the Japanese government have all expressed opposition."
US Treasury Secretary: No guarantee that the US will not fall into recession
According to Jinshi, after US President Trump refused to guarantee that the US economy would not experience negative growth last weekend, the US Treasury Secretary also said in an interview on Sunday (16th) that there was no guarantee that the US economy would not fall into recession. However, Bessant ruled out the possibility of a financial crisis in an NBC interview. When asked if he could guarantee that there would be no recession during Trump's administration, Bessant replied: "There is no guarantee. (Just like) who could predict the new crown epidemic?" Bessant said he was pursuing a prudent policy that would last, saying that the country needed to gradually get rid of what he called massive government spending. When asked whether the adjustment would lead to a recession, Bessant said: "There is no reason why it has to be so." Bessant refuted people's concerns about the recent decline in US stocks, saying that the correction in the stock market was healthy and that if the government implemented good tax policies, relaxed regulations and energy security, the market "would be in good shape."
Brazilian lawmaker introduces bill to legalize Bitcoin wage payments
According to The Crypto Basic, Luiz Phillipe of Orleans-Braganza, a former federal congressman in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has submitted a bill to the Brazilian Congress seeking to legalize Bitcoin salary payments. The politician proposed legislation to allow workers in Brazil to receive wages and labor rights in the form of cryptocurrency. The bill aims to allow workers to receive up to 50% of their wages and benefits in the form of digital assets. It is worth noting that the bill does not require the acceptance of Bitcoin, but provides a legal basis for residents who want to access emerging technologies. With the consent of the employer, employees can choose to receive labor rights in the form of Bitcoin and can terminate this payment method at any time. The bill also stipulates that 50% of the salary must still be paid in Brazilian reals to ensure the practicality of the currency. However, this provision does not apply to freelancers, foreigners and self-employed persons, and related matters are regulated by the Brazilian Central Bank. The proposal must be passed by the plenary session of the House of Representatives and a majority vote before it can enter the Federal Senate for final deliberation.
Viewpoint
CZ: AI agents do not need to issue tokens for every project, but should focus on practicality
Binance founder CZ said on social media that although cryptocurrency is the currency of AI, not every AI agent needs to issue its own token. He suggested that agents can charge service fees through existing cryptocurrencies and consider issuing tokens only when they have scale. He emphasized that the focus should be on practicality rather than the token itself.
According to Augustine Fan, head of SignalPlus, the recent Bitcoin sell-off was mainly triggered by multi-strategy hedge fund transactions that dominate the macro market. These multi-strategy transactions include arbitrage, long and short positions, and leverage operations, aiming to maximize returns across asset classes. In the Bitcoin market, a common multi-strategy trading method is basis trading, which is to use the spread to make profits by buying spot Bitcoin (usually through ETFs) and shorting Bitcoin futures. However, when the spread narrows or the market changes, the profit of basis trading decreases, causing funds to exit positions and sell Bitcoin and ETF shares in a concentrated manner. Fan pointed out that this liquidation pressure has amplified the sell-off in the past week, especially against the backdrop of increased tariff-related volatility. Despite this, the "buy on dips" sentiment in the market still exists. Fan said that stock valuations outside the major large-cap stocks are still relatively stable compared to the historical average, and hard economic data may be better than the rapid deterioration of soft data. Therefore, the market generally believes that it is still a "buy on dips" market, and it is expected to gradually digest the impact of tariff fluctuations.
Crypto analyst Nik Patel said that this week the market will usher in five important interest rate decisions, including the FOMC, but growth data such as retail sales on Monday may provide more tactically significant market signals. If the data is lower than expected but the market continues the rebound on Friday, it may indicate that the growth panic has been fully priced in and only severe tariff escalation may trigger new lows. On the contrary, if the data is better than expected, market sentiment may reverse due to previous extreme pessimism, and short-term risks are biased to the upside. Nik believes that if the data is lower than expected and the stock market hits a new low, the growth panic will still dominate, but the next round of decline may become the bottom. It is expected that Q2 may usher in weak growth data being digested by the market and the gradual reflection of positive data. In addition, Nik predicts that the FOMC decision will have limited impact on the market.
Matrixport said that the gold price breaking through the historical high further strengthened Bitcoin's "digital gold" narrative, a trend that has gradually emerged since gold broke through $2,000 in the summer of 2023. At present, gold is not only seen as a hedge against the expansion of US debt, but also a safe-haven asset to avoid tariff risks. As institutions such as BlackRock promote Bitcoin's market sentiment, the status and momentum of Bitcoin and gold as alternative assets continue to increase. Although gold breaking through $3,000 or Bitcoin reaching $100,000 may trigger short-term consolidation, the overall upward trend is expected to continue.
According to Jinshi.com, US President Trump previously signed an executive order ordering the US Treasury and Commerce Department to establish a sovereign wealth fund within the next 12 months, which will be managed by Michael Grimes, a former technology investment banker at Morgan Stanley. The fund is expected to receive funds mainly from tariffs. Currently, there are rumors in the cryptocurrency circle that Trump may use the sovereign wealth fund to buy Bitcoin. Despite this, Bitcoin not only did not receive a boost on the 17th, but it even fell by more than 1% during the session.
Shenyu, the co-founder and CEO of Cobo, published an analysis on the X platform, saying that Strategy (MSTR) amplifies the high volatility of Bitcoin by 2.5 times through clever design and passes it to the US stock market. Professional institutions use this high volatility to arbitrage and obtain short-term profits; MSTR obtains cash through the issuance of convertible bonds and ATM additional issuance to hoard a large amount of Bitcoin; ordinary shareholders bear the risk of drastic stock price fluctuations and short-term declines, but passively obtain the "Bitcoin income" of increasing each Bitcoin; Bitcoin holders benefit from the continuous inflow of market funds and the rise in Bitcoin prices.
Project News
Binance to List StraitsX USD (XUSD)
Binance announced that it will list StraitsX USD (XUSD) at 16:00 Beijing time on March 19, and open the XUSD/USDT spot trading pair.
Aave Labs founder clarifies: Based on DAO consensus, there are no plans to launch new tokens
According to The Block, Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov clarified on Sunday that no new token will be created for Aave's proposed product Horizon. The company recently proposed Horizon, which aims to integrate real-world assets into decentralized finance, which has sparked debate in the Aave community. Temperature Check invites the community to provide feedback on Horizon's RWA product launch for institutions. The controversial part of the proposal suggests that if the token is created, Aave DAO may receive a 15% allocation as well as a revenue sharing arrangement. This has raised concerns that the new token may dilute the value of existing AAVE tokens and undermine AAVE's focus as the only governance and utility token. The opposition was so strong that Marc Zeller of the Aave Chan Initiative and others publicly stated that he would not support the proposal in its current form. Kulechov clarified the situation to X, saying that Aave DAO is not interested in introducing additional tokens and that developers will respect this consensus. Since the token plan has been canceled, it is unclear whether Aave Labs will continue with the deployment of Horizon.
WEMIX suffered a hacker attack at the end of February, losing approximately $6.22 million
WEMIX, a blockchain gaming platform under Wemade, a listed gaming company in South Korea, disclosed a hacker attack on March 4, saying: "On February 28, 2025, due to a malicious external attack on the Play Bridge Vault, approximately 8,654,860 WEMIX tokens were abnormally extracted." WEMIX said it had taken immediate action to prevent further damage and was working with law enforcement and tracking the attackers. On March 13, the WEMIX Foundation executed 20 million WEMIX tokens to mitigate the market impact. In addition, according to Yonhap News Agency today, Wemix suffered losses of approximately 9 billion won (approximately $6.22 million) in the February 28 hacker attack. In response to accusations that its announcement was delayed, the Wemix Foundation emphasized that it "never had the idea or attempt to conceal the hacker attack."
BNB Chain surpasses Solana in 24-hour DEX trading volume
According to Cointelegraph data, BNB Chain surpassed Solana in 24-hour DEX trading volume. In the past 24 hours, the BNB Chain ecosystem DEX trading volume reached 1.636 billion US dollars, and the Solana ecosystem DEX trading volume was about 1.077 billion US dollars.
Important data
Data: Over 134 million USDC transferred from Binance to unknown wallet
According to Whale Alert monitoring, 134,607,656 USDC (approximately US$134,590,292) was transferred from Binance to an unknown wallet at 16:17.
The Solayer team transferred 6.9 million LAYER to Binance, worth $8 million
According to OnchainLens monitoring, in the past hour, the Solayer team transferred 6.9 million LAYER (worth US$8 million) to Binance.
A trader made $1.5 million in profit by trading MUBARAK tokens at a cost of $1,155
According to OnchainLens, a trader made a profit of $1.5 million in just 4 days. Four days ago, the trader spent 2 BNB ($1,155) to buy 20.84 million MUBARAK tokens. So far, the trader has sold 7.84 million MUBARAK in exchange for 4.7 BNB ($2,710), and currently still holds 13 million MUBARAK, worth $1.5 million.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a whale continued to short the ETH/BTC trading pair. The whale withdrew 3,644 cbBTC (worth $304 million) from Coinbase and deposited 3,034 cbBTC (worth $253 million) into Aave. It then borrowed 79,638 ETH (worth $152 million) from Aave and deposited it into Coinbase.
US spot Bitcoin ETF reduced its holdings by 55,348 Bitcoins in just 35 days, worth $4.58 billion
According to Bitcoin.com, the latest data shows that US spot Bitcoin ETFs have reduced their Bitcoin holdings by 4.76% since February 6, 2025. From January 1 to February 6, these funds added approximately 56,802.86 Bitcoins to their balance sheets, but in the past 35 days, their holdings have decreased by 55,348.00 Bitcoins. As of March 14, the total value of Bitcoin held by these funds was US$93.25 billion, accounting for approximately 5.6% of the total market value of Bitcoin. BlackRock's IBIT consolidated its leading position with a net inflow of US$39.24 billion and a holding of 568,559.37 Bitcoins. Fidelity's FBTC followed closely behind in second place, with a total inflow of US$11.25 billion and a holding of 194,269.83 Bitcoins. Meanwhile, Grayscale's GBTC, despite recording a net outflow of $22.5 billion, still ranks third with 193,870.05 bitcoins. These three giants - IBIT, FBTC and GBTC - together account for 85.26% of the 1.121 million bitcoins held by the entire ETF group. Although there are currently 12 spot Bitcoin ETFs operating in the market, a 13th competitor may join the competition. On February 14, Osprey Funds submitted a draft registration form S-1 for its Osprey Bitcoin Trust (OBTC) to the U.S. SEC. As of March 16, 2025, OBTC has not yet been approved by the SEC, but according to timechainindex.com, the fund already holds approximately 1,934 bitcoins, worth up to $160 million.
According to the on-chain analyst Yu Jin, the sudden rise of BTC last night did not liquidate the "Hyperliquid 50x Whale", and now the BTC price has fallen back to around $82,000. Therefore, the whale's BTC shorting has now made a floating profit of $8.3 million: the number of BTC shorted is as high as 5,608, worth $460 million. The cost price is $83,923 and the liquidation price is $85,803. In addition, he opened a long position of 3.39 million MELANIA (about $2.4 million) at a price of $0.69 an hour and a half ago.
Financing
According to Financial Tech Times, mini-game platform PlaysOut has completed a $7 million seed round of financing at a valuation of $70 million. OKX Ventures, KBW Ventures, and Pacific Century Group participated in the investment. This financing enables the company to focus on three key tasks: expanding its mini-game ecosystem, securing strategic partnerships, and penetrating high-growth markets in the United States, the Middle East and North Africa, and Asia. It is reported that PlaysOut is a mini-game platform that helps developers publish mini-games on superAPP platforms such as Telegram, Discord, and YouTube by embedding infrastructure such as blockchain functions.
Gamebeast rebrands to Ephyra and completes $10.5 million Series A funding
Web3 game platform Game Beast announced a brand upgrade and officially changed its name to Ephyra, and will focus on the construction of a game ecosystem empowered by AI Agents. At the same time, Ephyra completed a $10.5 million Series A financing, led by BECKER Ventures, and participated by several Family Offices in the UAE and Hong Kong. The Ephyra ecosystem will launch a number of AI-driven game products and plans to launch a token TGE. More details will be announced in due course. Earlier news, Web3 game platform Game Beast completed a $2 million seed round of financing.
