Fake Microsoft Teams websites are spreading malware, beware of wallet theft risks
Scam Sniffer issued a phishing alert on the X platform, saying that a fake Microsoft Teams website was detected to be spreading malware. Risks include data leakage, credential theft, session hijacking, and wallet theft. Please verify the source before installation.
Czech Central Bank Official Expresses ‘Scepticism’ About Bitcoin as a Reserve Asset
According to Reuters, Jan Kubicek, a member of the board of directors of the Czech Central Bank (CNB), is "skeptical" about including Bitcoin in the bank's huge reserve assets, mainly concerned about its legal uncertainty and the volatility of digital currencies. Earlier this year, Ales Michl, governor of the Czech Central Bank, proposed to include Bitcoin in the scope of consideration, and the bank has begun to analyze the possibility of expanding the asset class in its reserve portfolio. Eva Zamrazilova, deputy governor of the Czech Central Bank, has said that Bitcoin is not a suitable reserve asset. "We will evaluate different categories of assets, and Bitcoin is just one of them. I am quite skeptical about Bitcoin," Kubicek said in an interview on Tuesday. He pointed out that the legal status of Bitcoin is a problem, and holding Bitcoin directly will mean that many new processes need to be developed in accounting or auditing. He also mentioned that volatility is another concern and it is difficult to evaluate market price trends. "We cannot be sure whether bitcoin volatility in the coming years will be similar to the patterns observed over the past decade because I doubt that if more institutional investors accept bitcoin as an investment asset it will behave differently than what we have seen so far," he said. Kubicek said the bank's studies on new asset classes, which could be completed by October, could explore holding international corporate bonds, as well as investing in more targeted stock indices (such as technology) and real estate investment funds.
According to a registration statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, three top leaders of Trump Media & Technology Group have formed a new blank check company (SPAC) to acquire businesses in the cryptocurrency or related industries - at the same time that the Trump administration is trying to shape the landscape of this industry, Forbes reported. Renatus Tactical Acquisition Corp I, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) registered in the Cayman Islands, plans to raise at least $179 million through an initial public offering (IPO) and private placement, and the funds will be used to acquire another business. The company's leadership has close ties with U.S. President Trump's media company: Renatus Tactical CEO Eric Swider is a member of the board of directors of Trump Media and led the company that merged with Trump Media; Trump Media CEO, President and Chairman Devin Nunes also serves as Chairman of the Board of Renatus Tactical; Renatus Tactical COO Alexander Cano was the president and secretary of the company that merged with Trump Media. According to Renatus Tactical’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm is targeting acquisitions in the cryptocurrency and blockchain, data security and dual-use technology sectors, all of which have significant government involvement as regulators or major customers.
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Yu Jin, the "Hyperliquid 50x Whale" made frantic operations in the three hours from 12:00 to 3:00 in the early morning around the Federal Reserve's interest rate announcement, and made both long and short moves on BTC, turning 690,000 USDC into 1.826 million USDC, with a profit of 164%. The specific operations are as follows: ① At 2 a.m., the Federal Reserve was about to announce the interest rate decision. He opened a short position of 326 BTC (US$27.6 million) at $84,566 at 12 a.m., and then closed the short position at $83,927 just before the interest rate decision was announced (1:48), making a profit of US$215,000. ② As soon as the interest rate was announced at 2 a.m., he immediately opened a short position of 256 BTC (US$21.6 million) at $84,404 at 2:01, and quickly closed the position at $83,906 6 minutes later, making a profit of US$250,000. ③ After closing the short position, he immediately turned to long, opened a long position of 518 BTC (US$43.8 million) at $84,500 at 2:10, and then closed the position at $85,700 at 2:59, making a profit of US$620,000. ④ After closing the long position, he immediately went short again: he opened a short position of 384 BTC (US$32.9 million) at $85,666 at 3:00, and closed the position at $85,146 2 minutes later, making a profit of US$106,000.
Decentralized trading protocol Hibachi completes $5 million seed round of financing
According to official news, the decentralized trading protocol Hibachi announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with Dragonfly, Electric Capital and echo participating. According to reports, Hibachi is a decentralized trading protocol designed for professional traders, emphasizing provable security through zero-knowledge (zk) mathematics.
10x Research: Bitcoin is currently in a small bear market, $90,000 is a key pivot level
10x Research said in a post on the X platform: "According to multiple indicators, Bitcoin is currently in a small bear market, and as we have previously emphasized, $90,000 is a key pivot level. The recent trend is a short-term counter-trend rebound, providing an opportunity to profit in this broader consolidation phase. As we expected, the FOMC meeting was slightly dovish."
According to the official announcement, Binance now invites users to vote for the first batch of voting listing projects through the official post on Binance Square. The first voting pool only includes BNB Smart Chain tokens in Binance Alpha. Future voting rounds will be expanded to all tokens in Binance Alpha. A variety of factors will be considered to determine the voting pool, including project fundamentals and performance indicators, token economics, secondary market performance, technical risk assessment, team background, and compliance review. This round of voting listing will be open to the following projects: BANANAS31 (Banana For Scale), BID (CreatorBid), Broccoli (Broccoli), Broccoli (CZ'S Dog), KOMA (Koma Inu), SIREN (SIREN), mubarak (mubarak), TUT (Tutorial), WHY (why). Binance will select two tokens to be listed on Binance after completing official due diligence and procedures. The voting period is from 17:00 (UTC) on March 19, 2025 to 16:59 (UTC) on March 26, 2025. Voting method: ① Each user can vote for up to 5 projects and can choose to vote for fewer projects; each verified account can only be assigned one vote for one project. ② Users must log in to their verified Binance account and hold at least 0.01 BNB in their main account throughout the voting period for their vote to be valid.
Trump to attend New York Digital Asset Summit and deliver a speech on Thursday
According to Blockworks, US President Trump will deliver a speech at the Digital Asset Summit (DAS) in New York on Thursday, marking the first time in history that a sitting president has spoken at a cryptocurrency industry conference. Earlier, Bo Hines, executive director of the White House Presidential Digital Asset Advisory Committee, said that the Trump administration plans to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve and actively hoard Bitcoin to "accumulate assets for the American people." The conference also attracted a number of political and industry leaders, including Congressmen Ro Khanna and Tom Emmer, as well as MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Trump's speech will be live broadcast via X and YouTube. In addition, according to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, Trump plans to deliver a speech at the Digital Asset Summit in the form of a recording at 10:40 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday (22:44 Beijing Time on March 20), and Trump is expected to announce his subsequent crypto policy at that time.
According to The Block, the Uniswap community has voted to pass two governance proposals aimed at promoting the development of the recently launched Unichain Layer 2 and Uniswap v4 protocols through new funding programs and other liquidity incentives. Notably, this governance decision lays the foundation for activating the long-promised "fee switch." The Uniswap Foundation wrote on the social media platform X that the two proposals are part of the "Uniswap Unleashed" plan to expand the Uniswap ecosystem and mark "the beginning of the next era of our community" by unlocking "new opportunities to build, grow, create and capture value." According to the proposal, these liquidity incentives were created in collaboration with the Uniswap Foundation and the web3 risk management protocol Gauntlet, and will attract new users and maintain the growth of the ecosystem through developer-centric activities. The Foundation requested an investment of $95.4 million in its funding budget and an additional $25.1 million for operating funds over the next two years. In another incentive proposal, the Foundation requested a $45 million budget to support liquidity incentives. Gauntlet has deployed and configured an Aera vault for the Uniswap Foundation on mainnet, which will be injected with more than 7.5 million UNI tokens, worth approximately $52 million at current prices. The proposal reads: "We recognize and appreciate the scale of this request. It reflects an investment in the success of the Uniswap protocol and Unichain, as well as an investment in the value of the Uniswap community." As for the fee switch, it will be implemented after the Uniswap Foundation decides to take the necessary legal steps to distribute protocol fee revenue to governance members. The proposal states: "If passed, this step would pave the way for the potential introduction (or reintroduction) of a governance proposal to enable delegators to earn protocol revenue."
Volatility Shares to Launch Two Solana Futures ETFs on March 20
According to Cointelegraph, Volatility Shares will launch two futures ETFs based on Solana (SOL) on March 20, namely Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) and Volatility Shares 2X Solana ETF (SOLT). According to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the management fee of Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) is 0.95% until June 30, 2026, after which the management fee will be increased to 1.15%. Volatility Shares 2X Solana ETF will provide investors with 2x leverage and a management fee of 1.85%. This application is the first Solana-based ETF in the United States, after the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group launched the SOL futures contract.
According to Jinshi, Fed Chairman Powell said that the Fed does not need to rush to adjust its policy stance and needs to wait and see based on the data. It can relax or maintain a restrictive stance as needed. It is already at a stage where it can cut interest rates or maintain the current clearly tight policy stance. Inflation remains slightly high. Further progress in inflation this year may be delayed. The baseline forecast is that inflation will be temporary. The US economy is strong, and surveys show increased economic uncertainty. Recent signs indicate that consumer spending has slowed. We will pay close attention to signs of weakness in hard data. Forecasters have raised the probability of a recession to some extent, but it is still not high. Labor market conditions are solid, and the overall labor market remains balanced. Both hiring and layoff rates are low, and a significant increase in layoffs could quickly translate into unemployment. Layoffs are important to the people involved, but not significant at the national level. Slowing down the balance sheet is a technical adjustment. Slowing down the balance sheet means a slower pace but longer duration. There is currently no plan to slow down the pace of MBS reduction, and it is inclined to remove MBS from the table. There is uncertainty about the impact of tariffs, and attention is paid to the net impact of policies, and short-term inflation expectations are moving higher. If recent commodity inflation data continues to be strong, it will definitely be related to tariffs. Staff simulations predict that the United States will be retaliated by tariffs across the board.
The Fed slashed its 2025 growth forecast while raising its inflation forecast
According to Tonghuashun Finance, the Federal Reserve FOMC economic forecast shows that the median GDP growth forecast for 2025 to 2027 is 1.7%, 1.8%, and 1.8%, respectively, and the forecasts in December are 2.1%, 2.0%, and 1.9%, respectively. The median forecasts for the federal funds rate from 2025 to 2027 are 3.9%, 3.4%, and 3.1%, respectively, and the forecasts in December are 3.9%, 3.4%, and 3.1%, respectively. The median forecasts for the unemployment rate from 2025 to 2027 are 4.4%, 4.3%, and 4.3%, respectively, and the forecasts in December are 4.3%, 4.3%, and 4.3%, respectively. The median forecasts for core PCE inflation from 2025 to 2027 are 2.8%, 2.2%, and 2.0%, respectively, and the forecasts in December are 2.5%, 2.2%, and 2.0%, respectively.
According to Jinshi, the Federal Reserve's dot plot shows that among the 19 officials, 4 officials believe that there should be no interest rate cut in 2025 (1 in December), 4 officials believe that the interest rate should be cut by 25 basis points in total in 2025, that is, one time (3 in December), 9 officials believe that the interest rate should be cut by 50 basis points in total in 2025, that is, two times (10 in December), 2 officials believe that the interest rate should be cut by 75 basis points in total in 2025, that is, three times (3 in December), no official believes that the interest rate should be cut by 100 basis points in total in 2025 (1 in December), and no official believes that the interest rate should be cut by 125 basis points in total in 2025 (1 in December).
According to Wall Street Journal, the Fed remained on hold - maintaining the target range of the federal funds rate at 4.25%-4.50%, in line with market expectations. On April 1, the pace of balance sheet reduction began to slow down, lowering the upper limit of monthly reduction of U.S. Treasury bonds to $5 billion and maintaining the scale of monthly reduction of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) at $35 billion. The resolution statement said: The uncertainty facing the economy has increased, and the growth forecast for 2025 has been lowered, while the inflation forecast has been raised. The wording about the roughly balanced risks faced by the Fed's two goals (maintaining price stability + achieving full employment) was omitted. Fed Governor Waller supported the FOMC interest rate decision this time, but disagreed with the balance sheet decision.
Sources: Kraken considering acquiring trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion
Kraken is considering acquiring foreign exchange and futures trading platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal citing sources. The announcement is expected to be made as early as Thursday. The deal will allow Kraken to use NinjaTrader's Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) license to offer cryptocurrency futures and derivatives in the United States.
Bitnomial plans to withdraw lawsuit and launch $XRP futures contracts
According to Eleanor Terrett, after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) agreed to withdraw its appeal against Ripple, crypto derivatives exchange Bitnomial plans to withdraw its lawsuit against the SEC. Bitnomial sued the SEC in October last year, and the focus of the dispute was that the SEC claimed that it had jurisdiction over the $XRP futures contracts that Bitnomial planned to launch. In addition, Bitnomial will officially launch the $XRP futures contracts tomorrow morning and has obtained approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce hints she will not seek re-election, plans to move forward quickly
According to Crypto In America, Commissioner Hester Peirce, who has held the Republican seat of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since being appointed by President Trump in 2018, said in an interview that she hopes to complete her work as soon as possible before the end of her term, suggesting that she will not seek re-election. Peirce is also currently the head of the SEC's cryptocurrency task force, dedicated to providing regulatory clarity for digital assets. She said that although her term will expire in June, she hopes to resolve the problem as soon as possible and avoid setting up a dedicated crypto task force. Peirce also emphasized that she attaches great importance to protecting peer-to-peer interactions between developers and users, and supports providing clearer regulations for the crypto market, especially in areas such as staking.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov posted on his personal channel that Telegram now has more than 1 billion monthly active users, making it the world's second largest communication app (excluding China's unique WeChat). User activity is also rising, with an average of each user opening Telegram 21 times a day and using it for 41 minutes a day. At the same time, Telegram's revenue has grown significantly, with profits reaching $547 million in 2024. Durov also said that compared with WhatsApp, the latter is just a cheap imitation of Telegram. Although WhatsApp tried to copy its innovations and invested heavily in lobbying and public relations, Telegram has remained independent and successful.
Decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs announces the launch of Monad testnet
According to official news, decentralized prediction market developer Opinion Labs has officially landed on the Monad testnet. Opinion Labs aims to create an open prediction market solution and infrastructure, allowing anyone to use any token to establish any prediction market and trade. It is also reported that Opinion Labs has recently announced the completion of a $5 million seed round of financing, with participants including angel financing platform Echo.
Crypto wallet infrastructure company Privy raises $15 million, led by Ribbit Capital
According to Fortune, blockchain infrastructure company Privy has raised $15 million in a new round of financing, led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Paradigm and Coinbase. This financing brings Privy's total financing to more than $40 million. Privy provides companies with tools to connect crypto wallets with applications or websites, aiming to simplify the use of crypto wallets so that mainstream users can more easily enter the blockchain world. Privy plans to use the funds to double the size of its team in the next 18 months, currently serving about 50 million accounts and working with more than 1,000 companies.
DWF Labs received 3.6 billion X for market making
According to Lookonchain, DWF Labs has just received 3.6B $X (about 307K USD) for market making. The price of $X (X Empire) has risen by more than 100% this week.
Ripple CEO: SEC will drop appeal against Ripple
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that after more than four years of litigation, the SEC will give up its appeal against Ripple, marking the end of the four-year lawsuit. Garlinghouse said that this case was doomed to fail from the beginning, and Ripple always believed that it was on the right side of the law and believed that history would eventually prove it right. He also pointed out that this victory is not only of great significance to Ripple, but also has a wide-ranging impact on the entire crypto industry.
Blockdaemon acquires DeFi connectivity firm Expand to drive institutional adoption of Web3
According to CoinDesk, crypto infrastructure provider Blockdaemon has acquired DeFi connection platform expand.network, which aims to help large financial institutions seamlessly access on-chain transactions. Expand provides API access to more than 170 DeFi endpoints, including decentralized exchanges (DEX), bridges, lending protocols, and oracles. The amount of the acquisition was not disclosed, but Blockdaemon said the transaction was worth tens of millions of dollars. Blockdaemon currently supports about 70% of the top 500 institutions in the cryptocurrency industry, helping them operate more than 250,000 nodes and handle staking rewards and other businesses.
Standard Chartered Bank: Coinbase actively sold $37 million of Ethereum in Q4 2024
According to Decrypt, Standard Chartered Bank analysts believe that the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase "actively sold" 12,652 Ethereum (about $37 million) in Q4 2024. Analysts explained that Coinbase's Layer-2 network Base has driven the demand for Ethereum, but its profit-taking behavior is affecting the price trend of the underlying blockchain (ETH). Standard Chartered Bank has recently lowered its 2025 Ethereum price target from $10,000 to $4,000 due to the large-scale sale of Ethereum from the profits of the Base network. Analysts pointed out that Coinbase did not hold the ETH profits generated by Base, but chose to sell these assets as a normal risk-adjusted decision.
Pluralis Research Completes $7.6 Million Seed Round Led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures
According to Fortune, Pluralis Research has raised $7.6 million in seed funding, led by CoinFund and Union Square Ventures, with other investors including Topology, Variant, Eden Block, Bodhi Ventures and well-known crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan. Pluralis aims to challenge the dominance of large companies in the field of AI by providing computing power through a decentralized blockchain network. The company plans to use this funding to conduct research to see if AI models can be trained through distributed networks to avoid centralized computing resources. Founder Alexander Long worked as an AI engineer at Amazon, and he and his team are working to enable small companies to participate in the AI competition.
Digital asset wallet provider Utila completes $18 million Series A financing, led by Nyca Partners
According to CoinDesk, digital asset platform Utila raised $18 million in Series A funding, which will be used to expand its multi-party computing (MPC) wallet service to meet the growing demand for institutional digital asset management. Nyca Partners led the round, with other investors including Wing VC, NFX, Haymaker Ventures, Gaingels and Cerca Partners. The latest round of financing brings the startup's total venture capital to about $30 million since it emerged last year. Utila CEO Bentzi Rabi said payment providers, fintech companies and emerging banks are increasingly using digital assets including stablecoins and tokenized assets. The Utila platform has processed $8 billion in digital asset transactions per month, a significant increase from $3 billion at the beginning of 2024. The financing will help Utila expand its global market and enhance product features, including advanced Gas management, API integration and smart contract support. Last year, institutional crypto platform Utila completed a $11.5 million seed round of financing, led by Framework Ventures and others.
Turkey's lira plunge sparks surge in Bitcoin-lira trading
According to CoinDesk, after the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and a rival of President Erdogan, the Turkish lira fell to an all-time low against the US dollar, plummeting by nearly 10%. This incident led to a surge in Bitcoin-TRY (BTC/TRY) trading volume on the Binance platform. Between 7:00 and 8:00 UTC on March 19, 2025, BTC/TRY trading volume reached 93 BTC, the highest level in at least a year.
The first roundtable meeting of the SEC’s cryptocurrency working group will be held on March 21
According to Solid Intel, the first roundtable meeting of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Cryptocurrency Working Group will begin on March 21, 2025. The meeting will discuss important issues related to the regulation of cryptocurrency assets.
According to MELANIA (@qwatio) on Twitter, ZachXBT's accusation (Hyperliquid 50x leverage whale is actually a cyber criminal) is disappointing and unexpected, calling it "baseless speculation". He hopes that ZachXBT can at least clearly point out the so-called "stolen funds" and mention that their wallets receive a large number of transactions from scammers. ZachXBT then responded that it will release detailed information at 9 pm tomorrow (UTC+8) and emphasized that it does not spread false information.
Russia and Bolivia Use Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies to Pay for International Oil Transactions
According to The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_), Russia and Bolivia are utilizing Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies for international oil trade payments.
Hyperliquid 50x changed its account name to MELANIA and linked to its Twitter account @qwatio
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, the Hyperliquid 50x boss changed his account name to MELANIA on DeBank DeFi and linked his Twitter account @qwatio. His position on Hyperliquid still maintains a 5x leverage of MELANIA for long positions.
Tether Treasury mints 1 billion USDT on Tron network
According to Whale Alert, at 18:05 Beijing time, Tether Treasury minted 1 billion USDT (about 1.001 billion US dollars) on the Tron network. Tether CEO responded that this was an authorized but unissued transaction, which means that the amount will be used as inventory for the next issuance request and chain exchange.
