Today's top news highlights:
1. Macroeconomic Outlook for Next Week: The Federal Reserve may maintain a cautious tone; Nvidia's GTC 2026 conference will be held.
2. Due to the conflict, several cryptocurrency events, including Dubai TOKEN2049, have been postponed or cancelled.
3. The Ethereum Foundation sold 5,000 ETH for operational purposes.
4. Aave: Will launch the Aave Shield feature, which will by default block redemptions where the price impact exceeds 25%.
5. Pharos, an L1 public blockchain, received a "betting" investment from GCL New Energy, valuing the company at nearly $1 billion.
6. Galaxy Research Director: If the Clarity Bill does not pass committee review by the end of April, its chances of passing this year are extremely low.
Regulation & Macro
According to Jinshi News, the conflict between the US, Iran, and Israel has entered its third week, and the ongoing turmoil in the energy and commodities markets is escalating into a major problem. Global stock markets have recently suffered heavy losses; crude oil prices have surged from around $80 to near $100 due to frequent attacks on ships; the US dollar has reached new highs against most currencies (especially the Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, and euro), and the US dollar index has risen above its peak last November. The following are key points to watch in the market this week (all times are Beijing time):
- On Monday at 20:30, Canada's February CPI month-on-month rate and the US March New York Fed Manufacturing Index will be released.
- At 21:15 on Monday, the US February industrial production month-on-month rate will be released.
- At 04:30 on Wednesday, the API crude oil inventory data for the week ending March 13 will be released.
- At 18:00 on Wednesday, the final readings of the Eurozone's February CPI year-on-year rate and the final readings of the Eurozone's February CPI month-on-month rate will be released.
- At 20:30 on Wednesday, the US February PPI year-on-year rate and the US February PPI month-on-month rate will be released.
- At 22:00 on Wednesday, the US January factory orders month-on-month rate will be released.
- At 22:30 on Wednesday, the EIA crude oil inventory, Cushing, Oklahoma crude oil inventory, and EIA strategic petroleum reserve inventory for the week ending March 13 will be released.
- At 02:00 on Thursday, the Federal Reserve FOMC will release its interest rate decision and summary of economic projections.
- At 02:30 on Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a press conference on monetary policy.
- Thursday at 15:00, Switzerland's February trade balance, the UK's January three-month ILO unemployment rate, the UK's February unemployment rate, and the UK's February unemployment claims;
- At 20:30 on Thursday, the US initial jobless claims for the week ending March 14 and the US March Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index will be released.
Seven major central banks will announce their interest rate decisions, with the market focusing most on the Federal Reserve. The market widely expects Fed policymakers to keep interest rates unchanged at their meeting next week. NVIDIA's GTC 2026 conference will be held from March 16th to 19th in San Jose, California. This is the most anticipated annual event in the AI field, often referred to as the "AI Super Bowl" or "AI Woodstock."
The U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 7-3 vote, rejected Custodia Bank's request for a full review, upholding the October 2025 panel ruling that the Federal Reserve has the authority to approve or deny master account applications from eligible institutions. Notably, just days earlier, the Kansas City Fed granted Kraken its first limited cryptocurrency master account, and the Fed is also developing a broader "slimmed-down master account" framework.
Custodia, a Wyoming-licensed special purpose depository founded by Wall Street veteran Caitlin Long, first applied for a master account in October 2020. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City confirmed in early 2021 that the application "did not present any material problems," but ultimately rejected it in January 2023, citing concerns about the bank's cryptocurrency-focused business model. Custodia filed a lawsuit in June 2022, initially concerning the 19-month delay in approval, and later arguing that the Money Control Act grants any eligible depository institution the legal right to a master account. The lawsuit was dismissed by courts at all levels.
According to a joint agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally dismissed its civil enforcement lawsuit against BitClout and DeSo founder Nader Al-Naji and six other defendants, and prohibits them from filing the same lawsuit again.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) initially sued Al-Naji in July 2024, accusing him of raising over $257 million by selling the native token of BitClout, a blockchain-based social media platform, through unregistered means, promising investors that the funds would not be used to compensate him personally. The SEC alleges that he used over $7 million for personal expenses, including paying rent for his Beverly Hills mansion and giving cash gifts to family members. Al-Naji's wife, mother, and several related entities were also named as co-defendants.
Trump says he will not reach a ceasefire agreement with Iran for the time being.
According to CCTV News, US President Trump stated on March 14th local time that Iran had expressed its willingness to negotiate a ceasefire, but the conditions offered were "not good enough," therefore the US would not reach an agreement with Iran to end the war for the time being. In an interview, Trump said, "Iran wants a deal, but I don't want one right now because the conditions aren't good enough." He did not specify the negotiation conditions but stated that any agreement must be "very solid," implying that Iran must completely abandon its nuclear program. Regarding military action, Trump claimed that the US and Israeli strikes had severely weakened Iran's military capabilities. He stated that the US military had destroyed most of Iran's missiles, drones, and related production facilities, adding that these capabilities "will be completely destroyed within two days." Trump also confirmed that the US military had launched an attack on Kharg Island, Iran's oil export hub. He stated that the US had "almost completely destroyed the island," but deliberately avoided damaging key energy pipelines to prevent reconstruction from taking years.
Several major cryptocurrency events in Dubai have been affected by security concerns and travel restrictions stemming from the conflict, including TOKEN2049 (postponed to April 21-22, 2027) and TON Gateway (cancelled). Furthermore, the Bahrain Grand Prix, originally scheduled for April 12, and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, originally scheduled for April 19, were cancelled due to security risks related to the conflict. The cancellation of these Grand Prix events directly impacts millions of dollars in sponsorships from major cryptocurrency exchanges such as OKX, Crypto.com, and Bybit.
Several major business events in the UAE have also had their dates changed. The Middle East Energy Show in Dubai has been rescheduled to September. Affiliate World Global has postponed its Dubai show to 2027, and the Dubai International Boat Show has also postponed its next edition, but new dates have not yet been announced.
According to UDN, Taiwanese prosecutors have indicted 10 people, including Liu Yusen, head of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange BITGIN, CEO Zhang Hansen, and COO Zhang Yuting (Zhang Hansen's sister, who was also indicted in connection with the NT$274.6 billion money laundering case involving gold tycoon Tu Chengwen, head of Ruisen Jewelry Stores). The Zhang siblings may face up to 12 years in prison. Prosecutors allege that the company collaborated with a fraud ring in 2023, providing USDT and cooperating with "fake cryptocurrency dealers" to conduct fraud and money laundering through in-person cash transactions. The case involved 46 victims, with the amount defrauded exceeding NT$150 million. The funds were transferred through cryptocurrency wallets and overseas exchanges to conceal their origin.
Iran attacks Citibank branch in the United States
According to a report by Cailian Press, Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps spokesman Naini stated on the 14th local time that Iran's attacks on US bank branches were a response to previous attacks on two Iranian banks by adversaries. He added that if adversaries take similar actions again, all US bank branches in the region will become legitimate targets of Iranian strikes. On the evening of the 13th, Citibank branches in Dubai, UAE, and Manama, Bahrain, were attacked by drones.
Project Updates
WeChat Work now supports one-click QR code scanning to integrate with OpenClaw.
According to CLS News Agency, WeChat Work now supports one-click QR code access to OpenClaw. Users can select "Quick Configuration" in the Tencent Cloud backend, click "Go to Authorization," and scan the QR code with WeChat Work to create a smart robot with one click. Currently, major mainstream cloud services, large model vendors, and OpenClaw ecosystem products, such as Tencent Cloud Lighthouse, KimiClaw, Max Claw, WorkBuddy, Zhipu AutoClaw, StepClaw, Volcano ArkClaw, UCloud, TCAPD, Coze, Huawei Cloud, and Baidu AI Cloud, are gradually launching support for accessing OpenClaw via WeChat Work.
Aster: API V3 is now live; latency for V1 will gradually increase.
Aster has announced the official launch of its API V3. Starting March 16th, V1 latency will gradually increase (reaching approximately 200 milliseconds by March 18th). Aster recommends users migrate immediately.
The Ethereum Foundation sold 5,000 ETH for operational activities.
The Ethereum Foundation announced that it has sold 5,000 ETH via over-the-counter (OTC) trading at an average price of $2,042.96 each, with BitMNR as the counterparty, for a total value of approximately $10.38 million. This sale will fund the Foundation's core operations and activities, including protocol development, ecosystem growth, and community support.
Regarding the incident on March 12th where a user exchanged $50 million worth of USDT for AAVE through the Aave interface but failed to notice slippage warnings, ultimately only receiving approximately $36,000 worth of AAVE, resulting in a loss of nearly $50 million, Aave stated that the exchange occurred within a third-party CoW Swap, and the Aave core protocol was unaffected. Furthermore, Aave will deploy a new feature, Aave Shield, which by default prevents exchanges where price fluctuations exceed 25%.
Previously, it was reported that a whale lost nearly $50 million when exchanging USDT for AAVE because it ignored slippage warnings.
Investment and financing news
According to an official announcement, the L1 public chain Pharos has strategically expanded its capital cooperation with GCL New Energy (HKEX: 0451). GCL New Energy has completed its investment in Pharos, valuing the company at nearly $1 billion. Pharos's FDV (Funds-to-Value) must average no less than $760 million within three months of its token launch and subsequent three-month periods; otherwise, further investment will not be executed. This investment enables Pharos to drive the transformation of the RWA market from a concept pilot to large-scale, sustainable industrial commercialization.
Opinions & Analysis
Alex Thorn, research director at Galaxy Research, analyzed that if the CLARITY bill fails to pass committee review by the end of April, its chances of passing in 2026 will become extremely slim. The bill needs to go to the full Senate for a vote in early May. It is widely believed that the controversy surrounding stablecoin rewards is the main reason for the CLARITY bill's obstruction. However, even if a compromise is reached on the rewards issue, other obstacles are highly likely to exist: such as DeFi, developer protection, the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and even ethical issues.
Vitalik: Open to re-examining the separation of the Beacon Chain and execution clients.
In a post on the X platform, Vitalik stated, "We should be open to re-examining the separation of the Beacon Chain and execution clients. Running two daemons and getting them to communicate with each other is far more difficult than running a single daemon. Our goal is to provide a good user experience for autonomous Ethereum usage. In many cases, this means running your own node. The current way of running your own node adds unnecessary complexity. In the short term, a more standardized base wrapper may be needed, allowing users to install Docker images of any client and easily get them to communicate with each other. In addition, as the LeanEthereum consensus scheme matures, the overall architecture design should also be re-examined in the future."
Santiment: Whales holding 100,000 to 10,000 Bitcoins are increasing their Bitcoin holdings.
In a report, Santiment stated that key investors holding wallets with 10 to 10,000 Bitcoins are increasing their holdings and currently control 68.17% of the total supply, up from 68.07% seven days ago. Santiment considers the recent increase in Bitcoin whale holdings a "positive reversal," and the platform is closely monitoring retail selling to confirm a potential market bottom.
Furthermore, Bitcoin has exhibited unusual strength relative to the S&P 500, breaking the typical correlation seen during current geopolitical conflicts. The S&P 500 has fallen approximately 2.2% over the past five weeks; Bitcoin has risen 2.4%; and gold has increased 3.7%.
Important data
The market capitalization of the USDC stablecoin is nearing an all-time high of $80 billion, driven by surging demand in the Middle East. This growth follows billions of dollars in increased supply in recent weeks. The stablecoin's market capitalization was slightly above $70 billion in early February and reached $75 billion earlier this month. Rami Al-Hashimi, an analyst who identifies himself as based in Dubai, suggests the surge is related to capital outflows from the UAE.
According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi, a LINK whale with a cost as low as $0.3283 appears to be selling off again after a year of dormancy, yielding a return of 2635%. Five hours ago, this whale deposited 200,000 LINK tokens into Kraken, worth $1.8 million, at a price of $8.98 per LINK. This whale had previously accumulated a position at a low price of $0.3283 between March 2018 and June 2019; if it sells this time, it will profit $1.73 million.
According to Lookonchain, Erik Voorhees, an early Bitcoin supporter and founder of ShapeShift, has resumed buying gold after a month-long hiatus. Since January 31, he has created 28 new wallets and spent $23.76 million to purchase 2,834 XAUT (worth $13.78 million) and 2,019 PAXG (worth $9.97 million), at an average price of $4,896 per coin. His current profit is $513,000.
