Important information from last night and this morning (March 17-March 18)

Metaplanet announces issuance of 2 billion yen zero-coupon ordinary bonds to purchase more Bitcoin

According to official news, Japanese listed company Metaplanet Inc. announced the issuance of 2 billion yen (about 13.38 million US dollars) of zero-interest ordinary bonds to purchase more Bitcoin.

AC questioned and ridiculed the voting results of "Cronos' proposal to restore the 70 billion CROs that have been destroyed"

In response to Cronos' vote to restore the 70 billion CROs that had been destroyed, Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje (AC) posted a question on the X platform and sarcastically said: "Tomorrow Cronos' market value will rise from $2.5 billion to $8.5 billion with just one vote, and it only takes one voter. 1. Market value is a meme. 2. Decentralization doesn't matter until it matters. 3. Immutability doesn't matter until it matters." Earlier news, Cronos' proposal to restore the 70 billion CROs that had been destroyed was voted through, but the voting process was questioned by the community, saying that the vote was driven by large validators operated by Crypto.com.

“Hyperliquid 50x Whale” is currently shorting BTC with a position of up to $520 million

According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Yu Jin, "Hyperliquid 50x Whale" has currently shorted BTC with all positions, and this position is the largest in its history, with a total value of up to US$520 million. It shorted 6,210 BTC (worth US$520 million) with 40x leverage, with a cost price of US$83,898 and a liquidation price of US$85,561. To this end, he transferred 16.75 million USDC to the Hyperliquid account as margin, which is also all the funds in his address (including several million principal + more than 10 million USDC in profits in the past month). Previously, he had closed about 500 BTC short orders through the TWAP strategy and then stopped the operation. At the same time, his two small long orders of MELANIA and HYPE have all been closed, with a slight loss. Subsequently, he added BTC short orders again.

Cronos' proposal to restore the 70 billion CROs that have been destroyed was voted through, but the voting process was questioned by the community

Voting data on Mintscan shows that Cronos' proposal to restore the 70 billion CRO tokens that have been destroyed was passed with 62.18% support. The proposal proposes to restore the 70 billion CRO tokens destroyed in 2021 to establish the Cronos Strategic Reserve, and will update network parameters and token allocation in the Cronos POS V5 upgrade. In addition, according to Un Chained, the above proposal had slightly more votes in favor than against before March 16, but it had not yet reached the 33.4% quorum required for effectiveness. Before the end of the vote, 3.35 billion CRO tokens were added to the approval category, reaching the quorum, and the voting rate far exceeded the maximum voting rate. Sources said that the votes in question came from large validators operated by Crypto.com (including Starship, Falcon Heavy, Electron, Antares, and Minotaur IV), which control 70-80% of the total voting rights. A token holder said on Telegram when talking about the final result. “They (Crypto.com) voted almost at the last minute. Now they have set a precedent that other projects can follow.”

Dragonfly Managing Partner: I missed Solana’s seed round investment, which was the worst investment mistake in history

Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner of Dragonfly, wrote on the X platform: "I missed Solana's seed round investment at $0.04 in early 2018, which is equivalent to a 3,250-fold return at the current price. Solana was one of the first projects I came into contact with as a junior venture capitalist, and I wrote a memo for every missed deal. Rereading this memo now is simply the embarrassment of junior venture capitalists. At that time, we were obsessed with 'Ethereum killers', consensus protocols, and what would replace EVM/eWASM. So, this is the unedited version (that is, the memo he wrote)-the worst investment mistake ever."

Trump and partners net $390 million from WLFI token sale

According to Decrypt, the Trump family DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) announced on Monday that it had completed the sale of $550 million in WLFI governance tokens. According to World Liberty's gold documents, after deducting operating costs, Trump and his business partners will receive 75% of the project's net income, including the WLFI token sale. Of the funds raised from the WLFI sale, $30 million has been designated to pay company expenses, compensation and obligations. According to the project's gold documents, Trump and his partners in DT Marks DEFI LLC will receive 75% of the remaining amount - a total of $390 million - as compensation for Trump's promotion of the project "from time to time" and allowing it to use his name and image. It is not clear who else will receive funds from the LLC besides the president himself. According to SEC documents, DT Marks DEFI is located in Jupiter, Florida, at the location of the Trump Organization's executive office.

CryptoQuant CEO believes Bitcoin bull cycle is over

Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, wrote on the X platform that the Bitcoin bull cycle has ended and prices are expected to show a bearish or sideways trend for 6-12 months; every on-chain indicator foreshadows the arrival of a bear market; as new liquidity dries up, new whales are selling Bitcoin at lower prices.

WLFI announced that it has included BTC, ETH, TRX, LINK, SUI, and ONDO in its strategic token reserves

According to the official blog, Trump's crypto project WLFI announced the completion of a total of $550 million in token sales, with more than 85,000 participants completing KYC certification. WLFI's "macro strategy" also allocates a variety of digital assets in its strategic reserve plan, including BTC, ETH, TRX, LINK, SUI and ONDO tokens. The "macro strategy" may be used in part to support WLFI in funding innovative projects, promoting ecosystem growth, and "creating new opportunities" in the rapidly developing DeFi field.

Pump.fun deposited another 196,370 SOL to Kraken, worth $25.31 million

According to OnchainLens monitoring, an hour ago, Pump.fun deposited 196,370 SOL worth $25.31 million to Kraken. In 2025, Pump.fun sent a total of 1,519,200 SOL worth $285.42 million to Kraken. In total, they have earned 3,184,205 SOL, currently worth $408.37 million.

Ripple files for trademarks related to custodial services and wallets

According to Cointelegraph, Ripple Labs has filed a trademark application for "Ripple Custody". According to the application documents, the trademark covers financial services, including the storage and management of crypto assets to meet financial management needs. The trademark application follows Ripple's launch of custody services in October 2024, indicating that the company is looking to expand its revenue sources beyond payment settlement. In addition, the trademark application also mentions "downloadable cryptocurrency, fiat currency, virtual currency and digital currency custody, transmission and storage software", which may mean that Ripple is considering launching an official crypto wallet. At present, the company does not provide official wallet services, but if launched, the product may support XRP and other digital assets and create new sources of income through transaction fees.

Solana Futures Complete First Day of Trading on CME

As Cointelegraph reported, Solana futures were traded for the first time on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group's U.S. derivatives exchange on March 17. According to preliminary data on the CME website, on March 17, the first trading day of the contract, SOL futures representing a notional value of nearly 40,000 SOL changed hands on the exchange, close to $5 million at current prices. Early pricing data shows that traders may be bearish on SOL. CME will not release final data on daily trading volume until the next business day. CME data shows that the April futures contract is trading at $127 per SOL - $2 per token lower than the March expiration contract. On March 16, trading companies FalconX and StoneX said they completed the first SOL futures transaction on CME. Earlier in February, CME planned to list two types of SOL futures contracts: a standard contract representing 500 SOL and a retail-friendly "micro" contract representing 25 SOL.

Blockspace: Developer consensus may be reaching agreement on Bitcoin soft fork proposal

According to CoinDesk, citing Blockspace, two Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs): BIP 119 and BIP 348 are gaining public support, and these two proposals may be implemented in the next soft fork of Bitcoin. BIP 119 refers to OP_CHECKTEMPLATEVERIFY (CTV), while BIP 348 refers to OP_CHECKSIGFROMSTACK (CSFS). These BIPs propose new ways to write Bitcoin scripts, which have received explicit support from many developers and can significantly improve Bitcoin's self-custody, fee management, and existing technologies such as the Lightning Network, Ark, and contract-based applications. Blockspace wrote that this is the first time in more than four years that Bitcoin users have pushed for changes to the underlying software of the project. It is reported that the process of Bitcoin soft forking requires the support of stakeholders including developers, custodians, investors, and miners, who need to express support for changes to the blocks they mine.

Arbitrum Ecosystem Launches ‘Onchain Labs’ to Support Early-Stage Projects

According to CoinDesk, Offchain Labs and the Arbitrum Foundation, the main organizations supporting the Arbitrum blockchain, have launched a new program to launch early projects in the ecosystem. According to a blog post from Offchain Labs, the new program "Onchain Labs" aims to provide marketing support for "experimental and volatile" projects. Offchain Labs promotes this program as a way to stimulate wider Arbitrum ecosystem activity and interest. The company's blog post revealed that the first batch of Onchain Labs projects will be unveiled soon. Offchain Labs emphasized that the new program only supports projects that clearly "commit to fair and just launches", that is, avoiding token launches and other mechanisms that favor insiders. The selection criteria are designed to circumvent "extractive ecosystems" and "zero-sum games." In addition, Tandem, the venture capital arm of Offchain Labs, "may or may not purchase relevant tokens on the open market."

Acting SEC Chairman Instructs Staff to Re-Examine Proposed Crypto Custody Rules

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is considering withdrawing a proposal to tighten cryptocurrency custody requirements, the latest move by the acting chairman under the Trump administration, The Block reported. SEC Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda said at the Investment Company Association's 2025 Investment Management Conference in San Diego on Monday that commentators expressed serious concerns about a rule proposed in February 2023 that would require registered investment advisers to place cryptocurrencies in the custody of qualified custodians and require these custodians to comply with certain regulations. "Given these concerns, it may be challenging to move forward with the original proposal, so I have asked the SEC staff to work closely with the Cryptocurrency Working Group to consider appropriate alternatives." Uyeda's speech on Monday focused on the SEC's rulemaking process, including the possibility of withdrawing or re-proposing rules, or delaying compliance dates. The custody rule was proposed by the SEC led by Gary Gensler during the former Biden administration and aims to expand the current custody rules to include any client assets held by advisers and add more protections for those assets. Uyeda's move to revisit the rule marks the second time this month that the SEC staff has been asked to reconsider its rules. Last week, Uyeda said he had directed agency staff to review a proposed rule change that would expand the definition of “exchange” to potentially include decentralized cryptocurrency projects.

Ethena and Securitize Collaborate to Build Converge, a New EVM Chain for Institutional-Grade Tokenized Assets

According to The Block, tokenization company Ethena Labs plans to migrate its $6 billion DeFi ecosystem to Converge, a new Ethereum-compatible blockchain built in partnership with Securitize. According to Monday's announcement, Converge is built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine and aims to make DeFi more accessible to institutions by providing compliant settlement and custody services. The public network will integrate native KYC (know your customer) functions and provide access to Ethena and Securitize whitelisted investment products. The two companies have selected Copper, Fireblocks, Komainu and Zodia to provide custody services, and invited major DeFi protocols Aave, Ethereal, Maple Finance, Morpho and Pendle as launch partners. The protocol can be accessed without permission and will run in parallel with Converge's "permissioned application set" products. Converge is expected to launch sometime in the second quarter of 2025. The network will be protected by validators who stake Ethena's ENA tokens.

Canary has filed an S-1 filing to launch the Canary SUI ETF

According to SEC documents, Canary has submitted an S-1 document to apply for the launch of the Canary SUI ETF (file number: 0002060703).

Slingshot DAO Completes $16 Million Funding, SLING Tokens to Be Launched Soon

According to official news from Slingshot DAO, the project has successfully completed $16 million in financing, with investors including Dragonfly Capital, Animoca Brands, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Sfermion, Standard Crypto, Sanctor Capital, Collab+Currency, Alphabit and other well-known Web3 institutions. In addition, Slingshot DAO revealed that the SLING token will be launched soon and hinted that trading will start soon.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net outflow of $838 million last week, with BlackRock IBIT leading the outflow

According to SoSoValue data, from March 10 to March 14 (EST), Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net outflow of $838 million in a single week, of which BlackRock IBIT ETF had an outflow of $338 million, and the cumulative net inflow still reached $39.24 billion, ranking first among all ETFs. Fidelity FBTC ETF had an outflow of $317 million, while ARKB ETF had a net inflow of $32.02 million and Grayscale BTC Trust had a net inflow of $5.51 million. As of now, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached $93.54 billion, accounting for 5.61% of the BTC market value, with a historical cumulative net inflow of $35.3 billion.

Ethereum spot ETF had a net outflow of $178 million last week, with BlackRock ETHA leading the outflow

According to SoSoValue data, from March 10 to March 13 (EST), Ethereum spot ETFs had a net outflow of $178 million in a single week, of which BlackRock ETHA ETF had an outflow of $63.3 million, with a cumulative outflow of $4.15 billion, ranking first among all ETFs. Fidelity FETH ETF had an outflow of $49.66 million, while VanEck ETHV and Invesco QETH had net inflows of $1.35 million and $1.06 million, respectively. As of now, the total net asset value of ETH spot ETFs has reached $6.72 billion, accounting for 2.90% of the ETH market value, with a historical cumulative net inflow of $2.52 billion.

Hashdex submits ETF amendment to SEC, intends to include LTC in the index

According to the Litecoin Foundation, crypto asset management company Hashdex has submitted an index change amendment to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), planning to add Litecoin (LTC) to its Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF. If the amendment is approved, LTC will become one of the constituent assets of the ETF, further promoting the compliance process of Litecoin in the traditional financial market, while improving the accessibility of institutional investors.

YZi Labs Announces Investment in Plume Network

According to the official announcement of YZi Labs, YZi Labs has invested in Plume Network (Plume), a modular blockchain focused on real-world assets (RWA), aiming to bridge traditional finance and DeFi and promote the financialization of RWA (RWAfi).

Strategy's Bitcoin holdings increased to 499,226, with an average cost of $66,360

According to Strategy's official documents (8-K report), the company increased its holdings of 130 bitcoins between March 10 and March 16, 2025, totaling approximately $10.7 million, with an average purchase price of $82,981. The funds for this purchase came from the sales revenue of the company's STRK preferred shares. As of March 16, 2025, Strategy and its subsidiaries held a total of 499,226 bitcoins, with a total purchase cost of approximately $33.1 billion and an average holding cost of $66,360.

MicroStrategy bought another 130 bitcoins at an average price of $82,981

According to Aggr News, MicroStrategy increased its holdings of 130 bitcoins between March 10 and March 16, with a total value of approximately US$10.7 million and an average purchase price of $82,981.

The contract deployment volume of Base chain reached 11.4 million last week, setting a new record high

According to Token Terminal data, the number of smart contracts deployed on the Layer 2 network (L2) Base reached 11.4 million last week, a record high.

Binance Futures to Launch BMTUSDT and MUBARAKUSDT Perpetual Contracts

According to Binance's official announcement, Binance Futures will officially launch the BMTUSDT perpetual contract at 21:30 (Beijing time) on March 17, 2025, and the MUBARAKUSDT perpetual contract at 21:45 (Beijing time), both of which support a maximum leverage of 25 times. Previously, Bubblemaps (BMT) and Mubarak (MUBARAK) have been listed on Binance Alpha Market.

Circle minted an additional $250 million USDC on the Solana chain, bringing the total to $10.25 billion this year

According to Onchain Lens, Circle has minted an additional $250 million USDC on the Solana chain. So far, Circle has minted $10.25 billion USDC on Solana in 2025.

Bitfarms completes all-stock acquisition of Stronghold Digital Mining for over $110 million

According to Crypto In America, Canadian Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms announced the successful completion of an all-stock acquisition of Stronghold Digital Mining, with a transaction value of more than $110 million, becoming the largest merger and acquisition between two listed Bitcoin mining companies. The acquisition will increase Bitfarms' share of the North American energy market from 6% to 80%, especially its layout in the PJM power grid in the United States has been significantly enhanced. It is worth noting that Riot Platforms, the world's second largest Bitcoin mining company, previously attempted a hostile takeover of Bitfarms, but ultimately failed and chose to hold a 20% stake in Bitfarms. In addition, the U.S. SEC will hold an industry roundtable this Friday to discuss the securities attributes of crypto assets, which is expected to affect the future direction of industry regulation. At the same time, New York held several crypto industry conferences this week, including Tokenize NYC, Blockworks DAS and Medici NY, attracting many industry leaders and policymakers to participate.

Digital asset funds have seen net outflows for five consecutive weeks, totaling $6.4 billion, setting a record

According to the latest report from CoinShares, digital asset investment products have seen outflows for five consecutive weeks, totaling $6.4 billion, the worst outflow on record. This week, outflows reached $1.7 billion, of which Bitcoin had a net outflow of $978 million, and a cumulative outflow of $5.4 billion in the past five weeks. The U.S. market accounted for 93% of the outflows, reaching $1.16 billion, Switzerland had an outflow of $528 million due to seed investors withdrawing funds, while Germany had a small inflow of $8 million. Ethereum and Solana had outflows of $175 million and $2.2 million, respectively, while XRP had an inflow of $1.8 million against the trend. Binance's assets under management (AuM) were almost zero due to the withdrawal of seed investors, leaving only $15 million. In addition, blockchain stock investment products had an outflow of $40 million last week.

A whale transferred 280,000 AUCTION to Binance, worth about $9.72 million

According to on-chain analyst Ember, an address recently withdrew 2 million AUCTION (26% of the total supply) from Binance, but began to transfer AUCTION back to Binance today. The latest large transfer occurred 10 minutes ago, with a total of 280,000 AUCTION (about 9.72 million US dollars) flowing into Binance.

A whale increased its ETH holdings to 6886 ETH through Aave revolving lending.

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