Today's news tips:
The White House Crypto Summit will begin at 2:30 a.m. Beijing time on March 8
U.S. Senate votes to repeal IRS cryptocurrency rules, pending House vote
Binance will launch multiple spot trading pairs of RedStone (RED) on March 6
Standard Chartered Bank: Bitcoin's recent price trend may test the support range of $69,000-76,500
More than 95.25 million XRP were transferred from OKX to an unknown wallet, worth about $236 million
Regulatory/Macro
Metaplanet spends 6.616 billion yen to increase its holdings of 497 bitcoins
Japanese listed company Metaplanet announced that it spent 6.616 billion yen to increase its holdings of 497 bitcoins, bringing its total holdings to 2,888.
The White House Crypto Summit will begin at 2:30 a.m. Beijing time on March 8
According to Fox Business News reporter Eleanor Terrett, according to the invitation email of the first White House Cryptocurrency Summit, the meeting will last from 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm on March 7 (2:30 to 6:30 am on Saturday, March 8, Beijing time), and no other details were disclosed in the email except the time and location. Earlier today, executives from Coinbase, Robinhood and other companies confirmed that they would attend the White House Cryptocurrency Summit this Friday.
El Salvador’s President: Bitcoin purchases will not stop due to IMF agreement
El Salvador, led by its president Nayib Bukele, apparently has no intention of stopping accumulating Bitcoin, no matter what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demands, CoinDesk reported. Bukele posted on X platform that El Salvador will not stop accumulating Bitcoin: "When the whole world rejected us and most of the 'Bitcoin believers' abandoned us, it did not stop, it will not stop now, and it will not stop in the future. Proof of Work is greater than Proof of Complaint." Shortly after Bukele posted on social media, the IMF released more details of its $3.5 billion loan agreement with the Latin American country. The IMF claimed that as part of the loan program, it has banned "voluntary accumulation of Bitcoin by the public sector." Perhaps in response to the IMF post, El Salvador disclosed late Monday night that it had purchased 19 Bitcoins in the past seven days, and then disclosed on Tuesday afternoon that it had purchased an additional coin on top of that. The Salvadoran government currently holds 6,101.15 Bitcoins, which is worth about $530 million at Bitcoin's current price of about $88,000.
U.S. Senate votes to repeal IRS cryptocurrency rules, pending House vote
According to CoinDesk, on Tuesday, the U.S. Senate, with the strong support of many Democrats, successfully passed a resolution aimed at repealing the Biden administration's cryptocurrency tax rules, which may be the biggest obstacle to eliminating the new broker rule of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which was originally planned to cover decentralized finance DeFi. The Senate passed a resolution authorized by the Congressional Review Act by 70 votes to 27, aiming to completely repeal the expansion of the IRS broker rule. However, the House of Representatives still needs to pass an identical resolution, after which U.S. President Trump can sign it into law. Once completed, not only will the rule be completely repealed, but the IRS will also be prohibited from pursuing similar policies in the future. The House Financial Services Committee has passed an identical resolution and recommended approval in a full House vote, which is still awaiting a vote. The White House said earlier today that the president may sign the resolution quickly.
US Treasury Sanctions 49 Bitcoin and Monero Addresses Linked to Defunct Dark Web Market Nemesis
According to The Block, the US government disclosed in an announcement that it had added dozens of Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR) addresses to its entity sanctions list. On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) confirmed 49 virtual currency addresses used by Iranian national Behrouz Parsarad, who is allegedly the administrator of the darknet market Nemesis. A total of 44 Bitcoin addresses and 5 Monero addresses were included in the sanctions list. Parsarad became the target of international law enforcement actions in 2024. Nemesis reportedly had 30,000 active users before it was shut down and facilitated nearly $30 million worth of drug transactions during its three years of operation. “Parsarad profited by charging Nemesis users a fee for each transaction, and OFAC estimates that he earned millions of dollars during the marketplace’s existence,” OFAC wrote in a statement. “In addition to providing a trading platform for criminals, Parsarad laundered funds for drug traffickers and cybercriminals active on Nemesis.” Nemesis offered a range of narcotics, personally identifiable data, counterfeit documents, ransomware, and cybercrime services such as phishing and DDoS tools.
Fox Business News reporter Eleanor Terrett said that although the official invitation has not yet been sent, many important industry figures have confirmed that they will attend the cryptocurrency summit held at the White House this Friday. The guests who have confirmed their attendance at the summit include: Strategy founder Michael Saylor, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey, Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang, Exodus CEO JP Richardson, Multicoin managing partner Kyle Samani, Trump-related crypto project World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Kraken CEO Arjun Sethi.
US SEC agrees to drop lawsuit against Cumberland DRW
Cumberland DRW, a crypto trading company, posted on the X platform: "Today, we signed a joint document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requesting the dismissal of the lawsuit against Cumberland DRW. The document was agreed in principle by Cumberland DRW and SEC staff on February 20 and is currently awaiting approval from the Commission. As a company that firmly upholds the principles of integrity and transparency, we look forward to continuing our dialogue with the SEC to jointly promote a future where technological advancement and regulatory clarity go hand in hand, ensuring that the United States remains at the forefront of global financial innovation."
According to Jinshi, US President Trump has initiated the action of imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Moody's Chief Economist Mark Zandi believes that the US economy may fall into stagflation. Recent data show that US consumers and businesses are already worried about the economic outlook and have reduced spending. The relevant effects will lead to a significant slowdown in the economy, and the tariff effect will lead to high inflation, so the US economy may fall into stagflation. If true, it will be the first time the United States has fallen into stagflation in 50 years. The GDPNow model of the Atlanta Federal Reserve shows that the US economy may shrink by 2.8% in the first quarter. If true, it will be the first contraction since the first quarter of 2022. In the face of stagflation, the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates, just as former Federal Reserve Chairman Volcker raised interest rates sharply in the early 1980s, sacrificing the economy to curb inflation.
Viewpoint
According to the latest report from Matrixport, Google Trends data shows that global search interest for Solana and Bitcoin has increased over the past five years, while Ethereum and Memecoin are in a slump, close to their historical lows. It is worth noting that the issuance and trading activity of Memecoin has dropped sharply after the launch of $TRUMP, while Google Trends data also reflects extremely low overall interest. The $TRUMP token has fallen 82% from its peak and there are currently no significant signs of recovery. The report points out that historically, sharp declines in search interest are often associated with sharp price drops, and this trend is particularly evident in the Memecoin field. The analysis suggests that investors should focus on assets where market momentum is increasing, such as Solana and Bitcoin, rather than assets that are in a slump.
“I don’t think the criticism is entirely wrong,” said Smokey the Bera, the anonymous co-founder of Berachain, in an interview with Un Chained. “If we could do it all over again and the team could start from scratch, we probably wouldn’t have sold as much supply to venture capital firms. In fact, most of the supply was sold in the seed round in early 2022. At the time, we thought it might be a fun thing to do, but we didn’t expect it to grow to the size it is now. So I think the criticism is valid. In fact, over time, we have been working to buy back that portion of the supply from the seed round and subsequent rounds such as Series A, so that we can minimize the dilution that the community has suffered from those shares.”
Rob Hadick, general partner of Dragonfly, shared his views on the current macroeconomic and market trends on social media. He believes that the Trump administration may intentionally push the economy closer to recession as an excuse to cut welfare, foreign aid, government spending and imports, even though these areas are the driving force of economic growth. In addition, he predicts that the government will stimulate the economy through large-scale tax cuts, quantitative easing (QE), golden visas and manufacturing subsidies in the later stage. He pointed out that the inflation issue is the key and the market has different expectations on the Fed's interest rate cut. If economic growth deteriorates, Fed Chairman Powell may be forced to cut interest rates, otherwise there may be unconventional monetary easing policies, but this will push up inflation and risk asset prices. In addition, he mentioned that the deterioration of the United States' relations with its allies and its policies to support certain regimes may increase the risk of "black swan events". Although AI investment will provide support to the market, the market may face greater pressure if companies such as NVIDIA perform weakly. Regarding the crypto market, he believes that despite the strengthening fundamentals, macroeconomic uncertainty will suppress the performance of token prices. However, once the macro environment improves, the crypto market may be the first to rebound. He is also optimistic about the rapid growth of stablecoins and recommends a long-term volatility trading strategy under the current uncertainty.
Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Fund, recently said that the current global monetary system is based on debt, and governments may cause the depreciation of their currencies through inflation or low interest rate policies. Investors should think about whether there is an alternative currency that does not rely on debt and is relatively stable. He believes that Bitcoin may be one of the candidates and may even play an important role in the future, but emphasizes that "currency is essentially debt" and the real alternative currency still needs further exploration. Dalio pointed out that the advantage of Bitcoin as a safe-haven asset is its strong liquidity. Unlike real estate, it will not be fixed in a certain place, so it is more difficult to be taxed or confiscated. However, he also emphasized that the diversity and robustness of investment are more important. When asked about his views on gold, Dalio said he is more optimistic about gold than before, but advised investors to remain restrained. He believes that the future is full of uncertainty, and investors need to build a diversified investment portfolio to deal with it. He recommends a "prudent" gold allocation ratio of 10% to 15%, which can both play a protective role and avoid over-reliance on a single asset. He emphasized that reasonable asset allocation is an important strategy for dealing with future uncertainties.
Standard Chartered Bank: Bitcoin's recent price trend may test the support range of $69,000-76,500
Geoff Kendrick of Standard Chartered Bank expressed concerns about the near-term prospects of Bitcoin and MicroStrategy (MSTR), believing that the price of Bitcoin may face volatility around a key support level. He pointed out that the price range of November 6, 2024 (the day after the US election) ($69,000 to $76,500) is a key potential support area for Bitcoin, and the movement of this range may determine its short-term trajectory. Kendrick said that if the price of Bitcoin falls to the $69,000 to $76,500 range, it will be closer to MicroStrategy's average purchase price of $65,000, so this is a key level to watch closely. He mentioned that MicroStrategy is currently in this price range and has been hovering around this level for several days, but has not yet fallen below it. He emphasized that while it is unlikely to reach $65,000 in the short term, this price level is still worth noting. In addition, Kendrick also pointed out that Bitcoin has a strong correlation with major stock indices, and broader market trends will affect the price of cryptocurrencies. While former President Donald Trump’s recent post on Truth Social regarding the U.S.’s cryptocurrency reserves has sparked some speculation, Kendrick believes that the 5% drop in Nasdaq futures since the last U.S. market opened had a bigger impact on Bitcoin’s decline.
Project News
Binance will launch multiple spot trading pairs of RedStone (RED) on March 6
Binance announced that it will end the pre-sale of RedStone (RED) at 17:00 Beijing time on March 6, 2025, and will launch the following spot trading pairs at 21:00 on the same day: RED/BTC, RED/USDT, RED/USDC, RED/FDUSD and RED/TRY. Binance announced that it will end the pre-sale of RedStone (RED) at 17:00 Beijing time on March 6, 2025, and will launch the following spot trading pairs at 21:00 on the same day: RED/BTC, RED/USDT, RED/USDC, RED/FDUSD and RED/TRY. Users can deposit RED to prepare for trading from 18:00 Beijing time on March 6, and the withdrawal function will be open at 21:00 on March 7. In addition, the transfer function will be restored before 18:00 on March 6. Earlier news, Binance Launchpool launched RedStone (RED).
zkLend: Asset Recovery Portal Now Live
Starknet on-chain lending protocol zkLend posted on the X platform: "The asset recovery portal is now online, please stay vigilant - always interact with official channels and verify communications through verified social media." According to its previous introduction, users can directly access their claims through the portal by connecting to the affected wallet. According to previous news, zkLend has been attacked since February 11, resulting in a loss of approximately US$9.6 million in funds.
Bithumb to List PLUME and COW Tokens in Korean Won Market
According to an official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb will list PLUME and COW tokens in the Korean won market.
Upbit to List KAITO Token in KRW, BTC, USDT Markets
According to the official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Upbit will launch KAITO tokens in the Korean won, BTC, and USDT markets.
Asset management company VanEck said Solana's planned protocol upgrades are critical to the long-term health of the network, but may deal a blow to validators' income. In March, Solana's validators will vote on two blockchain protocol upgrade proposals (SIMD) that aim to secure rewards for stakers and adjust the inflation rate of the network's native token SOL. Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, said in a March 4 X post that the two proposals have sparked "significant controversy" because they could cut validators' income by up to 95%, potentially endangering small operators. "While these changes may reduce staking rewards, we believe that reducing inflation is a worthy goal that can enhance Solana's long-term sustainability," Sigel said. Sigel introduced that the first proposal, SIMD 0123, will introduce an in-protocol mechanism to distribute Solana's priority fees to validator stakers. Traders can pay additional fees to speed up transaction processing, and priority fees account for 40% of network revenue, but currently validators do not need to share with stakers. The proposal, which was voted on March 6, aims to increase staking rewards and prevent off-chain transaction protocols and strengthen on-chain execution. Sigel called the second proposal, SIMD 0228, the "most impactful" proposal, which would adjust the SOL inflation rate to be inversely proportional to the percentage of staked token supply, potentially reducing dilution and reducing selling pressure on stakers. According to Coin Metrics, as of February, Solana's inflation rate was 4%, down from the initial 8%, but still well above the terminal target of 1.5%, and is currently declining at a rate of 15% per year.
As reported by The Block, the trading volume of "graduated" Pump.fun tokens has dropped significantly since the beginning of the year, reflecting both the cooling of the broader market and the evolution of trader sentiment. Daily trading volume has plummeted from a peak of $3 billion in January to about $170 million at the time of writing, a drop of 94%. This decline coincides with the slowdown in the platform's token graduation rate, which has dropped from 1.85% per week to 0.83%, indicating that the number of new tokens that have reached the $100,000 market cap threshold and are eligible to upgrade to Raydium has decreased. The shrinking trading volume points to possible fatigue among traders in the Solana memecoin ecosystem. After months of frenetic activity, many participants seem to be tired of the dark side of the field. Factors such as scams, suspicious influencer promotions, and insider trading groups have all led to a general decrease in people's trust in meme coins. Despite the current market downturn, Pump.fun's overall impact has remained significant since its launch on January 19, 2024. In just over seven months, the platform has generated $570 million in revenue.
Coinbase International will launch CAKE, BRETT, and AI16Z perpetual contracts
Coinbase International announced that it will launch perpetual contracts (PERP) trading for PancakeSwap (CAKE), Brett (BRETT) and ai16z (AI16Z) on or after 9:30 UTC on March 6, 2025, supporting Coinbase International Exchange and Coinbase Advanced platforms.
Important data
Kaito team is suspected of selling 2 million tokens, about 4.1 million US dollars
According to @ai_9684xtpa monitoring, the Kaito team is suspected of selling 2 million tokens two hours ago, worth about $4.1 million. Data shows that the address 0x8D0...4afA9 received 25 million tokens from a multi-signature address two weeks ago, and transferred 5 million to a new address 22 hours ago, of which 2 million have been deposited into Binance.
More than 95.25 million XRP were transferred from OKX to an unknown wallet, about $236 million
According to Whale Alert, 95,254,697 XRP (about US$236 million) was transferred from the crypto exchange OKX to an unknown wallet at 16:37.
BNB breaks through $600, up 5.71% in 24 hours
According to Binance market data, BNB broke through $600, up 5.71% in 24 hours, and is currently priced at $600.09.
AAVE breaks through $220, up 26.25% in 24 hours
According to OKX market data, AAVE broke through $220, up 26.25% in 24 hours, and is now quoted at $220.04. Earlier news, Aave updated its token economic model and initially planned to repurchase $1 million of AAVE per week.
Data: About $102 million USDT transferred from Binance to an unknown wallet
According to Whale Alert monitoring, 101,913,695 USDT (about 102 million US dollars) was transferred from Binance to an unknown wallet at 15:37.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, another 58,964 SOL ($8.52 million) of the 3.03 million SOL ($431.3 million) unstaked by FTX/Alameda has just been deposited into Binance.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, a whale is shorting the ETH/BTC trading pair. The whale withdrew 2,770 cbBTC (about $243 million) from Coinbase, deposited 2,219 cbBTC (about $194.6 million) to Aave, and borrowed 45,441 ETH (about $99 million).
According to Spot On Chain monitoring, two wallets associated with Ethena Labs deposited 29.87 million ENA (US$11.52 million) to Binance at a price of approximately US$0.386 in the past hour. It is worth noting that both wallets received ENA from Ethena Labs' multi-signature wallet on July 20, 2024, at a price of US$0.487. Currently, one of the wallets still holds 53.6 million ENA (worth US$20.2 million). Update: Lookonchain monitored three wallet addresses, saying that three wallets associated with the Ethena team deposited 38.36 million ENA (approximately US$14.4 million) to Binance in the past hour.
According to the monitoring of on-chain analyst Ember, the whale/institution that received the most ETH in the liquidation compensation of Genesis Trading in August last year has sold 40,000 ETH (US$89.2 million) through broker OTC in the past two days. He transferred 30,000 ETH to Galaxy Digital and 10,000 ETH to FalconX in the past two days. Then he received 20 million USDC from Galaxy Digital and 19.49 million USDC from FalconX. The ETH in this address came from the liquidation compensation of the bankrupt institution Genesis Trading in August last year. Received 114,500 ETH (US$358 million) in compensation, which was the address that received the most ETH at the time. When he received the compensation last year, the ETH price was US$3,128. Now the ETH price has fallen by 30% from that time. The value of the 114,500 ETH compensated has shrunk by US$110 million.
Financing
According to The Block, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian is seeking to acquire TikTok to "chain" the social media app. The app plans to integrate the Frequency blockchain, a "decentralized social media protocol" designed to allow users to control their online content. Ohanian posted a message on X saying: "This is exciting news for the digital world. I am now officially one of the people trying to acquire TikTok's US business and put it on the chain. TikTok is a game changer for creators, and its future should be shaped by them. Users should own their data. Creators should own their audience." Ohanian joined Project Liberty, a bidding team previously announced by Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball (MLB), to acquire TikTok's US business, and will serve as a strategic advisor focusing on social media.
Blockstream receives billions of dollars in investment to launch three crypto funds
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter revealed that Bitcoin development company Blockstream Corp. has received a multi-billion dollar investment to launch three funds, two of which will support cryptocurrency lending. The investment shows that the cryptocurrency lending business, which was once out of favor after the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange at the end of 2022, has regained favor, and the rising Bitcoin price and pro-cryptocurrency White House policies will also benefit the business. Blockstream said in January that it plans to launch a fund to guarantee Bitcoin-backed loans, another fund will support cryptocurrency lending with US dollars as collateral, and the third fund will adopt hedge fund strategies. According to an unnamed person familiar with the matter, all three funds will go online on April 1, and two of the lending funds will be available for borrowing. The company plans to accept additional external funds starting July 1. Blockstream declined to comment further beyond confirming the planned launch date.
Berachain’s liquid staking protocol Infrared has completed a $14 million Series A funding round, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Citizen X, Halo Capital, No Limit Holdings, NGC Ventures, and Selini Capital. This round of financing was conducted using the SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens) model. After a $2.25 million strategic round led by Binance Labs and a $2.5 million seed round , Infrared’s total funding has reached $18.75 million. Infrared was incubated by the Berachain Foundation and launched two liquid staking tokens, iBGT and iBERA, corresponding to Berachain’s governance token BGT and gas token BERA, respectively. Currently, the protocol has a TVL of over $1.7 billion, making it the largest protocol in the Berachain ecosystem. The Berachain mainnet was officially launched in February, but due to controversy over the proportion of investors and internal holdings, the BERA token has fallen 57% since its launch on February 6.
Cross-chain protocol Across completes $41 million financing, led by Paradigm
Across Protocol, which focuses on cross-chain interoperability, has completed a $41 million token financing, led by Paradigm, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital and angel investor Sina Habinian. This round of financing was carried out in two phases, completed in Q2 and Q4 of 2024, with a total financing amount of $51 million. Across focuses on intent-driven cross-chain transactions, supporting users to transfer cross-chain assets through a single request, with an average transaction time of less than 5 seconds. Its technology is based on the ERC-7683 standard, which has been adopted by more than 50 protocols such as Base, Arbitrum, Polygon and Optimism, and is used for Uniswap's cross-chain bridging function. As of now, Across has processed a total of $19 billion in transactions, of which the monthly transaction volume in January 2025 exceeded $1 billion.
Acki Nacki Completes Over $6 Million in Financing, with Hack VC and Others Participating
According to the official announcement of Acki Nacki, the pre-sale of its network nodes has been successfully completed, with a financing amount of over 6 million US dollars. Investors include Kingsway Capital, K5 Global, Blockchain.com, Original Capital and Hack VC. Acki Nacki adopts the "Bitcoin for Proof of Stake" design, without pre-mining, airdrops, and token distribution. $NACKL tokens will be mined and released within 60 years. Its Gossip Ignite decentralized startup protocol was launched on January 29, 2025, and the main network will be officially launched after 75% of validators join. At present, the network test network has more than 5 million users, and its goal is to promote the vision of a truly decentralized "world computer".
