Today's news tips:
SEC’s determination: Meme coins are not securities, investors must bear their own risks
U.S. stocks closed: Nasdaq fell 2.7%, Nvidia fell more than 8%
OpenAI GPT-4.5 API is now available
Binance will launch 6 USDC perpetual contracts including KAITO and IP, supporting up to 25x leverage
Uniswap integrates Robinhood, MoonPay, and Transak, launching fiat currency withdrawal function
BTC briefly fell below $79,000, down 8.61% in 24 hours
Regulatory/Macro
SEC’s determination: Meme coins are not securities, investors must bear their own risks
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)'s Division of Corporate Finance Regulation has issued guidance on memecoins, stating that memecoins generally do not meet the definition of securities laws and are not subject to federal securities laws. The SEC believes that memecoins are mainly used for entertainment, social and cultural purposes, and their value is driven by market demand and speculation, similar to collectibles, and generally lack practical use or functionality. Therefore, the sale and purchase of meme coins does not involve the issuance or sale of securities under the Securities Act, and no registration or registration exemption is required. The SEC cited the Howey test standard and pointed out that meme coin transactions do not involve investment in enterprises, nor is there a reasonable expectation to profit from the management efforts of others. The price of meme coins is mainly determined by market speculation, not the management or operating activities of the issuer. However, the SEC warned that if some meme coins actually constitute securities or involve fraud, they may face enforcement actions under other federal or state laws.
The Office of the Financial Committee of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, the Financial Working Committee of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, and the public account of the government information release platform of the Hunan Provincial Local Financial Administration Bureau disclosed a GBC platform fundraising fraud case. Zhou, Tong, Wu and others commissioned Chengdu Xingyi Network Technology Co., Ltd. to design the GBC platform software computer client and mobile APP. Wu lied that GBC coins and wealth coins were blockchain virtual currencies and developed offline in Jinshui District, Zhengzhou City and other places. By the time the case was discovered, the "GBC" platform had developed 47 levels of members, involving 59,548 member accounts, with inflows and outflows of 3.408 billion yuan, including 40,480 loss-making member accounts and losses of 629 million yuan. The main offender made a profit of more than 226 million yuan through the GBC platform fundraising fraud. Upon investigation, the digital symbols generated out of thin air by the GBC platform system had no economic value. After trial, the Zhengzhou Intermediate People's Court held that according to the facts, nature, circumstances and degree of harm to society of the crime, the persons involved in the case were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from fifteen to thirteen years in accordance with the law.
According to China Asset Management Hong Kong WeChat official account, China Asset Management (Hong Kong) announced today the launch of Asia Pacific's first retail tokenized fund - "China Asset Management Hong Kong Dollar Digital Currency Fund" ("the Fund"). The Fund mainly invests in short-term deposits and high-quality money market instruments denominated in Hong Kong dollars.
U.S. stocks closed: Nasdaq fell 2.7%, Nvidia fell more than 8%
At the close of US stocks on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average initially closed down 0.45%, the S&P 500 fell 1.59%, and the Nasdaq fell 2.78%. Chip stocks were hit hard, with Nvidia (NVDA.O) closing down 8.4% and Broadcom (AVGO.O) down 7%. Tesla (TSLA.O) fell 3%, Strategy (MSTR.O) fell 8.82%, and Coinbase (COIN) fell 2.16%. The Nasdaq China Golden Dragon Index fell 0.9%, and Alibaba (BABA.N) fell 1.7%.
SEC to drop enforcement case against ConsenSys and MetaMask
According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to withdraw its enforcement lawsuit against MetaMask, a wallet tool under ConsenSys. ConsenSys CEO Joe Lubin said on the X platform that the case needs to be approved by the SEC commissioner, but the company welcomes this decision and emphasizes that it has been prepared for a long-term struggle. The SEC sued ConsenSys in June 2024, accusing MetaMask of being an unregistered securities broker and suspected of illegally providing securities trading services. Prior to this, the SEC had ended its investigation into Ethereum 2.0. The withdrawal of the lawsuit is the latest move by the SEC to adjust its crypto regulatory strategy under the leadership of the new acting chairman Mark Uyeda. It has previously withdrawn cases against Coinbase, Gemini, Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap Labs and OpenSea, and suspended lawsuits against Binance and Tron Foundation. Lubin said that he recognized the "pro-innovation, investor-oriented" route of the new SEC leadership and would continue to work with policymakers to promote the development of the U.S. crypto industry.
Financing/Sales
According to CoinDesk, the crypto trading platform BitMEX is seeking to sell and has hired boutique investment bank Broadhaven Capital Partners to assist in the sales process at the end of last year. BitMEX was founded in 2014 and is known for launching perpetual contract trading. Sources revealed that the exchange is looking for buyers and is expected to trigger industry M&A interest. Currently, the crypto derivatives market is actively consolidating, Kraken and Coinbase are bidding for Deribit, and FalconX has acquired Arbelos Markets to expand its derivatives business. BitMEX was accused of inadequate anti-money laundering measures in 2020 and later pleaded guilty. Co-founders Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed subsequently resigned.
Finisterra Labs Completes $3.75 Million Seed Round Led by Haun Ventures
According to Finisterra Labs' announcement, the company has completed a $3.75 million seed round of financing, led by Haun Ventures and participated by Lightshift Capital, for the development of Baselight, a decentralized data market. Baselight is committed to solving data fragmentation, high access costs and unfair profit models, and provides a queryable, computable and monetizable data platform for financial analysts, DeFi developers, AI teams, etc. The team plans to expand the data ecosystem, optimize the analysis engine, and deepen the integration of AI, finance and blockchain to promote data democratization.
AI
OpenAI GPT-4.5 API is now available
OpenAI product manager Nikunj Handa said in the OpenAI developer community that GPT-4.5 has been connected to the API service. He said that we are evaluating whether to continue to provide it in the API for a long time because we need to balance the relationship between supporting current functions and building future models.
Project News
Binance will launch 6 USDC perpetual contracts including KAITO and IP, supporting up to 25x leverage
Binance announced that it will launch the following USDC-denominated perpetual contracts from March 5 to March 7, all supporting up to 25x leverage: March 5, 18:00: KAITOUSDC perpetual contract March 5, 18:15: IPUSDC perpetual contract March 6, 18:00: TRUMPUSDC perpetual contract March 6, 18:15: ADAUSDC perpetual contract March 7, 18:00: PNUTUSDC perpetual contract March 7, 18:15: HBARUSDC perpetual contract.
Bithumb will launch SHELL Korean Won trading pair
According to Bithumb’s announcement, Myshell (SHELL) will soon be launched on the Korean won (KRW) trading market, supporting only Ethereum network recharge and withdrawal. Myshell (SHELL) is a decentralized AI consumer layer based on the opBNB chain.
According to CoinDesk, MetaMask, a popular wallet in the Ethereum ecosystem, announced a new development roadmap, focusing on optimizing the user experience, and plans to launch smart contract accounts (CA), ERC-5792 batch transaction functions and MetaMask debit cards. New features include the introduction of smart contract wallets. Compared with the current external accounts (EOA) that rely on private keys, smart contract accounts support transaction recovery mechanisms and improve asset security. In addition, MetaMask will support ERC-5792 batch transactions, allowing users to complete approval + transactions with one click, reducing gas fees and operation steps. The MetaMask team also announced that its MetaMask debit card will be launched in some states in the United States in mid-March, and has been piloted in the United Kingdom and the European Union. The card supports users to pay directly with crypto assets in the wallet and is compatible with the Mastercard network. In addition, MetaMask will add support for Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL), enabling users to manage multiple blockchain assets in the same wallet. The team said that it will continue to optimize multi-chain integration in the future to improve the overall user experience.
According to Spot On Chain monitoring, Bybit hackers have laundered more than 50% of the stolen ETH within a week after the attack. In the past 5.5 days, a total of 266,309 ETH (about 614 million US dollars) was transferred, accounting for 53.3% of the total 499,000 ETH stolen. The hacker mainly used THORChain to exchange BTC, transferring an average of 48,420 ETH per day. There are still 233,086 ETH left. If the current speed is maintained, it is expected that the remaining funds can be completely cleaned within 5 days.
According to CoinDesk, the restaurant loyalty platform Blackbird announced that its Flynet mainnet is officially launched, introducing restaurant payment and membership reward systems to the blockchain. Flynet is a Layer-3 blockchain based on the Coinbase Base chain, which aims to reduce transaction costs, remove middlemen, and provide an innovative restaurant reward model. Blackbird previously launched a payment platform that allows users to pay for meals through $FLY tokens, which can be consumed at restaurants or purchased with USDC. After Flynet goes online, $FLY is still used for payment, but restaurants can also use the token to pay platform fees. In addition, Blackbird has also launched a new token $F2 for network gas fees, and plans to airdrop 13% of the supply to early users and restaurants. Blackbird has received $85 million in financing, and investors include a16z, Coinbase, Spark Capital and American Express. Currently, the platform has landed in New York, San Francisco and Charleston, working with about 500 restaurants to promote the blockchain development of the restaurant industry.
Uniswap integrates Robinhood, MoonPay, and Transak, launching fiat currency withdrawal function
Uniswap Labs has launched a native fiat currency withdrawal (off-ramp) feature that allows users to convert crypto assets into fiat currency directly in the Uniswap wallet and deposit it into a bank account. This feature is achieved through integration with Robinhood, MoonPay and Transak, and will be expanded to the Uniswap browser plug-in and official website in the future. Users can exchange supported ERC-20 tokens for stablecoins such as USDC and ETH, and then quickly withdraw them to their accounts. Uniswap Labs said that this feature has covered more than 180 countries, greatly improving the liquidity between crypto assets and fiat currencies.
According to CoinDesk, crypto and AI company Olas has launched Mech Marketplace, a decentralized platform that enables AI agents to hire other AI agents to complete specific tasks and improve collaboration efficiency. Olas has been running on multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon, among which transactions on Gnosis Chain are the most active. Currently, nearly 2,000 AI agents have been deployed in the Olas ecosystem, with about 500 active daily. Olas recently raised $13.8 million in funds and plans to launch Pearl, an AI agent app store, so that users can own and manage their own AI agents. Olas co-founder David Minarsch said that AI agents are currently unable to complete all work independently, so they need to be specialized and divided, and transactions between AI agents can be realized through market mechanisms. There have been more than 4 million transactions in the Olas ecosystem, more than half of which are interactions between agents. Mech Marketplace allows AI agents to freely match their needs without presetting specific interaction objects.
Coinbase and NEAR form an open AI alliance to promote decentralized AI services
According to CoinDesk, Coinbase, NEAR AI and several blockchain and AI projects have jointly established the Open Agents Alliance (OAA), which aims to use blockchain infrastructure to promote open artificial intelligence (AI) services. The alliance is committed to "ensuring secure, open source, economical and fair access to AI." Members will provide AI agent frameworks, cloud hosting and fiat/cryptocurrency conversion channels to support developers in building and deploying AI tools.
Viewpoint
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin warned that many users' crypto asset losses were not caused by theft, but by software vulnerabilities, forgotten passwords, lost devices, accidental damage to paper wallets, etc. He pointed out that many victims are ashamed to talk about these losses because there are no attackers to hold accountable, but such incidents happen frequently in reality. Vitalik emphasized that the security plan of crypto wallets should also consider the problem of asset loss, and called for the promotion of social recovery mechanisms to reduce the permanent loss of assets caused by personal errors.
According to f2pool data, when the price of Bitcoin is $80,000 and the electricity price is $0.06/kWh, the power cost ratios of different mining machines show significant differences. Mining machines with a power consumption of 30 W/T are close to the break-even point, while low-power, high-computing models are more competitive.
Important data
According to CoinMarketCap data, among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market value in the past month, five tokens including RAY, TRUMP, and WIF have fallen by more than 50%, including: Raydium (RAY): down 69.20%, currently priced at $2.07; OFFICIAL TRUMP (TRUMP): down 59.74%, currently priced at $11.23; dogwifhat (WIF): down 56.95%, currently priced at $0.5686; Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL): down 51.21%, currently priced at $0.9871; Bonk (BONK): down 50.96%, currently priced at $0.00001234; Movement (MOVE): down 49.42%, currently priced at $0.4206; Cronos (CRO): down 46.51%, currently priced at $0.06913; Bitget Token (BGB): down 46.43%, currently priced at $3.73; Solana (SOL): down 44.69%, currently priced at $129.55; Ethena (ENA): down 44.29%, currently priced at $0.3907; Dogecoin (DOGE): down 44.24%, currently priced at $0.1846; The Sandbox (SAND): down 43.96%, currently priced at $0.2902.
BTC briefly fell below $79,000, down 8.61% in 24 hours
According to Binance market data, BTC briefly fell below $79,000, down 8.61% in 24 hours, and is currently trading at $79,123.
500,000 SOL transferred from Bybit to an unknown wallet, worth about $64.426 million
According to Whale Alert monitoring, about 500,000 SOL (worth about US$64.426 million) was transferred from the Bybit exchange to an unknown wallet at 15:09.
59,000 BTC and 529,000 ETH options will expire today, with a total notional value of $5.78 billion
According to Greeks.live data, 59,000 BTC and 529,000 ETH options will expire today, with a total notional value of $5.78 billion. • BTC options: Put Call Ratio is 0.7, the maximum pain point is $96,000, and the total notional value is $4.66 billion. • ETH options: Put Call Ratio is 0.52, the maximum pain point is $3,000, and the total notional value is $1.12 billion. The market was affected by the plunge in US stocks and multiple security incidents, and mainstream currencies fell sharply. BTC's short-term implied volatility (IV) soared to 90%, and ETH even broke through 100%. Institutions previously predicted that the market lacked funds and hot spots in February, and option big holders continued to sell medium- and short-term call options. The current market panic continues to spread.
According to SoSoValue data, on February 27, Eastern Time, Bitcoin spot ETFs had a net outflow of $276 million in a single day, marking the 8th consecutive day of capital outflow. • Grayscale GBTC had a single-day outflow of $7.2592 million, with a historical cumulative net outflow of $22.262 billion. • Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF BTC had an outflow of $5.5429 million, with a historical net inflow of $1.045 billion. • Bitwise ETF BITB became the ETF with the largest inflow on that day, with a net inflow of $17.6492 million and a historical cumulative net inflow of $2.075 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $94.302 billion, accounting for 5.69% of the total market value of Bitcoin, with a historical cumulative net inflow of $36.847 billion.
ETH falls below $2,100, down 9.71% on the day
The OKX market data shows that ETH has just fallen below $2,100 and is currently trading at $2,097.65 per coin, down 9.71% on the day.
