Important information from last night and this morning (March 11-March 12)

President of The ETF Store: Franklin Templeton Submits XRP Spot ETF Application

According to Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, Franklin Templeton, an asset management company with a global management scale of over $1.5 trillion, has officially entered the XRP ETF competition. According to the preliminary prospectus submitted on March 11, Franklin XRP Trust will issue Franklin XRP ETF fund shares, which mainly holds XRP held by the custodian on behalf of the fund, and aims to track the overall performance of XRP prices. Franklin Holdings, LLC will serve as the sponsor of the trust and fund, and Coinbase Custody Trust Company will serve as the custodian of XRP assets.

Binance will support Conflux (CFX) network upgrade and hard fork

Binance plans to suspend the Conflux (CFX) network token deposit and withdrawal services at 19:00 (ET) on March 17, 2025 to support its network upgrade and hard fork. The project will perform a network upgrade and hard fork at block height 118,580,000.

Jsquare announces $50 million Pioneer Fund Phase I in the U.S., focusing on the core track of Web3

According to Jsquare's official news, during ETHDenver, Jsquare co-founder and Pioneer Fund venture partner James Wo announced the official launch of Pioneer Fund Phase I at the "Proof of Brew: Tasting the Crypto" event hosted by Jsquare. The fund size is US$50 million, focusing on investing in AI, consumer applications, RWA, DeFi, PayFi and other Web3 fields. Joanna Liang, founding partner of Jsquare, said that the launch of Pioneer Fund is an important milestone in promoting the growth of the blockchain ecosystem, marking the fund's entry into open and compliant operations, which is in line with the market expansion trend. She emphasized that Jsquare will not only provide financial support, but will also provide strategic guidance to the project through its global network and resources to help it become an industry leader.

Metaplanet issues 2 billion yen zero-coupon ordinary bonds to increase Bitcoin holdings

According to the official announcement of Metaplanet, the company's board of directors decided on March 12, 2025 to issue the eighth ordinary bond to EVO FUND, with a total amount of 2 billion yen (about 13.4 million US dollars), and all the funds will be used to purchase Bitcoin. The bond is interest-free, with a par value of 50 million yen per bond, and is expected to mature on September 11, 2025. Metaplanet plans to raise debt repayment funds by exercising the 14th to 17th stock subscription rights. The company expects this move to have limited impact on the financial performance in fiscal 2025.

Solana inflation reduction proposal SIMD-228 reaches quorum, currently 71.85% support

According to SolanaFloor, Solana Governance Proposal SIMD-228 has reached a quorum, with 71.85% of the votes currently in favor of the proposal. The proposal aims to reduce the inflation rate of SOL by up to 80% to optimize the network economic model. Voting will continue until the end of Epoch 755, and the final result is yet to be confirmed.

SEC Accepts Grayscale Hedera Spot ETF Application

According to Cointelegraph, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially accepted the Hedera (HBAR) spot ETF application submitted by Grayscale.

Texas lawmakers propose to limit state government Bitcoin investment to $250 million, and city and county governments to $10 million

According to Cointelegraph, Texas Congressman Ron Reynolds submitted a bill (HB 4258) on March 10, proposing to limit the amount of money that the state treasurer can use the "Economic Stabilization Fund" (Rainy Day Fund) to invest in Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies to no more than $250 million. In addition, the bill also recommends that the crypto investment of municipal and county governments in Texas should not exceed $10 million. Previously, the Texas Senate passed SB 21 on March 6, allowing the state government to establish a Bitcoin reserve without setting an investment cap. If HB 4258 is passed and signed by Governor Greg Abbott, the new regulations will take effect on September 1, 2025. At the same time, the Trump administration has issued an executive order on March 7 to plan to establish a federal "strategic Bitcoin reserve", but its legality is still questioned by legal experts. Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis introduced a bill on March 11, trying to legislate in Congress to formally establish a federal BTC reserve.

USDC Treasury minted $250 million USDC on Solana in the early hours of the morning

According to Whale Alert, at 2:33 am Beijing time, USDC Treasury minted $250 million USDC (approximately $250,009,374) on the Solana blockchain.

Crypto payment company Mesh completes $82 million Series B financing, led by Paradigm

Crypto payment company Mesh announced the completion of $82 million in Series B financing to expand its global payment settlement network based on stablecoins. This round of financing was led by Paradigm, with participation from ConsenSys, QuantumLight, Yolo Investments, Evolution VC, Hike Ventures, Opportuna and AltaIR Capital. Most of the investment funds were settled through PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin. Mesh is building a blockchain payment network that enables users to pay with crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL), while merchants can choose to settle with stablecoins such as Circle's USDC, PayPal's PYUSD or Ripple's RLUSD. Bam Azizi, co-founder and CEO of Mesh, said the funds will be used for global expansion to make crypto payments as convenient as credit card payments.

OpenAI launches new tools to simplify AI agent development: Responses API and Agents SDK

According to official OpenAI news, OpenAI has launched a new Responses API and Agents SDK to help developers and enterprises build efficient and reliable AI agents. The Responses API integrates the Chat Completions and Assistants API functions, supports built-in tools such as web search, file search, and computer control, while the Agents SDK supports multi-agent collaboration, task scheduling, and observability optimization. OpenAI said that the platform will simplify the development of AI agent systems and plans to continuously enhance functions to promote the implementation of AI agents in various industries.

SEC postpones approval of multiple crypto spot ETFs including ADA, SOL, XRP

U.S. SEC documents show that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has postponed the approval of several cryptocurrency spot ETF applications, including Grayscale Spot Cardano (ADA) ETF, Canary Spot XRP ETF, Canary Spot Solana ETF, Canary Spot Litecoin ETF and VanEck Spot Solana ETF.

US House of Representatives votes to overturn IRS DeFi broker rules

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Tuesday to overturn the IRS's broker rules for decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. The rule requires crypto entities to collect specific taxpayer and transaction information, which is difficult for DeFi platforms to implement. Previously, the U.S. Senate had voted to pass the resolution, but due to budget rules, it still needs to vote again before it can be sent to President Trump for signature. Senior advisers to the Trump administration have advised him to sign the resolution, and once it takes effect, the IRS will be prohibited from proposing similar regulations again. Jason Smith, a Republican congressman from Missouri who supports the resolution, said the rule could harm American businesses and inhibit innovation, and that DeFi platforms cannot collect user data like traditional brokers. Opponents believe that this move will be used by "rich tax evaders, drug dealers and terrorists" and could increase the national debt by $40 billion.

Tesla rebounded 3.7%, and Strategy and Coinbase stock prices both rebounded significantly

At the close of U.S. stocks on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average initially closed down 1.1%, the S&P 500 fell 0.76%, and the Nasdaq fell 0.18%. Tesla (TSLA.O) rose 3.7%, Nvidia (NVDA.O) rose 1.6%, and Apple (AAPL.O) fell 2.9%. Among blockchain concept stocks, Strategy (MSTR.O) rose 8.91% and Coinbase (COIN.O) rose 6.95%.

OKX responds: Bloomberg's article is misleading, OKX is not under EU investigation

OKX said in a post on the X platform: "Bloomberg's article is misleading. Like all other major cryptocurrency exchanges, OKX provides self-custodial wallet services/exchange functions that act as an aggregator to create efficiency for users. When Bybit was hacked, we took two responses. 1. We froze the relevant funds transferred to our CEX; 2. We developed a new function to detect/block hacker addresses from using our DEX or wallet services. Unfortunately, Bybit's statement spread misinformation among reporters. We want to clarify to the community: 1. OKX is not under investigation; 2. This is just an example of Bybit's lack of security knowledge; 3. Our web3 wallet service is no different from that provided by other industry players. We will continue to help Bybit strengthen the industry. But we absolutely refute Bybit's false statements, which have led to misunderstandings about our role in the exchange's serious security breach incident."

Coinbase will list RedStone (RED)

Coinbase Assets said on the X platform that it will add support for RedStone (RED) on the Ethereum (ERC-20 token) network. Do not send this asset over other networks, otherwise your funds may be lost. The specific trading start time has not been disclosed. If liquidity conditions are met, trading will begin on or after 1:00 am Beijing time on March 13. Once the supply of this asset is sufficient, the RED-USD trading pair will be launched in stages. Coinbase will use the "experimental" label to add support for RED.

Jupiter's "2030 Lock-in" proposal passed

SolanaFloor posted on the X platform that despite strong community doubts, the "2030 lock-in" proposal put forward by Jupiter co-founder Meow has been passed with a 63% majority vote. According to the voting results, 280 million JUP tokens will be locked until 2030, and in return, Meow will receive an additional 220 million JUP rewards.

Lead Benefit, a Hong Kong subsidiary of Mingcheng Group, once again spent $27 million to purchase 333 Bitcoins

According to Globenewswire, Mingcheng Group Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: MSW), a Hong Kong company mainly engaged in mud and water engineering, announced that its wholly-owned Hong Kong subsidiary Lead Benefit purchased 333 bitcoins at an average price of US$81,555 per bitcoin on February 28, 2025, with a total investment of approximately US$27 million. Mingcheng intends to use its idle funds to purchase Bitcoin as a short-term investment to capture the potential appreciation of Bitcoin and increase its assets. The company believes that the Bitcoin market is highly liquid and Bitcoin can be easily disposed of to provide funds for the company's wet engineering business when needed. Earlier news, Lead Benefit purchased 500 bitcoins at an average price of US$94,375 per bitcoin on January 9, 2025, with a total investment of approximately US$47 million.

Amber Group transferred 20,000 ETH to CEX, worth $37.36 million

According to on-chain analyst Ember’s monitoring, in the past 15 minutes, Amber Group transferred 20,000 ETH (US$37.36 million) to CEXs such as Binance, OKX, and Gate.

Axelar Foundation Reveals $30M AXL Token Sale to Expand Interoperability Protocol

According to The Block, the Axelar Foundation has announced a strategic sale of AXL tokens worth $30 million. The foundation said on Tuesday that several cryptocurrency investors participated in the token sale, including Arrington Capital, Distributed Global, Electric Capital, Laser Digital, C² Ventures, Plassa Capital and Wagmi Ventures. However, the foundation declined to disclose the sale price or valuation of the AXL tokens. The Axelar Foundation plans to expand the use of the US dollar through stablecoins and support institutional tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) through its interoperability protocol. A spokesperson for the foundation said that the investments were made "in recent months." "Part of the investment involves the purchase of unlocked AXL tokens from the Axelar Foundation's community project quota, which will be subject to a new round of lock-up periods ranging from six to twelve months." This means that the Axelar Foundation is not the only seller in the transaction. The spokesperson declined to identify the other sellers. Other sellers may have facilitated the transaction through over-the-counter (OTC) transactions, that is, investors acquired AXL tokens that were already in circulation. According to a spokesperson for the foundation, the latest $30 million investment announced by the Axelar Foundation adds to the $100 million previously raised through multiple rounds of financing and a public token sale, further increasing its total investment.

StarkWare builds a “strategic Bitcoin reserve” to realize Starknet’s vision of unifying Bitcoin and Ethereum

According to The Block, StarkWare announced that it has established a "strategic Bitcoin reserve" and is holding an increasing amount of its treasury funds in the form of BTC. Although the company has not yet disclosed the specific amount of Bitcoin it holds or plans to acquire, Bitcoin remains a key part of its operating strategy, and StarkWare calls itself a "Bitcoin-based" company. In addition to the Bitcoin reserve, StarkWare also announced three plans on Tuesday to unify the further development of Bitcoin and Ethereum. First, Xverse, a Bitcoin wallet that supports Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 tokens, Bitcoin second-layer Stacks, and Rare Sats, will be integrated into Starknet, enabling the use of Bitcoin assets on the network for the first time. Second, the Starknet Foundation will launch the "BTCFi Season" program, which aims to provide Bitcoin with income opportunities through Starknet. The program aims to activate idle BTC and introduce DeFi use cases on Starknet to Bitcoin holders. Third, the Braavos wallet on Starknet now supports one-click payments through the Bitcoin Lightning Network, improving the speed and efficiency of Bitcoin transactions in the Starknet ecosystem. In the coming months, Starknet plans to launch new Bitcoin-related products, incentives, and partnerships, including collaborations with wallet providers and researchers, the launch of retail products to promote adoption, and continued research to enhance Bitcoin’s scalability through STARK proofs.

Bitwise launches an ETF that tracks listed companies holding more than 1,000 BTC, with Strategy accounting for 20%

According to CoinDesk, Bitwise Invest has launched the Bitwise Bitcoin Standard Corporations ETF (OWNB), an ETF designed to track public companies that hold at least 1,000 bitcoins. The index follows specific rules: companies must hold at least 1,000 BTC, and holdings are weighted according to the number of bitcoins held. The maximum holding is capped at 20%, while companies with less than 33% of Bitcoin assets are weighted at 1.5%. The index is rebalanced quarterly. According to Bitwise, by the end of 2024, public companies held a total of 591,817 BTC. The ETF will be traded on the NYSE Arca platform with an expense ratio of 0.85%. Bitwise has identified 70 public companies that currently hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets. The ETF's top three holdings include Strategy (20.87%), MARA Holdings (12.12%), and CleanSpark (6.26%).

GoPlus Security announces $4.34 million buyback plan and $2 million user compensation plan

In response to the price fluctuations of GPS tokens, GoPlus Security released a remediation and improvement plan on the X platform: 1. Market maker fund repurchase commitment, Binance has frozen the USDT assets generated by GPS transactions in the original market maker account (the current balance is 4.34 million USDT). Once the regulatory procedures are completed, these funds will be transferred to our control. We promise: within 90 days, in accordance with laws, regulations and market rules, use these funds to repurchase GPS tokens to support healthy market development; optimize market liquidity through this repurchase plan, reduce the impact of previous market making activities, and rebuild market confidence; ensure that the repurchase process is transparent and compliant, regularly update the community, and maintain close communication with relevant parties. Repurchase principles: set limit orders on Binance's GPS/USDT trading pair; make multiple small purchases every day to avoid causing market fluctuations; all repurchased tokens will be permanently destroyed to prevent future market impact. 2. Additional compensation plan: The team has allocated an additional $2 million in funds to compensate users directly. This compensation will be distributed directly through Binance to users who made net purchases on the Binance platform between 21:00:00 on March 4 and 17:55:59 on March 5 (UTC+8). Eligible users will receive a corresponding share of the $2 million USDC. Net buyer definition: The total amount of GPS tokens purchased during the qualification period minus the total amount of GPS tokens sold must be a positive number. Note: This compensation plan includes spot and leverage users. In addition, GoPlus Security has also released several improvement plans including a pledge user incentive plan, enhanced token utility, and optimized liquidity management. Among them, the user incentive plan is to take a snapshot of all pledge wallets at 10:00 UTC on March 13 to record the duration and amount of pledges; these loyal pledgers will receive additional GPS token allocations in the next quarter's airdrop.

CBOE applies to SEC to add staking functionality to Fidelity Ethereum ETF

Cboe BZX Exchange, a subsidiary of the Chicago Board Options Exchange Group, has submitted a proposed rule change to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to amend the relevant provisions of the Fidelity Ethereum Fund. The shares of the trust have been approved by the Commission to be listed and traded on the exchange under BZX Rule 14.11(e)(4). The amendment is intended to allow the Ethereum held by the trust to be pledged.

US Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis announces resubmission of new version of Bitcoin bill

Cynthia Lummis, a crypto-friendly U.S. senator and chair of the U.S. Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee, announced on the X platform that a new version of the Bitcoin bill would be resubmitted. According to her introduction, "This legislation will enshrine President Trump's grand vision of establishing a U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve and his determination to consolidate our country's economic foundation for future generations into law." Cynthia Lummis said that Bitcoin is not only a technological opportunity, but also a national priority for the United States to continue to maintain its financial leadership in the 21st century, ensuring that the country will fully utilize the potential of digital innovation, solve the national debt, and maintain its competitive advantage in the global economy.

Bloomberg: EU regulators are reviewing whether OKX’s Web3 services fall within their regulatory scope

European cryptocurrency regulators are reviewing the use of a service offered by crypto exchange OKX, which hackers used to launder $1.5 billion stolen from trading platform Bybit, according to people familiar with the matter. The people requested anonymity because the deliberations are confidential. They said national regulators from the 27 EU member states discussed the issue at a meeting hosted by the European Securities and Markets Authority's Standing Committee on Digital Finance on March 6. OKX is regulated by the EU's new Crypto-Asset Market Regulation. Two people familiar with the matter said regulators are focusing on OKX's Web3 service. OKX promotes the service as a decentralized financial platform and self-custodial wallet that gives cryptocurrency traders access to a variety of exchanges and blockchains. Bybit said authorities believe hackers linked to North Korea laundered about $100 million in cryptocurrency proceeds through the Web3 platform. The regulators are concerned about whether the Web3 platform falls under the jurisdiction of MiCA and, if so, what potential penalties should be imposed on OKX, the people said. The attack on Bybit is the largest and most complex attack on the cryptocurrency industry to date, highlighting key vulnerabilities in the ecosystem as North Korean hackers increasingly target exchanges. The hackers quickly laundered the tokens they stole (mostly Ethereum) through decentralized platforms and so-called cross-chain bridges.

Circle reduces USDC cross-chain settlement time to seconds through protocol update

According to The Block, Circle, the issuer of the stablecoin USDC, announced a protocol update on Tuesday, saying it will reduce cross-chain settlement times from minutes to seconds. The company's newly launched Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol V2 (CCTP V2) will improve on CCTP V1, using "a new set of smart contracts and APIs" to reduce the "average 13 to 19 minutes for typical blockchain transactions" between Ethereum and Layer 2 blockchains to just a few seconds. Circle said that CCTP V2 will initially be available to developers developing on Avalanche, Base and Ethereum, but plans to add support for more blockchains within this year. "CCTP V1 will continue to be available on 11 blockchains," Circle said, adding that since its launch in 2023, "CCTP has facilitated more than $36 billion in transaction volume." Some of the new features of CCTP V2 that Circle highlighted on Tuesday include "Hooks," which it said allows developers to "automate post-transfer operations on the target blockchain."

The total net outflow of the U.S. Bitcoin spot ETF yesterday was $369 million, continuing the net outflow for 6 consecutive days

According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (March 10, Eastern Time), the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $369 million. Yesterday, Grayscale ETF GBTC had a single-day net outflow of $20.5956 million, and the current historical net outflow of GBTC is $22.441 billion. BlackRock ETF IBIT had a single-day net outflow of $89.24 million, and the current historical net inflow of IBIT is $39.49 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $88.141 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (market value to the total market value of Bitcoin) is 5.6%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $35.773 billion.

Bubblemaps releases BMT token economics: airdrop accounts for 22.2%

Bubblemaps, an on-chain data visualization platform, released the BMT token economics, with a total supply of 1 billion, 26.3% for the ecosystem and community, 24.3% for investors, 22.2% for airdrops, 12.2% for liquidity, 9% for the team, and 6% for protocol development and research. BMT is a cross-chain token issued on BNB Chain and Solana through the LayerZero OFT standard, and the current supply distribution ratio is: 12% on the BNB chain and 88% on the Solana chain.

Lens Chain announces that its mainnet will be launched soon

According to official news, Lens Chain announced that it has passed the vote to join the Elastic Network on ZKSync, and the mainnet will be launched soon. According to the summary of the proposal vote mentioned by Lens Chain, Lens Chain is a high-performance chain built with ZKsync and Avail. The Lens Labs team worked with Matter Labs to create this chain and migrated user profiles, followers, and published content from Lens V2 on Polygon to Lens Chain; since the state including the migrated data will be applied at the time of genesis, it is necessary to apply to include this chain in the Elastic Network.

Changpeng Zhao: YZi Labs will invest in an MVP project that uses BNB/BSC as the main payment option

Zhao Changpeng posted on Binance Square last weekend: "Time-based tokens, where KOLs tokenize their time, have recently become popular again. Although there have been many attempts in the past, none of them have successfully gained a foothold. What I always want to optimize is not time, but reach. X (or LinkedIn) provides this ability, but the threshold is too low, resulting in a lot of spam, making these platforms unusable. Here is a platform concept where the KOL connects his X (or LinkedIn) account to the platform to verify his identity. Then he sets a price, such as 1 or 0.1 BNB, for people to send him a message. Anyone can send him/her a message after paying this amount first. . If the KOL does not reply within 5 days, 50% of the payment amount will be returned to the requester. The requester still has to bear a certain cost, which helps prevent spam and encourages them to write messages effectively. KOLs are motivated to reply because they can get an additional 50%. The platform charges a 10% fee on all transactions. In terms of payment, the requester pays the platform in cryptocurrency, and the platform then transfers 90% of the payment to the address provided by the KOL. No new tokens need to be created. No time-based tokens are used. Hopefully, the demand for the platform will be large enough to make it a sustainable business. This could be a good way for KOLs or professional consultants to get paid for replying. YZi Labs may invest in a project that develops a good MVP using BNB/BSC as the main payment option. This should take a few days/weeks of coding and security review. If the platform is secure enough, I will be the first user. " In response to this, Zhao Changpeng released an update on the X platform today saying: "There are already three prototypes. One will be picked for testing and investment. "

Bubblemaps (BMT) Now Available on Binance Alpha

According to the official page, Binance Alpha has added Bubblemaps (BMT).

Bubblemaps has opened airdrop query for V2 users

According to official news, Bubblemaps announced that it will issue BMT token airdrops to V2 users, and airdrop inquiries are now open. Eligible users are selected from the top ranked users through a lottery system, and a witch detection algorithm is used to filter out spam and robot behavior.

Jupiter has launched Pre-IPO stock token trading functionality.

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