Important information last night and this morning (March 17-March 18)
Reprinted from panewslab
03/18/2025·3M
Metaplanet announces issuance of 2 billion yen zero-interest ordinary bonds to buy more Bitcoin
According to official news, Japanese listed company Metaplanet Inc. announced the issuance of 2 billion yen (about 13.38 million US dollars) zero-interest ordinary bonds to buy more Bitcoin.
Regarding Cronos's vote to restore the destroyed 70 billion CRO proposal, Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje (AC) posted a questioning and sarcastic on X platform: "Tomorrow, Cronos' market value will rise from $2.5 billion to $8.5 billion, only one vote, and this only requires one voter. 1. The market value is a meme. 2. Decentralization does not matter until it becomes important. 3. Immutability does not matter until it becomes important." Previous news, Cronos' proposal to restore the destroyed 70 billion CRO was voted, but the voting process was questioned by the community, saying that the voting was driven by large validators operated by Crypto.com.
According to the on-chain analyst Yuchen Monitor, the "Hyperliquid 50x giant whale" has currently shorted BTC in full, 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 $520 million) with 40x leverage, with a cost price of $83,898 and a liquidation price of $85,561. To this end, he transferred USDC 16.75 million as margin to the Hyperliquid account, which is also all the funds in his address (including several million principal + more than ten million USDC 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, its two small long positions, MELANIA and HYPE, have been closed and have suffered a slight loss. Subsequently, he increased his position in BTC short positions again.
Voting data on Mintscan shows that Cronos' proposal to restore the destroyed 70 billion CROs was passed with a 62.18% approval rating, which proposed to restore the 70 billion CRO tokens destroyed in 2021 to build Cronos strategic reserves and will update network parameters and token allocations in the Cronos POS V5 upgrade. In addition, according to Un Chained, the above proposal almost had a slightly more vote in favor than a no vote before March 16, but it did not reach the quorum of 33.4% required to take effect at that time. Before the vote ended, 3.35 billion CRO tokens were added to the favor category, reaching the quorum, and the turnout rate far exceeded the highest turnout rate. The voting in question comes from large validators operated by Crypto.com (including Starship, Falcon Heavy, Electron, Antares and Minotaur IV), which controls 70-80% of the total voting rights, sources said. A token holder said on Telegram about the final result. "They (Crypto.com) voted almost at the last minute. Now they have created a precedent that other projects can follow."
Dragonfly Managing Partner: I missed Solana seed round, the worst investment mistake ever
Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi posted on X platform: "I missed Solana's seed round at $0.04 in early 2018, which is equivalent to 3,250 times the return at the current price. Solana was one of the first projects I came into contact with as a junior venture capital, when I wrote a memo for every missed deal. Now rereading this memo is simply an embarrassing pinnacle of junior venture capital. We were obsessed with the 'Ethereum Killer', consensus protocols, and what would replace EVM/eWASM. So, that's the unedited version (i.e. the memo it wrote) - the worst investment mistake ever."
Trump and his partners netted $390 million from WLFI token sales
According to Decrypt, the Trump family’s DeFi project World Liberty Financial (WLFI), announced on Monday that it had completed $550 million in WLFI governance token sales. According to World Liberty’s gold filing, Trump and his business partners will receive 75% of the project’s net revenue after deducting operating costs, including WLFI token sales. Of the funds raised from WLFI sales, $30 million has been designated to pay for company fees, compensation and obligations. According to the project’s golden documents, Trump and his partners at DT Marks DEFI LLC will receive 75% of the remaining amount — a total of $390 million — as a reward for Trump to promote the project “from time to time” and allow him to use his name and image. It is not clear who else will receive funds from the LLC besides the president himself. DT Marks DEFI is located in Jupiter, Florida, and is located at the Trump Organization's executive office, according to SEC documents.
CryptoQuant CEO believes Bitcoin bull cycle has ended
Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of CryptoQuant, posted on the X platform that the bull market cycle of Bitcoin has ended and the price is expected to show a 6-12-month bearish or sideways trend; each on-chain indicator indicates the arrival of a bear market; as new liquidity drys up, new whales are selling Bitcoin at a lower price.
According to the official blog, Trump's crypto project WLFI announced the completion of a total of $550 million token sale, 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 funding innovation projects, promote ecosystem growth, and “create new opportunities” in the rapidly growing DeFi sector.
Pump.fun once again deposits 196,370 SOLs into Kraken, worth $25.31 million
According to OnchainLens monitoring, one hour ago, Pump.fun deposited 196,370 SOLs to Kraken, worth $25.31 million. In 2025, Pump.fun sent a total of 1,519,200 SOLs to Kraken, worth $285.42 million. Overall, they have earned 3,184,205 SOLs and are currently worth $408.37 million.
Ripple submits trademark applications for hosting services and wallets
According to Cointelegraph, Ripple Labs has submitted 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 seeking to expand its revenue sources beyond payment settlement. In addition, the trademark application also mentioned "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. Currently, the company has not yet provided official wallet services, but if launched, the product may support XRP and other digital assets and create new revenue streams through transaction fees.
Solana Futures Completes First Trading Day in CME
Solana futures were first traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group's U.S. derivatives exchange on March 17, Cointelegraph reported. According to preliminary data from the CME website, on March 17, the first trading day of the contract, SOL futures representing nearly 40,000 SOL nominal value changed hands on the exchange, accounting for nearly $5 million at the current price. Early pricing data show that traders may be bearish about SOL. CME will not release final data on daily trading volumes until the next business day. CME data shows that the trading price of April futures contracts is US$127 per SOL - US$2 lower than each token for contracts expired in March. On March 16, trading companies FalconX and StoneX said they completed their first SOL futures trading on CME. Previously, news from 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's soft fork proposal
According to CoinDesk's signings to Blockspace, two Bitcoin improvement proposals (BIPs): BIP 119 and BIP 348 are gaining public support, which may be implemented in Bitcoin's next soft fork. 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 are explicitly supported by numerous developers and can significantly improve Bitcoin’s self-custody, fee management, and existing technologies such as 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's soft fork requires support from stakeholders including developers, custodians, investors and miners, and miners need to express support for making changes to the blocks they mine.
Arbitrum Ecosystem launches "Onchain Labs" to support early-stage projects
According to CoinDesk, the major organizations supporting Arbitrum blockchain, Offchain Labs and the Arbitrum Foundation have launched a new initiative to launch early projects in the ecosystem. According to a blog post by Offchain Labs, the new program, “Onchain Labs”, is designed to provide marketing support for “experimental and volatility” projects. Offchain Labs promotes this program to inspire wider Arbitrum ecosystem activities and interests. The company's blog post revealed that the first batch of Onchain Labs projects will be announced soon. Offchain Labs stressed that the new plan only supports projects that explicitly “promise fair and just launch”, i.e. avoiding token launches and other mechanisms that favor insiders. The selection criteria are designed to circumvent “extractive ecosystems” and “zero-sum games.” Additionally, Tandem, the venture capital arm of Offchain Labs, “may or may not buy related tokens on the open market.”
US SEC Acting Chairman directs staff to re-examine proposed cryptocurrency custody rules
According to The Block, the 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. SEC Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda said at the 2025 Investment Management Conference of the Association of Investment Companies held in San Diego on Monday that commenters expressed serious concerns about a rule proposed in February 2023 that requires registered investment advisers to hand over cryptocurrencies to qualified custodians and require these custodians to comply with certain regulations, “In view of these concerns, there may be significant challenges in advancing the original proposal, and therefore, I have asked 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 postponing compliance dates. The custody rule was proposed by the SEC led by Gary Gensler during the former Biden administration and aims to extend the existing custody rules to include any client assets held by the consultant and add more protections to those assets. Uyeda's move to revisit the rule marks the second time this month requires SEC staff to reconsider its rules. Last week, Uyeda said he had directed the agency staff to review a proposed rule change that would expand the definition of an “exchange” that could include decentralized cryptocurrency projects.
Tokenization company Ethena Labs plans to migrate its $6 billion DeFi ecosystem to Converge, a new Ethereum-compatible blockchain it has built in partnership with Securities, according to The Block. According to an announcement on Monday, Converge is built on Ethereum virtual institutions and aims to make DeFi more accessible to institutions by providing compliant settlement and hosting services. The public network will integrate native KYC (Know Your Customers) features and provide access to Ethena and Securitize whitelisted investment products. The two companies have selected Copper, Fireblocks, Komainu and Zodia for hosting services, and have invited major DeFi protocols Aave, Ethereal, Maple Finance, Morpho and Pendle as startup partners. The protocol is licensed to be accessed without permission and will run in parallel with Converge's "Limited Application Set" product. 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 submitted S-1 documents to apply for launching Canary SUI ETF
According to SEC documents, Canary has submitted S-1 documents and applied to launch the Canary SUI ETF (file number: 0002060703).
Slingshot DAO completes $16 million in financing, SLING tokens are about to go online
According to official Slingshot DAO, the project has successfully completed a $16 million financing, and investors include 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 be opened soon.
Bitcoin spot ETF net outflows of $838 million last week, BlackRock IBIT ranking first
According to SoSoValue data, from March 10 to March 14 (East Time), Bitcoin spot ETF had a net outflow of US$838 million in a single week, of which BlackRock IBIT ETF had a net outflow of US$338 million, and the cumulative net inflow was still US$39.24 billion, ranking first among all ETFs. Fidelity FBTC ETF outflows $317 million, while ARKB ETF net inflows $32.02 million and Grayscale BTC Trust net inflows $5.51 million. As of now, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached US$93.54 billion, accounting for 5.61% of BTC's market value, and a cumulative net inflow of US$35.3 billion in history.
Ethereum spot ETF net outflow of $178 million last week, with BlackRock ETHA ranking first
According to SoSoValue data, from March 10 to March 13 (East Time), Ethereum spot ETF had a net outflow of US$178 million in a single week, of which BlackRock ETHA ETF had a total outflow of US$63.3 million, with a total outflow of US$4.15 billion, ranking first among all ETFs. Fidelity FETH ETF outflows $49.66 million, while VanEck ETHV and Invesco QETH net inflows $1.35 million and $1.06 million, respectively. As of now, the total net asset value of ETH spot ETFs has reached US$6.72 billion, accounting for 2.90% of ETH's market value, and a cumulative net inflow of US$2.52 billion in history.
Hashdex submits an ETF revision to the SEC, intending to include LTC in the index
According to the Litecoin Foundation, crypto asset manager 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 components of the ETF, further promoting the compliance process of Litecoin in the traditional financial markets and 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 with DeFi and promote RWA financialization (RWAfi).
Strategy's Bitcoin holdings rose to 499,226, with an average cost of $66,360
According to the official Strategy document (8-K report), the company increased its holdings of 130 bitcoins from March 10 to March 16, 2025, totaling about US$10.7 million, with an average purchase price of $82,981. The purchase funds are derived 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 cumulative purchase cost of approximately US$33.1 billion, and an average holding cost of US$66,360.
MicroStrategy increases its holdings of 130 bitcoins, with an average purchase 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 about $10.7 million, and an average purchase price of $82,981.
Base chain contract deployment volume reached 11.4 million last week, setting a record high
According to Token Terminal data, last week, the number of smart contract deployments on the Layer Network (L2) Base reached 11.4 million, a record high.
Binance Contracts to Launch BMTUSDT and MUBARAKUSDT Perpetual Contracts
According to Binance official announcement, Binance Futures will officially launch the BMTUSDT perpetual contract at 21:30 on March 17, 2025 (Beijing time), and launch the MUBARAKUSDT perpetual contract at 21:45 (Beijing time). Both support up to 25 times leverage. Previously, Bubblemaps (BMT) and Mubarak (MUBARAK) have been listed on Binance Alpha Market.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Circle added $250 million in USDC to the Solana chain. As of now, Circle has minted US$10.25 billion USDC on Solana in 2025.
According to Crypto In America, Canadian bitcoin mining company Bitfarms announced that it had successfully completed a full-stock acquisition transaction of Stronghold Digital Mining, with a transaction value of more than US$110 million, becoming the largest merger and acquisition between two listed bitcoin mining companies. The acquisition will make Bitfarms' North American energy market share jump from 6% to 80%, especially in the US PJM power grid layout. It is worth noting that Riot Platforms, the world's second largest Bitcoin mining company, tried to hostilely acquire Bitfarms, but failed in the end and chose to hold a 20% stake in Bitfarms. In addition, the US SEC will hold an industry roundtable this Friday to discuss the securities attributes of crypto assets, which is expected to affect the future industry regulatory direction. Meanwhile, New York held several crypto industry conferences this week, including Tokenize NYC, Blockworks DAS and Medici NY, attracting many industry leaders and policy makers.
According to the latest report by CoinShares, digital asset investment products have experienced capital outflows for five consecutive weeks, with a total of US$6.4 billion, the worst capital outflow on record. This week, the outflow of funds reached US$1.7 billion, of which the net outflow of Bitcoin was US$978 million, and the cumulative outflow of US$5.4 billion in the past five weeks. The U.S. market accounted for 93% of the outflow, reaching $1.16 billion, Switzerland was outflowing $528 million due to seed investors' withdrawal, while Germany was inflowing $8 million. Ethereum and Solana flowed out $175 million and $2.2 million, respectively, while XRP flowed out $1.8 million against the trend. Binance almost cleared assets under management (AuM) with only $15 million left due to seed investors exit. In addition, blockchain stock investment products leaked $40 million last week.
A giant whale transfers 280,000 AUCTION to Binance, worth about $9.72 million
According to on-chain analyst Ember Monitor, an address recently withdraws 2 million AUCTIONs from Binance (accounting for 26% of the total supply), but it starts to transfer AUCTION back to Binance today. The latest large-scale transfer occurred 10 minutes ago, with a total of 280,000 AUCTIONs (about 9.72 million US dollars) flowing into Binance.
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