PA Daily | GameStop includes BTC into the company's reserve assets; Grayscale adds IP, SYRUP and GEOD as Q2 potential tokens
Reprinted from panewslab
03/26/2025·1MToday's news tips:
South Korea blocks applications of 17 unregistered virtual asset companies including KuCoin and MEXC
GameStop Includes Bitcoin in Company Reserve Assets
USDC Treasury added 300 million USDCs to Ethereum in the early morning today
The US SEC terminates investigations into Immutable and related parties and finds no violations
Ripple to recover $75 million in court fine from SEC and withdraw appeal
Matrixport: Bitcoin approaches key resistance level, bull flag pattern gradually established
Regulatory/Macro
North Carolina proposal to allow pensions to invest in crypto assets at a maximum of 5%
North Carolina lawmakers have submitted two bills to the House and Senate, proposing that some pension funds be invested in crypto assets at a maximum of 5%. Rep. Brenden Jones introduced the State Investment Modernization Act (HB 506), while the Senate filed a similar SB 709 bill. These bills are designed to establish independent “investment institutions” that manage investments in a variety of funds, including state pension funds. The bill stipulates that investment institutions can invest their funds in digital assets such as cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and NFTs, and must adopt secure custody solutions to assess the risks and returns of assets. Previously, North Carolina had submitted relevant bills authorizing state finance officials to invest in Bitcoin. Crypto assets are becoming the investment direction that U.S. state legislators are paying attention to. Previous news, North Carolina's Bitcoin Reserves Act intends to authorize 10% of public funds to purchase Bitcoin.
South Korea blocks applications of 17 unregistered virtual asset companies including KuCoin and MEXC
According to the requirements of the Korean Institute of Financial Intelligence Analysis (FIU), since March 25, Google LLC has imposed domestic access restrictions on Google Play applications of 17 overseas virtual asset service providers that are not registered in South Korea. These service providers include KuCoin, MEXC, etc. Users will not be able to install the relevant applications, and existing users will not be able to update them. According to the "Report and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information", if an unregistered overseas virtual asset service provider provides services to Korean users, such as providing Korean websites, holding activities to attract Korean customers, or supporting Korean won payments, they must fulfill their registration obligations, otherwise they will face imprisonment of not more than 5 years or a fine of not more than 50 million won. In addition, FIU has handed over some unregistered service providers to the investigation agency and has continued to take measures to prevent users from being infringed due to information leakage or financial losses.
According to the Financial Times, asset management giant Fidelity Investments is promoting the issuance of its own stablecoins as part of expanding its digital asset strategy. The stablecoin will be managed in its digital asset division and is currently in the late stages of testing.
GameStop Includes Bitcoin in Company Reserve Assets
According to the official announcement of GameStop, the company's board of directors unanimously approved an update of its investment policy on March 25, Eastern Time, to use Bitcoin as one of the company's reserve assets.
According to the SEC official website, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Cryptocurrency Working Group announced that it will hold four new round tables from April to June 2025, covering issues such as crypto trading, custody, asset tokenization and DeFi. The time and themes of the four public roundtables are: "Tailed Supervision for Crypto Trading" on April 11, "Key Issues of Custody Institutions" on April 25, "Asset On-chain and Traditional Finance Integration" on May 12, and "DeFi and the American Spirit" on June 6. Commissioner Hester Peirce called this a "spring sprint to a clear encryption" and marked a new direction for the SEC to shift from law enforcement to cooperation and clear regulatory frameworks. The meeting will be open to the public and broadcast live online.
Viewpoint
Matrixport: Bitcoin approaches key resistance level, bull flag pattern gradually established
According to Matrixport analysis, Bitcoin is currently approaching a breakthrough in a key downward trend line that has continued to suppress prices since the market selloff before and after Trump took office. Currently, Bitcoin is forming a "high-level compact flag", a technological pattern that is usually regarded as a bullish continuation pattern. The report pointed out that Bitcoin has broken through the initial downward trend line (white line) and is testing more important resistance levels (grey line). If a successful breakthrough is made, it will send out a signal that the downside risk is significantly alleviated. In combination with the dovish tone of the Federal Reserve FOMC meeting and the market environment tends to be favorable, this change has also been more verified on the technical side.
According to Grayscale's latest research report, the cryptocurrency market overall correction in the first quarter of 2025, consistent with the performance of technology stocks and other high-risk assets. The Bitcoin network activity metric is generally healthy, with the number of addresses holding balances of more than $1 hitting a new high of 48 million, showing that its "store of value" attribute attracting more demand. However, the number of active users of the smart contract platform remains stable, and its ecological monthly active users fell from 140 million in the fourth quarter of last year to an average of 90 million this quarter due to the slowdown in Memecoin transaction boom on the Solana chain. The report pointed out that blockchain application layer assets (such as finance, consumer culture, and service assets) generated a total of more than $2 billion in revenue this quarter, of which the Solana platform contributed about $390 million, accounting for nearly half of the total revenue of smart contract platforms. Meanwhile, Grayscale has re-adjusted the top 20 crypto assets list, adding Maple (SYRUP), Geodnet (GEOD) and Story Protocol (IP). Grayscale believes that the growth of these emerging non-speculative use cases reflects signs of maturity in the crypto industry, and is optimistic about the future development of Ethereum scaling solutions, blockchain and AI integration, and DeFi and staking-related protocols.
Synthetix founder Kain Warwick shared his views on market makers, pointing out that some market makers manipulate prices through low-circuit markets, exploit loans and options arbitrage, and even sell discount tokens before token generation events (TGEs) and pull up prices quickly. He mentioned that Synthetix was manipulated by DWF Labs. Although it brought short-term liquidity, it was not conducive to the long-term development of the token. He called on investors to be wary of projects sending large amounts of tokens to market makers and demand more transparency.
Augustine Fan, head of research at SignalPlus, said that despite continued concerns about a slowdown in the U.S. economy, the market may gradually rebound from last week's downturn and is expected to maintain a moderate rebound by the end of the month. He pointed out that the "Liberation Day" tariff policy announced by Trump on April 2 will become the next important catalyst. If the tariff policy is relatively moderate, it may repair the recent technical losses of US stocks and drive global markets to rebound, especially with the recent rise in the EU and Chinese stock markets. Fan also mentioned that cryptocurrencies will continue to closely follow stock market performance in the short term, and currently lack unique market drivers. However, recent mergers and acquisitions from Coinbase and Kraken have made people confident about the long-term bull market prospects of the crypto market.
Project News
Abracadabra has repurchased $6.5 million in MIM and covered 50% of hacker losses
According to official Abracadabra Money, its gmCauldrons product suite was hacked yesterday, causing the protocol to lose about $13 million in MIM tokens. Other products were not affected. Abracadabra DAO has begun to take measures to deal with this incident, including the use of the $19 million assets of the DAO vault to repay part of the losses. It has repurchased $6.5 million in MIM and covered 50% of the total losses. The remaining part will be gradually absorbed in the next few months and is expected to be completed in mid-2025. In the next few months, Abracadabra will focus on four major directions: vault remediation plan, Berachain expansion, Nibiru ecological deployment and Purrrswap protocol incubation. The vault will continue to support the stability of MIM tokens while reducing market volatility through phased operations. The expansion of Berachain and Nibiru will introduce new Cauldrons and stablecoin trading capabilities to drive ecological innovation. In addition, the Purrrswap protocol is about to be launched and will become the first stablecoin trading platform on HyperEVM. Previous news, Paidun: GMX and MIM Spell hacking losses have reached about $13 million.
Celo officially transforms into Ethereum Layer2 network, adopting Optimism OP Stack
According to The Block, Celo blockchain officially transformed from an independent Layer1 to an Ethereum Layer2 network on March 26, using Optimism's OP Stack technology. This migration aims to improve scalability and interoperability, and connect with the Ethereum ecosystem. After the transformation, Celo has the advantages of native bridging and block production in 1 second, and Aave, Uniswap and others are the first partners.
According to the announcement of GoPlus Security, its first batch of $GPS token repurchases have been executed, and the current cumulative number of repurchases has reached 34,906,177. The repurchase is still in progress, and all tokens will be destroyed uniformly after the repurchase is completed.
Movement wallet address has received 10 million MOVEs from Binance in the early morning
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, the Movement Foundation's strategic reserve wallet received 10 million MOVE tokens from Binance early this morning, at an hourly price of approximately US$5.47 million. Yesterday, the foundation announced it would buy back $38 million worth of MOVE tokens within three months, a move that stems from recovering funds from a market maker suspected of misconduct.
Nubank adds support for four tokens: ADA, NEAR, ATOM and ALGO
The cryptocurrency trading platform Nubank launched by Brazilian digital bank Nubank has added four tokens: Cardano (ADA), Near Protocol (NEAR), Cosmos (ATOM) and Algorand (ALGO), enriching the investment portfolio of the original 16 assets. The platform has recently added 11 new USDC trading pairs and provides annualized 4% fixed returns to users with more than 10 USDCs.
The US SEC terminates investigations into Immutable and related parties and finds no violations
According to VentureBeat, Immutable announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has officially terminated its investigation into it and related parties, found no violations and will not take further action. This marks the official closing of the Wells notice last year (a preview of possible lawsuits). Immutable President Robbie Ferguson said the move brings regulatory clarity to the Web3 gaming industry and is expected to drive more institutional investment, especially in the in-game purchase market worth over $200 billion.
Ripple to recover $75 million in court fine from SEC and withdraw appeal
According to CoinDesk, Ripple reached a preliminary settlement with the SEC, which agreed to refund $75 million of the $125 million fine ruled by the court last year, leaving only $50 million to close the case. In exchange, Ripple will withdraw its cross appeal. The proposed settlement still requires approval from the court and the committee, which may mark the end of a long-term legal dispute between the two parties.
Important data
According to Aunt Ai, the address 0x15B…8BE1e recharged 22,000 ETH to Binance 5 minutes ago, worth about US$45.35 million. The address filed 20,592 stETHs from Bybit from March 14 to 15 and redeemed through Lido. If the current sale is sold, it will earn more than $3.248 million, with a two-week return of 8.28%.
USDC Treasury added 300 million USDCs to Ethereum in the early morning today
According to Whale Alert monitoring, on-chain data shows that at 3:43, 3:57 and 4:28 am Beijing time today, USDC issuer USDC Treasury minted 100,000,000 USDC on Ethereum, and three times newly minted USDC worth about US$300 million. In addition, at 7:03 this morning, USDC Treasury once again cast 65 million USDCs on Ethereum.
Financing
The dark fantasy chain game "Immortal Rising 2" under lanetarium Labs successfully completed a US$3 million financing led by Solarium Labs before TGE (March 27), and successfully ended NFT sales. Investors in this round of financing also include Web3 institutions and angel investors such as Spartan Group, Immutable, MARBLEX, Comma3 Ventures, Sovrun, 32-Bit Ventures, Notch Ventures, Cristian Manea, Niels de Ruiter. The new funds will be used to expand the ecosystem and enhance gameplay.
Ethereum on-chain oracle service Chronicle completed a $12 million seed round of financing, led by Strobe (formerly Blocktower Venture Capital), and participated by Brevan Howard, 6th Man Ventures, etc. The new funds are intended to support it to provide services to the data infrastructure of tokenized assets.
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