PA Daily | US SEC says POW mining does not involve securities laws; Binance has launched the first batch of voting to place coins
Reprinted from panewslab
03/21/2025·2MToday's news tips:
US SEC says Proof of Work Mining does not involve securities laws
Upbit will launch ORCA tokens in Korean won, BTC and USDT markets
Binance has launched the first batch of voting coins, and the "voting" pool contains 21 tokens
Binance will remove AERGO, AST, BURGER, COMBO, LINA
Upbit will launch ORCA tokens in Korean won, BTC and USDT markets
YZi Labs announces Jane He as its general partner, leading biotech investment
Regulatory/Macro
According to the Korea Economic Daily, the Institute of Financial Intelligence Analysis (FIU), a subsidiary of the Korea Financial Services Commission (FSC), has taken enforcement actions against overseas cryptocurrency exchanges that provide services to South Korean users without registration, which is carried out in accordance with the Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transactions. FIU is reportedly considering blocking website access as a main law enforcement measure, with target exchanges including BitMEX, KuCoin, CoinW, Bitunix and KCEX.
Slow fog Cosine forwarded a security case about the use of hardware wallets on the X platform: "A user stored BTC in a hardware wallet and thought he was restless. After a few years, he found that the battery bulge was unusable. He found that the same wallet was then used to change the battery. As a result, he opened it and found that the wallet had been initialized, and there was no backup, which was lost forever. He reminded everyone that he must make a backup when using the hardware wallet. If he needs to repair the hardware wallet, he must find a professional hardware team." Cosine commented on this: "After a few years, the battery bulge was not available. The wallet has been initialized? Which hardware wallet, we avoid pitfalls... If there is a mnemonic backup, it can be tolerated... If there is no backup, it will be true XX..."
US SEC says Proof of Work Mining does not involve securities laws
According to The Block, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) clarified its stance on specific Proof of Work (PoW) mining activities, the latest move by the agency as it switches to a more friendly attitude towards the cryptocurrency industry. In a statement issued by the SEC company’s finance department on Thursday, SEC staff said Proof of Work mining does not involve the issuance and sale of securities; therefore, parties involved in mining activities do not need to register transactions with the committee under the Securities Act, nor do they fall within the scope of registration exemptions related to these mining activities in the Securities Act. The SEC relied on the “Howie Test” in its conclusion Thursday—a case in the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court, which the SEC often cites to determine whether an asset meets the definition of an investment contract and thus belongs to a securities. The test relies on four questions: whether it involves investment in funds, whether it involves common businesses, whether it is expected to make profits, and whether the profit comes from efforts of others.
Metaplanet appoints Trump's son Eric Trump as a member of the strategic advisory board
According to official news, Japanese listed company Metaplanet has appointed Trump's second son Eric Trump as a member of the strategic advisory board.
Australia announces new crypto regulations pledge to solve debankization problems
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has outlined a new digital asset regulatory framework designed to provide industry players with greater certainty while addressing risks associated with consumer protection and market integrity, Decrypt reported. The reform will require major cryptocurrency platforms to obtain Australian financial services licenses, while exempting small-scale businesses and companies that do not involve financial services. The Australian Ministry of Finance issued a statement document on Thursday’s “Developing the Innovative Australian Digital Assets Industry” details plans to regulate digital asset platforms and payment of stablecoins under current financial services laws. “By aligning with international best practices, Australia can enhance the global competitiveness of the digital asset industry,” the document reads. The proposed framework will apply to cryptocurrency exchanges, custodial services, and specific brokerage platforms that facilitate transactions and storage of digital assets. Companies that provide tokenized storage value facilities, including some stablecoin issuers, will also be subject to licensing and compliance obligations. However, companies that create or use digital assets, develop software, or maintain digital asset infrastructure for non-financial purposes will not be subject to the new regulations. The government also acknowledged that debanization (i.e., financial institutions restrict services to cryptocurrency companies) is an increasingly serious problem. The new licensing system aims to improve risk management and transparency within the industry, which may reduce debanking behavior by major financial institutions. "The government has been working with stakeholders to ensure transparency and equity, including engagement with major Australian banks to understand the extent of debanization," the document reads.
YZi Labs announces Jane He as its general partner, leading biotech investment
YZi Labs announced on X platform that Jane He is its general partner, leading biotech investments, while contributing to the company's broad strategy in AI and Web3 fields. Jane's appointment comes as YZi Labs expands its investment focus from Web3 to AI and biotech after its recent rebranding. It is reported that before joining YZi Labs, Jane served as an investor and chief operating officer of a Hong Kong hedge fund, focusing on growth investments in biotech and innovation-driven fields. Her portfolio and research covers cancer therapy (immunotherapy, cell therapy, antibody drug conjugates), metabolic therapy (GLP-1 drugs for obesity and type 2 diabetes), oligonucleotide therapy (mRNA, siRNA, ASO), gene editing, sequencing and medical devices. She is also actively exploring opportunities in the intersection of AI and biotechnology. Jane has held leadership positions at PAAMCO Prisma, an alternative investment management company, where she manages investments in other Asian funds. Jane holds an MBA from Stanford University and graduated as an Arjay Miller academic.
According to PR Newswire, crypto derivatives exchange Bitnomial announced the launch of XRP US Dollar Myra (XRUY) futures, the first CFTC-regulated XRP futures product in the United States. Bitnomial's physical settlement futures ensure that contracts are delivered in actual XRP at settlement, thus distinguishing themselves from cash settlement alternatives that do not interact directly with the underlying assets. In addition, Bitnomial announced that yesterday, Bitnomial Exchange, LLC filed a voluntary withdrawal notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In October 2024, Bitnomial Exchange, LLC filed a lawsuit with the SEC, focusing on whether Bitnomial's XRP futures are securities and futures contracts. Bitnomial welcomes the SEC's growing cryptocurrency policies that provide greater clarity to XRP's securities status.
According to Cryptoslate, Tether continues to play an important role in the U.S. Treasury market, firmly ranking as the seventh largest buyer of U.S. Treasury bonds in 2024. On March 20, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino updated the news on the X platform, revealing that the company purchased $33.1 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds in 2024. This figure exceeds the holdings of countries such as Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Norway, Hong Kong, South Korea, Germany and Saudi Arabia. Despite reaching this milestone, Ardoino noted that the Cayman Islands lead the world with purchases of more than $100 billion. Following closely behind are France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Singapore and the United Kingdom. However, he clarified that holdings in areas such as Cayman Islands and Luxembourg include investments from multiple hedge funds, while Tether's assets are a single entity. Tether uses U.S. Treasury bonds as the cornerstone of its reserve strategy to ensure the stability of the company's USDT stablecoin. According to Tether's latest quarterly reserve report for December 2024, the company's total U.S. Treasury bonds are worth $94 billion.
Viewpoint
10x Research posted on X platform that as expected, the Federal Reserve lowered its economic growth expectations and slightly slowed down the pace of balance sheet shrinkage (QT). Although this move is not as dovey as the market hopes, it still tends to be dovey. Federal Reserve Chairman Powell strengthened the tone at a post-conference press conference, stressing that the recent rise in inflation may be temporary, while long-term inflation expectations remain solid. This suggests that the Fed may remain unchanged for the next few months. The Fed has hinted that interest rate cuts are increasingly likely by acknowledging weak economic growth while downplaying inflation concerns. Our basic view is that the Fed will keep interest rates unchanged until September, and the announced QT slowdown will provide some support. However, persistent risks may limit the upside potential of risky assets after a preliminary rebound. Traders should distinguish short-term tactical bullish layouts from more cautious medium-term prospects. As long as Bitcoin remains below the $90,000-$92,000 resistance zone (which is a major obstacle according to multiple indicators), the market may still be in a consolidation phase. Large investors may remain on the wait-and-see sidelines before Trump is expected to announce tariffs on April 2 and the U.S. corporate earnings season begins around April 11 (major banks start to release earnings). There is little evidence that retail traders are re-entering the market or view Powell's recent dovish remarks as an opportunity to buy. Market structural indicators remain sluggish, suggesting that this rebound is unlikely to gain significant momentum or bring Bitcoin back to broader bullish sentiment.
Zhang Ming, deputy director of the National Finance and Development Laboratory, published an article in the Study Times entitled "Reconstruction of Digital Currencies on the International Financial System", which pointed out that the nature of Bitcoin is not a real currency, but a financial asset with a unique style, which itself has investment value. Bitcoin is more like a risk asset, and it is also like a safe-haven asset that can hedge the fluctuations of the US dollar exchange rate. The article proposes a response strategy for the reconstruction of digital currency to the international financial system. On the one hand, it expands the substitution scope of digital RMB from M0 (cash) to M1 (cash plus demand deposits) or even M2 (cash plus all deposits). On the other hand, it promotes China's stablecoin construction and expands the use of digital tokens on the Internet platform, so as to deal with the challenges of US dollar stablecoins more calmly.
BlackRock Digital Assets Director: The approval for pledge may be a "huge leap" for Ethereum ETFs
According to CNBC, demand for Ethereum ETFs has been lukewarm since its launch in July last year, with Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, saying that if some of the regulatory issues that hinder its development are "solved", the situation may change. Mitchnick said at a digital asset summit in New York City on Thursday that it is widely believed that the success of the Ethereum ETF is “unusual” compared to the explosive growth of funds tracking Bitcoin. Although he believes this is a "misunderstanding", he acknowledged that the inability of these funds to obtain pledge proceeds may be a factor that hinders their development. "Obviously, there is a next stage in the potential development of [Ethereum ETF], and it turns out that ETFs are a very, very attractive tool for many different types of investors to hold Bitcoin. There is no doubt that ETFs without stakes are not perfect for ETH today. Staking returns are an important part of your return on investment in this area, and all [Ethereum] ETFs are not staking when they are launched. This is not a particularly easy problem, and it is not like... the new government just gives the green light and then we're all going well and starting to make a big move. There are many quite complex challenges to solve, but if these problems can be solved, then the activity we see around these products will have a qualitative leap."
Project News
Coinbase adds Freysa (FAI) to its asset roadmap
PANews March 20th news, according to Coinbase Assets, Freysa (FAI) has been added to its asset roadmap.
Binance has launched the first batch of voting coins, and the "voting" pool contains 21 tokens
Binance has launched the first batch of voting and decoins. Each user can vote for up to 5 projects in the "Vote and Decouple" pool, and each verified account can only vote for one vote for each project. Users must log in to their verified Binance account and hold at least 0.01 BNB in their main account throughout the voting period, and their vote is valid. The voting time is 06:30 on March 21, 2025 (UTC) to 23:59 on March 27, 2025 (UTC). The voting results are not the only factor that determines the final decision to be removed from the shelves. Project monitoring is still under evaluation, and the final decision will be made by Binance in accordance with Binance's official review process and standards. In addition, the timetable for removal will depend on Binance's procedures. The options for this vote include JASMY, ZEC, FTT, ELF, SNT, STPT, BAL, ARK, GPS, MBL, PROS, CTXC, HARD, BETA, CREAM, FIRO, VIDT, NULS, TROY, ALPACA, UFT.
Binance will remove AERGO, AST, BURGER, COMBO, LINA
According to the official announcement, Binance decided to stop trading at 11:00 on March 28, 2025 (East Eighth District time) and remove the following currencies: Aergo (AERGO), AirSwap (AST), BurgerCities (BURGER), COMBO (COMBO), Linear Finance (LINA). In addition, the voting function will be introduced after this batch is removed from the shelves. Projects that have been announced to be removed will no longer participate in the voting and withdrawal.
Upbit will launch ORCA tokens in Korean won, BTC and USDT markets
According to the official announcement, Upbit will launch ORCA tokens in the Korean won, BTC and USDT markets.
According to monitoring by the on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, the developer of BSC Meme currency BUBB has invested only 0.31 BNB and has made a floating profit of US$580,000, with a return rate of 3028 times. It bought 3.87% of the chips at a cost of as low as $0.000004878, and transferred 10 million of the tokens to CZ public donation address (accounting for 1% of the total) 27 hours ago. The rest of the chips have not been sold yet. Because He Yi interacted with the official promotion this morning and followed it, BUBB's market value has exceeded $20 million, and the current price is $0.02111.
Pump.fun adds jump to MEXC DEX Plus trading function in the trading panel
Pump.fun integrates a link button to MEXC DEX transaction in the trading panel. Users can directly jump to the DEX Plus launched by the MEXC Exchange for trading. On March 19, MEXC Exchange launched DEXPlus, a hybrid product of CEX and DEX, which currently supports the Solana ecosystem, allowing users to trade on-chain tokens on Raydium and pump.fun directly on the MEXC Exchange client and website. According to official reports, it is planned to expand to Binance Smart Chain (BSC) on March 26.
Bithumb will launch Pax Gold (PAXG) in the Korean won market
South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb announced that it will launch Pax Gold (PAXG) in the Korean won market.
Doodles CEO: White paper will be released before DOOD token TGE
"Before the DOOD Token Generation Event (TGE), we will share our white paper, what we have been building, and how it all is closely connected," Scott Martin (@burnttoast), CEO of NFT project Doodles announced on X platform.
Coinbase adds ALT, PENDLE and L3 to the currency roadmap
Coinbase announced the addition of AltLayer(ALT), Pendle(PENDLE) and Layer3(L3) to the asset listing roadmap.
Pump.fun launches DEX called PumpSwap, which can instantly migrate graduation tokens
According to The Block, Pump.fun, a Meme coin release platform based on Solana, launched a native decentralized exchange (DEX) called PumpSwap. After completing its binding curve, Pump.fun's tokens will be transferred directly to PumpSwap, seemingly skipping the steps to migrate to Solana-based decentralized exchanges and automated market makers (AMM) Raydium. Pump.fun wrote on social media platform X that the move not only cancels the migration fees of 6 SOL, but also opens up opportunities for future creators' revenue sharing. Each transaction on PumpSwap is charged a 0.25% fee, of which 0.2% belongs to the liquidity provider and 0.05% belongs to the agreement. Pump.fun says that PumpSwap is comparable to Uniswap v2 and Raydium v4 through its constant product AMM mechanism. The launch of PumpSwap comes as Pump.fun and Raydium seem to have plans to exclude each other. Pump.fun tested its AMM feature in late February, and Raydium has been reportedly developing its own Meme coin creation platform LaunchLab for the past few months. The launch of PumpSwap is also the time when Pump.fun's transaction volume has dropped by 94% since the beginning of 2025, and subsequently the number of graduation tokens migrated to Raydium has decreased. Tokens must reach a market capitalization of $69,000 on Pump.fun before they can be moved to Raydium for secondary market transactions.
LG announces plans to close its NFT market Art Lab on June 17
According to The Verge, LG is closing its NFT marketplace for TV, Art Lab. LG said in a notice posted on its website that it had made a "hard decision" and would close the platform on June 17. The company said that from March 10, users will no longer be able to make purchases on the platform. The LG Art Lab team will automatically transfer their NFTs to their own wallets by April 30. "As the NFT field continues to evolve, we believe that now is the right time to shift focus and explore new opportunities," LG said. The platform will be closed completely in June. LG launched the Art Lab app during the 2022 NFT boom, promoting it as a way to “buy, sell and appreciate high-quality digital artwork” through TV. It adds new digital art to the platform through "breakthrough" NFT delivery, where users can complete transactions by scanning QR codes and purchases through LG's crypto wallet app Wallypto. When it was launched, LG Art Lab was running on the Hedera network, which used a blockchain alternative called hashgraph, but expanded to Ethereum last year.
Important data
The total market value of stablecoins exceeds US$230 billion for the first time
The total market value of stablecoins exceeded $230 billion for the first time on Thursday, amid U.S. regulators’ efforts to push adoption of stablecoins. According to DefiLlama, the current total market capitalization is $230.45 billion, an increase of $2.3 billion in the past seven days. Compared with the same period last year, the market value of stablecoins increased by 56%. In the overall market value, Tether's USDT stablecoin dominates with a market value of nearly US$144 billion, accounting for 62.6%, followed by Circle's USDC with a market value of US$59 billion.
According to Spot On Chain, 19 new wallets (probably an entity) have withdrawn 61.52 million OMs (about 3.4% of the total supply) from Binance over the past four days, with an average price of $6.82 (total about $420 million). Their current unrealized losses are $14.2 million (-3.39%).
US Bitcoin spot ETF had a total net inflow of US$166 million yesterday, with a net inflow of 5 days
According to SoSoValue data, the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $166 million yesterday (March 20 Eastern Time). Yesterday, the Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net inflow was BlackRock Bitcoin ETF IBIT, with a single-day net inflow of US$172 million. Currently, the total net inflow of IBIT has reached US$39.669 billion. The second is VanEck ETF HODL, with a single-day net inflow of US$11.8985 million. Currently, the total historical net inflow of HODL has reached US$844 million. Yesterday, the Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net outflows in a single day was Bitwise ETF BITB, with a net outflow of US$17.4015 million in a single day. Currently, the total net inflow of BITB in history reached US$2.024 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETF was US$94.472 billion, the net asset ratio of ETF (market value compared to the total market value of Bitcoin) reached 5.63%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached US$35.965 billion.
PANews March 24x ($65.68 million) earnings. He/they received and stockpiled these 34,000 ETHs through itfinex, Changelly, and ShapeShift in March 2017. At that time, the ETH price was only $44, which was worth $1.5 million. He/they hoarded ETH just before ETH took off, and in the following months ETH rose from double digits to more than $000+. Five hours ago, these ETHs were transferred to Coinbase. The current ETH price is $1,969, worth as high as $67.18 million, a 44-fold increase.
Financing
Manifest Finance, a tokenized real estate investment platform, completed a $2.5 million financing, led by VanEck, and participated by Lattice Fund, Compound and SALT funds. According to reports, Manifest is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that allows users to invest in tokenized U.S. real estate assets. By leveraging blockchain technology, Manifest provides partial ownership opportunities, enabling investors to obtain real-world assets (RWA) with lower capital requirements and higher liquidity.
Multi-party computing platform Stoffel MPC completes a US$1.6 million Pre-seed round of financing
Stoffel MPC, a multi-party computing platform focusing on privacy protection, completed a US$1.6 million Pre-seed round of financing. China-raising led by Eterna Capital and Robot Ventures, and several angel investors participated in the investment. According to reports, Stoffel is a platform designed to help developers use multi-party computing (MPC) technology to build applications with privacy as the core.
Uranium Digital raises $6.1 million in crypto-backed uranium spot market, led by Framework Ventures
Alex Dolesky, founder of Uranium Digital, announced that the company has raised $6.1 million in seed rounds to accelerate the creation of a uranium spot trading platform using crypto infrastructure. The financing was led by Framework Ventures. Uranium Digital plans to become the world's first institutional market to provide uranium, an important clean energy commodity, although the uranium market has failed to mature due to strict regulation and low demand. As nuclear energy demand recovers, Dolesky believes that creating an efficient and fast spot market for uranium will welcome more institutional investors.
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