Important news from last night and this morning (March 17-18)

Five new addresses withdrew 29,598 ETH from Coinbase eight hours ago, worth $68.94 million.

According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, five new addresses withdrew 29,598 ETH from Coinbase eight hours ago, worth $68.94 million. The receiving addresses have not yet transferred or sold the funds, with an average withdrawal price of $2,329. It is currently unclear whether this is due to whales/institutions accumulating positions or hot wallets consolidating funds.

Moody's is bringing credit ratings on-chain through its integration with Canton Network.

According to Cointelegraph, Moody's has launched its Token Integration Engine (TIE) system, bringing its credit analytics data to a blockchain network, becoming the first credit rating agency to put its credit rating data on-chain. The system connects Moody's traditional rating data with the blockchain network, allowing authorized participants to access credit insights within blockchain-based financial workflows. Initially deployed on the Canton Network, a permissioned blockchain designed for institutional finance, Moody's runs its own nodes on the network and plans to expand the system to more blockchains and asset types. The system is designed to be network-agnostic, with access controlled by the issuer within Moody's existing governance and compliance framework.

After a four-month hiatus, a whale withdrew over 120,000 SOL tokens from Binance, equivalent to approximately $11.47 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, whale 5p6zPz withdrew 121,480 SOL (US$11.47 million) from Binance after a four-month period of inactivity. Four months ago, he withdrew 186,621 SOL (US$25.81 million) from Binance at a price of US$138, currently incurring a loss of over US$8 million. Despite the loss, he bought more SOL eight hours ago.

Analysis: Last week, Strategy Group increased its Bitcoin holdings for the first time, primarily using preferred stock as its financing tool.

According to CoinDesk analysis, Strategy's use of perpetual preferred stock as a primary vehicle for increasing its Bitcoin holdings last week marks a potential shift in its financing model. The company announced on Monday that it purchased 22,337 Bitcoins last week, its fifth-largest acquisition in history. Of this, $1.18 billion, equivalent to approximately 16,800 Bitcoins (at an average price of $70,000), was raised through its STRC perpetual preferred stock program, far exceeding the $396 million raised through its common stock ATM program. The common stock ATM program has previously been its primary tool for accumulating Bitcoin holdings, currently totaling 761,068 BTC. Based on STRC's current 11.5% dividend yield, the $1.18 billion issuance generates approximately $135 million in annual dividend obligations, bringing the company's total annual dividend burden to over $1 billion.

Hong Kong-based stablecoin payment company RedotPay is raising $150 million in funding, aiming for a US IPO with a valuation exceeding $4 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Hong Kong-based stablecoin payment company RedotPay is in talks with several institutions for a new funding round of up to $150 million. This follows its previous funding rounds of over $150 million in September and December of last year, with investors including Coinbase and Circle's venture capital arm. RedotPay is currently valued at over $1 billion and aims to list in the US this year at a valuation exceeding $4 billion. Bloomberg notes that the company faces frequent executive turnover while pursuing its IPO, with at least five senior employees having served less than 12 months in the past year, and the compliance head position changing twice. It is currently proceeding with its listing plans without a chief financial officer.

Vitalik: A new fast confirmation mechanism for Ethereum that provides a hard guarantee that transactions cannot be rolled back within 12 seconds.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared an article by Ethereum researcher Julian on social media, explaining that a new fast confirmation rule mechanism provides a hard guarantee that Ethereum will not be rolled back after a slot (12 seconds). The security of this mechanism rests on two premises: the honesty of a supermajority of validators and network latency of less than 3 seconds. While this level of guarantee is lower than economic finality, it is already very robust for many application scenarios.

US Senator Tim Scott: Negotiations on the Crypto Markets Structure Act are making progress

According to CoinDesk, Senator Tim Scott, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, stated that behind-the-scenes negotiations for the stalled crypto market structure bill are making progress. Speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit, Scott said lawmakers could see a new draft of at least the stablecoin provisions as early as this week. He noted that stablecoin yields have been the most publicly debated issue in the bill, but lawmakers have continued to engage in discussions. Scott expressed confidence that the first proposal would be received this week and praised Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, and White House official Patrick Witt for their efforts on the yield issue.

Hyperliquid HIP-3 market open interest reached a record high of $1.43 billion in a single day.

According to The Block, Hyperliquid's HIP-3 market open interest (OI) reached a record $1.43 billion last Saturday, more than 100 times the initial HIP-3 market launch six months ago. Trade.xyz, built by Hyperunit, Hyperliquid's tokenization arm, dominates, accounting for nearly 90% of total HIP-3 open interest and boasting a daily trading volume of $22 billion, representing approximately 90% of total HIP-3 activity. Of Trade.xyz's top 30 markets, only 7 are cryptocurrency trading pairs; the rest are tokenized "traditional" assets, such as S&P 500, Nasdaq, equity futures for individual stocks, and commodity contracts for gold, silver, and crude oil.

Bitrefill disclosed that it suffered a cyberattack earlier this month, suspected to be carried out by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.

According to The Block, cryptocurrency e-commerce and gift card company Bitrefill disclosed that it suffered a cyberattack on March 1, suspected to be carried out by the North Korean-backed hacking group Lazarus Group. The attack stemmed from the compromise of an employee's laptop, where hackers stole funds from a hot wallet and made suspicious purchases from its suppliers. The attackers also compromised Bitrefill's broader infrastructure, including portions of its database and certain cryptocurrency wallets, resulting in access to approximately 18,500 purchase records involving limited customer information such as email addresses, encrypted payment addresses, and IP addresses. Approximately 1,000 of these records exposed the encrypted customer names, and the company has contacted the individuals involved.

TD Cowen: The window for deliberation on the US crypto bill may be extended to the August recess; if it fails to pass, it may be postponed to 2027.

According to The Block, investment bank TD Cowen stated that the window for passing the U.S. crypto market structure bill may extend into the August recess, breaking previous expectations that legislation should be completed before the Easter recess. Jaret Seiberg, Managing Director of TD Cowen's Washington Research Group, pointed out that the Easter recess is not a critical juncture; legislative work can continue before and after the recess, and with the primaries over, some members of Congress will have greater flexibility in negotiations. Seiberg believes the August recess is the last meaningful legislative window, after which Congress will only convene for 12 days in September and 2 days in October, just enough to handle spending bills and the National Defense Authorization Act. He also reiterated that if control of Congress changes after the 2026 midterm elections, the bill could be delayed until 2027.

The US SEC and CFTC have released new cryptocurrency guidelines, clarifying that most digital assets are not classified as securities.

According to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the China Federation of Trade Unions (CFTC) have jointly released a new 68-page guidance clarifying that most cryptocurrencies are not securities. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins stated at the Blockchain Summit in Washington that this move will provide market participants with clear guidance on how federal securities laws apply to crypto assets. The guidance details the classification of stablecoins, digital goods, and “digital instruments,” all of which are considered non-securities. It also explains how “non-securities crypto assets” can be transformed into securities, and how federal securities laws apply to mining, protocol staking, and airdrops. Digital goods are defined as assets that “derive value from and are intrinsically linked to the programmatic operation and supply and demand dynamics of a functional crypto system,” and digital collectibles are also not considered securities.

Trump lashes out at allies and threatens to withdraw from NATO: Starmer is not Churchill, Macron may step down

According to Jinshi News, on Tuesday local time, US President Trump expressed anger at his allies' reluctance to participate in the anti-piracy escort mission in the Strait of Hormuz. During a meeting with the Irish Prime Minister at the White House, Trump fiercely criticized British Prime Minister Starmer and also criticized French President Macron. Trump stated that he was disappointed with Starmer, saying that before Starmer took office, Anglo-American relations were "the best," and mocked Starmer as "not Churchill" and ineffective. Trump criticized Macron's leadership, saying he would soon be out of office. When asked if withdrawing from NATO should be considered, Trump said, "That's something to consider. I don't need Congress to make that decision." However, he added that there were no concrete plans at present, but he was not satisfied with the current situation.

Iran has designated several replacements for key state positions after the death of the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council was confirmed.

According to a report by Xinhua News Agency cited by Jinshi, Iran's Fars News Agency reported on the evening of the 17th, citing informed sources, that Iran has pre-appointed three to seven replacements for all key government officials and military commanders to ensure the continuity of core national functions in the event of an emergency. The informed source said this proactive personnel arrangement aims to ensure that national administrative operations and defense actions will not be interrupted regardless of any unforeseen circumstances. Iran has now confirmed that Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Gholam-Reza Soleimani, commander of the militia "Mobilization of the Poor," were killed in the airstrike.

Coinbase adds EDGEX (EDGEX) and Katana (KAT) to its listing roadmap

According to an official announcement, Coinbase has added EDGEX (EDGEX) and Katana (KAT) to its listing roadmap. The listing of these assets still depends on the availability of market-making support and technical infrastructure. The specific listing time will be announced separately once the relevant conditions are met.

CryptoQuant: Bitcoin's rally may face resistance in the $75,000 to $85,000 range.

According to The Block, CryptoQuant stated that despite bullish signals in the derivatives market ahead of the Fed's interest rate decision, such as increased bullish positions, positive funding rates, and dominant buy orders, Bitcoin may face resistance in the $75,000 to $85,000 range if the upward trend continues. Julio Moreno, Head of Research at CryptoQuant, pointed out that $75,000 corresponds to the lower bound of the trader's on-chain actual price, historically acting as resistance during bear markets; the $85,000 level corresponds to the trader's on-chain actual price, having acted as resistance in mid-January and last October.

Circle just minted an additional 500 million USDC on Solana.

Circle has just minted an additional 500 million USDC on Solana, bringing the total amount of USDC minted on the Solana chain so far in 2026 to $28.5 billion.

SlowMist Cosine: MoreLogin users are suspected of suffering a mass cryptocurrency theft; the hacker address has already profited approximately $85,000.

Yu Xian, founder of SlowMist, posted on the X platform that a user group using similar tools is experiencing a mass hacking incident. It appears their private keys or mnemonic phrases were pre-collected by hackers. The associated hacker address, 0x913efc2062984288a0a083cd42b3a3422c07fcef, has already profited approximately $85,000 and is still increasing. Some community feedback points to the MoreLogin fingerprint browser, but Yu Xian stated that there is currently no evidence to confirm MoreLogin or its related plugins as the cause. He urged affected users to report information such as the fingerprint browser they used, installed plugins, and the wallet plugin where the stolen funds were located to facilitate investigation.

DAO governance platform Tally will shut down operations, citing relaxed regulations that have weakened the demand for decentralization.

According to CoinDesk, the DAO governance platform Tally has announced its closure after six years of operation. Tally provided governance infrastructure such as on-chain voting and delegation for over 500 DAOs, including Uniswap, Arbitrum, and ENS. CEO Dennison Bertram stated that regulatory pressure from the SEC under Gensler's leadership forced projects to decentralize through DAOs to reduce the risk of tokens being classified as securities. He added that the current US government's more lenient approach to crypto has shifted decentralization from a necessity to an option, weakening the demand for governance tools. He also acknowledged that the "Ethereum Infinite Garden" assumption has failed, with only a few leading protocols emerging in the industry. Furthermore, the rise of AI and its ability to attract top talent make it difficult for governance tools to form a sustainable venture capital business model.

US Democratic lawmakers have proposed banning officials from using insider information to participate in market prediction.

According to CoinDesk, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy and Greg Casar have introduced a new bill called the BETS OFF Act, which aims to prohibit government officials from participating in prediction market betting when they have insider information. The bill focuses on suspected insider trading related to U.S. operations in Venezuela, Iran, and other locations, and aims to restrict officials from profiting from sensitive policy and military information.

Robinhood's investment fund has invested approximately $35 million in Stripe and ElevenLabs.

According to The Block, Robinhood Ventures Fund I, traded on the NYSE, announced an investment of approximately $14.6 million in Stripe Class B common stock and a $20 million investment in AI audio company ElevenLabs, purchasing its Series D preferred stock. The fund aims to provide retail investors with exposure to privately held companies, and its current holdings include Revolut (a cryptocurrency trading service), as well as Airwallex, Boom, Databricks, and Ramp. The report notes that Stripe owns the stablecoin platform Bridge, and Robinhood management stated they will continue to invest in cutting-edge fintech and artificial intelligence companies.

Phantom received a no-action letter from the CFTC, granting it access to regulated derivatives and event contracts.

The Market Participant Division of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a "no-action" position letter to Phantom Technologies Inc., a developer of self-custodied cryptocurrency wallet software. The position concerns software features that Phantom intends to offer and promote, allowing its users to trade through registered Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs), Introducing Brokers (IBs), and Designated Contract Markets (DCMs). The CFTC stated that, subject to certain conditions, the Market Participant Division will not recommend enforcement action against Phantom or its affiliates solely for unregistered introducing brokers or their associates.

Several regional banks in the United States are planning to establish a tokenized deposit network based on ZKsync.

According to CoinDesk, regional banks in the United States are jointly developing a tokenized deposit platform called Cari Network, which operates on ZKsync's private permissioned blockchain "Prividium". Participating banks include Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp, and Old National Bancorp. This network allows banks to tokenize customer deposits, enabling instant interbank settlement within a regulated system. The tokens remain recorded as bank deposits and are subject to existing regulations and FDIC insurance.

Sharplink: Last week's staking reward was 493 ETH, bringing the cumulative staking reward to 15,464 ETH.

Sharplink announced that since launching its Ethereum Vault, it has accumulated 15,464 ETH in staking rewards, equivalent to approximately $36 million at current prices. Sharplink stated that it earned over 493 ETH last week through staking, yielding approximately $1.1 million, and indicated that its ETH holdings will continue to generate more ETH through staking.

OpenAI and Amazon have reached a cooperation agreement to sell AI products to the U.S. government.

According to The Information, OpenAI has successfully reached a cooperation agreement with Amazon to sell artificial intelligence products to the U.S. Department of Defense and government agencies through its platform, with the contract valued at millions of dollars.

Tether launches the BitNet LoRA framework to support large model training on mobile devices.

Tether's QVAC Fabric has launched the world's first cross-platform LoRA tuning framework for Microsoft BitNet (a one-bit LLM), significantly reducing the memory and computing power requirements for training large models. The framework supports LoRA tuning and inference acceleration on Intel, AMD, Apple Silicon M series, and mobile GPUs (such as Adreno, Mali, and Apple Bionic).

Vietnam plans to ban its citizens from using overseas exchanges and promote a pilot program for domestically licensed cryptocurrency platforms.

According to The Block, Vietnam's Ministry of Finance is drafting regulations to ban Vietnamese citizens from trading on overseas cryptocurrency platforms, while simultaneously piloting a license program for domestic cryptocurrency exchanges. This move stems from regulators' concerns about increased capital outflow risks due to the popularity of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. Chainalysis data shows that Vietnam's cryptocurrency transaction volume exceeded $200 billion in the 12 months ending June 2025, ranking fourth globally in the cryptocurrency adoption index. Crypto assets have been integrated into scenarios such as cross-border remittances, savings, and gaming. Currently, five institutions, including Techcombank, VPBank, LPBank affiliates, VIX Securities, and Sun Group, have passed the first round of qualification reviews.

Israel Defense Forces: Large-scale airstrikes against Iran have begun

Israel Defense Forces: Large-scale airstrikes against Iran have begun.

PayPal expands its PYUSD stablecoin service to 70 countries.

According to Fortune, PayPal announced the expansion of its stablecoin PYUSD wallet holdings to 68 more countries and regions, bringing the total number of markets that can hold it to 70, a significant increase from the previous limitation of only the United States and the United Kingdom. The new markets include Uganda, Colombia, and Peru, covering more regions in South America, Africa, and Asia.

BlackRock transfers over $94 million in BTC and ETH to Coinbase

According to Onchain Lens, asset management firm BlackRock deposited 567 BTC, worth approximately $41.78 million, into Coinbase and transferred 22,657 ETH, worth approximately $52.4 million.