Largest Bitcoin Mining Pool Expands to Zcash

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Foundry, operator of Bitcoin's $BTC largest mining pool, to launch Zcash $ZEC mining pool in April; to include identity verification checks for participants; ViaBTC currently operates Zcash's largest mining pool.

• ⭐️ US DOJ investigates Iran's alleged use of Binance $BNB to evade US sanctions; Binance has since sued the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) over "false and defamatory" reporting; WSJ recently reported Binance fired compliance investigators after uncovering Iran-linked activity.

• US DOJ requests to retry Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on money laundering and sanctions violation charges in October; court to rule on Storm’s pending motion seeking acquittal in April.

• Ripple $XRP begins $750M share buyback program that values the company at ~$50B; recently raised $500M at a $40B valuation in November 2025; additionally, to acquire BC Payments Australia to obtain an Australian Financial Services License.

• OP Labs (Optimism) $OP lays off 20 team members; CEO Jing Wang says "This is not about finances" and "This is about doing fewer things well, making decisions faster, and reducing coordination overhead."

• Across $ACX launches "The Bridge Across" temp check proposal; explores transitioning from token structure to private company through an ACX token-to-equity exchange.

• BinanceUS $BNB appoints Stephen Gregory as new CEO; previously CEO at Currency[.]com; also previously compliance leader at Gemini & CEX[.]io; interim CEO Norman Reed moves into advisory role.

• Gemini $GEMI co-founders Cameron Winklevoss & Tyler Winklevoss potentially sell ~$130M of Bitcoin $BTC after transfers to Gemini hot wallets; though, some suggest transfers could be for exchange liquidity.

• MARA Holdings $MARA potentially sells 298 Bitcoin $BTC (~$21M) after transfers to Cumberland; recently revised digital asset management strategy to allow sales of BTC reserves.

• Metaplanet $3350.T launches two new subsidiaries, Metaplanet Ventures & Metaplanet Asset Management; to deploy 4B yen ($25M) over the next few years to various Bitcoin companies; to also deploy 400M yen ($2.5M) into JPYC Inc.

• Strive $ASST buys 179 Bitcoin $BTC (~$12M); now holds 13,311 BTC (~$923M); also buys 500K shares (~$50M) of Strategy's STRC (Strategy Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock).

• Mastercard $MA launches Mastercard Crypto Partner Program, a "new global initiative that brings together more than 85 crypto‑native companies, payments providers, and financial institutions to create a forum..."

• Wells Fargo $WFC files for 'WFUSD' trademark; to potentially launch US dollar-pegged stablecoin soon; though trademark queue extends to more than 10 months.

Alpha

• Ink $INK to host "InkTank: The Nado Alpha" X space on March 12th; to discuss "builder codes, features, what's next for Nado, and more"; recently teased upcoming INK token.

• ⭐️ xStocks (Kraken) to launch xPoints program; earn xPoints by holding xStocks, providing liquidity, lending or borrowing, & participating in ecosystem quests; register wallet to get permanent 20% xPoints boost.

• Noise, a "trading platform for relevance," to potentially launch mainnet soon; waitlist is open (since December); recently raised $7.1M in Seed funding led by Paradigm.

• Pump[.]fun to potentially launch on Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, & Monad as new subdomains are discovered; also removes "Solana" as its location from X profile.

• X Money to launch early public access next month (April); recently shared screenshots showing 'X Card' with cash back, direct deposit support, optional KYC, & more.

• Soneium launches Soneium Score Season 8; users with at least 80 points at the end of the season will be eligible for a SBT badge; to launch claim for Season 7 badge soon.

• Katana $KAT launches new "Verify Email" quest as part of Season 1 'Training Mode'; complete quests to earn XP & collect badges; TGE expected in ~May.

• ICYMI Tempo & Stripe to launch "███████" hackathon on March 19th; application is open until Friday (March 13th); Tempo Engineering Lead & Paradigm CTO Georgios Konstantopoulos to choose ~100 developers.

Airdrops

• Binance $BNB launches Midnight $NIGHT HODLer Airdrop; BNB Simple Earn and/or BNB On-Chain Yields subscribers from February 16th to February 18th are eligible.

• Multipli to potentially launch TGE & airdrop soon; teases "If Multipli had a token, what would you like the ticker to be called?" on X; ORBs (points) holders will be eligible.

• ICYMI Paradex $DIME launches airdrop claim; Paradex XP holders are eligible; claim closes in ~2 weeks.

• ICYMI Opinion $OPN launches airdrop claim; Opinion points holders & Discord role holders are eligible; claim closes on June 5th.

• ICYMI idOS $IDOS launches airdrop; tokens already distributed, claim not required; idOS points holders are eligible.

• ICYMI Avantis $AVNT launches airdrop #2 claim; allocation split into 4 equal tranches (25% each), each with 24-hour claim window; Avantis Season 3 Points holders are eligible.

• ICYMI Mezo $MEZO to launch TGE & airdrop claim soon; airdrop allocation checker is already live; Mezo Mats (points) holders & Mezo Bitcoin borrowers were eligible to register.

• ICYMI Reya $REYA teases "airdrop claim loading ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░ 51%" on X; to launch airdrop soon; 45% of REYA token supply is allocated for the community.

Finance News

• US President Trump says war with Iran will end "soon"; preparing for "at least" two more weeks of strikes; Iran reportedly announced their requirements for potential ceasefire.

• ⭐️ US Oil Prices rise back above $90/barrel as Iran war continues; Iran reportedly warns that they will drive oil prices to $200/barrel; Polymarket projects 4% chance oil will reach $200 by March 31st.

• US to release 172M barrels of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve & IEA to release 400M barrels of oil reserves in an effort to lower oil prices; President Trump also reportedly prepares to invoke Defense Production Act to renew oil production off California coast.

• US February CPI inflation remains at 2.4%, in-line with expectations of 2.4%; US Core CPI inflation was 2.5%, in-line with expectations of 2.5%.

• US CFTC & SEC enter Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to "guide coordination and collaboration between the two agencies to support lawful innovation, uphold market integrity, and ensure investor and customer protection."

• US President Trump administration reportedly prepares Executive Order to "weed out" Anthropic; recently designated supply chain risk; notably, Microsoft $MSFT filed a formal amicus brief in support of Anthropic.

• Nvidia $NVDA to reportedly launch open-source AI agent platform 'NemoClaw'; designed for use in enterprise environments; additionally, invests $2B in AI cloud provider Nebius Group $NBIS.

• META $META acquires Moltbook, a social network for AI agents, for an undisclosed amount; co-founders Matt Schlicht & Ben Parr to join Meta Superintelligence Labs.

• Oracle $ORCL Q3 FY2026 Earnings: $17.2B in revenue (+7% QoQ, +22% YoY), beating expectations; EPS of $1,79 (-21% QoQ, +22% YoY), beating expectations.

• Polymarket partners with Palantir $PLTR to develop AI monitoring tool for sports prediction markets; to monitor trades, screen prohibited users, enable compliance reporting, and detect anomalies in real time.

Security and Exploits

• Microsoft releases new Windows security update patching 84 vulnerabilities; includes two zero-days.

• ⭐️ Aave $AAVE suffers oracle glitch causing $26M in unfair liquidations; team to use 141.5 ETH recovered from the incident and up to 345 ETH from the DAO treasury to reimburse affected users.

• Ledger Donjon discloses uncovering vulnerability in Android phones using MediaTek processors that enabled device PINs & wallet seed phrases to be extracted; MediaTek released a patch on January 5th.

• Trust Wallet $TWT launches Address Poisoning Protection feature; checks destination address against database of known scam & lookalike addresses; currently supports 32 EVM chains with more coming soon.

• BONK[.]fun $BONK domain compromised after hackers hijack team account; team advises users to avoid interacting with the website until secured.

• Cosmos $ATOM discloses recent CosmosEVM vulnerability caused by "incorrect state handling during nested EVM execution paths involving the ICS20 precompile"; releases permanent patch.

• Bubblemaps $BMT launches support for Aptos $APT; users can spot whales, insiders, and wallet clusters.

• Wintermute warns of fake Wintermute employee accounts on X sending messages and spoofing Wintermute[.]com emails; advises legitimate team members have verified Wintermute badges on X.

• India CBI arrests Ayush Varshney, co-founder & CTO of Darwin Labs, for role in $790M GainBitcoin ponzi scheme; allegedly developed the core infrastructure for the scheme in 2015.

• French Couple forced to transfer $1M in Bitcoin $BTC during home invasion; attackers posed as police officers; notably, Binance's France CEO was recently targeted in a home invasion attempt.

Token Unlocks

• Aptos $APT / ~$11M / MAR 12th
• Starknet $STRK / ~$5M / MAR 15th
• Sei $SEI / ~$3.5M / MAR 15th
• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$9M / MAR 16th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Founders Fund reportedly raises $6B for Founders Fund Growth IV.

• Kled AI raises $5.5M in Seed funding from several investors.

• General Tensor raises $5M in Pre-Seed & Seed funding from several investors.

• Ubyx raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding from BitGo $BTGO.

• Immunefi $IMU raises an undisclosed amount in strategic funding from Anchorage Digital.

The Degen Farmer