OpenSea Delays SEA Token Indefinitely

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Aave $AAVE & CoW Swap $COW publish conflicting post-mortems after recent $50M loss; Aave attributes loss to an “illiquid market”; Cow Swap blames compounding solver failures, gas limits, and mempool leak.

• Bithumb receives six-month partial business suspension and ₩36.8B (~$25M) fine from South Korea FIU for 6.65M AML & KYC violations; suspension restricts virtual asset transfers for newly registered users.

• BlockFills, a crypto trading & lending firm, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; lists $50-100M in assets and $100-500M in liabilities; suspended customer withdrawals in February.

• Abra to go public via SPAC merger with New Providence Acquisition Corp III $NPACU at $750M valuation; to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol ABRX; could deliver up to $300M in cash held in trust.

• Strategy $MSTR buys an additional 22,337 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$1.6B at ~$70,194 per BTC; now holds 761,068 BTC (~$56.3B) acquired for ~$57.6B at ~$75,696 per BTC.

• Metaplanet $3350.T raises $255M via private placement for 210,000 Bitcoin $BTC holdings goal; up to ~$276M in additional capital upon exercise ($531M total); currently holds 35,102 BTC (~$2.6B).

• Ethereum Foundation $ETH sells 5,000 ETH (~$12M) at $2,042 per ETH via OTC to BitMine $BMNR; sale funds EF’s "core operations & activities, including protocol R&D, ecosystem development, community grant funding and more."

• BitMine $BMNR buys an additional 60,999 Ethereum $ETH (~$143M); now holds 4,595,562 ETH (~$10.8B) & $1.2B in cash; now staking 3,040,515 ETH (~$7.1B).

• Erik Voorhees, founder of Venice[.]ai & ShapeShift, buys 33,544 Ethereum $ETH for ~$71M; also holds 2,834 Tether Gold $XAUT (~$14M) & ~$44M USDT.

• Digital Asset Investment Products saw $1.1B in inflows last week; Bitcoin $BTC $793M inflows, Ethereum $ETH $315M inflows, Solana $SOL $9M inflows, Ripple $XRP $76M outflows.

Alpha

• Polymarket $POLY launches new crypto up/down markets; 'Senior Intern' @mustafap0ly recently teased "...POLY next" on X in February.

• ⭐️ Tempo to potentially launch mainnet by end of March; reportedly no token at mainnet launch due to market conditions; to launch "███████" hackathon on March 19th.

• Abstract $ABS launches new Flash Badge; any user who LP’s any amount into Gate DeFi Pools on Abstract is eligible to claim.

• Katana $KAT to launch TGE on March 18th; launches KAT Pre-Staking offering more voting power & more rewards; vKAT holders (Pre-Deposit campaign participants) subject to exit fee.

• ICYMI LayerZero $ZRO to launch Zero public testnet soon; just launched Zero internal testnet with private testnet to follow; Zero is an L1 blockchain built in partnership with Citadel Securities, DTCC, & ICE.

Airdrops

• Upcoming TGEs & Airdrops: Katana $KAT on March 18th, Backpack $BP on March 23rd, USDai $CHIP in ~March, Mezo $MEZO in ~March.

• ⭐️ OpenSea $SEA delays TGE citing challenging market conditions; gives no new target date; current Rewards Wave (Wave 6) to be the last; Treasures to be "meaningfully considered" at TGE.

• Backpack $BP to launch TGE & airdrop on March 23rd; closed TGE Verified on Sunday (March 16th); Backpack points holders & Mad Lads NFT holders will be eligible.

• USDai $CHIP launches airdrop allocation checker; USDai Season 1 Allo (points) holders are eligible; TGE & airdrop claim expected in ~March.

• ICYMI 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.

Finance News

• ⭐️ US Oil Prices $CL drop after the US announces it is allowing Iranian oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz; also, US President Trump reportedly considers boots on the ground to seize Iran's Kharg Island.

• US President Trump requests to delay visit to China by one month; was previously reported to visit China in first week of April; Polymarket projects 71% chance Trump visits China by May 31st.

• US SEC prepares proposal to eliminate quarterly reporting requirements; to instead give option to share results twice a year; expected to be published as soon as next month.

• Key Events This Week: February PPI Inflation data and FOMC Interest Rate Decision & Statement on Wednesday (March 18th); Polymarket projects 1% chance rates are cut.

• OpenAI reportedly in talks with TPG, Bain Capital, Brookfield Asset Management, & Advent International to launch $10B AI joint venture; could see up to $4B in equity investments.

• OpenAI sued by Encyclopedia Britannica for allegedly misusing their reference materials to train its ‌AI models; Britannica also recently filed a related ‌lawsuit ⁠against Perplexity AI.

• Alibaba $BABA tested 18 AI models on 100 codebases for 233 days; 75% broke previously working code during maintenance; only two Claude Opus models exceed 50% zero-regression rate.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ Whitehat hacker accuses Injective $INJ of ghosting after reporting "$500M" vulnerability; allocated $50K bounty of $500K maximum; says payout still unpaid with zero explanation for reduced payout.

• Venus $XVS left with ~$2.15M in bad debt after exploit; attacker drained ~$3.7M via recursive borrow-swap price inflation.

• User loses $1.77M USDC after signing a phishing permit signature on Ethereum; users should double-check all signature requests.

• GAIB $GAIB frontend compromised; website contains code of Angelferno drainer; team advises users to avoid the site until secured.

• Revoke[.]cash previews new version of the Revoke browser extension; currently only available for users in select regions; built in partnership with Fairside.

• ICYMI Google releases Chrome security updates patching two high-severity security vulnerabilities; actively exploited in the wild.

Token Unlocks

• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$9M / MAR 16th
• ZKsync $ZK / ~$4M / MAR 17th
• Lombard $BARD / ~$33M / MAR 18th
• LayerZero $ZRO / ~$58M / MAR 20th
• Wormhole $W / ~$1M / MAR 20th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• RoboForce raises $52M in funding led by YZi Labs.

• Ironlight Group raises $21M in Series A funding from several investors.

• Yumi Finance raises an undisclosed amount in Pre-Seed funding from several investors.

The Degen Farmer