SEC Ends Ripple $XRP Lawsuit

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse says US SEC will drop lawsuit against Ripple $XRP; SEC accused Ripple of selling XRP as an unregistered security in December 2020.

• ⭐️ US President Trump to address audience at Blockworks Digital Asset Summit 2025 on March 20th; Trump to potentially announce plans for next steps in crypto policy.

• Ethereum $ETH developers to end support for Holesky testnet in September; launches new 'Hoodi' testnet with Pectra upgrade activating on March 26th.

• ⭐️ Volatility Shares to launch two Solana $SOL Futures ETFs on March 20th; $SOLZ gives investors exposure to Solana futures contracts and $SOLT "seeks daily investment results … that correspond to two times the return of the price of Solana.”

• Raydium $RAY to launch LaunchLab, a token launchpad similar to Pump[.]fun; news follows recent reports of Pump[.]fun developing its own AMM.

• Nasdaq submits 19b-4 filing to list Polkadot $DOT ETF on behalf of 21Shares; also, Grayscale filed to launch a Polkadot ETF in February.

Alpha

• Taproot Wizards reveals whitelist for upcoming NFT mint; Taproot Wizards recently raised $30M in funding led by Standard Crypto.

• Initia extends migration for Initia Wallet Extension users until March 21st; last chance to migrate and keep testnet data.

• Treehouse launches Games Room; hold at least 0.1 $tETH or hold at least 1 Treehouse Squirrel Council NFT to gain access; earn Treehouse items with "future utility".

• Reya launches OG NFT mint; OG NFT Traders, OG Alpha Stakers, & Voltz OG Tier 3 or Legendary are eligible to mint; "This NFT is your key to permanent perks, secret drops and insider access."

• WalletConnect launches $WCT Transferability Proposal on Snapshot; voting closes on March 26th.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Nillion updates $NIL airdrop eligibility & allocation checker; team identified a handful of bugs that have now been resolved.

• Shardeum 'early' $SHM airdrop registration ends on March 21st; users who register after March 21st to receive airdrop after TGE.

• Gyroscope launches $GYFI airdrop claim; SPIN holders, Founding Member NFT holders, & Galxe participants are eligible.

• Binance launches Bubblemaps $BMT HODLer Airdrop; $BNB Simple Earn and/or On-Chain Yields subscribers from March 2nd to March 6th are eligible.

• ICYMI Mira Airdrop Strategy by Earndrop.

Finance News

• ⭐️ US Federal Reserve leaves interest rates unchanged at 4.25%-4.5%; says uncertainty around economy has increased; marks up their 2025 inflation forecast.

• Bank of Japan keeps interest rates unchanged at 0.5%; policymakers to spend more time gauging how prospects of higher US tariffs affect the export-reliant economy.

• Strategy $MSTR launches $STRF, a new perpetual preferred stock offering; to raise $500M to fund additional Bitcoin $BTC purchases.

• Metaplanet $3350.T buys 150 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$12.5M at ~$83,508 per Bitcoin; holds 3,200 Bitcoin worth ~$266M.

• Ark Invest to bring some of its funds onchain once the regulatory environment allows for it; to potentially tokenize its Venture Fund $ARKVX or Digital Asset Revolution Fund.

• Google $GOOG $GOOGL acquires Wiz, a cloud security startup, for $32B; Wiz to remain an independent platform that will work across all cloud providers.

Security and Exploits

• Microsoft declines to fix actively exploited Windows zero-day vulnerability, categorizing it as low severity; flaw allows attackers to execute hidden commands using malicious shortcut .lnk files.

• Bitdefender uncovers ad fraud campaign involving at least 331 malicious apps with over 60M downloads on Google Play; apps attempt to steal credentials and credit card data through phishing attacks.

• WhatsApp patches zero-day vulnerability used to install Paragon's Graphite spyware; attackers would add targets to a WhatsApp group, send a PDF which would automatically process, and load the Graphite spyware.

Token Unlocks

• Polyhedra $ZKJ / ~$32M / MAR 19th
• Immutable $IMX / ~$15M / MAR 21st
• Space ID $ID / ~$20M / MAR 22nd
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• VIA raises $28M in Series B funding led by Bosch Ventures.

• Crossmint raises $23.6M in Series A funding led by Ribbit Capital.

• Halliday raises $20M in Series A funding led by a16z crypto.

• Utila raises $18M in Series A funding led by Nyca Partners.

• Privy raises $15M in funding led by Ribbit Capital.

• Pluralis Research raises $7.6M in Seed funding led by Union Square Ventures & CoinFund.

• YEET raises $7.75M in Seed funding led by Dragonfly.

• Opinion Labs raises $5M in Seed funding led by YZi Labs.

• Hibachi raises $5M in Seed funding from several investors.

• Stable Sea raises $3.5M in funding led by Kindred Ventures.

• Level raises $2.6M in Strategic funding led by Dragonfly.

The Degen Farmer