User Swaps $50M USDT for $36K AAVE

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ User (allegedly Garrett Jin) swapped $50.4M $USDT for 324 $AAVE (~$36K); reportedly accepted quote with 99% price impact despite warnings; most of the funds (~$34M) went to Titan Builder.

• Ethereum Foundation (EF) $ETH publishes "The EF Mandate"; serves as "part constitution, part manifesto, and part guide for the EF"; outlines EF's role as stewardship, not Ethereum's parent, ruler, or final authority.

• Solana $SOL SIMD-0266 proposal to launch on mainnet in April; introduces p-tokens, a more compute efficient token model that could make Solana transactions up to 19× more efficient.

• Eightco Holding $ORBS raises $125M from BitMine $BMNR ($75M), ARK Invest ($25M), & Payward (Kraken) ($25M); BitMine Chairman Tom Lee to join Eightco’s board of directors.

• Trump Memecoin $TRUMP to host second Conference & Gala Luncheon at Mar-a-Lago on April 25th; top 297 TRUMP qualifying participants will be able to attend.

• POAP to enter "maintenance mode" on March 16th; platform to no longer be actively developed; team to focus on "developing a standard for open collectibles, and a platform that offers a canonical implementation."

Alpha

• ⭐️ 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.

• 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.

• Megapot to launch Megapot V2 soon; liquidity pool to be capped at $1.1M; liquidity providers earn Megapot points.

• ICYMI 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.

• ICYMI 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.

Airdrops

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

• Unitas $UP launches airdrop claim; Unitas Season 1 Solana Units campaign participants are eligible; claim closes in ~30 days (April 13th).

• ICYMI 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.

• 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.

• ICYMI Paradex $DIME launches airdrop claim; Paradex XP holders are eligible; claim closes in ~1 week.

Finance News

• ⭐️ US Oil Prices $CL near ~$100 as President Trump says Iran war will end “when I feel it in my bones"; to reportedly deploy up to 5,000 Marines to the Middle East; Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says Strait of Hormuz will "remain closed."

• ⭐️ US President Trump threatens to target oil infrastructure on Iran's Kharg Island if the Strait of Hormuz isn't reopened; Kharg Island manages ~90% of Iran's crude oil exports (~2% of global oil supply).

• US Federal Judge blocks subpoenas sent to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell citing "essentially zero evidence"; US DOJ recently launched an investigation into Powell over whether he misled Congress.

• US CFTC issues guidance on prediction markets; exchanges can self-certify contracts under existing rules, platforms must ensure markets are not easily manipulated and maintain surveillance, contracts tied to assassination, war, or terrorism can be banned; seeks public comment before final rulemaking.

• Elon Musk says xAI is "being rebuilt from the foundations up"; cites "xAI was not built right first time around"; notably, only 2 of the original 11 co-founders remain at xAI.

• Meta $META to reportedly lay off 20% (~15,800) of the company to fund $600B in AI infrastructure; recently acquired Moltbook, a social network for AI agents, for an undisclosed amount.

Security and Exploits

• US Treasury sanctions six individuals and two companies for helping North Korea convert ~$800M into crypto in 2024 to launder funds for its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

• Etherscan warns address poisoning attacks are rising on Ethereum; advises users to always verify the destination address before sending funds.

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

• Apple releases security updates for older iPhones & iPads; patches vulnerabilities associated with 'Coruna' exploit kit.

Token Unlocks

• Starknet $STRK / ~$5M / MAR 15th
• Sei $SEI / ~$4M / MAR 15th
• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$9M / MAR 16th
• ZKsync $ZK / ~$3M / MAR 17th
• Lombard $BARD / ~$33M / MAR 18th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Cryptio raises $45M in Series B funding led by BlackFin Capital Partners & Sentinel Global.

• MetaComp raises $35M in Pre-Series A funding led by Alibaba $BABA & Spark Venture.

• Unitas Labs $UP raises $13.33M in Seed funding from Awaken Finance, Amber Group, Blockchain Builders Fund, Taisu Ventures, Bixin Ventures, & SevenX Ventures.

• VeryAI raises $10M in Seed funding led by Polychain Capital.

• Ark Labs raises $5.2M in Seed funding from Tether, Ego Death Capital, Epoch VC, Lion26, Sats Ventures, Contribution Capital, Anchorage Digital, Ralph Ho, among others.

• OP_NET raises $5M in funding led by Further.

The Degen Farmer