Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: A Polkadot Trust is seeking SEC approval, Michael Saylor will not stop buying BTC – no matter how small the purchase order, the bull market is over according to a large crypto figure, Lazarus Group hackers are pretending to lose money on stupid trades to make money 🤔 , and so much more.

Happy Wednesday there’s plenty more below. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

As of 3/18/2024 @ 1930 EST. Data per CoinMarketCap.

  • Crypto traded lower alongside U.S. stocks on Tuesday

  • The Fed began its policy meeting yesterday, with results due today afternoon U.S. hours.

    • While no one is expecting a change in interest rates, traders will be looking for signs that the Fed is perhaps turning a hair more dovish given recent market turbulence and a slowdown in inflation.

    • According to CME FedWatch, rate traders today see no chance the Fed cuts rates today and only a 20% chance the central bank eases at its next meeting in May. For June, though, there's a 66% chance that the Fed will cut rates

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • Nasdaq files Form 19b-4 with SEC to seek approval for 21Shares Polkadot Trust, a spot Polkadot ETF (CN)

  • Justin Sun stakes 60,000 ETH on Lido, earning generational wealth in annual yield (CT)

  • Solana ‘controversial’ advertisement got pulled – but you can watch it here

  • Raydium plans to spin out a Pump.fun competitor to launch memecoins (TB)

  • A16z crypto appoints Miles Jennings as head of policy amid growing crypto focus in US (TB) 

  • Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood plans to bring company funds on-chain once U.S. regulatory landscape permits (CD)

  • CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju says the Bitcoin bull market is over (FNY) 

  • Coinbase study reveals most institutional investors plan to buy more crypto in 2025 as Bitcoin nears $100,000 (TB)

  • Strategy announces $500M preferred stock offering to fund Bitcoin acquisitions (BL)

  • Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) strengthens its role in the Cosmos ecosystem with the open-sourcing of evmOS, rebranded as Cosmos EVM (BW)

  • Siemens partners with Minima to embed blockchains into devices across automotive, robotics, and energy sectors (CD) 

  • Bakkt shares plunge after Bank of America and Webull Pay disclose they won't renew commercial agreements (CD) 

  • Bernstein analysts forecast Coinbase to rise almost 70% as Trump´s administration took place (DC) 

  • EOS Network rebrands to Vaulta, emphasizing its focus on Web3 banking (TD)

  • Xapo bank now accepts Bitcoin as collateral for loans (DC)

  • US authorities drop charges against BitClout founder (DC)

M&A Announcements

  • Australia's Swyftx exchange acquires New Zealand's Easy Crypto (BL)

  • Bitfarms acquires Stronghold Digital in a stock-for-stock merger, expanding its US presence (TB)

Launches

  • Magic Eden sees $50M daily Ordinals volume surge driven by 'Idiots NFT' mint (TB)

  • Cronos governance proposal to reissue 70 billion CRO tokens was approved (TB)

Venture Capital

  • Crossmint raises $23.6M in funding to support on-chain application development (CD)

  • AI-focused blockchain protocol Halliday raises $20M to fund development of its Agentic Workflow Protocol for DeFi applications (CD)

  • Yeet.com raises $7.75M in funding round led by Dragonfly to expand crypto casino and sportsbook (DC) 

  • ABEX secures $6M in funding round led by MMC Ventures (FM) 

  • Tether increases its stake in bitcoin miner Bitdeer, continuing investment started nearly a year ago (CD)

Cybersecurity

  • Crypto thieves use new laundering method by pretending to be inexperienced traders, losing thousands on purpose (DN) 

  • Microsoft researchers identify new malware targeting popular crypto wallet extensions like MetaMask and Phantom (DC) 

  • Ghana’s President Mahama’s X account hacked to promote fraudulent crypto project (NC) 

  • WEMIX platform hit by cyberattack, losing tokens worth $6.1M (BC) 

  • Centralized exchange OKX suspends DeFi protocol used for money laundering (BB)

  • Bybit hack, a quick rundown on what happened (CSIS)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

Nearly 100 public companies across various industries have Bitcoin on their balance sheets

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