KEYTAKEAWAYS
- El Salvador and Texas both advance sovereign Bitcoin reserve strategies, with El Salvador purchasing 6 BTC despite IMF restrictions and Texas Senate approving a state-controlled crypto reserve bill.
- MicroStrategy's aggressive Bitcoin accumulation faces challenges as holdings purchased for $21B now valued at $17.5B, prompting a shift to 8% interest preferred stock offerings.
- Ethereum's Pectra upgrade encounters technical issues on Sepolia testnet as developers race to patch exploit allowing empty block mining, highlighting challenges ahead of April mainnet deployment.
CONTENT
Welcome to the CoinRank Crypto News Roundup. CoinRank will provide daily important crypto news in this column series, allowing readers to quickly obtain the latest crucial updates from the cryptocurrency market.
MORNING NEWS
1. El Salvador Increases Bitcoin Purchases Despite IMF Pressure
El Salvador has ramped up its Bitcoin accumulation, purchasing 6 BTC on March 10 instead of its usual daily acquisition of 1 BTC. The National Bitcoin Office announced that in addition to the regular daily purchase, the government acquired 5 more BTC, bringing the country’s total holdings to 6,111.18 BTC, worth approximately $493 million at current prices. This move comes despite growing pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which recently filed a technical memorandum prohibiting “voluntary BTC accumulation by the public sector” as part of a $1.4 billion financing agreement. President Nayib Bukele dismissed the external pressure as “whining,” affirming that the country’s Bitcoin purchasing strategy “won’t stop now, and it won’t stop in the future.”
2. Texas Senate Approves State Bitcoin Reserve
The Texas Senate has passed Senate Bill 21 (SB-21) with a vote of 25 to 5, establishing a state-controlled Bitcoin reserve. The Texas Bitcoin Reserve Act allows the state to invest public funds in digital assets with a market value of at least $500 billion—currently, only Bitcoin meets this threshold. The Texas State Auditor will manage the reserves, with funding coming from legislative appropriations and donations from individuals and businesses. The bill also creates a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Advisory Committee to oversee investments and ensure transparency through biennial reports. If signed into law, Texas would become the first U.S. state to establish its own cryptocurrency reserve.
3. Binance Co-founder CZ Urges Elon Musk to Ban Bots on X
Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) has called on Elon Musk to eliminate automated bots from the X platform. “If someone uses Grok, ChatGPT, or DeepSeek to generate a tweet and copy and paste it here, fine, but API posting should be disabled,” CZ wrote. He differentiated between social media bots and AI agents, noting that the latter are helpful for real-world applications like booking hotels or writing code. The crypto community has been requesting action against bots since Musk acquired the platform in 2022, as they continue to plague users with scam messages, fake tokens, phishing links, and pump-and-dump schemes. Despite Musk proposing solutions like charging a small fee for new account creation, the bot problem remains largely unaddressed.
4. Jito Validators Leaking Data to Sandwich Attackers on Solana
According to BlockBeats, crypto analyst @PepeBoost888 has reported that some Jito validators have been leaking data to sandwich attackers, allowing them to anticipate anti-sandwich transactions on the Solana network. To mitigate this issue, users are advised to reduce slippage settings when operating in anti-sandwich mode. Jito has already initiated a technical solution to address validator node misconduct, with progress expected in the coming weeks. Despite these challenges, Jito remains the most reliable anti-sandwich service on Solana, with a very low percentage of compromised transactions.
5. Binance Takes Action Against Misconduct by GPS and SHELL Market Makers
Binance has taken decisive action against market makers involved with GoPlus Security (GPS) and MyShell (SHELL) projects after discovering improper conduct. The exchange found that the same market maker was operating for both projects, raising concerns about conflicts of interest. Investigation revealed that a GPS market maker had sold 70 million GPS tokens without corresponding purchases within a 21-hour period, generating $5 million in profit. Binance has delisted the market maker, prohibited further activities on the platform, and seized all related earnings to compensate GPS and SHELL users. The detailed compensation plans will be announced by the respective project teams.
NOON NEWS
1. Solana’s SIMD-0228 Proposal Likely to Pass with 12.4% Support Rate
User @Rocky_Bitcoin reported on X that Solana’s SIMD-0228 proposal has garnered a 12.4% support rate against a 3.4% opposition rate, making it likely to pass. The proposal could have significant short-term market effects, as users staking SOL may face reduced returns, potentially prompting some to unstake and withdraw their tokens to avoid losses. While this might cause short-term fluctuations, the proposal aims to address Solana’s inflation issues, ultimately enhancing the network’s long-term health and sustainability.
2. Bitcoin Spot ETFs See $799M Weekly Outflow
According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs experienced a net outflow of $799 million from March 3 to March 7. Only Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) recorded a net inflow of $35.77 million, bringing its historical total net inflow to $1.09 billion. Fidelity’s Bitcoin ETF (FBTC) led the outflows with $201 million for the week, while Ark & 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) saw $164 million in outflows. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs stands at $98.483 billion, representing 5.71% of Bitcoin’s total market value, with historical cumulative net inflows reaching $36.142 billion.
3. Robinhood to Pay $29.75M to Settle FINRA Investigations
Robinhood is paying $29.75 million to settle Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) investigations into its compliance practices. The settlement includes a $26 million civil fine and $3.75 million in customer restitution. FINRA stated that Robinhood failed to “respond to red flags of potential misconduct,” resulting in violations of anti-money laundering, supervisory, and disclosure laws. The company experienced processing delays during high demand from March 2020 to January 2021, when it restricted trading of meme stocks. FINRA found that Robinhood opened “thousands of accounts” without proper identity verification and failed to supervise paid promotions by social media influencers. Despite the settlement, Robinhood did not admit to FINRA’s accusations.
4. Bitdeer’s SEAL03 Bitcoin Mining Chip Passes Testing
Bitdeer Technology Group (NASDAQ: BTDR) has announced that its latest Bitcoin mining chip, SEAL03, has successfully passed testing after tape-out. Verification and prototype testing show that the chip achieves an energy efficiency ratio of 9.7J/TH when running in low voltage, ultra-low power mode, meeting the performance goals specified in the SEALMINER technology roadmap. The SEAL03 is produced in collaboration with TSMC using one of the most advanced semiconductor process nodes.
5. U.S. Treasury Yields Decline
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond fell 6 basis points to 4.257%, while the 2-year Treasury bond yield decreased 4 basis points to 3.9624%.
EVENING NEWS
1. Singapore Exchange Plans Bitcoin Perpetual Futures Launch
The Singapore Exchange (SGXL.SI) plans to list Bitcoin perpetual futures in the second half of 2025, targeting institutional clients and professional investors, according to Bloomberg News. A spokesperson for the exchange stated that the offering would “significantly expand institutional market access,” though retail customers would be barred from trading these instruments.
2. Thailand SEC Approves USDT as Recognized Cryptocurrency
Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission has officially approved Tether (USDT) as a recognized cryptocurrency, enabling its use within the country. This decision simplifies listing on regulated exchanges and paves the way for USDT to be accepted in payments. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated, “We highly value the Thai market and continuously seek ways to improve our services and offerings. Our primary goal is to provide users in Thailand with a safe, transparent, and reliable stablecoin experience.” The approval comes just before new crypto asset regulations aimed at increasing business flexibility take effect on March 16. Thailand ranks among the top 20 countries in crypto adoption, with USDT accounting for approximately 40% of total crypto transaction volume in the country.
3. MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin Holdings Fall $3.5B in Value
MicroStrategy (MSTR) has spent over $21 billion since November 10 to buy Bitcoin whose value has fallen to around $17.5 billion as of Monday afternoon, according to an Investor’s Business Daily analysis. The company’s stock fell 12.7% to $250.81 on Monday as Bitcoin’s price tumbled to around $79,500. MicroStrategy announced it hasn’t purchased any Bitcoin since February 23 and plans to offer $21 billion worth of preferred stock with an 8% interest rate. The company’s recent purchases of 219,676 Bitcoin at an average price of $96,458 raised its overall average purchase price to $66,357 per Bitcoin. At current prices, MSTR stock trades at an 86% premium to the value of its Bitcoin holdings, down from a 164% premium in November.
4. Sony Launches Web3 Entertainment Robot NFT on Opensea
On March 10, Sony’s Layer 2 network Soneium launched a Web3 entertainment robot NFT called “aibo” on Opensea. The NFT is now available for minting as an exclusively official authorized SBT collection. The name “aibo” is derived from the Japanese word “aibou” (partner), combined with “ai” (eye), “AI” (artificial intelligence), and “robot.”
5. Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade Faces Testnet Exploits
Ethereum’s highly anticipated Pectra upgrade encountered disruptions on the Sepolia testnet following an exploit that led to empty block mining. Deployed on March 5, the upgrade ran into issues hours later when developers noticed error messages on their nodes. According to developer Marius van der Wijden, the team discovered an unexpected behavior in the deposit contract that emitted an incorrect transfer event instead of the expected deposit event. An unknown attacker exploited an overlooked edge case in the ERC-20 specification, which doesn’t ban transfers of zero tokens, allowing anyone to trigger the deposit event. Developers implemented a private fix to filter out transactions interacting with the deposit contract, ultimately resolving the issue without affecting Ethereum’s mainnet. Meanwhile, Ethereum’s price continues to struggle, hovering around the $2,000 mark, a three-month low support level.
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