KEYTAKEAWAYS
- Major institutional moves continue with CME launching Solana futures, while Bitwise and Grayscale file for DOGE and HBAR ETFs, signaling growing mainstream acceptance.
- Bybit hackers linked to North Korea's Lazarus Group have now laundered 68% of stolen funds despite FBI warnings and international tracking efforts.
- Markets experienced extreme volatility following Trump's crypto reserve announcement, with $1 billion in liquidations as Bitcoin crashed from $93K to $83K.
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. CME to Launch Solana Futures in March
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) plans to launch Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, according to an official announcement from the Solana X account.
2. Bitwise Files for Spot Dogecoin ETF
On March 3, Bitwise filed for a spot Dogecoin ETF with the NYSE, triggering a 50% price surge from $0.08 to $0.12 within 15 minutes. The announcement drove DOGE’s trading volume to 15 billion tokens in the first hour, while also lifting related meme tokens like SHIB and PEPE by 20% and 15% respectively.
3. Congressional Crypto Caucus Being Established
The Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives and Congressman Ritchie Torres are forming a “Congressional Crypto Caucus” to promote pro-crypto legislation and build a voting coalition supporting digital assets in Congress.
4. IMF Restricts El Salvador’s Bitcoin Purchases
The IMF is looking to restrict El Salvador’s Bitcoin purchases as part of a $1.4 billion funding arrangement. The technical memorandum states “no voluntary accumulation of BTC by the public sector” and prohibits the issuance of debt instruments indexed to or denominated in Bitcoin. Despite these restrictions, President Nayib Bukele announced a new purchase bringing the country’s holdings to 6,100 BTC.
5. Key Figure in Singapore Money Laundering Case to Be Extradited
Wang Shuiming, a key figure in Singapore’s largest money laundering case involving 3 billion Singapore dollars, has been captured in Montenegro and will be extradited to China. His partner, Su Weiyi, was arrested in July 2024 for allegedly masterminding the AAX cryptocurrency platform scam.
NOON NEWS
1. El Salvador Increases Bitcoin Holdings
Data from Bitcoin.gob shows El Salvador has acquired an additional five BTC, bringing the country’s total holdings to approximately 6,100.18 BTC, valued at around $507.6 million.
2. Bybit Hackers Resume Laundering Stolen Funds
The perpetrators behind the $1.4 billion Bybit hack have resumed laundering funds, moving another 62,200 ETH ($138 million) on March 1. This brings the total laundered amount to 343,000 ETH, about 68% of the 499,000 ETH originally stolen. The FBI has linked the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group and flagged over 11,000 crypto wallet addresses.
3. MegaETH Announces Testnet Rollout Plan
MegaETH, a high-performance Ethereum Layer 2 targeting up to 100,000 transactions per second, has scheduled its public testnet deployment for March 6. The rollout will occur in phases, with applications and infrastructure teams onboarding first (March 6-10), followed by users from March 10 onward.
4. FastLane Labs Secures $6M in Financing
FastLane Labs announced the completion of $6 million in financing, led by Figment Capital and DBA, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures, and Hashkey Capital. The company previously raised $2.3 million in May 2023 and focuses on creating income for validators while improving algorithmic trading efficiency.
5. Nasdaq Files for Grayscale’s Spot Hedera ETF
The Nasdaq Stock Market filed a 19b-4 form with the SEC to list and trade Grayscale’s spot Hedera (HBAR) exchange-traded fund. This follows a similar filing for Canary Capital’s spot HBAR ETF last week. Bloomberg analysts consider Hedera and Litecoin to have the “best odds” among altcoin ETF filings given their progress with the SEC.
EVENING NEWS
1. FTX/Alameda Unbonds 3.03M SOL
According to Lookonchain monitoring, FTX/Alameda unbound 3.03 million SOL, with 24,799 SOL worth approximately $3.38 million flowing into Binance.
2. Chinese Auto Trading Platform Expands Bitcoin Holdings
Cango Inc, a NYSE-listed Chinese auto trading platform, has acquired an additional 472 BTC, bringing its total holdings to 1,944 BTC. This reflects the growing trend of corporate Bitcoin investments as part of asset diversification strategies.
3. USDC Burns 50M Tokens on Solana Chain
WhaleAlert reported that at 16:13 Beijing time, USDC Treasury burned 50 million USDC on the Solana chain.
4. Flowdesk Raises $52M to Expand Crypto Trading Services
Crypto trading firm Flowdesk has raised $52 million in a Series B extension round, bringing its total Series B funding to $102 million. The latest funding is 80% equity and 20% debt, with HV Capital leading the equity portion. Flowdesk plans to expand into tokenization, scale its OTC derivatives business, and establish a dedicated crypto credit desk.
5. Crypto Market Experiences Major Volatility
The crypto market experienced extreme volatility on March 3-4, with an initial $350 billion surge following Trump’s crypto reserve announcement rapidly turning into one of 2025’s worst sell-offs. Over $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, with Bitcoin dropping from $93,000 to $83,000. Analytics firm CryptoQuant suggests the bull cycle remains intact despite the correction, attributing the slowdown to U.S. market sentiment.
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