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The Middle East conflict remains front and center for global financial markets.
Yet, the DeFi complex keeps marching forward:
1) Ripple plans to acquire BC Payments as part of its push to secure an Australian Financial Services License and expand deeper into the Asia-Pacific region, according to their statement on Tuesday.
The licence would allow the company to offer Ripple Payments in Australia, giving it a regulated framework to deliver an end-to-end platform that combines traditional banking rails with crypto-enabled settlement.
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2) Nasdaq-listed Solmate is accelerating its shift toward digital asset infrastructure, proposing a 10-for-1 reverse stock split and a formal name change from Brera Holdings PLC to Solmate Infrastructure PLC.
The company said the restructuring will support its goal of becoming an institutional-grade Solana infrastructure provider, with Abu Dhabi serving as its main operational base.
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3) Nasdaq announced a partnership with Boerse Stuttgart’s Seturion, a tokenised settlement platform, in a move that broadens its push into blockchain-based market infrastructure, according to their statement on Monday.
The collaboration will support the trading and settlement of tokenised securities in Europe, initially through structured products.
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4) Sonic Network has launched USSD, a network-integrated USD stablecoin, backed 1:1 by high-quality, short-duration USD assets held with regulated custodians, including tokenized U.S. Treasury products from institutions such as BlackRock (BUIDL), Superstate (USTB), and WisdomTree.
The stablecoin can be minted permissionlessly through non-custodial smart contracts by depositing supported USD assets such as USDC, USDT, PYUSD, USDB, and approved Treasury representations at a 1:1 ratio with zero minting fees.
Redemption is contract-driven and designed for flexible cross-chain liquidity movement, allowing holders to redeem USSD 1:1 into supported USD assets across different chains, with potential future redemption into U.S. dollars subject to KYC/AML requirements.
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5) Coinbase and Paxos used stablecoins to pay insurance premiums to Aon, in what the company described as a first for a major global insurance broker.
Tim Fletcher, CEO of Aon’s financial services group, said the firm’s position as a “first mover” in accepting stablecoins for premium settlement reflects its commitment to innovating on behalf of clients, in its statement on Monday.
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6) According to TRON’s post on X, the company has joined the Agentic AI Foundation, an open initiative under the Linux Foundation focused on supporting transparent and interoperable agentic AI infrastructure.
TRON said it joined AAIF as a Gold Member and will also take a seat on the Foundation’s Governing Board.
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7) Bitcoin has passed a major milestone, with over 20M BTC mined at block height 939,999 under the current 3.125 BTC block reward, leaving the remaining supply to be issued gradually until the final fractions are mined around 2140.
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8) New BTC digital asset treasury company Stack BTC Plc, chaired by Kwasi Kwarteng, the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer under the conservative party, has completed a £260,000 equity fundraising at £0.05 per share, issuing 5.2 million new ordinary shares to strategic investors, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Blockchain.com.
Following the investment, Farage holds around a 6.3% stake through his investment vehicle Thorn In The Side Ltd.
The company also disclosed its first bitcoin purchase of 21 BTC at an average price of $71,594 per coin (around $1.5M) as part of its bitcoin treasury strategy.
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9) Eric Trump-linked Bitcoin miner American Bitcoin (ABTC) has announced the milestone of its corporate treasury now reaching over 6,500 BTC, adding more than 500 BTC in the past 21 days.
With this accumulation, ABTC now ranks as the 17th largest publicly listed Bitcoin-holding company globally.
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10) 21Shares is bringing its Polkadot product, $TDOT, to market today, according to the firm’s announcement on X.
The prospectus describes $TDOT as an exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to track the price of DOT, with the potential to reflect staking rewards, though it is not a direct investment in Polkadot itself.
Instead, investors hold shares in a trust that owns DOT on their behalf, giving them market exposure to the token without direct ownership or the rights that come with holding DOT natively.
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11) A Bitcoin Reserve Offering (BRO) vault on DeFi platform Solv Protocol was exploited, affecting “<10” users and resulting in the loss of 38.0474 SolvBTC.
The team said all other vaults and user funds remain secure and confirmed it will fully reimburse affected users. The incident is being investigated with security partners, while the exploiter has been offered a 10% white-hat bounty if the funds are returned.
If approved, the system would introduce a 180-day minimum lock-up, weighted voting based on stake, staking rewards for active voters (targeting ~2% APR), and tiered incentives including USD1 benefits and prioritised partnership access for long-term supporters.
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12) According to a post on X from Bitwise, the asset manager is donating $100,000 to support Ethereum open-source developers through Protocol Guild and the PBS Foundation.
The contribution forms part of Bitwise’s earlier commitment to allocate 10% of $ETHW’s gross profits each year back to the Ethereum ecosystem following the launch of its Ethereum ETF in July 2024.
Bitwise said the donation is intended to support core protocol research, development, and the maintenance of critical open-source infrastructure.
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XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT are perpetual contracts that give traders exposure to the price of gold and silver, respectively, without requiring ownership of the underlying physical metal.
These instruments draw on the pricing conventions of traditional precious metals markets, where gold and silver are typically quoted in US dollars through pairs such as XAUUSD and XAGUSD.
XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT follow the same logic, but package that exposure in a perpetual contract format that can be traded through the same exchange infrastructure used for crypto derivatives.
This crypto-native format is also relevant from a trading perspective, as crypto markets operate 24/7, whereas traditional precious metals markets trade only during set market hours.
For traders in crypto ...
XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT therefore offer a way to access gold and silver in a 24/7 market, compared to the traditional market, which operates under fixed hours.
The timing of the listing is particularly notable.
Gold and silver are more relevant than ever in the current market environment, as elevated macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty has increased attention on traditional safe-haven and macro-sensitive assets.
Bybit has listed XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT Perpetual Contracts on 9 March 2026. Trading is now open with up to 75x leverage.