Uncategorized
Michael Saylor’s Strategy makes smallest Bitcoin purchase on record
Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public corporate Bitcoin holder, has announced its smallest Bitcoin purchase on record.
Strategy on March 17 officially announced its latest 130 Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition, bought for around $10.7 million in cash, or at an average price of roughly $82,981 per BTC.
The latest Bitcoin purchase was made using proceeds from the “STRK ATM,” a new Strategy’s program looking to raise up to $21 billion in fresh capital to acquire more BTC.
Strategy’s new 130 BTC buy is the smallest one ever recorded since the company announced its first purchase of 21,454 BTC for $250 million in August 2020.
Strategy is 774 BTC away from holding 500,000 BTC
With the new purchase, Strategy and its subsidiaries now hold 499,226 BTC, acquired at an aggregate purchase price of approximately $33.1 billion and an average purchase price of around $66,360 per BTC, inclusive of fees and expenses.
After buying 130 BTC, Strategy is yet to buy 774 BTC to reach holdings of 500,000 BTC.
Source: Michael Saylor
According to the Strategy website, the company’s Bitcoin yield now stands at 6.9%, significantly lower than its 15% target for 2025.
Smallest buy on record
Despite the Bitcoin price falling to multimonth lows below $80,000 last week, Strategy’s latest buy is significantly smaller than its most recent buys and is the smallest ever announced BTC purchase by the firm.
Prior to the latest purchase, the smallest BTC purchase by Strategy was a 169 Bitcoin purchase in August 2024, according to official records by Strategy.
Strategy’s Bitcoin acquisitions in 2025. Source: Strategy
So far in 2025, Strategy has acquired 51,656 BTC in seven announced acquisitions.
This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.
Source link
Crypto exchange Bitnomial has voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission ahead of launching its Ripple XRP futures in the United States.
The Chicago-based firm said in a March 19 statement to X that its XRP (XRP) futures are regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and will be available from March 20 for current users.
“Bitnomial is launching the first-ever CFTC-regulated XRP futures in the US — physically settled for real market impact,” Bitnomial said.
“Plus, we’ve voluntarily dismissed our case against the SEC as regulatory clarity improves,” it added.
Source: Bitnomial
The exchange filed a self-certification with the CFTC to list XRP futures contracts on its exchange in August 2024. However, the SEC blocked the move, pushing for Bitnomial to register as a securities exchange before it could list the futures.
Bitnomial sued the SEC and its five commissioners on Oct. 10, accusing the agency of overextending its jurisdiction by claiming that XRP is a security.
Bitnomial’s XRP futures launch follows Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s March 19 announcement the SEC opted out of continuing an appeal against a ruling labeling XRP as not a security for retail sales.
A July 13, 2023 judgment from Judge Analisa Torres deemed XRP is not a security for retail sales; however, she opined it was when sold to institutional investors, as it met the conditions set in the Howey test. The SEC was appealing Torres’s decision.
The SEC initially launched legal action against Ripple Labs in December 2020, accusing the firm of illegally selling its token as an unregistered security.
Related: Vermont follows SEC’s lead, drops staking legal action against Coinbase
Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s reign, dismissing a growing number of enforcement actions against crypto firms.
The agency’s acting chair, Mark Uyeda, who took the reins after Gensler resigned on Jan. 20, flagged plans on March 17 to scrap a rule proposed under the Biden administration that would tighten crypto custody standards for investment advisers.
Uyeda also said in a March 10 speech that he had asked SEC staff for options to abandon part of proposed changes that would expand regulation of alternative trading systems to include crypto firms, requiring them to register as exchanges.
Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered
United States President Donald Trump will reportedly speak at Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 20, Blockworks said. His speech will mark the first time a sitting US president has ever spoken at a cryptocurrency conference, Blockworks said in a March 19 announcement. Trump’s presence at the event underscores his embrace of an industry that, under former US president Joe Biden, was the target of more than 100 enforcement actions by federal regulators. “When we started Blockworks we could barely get someone from a bank to attend an event,” Jason Yanowitz, one of Blockworks co-founders, said in a March 19 post on the X platform. “Now we have a sitting US President addressing […] 2,500 institutional participants. It is incredible how far this industry has come,” Yanowitz said. Blockworks reportedly confirmed Trump will address attendees via a video recording at 10:40 am, Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett said in an X post. Source: Jason Yanowitz Related: SEC will drop its appeal against Ripple, CEO Garlinghouse says During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump spoke at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where he promised to make America the “world’s crypto capital” and hinted at plans to form a national Bitcoin (BTC) reserve. Since starting his presidential term on Jan. 20, Trump has signed executive orders instructing regulatory bodies to accommodate digital assets, forming a White House crypto advisory team, and creating a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile. He has also nominated pro-industry leadership to key regulatory posts, including at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Treasury Department. Bo Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, spoke at the Digital Asset Summit earlier this week. On March 19, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple Labs, announced the SEC was dropping its years-long enforcement action against the blockchain developer while at the Summit. Since Trump took office, the agency has also dropped charges against other crypto firms — including Coinbase, Kraken and Uniswap — for allegedly violating securities laws. Blockworks did not specify the topics Trump planned to cover during his speech, which it said would take place Thursday morning. Representatives of the White House and Hines did not immediately reply to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. Crypto industry executives told Cointelegraph in March they are hoping Trump will provide more detailed regulatory clarity on topics such as stablecoin regulation and taxes. Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom Victims of address poisoning scams were tricked into willingly sending over $1.2 million worth of funds to scammers, showcasing the problematic rise of cryptocurrency phishing attacks. Address poisoning, or wallet poisoning scams, involves tricking victims into sending their digital assets to fraudulent addresses belonging to scammers. Pig butchering schemes on Ethereum have cost the crypto industry over $1.2 million worth of funds in the nearly three weeks since the beginning of the month, wrote onchain security firm Cyvers in a March 19 X post: “Attackers send small transactions to victims, mimicking their frequently used wallet addresses. When users copy-paste an address from their transaction history, they might accidentally send funds to the scammer instead.” Source: Cyvers Alerts Address poisoning scams have been growing, since the beginning of the year, costing the industry over $1.8 million in February, according to Deddy Lavid, co-founder and CEO of Cyvers. The growing sophistication of attackers and the lack of pre-transaction security measures are some of the main reasons for the increase, the CEO told Cointelegraph, adding: “More users and institutions are leveraging automated tools for crypto transactions, some of which may not have built-in verification mechanisms to detect poisoned addresses.” While the higher transaction volume due to the crypto bull market is a contributing factor, pre-transaction verification methods may stop a significant amount of phishing attacks, said Lavid, adding: “Unlike traditional fraud detection, many wallets and platforms lack real-time pre-transaction screening that could flag suspicious addresses before funds are sent.” Related: August sees 215% rise in crypto phishing, $55M lost in single attack Address poisoning scams have previously cost investors tens of millions. In May 2024, an investor sent $71 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin to a bait wallet address, falling victim to a wallet poisoning scam. The scammer created a wallet address with similar alphanumeric characters and made a small transaction to the victim’s account. However, the attacker returned the $71 million days later, after he had an unexpected change of heart due to the growing attention from blockchain investigators. Related: Ledger users targeted by malicious ‘clear signing’ phishing email Phishing scams are becoming a growing threat to the crypto industry, next to traditional hacks. Pig butchering scams are another type of phishing scheme involving prolonged and complex manipulation tactics to trick investors into willingly sending their assets to fraudulent crypto addresses. Pig butchering schemes on the Ethereum network cost the industry over $5.5 billion across 200,000 identified cases in 2024, according to Cyvers. The average grooming period for victims lasts between one and two weeks in 35% of cases, while 10% of scams involve grooming periods of up to three months, according to Cyvers data. Pig butchering victim statistics and grooming periods. Source: Cyvers In an alarming sign, 75% of victims lost over half of their net worth to pig butchering scams. Males aged 30 to 49 are most affected by these attacks. Phishing scams were the top crypto security threat of 2024, which netted attackers over $1 billion across 296 incidents as the most costly attack vector for the crypto industry. Magazine: Down to $200 one day, Pixels founder had $2.4M the next: Luke Barwikowski, X Hall of Flame Arthur Hayes, Murad’s Prediction For Meme Coins, AI & DeFi Coins For 2025 Expert Sees Bitcoin Dipping To $50K While Bullish Signs Persist Aptos Leverages Chainlink To Enhance Scalability and Data Access Bitcoin Could Rally to $80,000 on the Eve of US Elections Sonic Now ‘Golden Standard’ of Layer-2s After Scaling Transactions to 16,000+ per Second, Says Andre Cronje Institutional Investors Go All In on Crypto as 57% Plan to Boost Allocations as Bull Run Heats Up, Sygnum Survey Reveals Crypto’s Big Trump Gamble Is Risky Ripple-SEC Case Ends, But These 3 Rivals Could Jump 500x
Source link 
Changing political fortunes
Source link 
Phishing scams are a growing problem for the crypto industry
Source link 
Analyst Says Bitcoin Primed for ‘Party Time’ if BTC Breaks Above Critical Level, Updates Outlook on Chainlink
Binance adds a new EUR market tier to its fiat liquidity provider program
Authorities Target Crypto Scammers Posing as Binance in Australia
Why Is Solana Price Up 6% Today?
Ripple CEO Confident of XRP Being Included in U.S. Strategic Reserve, Says IPO is 'Possible'
Bitnomial drops SEC lawsuit ahead of XRP futures launch in the US
Bitcoin Long-Term Holder Net Position Turns Green For The First Time In 2025
BIGGER THAN ORDINALS. MORE THAN ART
Leading Shiba Inu Rival Flashing Bullish Signals Hinting at Price Reversal, According to Santiment
Binance’s USDT pair with Turkish lira sees largest amplitude since 2024 after key Erdogan rival detained
Treasury Expands Financial Surveillance of Cash Transactions—What About Crypto?
Bitcoin Price Eyes 90K rally at Blackrock-led ETFs Buy $512M BTC 3-Days before US Fed Decision
Bitcoin Reclaims $85k and Stocks Head Higher Despite Analysts Warning of Pain Ahead
Trump to speak at Digital Asset Summit: Report
Bitcoin’s Road To $1M? Expect A ‘Dip Then Rip,’ Bitwise CIO Says
Arthur Hayes, Murad’s Prediction For Meme Coins, AI & DeFi Coins For 2025
Expert Sees Bitcoin Dipping To $50K While Bullish Signs Persist
Aptos Leverages Chainlink To Enhance Scalability and Data Access
Bitcoin Could Rally to $80,000 on the Eve of US Elections
Sonic Now ‘Golden Standard’ of Layer-2s After Scaling Transactions to 16,000+ per Second, Says Andre Cronje
Institutional Investors Go All In on Crypto as 57% Plan to Boost Allocations as Bull Run Heats Up, Sygnum Survey Reveals
Crypto’s Big Trump Gamble Is Risky
Ripple-SEC Case Ends, But These 3 Rivals Could Jump 500x
Has The Bitcoin Price Already Peaked?
A16z-backed Espresso announces mainnet launch of core product
Xmas Altcoin Rally Insights by BNM Agent I
Blockchain groups challenge new broker reporting rule
Trump’s Coin Is About As Revolutionary As OneCoin
Is $200,000 a Realistic Bitcoin Price Target for This Cycle?
The Future of Bitcoin: Scaling, Institutional Adoption, and Strategic Reserves with Rich Rines
