Weekly preview | The US SEC cryptocurrency working group held its first roundtable meeting; CME plans to launch SOL futures

News preview:

• CME Group plans to launch Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, pending regulatory review;
• Ethereum Foundation developers will launch a new “Hoodi” testnet on March 17 for final testing of the Pectra upgrade;
• Starknet plans to launch the mainnet between March 17 and 24;
• Gitcoin announced the details of the six community rounds of GG23, and the OSS Program application is scheduled to start on March 17;
• The U.S. SEC Cryptocurrency Working Group officially announced that the first roundtable meeting will be held on March 21;

March 17

Project dynamics:

Ethereum Developers to Launch Hoodi Testnet on March 17 in Preparation for Pectra Upgrade

Ethereum Foundation developers will launch a new "Hoodi" testnet on March 17 for final testing of the Pectra upgrade. Previously, Pectra had configuration issues during the activation process of the Holesky and Sepolia testnets, which delayed the official release plan. The Pectra upgrade aims to improve Ethereum's usability and scalability. The main optimizations include reducing Layer 2 data availability costs, increasing the staking limit, and introducing account abstraction to enhance smart contracts and wallet functions. If the test goes well, the upgrade may be officially deployed to the Ethereum mainnet as early as April 25. The Hoodi testnet will focus on validator exit testing to prevent Holseky from being unable to support related research due to a backlog in the exit queue.

Starknet plans to launch the mainnet between March 17 and 24

According to Starknet's 2025 decentralized roadmap, its goal is to become the first fully decentralized Layer 2 (L2) to massively scale Ethereum. The plan focuses on staking mechanisms, operational decentralization, and governance independence. In addition, Starknet's latest version v0.13.4 has been launched on the testnet, bringing optimizations such as state compression, fixed L2 gas prices, and Cairo-native performance improvements, and is scheduled to be launched on the mainnet between March 17 and 24. The future version v0.14.0 will also introduce features such as 2-second block time, more efficient sorters, and improved fee markets.

Gitcoin announces details of six community rounds of GG23, OSS Program applications to start on March 17

Gitcoin, an open source crowdfunding platform on the Ethereum chain, announced the details of the six community rounds of GG23 on the X platform, namely: Regen Coordination, GoodDollar GoodBuilders, Token Engineering the Superchain Retro Round, Regen Rio de Janeiro, Gitcoin Grants Garden and Web3 for Universities, with each round of funding of approximately US$21,000. In addition, the application period for the open source software project OSS Program is planned to be from March 17 to 31, and the QF donation period is planned to be from April 2 to 16.

ZKsync decided to terminate the Ignite program and stop issuing rewards on March 17, and will focus on Elastic Network

According to ZKsync officials, Ignite plans to stop issuing rewards on March 17 and will not start the second season. The reasons include focusing on the development of Elastic Network, slow progress in interoperability technology, and the adjustment of funding strategies due to the sluggish market. Ignite has helped ZKsync Era TVL increase to US$270 million. In the future, the team will optimize the token economic model and launch new ecological incentives. The relevant summary report will be released on March 30.

Cronos' proposal to recover the 70 billion CRO that have been destroyed is expected to end on March 17

Layer1 blockchain Cronos is facing strong opposition for a proposal to restore 70 billion CRO tokens destroyed in 2021. Early voting results on Mintscan show that 95.7% of participants voted to reject the plan. The vote is expected to end on March 17. In addition, Cryptoslate reported that CRO advocate Wyll Bilderberg said on the X platform: "Destruction is destruction, and destroyed tokens should not be resurrected. I almost never oppose anything that happens on Cronos, but today, I strongly oppose it! If this bill passes, it will only confirm that Cronos is highly centralized and therefore untrustworthy." Earlier news , Cronos proposed to reissue 70 billion destroyed tokens to "create Cronos strategic reserves."

Token unlocking:

ApeCoin (APE) will unlock 15.6 million tokens at 8:30 pm Beijing time on March 17, accounting for 1.95% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$8 million.

Solv Protocol (SOLV) will unlock approximately 117 million tokens at 6:00 pm Beijing time on March 17, accounting for 7.93% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$5 million.

March 18

Project dynamics:

Meta will launch community notes feature in the US on March 18

Meta will launch the "Community Notes" feature in the United States on March 18, applicable to Facebook, Instagram and Threads. This system draws on the crowdsourced fact-checking mechanism implemented by X (formerly Twitter) since 2021, aiming to improve the transparency and scalability of platform information verification.

Initia will shut down wallet extensions on March 18, and users need to migrate testnet data in time

Layer1 blockchain Initia officially announced that Initia will shut down its wallet extension service at 3:00 am UTC on March 18 (11:00 am Beijing time on March 18). Initia wallet users must complete the migration before this date, otherwise they will not be able to access the data on the test network, including the test network Jennie and related data. Users can migrate their wallets through migration.initia.xyz.

Sui Foundation launches SuiNS RFP program, application deadline is March 18

The Sui Foundation announced the official launch of the SuiNS program, which aims to promote influential development and strengthen community cooperation and promote ecological development by directly funding projects that meet the needs of the Sui ecosystem and the growth of SuiNS. The application channel for the SuiNS RFP program is now open, and developers can submit their proposals. The application deadline is 15:59 (UTC+8) on March 18, 2025. After submission, the RFP committee will screen the candidates and vote on the proposals that will ultimately be funded. Selected developers must sign a funding agreement outlining the project's milestones, deliverables, and timelines, and develop as planned. In addition, to maintain transparency and accountability, selected developers must undergo an identity verification process.

According to reports, Sui NS aims to provide users with a simple, easy-to-recognize identity that can be used in the Sui ecosystem, promote more personalized and feature-rich interactions, and further enhance user experience and application functions. The RFP (Request for Proposals) program aims to accelerate innovation in the Sui ecosystem. Each RFP defines a specific area of focus, encouraging developers to propose solutions and use funding to build these solutions.

Token unlocking:

Fasttoken (FTN) will unlock 20 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 18, accounting for 4.65% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$79.8 million.

QuantixAI (QAI) will unlock approximately 566,000 tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 18, accounting for 3960.24% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$41.4 million.

Melania Meme (MELANIA) will unlock 26.25 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 18, accounting for 17.50% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$17.6 million.

March 19

Project dynamics:

Babylon extends airdrop registration deadline to March 19

The Babylon Foundation announced that since some users have only recently completed the airdrop registration, the airdrop registration deadline will be extended by 4 days to 4:00 pm Beijing time on March 19.

Core 2025 Game Hackathon will end on March 19

The Core Foundation officially launched the Core 2025 Game Hackathon, offering a $380,000 prize to developers around the world to encourage the construction of innovative games based on Bitcoin. The hackathon will last for four weeks, and participants will build high-performance, decentralized games on the Core blockchain and explore more possibilities of Bitcoin in the gaming field. Event time: February 5th – March 19th; total prize pool: $380,000 + additional developer incentives; track categories: casual games, social PvP games, puzzle games.

Token unlocking:

Polyhedra Network (ZKJ) will unlock approximately 15.53 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 19, accounting for 25.72% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$31.8 million.

March 20

Macroeconomics:

At 02:00 on March 20 (Thursday), the Federal Reserve FOMC will announce its interest rate decision and a summary of economic expectations.

Project dynamics:

BNB Chain launches the second round of permanent liquidity support program, this round will end on March 20

BNBChain recently launched the second round of the $4.4 million permanent liquidity plan, expanding from the first round of the Meme track to all outstanding native project tokens on BSC (BNB Smart Chain). It aims to strengthen the long-term development of the BNB Chain ecosystem by providing long-term liquidity support for high-potential projects. This round of competition will be held from March 13 to March 20, 2025, including daily and weekly competitions, and the most promising assets will be selected based on key performance indicators. The daily competition will be divided into two competition areas: the "potential explosion area" with a market value of less than 20 million US dollars and the "mature area" with a market value of not less than 20 million US dollars. The daily competition will last for seven days, and one winning project will be selected from the potential explosion area and the mature area every day. The ranking of the competition will be determined based on the comprehensive performance of trading volume, market value and price increase within 24 hours.

BNB Chain will hold a Pascal hard fork upgrade on March 20 to support EIP-7702

BNB Chain will conduct a mainnet Pascal hard fork on March 20, 2025 to improve EVM compatibility and become one of the first public chains to adopt EIP-7702. This upgrade will introduce features such as Gas abstraction, EOA wallet smart contract, and batch transactions to provide users with a smoother experience and greater flexibility for developers. Through the EIP-7702 proposal, BNB Chain will allow externally owned accounts (EOA) to temporarily have smart contract functions during transactions while maintaining account security. This upgrade will significantly lower the threshold for users to enter Web3. For example, Gas fee abstraction allows users to complete on-chain interactions without holding native tokens for gas fees in their accounts; at the same time, it allows dApps to sponsor Gas fees for users, batch transactions and other functions to enhance the user on-chain experience.

March 21

Policy supervision:

The US SEC Cryptocurrency Working Group officially announced that the first roundtable meeting will be held on March 21

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) newly formed cryptocurrency task force will hold its first roundtable later this month as part of a series of meetings. The meeting, titled "Our Past and Future - Defining Securities Status," will be held on March 21 at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C., the SEC said in a statement on Monday. The roundtable is part of a series of meetings called "Spring Sprint for Crypto Clarity." "I look forward to leveraging the public's expertise to develop a workable regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies," Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the cryptocurrency task force, said in a statement. Peirce said she plans to prioritize classifying some tokens as "non-securities."

It is reported that the guests of the first roundtable meeting of the US SEC Crypto Working Group included Miles Jennings, general counsel of a16z crypto and Delphi Ventures, Sarah Brennan, general counsel of investment company Delphi Ventures, and others.

Project dynamics:

BNB Chain TVL Incentive Program Extended to March 21

BNB Chain announced on the X platform that the TVL Incentive Program will be extended by one month, with the new deadline being March 21, 2025.

Wemade's WEMIX token performance bonus dispute lawsuit will be debated on the morning of March 21

A civil lawsuit has been launched with about 20 employees of South Korean game company WeMade regarding the payment of performance bonuses for its virtual asset WEMIX (WEMIX). The Civil 42nd Division of the Seoul Central District Court has held the first debate preparation meeting for the case. The plaintiffs are former and current employees of WeMadeTree, a former subsidiary of WeMade. They claim to have signed a compensation agreement with the company for the development of WEMIX and provided an email from the company promising compensation as evidence. However, WeMade denied the existence of any verbal agreement, only admitting that it had notified employees about the basic compensation plan, and pointed out that since the legal regulations and accounting treatment standards for virtual assets have not yet been clarified, the company faces accounting uncertainties and the risk of criminal breach of trust by management, and therefore failed to directly sign a compensation contract.

The trial department pointed out that the plaintiff's defect was the lack of a written contract, but at the same time believed that it would be unreasonable for the defendant to refuse to pay any compensation for this reason. The next debate in the case is scheduled for the morning of March 21. WeMade said that it is willing to negotiate with the company members to formulate a specific compensation plan contract.

Token unlocking:

Immutable (IMX) will unlock 24.52 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 21, accounting for 1.39% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$13.4 million.

March 22

Token unlocking:

SPACE ID (ID) will unlock 78.49 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 22, accounting for 18.23% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$19.3 million.

March 23

Project dynamics:

Ethereum Foundation extends application deadline for 2025 academic grant program to March 23

According to updated information on the Ethereum Foundation website, the application submission date for the 2025 Academic Grant Program has been extended to 23:59 AoE time on March 23. It is reported that a total of US$2 million in funds are available in this round of funding to support academic work related to Ethereum.

Token unlocking:

Metars Genesis (MRS) will unlock 10 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 23, accounting for 11.87% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$97.4 million.

MANTRA (OM) will unlock 5 million tokens at 8:00 am on March 23rd (Beijing time), accounting for 0.51% of the current circulation, with a value of approximately US$32.8 million.

Murasaki (MURA) will unlock 10 million tokens at 8:00 am Beijing time on March 23, which is 1.00% of the current circulation and worth about US$7.4 million.