PA Daily News | Trump announces 10% global tariffs; Tether to halt CNHT issuance and terminate redemption after one year.

Today's top news highlights:

US SEC Commissioner: Supports 2% Capital Deduction for Payment-Based Stablecoins

Trump: Will impose an additional 10% global tariff on top of existing tariffs

An American man admits to laundering nearly $100 million in money, allegedly transferring crypto assets through platforms such as Coinbase.

White House officials confirmed that Trump will visit China from March 31 to April 2.

Tether will cease supporting CNHT: issuance will stop immediately, and redemption will cease one year later.

OpenAI: Revenue is expected to exceed $280 billion by 2030

Coinbase has custody of over 80% of U.S. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF assets.

Musk's X platform has appealed the European Commission's €120 million fine.

Regulation & Macro

US SEC Commissioner: Proposed rule revisions to clarify the regulatory framework for payment-based stablecoins, supporting a 2% capital deduction for such stablecoins.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce wrote that he hopes to revise Rule 15c3-1 to more clearly cover payment-based stablecoins. The agency has already released a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) clarifying the regulatory treatment of payment-based stablecoins under the broker-dealer net capital rule framework, mainly including:

1. If brokerage firms apply a 2% haircut to their proprietary payment stablecoin assets when calculating net capital, regulators will not raise any objections.

2. Before the GENIUS Act came into effect, "payment stablecoins" were required to be denominated in US dollars, issued by state-regulated remittance agencies, state-regulated trust companies, or national trust banks, and meet requirements such as reserve assets, redemption policy disclosure, and monthly audit reports issued by certified public accountants. After the Act came into effect, they were required to comply with the GENIUS Act's definitions and requirements for "payment stablecoins" and "compliant issuers."

Trump: Will impose a 10% global tariff on top of existing tariffs; interest rates should be significantly reduced.

US President Trump stated that all national security tariffs, Section 232 tariffs, and existing Section 301 tariffs remain in effect and fully operational. "Today, I will sign an order imposing an additional 10% global tariff, pursuant to Section 122, on top of the normal tariffs we already impose, for a period of 150 days. We will also initiate several Section 301 investigations and other investigations to protect our nation from unfair trade practices." Trump also indicated that the 10% tariff policy is expected to take effect "in about three days." Furthermore, when mentioning the nominee for Federal Reserve Chairman, Trump reiterated that interest rates should be significantly lowered.

An American man admits to laundering nearly $100 million in money, allegedly transferring crypto assets through platforms such as Coinbase.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice website, Geoffrey K. Auyeung, a 47-year-old man from Newcastle, Washington, pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Seattle to conspiracy to launder money, involving nearly $100 million. Under the plea agreement, the man admitted to setting up nine entities to receive funds from victims through fraudulent projects. Once the funds were received, they were quickly transferred to other bank accounts, overseas accounts, or used to purchase crypto assets such as Bitcoin, USDT, USDC, and Ethereum through cryptocurrency exchanges. The crypto assets in question were purchased through exchanges such as Gemini, Bitstamp, and Coinbase. He opened 19 accounts on eight cryptocurrency exchanges, receiving approximately $97.1 million in domestic and international third-party transfers and deposits. The case was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office, and a sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 12.

Hong Kong Gold Exchange announces it will develop a digital commodity blockchain.

The Hong Kong Gold Exchange held its Lunar New Year opening ceremony yesterday. In his speech, HKG Exchange Chairman Cheung Tak-hei stated that HKG Exchange has officially partnered with a member company of Alibaba Group to develop a digital commodity blockchain, as well as an international precious metals trading platform and clearing and settlement system. This will provide unified risk control and supervision for all systems in Hong Kong, including spot, futures, digital gold, B2C trading, actuarial center, and over-the-counter (OTC) trading. The system is expected to be completed within six months, and HKG Exchange hopes to connect to the "Hong Kong Gold Central Clearing System" established by the Hong Kong SAR government.

President of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association: The application process for virtual asset practitioners must be open and transparent, and the mandatory examination requirement should be suspended.

Hong Kong's virtual asset and related businesses are facing sudden changes in compliance requirements. According to Chan Chi-wah, president of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association, applicants for virtual asset license upgrades and existing responsible personnel (ROs) are required to take a virtual asset regulatory exam administered by a single organization. This exam is bundled with the organization's courses, course materials cannot be easily reviewed, and registration and technical support are confusing. It is understood that this requirement was not announced through official documents or public guidelines, but rather verbally or via individual emails, lacking transparency and fairness. This increases compliance costs for practitioners, impacts business development, and the absence of a public consultation mechanism means policy-making lacks frontline feedback. The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Professionals Association recommends maintaining the existing additional 5 hours of Continuing Professional Training (CPT) and urges regulators to immediately suspend the use of implicit policies to enforce the exam requirement, establish a transparent consultation mechanism, incorporate stakeholder opinions into policy-making, and ensure feasibility and market fairness.

White House officials confirmed that Trump will visit China from March 31 to April 2.

White House officials have confirmed that Trump will visit China from March 31 to April 2, and have previously expressed their anticipation for the welcoming ceremony.

Musk's X platform has appealed the European Commission's €120 million fine.

According to the Brussels Times, Elon Musk's X platform has appealed a €120 million fine imposed by the European Union for alleged violations of the Digital Services Act. The fine, imposed by the European Commission last December, was the first penalty issued by the EU under this digital regulatory law, which requires large platforms to combat illegal content, misinformation, and abuse. In a statement released on its platform, X said it was appealing the penalty, arguing that the EU investigation was flawed. The company stated, "This decision stems from an incomplete and superficial investigation, with serious procedural errors, a misinterpretation of obligations under the Digital Services Act, and a systematic violation of the right to defense and due process."

Project Updates

Tether will cease supporting CNHT: issuance will stop immediately, and redemption will cease one year later.

Tether has officially announced a strategic adjustment to its CNHT product and the discontinuation of support to better focus on its community-driven core product development. Effective immediately, Tether will cease all new CNHT issuances and will no longer mint new tokens. One year after this announcement, redemption support for CNHT will end, and a separate reminder will be issued before the redemption deadline. Tether stated that this decision is based on factors such as changes in the market environment, low product interest, and limited continued community demand compared to other assets. The current usage scale of CNHT is insufficient to support the operating costs required to maintain the same standards as other products. Before the redemption deadline, Tether will continue to process CNHT redemption requests according to the terms of service. Tether officially recommends that users holding CNHT on any supported blockchain network complete their redemption as soon as possible.

IoTeX is suspected of having its private key compromised, resulting in the theft and cross-chain transfer of approximately $4.3 million in assets.

On-chain analyst Specter published an article on the X platform stating that IoTeX may have suffered a private key breach, with its token safe assets being completely transferred out by attackers, resulting in a total loss of approximately $4.3 million.

On-chain data shows that the attackers transferred multiple contract assets, including USDC, USDT, IOTX, PAYG, WBTC, and BUSD. The stolen assets were subsequently converted into ETH, with approximately 45 ETH transferred across the blockchain to the Bitcoin network. The incident is still under further investigation.

PyShield: IoTex hackers begin converting stolen funds into ETH and swapping them for BTC via Thorchain.

According to a post on the X platform by PeckShieldAlert, IoTex has lost $8 million worth of cryptocurrency due to a suspected breach of its private key. The hackers have begun converting the stolen funds into ETH and then into BTC via Thorchain.

According to announcements from Bithumb and Upbit, both cryptocurrency exchanges have suspended deposits and withdrawals of IOTX tokens.

Opinions & Analysis

Wintermute founder: The crypto industry has deviated from its cypherpunk roots; Ethereum ecosystem TVL is mostly "dormant capital."

Evgeny Gaevoy, founder of crypto market maker Wintermute, recently stated on Fortune magazine's Crypto Playbook podcast that despite the industry's positive developments, such as pro-blockchain government and Wall Street adoption, the crypto industry is gradually being dominated by a "number go up" mentality, deviating from its original cypherpunk ideals. Bitcoin was originally designed to build a decentralized monetary system free from government and bank control, but the current development of the industry revolves more around financialization and speculation. The crypto industry should return to the cypherpunk spirit in the future, rather than fully integrating into Wall Street.

Furthermore, regarding the debate between Ethereum and public chains such as Solana, Evgeny Gaevoy pointed out that the market has overlooked the core issue: the real adoption of decentralized applications remains very limited. Although the total value locked (TVL) in the Ethereum ecosystem exceeds $120 billion, most of it is "dormant capital," with a very low proportion truly integrated into real economic activities, which is still negligible compared to the traditional financial system (TradFi).

Vitalik: Plans to build an Ethereum with cyberpunk principles that is "not ugly," potentially enabling system-level language migration in the future.

In a post on the X platform, Vitalik Buterin stated that he is attempting to advance a more ambitious plan: to build a "cypherpunk-principled, non-ugly Ethereum" extension layer on top of the existing system, achieving as close integration and high interoperability as possible with the current system. This plan will be developed gradually, while ensuring that Ethereum itself acquires the necessary cyberpunk and simplicity features implemented at the system level, including censorship resistance, zero-knowledge proof (ZK) friendliness, and consensus layer properties.

Vitalik Buterin further stated that within the next five years (or even faster with accelerated AI coding and formal verification), an open path may be established, allowing existing systems to be migrated to smart contracts written in a new system language when needed. Ethereum has previously undergone major upgrades similar to "changing a jet engine in mid-air"—such as "The Merge"—and still has the capacity to undergo approximately four more system-level changes of similar scale in the future, including state tree optimization, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, and changes to the virtual machine (VM) layer.

Financing & Mergers and Acquisitions

Nakamoto completes acquisition of BTC Inc and UTXO for approximately $81.63 million.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto announced the completion of its previously disclosed acquisition of BTC Inc. and UTXO Management GP, LLC, with customary closing conditions satisfied. Following the transaction, the two companies became wholly owned subsidiaries of Nakamoto. Nakamoto stated that it now has a comprehensive business portfolio covering Bitcoin-native enterprises, encompassing media and information, finance and asset management, and consulting services.

The entire consideration for this transaction will be paid in the form of Nakamoto common stock and put options. On a fully diluted basis, the security holders of BTC Inc and UTXO will receive a total of 364,795,104 Nakamoto common shares, valued at approximately US$81.63 million (based on the closing price of US$0.248 on February 19, 2026, deducting the exercise price of the put options). According to preliminary unaudited data for the 12 months ended September 30, 2025, the two companies combined (excluding insider transactions) achieved approximately US$80.5 million in revenue, US$34.2 million in EBITDA, and US$40.1 million in net income.

Bitdeer has increased the size of its convertible senior notes offering to $325 million.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer announced that it will increase the size of its convertible senior notes offering to $325 million. In addition, Bitdeer plans to grant the initial purchasers of the notes an option to purchase up to an additional $50 million of the notes within 13 days (inclusive) of the date of the initial offering.

Important data

OpenAI: Revenue is expected to exceed $280 billion by 2030

A source familiar with the matter revealed that OpenAI expects its revenue to grow rapidly in the coming years, surpassing $280 billion by 2030. This revenue forecast reflects OpenAI's strong growth momentum in selling AI software subscription services to consumers and enterprises. OpenAI has also recently begun testing its advertising business with a select group of users, creating a new potential revenue stream for the company. Furthermore, OpenAI plans to keep its total computing power expenditure to approximately $600 billion by 2030, while simultaneously paving the way for an IPO with a potential valuation of up to $1 trillion.

Coinbase has custody of over 80% of U.S. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF assets.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated in a post on the X platform that Coinbase currently hosts over 80% of US Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF assets, with peak ETF inflows reaching $31 billion in 2025. Coinbase is also the designated custody partner for numerous ETF issuers, including some of the world's largest financial institutions and government agencies, emphasizing that this is an extremely important responsibility. Regarding security, Armstrong pointed out that Coinbase highly values ​​its ongoing security review mechanisms, will continue to innovate, regularly conduct penetration tests with leading global cryptography experts, and already holds numerous related technology patents.

The agent of the "1011 Insider Whale" has transferred 11,318 BTC to Binance, but there are no signs of selling yet.

According to Lookonchain's monitoring, Garrett Jin, an agent of the "1011 insider whale," deposited 11,318 BTC into Binance this morning, worth approximately $760.6 million at current prices. However, there is currently no indication that he has directly sold the Bitcoin on the secondary market. Market analysts believe that this transfer may have been used for over-the-counter (OTC) trading, or it may simply be a temporary transfer of assets to an exchange custody account.

"1011 Insider Whale" has sold approximately 60% of its BTC holdings.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, "1011 Insider Whale" has sold about 60% of his BTC holdings. Since he deposited 11,318 BTC (worth about $760.61 million) into Binance, seven newly created addresses have withdrawn $464.48 million in USDT. Currently, his BTC holdings on Binance are worth about $296 million, and further actions may follow.