1. Exclusive: Coinbase and Bybit in talks for investment partnership.
Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, is in talks with Bybit, the world's second-largest offshore exchange, regarding an investment partnership. Bybit hopes to use this opportunity to enter the compliant US market, a fact confirmed to Wu Blockchain by three sources. Earlier, ICE invested in offshore exchange OKX at a valuation of $25 billion, and Bybit's valuation is expected to be similar. Coinbase acquired Deribit last year for $2.9 billion. Bybit declined to comment on the news. OKX founder Star commented on X, saying that if true, it's good for the industry—higher standards, less regulatory arbitrage. Currently, Wu Blockchain only understands that there are talks between the two parties regarding cooperation, including but not limited to investment, and the final outcome of the negotiations is unknown.
2. Former British Prime Minister calls Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme; Michael Saylor refutes his claims.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote an article stating that he has long suspected Bitcoin is a massive Ponzi scheme. MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor refuted this, stating that Ponzi schemes require centralized operators to promise returns, while Bitcoin has no issuer, promoter, or guarantee of returns; it is purely a decentralized, open currency network driven by code and market demand.
3. The Bitcoin network can withstand the collapse of 72% of the world's undersea fiber optic cables; a targeted attack on five custodians could significantly impact the network.
A study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, based on 11 years of data, shows that even if 72%–92% of transnational submarine communication cables were simultaneously disrupted, the Bitcoin network would not experience large-scale node outages. The study analyzed 68 real-world submarine cable failures, finding that 87% of these failures impacted nodes by less than 5%. However, the study points out that targeted attacks on critical infrastructure significantly increase the risk. For example, targeting the five hosting providers with the most nodes—Hetzner, OVH, Comcast, Amazon, and Google Cloud—would require only an impact of about 5% on routing capacity to cause a significant disruption to the network.
4. Vitalik: Ethereum should become a "technology refuge," EF will focus on decentralization and privacy.
Vitalik Buterin stated that the Ethereum Foundation has released a new EF Mandate, reaffirming its role as a "guardian" within the Ethereum ecosystem. The document emphasizes the Foundation's focus on core principles such as censorship resistance, capture resistance, open source, and privacy and security (CROPS), prioritizing decentralization, security, and verifiability at the protocol layer, while promoting tools and experiences at the application layer that prioritize user privacy and autonomy. Vitalik stated that Ethereum's goal is to become a "sanctuary technology" that maintains technological self-sovereignty and prevents a single power from controlling cyberspace.
5. Wu Blockchain Weekly Picks: The 20 Millionth Bitcoin Mined, Binance Responds to Rumors of Investigation into Iran, BlackRock Launches Ethereum Staking ETF, and Top 10 News Items
Top 10 News Stories This Week
1. The 20 millionth BTC has been mined (link) .
The current Bitcoin block height has reached 940,000, and the 20 millionth BTC has been mined, representing approximately 95.2% of the total supply of 21 million BTC. This means that only about 1 million BTC will be mined in the next 114 years. Because the Bitcoin block reward halves approximately every 210,000 blocks, the rate of new issuance is constantly decreasing, thus significantly extending the issuance period for this final small number of BTC.
2. US senators seek compromise on stablecoin yields to push forward the Clarity Act .
US senators are seeking a compromise on stablecoin yields to push forward the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a market structure bill. The banking industry is concerned that offering yields to stablecoin holders could attract capital outflows from bank deposits, while some lawmakers and the crypto industry advocate exploring incentive mechanisms that allow for trading activity, while limiting yields based on position size. Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Thom Tillis are pushing for a compromise aimed at preventing deposit outflows while preserving space for financial innovation.
3. A U.S. Treasury report acknowledges for the first time that cryptocurrency mixing tools have legitimate uses in certain circumstances.
In a report submitted to Congress in March, the U.S. Treasury Department acknowledged for the first time that cryptocurrency mixing tools have legitimate uses in certain situations. The report stated that legitimate users of digital assets may use mixers to obtain financial privacy when transacting on public blockchains. Previously, in August of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice also stated that it would no longer actively pursue criminal charges against software developers who create privacy-enhancing tools.
4. BlackRock launches Ethereum staking ETF to meet investors' demand for on-chain yields .
BlackRock has officially launched its Ethereum staking ETF, ETHB, designed to meet investors' growing demand for cryptocurrency fund yields. Its fees are the same as ETHA, at 0.25% basis points, but are waived to 0.12% for the first year or the first $2.5 billion in assets. The fund tracks Ethereum's market price movements and provides staking rewards to investors by staking their ETH holdings on-chain.
5. Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Iran for using Binance to circumvent sanctions .
The Wall Street Journal exclusively reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Iran's use of Binance to circumvent sanctions, with a focus on funds flowing through the crypto platform to networks supporting terrorist organizations, including the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Wall Street Journal states that this investigation follows Binance's withdrawal of an internal investigation involving more than $1 billion flowing through Binance to a network funding Iranian-backed terrorist organizations.
Binance responded by stating that it removed Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust from its platform in August 2025 and January 2026 respectively, and claimed there was no evidence that their accounts had direct transactions with Iranian entities. Binance disclosed that it processed over 71,000 law enforcement requests in 2025 and assisted law enforcement agencies in seizing over $752 million in assets over the past three years, of which approximately $579 million was related to cases involving US government agencies. Binance announced it has filed a lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, accusing it of publishing false and defamatory reports and causing significant defamation. Binance stated that this move aims to combat the harm caused by misinformation and hold the media accountable for prioritizing clicks over journalistic integrity. Binance stated that it has never terminated any (internal) compliance investigations. Binance stated that it is unaware of any related investigations (from the US Department of Justice).
6. Cryptographic code submissions have decreased by approximately 75% since the beginning of 2025, with developers shifting towards AI projects .
Data from GitHub, the world's largest code hosting platform, shows that the blockchain ecosystem is experiencing a comprehensive loss of developers. Since the beginning of 2025, weekly code commits to crypto projects have dropped from approximately 850,000 to 210,000, and the number of active developers has fallen to approximately 4,600. The number of developers in mainstream ecosystems such as Ethereum, Solana, and Base has declined significantly, with Aptos developers seeing a decrease of approximately 60% and BNB Chain commits dropping by approximately 85%. Only wallet infrastructure has seen a slight increase. In contrast, GitHub Octoverse shows that the platform added over 36 million new developers in 2025, with a year-on-year increase of approximately 25% in total commits. AI-related repositories and LLM development tools have grown rapidly, and the proportion of experienced developers among the remaining contributors in the crypto space has increased.
7. Strategy announced the purchase of 17,994 BTC for approximately $1.28 billion.
Strategy announced the purchase of 17,994 BTC for approximately $1.28 billion, at an average price of approximately $70,946. As of March 8, 2026, the company will hold a total of 738,731 BTC, with a total purchase cost of approximately $56.04 billion and an average cost of approximately $75,862.
8. Arthur Hayes: War itself may not be good for Bitcoin, but "printing money is good for Bitcoin" (link)
Arthur Hayes stated that if he only had $1 to invest right now, he wouldn't buy Bitcoin, but would wait for the Federal Reserve to begin easing monetary policy and reprinting money before entering the market. He believes that war itself may not be beneficial to Bitcoin, but "money printing is beneficial to Bitcoin." Hayes also warned that geopolitical tensions could lead to a massive sell-off in the stock and crypto markets, and that Bitcoin could fall below $60,000. However, he maintains a long-term bullish view, predicting that Bitcoin's price will exceed $100,000 in the next few years.
9. The total on-chain value of tokenized stocks has exceeded $1 billion .
The total on-chain value of tokenized stocks has surpassed $1 billion. Ondo Finance and Backed Finance's xStocks platform account for the majority of the market share in tokenized stock issuance and trading. Ondo Finance holds approximately 58% and xStocks approximately 24%, forming an early duopoly in the industry.
10. A user who purchased AAVE for 50 million USDT only received 324 LINK tokens due to the price shock.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that a user attempted to purchase AAVE with 50 million USDT through the Aave interface. Due to the unusually large order size, the trading interface warned of potentially high slippage and required the user to confirm the risk. The user confirmed on their mobile device and continued the transaction, ultimately receiving only 324 AAVE. Stani stated that the transaction was executed after the user explicitly acknowledged the risk, and the relevant CoW Swap router and integration process functioned as designed, but the result was clearly unsatisfactory. The Aave team stated they will attempt to contact the user and refund the $600,000 fee charged for this transaction, and will also study further strengthening user protection mechanisms.
Martin Grabina, an Aave engineering member, further explained that the issue wasn't slippage, but rather that the user accepted a price surge of approximately 99%. On-chain order book data shows that the system displayed the price quote (approximately 50 million USDT for less than 140 AAVE) to the user before execution, highlighting the risk of price shocks. The user submitted a market order after confirmation. Grabina stated that the transaction was executed via CoW Swap routing and the mechanism functioned as designed. The user ultimately received a surplus of approximately 0.7%, and the team will continue to research and strengthen risk warnings and user protection mechanisms.
According to Arkham analyst Emmett Gallic, a user exchanged approximately 50.43 million aEthUSDT for aEthAAVE, worth only about $36,000, through the CoW Protocol. Titan Builder extracted $34 million worth of ETH profits from this turmoil and immediately transferred all proceeds to Coinbase.
CoW DAO issued a statement regarding a trader's massive loss when exchanging 50 million aEthUSDT for aEthAAVE. The disclosure revealed that the transaction was executed through the Aave interface (powered by CoW Protocol). The system issued a clear warning before the trade was executed that the assets would be "nearly entirely lost," but the user, fully aware of this, manually confirmed and continued the trade. CoW DAO emphasized that currently no DEX, aggregator, or liquidity pool on the market can provide a reasonable execution price for orders of this size. In response to this incident, CoW DAO announced it will fully refund all transaction fees incurred in this transaction and is reviewing how to strengthen security mechanisms while preserving user autonomy.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, the trader who previously exchanged 50.43 million aEthUSDT for approximately $36,000 in aEthAAVE is suspected to be Garrett Jin. On-chain tracking reveals that 13 wallets suspected to belong to Garrett Jin have become active again today, transferring funds to two new addresses. Evidence shows that one of these addresses shares the same Binance deposit address as Garrett Jin. Furthermore, the timing of these wallets withdrawing stablecoins from Binance on February 16th and 20th closely matches Garrett Jin's record of massively selling 261,024 ETH (approximately $543 million) and 11,318 BTC (approximately $761 million) on February 15th and 20th.
Key Financing Events
Stablecoin payment company KAST completes $80 million funding round .
Zcash ecosystem development team ZODL completes $25 million seed funding round.
Kled AI announces completion of $5.5 million seed funding round.
Zeta Network plans to issue $10 million in convertible bonds, with the first tranche of $6 million to be used to purchase Bitcoin Link .
General Tensor announced the completion of a $5 million oversubscribed seed and pre-seed financing round .
Cryptocurrency accounting platform Cryptio raises $45 million in Series B funding.
Ark Labs raises $5.2 million in seed funding, led by Tether.
Unitas Labs announces completion of $13.33 million seed funding round.
VeryAI raises $10 million in seed funding, led by Polychain Capital.
MetaComp completes Pre-A+ funding round, raising a total of $35 million.
Anchorage Digital announced a strategic investment in Immunefi and the purchase of its native token, IMU Link .
For more industry funding events, please visit crypto-fundraising.info .
