Republicans in the US House of Representatives have threatened the future of an affordable housing bill if it doesn’t include an outright ban on CBDCs. Republicans in the US Congress want to ban any possibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). To do so, they’re threatening progress on a bipartisan housing bill. A group of Republican members of the US House of Representatives wrote a letter dated March 6, expressing the “dire need to prohibit a Central Bank Digital Currency from ever happening in the United States.” The letter cited familiar arguments claiming a CBDC would threaten financial privacy and grant the US Federal Reserve unprecedented financial surveillance powers. Read more
The move to revive Solana ecosystem journalism comes after a $40 million treasury wallet breach at parent Step Finance led to its shuttering. The Jito Foundation has acquired SolanaFloor, a data and journalism platform covering the Solana ecosystem, and plans to relaunch the site after it shut down earlier this year following a security breach at its parent organization. The platform went offline in February after its parent company, Step Finance, wound down operations following a treasury wallet breach. Before shutting down, SolanaFloor provided ecosystem news, research and onchain analytics tracking projects and market activity across the Solana network. Under the deal, SolanaFloor will resume operations under the Jito Foundation and continue publishing coverage of developments across the Solana ecosystem, according to a company press release shared with Cointelegraph. Read more
Trust Wallet launched address poisoning protection on 32 EVM chains, adding scam address screening as wallet security pressure intensifies. Trust Wallet has introduced address-poisoning protection, adding a new screening feature designed to help users avoid sending cryptocurrency to scam wallets that mimic legitimate addresses. The noncustodial wallet provider said Tuesday that the new feature will automatically run a destination address check against a database of known scam and lookalike addresses to prevent malicious transactions. The rollout initially covers 32 Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchains, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche and Base. Trust Wallet called address poisoning attacks one of the “fastest-growing threats in crypto,” and claimed there have been over 225 million attacks and $500 million in confirmed losses to date. Read more
Michael Selig said blockchain-powered prediction markets could improve price discovery and public information, even as several US states challenge the platforms in court. US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael Selig has voiced support for prediction markets paired with blockchain technology, claiming they could become powerful tools for discovering truth. Speaking at the FIA Global Cleared Markets Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, on Monday, Selig argued that prediction markets, also known as event contracts, can provide valuable signals about future events when participants put money behind their views, describing well-functioning markets as “truth machines.” “When participants express views on future events — and back those views with capital — they create accountability, transparency and information,” Selig said. He added that highly liquid prediction markets often produce signals that the public increasingly sees as more reliable than traditional opinion polls. Read more
Strategy sold a record amount of STRC, estimated to fund 1,420 Bitcoin purchases in a single day after easing ATM sales restrictions. Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public holder of Bitcoin, sold a record amount of its perpetual preferred equity, Stretch (STRC), after amending its sales rules on Monday. Strategy is estimated to have bought 1,420 Bitcoin (BTC) in a single day after selling roughly 2.4 million STRC shares through its at-the-market (ATM) program, according to data from STRC.live. The amount marks the largest estimated daily issuance of STRC and BTC purchases, surpassing the previous record of 1,069 BTC, according to a Monday X post from STRC.live. Strategy announced a major rule change to its at-the-market (ATM) share sales program on Monday, allowing a second agent to sell the securities before the US market opens and after it closes, easing a prior restriction limiting such sales to one agent per trading day. Read more
The integration allows Ledger devices to sign BTCVault transactions as Babylon develops infrastructure to use Bitcoin as collateral. Bitcoin staking infrastructure developer Babylon Labs has integrated with Ledger, a cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker, in a move that could make it easier for holders to put their Bitcoin (BTC) to work in financial applications without giving up self-custody. In a Tuesday announcement, the companies said Ledger signers will be used for Babylon’s Trustless Bitcoin Vaults, also known as BTCVaults. The vaults allow BTC holders to lock their tokens into programmable contracts governed by onchain conditions while retaining self-custody of the underlying asset. Ledger devices will act as the secure signing layer for BTCVault transactions, enabling users to authorize vault interactions directly from their hardware wallet. Read more