Crypto investors rejoiced this week aft the US Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed 1 of the crypto industry’s astir arguable lawsuits — 1 that resulted successful an implicit four-year ineligible conflict with Ripple Labs.
In different important regulatory development, Solana-based futures exchange-traded funds (ETFs) person debuted successful the US, a determination that whitethorn awesome the support of spot Solana (SOL) ETFs arsenic the “next logical step” for lawmakers.
SEC’s XRP reversal a “victory for the industry”: Ripple CEO
The SEC’s dismissal of its years-long suit against Ripple Labs, the developer of the XRP Ledger blockchain network, is simply a “victory for the industry,” Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said astatine Blockworks’ 2025 Digital Asset Summit successful New York.
On March 19, Garlinghouse revealed that the SEC would disregard its ineligible enactment against Ripple, ending 4 years of litigation against the blockchain developer for an alleged $1.3-billion unregistered securities offering successful 2020.
“It feels similar a triumph for the manufacture and the opening of a caller chapter,” Garlinghouse said connected March 19 astatine the Summit, which Cointelegraph attended.
Ripple’s CEO said the SEC is dropping its lawsuit against the blockchain developer. Source: Brad Garlinghouse
Solana futures ETF to turn organization adoption, contempt constricted inflows
The crypto manufacture is acceptable to debut the archetypal SOL futures ETF, a important improvement that whitethorn pave the mode for the archetypal spot SOL ETF arsenic the “next logical step” for crypto-based trading products, according to manufacture watchers.
Volatility Shares is launching 2 SOL futures ETFs, the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) and the Volatility Shares 2X Solana ETF (SOLT), connected March 20.
Volatility Shares Solana ETF SEC filing. Source: SEC
The debut of the archetypal SOL futures ETF whitethorn bring important caller organization adoption for the SOL token, according to Ryan Lee, main expert astatine Bitget Research.
The expert told Cointelegraph:
“The motorboat of the archetypal Solana ETFs successful the US could importantly boost Solana’s marketplace presumption by expanding request and liquidity for SOL, perchance narrowing the spread with Ethereum’s marketplace cap.”The Solana ETF volition turn organization adoption by “offering a regulated concern vehicle, attracting billions successful superior and reinforcing Solana’s competitiveness against Ethereum,” said Lee, adding that “Ethereum’s entrenched ecosystem remains a formidable barrier.”
Pump.fun launches ain DEX, drops Raydium
Pump.fun has launched its ain decentralized speech (DEX) called PumpSwap, perchance displacing Raydium arsenic the superior trading venue for Solana-based memecoins.
Starting connected March 20, memecoins that successfully bootstrap liquidity, oregon “bond,” connected Pump.fun volition migrate straight to PumpSwap, Pump.fun said successful an X post.
Previously, bonded Pump.fun tokens migrated to Raydium, which emerged arsenic Solana’s astir fashionable DEX, mostly acknowledgment to memecoin trading activity.
According to Pump.fun, PumpSwap “functions likewise to Raydium V4 and Uniswap V2” and is designed “to make the astir frictionless situation for trading coins.”
“Migrations were a large constituent of friction - they dilatory a coin’s momentum and present needless complexity for caller users,” Pump.fun said.
“Now, migrations hap instantly and for free.”
Raydium’s trading volumes surged successful 2024, mostly owed to memecoins. Source: DefiLlama
Bybit: 89% of stolen $1.4B crypto inactive traceable post-hack
The lion’s stock of the hacked Bybit funds is inactive traceable aft the historical cybertheft, with blockchain investigators continuing their efforts to frost and retrieve the funds.
The crypto manufacture was rocked by the largest hack successful history connected Feb. 21 erstwhile Bybit lost implicit $1.4 billion successful liquid-staked Ether (stETH), Mantle Staked ETH (mETH) and different integer assets.
Blockchain information firms, including Arkham Intelligence, person identified North Korea’s Lazarus Group arsenic the apt culprit down the Bybit exploit arsenic the attackers proceed swapping the funds successful an effort to marque them untraceable.
Despite the Lazarus Group’s efforts, implicit 88% of the stolen $1.4 cardinal remains traceable, according to Ben Zhou, co-founder and CEO of crypto speech Bybit.
The CEO wrote successful a March 20 X post:
“Total hacked funds of USD 1.4bn astir 500k ETH. 88.87% stay traceable, 7.59% person gone dark, 3.54% person been frozen.”“86.29% (440,091 ETH, ~$1.23B) person been converted into 12,836 BTC crossed 9,117 wallets (Average 1.41 BTC each),” said the CEO, adding that the funds were chiefly funneled done Bitcoin (BTC) mixers, including Wasbi, CryptoMixer, Railgun and Tornado Cash.
Source: Ben Zhou
The CEO’s update comes astir a period aft the speech was hacked. It took the Lazarus Group 10 days to move 100% of the stolen funds done the decentralized crosschain protocol THORChain, Cointelegraph reported connected March 4.
Libra, Melania creator’s “Wolf of Wall Street” memecoin crashes 99%
The creator of the Libra token has launched different memecoin with immoderate of the aforesaid concerning onchain patterns that pointed to important insider trading enactment up of the coin’s 99% collapse.
Hayden Davis, co-creator of the Official Melania Meme (MELANIA) and Libra tokens, has launched a caller Solana-based memecoin with an implicit 80% insider supply.
Davis launched the Wolf (WOLF) memecoin connected March 8, banking connected rumors of Jordan Belfort, known arsenic the Wolf of Wall Street, launching his ain token.
The token reached a highest $42 cardinal marketplace cap. However, 82% of WOLF’s proviso was bundled nether the aforesaid entity, according to a March 15 X station by Bubblemaps, which wrote:
“The bubble representation revealed thing unusual — $WOLF had the aforesaid signifier arsenic $HOOD, a token launched by Hayden Davis. Was helium down this 1 too?”
Source: Bubblemaps
The blockchain analytics level revealed transfers crossed 17 antithetic addresses, stemming backmost to the code “OxcEAe,” owned by Davis.
“He funded these wallets months earlier $LIBRA and $WOLF launched, moving wealth done 17 addresses and 2 chains,” Bubblemaps added.
Source: Bubblemaps
The Wolf memecoin mislaid implicit 99% of its worth wrong 2 days, from the highest $42.9 cardinal marketplace capitalization connected March 8 to conscionable $570,000 by March 16, Dexscreener information shows.
DeFi marketplace overview
According to Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView data, astir of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by marketplace capitalization ended the week successful the green.
Of the apical 100, the BNB Chain-native Four (FORM) token roseate implicit 110% arsenic the week’s biggest gainer, followed by PancakeSwap’s CAKE (CAKE) token, up implicit 48% connected the play chart.
Total worth locked successful DeFi. Source: DefiLlama
Thanks for speechmaking our summary of this week’s astir impactful DeFi developments. Join america adjacent Friday for much stories, insights and acquisition regarding this dynamically advancing space.