US President Donald Trump is steadily aligning his administration with the crypto industry. On March 20, he addressed a community conference for the first time since being elected. Speaking at the Blockworks Digital Asset Summit on March 20 in a pre-recorded statement, Trump reiterated that the US would take steps to ensure it is the “crypto capital of the world.”

The president lauded the recent regulatory shift in the crypto industry over the previous administration and added:

“Pioneers like you will be able to improve our banking and payment system and promote greater privacy, safety, security and wealth for American consumers and businesses alike. You will unleash an explosion of economic growth.”

“With dollar-backed stablecoins, you will help expand the dominance of the US dollar for many, many years to come,” the president continued.

President Trump has signed several pro-crypto executive orders, including the Jan. 23 order commissioning the Working Group on Digital Assets and another establishing a Bitcoin strategic reserve alongside a separate crypto stockpile.

President Trump addresses the Digital Asset Summit. Source: Cointelegraph/Turner Wright

Related: Bitcoin price tags 2-week highs as markets bet big on Trump crypto news

Mixed reactions to the White House Crypto Summit

President Trump hosted the first White House Crypto Summit, bringing together industry executives to discuss the future of crypto regulatory policy on March 7.

During the meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US would focus on passing stablecoin regulations and touted stablecoins as a way to ensure the US dollar remains the global reserve currency.

Speaking at the Blockworks Digital Asset Summit, Bo Hines, executive director of the Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, said that a stablecoin bill will likely be presented to President Trump in the next two months.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent discusses stablecoin plans at the White House Crypto Summit. Source: The Associated Press

The highly anticipated crypto summit fell short of expectations, with the crypto community voicing mixed reactions to the summit.

Institutional investors and executives tended to characterize the historical nature of the event as a net positive for the industry, while retail investors and the Bitcoin community tended to view the event as underwhelming.

“The White House crypto summit is a gathering of rent-seeking lobbyists pushing state-approved surveillance tokens,” Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist Justin Bechler wrote in an X post.

The price of Bitcoin declined by 7.3% in the days following the White House Crypto Summit and the Bitcoin strategic reserve order, which stipulated that the government could only acquire more BTC through budget-neutral strategies.

Magazine: Crypto has 4 years to grow so big ‘no one can shut it down’: Kain Warwick, Infinex

XDAO, a protocol based on The Open Network (TON), has enabled over 367,000 decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to achieve legal status through its initiative that automates legal recognition for such organizations. 

In an announcement, XDAO said it had streamlined the DAO creation process to allow DAOs to achieve legal status. XDAO co-founder and chief operating officer Zurab Shavlidze told Cointelegraph that the protocol offers a standard for other “sub-entities” within its legal framework. 

“Basically, those sub-entities exist both in relation to each other and outside entities that had acknowledged their existence and assented to some articles of the XDAO Labs’ Constitution,” Shavlidze told Cointelegraph. 

XDAO added that the parties recognize Singapore, where XDAO Labs is incorporated, as the primary jurisdiction where disputes may be resolved if necessary. 

Signing legally-binding documents through Telegram bots

The protocol also said it could enable the signing of legally binding documents using Web3 wallets. XDAO said DAOs could archive their transactions using a Telegram bot. 

When asked about the security and practicality of its Telegram bot-based legal framework, Shavlidze said agreements formed through the messenger work in “most jurisdictions.” However, the XDAO co-founder outlined its limitations, including “real estate, securities, and other matters that call for a prescribed procedure for the contract’s formation.” Shavlidze told Cointelegraph: 

“However, when making agreements through a Telegram bot, it is important to approach the recording of all details and specifics responsibly, as this can later facilitate dispute resolution.”

The executive added that the bot can store information that DAO participants consider significant. It can even be used to conduct basic Know Your Customer procedures. 

Related: Texas court issues judgment against Bancor DAO after it ignored summons

How smart contract-based compliance would work in practice

When asked how their smart contract compliance models would work in arbitration scenarios, XDAO said the parties could form valid arbitration agreements through messenger or e-signature methods such as Docusign and Ethsign. This requires personalities to be firmly established and the “intention to adjudicate the dispute is clearly expressed.” 

“Arbitration is a commonly recognized dispute resolution procedure, which exists under influential international conventions. Those conventions do not specify the exact way of making an arbitration agreement, apart from it being in writing,” Shavlidze told Cointelegraph. 

The executive added that if payment is required, an arbitrator can be added to the DAO with the right to a key vote. This would allow them to sign a transaction with their digital signature if the parties fail to reach a consensus. 

Magazine: Ridiculous ‘Chinese Mint’ crypto scam, Japan dives into stablecoins: Asia Express

Opinion by: Dan Hughes, founder of Radix 

Crypto has spent years betting on layer-2 (L2) solutions as its magic bullet for fixing issues with scalability. What if they’re the very thing putting us at risk?

Instead of paving the way for mass adoption, this fixation has created a tangled web of rollups, bridges and fragmented liquidity, threatening blockchain’s core principles of decentralization and security. The dream of a seamless, decentralized network is fading, overshadowed by a complex system that echoes the inefficiencies and centralization of the traditional financial world. Are we scaling innovation or just recreating the past?

The blockchain trilemma

L2s were supposed to mitigate the blockchain trilemma. Yet, while they may fill the gaps at the individual level, as a movement, L2 solutions have put crypto at risk of losing all three.

The growing mass of L2s has led to a highly fractured ecosystem that’s difficult to navigate and relies on complex rollups and bridging solutions. This has led to parts of the ecosystem centralizing, drawing assets into fragmented liquidity silos, hindering security and stifling competition for smaller projects. 

These “solutions” have introduced large-scale friction and have also brought unnecessary security risks. While bridge-related hacks have become much less common in the last two years, hackers will always find new ways to balance the books — exploiting rollups, channels and sidechains. 

Many L2s’ reliance on sequencers or trusted validators creates additional cracks in the armor, single points of failure, while siloed liquidity reduces validator availability for smaller L2s, threatening network resilience.

These solutions also leave an immense technical challenge for developers building applications hoping to integrate with L2s, requiring in-depth and specific knowledge of the mechanics of each L2 the application may need to touch.

L2 proponents argue that these trade-offs are necessary and easily overcome, but there are even more fundamental issues here than sacrificing security, scalability or liquidity. 

Recent: AI has had its Cambrian moment — Blockchain’s is yet to come

Crypto’s endgame is a universal network where any asset or decentralized application can instantly interact with any other in a trustless, secure way. The friction that L2s introduce, however, sabotages this instant interoperability, while the centralization of sequencers and validators undermines the fundamentals of a trustless system. It is not just that this stymies scalability in decentralized finance (DeFi), but rather that it leads toward scaling something completely different, recreating the inefficiencies of the existing siloed, fragmented and middle-man-infested TradFi system.

If the goal of DeFi is to move all financial activity onchain, it is imperative to do better than what we already have. 

Building the foundations

Crypto needs to build from the foundations up. Instead of outsourcing scalability and security, blockchain networks must prioritize them at layer 1.

Sharding offers a clear path forward, but the industry must set higher goals and build a long-term solution rather than just a quick fix to “band-aid” the immediate scalability problem of the day. It is not just about increasing the shard count; it is how we shard. The Beacon Chain just adds a bottleneck, and dynamic sharding is complicated, limiting scalability with massive overheads. Even intra-validator sharding seems to solve all of these problems until you reach resource saturation on the network-facing node, which has to ingest all transactions, simply kicking the can down the road in search of more validators and diminishing returns.

The obvious solution for scaling DeFi to the same capabilities as TradFi is state sharding, which is the state of the blockchain distributed across many different shards. Transactions that involve states from different shards create a temporary consensus process. 

The validators responsible for the transaction state communicate, agree (or not), and update the state atomically in all relevant shards. This allows transactions to be processed in parallel across multiple shards and even within shards themselves, leaving a shard’s only concern that the transactions modifying the state for which they are responsible do not have intersecting dependencies, significantly increasing throughput without compromising decentralization or accessibility. 

When these shards are integrated with atomic commitment, if any part of the transaction fails, everything aborts cleanly, and there’s no work needed to untangle hanging state changes.

This is just one solution. DeFi will scale to onboard the planet. It is just a question of how soon and by what means. That said, solutions that focus on the fundamentals of L1 development rather than relying on a patchwork of L2s will eliminate fragmentation, reduce complexity, and ensure scalability and accessibility are again at the heart of blockchain networks. It comes down to the future that developers want to prioritize — tokenomics or the founding promises of Web3 — decentralization, efficiency and security. 

Scaling for the future

L1 solutions are solutions for everybody. They secure the very foundation of the ecosystem for developers, traders, general users and even several billion prospective users. Without resilient and scalable architecture in the foundations, one strong push is all it will take to cause this house of cards to collapse. Of course, specific use cases might be better with L2 solutions. A high-frequency trade settlement is a perfect example, but exceptions never prove the rule. From a whole-ecosystem perspective, developers must focus on integrated, native scalability solutions instead of just adding complexity and balancing more precarious “solutions” on top. Without adequately attending to the L1, nothing but problems await.

Opinion by: Dan Hughes, founder of Radix.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Opinion by: Robin Singh, CEO of Koinly

In the race between regulation and Bitcoin (BTC) all-time highs, there is no doubt tax agencies will double down on their crypto-tracking systems well before Bitcoin hits $1 million.

Crypto investors shouldn’t become complacent or assume they can skate by until the million-dollar price tag. In addition to their laser focus on the future, they are becoming skilled at scrutinizing the past. Many jurisdictions have the power to backtrack on previous years, and if tax authorities realize how much they’ve missed, they won’t just let it slide…

This could spell trouble for misinformed Bitcoiners who have already begun spending their profits.

Tax agencies will catch up through automated data-sharing

Governments are still in this weird gray area where crypto tax rules can change anytime. Take the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS), for example. In a shock move, as of 2025, the IRS now mandates that investors use the wallet-by-wallet cost tracking method, no longer allowing the universal wallet method. The latter is far more labor-intensive than the former but hands the IRS more data it craves.

Though automated data sharing with tax agencies might not be as extensive as stock market data, it’s only a matter of time before crypto data from centralized exchanges catches up. Several crypto exchanges, including Coinbase and Binance.US, issue Forms 1099-MISC to the IRS for users with more than $600 in rewards in a financial year.

An end to the honesty system

Then there’s the global village challenge, with each tax agency worldwide taking its own approach. For instance, the Australian Tax Office (ATO) automates stock cost and sale reporting through pre-filled data for taxpayers. Crypto data isn’t, however, included in the pre-fill. 

Instead, any activity on a centralized exchange triggers an alert on the taxpayer’s tax return, indicating that the ATO is aware of the crypto activity. This leaves it up to the taxpayer to be honest about whether they’ve made capital gains or losses during the financial year.

Whether you’ve made any sales or simply bought crypto, consistent alerts over several years without reporting from the taxpayer will likely increase the risk of an audit.

Worldwide, the honesty system is on its deathbed. Once tax authorities have advanced their crypto monitoring systems, they can retroactively review previous years if they choose to. The ATO already has a reasonably intensive data-matching program with centralized exchanges in the jurisdiction.

If you value your sanity, a multi-year audit of your crypto portfolio is the last thing you want to deal with. Every tax authority is catching up, and accountants want to protect clients from getting caught out as compliance measures become more sophisticated.

Tax authorities to strengthen cooperation in the coming years

Over the coming years, we should expect to see an increase in global tax data sharing between jurisdictions, something we’re already starting to see. In March 2024, Australia’s and Indonesia’s governments reached an agreement to exchange tax information, with one of the key focuses being the use of crypto.

A few months earlier, in November 2023, 47 national governments, including the United Kingdom, Brazil, Germany and Japan, committed to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and planned to activate exchange agreements for information sharing by 2027.

Recent: Indian crypto holders face 70% tax penalty on undisclosed gains

Don’t operate under the assumption that decentralized finance and non-fungible tokens are flying under the radar, either. Tax authorities are fully aware of the gains made on decentralized exchanges. Agencies like the IRS have already introduced guidance to collect user data from non-custodial brokers, though this has been delayed until 2027. 

While tracking might be more challenging, and some investors believe their assets are untraceable until they are moved to centralized exchanges, tax authorities are already catching on. It’s not a “crypto industry knows best” situation. Tax authorities are bringing in more experts from the crypto space to help them understand how people might try to bypass the system. 

Opinion by: Robin Singh, CEO of Koinly.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Amid the growing adoption of cryptocurrency reserves in countries like the United States, legal activists in Russia are pushing to create a potential crypto fund.

Evgeny Masharov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber, has proposed creating a government cryptocurrency fund that would include assets confiscated from criminal proceedings.

The projected cryptocurrency fund would aim for revenues for the government, targeting social projects, Masharov said, according to a March 20 report by the local news agency TASS.

“The proceeds from the cryptocurrency fund can then be used for social, environmental and educational projects,” he reportedly stated.

“Seized crypto should benefit the state”

Masharov’s proposal came amid Russian officials progressing with new legislation on recognizing cryptocurrencies as property for the purposes of criminal procedure legislation.

Alexander Bastrykin, Chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, said that a related draft bill was sent to the government for consideration, the local news agency RBC reported on March 19.

“Cryptocurrencies confiscated as part of criminal proceedings must work for the benefit of the state,” Masharov said while commenting on the proposed legislation.

Evgeny Masharov, a member of the Russian Civic Chamber. Source: Oprf.ru

“For these purposes, a special fund can be created, putting cryptocurrencies on its balance,” Masharov said, expressing confidence that many of the seized crypto assets could see their market capitalization “rising significantly over time.”

Russian authorities have been seizing crypto assets for years

Masharov’s proposal to turn confiscated crypto assets for the benefit of the state follows years of the development of related legislation in Russia.

Russian prosecutors have been pushing legal initiatives to allow the government to seize crypto obtained from criminal activity since at least 2021, but there has not been a clear framework set in place.

Related: Russia using Bitcoin, USDt for oil trades with China and India: Report

In the meantime, the Russian government has not missed the opportunity to confiscate millions in cryptocurrency from illegal cases, sometimes involving law enforcement officials. Apparently, Russia’s current laws do not provide standards on where and how such funds should be distributed.

Bank of Russia governor against crypto

The idea of a potential social crypto fund in Russia may sound similar to initiatives like the US Bitcoin (BTC) strategic reserve, which currently targets holding confiscated BTC exclusively.

In the meantime, Russia’s central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, has previously strongly opposed the idea of potential investments in crypto by the Bank of Russia.

An excerpt from the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve fact sheet. Source: White House

“Cryptocurrency investment doesn’t make any sense for the Central Bank in terms of preserving value since it’s a very volatile asset,” Nabiullina reportedly said in December 2024.

Magazine: Crypto has 4 years to grow so big ‘no one can shut it down’: Kain Warwick, Infinex

The crypto industry is set to debut the first Solana futures exchange-traded fund (ETF), a significant development that may pave the way for the first Solana spot ETF as the “next logical step” for crypto-based trading products, according to industry watchers.

Volatility Shares is launching two Solana (SOL) futures ETFs, the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) and the Volatility Shares 2X Solana ETF (SOLT), on March 20.

The debut of the first Solana futures ETF may bring significant new institutional adoption for the SOL token, according to Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research.

Volatility Shares Solana ETF SEC filing. Source: SEC

The analyst told Cointelegraph: 

“The launch of the first Solana ETFs in the US could significantly boost Solana’s market position by increasing demand and liquidity for SOL, potentially narrowing the gap with Ethereum’s market cap.”

The Solana ETF will grow institutional adoption by “offering a regulated investment vehicle, attracting billions in capital and reinforcing Solana’s competitiveness against Ethereum,” said Lee, adding that “Ethereum’s entrenched ecosystem remains a formidable barrier.”

Still, other industry participants are concerned that the Solana futures ETF will lead to investor disappointment due to a lack of inflows, as we’ve seen with the spot Ether (ETH) ETF launch, which was only a “sidekick” to Bitcoin ETFs in terms of inflows, as predicted by Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, Eric Balchunas.

Related: Bitcoin beats global assets post-Trump election, despite BTC correction

SOL futures ETF may disappoint, but spot SOL ETFs may be next

While the futures ETF may not bring significant inflows, it legitimizes Solana’s status as a top cryptocurrency, especially after US President Donald Trump announced that his Working Group on Digital Assets would include Solana in the US crypto strategic reserve, along with Cardano’s ADA (ADA) token and XRP (XRP).

“Solana ETFs are in motion creating the possible avenues for more wide-scale adoption,” according to Anmol Singh, co-founder of Bullet — a Solana-native perpetual futures decentralized exchange.

Singh told Cointelegraph:

“Solana spot ETF is yet to be approved, but given the increased awareness around Solana and the futures ETFs, this would be a logical next step.”

“We can expect moderate inflows into the futures ETF — spot ETF is generally a better instrument for getting exposure, and that will be the major milestone,” he added.

Related: Trump-linked WLFI triples Ether holdings, Solana sees $485M outflows: Finance Redefined

While the adoption rate of futures ETFs is difficult to measure, a spot Solana ETF may attract between $3 billion and $6 billion of net assets in the first six months, eclipsing the adoption rate of Ether ETFs, according to a JPMorgan report seen by Cointelegraph.

 SOL and XRP ETPs could attract $3 billion–$8 billion. Source: JPMorgan

“When applying these so-called “adoption rates” to SOL and XRP, we see SOL attracting roughly $3 billion–$6 billion of net assets and XRP gathering $4 billion–$8 billion in net new assets,” the report stated.

However, “the timeline could extend into 2026 due to the SEC’s precedent of taking […] 240–260 days to review filings,” James Seyffart, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said on Jan. 16.

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge

Ripple is celebrating the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision not to pursue a court case against the firm, but it provides little legal certainty for the crypto industry. 

The US financial regulator has apparently dropped an appeal against Ripple, the issuing firm of crypto asset XRP. The industry saw the case as a prime example of regulatory overreach by the SEC under former chair Gary Gensler.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the decision “provides a lot of certainty for RIpple” and that while the case is effectively over, there are still some loose ends the firm needs to tie up with the SEC. “We now are in the driver’s seat to determine how we want to proceed.”

Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s chief legal officer, wrote on X, “Today, Ripple moves forward — stronger than ever. This landmark case set a precedent for the domestic crypto industry.”

Ripple and the crypto industry as a whole are counting this as a major victory, but the SEC’s decision provides no legal precedent, and the “guardrails” the industry has lobbied for are yet to be defined. 

Consequences of Ripple case on lawmaking and precedent

The cryptocurrency lobby was quick to celebrate the SEC decision, announced by Garlinghouse at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on March 19. Markets took notice — XRP price spiked 9% in the first hour following the announcement.

Supporters and observers posted on X about the precedent the case would set for the crypto industry. But legal observers are less certain about the overall impact the SEC’s appeal decision will have on the broader crypto industry.

Lawyer Aaron Brogan told Cointelegraph that the Ripple case “creates no precedent that any other firm can rely on.” He added there is “no question that the regulatory environment is more favorable to crypto firms today,” but the SEC’s exact policy won’t become clear until Paul Atkins is nominated as chair of the commission.

Related: Crypto regulation must go through Congress for lasting change — Wiley Nickel

Brian Grace, general counsel at the Metaplex Decentralized Autonomous Organization, further noted that the 2023 decision to which the SEC was appealing does not set a legal precedent.

He wrote on March 19, “The Ripple decision is not binding legal precedent. It was a single district court judge’s ruling based on the facts of that case.” 

The SEC appeal repeal also has limited influence on the ongoing legislative efforts to create a framework for the cryptocurrency industry in the US. Grace said that the onus is on Congress, not the SEC, to make lasting legal changes for the cryptocurrency industry. 

“The U.S. crypto industry needs new legislation to provide clarity and protection. Without it, the Plaintiffs bar can continue to sue in district courts across the country relying on Howey. A friendly SEC also does not change this. We need a crypto market structure law,” he said. 

Brogan said that he didn’t think the decision would have any direct effect on the lawmaking process, but the SEC could still solve questions regarding rulemaking.

“I think many in Congress would welcome that as the market structure legislation currently percolating appears dead in the water,” he said.

Garlinghouse wants to tie up loose ends with SEC

The SEC appeal decision may put the “final exclamation point” on whether XRP is a security, but the legal battle between Ripple and the SEC could be set to rage on.

In a March 19 Bloomberg interview, Garlinghouse brought up the possibility of going on the offensive with a cross-appeal, i.e. an appeal from an appellee requesting that a higher court review a lower court’s decision. 

Related: Bitnomial drops SEC lawsuit ahead of XRP futures launch in the US

Namely, Garlinghouse wants to revisit the 2023 decision in which Judge Analisa Torres, while ruling Ripple’s publicly sold tokens did not constitute a security, levied a $125 million fine on Ripple, stating that the tokens should have been sold to institutional investors. 

The firm is also subject to a five-year “bad actor” prohibition on fundraising which, says Brogan, could meaningfully impact its operations. 

“At this point, all we’re fighting for is do we want to fight to get the $125 million back,” said Garlinghouse.

He added that while the XRP-securities decision was a “clear legal victory,” there are “pieces of it that we think could be kind of cleaned up. And the question is, do we want to fight that fight? Or can we come to an agreement with the SEC to drop everything?”

Outside of the courtroom, Congress is still working to make meaningful progress on the stablecoin bill. Bo Hines, the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, expects the final version to be ready in a couple of months. 

The crypto framework bill FIT 21 failed to make it through the Senate in the 2024 legislative session, but some lawmakers are optimistic that it will make it through this session with “modest changes.”

The Blockchain Association, a crypto lobby group, expects both laws to pass by August, while US Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, says they could be finalized by year’s end. 

Magazine: Memecoins are ded — But Solana ‘100x better’ despite revenue plunge

Tether, the $143-billion stablecoin giant, was the world’s seventh-largest buyer of US Treasurys, surpassing some of the world’s largest countries.

Tether, the issuer of USDt (USDT), the world’s largest stablecoin, was the world’s seventh-largest US Treasury buyer, surpassing Canada, Taiwan, Mexico, Norway, Hong Kong and numerous other countries.

The stablecoin issuer acquired over $33.1 billion worth of Treasurys, compared to over $100 billion purchased by the Cayman Islands in the first place in global rankings, according to Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. 

“Tether was the 7th largest buyer of US Treasurys in 2024, compared to Countries,” wrote Ardoino in a March 20 X post.

Source: Paolo Ardoino

However, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands figures include “all the hedge funds buying into t-bills,” noted Ardoino in the replies, whereas Tether’s figures represent the investments of a single entity.

Tether is investing in US Treasurys as additional backing assets for its US dollar-pegged stablecoin since Treasurys are short-term debt securities issued by the US government and are considered some of the safest and most liquid investments available.

Related: US Bitcoin reserve marks ‘real step’ toward global financial integration

Tether’s significant growth comes during a period of growing stablecoin adoption among both investors and US lawmakers.

Source: IntoTheBlock

The growing stablecoin supply recently surpassed $219 billion and continues to rise, suggesting that the market is “likely still mid-cycle” as opposed to the top of the bull run, according to IntoTheBlock analysts.

Related: Paolo Ardoino: Competitors and politicians intend to ‘kill Tether’

Stablecoin bill may pass as soon as August: Blockchain Association

US lawmakers are on track to pass legislation setting rules for stablecoins and cryptocurrency market structure by August, Kristin Smith, CEO of industry advocacy group the Blockchain Association, said during Blockworks’ 2025 Digital Asset Summit in New York.

Smith’s timeline echoes a similar forecast by Bo Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, who said on March 18 that he expects to see comprehensive stablecoin legislation in the coming months. 

“I think we’re close to being able to get those done for August […] they’re doing a lot of work on that behind the scenes right now,” Smith said on March 19 at the Summit, which Cointelegraph attended. 

US President Donald Trump sits beside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the March 7 White House Crypto Summit. Source: The Associated Press

“I’m optimistic when you have the chairs of the relevant committees in the House and the Senate and the White House that want to do something, and you’ve got bipartisan votes in Congress to get it there,” she added.

Magazine: ETH may bottom at $1.6K, SEC delays multiple crypto ETFs, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 9–15

Update March 20, 10:50 am UTC: This article has been updated to add a Wu Blockchain report on Bithumb listings, claiming that multiple crypto projects paid intermediary fees to have their tokens listed.

South Korean prosecutors raided crypto exchange Bithumb following suspicions that its former CEO embezzled funds to purchase an apartment. 

On March 20, Seoul’s Southern District Prosecutors’ Office reportedly searched Bithumb’s offices in the country.

The investigation centered around allegations that the crypto exchange gave a 3 billion Korean won (over $2 million) apartment lease deposit to Kim Dae-sik, its former CEO and board member, who now works as an adviser to the firm. 

Prosecutors raised concerns over potential financial misconduct within the company, suspecting that Kim used some of the funds to purchase a personal apartment.

Bithumb says its former CEO repaid the funds

Local media outlet YTN reported that the country’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) had previously investigated the suspicions and handed their findings to the prosecutor’s office. 

In an interview with The Chosun Daily, a Bithumb representative said some of the allegations are true.

The exchange said the executive took a loan from a lender immediately after the FSS investigation. After this, Bithumb said Kim repaid the funds spent on the apartment purchase in full. 

Apart from the apartment, rumors that projects paid intermediary fees to get listed in Bithumb also circulated online. Citing anonymous sources, Wu Blockchain reported on March 20 that two projects claimed to have paid $2 million and $10 million, respectively, to get listed on Bithumb and Upbit. 

The report claimed that the “intermediaries” were related to Upbit’s shareholders and market makers. Wu Blockchain also said that some intermediary fees ranged from 3% to 5% of entire token supplies. 

Upbit demands evidence of collecting listing fees

Upbit responded to Wu Blockchain’s claims, asking her to “clearly disclose the list of digital asset projects that have paid the brokerage fees mentioned in X and provide specific evidence and data to ensure that our fact-finding and investigation proceed smoothly.”

Additionally, the exchange demanded additional information on the accusation of conducting illegal brokerage activities through intermediaries.

Related: Wemix denies cover-up amid delayed $6.2M bridge hack announcement

Bithumb faces probe amid IPO push

The investigation comes as the crypto exchange attempts another push to go public. On March 18, the Business Post reported that Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won is expediting the process of the company’s long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). 

The report said the company has reorganized to eliminate judicial risks on major shareholders.

In 2021, Bithumb’s former board of directors chairman, Lee Jeong-hoon, was indicted on alleged fraud charges. As South Korea’s Supreme Court acquitted the Bithumb executive, the exchange is expected to speed up its IPO in 2025. 

Bithumb’s IPO plans date back to 2020 when local media reported that the exchange platform had been preparing for a stock market launch.

However, the company faced obstacles that prevented it from successfully conducting an IPO. In 2023, the company chose an underwriter for its IPO plans, reigniting the chatter it’s working on conducting an IPO. 

In 2024, the rumors were confirmed as Bithumb Korea set up a non-exchange business to accelerate its debut on the stock market. However, the news was paired with a 57% loss in annual revenue for the exchange operator in the fiscal year 2023. 

Magazine: Ridiculous ‘Chinese Mint’ crypto scam, Japan dives into stablecoins: Asia Express

Aleksei Andriunin, a Russian national charged with manipulating cryptocurrency through the Gotbit market maker platform, has reportedly struck a plea deal with prosecutors in the United States.

Gotbit founder and CEO Andriunin has agreed to forfeit about $23 million in Tether USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) in a plea deal with Massachusetts federal prosecutors, the legal news service Law360 reported on March 19.

As part of the plea, Andriunin will plead guilty to three counts charging conspiracy to commit wire fraud and market manipulation, according to the letter signed by the defendant on March 19.

An excerpt from letters in the Gotbix founder case related to the $23 million forfeiture as part of the plea with Massachusetts prosecutors: Law360 

“Defendant understands and agrees that forfeiture shall not satisfy or affect any fine, lien, penalty, restitution, cost of imprisonment, tax liability or any other debt owed to the United States,” the letter reads.

The agreement doesn’t bind the US Attorney General

In the letter to the defendant, the US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Leah Foley, stressed that the agreement to forfeit $23 million is only between Andriunin and the attorney.

“It does not bind the Attorney General of the United States or any other federal, state, or local prosecuting authorities,” the letter reads.

The letter also states that the defendant acknowledges the court is not obligated to adhere to the sentencing calculations proposed by the Massachusetts attorney.

An excerpt from legal letters in the Gotbix founder case related to sentencing guidelines with Massachusetts prosecutors: Law360 

“Defendant may not withdraw defendant’s guilty plea if defendant disagrees with how the court calculates the guidelines or with the sentence the court imposes,” attorney Foley wrote.

Andriunin was extradited to the US in October 2025

Gotbit founder’s deal with Massachusetts prosecutors came months after Andriunin was extradited to the US in October 2024 after being arrested by Portuguese authorities.

Since extradition, Andriunin has appeared in a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was ordered to remain detained until further notice.

Andriunin, 26, was charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud in a superseding indictment in October 2024.

Source: Alex Andriunin 

According to Massachusetts court documents, Gotbit was a crypto “market maker” that orchestrated a “widespread cryptocurrency market manipulation scheme.” The platform was registered in Belize and was said to provide artificial trading volume for global firms, including those in the US, between 2017 and 2024.

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Apart from Andriunin, the criminal complaint from Massachusetts authorities in September 2024 also involved other Gotbit employees, such as marketing director Fedor Kedrov and sales director Qawi Jalili, both living in Russia.

In the plea letter, Massachusetts attorney Foley mentioned that the assets listed in the forfeiture section of the Gotbit plea agreement are solely controlled by the defendant on Gotbit’s behalf despite these assets belonging to Gotbit.

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