CryptoPulseElite

Europe's largest asset manager Amundi, with approximately €2.4 trillion in assets under management, partnered with tokenization platform Spiko on March 19, 2026, to launch the $100 million Spiko Amundi Overnight Swap Fund (SAFO), utilizing Chainlink as the underlying oracle infrastructure to record Net Asset Value (NAV) directly on the Ethereum and Stellar blockchains.

Decentralized social network Bluesky announced on March 19, 2026, that it has raised $100 million in Series B funding led by Bain Capital Crypto, a round that closed in April 2025 but was only disclosed this week following founder Jay Graber's transition from CEO to chief innovation officer.

The World Gold Council (WGC), the organization behind the $163 billion SPDR Gold Shares ETF (GLD), unveiled a proposed "Gold as a Service" infrastructure framework on March 19, 2026, designed to standardize the tokenized gold market currently dominated by Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG).

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched missile strikes on Qatar's Ras Laffan Industrial City on March 18-19, 2026, severely damaging two LNG production trains representing 12.8 million tons per annum (MTPA) of capacity—approximately 17% of Qatar's LNG exports—and forcing QatarEnergy to declare force majeure on long-term contracts for up to five years.

Crypto prime broker FalconX has held preliminary discussions with potential advisors, including Wall Street heavyweight Cantor Fitzgerald, regarding a potential initial public offering (IPO), though no banks have been formally appointed to underwrite the deal.

Leading Solana treasury firm Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FWDI) announced on March 19, 2026, that it will repurchase approximately 6.16 million shares for $27.4 million from an institutional investor, reducing its outstanding shares by 7.4% and increasing its SOL-per-share metric to 0.0662.

EtherFi, a crypto neobank and liquid restaking protocol with over $6 billion in user deposits, has allocated $25 million to Plume Network's Nest vault infrastructure to integrate real-world asset (RWA) yield directly into its platform, according to a March 19 announcement.

A Kentucky bill primarily designed to regulate cryptocurrency kiosks has drawn sharp criticism after a late-added amendment introduced provisions targeting hardware wallets, which industry advocates argue would effectively outlaw non-custodial self-custody in the state.

Morgan Stanley has filed an amended S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) set to trade on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT.

BlackRock's iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB) has accumulated $254 million in assets under management within its first week of trading on Nasdaq, with investors adding $146 million in net inflows since the fund's March 12 debut.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI) introduced the AgentPay SDK on March 19, 2026, an open-source toolkit enabling AI agents to hold, send, and transact with USD1 stablecoins across EVM-compatible blockchains under programmable policy constraints.

Strive (Nasdaq: ASST), the corporate treasury firm founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, increased its bitcoin holdings by 317 BTC over the past week, bringing total reserves to 13,627.9 BTC as of March 17, 2026, and securing the 10th position among public bitcoin treasury companies.

According to The Block, JPMorgan analysts led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou noted in a March 19 report that decentralized exchange Hyperliquid has gained significant traction from non-crypto traders seeking round-the-clock exposure to oil prices, with trading volume in its West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude perpetual futures contract peaking at $1.7 billion in mid-March 2026.

Bitcoin options traders have positioned for significant downside protection, with the put-to-call open interest ratio averaging 0.77 over the past month—the highest level since June 2021 and within the 91st percentile of all readings since mid-2019, according to VanEck's March 2026 Bitcoin ChainCheck report.

Prediction market platform Kalshi Inc. has raised over $1 billion in a new financing round led by Coatue Management, achieving a valuation of $22 billion—roughly double its $11 billion valuation from December 2025.

U.S. bank lending to nondepository financial institutions (NDFIs)—including private credit funds, mortgage finance firms, and securitization vehicles—has grown to $1.32 trillion as of the third quarter of 2025, a 2,320% increase from $56 billion in early 2010.

Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), chair of the Senate Banking Committee's digital assets subcommittee, announced on March 18, 2026, that lawmakers have reached a compromise on stablecoin yield provisions, clearing the primary obstacle for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) to advance from committee in April.

Peter Steinberger, creator of the open-source AI assistant OpenClaw, issued a public warning on March 18, 2026, that all crypto-related emails claiming ties to the project are scams, as attackers target GitHub developers worldwide with fraudulent $CLAW token airdrop offers.

Global crypto investment products recorded $1.06 billion in net inflows last week, marking the highest weekly total since January and the third consecutive week of positive flows.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has suspended its initial public offering (IPO) plans, approximately four months after parent company Payward confidentially filed a draft S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2025.