PA Daily News | Prediction market Kalshi completes a new funding round of over $1 billion; Bluesky completes a $100 million Series B funding round.

Today's top news highlights:

The People's Bank of China plans to add approximately 12 more commercial banks to the digital yuan system.

Coinbase launches US stock perpetual contracts for eligible traders outside the US.

Binance Alpha has opened the second round of Cysic (CYS) airdrops, with a minimum requirement of 240 points.

Tencent QClaw officially launches full-scale public beta.

Opera is seeking to acquire 160 million CELO tokens within three years, potentially becoming a core stakeholder in Celo.

Decentralized social network Bluesky has raised $100 million in Series B funding, led by Bain Capital Crypto.

Prediction market Kalshi has completed a new funding round of over $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion.

BlackRock's Ethereum staking fund surpasses $250 million in its first week.

Regulation & Macro

The People's Bank of China and four other departments publicly solicited opinions on the "Draft Financial Law of the People's Republic of China".

The Ministry of Justice, the People's Bank of China, the State Financial Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange have jointly solicited public opinions on the "Draft Financial Law of the People's Republic of China".

The North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve Bill has passed its first reading.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, North Carolina has officially introduced Bill 327, the "North Carolina Bitcoin Reserve and Investment Act." The bill, sponsored by Senators Johnson and Overcash, passed its first reading on March 19th.

The bill proposes authorizing the state treasurer to allocate up to 10% of public funds to Bitcoin as part of the state's long-term financial strategy. It also allows for regulated yield-generating activities such as staking and lending, requires Bitcoin to be stored in multi-signature cold wallets, establishes a dedicated state custody agency, and sets up a Bitcoin economic advisory committee to provide guidance and conduct monthly audits.

The People's Bank of China plans to add approximately 12 more commercial banks to the digital yuan system.

According to Caixin, the number of institutions operating China's digital yuan will be further expanded. The People's Bank of China plans to add approximately 12 commercial banks to the digital yuan system, undertaking functions such as wallet opening, exchange, and payment processing, as well as daily operation and maintenance. The proposed expansion list includes seven national joint-stock banks: CITIC Bank, China Everbright Bank, Huaxia Bank, China Minsheng Bank, Guangdong Development Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and Zhejiang Commercial Bank; and five local city commercial banks: Ningbo Bank, Jiangsu Bank, Bank of Beijing, Bank of Nanjing, and Bank of Suzhou. Previously, ten banks, including the six major state-owned banks, had already participated.

South Korea's opposition parties have proposed a new motion to completely abolish the crypto tax plan, originally scheduled to be implemented in 2027.

According to CoinDesk, South Korea's opposition party has proposed a bill to completely abolish the cryptocurrency income tax system originally scheduled to be implemented in 2027. The bill states that the current plan is to levy a 22% tax on cryptocurrency investment gains, while exempting stock investment gains from income tax—an arrangement criticized as unfair to cryptocurrency investors. If the bill passes, South Korea's planned cryptocurrency tax will be cancelled.

Project Updates

Coinbase launches US stock perpetual contracts for eligible traders outside the US.

According to an official announcement, Coinbase has launched perpetual stock contracts for eligible traders outside the United States, offering 24/7 leveraged synthetic exposure to US stocks. The product supports perpetual contracts for US stocks such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla, as well as ETFs like SPY and QQQ. Leverage is up to 10x for a single stock and up to 20x for ETF perpetual contracts. Settlement is in USDC, and cross-margin trading is supported. This product is not offered to US residents and may be restricted in some jurisdictions.

Binance Alpha has opened the second round of Cysic (CYS) airdrops, with a minimum requirement of 240 points.

According to the official announcement, Binance Alpha has opened the second round of Cysic (CYS) airdrop claims. Users with at least 240 Binance Alpha Points can claim 60 CYS tokens on a first-come, first-served basis. If the reward pool is not fully distributed, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 every 5 minutes. Please note that claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Binance Alpha Points. Users must confirm their claim on the Alpha event page within 24 hours, otherwise it will be considered as a forfeiture of the claim.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini sued over post-IPO strategic shift and stock price decline.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini and its co-founders Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss are facing a class-action lawsuit from shareholders in New York. The lawsuit alleges that Gemini's statements in its September IPO filing were misleading, portraying itself as an exchange focused on expanding its user base and international business, but subsequently "abruptly shifted to a prediction market-centric business model," causing its stock price to plummet by more than 80% from its IPO price of $28 to approximately $6.

In early February, the Winklevoss brothers announced a shift to the "Gemini 2.0" prediction market, while simultaneously laying off 25% of their workforce and withdrawing from the EU, UK, and Australian markets. That same month, the company's CFO, COO, and CFO resigned. The plaintiffs requested a jury trial and sought damages. Gemini reported fourth-quarter revenue on Thursday that increased by 39% year-over-year to $60.3 million.

Tencent QClaw officially launches full-scale public beta.

Tencent's PR Director Zhang Jun announced today that QClaw has officially launched its full public beta test. No invitation code is required; users can download the latest version from the official website, install it in 20 seconds, and then issue commands to "Lobster." The new version has integrated remote control channels with multiple platforms including WeChat Work, QQ, Lark, and DingTalk. Features such as the Lobster Pixel Studio and scheduled tasks are also officially available in this public beta test.

The World Gold Council plans to launch a tokenized gold framework to challenge Tether and Paxos.

According to Decrypt, the World Gold Council, founded in 1987, is collaborating with the Boston Consulting Group to propose a "Gold as a Service" framework aimed at establishing standards for tokenized gold and challenging crypto-native issuers such as Tether Gold and PAX Gold. This service will provide a shared network enabling companies issuing tokenized gold to access a unified platform to manage physical reserves, enhance trust through continuous auditing, and establish fungibility between products.

The tokenized gold market, currently dominated by Paxos and Tether, has a total market capitalization of approximately $4.9 billion, with each having established its own independent custody and issuance system. The World Gold Council launched the first physical gold ETF in the United States, SPDR Gold Shares, in 2004, which currently has a market capitalization of $126 billion. The council states that the new service could lower the entry barrier for issuers and is expected to spawn hundreds of tokenized gold products.

Payroll giant Gusto adds USDC as a payment option for international contractors for the same day.

Payroll services giant Gusto has added a same-day payment option for international contractors, supporting payments via the stablecoin USDC, with funds directly deposited into crypto wallets including Solana. Gusto processes tens of billions of dollars in payroll payments annually.

OpenAI plans to launch a desktop "super app" that integrates Codex, ChatGPT, and a browser.

According to CLS News Agency, OpenAI is reportedly taking steps to simplify the user experience and plans to launch a desktop "super app" that integrates Codex, ChatGPT, and a browser.

World Liberty Financial launches AgentPay SDK, an open-source payment toolkit for AI agents.

According to official news, World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by the Trump family, has announced the launch of its AgentPay SDK, an open-source, self-custodied payment toolkit built for AI agents. The SDK integrates self-custodied key management, policy-based transaction authorization, and is compatible with common AI development tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and OpenClaw. The AgentPay SDK allows AI agents to hold, transfer, and manipulate USD1 stablecoins on the EVM chain. Transactions are signed locally, and the policy engine allows setting single and daily limits, requiring manual approval when thresholds are exceeded. The SDK also includes a built-in Bitrefill purchase function.

Opera is seeking to acquire 160 million CELO tokens within three years, potentially becoming a core stakeholder in Celo.

According to CoinDesk, browser company Opera (OPRA) has proposed replacing its quarterly USD cash subsidies with Celo with a three-year grant of 160 million CELO tokens. This represents approximately 27% of the current circulating supply of about 600 million CELO tokens and 16% of the maximum total supply of 1 billion. The tokens will be transferred from the Celo treasury to Safe, controlled by Opera, with a voting power capped at 10% of the total staked CELO. CoinMarketCap data shows that CELO is currently priced at around $0.07, a significant drop from its 2021 high of over $6. Opera states that this arrangement reflects the role of its self-custodied wallet, MiniPay, on the Celo network.

Sui launched its Bitcoin financial solution, Hashi, and it went live on devnet today.

According to official sources, Sui has launched a new Bitcoin financial solution called Hashi, aiming to introduce Bitcoin into the DeFi ecosystem. Hashi will allow BTC holders to earn rewards through staking, lending, and other methods, and will provide developers with a platform to create Bitcoin financial products. Hashi has already received support from institutions such as BitGo, Bullish, FalconX, and Ledger, covering areas such as custody, brokerage, security, and insurance. The solution went live on devnet today and will provide a compliant environment for institutional Bitcoin participation on Sui.

Investment and financing news

Decentralized social network Bluesky has raised $100 million in Series B funding, led by Bain Capital Crypto.

Decentralized social network Bluesky announced the completion of a $100 million Series B funding round, led by Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from existing investors Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and Knight Foundation. This funding round is expected to close in April 2025, but was not previously disclosed. Bluesky did not disclose its latest valuation; its previous Series A funding round was $15 million, led by Blockchain Capital.

Alongside the funding announcement, Bluesky CEO Jay Graber announced his resignation to become Chief Innovation Officer. Graber had previously stated that while Bluesky is not involved in cryptocurrency, its decentralized design was inspired by her early work at Zcash, aiming to evolve centralized social media into an open, distributed network. Bluesky's user base has grown from 13 million at its Series A funding round to over 43 million, and the number of its ecosystem applications based on the AT Protocol is also increasing.

Prediction market Kalshi has completed a new funding round of over $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion.

According to Bloomberg, prediction market platform Kalshi has completed a new funding round of over $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion, more than double its $11 billion valuation in December. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that the round was led by Coatue Management. Kalshi currently has annualized revenue of $1.5 billion. Founded in 2018, Kalshi saw a surge in popularity after a court granted it permission to offer election trading in 2024. The company operates as a CFTC-regulated financial exchange, allowing it to conduct business nationwide under federal rules. Its trading volume surpassed $10 billion in February, a 12-fold increase from six months prior. Despite recent criminal lawsuits and regulatory controversies in states like Arizona, investors remain enthusiastic about the rapidly growing market.

Opinions & Analysis

VanEck: Bitcoin miners continue to "mine and sell immediately," options market defensive signals reach all-time high.

Matthew Sigel, Head of Digital Asset Research at VanEck, posted on social media that Bitcoin's 30-day average price has fallen by 19%, but spot prices have stabilized. Market volatility has decreased significantly, with realized volatility falling from 80% to 50%, and futures funding rates dropping from 4.1% to 2.7%.

On-chain activity cooled, with transaction volume down 31%, daily transaction fees down 27%, and the distribution speed to long-term holders slowing. Miners largely maintained a "mine-and-sell" approach, selling almost all newly issued Bitcoin. Defensive sentiment in the options market peaked, with the average put/call open interest ratio at 0.77, a new high since June 2021; the put option premium relative to spot trading volume reached a record high of 4 basis points.

Important data

Sky Associates has completely closed out its long positions in ETH, incurring a loss of $257,000.

After a three-month hiatus, a major whale withdrew 460 BTC from Binance, equivalent to approximately $32.41 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, whale 1EnPnm has just withdrawn 460 BTC ($32.41 million) from Binance after a three-month hiatus.

A whale sold off 742.8 WBTC, accumulated over a year, incurring a loss of approximately $14 million.

According to Lookonchain monitoring, whale 0xc9d spent nearly a year buying 742.8 WBTC ($66.2 million) at an average price of about $89,117, and then sold them all today at a price of about $70,259, incurring a loss of about $14 million.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $90.1896 million yesterday, with BlackRock's IBIT experiencing the largest net outflow at $38.2512 million.

BlackRock's Ethereum staking fund surpasses $250 million in its first week.

BlackRock's iShares Staked Ethereum Trust (ETHB) reached $254 million in assets under management one week after its launch, with cumulative inflows of $146 million since its March 12 launch and initial seed funding exceeding $100 million. The fund stakes 70-95% of its Ethereum holdings, distributing 82% of its staking rewards to investors monthly, with the remaining 18% allocated to the trust, custodian, and staking service providers. ETHB has a sponsorship fee of 0.25%, discounted to 0.12% for the first year on the first $2.5 billion in assets. Its validators include Figment, Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure, and Attestant.

A whale who used "revolving loans to go long on BTC" cut its losses and liquidated its positions, realizing a loss of $14.02 million.

According to on-chain analyst Ember's monitoring, a whale who used "revolving loans to go long on BTC" liquidated its positions at a loss, realizing a loss of $14.02 million:

• Over the past year, he leveraged his position by borrowing USDC to buy more WBTC through a revolving loan, accumulating 742.8 WBTC at an average cost of approximately $89,137.

• Today, an hour ago, he sold all 742.8 WBTC through FalconX for $70,266, withdrawing 29.75 million USDC to pay off his loan on Aave.