Uk Jin

According to Token Mindshare (a metric that quantifies the influence of specific tokens in the virtual asset market) top gainers from Kaito, an AI-based Web3 search platform, the top 5 virtual asset (cryptocurrency) keywords that people are showing the most interest in as of the 19th are AIXBT, TRON (TRX), Ethereum (ETH), Coinbase, and BNB. First, the virtual asset that ranked 1st was AIXBT, an AI agent from Virtual Protocol. It raised investor concerns as its decline intensified during the trading session. As of 2:21 PM today, AIXBT is trading at $0.09639, down 6.02% compared to the previous day according to CoinMarketCap. TRON took 2nd place. TRON attracted investor attention by recording a 5.16% increase during the trading session. In particular, investor sentiment appears to have strengthened as SunPump, a TRON-based meme coin generation protocol, has recently shown strong performance. More than 100 meme coins were issued on SunPump in the past 24 hours, which is the first time in 4 months. 3rd place went to the altcoin leader Ethereum. This comes as positive analysis toward Ethereum emerged. The previous day, on-chain analytics firm IntoTheBlock said, "Ethereum's MVRV (Market Value to Realized Value) ratio has reached 0.9," adding that "historically, it has been advantageous to buy Ethereum when the MVRV is less than 1." 4th place went to cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Coinbase announced through its official blog that it launched an on-chain liquidity pool called 'Verified Pools' today. The pool is built on Uniswap v4 and also collaborates with DeFi risk management project Gauntlet. It's a pool available to individual and institutional investors in certain regions including the United States, Singapore, and the Netherlands. Finally, BNB took 5th place. The Bubble Maps airdrop conducted by Binance exchange the previous day attracted a lot of investor attention. Binance announced through its official webpage, "The 12th Hodler Airdrop project is Bubble Maps," adding that "Users who subscribed to BNB on Simple Earn from 00:00 UTC on March 2 to 23:59 UTC on March 6 will receive BMT airdrops." In addition, investors were also shown to be interested in Raydium (RAY), Aerodrome Finance (AERO), OpenSea (OPENSEA), EOS (EOX), and Tezos (XTZ).

Ethereum (ETH) spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have experienced significant net outflows. According to Farside Investor on the 18th (local time), Ethereum spot ETFs recorded a net outflow of $52.8 million on this day. BlackRock's ETHA saw a net outflow of $40.2 million, followed by Grayscale ETH and Fidelity FETH with net outflows of $9.3 million and $3.3 million respectively.

A new Bitcoin (BTC) reserve bill has emerged in the state of North Carolina, USA. This time, it was introduced in the Senate. According to Bitcoin Law X (formerly Twitter) on the 18th (local time), the North Carolina Senate has newly introduced the Bitcoin reserve bill SB327. This is a new bill different from the previously proposed HB92 in the House. Like HB92, the core of the SB327 bill is to grant the State Treasurer the authority to invest up to 10% of public funds in Bitcoin. Looking at the details, Bitcoin purchased by the state will be stored through multi-signature cold storage, and proof of holdings will be conducted monthly. SB327 also stipulates that Bitcoin sales are restricted unless there is a serious financial crisis.

Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) continued to record net inflows. According to Bitcoin spot ETF flow tracking account TraderT on the 18th (local time), Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a total net inflow of $208.3 million on this day. BlackRock's IBIT had a net inflow of $217.3 million, while ARK Invest's ARKB had a net outflow of $9 million.

Zapo Bank, based in Gibraltar, has launched a loan product utilizing Bitcoin (BTC). According to cryptocurrency specialist media Decrypt on the 18th (local time), Zapo Bank now allows Bitcoin to be used as collateral for loans starting from that day. Gadi Chayet, Investment Officer at Zapo Bank, said, "This new service is available to all customers except those in the UK and Australia, and provides Bitcoin-backed loans of up to $1 million." Zapo Bank explained that they made this decision as the pace of acceptance for the virtual asset industry in the US has accelerated. Chayet explained, "After seeing Wall Street banks like Cantor Fitzgerald developing their own Bitcoin financial products, we wanted to provide more options to our customers."

On the 19th (Korean time), the Ethereum (ETH) Foundation announced through its official blog that it will implement the Pectra upgrade on the new Hoodi testnet at 12:37 AM on the 27th. The upgrades that were scheduled to be applied to the Sepolia and Holesky testnets are currently under investigation to resolve issues. Accordingly, staking operators and infrastructure providers should utilize the Hoodi testnet. The existing Holesky testnet will be supported until September 2025. Meanwhile, this Hoodi testnet upgrade is the final testnet before the mainnet Pectra upgrade, and performance and stability evaluations will be conducted. If the testnet is successful, the Pectra upgrade is expected to be deployed in late April or early May.

According to the virtual asset (cryptocurrency) data provider Alternative on the 19th, the virtual asset fear and greed index recorded 32 points, down 2 points from the previous day. As of 9:15 a.m. on the same day, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $82,745 on CoinMarketCap, down 1.36% from the previous day. Altcoins showed mixed trends. At the same time, Ethereum and TRON rose by 0.44% and 8.49%, respectively. On the other hand, XRP (-2.05%), Solana (-1.62%), Binance Coin (-0.88%), ADA (-1.89%), and Dogecoin (-2.75%) showed weakness. The fear and greed index is an indicator that expresses market sentiment, with closer to 0 indicating extreme fear and closer to 100 indicating extreme greed. This index is calculated based on volatility (25%), trading volume (25%), social media (15%), surveys (15%), Bitcoin market cap dominance (10%), and Google search volume (10%).

Amid intensifying downward trend of XRP, analysis suggests that maintaining the $2 support level is crucial. On the 18th (local time), The Daily HODL reported that XRP is at risk of a price plunge, citing analyst Ali Martinez's analysis. In the cited post, Ali Martinez stated, "A head and shoulders pattern has been observed in XRP's chart," adding that "it's important to maintain the $2 support level." The head and shoulders pattern typically appears when the market reverses downward after reaching a peak following a long-term rally. In the chart he posted, Ali Martinez predicted that if XRP fails to maintain the $2 support level, it could plummet to $1.25. Meanwhile, as of 9:13 AM on the 19th (Korean time), XRP is currently trading at $2.28, down 2.05% from the previous day according to CoinMarketCap.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI), which the Donald Trump presidential family is actively promoting as ambassadors, has completed its public token sale round. According to cryptocurrency media Coin Koo on the 18th (local time), World Liberty Financial's recent token sale attracted 85,000 investors, with tokens worth $550 million sold. Jack Witkoff, co-founder of World Liberty Financial, said, "The people who participated in this round understand World Liberty Financial," adding, "World Liberty Financial will prove that it can transform global finance and strengthen decentralized finance (DeFi) in the future."

According to cryptocurrency media outlet The Block on the 18th (local time), stablecoins (virtual assets pegged to fiat currencies) worth $1.11 trillion (approximately 1,600 trillion won) were traded on the Ethereum network in February. USDC recorded the highest trading volume during this period. USDC drove nearly half of the total volume with $499.2 billion in transactions. This was followed by USDT ($291 billion) and DAI ($262.5 billion). The Block assessed that "this demonstrates that Ethereum's stablecoin liquidity remains robust, despite Ethereum's recent weakness."

Solana (SOL) based decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium (RAY) is launching a token launchpad. This is speculated to be in response to news that PumpFun, another Solana ecosystem project, is launching its own Automated Market Maker (AMM) solution. On the 18th (local time), cryptocurrency media outlet Blockworks reported that Raydium is launching a launchpad that allows direct token forking similar to PumpFun. The name of this launchpad has been set as LaunchLab. The reason behind Raydium's introduction of this new token launchpad is attributed to conflicts with PumpFun. PumpFun, a Solana ecosystem meme coin generation protocol, hinted at the dissolution of its partnership with Raydium, which had been serving as the market maker, when it announced the development of its own market maker last month. Raydium has responded by introducing a product similar to PumpFun. According to Blockworks' investigation, meme coins originating from PumpFun account for 41% of swap fees, wielding significant influence within Raydium. A Raydium representative explained, "Raydium started developing LaunchLab several months ago, but we put the project on hold to avoid being perceived as competitors." Meanwhile, as of 6:55 AM on the 19th (Korean time), Raydium is trading at $1.80, up 3.80% from the previous day according to CoinMarketCap.

The instigators of the meme coin Libra (LIBRA) incident, which caused market turmoil, are reportedly facing a class action lawsuit in the United States. On the 18th (local time), cryptocurrency media outlet Cointelegraph reported that Kelcier Ventures, KIP Protocol, and Meteora are being sued in a New York court for their alleged involvement with the Libra token. The previous day, U.S. law firm Berwick Law filed a lawsuit against them, claiming it was "a deceptive, manipulative, and fundamentally unfair meme coin launch." They added that "the meme coin price was artificially inflated to benefit insiders while causing losses to buyers." Libra is a cryptocurrency created last month on a Solana-based meme coin generation protocol. Libra was promoted as a cryptocurrency with the purpose of revitalizing Argentina's local economy, and it surged in the early stages of its launch, attracting the attention of many investors. In particular, investment sentiment heated up when Argentina's President Javier Milei personally promoted it through social media (SNS). However, a few hours later, a large volume of insider holdings was sold, causing Libra to plummet by 95% instantly. However, President Milei was not included among the defendants. Meanwhile, according to blockchain research firm Nansen, losses suffered by investors due to the Libra incident amounted to $251 million.

Wevercare (formerly MediBloc·MEDI) announced on the 18th that it has established a partnership with Global Tax Free (GTF) to strengthen medical data integration. The purpose of this collaboration is to enhance the digital transformation of medical tourism. Specifically, Global Tax Free will provide Wevercare with information necessary for developing refund service-related systems, and Wevercare plans to develop a system that can implement refund services through its electronic medical chart solution, Doctor Palette. Meanwhile, MediBloc is currently trading at 10.39 won on Upbit as of 2:32 PM today, up 0.29% from the previous day.

Pepe (PEPE) is showing an upward trend during trading hours. It's displaying strength alone while memecoin market overall shows weakness. As of 12:12 PM on the 18th, Pepe is trading at $0.000007266, up 7.87% from the previous day according to CoinMarketCap. Over the past week, Pepe recorded a 26.56% rally. This is significantly better performance compared to other memecoins during the same period. Looking at the past week's growth rates, leading memecoins Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB) only rose by 8.33% and 9.63% respectively. Crypto influencer Ali Martinez also indicated through X (Twitter) that "Pepe may have entered a rally."

MetaPlanet, which follows the strategy of Japan's Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and has incorporated Bitcoin (BTC) as a financial asset, is proceeding with an additional issuance of common stock. On the 18th (local time), MetaPlanet announced through its official X (Twitter) that "we have decided to issue an additional 2 billion yen in non-interest common stock to purchase more Bitcoin."

Net inflows have occurred in U.S. Bitcoin (BTC) spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs). According to TraderT on the 17th (local time), Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a total net inflow of $274.6 million on this day. Fidelity's FBTC led the net inflows with $127.3 million, followed by ARK Invest's ARKB ($88.5 million), BlackRock's IBIT ($42.3 million), Grayscale's BTC ($14.2 million), and Bitwise's BITB ($2.3 million). There were no products that experienced net outflows.

 Jang Hyun-kook, CEO of NEXUS, announced that the price of cryptocurrency CROSS has been set at $0.10. On the 18th (local time), Jang shared through his X (Twitter) account, "The private sale has concluded, raising $10 million at $0.10 per token. I thought it would be fair to maintain the same price for the public sale stage as well." The total supply of CROSS is known to be 1 billion tokens. During this private sale, a total of 100 million tokens were sold.