Project Progress

Deloitte & Touche has for the first time issued a reserve certification for USAt under Tether, showing an over-collateralization of $17 million in assets, strengthening its US compliance footprint. Deloitte & Touche's first endorsement of Tether's assets marks a new milestone in USAT transparency ----------------------------------- The world's leading stablecoin, Tether, has made progress in its pursuit of transparency. One of the Big Four accounting firms, Deloitte & Touche, has completed an assessment of Tether's new compliant stablecoin.

MARA Holdings revised its policy to allow sales of existing Bitcoin reserves starting in 2026, while also reporting significant losses from trading and lending despite earning $32.1 million in interest. The company retains 53,822 BTC, having adjusted its strategy to enhance treasury flexibility amid market volatility.

RippleX's J. Ayo Akinyele outlined post-bug measures for improving XRPL security, emphasizing AI integration in development processes to enhance protective mechanisms and audit standards, ensuring safer transaction handling and system resilience.

ChainCatcher News: Bitcoin payment app Strike announced on X platform the official launch of Bitcoin collateralized credit line services. Users can borrow fiat currency in real-time for lightning payments or bill payments without selling Bitcoin to access cash flow. Currently, this service supports low-threshold lending and will initially launch in Georgia and Massachusetts, with plans to expand to more states across the United States.

Power Protocol's POWER token plummeted over 90% in the past 24 hours, dropping from $2.46 to $0.18, erasing this year's gains. The decline was influenced by the suspension of Ronin Bridge trading and upcoming token unlocks, leading to bearish market sentiment with 64% of users holding a negative outlook. Investors should be cautious of liquidity and market risks.

A16z Crypto – the Web3 investment branch of the leading venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz – has criticized the widespread but inaccurate use of the term “ZK” within the developer community in a recent blog post introducing Jolt zkVM. According to the article, “most zkVMs in reality are not fully zero-knowledge and often rely on simplified assumptions or partial proofs, which can lead to misconceptions about their security and privacy guarantees.”

On March 3rd, Ripple(XRP) declined by approximately 2.4%, with the price around $1.36 and a market capitalization close to $83 billion. This fluctuation was influenced by a global risk asset correction and geopolitical tensions. Ripple announced an expansion of its payment platform to support the stablecoin RLUSD, which could put pressure on XRP demand. Despite the price decline, platform upgrades may bring positive changes for long-term development.

Decentralized stablecoin USDD announces partnership with Gauntlet to launch the sUSDD/USDC lending market, with an initial supply cap of $15 million, aimed at improving capital efficiency and liquidity. Previously, the sUSDD/USDT incentive program reached a peak of $60 million, with users able to participate in a reward pool of 30,000 USDD.

Four.Meme has released the Agent Skill framework, supporting users in creating tokens and conducting on-chain trading with their Agents, aiming to involve AI in on-chain assets and promote its application within the BNB Chain ecosystem.

The Bank of Japan has launched a regulatory sandbox, planning to tokenize current account deposits to promote 24-hour settlement and participate in the Agorá program, with a decision on the digital yen by 2026. The experiment will explore the application of blockchain in settlement systems to reduce cross-border remittance costs and improve efficiency, and plans to incorporate private stablecoins to maintain financial stability.

Core Scientific plans to sell most of its 2,500 BTC holdings in Q1 2026 to boost liquidity and finance AI-focused data center expansion, reflecting a trend among miners transitioning towards high-performance computing.

Visa Inc. accelerates the development of stablecoin payment networks, expands collaboration with Bridge, and plans to cover more than 100 countries and regions by the end of 2026. Users can spend using stablecoin balances, which are automatically converted to fiat currency at checkout. This move marks a step toward internationalization of stablecoin payments, while Visa is also advancing a stablecoin settlement pilot project to evaluate the potential of blockchain in payments.

Ripple announces that its payment platform transaction volume has surpassed $100 billion, covering over 60 markets, demonstrating the success of its cross-border payment solutions. However, XRP's liquidity index on Binance has dropped to a new low, indicating a significant decline in trading activity, which could impact price volatility risk. Analysis points out that even with business growth, low liquidity does not necessarily immediately improve market conditions.

Despite last year's turbulence in the cryptocurrency market, stablecoin trading volume reached $400 billion, and Stripe's stablecoin settlement platform Bridge's trading volume grew fourfold. Bridge simplifies stablecoin payment processes, driving Visa's stablecoin card expansion to over 100 countries worldwide, enhancing corporate payment and fund management efficiency.

ChainCatcher News, Byreal announced that they are working to become an agent-native decentralized exchange, believing that the next generation of market participants will not all be human, and protocols need to be built for AI Agents. Byreal also open-sourced byreal-cli, the first DeFi tool in the AI Agent Skills ecosystem that supports strategy replication, allowing agents to autonomously execute on-chain trades, manage positions, and replicate top users.

Ripple expands its payment platform into a comprehensive fiat and stablecoin infrastructure, supporting fund management and payment functions across 60 markets. This upgrade includes custody, automated treasury, and virtual accounts, with platform transaction volume exceeding $100 billion.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Shanghai Municipal Data Bureau, and the National Blockchain Technology Innovation Center signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly research the "Cross-Border Blockchain Platform," focusing on trade data interconnection and electronic bills of lading. The goal is to reform the $1.5 trillion global cargo financing market and promote Hong Kong's role as an international financial center. This collaboration will leverage a commercial data exchange platform and blockchain technology to address existing trade financing pain points and accelerate Hong Kong's digital asset policies, including introducing tax exemptions to attract institutional investors.

Indiana Governor signed HB 1042, requiring public retirement plans to offer cryptocurrency investment options by 2027, including consumer protection provisions. At the same time, HB 1116 bans the operation of cryptocurrency ATMs statewide, reflecting a dual-track regulatory stance by the state government on cryptocurrency policy.

TradingBase.AI will participate in the Web4.0 Hong Kong event, emphasizing that AI Agents are moving from concept to practical application, especially demonstrating great potential in financial systems. AI Agents are not only execution tools but also capable of understanding the environment, making decisions, and performing continuous tasks. The high-frequency decision-making and rule-based nature of financial markets make them an ideal testing ground for AI Agents. In the future, Web4.0 may establish a new internet collaboration model of "People + AI + Systems." Hong Kong is becoming a key node in this trend.