Decentral Block Post

A South Korean court temporarily lifted the partial business suspension on crypto exchange Upbit that had prohibited the trading platform from servicing new clients for three months. 

On Feb. 25, South Korea’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) sanctioned the exchange, imposing a three-month ban on deposits and withdrawals for new clients. The FIU previously said the suspension was in response to Upbit’s violations of policies that prohibit exchanges from transacting with unregistered virtual asset service providers (VASPs). 

In response to the FIU’s sanction, Upbit’s parent company, Dunamu, filed a lawsuit against the FIU, seeking to overturn the partial suspension order. In addition, Dunamu requested an injunction to temporarily lift the suspension order. 

On March 27, local media Newsis reported that the court granted the injunction, moving the suspension order 30 days after a court judgment is reached. This allows Upbit to service new clients while the legal battle continues. 

Upbit investigations led to a 3-month suspension order

Founded in 2017, Upbit is South Korea’s largest crypto exchange. On Oct. 10, the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) initiated an investigation into Upbit for potential breaches of the country’s anti-monopoly laws. 

BItcoin (BTC) retains a $138,000 price target for 2025 as the market recovers from US trade tariffs, new analysis concludes.

Data covering bets on prediction service Polymarket suggests that BTC/USD could still gain around 60% from current levels this year.

“Conservative” Polymarket users cap BTC price upside at 60%

Bitcoin bull market projections have taken a beating this quarter thanks to multiple setbacks impacting crypto and the wider risk-asset spectrum.

Now, an assessment of all potential BTC price outcomes on Polymarket concludes that the bull market cycle may be capped at around 60% before 2026.

The results were uploaded to X by user Ashwin on March 27 and show that price bets extend all the way down to $59,000.

Opinion by: Marc Boiron, chief executive officer of Polygon Labs

Decentralized finance (DeFi) needs a reality check. Protocols have chased growth through token emissions that promise eye-popping annual percentage yields (APYs) for years, only to watch liquidity evaporate when incentives dry up. The current state of DeFi is too driven by mercenary capital, which is creating artificial ecosystems doomed to collapse.

The industry has been caught in a destructive cycle: Launch a governance token, distribute it generously to liquidity providers to boost total value locked (TVL), celebrate growth metrics, and watch helplessly as yield farmers withdraw their capital and move to the next hot protocol. This model doesn’t build lasting value — it creates temporary illusions of success.

DeFi deserves a better approach to value creation and capital efficiency. The current emission-driven yield model has three fatal flaws that continue to undermine the industry’s potential.

Inflationary emissions

Most yield in DeFi comes from inflationary token emissions rather than sustainable revenue. When protocols distribute native tokens as rewards, they dilute their token value to subsidize short-term growth. This creates an unsustainable dynamic where early participants extract value while later users are stuck holding devalued assets.

Solana Ghibli-inspired memecoins are surging in popularity as ChatGPT users have flooded social media with Studio Ghibli-inspired images over the past 24 hours.

On March 25, OpenAI launched image generation for its ChatGPT-4o mode, leading users to splash images across social media style in the art style of Studio Ghibli — known for its anime films Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk contributed to the trend, posting portraits of themselves generated by the model. Musk, with over 219 million followers on his platform X, has a history of influencing memecoins such as Shiba Inu (SHIB) and Dogecoin (DOGE) with his posts.

Sam Altman posted a Studio Ghibli-inspired AI image while announcing ChatGPT’s image generation tool. Source: Sam Altman

Neither Musk nor Altman mentioned any Ghibli-themed memecoin. Still, the largest Ghibli-themed token by market cap, Ghiblification (GHIBLI) has reached a market cap of $20.80 million since it went live 19 hours ago, according to DEX Screener.

Trading platform Robinhood Markets plans to offer a service that delivers cash to its customers alongside an artificial intelligence research assistant that offers trading advice.

The company said in a March 27 blog post that its online banking arm, Robinhood Banking, will offer savings accounts to its Gold subscribers through its partner Coastal Community Bank and will be given the option to have physical cash delivered on demand.

“You could be sitting at home and decide to get a cash delivery the same way you’d want to order an Uber or a Postmates,” Robinhood Markets CEO Vlad Tenev said during a livestream

He added there are already home delivery services for groceries and meals, but banking still “hasn’t progressed that much past the branch office and the ATM.”

https://t.co/oGJ630tmI2

OpenAI expects to more than triple its revenue this year to $12.7 billion, despite fast-growing competition from the likes of China’s DeepSeek and other competitors making rapid progress.

The ChatGPT creators also expect its revenue target for 2025 to more than double to $29.4 billion by 2026, Bloomberg reported on March 26, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The 2025 estimate is a little higher than the $11.6 billion revenue target that OpenAI was reportedly eyeing for 2025, The New York Times reported last September.

Bloomberg noted that the bulk of ChatGPT’s revenue has come from its paid AI software subscription offerings for consumers and businesses.

OpenAI reportedly hit 1 million paid users for the corporate versions of ChatGPT last September, while the company more recently added a $200 monthly ChatGPT Pro option.

France-based The Blockchain Group has added another 580 Bitcoin to its Bitcoin treasury, following a 225% surge in its stock price since it began hoarding Bitcoin in November.

This is the largest of the three Bitcoin purchases made by the organization, per a March 26 after-hours statement. At the time of publication, 580 Bitcoin is worth $50.64 million, with Bitcoin’s (BTC) price trading at $87,311, according to CoinMarketCap data.

First purchases at pivotal Bitcoin moments

The Blockchain Group’s first two Bitcoin purchases happened around significant milestones for the Bitcoin industry. It bought 15 BTC on Nov. 5, the same day Donald Trump won the United States presidential election and before Bitcoin went on a month-long rally that saw it reach $100,000 for the first time in December.

Bitcoin is up 24.38% over the past 12 months. Source: CoinMarketCap

The second purchase was 25 Bitcoin on Dec. 4, when Bitcoin was trading at $96,000 during the post-election rally, with anticipation growing about a six-figure price — which happened the next day.

A coalition of crypto firms has urged Congress to press the Department of Justice to amend an “unprecedented and overly expansive” interpretation of laws that were used to charge the developers of the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

A March 26 letter signed by 34 crypto companies and advocate groups sent to the Senate Banking Committee, House Financial Services Committee and the House and Senate judiciary committees said the DOJ’s take on unlicensed money-transmitting business means “essentially every blockchain developer could be prosecuted as a criminal.”

The letter — led by the DeFi Education Fund and signed by the likes of Kraken and Coinbase — added that the Justice Department’s interpretation “creates confusion and ambiguity” and “threatens the viability of U.S.-based software development in the digital asset industry.”

The group said the DOJ debuted its position “in August 2023 via criminal indictment” — the same time it charged Tornado Cash developers Roman Storm and Roman Semenov with money laundering.

Storm has been released on bail, has pleaded not guilty and wants the charges dropped. Semenov, a Russian national, is at large.

The trader behind recent “suspicious market activity” on Hyperliquid that led to the freeze and delisting of the Jelly my Jelly (JELLY) memecoin is potentially down almost $1 million from their actions. 

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence said in a March 26 post to X that the trader attempted to manipulate the system to profit from price movements, withdrawing collateral before Hyperliquid’s liquidation system could catch up.

The trader opened three accounts within five minutes of each other, two with $2.15 million and $1.9 million long positions, and the third a $4.1 million short, to cancel out the long positions, according to Arkham in a post-mortem report. 

“This allowed him to build up leverage in an attempt to drain funds from Hyperliquid,” Arkham said.

Source: Arkham

Update (March 27, 3:03 am UTC): This article has been updated to add background and information on the resolution.

US President Donald Trump is expected to sign a resolution overturning a Biden-era rule that requires decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to report to the IRS, following the legislation’s passage in the Senate on March 26.

The Senate voted 70-28 to pass a motion repealing the so-called IRS DeFi broker rule that aimed to expand existing IRS reporting requirements to crypto.

The Senate was widely expected to pass the resolution as it passed a version of the resolution in early March, but the House made its own version due to Constitutional rules about where budget measures should originate.

The House passed its copycat version on March 11, which sent it to the Senate for a final vote before it could be sent to Trump.

Nearly 58% of Argentinians said they don’t trust President Javier Milei following his involvement in the $4.6 billion Libra crypto scandal, according to a recent poll. 

“More than a month after the crypto fraud scandal broke out, how much do you trust Milei today?” polling platform Zuban Córdoba asked 1,600 respondents in its recently released March survey, to which 57.6% replied that they disapprove of him, while 36% said Milei still has their trust.

The remaining 6.4% said they weren’t sure, the report stated.

Percentage of trust that Argentines have in Milei after the Libra scandal. Source: Zuban Córdoba

This was the first time the question was asked within a Zuban Córdoba poll. However, several other metrics, such as Milei’s image and the national management approval rating, have plummeted considerably in recent months.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon said the state’s proposed stablecoin might be ready to launch by July, with the Wyoming Stable Token Commission announcing interoperability protocol LayerZero as a partner for the token launch.

Speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26, Gordon praised the speed and efficiency of the Wyoming state government in embracing blockchain technology. Anthony Apollo, the executive director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, also confirmed:

"The Stable Token Commission has formally engaged LayerZero as our token development and distribution partner, and we have stable tokens — Wyoming stable tokens — on several test networks."

Wyoming, which is represented by pro-crypto Senator Cynthia Lummis, has been planning a state-issued stablecoin for years and has a history of embracing innovation in digital assets.

Governor Mark Gordon of Wyoming speaking at the 2025 DC Blockchain Summit. Source: Sei

Related: Yield-bearing stablecoins could kill banking — US Senator Gillibrand

US Securities and Exchange Commissioner (SEC) Hester Peirce offered a few suggestions for longer-lasting changes in crypto regulation between administrations with potentially different views.  

Speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26, Peirce, who heads the SEC’s crypto task force, said she expected that the commission could create more “durability” for digital asset regulations through rulemaking at the agency and legislation in Congress. Such rulemaking and laws would be in contrast to guidance issued by the agency, such as a recent statement suggesting that memecoins do not qualify as securities. 

“I hope people won’t be sitting around thinking about the Howey test,” said Peirce, referring to a method to determine whether an asset is a security. “Your lawyers have to think about these things, I’m not saying that they’ll not be relevant, but it shouldn’t be the kind of thing that is driving what you decide to build. I want there to be enough clarity on the question of what falls in our jurisdiction and then, if it does, how you can move forward.”

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce speaking at the DC Blockchain Summit on March 26. Source: Rumble

Peirce’s remarks came as the SEC has dropped several investigations or enforcement actions against major crypto firms, including Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken and Immutable. Some see the commission’s change in policy under acting chair Mark Uyeda as an attempt by US President Donald Trump to have the agency drop cases against firms that supported his 2024 campaign.

GameStop shares jumped nearly 12% on March 26 after the company announced plans to purchase Bitcoin (BTC).

The company plans to finance the purchase through debt financing. After markets closed on March 26, GameStop announced a $1.3 billion convertible notes offering.

The convertible senior notes — debt that can later be converted into equity — will be used for general corporate purposes, including acquiring Bitcoin, according to a company statement.

“GameStop expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of Bitcoin in a manner consistent with GameStop’s Investment Policy,” it said.

The company revealed on March 25 plans to use a portion of its corporate cash or future debt to buy digital assets, including Bitcoin and US-dollar-pegged stablecoins. GameStop’s cash reserves stood at $4.77 billion on Feb. 1 compared to $921.7 million one year earlier.

Gracy Chen, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, criticized Hyperliquid’s handling of a March 26 incident on its perpetual exchange, saying it put the network at risk of becoming “FTX 2.0.”

On March 26, Hyperliquid, a blockchain network specializing in trading, said it delisted perpetual futures contracts for the JELLY token and would reimburse users after identifying “evidence of suspicious market activity” tied to the instruments. 

The decision, which was reached by consensus among Hyperliquid’s relatively small number of validators, flagged existing concerns about the popular network’s perceived centralization.

“Despite presenting itself as an innovative decentralized exchange with a bold vision, Hyperliquid operates more like an offshore [centralized exchange],” Chen said, after saying “Hyperliquid may be on track to become FTX 2.0.”

FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange run by Sam Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of fraud in the US after FTX’s abrupt collapse in 2022. 

Despite strong institutional demand, Bitcoin (BTC) has struggled to reclaim the $100,000 level for the past 50 days, leading investors to question the reasons behind the bearishness despite a seemingly positive environment. 

This price weakness is particularly intriguing given the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve executive order issued by President Donald Trump on March 6, which allows BTC acquisitions as long as they follow “budget-neutral” strategies.

Bitcoin fails to keep up with gold’s returns despite positive news flow

On March 26, GameStop Corporation (GME), the North American video game and consumer electronics retailer, announced plans to allocate a portion of its corporate reserves to Bitcoin. The company, which was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2021, successfully capitalized on a historic short squeeze and managed to secure an impressive $4.77 billion in cash and equivalents by February 2025.

Largest corporate Bitcoin holdings. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

A growing number of US-based and international companies have followed Michael Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR) playbook, including the Japanese firm Metaplanet, which recently appointed Eric Trump, son of US President Donald Trump, to its newly established strategic board of advisers. Similarly, the mining conglomerate MARA Holdings (MARA) adopted a Bitcoin treasury policy to “retain all BTC” and increase its exposure through debt offerings.

Stablecoin issuers should be restricted from providing yield-bearing opportunities to protect the legacy banking system, which issues home mortgages and small business loans, US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said at a summit in Washington, DC.

Speaking at the 2025 DC Blockchain Summit on March 26, the Democratic senator from New York praised her state for having some of the most robust financial regulations in the world, and said they should be adopted by all financial services sectors.

According to Gillibrand, these regulations need to be applied to stablecoin issuers, whether they are regulated at the state or federal levels, to ensure compliance with existing laws and to protect consumer safety. Gillibrand then turned her attention to protecting the banking industry:

"Do you want a stablecoin issuer to be able to issue interest, probably not, because if they are issuing interest, there is no reason to put your money in a local bank. If there is no reason to put your money in a local bank, who is going to give you a mortgage?

“If there is no deposit, small banks cannot do that anymore; it will collapse the financial services system that people rely on for their businesses and mortgages,” Gillibrand continued.

Senator Gillibrand speaking at a panel during the DC Blockchain Summit. Source: DC Blockchain Summit

Update (March 26 at 8:48 PM UTC): This article has been updated to include commentary from Benchmark stock analyst Mark Palmer.

Bitcoin (BTC) mining stocks are down after tech giant Microsoft reportedly scrapped plans to invest in new artificial intelligence data centers in the US and Europe, citing a potential oversupply, according to a report by Bloomberg and data from Google Finance.

Shares of crypto miners Bitfarms, CleanSpark, Core Scientific, Hut 8, Marathon Digital and Riot dropped between 4% and 12% in tandem with the news, the data showed.

The stock price retrenchments highlight cryptocurrency miners’ increased dependence on business from artificial intelligence models after the Bitcoin network’s April 2024 “halving” cut into mining revenues.

According to Benchmark stock analyst Mark Palmer, investors already anticipated Microsoft’s data center cuts.

Ether (ETH) price reclaimed the $2,000 support on March 24 but remains 18% below the $2,500 level seen three weeks ago. Data shows Ether has underperformed the altcoin market by 14% over the past 30 days, leading traders to question whether the altcoin can regain bullish momentum and which factors might drive a trend reversal.

Ether/USD (left) vs. total altcoin capitalization, USD (right). Source: TradingView / Cointelegraph

Ether appears well-positioned to attract institutional demand and significantly reduce the FUD that has limited its upside potential. Critics have long argued that the Ethereum ecosystem lags behind competitors in overall user experience and still offers limited base-layer scalability, which has negatively impacted network fees and transaction efficiency. 

Will the Ethereum Pectra upgrade impact ETH price?

Many of the Ethereum network’s challenges are expected to be addressed in the upcoming Pectra network upgrade, scheduled for late April or early June. Among the proposed changes is a doubling of the data that can be included in each block, which should help lower fees for rollups and privacy-focused mechanisms. Additionally, the cost of call data will increase, encouraging developers to adopt blobs—a more efficient method for data storage.

Another notable improvement in the upcoming upgrade is the introduction of smart accounts, which allow wallets to function like smart contracts during transactions. This enables gas fee sponsorship, passkey authentication, and batch transactions. Additionally, several other enhancements focus on optimizing staking deposits and withdrawals, providing greater flexibility, and extending block history for smart contracts that rely on past data.

Interactive Brokers, a global brokerage that recorded $9.3 billion in revenue for 2024, is expanding its altcoin offerings to include four new tokens.

According to a March 26 announcement, the platform has added Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), XRP (XRP), and Dogecoin (DOGE) for trading. The four coins have a combined market capitalization of $267.2 billion at this writing.

The additions double Interactive’s crypto offerings to traders. Since 2021, it has enabled trading in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) pairs.

Both trading and custody services will be provided through Paxos Trust Company or Zero Hash LLC. Zero Hash said in a press release that as of June 2024, it had processed $20 billion in transactions across 200 countries.

Financial firms have been expanding crypto token offerings. On March 25, Nubank announced the addition of ADA, Near Protocol (NEAR), Cosmos (ATOM), and Algorand (ALGO) to its over 100 million clients in Latin America. US exchange Kraken has been steadily adding memecoins for a number of months, while Binance introduced a way for community members to vote on the listing and delisting of tokens.

Amidst an increasingly competitive crypto market, Interactive Brokers is promising low transaction fees — 0.12% to 0.18% per transaction value with a minimum of $1.75 per trade. The brokerage still faces competition from exchanges that offer “pro” platforms with similar charges.