Coinbase to Suspend Trading in 25 Futures Contracts on March 16

**March 3:** Amid rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, concerns over climbing oil prices have amplified potential inflation risks and dimmed expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts. CME’s FedWatch Tool shows the probability of a 25-basis-point (bp) rate cut at the Fed’s March meeting is just 2.7%, while the chance rates will hold steady stands at 88%. For the period through April, the probability of the Fed keeping rates unchanged is 87.3%, with a 12.5% chance of a cumulative 25-bp cut and a 0.2% probability of a cumulative 50-bp cut. The Fed’s next two FOMC meetings are scheduled for March 18 and April 29.

March 3 – Chinese Politburo member and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a phone call with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen Saar on Thursday. After hearing Saar’s update on Israel’s current stance, Wang emphasized China’s longstanding advocacy for resolving international and regional hotspots through dialogue and consultation. He stressed all parties must abide by the UN Charter’s purposes and principles, and refrain from using or threatening force in international relations—this serves the fundamental interests of all sides, including Israel. Wang noted China has long worked to advance a political settlement of the Iran nuclear issue. Recent Iran-U.S. talks made significant progress, including addressing Israel’s security concerns, but were interrupted by the current conflict. China opposes Israeli and U.S. military strikes against Iran, warning force cannot solve problems but will create new crises with serious consequences. “The true value of military power lies not on the battl

March 3rd — Huawei ICT BG CEO Yang Chaobin delivered a keynote at the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC) today, noting global daily token consumption has surged nearly 300x over the past two years. This has spurred AI apps like lifelike video and smart shopping, with over 30 million AI agents collaborating worldwide. Against this backdrop, surging global demand for China’s homegrown large-model APIs and token-driven computing expansion have sent electricity demand soaring. Yesterday, Elon Musk retweeted: “Electricity generation is the best single measure of industrial capacity.” China’s 2024 electricity output is roughly 100 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) — 40% more than the combined total of the U.S. and the EU’s 27 member states. China overtook the EU in generation around 2007 and the U.S. around 2010. Electricity generation not only reflects industrial strength but has become a core metric for computing power, directly capping AI development potential. Of AI’s three key

March 3 — Per Fortune, Bridge (the Stripe-acquired crypto startup) and Visa plan to expand their stablecoin-backed card business to 100 countries across Europe, Asia, and Africa by 2025. The service is currently available in 18 countries, letting users pay at any Visa-accepting merchant using funds from their crypto wallets. Bridge co-founder and CEO Zach Abrams noted that Visa’s robust merchant network—built over 40 years of operation—remains highly valuable in the stablecoin space. Separately, Bridge will join Visa’s ongoing pilot programs to test whether stablecoins can be used on blockchain for payment settlements, replacing traditional bank transfers.

On March 3rd, cryptocurrency custody provider BitGo announced it will offer "Crypto as a Service" (CaaS) in the European Economic Area (EEA) via its European subsidiary, BitGo Europe GmbH. The firm secured a license from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) exactly one year ago.

March 3rd marked the launch of the official Weibo account for OpenClaw, an open-source AI project. In its debut post, the team stated: “OpenClaw’s mission is to let everyone unlock AI’s infinite power. Sincere thanks to all developers and netizens for your support—your stars and feedback drive our continuous iteration. We’ll share OpenClaw’s technical updates here moving forward. Stay tuned; code never stops!” Today, OpenClaw has racked up over 250,000 GitHub stars, outpacing React’s ~243,000. This makes it the most-starred active software project on GitHub.