New York Mellon Bank has announced that it is becoming an early adopter of the lending platform EquiLend 1Source and is receiving a minority equity stake in EquiLend.

On March 18th, the probability on Polymarket that "The Fed will end quantitative tightening before May" has reached 100%, and the total trading volume has exceeded $6.25 million.

On March 18th, Ripple Labs submitted a trademark application for "Ripple Custody." As per the application documents, this trademark encompasses financial services such as the storage and management of cryptographic assets to fulfill financial management requirements. This trademark application comes shortly after Ripple launched custody services in October 2024, indicating that the company is aiming to expand its revenue sources beyond payment settlement. Furthermore, the trademark application also mentions "downloadable cryptocurrency, fiat currency, virtual currency, and digital currency custody, transfer, and storage software," which may imply that Ripple is contemplating launching an official cryptocurrency wallet. Currently, the company has not offered official wallet services. However, if launched, this product may support XRP and other digital assets, creating a new revenue stream through transaction fees. A spokesperson for Ripple declined to comment on the trademark applicatio

On March 18th, according to HTX market data, Bitcoin rebounded and reached above $84,000, registering a 24-hour gain of 0.60%.

March 18th — The Press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, declared that the preparations for a phone call between President Putin of Russia and President Trump of the United States are in progress to discuss the main agenda. The primary topic is to mediate the Ukraine issue. When reporters inquired about the duration of the preparations for this call, Peskov mentioned that similar preparatory work for such phone conversations can be completed in a short time. Earlier on that day, Peskov had announced that Putin and Trump would have a phone call on March 18th. Trump had also stated on the evening of March 16th local time that he planned to have a conversation with Putin on the 18th. (FX168)

On March 18th, as monitored by lookonchain, an address transaction involving mubarak achieved a 4860-fold profit. The address only spent 0.4 BNB (approximately $232) to purchase 10.5 million mubarak. After selling a portion of it, it received 576 BNB (approximately $363,500). The remaining 5.16 million mubarak (approximately $764,000) were distributed among 3 wallets.

On March 17th, the Web3 community-driven gaming ecosystem SlingShot DAO announced the accomplishment of a $16 million financing round, with the participation of Dragonfly, Animoca Brands, DCG, Sfermion, and others. SlingShot DAO also disclosed "$SLING is loading...", suggesting the issuance of the SLING token. SlingShot DAO is a community-driven gaming ecosystem where members can collaborate through the SlingShot application to transform ideas into gaming experiences. It was previously reported by BlockBeats that on May 8, 2024, SlingShot DAO officially announced the completion of a $3 million new financing round, with the participation of Alphabit Fund.