Linera Launches Babbage Testnet

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm RedotPay is in talks with multiple institutions for a new funding round of up to $1.5 billion. The company previously closed over $1.5 billion in funding in September and December 2023, with backers including Coinbase and Circle’s venture arms. RedotPay is currently valued at more than $1 billion and targets a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) this year with a valuation exceeding $4 billion. As it pushes ahead with the IPO, RedotPay is grappling with high executive turnover: at least five senior staff have stayed less than 12 months in the past year, and its compliance officer role has turned over twice. The firm is moving forward with listing plans without a chief financial officer (CFO). Bloomberg-reviewed investor documents show RedotPay’s annualized total payment volume topped $10 billion in December 2023 — doubling year-over-year — with revenue hitting $158 million, over 6 million users, and presence in mor

On March 18, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article introducing a new fast confirmation rule mechanism for Ethereum. This mechanism lets users get a hard guarantee that their Ethereum transactions won’t be reverted after just one Slot (12 seconds). Vitalik noted the rule’s security relies on two key premises: most validators are honest nodes, and network latency stays under roughly 3 seconds. While its security is slightly lower than economic finality, it’s already highly reliable for many real-world use cases.

On March 18, data showed Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 market total open interest reached $1.43 billion as of March 15—setting a new all-time high. Since the first batch of HIP-3 markets launched six months ago, this metric has surged more than 100x. Currently, **trade.xyz**—built by Hyperliquid’s tokenization arm Hyperunit—dominates the space: it accounts for roughly 90% of the open interest, while its daily trading volume hovers around $22 billion (also ~90% of total HIP-3 trading activity). Notably, only 7 of the top 30 markets by volume on trade.xyz are crypto pairs; the majority are tokenized traditional assets, including S&P 500, Nasdaq, single-stock futures, and commodities like gold, silver, and crude oil. Analysts cite 24/7 trading support as a key driver of HIP-3’s growth—this feature lets traditional assets break free from standard market hours constraints.

On March 18, per Onchain Lens monitoring, Grayscale staked 19,200 ETH eight hours ago—valued at $44.6 million.

March 18: Coinbase is adding EDGEX (EDGEX) to its listing roadmap. Trading for the asset will launch only once liquidity support and technical infrastructure are ready. A separate announcement will be made once those conditions are met.

March 18 — Investment bank TD Cowen said the U.S. timeline for the Cryptocurrency Market Structure Bill could extend into the August recess, scrapping earlier expectations the legislation would pass before the Easter break. TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group Managing Director Jaret Seiberg noted the Easter recess isn’t a hard deadline, with legislative work continuing both before and after the break. Primaries wrapping up will also give some lawmakers more flexibility to negotiate, he added. Seiberg believes the August recess is the last meaningful legislative window — after that, Congress will meet just 12 days in September and 2 days in October, only enough to handle spending bills and defense authorization. He also repeated that a shift in congressional control following the 2026 midterms could delay the bill until 2027. The House is expected to flip to Democratic control, and Democrats may hold off on the bill until 2027 to gain more leverage. Right now, the crypto bi