OKX Receives European Payment License, Expanding Stablecoin and Cryptocurrency Card Business

On March 16, Moody’s Analytics said in a report that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is expected to hold interest rates steady this week and could lift them to 1% around mid-year. The report noted the Middle East conflict has raised risks of renewed inflation acceleration, but uncertainty from the conflict will likely keep the BOJ on hold temporarily. A further weakening of the yen, it added, might prompt the BOJ to hike rates later this year. However, slowing wage growth and a lack of stable real economic data make it hard to justify a more aggressive rate path above 1%.

March 16 — U.S. President Donald Trump stated he’s uncertain about striking a deal with Iran. “We’re in talks with them, but I don’t think they’re ready yet,” he noted. (Xinhua News)

March 16: Ventuals, a HIP-3-based trading platform, faced a HYPE withdrawal squeeze. Its vHYPE liquidity staking token (issued for HYPE) briefly fell to $9 before rebounding to $31. HYPE is currently trading at $37.5, while vHYPE remains at an ~18% discount. Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 framework lets anyone launch their own perpetual contract sub-DEX, but requires a minimum 500,000 HYPE stake. Ventuals issued vHYPE by taking users’ HYPE, but its treasury is now near that minimum threshold—sparking panic redemptions from users. Ventuals CEO Alvin Hsia noted this is not a bug, but intentional per the design rules. Withdrawals will be temporarily paused as the threshold approaches to avoid disrupting traders on the platform. Ventuals is working with private liquidity providers (LPs) to boost its HYPE holdings. It and its partners will facilitate redemptions via a primary-secondary liquidity pool, setting a 0.85:1 vHYPE-to-HYPE ratio as the final discount baseline. Users seeking immediate li

As of March 16, OnchainLens monitoring data reveals ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees has executed significant ETH purchases: - Over the past 24 hours: Bought 13,986 ETH using 29.44 million USDT - Over the past six days: Accumulated 21,293 ETH at an average price of $2,091, totaling $44.52 million in outlay Relevant address: 0x431dce06f8a098c6f70ca6cecdca87281ef10c91

Per Token Unlocks data, several tokens are scheduled for one-time large unlocks this week, with details as follows: - **ARB**: Unlocks ~$9.65M worth of tokens on March 16 (1.78% of circulating supply) - **ZK**: Unlocks ~$3.4M worth of tokens on March 17 (2.97% of circulating supply) - **BARD**: Unlocks ~$32.43M worth of tokens on March 17 (11.09% of circulating supply) - **ZRO**: Unlocks ~$55.53M worth of tokens on March 20 (5.64% of circulating supply) - **YZY**: Unlocks ~$6.8M worth of tokens on March 19 (4.90% of circulating supply) - **BR**: Unlocks ~$4.15M worth of tokens on March 19 (68.45% of circulating supply) - **LISTA**: Unlocks ~$2.9M worth of tokens on March 20 (6.17% of circulating supply) - **PIXEL**: Unlocks ~$1.05M worth of tokens on March 19 (3.57% of circulating supply) - **KAITO**: Unlocks ~18M tokens on March 20 (valued at ~$6.3M; 5.19% of circulating supply)

March 16, Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran has long been known for media manipulation and PR prowess. Despite its weak military, it excels at feeding false information to willing fake news outlets. Now AI is another of Iran’s disinformation weapons—and they use it well, even as they fade. They’ve shared fake footage of “kamikaze-style attack boats” targeting ships at sea, making them look fierce—but those ships don’t exist. It’s all fabricated to pretend their repeatedly defeated military is “powerful.” Citing false reports from *The Wall Street Journal* and others, claims that five U.S. refueling planes were shot down or damaged (except one) are untrue: all are in service, and the one in question will soon return to the sky. Footage of “burning buildings and ships” is also AI-generated fake news. For example, Iran worked closely with fake outlets to spread rumors that our great USS Abraham Lincoln—one of the world’s largest, most prestigious carriers—was ablaze at sea. In rea