CZ: Strongly Agree to Support Development-Focused Projects

On March 4th, the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model projects that the US first-quarter GDP growth rate in 2025 will be -2.8%, which is lower than the previous estimate of -1.5%. (FXStreet)

On March 4th, as reported by NetEase's PingWest Team, Wang Shuiming, who is from Anxi, Fujian and was involved in Singapore's largest money laundering case, has been arrested in Montenegro and is set to be extradited back to China. Wang Shuiming's partner, Su Weiyi, has been confirmed to be the mastermind behind the Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchange scam AAX and was apprehended by the Hong Kong police in July 2024. In November 2022, the Atom Asset Exchange suddenly suspended withdrawals and subsequently shut down, with Su Weiyi absconding with 16.74 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately 15.675 million yuan) in funds. In July 2024, Su Weiyi was arrested by the Hong Kong police. It is worth noting that Su Weiyi, along with other partners, owns other companies that have connections to convicted Filipino-Chinese former mayor Alice Guo.

On March 4th, as per the report by CoinDesk, the Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 released its 2024 financial report. It showed a yearly net revenue of $331 million and a revenue of $162 million, which was benefited from the increase in the Bitcoin price. By the end of 2024, Hut 8 held 10,171 bitcoins, which were valued at approximately $905 million at the current price. Most of these bitcoins had been used as collateral to purchase more ASIC miners. The report indicates that in the fourth quarter, Hut 8's energy cost per megawatt-hour decreased by 30% year-on-year to $31.63. As of the end of December 2024, the company managed approximately 1,020 megawatts of power and had more than 12,300 megawatts in expansion plans. Hut 8 has strengthened its cooperation with one of the world's largest mining hardware manufacturers, Bitmain. It signed a hosting agreement, which is expected to generate $125 million in annual revenue and jointly develop next-generation ASIC miners. At the same time, the

On March 3rd, Lido made an announcement that stETH and wstETH have now been launched on Unichain. Unichain, which was developed by Uniswap Labs, is a DeFi-native Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain. Currently, users are able to bridge their stETH or wstETH to Unichain. It is reported that the relevant deployment was accomplished by using the Lido protocol Multichain Automaton.

On March 3rd, according to Fox reporter Eleanor Terrett, the U.S. White House, along with Trump and David Sacks, is scheduled to hold the first Cryptocurrency Summit on March 7th. Furthermore, the U.S. CFTC will convene the CEO's First Forum on March 6th to discuss tokenized assets and how stablecoins can be utilized as collateral in the futures market.

On March 3rd, the US February ISM Manufacturing PMI was 50.3. This was lower than the expected 50.5 and the previous value of 50.9. (FXStreet)