This Week's News Preview | Binance's first voting event for new listings will end; Walrus announces that the mainnet will officially launch
Highlights of the week from March 24 to March 30.整理：Jerry，ChainCatcher
Key News:
- Binance will list Nillion (NIL) and launch NIL spot trading pairs on March 24
- Berachain Foundation: PoL will launch on March 24, governance enters the first phase
- Celo will activate the hard fork to transition to Ethereum L2 on March 26
- Ethereum Foundation announces that the testnet Hoodi will activate the Pectra upgrade on March 26
- U.S. SEC chair nominee Paul Atkins will undergo Senate panel review on March 27
- Binance's first voting event for listing coins will end in the early hours of March 27, focusing on tokens based on the BNB chain
- Walrus announces that the mainnet will officially launch on March 27 and reveals the token economic model
- Binance's first voting event for delisting coins will end on March 28, with 21 tokens in the "voting" pool
March 24 (Monday)
Binance will list Nillion (NIL) and launch NIL spot trading pairs on March 24
Binance announced that it will launch its 65th project, Nillion (NIL), on the Launchpool platform. Nillion is a decentralized network that utilizes blind computing technology for secure data processing and storage while protecting privacy.
According to the announcement, users can lock BNB, FDUSD, and USDC to participate in a three-day mining event starting from March 21, 2025, 00:00 (UTC) to receive NIL token airdrops. The Launchpool webpage is expected to go live within 12 hours after the announcement.
The NIL token will be listed on Binance at 13:00 (UTC) on March 24, 2025, with trading pairs including NIL/USDT, NIL/BNB, NIL/FDUSD, NIL/USDC, and NIL/TRY. The token will be marked as Seed Tag.
Berachain Foundation: PoL will launch on March 24, governance enters the first phase
The Berachain Foundation stated that PoL (Proof of Liquidity) will officially launch on March 24, entering the first phase of governance, and the incentive mechanism will come into effect with a new rewards pool being emitted. This change means that BGT holders will have more control and profit opportunities, deciding the flow of incentives and supporting the distribution of incentives for users, applications, and validators.
According to the official announcement, Bithumb announced that it plans to suspend KRW deposits and withdrawals on March 24 due to bank transfer system maintenance, with the planned suspension time from 00:30 KST on March 24, 2025, to 11:00 on the same day.
Bithumb: Plans to terminate trading support for VALOR tokens on March 24
According to the official announcement, Bithumb announced plans to terminate trading support for VALOR tokens, with trading (buy/sell) termination scheduled for 15:00 on March 24, 2025, and withdrawal support termination scheduled for 15:00 on April 23, 2025. It is reported that when trading support ends, API trading support for this virtual asset will stop, and all outstanding orders (buy/sell) will be canceled.
According to the official announcement, Sky Governance has approved the reduction of the Sky savings interest rate to 4.5%, planned to be executed at 22:00 (UTC+8) on March 24.
According to official news, CoinList will open the fourth round of token sales for the Arcium community at 17:00 on March 24, Beijing time, with an initial token FDV of $200 million and a price of $0.2 per token, expected to be fully unlocked during the TGE in Q3 this year.
Arcium is a crypto supercomputer that provides a trustless, verifiable, and high-performance cryptographic computing framework for developers, applications, and various industries.
March 25 (Tuesday)
Taproot Wizards plans to auction 2,121 NFTs on March 25 to raise $34 million
According to CoinDesk, the Bitcoin Ordinals project Taproot Wizards plans to auction 2,121 NFTs to raise $34 million. The project sold 3,000 "Quantum Cats" last year to support the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) OP_CAT.
Despite facing technical issues, the series quickly sold out, raising 300 BTC in the process.
It is reported that these NFTs were minted two years ago but have not been sold. Starting from March 25, Wizards will sell them to whitelisted buyers at a price of 0.2 BTC ($16,000), while unsold ones will be auctioned off Dutch-style.
March 26 (Wednesday)
Celo will activate the hard fork to transition to Ethereum L2 on March 26
Celo announced that its mainnet activation date for transitioning to Ethereum L2 is set for March 26, 2025, at 11:00, with a hard fork block height of 31,057,000. After the upgrade, Celo L2 will reduce block time from 5 seconds to just 1 second. Celo's complete history and block height will remain unchanged, allowing users to look up past transactions.
Previous news indicated that Coinbase's announcement of not supporting Celo's blockchain migration has caused dissatisfaction within the community.
Ethereum Foundation: The new testnet Hoodi will activate the Pectra network upgrade on March 26
The Ethereum Foundation stated in its official blog that during the activation of the Pectra testnet, issues were exposed regarding the configuration changes of deposit contracts on the Ethereum testnet in the client. While the recovery process for the Sepolia network was relatively straightforward and has now fully recovered, the Holesky network experienced a significant amount of inactive leakage during the recovery mechanism. The Holesky network has since completed final confirmation, but validators exiting will take about a year to be completely removed from the validator set. Although stakers can test deposits, merges, and all other Pectra features, the size of the exit queue makes it impossible for Holesky to be used for testing the complete validator lifecycle within a reasonable timeframe.
To address this issue, a new testnet has been launched: Hoodi. It will activate the Pectra network upgrade at epoch 2048 (March 26, 2025, Wednesday, 15:37:12 Beijing time). In the future, staking operators and infrastructure providers should use Hoodi for validator testing. To allow time for migration, the Holesky testnet will be supported until September 2025. All other Pectra features can be tested on Holesky except for validator exits.
Summary of testnets and their uses:
Holesky: Validators and staking providers (expected termination date: September 30, 2025). Client developers will also use Holesky to test gas limit increases and other protocol stress tests.
Sepolia: Application and tool developers (expected termination date: September 30, 2026).
Hoodi: Validators and staking providers (expected termination date: September 30, 2028).
Planned Sepolia replacement: Expected to launch in March 2026.
March 27 (Thursday)
U.S. SEC chair nominee Paul Atkins will undergo Senate panel review on March 27
According to CoinDesk, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair nominee Paul Atkins will undergo a confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on March 27.
Paul Atkins, a former SEC commissioner and supporter of digital assets, runs a Washington firm that provides financial compliance consulting to clients. He is expected to continue the SEC's pro-cryptocurrency policy initiated by acting chair Mark Uyeda. If the Banking Committee votes in favor of these nominations, the full Senate will conduct a confirmation vote, after which they can officially take office.
Binance announced the launch of its first voting event for listing coins. After completing official due diligence and procedures, two tokens will be selected from the following for listing on Binance: BANANAS31 (Banana For Scale), BID (CreatorBid), Broccoli (Broccoli; F3b), Broccoli (CZ'S Dog), KOMA (Koma Inu), SIREN (SIREN), mubarak (mubarak), TUT (Tutorial), WHY (why).
Voting will take place from 17:00 (UTC) on March 19, 2025, to 16:59 (UTC) on March 26, 2025. Voting method: Each user can vote for up to 5 projects and can choose to vote for fewer projects; each verified account can only allocate one vote to one project. Users must log in to their verified Binance account and hold at least 0.01 BNB in their main account throughout the voting period for their vote to be valid.
According to official news, the blockchain storage protocol Walrus announced that its mainnet will officially launch on March 27 and revealed its token economic model, with over 60% of WAL tokens allocated to the community for airdrops, grants, developer support, incentive programs, and storage subsidies. The specific allocation is as follows:
- 10% - Walrus user airdrop: allocated to early adopters and reserved for future distribution;
- 43% - Community reserve: for grants, developer support, incentive programs, and other ecosystem initiatives;
- 30% - Core contributors: allocated to early builders of Walrus;
- 10% - Subsidies: to support storage nodes as the fee base grows;
- 7% - Investors: allocated to investors participating in financing;
March 28 (Friday)
Indian crypto exchange WazirX will complete voting on the proposed restructuring plan on March 28
Indian crypto exchange WazirX announced on the X platform that the next key step is to vote on the proposed restructuring plan.
Voting period: planned from March 19 to March 28, 2025. After asset rebalancing, if a majority of creditors vote in favor, approximately 85% of the account balance will be allocated to the scheme creditors within 10 working days after the restructuring plan takes effect (valued as of 1:00 PM Indian Standard Time on July 18, 2024).
21Shares plans to liquidate two Bitcoin futures and Ethereum futures ETFs around March 28
According to Globenewswire, 21Shares US LLC announced plans to liquidate two Bitcoin futures and Ethereum futures ETFs, namely the ARK 21Shares Active Bitcoin Ethereum Strategy ETF (Cboe BZX: ARKY) and the ARK 21Shares Active On-Chain Bitcoin Strategy ETF (Cboe BZX: ARKC). Shareholders can sell their holdings in the funds before the end of trading on Thursday, March 27, 2025, and such transactions may incur regular brokerage fees. The last trading day for both funds is March 27, 2025. The funds will be liquidated around March 28, 2025. Shareholders who continue to hold fund shares on the liquidation date will receive a liquidation distribution equal to their proportionate share of equity in the fund on that date. Shareholders receiving liquidation distributions will typically realize capital gains or losses equivalent to the net asset value of their shares.
Additionally, 21Shares stated that this move is based on a routine review of the company's product lineup to ensure alignment with market dynamics, customer needs, and the mature digital asset landscape. 21Shares and the fund's investment sub-advisor ARK Invest remain loyal partners and look forward to advancing regulated cryptocurrency products in the U.S. market.
Binance has launched its first voting event for delisting coins, allowing each user to vote for up to 5 projects in the "voting delisting" pool, with each verified account allowed only one vote per project. Users must log in to their verified Binance account and hold at least 0.01 BNB in their main account throughout the voting period for their vote to be valid. Voting will take place from 06:30 (UTC) on March 21, 2025, to 23:59 (UTC) on March 27, 2025. The voting results are not the sole factor in the final delisting decision. Project monitoring is still under evaluation, and the final decision will be made by Binance based on its official review process and standards. Additionally, the delisting timeline will depend on Binance's procedures.
The voting page shows that Binance's first voting event for delisting coins has started, with the "voting" pool including the following options:
JASMY, ZEC, FTT, ELF, SNT, STPT, BAL, ARK, GPS, MBL, PROS, CTXC, HARD, BADGER, BETA, CREAM, FIRO, VIDT, NULS, TROY, ALPACA, UFT. Furthermore, Binance officials stated that while they will value and consider the voting results, the voting results are not the sole factor in the final delisting decision. Project monitoring is still under evaluation, and the decision will be determined by the official review process and standards.
