ChainCatcher News: The U.S. stock market fell again on Monday, with the Dow Jones down 2.48%, the S&P 500 down 2.36%, and the Nasdaq down 2.55%. The main reason for the sharp decline in U.S. stocks is President Trump intensifying his attacks on Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, raising questions about the independence of the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, traders saw little sign of progress in global trade negotiations.As threats escalate, the dollar is also under pressure, hitting a three-year low. At the same time, gold prices soared to a record high of over $3,400 per ounce. Michael Green, Chief Strategist at Simplify Asset Management, pointed out, "What is becoming increasingly clear is the deep-seated conflict between the Federal Reserve and the U.S. government. We are essentially replaying the scenario from the COVID-19 pandemic, and this uncertainty has substantially disrupted trade... Most people expect some form of stimulus measures to be introduced to offset the impact of tariffs."

ChainCatcher news, according to Bitcoin.com, the Massachusetts Appeals Court has confirmed in an unpublished ruling that the lawsuit filed by plaintiff Lourenco Garcia against Santander Bank has been dismissed. The plaintiff reportedly sought to hold Santander Bank accountable for losses exceeding $750,000 in a cryptocurrency scam associated with a fraudulent crypto platform named Coinegg.The Massachusetts Appeals Court found that while Santander Bank could refuse or block any or all transactions, it was not obligated to do so. Furthermore, the plaintiff authorized each transaction and did not find that the bank violated any contractual terms or legal obligations.

ChainCatcher news, on April 1, 2025, at 9:46 AM, SpaceX will launch the historic private crewed mission "FRAM2". The mission's commander is Wang Chun, co-founder of F2Pool, who will use his Falcon 9 B10835.5 to launch from LC-39A at Cape Canaveral.If the launch is successful, he will become the first person from the crypto community to travel to space. It is reported that this mission cost Wang Chun $200 million and took over a year to apply, and this will also be the first crewed flight of the Crew Dragon Resilience into polar orbit.The mission will last 3 to 5 days, studying polar phenomena and microgravity effects, and will include the first human X-ray imaging in space.The crew members include:Mission Commander - Wang ChunVehicle Commander Jannicke MikkelsenMission Specialist Rabea RoggeVehicle Pilot Eric Philips

ChainCatcher news, according to international aerospace news, SpaceX's crewed Dragon spacecraft will launch its sixth crewed space mission (Fram-2) on April 1, 2025. This will be the first attempt in human history to conduct a crewed flight into polar orbit. A total of 4 astronauts will participate in this mission: Wang Chun, Yannick Mikkelsen, Rabeya Rog, and An Erik Phillips.Wang Chun is a Chinese entrepreneur born in Tianjin, who made his fortune through Bitcoin investments (co-founder of F2Pool) and has participated in several commercial space projects. This mission is funded by Wang Chun's team, which has invested nearly $200 million, making it the first polar mission in commercial space history to be contracted by a private entity. Wang Chun is not only the initiator and main investor of the mission but also serves as the commander.

ChainCatcher news, according to official reports, the DeFi protocol Astherus and APX have announced the completion of their brand integration, officially rebranding as "Aster," and focusing on the decentralized perpetual contract trading (Perp DEX) sector.The new brand Aster will be deployed on mainstream public chains such as BNB Chain and Arbitrum, aiming to create a professional contract platform that combines deep liquidity, low fees, and a smooth trading experience.According to official sources, Aster will launch a new homepage in the first week of the brand upgrade and introduce a dual trading experience of Simple and Pro modes: the Simple mode supports one-click on-chain perpetual orders, targeting lightweight users; the Pro mode adopts an order book mechanism, providing advanced traders with rich functional support. The fee structure will also be adjusted to Maker 0.01% and Taker 0.035%, reducing users' trading costs.Aster also plans to launch a trading points system (for future airdrops), a VIP tier system, and a tiered referral commission mechanism in the near future. Medium to long-term goals include developing a self-researched Layer 1 blockchain and an exclusive Aster blockchain explorer, continuously expanding the protocol's ecological boundaries.

ChainCatcher news, the AI application Grok developed by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has officially landed on Telegram, allowing it to access a messaging platform with over 1 billion monthly active users.It is reported that Telegram Premium users will not need to pay extra fees, and analysts believe that Grok's introduction to Telegram may give it an advantage in the competition with WhatsApp and Signal.

ChainCatcher news, the Web3 game platform Game Beast announced a brand upgrade, officially renamed as Ephyra, and will focus on building a game ecosystem empowered by AI Agents.At the same time, Ephyra has completed a $10.5 million Series A financing, led by BECKER Ventures, with participation from several Family Offices in the UAE and Hong Kong.The Ephyra ecosystem will launch multiple AI-driven game products and plans to initiate a token TGE, with more details to be announced gradually.

ChainCatcher message, Pendle yield enhancement protocol Equilibria announced on platform X that it has expanded to the Sonic ecosystem.

ChainCatcher message, according to monitoring by @ai_9684xtpa, a whale shorting BTC at 20x on Hyperliquid has seen its floating profit expand to $8.392 million, not far from the take-profit psychological price range of $70,475 - $74,192. A further drop of 7% - 10% would allow for a profitable exit.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, Lido has announced that stETH and wstETH have now landed on Unichain. Unichain, developed by Uniswap Labs, is a DeFi-native Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain, and users can now bridge stETH or wstETH to Unichain.It is reported that the related deployment was implemented using the Lido protocol Multichain Automaton.

ChainCatcher news, Canadian stablecoin issuer Paytrie announced that its stablecoin CADC has expanded to Base, enabling seamless on-chain Canadian dollar transactions.

ChainCatcher news, the intraday increase of spot gold has expanded to 1.00%, currently reported at 2928.33 USD/ounce.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi Data reports, the news about "a certain employee of the well-known quantitative private equity firm KuanDe Investment accusing the company of using brain-machine weapons to persecute employees on social media" is continuing to ferment in the private equity circle.In response to the above "accusation," KuanDe Investment stated: "The company has noticed inappropriate remarks about it appearing on online platforms. After verification, the publisher of these remarks did indeed have a short-term employment with the company (joined in July 2022 and voluntarily left in early September of the same year, with an employment period of about 1 month). Currently, this publisher has terminated their employment relationship with the company, and their remarks are personal behavior, containing false and misleading information."Previous news reported that an unknown programmer named "Hu LeZhi" burned 600 ETH and donated over 1411 ETH to a charity organization. The information mentioned that with the large-scale military deployment of brain-machine chips, all military power controls citizens through base stations, radio, and nano brain-machine chips, calling for public attention to this new type of crime, warning that if one becomes a victim of this process, they may choose to end their own life.

ChainCatcher news, according to TASS, the lawyer of former BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik, Arkady Bukh, confirmed that after his release last week, the U.S. has "dropped" the case against Vinnik, and the Northern District Court of California has confirmed that it will dismiss all charges against Vinnik.Previous news, according to The New York Times, as part of a swap with Russia, the U.S. will release Russian cybercrime suspect Alexander Vinnik in exchange for the release of American citizen Marc Fogel. Vinnik previously operated BTC-e, which was one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.He was arrested in 2017 and detained at the request of Washington for allegedly laundering $4 billion through the platform. In May of this year, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and faces 20 years in prison.

ChainCatcher news, Binance's financial crime compliance officer Tigran Gambaryan recently reiterated that a rogue Nigerian lawmaker demanded a $150 million bribe in exchange for dropping the lawsuit against Binance. The relevant lawmaker wanted the funds to be transferred directly to their cryptocurrency wallet, using "fake cameras and media" to make the meeting with visiting Binance executives appear legitimate.In May 2024, reports emerged that Binance CEO Richard Teng accused members of the Nigerian House of Representatives Financial Crimes Committee (HCFC) of soliciting a $150 million bribe. At that time, Nigeria's Minister of Information Mohammed Idris denied the allegations, stating that it was a strategy by the company to "hurry to cover up the serious criminal charges it faces."However, Gambaryan insisted that this attempt was indeed conducted with the involvement of Nigeria's Department of State Services (DSS). He also stated, "The Nigerian government has publicly claimed that there is $26 billion in mysterious funds (through Binance) flowing out of Nigeria, which is completely nonsense. This information was provided at their request; it is merely the cumulative trading data of Nigerians on the platform. This money did not flow out of Nigeria—people are just buying and selling cryptocurrency. For example, if you trade $100 a hundred times, that amounts to $10,000 in trading volume, but in reality, you only used $100. Similarly, this is just another example of their lies to cover up a false investigation."Just after Gambaryan shared these explosive details, Nigeria's Minister of Information Idris issued a statement denying them. However, the statement acknowledged the bribery allegations, but Idris pointed out that it was the Nigerian government that initiated the investigation, "even though no one has formally filed a lawsuit." His statement also revealed that the Nigerian government rejected a U.S. proposal to pay $5 million in exchange for Gambaryan's release.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Chicago Tribune, six men have been charged with allegedly kidnapping a family of three and a nanny in Chicago and forcing them to transfer $15 million worth of cryptocurrency.Recently decrypted FBI testimony reveals that the kidnappers pretended to accidentally damage the garage door, knocked on the door of the family's townhouse, and then forcibly entered the home at gunpoint. The kidnappers reportedly demanded ransom in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The victims were held for a total of five days, during which one of the victims called his father via the Chinese messaging app WeChat to inform him of the kidnapping.The six suspects were charged on December 13. Only one of them has been arrested, 34-year-old Wei Zehuan (phonetic), who was apprehended on January 17 while attempting to re-enter the United States from Mexico.The other five suspects include Zhang Fan, Yan Huajing, Jiang Shengnan, Lian Shiqiang, and Cao Ye (phonetic), and it is believed that some of them fled to China after Wei's arrest.

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Reuters, as disclosed by The New York Times on Wednesday, the United States will release Russian cybercrime suspect Alexander Vinnik as part of a swap for the release of American citizen Marc Fogel.Vinnik operated BTC-e, which was once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. He was arrested in 2017 and detained at the request of Washington for allegedly laundering $4 billion through the platform. In May of this year, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and faces 20 years in prison.

ChainCatcher news, according to ai_9684xtpa monitoring, "the whale chasing VINE and ALON has lost 1.22 million dollars" has continued trading in the past two days, incurring an additional loss of 170,000 dollars, bringing the total loss over seven days to 1.787 million dollars.Currently, the Meme trading record is "one win out of nine battles."

ChainCatcher news, the staking protocol Lido announced on platform X that Lido v3.2 Liquid eModes has expanded to Base and Arbitrum. Users can now use LRT as collateral to borrow wstETH, thereby opening up DeFi use cases with reduced gas costs.