ChainCatcher news, according to South Korean media reports, the South Korean prosecution has launched a forced search against the cryptocurrency trading platform Bithumb, which is suspected of providing company funds to purchase an apartment for its former representative director.The Southern District Prosecutors' Office of Seoul conducted a seizure search today at Bithumb's headquarters located in the Yaksu-dong area of Seoul. It is reported that Bithumb provided a rental deposit of 3 billion won for an apartment in Seongdong-gu to its former representative director and current advisor Kim Dae-sik, part of which is suspected to have been used by Advisor Kim for personal apartment purchases.The Financial Supervisory Service has initiated an investigation into the related allegations and has recently transferred the case to the prosecution.

ChainCatcher news, Bybit co-founder Ben Zhou released the latest summary regarding the stolen funds. It is reported that out of a total of $1.4 billion (approximately 500,000 ETH) in stolen funds, 88.87% is still traceable, 7.59% has gone missing, and 3.54% is frozen.The report shows that 86.29% of the stolen funds (approximately 440,000 ETH, worth $1.23 billion) have been converted into 12,836 BTC, distributed across 9,117 wallets, with an average of 1.41 BTC per wallet. The hackers have begun using BTC mixers such as Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and TornadoCash to transfer funds, with 193 BTC primarily flowing to the Wasabi mixer, which were then dispersed to multiple P2P traders.Ben Zhou stated that decoding mixer transactions has become the biggest challenge currently faced and called for more bounty hunters to participate in tracking and decoding efforts. In the past 30 days, the platform received 5,012 bounty reports, of which 63 were valid reports.

ChainCatcher news, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated in an interview with Bloomberg that he expects the XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) to be launched by the end of 2025 after the legal dispute between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is resolved.Brad said, "I am very confident about the ETF, and at the same time, an IPO for Ripple Labs is not out of the question."

ChainCatcher news, according to Businesswire, Bakkt Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: BKKT) announced that starting March 21, 2025, it will appoint "an executive with a strong track record and extensive experience in the financial and technology sectors," Akshay Naheta, to serve as co-CEO of Bakkt alongside current CEO Andy Main.Bakkt stated that Akshay brings over 20 years of experience, providing a deep understanding of blockchain, financial markets, and payment systems. Previously, he served as an executive at SoftBank Group, overseeing numerous leading technology investments, including ARM, Auto1, and Nvidia. After leaving SoftBank, Akshay founded Distributed Technologies Research (DTR), aimed at building the next generation of global payment infrastructure.Additionally, Bakkt and Distributed Technologies Research (DTR) plan to sign a commercial agreement to combine DTR's stablecoin-based payment technology infrastructure with Bakkt's cryptocurrency trading and brokerage technology, pending approval from relevant regulatory authorities.

ChainCatcher news, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse posted on social media that the U.S. SEC will drop the appeal against Ripple------from any perspective, this is a huge victory for Ripple and the crypto industry.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the founder of the cryptocurrency advocacy organization Digital Chamber, Perianne Boring, is set to step down after more than a decade as CEO. The organization is promoting its president, Cody Carbone, to take over the top position, while Boring will transition to chair of the board.There are many lobbying groups in the digital asset space that advocate in the U.S. Congress, the White House, and regulatory agencies, with Digital Chamber being one of the most well-known and having the largest membership, although its funding has lagged behind that of the Blockchain Association in recent years.

ChainCatcher news, the South Korean prosecution has requested the court to sentence a man to 10 years in prison for stabbing the CEO of the South Korean cryptocurrency custody company HaruInvest during a court hearing in August 2024. The Southern District Prosecutor's Office in Seoul confirmed to The Block that they made the sentencing request during the final hearing of the court attack case on Wednesday, considering the severity of the crime.The attacker, identified as Mr. Kang (phonetic), 51, repeatedly stabbed Haru Invest CEO Lee Hyung-soo in the neck with a fruit knife. Lee Hyung-soo was quickly taken to the hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening.This incident occurred while Lee Hyung-soo was appearing in court due to multiple fraud-related charges. According to the prosecution, from March 2020 to June 2023, Haru Invest attracted about 16,000 domestic and foreign investors by promising to return the principal and pay interest of up to 16%, despite the company being in a state of capital impairment since 2019. On June 13, 2023, Haru Invest suddenly suspended deposits and withdrawals and announced bankruptcy last November.

ChainCatcher news, the NYSE-listed consumer food company DayDayCook announced that it will purchase 100 bitcoins and inject them into its financial reserves within the next three months. The funds will be raised by issuing Class A common stock to investors at a premium price ranging from $0.50 to $1.25 per share. The first delivery of 25 bitcoins will be completed within 30 days.In addition, crypto market maker Volmart's CEO Alex Yang will serve as a strategic advisor.

ChainCatcher news, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated that although he has been bullish on the market for the past two years, the current data has clearly weakened, and the market may have entered a bear phase. He pointed out that indicators based on realized market capitalization show a lack of new liquidity, and the large trading volume around $100,000 has failed to drive prices up, while ETFs have seen outflows for three consecutive weeks. He emphasized that he will not short Bitcoin and will continue to hold spot positions.Previously, the CryptoQuant CEO believed that the Bitcoin bull market cycle had ended.

ChainCatcher news, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju stated on social media that the Bitcoin bull market cycle has ended, and a bear market or sideways price movement is expected for the next 6-12 months.

ChainCatcher news, Wemade's blockchain subsidiary Wemix Foundation has disclosed a loss of approximately 8.65 million WEMIX tokens (worth about 6.22 million USD) due to a hacker attack. Its CEO Kim Seok-hwan stated that the hacker is unlikely to be the North Korean organization Lazarus Group, but rather a professional who infiltrated the system by stealing the service monitoring authentication keys from the NFT platform Nile. It is reported that the hacker prepared for this attack for two months and then attempted 15 withdrawals through the creation of abnormal transactions, of which 13 were successful.Kim Seok-hwan also revealed plans to reopen all Wemix services on Friday and will upgrade security measures on the new blockchain infrastructure.

ChainCatcher news, according to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, the Keet app is set to launch Tether AI-driven voice message translation and transcription features. This feature will run completely locally, without the need for servers, ensuring user privacy and security.Note: Keet is a P2P encrypted communication app launched in collaboration between Tether, Bitfinex, and Hypercore.

ChainCatcher news, Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley tweeted, "Currently, there are two types of Bitcoin holders in the market: investors (who view Bitcoin as an investment, measured in USD) and savers (who view Bitcoin as a savings account, measured by how much BTC they own)."

ChainCatcher news, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently posted on the X platform that Coinbase has currently collaborated with 145 government agencies in the United States and 29 government agencies outside the United States; with the launch of the U.S. strategic Bitcoin reserve, we are seeing more and more governments interested in this.

ChainCatcher news, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou responded to the concerns regarding the Launchpool project OIK token dump: "The budget for OIK's launchpool activity was a total of 10 million tokens provided by the project party, of which 3.3 million have been distributed, with over 90,000 users participating in the activity. The launchpool is still ongoing and will conclude on March 19, with 5.7 million tokens yet to be distributed.Bybit has never sold off activity budgets for profit; such market manipulation has serious legal consequences, and the budget is all in hot wallets, which can be audited by any regulatory authority. Currently, it appears that there are indeed large holders selling OIK in the market, and the compliance department is investigating the specific details. In the future, we are considering allowing the community to have a more direct view of our budget situation by using independent wallets to receive project budgets, enabling the community to see everything transparently."It is reported that previously some community users raised concerns: "It is inferred that Bybit is using its own Launchpool as a cash machine. The TGE of SpaceNation, which has been built for a year, was a failure. However, over the past three days, the community has gone from outrage to resentment to questioning and investigation, and has collected some evidence. A community sold less than 5% of the project, yet the project party absorbed an abnormal circulation volume within 30 minutes of the opening."

ChainCatcher news, Binance CEO Richard Teng stated that the Trump administration's decision to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve is a "good first step" that may encourage other national governments to consider "allocating to cryptocurrencies."Richard Teng commented, "The question is not whether to allocate, but whether to allocate 2% or 5%, right? So we are having a lot of important conversations like this now. The long-term drivers are very strong."

ChainCatcher news, Binance CEO Richard Teng stated that the Trump administration's decision to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve is a "good first step" that may encourage other national governments to consider "allocating to cryptocurrencies.""The question is not whether to allocate, but whether to allocate 2% or 5%, right? So we are having a lot of important conversations like this right now. The long-term drivers are very strong," Richard Teng commented.