Bitcoin Rises as Risk Sentiment Recovers — Market Talk

World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance (DeFi) project backed by the Trump family, has completed its second public token sale, raising $250 million from investors.

WLFI launched on Sept. 16, 2024, with the goal of promoting DeFi and stablecoins pegged to the US dollar. The project is endorsed by President Donald Trump and his sons — Eric, Donald Jr. and Barron — who have positioned it as a step toward financial innovation and a shift away from traditional banking.

The company has now raised about $550 million by selling 25% of the crypto asset’s total supply. Its first token sale, which opened on Oct. 15, 2024, netted the company about $300 million by selling 20 billion WLFI tokens for $0.015 each.

On Jan. 20, the company announced another round of token sales “due to massive demand and overwhelming interest,” offering 5 billion tokens at $0.05 each — a 230% price increase from the first sale. The sale, completed on March 14, met its full target of $250 million.

WLFI raised over $590 million since launch

Even before the public token sales, the company had been attracting investment from crypto executives. On Nov. 25, 2024, Tron Founder Justin Sun announced a $30 million investment in WLFI. Etherscan data shows Sun received 2 billion WLFI tokens in return at $0.015 a piece.

On Jan. 27, investment platform Web3Port announced a $10 million investment into the crypto project. The company said it plans additional purchases and is exploring a “long-term partnership” with the DeFi project.

On Feb. 11, venture capital firm Oddiyana Ventures announced a strategic investment in World Liberty Financial. However, the company did not disclose how much it invested.

WLFI faces community concerns over legitimacy and business model

While the company has raised over half a billion dollars, some crypto community members voiced concerns about whether it offers innovation or is just another cash grab.

In an X post, 6MV managing partner Mike Dudas said the project was a “pay-to-play” scheme, not a DeFi gateway that would introduce new users to crypto.

Yearn.finance creator and Sonic Labs co-founder Andre Cronje also questioned the company’s high fees and reinvestment strategies. The executive said the company simply extracts value from crypto firms rather than providing utility.

WLFI has not publicly addressed these criticisms.

Bitcoin is currently grappling with a crucial support region at the $80K mark, with sellers attempting to breach it.

If a breakdown occurs, the asset’s next target will be the critical $75K level.Technical Analysis

By ShayanThe Daily Chart

Bitcoin sellers have been struggling to maintain the significant support at the $80K price range, which aligns with both the ascending channel’s lower boundary and the 0.618 Fibonacci level. The confluence of these support regions suggests a strong demand zone that could support the price and halt further declines.

However, if bearish momentum intensifies and sellers ultimately push below this decisive level, a drop toward the $75K mark will become likely. Bitcoin is currently trading within a tight range between $80K and $85K, and an impending breakout will provide a clearer outlook on the next move.

Ethereum will launch the Hoodi testnet on March 17, addressing Pectra testing issues encountered on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets.

This move comes as developers work to troubleshoot bugs that could potentially delay the Sepolia fork.

Ethereum Unveils Hoodi Testnet for Pectra Testing

The Ethereum network has been working on the Pectra upgrade to introduce key Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). These proposals will enhance staking mechanisms and improve the wallet user experience.

However, Ethereum conducts tests in the run-up to its various EIPs. These probes ensure seamless upgrades and mainnet launches, citing methodical testing strategies.

The Sepolia testnet upgraded to Pectra just a week ago, marking a significant milestone in the development process. Additionally, Ethereum launched the Mekong testnet in early November to preview Pectra fork updates. This allowed developers to evaluate its features ahead of broader implementation.

However, in a February 25 post, Christine Kim, a researcher at Galaxy, highlighted the challenges faced in the testing phase of Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade.

To establish whether these creases have been ironed out, Ethereum will launch the Hoodi testnet on Monday, March 17. If testing on Hoodi proves successful, the Pectra upgrade could go live on Ethereum’s mainnet by late April. However, according to Tim Beiko, a key Ethereum developer, delays extending into May remain possible.

This means that the Ethereum Pectra Upgrade is contingent on successful testing on Hoodi after previous testnets. With the Hoodi testnet slated for March 17 and Pectra Upgrade at least 30 days thereafter, the update could go live as soon as April 17 or later. Some users expressed dissatisfaction with this delay.

Nevertheless, others seemed unsurprised by the timeline, an understanding that likely appreciates the rigorousness of delivering seamless mainnet launches. The launch of the Hoodi testnet next week represents a crucial step in ensuring the stability and effectiveness of the Pectra upgrade.

With developer scrutiny intensifying and planned improvements in staking and user experience, Ethereum’s roadmap focuses on long-term scalability and security enhancements for its network.

Fusaka, the next major upgrade, will follow in 2026. While details remain scarce, Fusaka promises to refine Ethereum’s scalability and efficiency further. This will advance the network’s evolution toward greater usability and adoption.

LOS ANGELES, March 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Prometheus, the top-tier award winning Portuguese ultra luxury real estate developer and leader in home innovation, has unveiled a groundbreaking home ownership program exclusively for cryptocurrency investors in Madeira. This visionary initiative enables crypto investors to purchase luxury smart homes at a future valuation set at up to double the current market cryptocurrency value of any of their favourite top fifty capitalised tokens, effectively offering buyers up to a 50% discount on the current home purchase price, depending on the token of payment.

In practice, taking Ethereum as of today, Ether is trading at $3300 per token. You will be able to purchase any of Prometheus’ in-stock villas for $6600 per token valuation today in essence eliminating the need to wait for the peak of the bull run whilst you continue to start enjoying the property by living in it or earning a rental income. The home ownership will transfer over to the buyer when the token reaches its price target hence the home is booked in advance whilst generating an income of up to 2,000 EUR a night. This approach allows investors to bring forward their investment and future plans rather than waiting for typical market cycles that cant often take 1-2 years. Meanwhile their payments are stored safely whilst they utilise the home and until they hit their targets, at which point the home is transferred to their ownership with the public notary.

For those investors that believe the tokens will rise higher and are “HODLing”, Prometheus also offers a BUY NOW AND PAY LATER program where they can leverage the house purchase and pay at the end of the bull run or alternatively over two years at 0% interest rate whilst enjoying short term rental income generation concurrently. This, over two years, lowers their purchase costs by up to 30% as the property is generating an income.

ZKsync DAO’s DeFi Steering Committee announced on Thursday that it has decided not to renew its token reward program for a second season and will be sunsetting it early.

The termination process begins on March 17, with rewards for the last phase of season 1 rewards being turned off. This marks an early end to the rewards initiative, which was initially planned to run for nine months with three seasons, starting with season 1 from January to March.

Originally, Ignite planned to allocate 300 million ZK tokens over nine months for liquidity incentives. Season 1 was planned from Jan. 6 to Mar. 31 and set out to distribute up to 100 million ZK tokens ($20 million at the time), now worth $7 million due to the price drop in ZK tokens over a few months. Subsequent seasons had planned to distribute the remaining 200 million tokens, but that’s deprecated now.

The incentive program appeared to have helped ZKsync’s total value locked surge from about $100 million to $400 million, according to DeFiLlama data. The TVL has now come back down to $200 million.

The ZKsync Ignite team noted that the decision came after careful consideration to align with a strategic shift towards prioritizing the development of the multichain Elastic Network, ZKsync’s ecosystem of Layer 2 chains. In this setup, ZKsync’s flagship chain, Era, is envisioned to serve as a DeFi liquidity hub with native interoperability.

Current bearish market conditions were also cited as one of the reasons for the move, as noted in a governance post on ZKSync's DAO forum ZK Nation. Karthik Senthil, a member of the Ignite DeFi Steering Committee, said that the decision resulted from being “more conservative with spending in the short to medium term in response to these evolving conditions.”

Delays also influenced Ignite’s discontinuation in attaining the necessary technology for seamless interoperability in the ZKsync Elastic ecosystem of Layer 2 chains.

“Seamless native interoperability across the Elastic Network is a top priority, but the tech needed to implement this is taking longer than expected. Adding more TVL now, before it’s ready, will likely deliver diminishing returns on spend — and we want every effort put towards this goal to count,” stated Senthil.

ZKsync is a Layer 2 scaling solution that scales Ethereum-based dapps by increasing transaction throughput and reducing associated costs. It utilizes ZK rollups, a technology that bundles multiple transactions and processes them off-chain.

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© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

XRP price is eyeing a breakout from a classic chart pattern in the near future after Ripple acquired its first-ever license in the Middle East.

XRP price chart hints at possible 46% gains

XRP has been consolidating inside a descending triangle pattern since topping out at its seven-year high of $3.40 on Jan. 16.

After finding support from the triangle’s horizontal line at $2.00, the pair has left behind a sequence of higher lows over the last four days to its upper trendline, as shown in the chart below.