Senate Banking Committee votes to advance stablecoin bill, collecting support from both Democrats and Republicans

Cryptocurrency payments company MoonPay is expanding its presence in the enterprise stablecoin market with the acquisition of Iron, an API-focused stablecoin infrastructure developer, for an undisclosed amount.

According to a March 13 announcement, the acquisition will give MoonPay’s enterprise customers the ability to accept stablecoin payments instantly and at a low cost. Iron’s integration also means companies can manage their stablecoin treasuries in real time and use the funds to acquire yield-bearing assets like US Treasury bonds.

The price of the third largest cryptocurrency, XRP, is showing some pretty positive action today, rising nearly 4% over the course of the trading session. Considering that this comes amid Bitcoin's rejection of the 200-day moving average and the price of the major cryptocurrency losing as much as 2.5%, the strength in XRP and increased buying activity is evident.

This sentiment, at least, has been expressed by a top trader better known online as "DonAlt."

In a recent X post, the expert trader made it clear that the relative strength of XRP today is outstanding. However, it is an "odd spot" for DonAlt as the rally goes against broader market behavior.

In particular, he believes that this may be due to some sort of insider buying.

Well, that is a bold statement, to say the least. The fact that XRP is trading contrary to the general market does not come as a surprise, as there are many narratives that are unique to the token, such as the XRP ETF saga and the Ripple vs. SEC drama.

Either this price spike is related to the fact that CBOE, along with a $1.5 trillion financial mastodon, filed for a XRP ETF, or the long-running legal battle between Ripple and the SEC is nearing a final verdict.CoinMarketCap">

In fact, the price of XRP is soaring, and by a wide margin, as even a 3% move for the $134 billion asset is a gain of about $4 billion in just 24 hours.

It is safe to assume that the market is pricing in upcoming big news about XRP in the token's price, but what exactly the news is is an open question.

On Thursday, decentralized lending protocol Compound launched a new series of vaults on Polygon via a partnership with web3 advisory firm Gauntlet and rival lending protocol Morpho.

Depending on one’s perspective, the move is being cast as either a way to breathe life into one of DeFi’s longest-running projects or as a complete disembowelment of Compound. Though intended for Compound to regain market share, it is seen by some as a surrender of its core technology. While the partnership could generate millions in revenue, critics argue it puts Morpho’s growth ahead of Compound’s and raises potential conflicts of interest since Gauntlet is playing a central role in both governance and execution.

Risk management firm Gauntlet proposed the controversial idea in late January. The aim was to help Compound recover lost market share from competitors like Aave, the largest lending protocol on Polygon, by teaming up with one of the fastest growing onchain credit markets in crypto.

However, the proposal is also a blow to Compound, which would theoretically profit from the arrangement, if successful, at the expense of essentially abandoning its native tech stack. Worse, Compound is paying for the honor. Both Compound DAO and Polygon are putting up $1.5 million worth of native tokens to bootstrap growth and acquire users.

Compound, launched in 2018, was one of the main catalysts of the mythical “DeFi Summer”. In 2020, founder Robert Leshner launched a governance token, COMP, and handed the reins of the protocol to the community in one of the earliest experiments with community governance.

Although an early success, Compound has lost steam. COMP trades around $40 today, down from a peak above $850 in 2021 while its total value locked is down to about $2.3 billion from a high above $12 billion. This puts it below the TVL of Morpho, a protocol launched in 2022 (the same years as Compound’s latest V3), with about $3.2 billion in assets.

“Since Compound V3 was released in August 2022 by Compound Labs, the protocol has not made meaningful updates to its tech stack,” Gauntlet wrote in its proposal. “Over the past year, Compound’s market share has declined. Compound V3’s competitiveness will be further pressured with the upcoming versions of Aave V4 and future iterations of Morpho and other protocols.”

Mutually beneficial

Under the plan, which passed with nearly 93% of the voting weight, Compound would launch four new USDC, WETH, USDT and WPOL lending vaults using the permissionless Morpho Blue infrastructure. Compound DAO owns the vaults and accrues all the revenue while Gauntlet would oversee and optimize their risk parameters. Some estimates suggest that the arrangement could generate $2 million to $3 million in revenue over the next two to three years.

The arrangement is also beneficial to Morpho, as it would give it “greater distribution” and face less competition.

It’s worth noting that the move comes shortly after Aave essentially voted to abandon its deployment on Polygon PoS. In late February, after months of community debate, Aave decided to update its parameters to incentivize users to withdraw their $300 million worth of assets from Polygon following a major fallout between the communities.

Last year, Polygon’s community shut down a proposal to repurpose bridged assets — which otherwise would remain locked — to earn yield on Morpho and Yearn vaults. Even though the idea was refused, Aave DAO considered the proposal an unacceptable breach of trust and pulled support.

Seeing a gap in the market, Gauntlet proposed that Compound and Morpho, the next largest lending protocols, partner to capture some of that volume.

At a technical level, the protocols are relatively distinct. Compound uses a monolithic, governance-heavy design with pooled liquidity markets where users deposit and borrow assets. It employs a single base asset model in V3, with interest rates. Its risk parameters — over aspects like collateral factors and liquidation specifications — are set by DAO votes.

Morpho, on the other hand, is a modular and immutable architecture that supports isolated lending markets that users can create permissionlessly. Morpho Blue matches lenders and borrowers peer-to-peer via a singleton smart contract and externalizes its risk management to curators, including Gauntlet.

Conflicts of interest?

Aside from being repositioned as a “fee-driven holding company leveraging” or glorified frontend for Morpho’s tech, some Compound supporters have called out potential conflicts of interest throughout this quasi-merger.

For one, Gauntlet was the largest voter by voting weight, when some argue it should have abstained considering it proposed the deal.

Gauntlet also has pre-existing relationships with both Compound and Morpho through involvement in their governance. While Gauntlet and Morpho will not receive revenue from the vaults, some critics have argued Gauntlet is prioritizing Morpho’s growth over Compound’s.

"If Compound itself refuses to use its own product, it raises serious concerns. Why would anyone continue to believe in the project?" as one COMP holder said.

And while Gauntlet claims no fees will be taken initially, the proposal mentions a future possibility of introducing a “fee-splitter contract” subject to Compound DAO approval. “It seems like an opportunity to make an investment into the Morpho ecosystem at the expense of Compound,” another user said.

Others have noted more indirect forms of conflict. Notably, after leaving Compound a few years ago, founder Robert Leshner delegated a large portion of his COMP tokens to Gauntlet. Additionally, Leshner founded the Robot Ventures VC firm with Gauntlet CEO Tarun Chitra.

While some have criticized the arrangement, there’s no arguing that crypto is a cutthroat industry that often has clear winners and losers. The fact that Compound has survived this long is a testament to its steadfast governance in face of a constantly evolving competitive landscape.

As Morpho CEO Paul Frambot noted, Morpho began as an “optimizer on top of Compound” before splitting off to become an independent primitive.

“Now, Compound is transitioning to build on Morpho,” Frambot said. “This move underscores the power of open financial infrastructure: projects gain a more efficient, immutable tech stack, save significant development time and costs, reduce overhead, and benefit from a shared network—all while focusing on the most value-added activities.”

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 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.

Shiba Inu whales are waking up again, as showcased by the significant on-chain activities. In the last 24 hours, SHIB whales have engaged in large transactions, which have jumped by 67%. This development has sparked hope among market participants.

Shiba Inu whale activity sparks optimism

According to IntoTheBlock data, SHIB whales have transacted a staggering 2.72 trillion SHIB tokens in 52 different transactions in the last 24 hours.SHIB Large Transaction. Source: IntoTheBlock">

The volume and frequency of these transactions have raised hopes of a possible reawakening of large holders in the ecosystem. Such a development could signal positive sentiment for the dog-themed meme coin and mark a shift from its bearish trajectory.

Interestingly, the whale action has triggered a slight 0.87% increase in price within the last 24 hours. According to CoinMarketCap data, as of this writing, SHIB's price was changing hands at $0.00001213.

However, SHIB investors remain cautious and appear to be monitoring developments. Notably, SHIB’s trading volume is still down by 33.24% to $197.32 million within the same time frame.

Analysts project that if SHIB retail holders actively engage in transactions to mirror the whales, it could trigger bullish movement for the meme coin. It is a development that the ecosystem critically needs to stem its downward spiral trend.

What’s next for SHIB?

While the broader crypto industry has its fair share of bearish pressure, SHIB appears worse off. Shiba Inu has been weathering bearish sentiment for a long time, and the once promising meme coin has declined by a massive 61.65% in the last year.

However, the SHIB chart shows that the meme coin is testing a major "buy zone," which it has not seen since August 2024.

Based on historical precedence, SHIB may experience a 200% surge due to this by zone. Such a scenario may likely inspire investors to repurchase the meme coin.

However, if SHIB fails to hold at its current support level, a sharp decline could occur. If this happens, the next support level to watch is the $0.000008 mark.

New York, NY, March 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Somnia, the high-performance blockchain designed for fully on-chain applications, is unveiling its initial ecosystem of 14 decentralized applications (dApps) spanning DeFi, gaming, AI, social, metaverse and NFTs.

The first wave of these dApps will go live on the Somnia Testnet, beginning with Playground, a web-based metaverse experience. Over the coming weeks, additional projects will be activated, with deep dives into each initiative to showcase their capabilities and impact on the Somnia ecosystem.

A Diverse Ecosystem of High-Impact dApps

The Somnia ecosystem is built to support real-time, mass-scale decentralized applications. The launch includes:

DeFi & Cross-Chain Liquidity

• Salt – A self-custodial treasury coordination platform powered by decentralized multi-party computation (MPC). Salt is different from many other MPC wallets because key material is managed and secured using the blockchain itself making Salt wallets truly self-custodial.
• Standard – A fully on-chain central limit order book (CLOB) and perpetual exchange.

AI & Social Identity

• Sogni AI – A decentralized AI network leveraging distributed computing for high-speed image generation. Users contribute device power in "Worker Mode" to earn Sogni tokens.
• ForU AI – The Real-World AI Engine for On-Chain Communities, powering AI-DiDs that bring digital identity to life. Create, own, and tokenize AI Agents that evolve, compete, and drive real-world impact for both Web2 and Web3 communities.
• Otomata – A no-code platform for building agent-based dApps with revenue-sharing mechanics.
• LootMogul - LootMogul is an AI-powered fan-centric gaming and e-commerce platform that enables fans to create, play, and monetize their own games and merch using their favorite athletes and sports teams.

Gaming & On-Chain Virtual Worlds

• YOM – A decentralized gaming and cloud streaming platform leveraging P2P Edge (DePIN) technology, enabling AAA-quality game streaming to any device.
• Lucky Adventurer’s Gambit (Hexaplay) – A turn-based RPG featuring strategic on-chain trading mechanics and PvP combat.
• Maelstrom – A tactical naval warfare battle royale game with fantasy elements and deep customization.

Metaverse & Interoperability

• MSquared – A platform for building high-density virtual worlds with built-in interoperability, enabling users to transfer digital assets across multiple metaverses. MSquared is also enhancing developer tooling for immersive on-chain experiences, simplifying real-time blockchain interactions.
• Playground – A web-based metaverse platform for building and exploring interoperable experiences.
• Dream Builder – A 3D asset creation tool allowing users to design NFT-based avatars, objects, and worlds.
• MML – Open-source technology for building multiplayer metaverse experiences using web standards.

NFTs & Digital Ownership

• Quills – An on-chain digital collectibles project.

Building Momentum for a Fully On-Chain Future

“This is just the beginning,” said Somnia founder Paul Thomas. “With over 14 dApps already in motion across DeFi, gaming, metaverse, AI, and NFTs, Somnia is demonstrating that fully on-chain applications are not just possible—they are happening now. We are building the foundation for a scalable, decentralized ecosystem that enables high-performance applications at a level never seen before in Web3.”

As the Somnia Testnet evolves, more projects will be integrated, further expanding its ecosystem. Developers and creators interested in building high-performance, real-time applications on a fully on-chain platform are invited to explore the Testnet and contribute to the growing Somnia community.

For more information and updates, visit Somnia.Network

About Somnia

Somnia is the fastest and most cost-effective EVM Layer-1 blockchain, capable of processing over 1 million transactions per second (tps) with sub-second finality. Somnia’s new multi-stream consensus technology achieves sub-second block certainty and higher transaction throughput. Sequential execution and compression algorithms effectively handle high-density scenarios, increasing the amount of data transferred between nodes by 10-20x. The custom database IceDB achieves 15-100 nanosecond read/write times, reducing transaction costs to less than a penny. This makes Somnia an ideal platform for building large-scale, real-time applications in games, social, metaverse, finance, and other fields, serving millions of users, all on-chain, making EVM more efficient than ever before.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this press release is not a solicitation for investment, nor is it intended as investment advice, financial advice, or trading advice. It is strongly recommended you practice due diligence, including consultation with a professional financial advisor, before investing in or trading cryptocurrency and securities.

John Vibes

pr (at) somnia.network

Cardano , the eighth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has seen $748,068,693 in open interest within the past 24 hours, according to data from CoinGlass.

Open Interest (OI) reflects the total funds allocated in outstanding futures contracts, effectively measuring the amount of leverage.

After days of decline, Cardano's open interest saw a slight 4% uptick in open interest in the last 24 hours to reach $748 million. Although still significant, it remains substantially lower than the peak of $1.21 billion reached on March 3, 2025, and this year's high at $1.44 billion on Jan. 19, 2025.

However, ADA prices remain in the red on a daily and weekly basis. At the time of writing, ADA was down 0.87% in the last 24 hours to $0.717 and down nearly 22% weekly.

Cardano and other cryptocurrency assets mentioned in the initial crypto reserve announcement, such as BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP, rose but have now largely retraced their gains. The rise was spurred by high expectations of immediate impact, but short-term enthusiasm was insufficient to maintain momentum.

Rebound imminent?

The crypto market is showing mixed price action as the producer price index was unchanged in February, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected a 0.3% month-over-month increase.

Following an earlier sell-off, market sentiment is currently significantly weakened, and altcoins have surrendered most of their gains, leaving the majority of investors with no profits in this cycle.

According to CryptoQuant, this suggests that even without an additional sharp decline, the market has already been sufficiently lightened, putting it in a favorable position for a future upward advance without the necessity for any significant dips.

Currently, the market is in the final phase of the upward cycle, experiencing a strong correction, which increases both risk and investment difficulty. However, when the market approaches oversold territory, the likelihood of a rebound grows.

Despite the current stagnation, most cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, are in an oversold state, indicating that a recovery might not be far away. However, it is still too early to say conclusively if the market has entered a full-fledged bear cycle.