HashStack #008

March is here, and crypto is showing zero signs of slowing down. 🚀

From BitcoinOS integrating with Arbitrum to Ethereum raising gas limits for the first time since 2021, the race for scalability and interoperability is heating up. Solana is eyeing inflation cuts, AI agents are redefining automation, and stablecoins are making regulatory breakthroughs. Meanwhile, institutional adoption is firing on all cylinders—BlackRock is pushing a BTC ETP in Europe, Franklin Templeton is expanding on Solana, and the SEC just approved the first yield-bearing stablecoin.

VCs are still betting big—with Fluent Labs, Cygnus Finance, and Blockaid raising major rounds, and HashKey Group securing $30M in strategic funding. Meanwhile, portfolio companies like Hex Trust and LI.FI are making major moves through acquisitions and partnerships.

It’s only been a few days into the month, and the macro, policy, and innovation cycles are already shifting at full speed. Buckle up—March is looking like a month where things break out, or break down. Here’s what’s happening in crypto right now:

• BitcoinOS integrated with Arbitrum One, paving the way for trustless bridging between Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

• BlackRock announced plans to launch a BTC ETP in Europe as early as this month.

• Amidst rising institutional interest in BTC, Strategy announced plans to issue $2B in convertible senior notes to acquire more BTC. 

• Osmo wallet, the #1 lightning wallet in Guatemala, has witnessed a 14,900% growth in lightning payments over the past 2 years. 

• Proton launched a Bitcoin-only wallet. Existing Proton account holders can use Proton Wallet by visiting wallet.proton.me. The wallet can support sending Bitcoin to other Proton email addresses (if the wallets are set up).

• Ethereum raised gas limits for the first time since 2021 with Founder Vitalik Buterin arguing for higher gas limits to advance transaction throughput. 

• Unichain launched its mainnet despite community backlash, although its success remains to be seen.

• Hyperliquid launched HyperEVM, with strong community activity and support for its new architecture. 

• Ethereum Foundation also announced the development of an Open Intent Engine within the Ethereum ecosystem. 

• Arbitrum Offchain Labs released the BoLD protocol, marking a step towards permissionless validation for Arbitrum Nova and One chains. 

• Ethereum Foundation deployed 81,000 ETH into Spark, Aave, Compound.

• Core developers expect the Pectra upgrade to go live on mainnet on April 8, as discussed in ACDE #205.

• XION integrated with Eigenlayer to enable XION-native applications to leverage AVS on Eigenlayer.

• Metamask wallet to add support for Solana and Bitcoin, with support for Solana set to begin in May and Bitcoin in Q3. 

• Franklin Templeton expanded its money market fund to Solana.

• The Solana Mobile team announced an update to their Documentation Hub, providing comprehensive resources for developers interested in building mobile decentralized applications (dApps) using the Solana Mobile SDK and associated tools.

• SEC has sought public feedback on the listing and trading of Grayscale Solana Trust ETF on NYSE Arca. 

• A new Solana governance proposal (SIMD-0228) authored by Multicoin Capital partners proposes slashing SOL’s annual inflation by 80%. 

• Hyperliquid introduced an AI Agent, Neko, that can work across different social channels to distribute Hyperliquid and HyperEVM products. It can also empower and accelerate HyperEVM DeFi. 

• Sam Altman shared the roadmap for OpenAI. GPT-5 will be a system consisting of all their models. 

• ElizaOS is now live on the Sei network.

• Virtuals Protocol launched Agent Commerce Protocol. 

• OpenAI rolls out Chatgpt 4.5 to paying users, with access to more users expected in the coming weeks. 

• Anthropic launched Claude Sonnet 3.7 and it is by far the best performing non-reasoning model in coding. 

• Tether Co-Founder, Reeve Collins, is working on a new yield-bearing stablecoin project, Pi Protocol, which is expected to launch on Ethereum and Solana in the 2H 2025. 

• SEC approves first yield-bearing stablecoin. The U.S. SEC has approved Figure Markets’ application for YLDS, a stablecoin that pays 3.85% APY.

• Paypal voiced an aggressive push to achieve 20M merchants using PYUSD by the end of 2025.

• USDC and EURC become the first stablecoins to be recognized by the Dubai International Financial Centre.

• Metro Departmental store in Singapore to accept stablecoins.

• USDe launches on Aptos.

• HashKey Group raised $30M in strategic funding from Gaorong Ventures. 

• Fluent Labs, a blockchain development company building a blended execution environment, completed an $8M seed round led by Polychain Capital. 

• Universal, a crypto protocol building a new wrapped token standard, raised $9M in strategic funding led by a16z.

• Cygnus Finance raised $20M in pre-seed funding from investors like OKX, Manifold, and Optimism, among others. 

• Blockaid completed a $50M Series B round led by Ribbit Capital to spearhead its onchain security tools. 

• Plasma, a Bitcoin sidechain, raised $24M led by Framework Ventures and Bitfinex to accelerate the adoption of stablecoins. 

• Hex Trust acquired Byte Trading to expand market operations.

• Zengo announced a strategic investment by Tether, with participation from Zengo’s existing lead investors, including Insight Partners, Benson Oak, Elron, and the notable participation and addition of Solana’s CEO, Anatoly Yakovenko.

• LI.FI announced the acquisition of Catalyst to accelerate the development of intent. 

• Uber utilizes XION for customer acquisition on a global scale. 

• Brevis launched Brevis Pico, a modular zkVM with LEGO-style customizability and turbo-charged efficiency.

• Aethir announced that $ATH is expanding to the Solana ecosystem.