TL;DR

• First FOMC meeting after Trump’s tariff measures: policymakers expressed a cautious look while the statement did not reveal much new information.
• This week’s economic data release includes core PCE, GDP, durable goods orders, new home sales, personal income and spending data.
• The cryptocurrency market lacks a catalyst and needs to pay more attention to macro events.
• The market mainly focuses on MEME, Binance has integrated exchange liquidity and on-chain trading sections, making Alpha Listing a key step.
• Haun Ventures launches $1B crypto fundraising amid renewed industry support and strategic investments.
• MegaETH launched public testnet, achieving 20,000TPS and 10ms block times.
• Coinbase launches Verified Pools powered by Uniswapv4 for enhanced efficient Onchain trading.
• Infrastructure projects were largest share of funding last week.

Macro Overview

First FOMC meeting after Trump’s tariff measures: policymakers expressed a cautious look while the statement did not reveal much new information.

Last week’s FOMC meeting forecasted a certain degree of “stagflation-like” risk, as the officials lowered the economic growth projection while they increased the unemployment rate forecast and inflation expectations. This reflects the officials’ concern that tariffs will negatively affect economic growth and drive up price pressures, therefore they take more cautious steps in terms of interest rate cuts.

The dot pot leans hawkish, showing the median forecast of two rate cuts in 2025, but an increased number of officials supported only one or no rate cuts. However, Powell reassured the markets during the press conference that inflationary pressures are temporary and the Fed will not take aggressive actions. He also mentioned the relative stability of long-term inflation. Also, the Fed will slow QT pace starting from April and reduce the monthly cap of US Treasury rolls-offs from $25bn to $5bn. Until the debt ceiling issue is solved, adjusting QT pace is a reasonable precaution to avoid triggering another liquidity shock like in 2019.

A series of US economic data will be released this week, and the highlights includes core PCE index — — the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, which will be assessed after the lower-than-expected February CPI earlier this month. Meanwhile, future data like PMI will provide more guidance in terms of additional tariffs impacts in March. Other key data releases include final 2024Q4 GDP, monthly durable goods orders, home sales, personal income and spending data.

After last week’s first few days’ turbulence, the dollar index recovered to above $104 level on Thursday and Friday given the confidence injected due to the slightly dovish speech at the FOMC meeting and Trump’s tariff respite.

The overall asset level slightly dropped $3.6mn last week. As Powell mentioned in the FOMC Meeting to slow down the balance sheet runoff pace, the total asset level will gradually go towards a stabilized level next month.

Gold price continued to spike upwards last week, making another ATH of over $3,050 last Thursday. While the gold price fell 1% last Friday due to stronger dollar and profit-taking, it is still on its track going upward and onward.

Crypto Markets Overview

1. Main Assets

The prices of BTC and ETH this Monday were around 87,000 and 2,050 respectively, representing an increase of 4.5% and 9.0% compared to last Monday. The market sentiment of fear over declines has eased somewhat, but there are no significant catalysts within the crypto industry itself, so the focus is mainly on macro policies now.

2. Total Market Cap

The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.80 trillion as of Monday. Excluding BTC and ETH, the total market cap of altcoins priced at $826.24 billion, showing a respective increase by 4.5% and 3.2% on a weekly basis.

3. Stablecoins and Net Inflows

The stablecoin market capitalization grew by $3.2 billion last week, recording an ATH again, with USDT and USDC increasing by $400 million and $1 billion respectively.

On the ETF side, BTC saw an inflow of $740 million. Notably, the Spot ETH ETF still saw an outflow of 52,973 ether, down from last week’s 99,300 units.

4. Top 30 Crypto Assets Performance

Most altcoins rose, with Hype up 22%, recovering from the exchange risk control incident of the week before last. ETH surged by 9.2%, but spot ETFs continued to see outflows. Last week’s market still focused on meme coins on the BNB Chain, as Binance connected exchange liquidity with on-chain activity, and Alpha Listing became a crucial step.

The Key Crypto Highlights

1. Haun Ventures launches $1B crypto fundraising amid renewed industry support and strategic investments

Haun Ventures, founded by former a16z partner Katie Haun, is raising $1B to establish two new crypto-focused funds, expected to close in June. The capital will be evenly split, with $500M allocated to early-stage projects and $500M to late-stage projects, marks one of the largest venture financing rounds in recent years, continue driving innovation in the crypto space while navigating the evolving market landscape and amid renewed regulatory support for crypto, highlighted by former President Trump’s vocal backing of the industry.
This approach mirrors the firm’s initial $1.5B raise in 2022, which occurred prior to the crypto market downturn. While the firm initially aimed to deploy its first $1,5B over two years, it adopted a cautious strategy following the FTX collapse, retaining about 60% of its capital by mid-2023. Haun Ventures has made significant investments, including NFT platform Zora and stablecoin protocol Bridge, which Stripe acquired for $1,1B.

2. MegaETH launched public testnet, achieving 20,000TPS and 10ms block times

MegaETH’s public testnet launch represents a bold step in redefining Ethereum scaling. Unlike rollup-based Layer 2 solutions, MegaETH leverages EigenDA for data availability and specialized sequencers to enable parallel transaction processing, ensuring security via Ethereum’s base layer. This innovative approach challenges the rollup-centric paradigm, positioning MegaETH as a high-performance alternative, boasting 20,000 TPS and 10 millisecond block times, with ambitions to reach 100,000 TPS and sub-millisecond latency. The project has quickly gained traction from early adopters: GTE and Infinex, have already deployed on the testnet, showcasing its potential for real-world applications.

3. Coinbase launches Verified Pools powered by Uniswapv4 for enhanced efficient Onchain trading

Coinbase introduced Verified Pools that leverages the advanced capabilities of Uniswap v4 to revolutionize onchain trading with enhanced compliance, transparency, and efficiency. By integrating Coinbase Verifications, a KYC-backed credential system, Verified Pools ensures only verified participants can interact with liquidity pools, reducing counterparty risks while maintaining non-custodial asset control. Built on Coinbase’s Base Layer-2 network, and collaborating with Gauntlet optimize pool health and risk management, ensuring a secure and efficient trading environment. The platform offers faster transactions and lower costs. Institutions benefit from concentrated liquidity for capital efficiency, API connectivity, and Prime Onchain Wallet security, while retail traders gain access to safer, verified liquidity pools with full asset control.

Key Ventures Deals

1. Privy raises $15M to accelerate growth in infrastructure and wallet integration solutions

Privy, a blockchain infrastructure company based in New York, has raised $15M in a funding round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Coinbase, bringing its total funding to over $40M. Privy specializes in providing software tools for developers to integrate crypto wallets into websites or mobile apps, enabling users to connect their wallets seamlessly without requiring separate logins. Privy faces competition from Reown, which also offers SDKs for simplifying wallet integration, but Privy’s rapid growth highlights its strong position in the market. These tools include software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). The project views crypto wallets as a crucial entry point for mainstream adoption of blockchain technology, aiming to make wallets more accessible and usable for a wider audience. Since 2023, Privy has expanded significantly, growing from servicing 1M crypto wallet accounts and 40 businesses to 50M accounts and 1,000 businesses, including partnerships with Blackbird and OpenSea. Privy generates revenue through a monthly fee model based on the number of active wallets connected to its application, with revenue reportedly growing 25 times from 2023.

2. Walrus Protocol secures $140M in Private Token Sale, transforming Data Management with Move-based

Walrus Foundation, the organization promoting the Walrus protocol, has raised $140M in a private token sale led by Standard Crypto, with contributions from a16z crypto, Electric Capital, Creditcoin, Lvna Capital, Protagonist, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Karatage, RW3 Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, and The Raptor Group. Built on Sui, Walrus allows applications to manage large data files, known as blobs, through Move-based smart contracts, ensuring lifecycle support for both onchain and offchain data.
By integrating storage, availability, and compute, Walrus offers a programmable, efficient, and scalable solution for modern data needs, transforming storage into an interactive resource with dynamic data management and smart contract automation as a leader in programmable storage, addressing scalability and security challenges faced by previous onchain storage solutions. Walrus mainnet is set to launch on March 27, enabling innovative applications for storing and utilizing data, including AI datasets, rich media files, websites, and blockchain history.

3. Level secured $2.6M in 2nd round to enhance yield-generating by stablecoin

Stablecoin protocol Level has raised $2.6M in a 2nd funding round led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Polychain, Flowdesk, Native Crypto, Feisty Collective, and angel investors including Sam Kazemian of Frax and Albert Chon of Injective. This brings the total funding for Level to $6M, following a $3.4M raise in Aug-2024. The protocol’s lvlUSD token competes in the rapidly growing stablecoin sector by offering yield-generating opportunities, setting it apart from traditional stablecoins like Tether, which do not share profits from their backing reserves. Users can mint lvlUSD by depositing USDC or USDT and earn an annualized yield, currently at 8.3% by integrating with platforms such as Aave, Pendle, Spectra, LayerZero and Morpho. Level’s supply surpassed $80M within 5months since beta launched. Project aims to expand its team, marketing efforts, and the utility of lvlUSD, targeting a market cap of $200-$250M while continuing to differentiate itself in the competitive stablecoin market.

The number of deals closed in the previous week was 38, with Infra and Data co-leading the way each had 12 deals, representing 32% for each sector of the total number of deals. Meanwhile, Social had 2 (5%), Gamefi had 6 (15%), DeFi had 6 (15%) deals

The total amount of disclosed funding raised in the previous week was $2B, 32% deals (11/38) in previous week didn’t public the raised amount. The top funding came from Infra sector with $1,8B. Most funded deals: Walrus $140M, Via $28M

Total weekly fundraising rose to $2B for the 4th week of Mar-2025, a decrease of -12% compared to the week prior. Weekly fundraising in the previous week was up +1147% year over year for the same period.

About Gate Ventures

Gate Ventures, the venture capital arm of Gate.io, is focused on investments in decentralized infrastructure, middleware, and applications that will reshape the world in the Web 3.0 age. Working with industry leaders across the globe, Gate Ventures helps promising teams and startups that possess the ideas and capabilities needed to redefine social and financial interactions.

Website: https://ventures.gate.io/
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