Invesco to Take Over Superstate's $900M Tokenized Treasury Fund; ParaFi Closes $125M Raise for New Vehicle

Key developments (last 24 hours) Invesco to acquire Superstate's $900 million tokenized Treasury fund Invesco, the U.S. asset manager overseeing about $2.2 trillion, will take over Superstate's onchain U.S. Treasury fund, USTB, deepening traditional finance's move into blockchain-based markets. The fund holds short-term U.S. Treasuries and has more than $900 million in assets, making it among the largest tokenized Treasury products. The handover is targeted for completion in Q2 2026. At that time, the vehicle will be renamed the Invesco Short Duration US Government Securities Fund while keeping its existing ticker and token structure. The deal places Invesco directly into the roughly $12 billion tokenized U.S. Treasuries segment, alongside players such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Fidelity. WSJ: NYSE partners with Securitize on tokenized securities platform The New York Stock Exchange is working with Securitize to develop a platform for tokenized securities, the Wall Street Journal reported. China issues SOE leader integrity rules, explicitly banning acceptance of "cryptocurrencies" The General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council released the Regulations on Clean Business Conduct for Leaders of State-Owned Enterprises. Article 7 bars SOE leaders from using authority or influence for personal gain, including accepting gifts, cash or virtual currencies from affiliated parties. The rules also prohibit disguised benefits via off-market asset transactions, nominee or hidden shareholding quid-pro-quo arrangements, profits from private lending, misuse of insider information or trade secrets, embezzlement or misappropriation of corporate assets, and privately taking rebates, commissions or kickbacks. Violations will be handled under relevant regulations, discipline and law. YZi Labs alleges systemic governance failures at CEA Industries; questions $1.98 million severance package YZi Labs criticized CEA Industries (Nasdaq: BNC) after the company filed Form 10-Q and Form 8-K on March 16, 2026, arguing the disclosures show material weaknesses in internal controls over financial reporting. The statement cited issues including the CEO and chief financial/accounting roles previously held by the same person and inadequate controls around revenue, taxes and equity-based compensation. YZi Labs estimated the transition agreement value for former CEO David Namdar at about $1.98 million: $375,000 in retroactive consulting fees, about $276,000 in future monthly consulting fees, roughly $434,300 in cash paid in lieu of a shareholder-unapproved equity plan, and a $900,000 lump-sum separation payment tied to restrictive covenants. YZi Labs said the covenants, which bar Namdar from helping shareholders pursue claims or actions that affect management, effectively serve as a management control tool. YZi Labs also said BNC paid $2 million in fees this quarter to an asset-management entity controlled by director Hans Thomas, bringing total payments since June 7, 2025 to $3.8 million, and flagged a discrepancy of 17,648 warrants in the 10-Q. Investment partner Alex Odagiu said the board moved millions to related parties without an annual meeting or shareholder approval. YZi Labs asked the board to justify the severance, publish a remediation plan for the material weaknesses, and disclose the full scope of the restrictive provisions. Ethereum Foundation outlines L1/L2 division of labor The Ethereum Foundation published an updated framework describing how the roles of Layer 1 and Layer 2 are evolving. It argues that, as the ecosystem matures, many L2s are shifting from a primary focus on "scaling Ethereum" to providing differentiated features, customized services and autonomous economic zones, with scaling becoming a secondary objective. In the foundation's framing, L1 remains the permissionless, highly resilient global settlement layer that must keep scaling while preserving censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy and security, acting as shared state, shared liquidity and a DeFi hub. L2s are expected to build their own onchain economies while extending Ethereum's core properties to a broader user base, forming a "full-spectrum" ecosystem. The foundation said the most tightly integrated L2s should pursue synchronized composability, full interoperability, shared liquidity and Stage 2 mechanisms. It also said it will keep investing in technology to help L2s extend L1 properties and securely access cross-layer liquidity, while stressing transparency and verifiability of L2 security. Solana Foundation: enterprise crypto adoption needs flexible privacy controls A Solana Foundation report, "Privacy on Solana: A Comprehensive Approach for Enterprises," argues that institutional adoption will hinge on configurable privacy rather than a simple transparency-versus-privacy tradeoff. The report breaks privacy into four models: pseudonymity (identity hidden, transaction data visible), confidentiality (participants known, sensitive data encrypted), anonymity (identities hidden, transaction data visible) and full privacy systems (technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs and multiparty computation obscure both identities and transaction data). It says no single model fits every use case and that organizations can mix tools as needed. Solana's throughput and low latency are positioned as enabling near-network-speed privacy applications such as encrypted order books or private credit-risk calculations. The report also discusses "audit keys" that let designated parties decrypt transactions when required, aiming to reconcile privacy and regulatory compliance. Tether signs with a Big Four firm for its first full audit Tether said it has signed an agreement with one of the Big Four accounting firms to begin its first comprehensive independent audit of its financial statements. The company described it as the largest first-time audit in financial market history, covering digital assets, traditional reserves and tokenized liabilities. USD₮ market capitalization has surpassed $184 billion, and Tether said it serves more than 550 million users globally. CEO Paolo Ardoino said the goal is to go beyond industry-standard attestations and demonstrate USD₮ is fully backed, sufficiently liquid and managed with best-in-class international risk controls. Solana Foundation launches Solana Developer Platform (SDP) for the AI era The Solana Foundation introduced the Solana Developer Platform, an API-based suite intended to help enterprises and financial institutions build and launch financial products on Solana. SDP bundles infrastructure into a unified interface with three API modules: Issuance (tokenized deposits, GENIUS-compliant stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets), Payments (fiat/stablecoin transfers including onramps/offramps and onchain stablecoin payments across B2B, B2C and P2P), and Trading (atomic swaps and liquidity pools). Issuance and Payments are live; the Trading module is slated for late 2026. Report: Russia to permit major cryptocurrencies under a new regulated trading framework Russia's Legislative Activity Committee has approved a bill to regulate cryptocurrency trading that would allow domestic exchanges to list the highest market-cap and most actively traded digital assets. To qualify, a cryptocurrency must have averaged more than 5 trillion rubles (about $60 billion) in market cap over the past two years, at least 1 trillion rubles (about $12 billion) in average daily trading volume, and at least five years of trading history—criteria that Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana reportedly meet. The draft gives the Central Bank of Russia authority to set the permitted list of circulating digital assets and empowers the financial intelligence agency to blacklist specific cryptocurrencies, including a ban on trading privacy coins. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins are classified as "monetary assets." Annual investment by ordinary citizens would be capped below $4,000. Penalties include fines up to 1 million rubles for noncompliant exchanges, up to 2.5 million rubles for illegal mining entities, and up to five years' imprisonment for large-scale illegal mining. Updated CLARITY Act draft: stablecoin yield ban tied to passive holding Industry participants reviewed new language in the revised Senate Digital Asset Market Clarity Act during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill, with early feedback suggesting the provision is narrow and unclear. The measure, introduced last Friday by Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Thom Tillis, would prohibit earning returns solely from holding stablecoins and restrict structures that make reward programs resemble bank deposits. The mechanism for determining which activity-based rewards might remain permitted was described as unclear. The language reflects negotiations between the crypto industry and banks, with banks arguing that rewards must not look like interest-bearing deposits that compete with lending. The emerging compromise allows rewards linked to user activity but bans rewards based on balances. The review is intended to move the Senate Banking Committee toward scheduling a hearing ahead of a full Senate vote. A similar bill passed the House last year, and another version has cleared markup in the Senate Agriculture Committee. Remaining sticking points include a DeFi framework and a Democratic push to bar senior government officials from personally profiting from the crypto industry, a provision aimed at President Trump. ParaFi raises $125 million for new fund ParaFi, a New York-based digital asset manager, raised $125 million in March for a new fund backed by KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, Bloomberg reported. The firm said it has raised $325 million for existing digital-asset investment strategies since early 2025 and currently manages about $2 billion. Founder Ben Forman said ParaFi has invested in Polymarket, Bitwise and Anchorage, and is now targeting opportunities tied to stablecoins, tokenization and institutional onchain finance. Polymarket expands fees beyond crypto and sports starting March 30 Polymarket will broaden its fee structure beginning March 30 to include markets spanning finance, politics, economics, culture, weather and technology, moving past a focus on crypto and sports. Fees will shift to variable rates. Japan's LDP forms blockchain finance task force Japan's Liberal Democratic Party created the "Next-Generation AI and On-Chain Finance Vision Project Group," founded by former Digital Minister Masaki Hirai and led by Seiji Kihara, a former Ministry of Finance official and current head of the LDP Blockchain Promotion Parliamentary Alliance. The group aims to craft a national AI-driven onchain finance framework, signaling that blockchain finance is being folded into Japan's economic policy agenda. Hirai said AI and blockchain could disrupt finance within a few years and argued Japan lacks a unified blueprint connecting existing pieces such as the JPYC stablecoin, a joint stablecoin initiative involving Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho, and tokenized deposits by Japan Post Bank. The group plans to publish a white paper proposing regulatory changes, including updates to trust law, deposit insurance and KYC frameworks, aligned with the LDP growth strategy and the government's annual fiscal guidelines, while urging the Financial Services Agency and the Ministry of Finance to accelerate rulemaking. Nasdaq to connect Calypso collateral and surveillance tools with Talos Nasdaq plans to integrate its Calypso risk and collateral platform and its trading surveillance system with Talos's institutional trading tools. The goal is to give institutions a single workflow to manage tokenized collateral and monitor both crypto and traditional assets for market manipulation, tightening compliance standards for digital assets. Nasdaq cited internal research estimating about $35 billion in collateral is frozen in "corrective, non-interest-bearing measures." Ledger completes $50 million secondary sale; no near-term IPO plan Ledger, the Paris-headquartered digital asset firm, completed a $50 million secondary share sale in the fourth quarter of last year. CEO Pascal Gauthier said an early investor sold its stake and that the company has no immediate plans for an IPO. He declined to disclose valuation. Circle freezes USDC across 16 business hot wallets Circle froze USDC balances held in 16 crypto business hot wallets, according to market sources. Affected parties pointed to an ongoing U.S. civil case, though details have not been disclosed. Investigator ZachXBT said the addresses appear tied to separate wallets used by exchanges, casinos and forex platforms with no obvious links among them, and that the action has disrupted operations. Meme token heat map (as of March 25, 09:00) Top 5 trending ETH tokens: SHIB, LINK, PEPE, UNI, ONDO Top 5 trending Solana tokens: Punch, neet, Buttcoin, WOJAK, testicle Top 5 trending Base tokens: PEPE, BASED, B3, SKYA, TOSHI Notable reads (last 24 hours) Backpack's token launch sparks backlash over airdrop allocations, with multiple KOLs alleging "sybil" flags and sharply reduced rewards. CZ at the DC Blockchain Summit discusses crypto founders returning to the U.S., criticizes mainstream media coverage and argues the U.S. needs more competition to cut trading costs; says a memoir from prison is coming. Gold's safe-haven narrative falters as spot prices fall nine straight sessions and log the biggest weekly drop since 1981, while risk assets sell off broadly. Dragonfly analysis questions whether most AI agents will actually transact, challenging assumptions behind "agent commerce" and stablecoin payment dominance.