March 17-23

This article contains news about the upcoming changes and updates in the cryptocurrency market

March 17

Exchange:

* CME Group Plans to Launch SOL Futures on March 17

- According to PR Newswire, derivatives market Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group (CME Group) announced plans to launch Solana (SOL) futures on March 17, pending regulatory review.

* Binance to Support Kadena (KDA) Network Upgrade and Hard Fork, Suspending Deposits and Withdrawals on March 17

- The Kadena (KDA) network will be upgraded and hard forked at 00:00 (UTC) on March 18, 2025. Binance will support this upgrade. Deposits and withdrawals will be suspended at 23:00 (UTC) on March 17, 2025.

- Upgrade and hard fork block height: 5,659,280 (estimated at 00:00 UTC on March 18, 2025). Binance will reopen KDA deposits and withdrawals after the network upgrade is completed and stabilized, and trading will not be affected.

Project dynamics:

* Ethereum Developers to Launch Hoodi Testnet on March 17 in Preparation for Pectra Upgrade

- As part of the Pectra upgrade, the last testnet, named Hoodi, will be launched on March 17. The main focus of this testnet is to test validator exits to prevent Holseky from being unable to support related research due to a backlog in the exit queue.

* Starknet Plans to Launch Mainnet Between March 17 and 24

- Starknet is aiming to become the first fully decentralized Layer 2 (L2) to massively scale Ethereum. The plan includes focusing on staking mechanisms, operational decentralization, and governance independence.

- Starknet's latest version v0.13.4 has been launched on the testnet, bringing optimizations such as state compression, fixed L2 gas prices, and Cairo-native performance improvements. It is scheduled to be launched on the mainnet between March 17 and 24.

* Gitcoin Announces Details of Six Community Rounds of GG23, OSS Program Applications to Start on March 17

- Gitcoin, an open source crowdfunding platform on the Ethereum chain, announced the details of the six community rounds of GG23 on the X platform. Each round of funding is planned to be around US$21,000.

- The community rounds include Regen Coordination, GoodDollar GoodBuilders, Token Engineering the Superchain Retro Round, Regen Rio de Janeiro, Gitcoin Grants Garden and Web3 for Universities.

- The application period for the open source software project OSS Program is planned to be from March 17 to 31, and the QF donation period is planned to be from April 2 to 16.

* ZKsync Decided to Terminate the Ignite Program and Stop Issuing Rewards on March 17, and Will Focus on Elastic Network

- According to ZKsync officials, Ignite plans to stop issuing rewards on March 17 and will not start the second season. The reasons include focusing on the development of Elastic Network, slow progress in interoperability technology, and the adjustment of funding strategies due to the sluggish market.

* Cronos' Proposal to Recover the 70 Billion CRO That Have Been Destroyed is Expected to End on March 17

- Layer1 blockchain Cronos is facing strong opposition for a proposal to restore 70 billion CRO tokens destroyed in 2021. Early voting results on Mintscan show that 95.7% of participants voted to reject the plan. The vote is expected to end on March 17.

Token unlocking:

* ApeCoin (APE) will unlock 15.6 million tokens at 8:30 pm Beijing time on March 17, accounting for 1.95% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$8 million.

* Solv Protocol (SOLV) will unlock approximately 117 million tokens at 6:00 pm Beijing time on March 17, accounting for 7.93% of the current circulation and worth approximately US$5 million.

March 18

Project dynamics:

* Meta Will Launch Community Notes Feature in the US on March 18

- Meta will launch the "Community Notes" feature in the United States on March 18, applicable to Facebook, Instagram and Threads. This system draws on the crowdsourced fact-checking mechanism implemented by X (formerly Twitter) since 2021.

* Initia Will Shut Down Wallet Extensions on March 18, and Users Need to Migrate Testnet Data in Time

- Layer1 blockchain Initia officially announced that Initia will shut down its wallet extension service at 3:00 am UTC on March