Crypto World
Fed headlines central bank rate decisions, Gemini earnings: Crypto Week Ahead
The week could prove pivotal for markets, including bitcoin , with the U.S. Federal Reserve among seven major central banks set to announce interest-rate decisions while war-driven oil price gains threaten to reignite inflation in the global economy.
Most of the central banks are expected to keep interest rates steady, but hawkish comments from policymakers, driven by inflation concerns, could trigger downside volatility across risk assets.
While reflationary environments have historically supported bitcoin, rising inflation expectations are pushing bond yields higher and tightening financial conditions, André Dragosch, European head of research at Bitwise, told CoinDesk. Those conditions generally make riskier investments less attractive.
Still, geopolitical tensions are currently dominating the market backdrop, according to Dragosch. Historically, such shocks tend to fade quickly, and bitcoin has often delivered above-average returns after periods of elevated geopolitical risk.
“Investors should generally fade these kinds of events and view them as short-term buying opportunities,” Dragosch said.
Bitcoin is trading at what Dragosch called the “biggest macro discount” on record, with sentiment near FTX-collapse lows. “We are probably closer to the bottom than the top,” he said.
What to Watch
(All times ET)
- Crypto
- March 17: Lava Network (LAVA) to expand with 17 new chain integrations and nine new blockchain ecosystems.
- March 19: Walrus (WAL) final deadline for Tusky users to migrate their data.
- March 23: Backpack token generation event occurs, with 250 million tokens (25% of total supply) to be distributed.
- Macro
- March 16, 8:30 a.m.: Canada consumer price index (CPI) YoY for February (Prev. 2.3%)
- March 17, 4:30 a.m.: Reserve Bank of Australia interest rate decision est. 4.1% (Prev. 3.85%)
- March 17, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Pending Home Sales MoM for February (Prev. -0.8%)
- March 18, 6 a.m.: Eurozone consumer price index (CPI) for February. MoM est. 0.7% (Prev. -0.6%); YoY est. 1.9% (Prev. 1.7%)
- March 18, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. PPI for February. YoY est. 3.7% (Prev. 3.6%); Core PPI YoY est. 3.2% (Prev. 3.6%)
- March 18, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada interest rate decision Est. 2.25% (Prev. 2.25%)
- March 18, 10:00 a.m.: U.S. Factory Orders MoM for January (Prev. -0.7%)
- March 18, 2:00 p.m.: Fed interest rate decision Est. 3.50%-3.75% (Prev. 3.50%-3.75%); FOMC economic projections
- March 18, 2:30 p.m.: Fed Chair press conference
- March 18, 5:30 p.m.: Central Bank of Brazil Selic rate decision Est. 14.50% (Prev. 15%)
- March 18, 11 p.m.: Bank of Japan interest rate decision Est. 0.75% (Prev. 0.75%)
- March 19, 4:30 a.m.: Swiss National Bank interest rate decision Est. 0% (Prev. 0%)
- March 19, 8 a.m.: Bank of England interest rate decision Est. 3.75% (Prev. 3.75%).
- March 19, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for week ending March 14 Est. 215K (Prev. 213K)
- March 19, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index for March (Prev. 16.3)
- March 19, 9:15 a.m.: ECB interest rate decision for main refinancing rate Est. 2.15% Prev. 2.15%
- March 19, 4:30 p.m.: Fed Balance Sheet for week ending March 18 (Prev. $6.65T)
- March 20, 8:30 a.m.: Canada PPI YoY (Prev. 5.4%); MoM (Prev. 2.7%)
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
- March 16: Bakkt Holdings (BKKT), post-market, -$0.47
- March 16: Bitcoin Depot (BTM), pre-market, -$0.47
- March 16: Cango (CANG), post-market, -$0.34
- March 17: CEA Industries (BNC), post-market, $0.69
- March 18: Bitfarms (BITF), pre-market, -$0.03
- March 19: Gemini Space Station (GEMI), post-market, -$0.91
- March 20: BitFuFu (FUFU), pre-market, $0.01
Token Events
- Governance votes & calls
- March 17: Mantle (MNT) to host State of Mind Ep. 07, discussing CeDeFi milestones and DeFi strategies.
- March 18: Jupiter (JUP) to hold its weekly Planetary Call community session with team updates.
- March 18: head of marketing & PR to discuss ecosystem updates.
- Decentraland DAO is voting on whether to allow registered users to customize the color of their avatar name tag and to add a more accessible volume slider to the UI sidebar. Voting ends March 16 and 17.
- Convex Finance is voting on Curve and Frax gauge weight allocations for the week of March 12, directing vlCVX voting power across hundreds of liquidity pools. It’s also voting on FXN gauge weight allocations for the same period. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is voting to finalize its 2026–2027 multisig signers election, preserving the 5-of-9 threshold and setting quarterly signer compensation. Voting ends March 17.
- Aavegotchi DAO is running Ballot 3 to elect seven of the remaining 10 nominees as multi-sig signers, completing the nine-signer roster for the DAO Foundation wallet. Voting ends March 17.
- Aura Finance is voting on Balancer gauge weight allocations for the week of March 12, directing vlAURA voting power across Balancer pools on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, Gnosis, Base and Avalanche. Voting ends March 17.
- ShapeShift DAO is voting on establishing and funding a new International UX workstream for six months to maintain professional multilingual translations of the ShapeShift app and website. Voting ends March 17.
- WalletConnect Network is voting on allocating 50 million WCT tokens as a dedicated rewards budget for WalletConnect Pay in 2026. Voting ends March 18.
- ENS is voting on a one-time transfer of 900,000 USDC from the ENS Endowment to wallet.ensdao.eth to cover a shortfall in stream payments owed to ENS Labs. Voting ends March 18.
- Cratos DAO is voting on extending the current mobile app reward standard deadline by one month to April 30, 2026. Voting ends March 19.
- Lightchain AI DAO is voting on a temporary 90-day team authority proposal, which grants the core team temporary operational authority for 90 days to make day-to-day and strategic decisions. Voting ends March 22.
- Unlocks
- March 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.78% of its circulating supply worth $9.65 million.
- March 20: LayerZero (ZRO) to unlock 5.64% of its circulating supply worth $52.45 million.
- Token Launches
Conferences
The company’s total stash is worth $11.5 billion, it said in a recent statement.
The Tom Lee-chaired former Bitcoin mining giant has announced the acquisition of almost 61,000 ETH in the past week, which has pushed its total stash to nearly 4.6 million tokens.
In addition, BitMine said it increased its investment in existing ‘moonshot’ exposures such as Eightco by an additional $80 million to support the latter’s $50 million purchase of OpenAI equity, making it the only publicly listed entity to give investors direct exposure to the company behind ChatGPT.
“Since the start of the Iran war, crypto prices have outperformed and Ethereum has outperformed the S&P 500 by 2,450bp. This is a meaningful outperformance in a mere two weeks,” said Thomas “Tom” Lee, Chairman of Bitmine.
Lee added that higher oil prices will trigger concerns of slowing growth for the global economy, which would push investors to buy growth stocks such as MAG7, software, and crypto.
In its latest Ethereum acquisition of 60,999 tokens, Lee explained that the firm he chairs has ramped up the pace of such purchases as they believe the asset is in the final stages of the mini-crypto winter.
He asserted that BitMine has “staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale, the ETH staking rewards are $272 million annually.”
The company’s total stash, which includes its ETH fortune, 196 BTC, a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, a $83 million stake in Eightco, and $1.2 billion in cash, has risen to $11.5 billion. Its Ethereum holdings represent 3.81% of the entire asset supply.
While being the first in the Ethereum treasury world, BitMine is the second overall in crypto, trailing only to Michael Saylor’s Strategy, which announced its latest gigantic BTC purchase earlier today.
You may also like:
Binance Free $600 (CryptoPotato Exclusive): Use this link to register a new account and receive $600 exclusive welcome offer on Binance (full details).
LIMITED OFFER for CryptoPotato readers at Bybit: Use this link to register and open a $500 FREE position on any coin!
A whitehat hacker has gone public over a months-long feud with the team behind Injective over its response to a critical bug disclosure.
According to the report, the vulnerability in question put $500 million at risk via a faulty validation system.
The pseudonymous crypto security researcher, who goes by the moniker al_f4lc0n, has accused Injective of ghosting them for three months, despite fixing the bug, and later lowballing the bounty payout.
Read more: Ethereum address poisoning spike, ‘wallets aren’t ready’ says researcher
The bug
The bounty hunter uploaded a full bug report to a GitHub repository called “injective-wall-of-shame.”
In the repo’s readme, entitled “I Saved Injective’s $500M. They Pay Me $50K,” they explain that the vulnerability allowed “any user to directly drain any account on the chain. No special permissions needed.”
The more detailed technical report describes how a faulty subaccount validation system allowed for an attacker to submit market orders on other users’ behalf.
The bug was exploitable by an attacker creating a worthless token and creating a spot market, pairing it with USDT. Both these actions are permissionless on Injective.
Then, by creating a sell order of the fake token, the attacker could force victim accounts to buy the worthless token for USDT, “at the attacker’s chosen price.” The USDT could then be permissionlessly bridged off Injective, to Ethereum.
The report claims this put all value on the blockchain at risk, and that the total was over $500 million at the time of disclosure.
The figure currently sits at $280 million, the vast majority of which is in the INJ token.
Embed: Oracle error adds to turmoil at DeFi giant Aave
The bounty
Injective is a blockchain network which lists the likes of Binance, Jump, Google and Pantera as partners, claiming “institutional and government players are joining us.”
Bug bounties are a common way for organizations to crowdsource continuous security monitoring from specialist whitehat bounty “hunters.”
Injective’s ImmuneFi page lists a maximum bounty of $500,000 for critical threats related to its blockchain and smart contracts.
The researcher claims, “a mainnet upgrade to fix the bug went to governance vote. The Injective team clearly understood the severity.”
They also allege that injective “ghosted” for three months after the fix, before offering a bounty 10x lower than the maximum. “To be clear: the $50K has not been paid either,” they stress.
Protos has reached out to Injective for comment on al_f4lc0n’s claims, but hadn’t received a response before publication. This article will be updated should we receive one.
Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.
South Korea has fined crypto exchange Bithumb 36.8 billion won (about $24.5 million) and imposed a six-month partial business suspension after finding widespread violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules, according to a Yonhap News Agency report.
According to Yonhap, regulators identified about 6.65 million violations during an AML inspection, including failures related to customer identity verification, transaction restrictions and record-keeping requirements. Authorities found Bithumb facilitated 45,772 crypto transfers involving 18 unregistered overseas virtual asset service providers (VASPs), in violation of South Korea’s AML rules.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission (FSC) reportedly decided on the penalties following a sanctions deliberation committee meeting reviewing the exchange’s compliance with the Act on Reporting and Use of Specific Financial Transaction Information.
The sanction includes the largest fine yet imposed on a South Korean crypto exchange, following an ongoing regulatory crackdown on AML compliance.
South Korea imposes a six-month partial ban on Bithumb
Under the measures, Bithumb will be banned from processing external crypto transfers for new customers for six months, from March 27 to Sept. 26.
However, existing users will face no trading restrictions, while new customers can still buy or sell crypto and deposit or withdraw Korean won from the exchange.
Related: South Korea plans to use AI for crypto tax enforcement
The FIU said it had repeatedly warned Bithumb to halt transactions with unregistered overseas crypto firms. However, the regulator said the exchange failed to comply and was unable to implement effective blocking measures.
On March 9, the FIU gave Bithumb a preliminary notice of a six-month partial suspension, citing its concerns over Bithumb’s violations before determining the final sanctions.
South Korea’s broader AML enforcement drive
Apart from Bithumb, the FIU has also previously penalized other South Korean exchanges for AML violations.
In February 2025, the regulator imposed a three-month restriction on crypto deposits and withdrawals for new Upbit customers after finding violations tied to dealing with unregistered VASPs. Upbit also received a 35.2 billion won (about $23.5 million) penalty.
The crackdown later reached crypto exchange Korbit. In December 2025, the FIU imposed a 2.73 billion won (about $1.8 million) fine and an institutional warning on the exchange over AML and customer-verification breaches.
Magazine: China’s ‘50x’ blockchain boost, Alibaba-linked AI mines Bitcoin: Asia Express
Crypto World
International police launch Operation Atlantic to combat crypto approval phishing scams
Law enforcement agencies from the U.S., U.K. and Canada started a joint initiative called Operation Atlantic aimed at disrupting cryptocurrency fraud schemes known as approval-phishing attacks, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) said Monday.
The scams work by prompting victims to approve malicious wallet permissions through fake alerts or pop-ups that appear to come from trusted apps or services, the OSC said. Once access is granted, criminals gain control of the wallet and can transfer funds. Because blockchain transactions cannot be reversed, recovery becomes difficult once assets leave a victim’s account.
Cryptocurrency scams generated at least $14 billion in onchain revenue in 2025, according to Chainalysis, with totals expected to climb toward $17 billion as more illicit wallets are identified. Much of the activity now relies on social engineering tactics, complex AI-generated content and phishing-as-a-service platforms to trick victims into granting wallet access or transferring funds.
“Approval phishing and investment scams cost victims millions in financial loss each year,” said Brent Daniels, deputy assistant director for the U.S. Secret Service’s Office of Field Operations, which is involved in the project.
The operation builds on Project Atlas, a 2024 initiative led by the Ontario Provincial Police’s Cyber-Enabled Fraud Team to combat global crypto investment fraud. The project identified over 2,000 compromised wallets across 14 countries, disrupted roughly $70 million in potential fraud, and froze about $24 million in stolen crypto. Similar international efforts, such as Chainalysis’ Operation Spincaster, generated more than 7,000 investigative leads tied to roughly $162 million in losses, highlighting the scale of approval phishing schemes targeting crypto investors.
Authorities said the new operation will help warn potential victims and guide them on securing compromised wallets while attempting to trace and recover stolen funds.
“During Operation Atlantic, the Secret Service, alongside our international law enforcement partners, will identify and disrupt these scams in near real-time denying criminals the ability to further profit from their crimes,” Daniels said.
Metaplanet said Monday it raised $255 million in a private placement and launched a new warrant structure to fund additional Bitcoin purchases.
Metaplanet raised about $255 million from institutional investors through a private placement of new shares, according to the company.
The private placement priced new shares at a 2% premium, paired with fixed-strike warrants at a 10% premium, which, if exercised, could add $276 million in additional capital as “firepower” toward the company’s goal of amassing 210,000 Bitcoin (BTC), according to CEO Simon Gerovich.
Metaplanet also issued a separate strike warrant offering on Monday, which may bring an additional $234 million of capital to fuel the accumulation strategy of the fourth-largest Bitcoin treasury company.
Metaplanet seeks $234 million via first-of-its-kind strike warrants
Metaplanet issued another 100 million in Moving Strike Warrants with what Gerovich called a first-of-its-kind Market Net Asset Value (mNAV) clause, which makes these exercisable only if the stock trades above 1.01x mNAV.
The offering enables the Bitcoin treasury company to raise another $234 million of capital for BTC purchases. The mNAV-tied clause aims to ensure that every newly issued share increases shareholder value, announced Gerovich earlier on Monday.
Related: Bitcoin treasuries stall in Q4, but largest holders keep stacking sats
Metaplanet’s mNAV stood at 1.11x on Monday, above the key 1.01x threshold, as the company held 35,102 BTC ($2.5 billion) and its stock price was $2.45, according to Metaplanet’s dashboard.
The mNAV ratio compares a company’s enterprise value to the value of its crypto holdings. An mNAV below 1 makes it more challenging for companies to raise funds by issuing new shares, which may limit their cryptocurrency purchases.
The new capital-raising mechanism is similar to the playbook used by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder.
Strategy’s At-The-Market (ATM) common stock offering programs share similar mechanisms, allowing the company to raise capital by gradually issuing new common stock shares. Strategy only issues these shares when the mNAV is above 1x to avoid dilution.
In October 2024, Strategy disclosed plans to issue and sell shares of its class A common stock to raise up to $21 billion in equity and $21 billion in fixed-income securities over the next three years.
Magazine: Mysterious Mr Nakamoto author — Finding Satoshi would hurt Bitcoin
Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, continued with its large string of weekly purchases, adding $1.57 billion worth of BTC, according to a Monday filing.
Led by executive chairman Michael Saylor, the company added 22,337 bitcoin at an average price of $70,194 per coin, bringing holdings to 761,068 coins, acquired for $657.61 billion, or an average of $75,696 per coin.
In terms of bitcoin acquired, it was the fifth-largest ever weekly purchase of coins by the company.
Bitcoin was trading at $73,600 on Monday morning, higher by 2.6% over the past 24 hours.
The latest addition to the company’s bitcoin stash was mostly funded via $1.1 billion in sales of the firm’s STRC series of preferred stock. The company also sold $396 million of common stock.
MSTR shares are up 4% in pre-market trading as bitcoin rose through the weekend, currently trading at $73,600, up 2.6% over the past 24 hours.
TLDR
- Through a premium-priced share placement, Metaplanet secured 40.8 billion yen (approximately $255 million) from international institutional backers.
- Additional warrants featuring a 10% premium strike price could generate another 44.5 billion yen, potentially raising total funding to approximately $531 million.
- A novel mNAV-linked warrant mechanism was unveiled, ensuring share issuance only occurs when Bitcoin holdings per share increase.
- Previously issued warrants representing up to 210 million shares were suspended to minimize shareholder dilution.
- The firm aims to accumulate 100,000 BTC by late 2026 and 210,000 BTC by late 2027, with current holdings at 35,102 BTC.
Tokyo-based Metaplanet (3350) has successfully secured approximately $255 million from international institutional investors via a strategic share placement as part of its aggressive Bitcoin treasury expansion strategy.
The shares were issued at a 2% premium above prevailing market rates. Accompanying the placement are fixed-strike warrants with a 10% premium, potentially generating an additional 44.5 billion yen upon exercise.
Combined, the capital raising initiative could yield approximately $531 million in total funding, as disclosed by CEO Simon Gerovich.
With 35,102 BTC currently in its treasury—worth approximately $2.6 billion at today’s valuations—Metaplanet ranks as the fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin holder globally, trailing Strategy and MARA Holdings, which collectively control 792,553 Bitcoin.
Shares of Metaplanet advanced 5% on Monday, coinciding with Bitcoin’s recovery above the $73,000 threshold.
Innovative Warrant Mechanism Linked to Modified Net Asset Value
As part of this funding round, Metaplanet unveiled a groundbreaking series of moving strike warrants incorporating an mNAV clause—a pioneering feature for stock acquisition instruments of this nature.
This innovative structure permits warrant exercise only when the company’s share price reaches or exceeds 1.01 times its modified net asset value. This measurement compares Metaplanet’s total market capitalization against the valuation of its Bitcoin treasury.
According to company statements, this mechanism guarantees that any new share creation will enhance Bitcoin holdings per share, protecting existing shareholders from value dilution.
In conjunction with this new framework, Metaplanet halted exercise privileges on earlier-issued warrants representing up to 210 million shares. This strategic decision aims to prevent dilution while maintaining focus on Bitcoin accumulation objectives.
Ambitious 210,000 BTC Acquisition Strategy Drives Growth Initiatives
The capital secured will be allocated primarily toward building Metaplanet’s bitcoin treasury.
Management has established an interim objective of accumulating 100,000 BTC by the conclusion of 2026, progressing toward an ultimate target of 210,000 BTC by the end of 2027.
To facilitate this ambitious roadmap, Metaplanet plans to launch a United States-based subsidiary named Metaplanet Asset Management. This entity will concentrate on venture capital investments and digital asset financial services related to Bitcoin capital markets.
Separately, Strategy—the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder—is anticipated to reveal additional Bitcoin acquisitions, following recent statements from Executive Chairman Michael Saylor and last week’s preferred equity offering.
Metaplanet’s current Bitcoin holdings stand at 35,102 BTC with an estimated value of $2.6 billion.
Welcome back to Inside DeFi
Today’s edition looks at a gung-ho swap which lost the user almost $50 million. It seems multiple warnings can’t save the kind of madman who’s prepared to swap such size from a mobile-based hot wallet.
We also take a look into the move away from DAOs, and finish up with some short snippets from the security space.
Technical difficulties in the Aave sphere
On Thursday, one spectacularly unlucky (or gung-ho) user took a 99.93% loss on a low liquidity $50 million trade.
They swapped $50 million of (Aave-wrapped) USDT to just $35,000 of (Aave-wrapped) AAVE. The trade was made via Aave’s controversial CoW Swap integration which kicked off a months-long governance battle in December.
Read more: Aave Labs faces backlash over CoW Swap integration
That said, swapping such a large sum in a single transaction, apparently from a phone, and after having accepted price impact warnings, doesn’t exactly scream “bulletproof opsec practices.”
While both CoW Swap and Aave have pledged to return the fees, it’s a very small dent in an enormous loss.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov detailed the UI warnings the user ignored, but recognized the result was “far from optimal.”
He also admits the industry needs “additional guardrails… to better protect users.”
Justifying why such swaps aren’t blocked, CoW Swap said, “Preventing users from making trades… can lead to terrible outcomes in some situations (e.g. a market crash).”
Former governance delegate Marc Zeller was quick to rub some salt in the wound. He also pointed out that the loss wouldn’t be possible on the previous swap tool, which Aave Labs replaced.
Read more: Across Protocol accused of looting DAO treasury of $23M
It’s clear who the loser is in this debacle – the one who lost $49,965,000. But the big winners were the MEV bot backrunning the trade and Titan Builder, which apparently made a total of $34 million in tips, sent straight to Coinbase.
The loss wasn’t the only technical glitch in the Aave-sphere this week. Almost $27 million was liquidated the day before due to a faulty update of Chaos Labs’ Correlated Asset Price Oracle.
Are DAOs done?
Now that Aave Labs has flexed its voting power over the DAO, others are taking note.
Across Protocol has proposed ditching the DAO, in favor of a “US C‑corp, via a token-to-equity exchange and token buyout.”
The thinking is that a change in governance will lead to “clearer accountability, faster execution, and a structure that can scale ops, partnerships, and product development over time.”
Co-founder Hart Lambur said “tokens are undervalued and underappreciated… the reality for Across is that having a token generally hurts more than it helps.”
The post goes on to state that the firm’s future focus will be stablecoins and “agentic payments.”
While others are rushing to tokenize equity, Across seems keen on doing quite the opposite.
Sky, formerly Maker DAO, is another (not so explicit) example of centralizing governance, albeit over a longer timeframe.
While some lament the perceived capture of one of DeFi’s longest-established DAOs, it seems to be working for the protocol, economically speaking.
Revenue within each DeFi vertical is concentrated into just one or two winners, as DeFiLlama’s 0xngmi points out. Many of those getting left behind are dropping like flies, or being forced to make tough decisions.
Read more: Across Protocol accused of looting DAO treasury of $23M
The chart comes from an article by Joel John of Decentralisedco, and questions the purpose of tokens. It notes that, while DeFi revenues have grown enormously, “most protocols lack a mechanism to return value to token holders.”
To be useful to holders, tokens must provide “claims to economic activity and the ability to guide governance.”
In cases where one or both of these aren’t in the interests of those holding sway over governance power, we may see more projects tearing off the DAO mask in the weeks and months to come.
Security snippets
A bite sized breakdown of some of the week’s security news.
The ongoing wave of front-end attacks continued to hit popular DeFi projects’ websites this week. Lending protocol Compound Finance and Solana memecoin launchpad BONK.fun were both affected.
No losses were found in relation to the former, while Bubblemaps found $20,000 was lost to the latter.
A SlowMist security researcher, who goes by “23pds,” shared a deep dive into a (possibly North Korean) campaign targeting a range of crypto companies’ supply chains, “from staking platforms, to exchange software providers, to the exchanges themselves.”
The hackers were successful in “exfiltrating proprietary exchange software containing hardcoded secrets.”
Security firm Cantina’s CEO, Hari Mulackal, examined the pressures facing the crowdsourced security model. He says security researchers, customers, and platforms all “hate it.”
In addition to problems with subjective bug severity and costs, Mulackal cites AI, which is “starting to be genuinely useful at finding bugs,” as a growing threat.
To combat endless submissions of slop bounty reports, a staking/penalty system or charge to submit bugs may provide reviewers some respite.
The post came in response to a security researcher’s claim that they “Lost $120K + 1st Place to an AI.”
Read more: DeFi, meet Claude: Moonwell’s ‘vibe-coded’ oracle in $1.8M blowup
Cosmos Labs published an investigation into the root cause of January’s $7 million hack of SagaEVM. The vulnerability was found to affect a number of chains built on the Cosmos EVM stack, specifically those which had used the “ICS20 precompile.”
The report explains that, “under certain execution conditions,” the vulnerability “could allow repeated use of the same token balance within a single transaction.” Affected networks were advised to disable the vulnerable precompile before a permanent fix was deployed.
A price cap oracle mishap saw $27 million in wstETH liquidated on Aave on Tuesday. While the incident isn’t exactly a blackhat exploit, more a failure of Chaos Labs’ code, oracle attacks have seen a recent uptick.
To finish off, in the latest installment of AI behaving badly, one of Alibaba’s research AIs allegedly cryptojacked itself.
The agent broke out of the “bounds of the intended sandbox,” triggering security alerts.
It had hijacked GPU capacity assigned for its own training, repurposing the compute to mine cryptocurrency.
— Jake Harrison
Why most AI service providers build the wrong thing and what to build instead
The building part has never been easier. Everyone obsesses over technical sophistication when the real constraint is finding clients and closing deals. But you still need to build something worth selling.
Most AI service providers build the wrong thing. They build custom bespoke solutions. Complex. Sophisticated. Designed to impress other technical people. The problem: custom work doesn’t scale. It consumes time. It compresses margins. Every client is a fresh project.
The professionals making real recurring revenue build service models that are repeatable, valuable to specific verticals, and don’t require reinventing the wheel with every new client.
The Setup: How Modern AI Development Actually Works
Before we cover the four models, here’s how to actually build these solutions quickly. Open Claude Desktop or Claude Code. Describe the objective. Provide comprehensive customer context their tech stack, current workflows, integrated systems, pain points. The more detailed your context, the better the output.
Claude Code handles the automation logic. For complex workflows, you route to n8n via Synta, which plans, builds, validates, and tests your workflows. No PhD required. No weeks learning node configurations.
The development pipeline: describe the problem, provide context, let tools handle technical execution, review, deploy. Now you can focus on what actually matters: finding customers and communicating value.
Model 1: Speed-to-Lead Response Systems
Setup: $1,500-$5,000 | Monthly Recurring: $300-$1,000
This is the easiest service model to sell because the problem is quantifiable. A speed-to-lead agent responds to new leads instantly, 24/7, without human intervention. Someone submits a form the agent responds within seconds via text or email, asks qualifying questions, captures information, books meetings.
The data backs this up. Responding in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes shows a dramatic difference in qualification rates. Most businesses take hours. Some take days. That’s money leaving the table every single day.
Critical positioning: You’re amplifying human capability, not replacing people. The receptionist isn’t losing their job— they’re freed up from handling cold leads. Framing this as “employee amplification” not “employee replacement” converts objections into signed contracts.
Unit economics are favorable. Operating costs run $20-50 monthly. You charge $500. The math is obvious.
Model 2: Workflow Automation
Setup: $2,000-$5,000 | Monthly Maintenance: $99-$250
Identify the repetitive, manual, low-value tasks consuming your client’s operational time. Email follow-ups nobody sends on time. Proposal generation that takes three hours when it should take 20 minutes. Data entry between systems that don’t talk to each other. Weekly reports consuming half a workday.
You automate one workflow. That’s the service. Leads come in, get qualified, receive personalized follow-up based on what they asked about, route to the CRM. What previously consumed someone’s entire morning runs autonomously.
Critical insight: Invisible automation gets cancelled. Visible automation gets renewed. Build a dashboard showing processed leads, emails sent, time reclaimed. When clients see quantified value, they renew.
Add a monthly maintenance package for $99-$250 to fix issues, optimize processes, and compound recurring revenue.
Model 3: Specialized AI Training Programs
Per Session: $500-$5,000 depending on specialization
Most organizations bought AI licenses. ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude Team, alternatives. Nobody trained their teams to actually use them. The tools sit idle while leadership questions the ROI.
A 90-minute focused workshop solves this. But here’s what matters: generic “Introduction to AI” commands zero premium. That’s a YouTube video. Industry-specific training is premium. “AI for Real Estate Professionals” commands different pricing than “Introduction to AI.” “Claude for Law Firm Associates” justifies a $3,000 session. Generic workshops don’t.
Effective format: immediate applicable wins, hands-on workflow building, department-specific case studies, implementation roadmaps. You’re not selling AI literacy. You’re selling context—deep understanding of their industry, workflow, and pain points translated into business language.
As AI commoditizes technical skills, communication becomes the competitive moat. The person who explains automation to a 55-year-old insurance broker in business terms outearns the person building the most sophisticated agent.
Model 4: Productized Automation
Monthly Recurring: $200-$500 per client | Time Scaling: Zero
This model decouples time from revenue. Find a painful, repetitive task that every business in a niche completes. Build the automation once. Deploy it to unlimited clients in that vertical with monthly maintenance.
Example: A podcast repurposing service. Creators upload raw episodes. Your system generates show notes, social posts, short-form video concepts, newsletters, blog posts—delivered within 24 hours. Charge $297 monthly. Build once, deploy infinitely.
Another example: Real estate automation. Agents add listings. The system generates MLS descriptions, social content, buyer emails, virtual tour scripts. Charge $197 monthly. The workflow doesn’t change. Only the client does.
This is where time stops being a constraint. Twenty clients on productized services, all consuming zero additional hours monthly, generates sustainable recurring revenue that actually scales.
Which Model Should You Start With?
Speed-to-lead is easiest to sell. The ROI is obvious. Most business owners understand the problem immediately. Start here if you want predictable deal flow.
Workflow automation is easiest to build. You’re solving specific problems. Implementation is straightforward. Start here if you want quick wins and case studies.
Training programs are highest margin with lowest technical risk. You’re selling knowledge and positioning, not building complex systems. Start here if you already have industry credibility.
Productized automation is highest upside but requires patience. You spend time building, then you scale without additional effort. Start here once you’ve validated that your solution actually works repeatedly.
Japanese bitcoin treasury firm Metaplanet (3350) said it raised about 40.8 billion yen ($255 million) from global institutional investors through a placement of new shares, part of a financing structure that could provide up to $531 million in total capital to support its bitcoin accumulation strategy.
The Tokyo-listed company priced the new shares at a 2% premium to the market price. The placement was paired with fixed-strike warrants carrying a 10% premium, which could generate an additional 44.5 billion yen if exercised.
The company also introduced a new series of moving strike warrants with what it described as the first mNAV (multiple to net asset value) clause attached to stock acquisition rights.
The mechanism allows the warrants to be exercised only when the company’s shares trade at least 1.01 times its modified net asset value, a metric comparing the firm’s market capitalization with the value of its bitcoin holdings. Metaplanet said the structure ensures any new share issuance increases bitcoin holdings per share.
To manage dilution, the company also suspended the exercise of previously issued warrants representing up to 210 million shares, prioritizing the new structure instead.
Metaplanet plans to use the funds primarily to expand its bitcoin reserves as it pushes toward its long-term goal of holding 210,000 BTC.
Metaplanet closed 5% higher on Monday as bitcoin climbed above $73,000. The firm is the world’s fourth-largest corporate bitcoin treasury company, holding 35,102 BTC.
Terrified students flee homes and queue for meningitis antibiotics after horror outbreak kills 2
Newmont: Bigger Is Not Always Better
Why Bitmine Just Bought Another 61,000 ETH
-
Tech5 days agoA 1,300-Pound NASA Spacecraft To Re-Enter Earth’s Atmosphere
-
Crypto World2 days agoHYPE Token Enters Net Deflation as HyperCore Buybacks Outpace Staking Rewards
-
Business6 days agoExxonMobil seeks to move corporate registration from New Jersey to Texas
-
Crypto World7 days agoParadigm, a16z, Winklevoss Capital, Balaji Srinivasan among investors in ZODL
-
Fashion3 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Addict Lip Glow
-
Tech6 days agoChatGPT will now generate interactive visuals to help you with math and science concepts
-
Sports2 days ago
Why Duke and Michigan Are Dead Even Entering Selection Sunday
-
NewsBeat5 days agoResidents reaction as Shildon murder probe enters second day
-
Business5 days agoSearch Enters Sixth Week With New Leads in Tucson Abduction Case
-
NewsBeat7 days agoPagazzi Lighting enters administration as 70 jobs lost and 11 stores close across Scotland
-
Business18 hours agoSearch for Savannah Guthrie’s Mother Enters Seventh Week with No Arrests
-
Tech7 days agoDespite challenges, Ireland sixth in EU for board gender diversity
-
Business2 days agoUS Airports Launch Donation Drives for Unpaid TSA Workers as Partial Government Shutdown Enters Fifth Week
-
Crypto World2 days ago
Coinbase and Bybit in Investment Talks: Could Bybit Finally Enter the US Crypto Market?
-
NewsBeat5 days agoI Entered The Manosphere. Nothing Could Prepare Me For What I Found.
-
Business7 days agoSearch Enters 39th Day with FBI Tip Line Developments and No Major Breakthroughs
-
Business2 days agoCountry star Brantley Gilbert enters growing non-alcoholic beer market
-
Crypto World6 days agoWill Chainlink price reclaim $10 amid volatility squeeze?
-
Business3 hours agoAustralian shares drop as Iran war enters third week
-
Sports5 days agoPWHL, Senators discussing plan to keep Charge in Ottawa
