Bitcoin and most altcoins bounced back on Friday as investors bought the dip after a report showed that consumer confidence had slumped. Ripple (XRP) price jumped by 4%, while Chainlink (LINK), Bonk (BONK), and JasmyCoin (JASMY) rose by over 5%. …

Here’s why altcoins like XRP, LINK, BONK, Jasmy are going up

US President Donald Trump&#8217;s second ex-wife, Marla Maples, has shown support 
for ending the country&#8217;s case against early Bitcoin advocate Roger Ver, known 
as &#8220;Bitcoin Jesus.&#8221;
&#8220;Sharing more re [regarding] the call to dismiss the prosecution against Roger 
Ver,&#8221; Maples said in a March 16 X post, sharing a video created by an 
organization aimed at supporting Ver and tagging Trump, Elon Musk and US 
Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The Department of Justice charged Ver with mail fraud, tax evasion and filing 
false tax returns in April 2024, alleging he hid the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) 
he owned when he renounced his US citizenship in 2014 and defrauded the 
Internal Revenue Service out of $48 million by failing to report the gains he 
made through selling them.
&gt; Sharing more re the call to dismiss the prosecution against Roger Ver 
&gt; @PamBondi @elonmusk @realDonaldTrump @Davewarrington https://t.co/BckQwEXBW6 
&gt; 
&gt; &#8212; marla maples (@itsmarlamaples) March 16, 2025
Maples and Trump met in the mid-1980s during his first marriage to Ivana 
Trump, and was his second wife from 1993 until 1999. She has long been 
involved with philanthropy and has advocated for multiple charities and 
causes.
She is seemingly still close to and supportive of Trump, who together have a 
daughter, Tiffany Trump. Maples attended Trump&#8217;s inauguration and told the 
London Evening Standard in July that she was &#8220;open to whatever way that I can 
serve&#8221; the then-presidential bidder.
Maples joins a host of high-profile figures calling to stop the prosecution of 
Ver, which includes Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and online black 
market Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, who was facing a double life sentence 
in prison until Trump pardoned him in January.
Ver has appealed to Trump for a pardon, claiming he is being unfairly 
persecuted and is a victim of &#8220;lawfare.&#8221;
Neither Trump nor the White House has publicly acknowledged Ver&#8217;s plea, but 
Trump&#8217;s cost-cutting czar Musk said in a January X post that Ver &#8220;gave up his 
US citizenship. No pardon for Ver. Membership has its privileges.&#8221;
_**Related:**__**Roger Ver &#8216;s Trump pardon plea: &#8216;Lawfare&#8217; victim or tax 
evader?**_
Ver was arrested in Spain at the time of the US indictment pending his 
extradition to the US but was later granted bail on the condition he remain in 
the country.
He moved to dismiss the government&#8217;s case in December, arguing the charges 
were unconstitutional, and the IRS&#8217; &#8220;exit tax&#8221; for renounced citizens is 
&#8220;inscrutably vague&#8221; when applied to crypto.
Cointelegraph has contacted Maples for comment.
_**Magazine:**__**Trump &#8216;s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider 
trading questions**_

Trump’s second ex-wife calls for end of persecution against Roger Ver

South Korea has no plans to incorporate Bitcoin in its foreign exchange 
reserves, according to the country’s central bank. On Mar. 16, local media 
outlet Yonhap reported that officials from the Bank of Korea ruled out adding 
Bitcoin (BTC) to…

Bank of Korea: Bitcoin doesn’t meet foreign reserve standards

Following the discovery of an attempted attack by North Korea&#8217;s Lazarus Group, 
OKX has temporarily suspended its decentralized exchange aggregator service. 
The exchange made the announcement on Mar.17, citing security issues and the 
need to fix incomplete tagging on blockchain…

OKX suspends DEX aggregator service due to detection of North Korean Lazarus attack

Layer-1 blockchain Solana is celebrating its fifth year since its mainnet 
launch in 2020 &#8212; becoming one of the biggest chains by transaction activity 
and one of few select cryptocurrencies included in a proposed US digital asset 
stockpile.
Since the first Solana block was built on March 16, 2020, the network has 
processed more than 408 billion transactions and nearly $1 trillion worth of 
value on decentralized exchanges &#8212; establishing itself as one of the 
industry&#8217;s leading layer-1 blockchains.
_Source:__Solana_
Here are some of the Solana ecosystem&#8217;s most notable milestones since it was 
launched by Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal 
to the public in 2020.
## Solana was born just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit
While Solana&#8217;s origins can be traced back to late 2017 when Yakovenko released 
a white paper outlining a timekeeping method for blockchains called &#8220;Proof of 
History,&#8221; but Solana wasn&#8217;t launched until March 2020 &#8212; right as the world 
started to enact emergency measures against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The high-speed, low-cost layer 1 Solana blockchain launch was assisted by 
crypto-focused venture capital firm Multicoin Capital, leading a financing 
round for Solana, which brought in roughly $20 million worth of private token 
sales in July 2019. 
_Source:__OKX_
Additional funding poured in soon after, and within 20 months of launching, 
Solana was hailed as a potential &#8220;Ethereum killer&#8221; as it soared to a $77.8 
billion market cap at the peak of the 2020-2021 bull cycle.
## Solana hit hard by 2022 bear market, FTX collapse &#8212; but bounced back
The 2022 bear market, coupled with the catastrophic collapse of crypto 
exchange FTX, tanked Solana&#8217;s market cap to $3 billion &#8212; a whopping 96% fall 
from its previous peak &#8212; by late 2022.
Sam Bankman-Fried&#8217;s former firm purchased around 58 million Solana tokens &#8212; 
currently worth $7.4 billion &#8212; from Solana Labs and the Solana Foundation and 
was &#8220;by far the most serious&#8221; layer 1 that FTX was helping scale, Fortune said 
in an April 2022 report.
FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022, and is still in the 
process of unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars worth of staked Solana 
tokens from FTX&#8217;s wallets. Solana&#8217;s price fell to $8.30 on Dec. 29, 2022.
Despite the setback, 2023 marked the start of Solana&#8217;s impressive comeback, 
which saw its market cap rise nearly 50-fold from $3 billion to over $140 
billion by Jan. 19, 2025.
## Memecoin craze takes Solana adoption to the next level
One of the biggest reasons behind Solana&#8217;s comeback was the crypto memecoin 
craze that took place between late 2023 and 2024 &#8212; a $100 billion market that 
Solana dominated.
Several Solana memecoins such as Bonk (BONK), Dogwifhat (WIF), Fartcoin 
(FARTCOIN) and Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) rose to multibillion-dollar market caps 
in early 2024 &#8212; around the time Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun became one 
of the most popular crypto platforms for memecoin lovers.
Pump.fun alone has raked in over $540 million in revenue over the last 12 
months and even surpassed Ethereum over 24-hour intervals at some points.
_Solana is home to many of the largest memecoins by market cap. 
Source:__CoinGecko_
No Solana memecoin, however, drew more attention than the Official Trump 
(TRUMP) token launched by now-US President Donald Trump&#8217;s inner circle on Jan. 
17 &#8212; which soared to a $14.6 billion market within two days before it came 
crashing down.
The TRUMP memecoin briefly pushed Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) total 
value locked to $14.2 billion, trailing only Ethereum, DefiLlama data shows.
&gt; happy 5th birthday @solana 🥳 
&gt; 
&gt; congratulations on 5 years of building &amp; shipping the greatest tech to ever 
&gt; grace our industry 🫶 
&gt; 
&gt; manlets on top 🎉 pic.twitter.com/Clkv3eEpn9 
&gt; 
&gt; &#8212; pump.fun (@pumpdotfun) March 16, 2025
The Solana blockchain has also become the third largest adopter for 
stablecoins behind Ethereum and Tron.
## Solana unveils the first major crypto phone
In May 2023, Solana released the first major crypto phone, called &#8220;Solana 
Saga.&#8221;
Sales for the Android device with the built-in crypto wallet started slow but 
skyrocketed after a 30 million BONK airdrop enticed memecoin enthusiasts to 
make a purchase.
Solana also unveiled a newer, shinier Solana &#8220;Seeker&#8221; smartphone last 
September to better facilitate memecoin trading and accrue token rewards.
While most reviewers say the Solana phones lack the technical capabilities of 
an iPhone or Google Pixel, Solana has seen over 140,000 presales for the two 
products.
The Solana Seeker phone is currently priced at $500.
_Hardware specifications of the Solana Seeker phone. Source:__Solana Mobile_
Solana, however, has also been plagued with several network outages over its 
five-year span &#8212; halting block production for 20 hours in some instances.
Solana validators have been forced to restart the network on several occasions 
when network activity surged.
A new independent validator client called Firedancer is scheduled to go live 
on Solana&#8217;s mainnet sometime in 2025 to address Solana&#8217;s client diversity 
woes. It has been touted as a superior solution to &#8220;QUIC&#8221; &#8212; a Google- 
developed data transfer protocol that has failed to process transactions on 
Solana over a dozen times.
## Solana set to be included in Trump&#8217;s Digital Asset Stockpile
The Trump administration says it will include Solana in the Digital Asset 
Stockpile, which it confirmed through an executive order on March 7. It is the 
youngest cryptocurrency on the list.
The Digital Asset Stockpile will initially use cryptocurrency forfeited in 
government criminal cases.
_**Related:**__**Solana proposal to cut inflation rate by up to 80% fails to 
pass**_
The US doesn&#8217;t appear to hold Solana, according to crypto analytics firm 
Arkham Intelligence. However, the White House said it would complete an audit 
of crypto asset holdings.
Trump initially announced that Solana would become a US reserve asset on March 
2.
_Source:__Donald Trump_
However, he later established a Bitcoin-only reserve and the Digital Asset 
Stockpile, which looks like it will include Solana in addition to Ether (ETH), 
XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA).
Solana is currently priced at $128.17 &#8212; the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with 
a market cap of $64.5 billion. Solana is down 56% from its all-time high as 
the broader market continues to navigate through recession fears and weakened 
market sentiment of late.
_**Magazine:**__**Comeback 2025: Is Ethereum poised to catch up with Bitcoin 
and Solana?**_

Solana’s 5th birthday: From pandemic origins to US crypto stockpile

The CNV, Argentina&#8217;s securities regulator, has issued a new framework for VASP 
operations in the country, introducing prerequisites such as customer-exchange 
asset segregation and establishing new funds and security requirement. 
Argentina Issues New Rules for VASP Operations Argentina is catching up with 
other countries regarding its virtual asset service provider (VASP) regulatory 
requirements. On March […]