On Wednesday, Mastercard launched a global Crypto Partner Program that brings together more than 85 crypto-native companies, payment providers, and financial institutions to collaborate on enterprise-focused digital asset products. The initiative involves firms such as Binance, Circle, Ripple, Gemini, PayPal, and Paxos, and builds on Mastercard's existing blockchain and crypto card infrastructure while expanding work on use cases like cross-border remittances, B2B transfers, payouts, and settlement.

On March 9, 2026, federal prosecutors asked a New York court to schedule a retrial for Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm on money laundering and sanctions-related conspiracy counts after a jury deadlocked on these charges in August 2025. Storm, who was convicted only on a separate unlicensed money transmitter conspiracy count, says on social media that the remaining two counts could carry up to 40 years in prison and is seeking to raise $250,000 for his legal defense.

On 11 March 2026, UN agencies were reported to be testing more than 40 blockchain-based pilots to speed up humanitarian cash assistance and reduce reliance on traditional banking rails. The World Food Programme's Building Blocks platform has moved over $760 million to 6 million people, while other initiatives use USDC transfers, biometric verification, and a blockchain pension app, even as critics warn about "Blockchain In Name Only" projects and connectivity barriers.

In January, a proposal to hand control of Aave's brand assets and intellectual property to its DAO was rejected, raising fresh questions about the protocol's long-term governance model. Aave founder Stani Kulechov later argued that DAOs are hard to operate at scale and should reduce the scope of tokenholder voting while keeping transparent, on-chain accountability for leadership teams. His remarks followed controversy around the "Aave Will Win Framework" proposal, which led a major delegate to exit over concerns about governance standards and voting dynamics.

Nasdaq-listed Solmate, operating as Brera Holdings PLC under ticker SLMT, plans to rename itself Solmate Infrastructure PLC and concentrate on building Solana infrastructure from a base in Abu Dhabi. The firm has proposed a 10-for-1 reverse stock split and intends to wind down two underperforming soccer teams, reallocating capital to its Solana treasury and infrastructure strategy while keeping Italian club Juve Stabia.

BitGo will deliver custody and trading infrastructure for StableX Technologies as the Nasdaq-listed firm builds a digital asset treasury of up to $100 million concentrated on stablecoin ecosystem tokens. Following the partnership announcement, StableX shares initially jumped as much as 9% before closing 1.6% higher, while BitGo highlighted growing institutional interest beyond Bitcoin-only treasury strategies.

Trust Wallet has deployed automatic address poisoning protection covering 32 EVM-compatible networks, using threat intelligence from HashDit and Binance Security to compare and flag suspect destinations. The feature introduces side-by-side address checks in the send flow to help users avoid copy-paste spoofing, amid data showing hundreds of millions of poisoning attempts and substantial recorded losses. Expert guidance also encourages users to rely less on transaction history and more on curated address books or human-readable naming systems when confirming recipients.

On 10 March 2026, Trust Wallet introduced an AI-powered Security Scanner across its mobile app and browser extension after a December 2025 supply chain breach drained about $8.5 million from more than 2,500 wallets. The tool automatically reviews smart contract activity, labels transactions by risk level, and reportedly blocked over $162 million in suspicious activity in 2025, though experts note AI-driven phishing and the lack of native two-factor authentication still pose security challenges.