SBI Holdings subsidiary launches Japan's first public USDC lending service with annual interest rates up to 10%. The product combines blockchain technology to provide high-yield options for investors, and partners with Circle and Startale to expand the USDC ecosystem, driving the development of Japan's stablecoin market.

On March 18, the iShares Korea ETF (EWY) rose to $134.4 as the South Korean KOSPI index gained 5.04%, with after-hours trading up 3.1%. Meanwhile, the EWY futures contract on the Hyperliquid platform traded at $139, up 6.2% in 24 hours. Whale address unrealized gains expanded to nearly $2 million.

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) announced on March 18 the appointment of Kirk Koenigsbauer to its board of directors, where he will participate in the compensation and risk committee. He brings over 30 years of experience in global enterprise software and cloud services and currently serves as president and COO of Microsoft's Experiences & Devices Group.

US stocks closed on March 18: the Dow Jones rose 0.10%, the S&P 500 rose 0.25%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.47%. Multiple projects rose in the crypto market, with Circle up 5.15% and Solana down 0.91%. msx.com is a decentralized RWA trading platform that supports multiple US stock and ETF tokens.

Gate News bot message, Circle has CEXed $500 million USDC on Solana. According to the data, Circle has CEXed a total of $28.5 billion USDC on Solana in 2026.

On March 17th, Circle's stock price rose 9.06%, with a continued increase of nearly 3% during the evening session, driving the Hyperliquid platform's CRCL contract gains to expand to 10%, with the current price at $129. The largest long whale has unrealized profits of $1.1 million, with a return rate of 67.8%.

On March 17, U.S. stock market close: Dow Jones up 0.8%, S&P 500 up 1%, Nasdaq up 1.2%. Crypto sector broadly gained, Bitmine up 13.88%, Circle up 9.06%, SharpLink Gaming up 8.9%, Bullish up 8.19%, Strategy up 5.62%, a certain CEX up 3.98%.

Gate News reported that on March 16, independent analyst Markus Thielen released a chart report indicating that Circle (CRCL) has accumulated gains of nearly 100% in less than three weeks since February 25, with the stock price gradually approaching resistance levels. The analyst stated that current technical indicators continue to improve, liquidation pressure remains relatively controllable, and sentiment indicators have shown significant improvement, but trading volume remains low. The analyst reminds investors to exercise caution with one-sided bearish positions during thin market conditions.

Delphi Digital analysis points out that although Tether and Circle's stablecoins are backed by short-term Treasury bills and cash equivalents, they are not completely safe and still face bank run risks. The USDC depegging event in early 2023 demonstrated that stablecoin risks have shifted to issuers, highlighting the dangers posed by their centralization.

Gate News, on March 16, rwa.xyz data shows that Circle's tokenized money market fund USYC reached a total market value of 2.2 billion dollars, growing 41.16% over the past 30 days. With a 19.88% market share, USYC has become the world's largest tokenized US Treasury fund.