Gitcoin co-founder Kevin Owocki launches ReFi incubator Supermodular. Supermodular focuses on regenerative finance projects and aims to be a venture studio for regenerative Web3 projects. Owocki described Supermodular as an "incubator" designed to simultaneously help developers advance Web3 technologies while "protecting critical resources and global public goods." Owocki, who left Gitcoin entirely in 2022, has entrusted administrators with a large number of governance tokens held under his name to support its decentralization efforts.

India's recently launched internal central bank digital currency (CBDC), the digital rupee, is currently testing offline functionality, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) executive director Ajay Kumar Choudhary has revealed.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael B. Kaplan said Silvergate Bank must return $9.85 million to crypto lender BlockFi, according to a court filing Friday. BlockFi filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022. Shortly after filing, BlockFi began negotiations with Silvergate to release the $10 million it had deposited in a Silvergate reserve account. The two sides reached an agreement this Friday, and Silvergate will return most of the funds within two working days. According to previous news, Silvergate Capital Corporation stated in a document submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that the company may be "undercapitalized" and that it is "reevaluating its business."

Some oil and gas drillers operating on U.S. public lands are diverting natural gas into cryptocurrency mining operations without paying federal royalties, according to a U.S. government regulator report released Wednesday. The Interior Department's Office of Inspector General recommended that the Department of Homeland Security issue guidance in response to the companies' actions.

Tether Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Paolo Ardoino tweeted that he had no exposure to Silvergate. According to previous news, several encryption companies including Coinbase, Paxos, Galaxy Digital and Kraken have ended their partnership with Silvergate

Gaurav Dahake, CEO of Indian encryption exchange Bitbns, admitted at an AMA conference yesterday that the exchange was indeed hacked 13 months ago. But Dahake claimed that the system was taken offline to analyze anomalies, not to hide hacking. He also said that exchanges improve their security systems after such incidents, and that Bitbns has been operating "seamlessly" in the 13 months since the attack. Still, Dahake would not confirm the amount of assets stolen from the exchange in the attack.

Kraken’s non-corporate customers will no longer be able to use crypto bank Signature Bank to make U.S. dollar deposits or withdrawals, Kraken said in an email to customers on Wednesday. Deposits will stop on March 15th, and customers have until March 30th to complete withdrawals. According to a previous statement issued by Binance, Signature Bank will no longer support any crypto exchange customers with a transaction amount of less than $100,000 from February 1, 2023.

Jin Zhuanglong, minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that the future industry will be laid out in a forward-looking manner. The future industry is an important starting point to seize the opportunity of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation and realize leading development. We will study and formulate an action plan for future industrial development, accelerate the deployment of humanoid robots, metaverse, quantum technology and other frontier fields, and comprehensively promote the research and development of 6G technology. We also encourage local governments to try first and speed up the layout of future industries.

Payments giant Visa (V) said Tuesday that it remains committed to investing in the crypto space and supporting the technology despite some recent setbacks in the industry. Reuters previously reported that Visa and Mastercard are pausing new cryptocurrency partnerships as the industry faces fresh scrutiny following the collapse of FTX. A Visa spokesman said that was not the case. The recent setbacks haven't changed Visa's cryptocurrency strategy. Visa will continue to work as a bridge to help connect platforms and technologies emerging in the crypto ecosystem. This is an area where we have been investing and plan to continue investing. At the same time, Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa's encryption business, tweeted that reports that Visa hopes to slow down cooperation with encryption companies are inaccurate, and he reiterated that Visa will continue to cooperate with encryption companies. “Despite the challenges and uncertainties in the crypto ecosystem, our view has not changed that fiat-backed digital currencies running on public blockchains have the potential to play an important role in the payments ecosystem,” he said. In addition, a spokesman for Mastercard said the company still plans to work with partners to bring related payment solutions to market. The focus of work will continue to be on the underlying blockchain technology and how it can be applied to solve current pain points and build more efficient systems for consumers and businesses.