Nonfungible token marketplace OpenSea has postponed the March 30 launch of its SEA token, saying current crypto conditions are too difficult and the token is not ready. The token, first unveiled in October as part of a shift toward a multi-chain "trade everything" app, was meant to power fee discounts, creator rewards and governance. OpenSea is ending its Waves rewards campaign and offering certain users fee refunds as the broader NFT market cap has dropped from $3.2 billion on Jan. 15 to $1.62 billion.

OpenSea has delayed the launch of its SEA token, which had been scheduled for a first-quarter 2026 token generation event. CEO Devin Finzer said on Monday that The OpenSea Foundation is pushing back the timeline without providing a new date and confirmed the current rewards wave will be the last for the community-focused allocation.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce told CNBC that companies developing tokenized instruments and new exchange-traded products should proactively discuss their plans with regulators. She reiterated that the SEC does not judge whether products are good or bad investments, but instead focuses on legal compliance, leverage limits, disclosures, and the operational and technical issues that arise as tokenization experiments expand.

Ironlight Group has raised $21 million in a Series A funding round to scale its SEC-regulated alternative trading system and settlement platform for tokenized securities. The privately held firm plans to use the capital to grow its marketplace for digital and traditional assets, with support from institutional investors, industry executives and the Sei Development Foundation. The platform targets asset classes such as private equity, fixed income and real estate, aiming to streamline post-trade workflows for institutional clients.

Crypto peer-to-peer platform NoOnes stated on Wednesday, March 11, that it will scale its gift card trading infrastructure into what it claims will be the largest marketplace for exchanging vouchers and cryptocurrency. The platform currently lists more than 300 brands and 783 gift card products, with vouchers making up over 10% of its transactions, and aims to reach over 10,000 brands and add more than 1,000 new brands by the end of 2026.

In a statement on Monday, the U.S. Secret Service said it is leading Operation Atlantic with UK and Canadian agencies to target criminal groups behind crypto approval-phishing scams. The campaign focuses on identifying victims, recovering funds and educating the public, after such scams caused $83.85 million in losses across 106,106 victims in 2025, down sharply from $494 million in 2024.

On 16 March 2026, Hana Financial Group and Standard Chartered signed an MOU to deepen cooperation in global finance and digital assets, including investment banking, treasury, and foreign exchange. The alliance builds on their previous work on a won-denominated stablecoin and aligns with Standard Chartered's institutional crypto expansion through its partnership with B2C2. By combining their international networks and technology capabilities, the two groups aim to strengthen cross-border services and position themselves within emerging tokenized finance and digital asset markets.

On March 16, 2026, the World Bank confirmed that more than $50 billion has been committed to Mission 300, a programme targeting electricity access for 300 million Africans by 2030. Since its launch in January 2025, the initiative has connected 44 million people, but analysts warn it must add about 50 million connections annually to stay on track. Backers including multilateral lenders and private investors are expanding funding and policy compacts as unreliable power continues to weigh on economic growth across the continent.