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Solana Treasury Firm Turns to Buybacks After 89% Drawdown

Plus: 🚨 FBI flags Tron scam posing as law enforcement, 🏦 Morgan Stanley advances bitcoin ETF filing

Author

Juan Aranovich
March 20, 2026

Hi! In today’s edition:

  • 📉 Forward Industries buys back shares after steep losses in its SOL treasury

  • 🚨 FBI warns of fake Tron token scam impersonating law enforcement

  • 🏦 Morgan Stanley moves closer to launching a bitcoin ETF

  • 🎙️ DAOs vs companies debate heats up

  • 🎧 Aave’s $50 million loss sparks debate on execution rules

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Solana Treasury Firm Buys Back Stock After Massive Drawdown

Forward Industries is taking an unusual route to navigate the downturn. The Solana focused treasury company has repurchased over 6 million shares for $27.4 million, funded through a $40 million crypto backed loan from Galaxy Digital. The loan is secured by the firm’s staked SOL holdings, allowing it to raise liquidity without selling its crypto.

The move comes after a brutal stretch. Forward’s stock is down roughly 89% from its peak, while its Solana treasury, built at much higher prices, is sitting on significant unrealized losses. Instead of buying more SOL, the firm is leaning into share buybacks, arguing that when the stock trades below net asset value, it is effectively acquiring SOL at a discount.

This reflects a broader shift across crypto treasury firms. Many are now under pressure as falling token prices compress valuations and strain balance sheets. Using crypto as collateral to restructure capital and support share price could become a more common playbook if volatility persists.

FBI Warns of Fake Token Scam Targeting Tron Users

A new crypto scam is making the rounds, and this time it is impersonating law enforcement. The FBI has warned that a fake token circulating on the Tron network is posing as an official agency asset in an attempt to trick users.

Victims receive a token labeled with the FBI name and seal, along with a message claiming their wallet is “under investigation.” The scam then pressures users to complete a fake anti-money laundering check to avoid having their assets frozen. The goal is straightforward: steal personal information.

The FBI is urging users to ignore these messages and avoid submitting any identifying data. Anyone who may have interacted with the scam is being directed to the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

The warning comes as crypto fraud remains a massive problem. The FBI said it received more than 140,000 complaints tied to crypto scams in 2024, resulting in $9.3 billion in losses.

As crypto grows, scam tactics are becoming more polished, and messages designed to create fear and urgency remain one of the industry’s easiest traps.

Morgan Stanley Pushes Ahead With Bitcoin ETF as Institutional Race Heats Up

Morgan Stanley is taking another step toward launching its own bitcoin ETF, filing a second amended S-1 with the SEC as the product moves closer to market. The updated filing confirms the fund will trade on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT, and outlines details like a 10,000 share basket size and an initial 50,000 share seed raise of about $1 million.

The bank has also finalized key partners. BNY Mellon will handle cash custody and administration, while Coinbase will act as prime broker. Additional filings indicate Fidelity may also play a custody role. Morgan Stanley even disclosed it purchased two shares of the fund earlier this month for testing purposes.

While approval is not guaranteed, the steady updates signal real progress. Notably, the firm’s bitcoin ETF appears to be moving faster than its Solana counterpart, which has not seen recent amendments.

If approved, Morgan Stanley would become the first major U.S. bank to sponsor a spot bitcoin ETF, marking another milestone in institutional crypto adoption.

DAOs Are Losing to Centralized Companies. Is It Over for Them?

Token holders considering the Across equity conversion may not get the full picture until they self-certify. And the incentives to game the price beforehand are real.

Felipe Montealegre of Theia and Ryan Yi of Onchain Group discuss what management teams can do to suppress token price before announcing a "premium" buyout — and why DAOs keep losing to centralized companies on execution.

Can Crypto Reach a Consensus on Best Execution Rules as Aave User Loses $50 Million?

DEX in the City hosts Jessi Brooks and Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos and special guest Jane Khodarkovsky dig into the $50 million Aave exploit gone wrong. The trio debates how crypto can tackle issues like this, as Jessi says it is indefensible.

  • 🏛️ BlackRock’s new iShares Staked Ethereum Trust climbed to $254 million in assets within its first week, showing strong early demand for a fund that not only tracks ETH but also earns staking income and passes most of those rewards on to investors.

  • âšľ Major League Baseball struck a first-of-its-kind information-sharing agreement with the CFTC and separately chose Polymarket as its exclusive prediction-market partner, deepening the sport’s ties to federally regulated event contracts as U.S. regulators debate whether these markets are closer to investing or gambling.

  • 🎣 Attackers targeted OpenClaw developers on GitHub with fake CLAW token airdrops, using cloned websites to trick users into connecting wallets and approving malicious transactions, extending a wave of scams that has repeatedly exploited the name of the open-source AI agent project.

  • ✂️ Crypto(.)com cut about 12% of its workforce, or roughly 180 jobs, as the Singapore-based exchange reorganized around company-wide AI adoption, betting that automation can boost efficiency while continuing a broader shift already reshaping both tech and crypto firms.

  • đź’¶ Amundi, Europe’s largest asset manager, launched a $100 million tokenized fund on Ethereum and Stellar through fintech partner Spiko, giving professional investors a blockchain-based cash-management product with near-instant settlement, round-the-clock transferability, and onchain visibility into fund records.

  • đź’¬ Bluesky, a decentralized social network originally backed by Jack Dorsey, revealed it raised $100 million in 2025 and has since grown to over 43 million users, as it enters a leadership transition and continues building an open social ecosystem where users can move their accounts and data freely across apps.

  • đź“Š Evernorth Holdings, an XRP-focused treasury firm going public via SPAC, disclosed it held 473.1 million XRP—partly bought on the market and partly received from Ripple—while recording a $233.7 million loss on paper due to falling prices and planning to actively generate returns by lending, providing liquidity, and using Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin in DeFi strategies.