Today's top news highlights:
White House crypto advisor: Other obstacles to the Clarity Act are being gradually cleared.
The next round of US-Iran talks may be held in Islamabad on April 16.
Believe founders in New York charged with a multi-million dollar rug pull scam.
Regulation & Macro
US and Iranian delegations will hold talks in Pakistan later this week.
U.S. and Iranian delegations will hold talks in Islamabad, Pakistan later this week.
White House crypto advisor: Other obstacles to the Clarity Act are being gradually cleared.
Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House Presidential Advisory Council on Digital Assets, stated that a compromise has been reached on the stablecoin yield dispute in the Clarity Act's progress, and other obstacles are being gradually cleared. Outstanding issues include illicit financial protections in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector and Democratic demands to prohibit senior government officials, including Trump, from profiting from the crypto industry. Negotiations have made substantial progress, and several issues are nearing resolution.
The next round of US-Iran talks may be held in Islamabad on April 16.
The next round of direct talks between the United States and Iran may be held on April 16 in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
U.S. Senator Thom Tillis has expressed hope that a draft agreement will be released this week to resolve the long-standing dispute between banks and crypto companies over stablecoin yields. Tillis, in collaboration with Senator Angela Alsobrooks, drafted provisions in the Clarity Act clarifying whether crypto companies should be allowed to pay yields to idle stablecoin balances. The draft has been submitted to representatives of banks and the crypto industry for review and has faced opposition from banks. If discussions proceed smoothly, the text of the draft could be released later this week.
The U.S. Department of Justice has initiated restitution proceedings against victims of the OneCoin cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, using assets seized from those involved in the scheme for compensation. More than $40 million in seized assets are already available to compensate victims who purchased OneCoin between 2014 and 2019 and suffered net losses. OneCoin, launched in Bulgaria in 2014, was once the second-largest cryptocurrency before collapsing due to the token's lack of any practical use. Global investigations indicate the scheme caused losses exceeding $4 billion for victims worldwide.
The US and Iran have agreed to continue negotiations, but the time and place remain undecided.
The United States and Iran have agreed to continue negotiations, but differences remain regarding the agenda, objectives, format, and location of the next round of talks. Iran favors Islamabad, while the U.S. is considering other alternatives. Pakistan has proposed holding a second round of talks in Islamabad in the coming days.
Iran: Reports by some Western media outlets regarding the next round of negotiations are baseless.
Hadi Gorriz, a press officer at the Iranian Embassy in Pakistan, stated that reports in certain Western media outlets regarding the location and timing of the next round of Iran-US negotiations are baseless. The next round of talks could take place at any time and in any place; there is currently no official information available.
The European Central Bank (ECB) stated that tokenization technology can only improve the efficiency of EU capital markets if it is pegged to central bank currency, infrastructure remains interoperable, and regulation is robust and supportive. Digital savings and investment (DLT) can help deepen the EU's savings and investment union, but its benefits depend on interoperable infrastructure and policymakers' ability to manage new risks. Efficiency improvements require avoiding fragmentation of incompatible platforms and ensuring that tokenized market settlements can use central bank currency. Tokenized bonds have shown initial evidence of lower borrowing costs and narrowed bid-ask spreads, but their benefits remain exploratory and conditional, with technological, legal, and liquidity risks still present.
The Trump administration is discussing the specifics of scheduling a second round of face-to-face talks with Iranian officials before the ceasefire expires next week, but whether such a meeting will actually take place remains uncertain. If negotiations progress in the coming days, officials are examining potential dates and locations for the talks, with Geneva and Islamabad among the potential venues. Depending on the pace of progress in negotiations over the next few days, the US and Iran may also extend the ceasefire to buy more time.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Division of Trading and Markets issued a staff statement saying that, under certain conditions, some service providers offering self-custodied wallets and front-end interfaces are permitted to operate without registering as brokerages. If the interface provider does not actively solicit investors, does not guide routing choices through descriptions such as "best price," and establishes corresponding policies and processes for analyzing trading venues, enforcement will not object to their operation as a non-brokerage. This document represents a temporary staff position and does not constitute formal rulework.
US lawmakers pass revised bill, once again attempting to adjust cryptocurrency tax policy.
U.S. Representatives Steven Horsford and Max Miller have reintroduced the PARITY Act, aimed at revising the IRS's handling of crypto taxes. The bill removes the previous $200 tax-free threshold for small transactions, stipulates that when using regulated payment stablecoins for transactions, no gain or loss will be recognized unless the taxpayer's cost basis for holding the stablecoin is less than 99% of its redemption value, and sets a $1 recognized cost basis for exchange transactions. The bill also applies wash trading rules to digital asset transactions and distinguishes between passive staking and trading activities.
An Iranian Defense Ministry spokesman stated that any foreign military intervention in the Strait of Hormuz would exacerbate the crisis and destabilize global energy security. He added that any military attempt by US President Trump to interfere in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman would fail.
Project Updates
PA Beacon, a predictive market tracking tool, has officially launched, providing Polymarket with smart money monitoring and real-time alerts. It utilizes a candidate pool for filtering, address profiling, leaderboard generation, and minute-level monitoring to organize fund behavior signals. Currently, it features four smart money leaderboards: a small-scale strong performer leaderboard, a stable profit leaderboard, an active alpha leaderboard, and a high win rate leaderboard, updated every 6 hours. It also operates two minute-level monitoring lines, including a watchlist targeting key addresses and a large-scale radar covering all market transactions exceeding $20,000. As of April 14th, it has completed 101 rounds of leaderboard generation, adding 389 unique smart money addresses to its database; it has generated 3,760 transaction alerts, covering over $8.56 million in transactions; and its large-scale radar has captured 1,034 large transactions, covering 481 unique addresses, with a total transaction amount of $59.5 million.
Upbit will list its ZAMA token on the Korean Won, BTC, and USDT markets.
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit will list the ZAMA token on the Korean Won, BTC, and USDT markets.
Upbit will list its CC token on the Korean Won, BTC, and USDT markets.
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit will list CC tokens on the Korean Won, BTC, and USDT markets.
Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire revealed that Circle is exploring issuing tokens for Arc Network, a stablecoin payment public chain under development, with the aim of aligning governance, incentives, and economic benefits, and gradually transitioning to a PoS system. More details will be announced in the near future.
Binance will add watch tags to more tokens on April 14, 2026, including Harvest Finance (FARM), Highstreet (HIGH), Enzyme (MLN), Resolv (RESOLV), Syscoin (SYS), TrueFi (TRU), and Velodrome Finance (VELODROME), and remove the seed tag from Tether Gold (XAUT).
Solana's multi-signature protocol Squads has discovered an address poisoning attack targeting users, but there is currently no evidence that any users have been affected. The attacker programmatically created new multi-signature accounts containing existing users as members using publicly available on-chain public keys, and then used collision detection to generate public keys whose first and last characters matched the user's real multi-signature address for social engineering purposes. Squads emphasizes that this is not a protocol vulnerability, and the attacker cannot access user funds or modify existing multi-signatures. Users should ignore any multi-signature accounts that have not been created or added by the team, and verify addresses completely. Squads will issue attack warning banners and alerts within two hours and will introduce a whitelist mechanism in the coming days.
Scroll announced a significant proposal regarding the Scroll Protocol and governance operations. The team proposed dissolving the Security Council and transferring protocol management authority to the Scroll Admin multisignature address, with the transition expected to be completed within the next ten days. The Security Council's costs are no longer justified relative to its actual use over the past few quarters, and resources should be better allocated to product development and growth. Scroll will collaborate with key stakeholders to find a new Security Council structure.
Binance will delist UTK and support its brand upgrade and airdrop program on Binance Alpha.
Binance will delist Utrust (UTK) from the spot market to support the project's rebranding plan to xMoney (XMN), and it will be listed on Binance Alpha. Two token swap options are available: Option 1 (no lock-up) is 3 UTK = 1 XMN; Option 2 (6-month lock-up) is 1 UTK = 1 XMN. Binance users can swap tokens themselves according to the project announcement. UTK tokens deposited after 10:00 AM on April 14, 2026 will not be credited to the account; if users do not withdraw their UTK before 10:30 PM, Binance will swap them according to Option 1. Regarding airdrops, for every 3 UTK tokens held, eligible users will receive an airdrop of 2 XMN tokens, distributed to their Binance Alpha account or spot account.
Genius, the Perp DEX trading terminal powered by YZi Labs, has opened its airdrop, stating that tokens held by the Shuttle Labs team and investors will be locked for at least one year. Genius has released its white paper and roadmap, aiming to build a unified on-chain trading interface layer, achieving the same execution quality and user experience as centralized exchanges. The roadmap includes a Ghost Mode privacy layer, the launch of GeniusFi (PropAMM) on the BNB Chain, and the introduction of BNB binary options. Previously, Genius added a refund function to its airdrop program, allowing users to choose to burn all their GENIUS airdrop shares within 48 hours of TGE in exchange for a net fee refund.
DownDetector: User reports indicate an issue with the Claude service.
Network monitoring website DownDetector shows that user reports indicate problems with the Claude service.
Believe founders in New York charged with a multi-million dollar rug pull scam.
Pasternak, founder of the Solana ecosystem app Believe and a Sydney entrepreneur, is facing charges in a New York court for allegedly participating in a cryptocurrency rug pull scam that resulted in millions of dollars in losses.
Opinions & Analysis
Nikita Bier, product lead for the X platform, said the crypto industry has had a tough year and perhaps it's time to launch some products to improve the situation.
Liquid Capital founder Jack Yi stated that with Iran's willingness to abandon uranium enrichment as a compromise to end the war, the conflict is progressing towards a complete end, and he remains optimistic about this rebound unless fighting resumes. He also pointed out that altcoins are inherently high-risk, and adding futures contracts makes it a guaranteed loss.
Important data
Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $291 million. The BlackRock ETF (IBIT) saw the largest single-day net inflow at $34.7012 million, with a historical total net inflow of $63.762 billion; followed by the Bitwise ETF (BITB) at $11.8758 million, with a historical total net inflow of $2.102 billion. The Fidelity ETF (FBTC) saw the largest single-day net outflow at $229 million, with a historical total net inflow of $10.883 billion. As of press time, Bitcoin spot ETFs had a total net asset value of $94.508 billion, a net asset value ratio of 6.45%, and a historical cumulative net inflow of $56.453 billion.
Founded by Jeffrey Yan, Hyperliquid has generated over $900 million in profit with only 11 employees, making it one of the most profitable startups in the world.
Strategy's perpetual preferred stock, STRC, saw a record-breaking $1.1 billion trading volume in a single day, representing a 46.5% increase from its previous high.
A suspected group of addresses controlling Binance Life holds 146.7 million Binance Life tokens on-chain, representing 14.67% of the total supply, worth $39.8 million. Since yesterday, when the suspected manipulator withdrew 87.85 million Binance Life tokens from Binance through nine wallets, the price of Binance Life has increased by 59%.
58bro.eth, a savvy trader with over $34 million in cumulative profits, is shorting both BTC and ETH. Over the past eight months, 58bro.eth has completed 67 trades on Hyperliquid with a 91% win rate. His current position consists of 175 BTC ($13 million) and 5,300 ETH ($12.55 million).
Strategy purchased 13,927 Bitcoins for approximately $1 billion between April 6th and 12th, at an average price of approximately $71,902. The year-to-date return on BTC is 5.6%. As of April 12th, the company held a total of 780,897 BTC, with a total cost of approximately $59.02 billion and an average cost of approximately $75,577.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies announced that its ETH holdings have reached 4,874,858 (approximately $10.66 billion), representing about 4.04% of Ethereum's total supply. The company purchased an additional 71,524 ETH (approximately $156 million) last week. Currently, approximately 3.33 million ETH are staked, generating an annualized staking income of approximately $212 million. The company's total crypto assets, cash, and investments amount to $11.8 billion, and it plans to advance its 5% ETH supply target.
When Bitcoin reached $74,900, whale @Jason60704294 stopped his losses, incurring a loss of approximately $5 million in this round. This whale stopped his short position on 2567.49 Bitcoins at $73,500, also incurring a loss of approximately $5 million. The stop-loss point for ETH is unknown. He stated that his original target was $60,000, which he felt was a worthwhile risk-reward ratio, but the geopolitical news was too strong. Previously, this address had profited $21.76 million in mid-March, and its three trades since April have resulted in an overall break-even.
