Today's top news highlights:

Regulation & Macro

The head of enforcement at the U.S. CFTC warned that insider trading laws also apply to prediction markets.

David Miller, enforcement director of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that insider trading in prediction markets is also subject to insider trading laws, and regulators are monitoring the situation and will take enforcement action against violators. He pointed out that there is a misconception in mainstream media and social media that "insider trading does not apply to prediction markets," which is incorrect. Miller stated that the CFTC will use its prosecution discretion to focus on investigating cases involving the use of stolen information for trading or the disclosure of information.

Australia has passed cryptocurrency regulations requiring exchanges to obtain financial services licenses.

According to CoinDesk, Australia has passed the Corporations Amendment (Digital Asset Framework) Act 2025, establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets for the first time. This requires cryptocurrency exchanges and custody platforms to obtain an Australian financial services license within six months. The Act adds two new regulated categories under the Corporations Act: digital asset platforms holding users' crypto assets, and tokenized custody platforms holding real-world assets and issuing corresponding digital tokens. Both must apply for a financial services license from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and comply with the same requirements for client asset protection, disclosure, conduct, and dispute resolution as brokers and fund management companies.

The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted 10 executives from four cryptocurrency market makers, accusing them of manipulating the market through fraudulent transactions.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for Northern California announced that a federal grand jury has indicted 10 executives and employees of four cryptocurrency market makers—Gotbit, Vortex, Antier, and Contrarian—accusing them of manipulating cryptocurrency prices and trading volumes through fraudulent transactions to induce investors to buy at artificially inflated prices. Two CEOs and another executive from the three companies were extradited from Singapore to the United States and made their first court appearance in Oakland, California federal court. This case is the result of a covert operation by the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation Division targeting “wash trading” in the cryptocurrency industry, which has already seized over $1 million in cryptocurrency. Two defendants have previously pleaded guilty and been sentenced. The defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A senior Iranian official told Trump: The Strait of Hormuz will definitely reopen, but not to the United States.

According to reports from the BBC and RT, cited by Jinshi, Ibrahim Aziz, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, posted a message on April 1st addressing US President Trump, stating that the Strait of Hormuz will definitely reopen, but not to the United States. Aziz posted on the social media platform X that day, "Trump has finally realized his dream of 'regime change,' but only in terms of maritime order in the region!" "The Strait of Hormuz will definitely reopen, but not to you (the United States); it will only be open to countries that abide by Iran's new laws." Aziz added that the 47-year era of "hospitality" is over. The BBC explained that Aziz was referring to the period since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Trump: Seriously considering withdrawing from NATO; NATO is a "paper tiger"

According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, Trump stated that he is seriously considering withdrawing the US from NATO after the alliance did not join his war against Iran. Trump called NATO a "paper tiger" and said that the US withdrawal from the alliance was "no longer a question." This is the strongest signal yet that the White House no longer considers Europe a reliable defense partner after allies refused to respond to Trump's request to send warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When asked if he would reconsider the US membership in the alliance after the conflict, Trump replied, "I would say it's no longer a question. I've never been convinced by NATO. I've always known they're a paper tiger, and, by the way, Putin knows that too." Trump added, "We've always been involved automatically, including in Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't our problem. It was a test, we were there supporting them, but they didn't support us."

Li Xiong, chairman of Huiwang Group, a subsidiary of Prince Group, was extradited from Cambodia back to China.

According to Xinhua News Agency, on April 1, with the strong support of relevant Cambodian departments, the Ministry of Public Security dispatched a working group and successfully extradited Li Xiong, a core member of the Chen Zhi criminal gang, from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, back to China. This is another significant achievement in law enforcement cooperation between China and Cambodia. Investigations revealed that Li Xiong was formerly the chairman of Huiwang Group, a subsidiary of the Prince Group, and is suspected of multiple crimes, including operating casinos, fraud, illegal business operations, and concealing criminal proceeds. Currently, Li Xiong has been placed under coercive measures in accordance with the law, and the relevant cases are under further investigation.

A relevant official from the Ministry of Public Security stated that several key members of Chen Zhi's criminal gang have been apprehended, and the public security organs will continue to intensify their efforts to resolutely bring fugitives to justice. At the same time, the official reiterated a warning to criminals: recognize the situation, pull back from the brink, surrender yourselves to the authorities as soon as possible, and strive for lenient treatment.

Two Arizona encryption bills have passed the House Rules Committee and are about to go to the full House for a vote.

Project Updates

SBI's market maker B2C2 has designated Solana as its mainnet for institutional stablecoin settlements.

SBI Holdings' institutional liquidity provider B2C2 has designated Solana as its primary network for large-scale stablecoin settlements for its institutional clients. B2C2 provides market-making services for platforms such as Robinhood and partners with Standard Chartered, Anchorage Digital, and Bitget. The company will prioritize supporting stablecoins issued on Solana, including USDC, USDT, PYUSD, USDG, USD1, EURC, and FDUSD, as well as any future additions.

QQ natively integrates with the OpenClaw official platform

QQ has announced its official native integration with the OpenClaw platform. This makes QQ the first social platform in China to be natively integrated with OpenClaw.

BlockSec: BSC on-chain LML/USDT staking protocol suffered a price manipulation attack, resulting in a loss of approximately $950,000.

According to BlockSec monitoring, an unknown contract on the BSC chain, suspected to be an LML/USDT staking protocol, was attacked, resulting in a loss of approximately $950,000. Analysis indicates the vulnerability may stem from a pricing design flaw: reward payouts are calculated based on TWAP or snapshot prices, allowing attackers to sell reward tokens at manipulated spot prices. The attackers first inflated the LML price by trading through paths containing addresses with zero recipients, then used addresses that had previously deposited tokens to claim the rewards, directly obtaining them during the attack.

CoinShares completes its SPAC merger and will be listed on Nasdaq on April 1.

According to CNBC, European cryptocurrency asset management firm CoinShares completed its merger with SPAC Vine Hill Capital on Tuesday evening and will begin trading on Nasdaq on April 1. The merged company is valued at approximately $1.2 billion and will trade under the ticker symbol CSHR. The company manages approximately $6 billion in assets and offers structured investment products, including the CoinShares Bitcoin ETF. CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti stated that the listing was aimed at achieving growth in the US market. While cryptocurrency stocks are currently facing an industry-wide downturn, the company believes the timing of the listing depends on business readiness rather than market window. CoinShares was previously listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange in Sweden.

UX Chain announces closure: liquidation begins on April 30, and operations cease completely on May 15.

UX Chain, the lending blockchain within the Cosmos ecosystem, announced on the X platform that it will be gradually shutting down. The platform's liquidation process will begin on April 30th, with a complete shutdown expected by May 15th. Users are required to close out any open positions before this date. UX reserves and the treasury will be used to cover the protocol's funding shortfall; specific details will be announced on the governance forum.

The EdgeX airdrop has been accused of sending nearly half of its supply to partners and limited partners (LPs), with the actual circulating supply being only about 9.5%.

According to Arkham, EdgeX nominally airdropped approximately $195 million to users. However, after on-chain analysts questioned this, the project team admitted that 14% of the total supply was actually allocated to partners and liquidity providers, equivalent to approximately $94.6 million at the current valuation, almost half of the total airdrop. Currently, about 69.5% of EdgeX's supply is stored in addresses directly transferred from the initial developer wallet, some of which may belong to market makers and could be transferred to exchanges in the future. Another 7% of the supply remains unallocated in the airdrop wallet, suggesting that the current actual circulating supply is only about 9.5%.

Tether dismisses two senior gold traders who were previously poached from HSBC.

According to Bloomberg, Tether Holdings, the issuer of stablecoins, has dismissed two senior precious metals traders, Vincent Domien and Mathew O'Neill, who were poached from HSBC several months ago. The two were previously hired to help build the "world's best gold trading floor" and assist Tether in accumulating gold reserves worth tens of billions of dollars. The report states that their departure is part of Tether's restructuring of its gold trading team, through which the company was expanding its gold holdings and related trading operations.

ZachXBT: A Kraken user is suspected of being scammed by social engineering, losing $18.2 million.

According to ZachXBT, an unidentified Kraken user is suspected of losing approximately $18.2 million in a social engineering scam. The address in question began transferring funds from Ethereum to Bitcoin via THORChain through the SafePal wallet approximately 45 minutes prior.

Bitfarms will be renamed Keel and plans to sell $161 million worth of Bitcoin to bet on AI.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms reported revenue of $229 million for fiscal year 2025, a 72% year-over-year increase, but a net loss of $209 million from continuing operations. As of March 27, it had approximately $520 million in cash and Bitcoin liquidity and announced that it had received shareholder approval to relocate its registration to the United States and change its name to Keel Infrastructure as early as April 1, 2026, with the stock ticker expected to change to KEEL. The company also plans to sell approximately 2,400 Bitcoins, worth about $161 million, at an opportune time to invest in HPC and AI infrastructure development, further downplaying its pure Bitcoin mining company image.

Investment and financing news

Crypto-friendly bank Cross River Bank completes $50 million in new funding.

According to Bloomberg, crypto-friendly bank Cross River Bank has raised $50 million from existing investors, led by a fund managed by T. Rowe Price, valuing the bank at slightly over $3 billion. The new funds will be used to accelerate product launches, deepen partnerships, and expand internationally, with a focus on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency. Founded in 2008, Cross River provides banking infrastructure to over 100 technology and fintech companies, including Stripe, Coinbase, and Affirm. This month, it also partnered with the X platform for payments. The bank has garnered attention for its Solana blockchain integration and participation in the Visa USDC stablecoin settlement pilot program.

OpenAI raises $122 billion, valuing the company at $852 billion.

According to Jinshi News, OpenAI has completed a $122 billion funding round, valuing the company at $852 billion. This marks the company's largest funding round to date, supporting its significant investments in chips, data centers, and talent. The majority of the funds in this months-long funding round came from three major technology companies. Amazon agreed to invest $50 billion, while Nvidia and SoftBank Group each invested $30 billion. A large portion of Amazon's investment ($35 billion) hinges on OpenAI's ability to go public or achieve technological milestones in general artificial intelligence. This is the first time OpenAI has raised over $3 billion from individual investors through banking channels. OpenAI stated that the company currently generates $2 billion in revenue per month.

Stablecoin clearing platform Better Money has raised $10 million in seed funding, led by a16z crypto.

According to Fortune, The Better Money Company, founded by former a16z crypto investor Sam Broner and his partner Adam Zuckerman, announced the completion of a $10 million seed round of financing. The round was led by a16z crypto, with participation from BoxGroup, Sunflower Capital, Circle co-founder Sean Neville, and former Microsoft executive Charlie Songhurst, among others.

OpenFX, a stablecoin-based cross-border payment infrastructure company, has raised $94 million in funding.

According to Reuters, OpenFX, a startup focused on foreign exchange market making and cross-border remittances, has raised $94 million in funding. The round was led by Accel, Lightspeed Faction, M13, Northzone, and Pantera, valuing the company at approximately $500 million post-money. OpenFX bridges the banking system with blockchain infrastructure using stablecoins, providing faster and lower-cost settlement services for large cross-border funds. The company claims that over 98% of transactions on its platform are settled within 60 minutes, and its annualized payment processing volume has increased from approximately $4 billion to approximately $45 billion. OpenFX plans to use the funds to expand into Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Opinions & Analysis

Analysis: Bitcoin recorded its worst first quarter performance since 2018, falling 24%.

According to The Block, Bitcoin fell 23.8% in the first quarter of 2026, marking its worst quarterly performance since the first quarter of 2018, when it fell 50%. Bitcoin has now fallen for two consecutive quarters, with a cumulative drop of approximately 41.6% over the past six months. Andri Fauzan Adziima, Head of Research at Bitrue, stated that the first-quarter decline was primarily driven by outflows from Bitcoin ETFs, inflation stickiness, the Federal Reserve's cautious stance, and risk aversion fueled by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $496.5 million in the first quarter, with $1.8 billion flowing out in the first two months, partially offset by an inflow of $1.32 billion in March.

Min Jung, a research assistant at Presto Research, pointed out that the long-term trend of institutional participation remains unchanged, and the market decline is more cyclical than structural. Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, stated that a trend reversal in the second quarter would require renewed inflows of ETF funds, clear progress in US crypto-friendly regulation, and a shift towards looser monetary policy. Bitcoin is currently trading at approximately $69,100.

Fidelity: This round of Bitcoin pullback is only 50%, far lower than historical cycles, indicating that the market is becoming increasingly mature.

Zack Wainwright, a digital asset research analyst at Fidelity, stated that the current Bitcoin cycle has retraced approximately 50% from its all-time high, significantly lower than the 80% to 90% declines of previous cycles, indicating a maturing market, reduced volatility, and increased institutional confidence. Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, pointed out that this signifies Bitcoin's shift from a speculative asset to a more stable store of value. Bitcoin hit a low of approximately $60,000 on February 6th, a 52% drop from its all-time high of $126,000 last October. The previous cycle saw a 77% decline from a 2021 high of $69,000 to $16,000. Analysts also noted that based on historical decay patterns, the bottom of this cycle may occur in late September to early October 2026.

Trump's statement about withdrawing troops triggered a sell-off in crude oil, and the energy premium quickly disappeared.

International oil prices fell after Trump stated that the US would withdraw from Iran within two to three weeks, regardless of whether a deal was reached. WTI crude oil fell below $98 per barrel, down 3.78% on the day; Brent crude oil is currently down 3.3%. Thomas Mathews of Capital Economics said, "Hopes of de-escalation have boosted the market, but we believe that even if the war ends soon, its effects will persist in many cases. After all, both sides have sent positive signals in other phases of the war, but many of them ultimately failed."

Analysis: Bitcoin is still trading at approximately 21% above its realized price, and there are no signs of a bottom yet.

According to CoinDesk, the gap between Bitcoin's spot price and its realized price (the average cost basis of all on-chain tokens weighted by their last transaction time) is narrowing, approaching past cycle bottom levels, but on-chain data shows the market has not yet seen a typical capitulation sell-off. Currently, Bitcoin's realized price is approximately $54,286, while the spot price is approximately $68,774, representing a premium of about 21%. A bottom signal in the 2022 bear market was a spot price falling below the realized price, coinciding with a cycle low when the spot price was approximately 15% below the realized price.

The current 21% premium means that the average holder is still in a profitable position. For Bitcoin to reach its realized price, it would need to fall another 20% to $54,000. Of particular note is the speed at which the premium has narrowed—from approximately 120% at the end of 2024 to 21% 15 months later, the fastest it has approached the realized price level except during market crashes. Other on-chain signals also indicate that the market has not yet completed its reset: the Coinbase premium index has returned to negative territory, indicating weakening institutional demand. Analysts believe that although Bitcoin has remained in the $65,000 to $70,000 range for five weeks, and ETF inflows exceeding $1 billion in March show the presence of buyers, the market has not yet experienced the painful process that historically marks a bottom.

Bithumb will list VVV tokens on the Korean won market.

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb will list the VVV token on the Korean won market.

Satoshi Nakamoto said in 2010 regarding quantum computing: If it happens gradually, there is still time to transition to more powerful algorithms.

In a 2010 forum post, Satoshi Nakamoto discussed quantum computing and addressed the risk that quantum computing might crack signature algorithms. He stated that if this occurred gradually, it could be mitigated by upgrading the software to a more secure signature scheme. When users first run the upgraded software, they can re-sign all assets using the new signature algorithm (i.e., create a transaction that sends the assets to themselves and uses a stronger signature).

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) responded to the delay in issuing the first batch of compliant stablecoin licenses: It is making every effort to advance the process.

According to Caixin, the first batch of stablecoin issuer licenses in Hong Kong, originally scheduled for March 2026, has not yet been issued as planned. A spokesperson for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) responded that the HKMA is making every effort to expedite the licensing process and will announce details in due course. Regarding who will receive the first batch of stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong, the market previously focused on the two major Hong Kong dollar issuing banks, HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank. HSBC has not publicly disclosed whether it has submitted an application for a stablecoin license. However, as early as mid-January this year, there were rumors that HSBC had a significant chance of obtaining one of the first licenses. Currently, there is no official disclosure as to why the stablecoin license issuance has been delayed compared to the initial announcement. Sources close to the stablecoin license application process revealed that the HKMA has recently been in close contact with the first batch of potential compliant issuers, and suggestions for modifications regarding issuance are still being made. In addition, a second batch of compliant stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong is also under application.

Important data

Uniswap Foundation releases 2025 financial summary: holding $85.8 million in assets.

The Uniswap Foundation released its unaudited financial summary for 2025. As of December 31, 2025, the Foundation held $49.9 million in cash and stablecoins, 15.1 million UNI, and 240 ETH, with a total value of approximately $85.8 million based on the closing price that day. The funds are expected to support operations until January 2027, including $106.2 million in funding commitments and reserves, and $26.3 million in operating expenses and employee token rewards. Throughout 2025, the Foundation made new funding commitments of $26 million, with $11 million actually disbursed; operating expenses were $9.7 million, and 450,000 UNI were awarded to employees. Through the Uniswap Unleashed proposal, the Foundation received 20.3 million UNI from the Uniswap treasury (worth approximately $114 million at the year-end market capitalization) and realized $1.7 million in interest income.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $118 million yesterday, with BlackRock's IBIT leading the way with a net inflow of $98.4218 million.

Huang Licheng's perpetual contract account has returned to the million-dollar mark, currently holding $15.3 million in ETH long positions.

According to Arkham's monitoring, Machi Big Brother's perpetual contract account has returned to the million-dollar mark. He lost over $75 million in six months of highly leveraged trading—his peak profit was nearly $45 million. He currently holds a $15.3 million long position in ETH.

Alameda Research unstaking $3.56 million in ETH, still holding $300 million in SOL.

According to Arkham's monitoring, Alameda Research unstaking $3.56 million worth of Ethereum today. Three weeks ago, the firm allocated $17 million worth of SOL tokens. Alameda currently holds $300 million in SOL, $35 million in Bitcoin, and $20 million in USDT.

Data: Strategy Preferred Stock (STRC) raised enough funds yesterday to purchase 2,724 BTC.

According to data from BitcoinTreasuries.NET, the funds raised yesterday by Strategy's preferred stock STRC could purchase 2,724 bitcoins.

A long position in BrentOIL worth $21.36 million at a certain address has been completely liquidated, resulting in a loss of $996,000.

A major whale opened long positions in ETH and BTC with 20x leverage, with a total position size exceeding $80 million.

Ruya Islamic Bank in the UAE Becomes First Islamic Bank to Support Bitcoin Purchases

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