Today's top news highlights:

1. Iranian Foreign Minister: Strait of Hormuz Open to Merchant Ships

2. Strategy proposes to adjust the STRC preferred stock dividend frequency to once every two weeks.

3. World upgraded its World ID system and expanded its integration with platforms such as Tinder and Zoom.

4. Rhea Finance released an investigation report on the attack, revealing that approximately $18.4 million was stolen, with some funds already recovered.

5. Ethereum's Q1 transaction volume surpassed 200 million, setting a new all-time high, but the price is still halfway down from its all-time high.

6. Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a net inflow of $664 million yesterday, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.

Regulation & Macro

Iranian Foreign Minister: Strait of Hormuz Open to Merchant Ships

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi: In accordance with the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, the Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization has announced that during the remainder of the ceasefire, all commercial vessels will have full access to the Strait of Hormuz, with passage routes exactly as previously announced.

Iranian media: Iran sets three conditions for passage through the Strait of Hormuz

Iran's Tasnim News Agency, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported that Iran has set three conditions for ship passage through the Strait of Hormuz: First, only merchant vessels can pass; military vessels are prohibited, and neither the vessels nor their cargo can be associated with hostile countries. Second, vessels must use waterways designated by Iran. Third, passage must be coordinated with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. The source also stated that if the United States continues its maritime blockade, Iran will consider it a violation of the ceasefire agreement and close the Strait of Hormuz.

US stocks closed higher: all three major indexes rose more than 1%, with cryptocurrency stocks leading the gains.

According to CLS News Agency, all three major U.S. stock indexes closed higher. The Nasdaq rose 1.52%, marking its 13th consecutive trading day of gains and setting a new record, the longest winning streak since 2013, with a cumulative increase of 6.84% this week. The S&P 500 rose 1.2%, also a record high, with a cumulative increase of 4.54% this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.79%, with a cumulative increase of 3.19% this week.

Popular tech stocks generally rose, with Tesla up over 3%, Apple and Broadcom up over 2%, and Nvidia, Google, and Meta up over 1%. Travel services and cryptocurrency stocks led the gains, with COIN (Coinbase) up 3.26% and MSTR (Strategy) up 11.80%.

Trump said he would launch an attack if Iran did not reach a ceasefire.

According to CLS News Agency, US President Trump, en route back to Washington aboard Air Force One, stated that he might terminate the ceasefire with Iran if a long-term agreement to end the war is not reached by April 22. "Maybe I won't extend the ceasefire, but the blockade (on Iranian ports) will continue," Trump said. "So, the blockade remains, and unfortunately, we have to start dropping bombs again." Trump also stated that day that "Iran will not possess nuclear weapons."

U.S. Senator Blumenthal urged the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department to intervene and thoroughly investigate the performance of Binance oversight officers.

According to Fortune, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal has pressured the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the Treasury Department to submit a detailed progress report on the work of Binance's compliance watchdog. Blumenthal pointed out that recent investigations have revealed Binance's potential involvement in the illegal transfer of approximately $1.7 billion to Iranian-related entities, and that the company allegedly dismissed internal compliance personnel who discovered these irregularities. This has raised serious doubts about the effectiveness of the external oversight mechanisms stipulated in the $4.3 billion settlement agreement reached in 2023.

In his letter to regulators, Blumenthal stressed that the DOJ should reconsider the settlement if Binance fails to comply with its terms or misleads the investigation. Although Binance has denied allegations of sanctions evasion and claimed a robust compliance system, the senator still demanded transparency from regulators regarding the oversight process to ensure the trading platform no longer becomes a safe haven for money laundering and sanctions evasion.

Project Updates

SpaceX moves up the vesting period for employee stock options to April, accelerating its IPO process.

According to Bloomberg, SpaceX has moved up the vesting period for employee stock options to April (originally scheduled for May) to alleviate employees' liquidity concerns ahead of the IPO. The company expects to file for public listing as early as May and plans to price its IPO in mid-June, targeting a valuation of over $2 trillion, potentially making it one of the largest IPOs in history. Strong demand could also drive its rapid inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index.

Payward plans to acquire Bitnomial for $550 million, gaining a full-license derivatives stack in the US.

Kraken's parent company, Payward, has agreed to acquire crypto derivatives platform Bitnomial for up to $550 million in cash and stock, valuing the company at approximately $20 billion. Bitnomial holds a full suite of licenses in the United States, including Designated Contract Market (DCM), Derivatives Clearing House (DCO), and Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), covering spot margin, perpetual contracts, and options. This transaction will integrate Bitnomial's compliant clearing and settlement infrastructure with Kraken, NinjaTrader, and Payward's B2B services, accelerating its expansion in the regulated U.S. crypto derivatives market. The transaction aims to acquire 100% of Bitnomial's equity and is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

Strategy proposed adjusting the STRC preferred stock dividend frequency to once every two weeks.

Strategy has proposed adjusting its STRC preferred stock dividend program, changing the dividend frequency from monthly to bi-weekly. The company stated that this move could "reduce reinvestment lag, improve liquidity, enhance market efficiency, and strengthen price stability." The proposal is scheduled to be formally filed and put to a vote on April 28, with voting concluding on June 8. If approved, the dividend program will take effect on June 30, with the first payment on July 15.

STRC is a perpetual preferred stock designed to trade at a par value close to $100 while paying a floating cash dividend, currently yielding an annualized dividend rate of 11.5%.

USDC launches the USDC Bridge cross-chain bridge, supporting native burn minting.

USDC has launched USDC Bridge, a direct cross-chain transfer method for USDC. Built and operated by Circle, USDC Bridge provides a predictable and transparent way to transfer USDC across chains, supporting native burn and minting mechanisms; transparent fees, real-time status and progress display; no need to manually select a path; and automatic handling of target chain gas.

World has upgraded its World ID system and expanded its integration with platforms such as Tinder and Zoom.

World, an iris scanning encryption project, has made a major upgrade to its World ID system. At the heart of this update is a redesigned architecture aimed at improving privacy, security, and ease of use. New features include account-based identity verification, multi-key support, and a recovery mechanism.

In addition to protocol updates, World also introduced a series of integrations designed to embed its identity layer into consumer platforms. On the consumer side, the company is expanding its partnerships with platforms like Tinder, allowing users to display a "verified user" badge, and launching a "concert toolkit" designed to help artists reserve tickets for verified users to combat scalping bots. In enterprise applications, World is collaborating with Zoom on a feature called "Deep Face," which verifies that meeting participants are real people and not deepfake images; simultaneously, the company is working with DocuSign to integrate real-person verification mechanisms into digital protocols.

Rhea Finance has released an investigation report into the attack, revealing that approximately $18.4 million was stolen, with some funds already recovered.

Rhea Finance issued an update regarding the security incident, stating that its lending market suffered an unauthorized attack on April 16, compromising its leveraged trading functionality. Attackers exploited a potential vulnerability in the slippage protection mechanism to steal approximately $18.4 million in assets from the protocol's reserve pool, resulting in actual losses within the protocol, affecting reserve balances and participating users.

The attackers have deposited approximately 3.359 million USDC and 1.564 million NEAR back into the RHEA lending contract, while freezing 4.34 million USDT (of which 3.291 million USDT is frozen by Tether in the attacker's wallet and 1.053 million USDT is frozen in the NEAR Intent). Meanwhile, to ensure the safety of the funds, the lending contract has been frozen, and recovery efforts are ongoing. The team is actively attempting to contact the attackers to recover the remaining affected assets. Furthermore, the team has formally initiated a tracing process with centralized exchanges to identify the account holders.

Previously, it was reported that RheaFinance was attacked by fake token contracts, and approximately $7.6 million was stolen .

Vitalik: eth.limo's DNS registrar has been attacked; access is advised to be suspended.

Vitalik Buterin tweeted that the DNS registrar of eth.limo was attacked, and advised users not to visit vitalik.eth.limo or other eth.limo-related pages until he confirmed that everything was back to normal.

Opinions & Analysis

CryptoQuant analyst: This round of Bitcoin price increases is driven by short squeezes, rather than sustainable growth in spot demand.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. wrote that during the surge in Bitcoin from $74,000 to $78,000 last night, driven by news from the US and Iran, short positions were liquidated totaling approximately $526 million within 24 hours, exhibiting typical characteristics of a short squeeze. A peak of approximately $357 million in short liquidations occurred at 21:00 (UTC+8).

Axel Adler Jr. argues that this surge was not driven by new demand, but rather by the forced liquidation of short positions. This is crucial because a short squeeze can quickly push prices up, but it does not in itself confirm the sustainability of spot demand.

Investment and Financing

DeepSeek is raising its first external funding round since its inception, targeting a valuation of over $10 billion.

According to The Information, artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek is raising its first external funding round since its inception, aiming to raise $300 million and reach a valuation of over $10 billion.

Important data

Ethereum spot ETFs saw net inflows of $127 million yesterday, marking the seventh consecutive day of net inflows.

Bitcoin spot ETFs saw net inflows of $664 million yesterday, marking the fourth consecutive day of net inflows.

Ethereum's Q1 transaction volume surpassed 200 million, setting a new all-time high, but the price is still halfway down from its all-time high.

According to data from Artemis cited by CoinDesk, the Ethereum network (base-layer) processed 200.4 million transactions in the first quarter of 2026, marking the first time this metric has surpassed the 200 million mark, representing a 43% increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2025.

A major investor on Hyperliquid has made a floating profit of over $2.59 million on a large long position.

According to Ai Yi, "Brother Maji" holds long positions in BTC, ETH, and HYPE on Hyperliquid with a total value of approximately $58.78 million. Currently, the overall unrealized profit is approximately $2.597 million, with the ETH long positions alone showing an unrealized profit of approximately $1.947 million. The address has set profit-taking ranges for some positions: a target price of $77,000 for BTC, $2,420-$2,450 for ETH, and $44.888-$45.5 for HYPE.

Morgan Stanley increased its holdings by 177.76 Bitcoins, bringing its total holdings to over $100 million.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, Morgan Stanley purchased 177.76 bitcoins three hours ago, worth $13.75 million. It currently holds 1347.54 bitcoins, worth $103.94 million.

A major whale/institution bought over 32,000 ETH, worth approximately $77.49 million.

According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a whale/institution purchased 32,007 ETH (worth $77.49 million) from Binance and is likely to continue buying. In the past 24 hours, it has transferred $225.12 million worth of USDC to Deribit, Bybit, and Binance, which it received from BitGO.

ARK Invest reduced its holdings in Circle and Bullish, with a total value exceeding $2.5 million.

According to data from Ark Invest Tracker, Cathie Wood's ARK Invest sold 11,465 shares of Circle stock (approximately $1.215 million) and 31,417 shares of Bullish stock (approximately $1.367 million) on April 17.

The Aztec team, an Ethereum privacy L2 project, has cashed out all the ETH raised through its public sale.

According to on-chain analyst Ember, with the transfer of the last 5,020 ETH ($12.33 million USD) to Coinbase 9 hours ago, the Ethereum privacy L2 Aztec project has cashed out all the ETH obtained from the public sale of $AZTEC last year.

Last December, the project team auctioned off 15% of $AZTEC (1.5 billion tokens) in a public sale, raising 19,388.4 ETH ($59.13 million). The $AZTEC offering price was $0.0473 (now down 50%). During the TGE in February, 4,234.6 ETH ($12.91 million) were used to create liquidity from the auction proceeds. The remaining 15,154 ETH ($37 million) were gradually transferred to Coinbase over the past three months, with the final transfer of 5,020 ETH to Coinbase occurring early this morning.

RAVE broke through $28 and hit a new high, with approximately $20.54 million in RAVE futures contracts liquidated across the entire network.

Market data shows that the price of RAVE rose from around $16.50 last night to over $28, reaching a new all-time high, and is currently trading at $26.30, representing a 51.7% increase in 24 hours and a 1314.1% increase in the past 7 days. A total of $20.54 million in RAVE contract trading was liquidated in the past 24 hours, including approximately $2.35 million in long positions and approximately $18.18 million in short positions.

Genius Group's Bitcoin holdings have increased to 200

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