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Bitcoin has surged above 75,000 dollars, reaching its highest level in over two months and its strongest point since early February. The move marks a continuation of a broader rally, with Bitcoin rising around 5.5% in the past day and more than 10% over the past week, while Ethereum and several other major cryptocurrencies have posted even larger gains.
The sharp upward movement has triggered extensive short liquidations across the market, totalling over 600 million dollars in 24 hours, with the vast majority coming from traders betting on price declines. Ethereum has climbed nearly 8% in a day, while other assets such as HYPE and Zcash have posted weekly gains of 22% and nearly 38% respectively, as improving risk sentiment, easing geopolitical tensions and strong institutional buying activity, including major crypto treasury purchases and ETF inflows, fuel the broader market rally. Source
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has issued new guidance clarifying that certain crypto trading interfaces may not require broker-dealer registration, provided they act purely as passive user interfaces. These interfaces must not hold user funds, execute or route orders, offer advice, or take control of transactions, and must instead simply allow users to interact directly with decentralised systems using self-custodial wallets.
The guidance has drawn attention within the XRP community, as the XRP Ledger’s built-in decentralised exchange already operates with protocol-level order books, automated market making, and cross-currency functionality that runs directly on-chain. Supporters argue that XRPL-based interfaces may already align closely with the SEC’s definition of a compliant interface, potentially reducing regulatory burdens for US developers building on the network, while also highlighting XRPL’s technical performance and growing adoption as supporting factors in its competitiveness compared with smart contract-based DeFi platforms. Source
Senators in the US are moving towards a potential draft agreement on how to regulate stablecoin yield, even as banking groups and crypto industry participants remain divided over the issue. The debate has centred on whether crypto exchanges should be allowed to offer rewards or yield on stablecoin holdings, a key sticking point that has delayed progress on broader crypto market structure legislation.
Lawmakers, including Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Angela Alsobrooks, are working on compromise language that could be released soon, although enforcement and anti-evasion measures are still being finalised. A White House economic analysis suggesting that banning stablecoin yield would have minimal impact on bank lending has intensified disagreement, with banking groups disputing the findings while critics argue the real risk lies in how such products might scale in the future. Some observers warn that if US rules are too restrictive, yield-generating activity could move offshore, while others believe a compromise may still be reached before the legislative window closes. Source
Crypto wallet platform Zerion has reported that North Korean-affiliated hackers used AI-assisted social engineering techniques to steal around 100,000 dollars from its hot wallets in a targeted attack. The company confirmed that no user funds or core infrastructure were affected, and it temporarily disabled its web application as a precaution while investigating the breach.
The incident forms part of a broader pattern of increasingly sophisticated social engineering campaigns linked to DPRK threat actors, where attackers exploit human trust rather than technical vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Security researchers and firms have warned that these groups are using AI tools to enhance phishing, impersonation and manipulation tactics across platforms such as messaging apps and video conferencing tools. A separate major exploit involving Drift Protocol was also attributed to similar long-term social engineering methods, highlighting a growing trend in which crypto workers and developers are becoming primary targets rather than on-chain systems themselves. Source
A fraudulent Ledger Live application listed on the Mac App Store has resulted in the theft of more than 9.5 million dollars in cryptocurrency from over 50 users, according to blockchain investigator ZachXBT. The fake app impersonated Ledger’s official self-custody software and remained available for several days, allowing attackers to drain assets including Bitcoin, Solana, XRP and stablecoins.
The scam reportedly affected multiple high-value wallets, with individual losses exceeding 1.9 million dollars in some cases, and one victim losing over 3 million dollars in USDT. Among those impacted was musician G. Love, who lost nearly 6 BTC worth around 447,000 dollars. The app was eventually removed from the App Store after being active between 7 and 13 April, highlighting ongoing risks from fake crypto software and phishing campaigns targeting users of hardware wallet services. Source
Web3 projects lost $482 million to hacks and scams in the first quarter of 2026 across 44 incidents, according to security firm Hacken. Losses were dominated by phishing and social engineering, which alone accounted for $306 million, while a single $282 million hardware wallet scam made up more than half of the quarter’s total damage. Smart contract exploits contributed $86.2 million, and access control failures, including compromised keys and cloud services, added a further $71.9 million. Overall, the quarter saw fewer extreme “mega hacks” and more mid-sized incidents, making it the second-lowest first quarter for losses since 2023.
The report highlights that many of the most costly failures are now occurring outside on-chain code, in operational and infrastructure layers, while audited projects were still significantly affected. Incidents included a $40 million fake venture capitalist call targeting Step Finance and a $25 million AWS key management compromise at Resolv Labs, alongside long-standing vulnerabilities exploited in protocols such as Truebit and Venus Protocol. The findings also note increasing regulatory pressure from frameworks including MiCA and DORA in the European Union, as well as stricter oversight in jurisdictions such as Dubai, Singapore and the UAE, alongside growing concerns over North Korean-linked social engineering campaigns targeting the sector. Source
Goldman Sachs has filed an application for a Bitcoin-focused exchange-traded fund designed to generate income by selling options linked to Bitcoin’s price. The proposed fund would allocate at least 80% of its assets to investments providing exposure to Bitcoin, including spot Bitcoin ETFs and derivatives tied to them. Rather than simply tracking price movements, the strategy aims to produce returns through the premiums collected from selling call options on Bitcoin-linked products.
The filing places Goldman Sachs alongside other major financial institutions expanding into similar strategies, including a comparable product previously submitted by BlackRock. The fund is expected to operate through a Cayman Islands subsidiary to navigate regulatory constraints around commodities exposure. Analysts noted that this type of “covered call” structure typically results in higher fees than traditional spot Bitcoin ETFs, reflecting its active income-generating approach rather than passive price tracking. Source
Crypto.com has entered the prediction markets space through a partnership with online casino operator High Roller Technologies, enabling it to offer event-based contracts to US users. The agreement will allow Crypto.com to launch prediction market products via CDNA, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered exchange, positioning the firm in a growing sector that could reach a $1 trillion valuation by 2030. The move comes as other platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, face increasing competition and regulatory scrutiny in the US.
The partnership reflects a broader trend of crypto exchanges expanding into prediction markets as a new revenue stream, with similar initiatives emerging across the industry. Analysts expect the market to evolve beyond sports betting-style contracts, shifting toward economic, political and corporate event trading as institutional demand grows. Bernstein analysts predict that sports-related contracts will decline in dominance by 2030 as broader financial hedging and event-driven products take over. Source
Backlinks are presented as a core driver of search engine optimisation (SEO), acting as signals of trust and authority that influence rankings, organic visibility and traffic. The article explains that while gaining backlinks is important, ongoing management and tracking are essential to ensure long-term success, maintain a clean link profile and avoid search engine penalties from low-quality or unnatural links. It highlights how links function as “votes of confidence” from other websites, with both quality and relevance playing a crucial role in building domain authority and improving indexing and referral traffic. Markethive is positioned as a platform focused on helping users manage this process effectively through its backlink management tools.
The article goes on to describe Markethive’s Link Hub as a central system for organising, monitoring and optimising backlinks across multiple digital assets. It outlines features such as automated daily link verification, instant alerts for broken or inactive links, and structured categorisation by campaign, geography, platform type and target site. The system also provides traffic analytics, including visitor sources, device usage and engagement metrics, alongside an asset mapping tool to visualise backlink strategy. Overall, it argues that effective backlink tracking transforms SEO from a reactive task into a proactive, ongoing strategy that helps preserve and strengthen long-term search performance. Source
Tether has launched a new self-custodial digital wallet called Tether.Wallet, designed to simplify crypto transactions for its large user base. The wallet supports multiple assets, including USDT, Bitcoin, and the gold-backed token XAUT, as well as USAT for the US market. It allows users to send and receive funds using simple email-like identifiers instead of traditional complex wallet addresses, aiming to make crypto transfers more accessible.
The wallet is compatible across several blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and Plasma for stablecoins, while Bitcoin transactions are supported both on mainnet and via the Lightning Network. Tether already operates USDT, the most widely used stablecoin with a market value of around $185 billion, and also issues Tether Gold, which represents ownership of physical gold stored in vaults. The launch builds on its broader ecosystem expansion, including its collaboration with Anchorage Digital to develop USAT for the US market. Source
Deutsche Börse has acquired a $200 million stake in Payward Inc, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, in a deal that values the firm at around $13.3 billion and is expected to complete pending regulatory approval. The investment represents roughly a 1.5% fully diluted stake and strengthens an existing partnership between the two companies covering areas such as foreign exchange liquidity, custody, settlement, collateral management and tokenised assets, with Kraken already integrated into Deutsche Börse’s 360T platform to access institutional FX liquidity.
The move reflects a broader trend of traditional financial institutions increasing their exposure to crypto companies through strategic investments rather than building services from scratch, following similar activity by other major exchanges investing in digital asset firms. The partnership has already supported initiatives such as blockchain-based tokenised equities and ETFs trading via Deutsche Börse’s 360X venue. Meanwhile, Kraken has been exploring public market options including a paused IPO and a SPAC backed by affiliates seeking acquisition targets, while also dealing with a recent extortion attempt involving alleged access to limited customer data affecting around 2,000 individuals. Source
CoW Swap’s DAO has warned users not to access its website after the decentralised exchange aggregator suffered a DNS hijacking attack that compromised its frontend via its swap.cow.fi domain. The incident forced the team to pause backend services and APIs while it worked to resolve the issue, with users urged to avoid the platform entirely until it is confirmed safe.
The exploit reflects a broader pattern of DNS-related attacks targeting crypto and decentralised finance platforms, where phishing risks can directly endanger user funds, with similar incidents previously affecting projects such as Balancer and Curve Finance. Following the announcement, the CoW Protocol’s COW token fell by more than 3%, while wider industry data highlighted ongoing vulnerability in Web3, with hundreds of millions of dollars lost to hacks and scams in early 2026, largely driven by phishing and social engineering attacks. Source
CoW Swap, a decentralised exchange aggregator on Ethereum, has temporarily paused its protocol after suffering a front-end compromise that affected its website rather than its underlying smart contracts. The team warned users to avoid interacting with the platform while it investigates the incident, noting that backend systems and APIs were not impacted, although they were also paused as a precautionary measure.
The attack appears to be limited in scope, with early reports suggesting only users who interacted with the platform during a short window may have been affected, and estimates placing potential losses at around $500,000. Users reported losses through the compromised interface, though the full extent remains unclear, while security researchers indicated that approvals made shortly before the incident may have exposed funds. The event highlights ongoing risks in decentralised finance, particularly front-end and DNS-based attacks, which have repeatedly targeted similar protocols in the industry. Source
Circle is exploring the possibility of launching a native token for its Arc Network, a stablecoin-focused layer-1 blockchain, according to CEO Jeremy Allaire, who said the token could eventually support governance, incentives and a transition towards a proof-of-stake model. He added that the project is aimed at becoming a more distributed, community-driven system, with expanded validator participation and governance frameworks forming part of its long-term roadmap.
Allaire reiterated that Circle hopes to move Arc to mainnet “soon”, with a beta launch planned for 2026, and highlighted collaboration with major financial and technology firms including BlackRock, Visa, Goldman Sachs and Amazon Web Services. Arc is designed as a stablecoin-native “economic operating system” offering predictable fees, deterministic finality and compliance-oriented features, while also preparing for future technological risks such as quantum computing through post-quantum cryptography plans. Source
Switzerland’s Crypto Valley attracted $728 million in blockchain venture funding across 31 deals in 2025, marking a 37% increase from the previous year and accounting for nearly half of all European blockchain investment, according to a CV VC report. The growth significantly outpaced the global blockchain funding increase of 30%, positioning Crypto Valley as Europe’s leading hub for blockchain investment activity.
A large share of the funding was driven by a single major transaction involving The Open Network (TON), which accounted for $400 million of the total, alongside notable deals for firms such as Sygnum Bank, M0, Impossible Cloud Network and CratD2C. Despite the overall rise in capital, the report highlighted a shift towards fewer but larger deals, with global and regional funding becoming more concentrated, while Crypto Valley’s ecosystem expanded to 1,766 blockchain companies but saw its number of unicorns fall from 17 to 10 due to market pressures and acquisitions. Source
Visa has joined Stripe’s Tempo blockchain network as an “anchor validator”, alongside Stripe itself and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered, marking the first external validation role on the payments-focused layer-1 blockchain. The companies, which collectively process trillions of dollars annually, are now directly involved in validating transactions on a network designed for real-time payments and agentic commerce.
Visa said its validator node was built and managed internally after around six months of collaboration with Tempo’s engineering team, with all three firms already acting as design partners since the network’s inception. The move reflects growing integration between major traditional payment providers and blockchain infrastructure, with participants actively building payment flows directly on the protocol. Source
President Donald Trump is preparing to host another in-person event for holders of his TRUMP meme coin at Mar-a-Lago, but the cost to qualify for VIP access has fallen sharply compared with the previous year. VIP status for the latest event required roughly $300,000 worth of tokens on average, down from around $3 million to $4.8 million previously, reflecting a steep decline in the token’s value.
The TRUMP token is now down about 96% from its all-time high, which has significantly reduced the dollar value needed to rank among top holders. The event’s top tier attendees, selected based on time-weighted holdings, still gain exclusive access to additional “meet and learn” experiences with high-profile guests, though the overall thresholds are much lower than before. The organisers have also added perks such as points for purchases of Trump-branded merchandise, while the upcoming event includes background checks and the possibility of cancellation, with NFT compensation offered if it does not proceed. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only. They are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
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