Cointelegraph

Bitcoin (BTC) treaded water at Thursday’s Wall Street open as the S&P 500 reached new all-time highs.

Key points:

Bitcoin stays locked on $74,000 after its local highs preceded a new record for the S&P 500.

Analysis warns that the US midterm elections may impact the stock rally.

Bitcoin could follow the Nasdaq 100 higher, a trader suggests.

BTC price tripped after fresh highs from the S&P 500

Data from TradingView showed $74,000 continuing to form an intraday BTC price focus.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

US jobless claims came in marginally below expectations at 207,000 versus 213,000, pointing to the labor market withstanding current geopolitical and inflation pressures.

These followed a new record for the S&P 500, which crossed 7,000 points for the first time in history after Bitcoin hit two-month highs.

Commenting, trading resource Mosaic Asset Company noted that the S&P had advanced by nearly 11% in the past 11 trading sessions.

“It ranks as the fifth quickest recovery to record highs following a deep pullback,” it wrote in its latest “Mosaic Chart Alerts” update. 

“The S&P closed firmly above the 7,000 level for the first time in history despite the ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East that sparked a 9% drawdown in the index into late March.”

S&P 500 one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Gold dipped to intraday lows and WTI crude oil eyed $94 per barrel as markets awaited further cues over the US-Iran war.

QCP, meanwhile, warned that seasonal trends could still end the stock rally as the US entered midterm elections. The S&P 500, it noted, “tends to find its peak about now ahead of mid-term elections, and then recovering during the final quarter of the year.”

“I would not base any investment decision or outlook based on seasonals alone, which is why I’m also watching confirmation from breadth,” it cautioned.

S&P 500 seasonality data. Source: Mosaic Asset Company

Trader sees “opportunity” in Bitcoin versus Nasdaq

With BTC price action finding resistance near its range highs, market participants eyed exchange order-book liquidity for clues as to where the next showdown could come.

“The price bucket at $72.2K - 72.4K has a large amount of open interest that has slowly accumulated,” Shubh Varma, CEO of crypto data platform Hyblock, told Cointelegraph on the day.

“We've seen this level where traders are often active, entering and exiting. Most recently, about $100 million longs and shorts opened here, bringing the total close to $400 million at that price bucket, over the last seven days (on Binance stablecoin perps).”

Varma added that this could form “an area to watch as potential support if price revisits it, as many of these longs and shorts may exit at breakeven ‘psychological’ level."

BTC/USDT perpetual contract open interest data. Source: Hyblock

Continuing the stocks theme, crypto trader Michaël van de Poppe flagged Bitcoin’s relationship with the Nasdaq-100 index as a cause for optimism going forward.

“Bitcoin is about to follow Nasdaq,” he told X followers. 

“The reason for this is quite simple: the correlation has been significantly strong most of the time. This period? The weakest correlation in the past 10 years.”

BTC/USD vs. Nasdaq 100 futures one-week chart. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X

Van de Poppe eyed a “tremendous opportunity” for Bitcoin buyers, having recently seen a similar bullish setup in Bitcoin versus gold.

Crypto exchange Zonda said a cold wallet holding around 4,500 Bitcoin is currently inaccessible as the platform faces concerns over delayed withdrawals.

Zonda CEO Przemysław Kral posted a video statement on Thursday disclosing the exchange’s wallet address, saying the private keys to the wallet were never handed over.

In the statement, Kral denied accusations of misappropriating funds, saying the private keys were intended to be handed over by Zonda founder and former CEO Sylwester Suszek, who has been missing since 2022.

“So for all those who claim that I had anything to do with Sylwester's disappearance, this is the prime argument that I care the most about Sylwester being found,” Kral said.

The disclosure follows weeks of controversy around the exchange after local reports suggested a probe into Zonda by Polish authorities, followed by an analysis by blockchain platform Recoveris, which alleged Zonda could have been insolvent based on a sharp drop in the exchange's hot wallet balances.

Last recorded transaction dates to November 2025

Kral’s public disclosure of the wallet marks the first time that Zonda has disclosed the address amid the controversy.

The address cited by the CEO holds 4,503 Bitcoin (BTC) currently worth about $334 million, with the last transaction recorded in November 2025 as of the time of publication.

Source: Blockchain.com

The CEO previously denied insolvency claims following the hot wallet investigation by Recoveris on April 6, insisting that Zonda remained fully solvent with more than 4,500 BTC in holdings.

CEO plans legal action, says Zonda will meet customer obligations

In the video, Kral said that much of Zonda’s recent withdrawal pressure was driven by an abnormal spike in withdrawal requests, which he linked to negative media coverage.

He said Zonda normally processed around 100,000 withdrawal requests per year but saw more than 25,000 requests within hours and days around April 6.

Kral said the company plans to take legal action over what he described as false claims surrounding the exchange and promised to fulfill obligations to customers amid withdrawal concerns.

Source: Przemysław Kral

Polish lawmaker Tomasz Mentzen said on X that Zonda may have lost access to its cold wallet following the disappearance of former CEO Suszek. Kral did not explicitly say the funds were lost, but said the private keys to the wallet were never transferred during the company handover.

Suszek has reportedly been missing since March 2022, with reporting referencing alleged criminal ties among certain shareholders of Zonda, formerly BitBay.

The exchange was founded in Poland in 2014 and rebranded as Zonda in 2021. Kral told Cointelegraph in February that the company registered in Estonia amid regulatory uncertainty in Poland, citing delays in implementing the European Union-wide Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

The issue has drawn the exchange into a broader political debate, adding pressure on regulators and increasing scrutiny of Poland’s crypto sector.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Stablecoin issuer Tether, the company behind USDt (USDT), said Thursday it will back a $150 million recovery program for the Drift Protocol decentralized exchange (DEX) following an exploit of the platform in April.

The recovery plan for the $280 million Drift Protocol exploit includes $127.5 million from Tether, with the rest coming from undisclosed partners, according to Tether’s announcement. Tether said:

“Rather than relying on upfront capital alone, the structure links funding and recovery to ongoing trading activity on the Drift platform, allowing user balances to be restored as the exchange returns to normal operations.”

The Drift Protocol platform will “contribute directly” to the ongoing recovery of user funds as the platform resumes normal trading activity. 

The top 10 crypto assets stolen from the Drift Protocol in the exploit. Source: Quill Audits

Drift will also transition its settlement asset from Circle's USDC (USDC) dollar-pegged stablecoin to Tether’s USDt as part of the platform’s relaunch. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Tether but did not receive a response by the time of publication. 

The recovery program highlights a growing trend of crypto industry companies collaborating to restore user funds and help platforms resume normal operations after major hacks or cybersecurity attacks that cause hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Circle comes under fire for not freezing funds after Drift Protocol attack

Crypto industry executives, cybersecurity researchers and blockchain security firms criticized Circle for not freezing the USDC wallets linked to the Drift Protocol exploiter, despite having a window of several hours to intervene.

The exploiter used Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), a native bridge that allows tokens to be transferred to other blockchain networks, to transfer over $232 million USDC from the Solana network to the Ethereum network, according to onchain sleuth ZachXBT.

Source: ZachXBT

The funds were transferred in more than 100 transactions, he said, adding, “Despite the attacker laundering funds over six consecutive hours across Circle's own native bridge, no USDC was frozen. The attacker has been linked to North Korea by Elliptic.” 

Circle’s stock sank by about 10% on April 9, following criticism over the company’s failure to freeze the funds from the hack and downgraded forecasts from market analysts. The NYSE-traded shares have since clawed back that decline, increasing about 20% as of yesterday’s close, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Magazine: Are DeFi devs liable for the illegal activity of others on their platforms?

United Arab Emirates investors are leaning into the artificial intelligence sell-off rather than running from it, despite the regional conflict testing the Gulf’s ambitions to become a global hub for AI and digital assets. 

New eToro data shared with Cointelegraph on Wednesday show users in the UAE boosted holdings of software and AI infrastructure names whose share prices fell sharply in the first quarter, suggesting they used the downturn to “buy the dip” rather than broadly de-risk.

The pattern suggests UAE investors are staying exposed to long-term AI and digital-infrastructure themes even as the conflict raises fresh risks for data centers, logistics and cross-border technology build-outs in the Gulf. An April 13 report from Deutsche Bank said the shock is more likely to sharpen rather than derail demand for AI, cybersecurity and sovereign digital infrastructure in the region.

Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro, told Cointelegraph that UAE investors became more selective over where they took risk in Q1, and investor behavior was driven by long-term themes rather than a risk-off mindset. 

He said the clearest signal was across AI infrastructure and software names, pointing to ServiceNow (+125%), Super Micro Computer (+65%), Adobe (+54%) and Oracle (+38%), which all saw significant increases despite market pressure.

What UAE investors bought in Q1, 2026. Source: eToro

On the crypto side, he said that Strategy Inc. remained the eighth-most-held stock, indicating continued exposure to crypto-linked equities.

War puts Gulf AI ambitions under pressure

The resilience comes as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran has exposed new risks for Gulf tech infrastructure. Deutsche Bank cited reported strikes on Amazon Web Services data centers in the UAE and Bahrain and threats against the planned 1GW Stargate campus in Abu Dhabi. 

Gilbert said the conflict was driving volatility, with sharp oil price swings that can ultimately affect tech valuations. Maintaining core exposure to diversified mega-cap tech while rotating within the sector suggests a more nuanced, risk-aware approach, he said.

Why is the Gulf so well-suited for AI? Source: Deutsche Bank

Deutsche also highlighted that the Gulf, and the UAE in particular, is unlikely to abandon the AI race. The region benefits from cheap energy, an unusually dense pipeline of data center projects, and sovereign wealth funds that control about $5 trillion worldwide in 2025, with Abu Dhabi vehicles among the most aggressive backers of global AI deals, the report said.

Crypto companies stay open as conflict remains

On the ground in Dubai, crypto players say the conflict has slowed but not derailed the city’s hub ambitions. HashKey MENA’s managing director, Ben El-Baz, told Cointelegraph that operations remained “broadly functional,” helped by cloud-based trading and custody systems less dependent on a physical location, even though remote work and travel disruptions were unavoidable.

Other companies, including Binance, also continued normal operations, despite reports to the contrary. A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph employees were given the option of temporary relocation as a precautionary measure, but the “vast majority” chose to remain, while major conferences such as Token2049 were postponed.

Dubai-based investment firm, Ento Capital, says the conflict is “refining” rather than derailing the GCC story. Senior executive officer Hayssam El Masri told Cointelegraph that investors have shifted from “confidence-driven to risk aware,” but are generally not exiting the region. War-tested resilience and ongoing investment in AI, cloud and crypto infrastructure may ultimately strengthen the GCC’s long-term positioning, he said.

Regulators bet clear rules will anchor capital

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has continued to roll out its activity-based framework throughout the turmoil, including detailed guidance on token issuance and formal rules for crypto derivatives.

Sean McHugh, VARA’s head of market assurance, told Cointelegraph that in periods of stress, serious market participants do not seek “the lightest-touch jurisdiction, they look for the clearest one,” adding that Dubai’s combination of transparent licensing, visible supervision and active enforcement is meant to persuade institutions to treat the emirate as a strategic base rather than an opportunistic punt.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

In the United States, victims of the $4 billion crypto Ponzi scam OneCoin are finally receiving compensation. 

On April 13, the US Department of Justice said that $40 million in assets are available to anyone who purchased OneCoin between 2014 and 2019 and experienced a net loss.

This program marks a milestone for OneCoin victims, most of whom had no recourse to get back what they lost, until now. Victims in the UK attempted a class action suit in 2024, but it fell apart when litigation funding was terminated.

Few crypto schemes were as prominent as OneCoin, in terms of scale and the international intrigue that followed. Founders and associates have been imprisoned or killed, while the ringleader is still on the lam.

The Wild West of early crypto was often defined by schemes and eccentric characters, the effects of which, in the case of OneCoin, are still felt today. 

OneCoin’s founding and legal troubles

In 2014, cryptocurrency was still a niche internet phenomenon. The Bitcoin white paper was only six years old, and general knowledge of cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech was limited. Still, interest in the new asset class was rising among retail investors.

From August to December 2014, Ruja Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood founded OneCoin. Initial promotions began in Europe, and soon entities popped up in Bulgaria, Dubai and Belize. 

OneCoin’s structure was convoluted. Investors needed to buy packages of tokens that would allow them to “mine” OneCoin. There were several different price entry points for packages, with almost no upper limit. The most expensive, according to CoinMarketCap, was 225,000 euros.

“Trader packages” for OneCoin. Source: CoinMarketCap

Promoters, meanwhile, could earn commissions by bringing new investors into the program. This allowed the project to expand rapidly.

While marketed as a cryptocurrency, it was not decentralized. The coin itself was hosted on the centralized servers of OneCoin Ltd. The coins were not available for public trading and owners could only trade nominal amounts in a closed system. 

The project seemed fairly suspect from the outset, but fear of missing out, as well as the massive audiences drawn by Ignatova at seemingly above-board conferences, were enough to convince many.

Throughout 2015, the project grew across the globe in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. Repeating the familiar MLM playbook, promoters emphasized urgency, and the immediacy of an impending explosion in value and crypto adoption. 

Regulators began to catch on by late 2015. Bulgaria's Financial Supervision Commission issued a warning about OneCoin, after which the company ceased all operations in the country. 

By 2016, several other national financial regulators also had OneCoin on their lists. By year’s end, Norway, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden and Latvia were all investigating the project. The Hungarian central bank called it a pyramid scheme.

In December, Italian authorities defined OneCoin as an illegal pyramid scheme and demanded it cease activities in the country. China began investigating the project and even arrested some investors. 

Regulation efforts ramped up again in 2017. Germany, Thailand, Belize and Vietnam all issued cease-and-desist orders or declared OneCoin illegal. In India, undercover police arrested 18 organizers of a OneCoin event that attempted to bring in new investors. Indian authorities went so far as to charge Ignatova herself in July.

By the year’s end, things had reached a breaking point. Investors were concerned about delays in a supposed exchange that would allow them to cash out their coins. This was supposedly going to be addressed at an October meeting of OneCoin organizers in Lisbon, Portugal. 

But Ignatova didn’t show. According to a BBC investigation, she boarded a Ryanair flight from Sofia to Athens, Greece on Oct. 25, 2017. No one has seen her since. 

Arrests, murders and Crypto Queen on the run

In early 2018, investigators moved in on the project. At the request of prosecutors in Germany, Bulgarian police raided the OneCoin offices in Sofia. The raid, which according to the Sofia Globe also included German police and Europol, seized servers and material evidence. 

In July, co-founder Greenwood was arrested on charges of money laundering and fraud in Thailand, where he would await extradition back to the United States.

Ignatova’s own lawyer, Mark S. Scott, was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud due to his connections and activities at OneCoin. He would be disbarred a few years later. 

OneCoin stayed in the headlines for the next couple of years as developments continued to unfold. In July 2020, two project promoters, Oscar Brito Ibarra and Ignacio Ibarra, were kidnapped and murdered in Mexico. Local media reported that local cartels, which were increasingly becoming interested in cryptocurrencies, could have been involved. 

In 2020, entertainment media in Hollywood reported that Kate Winslet would star in a movie about OneCoin. To date, it hasn’t started production. 

While Greenwood’s case proceeded in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation put Ignatova on its Ten Most Wanted fugitives list in June 2023. 

Source: FBI

In September, Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $300 million in damages. He pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and money laundering. His sentence was a marked reduction from the initial 60 years sought by the prosecution. 

In 2024, the DoJ arrested and charged William Morro for bank fraud in connection with OneCoin. Morro moved some $35 million in OneCoin funds between banks in China and Hong Kong, and $6 million between Hong Kong and the US. Morro surrendered himself to authorities and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

In the latest news, the DoJ announced on Monday that $40 million in assets are available to compensate investors who bought OneCoin between 2014 and 2019 and recorded a net loss. 

By the time everything was said and done, some 3.5 million people had lost money to the crypto scheme. Authorities estimate that organizers ultimately made away with $4 billion in user funds. 

Ignatova remains at large and on the Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI is offering a $5 million reward for info leading to her arrest and/or conviction. 

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Key takeaways

Australia could generate A$24 billion, or about $17 billion, annually from digital assets and tokenized finance. But that opportunity depends on whether policymakers establish clear and supportive regulatory frameworks.

Tokenization could transform financial markets by improving liquidity, automating settlement processes and expanding investor access to assets such as foreign exchange, equities, government debt and investment funds.

Tokenized money, including CBDCs and stablecoins, could significantly reduce the cost and time of cross-border payments by minimizing reliance on traditional banking networks.

Regulatory uncertainty remains the biggest barrier to growth, as financial institutions hesitate to commit capital without clear rules on licensing, custody standards and compliance for digital asset businesses.

Australia is widely regarded as one of the most technologically advanced financial markets in the Asia-Pacific region. However, in the area of digital assets and tokenized finance, the country faces a critical choice.

The Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) and the Digital Economy Council of Australia published a report titled “Unlocking Australia’s $24b Digital Finance Opportunity.” It warns that the country will capture only a small portion of these gains unless its regulatory framework is updated swiftly.

The report emphasizes that tokenized markets and digital finance could deliver around A$24 billion (approximately US$17 billion) in annual economic benefits for Australia, provided lawmakers move forward with regulation.

The scale of Australia’s digital finance opportunity

The DFCRC analysis indicates that tokenization and digital asset infrastructure could significantly improve several parts of Australia’s financial system. These improvements are expected to create economic value by making markets more efficient, increasing liquidity and allowing more investors to participate.

The report highlights three main sources of value that together represent an estimated A$24 billion opportunity.

Improved financial markets

Tokenized financial markets are likely to deliver significant economic benefits. By recording traditional securities such as shares or bonds on blockchain-based systems, markets can automate settlement processes, lower operational costs and open participation to a wider range of investors.

Tokenized infrastructure can also bring greater transparency and efficiency to assets including:

foreign exchange

investment funds

public equities

government debt

Improved liquidity and easier access for investors can lead to higher trading volumes and less friction throughout the financial system.

Improved payments

Tokenized forms of money such as stablecoins, bank deposit tokens and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could make both domestic and international payments faster and cheaper.

At present, many cross-border payments depend on correspondent banking networks, which are often slow and costly. Tokenized payment systems could enable near-instant transfers between institutions, shortening settlement times and reducing fees.

Better use of digital assets

Tokenization allows financial assets to become more programmable and easier to use in digital financial services. Smart contracts can automatically manage tasks such as margin calls, collateral handling and settlement, which are currently manual and time-intensive processes.

According to the DFCRC report, almost half of the gains related to assets could come from enabling new activities on tokenized infrastructure, including collateralized lending, repo markets and invoice financing.

Did you know? Australia was among the earliest countries to explore blockchain for financial market infrastructure. In 2017, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) began a project to replace its decades-old clearing system with blockchain technology before later reconsidering the plan.

Why regulation is the primary obstacle

While digital asset markets show great promise, the DFCRC report identifies regulatory uncertainty as the main factor holding back growth in Australia.

Large financial institutions generally avoid investing significant capital in new technologies until clear legal frameworks are established. Without specific rules on licensing, asset custody and compliance, many firms are hesitant to launch major tokenized products.

Key structural challenges include:

Vague licensing: It is currently unclear how digital asset businesses should obtain official permits.

Poor collaboration: There is a lack of communication between regulatory bodies and the industry.

Limited trials: A shortage of large-scale pilot programs limits practical testing.

Legal ambiguity: The status of tokenized financial products remains undefined.

These issues hinder progress even when the necessary technology is already available. Institutional investors need a well-defined regulatory foundation to enter the market with confidence.

The high cost of regulatory inaction

Continued delays in modernizing Australia’s regulatory framework could severely erode the country’s potential gains from digital finance.

If policy stagnation persists, Australia may capture only around A$1 billion (approximately US$710 million) from digital assets and tokenized finance by 2030. This figure represents only a small fraction of the A$24 billion in potential benefits that could be realized under a more supportive and predictable regulatory environment.

This massive shortfall highlights how regulatory hurdles can alter the future path of financial innovation. In the absence of clear, enabling policy settings, several damaging consequences could follow:

Pilot programs find it difficult to scale into live, production-grade systems.

Institutional capital stays on the sidelines, unwilling to take meaningful risks.

Cutting-edge innovation and talent increasingly relocate to jurisdictions offering regulatory clarity and predictability.

Australia’s domestic financial infrastructure modernizes more slowly than that of global peers.

Ultimately, prolonged regulatory uncertainty does not merely slow progress but may actively divert economic value and opportunity to other countries that have established favorable frameworks for digital finance.

Did you know? Australia hosts one of the densest networks of crypto ATMs in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also one of the largest markets for crypto kiosks outside North America.

What the industry is asking for in regulation

Australia has made initial strides toward establishing a regulatory framework for digital assets. However, industry stakeholders stress that more needs to be done to unlock meaningful institutional participation:

Clear licensing regimes for digital asset platforms: Trading venues, exchanges and other digital asset service providers urgently need well-defined licensing pathways. These include precise rules on permissible activities, operational requirements, capital standards and ongoing compliance obligations.

Modern, fit-for-purpose custody rules: Digital assets introduce distinct risks around security, segregation and operational resilience. Regulators should set clear, risk-based custody standards that safeguard client assets.

A coherent framework for stablecoins: Stablecoins are widely viewed as foundational infrastructure for tokenized markets and efficient on-chain payments. Industry participants are calling for clarity on issuance, reserves, redemption rights, supervision and cross-border rules to remove legal and operational uncertainty.

Balanced and proportionate consumer and investor protections: Strong safeguards against fraud, misconduct and loss are essential. But they must be designed carefully to avoid stifling legitimate innovation.

When addressed together, these regulatory building blocks would provide the clarity financial institutions need before committing significant capital and infrastructure to tokenized finance in Australia.

Why regulatory sandboxes are important

The DFCRC report recommends creating regulatory sandboxes tailored specifically for tokenized financial markets.

These sandboxes allow companies to test new financial technologies under close regulatory oversight before obtaining a full license. This approach lets regulators see how the innovations perform in practice while keeping risks under control.

Australia already has an Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox (ERS) managed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). It permits eligible firms to trial certain financial services for a limited period without holding a full financial services license.

However, industry groups argue that more specialized sandboxes would speed up testing and development in key areas such as tokenized securities and digital settlement systems.

Targeted sandboxes would also improve dialogue between regulators and the industry, enabling policymakers to shape better rules based on actual testing outcomes.

The role of tokenized government bonds and CBDCs

The DFCRC report proposes that tokenized government bonds and a central bank digital currency (CBDC) could form essential infrastructure for digital financial markets.

Government bonds are already widely used as collateral in financial markets. Tokenizing them would allow for automated collateral management, faster settlement and improved transparency.

A CBDC designed for use by financial institutions rather than the general public could provide secure final settlement for tokenized assets. Together with stablecoins and bank deposit tokens, it would help build a flexible and efficient system for digital financial transactions.

These tools would create the reliable settlement infrastructure institutional markets need to operate at scale.

Did you know? Australia’s central bank was among the first to experiment with central bank digital currency trials. Earlier projects explored how a wholesale CBDC could help automate bond settlement and other complex financial transactions between institutions.

Project Acacia and Australia’s experimentation with digital money

Australia is already exploring these concepts through initiatives such as Project Acacia. This collaboration examines how digital money could work in tokenized wholesale markets.

The project tests how different forms of digital settlement, including CBDCs and stablecoins, can support financial market infrastructure.

Pilot programs like these can play an important role. They allow policymakers and financial institutions to test technical designs, operational risks and regulatory issues before moving to large-scale systems.

Real-world experimentation helps regulators create rules based on practical experience rather than theory alone.

Technological ability alone is not enough

A central finding of the DFCRC report is that technology alone is not enough to create new financial markets.

For institutions to adopt tokenized finance, the following are required:

clear legal frameworks

reliable settlement infrastructure

proper custody standards

effective risk management protocols

appropriate regulatory oversight

Together, these elements build the trust financial institutions need to commit to new technologies.

Without that trust, tokenized finance is likely to remain confined to small pilot projects rather than becoming part of mainstream financial systems.

Australia’s competitive challenge

The global competition to develop digital asset infrastructure is accelerating. Many jurisdictions are already building regulatory frameworks for tokenized securities, stablecoins and digital payment systems.

If Australia delays, it risks losing talent, investment and innovation to countries that provide regulatory clarity sooner.

In this sense, digital asset regulation is not just a financial policy issue. It is also a question of competitiveness for Australia’s broader economy.

Countries that put credible frameworks for digital finance in place are better positioned to attract capital and technology firms seeking stable regulatory settings.

South Korean tech company Naver and Upbit operator Dunamu said in a corrected filing that their planned share swap includes forming an initial public offering (IPO) committee for Naver Financial within one year of closing, outlining a path toward a future listing. 

The disclosure, outlined in the corrected filing on Wednesday, said the companies would pursue a listing within five years, with a possible two-year extension. Naver said it plans to secure voting rights in Naver Financial so the fintech unit remains a consolidated subsidiary after the deal.

The filing suggests the deal goes beyond a simple ownership change, outlining a structure that could eventually bring Upbit’s parent under a listed fintech group. The move indicates Naver and Dunamu are positioning any future South Korea listing at the fintech-parent level rather than through a standalone listing of Upbit’s parent.

However, Dunamu said no specific decisions have been made on whether to proceed with the IPO or on its timing or structure. It added that the deal remains subject to regulatory approvals that could still delay or derail the transaction. 

Naver Financial’s plans to acquire Dunamu were first reported in September 2025 by local outlets including Yonhap and Chosun, which said the company was preparing a share swap to bring the Upbit operator under its umbrella. Naver later confirmed the transaction in a November regulatory filing, outlining a roughly $10.3 billion all-stock deal.

Investor agreement sets IPO framework, control terms

The filing said Naver, Dunamu and related parties entered into an investor agreement tied to the share swap, under which they agreed to use their “best efforts” to pursue a future listing of Naver Financial after the transaction closes.

The agreement forms the basis for post-deal restructuring, including preparations for a potential IPO. 

The filing described the listing plan as conditional, noting that key elements, including timing, structure and execution, will depend on market conditions and regulatory developments. It added that more detailed plans would be disclosed if and when formal decisions are made. 

The updated disclosure follows a roughly three-month delay to the Naver and Dunamu share swap deal timeline.

It also comes as Dunamu reported weaker operating performance in 2025, with revenue falling about 10% year-on-year to 1.56 trillion won and operating profit dropping 26.7% to 869.3 billion won, which the company attributed to reduced crypto trading volumes during a broader market slowdown.

Magazine: Singapore isn’t a ‘crypto hub’ — it’s something better: StraitsX CEO

Ukrainian authorities have arrested a member of an international cybercrime network wanted by the FBI over allegations of fraud and money laundering tied to losses exceeding $100 million across the United States and Europe.

The suspect was arrested in the Transcarpathia region during a joint operation involving the National Police of Ukraine and other internal security units, Ukraine police said on Thursday. Officials said the man had been wanted internationally for some time and was eventually found in Uzhhorod, where he was living under a fake identity using forged documents.

“He issued fictitious documents about his own death and continued to live in Ukraine as a “new” person, using false documents,” prosecutors said, adding that he laundered illicit proceeds through property acquisitions, often using relatives as intermediaries to disguise ownership and financial flows.

The suspect was part of a wider cyber syndicate that deployed malicious software to harvest personal data and corporate records, later using that information to extort victims by demanding payments in exchange for silence or the return of stolen material, per the announcement. The scheme targeted individuals and institutions in both the US and Europe.

Ukraine seizes $3 million in crypto

During the investigation, authorities seized assets worth approximately $11 million, including cash, real estate, vehicles and cryptocurrency valued at around $3 million.

Ukrainian police seize crypto. Source: Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko

Officials also flagged discrepancies between declared income and assets held by the suspect associates, pointing to tens of millions of Ukrainian hryvnias in unexplained wealth accumulation. Investigators say the financial trail helped reconstruct parts of the laundering network and confirm the scale of the operation. They also identified two additional accomplices linked to the laundering operation.

The suspect faces charges under Ukrainian criminal code provisions covering document forgery and money laundering. His alleged accomplices have also been charged and remain in custody.

Ukraine uncovers more hacker groups

Earlier this year, Ukraine, the United States and Germany uncovered another transnational hacking group responsible for blocking the systems of at least 11 American corporations and demanding ransom payments in cryptocurrency. Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko said the attacks caused an estimated $1.5 million in damage, with the group consisting of more than 20 members, including seven based in Ukraine.

Authorities carried out searches at the homes of two Ukrainian suspects, seizing computers, phones, cash and documents. One suspect was also linked to the spread of BlackBasta malware.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder

AllUnity, a regulated European stablecoin issuer, is expanding its euro-pegged stablecoin, EURAU, across major decentralized exchanges (DEXs).

The company announced Thursday that its EURAU stablecoin is entering liquidity pools across major DEXs, including Uniswap, currently the largest decentralized exchange by trading volumes.

The rollout includes two EURAU trading pairs, one against Tether USDt (USDT) on Ethereum, and another against USDT0 — an omnichain version of USDT — on the Tempo blockchain. It also includes the EURAU/USDT pair on Solana via the Raydium DEX.

Source: AllUnity

AllUnity’s DEX push comes as uncertainty persists over how far decentralized finance (DeFi) falls within the scope of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) regime.

While DeFi is generally considered outside the scope of the framework, the European Central Bank last month questioned whether decentralized autonomous organizations are decentralized enough to remain outside MiCA’s regulatory perimeter.

AllUnity built EURAU under BaFin licence

AllUnity operates as a MiCA-compliant stablecoin issuer after obtaining an Electronic Money Institution license from the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) in July 2025.

AllUnity launched EURAU on July 31, 2025. The token remains small by market capitalization compared with the largest euro stablecoins.

Market capitalization of euro-pegged stablecoins and the top three stablecoins by market cap. Source: CoinGecko

AllUnity has been expanding the presence of its EURAU stablecoin across exchanges, with listings on centralized exchanges (CEXs) such as Bullish as well as decentralized ones like Aerodrome. Aerodrome became the first DEX integration for EURAU in December 2025.

Dollar stablecoins still dominate

The MiCA framework, which entered into full force in late 2024, has often been seen as a tool to address the dominance of stablecoins pegged to the US dollar.

Some major issuers, including Tether, have openly criticized the framework and declined to seek compliance in the EU, citing concerns over its requirements, which led to some compliant exchanges delisting its USDT stablecoin.

Some banking officials have since said MiCA may not be sufficient to address the dominance of US dollar-pegged stablecoins, which still account for 97% of the $316 billion market globally, according to CoinGecko.

As AllUnity’s DEX push also involves major US dollar stablecoins, it remains unclear how regulators will respond to these developments.

“Expanding EURAU liquidity across DEXs is an important step in building a robust and accessible euro liquidity layer,” AllUnity’s executive Rupertus Rothenhäuser said, adding:

“We’re enabling seamless euro — dollar trading, empowering institutions and liquidity providers to participate in deep, efficient markets.”

Cointelegraph contacted AllUnity for comment regarding potential conflicts with the EU regulation but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

Blockstream CEO Adam Back said Thursday that a future post-quantum migration of Bitcoin could help clarify how many coins linked to Satoshi Nakamoto remain accessible, because any owner wanting to protect vulnerable holdings would need to move them to a new address format.

Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week, Back said such a migration would likely give users ample time to move funds and argued that coins left unmoved after that process could reasonably be treated as lost.

“This migration to post-quantum address format may tell us how many of those coins [Satoshi] still has,” said Back, adding that the pseudonymous creator has an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Bitcoin (BTC).

Satoshi’s Bitcoin stash has ignited heated debate among Bitcoin holders concerned by the quantum computing threat. On Wednesday, Jameson Lopp and five co-authors published a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal aimed at restricting the future movement of coins held in quantum-vulnerable address formats, including older coins whose public keys have already been exposed.

Adam Back, keynote speech at Paris Blockchain Week in 2026. Source: Cointelegraph

Blockchain data platform Arkham estimates that Nakamoto-linked wallets hold 1.09 million Bitcoin, currently valued at $81.6 billion.

Back sees long runway on quantum

Back said Bitcoin developers and holders still have substantial time to prepare, arguing that a quantum breakthrough capable of threatening Bitcoin signatures is at least 20 years away.

He argued that today’s quantum computers are “less powerful than a $5 calculator” and that some of their issues become more pressing as these systems scale, such as their energy consumption.

Back said that runway should give developers and users ample time to develop a post-quantum path and migrate to a new quantum-resistant standard underpinned by hash-based signatures.

Hash-based signature schemes for Bitcoin, research paper. Source: Blockstream Research

In December 2025, Back’s Blockstream Research released a paper proposing a hash-based signature scheme that offers a “promising path for securing Bitcoin in a post-quantum world,” as a quantum-safe replacement for the ECDSA and Schnorr signatures. Under the proposal, security would rely solely on hash function assumptions, similar to the ones currently used in Bitcoin’s network design.

The Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) uses elliptic-curve cryptography to verify the authenticity and integrity of a message. Schnorr signatures are another signature scheme praised for enhancing privacy and reducing data size, due to their ability to combine multiple signatures into one.

Magazine: Bitcoin vs. the quantum computer threat — Timeline and solutions (2025–2035)

European companies exploring Bitcoin treasury strategies are unlikely to replicate the playbook pioneered by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, according to industry executives, who pointed to structural differences between US and European capital markets.

Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week 2026, Thomas Vogel, a partner in the Paris and Frankfurt offices of Latham & Watkins, said the constraints on issuing financial instruments in Europe differ significantly from those in the US, making a direct replication of the model difficult.

“If you issue convertibles in the US, the constraints are not the same as when you issue them out of a French balance sheet or a balance sheet in Europe,” Vogel said, pointing to differences in market depth, regulation and investor behavior.

Alexandre Laizet, who leads Bitcoin (BTC) strategy at France-based treasury firm Capital B, said European firms are instead looking to local market infrastructure, including French public markets and Luxembourg-based structures, to raise capital tied to Bitcoin exposure.

The remarks suggest Europe’s Bitcoin treasury model is likely to evolve as a local adaptation rather than a direct copy of Strategy’s US playbook.

Panel discussion on the Bitcoin treasury model in Paris. Source: Paris Blockchain Week

Europe’s listed holders remain small

A growing number of European public companies now hold Bitcoin on their balance sheets, but the market remains fragmented across small and mid-cap names.

According to data from BitcoinTreasuries.net, Germany-based Bitcoin Group SE held 3,605 BTC worth about $268 million at the time of writing, though it has not disclosed its average cost or profit and loss.

Capital B held 2,925 BTC at an average cost of $99,932 per Bitcoin, reflecting a roughly 25.6% unrealized loss. In contrast, Sequans Communications, also based in France, held 2,139 BTC, with cost and performance data not disclosed.

Other European names show similar pressure from recent price moves. Netherlands-based Treasury held 1,111 BTC at an average cost of $111,857, representing about a 33.5% unrealized loss, while Sweden’s H100 Group held 1,051 BTC at an average cost of $114,615, with an unrealized loss of around 35.1%

The gap in scale remains significant compared with the US. On Monday, Strategy acquired 13,927 Bitcoin for about $1 billion in a single week, bringing its total holdings to 780,897 BTC.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire says there is “tremendous opportunity” for a yuan-backed stablecoin, despite Beijing’s formal moves against most private renminbi-linked stablecoins and commitment to its own digital yuan. 

Speaking to Reuters in Hong Kong on Thursday, Allaire framed stablecoins as a way for China to “export” its currency by making global payments easier, as digital money becomes more tightly woven into trade and finance, and said the country could roll out a yuan-backed stablecoin within three to five years. 

Geopolitical rivalry over money is increasingly being waged in code as much as in central bank policy, and Allaire’s comments sharpen a deeper question: can governments that clamp down on private digital currencies afford to shun them if they want to compete globally?

China’s crackdown contrasts with growing demand for stablecoins as cross-border payment tools, raising questions about how the yuan will evolve in a tokenized financial system.

In February, the People’s Bank of China and seven other agencies said unauthorized offshore issuance of yuan-pegged stablecoins would be treated as illegal financial activity and said tokenization of domestic real-world assets would face stricter vetting.

Officials framed the move as necessary to protect financial stability, curb capital flight and safeguard monetary sovereignty as Beijing pushes its central bank digital currency, the e-CNY. The decision slams the door on most offshore RMB stablecoins just months after reports that China was studying yuan-backed tokens as a way to boost global usage of its currency.

Digital dollars still dominate stablecoins

Allaire’s remarks come as stablecoins are pulled deeper into geopolitics. Circle’s US dollar-backed USDC grew 72% year-on-year in circulation to $75.3 billion by the end of 2025. Allaire told Reuters that “several billion dollars” in additional USDC transactions followed the outbreak of the US-Iran war as users sought portable digital dollars in a crisis. 

Circle’s 2025 fiscal year results. Source: Circle

Outlier Ventures said in a 2025 market report that US dollar-backed stablecoins accounted for 99.8% of all fiat-denominated stablecoins, underlining how heavily the market still relies on digital dollars rather than other national currency-pegged tokens.

China, by contrast, is pursuing a CBDC-first strategy. Authorities have repeatedly reaffirmed their 2021 ban on crypto trading and mining. In November 2025, the central bank warned it would intensify its crackdown on stablecoins, leading to February’s notice banning RMB-linked stablecoin issuance and most RWA tokenization without prior approval, as Beijing promotes the e-CNY as its preferred model for digital yuan adoption.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Jean-Didier Berger, minister delegate to the interior minister of France, said authorities are taking measures to protect cryptocurrency investors from the growing threat of crypto kidnappings and wrench attacks in the country.

Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week, Berger said his office has taken “preventative measures” against crypto wrench attacks, including launching a prevention platform that has drawn thousands of sign-ups. He added that he was working with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on what he described as a more serious plan in the coming weeks.

His comments come days after another reported crypto-linked abduction in France this week, where a mother and her 11-year-old child were reportedly kidnapped in Burgundy on Monday by four suspects who demanded a 400,000 euro ($471,000) ransom from the father, a crypto entrepreneur. Authorities caught the suspects and freed the victims on Tuesday morning, reported news outlet France24, citing the Paris prosecutor’s office.

France has become one of the most prominent centers for so-called wrench attacks, in which victims are threatened or assaulted to force the transfer of digital assets, and the government is now under growing pressure to respond.

Jean-Didier Berger, minister delegate to the Minister of the Interior in France, speaking at Paris Blockchain Week in 2026. Source: Cointelegraph

Wrench attacks see alarming surge in France

Since the beginning of the year, there have been 41 reported crypto-related kidnappings in France, meaning that on average, a similar attack occurred once every 2.5 days in 2026, reported local news outlet RTL on Wednesday.

Wrench attacks increased by 75% in 2025 to 72 verified cases worldwide, according to cybersecurity platform CertiK. France saw the most incidents during 2025, with 19 confirmed wrench attacks, while Europe accounted for roughly 40% of global incidents.

Wrench attacks in 2025, key statistics. Source: CertiK

In another incident, a French couple in their late 50s was robbed of $1 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) by criminals posing as police officers, Cointelegraph reported on March 10.

A month earlier, in February, French police arrested six people over the kidnapping of a magistrate and her mother in a crypto-linked ransom attack targeting the magistrate’s partner, a crypto entrepreneur.

Magazine: Coinbase hack shows the law probably won’t protect you — Here’s why

A review of more than 150 major crypto protocols shows that disclosure of market-making arrangements is almost nonexistent, despite their central role in token trading.

The research, conducted by crypto advisory company Novora, found that fewer than 1% of protocols disclose any terms related to market makers. Across the full dataset, only one protocol, decentralized liquidity platform Meteora, was found to have publicly disclosed details of its market-making arrangements, citing the project’s 2025 Annual Token Holder Report.

The study covered leading sectors, including decentralized exchanges, lending platforms, perpetual futures, layer-1 and layer-2 networks, bridges and centralized exchange tokens, with protocols ranging in size from roughly $40 million to $45 billion in fully diluted valuation.

Novora said the protocols were assessed using a binary transparency framework covering disclosure practices and third-party data coverage, with checks against public sources including Artemis, Token Terminal, Dune, DefiLlama and Blockworks Research.

“This is the single most consequential transparency gap in the industry,” Novora founder Connor King wrote on X, saying that such material agreements are routinely disclosed in traditional markets. “In crypto, every market participant operates without this information,” he added.

Disclosure metrics assessed across 150+ protocols. Source: Novora

Crypto’s investor reporting gap

The finding points to a broader investor relations (IR) gap in crypto. Novora said 91% of the protocols it reviewed generated trackable revenue, but only 18% published quarterly updates and just 8% issued token holder reports, suggesting the data exists but is rarely packaged into structured investor communication.

At the same time, third-party analytics infrastructure has matured, with coverage rates exceeding 85% across major platforms, suggesting the underlying data is widely accessible but rarely formalized in reporting.

The state of crypto IR. Source: Novora

Sector-level breakdowns show uneven transparency. Perpetual futures protocols and decentralized exchanges tend to lead on disclosure and value accrual mechanisms, while L1 and infrastructure projects lag despite larger market capitalizations.

Market-maker deals draw scrutiny

Opaque market-maker arrangements have long fueled scrutiny in crypto, especially around token loan structures that critics say can create incentives to dump borrowed tokens into the market. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has even previously charged so-called crypto market makers with price manipulation.

As Cointelegraph reported, some market-maker arrangements are poorly structured and can quickly turn harmful. One widely used arrangement, the “loan option model,” involves projects lending tokens to market makers who then deploy them for liquidity provision and trading activity, often tied to listing agreements.

In practice, critics say this structure can create strong incentives to sell borrowed tokens into the market, triggering price declines that benefit the market maker while leaving early-stage projects with weakened liquidity and damaged token performance.

Magazine: Bitcoin’s ‘biggest bull catalyst’ would be Saylor’s liquidation — Santiment founder

South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) is preparing to test blockchain-based payments for certain government expenses under a regulatory sandbox exploring distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based financial infrastructure.

The ministry said on Thursday that it selected a pilot project that will use tokenized deposits to execute government operational spending, with a full rollout targeting the fourth quarter of 2026. The program will initially launch in Sejong City and will test predefined spending conditions, including limits on timing and usage categories. 

Tokenized deposits are digital representations of traditional bank deposits on blockchain or other DLT infrastructure. Unlike many stablecoins, they remain bank liabilities and are designed to operate within the existing financial system.

The pilot would move South Korea’s deposit-token experiment beyond subsidies and into day-to-day public spending, offering an early test of whether programmable bank-backed money can make government payments more traceable and harder to misuse.

Sandbox to define scope, test limits of tokenized payments

As part of the sandbox, the ministry will work with participating institutions to define the scope of the trial, with plans to expand the model and consider related legal and regulatory changes based on the results, according to the MOEF announcement. 

The initiative will focus on government operational expenses, which are currently processed through government-issued credit and debit cards managed through post-use reporting, the ministry said. 

Under the pilot, spending parameters such as time windows and permitted categories will be predefined, allowing authorities to test whether tokenized deposits can improve oversight and reduce misuse of funds. 

The sandbox approval also enables the use of tokenized deposits for fund execution despite existing rules that require such expenses to be processed through government cards.

According to the ministry, the trial will serve as a basis for evaluating new payment and settlement methods, with potential implications for broader fiscal operations if the model proves viable. 

The move follows South Korea’s earlier decision to use tokenized deposits for electric vehicle charging infrastructure subsidies, a pilot announced on March 19 with the Environment Ministry and Bank of Korea. 

At the time, MOEF said it aimed to convert one-quarter of treasury fund execution to digital currency by 2030, suggesting the new operational-spending pilot is part of a broader effort to expand tokenized payment rails in public finance.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Cato Institute, a US-based think tank, has argued the government should remove capital gains taxes on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to open the door for more currency competition.

Capital gains tax (CGT) is discouraging the use of alternative currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) as it incentivizes long-term holding and adds extra burdens to reporting requirements, Nicholas Anthony, a policy scholar and research fellow at the Cato Institute, said in a report on Wednesday.

He argued the simplest option is to end capital gains taxes completely; however, another option could be removing them on crypto and foreign currency use to “take the government’s thumb off the scale and let competition be the true decider of the best money.”

“Bitcoiners know the frustration of tax season all too well. It’s never been easier to use Bitcoin as money,” he said. “Yet, at the same time, the tax code puts an incredible burden on law-abiding citizens. Something as simple as buying a cup of coffee every day with Bitcoin can result in more than 100 pages of tax filings.”  

The Cato Institute is a US public policy think tank that tries to influence policy through research and reports. Its members have testified before lawmakers advocating for crypto in the past.

Imagine every swipe of your card turning into a tax form.

That’s what happens when spending Bitcoin.

If you buy a coffee with Bitcoin, the government makes you pay capital gains taxes on top of sales taxes.

Spending Bitcoin daily can turn into 70 pages in tax filings. pic.twitter.com/4At19JCFey

— Nick Anthony (@EconWithNick) April 15, 2026

No capital gains tax could create a more competitive economy

Using crypto to pay for goods and services can trigger a taxable event in some cases because it falls into the same broad category as stocks, real estate, and other capital assets, according to investment management firm VanEck.

Anthony argued another solution could be to remove CGT just for purchases of goods or services, but also warns it “risks creating its own compliance nightmare if people are required to prove the transactions. That’s better than being taxed, but the process would still be taxing.”

He also pointed to a de minimis tax as another possible avenue, where CGT is not triggered unless a specific threshold is met.

“The only thing worse than getting robbed would be having the robber demand endless forms about the money they are taking from you. Taxes are no different,” Anthony said.

“Congress should simplify the tax code so the average American can do what’s required with ease. Doing so would go a long way toward easing Americans’ stress each tax season and creating a more competitive economy.”

A 2025 National Cryptocurrency Association survey found that 39% of US crypto holders reported using crypto to purchase goods and services.

Meanwhile, the academic publishing company Springer Nature identified about 11,000 merchants worldwide using BTC Map data that currently accept Bitcoin as payment.

Magazine: Bitcoin quantum-safe without upgrade? CZ’s 2031 crypto vision: Hodler’s Digest

The Trump family’s crypto platform, World Liberty Financial, is facing backlash over a new proposal to lock up tokens purchased by early investors for up to four years, or in some cases, indefinitely.

World Liberty posted the proposal to its governance forum on Wednesday, which outlined that early investors would have their World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens locked for a further two years before their tokens would be released in batches over the following two years.

According to the proposal, tokenholders who do not accept the new unlock schedule would “continue to have their tokens locked indefinitely.”

The proposal saw wide opposition, with crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, one of the platform’s advisers and its biggest investor, posting to X on Wednesday that the plan was “one of the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.”

Source: Justin Sun

Sun, who said he holds a 4% stake in World Liberty that is currently frozen, has recently made a series of public criticisms against the platform, taking issue with a separate proposal and accusing it of having controls to blacklist wallets, which World Liberty denied.

Other critics of the proposal included Simon Dedic, the founder of venture firm Moonrock Capital, who posted to X that early WLFI investors “who thought they were sitting on solid profits just got rugged.”

“This essentially gives them another shot at squeezing the same lemon they’ve been inflating with hot air for the past two years. Which, what a surprise, lines up perfectly with the remainder of [Donald Trump’s] term,” he added.

World Liberty Financial did not respond to questions about the backlash, but spokesman David Wachsman told Cointelegraph in an emailed statement that the proposal “was designed to further align all the participants in the WLFI ecosystem for the long run.”

Sun’s specific criticisms centered on the plan to indefinitely lock the tokens of those who disagreed with the proposal, accusing the platform of “coercion.”

He also took issue with being “forced out of this voting process” due to World Liberty’s freeze of his tokens and claimed that a “large number of holders with significant voting rights are in the same position.”

Wachsman added that voting on the proposal would begin soon and would run for a week.

The price of the WLFI token has traded flat at 8 cents over the past 24 hours but is down by more than 40% so far this year, alongside a wider retraction in the crypto and share markets.

WLFI has fallen more than 75% since its all-time high of 33 cents on Sept. 1, the token's first day of public trading after holders voted to allow trading on the originally non-tradable token.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

Morgan Stanley’s new spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund has just surpassed the WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund (WBTC) in total net inflows, despite launching just over a week ago. 

The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) added $19.3 million of investor inflows on Wednesday, bringing its total net inflow to $103 million.

The figure has now passed WisdomTree Bitcoin Fund’s (WBTC) total net inflow of $86 million, which it had been accumulating since launching in January 2024, Farside Investors data shows. 

More asset managers are looking to push into the growing Bitcoin ETF space. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs, a former crypto critic, filed with the SEC to launch its own Bitcoin-linked ETF. 

Flow data for the US spot Bitcoin ETFs since March 30. Source: Farside Investors

The Morgan Stanley spot Bitcoin ETF product launched on April 8 at a market-low fee of 0.14%, undercutting the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF (BTC) by one base point. 

It joined 11 other spot Bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) — the current market leader with $64.3 billion in net inflows and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund at $10.9 billion.

MSBT’s other competitors include Bitcoin ETFs issued by Bitwise, ARK 21Shares and Grayscale.

Continuing momentum could also see Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF surpass Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF (BTCO), Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF (BRRR) and the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC), which have accumulated net inflows of $245 million, $326 million and $375 million, respectively. 

The average lifespan of ETFs is shrinking

A Bloomberg report from April 2 found that the average lifespan of ETFs fell from 4.66 years in 2024 to about 3.5 years in 2025.

Over 40 ETFs have also been liquidated in the first two months of 2026, though none of those include any notable crypto ETFs. 

The ETFs that were liquidated across the first two months of 2026 had an average lifespan of 21 months, half that of the ETFs that were liquidated in 2025.

Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart predicted in December that many crypto exchange-traded products would be liquidated by the end of 2027 due to a lack of demand.

At the time, over 126 ETP applications were awaiting an outcome from the SEC.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has warned that China already has the computing power and data center capacity necessary to train an AI model at the same level as Anthropic’s AI model Claude Mythos, which could threaten global cybersecurity.

Huang was asked in an interview on the Dwarkesh Patel podcast on Wednesday whether the Chinese government’s access to chips to train a model like Claude Mythos — which has cyberoffensive capabilities — could be a threat to US national security.

Mythos was trained on a “fairly mundane capacity,” Huang said. 

“The amount of capacity and the type of compute it was trained on is abundantly available in China, so you just have to first realize that chips exist in China.”

Anthropic limited access to its new AI model in April after it identified thousands of software vulnerabilities across major operating systems and browsers, raising concerns about potential misuse in cyberattacks. A Chinese-made AI model with the same capability could wreak havoc if misused. 

Huang said that the amount of compute China has is “enormous.” 

“They have datacenters that are sitting completely empty, fully powered. You know, they have ghost cities, they have ghost datacenters too. They have so much infrastructure capacity. If they wanted to, they [could] just gang up more chips.”

Jensen Huang speaking on China’s AI capacity. Source: Dwarkesh Patel

A call for dialogue, not conflict

Huang added that China manufactures 60% of the world’s mainstream chips, has some of the best computer scientists, has 50% of the world’s AI researchers and an abundance of energy. 

“Victimizing them, turning them into an enemy, likely isn’t the best answer,” he said. “They are an adversary.”

“We want the United States to win. But I think having a dialogue and having research dialogue is probably the safest thing to do.”

On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hailed Mythos as a revolutionary step that will keep America ahead of China in the AI race. “This Anthropic Mythos model was a step function change in abilities, learning capabilities,” he said, according to Bloomberg. 

Claude Mythos poses a real threat 

Anthropic released findings on Claude Mythos Preview on April 7, sparking concern that the model could be used in cyberattacks due to its ability to discover and potentially exploit zero-day vulnerabilities. The company also claimed that 99% of the vulnerabilities the model discovered have not been patched yet.

Meanwhile, the AI Security Institute (AISI) evaluated Mythos on April 13, finding that the AI model could  “execute multi-stage attacks on vulnerable networks and discover and exploit vulnerabilities autonomously,” tasks that would take human professionals days of work.

AI-boosted hacks with Mythos could also have dire consequences for banks, which often use decades-old software, Reuters reported on Tuesday. 

Last year, Anthropic reported in November that a “Chinese state-sponsored group” manipulated its Claude Code tool in an attempt to infiltrate about 30 global targets and succeeded in a small number of cases.

Magazine: How AI just dramatically sped up the quantum risk for Bitcoin

US equities and tech stocks gained on Wednesday as investors looked optimistically to a de-escalation of the US-Iran war, while the price of Bitcoin tapped $75,000 amid broader positive momentum across the crypto market.

According to data from Yahoo Finance, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite hit a new all-time high of 24,016.02 on Wednesday, closing the trading day with a 1.59% gain, while the S&P 500 tagged its own record high of 7,022.95 after notching a slight gain of 0.8%.

The indexes' performance on the day was led by a 2.08% gain in tech stocks overall. Meanwhile, Bitcoin hit $75,229 on Wednesday, rising 1.07% over the past 24 hours and continuing recent positive momentum that has seen BTC climb nearly 10% over the past two weeks.

The tech and crypto gains come amid suggestions from the White House that US-Iran conflict may be coming to an end. President Donald Trump told Fox Business on Wednesday that he views the war as "very close to being over."

BTC’s 24-hour price performance. Source: TradingView 

Trump, however, indicated that this still depends on whether a deal can be struck between the two nations.

"If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we're not finished," he said, adding, "We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly."

Commenting on the S&P 500’s recent gains, Fundstrat's chief investment officer, Tom Lee, said there's more room for growth in the near term, arguing that some investors remain parked on the sidelines as they wait to see how the conflict develops.

Speaking with CNBC's "Closing Bell" on Wednesday, Lee argued that the US stock market and economy have been performing well enough despite the Middle East conflict, and added in a post on X that "stocks bottom on bad news,” not good news.

However, Lee said he expects the next leg of the rally to be led by crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether, along with the Magnificent Seven tech stocks and the broader software sector.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt