Cryptopolitan

Donald Trump’s Pentagon is pressing American industry to do more than build cars, engines, and parts, and sort of abandon their mission of electric vehicles temporarily.

Under Trump, defense officials have allegedly started talking to major manufacturers about making weapons and military supplies instead.

Those talks reached the top ranks of corporate America. Senior defense officials held discussions with General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra and Ford CEO Jim Farley, along with other industry leaders.

The talks were described by the Wall Street Journal as early and broad. Defense officials asked whether American manufacturers could use workers, factory space, and existing production systems to help make munitions and other equipment.

GE Aerospace and vehicle maker Oshkosh were also part of the discussions. A Pentagon official allegedly said the department “is committed to rapidly expanding the defense industrial base by leveraging all available commercial solutions and technologies to ensure our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.”

Defense officials ask Detroit and other manufacturers to help refill weapons stocks

The request comes at a rough time for the U.S. EV market. Electric vehicles made up 5.9% of U.S. auto sales in the first quarter of 2026. That was down from 7.6% in the first quarter of 2025 and 7.2% in the first quarter of 2024. The high point came in the third quarter of 2025, when EVs reached 10.6% of the market.

Back in the first quarter of 2025, the market hit record levels overall. Even so, Tesla’s own first-quarter peak came earlier, in the first quarter of 2023, not in 2025.

One thing though, the market today remains above first-quarter levels from 2022, and it is much stronger than it was in 2021. But that does not change the recent slowdown. The leading models are still the Tesla Model Y and Tesla Model 3. The surprise in third place is the Toyota bZ, formerly called the bZ4X.

After that come the Hyundai IONIQ 5 and the Chevrolet Equinox EV. Then the field falls away sharply. That softer demand gives the Pentagon another reason to test whether idle or underused manufacturing capacity can be redirected toward defense work.

Jim Farley backs Chinese partnerships while urging tighter rules at home

The pressure on automakers also lands in the middle of a messy debate over China. Just days after saying Chinese carmakers should be kept out of the United States, Jim Farley said Ford still wants deeper ties with Chinese automakers. On Fox News Monday, Farley said, “We should keep them out of our country.”

By Wednesday, while speaking to reporters about a reorganization at Ford, he softened that line. He said Chinese companies are changing the industry with cheaper, more advanced vehicles and that Ford benefits from working with them.

Farley said, “We value our Chinese partners, they help us stay sharp and compete in many markets around the world.” He added, “We will continue to expand these partnerships.” He also said he had “no news” to announce. Still, the links are there.

Ford has held discussions with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group about sharing manufacturing capacity in Europe. It has also talked with BYD about supplying batteries for gas-electric hybrid vehicles. In China, Ford already works with Chongqing Changan Automobile and Jiangling Motors.

Earlier this year, Farley also told Trump administration officials that if Chinese automakers want to build cars in America, they should do it through joint ventures controlled by U.S. automakers, matching the model China forced on Western car companies decades ago.

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Arthur Hayes says the crypto crowd is getting hit while still fighting over the reason for the drop. In his latest essay, Arthur warns that: “I don’t know anything about war fighting,” and makes clear he has no inside line into what global leaders may do next.

What he does say he has is public data, basic math, propaganda AI agents, and a portfolio to protect.

He says there are really four possible outcomes, but one is useless for investors. Nuclear destruction is not something he thinks anyone can trade around, so he throws it out. That leaves three main paths, plus one middle case tied to a US blockade. Arthur says he is trying to find a portfolio setup that can beat hydrocarbons, food, and fuel prices in the best case, and in the worst case still do better than most major assets.

Arthur Hayes says Bitcoin comeback is waiting for Fed liquidity injection

In the first case, Arthur says the war stops and things go back to what they were before, but that still would not solve the deeper problem because the bigger threat is AI replacing white-collar workers across the US economy.

“The American economy is the most exposed because its GDP is ~70% driven by consumer spending. Consumers finance their materialism using bank credit, and these loans become assets on banks’ balance sheets,” says Arthur.

Arthur says the AI-led bust could be as serious as the 2008 subprime mess. He writes that rising consumer delinquencies are already showing up before the real layoff wave has even started.

He also gives a story from a crypto gaming founder who tested the latest Claude model during Christmas 2025, built usable code fast, then brought top engineers together to rethink the company.

After that, the firm built an agent workflow that coded all day and all night, including code review. He says that led the company to plan cuts to 50% of staff. He adds that top engineers may get 10x to 100x more productive, while average workers get pushed out. He says the median annual unemployment payout in US states is about $28,000, far below the $85,000 to $90,000 earned by many knowledge workers.

That gap, according to Arthur, leads straight to missed debt payments. Even then, Arthur says Bitcoin may only get a limited bounce, maybe to $80,000 or $90,000, until the Fed steps in with real liquidity.

Arthur tracks yuan tolls, oil stress, and money printing through Bitcoin, gold, and bonds

In the second case, Arthur says Iran keeps control over the Strait of Hormuz and lets friendly ships pass after paying a $2 million toll in yuan, crypto, sanctioned dollars, or other deals.

He says that would hit the petrodollar hard. Since most big economies run trade deficits with China, they would need to sell US Treasuries or tech stocks, buy physical gold, then swap that gold for yuan in Shanghai or Hong Kong. He notes only Brazil and Russia among the ten biggest economies run trade surpluses with China.

Arthur pointed out that foreign securities holdings at the Fed dropped $63 billion after the war started, while non-monetary gold became the biggest US export in four of the last five months, up 342% from a year earlier. He also says Swiss refineries are recasting US gold for China and that rising CIPS volumes matter because Iran cannot use SWIFT. As Arthur puts it:

“The yuan and gold will most likely become the two primary currencies of sovereign trade. If holding dollars cannot guarantee pirates won’t tank your stuff, why hold them at all?”

In the third case, the US military reopens the strait by force. Arthur says that could briefly restore faith in the dollar, but it could also destroy Iran, wreck Gulf energy output, and force central banks to print into a commodity spike. He writes, “The spice definitely won’t flow.” He says some countries would face hyperinflation, while America and Russia would be the only big swing producers left.

For Bitcoin, Arthur says, “If the blockade ultimately ends via a punitive bombing campaign of Iran followed by an Iranian destruction of all Persian Gulf energy production, this could lead to the destruction of the Iranian state. The rally in Bitcoin, inspired by money printing, might be short-lived because the destruction of the Iranian state materially raises the prospect of WW3.”

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Authorities in Florida and Massachusetts have successfully recovered $5.4 million in cryptocurrency from scammers. James Uthmeier, Florida Attorney General, said his office called the successful recovery a historic and monumental operation against crypto scams.

The fraud cases involved a romance-turned crypto investment scam affecting victims in Florida and Massachusetts. According to the attorney general’s office, victims were identified in six Florida counties. One Marion County victim lost more than $450,000.

The recovery was led by the Office of Statewide Prosecution’s Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit, or CFEU, working with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Crypto scammers often target senior citizens

Cyber fraud often targets Florida seniors. Uthmeier said his office made it a priority to recover as much money as possible and return it to victims. He said the partnership with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office was record-breaking and said the unit is setting the standard for cryptocurrency recovery.

Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said it angers him that people prey on citizens, especially senior citizens. He said that cyber scammers and hackers belong in jail. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office helped the attorney general’s office complete the largest recovery, totaling $6.5 million.

The office said $700,000 of the recovered cryptocurrency was returned to Florida victims, and $1.3 million was returned to victims in Massachusetts. The remaining recovered funds would be used to continue powering the Cyber Fraud Enforcement Unit’s fight against crypto scams.

In the first quarter of 2026 alone, CFEU recovered $3.3 million, which the office said represented 45% of its all-time recoveries. Since the unit was created 2.5 years ago, it has recovered $7.2 million in total. The office added that another $12.6 million in frozen crypto assets is still moving through litigation.

In Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said her office has received hundreds of crypto-related complaints. She wrote, “I see the effects of these scams on a near-daily basis. My office receives hundreds of complaints related to cryptocurrency.”

Campbell said her office has deactivated more than 60 scam websites, filed more than 30 lawsuits, and recovered more than $6 million for victims. She added that she’s working with other officials to educate people about crypto scams and to help them catch red flags early.

She also cited an enforcement action earlier this year against Bitcoin Depot. The crypto kiosk operator allegedly knew millions in fraudulent transactions were funneled through its machines and should have done more to protect consumers.

Ironically, Bitcoin Depot was described as the victim of a cyberattack that affected its wallet addresses. The company lost 50.9 bitcoins worth about $3.6 million, according to an 8k report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Bitcoin Depot stated that the unauthorized access was discovered on March 23, but blockchain investigator ZachXBT said the theft had started three days earlier on March 20. Bitcoin Depot was late in discovering the breach.

ZachXBT added that the theft may have totaled 54 bitcoins, or about $3.9 million, and spanned across 19 suspicious wallet addresses. “I traced it out and the suspicious outflows actually occurred on March 20 and the funds were transferred to Kucoin deposit addresses,” said the crypto sleuth in an X post.

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Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey (who is also the chair of the Financial Stability Board) said on Wednesday at an event hosted by the Institute of International Finance that the world is still moving too slowly on one shared set of rules for crypto industry’s stablecoins.

He said work on international standards for stablecoins has lost speed over the past year, even as these tokens keep getting deeper into the global financial system.

Andrew also tied the debate to a basic issue, saying stablecoins only work if people trust they can redeem them at full value every time. That is the point behind what he called assured value. Andrew said:

“We do have to have international standards to it to underpin assured value. I don’t think we can have a situation where we’ve got different rules of engagement in different countries for that.”

Andrew Bailey pushes countries to align stablecoins rules before gaps widen

Andrew’s warning comes as Britain and America’s Trump administration are both trying to build their individual local frameworks.

The United States has already taken another step on its own side. The Department of the Treasury published a long-awaited notice of proposed rulemaking, or NPRM, that would force stablecoin issuers to meet tough sanctions compliance standards under the GENIUS Act.

On April 8, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, known as FinCEN, and the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, jointly released the proposal. It set out requirements for permitted payment stablecoin issuers, also called PPSIs, focused on stopping illicit finance.

The proposal says PPSIs will need to follow the same financial crime compliance duties that already apply to other US financial institutions once the GENIUS Act regime becomes fully active in January 2027.

Those duties include building AML/CFT and sanctions compliance programs with senior management oversight, carrying out financial crime risk assessments, using risk-based policies for customer due diligence and related checks, naming a responsible AML/CFT officer, running staff training, and making sure AML controls go through independent auditing and testing.

For US officials, stablecoins are not getting a lighter lane.

South Korea fights over stablecoins as Circle courts lawmakers and banks

Meanwhile, over in South Korea, lawmakers and central bank officials are having this huge beef over whether tech companies should be allowed to also issue stablecoins, or just banks.

That battle pulled in Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire this week. Speaking to the press in Seoul, Jeremy said Circle has no plan to launch a won-pegged digital token right now, but the company is watching the debate in the National Assembly closely. He said:

“If a legal pathway is established for global companies like Circle to legally enter and operate, just as we have done in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, and Europe, we are very willing to obtain a license and establish a South Korean branch.”

Jeremy has also been meeting South Korean banking chiefs and some of the country’s biggest crypto firms. He has been offering Circle’s technical support to local companies that may want to issue stablecoins once regulators allow it.

His remarks landed while South Korean politicians are stuck in a fight that looks similar to the one in Washington over the Clarity Act, the crypto market bill that has sat gridlocked on Capitol Hill for months.

Failing to finish the new stablecoins regulatory would also be a serious blow for President Lee Jae-myung, who promised us won-pegged stablecoins during last year’s campaign and said he will pass legislation if he won power.

Since his June election victory, Lee and his administration have run into resistance from the banking sector and the Bank of Korea.

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A 46.3 million ounce silver shortfall is keeping pressure on a market that was already tight before 2026 got going, according to the World Silver Survey 2026 released on Wednesday.

Reportedly, global demand stayed above supply for the fifth year in a row in 2025, the deficit smaller than it was in 2024, but it still put more stress on above-ground stocks.

The 88-page report was released by the Silver Institute and researched and produced by Metals Focus, the London-based precious metals consultancy. Its numbers show that total silver demand slipped 2% last year to 1.13 billion ounces, but that top-line figure does not mean the market loosened up.

A strong rise in investment demand helped keep the market under pressure even as some other segments weakened. Coin and net bar demand rose 14%, which nearly canceled out declines elsewhere.

Industrial use lost steam as investors bought more silver and regional demand split sharply

Industrial silver demand fell 3% to 657.4 million ounces in 2025 after four straight years of strong growth. Electrical and electronics demand dropped 2%, but the market still got support from spending tied to AI infrastructure, solid automotive use, and healthy power grid investment.

But solar demand weakened, according to the survey, because strong competition and higher silver raw material costs pushed photovoltaic manufacturers to speed up thrifting and substitution.

Demand for brazing alloys still rose 1%, helped by the auto and aerospace sectors. Other industrial demand fell 7% because the ethylene oxide market slowed.

By region, most of the silver demand losses in 2025 came from East and South Asia, while Europe and North America stayed kind of stable, according to the survey.

Coin and net bar demand turned higher after two straight years of decline. India led with a 33% increase. Europe recorded its first rise in three years. The Middle East and China posted multi-fold gains as investor interest rose with prices and from a low earlier base. The US moved the other way and logged a third straight yearly decline. The report tied that to President Trump’s election, which reduced safe-haven buying, while profit-taking during the rally, especially in the first nine months of the year, also hurt US demand.

Mine output rose, recycling hit a 12-year high, and the 2026 silver deficit looks set to widen

Global silver mine production rose by 3% to 846.6 million ounces in 2025, mostly thanks to stronger by-product output from copper operations in Peru and the ramp-up of Polymetal JSC’s Prognoz mine in Russia.

China and Morocco also added smaller gains, though they were partly offset by weaker output from key operations in Mexico and a decline in Indonesia. Regionally, North America fell 3% to its lowest level in ten years.

Central and South America rose 5%, while Asia slipped 1%. Lead and zinc mines remained the largest source of silver, though their share edged lower year over year. Output from gold operations rose 5%, while copper operations increased 6%.

Recycling rose 2% to 197.6 million ounces in 2025, the highest level in 12 years. Heavy selling of jewelry and silverware supplied much of that material, though refinery bottlenecks limited volumes. In industrial recycling, scrap from ethylene oxide increased while e-scrap fell. For 2026, total silver demand is forecast to slip another 2% to 1.11 billion ounces.

Jewelry and silverware are both expected to post double-digit losses as high prices keep biting. Industrial demand is projected to fall 3%, mainly because photovoltaic offtake is expected to slow further. Some of that weakness should be offset by an 18% jump in coin and net bar demand.

Global mine production is expected to stay flat as grade and operating pressure across major producing regions offsets modest growth at a small number of assets. That leaves the structural silver deficit widening to 46.3 million ounces.

Analysts at BlackRock and JPMorgan expect silver to be worth over $80 per ounce by the end of 2026, with $100 possible by 2030.

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US regulators in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are digging into a $950 million oil bet that was made in futures market CME and ICE before Donald Trump posted about an Iran ceasefire.

According to Bloomberg, the CFTC is looking at like two trading episodes over about two weeks when trading volume rallied to records moments before major announcements. The request also covers Tag 50 data, which can identify all companies or entities behind the trades.

When the conflict began, disruption to Middle East supply sent oil prices rallying. Then later, prices swung hard as traders tried to guess when tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz might resume.

CME said, “We vigorously surveil our markets and work closely with the CFTC to oversee trading activity.” The exchange added, “Importantly, any review of market behavior must include all venues, including prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi that list related products with little to no visibility.”

In her Wednesday statement, Senator Elizabeth Warren said the trades looked like insiders rigging the market. “These suspicious oil trades look like an appalling example of insiders rigging the market.”

She added, “The probe is a start, but CFTC and the SEC should do their job and investigate anything that looks like insider trading by Trump Administration officials.” That pulled the SEC into the fight, even though the main review is being run by the CFTC.

US exporters ship record oil volumes as war disruption drives fuel prices higher

The investigation comes as the physical oil market is under strain. US oil exports surged to a record last week as buyers in Asia and Europe rushed to replace crude lost from the Middle East during the Iran war.

US crude shipments rose to 5.2 million barrels a day, up a little more than 1 million barrels a day from the prior week, based on government data published Wednesday. The US also exported about 7.5 million barrels of refined products, including gasoline and fuel oils, as foreign buyers searched for other suppliers during shortages.

Those export gains, along with a sharp drop in crude imports into the US, pulled inventories lower when many analysts had expected the opposite. The decline helped flip US oil prices higher on Wednesday morning, sending them up by almost 1% at $92.12 after earlier losses.

Analysts at JPMorgan said stronger competition for US barrels could push American prices higher and add to inflation pressure created by the Iran war. They also warned that the export boom and the ongoing loss of Middle East supply because of the Hormuz blockade could lift US petrol and diesel prices and raise political pressure on the Trump administration to curb exports.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US “feels good” about the chance of a deal, but no date has been set for more talks. In Tehran, a delegation from Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator in US Iran talks, arrived for more discussions.

Since the war began on February 28, average petrol prices have risen by about $1 to $4.10 a gallon, while diesel at $5.63 sits close to its record $5.81, according to data gotten from AAA.

During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to cut energy costs for consumers in half within a year of taking office. Instead, electricity, home heating oil, and petrol have all climbed faster than inflation.

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Alphabet is staring at a big payday from SpaceX as the rocket company lines up what could become the biggest IPO ever.

A new filing in Alaska shows Google LLC owned 6.11% of SpaceX at the end of 2025. Alaska requires companies to disclose holders with stakes of 5% or more. At a $2 trillion valuation, that stake would be worth about $122 billion.

That holding may already be smaller after the February merger between SpaceX and xAI, Elon Musk’s AI and social media company. At a $2 trillion valuation, that would still be worth about $100 billion. Google had disclosed its SpaceX investment before, but not the exact size.

SpaceX takes major investors across the U.S. while banks finish the offering

Meanwhile, SpaceX is currently preparing to show key sites across the United States to possible anchor investors as it tries to secure backing for the deal.

People briefed on the plans allegedly said the company wants to take investors who could buy large stakes, including sovereign wealth funds, to facilities in California and Texas.

SpaceX also plans to charter a plane from New York in the coming weeks for visits that could include Mississippi, where xAI is building a large data center campus.

The company has filed confidentially to go public and wants to raise as much as $75 billion at a valuation above $2 trillion, a level previously reported by Cryptopolitan.

If it gets there, the deal would be the largest IPO on record. Advisers working on the listing are said to be working nonstop. Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen has told bankers he is unhappy about details of the IPO leaking out. He has also reminded the banks involved that the process is supposed to stay private.

After the listing, Elon would be on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. Longtime executives, including President Gwynne Shotwell, would also see their wealth rise. Early investors are set for large gains, but even those who bought in about five years ago are still likely to do very well.

SpaceX leans on Starlink, launches, Starship, and cell service to defend its price

PitchBook senior research analyst Franco Granda, who covers SpaceX, said, “Benchmarked against high-growth large-cap peers, SpaceX’s profile warrants a premium multiple, with around 50% EBITDA margins and around a 50% three-year revenue CAGR in addition to multiple compounding growth vectors.

The valuation becomes progressively easier to justify over a 5-7 year horizon as Starship commercializes and the direct-to-cell business scales, with returns driven by milestone execution rather than near-term earnings growth.”

Starlink generated an estimated $10.6 billion in revenue and $5.8 billion in EBITDA in 2025, with a 54% margin. It made up more than two-thirds of total SpaceX revenue.

The subscriber base doubled for a second straight year to 9.2 million users across more than 150 countries. By 2040, forecasts see Starlink revenue reaching $120 billion with a 70% EBITDA margin.

SpaceX flew 165 Falcon 9 missions in 2025, about 52% of all global orbital launches. Its booster reuse rate reached 84%, cutting launch costs by as much as 65%.

The launch unit is estimated to have produced $5.2 billion in revenue and $1.7 billion in EBITDA in 2025, with a 33% margin. Franco’s forecast puts that business at $30 billion in revenue by 2040 as Starship takes over the full manifest. The first commercial payload delivery is expected in 2026.

On mobile, Starlink’s direct-to-cell service reached 6 million subscribers through 27 carrier partnerships in about 18 months.

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Adobe introduced Firefly AI Assistant on Wednesday, a new tool designed to handle multi-step creative tasks across its software lineup. The company will make the product available in public beta in Firefly in the coming weeks.

Adobe positioned the assistant to work across Firefly and Creative Cloud applications, including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, Express, and Lightroom.

The company’s stock, ADBE, rose 3.79% on April 15 following the positive news. The company has outperformed the Software & IT Services sector, which is up by 2.31%.

Adobe reported annual revenue of $23.77 billion and net profit of $7.13 billion, ranking 18th and 16th in the Software & IT Services industry, respectively.

The company has received multiple Buy ratings from analysts, with an average price target of $323.96.At the time of writing, Adobe’s stock, ADBE, is trading at $244.66, up 8.94 points or 3.79% from the previous close.

Adobe and Anthropic connect Claude to Creative Cloud apps

The creative company described the product as part of a bold pivot into “agentic creativity.” The product features a conversational interface that can orchestrate work across multiple apps. This eliminates the need for users to rely solely on one-step prompts.

As reported by Reuters, Adobe’s creativity and productivity chief technology officer, Ely Greenfield, stated that customers can still work at the pixel level when precision matters, but they can hand off other parts of projects to an agent or assistant.

Adobe launched the assistant alongside a new Firefly update that adds more AI models and creative tools to the platform.

Creators can now use more than 30 AI models, including Adobe’s own Firefly models as well as tools from partners such as Runway, Google, ElevenLabs, Luma AI, Topaz Labs, and Black Forest Labs.

Moreover, they now have access to new functionalities, including Enhance Speech, audio enhancements, Color Adjustments, Precision Flow, AI Markup, and Adobe Stock integration with access to 800+ million licensed assets.

A separate connector will let users move between Anthropic’s Claude and Adobe’s creative tools. Adobe said the integration is meant to let people develop a concept in Claude and then execute the creative work in Firefly.

Anthropic Chief Commercial Officer Paul Smith said the companies are exploring ways to connect thinking and making more directly. He said, “The best creative work flows between thinking and making.”

Smith added, “Together with Adobe, we’re exploring new ways to help creators conceptualize a project in Claude and reach straight into Adobe Firefly to execute it. That can bring about a meaningful change in how creative work gets done.”

Adobe did not disclose the financial arrangements between the two companies. The company also did not disclose pricing for Firefly AI Assistant, but said it expects the tool to increase use of AI credits, which remain the company’s main way of charging for AI features.

The product launch comes as Adobe is trying to show that its AI investment can translate into stronger business results.

Adobe reported record revenue in its first quarter of fiscal 2026 and non-GAAP earnings per share that topped analyst estimates. The company also posted a substantial increase in AI-first annualized recurring revenue.

At the same time, investors are still watching several pressure points, including a critical Acrobat and Reader vulnerability disclosed on April 11, a 41.2% reduction in Carnegie Investment Counsel’s stake reported in an April 12 filing, and BTIG’s new Neutral rating on April 13.

The Claude tie-up was announced on the same day Anthropic dealt with a service disruption across parts of its platform.

Claude experienced a 40-minute major outage and a 73-minute partial outage affecting Claude.ai, Claude Code, the Claude API, and Cowork.

Anthropic said at 10:53 a.m. ET that Claude.ai and Cowork were down for most users, and some Claude Code users were also having trouble logging in. The technical issue had been resolved by 1:42 p.m. ET based on updates from Claude’s status page.

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World Liberty Financial (WLFI) has unveiled a governance proposal that would restructure the vesting schedules of more than 62 billion WLFI tokens held by early supporters, founders, team members and partners. 

The development comes at a sensitive period for the protocol, which in addition to many speculations about its leadership setup, is facing a public dispute with crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun over governance practices and token controls.

The proposed plan will see insiders who opt in accept a 10% reduction of their locked allocations. This will lead to as many as 4.5 billion WLFI tokens permanently removed from circulation.

The remaining tokens would be subject to a two-year cliff followed by a three-year linear vesting period.

However, early supporters would retain their full allocations but face a two-year cliff and a shorter vesting timeline.

Why is WLFI proposing stricter token lockups now?

The proposal is an attempt by WLFI to resolve what it calls a governance overhang, which is a large share of tokens that have never participated in protocol votes.

According to the WLFI, about 77% of the locked supply has not been used in governance decisions since launch.

The new framework would force holders to choose between accepting extended vesting terms or remaining locked indefinitely.

In either case, the tokens would remain unavailable for immediate sale, and this ensures that a significant portion of supply is committed to governance participation for at least two years.

By introducing defined vesting schedules and incentivizing participation, the protocol aims to transition from a loosely committed holder base to one that is anchored by long-term governance alignment.

Is this a response to allegations of insider movements?

WLFI has recently been embroiled in a dispute with Justin Sun, who has accused the project of exerting hidden control over tokens and governance processes, and it has raised questions about whether the proposal is reactive.

Cryptopolitan has reported that the disagreement arises from allegations of token freezing and the existence of privileged contract functions that could undermine decentralization claims.

Sun claimed that the protocol installed mechanisms that allowed it to restrict token movements. WLFI has disputed those allegations, threatening legal action in its last message regarding Sun.

Market reaction has been volatile, and the latest controversy has not really helped the token, which has declined by over 14% in the past week, trading at around $0.0807, up by 0.05% over the last 24 hours.

When is the burn happening?

Before WLFI gets to the burning phase, it has to go through a governance vote, which is set to run for seven days. There is a quorum requirement of 1 billion WLFI tokens and a simple majority needed for passage.

If approved, participants will have a limited window to accept the new terms.

The burn relies on participants opting into the new terms, making the final scale of supply reduction uncertain for now.

The proposal also extends the timeline over which tokens can enter circulation, and this is expected to help to reduce near-term sell pressure; however, it will also delay liquidity for insiders.

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The S&P 500 closed at a new record on Wednesday as traders kept buying stocks on hopes that the U.S. and Iran may still get to a deal and bring this war closer to an end.

The S&P 500 rose 0.80% and finished at 7,022.95. The Nasdaq Composite also hit a new record after climbing 1.59% to 24,016.02. The Dow Jones Industrial Average did not follow them higher. It fell 72.27 points, or 0.15%, and ended the day at 48,463.72.

The Nasdaq has now risen for 11 straight sessions. The S&P 500 has closed higher in 10 of the last 11 trading days.

This week alone, the S&P 500 is up 3% after wiping out all of its Iran war losses by Monday. The Nasdaq has added nearly 5% this week, while the Dow is up more than 1%.

Traders push the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to records as the rally gets faster

The speed of this rally is now one of the main stories. On Wednesday, the Nasdaq Composite pushed into overbought territory after its relative strength index, or RSI, climbed above 70. That happened just 11 trading days after the index had closed in oversold territory on March 30.

RSI is a common technical signal that tracks how quickly prices have risen or fallen, in which a reading below 30 usually means a market looks oversold, and a reading above 70 usually means it looks overbought.

In this case, the jump from below 30 to above 70 took only 11 sessions, which makes it the fastest such swing in data going back to the early 1980s.

The rally has also lined up with an 11-day winning streak for the Nasdaq, its first streak that long since November 2021. Over that run, the index has gained 15%. That is its best 15-day stretch since March 2022. Traders have been piling back into risk as bets grow that the fighting tied to Iran may not last as long as feared.

Software names also came roaring back. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF rose more than 3% on Wednesday and is now up almost 10% for the week. That rebound came right after the ETF fell more than 7% last week. The earlier drop came as traders worried that Anthropic’s Claude Mythos could hit the software-as-a-service business hard. This week, that fear eased enough for buyers to return.

Among Dow stocks, Microsoft was up nearly 4% in midday trading and Salesforce gained about 3%. For the week, Microsoft is now up 10% and Salesforce is up close to 7%. Inside the S&P 500, Datadog rose 7% and ServiceNow gained 6% on Wednesday. Both stocks are up more than 12% this week.

Tesla climbs as chip progress, factory plans, and software changes lift the stock

Tesla was one of the loudest names stock closed nearly 8% higher at $391.95 after chief executive Elon Musk said the company’s upcoming AI5 chip had reached an important engineering target and was getting closer to production.

Tesla is also planning two advanced chip factories in Austin, Texas, with SpaceX, one site is meant to build chips for vehicles and robots, while the other is meant to produce chips for orbital data centers. Intel has also joined the Tesla-SpaceX Terafab project.

On Tuesday, UBS changed its rating on Tesla from sell to hold and raised its price target to $352, about a dollar above its earlier target. The stock had already gained a little more than 3% on Tuesday, and it is now up more than 12% this week.

In the note, analyst Joseph Spak and his team said work on a smaller SUV was a welcome development because Tesla’s current light-duty vehicle lineup is too limited, with that lineup now including the Model 3 sedan, the Model Y SUV, and the steel-bodied Cybertruck.

The company has stopped selling the Model S and Model X while part of its Fremont, California factory moves toward production work tied to the Optimus humanoid robot.

The stock also got support from Tesla’s spring software update. The update made it easier for drivers to subscribe to Full Self Driving (Supervised) and check touchscreen data showing how often they use it.

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Bitcoin lovers are getting pulled into Mythos (Anthropic’s open-source cyber AI model), with the community obsessively talking about how AI might be the real Bitcoin killer.

But hear us out; the issue is not really about the Bitcoin network breaking, it is actually about everything around it.

Many people still push cold wallets over crypto exchanges, which instead hold the keys for you. And that tradeoff helped some of the first big crypto companies grow fast. So companies like Binance and Coinbase became the easy entry point. But oh, look! Here comes AI getting better at finding weak spots in software.

Crypto companies brace for faster attacks as Mythos targets weak software

The one part of the market that offers some comfort is the Bitcoin blockchain itself. It has operated without interruption since 2009, and it has never been hacked.

So when traders say Mythos is a threat, they are talking about the companies built around Bitcoin.

That includes exchanges, custodians, wallets, and other businesses that now sit alongside a much bigger crypto investment universe that also includes ETFs and crypto-linked stocks.

Coinbase chief security officer Philip Martin said, “Mythos, and future models like it, will enable even deeper testing of software and systems at scale.” He also said, “This will accelerate digital threats as well as digital defense.”

Philip added that Mythos is “a highly restricted model not available to the public,” and said Coinbase is in close communication with Anthropic. By press time, COIN stock was trading at $198, up more than 7%.

Not every company has the same access. Some large banks and tech companies, including Goldman Sachs, already got early access to Mythos, but crypto companies were not part of the first rollout. At Binance, chief security officer Jimmy Su said the exchange is relying on a mix of outside large language models, including earlier Anthropic systems, along with tools built inside the company to handle its security demands.

Anthropic faces outages amid Coinbase and Bitcoin exposure

The market reaction did not stop with the security talk. On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around Anthropic stayed in the bullish zone, and message volume jumped into the extremely high range over the past day.

There was also a new analyst call on Wednesday for Coinbase. Piper Sandler raised its price target on Coinbase to $180 from $150 and kept a Neutral rating ahead of the company’s first-quarter earnings. The bank said it is somewhat cautious about difficult year-over-year comparisons for exchanges in the second quarter of 2026, though TheFly reported that a continuation of the Iran War could be a strong offset.

At the same time, Anthropic was dealing with technical issues across its own products. On Wednesday, the company said it saw elevated error rates affecting its Claude chatbot, its API, and Claude Code, based on its status page. It began investigating the issue at 10:53 a.m. ET. At about 12:30 p.m. ET, the company said login success rates for the chatbot had stabilized and that it was working to “fully resolve this issue.” By 1:50 p.m. ET, all systems were operational.

On Downdetector, around 6,000 users reported issues with Claude, but fell to roughly 2,000 about 2 hours later, then to about 500 moments after.

As you probably know, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by researchers and executives who left OpenAI, and Cryptopolitan reported yesterday that the company is now valued at $800 billion after new investment rounds post-Mythos.

Anthropic is also fighting for enterprise market share against rivals, including Google and OpenAI, which reached an $850 billion valuation in its latest funding round in late March.

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The Ethereum Foundation has launched a $1 million audit subsidy program. The initiative, which became active on April 14th, sets out to help Ethereum builders pay for smart contract security audits.

Professional audits are standard before deploying code in any crypto project. Yet audit costs often put them out of reach for smaller or new teams. This program is meant to close that gap for Ethereum layer-1 builders.

The Ethereum Foundation prioritizes projects advancing its CROPS (censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security) principles. This is part of the foundation’s expansive Trillion Dollar Security Initiative.

The Ethereum Foundation program covers up to 30% of audit costs via 20+ vetted firms

The new Ethereum Foundation program is structured to cover part of the audit bill rather than pay for the entire review.

Crypto projects that are approved can receive a subsidy worth up to 30% of total audit costs. The discount is applied through Areta Market once provider quotes come in.

The CEO of Areta Market, Findlay Boothroyd, shared details on the program rollout via X. He wrote, “The Ethereum Security Subsidy Program is a joint initiative with top-tier audit providers, anchored by an Expert Committee with leading minds from some of the organizations who know Ethereum the best.”

1/ We’ve teamed up with @ethereumfndn Trillion Dollar Security Initative, @nethermind, and @chainlinklabs to bring $1m in audit subsidies to @ethereum builders!

The Ethereum Security Subsidy Program is a joint initiative with top-tier audit providers, anchored by an Expert… pic.twitter.com/zzn63wsrXg

— Findlay (@0xboo) April 14, 2026

Based on details shared on the program page, the subsidy is awarded as a fixed dollar amount and can then be used against offers on the Areta Market. The amount is subject to the 30% cap on any single quote.

The setup relies on what organizers call a virtual subsidy model. Participating blockchain security firms fund the support through discounts rather than the program drawing down from a central pool each time a team books an audit. That means accepted teams still go through the normal quoting process, but the awarded subsidy is automatically applied when they choose among provider offers.

More than 20 audit firms are participating at launch. This gives builders a solid lineup of reputable security shops to choose from. The published provider roster includes names such as Certora, Cyfrin, Dedaub, Hacken, Immunefi, Quantstamp, Sherlock, Spearbit, Zellic, and Zokyo. The lineup also includes Chainsecurity, Nethermind, Runtime Verification, Guardian Audits, Oak Security, and others.

The program standardizes procurement in the Ethereum ecosystem while preserving teams’ flexibility to shop around. The Ethereum Foundation hopes to put rigorous audits within easier reach of mainnet builders.

Earlier this month, the Ethereum Foundation staked 45,034 ETH or $93 million into the Eth2 Beacon Chain. The amount was split into equal batches of 2,047 ETH worth around $4.23 million. The Ether batches were sent from the foundation’s treasury multisig to the Eth2 Beacon Chain deposit contract.

According to Cryptopolitan, the foundation is close to its goal of staking 70,000 Ether coins. At the moment, Arkham Intelligence data shows the foundation holds around $307 million spread across various crypto assets.

At the time of writing, Ethereum is exchanging hands at $2,358.43 according to data collected by CoinGecko. The coin gained 1.7% in the last 24 hours and is up 6.1% in the last week. Ether has remained in the green zone for the month with a market cap of $284 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $16.4 billion.

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Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell if he does not leave when his term ends in May.

Speaking to FOX Business, Trump reminded us that he had wanted to remove Powell from the very beginning of his second term but held back because he did not want more controversy, but in his words, he still sees Chair Powell as overall incompetent.

This, of course, comes as the Justice Department investigates Powell and the Fed’s headquarters overhaul. Trump has chosen Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor, to replace Powell when the chair’s term expires in May. That nomination is moving through the Senate while the central bank faces scrutiny over the project and Powell’s testimony.

Trump backs Warsh and attacks Powell as confirmation questions grow

In the interview, Trump said, “I’ve held back firing him. I’ve wanted to fire him, but I hate to be controversial, you know?” He then returned to the renovation of the Fed’s buildings. Trump said, “[This is a] building that I would have done for $25 million that’s going to cost maybe $4 billion.” He added, “Don’t you think we have to find out what happened there?”

The investigation has also spilled into politics around Warsh’s nomination. Outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said he would “oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee, including for the position of chairman, until the DOJ’s inquiry into Chairman Powell is fully and transparently resolved.”

Asked whether Warsh would still be confirmed, Trump said, “We’re going to have to find out [if he will be confirmed]. He might not, but that’s why Thom Tillis is no longer a senator,” referring to Tillis’ decision not to seek reelection in 2026.

Trump then called Tillis a “good man” and said he did not think Tillis would intentionally hurt Warsh’s chances.

On Powell, Trump said, “He’s on his way out… and I think he doesn’t want the legacy of stopping a great person who could be great…. I know he said what he said, and maybe it’s true, in which case I’ll have to live with it…”

Pirro sends prosecutors to the Fed site as the legal fight gets louder

On Tuesday, prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office arrived without notice at the construction site for the Fed’s headquarters renovation, according to a person familiar with the matter and a letter allegedly reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

After speaking with workers, two deputies from Pirro’s office were told they could not enter without preclearance. They were then given contact details for the Fed’s legal team.

The case centers on the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two historic office buildings and a few minutes of Powell’s testimony to Congress. An outside lawyer for the Fed, Robert Hur, objected to the visit in a letter to Pirro’s office. Hur pointed to a ruling last month by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who threw out two subpoenas and said the investigation appeared designed to “harass and pressure” Powell to either cut interest rates or step down.

Hur wrote, “Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it.” He added, “I ask that you commit not to seek to communicate with my client outside the presence of counsel.” Hur also said prosecutors Carlton Davis and Steven Vandervelden appeared “without prior notice,” asked for a tour, and said they wanted to inspect the progress of the renovation.

That clash came the same day the confirmation process moved forward for Warsh. The Senate Banking Committee said Tuesday that it would hold his confirmation hearing next week, on April 21.

In a separate Fox Business interview, committee chairman Tim Scott predicted Pirro’s investigation would end within weeks and clear the way for Warsh. Pressed on whether he knew that, Scott said, “I don’t have any evidence of that, no.”

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President Donald Trump is once again at the center of the memecoin mania as VIP seats for the April 25 memecoin conference sell for $203K. Dangling access to President Trump for potential attendees sparks an ethical dilemma, as it encourages purchases that generate fees for the president and his family.

Ethics is a looming threat to the conference’s viability, with Democrats bashing Trump for selling personal crypto while in office to enrich himself and his family. Senators Adam Schiff of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut also expressed concern that the event’s organizers are promoting a conference on a day when Trump may not be able to attend. 

Notably, the April 25 conference is scheduled for the same day as the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which the president has already committed to attend. White House officials previously hinted that the memecoin dinner is not yet in Trump’s diary. However, while the president’s attendance at the memecoin conference is still up there, it is a reminder of the brewing ethical dark cloud hanging over Trump’s crypto business ties. 

It is also a sign of the backlash to come over the Trump memecoin conference. The first dinner triggered a race to buy TRUMP tokens, followed by national news coverage and then protests on the day of the conference. 

Georgia senator calls it a ‘gobsmacking’ enrichment plan

Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia previously said it is “gobsmacking” that a sitting president could be so entangled in crypto while in office, thereby enriching his entire clan. He also dared Republicans to defend Trump’s memecoin conference, which is more likely in the current situation if Trump decides to show up at the all-day Mar-a-Lago conference, billed as “The Most Exclusive Crypto & Business Conference in the World,” rather than attend the state dinner. Ossoff believes any self-respecting Congress should demand accountability from every government official trading in any of Trump-linked tokens.

Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, a Republican but staunch crypto ally, also said she is getting “pause” from the memecoin dinner. Her spokesperson, Katie Warbinton, called Trump the most pro-crypto president in history, but kept off the conference dinner discussion.

“It doesn’t take any imagination to see how a cryptocurrency issued by Trump or his family members will quickly become a tool of bribery and foreign manipulation.” 

–Rep. Sam Liccardo, a Democrat representing parts of Silicon Valley

However, the White House and Trump have repeatedly played down any notion of conflicts of interest arising from the president’s entanglement with crypto. However, Fight Fight Fight LLC, which controls a big portion of the TRUMP memecoin alongside a Trump-linked entity, is organizing the Mar-a-Lago dinner.    

Rumors suggest memecoin dinner could be postponed, TRUMP price surges

The TRUMP memecoin official website includes a disclaimer stating that the president might be unable to attend the all-day event, suggesting it could be rescheduled. Qualified attendees will be compensated with a limited edition Trump NFT if the memecoin dinner is postponed.

Meanwhile, there was a brief surge in Trump memecoin prices immediately after the rumor circulated. TRUMP tokens reached $3.08 before plummeting back down to around $2.95. The token is trading at $2.82, up 0.9% over the past 24 hours, according to Coingecko. 

The TRUMP ecosystem is also riding on the hype with multiple social media posts reporting the launch of WLFI and MELANIA tokens. The move is expected to add supply and drive speculative trading for TRUMP tokens. The top 297 TRUMP holders will earn a seat at the upcoming memecoin dinner, while the 29 largest wallets will access the private VIP reception. 

TRUMP whales have notably stepped up their game to accumulate TRUMP memecoins ahead of the crypto conference at Mar-a-Lago. On-chain tracker Lookonchain reported that one wallet withdrew $2.4 million worth of TRUMP (~850,488 TRUMP) from Bybit. Another newly created wallet on Bybit withdrew 600,529 TRUMP tokens valued between $1.71 and $1.72 million. TRUMP whales have also withdrawn 105,754 TRUMP worth approximately $298,000 from Binance ahead of the memecoin gala. 

However, the fact that the official TRUMP memecoin has plunged 96% from its all-time high also indicates a serious loss of market confidence. The memecoin poses an elevated risk for holders amid increased sell pressure.

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Gold is no longer getting the same support from central banks that helped keep prices strong over the past few years.

Of course, the reason is Trump’s war in Iran, because as you know, war costs money, and higher oil prices are hurting countries that depend on imports, local currencies are under pressure, and some central banks need fast access to cash.

Instead, gold has pulled back. Spot gold currently trades around $4,838 per ounce and is down about 10% from its late January high, putting it in correction territory, even per data from TradingView.

Silver fell by 0.2% to $79.40 per ounce, Platinum rose by 0.8% to $2,119.52, while Palladium dropped by 1.1% to $1,570.10.

Turkey is leading central bank gold sales

Turkey’s official gold holdings fell by 131 tons in March through swaps and direct sales as authorities tried to steady the lira, Metals Focus said in a report published last Thursday. Since the Iran war began, the Turkish lira has fallen about 1.7% against the U.S. dollar and slipped to new all-time lows.

Putin’s Russia has also trimmed gold holdings in recent months, with the cuts likely tied to budget shortfalls. Ghana has also sold reserves to raise foreign currency liquidity. Poland’s central bank governor briefly looked at selling part of the country’s gold stockpile to help pay for defense spending. That got attention because Poland was the biggest central bank buyer of gold in both 2024 and 2025.

Right now, oil is more expensive, the U.S. dollar is stronger, and borrowing costs are higher All three make life tougher for countries already dealing with weak currencies. When exchange rates come under pressure, central banks often step into the market to support them. That takes cash. Gold is one of the few reserve assets they can quickly use when stress gets worse.

From 2022 through 2024, central banks bought more than 1,000 tons of gold a year, the World Gold Council said. 2022 was the biggest year on record for annual central bank gold demand. In 2025, that pace slowed to 863 tons as price swings became more violent.

Big reserve holders Reserve Bank of India, the People’s Bank of China, and the Bundesbank have said little about recent activity, so the full picture is still hard to see.

Investors watch falling gold prices as rate fears and weak demand hit the market

Meanwhile, retail investors are also pulling money out of gold positions, meaning two major sources of demand for bullion are weakening at the same time.

Some in the market say the selling does not mean central banks are done with gold. Shaokai Fan, global head of central banks at the World Gold Council, said: “It really emphasizes why central banks hold gold… it’s a liquid asset that typically performs well during periods of uncertainty, and therefore they can deploy it if needed.”

China has also stepped in during price dips in the past, which keeps traders alert for fresh buying if prices fall further.

Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Tuesday that the Federal Reserve may have to wait until 2027 to cut rates if high oil prices from the Iran war keep slowing progress toward the Fed’s 2% inflation goal.

The market now sees a 32% chance of a U.S. rate cut this year. In ECONS 101, you learn that higher interest rates tend to hurt gold because it does not pay yield, so investors lose more by holding it instead of interest-bearing assets.

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Swiss companies have attracted almost half of the venture capital invested in Europe’s crypto sector, according to a new report tracking funding in Crypto Valley.

The data featured in the recently released study clearly cements the leading position of Switzerland’s blockchain ecosystem on the Old Continent, well ahead of the competition.

Switzerland secures 47% of European venture capital in crypto

Nestled in the heart of Europe, Switzerland remains its most attractive destination for investors looking to support businesses in the digital assets space.

Some 47% of all European venture capital investments in the industry last year went to the country’s Crypto Valley, centered in the Canton of Zug.

More than 1,760 blockchain firms are currently operating out of the region, including a few dozen registered in Liechtenstein.

The Swiss canton’s capital, Zug, is home to about 40% of them, and the country’s main financial center, Zurich, hosts another 15%, accounting together for close to 1,000 entities.

The number of the valley’s residents has increased by 134% since 2020, and Zug is by far the largest contributor, with almost half of the new ones established in the past year.

No less than 10 blockchain unicorns are based in Switzerland, including two private blockchain companies and eight blockchain platforms with publicly traded tokens.

The combined valuation of the top 50 companies now stands at an estimated $467 billion, a record high for the crypto-focused ecosystem.

The findings come from the latest edition of the CV VC Top 50 Report, which covers data for the whole of 2025 and was published in April 2026, the German crypto news outlet BTC Echo informed on Wednesday.

CV VC, or Crypto Valley Venture Capital, is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on startups developing global solutions that leverage blockchain technology.

TON secures the largest single deal at $400 million

Swiss-based crypto companies raised a total of $728 million, which is 37% more than the previous year, the authors of the study also emphasized.

While the number of rounds decreased, the size of individual investments increased significantly, the researchers noted, highlighting a shift towards larger funding rounds.

The largest single deal, for $400 million, was sealed by TON, followed by Sygnum Bank with $58 million and M^0 with $40 million.

The high numbers in each of these cases suggest investors are becoming more selective in their decisions while orienting towards well-positioned, scalable projects.

A similar trend was observed in Germany last year, when Berlin accounted for over 70% of the country’s $45 million in blockchain investments, signaling that quality over quantity is the new sentiment.

Focus shifts from finance to technology

Another trend worth noting is the ongoing shift from financial products and services toward solutions that enable broader blockchain adoption.

Among funded business models, infrastructure developers now account for 19%, compared with 18% for financial services providers and 17% for consulting and technology services firms.

This affirms the status of crypto-linked technology as fundamental to the entire digital economy, not just its cryptocurrency segment.

Other sources of validation are the growing integration with artificial intelligence and expanding academic research in the blockchain field.

The latter allows the Crypto Valley to maintain its lead in this area. The push is supported by Swiss authorities, and Zug is investing over $50 million in such initiatives.

Against this backdrop, Europe’s share of the global venture funding dropped to 13% in 2025, from 16% in 2024, the report also revealed.

The region secured $67 billion across nearly 6,600 deals during the studied period, registering a modest increase in funding, again from fewer deals.

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Artificial intelligence companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, are taking serious steps to address the growing risks associated with their products. Altman’s firm released models exclusively for experts to help defend vulnerable systems, while Anthropic is now requiring ID verification before users can access certain functions. 

When AI models were initially released to the public, they were used to turn text into Ghibli-style art and write shopping lists, but artificial intelligence has quickly become a national security concern. 

Why is Anthropic asking for my driver’s license?

Hackers are already using AI to bypass defense systems, forcing Anthropic to roll out a mandatory identity verification process. Users now need a physical government ID (passport or driver’s license) and a live selfie to use specific functions.

Their partner, Persona, handles the data. Anthropic has clarified that it will not use users’ identity data to train its AI models. The company also clarified that verification is necessary to “prevent abuse, enforce our usage policies, and comply with legal obligations.” 

If a user fails the test or tries to use the system from an unsupported location, their account can be banned.

The sudden crackdown is due to Anthropic’s admission that their new model, Claude Mythos Preview, is terrifyingly good at hacking. 

In a blog post released alongside the verification news, the company stated that Mythos Preview is “capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so.”

Engineers at Anthropic, with no formal security training, asked Mythos to find remote code execution vulnerabilities overnight. According to the company, they “woke up the following morning to a complete, working exploit.”

Are the new AI models actually dangerous?

The UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) published an evaluation confirming that Mythos represents a “step up” in cyber capabilities.

Anthropic’s internal blog post provides the most alarming details about the model’s capabilities. Mythos, after receiving the initial prompt, found a 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD, an operating system known for being secure. 

Mythos also found a 16-year-old bug in FFmpeg, a video tool used by almost every major service. The tool has been tested by millions of random inputs in a technique called fuzzing, yet Mythos found a vulnerability in the H.264 codec that dates back to a 2003 commit. 

Beyond that, Mythos found a 17-year-old vulnerability in FreeBSD’s NFS server and wrote an exploit that allows any unauthenticated user on the internet to gain full root access to the server. 

The company confirmed that Mythos Preview “fully autonomously identified and then exploited this vulnerability.” The entire process cost under $2,000 at API pricing and took less than a day.

Mythos found vulnerabilities in every major web browser. In one case, it wrote a browser exploit that chained together four vulnerabilities, including a JIT heap spray, to escape both the browser’s renderer sandbox and the operating system’s sandbox. 

Anthropic has found “thousands of additional high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities” across open source and closed source software. Over 99% of these bugs have not yet been patched. 

OpenAI’s approach to security risks 

Despite these problems, OpenAI has announced the release of GPT-5.4-Cyber, which, unlike standard models that refuse to help with hacking for safety reasons, “lowers the refusal boundary for legitimate cybersecurity work.”

GPT-5.4-Cyber can analyze compiled software without access to the source code to detect malware and vulnerabilities, but access is limited to OpenAI’s “Trusted Access for Cyber” (TAC) program. Only vetted cybersecurity experts, researchers, and organizations defending critical systems can use it.

Anthropic’s Project Glasswing also gives limited access to defenders at companies like Amazon ($AMZN), Apple ($AAPL), and Google ($GOOGL) to fix critical infrastructure before attackers can exploit it. 

In the meantime, Anthropic suggests installing security updates immediately, rather than on a monthly schedule.

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Geneva, Switzerland, April 15, 2026 — TRON DAO, the community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps), welcomes the launch of B.AI on the TRON network. B.AI is a financial infrastructure built for the AI agent era, designed to address the core challenges agents face in model access, payments, settlement, identity, and coordination. As demand grows for infrastructure supporting agent-driven payments and commerce, the launch reflects how TRON’s scale, stablecoin liquidity, and low transaction costs are being used as a foundation for these emerging use cases.

B.AI combines AI infrastructure with blockchain-based identity and payment systems to deliver a comprehensive end-to-end service suite for AI agents. The system enables access to AI services, reducing reliance on traditional onboarding processes such as account registration, geographic restrictions, and credit card-based payments.

The platform incorporates the 8004 protocol, an onchain identity framework that links blockchain addresses to verifiable reputations. Each agent is assigned a unique onchain identity that records activity, feedback, and credentials, enabling agents to verify one another and interact.

B.AI also integrates the x402 payment standard, an open protocol based on HTTP 402, to enable automated, trustless value transfer between agents. The framework supports real-time settlement and high-frequency transactions, allowing agents to access compute resources, pay for APIs, and execute onchain transactions autonomously. 

“AI agents will participate in the global economy in ways humans cannot, executing transactions continuously and at machine speed,” said Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. “Supporting that activity requires financial infrastructure that is fast, reliable, and accessible at a global scale. The TRON infrastructure and its stablecoin ecosystem already process large volumes of real-world transactions, providing a strong foundation for the next generation of AI-driven financial systems.”

B.AI is designed to support AI agents as independent economic participants, with the ability to manage assets, access services and execute transactions autonomously. B.AI is pioneering a structural shift in the AI landscape, providing the essential connectivity for intelligence, identity, and economic exchange that allows agents to thrive.

The TRON network has become one of the most widely used blockchains for stablecoin settlement and everyday digital payments, supporting more than $22 billion in daily transaction volume. The network has a circulating supply of more than $86 billion in Tether (USDT) issued onchain, with annual transfer volume exceeding $7.9 trillion.

This level of real-world adoption has established TRON as a key infrastructure for payments, remittances and peer-to-peer transfers, providing a foundation for emerging machine-to-machine financial activity at scale.

As AI systems advance into practical use, agents are beginning to execute payments, access services and coordinate financial activity autonomously, increasing the volume of machine-driven transactions. That shift is expected to place new demands on payment infrastructure capable of processing continuous, everyday transfers at scale. The TRON network’s high throughput, deep liquidity, and low transaction costs provide the infrastructure for machine-to-machine financial interactions to achieve mainstream adoption.

TRON is a Gold Member of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), an open foundation driving the transparent and collaborative evolution of agentic AI. Under the Linux Foundation, the AAIF is designed to provide neutral stewardship for open, interoperable infrastructure as agentic AI systems move from experimentation into real-world production.

About TRON DAO

TRON DAO is a community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and dApps.

Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON blockchain has experienced significant growth since its MainNet launch in May 2018. Until recently, TRON hosted the largest circulating supply of USD Tether (USDT) stablecoin, which currently exceeds $86 billion. As of April 2026, the TRON blockchain has recorded over 375 million in total user accounts, more than 13 billion in total transactions, and over $27 billion in total value locked (TVL), based on TRONSCAN. Recognized as the global settlement layer for stablecoin transactions and everyday purchases with proven success, TRON is “Moving Trillions, Empowering Billions.”

TRONNetwork | TRONDAO | X | YouTube | Telegram | Discord | Reddit | GitHub | Medium | Forum

Media Contact

Yeweon Park

press@tron.network

About B.AI

B.AI is a financial infrastructure built for the AI Agent era, designed to address the core challenges agents face in model access, payments, settlement, identity, and coordination. Through a unified API and settlement network, B.AI enables AI Agents to connect more freely to leading global models and services, while using agent wallets to pay, get paid, and exchange value autonomously. At the same time, B.AI builds verifiable identity and credit primitives for agents through on-chain accounts, helping AI evolve from software tools into economic actors that can transact, collaborate, and operate continuously at scale. By lowering barriers to model access, enabling seamless value transfer, and establishing an economic framework for intelligent agents, B.AI aims to accelerate the maturation of the AI Agent ecosystem, advance the real-world development of AGI, and make the benefits of AI more accessible to a broader range of users and developers.

Media Contact

Elle

support@b.ai

Artificial intelligence companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, are taking serious steps to address the growing risks associated with their products. Altman’s firm released models exclusively for experts to help defend vulnerable systems, while Anthropic is now requiring ID verification before users can access certain functions. 

When AI models were initially released to the public, they were used to turn text into Ghibli-style art and write shopping lists, but artificial intelligence has quickly become a national security concern. 

Why is Anthropic asking for my driver’s license?

Hackers are already using AI to bypass defense systems, forcing Anthropic to roll out a mandatory identity verification process. Users now need a physical government ID (passport or driver’s license) and a live selfie to use specific functions.

Their partner, Persona, handles the data. Anthropic has clarified that it will not use users’ identity data to train its AI models. The company also clarified that verification is necessary to “prevent abuse, enforce our usage policies, and comply with legal obligations.” 

If a user fails the test or tries to use the system from an unsupported location, their account can be banned.

The sudden crackdown is due to Anthropic’s admission that their new model, Claude Mythos Preview, is terrifyingly good at hacking. 

In a blog post released alongside the verification news, the company stated that Mythos Preview is “capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so.”

Engineers at Anthropic, with no formal security training, asked Mythos to find remote code execution vulnerabilities overnight. According to the company, they “woke up the following morning to a complete, working exploit.”

Are the new AI models actually dangerous?

The UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) published an evaluation confirming that Mythos represents a “step up” in cyber capabilities.

Anthropic’s internal blog post provides the most alarming details about the model’s capabilities. Mythos, after receiving the initial prompt, found a 27-year-old bug in OpenBSD, an operating system known for being secure. 

Mythos also found a 16-year-old bug in FFmpeg, a video tool used by almost every major service. The tool has been tested by millions of random inputs in a technique called fuzzing, yet Mythos found a vulnerability in the H.264 codec that dates back to a 2003 commit. 

Beyond that, Mythos found a 17-year-old vulnerability in FreeBSD’s NFS server and wrote an exploit that allows any unauthenticated user on the internet to gain full root access to the server. 

The company confirmed that Mythos Preview “fully autonomously identified and then exploited this vulnerability.” The entire process cost under $2,000 at API pricing and took less than a day.

Mythos found vulnerabilities in every major web browser. In one case, it wrote a browser exploit that chained together four vulnerabilities, including a JIT heap spray, to escape both the browser’s renderer sandbox and the operating system’s sandbox. 

Anthropic has found “thousands of additional high- and critical-severity vulnerabilities” across open source and closed source software. Over 99% of these bugs have not yet been patched. 

OpenAI’s approach to security risks 

Despite these problems, OpenAI has announced the release of GPT-5.4-Cyber, which, unlike standard models that refuse to help with hacking for safety reasons, “lowers the refusal boundary for legitimate cybersecurity work.”

GPT-5.4-Cyber can analyze compiled software without access to the source code to detect malware and vulnerabilities, but access is limited to OpenAI’s “Trusted Access for Cyber” (TAC) program. Only vetted cybersecurity experts, researchers, and organizations defending critical systems can use it.

Anthropic’s Project Glasswing also gives limited access to defenders at companies like Amazon ($AMZN), Apple ($AAPL), and Google ($GOOGL) to fix critical infrastructure before attackers can exploit it. 

In the meantime, Anthropic suggests installing security updates immediately, rather than on a monthly schedule.

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