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Odaily Odaily News Gate Research recently released its "April 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Review" report, indicating that the overall cryptocurrency market saw a volatile upward trend in April, with total market capitalization significantly higher than in March. BTC and ETH ETF trading volumes maintained high volatility overall. The report shows continued divergence in activity across major public chain ecosystems. Solana's daily transaction volume remained in the range of approximately 90 million to 110 million transactions, maintaining its leading position.Regarding trending sectors, the report notes that Pokemon TCG RWA has become one of the fastest-growing on-chain RWA sub-sectors, entering a second explosive growth phase in April. Major trading platforms saw monthly trading volumes exceed $220 million, with weekly revenue briefly approaching $6 million, setting new historical records. Meanwhile, Aave experienced its most severe liquidity crisis ever in April, with TVL outflows reaching tens of billions of dollars within a few days and net outflows exceeding $9 billion for the entire month.In terms of fundraising and security incidents, the Web3 industry completed 51 financing rounds in April, totaling approximately $834 million, with capital further concentrating on leading financial and infrastructure tracks. Among these, Payward ranked first for the month with a $200 million financing round. On the security front, Web3 security incidents in April resulted in losses of approximately $306 million, a month-over-month increase of about 858%, primarily driven by a single cross-chain infrastructure attack on Kelp DAO worth approximately $293 million. The report suggests that against the backdrop of a recovering market, on-chain activity and capital liquidity are both increasing simultaneously. However, the security risks associated with cross-chain infrastructure and high-leverage protocols remain worthy of continued attention.
According to The Block, the T3 Financial Crime Unit (T3 FCU), jointly established by Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, announced that since its founding in 2024, it has frozen over $450 million worth of illicit crypto assets globally. In 2025, the unit’s interception of illicit proceeds increased by 43.9% year-on-year, covering 23 jurisdictions including the United States, Spain, and Germany, and has been recognized by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as “a critical resource for global law enforcement agencies.” The T3 FCU has participated in investigations across multiple crime categories, including exchange hacks, North Korea–related activities, terrorist financing, and violent crimes, and assisted Brazil’s Federal Police in freezing over $5.989 billion in assets—including 4.3 million USDT.
fintech company Stitch announced the completion of a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z. The company's main business is building operating systems for modern financial institutions. Its API-first platform enables banks, fintech companies, and non-financial institutions to launch, scale, and operate financial products on a modular technology stack. Over the past six months, Stitch's platform transaction volume has exceeded $5 billion. In 2025, the number of customers increased by 10 times, and revenue grew by 20 times.a16z stated that after years of in-depth research into global fintech infrastructure opportunities, Stitch is the clearest representation of next-generation infrastructure they have discovered.
According to an official announcement, financial infrastructure platform Stitch has closed a $25 million Series A funding round, led by a16z, with participation from Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed VC, and SVC. Stitch stated that its platform is designed to unify the ledgers, foundational components, and workflows required to build and operate financial products—enabling institutions to break free from the constraints of fragmented legacy systems and instead leverage a single platform, a single API, and an AI-native architecture.
According to Cointelegraph, a survey conducted by POLITICO and Public First among 2,035 U.S. adults found that only 4% of respondents said they would consider candidates’ cryptocurrency policy positions when deciding whom to vote for. The survey also revealed that only 18% of respondents ranked establishing regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrency markets as a congressional priority; 27% supported government efforts to promote cryptocurrency as a mainstream financial asset, while 31% opposed it. Additionally, over half of respondents stated they would not consider trading cryptocurrency, and 45% viewed investing in cryptocurrency as a risk not worth taking.
According to Bloomberg, AI chip company Cerebras raised $5.55 billion in its U.S. initial public offering (IPO), making it the largest IPO since 2026. Its offering price was set at $185 per share—above the previously announced range of $150 to $160—implying a market capitalization of approximately $40 billion and a fully diluted valuation of about $49 billion. The report states that the offering was oversubscribed by more than 20 times, and the shares are expected to begin trading under the ticker symbol “CBRS” on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Regulatory filings indicate that OpenAI holds 33.4 million Cerebras warrants, with certain vesting conditions tied to computing-power delivery milestones and Cerebras’ market capitalization exceeding $40 billion.
the smart contract auditing platform Code4rena has announced it will gradually cease operations. All ongoing audit contests and bug bounty programs will still be completed as normal.Web3 security platform Immunefi subsequently stated that it will collaborate with Code4rena to take over its bug bounty clients and security researchers, assisting in the migration of bounty scope, rules, and reward structures.Code4rena was known for its "competitive audit" model, allowing independent security researchers to earn rewards by discovering smart contract vulnerabilities. The platform secured $6 million in funding from Paradigm in 2023 and was acquired by blockchain security firm Zellic in 2024.
crypto wallet provider Ledger has suspended its US IPO plans, citing unfavorable current market conditions. (CoinDesk)
According to CoinDesk, French crypto hardware wallet company Ledger has suspended its U.S. IPO plans due to unfavorable market conditions. Sources familiar with the matter said Ledger was previously valued at approximately $4 billion and had engaged Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays as IPO advisors—but it has not yet filed any registration documents with the SEC. The company may instead consider private fundraising. Earlier, Kraken also paused its IPO citing market conditions, while publicly listed BitGo’s stock price has fallen roughly 36% from its offering price, indicating a broad cooling of enthusiasm among crypto firms for U.S. listings.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Anthropic—an AI startup that long trailed its competitors—is rapidly rising to become a leader in the artificial intelligence field. With its deep focus on enterprise users and programming use cases, Anthropic’s growth has continued to accelerate this year; the latest data shows its momentum is still intensifying, while OpenAI’s growth appears to be plateauing. In terms of fundraising, Anthropic’s latest round of financing values the company at over $90 billion—potentially surpassing OpenAI. Founded jointly in 2021 by siblings Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at OpenAI, Anthropic has evolved from a former industry follower into the strongest competitor.
Delphi Digital stated that Strategy has primarily relied on issuing stocks at high premiums and low-cost convertible bonds over the past years to secure funds for continuously increasing its Bitcoin holdings. However, this financing window is now essentially closed.Delphi points out that common stock financing is currently constrained by the Market-Adjusted Net Asset Value (mNAV), and new convertible bond issuance has also been suspended. STRC has thus become its primary financing channel. Since STRC has a lower repayment priority in the capital structure compared to convertible bonds and preferred shares, it requires a high yield of approximately 11.5% to compensate investors for the impairment risk they bear.Delphi believes that Strategy is currently continuing its Bitcoin accumulation plan by paying higher financing costs, buying time to address the large debt repayments maturing in 2028.
According to The Block, Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, noted that three enterprise-grade blockchains—Arc (by Circle), Canton Network, and Tempo (by Stripe)—have collectively raised over $1 billion in funding recently. All three funding rounds occurred after the signing of the GENIUS Act in July 2025. Hougan believes this legislation broke a prior regulatory stalemate that had discouraged institutional capital from entering the space. Hougan identified three key signals: First, all three blockchains prioritize native privacy-preserving transactions as a core design feature, addressing institutions’ need for transaction confidentiality. Second, the implementation of the GENIUS Act has significantly reduced regulatory uncertainty; the next critical variable is the pending Clarity Act, from which stablecoins and tokenization infrastructure stand to benefit. Third, these blockchains are backed by top-tier institutions—including Goldman Sachs, Citadel, BlackRock, Stripe, and Visa—marking a stark contrast to Ethereum and Solana, which emerged from grassroots origins. Hougan stated that his firm’s capital remains primarily allocated to native crypto projects, and he believes these emerging enterprise chains will raise the overall competitive bar and attract additional capital inflows.
According to an official announcement, the digital asset trading platform Websea has reached an investment agreement with a strategic investor and will officially resume withdrawals at 16:00 (UTC+8) on May 18, simultaneously releasing the specific withdrawal arrangements. The strategic investment is reported to come from a Middle Eastern family fund. The two parties conducted multiple rounds of in-depth discussions on core topics including the platform’s asset status, business structure optimization, recovery roadmap design, and long-term development planning, ultimately reaching a consensus on cooperation. Currently, the investor is proceeding with fund injection per the established process, while concurrently conducting legal due diligence, signing agreements, and finalizing equity arrangements.
Cathie Wood posted on X platform, stating that ARK participated in Kalshi's latest funding round, believing that prediction markets are emerging as a new layer of financial infrastructure, enabling real-time price discovery around events, probabilities, and the evolving state of the world. Kalshi is at the forefront of this innovation, and ARK supports the team in pushing the boundaries of how information is aggregated and expressed through markets.
According to Times Brasil, Brazil’s Central Bank’s Administrative Sanctions Procedure Decision Committee has fined Banco Topázio approximately USD 3.15 million and banned it from conducting over-the-counter foreign exchange operations for virtual asset transactions for the next two years. Regulators stated that between October 2020 and September 2021, Banco Topázio processed around USD 1.7 billion in related transactions while failing to adequately verify customer eligibility, maintain proper customer records, and implement anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) controls—and further failed to report suspicious transactions to COAF. Officials from Brazil’s Central Bank indicated that similar restrictions could also be applied in the future to other institutions engaged in cryptocurrency-related activities.
According to Bloomberg, AI company Anthropic is in preliminary negotiations with investors to raise at least $30 billion in new funding, with a potential valuation exceeding $900 billion—excluding the amount raised in this round. Sources familiar with the matter said the deal could be finalized as early as the end of this month, though it has not yet been finalized and no term sheet has been signed. Anthropic is the developer of Claude; if completed, this funding round would become its largest to date.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that privacy is becoming a core infrastructure direction for the next phase of the crypto industry. Recently, three institutional-grade blockchains focused on stablecoins and asset tokenization—Arc, Canton, and Tempo—have accumulated over $1 billion in total funding, indicating a rapidly growing demand from institutions for "privacy-friendly on-chain financial systems."Among them, stablecoin issuer Circle contributed $222 million in funding for Arc, giving it a valuation of approximately $3 billion; Digital Asset’s Canton blockchain is reportedly seeking $300 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation; and Tempo, backed by Stripe and Paradigm, has previously completed $500 million in funding at a valuation of $5 billion.Hougan noted that this funding wave reflects three major trends: the gradual clarification of the U.S. regulatory framework, increased institutional demand for on-chain privacy, and intensified competition among new blockchain networks supported by large enterprises. Current public blockchains still face structural trade-offs between speed, cost, security, and privacy. However, scenarios involving stablecoins and RWA tokenization require systems that simultaneously offer high performance, compliance, and privacy, making “verifiable privacy” a critical prerequisite for institutional adoption of on-chain finance.Hougan further stated that, for enterprises, “all transactions being publicly broadcast” is not an advantage but a potential flaw. In the future, users and institutions may find it increasingly difficult to accept a fully transparent on-chain financial environment. He believes that privacy capabilities could become the “killer app” driving the crypto industry into its next phase of mainstream adoption. Additionally, following the passage of the U.S. Genius Act in 2025, regulatory certainty has significantly increased, providing a clearer policy foundation for institutional funds to enter the crypto infrastructure space. (CoinDesk)
Odaily Odaily reports, stablecoin yield infrastructure project Osero announced the completion of a $13.5 million funding round, led by Sky Ecosystem, with co-leading from Plasma. Participating investors include RedStone, The Rollup, Kairos Research, as well as several crypto institutions and industry executives such as Joe Flanagan and Lorenzo Romagnoli. Osero was co-incubated by Stablewatch and Soter Labs, a governance and operations institution associated with the Sky Ecosystem. The project focuses on building savings and yield infrastructure around the Sky stablecoin system USDS and its yield-bearing asset sUSDS. It is reported that the funding round was initiated in December 2024 and completed in March 2026, utilizing a SAFT structure for issuance. The valuation was not disclosed. (The Block)
According to market sources, AI startup Wispr is in funding negotiations with a valuation of $2 billion.
crypto research institution Delphi Digital has released its latest report, "How Far Can Saylor Stretch It," providing a systematic analysis of Strategy's Bitcoin (BTC) capital expansion mechanism. It indicates that the company's financing structure is transitioning from a phase of "low-cost accumulation" into one of "diminishing marginal efficiency."The report shows that within the current asset accumulation system centered on Bitcoin, STRC has become the core financing tool for Strategy's continued BTC purchases. Initially, the company relied on a significant premium in MSTR's stock price (with mNAV far exceeding BTC's net asset value) to create a positive cycle where "issuing shares meant increasing holdings." However, as valuations have receded to approximately 1.24 times the base mNAV of enterprise value, the BTC-per-share accretion effect from common stock issuance is approaching a break-even point.Meanwhile, while convertible bonds have played a crucial role historically, they have accumulated a principal of approximately $8.2 billion and face concentrated repayment pressure after September 2027, putting long-term strain on the sustainability of the financing structure.STRC provides Strategy with a continuous source of financing—used to maintain its BTC buying pace—by offering yield-seeking investors an approximately 11.5% annualized monthly dividend. However, this mechanism also introduces ongoing cash flow obligations, meaning that each round of financing simultaneously builds future dividend burdens while increasing BTC assets.The report emphasizes a key risk scenario: if BTC's price remains stagnant and MSTR's premium fails to recover, the "gains from STRC-financed coin purchases" could be progressively offset by "common stock dilution and dividend obligations." Although the company's approximately $2.25 billion cash reserve can cover its roughly $1 billion redemption pressure in 2027, its larger debt and dividend structure in 2028 remains unresolved.Furthermore, STRC's current authorized issuance limit of approximately $28.3 billion serves as a critical constraint. Once this limit is reached, the capacity for new BTC purchases may slow, yet existing dividend obligations will persist—thereby altering the overall dynamic growth trajectory of BTC per share.