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Today, Asian Private Banker announced the winners of its 11th Annual Technology Awards for 2025. HashKey Exchange—the largest* licensed digital asset exchange in Hong Kong—has once again been awarded the “Best Digital Assets Solution” award. Asian Private Banker is a leading authority in Asia-Pacific wealth management. Its “Best Digital Assets Solution” award recognizes outstanding platforms that deliver optimal digital asset trading and investment solutions to private banks, wealth management institutions, and ultra-high- or high-net-worth individuals (U/HNWIs). HashKey Exchange’s repeat win underscores not only its comprehensive institutional service capabilities but also its deep resilience—its ability to maintain stable operations and navigate market cycles with enduring strength. Michelle Cheng, Director of HashKey Exchange, said: “We are honored to receive this prestigious award once again. It affirms our long-term commitment to regulatory compliance, institutional service excellence, and digital asset infrastructure development. Moving forward, we will remain firmly anchored in global regulatory frameworks, prioritize compliance-driven innovation, continuously empower institutional clients, and collaborate across the industry to build a robust and sustainable digital asset ecosystem.” HashKey Exchange has now established an integrated suite of services encompassing trading, custody, and clearing—
According to The Block, the latest draft language of the Clarity Act concerning stablecoin yield will be delayed until next week or later. Sources familiar with the matter say the current text retains prior wording—namely, prohibiting yield generation on idle stablecoin balances held in accounts, while permitting yield from activities such as trading. Senator Thom Tillis stated that the draft text will not be made public until the Senate Banking Committee’s review timeline is confirmed. The report notes that the legislative team remains engaged in discussions with the American Bankers Association and crypto firms, and that making substantive revisions to the text at this stage would be difficult.
According to The Defiant, the NFT marketplace Foundation has permanently shut down following the failed sale to digital art display company BlackDove. Its platform infrastructure has been taken offline, and there are currently no plans to relaunch it. Foundation’s founder, Kayvon Tehranian, stated that the company had originally hoped to extend its operations through the sale, but the deal fell through—and the team concluded there was no need to continue seeking a buyer. Foundation previously facilitated approximately $230 million in primary sales. The report notes that BlackDove, after conducting comprehensive due diligence following operational handover, decided instead to build its own proprietary marketplace. Foundation also announced it will continue providing a fixed one-year service for media and metadata hosted on IPFS; users must manually cancel their listings and withdraw their NFT assets.
Odaily News The Ethereum NFT marketplace Foundation has announced its permanent shutdown and cessation of operations. Founder Kayvon Tehranian stated that the original plan was to sell the platform to a potential buyer to continue operations, but the deal fell through. The company has decided not to seek other acquirers, and the related infrastructure has been shut down with no plans for a restart.It is reported that in January of this year, Foundation transferred ownership to the digital art company BlackDove. However, after completing due diligence, BlackDove decided to develop its own platform, leading to the termination of the collaboration. Foundation facilitated approximately $230 million in primary sales cumulatively. Its closure has once again drawn market attention to the sustainability of centralized NFT infrastructure.
According to Cointelegraph, the Tennessee Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act will hold a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on April 20, bringing it one step closer to potentially becoming law. The bill is advancing to the next stage of the state’s legislative process.
Odaily News The Tennessee "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill" in the United States will hold a hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on April 20, further advancing the relevant legislative process. (Cointelegraph)
According to Cointelegraph, a legal dispute between prediction market platform Kalshi and the state of Nevada over regulatory jurisdiction concerning event contracts may ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kalshi argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that its event contracts qualify as “swaps” subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), rather than falling under state-level gambling regulation. Previously, Nevada had restricted Kalshi from offering such contracts on the grounds that it required a gambling license. Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, stated that the Supreme Court may rule on whether sports contracts listed on designated contract markets fall within the CFTC’s exclusive regulatory authority.
Odaily Seer Channel monitoring shows that the probability of "Magic advancing to the NBA playoffs" on Polymarket has dropped to 39%, down 30% in 24 hours. Yesterday, the Magic lost to the 76ers with a score of 97 to 109 and will compete with the Hornets tomorrow morning at 7:30 for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. Additionally, Hornets star LaMelo Ball was fined $35,000 for pulling Adebayo during the game against the Heat and was assessed a Flagrant Foul 2, but did not receive a suspension. Furthermore, Ball was fined $25,000 for using profanity in a post-game interview, resulting in a total fine of $60,000.Odaily Seer Channel continues to monitor prediction markets, seeing changes before they are priced in.
Odaily News: Mike Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that despite the CFTC's staff numbers shrinking by about a quarter since 2025, the agency is operating more efficiently in monitoring and investigations through the introduction of AI and automation technologies. Mike Selig confirmed that the CFTC is conducting multiple investigations into prediction markets to address insider trading, fraud, and market manipulation, and emphasized the agency's zero-tolerance stance towards illegal market activities. Additionally, the Digital Asset Market Transparency Act, currently being advanced by the Senate, proposes to place the CFTC at the core of regulatory oversight for non-security cryptocurrency trading, covering transactions involving assets such as Bitcoin and ETH.
Odaily News Claude has quietly rolled out identity verification requirements. Some users are now required to provide government-issued ID and a real-time selfie when accessing certain features, undergoing platform integrity checks, or fulfilling compliance measures. This makes it the first mainstream AI chatbot to require such verification.Anthropic officially stated that the verification data is solely used to confirm user identity and is currently only required for a small number of suspicious accounts with potential fraudulent or rule-violating behavior. The identity verification is powered by their partner Persona, and the verification data is stored on Persona's servers with encryption and will not be used for model training. This move has sparked dissatisfaction among some privacy-conscious user groups.
Odaily News South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance has selected a new blockchain digital currency utilization pilot project under its 2026 regulatory sandbox framework. The project will explore the use of deposit tokens for executing business promotion expenses, aiming to test the application of blockchain technology in national fiscal operations.Currently, business promotion expenses in South Korea are primarily executed through government procurement cards, and their use during restricted hours such as late nights or weekends requires additional justification. Limited by the "National Fiscal Management Act," previous payment methods were relatively singular. The approval of this regulatory sandbox creates an exception for the use of deposit tokens.The Ministry stated that by pre-setting conditions such as expenditure timing and industry categories, deposit tokens are expected to enhance execution transparency and reduce the cost burden on small business owners by removing intermediaries from the payment flow. The Ministry of Economy and Finance plans to officially launch the pilot in the fourth quarter of 2026, with Sejong City designated as the first implementation area. Furthermore, South Korean regulators are simultaneously strengthening oversight of stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and automated trading.
Odaily News The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has released the final draft of its crypto asset framework. The new rules are scheduled to bring most crypto activities under the regulatory scope of the Financial Services and Markets Act by October 25, 2027. According to the proposal, any institution holding customer crypto assets for more than 24 hours or possessing the ability to revoke customer permissions will be considered a regulated custodian and must hold a full safeguarding license. Validators and node operators offering value-added functions such as staking rewards or reward reinvestment will lose their technical exemption. Furthermore, stablecoin issuers operating within the UK must control the entire lifecycle from issuance to redemption. Relevant institutions are required to submit authorization applications between September 30, 2026, and February 28, 2027.
According to an official disclosure by Hyperbridge, the losses from the Token Gateway vulnerability incident on April 13 have been revised upward from an initial estimate of $237,000 to approximately $2.5 million. The increase stems primarily from losses incurred in incentive pools on Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, and Arbitrum. The attacker extracted roughly 245 ETH from related contracts, then bypassed the MMR proof verification mechanism by forging cross-chain messages, minting 1 billion bridged DOT tokens and dumping them onto illiquid markets. Currently, some of the stolen funds have been traced on-chain to Binance. Hyperbridge is collaborating with Binance’s compliance team and law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident. Polkadot-native DOT and products such as Intent Gateway remain unaffected. The Token Gateway and bridged DOT contracts on the four affected EVM chains remain suspended. An external audit of the patched MMR verification logic is underway, and bridging functionality will be restored upon completion of the audit.
According to CoinTelegraph, at the 2026 Paris Blockchain Week, Thomas Vogel, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, stated that Europe faces significantly different regulatory constraints compared to the U.S. regarding the issuance of financial instruments such as convertible bonds. Differences in capital market depth, regulatory environments, and investor behavior make it difficult for European companies to directly replicate MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin treasury strategy. Alexandre Laizet, Head of Bitcoin Strategy at French treasury firm Capital B, noted that European firms are instead turning to local market infrastructure—such as France’s public markets and Luxembourg-based structures—to raise Bitcoin-linked capital. Currently, major Bitcoin-holding enterprises in Europe lag far behind their U.S. counterparts in scale: Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE holds 3,605 BTC (approximately $268 million); Capital B holds 2,925 BTC at an average purchase price of $99,932, resulting in an unrealized loss of approximately 25.6%; the Netherlands’ Treasury holds 1,111 BTC at an average price of $111,857, with an unrealized loss of roughly 33.5%; and Sweden’s H100 Group holds 1,051 BTC at an average price of $114,615, incurring an unrealized loss of about 35.1%.
According to The Block, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a new consultation paper seeking feedback on how to bring digital asset activities—including stablecoin issuance, trading platforms, custody, and staking—under regulatory oversight. The consultation period ends on 3 June 2026. Crypto firms will be able to begin applying for FCA authorization as early as 30 September 2026, and the new regulatory regime is expected to officially take effect in 2027. The FCA stated that, prior to the new regime coming into force, crypto assets are largely unregulated in the UK—except for financial promotions and anti-financial crime oversight. Industry insiders note that the UK’s progress on crypto regulation clearly lags behind Europe, which has already established a comprehensive enforcement framework; however, some practitioners view the FCA’s systematic, phased implementation approach positively.
According to The Block, the Washington-based think tank Cato Institute published a critique of the U.S.’s current Bitcoin tax policy. Researcher Nick Anthony pointed out that the existing tax framework—which classifies Bitcoin as “property” rather than “currency”—requires users to calculate capital gains or losses for every single transaction, including routine, small-value purchases. This makes tax filing extremely cumbersome and effectively hinders Bitcoin’s adoption as a payment instrument. In response, the Cato Institute proposed several reform measures, including fully eliminating capital gains taxes on cryptocurrency payments and introducing a de minimis exemption threshold for small transactions. The report also referenced the existing Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act—a bill that would exempt crypto transactions under $200—but Anthony argued that this threshold is too low to reflect real-world consumer spending levels. Currently, the Trump administration has expressed support for establishing a de minimis exemption for cryptocurrency transactions and will continue evaluating related legislative options.
According to CoinDesk, South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance announced it will launch a blockchain-based deposit token pilot in Sejong City in Q4 2026, replacing traditional government procurement card payments. The project has been approved under the 2026 regulatory sandbox program, permitting institutions to pay business promotion expenses in the form of tokenized deposits. Token payments can be pre-configured with spending limits and eligible industry scopes, helping reduce the need for manual audits and lowering transaction fees for small businesses by eliminating intermediaries such as card networks. This marks the second fiscal application of deposit tokens, following the first pilot conducted under an electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure subsidy program. If the pilot yields significant results, the Ministry of Economy and Finance plans to expand the program further.
Currently, McCann’s passport has been confiscated, and he has been ordered to remain in the country pending the results of the forensic autopsy. Notably, Liquid Alpha, a fund managed by McCann, announced its liquidation last December after suffering losses of as high as 78% in 2025.
According to CoinDesk, JPMorgan Chase released a research report stating that legislative negotiations for the U.S. CLARITY Act are nearing completion, with contentious issues reduced from over a dozen to just “two or three remaining items.” Discussions regarding stablecoin rewards have also entered a constructive phase. The bill aims to clarify the regulatory framework for digital assets, delineate responsibilities between the SEC and the CFTC, and establish compliance pathways for stablecoins and DeFi platforms. The latest proposal is expected to garner support from both the crypto industry and traditional financial institutions. However, the official text of the bill has not yet been published, nor has a vote been scheduled. Moreover, if Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, the priority for crypto-related legislation may decline, introducing uncertainty into the bill’s progress.
According to The Block, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated in an interview with Reuters that there is a “huge opportunity” for a renminbi (RMB)-backed stablecoin. If Chinese authorities wish to enhance the RMB’s global competitiveness, stablecoins could serve as a key technological tool for currency internationalization, and he predicted China may launch an RMB-backed stablecoin within the next three to five years. Notably, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and multiple other regulatory bodies explicitly prohibited, as of February 2026, the issuance of RMB-backed stablecoins outside mainland China without prior regulatory approval. In contrast, Hong Kong’s regulatory stance is markedly different: last week, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) issued the first stablecoin licenses to HSBC and Anchorpoint Financial—a joint venture among Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands, and Hong Kong Telecom.