News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily Odaily News According to the latest weekly report from Gate Ventures, global markets continued to strengthen last week, driven by the technology sector. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq index hit new record highs, with the S&P 500 gaining 2.36% for the week and the Nasdaq rising 4.52%. In the crypto market, BTC rose 4.6% last week, ETH rose 2.1%, spot BTC ETFs recorded net inflows for the fifth consecutive week, and market sentiment recovered to the neutral range. Additionally, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies excluding the top ten assets increased by 12.6% for the week.On the macroeconomic front, the ISM Services Price Index rose to 70.7, a two-year high, coupled with energy price fluctuations and the Federal Reserve's policy expectation of "keeping interest rates higher for longer," leading to increased market focus on a "stagflation" environment. On the industry level, Payward, the parent company of Kraken, has applied to the OCC for a national trust charter, highlighting the increasingly evident trend of industry compliance. In terms of investment and financing, 10 deals were completed last week totaling $34.2 million, primarily concentrated in the DeFi and infrastructure sectors. Among them, OpenTrade completed a $17 million funding round to accelerate the development of institutional-grade stablecoin yield infrastructure; OnRe secured a $5 million Series A round to advance its Solana-based tokenized reinsurance product offerings.
According to CoinDesk, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced it will leverage Chainlink’s infrastructure to power its blockchain-based collateral management platform, Collateral AppChain. Built on the Besu blockchain, the platform utilizes Chainlink’s Compute Runtime Environment (CRE) and data standards to support asset pricing, valuation, margin calculation, collateral optimization, and settlement. Through smart contracts, it enables 24/7 automated collateral management—aiming to address the current delays in cross-institutional and cross-time-zone movement of assets within existing collateral systems.
According to Bloomberg, Ripple’s prime brokerage division secured up to $200 million in asset-backed debt financing through Neuberger Berman’s specialized financial team. The funds will be used to expand margin capacity for institutional investors across multi-market trading—including equities, fixed income, and cryptocurrencies—with the actual available credit line dynamically adjusted based on institutional clients’ borrowing needs.
Circle has released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2026. The data shows that as of the end of the first quarter, the circulating supply of USDC reached $77 billion, a year-over-year increase of 28%; on-chain transaction volume for USDC in the first quarter reached $21.5 trillion, up 263% year-over-year.The financial report indicates that Circle's total revenue and reserve income for the first quarter was $694 million, a 20% increase year-over-year; adjusted EBITDA was $151 million, up 24% year-over-year; net profit was $55 million, a 15% decrease year-over-year.Additionally, Circle disclosed that its ARC Token pre-sale raised $222 million, with a fully diluted valuation of $3 billion. Participants included institutions such as a16z crypto, BlackRock, and ARK Invest. The company also announced the launch of the "Agent Stack" infrastructure for AI agent scenarios, including products like Agent Wallets and Agent Marketplace, designed to support AI agent payments and commercial activities based on USDC.
According to the official announcement, the second asset launched on Bitget IPO Prime is preOPAI—a digital token issued by the regulated issuer Republic on the Solana blockchain, designed to mirror OpenAI’s post-IPO economic performance on a 1:1 basis. As the world’s leading consumer AI provider, OpenAI reports approximately 900 million weekly active users, according to official data. Its most recent funding round raised $122 billion, with participants including Microsoft, NVIDIA, Amazon, and SoftBank. Bitget IPO Prime operates on a subscription model, whereby users receive subscription quotas based on their account tier. Upon completion of token allocation, users may trade the tokens on the upcoming spot market. Alternatively, after the lock-up period for preOPAI’s underlying debt assets expires, the issuer will authorize Bitget to convert users’ holdings into either stock tokens or USDT, referencing the underlying company’s (OpenAI’s) publicly traded stock price. IPO Prime Details: • OpenAI Implied Valuation: $898.21 billion • Total IPO Prime Subscriptions: 29,082 • Total Subscription Value: $21,084,450 • Subscription Price: 1 preOPAI = $725 • Accepted Subscription Currencies: USDT or USDGO • Total Subscription Pool Cap: $300,000,000
Odaily, Fortune Protocol, a BSC-based lucky cookie prediction protocol, has announced the completion of its Seed round of financing. The round saw participation from TBV, Cogitent Ventures, X21 Digital, CGV FoF, K24 Ventures, LandScape Capital, and others.Fortune is a next-generation Web3 financial protocol focused on the construction and innovation of prediction market liquidity infrastructure.The funds raised in this round will be used to accelerate the research and development of Fortune's AI prediction tools and large-scale prediction models, driving the protocol's further development across technical, product, and ecosystem dimensions.
Odaily, Odaily news: Balcony, a RWA infrastructure based on the Avalanche blockchain, announced the completion of a $12.7 million seed funding round, led by Blockchange Ventures. The new funds will be used to deploy its platform for on-chain real estate transactions and asset settlement services in the U.S. market, integrating fragmented property records into a tamper-proof digital registry. (Tamradar)
According to TheEnergyMag, U.S.-based Bitcoin company American Bitcoin Corp. (NASDAQ: ABTC) disclosed in its latest quarterly report that in February of this year, it purchased approximately 11,298 S21 XP ASIC miners (with a combined hash rate of roughly 3.05 EH/s) from Bitmain for $49.4 million. Of this amount, 80% was paid via the pledge of 314 BTC. Based on this, the agreed-upon valuation per pledged BTC was approximately $125,900—roughly a 44% discount compared to BTC’s market price at the time, which was under $70,000. Per the agreement, Bitmain is prohibited from forcibly liquidating the pledged BTC during a ~24-month redemption period. If BTC’s price exceeds the agreed valuation upon maturity, ABTC may repay in cash and reclaim the BTC, thereby locking in appreciation gains; if BTC’s price falls below the agreed valuation, ABTC may elect not to redeem and leave the BTC with Bitmain. This structure effectively grants ABTC a long-dated Bitcoin call option. As of March 31, 2026, ABTC has pledged a cumulative total of 3,090 BTC to Bitmain, with a fair value of approximately $210.8 million, corresponding to mining equipment procurement liabilities of roughly $364.3 million. These miners have already been deployed at the facility of ABTC’s parent company Hut 8 (NASDAQ: HUT) in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada.
According to Bloomberg, Payward Inc., Kraken’s parent company, has agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies for $600 million in cash and stock. Reap Technologies is a provider specializing in stablecoin-based cross-border and commercial payment services. Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, stated that the Payward stock issued in this transaction is valued at $2 billion. The acquisition aims to expand Payward’s presence in the Asian market.
London-based AI recruitment platform Ethos has raised $22.75 million in Series A funding, led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) with participation from General Catalyst. Ethos uses AI-powered interviews and assessments of professional artifacts—including essays, code, and more—to build detailed skill profiles of candidates and match them to paid opportunities such as expert consulting, market research, AI data labeling, advisory roles, and full-time positions. Founded in 2023 by James Lo and Daniel J. Mankowitz—former employees of Google DeepMind, McKinsey & Company, and SoftBank—the company aims to address the growing challenge of identifying genuine candidate capabilities amid rising numbers of fabricated or AI-generated resumes. The new capital will be used to scale its AI agents, expand its global network of experts, and deepen collaborations with AI labs and enterprise clients.
At the Q1 2026 earnings call, Michael Saylor stated that the company may sell some of its Bitcoin in the future to fulfill dividend payment obligations. Currently, Strategy’s annual dividend and debt interest obligations total approximately $1.5 billion; based on its current U.S. dollar reserves, this amount is estimated to cover roughly the next 18 months. Saylor summarized this model as: “Buy Bitcoin using credit financing, wait for its appreciation, then sell a portion of the Bitcoin to pay dividends.”
Hut 8 announced its subsidiary has entered into a $200 million, 364-day bitcoin-backed credit agreement with FalconX to replace the previous financing arrangement from Coinbase Credit. The new financing carries an annualized fixed interest rate of 7.0%, a reduction of 200 basis points from the previous 9.0% rate on the Coinbase facility. During the period from December 2023 to March 2025, this financing cost had reached as high as 10.5%–11.5%, meaning cumulative reductions of up to 450 basis points, demonstrating continued progress in optimizing debt costs.Following this refinancing, approximately 3,300 BTC held by Hut 8 have been converted to an unencumbered state, valued at approximately $260 million based on market capitalization as of May 1, 2026. This significantly enhances the flexibility and liquidity capacity of its balance sheet. Additionally, the credit structure maintains key risk control provisions, including a limited recourse structure, a no-rehypothecation clause, and a fixed LTV threshold design to avoid triggering additional margin calls in the event of a decline in bitcoin prices.Hut 8 management stated that this financing not only reduces capital costs but also releases more unencumbered bitcoin assets, helping to enhance capital allocation flexibility across different market cycles. FalconX emphasized that this transaction reflects its growing capability in providing institutional-grade bitcoin credit solutions. (PRNewswire)
According to The Block, Payward, Kraken’s parent company, has announced the completion of its acquisition of Chicago-based crypto-native exchange Bitnomial, thereby obtaining a full suite of U.S. derivatives licenses from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), including Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Designated Contract Market (DCM), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) licenses. Payward stated that it will first launch spot margin trading on Kraken, followed by perpetual contracts and options products, all available to eligible U.S. customers. This acquisition will also provide partners—including banks, brokers, and payment service providers—with a channel to offer U.S. derivatives to their end customers. Bitnomial will operate independently under Payward while retaining its existing licenses and regulatory framework. The transaction’s value is reported to be up to $550 million, comprising cash and stock, implying a valuation for Payward of approximately $20 billion; however, the final terms have not been disclosed.
Hyperliquid News posted on X platform saying that Tradexyz has added a Pre-IPO market feature to its documentation. This system allows users to gain exposure to stocks before their public listing.This market oracle prices assets based on the company's latest funding round, with the market determining the price via Hyperp. Upon IPO completion, the perpetual contract automatically converts at the IPO price. If no IPO occurs, it settles at the average Pre-IPO price. The CBRS Pre-IPO market is now tradable, with an expected IPO date of May 7.
According to The Information, Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Fund is investing approximately $624 million in Anduril’s latest funding round—making it one of the largest investors in this round. Anduril’s current round is reportedly raising around $4 billion, with an estimated valuation of $60 billion; Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Thrive Capital are leading the round. Anduril is a U.S.-based AI defense startup. Its founder, Palmer Luckey, previously co-founded Erebor—a digital bank tailored for cryptocurrency and tech startups—with Peter Thiel.
Exponent Finance, a Solana-based yield trading platform, announced the completion of a $5 million seed funding round. The round was led by Multicoin Capital, with participation from Solana Ventures, RockawayX, L1D, Prelude, and Theia Blockchain, along with several key figures from the Solana ecosystem as angel investors. The round was initiated in May last year and closed in August, bringing Exponent's total funding to $7.1 million. Exponent stated that the funds will be used to expand its yield trading platform and upgrade it into a more comprehensive on-chain yield infrastructure, covering active yield management needs within the Solana ecosystem. (The Block)
The Ethereum Applications Guild (EAG) has officially launched as a global, nonprofit collaborative organization dedicated to supporting the growth of the Ethereum application ecosystem—driving its evolution from infrastructure to the application layer. EAG will operate across four key pillars: accelerating real-world application adoption, connecting cross-domain ecosystem networks, establishing unified evaluation and development frameworks, and building sustainable funding mechanisms. EAG will implement a membership contribution model based on institutional scale (e.g., valuation, market cap, or assets under management), and introduce a staking-rewards donation mechanism—allocating a portion of ETH staking rewards into an Ecosystem Growth Fund. Additionally, EAG has unveiled its 2026 Global Applications & Developers Program, which includes developer education initiatives, hackathons, and research projects, alongside regional roadshows and ecosystem showcases to strengthen local developer communities.
According to The Block, Squads, a multi-signature protocol in the Solana ecosystem, has announced the completion of an $18 million strategic funding round led by Solana Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, and others. This round is an equity financing, bringing Squads’ total funding to $42.9 million. Squads will use the funds from this round to expand its stablecoin-based corporate finance platform, Altitude.
Fu Peng, Chief Economist of Xinhuo Group, posted on X stating that commodity ETFs are essentially regulatory-compliant products packaging the business model of “holding commodities long-term and generating rental income continuously.” Fund companies focus not on the commodity market’s outlook but rather on the asset’s ability to generate “rent” consistently. Since BitMEX launched the world’s first BTC perpetual contract and introduced the funding rate mechanism on May 13, 2016, long-term BTC holders have been able to earn rental income through hedging operations—transforming BTC from a pure faith-based speculative asset into a “rental asset” with stable positive cash flow logic. The costs paid by retail participants when trading derivatives constitute the foundation for large-position holders’ risk-free hedging rental income. This income is then packaged into ETF-like products sold to liquidity providers (LPs), whose raised capital is subsequently used to purchase Bitcoin—creating a virtuous cycle that reduces volatility and reinforces BTC’s income-generating attributes.
Odaily News: According to sources, UK-based digital bank Revolut plans to seek a valuation between $150 billion and $200 billion in its future IPO, a significant increase from its previous $75 billion valuation. The company's CEO, Nik Storonsky, also revealed that Revolut is preparing for a new round of secondary share sale in the second half of 2026, with a potential valuation exceeding $100 billion. (Financial Times)Previously, Nik Storonsky stated that the company's listing timeline is at least two years away, potentially delayed until 2028 at the earliest, with no immediate IPO plans. He pointed out that Revolut is currently focusing on expanding its presence in the US market, including applying for a banking license to gain access to the Federal Reserve's payment system and expand its lending and credit card businesses. Meanwhile, the company has already obtained a full banking license in the UK.