News linked to both this project and an event.
According to an official announcement, Mint Blockchain officially ceased operations on April 17, 2026, and urged users to withdraw four assets from Mint Chain to the Ethereum mainnet: ETH, WBTC, USDC, and USDT. The announcement states that the asset withdrawal deadline is October 20, 2026, and users may complete the process via the official withdrawal channel. Assets not withdrawn by the deadline will no longer be processable.
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.
According to Cointelegraph, stablecoin issuer Circle faces a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for failing to freeze stolen funds during the Drift Protocol hack on April 1. Plaintiffs allege that attackers transferred approximately $230 million worth of USDC from Solana to Ethereum via Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) within hours—and that Circle failed to intervene. The lawsuit accuses Circle of aiding and abetting conversion and of negligence. Cryptocurrency analytics firm Elliptic previously suspected the attack may be linked to North Korea–backed hackers; the stolen funds were subsequently converted into ETH and laundered through Tornado Cash.
According to Decrypt, Rick Wurster, President and CEO of Charles Schwab, stated that the company may offer prediction market services in the future—but will focus on financial-event-related contracts, such as those tied to inflation, while avoiding themes like pop culture, politics, and sports. Earlier reports indicated that Charles Schwab plans to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum trading services within the coming weeks, with a flat transaction fee of 0.75% per trade. The company also intends to gradually expand its cryptocurrency business, including enabling digital asset deposits and withdrawals, and broadening the range of supported tokens.
Josh Stark, a key researcher and project manager at the Ethereum Foundation, announced that after five years of service, he has decided to depart and complete his transition—this decision was made in early March, and his work at the Ethereum Foundation will conclude by the end of April. Stark stated he currently has no concrete plans for the future and intends first to take an extended break and spend time with family and friends. He expressed deep honor in having worked on Ethereum at the Ethereum Foundation and extended gratitude to numerous leadership team members and community partners for their long-term collaboration. Stark also noted that the Ethereum ecosystem has repeatedly achieved goals once widely deemed “impossible,” including network launch, the real-world deployment of decentralized finance (DeFi), and the successful transition to proof-of-stake (PoS). Earlier this week, Trent Van Epps, another Ethereum Foundation contributor, also resigned.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Charles Schwab officially announced the launch of Schwab Crypto™ spot cryptocurrency trading services on April 16, which will be rolled out to retail clients in phases over the coming weeks. The service supports direct trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum, and is accompanied by educational resources and dedicated customer support. It is also integrated with Schwab’s existing investment, trading, wealth management, and banking services.
According to a CoinGecko report, the cryptocurrency market continued its bearish trend in Q1 2026, with total market capitalization declining by 20.4% (approximately $622 billion) to $2.4 trillion—down roughly 45% from its October 2025 peak. Key drivers of the downturn included tightened monetary policy expectations following Kevin Warsh’s nomination as Federal Reserve Chair and geopolitical shocks stemming from the U.S.-Iran war. The stablecoin market remained broadly stable, with total market capitalization rising slightly to $309.9 billion. USDT’s supply declined for the first time since Q2 2022, falling to $184.1 billion; USDC grew 2.4% to $77.1 billion; and USD1—issued by WLFI—rose 32.5%, boosted by Binance’s airdrop campaign. In terms of asset performance, crude oil prices surged 76.9% due to supply disruptions caused by the U.S.-Iran war, making it the strongest-performing asset this quarter; gold rose 8.1%; while Bitcoin fell 22.0%, underperforming both the Nasdaq (-7.1%) and the S&P 500 (-4.8%). Regarding trading volume, spot trading volume across top centralized exchanges dropped 39.1% to $2.7 trillion; March volume totaled just $0.8 trillion—the lowest since November 2023. Binance maintained a 37.0% market share. Among decentralized exchanges, Solana retained leadership with a 30.6% share—but was overtaken by Ethereum in March.
According to FinanceFeeds, Morgan Stanley stated that real-world asset tokenization has become the “next major step” for its global business and is now a strategic priority in its initiative to upgrade traditional financial infrastructure using blockchain. The firm plans to integrate traditional and digital assets within regulated environments, advance near real-time on-chain settlement, and launch an institutional digital wallet in the second half of 2026—supporting tokenized traditional investment products as well as crypto assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley is also advancing the development of a tokenized private equity secondary market and building both on-chain and off-chain settlement processes.
Odaily News The ETH/BTC exchange rate has risen to a 10-week high, with Ethereum outperforming Bitcoin recently. The ratio broke through the resistance of the downtrend line since August 2025 and has risen above the 50-day and 100-day exponential moving averages. XWIN Research pointed out that the staff statement issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 13 explained that DeFi frontends and wallet interfaces do not need to register as broker-dealers if they meet conditions such as non-custody and a neutral fee structure, which has driven Ethereum's strength.On-chain data shows an upward trend in active addresses, and the Coinbase premium gap is also improving, indicating a recovery in institutional demand in the United States. Enterprise-level accumulation is accelerating; Bitmine accumulated 279,000 ETH in the past 30 days and currently holds 4.87 million ETH, accounting for over 4% of the circulating supply. In the futures market, the global ETH open interest reached $16.37 billion, and the funding rate remains negative, indicating that shorts dominate. However, the open interest on Binance increased by 10.47% to $6.04 billion, and the funding rate turned positive, creating an extreme imbalance between global shorts and longs on Binance.
Trent.eth, a member of the Ethereum Foundation, posted on X stating that he is no longer affiliated with the EF as of last Friday. He expressed respect for his collaborators across the team over the past five years on network upgrades and funding support efforts. Trent Van Epps also noted that, subject to available funding, he will continue participating in the Protocol Guild and work related to Ethereum’s political economy.
According to Crowdfund Insider, Circle has launched a new solution for high-frequency cross-chain USDC payments. Developers can leverage the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to enable local fulfillment providers to front-pay on the recipient’s designated chain, with the platform subsequently performing batch cross-chain settlement. This model reduces operational overhead associated with individual cross-chain transfers and is suitable for platforms processing large volumes of payments daily. Compared to the traditional CCTP process—which requires individual USDC burn-and-mint operations per transfer—the new solution supports batch settlement, reducing the number of burns on the source chain and eliminating the need for signature infrastructure on the destination chain. Circle also demonstrated the workflow using the Arc Testnet and Ethereum Sepolia.
According to CoinDesk, UK-based asset manager Legal & General Asset Management has tokenized over £50 billion in liquid funds via Calastone’s tokenized distribution network. The firm now offers money market funds on this network in the form of tokenized shares, supporting USD, EUR, and GBP, with capabilities spanning issuance, trading, and same-day settlement. Investors can purchase, hold, and transfer these tokenized shares within a permissioned, regulated network. The relevant funds will be deployed on Ethereum and compatible blockchains, with plans to expand to additional networks in the future.
Canaan Inc. released its Bitcoin mining update report as of March 31, disclosing that it mined 89 BTC in March, holding a total of 1,808 BTC. The company also holds 3,952 ETH. In March, its network added over 10 MW of new installed capacity, bringing its global installed capacity to 266.3 MW.
The Ethereum-based social protocol EFP has been integrated into Etherscan. Users can view an account’s ENS domain name and avatar, as well as its on-chain EFP followers and following count, by clicking the “Cards” tab on each account’s page. This integration further enriches Etherscan’s social functionality and advances the visualization and application of on-chain social data.
According to Cointelegraph, blockchain lending platform Figure Technology and its on-chain credit platform Hastra have officially integrated auto loans into their tokenized credit market, further expanding the range of real-world assets (RWAs) accessible to decentralized finance (DeFi) investors. Democratized Prime—the decentralized lending marketplace operated by Figure Markets—has launched auto finance as a new asset class for the first time. Hastra has also announced its expansion to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains, with plans to roll out auto loan products first on Solana and then on Ethereum in June. According to Michael Tannenbaum, CEO of Figure, the platform has generated over $22 billion in on-chain loans to date. Analysts view Figure’s tokenized lending business as experiencing significant growth and have assigned it an “outperform” rating with a $67 price target.
The Ethereum Foundation has partnered with Nethermind (an Ethereum infrastructure developer), Chainlink Labs (an on-chain data services provider), Areta.io (a smart contract auditing firm), and several top-tier auditing firms to launch the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, introducing the Ethereum Security Subsidy Program—a $1 million fund offering security audit subsidies for Ethereum developers. This program aims to reduce the cost of security audits and improve developers’ access to audit services, thereby further strengthening the security of the Ethereum ecosystem. Audit applications will be jointly reviewed by the aforementioned organizations and will support CROPS (Chain-on Resource Optimization Project) and novel use-case projects. While security audits are considered an industry best practice, their high cost has limited adoption; this initiative seeks to encourage broader uptake of audit services across projects.
Odaily News The Ethereum Foundation announced on platform X the launch of the "Ethereum Audit Subsidy Program," collaborating with multiple auditing and infrastructure organizations to provide developers with subsidies for security audit costs, aiming to enhance the overall security of the ecosystem. The program is led by the EF's "Trillion Dollar Security Initiative" and is being advanced in collaboration with partners such as Nethermind, Chainlink Labs, and Areta, which will evaluate and review applicant projects. The Ethereum Foundation stated that while security audits are considered industry best practice, their costs are high. This initiative aims to lower the barrier to development and support the implementation of more innovative use cases and projects within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Aster, a high-performance on-chain trading platform, has announced an enhanced partnership with Binance Wallet, integrating native perpetual contract trading directly into the app. This enables users to trade crypto assets, U.S. equities, ETFs, and commodities seamlessly in one place—anytime, anywhere—while retaining full self-custody of their assets. As part of this upgrade, Aster has launched a USD1-denominated perpetual contract market, supporting BTC, ETH, and SOL trading with USD1 as margin. This new market offers lower fees and WLFI incentives. To celebrate the app integration launch, users who accumulate $1,000 USDT in perpetual contract trading volume on Binance Wallet between April 14, 2026, 20:00 and April 28, 2026, 20:00 (UTC+8) will receive an additional 3 Binance Alpha Points. As a high-performance on-chain trading platform, Aster continues to deepen integrations with top-tier wallets to deliver a secure, ultra-smooth trading experience for users worldwide—truly enabling the migration of derivatives trading from centralized platforms to wallet-native entry points.
According to an official announcement, Tether launched its self-custodial digital wallet, tether.wallet, on April 14, directly opening its global financial infrastructure to end users. The wallet supports digital assets including USD₮, USA₮, XAU₮, and Bitcoin, and operates across blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Polygon, Plasma, and Arbitrum. Users can transfer funds using simple, human-readable identifiers—eliminating the need for traditional long addresses or additional network tokens—and pay transaction fees directly in the asset being transferred. tether.wallet employs local signing, with private keys and recovery phrases held exclusively by the user, emphasizing openness, neutrality, and user sovereignty. Tether stated that this product aims to simplify the use of digital assets and enhance financial inclusion, with plans to support additional blockchain networks in the future.
According to The Block, Visa, Stripe, and Zodia Custody—a digital asset custody firm backed by Standard Chartered Bank—have become the first validators on the Tempo payment blockchain. Tempo is an Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for high-throughput payments and stablecoin settlement, primarily targeting large institutions. Validators are responsible for verifying, ordering, and finalizing on-chain transactions, and are typically mature organizations with global operational capabilities. Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, launched its private testnet in September 2025, and closed a $500 million Series A funding round in October at a valuation of approximately $5 billion. Recently, Tempo introduced its “Agent Payments” protocol—executed by AI agents—and has attracted infrastructure integrations including RedStone.