News linked to both this project and an event.
Bitget has launched a futures trading leaderboard campaign, running from April 20 to April 27. During the campaign period, the first 5,000 registered users will receive random rewards of 1–5 USDT each. The campaign comprises three components: a new-user individual contest, an all-user individual contest, and a tiered trading-volume reward program. In the new-user individual contest, participants are ranked by their total futures trading volume; the top-ranked user (Top 1) wins 3,000 USDT. Similarly, the all-user individual contest ranks participants by futures trading volume, with the Top 1 winner receiving an Apple Vision Pro. Additionally, users who reach specific cumulative trading-volume thresholds can claim extra USDT rewards. Full campaign rules are published on Bitget’s official platform. Eligible users must click the “Join Now” button to complete registration in order to participate.
Bitget has launched a new-user-exclusive campaign running from April 20 to April 27. During the campaign period, new users who complete their first deposit and futures trading task totaling at least $100 USDT will receive $10 USDT. Additionally, users whose futures trading volume reaches specified thresholds can earn up to $208 USDT plus a physical DJI Pocket 4 as a reward. Full campaign rules are published on the official Bitget platform. Eligible users must click the “Join Now” button to register in order to participate.
Odaily News, Spark's strategy lead monetsupply.eth posted on X, stating that as the stablecoin market begins to face a liquidity shortage, the situation is entering a more dangerous phase, in my opinion. Approximately 16.5% of the ETH market is backed by rsETH. If losses on rsETH-backed loans are shared across the mainnet and external chains, they could face a 10% to 15% cut in emode, with the remaining 2% to 3% cut left for ETH suppliers to flatten the umbrella structure. ETH suppliers naturally tend to exit as soon as possible to avoid this risk, so utilization is locked at 100%, and the borrowing rate is insufficient to incentivize the repayment of unrelated LST loops (wstETH, weETH) to release liquidity. Since ETH cannot be withdrawn, users who borrowed stablecoins like USDT using ETH as collateral cannot close their positions even when stablecoin borrowing rates rise, which cuts off the typical incentive mechanisms that maintain market health. Currently, there are two unhealthy incentives causing market utilization to be locked at 100%:1) ETH holders cannot close positions to maintain a healthy LTV, and liquidators cannot atomically withdraw or sell collateral. A drop in the ETHUSD price could lead to bad debt.2) Users supplying USDT, in order to exit their holdings, tend to maximize borrowing of other stablecoins. This position is currently generating positive yield (temporarily), so the exit cost is low; if conditions worsen, they can recover at least 75% of the position's value.The bottom line is that for these pooled/restaking lending markets to function properly, liquidity must be maintained at all costs. The recent weakening of the slope2 for Aave's maximum borrowing rate is having a negative impact and significantly increasing the risk of cascading market failure.
According to official news, Gate has now launched ASTEROID perpetual contract trading (USDT-settled), supporting 1-20x leverage.
Odaily News Rhea Finance has released a post-mortem report on the attack, confirming that the actual loss from the vulnerability is approximately $18.4 million, a significant increase from the initial estimate of around $7.6 million.The attacker constructed complex transaction paths, manipulated liquidity using fake token pools, funneled borrowed assets into pools under their control, and returned only minimal assets. This caused a large number of margin positions to rapidly become undercollateralized and triggered liquidations, ultimately depleting the protocol's reserve funds.Approximately $11.2 million in funds have been recovered or frozen so far. This includes some USDC and NEAR assets returned by the attacker, as well as about $4.34 million in USDT that was frozen (with assistance from Tether).
Bitget has launched a new edition of its Super Pairs campaign, ending on April 24. Users can unlock a specific number of mystery boxes by completing tasks such as placing their first futures trade, daily trading, and achieving cumulative trading volume targets. The mystery box prize pool includes trading credits and popular token airdrops, with up to 10 RAVE tokens available per draw. Additionally, all users ranked within the top 1,000 by trading volume—and whose cumulative trading volume reaches at least 10,000 USDT—will jointly unlock a shared prize pool of 20,000 USDT, with a maximum individual payout of 2,000 USDT. This prize pool requires trading in designated tokens. Full campaign rules are published on the Bitget official platform; users must click the “Join Now” button to register and participate.
Bank of AI has partnered with Peking University’s Blockchain Association (PKUBlockchain) to release its inaugural research report, “Web4.0: When AI Agents Become Economic Actors—Infrastructure Gaps, Industry Landscape, and Investment Outlook,” officially published today. The report systematically outlines infrastructure gaps across three layers: the x402 payment protocol, the ERC-8004 identity standard, and the MCP tool-calling protocol. It further analyzes how Bank of AI integrates five core components into a one-stop Agent Financial Operating System—a representative case bridging protocols to real-world products. The report notes that TRON’s blockchain supports over $22 billion in daily transaction volume and $86 billion in circulating USDT, providing a scalable foundation for AI Agents’ high-frequency micro-settlements. Both parties will continue advancing the synergistic development of Web4.0 infrastructure and the agent-driven economy.
According to an official announcement, Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) launched stablecoin minting and redemption services on April 17. Enterprises and high-net-worth individuals can now directly convert between fiat currency and stablecoins via their SGB accounts, enabling 24/7 instant settlement without relying on traditional correspondent banking processes. This service is integrated into SGB’s proprietary clearing network, SGB Net, supporting seamless on-chain and off-chain fund flows. USDC is the first stablecoin supported, with a minimum transaction amount of USD 100,000; support for USDT, USDe (Ethena), and Global Dollar (USDG) will be rolled out subsequently.
According to official news, Gate has now launched CHIP perpetual contract pre-market trading (USDT-settled), supporting 1-10x leverage.
According to the official announcement, OKX will list USDS spot trading. The USDS/USDT spot trading pair will go live on April 17, 2026, at 17:00 (UTC+8).
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 CoinDesk, Drift Protocol—the largest decentralized perpetual futures exchange on Solana—announced it has secured up to $147.5 million in funding from Tether and its partners (including $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from other partners) following a hack that stole over $270 million. The funds will be used to restore user assets and relaunch the protocol. The attack was carried out on April 1 by a North Korea–linked group that had posed as a quantitative trading firm and infiltrated the protocol for approximately six months, causing the DRIFT token’s value to plummet roughly 70%. The funding structure combines revenue-linked credit, ecosystem subsidies, and market-maker loans, aiming to cover approximately $295 million in user losses. Upon relaunch, the protocol will replace USDC with USDT as its core settlement layer; Tether will simultaneously provide fee waivers, user incentives, and liquidity support.
Odaily News Drift announced on its official website that Drift Protocol has received support from Tether and other partners. Tether intends to contribute $127.5 million, while other partners plan to contribute $20 million, collectively supporting user recovery efforts following the April 1st attack. This support package includes a $100 million revenue-linked credit line, ecosystem grants, and loans provided to market makers. Drift will establish a dedicated user recovery pool, aiming to gradually address the $295 million in outstanding user losses as trading revenue grows. Additionally, Drift will issue independent recovery tokens to affected users, which represent a claim on the recovery pool and are transferable. Drift is currently in the process of restarting the protocol, having engaged Ottersec and Asymmetric for audits, and is migrating its settlement layer from USDC to USDT. The previous attack resulted in the theft of assets worth approximately $295 million, while the insurance fund assets remained unaffected.
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 the official announcement, Binance Futures will launch MSFTUSDT, AVGOUSDT, and BABAUSDT—three USDT-denominated perpetual contracts—in batches on April 20, 2026. These contracts track the stock prices of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Broadcom (Nasdaq: AVGO), and Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA), respectively. All three contracts offer a maximum leverage of 10x, a funding rate cap of ±2%, and funding settlements every 8 hours. They support 24/7 trading and multi-asset margin mode.
Odaily News According to an official announcement, Binance Futures will launch the MSFTUSDT perpetual contract at 13:30 (UTC) on April 20, 2026, the AVGOUSDT perpetual contract at 13:40 (UTC), and the BABAUSDT perpetual contract at 13:50 (UTC). All the aforementioned contracts will support up to 10x leverage and the Multi-Assets Mode.
Bitget Launches Phase 3 “Stock God Guessing” Campaign with a Total Prize Pool of $100,000 USDT; Participation Period: April 15–22. During the campaign, both new and existing users can complete daily tasks—including logging in, depositing funds, and executing stock trades—to earn a set number of guessing opportunities. Users may use these opportunities to predict whether NVIDIA’s price will rise or fall. Points will be awarded regardless of whether the prediction is correct or incorrect. Users ranked Top 1–100 by points will receive cash vouchers worth $100–$2,500 USDT; those ranked Top 101–1,086 will receive futures contract position experience vouchers worth $50–$100 USDT. To qualify for the corresponding ranking reward, users must satisfy both the ranking and minimum point requirements. Full campaign rules are published on Bitget’s official platform. Eligible users must click the “Join Now” button to complete registration before participating.
According to the official announcement, Binance Futures will launch pre-market trading for the CHIP/USDT perpetual contract on April 16, 2026, at 15:15 (UTC+8), with a maximum leverage of 5x.
According to the official announcement, Binance Futures will launch the GENIUS/USDT perpetual contract (USDⓈ-margined) on April 16, 2026, at 11:30 AM (UTC+8), offering up to 20x leverage. Copy trading will be supported for this contract within 24 hours of its launch.
According to GlobeNewswire, Solv Protocol announced a strategic integration with Utexo to launch a native Bitcoin yield solution built on the RGB protocol and the Lightning Network. This solution enables atomic swaps between native BTC and USDT—without wrapping, cross-chain bridges, or custodians. It emphasizes self-custody, privacy protection, and final settlement, aligning with Tether’s prior announcement of natively issuing USDT on an RGB-compatible Lightning Network. Additionally, Solv participated as a strategic angel investor in Utexo’s $7.5 million seed funding round, led by Tether.