News linked to both this project and an event.
North Korea has denied allegations of its involvement in cryptocurrency theft, calling the claims "absurd slander" and a "political tool." The statement, issued by state-run media, emphasized that necessary measures will be taken to safeguard national interests. However, data from blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs shows that in the first four months of 2026, hacker groups linked to North Korea have stolen approximately $577 million, accounting for about 76% of global crypto theft losses during the same period. This includes two major attacks on KelpDAO (approximately $292 million) and Drift Protocol (approximately $285 million).TRM pointed out that the attacks are primarily associated with the Lazarus Group and its sub-organizations. Since 2017, the cumulative scale of crypto theft linked to North Korea has exceeded $6 billion.U.S. and international agencies widely believe that such funds are used to support military and missile programs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department has recently imposed sanctions on relevant individuals and entities, targeting approximately $800 million in illicit fund flows in 2024. (The Block)
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.
Payward (Kraken’s parent company) has announced the completion of its acquisition of Bitnomial, marking its official entry into the U.S. crypto derivatives market with full regulatory credentials. Following the transaction, Payward now holds a comprehensive set of U.S. CFTC licenses, including Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Designated Contract Market (DCM), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) status, enabling it to launch compliant derivatives services in the U.S. market.Payward stated that it will gradually roll out spot margin trading under the Kraken brand, followed by plans to launch perpetual contracts and options products, while expanding institutional-grade derivatives capabilities through the Bitnomial framework. It is reported that Bitnomial, as a Chicago-based native crypto derivatives trading platform, has long held the three core CFTC licenses and has been relatively aggressive in listing new assets. After the transaction, it will retain its existing licenses and regulatory framework, continuing operations within the Payward system.Additionally, this acquisition continues Payward’s recent expansion moves: the company had previously secured a $200 million investment from Deutsche Börse Group and filed IPO-related documents with the U.S. SEC, signaling its accelerated push into globally compliant derivatives and capital market pathways. (The Block)
According to The Block, MoonPay has launched the stablecoin debit card “MoonAgents Card,” enabling AI agents and users to spend directly from on-chain wallets. The card is integrated with the Mastercard network and issued by Monavate, a regulated global payment platform.
according to financial data released by Riot Platforms, the company recorded $33.2 million in data center revenue for the first time in the first quarter. A significant portion of this revenue came from lower-margin tenant retrofitting services, which involve procuring and installing specific equipment for clients. Notably, AMD has chosen to exercise its option to double its contracted capacity from 25 MW to 50 MW, with the possibility to further expand to 200 MW in the future. Currently, 5 MW of capacity related to the AMD deal has been delivered and is generating revenue, with the remaining initial capacity expected to come online in the second quarter. Additionally, Riot Platforms reported total revenue of $167.2 million for the first quarter, with its core Bitcoin mining business contributing $111.9 million. The company currently holds 15,679 Bitcoins (valued at approximately $1.2 billion), making it the world's seventh largest public holder of Bitcoin. (The Block)
According to the latest data from the omnichain stablecoin USDT0, its user base is primarily retail: approximately 99.2% of holders have wallet balances under $1,000, only about 1,200 addresses hold between $100,000 and $1 million, and just 35 addresses hold over $10 million.The report notes that the main use case for USDT0 is small-value cross-chain transfers, with active users primarily engaged in daily transactions rather than large fund flows. However, in terms of transaction volume, single transfers exceeding $1 million still account for approximately 68.8% of the total transfer volume.USDT0 was launched by Everdawn Labs and is supported by LayerZero and Tether, pegged 1:1 to USDT. It has currently expanded to 23 chains, with a total transaction volume of $86.7 billion, becoming the third-largest holder of USDT, trailing only Binance and OKX. (The Block)
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)
According to The Block, Oobit—a wallet startup backed by Tether—has launched virtual “Agent Cards,” enterprise expense cards powered by Visa and designed for AI agents. These cards enable AI bots to make online purchases directly using their USDT balances, eliminating the need to convert to fiat currency or obtain manual, per-transaction approval. Each agent card features individual spending limits, category-level expenditure controls, and per-transaction or per-merchant caps. Every transaction automatically generates a human-readable record and supports integration with payment platforms such as Stripe for handling subscription billing and vendor payments.
According to The Block, blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs released a report stating that North Korean hacker groups stole approximately $577 million in crypto assets during the first four months of 2026—accounting for 76% of global hacking losses over the same period. All these losses stemmed from two major incidents that occurred in April: KelpDAO was attacked by the TraderTraitor group, resulting in $292 million in losses; and Drift Protocol was compromised by another North Korean sub-group, suffering $285 million in losses. Preparations for the latter attack began as early as March 11, and funds were fully extracted within 12 minutes. The two incidents employed distinct money-laundering pathways: stolen funds from Drift remain largely dormant on Ethereum, whereas funds stolen from KelpDAO were rapidly swapped into BTC via THORChain, with subsequent laundering facilitated by Chinese intermediaries. TRM Labs noted that since 2017, North Korea’s cumulative crypto theft has exceeded $6 billion—and its share of global losses has risen steadily, from less than 10% in 2020 to 64% in 2025.
According to The Block, stablecoin management firm Stable Sea has announced a partnership with asset management firm WisdomTree to directly integrate WisdomTree’s tokenized money market fund WTGXX into its enterprise payment and treasury management platform. Stable Sea users can now one-click transfer idle stablecoin balances into the WTGXX fund to earn yield (currently offering an approximate 7-day annualized yield of 3.5%) and redeem those holdings at any time back into stablecoins for global payments.
Odaily reports, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart, the first batch of prediction market ETFs in the United States could launch next week. Roundhill has submitted updated documents to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, aiming to activate six prediction market ETFs on May 5. The products will be designed around event contracts related to the U.S. presidential and congressional elections.Additionally, similar products submitted by GraniteShares and Bitwise may also be launched around the same time. James Seyffart believes this reflects a growing trend of combining event contracts with ETF products. (The Block)
According to The Block, decentralized exchange Ostium has completed a major backend architecture upgrade, officially positioning itself as a “decentralized execution layer” for the global market and providing on-chain traders with access to off-chain liquidity. The core of this upgrade is the introduction of a Translation Layer that bridges communication between smart contracts and institutional liquidity provider networks—including partners such as Jump, which hold traditional market access licenses. This mechanism enables on-chain users to indirectly tap into liquidity resources from traditional financial markets.
According to The Block, TON Tech—the infrastructure team under The Open Platform—has announced the launch of an AI-powered autonomous trading agent that supports independent on-chain actions on the TON blockchain, including transfers, token swaps, DeFi operations, automated trading, staking, and basic portfolio management—all without requiring users to surrender their private keys.
According to The Block, Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank has launched a cryptocurrency-linked credit card that allows users to directly pay bills using assets held in their exchange accounts—including settling payments in bitcoin. The credit card also offers 0.5% cryptocurrency cashback on monthly spending. Per the report, Bitbank introduced this product to enable everyday payment use cases for crypto assets held on its exchange.
According to The Block, Bernstein analysts stated in their latest report that the fundamentals of the crypto market are continuously improving. Bitcoin’s recent low of $60,000 has formed a clear bottom, and with the current price approaching $80,000, a longer-term structural bull market is likely, driven by institutional demand. Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani highlighted the following key drivers: • Ongoing expansion of institutional channels: Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF and Charles Schwab’s spot Bitcoin/Ethereum trading platform have both recently launched; approximately 60% of Bitcoin supply has remained unmoved for over one year, indicating a stabilizing holder structure; • Persistent accumulation by Strategy: Its STRC perpetual preferred stock product has attracted yield-oriented investors, and its current holdings stand at 818,334 BTC; • Stablecoin demand hits an all-time high: Stablecoin supply has surpassed $30 billion, decoupling from the crypto market’s price cycle and reflecting sustained real-world payment and settlement demand; • Tokenized real-world assets accelerating growth: Tokenized private credit and Treasury assets now total $34.5 billion, representing a 110% year-on-year increase. Bernstein also cautioned that quantum computing poses a long-term potential risk, though it expects the blockchain ecosystem to have ample time to complete the transition to post-quantum security.
According to The Block, Bitcoin mining infrastructure company Luxor Technology announced an expanded partnership with MicroBT, committing $100 million to purchase WhatsMiner mining rigs. As part of the agreement, MicroBT—through its investment management entity Inflection Technology Ltd.—signed a letter of intent to invest in Luxor; the specific investment amount was not disclosed. Additionally, Luxor will support WhatsMiner rigs via its LuxOS firmware, introducing new features including power switching completed within 30 to 60 seconds and improved startup speed during power-limiting events; these features will be rolled out in phases. Operators running LuxOS-enabled miners gain access to Luxor’s full suite of services, including the Luxor mining pool, hashrate derivatives, energy services, and fleet management tools.
Western Union has announced the upcoming launch of the Solana-based stablecoin USDPT next month, serving as an alternative settlement network between the company and its agents.Additionally, Western Union plans to launch a digital asset network connecting crypto wallets with its existing retail and agent networks. It also intends to introduce a "Stable Card" in dozens of markets later this year, enabling users to hold value in stablecoins and spend globally. (The Block)
According to The Block, OSL Group has announced a partnership with Circle’s affiliated entities to expand USDC integration across its payment and trading platforms. Through OSL Global, users can exchange USD for USDC at a 1:1 ratio and trade BTC, ETH, SOL, USD, and USDT pairs in a dedicated USDC trading zone. Meanwhile, OSL has adopted USDC as its unified margin asset and integrated USDC into its payment services to support compliant digital dollar settlement and payment use cases. OSL also stated that it plans to support Circle’s tokenized money market fund, USYC, subject to regulatory requirements and platform eligibility criteria.
MegaETH has completed its first Key Performance Indicator (KPI), with 10 "Mega Mafia" applications officially launched within its ecosystem, and will conduct its TGE on April 30.It is reported that MegaETH previously linked its token release mechanism to actual business performance, rather than a traditional time-based unlock model. The first KPI required applications to demonstrate real user interaction capabilities, including conditions such as cumulative trading volume exceeding 100,000 transactions within 30 days for a single application, which has now been achieved. A co-founder of MegaETH stated that this move aims to ensure the network has real use cases and economic circulation before the token issuance, rather than relying solely on market expectations.Currently, the MegaETH ecosystem has incubated approximately 30 projects, covering areas such as stablecoin payments, yield tokenization, and on-chain lending. The total supply of MEGA tokens is 10 billion, with 53.3% to be gradually released based on subsequent KPIs. (The Block)
According to The Block, Cluster Protocol—an AI-native infrastructure company building for Web3—has raised $5 million in funding, led by DAO5, with participation from Paper Ventures, JPEG Trading, and Mapleblock Capital. This brings the company’s total funding to $7.75 million. The new capital will accelerate the development of CodeXero, its browser-native IDE built for the EVM ecosystem, expand its product and engineering teams, and enhance its AI systems, developer workflows, deployment infrastructure, and ecosystem growth. Cluster Protocol stated that CodeXero has already connected over 300,000 wallets, processed more than 3 billion AI tokens, and supported the deployment of over 25,000 dApps.