News linked to this event type.
According to an official announcement, Block has launched a new Bitkey hardware wallet featuring a secure touchscreen. Additionally, Cash App now supports automatic conversion of received peer-to-peer payments into Bitcoin, and users can earn 5% Bitcoin cashback when spending at Square merchants. Block has also implemented Proof of Reserves for its corporate Bitcoin treasury holdings as well as for Bitcoin holdings of Cash App and Square customers—enabling independent on-chain signature verification. Furthermore, Block will showcase Square’s NFC-based Bitcoin tap-to-pay solution at Bitcoin Las Vegas 2026 and advance the development of its Proto Bitcoin mining product suite.
According to Businesswire, Paystand, a blockchain-based B2B payment network, has announced the launch of USDb, a stablecoin built on the Bitcoin ecosystem. USDb is backed 1:1 by U.S. dollar reserves and is natively deployed on the Bitcoin sidechain Rootstock, while also being compatible with the Liquid Network and the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Notably, USDb is primarily designed for traditional corporate finance use cases, including accounts receivable/payable, cross-border payroll, and treasury management.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Mike Selig stated at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference that U.S. digital asset regulation is entering a "new phase." The two agencies are working together to advance a regulatory framework for crypto assets and encourage related businesses to remain based in the United States.The two officials mentioned that a jointly released token classification guide has already distinguished between digital commodities, collectibles, and tokenized securities, and will push for clearer, forward-looking regulatory rules. Paul Atkins also said the SEC is preparing to launch an "innovation exemption," which could allow companies to test on-chain tokenization and securitization tools in a regulated environment within the coming weeks.
According to Cointelegraph, Israel’s Authority for Capital Markets, Insurance, and Savings has approved the virtual asset trading platform Bits of Gold to launch BILS, a stablecoin pegged to the Israeli shekel. BILS previously completed a two-year pilot on the Solana blockchain. Per the announcement, BILS reserve assets will be held in designated, segregated accounts within Israel. This initiative is also part of the Israel Tax Authority and Ministry of Finance’s efforts to establish a regulatory framework for the crypto industry, specifically covering certain stablecoin activities.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said on X, citing Bloomberg, that Kalshi has completed its first customized block trade, with Jump Trading providing liquidity support for the transaction. The trade was brokered by Greenlight Commodities this month and executed on behalf of an environmental hedge fund based in Houston, which sought exposure to a contract tracking "whether a specific price will be realized in California's May carbon emissions allowance auction."Mansour commented on this, stating that the institutional application of prediction markets could be a $10-15 trillion market, with growth potential potentially even larger, depending on how extensively they popularize products currently exclusive to Wall Street.
according to official sources, a new proposal has been launched on Compound. It aims to participate in the rsETH recovery initiative coordinated by DeFi United, with a maximum contribution of 3,000 ETH.The proposal states that although Compound's direct exposure is expected to be limited, this move is intended to support the stability of the DeFi market and enhance ecosystem resilience and long-term sustainability.
Anuma, an AI aggregation platform launched by the ZetaChain team, is now officially live. It supports invoking multiple models including GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, etc., on a single platform and provides a cross-model unified memory system.According to the introduction, Anuma emphasizes local privacy storage, multi-model collaboration, and unified context memory functionality, and its web interface is now open for use.
According to an official announcement, ZetaChain stated that its GatewayEVM contract was attacked today, with the impact limited solely to internal wallets controlled by the ZetaChain team. The official statement confirmed that the attack vector has been blocked and no further funds are currently at risk. As a precautionary measure, ZetaChain has suspended cross-chain transactions. Meanwhile, the investigation remains ongoing; according to the official statement, no user funds have been affected by this incident, and a detailed post-mortem report will be released upon completion of the investigation.
: The Solana Foundation has announced that its core development team, Anza, has reached an agreement with Jump Crypto's Firedancer on a potential post-quantum solution, planning to introduce a new digital signature scheme called Falcon. Although the threat of quantum computing is not expected to materialize for several years, Solana has already developed a phased upgrade roadmap. The plan includes ongoing research into Falcon and other alternatives, introducing post-quantum schemes for new wallets when necessary, and ultimately completing the migration of existing wallets. Currently, the quantum-resistant primitive Winternitz Vault, developed by Blueshift, has been operating on Solana for over two years. The Solana Foundation stated that the network's high-speed, low-latency design is compatible with such solutions and expects the migration will not significantly impact performance.
Circle Ventures, Consensys, and Joseph Lubin have announced their support for the DeFi United initiative, aimed at mitigating losses caused by the Kelp DAO vulnerability. Circle Ventures is supporting the ecosystem by purchasing AAVE tokens. Consensys and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin have confirmed the provision of 30,000 ETH to DeFi United. To date, DeFi United has raised over 132,000 ETH, with a total value exceeding $300 million. These funds will be used to cover bad debts resulting from an attacker minting unbacked rsETH via the LayerZero bridge and borrowing assets on Aave. Previously, Aave proposed a donation of 25,000 ETH, while Lido DAO, Ether.fi, and Kelp have respectively proposed or pledged donations of 2,500 ETH, 5,000 ETH, and 2,000 ETH.
the Avalanche Foundation posted on platform X, stating its support for DeFi United. This is a coordinated action aimed at restoring rsETH collateral support following the incident on April 18. DeFi is undergoing public stress tests with transparent ledgers and real accountability, whereas traditional financial systems often require months or years to complete such repairs. The Avalanche Foundation expressed its support for Aave and the broader DeFi ecosystem.
According to CoinDesk, Fidelity Digital Assets released its “Q2 Signals Report 2026” on April 28, noting that although the crypto market as a whole remained in consolidation during early Q2, several underlying metrics have already shown signs of stabilization. The report states that Bitcoin’s dominance continues to rise, capital is flowing steadily into the most liquid assets, and both the unrealized profit level and momentum indicators align with characteristics typical of a correction phase—potentially laying the groundwork for a more stable market structure going forward. Meanwhile, network usage for Ethereum and Solana has diverged from their respective price trends, suggesting robust demand at the protocol layer. The report also notes that Bitcoin futures continue to exhibit negative funding rates; research firm 10x interprets this as reflecting institutional structural hedging behavior—not a broad bearish signal.
A research report released by a16z Crypto states that stablecoins have evolved from niche trading tools into the foundational layer of a new global financial infrastructure, giving rise to a new generation of “Banking-as-a-Service” (BaaS) models. Unlike the previous wave of BaaS, this new model is built on onchain infrastructure and integrates account management, payments, foreign exchange, and credit functions via self-custodial wallets—significantly reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries. The report classifies blockchains into three categories: general-purpose public chains (e.g., Solana and Ethereum), purpose-built chains optimized for payment use cases (e.g., Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc), and compliance-focused networks designed for regulated institutions (e.g., Canton). On the regulatory front, following the passage of the GENIUS Act, stablecoin issuers are competing aggressively for national trust charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), aiming to gain direct access to the Federal Reserve’s payment rails and secure a central position within the payments stack. The report also notes that stablecoins have made significant progress in the “middle mile” of cross-border payments; however, liquidity bottlenecks between stablecoins and local fiat currencies remain unresolved in emerging markets. Looking ahead, as stablecoin scale grows, the onchain credit market is poised to become the next major opportunity after payments—providing capital to borrowers underserved by traditional financial systems. Moreover, the widespread adoption of stablecoins is expected to further reinforce the U.S. dollar’s global dominance.
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.
Circle posted on X platform, stating that Circle Ventures is purchasing AAVE tokens. Aave is helping shape the future of on-chain finance, and Circle Ventures will support the ecosystem and the entire community built around it.
According to the official OpenClaw GitHub release notes, OpenClaw released version v2026.4.25 on April 27. This update covers multiple core modules—including speech, plugins, observability, and browser automation—with the following key highlights: • TTS Overhaul: Added support for six new voice service providers—Azure Speech, Xiaomi MiMo, ElevenLabs v3, Inworld, Volcengine (Volcano Engine), and local CLI—and introduced chat-session-level automatic TTS control, TTS persona binding, and cross-Agent/account-level override configurations. • Plugin Registry Optimization: Migrated plugin startup and installation paths to a cold-persistent registry, reducing full-manifest scanning and improving determinism for plugin updates, fixes, and discovery. • OpenTelemetry Expansion: Extended coverage across the full observability pipeline—including model invocations, token usage, tool loops, Harness execution, process execution, message delivery, context assembly, and memory pressure metrics. • Browser Automation Enhancements: Added iframe-aware role snapshots, CDP readiness tuning, one-click headless startup, and deeper browser diagnostic probes. • Installation Stability Improvements: Fixed installation and update issues across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Docker platforms.
Microsoft has officially announced an updated partnership agreement with OpenAI, further clarifying the long-term nature of their collaboration. Under the new agreement, Microsoft remains OpenAI’s primary cloud partner, and OpenAI products will continue to launch first on Azure—unless Microsoft is unable or chooses not to support the relevant capabilities. At the same time, OpenAI may now deploy all its products on any cloud service provider. The agreement also states that Microsoft holds a license to OpenAI’s model and product intellectual property through 2032; however, this license has changed from exclusive to non-exclusive. Microsoft will no longer pay revenue-sharing payments to OpenAI, while OpenAI’s revenue-sharing payments to Microsoft will continue through 2030 at the same percentage rate—but subject to an overall cap. Additionally, Microsoft will remain a significant shareholder and continue participating in OpenAI’s growth.
Aave officially posted on X, stating that Ethereum development company Consensys and its founder Joseph Lubin have joined the DeFi United initiative, providing up to 30,000 ETH in financial support for the rsETH recovery effort, with Sharplink continuing to offer strategic advisory support.
According to Blockchain for Europe, the European Blockchain Association, together with Dr. Ulrich Bindseil, former Director General of Market Infrastructure and Payments at the European Central Bank, and Erwin Voloder, the Association’s Director of Research and Strategy, jointly released the report “Reforming MiCA to Support Euro Stablecoins” on April 27. The report acknowledges MiCA’s significance as a landmark regulatory framework, while also pointing out that certain design choices may place Europe in an unfavorable zone of the regulatory “Laffer curve”—overly stringent requirements could undermine the competitiveness of EU markets and drive related business activities outside the EU. To address this, the report puts forward a series of targeted, pragmatic reform proposals aimed at enabling MiCA to foster a more competitive, resilient, and globally influential euro stablecoin ecosystem. It further calls on policymakers, industry participants, and all stakeholders to actively engage in discussions to collectively advance the continuous refinement of the MiCA framework.
DeFi protocol Spark announced its Q1 2026 financial report, reporting $31.5 million in total protocol-level revenue, $6.91 million in net protocol revenue, and a net surplus of $3.46 million. The treasury balance stood at $46.1 million at quarter-end, and approximately $986,000 worth of SPK tokens were repurchased. According to the report, distribution rewards revenue surpassed Spark Liquidity Layer (SLL) for the first time, becoming the largest source of net revenue: USDS-related savings vault distribution revenue totaled approximately $3.31 million; SLL generated $27.62 million in total revenue and $3.05 million in net protocol revenue on an average deployed capital of $1.93 billion; SparkLend’s quarterly reserve factor revenue amounted to $156,000. The report notes that, amid narrowing DeFi yield spreads, the protocol remained profitable on a monthly basis while maintaining prudent risk parameters.