News linked to both this project and an event.
According to Decrypt, Blockstream CEO Adam Back stated at Paris Blockchain Week that he supports advancing Bitcoin’s quantum resistance upgrade on an opt-in basis, opposing proposals to forcibly freeze quantum-vulnerable addresses. He emphasized that “preparation well in advance is far safer than scrambling to respond during a crisis,” and noted that the Bitcoin community possesses strong coordination capabilities to rapidly address critical vulnerabilities. Previously, developer Jameson Lopp and five others proposed BIP-361 (“Post-Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Sunset”), which advocates phasing out quantum-vulnerable addresses over five years and ultimately freezing coins held in unmigrated addresses—including approximately 1.7 million bitcoins held by Satoshi Nakamoto.
According to The Block, the Washington-based think tank Cato Institute published a critique of the U.S.’s current Bitcoin tax policy. Researcher Nick Anthony pointed out that the existing tax framework—which classifies Bitcoin as “property” rather than “currency”—requires users to calculate capital gains or losses for every single transaction, including routine, small-value purchases. This makes tax filing extremely cumbersome and effectively hinders Bitcoin’s adoption as a payment instrument. In response, the Cato Institute proposed several reform measures, including fully eliminating capital gains taxes on cryptocurrency payments and introducing a de minimis exemption threshold for small transactions. The report also referenced the existing Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act—a bill that would exempt crypto transactions under $200—but Anthony argued that this threshold is too low to reflect real-world consumer spending levels. Currently, the Trump administration has expressed support for establishing a de minimis exemption for cryptocurrency transactions and will continue evaluating related legislative options.
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.
According to CoinDesk, Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, stated at Paris Blockchain Week that Bitcoin developers should move forward early with optional post-quantum upgrades—even though practical quantum computers remain far from realization. He noted that Taproot’s flexible design supports integrating new post-quantum signature schemes without affecting existing users. Previously, Jameson Lopp and others proposed BIP-361, aiming to phase out quantum-vulnerable addresses over five years and freeze bitcoins in addresses that fail to complete the migration. Adam Back believes the Bitcoin community can rapidly coordinate a response in an emergency—without needing to predefine freezing arrangements.
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.
BitMEX Research published an article proposing an alternative soft fork to BIP-361, suggesting that dormant bitcoins vulnerable to quantum attacks be frozen only upon confirmed existence of a quantum computer capable of stealing bitcoins. The proposal introduces a “canary fund” mechanism: a special bitcoin address whose private key is unknown but theoretically crackable by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer; users may donate BTC to this address as a bounty. If funds are spent from this address, it signals confirmed quantum threat and automatically triggers the freezing mechanism. BitMEX Research states that this proposal serves as a less contentious alternative to the more controversial BIP-361.
On-chain lending platform Votre has raised $3.75 million in seed funding, led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Druid Ventures, and angel investors from Goldman Sachs, Harvard University, and OrangeDAO. Founded in 2025, Votre operates a non-custodial crypto lending platform on Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 network, enabling users to borrow USD—settled the same day—using Bitcoin as collateral, with loan sizes ranging from approximately $25,000 to $5 million. The funds will be used to scale technical infrastructure, increase platform capacity, enhance liquidity management tools, and strengthen risk and compliance systems.
Odaily News Stanford University's "2026 AI Index Report" reveals that the overall electricity demand of current AI systems is already close to half the scale of Bitcoin mining and approaches the national electricity consumption levels of Switzerland or Austria.The report points out that the gap in AI model capabilities between China and the United States is narrowing. In 2025, the U.S. launched approximately 50 representative models, while China launched about 30. Models from institutions such as Anthropic, xAI, Google, OpenAI, Alibaba, and DeepSeek are within the same capability tier.Furthermore, China leads in terms of AI paper citation share (20.6%) and patent quantity (74.2%), while private AI investment in the United States reached $285.9 billion, significantly higher than China's $12.4 billion.
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.
Odaily News: Sharon Yeshaya, Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley, stated that tokenization and on-chain finance will become key evolutionary directions for its wealth management business.The company envisions a "tokenized world," where client assets and liabilities can flow as efficiently as capital through blockchain infrastructure, thereby reshaping asset allocation, lending, and cash management methods.Unlike viewing crypto as an independent business, Morgan Stanley plans to embed on-chain capabilities into its core service system, including investment advisory, financing, and liquidity management, to drive an upgrade of the overall financial architecture.This strategy is being gradually implemented through initiatives such as the digital asset pilot with ZeroHash and products like Bitcoin ETFs. Although the crypto business currently accounts for a small portion of the overall system, its position within the future wealth management framework is rapidly rising.
Odaily News Riot Platforms' data center head, Jonathan Gibbs, has left the company after less than a year in the role, dealing a setback to the company's transformation towards AI and high-performance computing (HPC). The company's stock price fell approximately 6% on the day of the announcement.Gibbs joined in 2025, tasked with leading Riot's shift from traditional Bitcoin mining to AI and hyperscale data center operations. The reasons for his departure have not been disclosed, and his unvested stock awards (worth approximately $18.7 million) have been forfeited.Despite the short-term uncertainty brought by this personnel change, Riot had previously initiated its transformation. This includes partnering with AMD to build data centers and beginning to leverage its power resources to undertake AI computing business, generating some revenue conversion.To support infrastructure investments, the company has concurrently reduced its Bitcoin holdings. In Q1 2026, it sold approximately 3,778 BTC, raising about $290 million.Market observers believe Riot is at a critical stage of its dual-track transformation of "mining + AI computing power." While executive changes may affect the execution pace, the long-term direction will ultimately depend on its ability to successfully implement its data center business.
Odaily News TeraWulf announced the issuance of 47.4 million shares at $19 per share, raising approximately $9 billion to fund the construction of a large-scale data center campus in Hawesville, Kentucky, repay bridge financing, and support future expansion. Affected by the equity dilution from the financing, the company's stock price fell by about 5.8% during the trading session. The company also disclosed preliminary performance for the first quarter of 2026, expecting revenue to be between $30 million and $35 million, with approximately $3.1 billion in cash on hand and total debt of about $5.8 billion.TeraWulf's management pointed out that high-performance computing (HPC) hosting revenue now accounts for over half of its income, surpassing Bitcoin mining revenue for the first time, driving a shift in its revenue structure towards more stable, long-term cash flows. Analysts believe that while this financing round brings equity dilution, it helps support the expansion of AI infrastructure and enhances visibility for future growth. Overall, this move reflects the industry trend of mining companies accelerating their shift towards AI and high-performance computing to reduce reliance on Bitcoin price volatility and improve profitability stability. (CoinDesk)
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.
According to GlobeNewswire, Strive, a Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company, announced it will increase the dividend rate on its Variable-Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock (SATA) by 25 basis points to 13.00%, effective for interest periods beginning on and after April 15, 2026. Additionally, Strive will distribute a dividend of $1.0833 per share on May 15, 2026, to shareholders of record as of May 1, 2026. Strive disclosed it has acquired an additional ~27 bitcoins, bringing its total bitcoin holdings to approximately 13,768. Under the assumptions that the SATA yield is 13.00% and the average purchase price of bitcoin is $74,750, Strive’s current balance sheet structure can support such dividend payments for approximately 19.6 years.
Odaily News Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer has announced its unaudited production and operational update data for March 2026. The data reveals that self-operated mining output in March was 661 Bitcoin, representing a year-on-year increase of approximately 480%. The self-operated Bitcoin hashrate increased to about 70 EH/s, a year-on-year growth of roughly 504%. It is reported that seasonal factors in Norway and Bhutan had some impact on production for the month, but mining performance is expected to continue strengthening in the coming months. Furthermore, driven by accelerating demand from AI clients, the annualized recurring revenue (ARR) for Bitdeer's AI cloud business reached approximately $43 million, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 105%. (Globenewswire)
WEEX Exchange has announced the launch of its first Staking campaign—“Diamond Hands Program”—from 18:00 on April 15 to 18:00 on May 4 (UTC+8). Users can access the Wealth Management page and select the 20-day fixed-term products for BTC or WXT to earn staking returns of 3% for BTC and 2% for WXT.
Odaily News Bitcoin contributor Jameson Loop and other cryptographers have proposed an initiative that could force Bitcoin holders to migrate their tokens to new quantum-resistant addresses, otherwise their tokens would be permanently frozen by the network itself. In this scenario, holders would technically still "own" the coins but would lose the ability to transfer them. This is known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal BIP-361, which was updated in Bitcoin's official proposal repository on Tuesday under the title "Post-Quantum Migration and Legacy Signature Deprecation".BIP-361 builds upon the BIP-360 proposal introduced in February. BIP-360 introduced a soft fork (a network upgrade) designed to enable a new transaction type called "Pay-to-Merkle-Root" (P2MR). This method draws from Bitcoin's Taproot (P2TR) framework but removes the key-based spending path, thereby eliminating an element widely considered to be at risk in the quantum era.The BIP-361 proposal divides the migration into three phases. Phase A begins three years after activation, prohibiting anyone from sending new Bitcoin to legacy, quantum-vulnerable addresses. You can still spend from these addresses but cannot receive any coins.Phase B begins five years after activation, rendering legacy signatures (ECDSA and Schnorr) completely invalid. The network will reject any attempts to spend coins from quantum-vulnerable wallets. Essentially, your coins will be frozen.Finally, there is Phase C, a still-under-research rescue plan: holders of frozen wallets may be able to prove ownership via zero-knowledge proofs (a method of proving knowledge of a secret without revealing the secret itself). If successful, coins frozen in Phase B could be recovered. (CoinDesk)
Binance has announced support for users to make payments at all merchants in Bolivia using Binance QR codes. Over 100 cryptocurrencies—including USDT and BTC—are supported. Users simply confirm transactions via the app, and Binance automatically converts their funds into the local currency at the time of payment. Binance stated that the QR code payment service is available exclusively to Binance users whose identity verification location is in Bolivia, and users must hold cryptocurrency in their Binance account (Binance Spot, Deposit, or Earn).
According to an official announcement from UStables, the stablecoin USD1 (ticker: $U) has achieved a 24-hour trading volume peak of $1.75 billion since its listing on Binance three months ago. On April 13, BTC/U trading volume surpassed BTC/USDT trading volume, and USD1 has now entered the Top 10 tokens by trading volume across all markets. According to an official Binance announcement, zero-fee BTC/U trading will officially commence on April 17, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. Beijing Time.