Crypto News

According to ChainCatcher news, Squads, a multi-signature protocol in the Solana ecosystem, announced the completion of a $18 million strategic financing, led by Solana Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, etc. Squads used the funding round to expand its stablecoin corporate finance platform, Altitude.

Odaily Planet Daily News The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will vote in ten minutes to advance Walsh's nomination for Fed chairman. (Jin Shi)

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin remained fluctuating above $77,000 on Wednesday, and the market remained cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision. This FOMC meeting is seen as a key node, and the market generally expects interest rates to remain unchanged, but the real focus is on whether Fed Chair Powell releases a "higher-for-longer" hawkish signal. In addition, this meeting may also be his last meeting as chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the market is also uncertain about pricing policy and potential transfer of power. Overall, Bitcoin is still in a "low liquidity + high event risk" structure and may maintain a range of $72,000 to $80,000 in the short term, waiting for further clarification on the Fed's policy path.

ChainCatcher news, according to Gate market data, the Dow Jones index opened down 21.95 points, or 0.04%, at 49,119.98 points on April 29 (Wednesday); The S&P 500 index opened down 11.58 points, or 0.16%, at 7,127.22; The Nasdaq Composite opened down 109 points, or 0.44%, at 24,554.8.

White House officials said Trump discussed with oil companies a plan to extend the Iran blockade for several months if necessary. (Jin Shi)

According to ChainCatcher news, the US dollar against the Japanese yen (USD/JPY) briefly touched 160, hitting a new high since April 7, according to Golden Ten.

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi, major investment banks have conducted a forward-looking analysis of the Fed's future interest rate path. Wells Fargo and ING both expect the Fed to cut interest rates by 25 basis points each in September and December. ANZ believes the rate cut cycle may resume in the third quarter. Goldman Sachs Group and Barclays also said that if inflation falls, the Fed will ease policy around September. Bank of America predicts a possible 50 basis point rate cut.

According to ChainCatcher news, Blockworks announced the completion of Series A expansion financing, with a post-investment valuation of $192 million. This round of financing was jointly led by ParaFi Capital and Reciprocal Ventures, and was supported by several institutions and industry participants, including Coinbase Ventures and MoonPay Ventures. The financing also attracted more than 20 founders and operators from ecological projects such as Solana, LayerZero, Arbitrum, and Kraken, with the specific financing amount not yet disclosed. The company said that the crypto market has grown to a trillion-dollar scale without traditional capital market infrastructure, but there are still problems such as data fragmentation, inconsistent disclosure, and lack of investor communication mechanisms, and Blockworks is trying to fill this gap with a "data + disclosure + investor relations" trinity structure.

According to Odaily Planet Daily News, the total trading volume of the forecast market in March 2026 will reach $25.7 billion, an increase of 10.6% month-on-month, with trading behavior highly concentrated among small retail users. Among the 1.29 million wallets tracked in the first quarter, 82.3% of users had a transaction size of less than $10,000, and the growth mainly came from micro, mild, and moderately active user groups. Crypto assets are the main entry point for prediction markets, accounting for 39.6% of micro user activity. Among them, Bitcoin-related event contracts attracted about 593,000 users in the first quarter, with a trading volume of $5.42 billion, making it the most engaged crypto prediction market. Ethereum and Solana recorded $1.19 billion and $420 million in trading volume, respectively. In terms of category structure, the sports market ranked first with a trading volume of $10.1 billion, followed by the political market ($5 billion), of which geopolitical-related accounts for $2.41 billion, and the overall trading volume of the crypto-related market reached $7.3 billion. The analysis believes that the growth of the forecast market mainly depends on "category expansion" rather than the expansion of the size of a single transaction. Micro users are active for an average of 2.5 days and participate in 1.45 categories, while medium user activity increases to 9.9 days and 2.34 categories, indicating that users are moving from single speculation to a multi-market continuous participation structure. （The Block）

ChainCatcher news, according to Gate market data, as international crude oil prices rose, the US dollar index DXY rose to an intraday high, reaching a high of 98.77.

Odaily Planet Daily News GSR launched the Crypto Core3 ETF, a crypto exchange-traded fund, focusing on the allocation of three core crypto asset portfolios: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. The product adopts a weekly rebalancing strategy to dynamically adjust the position structure of each currency, while introducing staking income in Ethereum and Solana sections. Currently, GSR has submitted five ETF application materials and will continue to expand its product matrix in the future to further improve its crypto asset investment layout. (Coindesk)

Odaily Planet Daily News Andre Cronje said that most current decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols no longer comply with "DeFi in the strict sense" and are closer to business systems operated by teams, and have caused divisions in the industry over whether "circuit breakers" should be introduced to deal with attack risks. In an interview, Andre Cronje pointed out that in the early days, DeFi was centered on immutable smart contracts, but now a large number of protocols rely on upgradable contracts, multi-signature permissions, off-chain infrastructure, and manual operation and maintenance processes, essentially transforming from "immutable public goods" to "operable profitable businesses". He said that in the context of recent security incidents, including DeFi attacks of about US$280 million and US$293 million, industry risks have expanded from simple smart contract vulnerabilities to "Web2-style risks" such as infrastructure, permission control, and social engineering attacks. For risk management, Andre Cronje's Flying Tulip recently introduced a circuit breaker mechanism to delay or queue withdrawals in the event of abnormal outflows, providing an emergency response window of about 6 hours to prevent systematic runs and further losses. However, the mechanism has also caused controversy. Michael Egorov argues that circuit breakers can introduce a new centralized attack surface that, if controlled by signers or administrators, could become a new source of security breach or freeze risk. He emphasized that DeFi design should minimize human intervention rather than adding human control nodes. Industry analysts pointed out that this debate essentially reflects that DeFi is gradually shifting from the ideal model of "code is law" to the realistic architecture of "hybrid governance + operational control", and the security boundary is being redefined. （Cointelegraph）

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz said that Iranian Foreign Minister Aragzi promised him that the Iranian side would respond to the prospects of Iran-US talks after leadership consultations. Shahbaz said at a cabinet meeting on the same day that Aragzi led a delegation to visit Pakistan last week and held several rounds of comprehensive talks with Pakistan. "He (Aragqi) assured me before leaving that he would reply to me after consulting with the Iranian leadership." Shahbaz also said that the ceasefire reached by Iran and the United States with the efforts of the Pakistani side is still valid. (CCTV News)

Odaily Planet Daily News Fortune magazine revealed that the total investment in the White House Trump Ballroom has risen from the initial estimate of $200 million to $400 million, mainly from tax-deductible private donations, which will be managed through the non-profit organization Trust for the National Mall. Fortune previously announced that a number of crypto industry companies and individuals participated in the donation, including Coinbase, Ripple, Tether America, and Paxos co-founders Charles Cascarilla, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss and other well-known figures in the crypto industry. In addition, big tech companies such as Meta, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc. are among them. Among them, Google's parent company Alphabet previously reached a settlement with Trump and promised to spend $22 million on the construction of the banquet hall.

White House officials said that U.S. President Donald Trump met with energy company executives on Tuesday to discuss domestic production, Venezuela, oil futures, natural gas and shipping. (Jin Shi)

According to Iranian media Press TV, citing a senior Iranian security source, Iran has issued a warning that if the United States continues to seize Iran-related ships, Iran will take "unprecedented military action." (Jin Shi)

Fence, a blockchain finance company, announced the completion of a new round of financing of $20 million, led by Galaxy Digital and participated by Parafi Capital and Crane Venture Partners. Including loan pool tracking, collateral verification and cash flow. Fence emphasized that it does not define itself as a blockchain company, but uses blockchain as a back-office infrastructure to automatically manage cash, collateral and transaction rules through smart contracts, and tokenize loan positions when necessary to improve liquidity and automation. （CoinDesk）

According to ChainCatcher news, according to Golden Ten, Andrew Slimmon, senior portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said that investors should be prepared for a pullback in the US stock market and strike decisively when fear reaches its peak. He believes that the current strong earnings of companies collide with accumulated risks, and the stock market, especially the "Big Seven", has risen sharply, increasing the risk that stock prices will continue to rise. Slimon advised investors to be patient, believing that now is not the best time to deploy new funds, but he remains constructive in the long run.

According to ChainCatcher news, Visa announced that it has officially included Polygon in its global stablecoin settlement program (Stablecoin Settlement Program), and Visa partners, including card issuers and acquirers, can now complete stablecoin settlements through the Polygon network. Polygon said it has now become the world's largest USD stablecoin payment network. According to Allium vs. Dune data: 34% of USD stablecoin transfers occur on Polygon, more than twice as much as BNB Chain; 54% of USDC transfers occur on Polygon, which is higher than all other chains combined; 36% of the world's USDC transactions run on Polygon; Polygon currently has approximately 3.19 million weekly active stablecoin users; The supply of on-chain stablecoins reached a record high of $3.62 billion; The number of USD stablecoin transactions reached 178.1 million in March. Visa said its stablecoin settlement program has reached $7 billion in annualized operations this quarter, up 50% from three months ago. Polygon emphasized that its network has Asian-American tiered transaction fees, a transaction finality time of about 4 seconds, and has been used by Stripe, Revolut, Flutterwave, BlackRock and other institutions to settle real financial activities.