Crypto World
Strait of Hormuz Open During U.S.-Iran Ceasefire as Naval Blockade Holds Pending Final Deal
TLDR:
- Iran’s foreign minister confirmed the Strait of Hormuz is open to all commercial vessels during the ceasefire period.
- President Trump stated the U.S. naval blockade will remain active until a deal with Iran is fully and completely finalized.
- The Trump administration is weighing the unfreezing of $20 billion in Iranian assets as part of ongoing nuclear negotiations.
- A 10-day Lebanon ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is holding, easing a key sticking point in the broader Iran talks.
The Strait of Hormuz is currently open to all commercial shipping vessels following a ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
Iran’s foreign minister confirmed the vital trade route would remain accessible during the truce period. However, President Donald Trump stated that the U.S. naval blockade will stay active. A broader agreement must be fully completed before any military presence is withdrawn from the region.
Iran Commits to Keeping the Strait of Hormuz Open
Iran’s foreign minister officially announced that the Strait of Hormuz would be open to commercial vessels. The waterway handles a substantial portion of the world’s oil trade and remains critical to global markets. This announcement came alongside a ceasefire agreement reached between Tehran and Washington.
Despite the announcement, Iranian state media introduced some uncertainty around the commitment. Shipping companies are also expressing caution and have not fully resumed normal operations through the strait. Industry players are waiting for clearer guarantees before adjusting their routes or schedules.
President Trump publicly confirmed Iran’s pledge, stating that Tehran has committed not to close the waterway. However, he made clear that U.S. naval forces would not stand down just yet. Trump said the blockade would remain until a deal with Iran is “100% complete.”
The situation reflects a delicate balance between military posture and diplomatic progress. Both sides appear committed to keeping talks moving forward while maintaining their respective positions. Commercial shipping remains cautious but operational through the strait at this stage.
Nuclear Deal Talks and Broader Conflict Resolution Progress
Peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are actively ongoing, with Trump expressing confidence in a near-term resolution.
He told reporters a deal could be reached “in the next day or two.” Talks are also expected to continue through the weekend, according to the president.
One notable development involves a proposal to unfreeze approximately $20 billion in Iranian assets. This measure is being considered as part of broader incentives to bring Iran to a final agreement. Sources familiar with the discussions confirmed this option is currently on the table.
Trump also stated that the United States intends to acquire Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile as part of any deal. He said the U.S. “will acquire Iran’s enriched uranium” under the terms being negotiated. The exact conditions surrounding uranium transfers remain a point of active discussion.
Separately, a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon appears to be holding steadily. The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has been described as a “key sticking point” in the broader Iran negotiations. Stability in Lebanon could support momentum toward a wider regional agreement in the coming days.
For most of 2025, altcoin holders were waiting. Watching Bitcoin climb to a new all-time high near $126,000, they expected what had always followed — the familiar rotation, the altcoin surge, the season that rewards patience with explosive gains. It never came.
Benjamin Cowen, founder of IntoTheCryptoverse, wasn’t surprised. He had a name for what was happening, and it changed everything.
“This is a cycle where Bitcoin topped on apathy rather than euphoria.”
That single phrase explains more about the 2025 cycle than any price target or on-chain metric. And to understand why, you need to follow the data across four charts — from social sentiment, through market structure, all the way to the deepest layers of the global macro economy.
The Top That Looked Normal, But Wasn’t
Bitcoin did exactly what it always does. It peaked in Q4 of the post-halving year, right on schedule, consistent with every prior four-year cycle. On the surface, nothing was broken. Look closer, however, and something was fundamentally different.
Cowen’s Social Metrics Historical Risk chart tells the story visually. The chart color-codes Bitcoin’s price history by the level of social engagement at each point in time — warm colors (red, orange) for high engagement, cool colors (blue) for low.
In 2017 and 2021, Bitcoin topped in a blaze of red and orange. Social interest was at peak levels. Retail was flooding in. Everyone was talking about crypto.
In 2025, Bitcoin printed its all-time high in cold blue. Social engagement was near-historic lows at the exact moment the market reached its peak.
No retail frenzy or mainstream headlines are driving fresh money in. Just a quiet, almost invisible top — what Benjamin Cowen defines as apathy.
“In 2017 and 2021 we topped on euphoria and because we topped on euphoria there was a rotation into the higher risk assets — altcoins. But when you top on apathy you don’t get that same rotation.”
The only other time this happened was in 2019. That observation is where everything begins.
Benjamin Cowen: Why Apathy Kills the Altcoin Season
In a euphoric cycle, the sequence is predictable. Bitcoin tops, early investors take profits, and that capital rotates into higher-risk assets — altcoins. The crowd, still buzzing with excitement, chases the next opportunity. Alt season follows almost mechanically.
Apathy breaks that sequence entirely. When Bitcoin tops on indifference rather than excitement, there is no crowd waiting to rotate.
The retail wave that normally fuels altcoin rallies simply never arrived. And without new buyers entering the market, altcoins have nowhere to go but down.
Cowen puts it with characteristic bluntness:
“But when you top on apathy, like in 2019, you don’t get that rotation. And the reason you don’t get that rotation is that there’s just no one left to sell the altcoins to.”
The consequence is visible in the altcoin total market cap chart. Rather than the sharp post-Bitcoin rotation that altcoin holders were expecting, the chart shows something more painful — a slow, relentless bleed. Altcoins losing ground to Bitcoin not just in the bear market, but throughout the entire cycle, both during the bull run and after it ended.
This is not a coincidence or bad luck. It is a direct consequence of the macro environment in which this cycle occurred.
The Macro Context: 2019 and 2025 Show the Same Story
Most crypto analysts treat Bitcoin as its own ecosystem, governed purely by halving cycles and on-chain mechanics. Benjamin Cowen argues that it is only half the picture.
The global business cycle — the broader rhythm of economic expansion, late-cycle stress, and recession — shapes not when Bitcoin tops, but how investors behave when it does.
His Business Cycles chart, built by normalizing a composite of S&P 500 performance, unemployment, interest rates, inflation, and M2 money supply, makes the argument visually.
From Bitcoin’s earliest days through approximately 2019, the macro environment was in an early business cycle phase — the long recovery following the 2008 financial crisis. Risk appetite was structurally high. Investors were willing to climb the risk ladder, moving from equities to Bitcoin to altcoins.
In a late business cycle environment, that risk appetite reverses. Investors don’t reach for more risk — they pull back from it. They consolidate into quality. In crypto terms, that means Bitcoin, not altcoins. It explains why, in both 2019 and 2025, altcoins bled to Bitcoin even as Bitcoin itself was still rising. The macro environment was actively working against the rotation altcoin holders had been counting on.
“The reason why this cycle feels different is because this is a late business cycle environment. And the only other time we had a late business cycle environment where altcoins bled out to Bitcoin even after Bitcoin topped without a rotation was actually in that 2019 phase.”
The Liquidity Risk chart adds a second layer of confirmation. With liquidity risk currently sitting at 0.789 — firmly in the “Very Tight” zone — the conditions mirror those of the 2008 financial crisis and the 2018-2019 period almost precisely. Tight liquidity environments are not environments where investors chase speculative assets. They are environments where capital retreats to safety.
The symmetry between 2019 and 2025 goes deeper still. In 2019, Bitcoin topped in June — two months before quantitative tightening ended in August. In 2025, Bitcoin topped in October — two months before quantitative tightening ended in December. Same pattern, same spacing, larger scale.
“What’s happening now is just a larger version of what happened in 2019. It just happens to all line up.”
What Comes Next for Benjamin Cowen
The 2019 parallel is not a perfect map, but it is the most honest one available. The four-year cycle remains intact — Bitcoin tops when it always tops, and it will bottom when it historically bottoms, approximately one year after the peak. That places the base case for a cycle low in October 2026.
What this cycle has revealed, more clearly than any before it, is that the crypto market does not exist in isolation. The business cycle, liquidity conditions, and investor risk appetite are not background noise — they are the environment in which every crypto decision plays out. In an early cycle, rising risk appetite carries altcoins higher.
In a late cycle, retreating risk appetite leaves them behind.
Benjamin Cowen’s thesis is not a bearish call for its own sake. It is a framework for understanding why this cycle felt different — and why, for those who understood the macro context, it was never really a surprise.
The altcoin season didn’t fail. It was never going to arrive. Not in this environment. Not in this cycle.
The post Benjamin Cowen Reveals Why The Altcoin Season Never Came appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov warned Friday that the European Union’s new age-verification app could become a stepping stone toward broader online identity tracking, days after the European Commission said the system was technically ready for rollout.
In a Telegram post on Friday, Durov cited analysis from security consultant Paul Moore, who said the app is hackable in “under two minutes” after examining its technical design.
“This product will be the catalyst for an enormous breach at some point,” Moore said in an X post on Thursday, adding that the system could be tricked so the age check isn’t properly tied to the actual user or their device.
Durov argued that the security concerns went beyond age checks and could, over time, be used to justify broader identity verification across online services in Europe.
The criticism reflects a wider debate over how age verification is being built into online platforms, as regulators in multiple regions push similar systems, raising concerns over security and digital identity infrastructure.
System promoted as being “completely anonymous”
The European Commission released the first version of its age-verification blueprint in July 2025, with the aim of letting users prove they are over 18 without disclosing other personal information.
The age verification framework was developed as an open-source project designed to preserve privacy and support future interoperability with European Digital Identity Wallets.
In a statement on Tuesday, EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU’s age verification app is “technically ready,” describing the tool as “completely anonymous” and claiming users can prove their age without revealing personal data or being tracked.
However, after researchers said the system can be bypassed in minutes, it’s unclear whether its privacy and security promises will hold up in real use.
Related: Signal push notifications could present privacy vulnerability, says Durov
According to Durov, the app is “hackable by design,” suggesting it was built in a way that makes it easy to break in practice, which he argues could later be used to justify stronger identity checks.
“The EU bureaucrats needed an excuse to silently start turning their ‘privacy-respecting’ age verification app into a surveillance mechanism over all Europeans using social media,” the Telegram CEO said.
Durov has emerged as a major advocate of free speech and digital privacy. He remains under judicial investigation in France over allegations tied to illegal activity facilitated through Telegram, including organized crime, fraud and the platform’s alleged failure to cooperate with authorities.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
President Trump said Thursday the White House is investigating the deaths and disappearances of 10 scientists with ties to classified US defense, nuclear, and aerospace research, calling the pattern “pretty serious stuff” after leaving a meeting on the topic — as a lawmaker called for a formal FBI probe into what investigators have not yet confirmed is anything other than coincidence.
Summary
- Trump told reporters on the White House lawn: “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half. Some of them were very important people.”
- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration would “deem worth looking into” a cluster of cases involving scientists with access to classified nuclear and space material that has drawn growing public scrutiny since late 2024.
- Investigators have found no evidence of a common thread linking the cases, and Harvard physicist Avi Loeb said the cases are probably unrelated because the individuals worked in different specialty areas.
The White House scientist investigation officially entered public view Thursday when President Trump acknowledged he had just left a meeting on the topic of 10 scientists who have died or disappeared since mid-2024, all of them tied to classified US defense, nuclear, or aerospace research.
“Pretty serious stuff,” Trump told reporters before boarding Marine One. “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt this week called it “definitely something I think this government and administration would deem worth looking into,” according to Newsweek reporting. A lawmaker has separately called for the FBI to open a formal investigation.
Five of the ten have died; five remain missing. Among the most prominent: retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, 68, who previously oversaw some of the military’s most advanced and highly classified research programs, disappeared from his Albuquerque home on February 27, 2026, leaving his phone and prescription glasses behind. Authorities have found no trace of him.
Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, who worked on the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, was shot and killed outside his California home on February 16, 2026. A 29-year-old suspect was arrested and charged with murder. MIT plasma physicist Nuno Loureiro, 47, director of the university’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was shot at his Brookline, Massachusetts home in December 2025 and died from his injuries. Jason Thomas, 45, a Novartis pharmaceutical researcher, went missing in December 2025 and was found dead in a Massachusetts lake in March 2026 after investigators said no foul play was suspected.
Monica Reza, 60, a director at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has been missing since June 2025 after vanishing on a well-traveled California hiking trail.
What Authorities Have Found and Have Not Found
No federal agency has publicly confirmed an active investigation linking the cases. Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker told NewsNation he believed the bureau was probably reviewing the cases, adding: “These are classified matters. We shouldn’t be hearing about them if they are investigating.”
Authorities have noted that each case is distinct: some are confirmed homicides with unrelated suspects, some are disappearances with no established cause, and some appear accidental. Avi Loeb of Harvard said he does not believe the cases are related because the individuals worked in different scientific disciplines and there is no established technical link.
The overlap in timing and profession, however, and the access these individuals had to nuclear weapons programs, advanced aerospace systems, and other sensitive areas, has fueled questions across government and intelligence circles that the White House cannot credibly ignore in public.
For the crypto sector, the pattern has a specific relevance: researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the institutions named in connection with these cases, are early adopters of NVIDIA Ising, the new quantum AI toolkit launched this week. Advances in quantum computing research — and the security of the people advancing it — directly intersect with the quantum threat timeline that determines when cryptographic systems securing Bitcoin and other blockchain infrastructure become vulnerable.
Update (4.17.26 6:43 PM UTC): This article has been updated to reflect updated BTC prices and rally data.
Iran’s foreign minister said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial vessel traffic for the remainder of the current ceasefire, prompting quick market reactions.
“In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi in a Friday X post.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the opening of the passage in a Friday post on Truth Social.
Bitcoin (BTC) surged past $77,000 on Friday following the news, rising by over 3.7% in 24 hours and a weekly recovery of about 5%, according to data from CoinMarketCap and TradingView.
Brent crude oil futures sank to around $85 per barrel, falling 10% on the news, according to Tradingeconomics data.
Easing geopolitical tensions may bring more risk appetite among crypto investors. However, the two-week ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran is set to expire on April 22, with the threat of renewed escalation continuing to weigh on market sentiment.
Investors who sold assets in March are now “rushing back into the market” while risk appetite is returning amid the signs of geopolitical deescalation, according to a Friday X post from The Kobeissi Letter, adding that the S&P 500 index added $7 trillion over the past three weeks.
Related: Tom Lee says ‘mini crypto winter’ is over, sees Ether above $60K
Axios says US weighs broader Iran deal
Adding to the positive news, Axios reported Friday that US officials were discussing a proposal to release as much as $20 billion in frozen Iranian funds in exchange for Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium.
Axios said the proposal was part of a three-page framework being discussed as part of efforts to end the war.
Still, the US naval blockade will remain in “full force and effect” until the US’ transaction with Iran is “100% complete,” wrote President Trump in a Friday Truth Social post, adding that “most of the points are already negotiated.”
Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
Polymarket prediction market odds of the Strait of Hormuz “returning to normal” by the end of May spiked to 73% on Friday, following news that Iranian officials have temporarily opened up the Strait of Hormuz as part of a ceasefire deal.
The odds climbed to a high of 82% on Friday, after Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi announced that the Strait of Hormuz is open. Since that time, the odds have fallen back down to 73%. He said in an X post:
“The passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire, on the coordinated route as already announced by the Ports and Maritime Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
However, traders on the platform placed the odds of the Strait returning to normal activity by the end of April at just 40%.
The war in Iran sent shockwaves through financial markets, impacting crypto and energy prices, as investors and financial analysts react to political developments in the ongoing conflict.
Related: Iran conflict hints Bitcoin’s addressable market could exceed gold: Bitwise
Bitcoin rises on the ceasefire news, but the truce is “fragile”
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) surged on Friday in response to the temporary reopening of the Strait under the ceasefire, briefly tapping $78,000 before climbing down to about $77,358, the price at the time of publication.
Crypto market analyst Nic Puckrin told Cointelegraph that the ceasefire between the US and Iran announced in April is “fragile” and that core issues remain unresolved.
The fallout from the conflict will likely cast a shadow over financial markets for most of 2026, pushing back any interest rate cuts to Q3 2026 at the earliest, if rate cuts materialize at all this year, Puckrin said.
“A ceasefire that results in the end of geopolitical tensions, a sustained drop in oil prices toward $80, and ideally also softer-than-expected economic data that calms stagflation fears” are all needed for BTC to reclaim the $90,000 level, he said.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that the US naval blockade on Iran would “remain in full force and effect” until the “transaction with Iran is 100% complete.”
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
Stanford’s 2026 AI Index shows the performance gap between US and Chinese AI models has compressed to just 2.7%, down from a double-digit lead as recently as 2023, as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 holds a 39-point Elo lead over ByteDance’s best-performing model on the benchmarks Stanford tracks.
Summary
- The 423-page report, released April 14, finds that the US and Chinese models have traded first place multiple times since early 2025, with DeepSeek-R1 briefly matching the top US model in February 2025 before being surpassed.
- The US leads China in private AI investment ($285.9 billion vs $12.4 billion) and notable model production (50 vs 30 in 2025), while China leads in AI publication volume, patent output, and industrial robot installations.
- The number of AI researchers entering the US has dropped 89% over seven years and 80% in the past year alone, a trend the report attributes in part to H-1B restrictions under the Trump administration.
Stanford’s 2026 AI Index, released April 14, documents the near-disappearance of the US performance advantage in artificial intelligence, with the top American model leading the best Chinese model by just 2.7% on the Arena Leaderboard benchmarks Stanford tracks as of March 2026.
The 423-page report from Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered AI puts the specific figures starkly: in 2023, performance gaps between leading US and Chinese models ranged from 17.5 to 31.6 percentage points on major benchmarks including MMLU, MATH, and HumanEval. By the end of 2024, those gaps had collapsed to 0.3, 1.6, and 3.7 percentage points respectively. The current 2.7% Elo lead between Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 and ByteDance’s Dola-Seed-2.0 Preview is narrow enough to flip on the next major release from either side.
The US advantage remains substantial in investment, infrastructure, and model production. American companies poured $285.9 billion into AI in 2025, 23.1 times China’s $12.4 billion private investment. The US produced 50 notable AI models in 2025 against China’s 30. The US hosts 5,427 data centers, more than ten times any other country.
High-impact patents, where quality of innovation matters more than volume, also favor the US. China leads globally in total patent output, filing 69.7% of all AI patents worldwide. But Stanford’s analysis distinguishes between patent volume and patent impact, and American researchers still produce more commercially influential intellectual property.
Where China Has Surged
China now produces 23.2% of all global AI publications and receives 20.6% of all global AI research citations, compared to 12.6% for the US. Chinese organizations installed 295,000 industrial robots in 2024, versus 34,200 in the United States, with China accounting for 51.1% of global industrial robot installations. The report notes that Chinese government guidance funds, estimated at $912 billion deployed across industries since 2000, mean that private investment figures substantially understate China’s total AI resource commitment.
South Korea has emerged as the world leader in innovation density, filing more AI patents per capita than any other country, introducing a third significant competitor into a rivalry previously framed as bilateral.
The Talent Warning
The report’s most alarming finding for US policymakers may be the talent data. The number of AI researchers entering the United States has dropped 89% over the past seven years, with an 80% decline in the past year alone. New H-1B visa restrictions that include a $100,000 employer fee per hire are cited as a contributing factor.
The Stanford data landed directly in the context of the ongoing US-China AI race that has driven the most significant infrastructure and semiconductor investments in the country’s history, including the NVIDIA Ising quantum AI models launched this week and the Terafab chip project. For AI tokens and the broader crypto-AI intersection, the convergence of the two countries’ capabilities matters: it removes the assumption that US systems have a durable lead and raises the competitive stakes on each new model release.
CFTC AI news came directly from Capitol Hill Thursday as Chairman Mike Selig told the House Agriculture Committee that artificial intelligence tools, specifically Microsoft’s Copilot, are filling surveillance and investigation gaps at an agency that has lost roughly 25% of its workforce since 2025, even as Congress prepares to hand it primary oversight of the US crypto market.
Summary
- Tools such as AI are going to be very helpful in surveilling and bringing the investigations, and we’re incorporating that into various workflows,” Selig told lawmakers, citing Copilot as one productivity tool across the agency.
- The CFTC currently operates with only Selig as its single sitting commissioner out of five required by law, with four seats vacant including both minority-party positions.
- Selig confirmed “numerous investigations ongoing” in prediction markets, where platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi have drawn scrutiny for well-timed trades tied to US military actions and government announcements.
CFTC AI news emerged from Thursday’s House Agriculture Committee oversight hearing as Chairman Mike Selig defended his agency’s shrinking headcount by pointing to productivity gains from AI tools, even as lawmakers pressed him on whether the CFTC has the resources to oversee both a rapidly growing crypto market and a prediction market sector that has ballooned into the billions of dollars in annual volume.
The agency has lost approximately 25% of its staff since 2025 under President Trump’s federal workforce reduction drive. Enforcement division staffing, at roughly 108 positions after a recent budget request for three new hires, is still 23% below the 140 enforcement employees on record in 2025. The CFTC currently operates with Selig as the sole sitting commissioner, with four of five legally required positions unfilled including both minority-party seats.
“Tools such as AI are going to be very helpful in surveilling and bringing the investigations, and we’re incorporating that into various workflows,” Selig told lawmakers. He specifically cited Microsoft’s Copilot as one productivity tool woven into agency workflows. When asked directly about the staff declines, Selig replied: “We are running more efficiently and effectively.”
The CFTC is simultaneously pursuing two expansions that would dramatically increase its regulatory footprint. First, the CLARITY Act, which is moving toward a Senate Banking Committee markup in late April, would designate the CFTC as the primary regulator of non-securities crypto trading, giving it oversight of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and every digital commodity that doesn’t meet the SEC’s securities definition. Second, the CFTC is asserting exclusive federal jurisdiction over prediction markets, a claim currently being contested in courts by multiple states.
Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson noted the contradiction. “We’re putting a lot on your plate with digital assets, and we’re obviously going down this path with prediction markets,” he told Selig, then asked him to request more staff if operational needs required it. Selig said “Absolutely” and reiterated that enforcement remains a “top priority.”
Prediction Market Investigations and Insider Trading
The prediction market scrutiny has been intense. Multiple members questioned Selig about trades on Polymarket, Kalshi, and other platforms in which small numbers of anonymous accounts appear to have made significant profits on bets tied to US military actions and government announcements, suggesting potential access to non-public information. Reports have identified roughly six Polymarket accounts that earned $1.2 million on correct bets about US Iran strikes placed hours before the February 28 action became public.
Selig said the agency has “numerous investigations ongoing” in prediction markets but declined to quantify or describe them, saying doing so could compromise active work. He described the regulated platforms as the “first line of defense” before the CFTC acts.
Ranking Member Angie Craig of Minnesota said flatly that the CFTC “cannot adequately oversee digital commodity trading and prediction markets” with current resources. She and Thompson announced plans to write to the White House urging bipartisan commissioner nominations. The single-commissioner structure has broader implications for the CLARITY Act rulemaking process: Selig indicated he would not wait for a full commission. “We cannot for the sake of the American people slow down our rulemaking,” he said, signaling he would advance major regulations alone if necessary, a position that could invite legal challenges to any rules adopted without bipartisan deliberation.
As the CFTC’s crypto role expands, Selig’s claim that AI can offset a quarter of the workforce will face a direct test once the CLARITY Act passes and the full weight of digital asset oversight lands on an agency that, by its own data, has 23% fewer enforcement officers than it needs.
Crypto World
Ton Price Prediction: TON Targets $1.51 While Pepeto 300x Heats Up After CoinMarketCap Listing
The ton price prediction for April 2026 covers TON technical levels, Rakuten Wallet’s launch of TON spot trading on April 15, and how the Pepeto presale compares for traders watching the meme coin and exchange token space.
Toncoin (TON) gained 12% over the past seven days after Rakuten Wallet opened spot trading for the token on April 15 and the Catchain 2.0 upgrade cut block times to 400 milliseconds, per Blockonomi. Trading volume jumped 148% in 24 hours while the top 100 whale wallets added 189,730 TON during the same stretch. The ton price prediction at a $1.51 breakout looks solid, but the tools that help retail traders catch the next wave before the crowd still do not exist for most buyers.
Pepeto was built to close that gap with a live exchange that spots early entries before the wider market picks up on them. More than $8,940,333 raised and a verified CoinMarketCap page put Pepeto days from its Binance listing. The window to lock in presale price is shutting fast.
Ton Price Prediction: TON Holds $1.41 With a $1.51 Breakout in Sight
TON trades at $1.41 today, sitting roughly 83% below its $8.25 all time high, and the $1.51 resistance level will shape where it heads next this month. Blockchain News projects the ton price prediction for late April between $1.35 and $1.51, with an average target near $1.42.
Changelly reported that TON is building inside a range between $1.35 and $1.51 with RSI near 51 in neutral ground, and a clean break above $1.51 could push the next leg toward $1.60 on rising volume.
Tokens built to catch the move before it starts
Pepeto: If you missed last cycle’s best entries, this is the one staring you in the face right now
When whale wallets add nearly 190,000 TON in a single week and a major Japanese exchange opens the trading pair, capital is clearly lining up. Most retail wallets only notice the flow once the move already happened. Pepeto just landed on CoinMarketCap, and the Binance listing is days away. The exchange closes that timing gap with tools that flag early entries before the broader market catches on.
The cross chain bridge pushes meme tokens between networks in seconds, and the scanning engine spots new projects at their cheapest price point.
Behind this entry sits a finished SolidProof audit protecting the contract, the same founder who built the original Pepe to an $11 billion market cap with zero products, and a team member who previously worked inside Binance running the listing rollout.
At $0.0000001863 per token, more than $8,940,333 has flowed into the presale across 420 trillion tokens, with staking running at 185% APY. Once Binance trading goes live, the analyst target sits between 300x and 1000x from this floor. Last cycle rewarded the earliest wallets with life changing gains, and Pepeto carries the same setup now, a confirmed listing closing in while presale buyers hold the lowest entry that vanishes the moment public trading opens.
Ton Price Prediction: TON Targets $1.51 in April and $5.03 by Year End From $1.42
Toncoin (TON) Price at $1.42 as Rakuten Wallet Opens Spot Trading
Toncoin (TON) trades at $1.42 according to CoinMarketCap, ranked number 33 with a $3.45 billion cap per CoinMarketCap. Blockchain News targets a $1.42 average for April with a peak near $1.51. Changelly’s bull case hits $5.03 by mid autumn 2026, roughly 256% from current levels.
The network just processed Catchain 2.0 and volume jumped 148% in a day, but even the bullish TON forecast delivers gains that take months. A presale backed by a confirmed Binance listing hands you the ground floor now, with weeks to listing day instead of months of waiting.
Conclusion
The ton price prediction targets 256% at best over months while the network absorbs Catchain 2.0 and capital keeps flowing in, but last cycle the wallets that hit the biggest returns entered the strongest setups while fear was still running. That missed window is what Pepeto was built for, with a working exchange, a finished SolidProof audit, a Pepe cofounder driving the build, and the Binance listing locked in.
Getting in at presale price while TON keeps you waiting months for smaller gains is where real crypto wealth gets built. Click below to enter the Pepeto presale before the Binance listing hits.
Click To Visit Pepeto Website To Enter The Presale
FAQs
What does the ton price prediction look like for April 2026?
Toncoin (TON) targets a range of $1.35 to $1.51 for April with a breakout level at $1.51 after Catchain 2.0 cut block times to 400ms. Pepeto at presale price with a confirmed Binance listing offers returns that TON cannot match from $1.41.
How does Toncoin’s Rakuten Wallet listing change the outlook for TON holders watching Pepeto?
Rakuten Wallet added TON spot trading on April 15, boosting volume 148% in a single day. Pepeto at $0.0000001863 with $8,940,333 raised and a Binance listing days away gives traders a presale floor that turns into 300x to 1000x when volume opens.
Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.
Summary
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused crypto exchange Zondacrypto of using “Russian funds linked to organized crime” and “Russian security services” to finance opposition politicians and block a MiCA‑style crypto bill.
- Tusk told parliament that some lawmakers fighting his government’s crypto‑asset legislation were “serving the interests” of Zondacrypto, which he said sponsored a CPAC event in Poland where former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem endorsed nationalist Karol Nawrocki’s presidential bid.
- President Nawrocki, elected in June 2025 with backing from former U.S. President Donald Trump, has twice vetoed MiCA‑aligned regulation, leaving Polish exchanges in legal limbo and deepening a national‑security‑tinged standoff over how to police digital assets.
Speaking in the Sejm on Friday ahead of a vote on overturning his rival’s veto, Tusk claimed that “Russian money was behind the Zondacrypto cryptocurrency platform,” which he alleged has “supported political and social initiatives” aligned with right‑wing groups in Poland. He told lawmakers that the firm’s backing was tied “not only to Russian capital” but also to “groups connected to the so‑called bratva, a term for Russian mafia organizations, as well as Russian security services.”
Tusk links Zondacrypto to Russian ‘Bratva’ and intelligence
According to Tusk, internal security agency findings show that Zondacrypto “sponsors political and social gatherings in Poland and champions very particular political factions,” including politicians from the former ruling Law and Justice party and the far‑right Confederation. He highlighted the exchange’s role as a “significant sponsor” of a Conservative Political Action Conference event in Rzeszów in March 2025, where Kristi Noem publicly backed Karol Nawrocki’s presidential campaign.
Tusk framed the latest vote as a security test, telling parliament there is “no doubt that this market is extremely vulnerable to manipulation by foreign services, intelligence organizations, and criminal enterprises.” In a post on X, he cast the regulatory fight as a straight choice between “Russian money and services versus the security of the state and citizens.”
The political clash comes after President Nawrocki twice blocked government efforts to align Poland with the EU’s Markets in Crypto‑Assets framework. In February, he vetoed a second crypto‑asset bill he described as “practically identical” to legislation he had already rejected in December 2025, arguing that the government’s model was “flawed” and would hurt consumers and smaller firms.
That stance has left Warsaw as a MiCA outlier. Without enabling legislation, Polish exchanges and wallet providers have no domestic route to start the licensing process required under EU rules, putting them at a disadvantage to peers in countries that are already issuing MiCA authorizations. A previous attempt to overturn an earlier veto also failed in December 2025, when parliament upheld Nawrocki’s decision despite Tusk warning that unregulated platforms were “particularly vulnerable to manipulation by foreign intelligence services, organized crime, and mafias.”
For now, Zondacrypto has not publicly commented in detail on the latest accusations, while the president’s office insists it does not oppose crypto regulation per se but rejects the government’s approach. As other EU members move ahead with MiCA licensing and enforcement, Poland’s fight over whether its crypto market is a vector for Russian “Bratva” money or a sector strangled by political point‑scoring is turning into a wider test of how national security, party financing and digital‑asset rules intersect in Europe.
Related crypto.news coverage on regulation and security risks in digital assets includes an explainer on why the U.S. is pushing tokenization‑friendly accounting, an analysis of how Trump‑era regulatory pullbacks reshaped the SEC’s crypto unit, and a report on MiCA‑aligned stablecoin rules emerging in other jurisdictions.
TLDR:
- Over 257K LINK tokens moved from Binance hot wallets to external addresses within a 15-hour window
- Transfers were distributed across wallets like 0x21a, 0x28C, and 0xDFd, showing multi-address activity
- Wallet 0x3C1 recorded the largest single transfer, moving 64,699 LINK worth about $618K in one transaction
- Repeated LINK outflows suggest ongoing exchange-to-wallet movement tracked across on-chain monitoring systems
Large Bitcoin exchange activity on Binance shows notable LINK withdrawals moving from hot wallets to multiple private addresses reported recently.
Data shared by Nazoku indicates over 257,000 LINK tokens moved within fifteen hours across several identified wallet addresses on Binance.
Binance records over 257K LINK withdrawals
On-chain tracking systems recorded heavy LINK movement from Binance hot wallets to externally controlled addresses during recent hours.
Transfers involved multiple destination wallets including 0x21a, 0x28C, and 0xDFd as reported by monitoring dashboards across network systems.
Total recorded withdrawals exceeded 257,000 LINK tokens, valued at approximately 2.45 million dollars at time reporting market data feeds.
Activity was tracked across multiple blockchain analytics platforms observing continuous movement from exchange wallets to private storage systems reporting.
One highlighted transaction involved wallet 0x3C1 transferring 64,699 LINK in a single movement from Binance account as recorded data.
Such transfers were followed closely by market observers tracking exchange reserves and liquidity changes across trading platforms daily updates.
Blockchain monitoring platforms also captured repeated withdrawal patterns showing consistent movement of LINK tokens from exchange hot wallets.
Several analytics services confirmed that transfers were distributed across multiple addresses without a single dominant flow source.
Data collected across monitoring tools showed continued outflow activity over a fifteen-hour observation window involving several wallet clusters.
These movements were recorded through real-time dashboards tracking exchange wallet behavior across multiple blockchain networks.
Large wallet accumulation observed across identified addresses
Wallet accumulation activity involved several newly identified addresses receiving LINK from centralized exchange withdrawals during the observation period.
Top receiving wallets included address 0x21a, 0x28C, and 0xDFd, showing repeated inflows within short intervals on-chain movement logs.
Wallet 0x3C1 recorded the largest single transaction, moving 64,699 LINK tokens from Binance infrastructure wallets, according to analysis data.
This transaction stood among the highest value transfers during the observed reporting cycle across tracking systems data checks.
Blockchain monitoring platforms noted repeated transfer patterns suggesting ongoing distribution from exchange custody systems across reported datasets logs.
Multiple wallets showed consistent inflows, indicating structured movement rather than isolated transfers within exchange-linked accounts.
Data shows continued movement of LINK tokens leaving Binance hot wallets over a fifteen-hour window, as recent network tracking.
Monitoring services continue tracking LINK movements from Binance wallets to assess ongoing exchange supply changes in real-time systems.
Further wallet transfers are expected to be analyzed as blockchain data updates become available through feeds, continuing surveillance logs.
Data aggregation platforms maintain records of LINK flows across exchanges, providing transparency for market participants’ network monitoring reports.
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