Ripple Prime will route clients into Bullish’s regulated BTC options while Ripple and OKX push RLUSD into compliant markets, extending Ripple’s $1.25b prime‑broker bet.

Ripple has expanded its institutional derivatives push, announcing that Ripple Prime will connect directly to Bullish’s Bitcoin (BTC) options market, opening regulated BTC options access to its institutional client base.

According to the announcement from both parties, this integration will allow Ripple Prime users to directly access Bullish’s regulated BTC options market, which Bullish describes as “the second largest cryptocurrency‑settlement Bitcoin options market in the world by open interest” and one that already supports spot, perpetual contracts and dated futures.

The move deepens a long‑running partnership between the two firms and comes as Bullish, listed on the NYSE under the ticker BLSH, continues to position itself as an institution‑first venue focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum liquidity after reporting $80.5 billion in monthly trading volume in October 2025.

Ripple Prime scales after $1.25b prime‑broker bet

In addition, both parties revealed that OKX has reached a strategic partnership with Ripple to introduce the stablecoin RLUSD (Ripple USD) in compliant markets, with RLUSD now live on OKX for spot trading across more than 280 pairs and usable as institutional‑grade margin collateral for derivatives.

Ripple Prime, as one of the largest non‑bank prime brokers globally, has exceeded a clearing scale of $30 trillion in 2025 and can provide multi‑asset brokerage, clearing, and financing services, building on Ripple’s $1.25 billion acquisition of multi‑asset prime broker Hidden Road that made it, in Ripple’s words, “the first crypto company to own and operate a global, multi‑asset prime broker.”

In an earlier Reuters report, Ripple said the Hidden Road deal would help create a “one‑stop‑shop” for institutional clients across foreign exchange, digital assets, derivatives, swaps and fixed income, while a follow‑up BusinessWire release emphasized that RLUSD is intended as “enterprise‑grade” collateral across that stack.

For crypto traders, the tie‑up between Ripple Prime and Bullish folds a large BTC options venue into a rapidly scaling prime‑broker platform just as macro uncertainty keeps demand high for hedging and basis trades, echoing themes raised in a recent crypto.news story on how rate‑cut delays are reshaping institutional risk‑taking.

The RLUSD expansion also builds on wider Middle East and Strait of Hormuz coverage from crypto.news, where prior stories have tracked how geopolitical chokepoints and energy costs feed back into liquidity conditions for assets such as Bitcoin and XRP (XRP), dynamics institutional desks on Ripple Prime and Bullish will now be able to express more precisely through BTC options and stablecoin‑collateralized derivatives.

Key takeaways:

• Negative Bitcoin funding rates indicate bearishness, yet whales maintain steady long-to-short ratios at major exchanges.
• Inflation concerns and tech corporate earnings remain the biggest drivers for Bitcoin traders’ sentiment.

Bitcoin (BTC) faced rejection at $77,800 on Wednesday, then retested the $76,000 level. This movement followed a correction in the S&P 500 Index as the war in Iran reached its 60-day mark, driving crude oil prices toward $118. While demand for leveraged bearish Bitcoin futures positions increased, the long-to-short ratio of whales at major exchanges indicates a different trend.

S&P 500 Index futures (left) vs. Bitcoin/USD (right). Source: TradingView

Bitcoin’s lack of bullish momentum above $78,000 mirrors the S&P 500 Index’s struggle near 7,200. Trader skepticism stems in part from the inflationary impact of high energy prices, which diminishes consumer spending and corporate earnings through higher logistics costs. Additionally, investors are questioning the profitability of technology companies’ investments in AI, according to Yahoo Finance.

Bitcoin futures show bulls lacking confidence

Setting aside the specific reasons for investor caution, the Bitcoin perpetual futures funding rate turned negative on Wednesday. This followed a brief neutral-to-bullish period on Tuesday. In a healthy market, this rate usually stays between 6% and 12% to cover capital costs, which means buyers typically pay a fee to maintain their positions. A negative rate suggests a shift toward sellers.

Bitcoin perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas

The Bitcoin perpetual futures funding rate has remained mostly negative over the past two weeks, indicating increased demand for leveraged short positions. While this data initially suggests a lack of confidence among buyers, a closer examination of whale positioning is necessary. The top traders’ long-to-short ratio across exchanges includes spot, margin, and futures data, offering a more comprehensive perspective.

Top traders’ long-to-short ratio and Binance and OKX. Source: Coinglass

The long-to-short ratio for professional traders on Binance was 0.80, showing a minor improvement from the 0.75 level recorded on Tuesday, though it remains slightly bearish. At OKX, top traders have briefly signaled bullish sentiment several times since Friday, but these shifts have been temporary. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that whales are turning increasingly bearish, as the long-to-short ratio has held steady throughout the past week.

The latest US Federal Reserve statement after Wednesday’s meeting observed that “inflation is elevated, in part reflecting the recent increase in global energy prices.” The FOMC chose to keep interest rates at their late 2025 levels, even though four members supported a 0.25% cut. According to CNBC, this marks the first time four FOMC members have dissented since October 1992.

Related: Bitcoin’s recent rally is largely fueled by Strategy purchases: Bitwise’s Hougan

Bitcoin bulls’ lack of conviction should not be mistaken for bearishness, particularly as Strategy (MSTR US) continues its accumulation. Over the last four weeks, Strategy acquired 56,235 BTC, a move supported by the issuance of its perpetual preferred security, STRC. The company currently holds 818,334 BTC, exceeding the position of BlackRock’s IBIT exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Professional traders remained unmoved by Bitcoin’s decline to $75,000 on Wednesday, as indicated by exchange long-to-short ratios. However, the persistent negative funding rate in Bitcoin futures suggests that sentiment remains cautious. Macroeconomic and tech corporate earnings remain the biggest driver for Bitcoin traders’ sentiment.

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Fence netted $20 million from Galaxy Digital to tokenize a $6 trillion asset‑backed finance market that still runs on manual, legacy rails.

Fence has secured a $20 million investment led by Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital to bring blockchain infrastructure to the roughly $6 trillion U.S. asset‑backed finance market, in one of the clearest recent bets on tokenizing legacy credit plumbing.

According to Galaxy Digital’s investment disclosure, Fence “leverages blockchain behind the scenes to automate and improve” asset‑backed lending workflows that today remain “labor‑intensive and highly manual,” positioning the firm as a back‑office rails provider rather than a consumer‑facing crypto platform.

Fence says its system can tokenize lenders’ positions in financing instruments and, in some cases, the underlying loans and invoices themselves, effectively turning traditionally illiquid receivables into programmable, tradable claims.

Galaxy’s RWA push meets credit market automation

Fence reports that it currently manages approximately $1.5 billion in assets on its platform, working with marquee institutions including BlackRock, where it helps streamline the administration of complex structured‑credit deals.

The company said in a statement that the fresh $20 million will support “growth and product development” as it looks to deepen integrations with banks, asset managers and specialty finance shops searching for operational efficiency and faster settlement in private credit.

Galaxy Digital framed the deal as part of its broader push into tokenized real‑world assets, following moves such as its planned multi‑chain tokenized money market fund, designed to sit alongside products like BlackRock’s roughly $2.2 billion BUIDL fund and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI in the emerging on‑chain yield stack.

The Fence funding also lands as tokenization narratives accelerate across private markets that total more than $270 trillion globally, with research cited by RWA tracking platform RWA.xyz projecting over $16 trillion in assets could be tokenized by 2030 if adoption continues to compound.

For crypto‑native investors, Galaxy’s role as lead backer signals that large digital asset firms continue to see value not only in tokenized funds and treasuries but also in the infrastructure that quietly turns real‑world exposures—leases, invoices, auto loans—into on‑chain primitives, a thesis echoed in a recent crypto.news story on how institutional flows are gravitating toward yield‑bearing, real‑world‑linked instruments.

In previous crypto.news coverage, stories on Middle East‑driven energy shocks and stories on risk sentiment have highlighted how macro and credit conditions are bleeding into digital asset markets, a backdrop that makes Galaxy’s bet on tokenized asset‑backed finance—quiet, regulated and yield‑focused—look less like hype and more like infrastructure for the next cycle of on‑chain credit.

BNB Chain has surpassed 150,000 on-chain AI agent deployments as of April 2026, a 43,750% increase since January, while Binance simultaneously launched its Agentic Wallet, a keyless wallet allowing AI bots to trade and transfer tokens on behalf of its 250 million users without accessing their primary accounts.

BNB Chain became the leading blockchain for autonomous AI agent deployments by April 2026, with Bitget News confirming over 150,000 on-chain agents operating across the network, a 43,750% increase since January 2026. The same period saw Binance launch its Agentic Wallet, a keyless wallet infrastructure designed to let AI bots execute trades and token transfers on behalf of users without requiring access to the user’s primary account credentials.

BNB Chain AI Agent Growth Represents the Fastest Ecosystem Expansion on Any Layer-1

As crypto.news reported, BNB Chain surpassed all other blockchains in AI agent deployments earlier in April 2026, driven by three structural advantages: transaction fees averaging under one cent, a block time of 250 milliseconds following the Fermi hard fork in January, and a developer ecosystem that includes pre-built agent frameworks and access to BNB Chain’s AI hackathon programs. The 43,750% growth rate since January represents a jump from approximately 340 agents in late January to over 150,000 by April, a trajectory that reflects the broader acceleration of autonomous on-chain AI infrastructure across the industry. A recent pilot with OpenMind AGI confirmed that Pi Network’s distributed node network can support decentralized AI tasks, but BNB Chain’s AI agent deployments operate at a scale and transaction throughput that no competing network has matched.

The Agentic Wallet and What It Means for AI-Driven Trading at Scale

The Agentic Wallet launched by Binance represents a distinct infrastructure advancement from the AI agent deployment count alone. Where AI agents on BNB Chain typically execute on-chain actions within smart contract environments, the Agentic Wallet gives those agents access to Binance’s centralized exchange liquidity and 250 million user base without requiring the agent to hold the user’s primary account credentials. The keyless architecture uses a permissioned sub-wallet structure, allowing AI bots to trade within user-defined parameters and transfer tokens between wallets without exposing the main account to security risk. As crypto.news documented, BNB Chain’s 2026 roadmap targets 20,000 transactions per second and sub-second finality, a performance profile designed specifically to handle the high-frequency, low-latency execution that autonomous AI agents require to function at institutional scale rather than as retail curiosities.

BNB Price Performance in the Context of AI Agent Leadership

As crypto.news tracked, BNB demonstrated relative price resilience during the broader April 28 to 29 market decline, holding above $625 while Bitcoin fell 1.6% and Ethereum hit a week low. Analysts observing BNB’s outperformance during macro-driven selloffs have pointed to the structural demand from BNB Chain’s transaction fee burn mechanism and the growing utility base from AI agent deployments as factors that insulate BNB from pure macro risk-off selling pressure, since gas fee demand from 150,000 AI agents generates continuous real-time BNB demand that is independent of speculative sentiment.

The 35th quarterly BNB burn executed on April 15 removed 2.14 million BNB worth approximately $1.32 billion from circulation. With over 150,000 AI agents generating ongoing gas fee demand, each quarterly burn calculation now incorporates AI-driven transaction volume as a growing component of the supply destruction formula.

April 29, 2026 – Changelly, a leading instant cryptocurrency exchange and trusted blockchain API provider, is marking its 11th anniversary with a new company milestone. More than 12 million users worldwide now rely on the platform’s web and app alone for seamless digital asset swaps, purchases, and cash-outs—with API integrations driving an even greater volume of users beyond that count. After more than a decade on the market, the platform has grown to support 1,200 cryptocurrencies across 200 blockchains for instant crypto swaps.

To celebrate, the company is launching Changelly’s 11th Birthday Mystery Boxes—a limited-time in-app game available starting April 28, 2026, featuring prizes from Changelly and its partners, including Topper by Uphold, SafePal, OneKey, SecuX, and MyTonWallet.

“Congratulations to Changelly on 11 years of making crypto accessible to millions worldwide. At SecuX, we believe great security starts with great partners, and Changelly has always stood for ease, trust, and innovation. Here’s to many more years of building a more secure and open financial future together!” — Wendy Chen, Head of PR at SecuX.

1,200 coins, 1b+ assets on DeFi, 840 integrations, scaling user and business demand

Asset availability on Changelly has continued to expand. The platform now supports 1,200 cryptocurrencies, with 200 new coins added over the past year—a selection built around users’ preferences and market demand. Include Changelly DeFi, a recently launched cross-chain swap product accessible directly on the web platform and as a standalone app, and that figure grows to over 1 billion supported assets.

Meanwhile, Changelly significantly broadened its business collaborations and blockchain API reach. Its partner network has grown to 840 Web3 companies, with 240 new partnerships signed over the last 12 months. Through embedded instant exchange and fiat on/off-ramp APIs, Changelly’s infrastructure now powers a growing share of crypto purchase and swap flows across wallets, apps, and digital finance products. Additionally, Changelly expanded its blockchain API offering for crypto businesses with the launch of Changelly DeFi, which brings decentralized trading infrastructure to business partners.

“We’re proud of our long-term partnership with Changelly—a progressive team that shares our vision of making crypto simple, easy, and more accessible to people around the world. On behalf of MyTonWallet, we warmly congratulate Changelly on its 11th anniversary. This is an impressive milestone for the entire industry, and we’re excited to support this campaign together. Here’s to many more years of growth, innovation, and shared success.” — Irina Arons, CMO at MyTonWallet.

Where first-time users became long-term traders

Besides bringing in new users, Changelly has remained the preferred platform for its user base for years—and the anniversary data suggests the platform has managed to do both. Users who joined Changelly five or more years ago have returned to use the platform again and again, making thousands of crypto swaps and purchases. One customer alone completed more than 16,000 transactions across eight years—the kind of number that speaks volumes about habits, trust, and routine use.

“Reaching 12 million users is a milestone we’re proud of, but it’s the depth of engagement that tells the real story,” said John Adam Khandjian, Chief Growth Officer at Changelly. “Our longest-standing users have made millions of secure and fast crypto transactions. That’s a real relationship built over the years. It reflects what we’ve tried to build from the start: a service people can rely on regardless of what the market is doing.”

The 2 million new users added over the past year have largely followed market movements, with registration spikes consistent within weeks of significant price action. On the platform, the most-traded assets included BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, and TRON, alongside altcoins like VIRTUAL, AIXBT, PENGU, GRASS, HYPE, and CC, indicating growing user interest in AI-adjacent and community-driven assets. 

Security is another reason why users remain loyal to the veteran crypto platform:

“At OneKey, our mission is to make advanced security feel effortless, pairing certified hardware with an app anyone can use. Partnering with Changelly helps us share that mission and remind users that strong security doesn’t have to be scary.” — The OneKey Team.

The anniversary celebration moves in-app

Starting April 28, 2026, Changelly is bringing its 11th birthday celebration directly into the app—and users get to unwrap gifts from Changelly and ecosystem partners.

Prizes include a Crypto Terminal (Mac Mini & espressoDisplay Pro), SafePal x Changelly limited edition hardware wallets, Topper-branded exclusive hardware wallets, OneKey Classic 1S Pure BTC-only hardware wallets, OneKey Keytags, SecuX Neo wallets, MyTonWallet NFT cards, USDT prizes of up to 200 USDT, VIP status, 0% fees, and exclusive crypto guides.

“Changelly sets the bar for what a crypto partnership should look like—collaborative, high-performing, and always thinking about the user. Proud to be part of this campaign.” — Robin O’Connell, CEO Enterprise, Uphold.

How to get your birthday surprise

1. Download the Changelly app or log in if you already have an account
2. Navigate to the in-app stories to play the game
3. Open your Mystery Box and discover your reward
4. To unlock more boxes and more chances to win, complete any transaction and get one more try

The two-week anniversary campaign will run through May 11, with the final results and prize announcements scheduled for May 12. Read the Terms & Conditions and enter the game. 

About Changelly

Changelly is an instant crypto exchange trusted by over 12 million users worldwide. Founded in 2015, the platform offers secure and fast crypto-to-crypto swaps for over 1,200 cryptocurrencies and 24/7 live customer support. Changelly also features a built-in smart fiat on-ramp aggregator, giving users access to 220+ competitive offers from verified providers, enabling seamless purchases of 350+ cryptocurrencies using 20+ global payment methods.

Changelly is available on desktop (website), iOS (App Store), and Android (Google Play).

This publication is provided by the client. The text below is a paid press release that is not part of Cointelegraph.com independent editorial content. The text has undergone editorial review to ensure quality and relevance, it may not reflect the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.com. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company. Disclosure.