Tether, the stablecoin giant behind $185 billion USDT, has announced its support of a recovery plan to assist Drift Protocol following a devastating hack on April 1.

Drift, a Solana-based perpetual futures exchange, lost around $285 million after its team was allegedly infiltrated by North Korean-linked hackers to compromise a multisignature wallet.

The move will also see Drift “transition its settlement asset from USDC to USDT” and appears to be a “masterclass” bid for dominance on Solana where competitor Circle’s USDC is more popular.

Read more: Inside the $280M Drift hack: weeks of setup, minutes to drain

While USDT is far-and-away the crypto industry’s dominant stablecoin, on Solana, closest competitor USDC flips the script.

In the wider market, USDT’s market cap is over 2.3 times that of USDC’s $79 billion. But on Solana, USDC’s market cap of $8.1 billion is 2.65 larger than USDT’s $3.05 billion.

In replacing USDC, Tether claims it will bring “more than 128,000 users and over 35 ecosystem teams onto USDT-based trading… on one of Solana’s largest perpetual trading venues.”

Indeed, Drift Protocol’s pre-hack total value locked was $550 million, which would make it Solana’s eighth largest protocol by the same metric, ahead of real-world asset platforms Securitize and xStocks and decentralized exchange Meteora.

A long road to recovery?

The recovery plan is far from a straight-up reimbursement for users. It will instead see exchange revenue directed toward recovery, with “capital support… introduced progressively and aligned with performance.”

DeFiLlama’s 0xngmi remarked that it looks “closer to a plan where users recover their hacked amounts by trading on drift.”

Both a portion of exchange fees and outside support funds will be committed to a “recovery pool” for distribution to affected users. Drift also describes a planned token “intended to represent a claim on the recovery pool.”

With a nod to concerns raised in the wake of the hack, it explains that all core assets will be controlled by a new “community-based multisig,” using “dedicated signing devices, with transaction content independently verified.” 

Going round in Circles

Circle has been repeatedly criticized over its failure to freeze funds in the aftermath of hacks and other illicit activity.

The Drift hack was one of the most egregious examples of this, as highlighted by blockchain investigator, and frequent Circle critic, ZachXBT.

Read more: Circle rarely freezes stolen funds but wants reversible transactions

Other examples include the SwapNet hack, where over $3 million of USDC sat unfrozen on Base hours after the event, and last year’s GMX hack in which $8 million was bridged using Circle’s own tool.

This latest incident appears to have finally landed USDC’s issuer in hot water.

A class action suit has reportedly been filed against Circle, accusing the firm of “knowingly permitting the attackers, reportedly tied to North Korea’s government, to offload $230 million of their spoils over the course of several hours by using Circle’s own stablecoin USDC and its blockchain bridge CCTP, instead of freezing the funds.”

Protos reached out to Tether for comment, but it didn’t respond immediately, we will update this piece if we hear back.

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The bitcoin price prediction is running hot after Strategy dropped $1 billion on 13,927 BTC in a single week, lifting total holdings to 780,897 coins and leaving the company just 19,103 BTC from the 800,000 mark, per CoinDesk. That kind of corporate conviction while the Fear and Greed Index sits at 12 tells you exactly where the biggest buyer on the planet expects this market to go next.

BTC hit $76,000 on April 14, its highest since mid-March, as short liquidations and geopolitical easing drove a sharp rally per Bloomberg. Strategy funded the entire buy through STRC preferred stock, and the ticker printed a record $1.16 billion in daily volume on April 13 per CoinDesk. Pepeto crossed $9.04 million raised at $0.0000001863 with 183% APY staking compounding daily, and every day this presale stays open is one day closer to the listing that changes this price forever.

Institutional demand through ETFs now absorbs more than 100% of Bitcoin’s newly mined annual supply, building a structural squeeze that Bitwise calls the main driver behind its bitcoin price prediction that BTC prints a new all-time high before 2026 ends.

Goldman Sachs filed for a Bitcoin Premium Income ETF on April 14, joining BlackRock in building yield products around BTC. When the bitcoin price prediction lines up this cleanly with corporate buying and Wall Street expansion, presale tokens with real tools are the ones that catch the biggest wave.

Bitcoin Price Prediction Goes Institutional: Pepeto Is Where Smart Capital Moves Next

Pepeto stands as the best crypto to buy now after crossing $9.04 million raised while Bitcoin holds near $74,020 and the world’s largest corporate BTC holder keeps stacking during extreme fear.

Conviction keeps building because investors tracking the bitcoin price prediction understand the pattern. When BTC bounces off fear-driven dips, the altcoin wave that follows sends presale entries into return territory no big cap can reach.

The core problem Pepeto attacks is fragmentation. Traders jump between five or six platforms to bridge, swap, check contracts, and track positions, losing fees and time at every step. The exchange pulls all of that into one place.

From one dashboard, users bridge across Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana at zero cost, run risk scores on any contract before committing capital, and track their full portfolio on a single screen. The zero-fee engine keeps every dollar productive instead of leaking through hidden charges.

The result is real tools powering smart decisions instead of guesswork across broken platforms. The bridge, risk scorer, token engine, and portfolio tracker all run on smart contracts verified by a SolidProof audit, giving a security base most presales never come close to building.

At $0.0000001863 right now, a $10,000 position earns roughly $18,300 in annual staking rewards at 183% APY, putting about $1,525 per month straight into your wallet while the listing draws closer. The cofounder who created the original Pepe coin built Pepeto to capture exactly this kind of moment. Buying presales while fear runs the market is how the biggest fortunes in crypto have always started, and the confirmed Binance listing on Pepeto means this entry price gets wiped out the moment the first trade clears.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price at $74,020 While Bitwise Targets a New All-Time High

Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $74,020 on April 15 per CoinMarketCap, after punching above $76,000 on April 14 for its highest print since the February crash that drove prices to $60,000. Bitwise holds firm on its bitcoin price prediction that BTC will break its $128,198 all-time high before this year closes.

Every major desk keeps lifting its bitcoin price prediction, but BTC still needs to nearly double to reach those targets. By the time it arrives, every wallet that locked in Pepeto at six zeros will already hold returns that large-cap buyers would need years to match.

Conclusion

Every signal right now points to the same outcome. The bitcoin price prediction turning bullish, Strategy loading $1 billion in BTC during peak fear, Goldman Sachs filing a Bitcoin ETF, and the exchange infrastructure that merged meme energy with real trading tools standing ready to capture the full move.

The wealth built this cycle will belong to the people who found the tools, the builder, and the timing behind Pepeto before anyone else showed up. Visit the Pepeto official website today because the listing gets closer with every passing hour and the entry you see right now disappears the moment trading goes live.

Click To Visit Pepeto Website To Enter The Presale

FAQs

What is the bitcoin price prediction for 2026 and can presale tokens outperform BTC?

Bitwise and Standard Chartered both project Bitcoin will break its all-time high this year, roughly 2x from current levels. Presale tokens with confirmed listings and working tools historically deliver far larger multiples, and Pepeto at $0.0000001863 sits at that exact entry point.

Will Bitcoin (BTC) break its all-time high of $128,198 before 2026 ends?

Bitwise projects Bitcoin (BTC) will top $128,198 before December 2026, backed by ETF inflows absorbing over 100% of newly mined supply. Strategy’s $1 billion weekly purchase and 780,897 BTC total stack add corporate weight to that call.

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.

Charles Schwab, a heavyweight in the U.S. brokerage scene, plans to roll out spot cryptocurrency trading for retail clients in the coming weeks. The service will begin with Bitcoin and Ether, accessed through a dedicated crypto account linked to Schwab’s core brokerage platform, with custody handled by Schwab’s banking unit and trade execution facilitated through Paxos, the federally regulated trust company.

Schwab’s announcement places the firm among several traditional financial players expanding regulated crypto access for everyday investors. The company reported $12.22 trillion in total client assets as of February 2026, underscoring the scale it brings to any new crypto offering. Schwab already provides exposure to crypto through exchange-traded products, futures, and funds, and internal estimates suggest its clients collectively hold roughly 20% of spot crypto ETFs. The phased rollout will begin for eligible U.S. retail clients, with New York and Louisiana residents initially excluded.

Key takeaways

• Schwab will offer spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether to retail clients, via a separate crypto account linked to its brokerage platform, with custody by Schwab Bank and Paxos handling execution.
• The initial trading fee is 75 basis points per transaction, placing Schwab’s pricing above some U.S. crypto exchanges but on par with others for lower-volume traders.
• The service will be launched in phases over the coming weeks and will not be available to residents of New York and Louisiana at the outset.
• Schwab’s move extends its crypto footprint beyond ETFs, futures, and funds, reflecting a broader push by traditional finance into regulated crypto products and services.

Schwab’s custody model and how the service will work

Under Schwab’s plan, clients will access spot crypto trading through a distinct crypto account that sits alongside their regular brokerage activities. Assets will be held by Schwab’s banking subsidiary, adopting a custodial framework designed to integrate crypto assets into Schwab’s existing risk and compliance protocols. Execution will be provided via Paxos, a regulated trust company that has become a common partner for traditional institutions seeking compliant crypto trading rails. The design aims to blend crypto accessibility with the familiar Schwab experience—trading and viewing crypto alongside stocks and other assets across Schwab’s web, mobile, and Thinkorswim platforms.

The focus on custody and a trusted execution partner signals Schwab’s intent to reassure risk-conscious investors who have long viewed crypto as a separate, sometimes opaque corner of markets. By using a traditional banking arm for custody, Schwab aligns crypto holdings with its established custody standards and regulatory expectations, potentially reducing counterparty risk from a user perspective. However, the need to route trades through Paxos and vault assets in a bank-style custody structure also indicates a performance and settlement regime that may differ from highly automated, direct-exchange paths often seen in other fintech-friendly models.

Pricing, competition and pathway to broader access

From launch, Schwab’s spot-trading fee stands at 75 basis points per trade (0.75%). That rate sits higher than many crypto exchanges that have pitched low, volume-based pricing—Kraken’s public fee schedule, for example, starts around 0.25% to 0.40% and declines with higher trade volumes. By contrast, Schwab’s fee is broadly aligned with Coinbase’s lower-volume tier, which ranges from roughly 0.40% to 0.60%. The implication for traders is a decision point between the convenience and integrated experience Schwab offers and the typically cheaper on-exchange fees found on stand-alone crypto venues.

Schwab’s decision to set a higher introductory fee may reflect the value proposition of its custodial framework and the seamless integration with existing Schwab accounts. It also suggests a broader strategy: to render crypto trading part of a single, regulated, institution-backed suite of financial services rather than a separate crypto-only infrastructure. Investors will be watching how Schwab balances custody costs, regulatory compliance, and user experience as it expands beyond BTC and ETH to additional digital assets.

Industry context: incumbents expanding into crypto, while crypto-native firms push into traditional markets

Schwab’s move aligns with a wider industry trend of traditional financial firms embracing crypto as a regulated, investable asset class. In April, Morgan Stanley launched a spot Bitcoin ETF (MSBT) that drew $30.6 million in inflows on its first day of NYSE Arca trading, with total net assets reported around $87.6 million as of mid-April. The same month, Goldman Sachs signaled intent to offer a Bitcoin-linked ETF designed to generate income through options strategies, providing indirect exposure to Bitcoin while aiming to dampen volatility. These developments illustrate a bifurcated market where established banks seek regulated, structurally sound products for mainstream investors, while crypto-native platforms pursue hybrid offerings that bridge traditional markets and digital assets.

Meanwhile, on the crypto-native side, firms are expanding into traditional asset spaces in various ways. Coinbase began enabling trading for equities and ETFs on its platform, while Kraken explored tokenized equity perpetual futures, offering leveraged exposure to US stocks and other traditional assets. These moves reflect a broader experimentation with tokenized and digitized representations of conventional financial instruments, even as the regulatory backdrop continues to evolve for both fiat-backed and crypto-native vehicles.

Schwab’s announcement underscores a broader question for investors and builders: how far can regulated, mainstream financial infrastructure extend crypto access without compromising the guardrails that institutional players demand? The emphasis on custody, trust, and integrated account workflows suggests a future where crypto sits alongside traditional assets in standard brokerage environments, rather than existing as a niche appendage.

What this means for markets and readers

For Schwab’s clients, the introduction of spot crypto trading could simplify access to digital assets and consolidate reporting, tax documents, and custody within a single account framework. For the broader market, the move reinforces the trend of mainstream financial firms integrating crypto into their core product lines, which could spur greater investor participation and potentially shift liquidity and trading patterns as more participants gain regulated exposure. Yet, the phased rollout and geographic exclusions highlight that regulatory and state-level constraints remain a meaningful limiter on rapid, universal adoption.

As the rollout progresses, observers will be watching several key questions: How quickly will Schwab add other digital assets beyond BTC and ETH? Will the custody and settlement flow prove resilient at scale under higher-volume demand? And how will fee structures evolve as competition increases and the regulatory environment solidifies around crypto custody and market access?

With traditional finance expanding its footprint in crypto and crypto-native firms continuing to probe traditional markets, the next 12 to 18 months could reveal a more integrated, regulated, and widely accessible crypto trading landscape for ordinary investors. Market participants should keep an eye on regulatory developments, custody risk management, and the pace at which other legacy institutions emulate Schwab’s approach—or chart out alternative paths for their clients.

Readers should monitor Schwab’s rollout cadence, the list of supported assets, and any updates to access in previously restricted states. The broader takeaway is clear: mainstream financial institutions are continuing to incorporate crypto into conventional investing, signaling both opportunities and new risk considerations for users and builders alike.

BitTorrent Chain has upgraded the BTTC Bridge record page with dual views, richer filters and clearer tags so users can track incoming, outgoing and cross-chain flows faster.

BitTorrent Chain has rolled out a functional upgrade to the BTTC Bridge transaction record page, aiming to give cross-chain users a clearer view of where their funds are and where they are going. According to the project’s official update, the new interface is now live and is designed to make tracking deposits, withdrawals and cross-chain moves “more efficient and transparent” for everyday users.

The refreshed page introduces a dual-view mode that splits activity into “All Records” and “In Progress,” allowing people who regularly move assets between BTTC, Ethereum, Tron and BNB Chain to quickly distinguish between completed and pending transfers. The team has also added a multi-dimensional filtering tool that lets users combine transaction status, operation type and custom date ranges in a single query, cutting down the time it takes to locate a specific bridge event.

As part of the same upgrade, BTTC says the bridge page now features stronger, dedicated markers for incoming, outgoing and cross-chain activities, visually flagging the direction and nature of each transaction. The goal, according to the team, is to help users “quickly locate the flow of funds,” a recurring pain point for less technical participants navigating multi-chain asset movements.

The latest tweak builds on a broader interface overhaul completed in late March, when BTTC redesigned the bridge to incorporate user feedback and streamline the overall flow. That earlier upgrade allowed users to send assets from BTTC addresses back to Ethereum without paying extra bridge fees beyond standard gas costs, while keeping the process fully decentralized and ensuring that private keys and asset details stay out of third-party hands.

BitTorrent Chain positions BTTC as a cross-chain layer connecting networks such as Tron, Ethereum and BNB Chain using a lock‑and‑mint bridge model, with the bridge itself sitting at the heart of that interoperability push. Its recent 2.0 mainnet upgrade to a proof‑of‑stake design, highlighted in BitTorrent’s own roadmap, was pitched as a way to boost throughput and make cross-chain transfers more reliable as volumes grow.

In previous crypto.news coverage of exchange and wallet UX improvements, reporters have noted that clearer transaction histories and better labeling can directly reduce support tickets, user errors and perceived security risks in cross-chain systems. BTTC’s latest bridge record upgrade moves in that same direction, giving power users more granular filters while offering newcomers a cleaner, less intimidating window into their on-chain activity.

• Donor: Cantor Fitzgerald committed $10 million to Fellowship PAC, disclosed in February FEC filings.
• Total raised: Wednesday’s FEC filing revealed $11 million in total contributions, including donations from other sources alongside Cantor’s $10 million.
• PAC leadership: Fellowship PAC is chaired by Jesse Spiro, Tether’s U.S. head of government affairs, and was established in 2025.
• Anchorage Digital: The digital asset bank separately contributed $1 million to Fellowship PAC.
• Spending to date: Fellowship has deployed $3 million on advocacy advertising and $1.5 million backing three Republican candidates, including Kentucky Senate candidate Nate Morris and Georgia Representative Clay Fuller.
• Cantor-Tether history: Cantor Fitzgerald has served as custodian for Tether’s reserve assets since 2021, making this donation an extension of an already entrenched institutional relationship.
• Political context: Fellowship PAC secured over $100 million in funding commitments ahead of the prior election cycle, positioning itself alongside rivals Fairshake and Defend American Jobs.
• Watch: FEC filings through 2025 and 2026 for additional commitments toward Fellowship’s $100 million goal and candidate endorsement patterns ahead of pivotal congressional sessions on crypto regulation.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is leaning into artificial intelligence and automation as it faces massive new oversight responsibilities, according to congressional testimony from Chairman Mike Selig, even as his agency’s workforce has declined significantly under the administration of President Donald Trump.

About a quarter of the CFTC’s staff has left since 2025, under Trump’s demands that the federal workforce be cut significantly, according to agency records. But the CFTC is also being called upon to regulate new and rapidly growing arenas for cryptocurrency and the prediction markets.

“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 of the House Agriculture Committee at a Thursday hearing, citing widespread use of Microsoft’s Copilot AI tool as one productivity aid. When asked about the staff declines at his agency, Selig said, “we are running more efficiently and effectively.”

“We’re putting a lot on your plate with digital assets, and we’re obviously going down this path with prediction markets,” noted committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson. He sought an assurance from the CFTC chief that if he finds himself “in a situation where you know the need for additional qualified staff emerges” that he’ll ask the panel for help.

“Absolutely,” Selig responded.

He asserted that proper enforcement of the markets is a “top priority” of his, though the CFTC budget request for next year asked for only three more enforcement staff to make 108 people — still about 23% shy of the 140 the division had in 2025.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that the Senate continues to work on would elevate the CFTC into a central role over non-securities crypto trading, which would include transactions in leading assets such as bitcoin BTC$74,762.35 and Ethereum’s ether (ETH). The agency is also claiming a dominant legal jurisdiction over the prediction markets such as at leading firms Polymarket and Kalshi, which are rocketing from levels measured in the millions of dollars a year ago to multiple billions now.

Selig’s Democratic predecessor, former Chairman Rostin Behnam, had routinely argued that the agency would need more people to oversee crypto and didn’t have the resources to police the world as prediction markets spread in depth and in a virtually unlimited breadth of contract topics. During Selig’s brief tenure, the prediction markets have erupted in accusations of insider trading, a few of which have been addressed by the firms themselves. But the markets have drawn heavy scrutiny on certain trades around U.S. military actions and government statements that suggest small numbers of anonymous traders made significant money on correct bets, suggesting the potential for insider trading from people with government insight.

The chairman acknowledged “numerous investigations ongoing” in prediction markets, though he wouldn’t quantify a number or discuss their focus. He said the regulated platforms are the first line of defense against insider trading, fraud and market manipulation in the hundreds of new markets (binary event questions) that emerge every day on the platforms, while the CFTC itself is a second line of defense.

“We regularly reject contracts,” Selig noted. “We’re actively reviewing what’s out there,” he said, adding that his agency has a “zero tolerance” policy for illicit market activity.

“Anyone who engages in that behavior will face the full force of the law,” he said.

But Representative Angie Craig, the committee’s top Democrat, argued that “the agency’s workforce is stretched too thin,” especially considering the agency’s role as the “primary regulator of two of the fastest growing and most volatile markets.”

“We must give the CFTC the staff, the funding and the clear statutory authority it needs to do its job,” Craig said.

The personnel declines at the regulator includes the commission itself, which is supposed to have five members under the law — including two commissioners from the minority party — but which has been left by the White House as a solitary posting of Selig. The chairman was questioned repeatedly about that during the Thursday oversight hearing, including whether he’d proceed with major rules as a one-person commission.

“We cannot for the sake of the American people slow down our rulemaking,” he said, suggesting he’ll move alone on new regulations. The CFTC is pursuing a preliminary rule process to set up guardrails for U.S. prediction markets, and Selig has also pushed policy initiatives in crypto.

Read More: CFTC sues Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut over states’ sports prediction market efforts