Crypto World
Iran Seizes Ships in Strait of Hormuz
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz on April 22, hours after President Trump extended the ceasefire with Tehran indefinitely, while confirming the US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place.
Summary
- Iran’s Revolutionary Guard seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz and fired on a third, citing maritime violations.
- Trump extended the ceasefire with Iran to allow for further peace talks but kept the US naval blockade active.
- Brent crude surged past $100 per barrel following the incidents, adding pressure to global energy markets and crypto assets.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy announced on April 22 that it had seized two container ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, citing what it described as maritime violations, according to NBC News and CNBC. The seizures came hours after President Trump announced an indefinite extension of the ceasefire with Iran, saying he was giving Tehran’s leaders time to produce a unified peace proposal, while making clear the US naval blockade of Iranian ports would not be lifted.
Iran Strait of Hormuz Seizures Shake the Fragile Ceasefire
The two vessels, the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were escorted to Iranian waters after being intercepted by the IRGC Navy, with the Guard claiming one of the ships was linked to Israel without providing supporting evidence. A third vessel was also reportedly targeted and disabled off Iran’s coast. CNBC reported that Brent crude briefly surpassed $100 per barrel following the incidents, with international benchmark prices rising more than 1.8% as markets weighed the impact on a waterway that normally carries roughly 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Trump Extends the Ceasefire But Keeps the Blockade
Trump had previously vowed not to extend the ceasefire beyond its original deadline, but reversed course on April 21, announcing the extension to give Iranian leaders time to produce a unified response to US terms. NPR reported that Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran is “collapsing financially,” losing $500 million a day under the blockade, and that the US loses nothing by maintaining it. Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi has rejected the administration’s framing, calling the blockade “an act of war” and a violation of the ceasefire agreement in its own right. Peace talks scheduled for Islamabad have stalled, with Iran’s negotiating team declining to participate while the blockade continues.
What the Hormuz Crisis Means for Bitcoin and Crypto Markets
The Strait of Hormuz has been a direct driver of Bitcoin volatility since the conflict began in February. As crypto.news has tracked, each escalation event in the strait has triggered immediate Bitcoin selling rather than safe-haven buying, with BTC dropping below $74,000 earlier this week as peace talk prospects faded. Oil prices remaining above $100 per barrel sustains the inflation narrative that has suppressed Federal Reserve rate cut expectations, creating a prolonged headwind for risk assets including crypto. Any resolution that reopens the strait and brings oil back toward pre-war levels near $65 to $70 a barrel would, according to analysts covered by crypto.news, represent the largest positive catalyst for digital asset markets since Bitcoin’s all-time high of $126,000 in October 2025.
The situation in the Strait of Hormuz remains highly fluid, with Iran’s seizure of the two vessels and the breakdown of Islamabad talks raising the risk of further escalation before any diplomatic resolution is reached.
Crypto World
XRP Price Surges on Technical Breakout, Whale Accumulation, and SoFi Banking Integration
Key Takeaways
- Crypto analyst Ali Martinez identifies a symmetrical triangle pattern with a potential 35% rally to $1.90
- SuperTrend indicator generated its first buy signal on the daily timeframe since January
- Large holders added approximately 360 million XRP tokens within seven days, bringing total whale holdings to roughly 8.8 billion
- SoFi Bank launched XRP deposit services for its 13.7 million customers and $34 billion in managed assets
- Critical resistance level positioned at $1.54 (100-day EMA) with support anchored at $1.41 (50-day EMA)
Ripple’s native token has experienced renewed momentum this week, hovering around the $1.44 mark while challenging near-term resistance zones. The upward movement aligns with multiple technical indicators and blockchain data metrics signaling potential bullish continuation.
Cryptocurrency market analyst Ali Martinez shared comprehensive chart analysis via X this week, stating that XRP “appears to be undergoing a structural trend shift from bearish to bullish.” His examination incorporated price formations, blockchain metrics, and momentum oscillators.
The SuperTrend technical tool has triggered a buy indication on the daily timeframe—marking the first occurrence since the beginning of January. This reversal implies diminishing downward pressure and potential trend change.
Martinez also highlighted a developing symmetrical triangle configuration on the 12-hour chart. This consolidation structure displays converging trendlines with declining peaks and rising troughs, compressing price action into a tightening range. Breakouts from such patterns frequently result in explosive directional moves. Martinez projects a 35% appreciation from current consolidation levels, establishing an upside objective at $1.90. According to his analysis, a daily candle closure above $1.55 would validate the bullish breakout scenario. Conversely, the $1.30 threshold represents the critical invalidation point for the bullish thesis.
Blockchain analytics reinforce the technical outlook. Leveraging Santiment platform data, Martinez observed that whale-sized wallets accumulated approximately 360 million XRP tokens during a single week period. Aggregate whale holdings expanded from around 8.3 billion to 8.8 billion XRP. Historically, large-scale investors tend to build positions during consolidation and accumulation phases.
SoFi Bank Launches XRP Deposit Services for 13.7 Million Customer Base
SoFi Bank revealed plans to integrate XRP deposit functionality for its entire user network. The federally chartered financial institution oversees more than $34 billion in total assets while servicing 13.7 million active customers. XRP now joins Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana in the platform’s cryptocurrency offering portfolio.
Ripple acknowledged the development, emphasizing that the integration would facilitate broader adoption and expand the XRP ecosystem’s reach. This announcement follows recent expansions including XRP trading capabilities on WhatsApp via wXRP on Solana, plus a validator governance vote regarding a lending protocol designed to enhance DeFi infrastructure on the Ripple network.
Critical Price Levels Under Observation
Examining the daily chart, XRP currently maintains position above its 50-day exponential moving average at $1.41. The immediate overhead resistance emerges at the 100-day EMA situated at $1.54. Clearing this barrier would establish a pathway toward $1.68, where a long-duration descending trendline converges. The 200-day EMA provides additional resistance at $1.78.
The Relative Strength Index registers approximately 58, while the MACD histogram remains positioned in positive territory above the zero line. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently reads 32, representing an uptick from the previous week’s reading of 23.
On Binance exchange, the long-to-short position ratio for XRP stands at 2.27, indicating traders maintain a net long bias with bullish positions outnumbering bearish ones.
The Open Interest-Weighted Funding Rate for perpetual futures contracts recorded 0.0066% on Wednesday, sustaining positive values continuously since April 3.
Russia’s lower house of parliament passed a bill in first reading on Tuesday that would create the country’s core legal framework for digital currency, moving Moscow closer to a system that channels crypto trading through licensed intermediaries under Bank of Russia oversight.
The draft bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” passed its first reading in the State Duma on Tuesday, according to official records.
The bill would allow Russians to buy and sell crypto through approved intermediaries as early as July, while banning unlicensed crypto platforms beginning in July 2027, if the draft becomes law.
The bill is part of a new comprehensive legislative package aimed at restricting crypto trading to regulated platforms in Russia, alongside at least three other related bills introduced. One of them, bill No. 1194929-8, also passed the first reading on Tuesday.
Together, the bills would push Russia’s crypto market toward a licensed, state-supervised structure, though key enforcement pieces are still unresolved.
Key provisions of the bill
Bill 1194918-8 “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” would introduce investment limits for retail investors, allowing purchases only of the “most liquid digital currencies,” as defined by the Bank of Russia.
Those assets would have to meet several thresholds, including an average market capitalization of more than 5 trillion rubles ($66.6 billion) over the two years before listing, average daily trading volume of more than 1 trillion rubles ($13.3 billion) over the same period, and a trading history of at least five years.
The legislation would require retail investors to pass a test and would cap purchases through a single intermediary at 300,000 rubles ($4,000) per year.
The bill also allows residents to buy crypto abroad through foreign accounts, provided those transactions are reported to tax authorities.
The legislation also maintains a strict prohibition on crypto payments, a core provision of the crypto law “On Digital Financial Assets,” which took effect in 2021.
Supreme Court says criminal bill is premature
Apart from the two draft bills that passed their first reading, lawmakers have introduced two separate measures establishing liability and criminal penalties for violations of the new rules, including bills No. 1194944-8 and No. 1209607-8.
The latter proposes criminal penalties for unlicensed digital asset services and mandates registration with the Bank of Russia, with fines and prison terms for non-compliance.
But the Supreme Court declined to support that measure in its current form, saying the proposal depends on a broader digital currency framework that has not yet been adopted and therefore appears premature.
“The proposed article is drafted as a blanket provision, the application of which is not possible in isolation from rules directly established by regulatory acts,” the court said in an official review of the bill released last week, adding:
“Meanwhile, the draft federal law ‘On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,’ aimed at regulating issues related to the organization of digital currency circulation, is currently under development. Until the relevant federal law is adopted, the initiative in question appears premature.”
That means Tuesday’s first-reading vote is important not because it advances the base law that other enforcement measures still depend on.
Related: Russia-linked crypto exchange Grinex halts trading after $14M hack
Several local industry participants have repeatedly warned that the proposed legislation could backfire, pushing the sector further underground instead of bringing it out of the grey zone.
Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026
A key indicator tracking the overall health of the bitcoin market has just flashed a neutral signal for the first time since prices peaked above $126,000, signaling that the bear market may have ended.
But here’s the catch: The neutral reading on the indicator turned out to be a false signal a few years ago.
That indicator is CryptoQuant’s Bitcoin Bull Score Index, a composite metric that measures the health of the bitcoin market by analyzing ten key on-chain indicators, including blockchain activity, investor profitability, and liquidity.
It has climbed to 50 for the first time since the downtrend from $126,000 began. That number means exactly half of the index’s underlying indicators are now bullish, while the rest remain bearish. In other words, the indicator has flipped from bearish to neutral, confirming the end of the bear market, as first suggested by BTC’s price bounce from nearly $60,000 to $78,000.
For an index that has been stuck in bear territory throughout this cycle, reaching neutral is a genuine milestone. Note that readings below 40 signal a structural bear market, while readings above 60 indicate a strong, sustainable uptrend.
But history has a warning
CryptoQuant’s analyst pointed to a relevant historical precedent: March 2022, when the index rose to 50, signaling the end of the bear market at the time.
Similar to today, prices had rebounded from around $35,000 to nearly $48,000 in the weeks leading up to the signal. That price action led many market participants to believe the bear market, which began near $70,000 in November 2021, had ended.
But guess what, prices more than halved to under $20,000 in the following months. In other words, the bear market deepened.
“First time in this bear market that the Bull Score Index enters neutral zone (50). In March 2022, the Bull Score entered neutral territory for about a week, and then the price resumed its decline,” Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, said.
A turn, not a trend
The bull score index hitting neutral is meaningful data, showcasing a real improvement in on-chain conditions rather than just price action.
However, the March 2022 precedent is a reminder that transitional phases can go either way, especially given that positioning in derivatives currently indicates a lack of conviction in the price recovery.
“Front-end vols around 40 vol remain subdued relative to realized, skew still favours downside protection, and term structure is only modestly upward sloping. Positioning continues to point to range-bound conditions rather than a sustained breakout,” Singapore-based QCP Capital, one of the largest digital asset trading firms, said in a market note.
The Ethereum price prediction has turned sharply bullish after ETH climbed 2.2% on April 21 to $2,409, lifted by Bitmine’s 101,627 ETH purchase worth over $230 million last week and the network’s busiest quarter on record at 200.4 million transactions in Q1 2026, per Yahoo Finance and CoinDesk.
Bitcoin is grinding back toward $80,000 as institutional ETF inflows extend a five-day streak, and capital is rotating at the pace that marks every bull run. But the sharpest returns belong to wallets holding one early position ahead of the exchange debut. The Pepeto presale has crossed $9.29 million at $0.0000001865, and the Binance open is next.
Bitmine crossed a record weekly accumulation of 101,627 ETH worth over $230 million, pushing total holdings near 5 million ETH and confirming its place as the largest corporate ETH treasury. The firm is deliberately rotating from mining into direct ETH custody, which tells the tape that a billion-dollar operator sees asymmetric upside at these levels.
The Ethereum price prediction has structural fuel beyond price. The Glamsterdam upgrade arrives in H1 2026 to cut gas costs and lift throughput, the Ethereum Foundation staked another 22,517 ETH worth $50 million last week, and ETH still anchors 61% of real-world asset tokenization. With Bitcoin dragging the market higher, $3,000 is the first honest marker above current price.
Ethereum, Solana, Pepeto, and the Ethereum Price Prediction Path Toward $3,000
Pepeto Holds $9.29M Raised as Live Tools and the Binance Listing Pull in Fresh Capital
Most losses this cycle trace back to one moment. A fresh token passes the visual check, the swap clears, and the wallet empties inside the same block. Pepeto’s AI contract scanner reads every line of code before a transfer confirms and returns a clear verdict in seconds. The SolidProof audit signed off on every Pepeto contract before the first presale wallet arrived.
PepetoSwap settles each trade at zero cost across Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain, and the bridge carries capital between those networks with no gas charge. Whatever enters the swap is what lands on the other side.
The presale has raised $9.29 million at $0.0000001865 with staking paying 179% APY, pulling supply out of circulation before the Binance open. The mind behind the original Pepe run heads Pepeto, and a former Binance executive anchors the technical build.
That cofounder built an eleven-figure valuation on a 420 trillion supply with no shipped product. Pepeto opens its debut with three live tools, audited contracts, a CoinMarketCap page confirmed, and the Binance listing on the calendar.
Ethereum (ETH) Price at $2,409 as Bitmine Accumulation and Glamsterdam Upgrade Set the $3,000 Path
Ethereum trades at $2,409 on April 21 after rising 2.2% from Monday’s open, per CoinMarketCap . Support holds at $2,200 with first resistance at $2,600 and $2,800 above.
A move to $3,000 is a 30% trip from here and lines up with 24/7 Wall St.’s base case if ETF flows stay positive and Glamsterdam ships on schedule.
Even that gain is modest against a presale entry priced for multiples at the debut, which is why whale wallets rotate a slice into presales.
Solana (SOL) Price at $88 as Q1 Activity Crosses $1 Trillion in Volume
Solana trades at $88 on April 21 with 24-hour volume up 29.5% to $4 billion. The network cleared $1 trillion in Q1 economic activity and added 4,100 new developers, lifting developer share to 23% while Ethereum’s slipped.
Alpenglow finality targets 150 milliseconds later this year, and SOL ETFs have crossed $1 billion in AUM. Support sits at $82 with $90 as first resistance.
Even a run to $145 by year-end delivers a 70% gain, while presale math targets that on the listing event alone.
Conclusion
Bitmine stacking $230 million of ETH in a single week alongside spot ETFs printing five straight positive sessions validates the Ethereum price prediction and confirms the bull cycle signals are real. The window to spot what will actually deliver through the recovery is now, and no project matches what Pepeto already brings, a live raise with whale tickets filling, audited contracts, and three shipped tools ready at debut.
Every crypto fortune maker repeats one rule, buy the meme coin while sentiment is still shaky, because the wallets that entered Solana around $0.22 walked out with generational numbers while the rest booked the regret. Pepeto remains at presale pricing, but the raise can seal up without warning. Learning about Pepeto today and choosing to wait is the weight that sits on a portfolio for years.
Click To Visit Pepeto Website To Enter The Presale
FAQs
What is the Ethereum price prediction and how realistic is the $3,000 target?
The Ethereum price prediction targets $2,600 to $3,000 this cycle on Bitmine accumulation and the Glamsterdam upgrade. Pepeto offers listing-scale returns that a 30% ETH move cannot match.
Why is Pepeto drawing capital during the Ethereum price prediction rally?
Pepeto blends a fee-free PepetoSwap, a cross-chain bridge across three networks, and an AI contract scanner, with every contract cleared by SolidProof. Capital raised stands at $9.29 million from a $0.0000001865 entry, with the Binance listing scheduled next.
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.
The European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) transition period is entering its final stretch, forcing smaller crypto firms across the EU to either secure authorization quickly or prepare to shut down regulated services. The transitional period ends across the bloc on July 1, after which any crypto asset service provider operating without a MiCA license must stop serving EU clients.
Early movers like United Kingdom-based exchange CoinJar, which said it secured MiCA authorization in Ireland in 2025, call the regime a necessary maturation that rewards compliance-first players, but founders in markets like Poland warn thousands of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) could fall off a regulatory cliff as deadlines hit.
Companies face a hard stop of July 1 for the longest 18-month grandfathering window, with some national regimes already closing. For smaller companies and hybrid crypto projects, the same regime may prove a breaking point.
The cost of authorization, governance upgrades and ongoing reporting is raising the barrier to entry just as MiCA leaves only narrowly defined, fully decentralized services outside its scope, setting up a likely wave of consolidation across Europe’s crypto market.
EU supervisors maintain the rules are proportionate and designed to support innovation alongside stronger investor protection, but whether MiCA cements Europe as a trusted crypto hub or drives the next generation of builders offshore remains to be seen.
MiCA’s hard reset for small firms
Polish crypto exchange Ari10 secured a MiCA licence in the Netherlands in February. Founder Mateusz Kara told Cointelegraph that, to his knowledge, of the roughly 2,000 registered VASPs in Poland, only his group holds a MiCA licence so far; a gap he believes will force many local firms to close.
For Kara, MiCA’s cost and organizational requirements leave “no room for small players,” and the market will consolidate, a view echoed by Matthew Pinnock, chief operating officer at Altura decentralized finance platform.
He told Cointelegraph such an environment favors larger exchanges and custodians, mirroring patterns seen in countries like Japan, where stricter post-2018 licensing pushed smaller firms out of business.
Decentralized impact investment platform Kula’s head of digital assets, Taran Dhillon, made a similar point, telling Cointelegraph that “one-size-fits-all” authorization, governance and reporting requirements risk pushing early-stage teams and experimental projects to other hubs.
Related: Poland stalls on crypto law, forcing local companies to move abroad
DeFi in the gray zone
MiCA’s exemption for fully decentralized services in Recital 22 is one of the main pressure points for protocols trying to comply without abandoning their designs.
Pinnock said Altura runs non-custodial strategies where users retain control, but elements like unified vaults and coordinated front ends may still attract scrutiny. Many DeFi systems, he expects, will be treated as hybrids, with factors like upgradeability and whether there is an identifiable operator influencing outcomes determining their classification.
Related: ECB paper questions if DeFi DAOs are decentralized enough to sit outside MiCA
To adapt, Altura is building a model where core functions remain onchain while regulated exchanges, custodians and wallets act as access points for EU users. Dhillon, meanwhile, says the decentralization exemption remains too ambiguous, leaving most protocols in “regulatory limbo,” with prolonged uncertainty that could push responsible innovation offshore.
Regulators and the centralization debate
EU supervisors insist MiCA was designed to balance innovation with investor protection, not drive out smaller firms. A European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) spokesperson told Cointelegraph the framework supports innovation and fair competition, and the transitional period was deliberately structured to give existing providers time to adapt. Requirements are proportionate to risk, they stressed, with smaller firms not expected to meet the same bar as systemically important players.
ESMA fully backs the European Commission’s push to centralize supervision of major cross-border exchanges at the EU level, arguing a single supervisor would reduce forum shopping and streamline oversight. Others, such as Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA), see that move as premature given how recently MiCA came into force, and warn that local knowledge remains crucial for proportionate supervision in smaller markets.
MiCA a filter, not a threat
If smaller founders see MiCA as an existential hurdle, early movers like CoinJar frame it as a filter that will strengthen the market. CEO Asher Tan told Cointelegraph the rules do not create an unlevel playing field so much as bring crypto in line with “serious financial frameworks.”
Tan views Europe as a core growth market and says MiCA gives it a clear, passportable path to scale across the bloc. He claims MiCA is nudging the industry away from speculative, poorly understood tokens toward selective listings and long-term value — even if that accelerates consolidation and makes life harder for lightly capitalized newcomers.
Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) broke above its descending trendline this week, clearing a level that had held since July 2025. The token climbed more than 7% in the last 24 hours on rising spot volume.
The move coincides with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) breakout on the daily chart. That combination suggests the early weeks of a potential trend reversal after nine months of downside.
PENGU Breaks Long-Term Downtrend on Daily Chart
The daily PENGU chart shows the token reclaiming $0.008 after roughly three months inside an accumulation zone near $0.006. Volume has expanded on the breakout candle.
The Fibonacci retracement is anchored between the July 2025 high at $0.046608 and the February 2026 low at $0.005275. The first meaningful resistance sits at the 0.236 level around $0.015030.
That target represents a move of roughly 80% from current levels. Further out, the 0.382 level sits at $0.021064 and the 0.5 level at $0.025942. Both unlock if the altcoin tape holds.
A daily close back below $0.007 would invalidate the breakout and reopen the accumulation range.
RSI Breakout Confirms Momentum Shift
The daily RSI on PENGU broke above a descending trendline dating back to July 2025. That line tracked every lower high through early 2026.
The reading now sits near 64, well above the 50 neutral line and approaching the 70 overbought threshold. Momentum rarely flips before conviction returns, and the moving average on the indicator has started curling upward at 54.
RSI trendlines often lead price trendlines by several sessions. To invalidate the signal, RSI would need to slip below 50 and retest the broken descending line from above.
Six-Hour Chart Shows Volume-Backed Support Reclaim
Zooming in, the six-hour chart shows PENGU clearing its $0.008 support zone on the strongest volume bar in months. The reclaim came after a two-month accumulation range between $0.006 and $0.008.
Price currently trades near $0.008330 on Binance. The short-term RSI sits around 65, with the moving average tracking higher and confirming the momentum expansion.
The six-hour structure now flips the prior resistance band into support. A drop back inside the range would weaken the setup; however, holding above $0.008 keeps the short-term bias tilted higher.
Berachain Pattern Echoes PENGU Setup as Sector Risk Lingers
While PENGU is the cleanest setup, the pattern is not isolated. Recently BERT token printed a near-identical structure on the daily timeframe.
The token broke its own descending line after a similar nine-month drawdown, rallying 4% on the same session. Two correlated microcap breakouts do not guarantee direction, however, they do hint at sector rotation.
Capital appears to be cycling back into smaller altcoins after an extended period of Bitcoin (BTC) outperformance. The risk here is sector-wide.
If BTC dominance resumes its uptrend, both breakouts risk failing in tandem. Traders watching PENGU should therefore keep one eye on the Bitcoin dominance chart.
The post Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) Breaks Downtrend With 80% Rally Toward $0.015 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has raided multiple sites suspected of running illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto trading operations.
The financial services and markets watchdog said Wednesday that it worked alongside HM Revenue & Customs and the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit to inspect eight locations linked to illegal crypto trading. Officials issued cease-and-desist notices on site, ordering operators to halt activity immediately, while gathering evidence tied to ongoing criminal investigations.
“Unregistered peer-to-peer crypto traders operating in the UK are doing so illegally and pose a financial crime risk,” Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said.
P2P crypto trading allows individuals to buy and sell digital assets directly, bypassing centralized exchanges. In the UK, such activity requires registration under anti-money laundering rules. The FCA said no peer-to-peer crypto traders or platforms are currently registered with the regulator.
Related: Stratiphy reopens tax-free route to crypto ETNs for UK investors
FCA expands crypto crackdown
The raids mark the FCA’s first operation of this kind focused on P2P crypto trading, but follow a series of enforcement steps against the sector. Previous actions include prosecutions tied to illegal crypto ATM networks and arrests linked to unlicensed exchanges.
Earlier this month, authorities in the UK and other countries, including the US and Canada, froze millions of dollars linked to crypto scams as part of a coordinated enforcement effort called Operation Atlantic. The operation, carried out in March, was led by agencies including the UK’s National Crime Agency, the US Secret Service and Canadian law enforcement and securities regulators.
Officials said the operation identified more than 20,000 victims across the three countries and secured over $12 million in suspected criminal proceeds. Investigators also traced more than $45 million in additional stolen crypto linked to fraud networks.
“These raids mark a shift under the incoming FSMA crypto regime, unregistered OTC desks are no longer an AML-registration gap, they’re an unauthorised regulated activity, and enforcement will look more like traditional finance,” Slav Demchuk, CEO at AMLBot.com, told Cointelegraph.
He added that unregulated OTC brokers are one of the most consistent chokepoints in illicit flows, including “Iran-linked evasion corridors where actors cut off from regulated exchanges use informal desks to move USDT and BTC in and out of fiat.”
Related: UK plans payments rule changes for stablecoins, tokenized deposits
UK FCA pushes ahead with crypto rulebook
Earlier this month, the FCA opened a consultation on guidance for its upcoming crypto regulatory regime, which is expected to take effect in 2027. The guidance will cover key areas including stablecoins, trading platforms, custody and staking.
Companies are expected to be able to apply for authorization from September 2026, with full compliance required once the framework is implemented.
Magazine: Singapore isn’t a ‘crypto hub’ — it’s something better: StraitsX CEO
Aave, the largest decentralized lending protocol, has seen around $15 billion in deposits withdrawn since the Kelp Dao exploit on Saturday.
Total value supplied to Aave fell from $45.8 billion on Saturday to $30.8 billion on Wednesday, according to Aavescan data.
The decline followed an attack that drained about 116,500 restaked Ether (rsETH), worth roughly $293 million, from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered rsETH bridge. The exploiter then used part of the stolen funds to borrow on Aave.
Aave’s incident report said 89,567 rsETH were deposited on the protocol and that the resulting shortfall could range from about $123 million to $230 million, depending on how losses are ultimately allocated.
The outflows reflect fears of contagion from Aave’s bad debt and broader capital flight from decentralized finance (DeFi), according to institutional digital asset trading platform Talos.
The bad debt created by the Kelp exploiter resulted in Aave’s v3 Wrapped Ether (WETH) market temporarily reaching 100% utilization and leaving no liquidity available for immediate withdrawals, Talos said in a Tuesday report.
SparkLend’s total value locked (TVL) has risen by $1.3 billion since the Kelp DAO exploit, signaling that the fourth-largest lending protocol was absorbing some of the funds withdrawn from Aave, blockchain analyst EmberCN said in a Wednesday post on X.
Related: Crypto hackers stole $17B over past 10 years: DefiLlama
Kelp exploit spreads through DeFi lending
The episode highlights how DeFi’s interconnectedness is a double-edged sword, as the Kelp DAO exploit spread across lending markets and escalated into a “broader liquidity crunch,” Tanay Ved, senior research associate at Talos, told Cointelegraph.
She said the asset bundled risks across restaking, bridging and lending layers, allowing the impact to spread far beyond the initial exploit, adding that the incident reinforces the need for a more robust collateral framework and a more holistic security approach to address the systemic vulnerabilities of yield-bearing assets.
Aave said it had unfrozen WETH reserves on the Ethereum Core V3 market on Tuesday, enabling users to supply WETH to the V3 lending protocol, but that WETH reserves across Ethereum Prime, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea remain frozen.
Related: Kelp DAO attacker moves $175M in Ether after exploit: Arkham
Traders bet Kelp DAO won’t socialize losses
On Monday, Aave’s risk manager outlined two potential scenarios for addressing the bad debt. The first scenario involves spreading the losses across all rsETH token holders on Ethereum mainnet and layer 2s, leaving about $123 million in bad debt on Aave.
The alternative would shift the shortfall entirely to layer-2 networks, resulting in about $230 million in bad debt on Aave.
Traders took to prediction markets to bet on the outcome, with only 20% of traders wagering on Kelp DAO socializing the losses across rsETH holders on mainnet, rather than L2 holders bearing the shortfall, Polymarket data shows.
Magazine: 53 DeFi projects infiltrated, 50M NEO tokens could be ‘given back’: Asia Express
Update (April 22 7:49 PM UTC): This article has been updated to reflect the relationship between Binance.US and Binance in the eighth paragraph.
Binance.US has reduced spot trading fees to 0% for makers and 0.02% for takers across all trading pairs, extending near-zero pricing to all users without volume thresholds or subscription requirements.
The new pricing replaces the platform’s tiered fee structure and applies to all accounts, with the company saying the move could reduce trading costs by as much as 98% compared with competitors such as Coinbase.
Coinbase’s fees start at about 0.40% to 0.60% for lower-volume traders while Kraken’s fees start around 0.25% to 0.40% and decline with volume, according to information on those exchanges’ websites.
Last week, Charles Schwab, one of the largest US brokerage firms, said it will roll out spot cryptocurrency trading for retail clients in the coming weeks, starting with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) at a fee of 75 basis points per transaction.
According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the updated Binance.US fee structure applies to every user with no portfolio minimums, volume tiers or subscription fees and takes effect immediately.
The change follows the appointment of Stephen Gregory as chief executive and expands the platform’s earlier zero-fee offering on select Bitcoin pairs to all spot markets.
The platform said the new fees are supported by its trading infrastructure and follow the completion of a SOC 2 Type II audit covering its systems and controls.
Binance.us is a separate legal entity and operates independently from Binance, according to a company spokesperson.
Related: Bitcoin inflows to Binance fall to 2023 low as BTC bulls set target on $80K
Binance under renewed US scrutiny over Iran-linked transactions
Binance’s operations in the United States have remained under close regulatory and political scrutiny since its 2023 settlement with authorities.
In 2023, the exchange reached a $4.3 billion settlement with US authorities over anti-money laundering and sanctions violations, with former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao pleading guilty to a felony charge. The agreement also placed the company under a court-imposed monitoring program requiring ongoing oversight and reporting to US regulators.
In March 2025, scrutiny intensified after a UAE-based entity invested $2 billion in Binance using a stablecoin issued by a company linked to US President Donald Trump and his family, raising conflict-of-interest concerns among lawmakers. Later that year, Trump issued a pardon to Zhao following his four-month prison sentence.
Regulatory pressure has continued into 2026. In February, a group of US senators urged Treasury and Justice Department officials to conduct a comprehensive review of Binance’s compliance controls following reports that more than $1.7 billion in transactions linked to Iranian entities may have flowed through the platform.
Binance denied the allegations in a letter to Senators Richard Blumenthal and Ron Johnson, calling the reports “false” and unsupported by evidence. The company also said it had filed a defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal.
Most recently, Blumenthal sent letters to the Justice Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to determine whether Binance is meeting its obligations under the 2023 court-imposed monitoring program.
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Input Output, the private engineering company that built and continues to develop the Cardano blockchain, is seeking about half the funding it requested last year from the project’s community treasury.
The company submitted nine proposals totaling $46.8 million for 2026 on Tuesday, down from $97.5 million in 2025. Several of the proposals focus on scaling Cardano to increase its transaction processing capacity and expanding into Bitcoin DeFi.
Cardano, like most major blockchains, maintains a shared pool of money funded by network fees, which community representatives vote to allocate toward development work. Input Output historically has been the largest recipient because it employs most of the engineers building the underlying software.
The reduced ask is the first concrete step in a plan to phase out that dependency. Input Output said it now aims to shrink its annual request each year until the company can sustain itself on its own revenue, with community funds going instead to a broader set of smaller engineering groups.
By the end of 2026, Input Output expects smaller, more specialized teams to take on most of the work it currently does in-house, including firms such as VacuumLabs and Midgard Labs that focus on specific layers of the Cardano software.
Scaling and bitcoin DeFi
The nine proposals group into two themes. The larger funds a consensus upgrade called Leios, which Input Output claims will increase Cardano’s transaction processing capacity by 10 to 65 times, targeting more than 1,000 transactions per second.
For context, that would move Cardano from a relatively slower chain to one competitive with Solana and the fastest Ethereum layer-2 networks on throughput alone. Leios is scheduled for a test release in June and full deployment by year-end.
The second flagship proposal funds a system called Pogun, which aims to bring Bitcoin-based decentralized finance to Cardano. In practice, it would let bitcoin holders borrow and earn yield on their holdings through Cardano without giving custody to a centralized intermediary. Pogun’s lending component is targeted for public release in the second quarter.
Smaller proposals cover performance improvements to Cardano’s smart contract engine, security testing infrastructure, developer tools, and expanded API services.
Each proposal names specific delivery leads and ties funding to delivery milestones rather than releasing money upfront. Imagine paying a contractor in stages as different parts of a house are completed, instead of handing over the full budget at the start of construction.
Voting opens Tuesday and runs through May 24. The decisions are made by roughly 1,000 elected delegates known as DReps, who represent ADA holders much as proxy representatives do in a publicly traded company. Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Input Output, is scheduled to release a video this week making the case directly to those delegates.
The vote will test whether Cardano’s governance, which has expanded significantly over the past two years, treats Input Output like any other grant applicant or continues to approve its requests largely on a basis of deference.
Last year’s $97.5 million proposal passed, but in the interim the Cardano Foundation has taken over the project’s grant-funding arm, and Intersect, the governance organization running this vote, has assumed stewardship of core Cardano software. Both shifts mean alternatives to Input Output now exist in a way they did not when previous votes went through.
Meanwhile, Input Output also cited progress in the ecosystem in its release. A new Cardano stablecoin, USDCx, reached 14.6 million tokens in circulation within weeks of its launch. Total assets deposited on Cardano, a common measure of a network’s usage, rose from $137.5 million to $142.7 million over the same period.
Whether the full slate passes, gets partially funded, or is reshaped entirely by DReps will signal how much the Cardano community’s thinking has shifted now that the tools to fund development without Input Output exist.
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