TLDR

• XRP added about $900 million in tokenized real-world assets within 24 hours.
• The total RWA value on the XRP Ledger reached $3.53 billion after the surge.
• Justoken’s JMWH product increased from $861 million to $1.763 billion on-chain.
• JMWH now accounts for nearly half of the total RWA value on XRPL.
• RWA.xyz data reflected the sudden rise in value on its public dashboard.

---

XRP recorded a sharp rise in tokenized real-world assets within 24 hours. The network added about $900 million in value, pushing total RWA holdings to $3.53 billion. Data from RWA.xyz shows that the increase came from an existing product on the XRP Ledger.

XRP Sees Rapid Growth in Tokenized Assets on XRPL

RWA.xyz reported that XRP Ledger held $2.616 billion in tokenized assets as of April 22. That figure included $491 million in stablecoins and showed steady growth since January. However, the total climbed to $3.53 billion within a day, reflecting a 35% increase.

The data shows that Justoken’s JMWH product drove the entire rise. JMWH increased from $861 million to $1.763 billion on-chain during the same period. As a result, JMWH now accounts for nearly 49.9% of total RWA value on XRPL.

RWA.xyz confirmed the updated figures on its public dashboard. The platform tracks represented and distributed real-world assets across major blockchain networks. The sudden jump marked one of the largest single-day changes recorded for XRP’s RWA ecosystem.

Justoken’s JMWH Product Drives XRP Ledger Expansion

Justoken, based in Buenos Aires, developed the JMWH digital energy token. Each JMWH token represents one real megawatt-hour of electricity backed by energy providers. The company deployed the product exclusively on the XRP Ledger.

The recent increase appears linked to a new deployment or value update. However, Justoken’s official platform still lists JMWH at about $860 million. The company has not yet confirmed the higher $1.763 billion valuation reflected on RWA.xyz.

Following the update, XRPL moved higher in global RWA rankings. The ledger now ranks third by represented real-world assets with about $2.5 billion recorded. XRP’s market share rose 71.78% over 30 days to 0.71%.

When including both represented and distributed assets, XRP ranks fifth globally. The network now hosts $3 billion in total RWA, excluding stablecoins. This marks a 60.33% rise over the past 30 days.

JMWH currently represents about 70% of the represented value on XRPL. The product remains the largest single tokenized asset hosted on the network. RWA.xyz continues to display the updated figures at press time.

Justoken has not issued a public statement regarding the change. Its website still reflects the earlier $860 million value. The discrepancy remains unresolved as of the latest available data.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said Friday it has signed agreements with three European standards bodies to reuse existing open payment standards for digital euro transactions, as it seeks to reduce integration costs for banks, merchants and payment service providers. 

According to the ECB, the agreements with the European Card Payment Cooperation, Nexo standards and the Berlin Group will allow the ECB to use standards covering contactless tap-to-pay payments, merchant-to-payment-provider connections and alias-based payments, such as transactions using a mobile phone number.

The ECB said using existing open standards would minimize adoption costs for the market and help create a uniform digital euro user experience across the euro area. However, the standards agreements remain a cost-mitigation step, not confirmation that the digital euro will be cheap to implement.

An earlier ECB analysis reported by Reuters estimated that the digital euro could cost European Union banks between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros over four years.

The agreements show that the ECB is trying to reduce one technical barrier to digital euro adoption. However, the move does not directly resolve the broader cost question facing banks that may still need to spend billions of euros preparing systems, staff and compliance processes for a possible launch.

The standards to be included. Source: ECB

ECB prepares technical layer ahead of pilot

The ECB said the agreements are intended to encourage early coordination among payment service providers, standardization bodies and other market participants before a possible digital euro launch.

The central bank said Europe currently lacks a universally available open standard supported across payment terminals and remains heavily dependent on proprietary standards owned by international card schemes and global digital wallets.

Related: ECB backs tokenized EU capital markets with strict guardrails

The standards push follows earlier signals that the ECB wants the digital euro’s technical framework clarified so banks and merchants can begin preparing their systems. On March 25, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the central bank expected to announce key technical standards by the summer.

The ECB is also separately recruiting payment service providers for a 12-month digital euro pilot expected to start in the second half of 2027. On Feb. 18, the ECB said the pilot will involve a limited number of payment service providers, merchants and Eurosystem staff, with PSPs playing a central role in digital euro distribution.

Magazine: Ripple joins Singapore sandbox, Bhutan’s big Bitcoin selloff: Asia Express

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Key Takeaways

• Product launch: Bitget’s IPO Prime platform offers tokenized exposure to private companies ahead of public listings.
• First listing: preSPAX, a derivative token tracking SpaceX’s economic performance, issued via Republic on Solana.
• Token structure: preSPAX is a derivative – not equity – designed to mirror financial outcomes tied to SpaceX’s post-IPO valuation.
• Mechanics: Users commit stablecoins into a pool and receive tokens proportional to total demand; tokens trade on a spot market immediately after distribution.
• Chain: Solana, increasingly positioned as a settlement layer for tokenized real-world assets.
• Watch item: Whether the SEC or equivalent regulators classify preSPAX-style instruments as unregistered securities will determine how fast IPO Prime can scale globally.

Decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter is rolling out Multi-Asset Margin today, enabling traders to post non-USDC assets as collateral for perps trading.

The feature debuts with ETH as the first supported collateral asset, according to Lighter’s documentation. Users deposit a supported asset into their margin balance, and its value, discounted by a loan-to-value haircut, counts toward the account’s margin balance and can be used to open perpetual positions. The upgrade is limited to perpetual futures at launch, with USDC spot trading collateralized by non-USDC assets slated to follow.

Lighter is rolling out the feature with conservative per-user and global supply caps as it onboards additional assets over time, per the docs. Access is restricted to accounts with Unified Trading Accounts enabled, which the team rolled out in February and described at the time as the first phase of a push to allow arbitrary tokens to be used as collateral on the platform.

The documentation highlights two potential use cases. The first is a delta-neutral basis trade, where a user deposits ETH as margin, shorts ETH perps against it, and earns funding. The second is leveraged spot, where deposited ETH is used as margin to buy more spot ETH.

Account risk is tracked through a single unified health check covering both perp positions and spot collateral.

The upgrade arrives as Lighter has lost ground in the perp DEX race since its token launch. The platform currently ranks fourth by 24-hour perp volume at roughly $1.35 billion, per DefiLlama, behind Hyperliquid, Aster, and EdgeX, after leading the market in November and December.

The platform’s LIT token has underperformed since its Dec. 29 debut as airdrop farmers rotated to pre-token competitors, and currently trades at a roughly $930 million valuation.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Zondacrypto’s crisis intensified as Polish prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into alleged fraud and investor losses, with CEO Przemysław Kral reportedly fleeing to Israel. According to the Polish outlet Onet, Kral has been in Israel for about a week and holds Israeli citizenship, a detail that could complicate any potential extradition. The probe was opened last Friday and centers on customer complaints and possible losses tied to the platform. According to Onet.

Cointelegraph confirmed that Kral’s email address previously used to communicate with him has become unavailable, and last week he acknowledged that Zondacrypto’s cold wallet holding 4,500 BTC was inaccessible. Prosecutors have identified hundreds of potential victims and losses of at least 350 million Polish zloty (roughly $97 million), notes from Poland cited by prosecutor spokesperson Michał Binkiewicz. Notes from Poland reported the figure.

The mounting controversy has also put pressure on Zondacrypto’s governance. This week, resignations were reported from BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian entity that operates the exchange. Former supervisory board member Georgi Džaniašvili said the board learned about the scale of the crisis through media reports rather than through internal channels, highlighting “material inconsistencies” between public statements and information available to the board.

Key takeaways

• Polish prosecutors opened a fraud investigation into Zondacrypto last Friday, with losses identified at a minimum of 350 million PLN and hundreds of potential victims, per prosecutor statements cited by Notes from Poland.
• CEO Przemysław Kral reportedly relocated to Israel, where he holds citizenship, a detail that could complicate extradition proceedings; Onet notes he has been in Israel for about a week.
• Resignations from the supervisory board of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian operator of Zondacrypto, point to governance strains and concerns about transparency, as described by former board member Georgi Džaniašvili.
• Although registered in Estonia, Zondacrypto maintains a sizable Polish user base, fueling broader regulatory and political scrutiny within the EU’s evolving MiCA framework.

Why Poland and the MiCA context matter for Zondacrypto

The case centers not only on missing access to a substantial cold-storage wallet but also on the jurisdictional complexity of a company registered in Estonia with a large Polish market. Zondacrypto traces its roots to Katowice, where it was founded in 2014 as BitBay. The public narrative from CEO Kral in recent days includes a claim that the company’s founder, Sylwester Suszek, who disappeared in 2022, was responsible for the lack of access to the cold wallet. The backdrop to this crisis has become a flashpoint in Polish politics. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has drawn connections between Zondacrypto’s origins and Russian capital and influence, arguing that up to 30,000 users may have been affected and noting Poland’s delay in implementing a robust investor-protection framework aligned with the EU’s MiCA regime. gov.pl quoted Tusk on the matter.

The broader regulatory setting underscores a central question for the EU: should crypto oversight be centralized at the EU level under MiCA, or primarily implemented at the national level? The debate is intensified by cases like Zondacrypto, which expose gaps in investor protection and cross-border enforcement. While MiCA aims to harmonize standards, enforcement and timely action remain points of contention among member states as EU regulators push for stronger, more consistent oversight of smaller crypto platforms.

What happens next for investors and the market

With investigators probing potential fraud and a missing founder, the path to restitution for affected users remains uncertain. Authorities will likely pursue asset tracing, potential fund recovery, and accountability for executives and board members, all while grappling with cross-border jurisdictional questions. The political dimension—spotlighting national responses to MiCA and centralized oversight—could influence future regulatory posture across Central and Eastern Europe. As the investigation unfolds, readers should monitor updates from Polish authorities and EU regulators for signs of policy shifts that could affect both consumer protections and the operating risk profile of cross-border crypto platforms.

Investors and users should watch for new disclosures about the custody of the 4,500 BTC, developments in extradition or international cooperation, and any formal steps taken by regulators to clarify investor protections for Polish users and the wider EU market.

Crypto markets were relatively calm on Friday as the largest Deribit options settlement of the month cleared roughly $9.87 billion in notional exposure, with traders now turning their attention to next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and a renewed escalation in the Strait of Hormuz.

BTC is changing hands at $78,088, up 0.8% on the day, 2.5% on the week, and 9% on the month. Ether trades at $2,316, flat on the day and down 2.3% over the week. Total crypto market capitalization stands at $2.68 trillion, with $93.8 billion in 24-hour trading volume, per CoinGecko. XRP was held at $1.44, BNB at $638, and Solana at $86.

The April monthly settlement covered 109,000 BTC contracts with $8.55 billion in notional and 563,000 ETH contracts worth $1.32 billion, per Deribit data. The expiry cleared roughly 25% of total Deribit open interest. Heavy call positioning was concentrated at the $75,000 and $80,000 strikes heading into settlement, according to CoinGlass.

ETF Flows Diverge

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs logged $223 million in net inflows Thursday, extending their winning streak to eight consecutive sessions, per SoSoValue. BlackRock’s IBIT continued to anchor the flows.

Spot Ether ETFs broke a 10-day inflow run with $75.9 million in Thursday outflows.

Meanwhile, CoinShares’ weekly report pegged total digital asset fund inflows for the week ended April 17 at $1.4 billion, the strongest weekly print since mid-January.

Hormuz Escalation Resets Risk Backdrop

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be, that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” and directed minesweeping operations to triple in pace. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps laid fresh mines this week and seized two commercial vessels on Wednesday, per a subsequent statement from U.S. Central Command.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Tehran’s measures in the strait are “entirely lawful,” according to IRNA. Tanker transits through the waterway, which in peacetime handles roughly 20% of global oil flows, have collapsed since the conflict began.

Fed Meeting Ahead

The Federal Open Market Committee meets April 28 to 29, with CME FedWatch pricing in a near-certainty of an unchanged federal funds rate. The Bureau of Economic Analysis will release Q1 GDP and March PCE on April 30.

In this video, we’ll explore the key economic events and market trends, shaping the financial landscape. Get ready for insights into financial markets to help you navigate the week ahead. Let’s dive in!

In this episode of Market Insights, Gary Thomson unpacks the strategic implications of the most critical events driving global markets.

👉 Key topics covered in this episode:

✔️ BoC Interest Rate Decision
The Bank of Canada will announce its rate decision on 29 April, with rates expected to remain unchanged. However, the focus will be on its updated outlook for inflation and growth. With energy prices pushing inflation higher while underlying pressures ease, the tone of the Monetary Policy Report could drive volatility in the Canadian dollar.

✔️ Fed Interest Rate Decision
The Federal Reserve will also announce its rate decision on 29 April. Although rates are forecast to stay unchanged, the press conference may be important. Shifting expectations towards a prolonged pause could drive volatility in the USD and global markets. Will the Fed maintain a cautious tone, or surprise markets with a shift in outlook?

✔️ BoE Interest Rate Decision
The Bank of England’s interest rate decision will be released on 30 April, with no changes expected. However, the vote split could influence sterling, especially as inflation rises but policymakers remain cautious. Will the Bank signal future tightening, or maintain a wait-and-see approach?

✔️  ECB Interest Rate Decision
The European Central Bank will deliver its monetary decision on 30 April. As rates are anticipated to hold, guidance from Christine Lagarde and the tone of the press conference could drive euro volatility. Will the ECB maintain a cautious pause, or signal readiness to tighten policy soon?

✔️ Earnings Reports
On 29–30 April, major earnings from the so-called Magnificent Seven corporations — including Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Apple — could drive equity market movements, with investors focusing on AI, cloud, advertising, and consumer demand trends. Will earnings support US equity indices, or trigger a broader reassessment of tech valuations?

Heading into the week, geopolitics, central bank decisions, and major earnings could drive markets. With several key events clustered together, volatility may stay elevated, making risk management essential.

Gain insights to strengthen your trading knowledge.

💬 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more market insights every week.

Watch it now and stay updated with FXOpen.

This article represents the opinion of the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand only. It is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation with respect to products and services provided by the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand, nor is it to be considered financial advice.

Cryptography company Succinct has launched Zcam, an iPhone camera app that cryptographically signs photos and videos at the moment of capture to help prove their authenticity.

The company said Thursday that Zcam embeds a tamper-evident record linking media to the device that captured it, allowing viewers to verify that content was not digitally altered or generated by artificial intelligence. 

How the Zcam application works. Source: Succinct

According to Succinct, the app works by hashing raw image data and signing it using keys generated inside Apple’s Secure Enclave, a hardware-based security module. The resulting signature, along with capture metadata and attestation, is embedded into the file using the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standard, a framework for attaching tamper-evident provenance data to digital media.

Standards such as C2PA are designed to establish the origin and edit history of digital content by embedding signed provenance metadata into files. According to the C2PA, its open technical standard lets publishers, creators and consumers establish the “origin and edits” of digital content. It allows users to record how the content was created, which tools were used and how it changed over time.

Related: Spain seizes crypto cold wallets in illegal manga piracy raid

The launch pushes Succinct’s applied cryptography work beyond blockchain infrastructure and into media provenance, as companies look for ways to authenticate digital content at creation rather than rely only on after-the-fact AI detection tools.

The launch comes as security concerns in crypto increasingly include AI-driven fraud. On Thursday, blockchain security firm CertiK warned that deepfakes, phishing attacks and AI-assisted social engineering are likely to drive some of the largest crypto hacks in 2026. The report highlighted how attackers are using convincing synthetic media to deceive users and bypass security checks. 

Crypto security expands beyond code as AI threats rise

Succinct said Zcam is an early step toward broader adoption of cryptographic provenance tools, which could be used in areas such as journalism, insurance claims and identity verification, where trust in digital media is increasingly critical.

The company acknowledged limitations in its current implementation, noting that the Zcam software development kit is unaudited and not production-ready. It also said secure enclaves have been compromised in the past and that ensuring a fully tamper-proof capture-to-signing process remains an active area of research.

Magazine: AI-driven hacks could kill DeFi — unless projects act now

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.