Crypto World
Trend Research Dumps Over 400K as Liquidation Risk Rises
Ethereum investment vehicle Trend Research continued to reduce its Ether exposure, as the latest market crash pushed the treasury company to sell off its assets to pay back loans.
It held about 651,170 Ether (ETH) in the form of Aave Ethereum wrapped Ether (AETHWETH) on Sunday. That amount dropped by 404,090, to about 247,080 on Friday, at the time of writing.
Trend Research transferred 411,075 ETH to cryptocurrency exchange Binance since the beginning of the month, according to blockchain data platform Arkham.
The transfers occurred as ETH price dropped almost 30% in the past week, to as low as $1,748 on Friday, according to CoinMarketCap. It traded at $1,967 at the time of writing.
Related: Sharplink pockets $33M from Ether staking, deploys another $170M ETH
Trend Research continues risk management as ETH liquidation level approaches
Trend Research has been tied to Jack Yi, founder of Hong Kong-based crypto venture firm Liquid Capital. Yi accumulated his Ethereum investment company’s holdings by purchasing ETH at an exchange, using that as collateral on Aave to borrow stablecoins, then using those funds to acquire more ETH.
Trend Research faces multiple ETH liquidation levels between $1,698 and $1,562, wrote blockchain data platform Lookonchain in a Friday X post.
Yi, said in a Thursday X post that he remains bullish despite admitting that he called for a bottom in crypto valuation too early and will continue to wait for a market recovery while “managing risk.”
Related: BitMine buys $105M Ether to kick off 2026, still holds $915M in cash
Trend Research came into the spotlight days after the $19 billion liquidation event of October 2025, when the investment firm began its aggressive Ether accumulation.
Trend Research would have ranked as the third-largest Ether holder in December, but as an unlisted company, it doesn’t appear on most tracking websites.
Bitmine, the largest public corporate Ether holder, was sitting on about $8 billion in unrealized profit on Friday.
Magazine: DAT panic dumps 73,000 ETH, India’s crypto tax stays: Asia Express
Gold price extended losses below $4,800 before the bulls appeared. WTI Crude oil prices are rising and could climb further higher toward $92.00.
Important Takeaways for Gold and WTI Crude Oil Prices Analysis Today
· Gold price failed to clear $4,900 and declined steadily against the US Dollar.
· There is a key bearish trend line forming with resistance at $4,815 on the hourly chart of gold at FXOpen.
· WTI Crude oil prices are moving higher above the $85.00 pivot zone.
· There is a connecting bearish trend line forming with resistance at $89.10 on the hourly chart of XTI/USD at FXOpen.
Gold Price Technical Analysis
On the hourly chart of Gold at FXOpen, the price failed to settle above $4,900 and reacted to the downside, as discussed in the previous analysis. The price traded below $4,850 and $4,800 to enter a short-term bearish zone.
There was a sharp drop below $4,750. The price settled below the 50-hour simple moving average, and RSI dipped below 40. Finally, it tested the $4,700 zone. A low was formed at $4,699, and the price is now correcting some losses.
Immediate hurdle on the upside is $4,815 or the 50% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $4,889 swing high to the $4,699 low. There is also a key bearish trend line forming with resistance at $4,815.
The first major barrier for the bulls could be $4,830 and the 61.8% Fib retracement. A close above $4,830 could initiate a recovery wave to $4,855. An upside break above $4,855 could send Gold price toward $4,890. Any more gains may perhaps set the pace for an increase toward $5,000.
If there is no fresh increase, the price could continue to move down. Initial support on the downside is near the $4,770 level. The first key area of interest might be $4,700. If there is a downside break below $4,700, the price might decline further. In the stated case, the price might drop to $4,500.
WTI Crude Oil Price Technical Analysis
On the hourly chart of WTI Crude Oil at FXOpen, the price started a fresh increase from $79.00 against the US Dollar. The price gained bullish momentum after it broke $84.00.
There was a sustained upward movement above $84.50 and $85.00. The bulls pushed the price above the 50-hour simple moving average, and the RSI climbed toward 60. A high was formed near $89.08 before there was a minor pullback. The price declined below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the upward move from the $78.96 swing low to the $89.08 high.
However, the bulls are active above $85.00. Immediate resistance is near a connecting bearish trend line at $89.10. If the price climbs further, it could face hurdles near $90.25.
The next major stop for the bulls might be $91.90. Any more gain might send the price toward $95.00. Conversely, the price might correct gains and test the 50% Fib retracement at $84.00. The next area of interest on the WTI crude oil chart could be $81.35.
If there is a downside break, the price might decline to $80.00. Any more losses may perhaps open the doors for a move toward $75.00.
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Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor is signaling another massive Bitcoin acquisition, coming on the heels of a $1 billion purchase finalized earlier this month.
Summary
- Strategy is currently sitting on the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin treasury with 780,897 coins valued at over $58 billion.
- Michael Saylor hinted at a new multi-billion-dollar Bitcoin acquisition via social media just days after the company confirmed a $1 billion purchase.
According to a Sunday post on X, Saylor shared a chart of the company’s historical buying patterns alongside the caption “Think Even ₿igger.”
The latest post follows a regulatory filing last Monday, where Strategy disclosed it had picked up 13,927 Bitcoin between April 6 and 12, which cost the company $1 billion at an average price of $71,902 per token.
Strategy currently holds the largest Bitcoin treasury of any publicly traded firm, with a total stash of 780,897 coins valued at roughly $58.2 billion.
Dividend overhaul to boost liquidity
Strategy CEO Phong Le detailed a new proposal on Friday to move the company toward a semi-monthly dividend schedule. The plan, shared in a shareholder video presentation, suggests paying out dividends on the 15th and at the end of every month.
By increasing the frequency to 24 payments a year at the current 11.5% rate, the company hopes to attract more consistent buying interest.
“What do we think this will do, it should stabilize the price, dampen cyclicality, drive further liquidity and grow demand,” Le said.
The CEO noted that the current structure often causes a drop-off in activity once investors are no longer eligible for the next scheduled payout. By switching to a semi-monthly model, the company would become the only preferred stock in the world with such a frequent distribution.
“If we were to move forward with paying STRC to semi-monthly, we would be in category 1, the only preferred in the world that pays semi-monthly dividends. We think this is unique and this is attractive,” Le added.
The proposal comes while the company manages significant paper losses. First-quarter financial results showed unrealized losses on digital assets totaling $14.46 billion. Despite these figures, investors reacted positively to the dividend news and the prospect of more Bitcoin buys, sending MSTR stock up 11.8% to $166.52 on Friday.
A preliminary proxy filing is already with the SEC, and a definitive version is expected by April 28. If shareholders approve the measure at the annual meeting on June 8, the new payment cycle will begin in mid-July. Currently, Nasdaq rules require Strategy to maintain a 10-day window between the record date and the actual payment.
Vercel, a cloud hosting provider popular among crypto projects, has confirmed that it suffered a security breach that allowed hackers to make off with a “limited” subset of customer credentials.
Vercel said in a blog post on Sunday that it “identified a security incident that involved unauthorized access to certain internal Vercel systems” and was investigating the breach.
“Initially we identified a limited subset of customers whose Vercel credentials were compromised,” it added. “We reached out to that subset and recommended an immediate rotation of credentials.”
Vercel’s confirmation came after multiple X users reported that a post on the hacking forum BreachForums by a user called “ShinyHunters” claimed to be offering Vercel’s data in exchange for $2 million.
The poster claimed to have access keys, source code, database information and employee accounts with access to internal deployments, which they said could be used for a “global supply chain attack.”
Vercel did not address the post’s claims, but said the attacker was “highly sophisticated based on their operational velocity and detailed understanding of Vercel’s systems.”
Third-party AI tool compromised to carry out hack
Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch said on Sunday that the attack originated after a Vercel employee was compromised via a breach of an artificial intelligence tool they used called Context.ai.
The attacker was then able to compromise the Vercel employee’s Google Workspace account, allowing them access to some of Vercel’s internal systems.
Rauch said the company stores customer environments with full encryption, but it has the capability to designate variables as “non-sensitive,” and the attacker “got further access through their enumeration.”
Related: Aave’s TVL tanks $8B a day after $293M Kelp DAO hack
“We believe the attacking group to be highly sophisticated and, I strongly suspect, significantly accelerated by AI,” he added. “They moved with surprising velocity and in-depth understanding of Vercel.”
Rauch said that Vercel had “deployed extensive protection measures and monitoring” and it had analyzed its supply chain to ensure “Next.js, Turbopack, and our many open source projects remain safe for our community.”
“My advice to everyone is to follow the best practices of security response: secret rotation, monitoring access to your Vercel environments and linked services, and ensuring the proper use of the sensitive env variables feature,” he added.
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EasyDNS has confirmed that a security failure within its own systems allowed a social engineering attacker to briefly seize control of eth.limo, a primary gateway for the Ethereum Name Service.
Summary
- An attacker impersonated an eth.limo team member to bypass account recovery protocols at easyDNS and gain control of domain settings.
- DNSSEC safeguards prevented the redirection of users to malicious sites by rejecting forged responses that lacked valid cryptographic signatures.
- EasyDNS is migrating the service to Domainsure to eliminate account recovery vulnerabilities and prevent future social engineering breaches.
The incident occurred on Friday when an attacker successfully impersonated an eth.limo team member to initiate an account recovery process, gaining the authority to modify name server records and redirect the domain to Cloudflare.
The eth.limo team, in a post-mortem published Saturday, stated that they immediately notified the community and prominent figures like Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin once the DNS hijack was identified.
Serving as a bridge for roughly 2 million decentralized websites, eth.limo is a high-stakes target because a successful compromise could allow hackers to divert users to malicious pages. Buterin himself issued an urgent warning on Friday, advising his readers to avoid his blog until the team could restore secure operations.
Security extensions prevent widespread impact
EasyDNS CEO Mark Jeftovic noted that the presence of Domain Name System Security Extension (DNSSEC) played a critical role in stopping the attacker from causing further damage.
Because the hacker lacked the necessary cryptographic signing keys, modern DNS-aware resolvers rejected the forged responses, resulting in users seeing error messages rather than being funneled to phishing sites.
“We screwed up and we own it,” Jeftovic stated on Saturday, acknowledging that this was the first successful social engineering breach in the provider’s 28-year history.
The eth.limo developers highlighted in their own report that these safeguards likely reduced the “blast radius” of the hijack. While the service was disrupted, the team is currently unaware of any confirmed user impact or fund losses.
Jeftovic added that eth.limo is now being migrated to Domainsure, an enterprise-grade platform that does not offer a manual account recovery mechanism, effectively closing the loophole exploited in this attack.
The latest incident is one of the many recent infrastructure attacks hitting the crypto sector. Only days earlier, on April 14, the decentralized exchange aggregator CoW Swap lost control of its domain for several hours following a similar social engineering attack against the .fi registry, leading to an estimated loss of $1.2 million from affected users.
LayerZero says preliminary indicators point to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, specifically the TraderTraitor subgroup, as the likely actor behind the KelpDAO exploit on April 18, 2026.
The theft now ranks as the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) loss of 2026. It overtakes the $285 million Drift Protocol breach from April 1, which investigators also tied to state-backed North Korean actors.
North Korea Suspected in The Biggest Crypto Loss of 2026
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), LayerZero outlined the mechanics of the incident, describing it as a “highly sophisticated attack.”
“On April 18, 2026, LayerZero Labs’ DVN became the target of a highly sophisticated attack, likely attributable to the Lazarus Group, more specifically TraderTraitor.” the post read. “The attack was specifically engineered to manipulate or poison downstream RPC infrastructure by compromising a quorum of the RPCs the LayerZero Labs DVN relied upon to verify transactions. It was not done through an exploit to the protocol, DVN, key management, or other means.”
The attribution aligns with a broader trend of increasingly complex cyber operations tied to North Korean actors. Earlier this month, Drift Protocol (DRIFT) revealed that its $285 million exploit on April 1 followed a six-month campaign also linked to state-backed entities.
US authorities have previously connected the same group to major incidents, including the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in February 2025. Data from Chainalysis further highlights the scale of the threat.
The firm revealed that North Korea-linked hackers stole a record $2.02 billion from crypto platforms in 2025, a 51% increase year-over-year, largely driven by the Bybit breach.
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Market Fallout Spreads Across DeFi
Trust across the DeFi sector has taken a visible hit since the breach. Lookonchain reported that Aave’s total value locked (TVL) fell to $17.947 billion, shedding $8.45 billion over the prior two days.
However, DeFi-wide exposure proved larger. Combined TVL across all chains slid from $99.497 billion to $86.286 billion, a $13.21 billion decline.
Aave’s native token AAVE dropped 3.84% in the past 24 hours after losing roughly 20% on Sunday. BeInCrypto highlighted that whales offloaded more than $6 million in tokens after the KelpDAO exploit.
The post LayerZero Ties KelpDAO Exploit to Lazarus Subgroup TraderTraitor appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the company has started testing AI agents on Slack and email to assist employees with work tasks, continuing the company’s efforts to embed AI into its workflows.
In a post to X on Saturday, Armstrong said the company has already deployed two AI agents, modeled after two former executives, speculating that AI agents could eventually outnumber human employees at the crypto exchange.
“Soon, it will be easy for any employee to spin up a new agent for themselves or their team. I suspect we will have more agents than human employees at some point soon.”
Major tech companies have laid off thousands of employees this year as they increased their reliance on AI. Armstrong has been pushing for AI to automate more workflows at Coinbase, stating in September that he wants more than 50% of the company’s code to be written by AI.
A month before, Coinbase said one of its biggest focuses is to transform its more than 4,000-member workforce into “AI-Natives.”
Coinbase introduces AI agents Fred and Balaji
One of the AI agents is Fred, named after Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam. Fred will serve as the company’s “strategic executive agent,” assisting Coinbase workers with strategic clarity and priority alignment while offering executive-level feedback.
The other is Balaji, the agent of chaos and creativity who was modeled after Coinbase’s former chief technology officer, Balaji Srinivasan.
Balaji has been brought in to challenge assumptions and assist Coinbase employees with thinking outside the box in an effort to “spark innovation.”
Coinbase has also contributed to the agentic AI wave, having launched the x402 protocol for agentic AI payments on crypto and fiat rails in May 2025.
AI agents tipped to play a big role in crypto
The move comes amid a broad industry belief that AI agents could become the dominant users of blockchain payments in the coming years.
Related: How AI agents can reshape arbitrage in prediction markets
Earlier this month, Armstrong predicted there will be “more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon,” echoing comments from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire in January that “literally billions of AI agents” will be transacting onchain in three to five years.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also said in January that crypto is the “native currency for AI agents,” which will handle everything from buying tickets to paying bills without credit cards.
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Key Highlights
- BTC plummeted to approximately $73,753 following Iran’s refusal to participate in additional U.S. peace negotiations
- The cryptocurrency had climbed to $78,300 on Friday before geopolitical developments reversed momentum
- Iranian officials declined talks scheduled in Islamabad, pointing to American naval operations near its coastline
- The bilateral ceasefire arrangement between Washington and Tehran concludes Wednesday, April 22
- Market sentiment indicator Crypto Fear & Greed Index registers 29 — remaining in “fear” zone
Bitcoin experienced a promising start to the weekend before rapidly surrendering those advances as diplomatic friction between Washington and Tehran intensified throughout the weekend period.
The leading cryptocurrency reached $78,300 on Coinbase during late Friday trading — representing its strongest valuation since early February. However, this upward momentum proved short-lived. By the conclusion of Sunday trading, Bitcoin had slipped beneath the $74,000 threshold.
The catalyst for this decline was Tehran’s decision to withdraw from scheduled diplomatic discussions in Islamabad, Pakistan. Representatives from Iran attributed their decision to Washington’s maritime enforcement activities near Iranian harbors and what they characterized as inconsistent policy positions from American negotiators.
Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Affairs ministry, published statements on X platform, characterizing American naval operations as breaches of ceasefire terms and violations of international legal frameworks, specifically citing the UN Charter.
President Donald Trump responded sharply, characterizing Iran’s actions as a “serious violation” of ceasefire terms following Iranian military engagement in the Strait of Hormuz. While Trump expressed continued optimism regarding potential diplomatic resolution, he emphasized an agreement would materialize “one way or another.”
Initial diplomatic sessions occurred April 11–12 in Islamabad, extending beyond 21 hours without producing consensus. Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that Iranian negotiators declined to accept conditions proposed by the United States.
BTC Declines to $73,753 Level
On April 19, the cryptocurrency descended to roughly $73,753 on Bitstamp exchange, representing approximately 2% depreciation within a 24-hour timeframe. This movement pushed BTC outside its previously established $74,000–$77,000 trading corridor.
The wider digital asset marketplace declined in tandem with Bitcoin, with total market capitalization contracting by an estimated $83 billion. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index currently stands at 29 out of 100, maintaining position firmly within “fear” parameters.
American equity futures also retreated Sunday evening. S&P 500 futures decreased 0.8%, Nasdaq-100 declined 0.6%, and Dow Jones futures dropped approximately 450 points. Petroleum futures surged over 4.5% to exceed $95 per barrel amid concerns regarding potential Strait of Hormuz disruptions.
Market analyst Wu Blockchain reported via X that Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds registered $996 million in net capital inflows during the week spanning April 13–17, representing the third consecutive week of positive movement. Ethereum ETFs attracted $276 million in inflows, XRP spot ETFs recorded $55 million, and SOL spot ETFs accumulated $35 million.
Critical Price Thresholds Under Observation
Technical analysis indicates support zones around $70,500–$71,000 with resistance positioned near $75,000. BTC has attempted to breach $76,000 on multiple occasions in recent trading sessions without sustaining elevation above that mark.
The temporary ceasefire arrangement between Washington and Tehran reaches its conclusion Wednesday, April 22. Iranian authorities have declined further negotiations and accused American officials of violating agreement terms. As of 8:30 p.m. ET Sunday, Bitcoin maintained position marginally above $74,000.
Key Takeaways
- Approximately $290–293 million was stolen from Kelp DAO following a sophisticated attack on RPC nodes connected to LayerZero’s verification system
- Kelp DAO allegedly disregarded LayerZero’s security recommendations to implement multiple verifiers, operating with only one verifier
- Preliminary evidence points to North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the perpetrators behind this security breach
- Nine DeFi platforms, most notably Aave, experienced cascading damage, with Aave’s total value locked declining by $6 billion
- Moving forward, LayerZero has declared it will refuse to support applications operating with single-verifier configurations
In what represents one of 2026’s most significant decentralized finance security breaches, Kelp DAO suffered losses totaling approximately $290–293 million during a weekend attack. LayerZero, the cross-chain messaging protocol utilized in the incident, has attributed the vulnerability to Kelp’s infrastructure decisions.
Earlier today we identified suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH. We have paused rsETH contracts across mainnet and several L2s while we investigate.
We are working with @LayerZero_Core, @unichain, our auditors and top security experts on RCA.
We will keep you…
— Kelp (@KelpDAO) April 18, 2026
The breach focused on Kelp’s rsETH token transfer mechanism across different blockchain networks. Operating with a single-verifier architecture meant only one authority needed to validate cross-chain transfers. According to LayerZero, the company had explicitly cautioned Kelp about this configuration and urged adoption of multiple independent verification sources.
LayerZero: KelpDAO Loses ~$290M in Exploit, Attributed to DPRK’s Lazarus Group
LayerZero reported that on April 18, 2026, KelpDAO suffered an exploit resulting in losses of approximately $290M, preliminarily attributed to DPRK’s Lazarus Group (TraderTraitor). The attack poisoned… pic.twitter.com/mfhQRaC2p9
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) April 20, 2026
The hackers infiltrated two remote procedure call nodes—specialized servers enabling software to interact with blockchain data. These legitimate nodes were replaced with compromised versions that delivered fraudulent information to LayerZero’s verification system while maintaining normal appearances to other infrastructure components.
Since LayerZero’s verification process also consulted legitimate external nodes, the attackers launched a distributed denial-of-service campaign to disable those systems. This tactic redirected network traffic through the compromised infrastructure during a 80-minute window from 10:20 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. Pacific Time on Saturday.
When the failover mechanism activated, the malicious nodes transmitted confirmation of a legitimate transaction to the verifier. Kelp’s bridge protocol subsequently released 116,500 rsETH to the attackers’ wallets. The hostile software then eliminated itself, erasing all forensic evidence from the affected servers.
Cascading Impact Throughout DeFi Ecosystem
The stolen rsETH tokens were deployed as collateral across various lending platforms, enabling the attackers to withdraw genuine assets. Aave, the dominant decentralized lending platform, absorbed the most substantial damage.
Aave found itself holding illiquid rsETH collateral while valuable assets such as ETH had already been extracted through borrowing mechanisms. Aave’s native token plummeted approximately 15% within a 24-hour period, while the protocol experienced roughly $6 billion in withdrawals as participants scrambled to remove their funds.
No fewer than nine DeFi applications experienced damage, including Fluid, Compound Finance, SparkLend, and Euler. Cybersecurity firm Cyvers characterized the incident as a “cross-protocol contagion event” extending far beyond a single platform vulnerability.
With preliminary confidence, LayerZero has connected this attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, specifically its TraderTraitor division. This same organization was implicated in the $285 million Drift Protocol breach on April 1, indicating Lazarus has extracted over $575 million from decentralized finance within an 18-day period using two distinct attack methodologies.
Security Protocol Adjustments
LayerZero reports no evidence of vulnerability spreading to applications operating with multi-verifier architectures. The company has restored its verification service and announced a permanent policy refusing to process messages for any application utilizing single-verifier configurations.
Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov emphasized that this breach demonstrates the inherent risks of relying on solitary transaction verification sources. He additionally cautioned against utilizing cross-chain infrastructure unless operationally essential.
According to Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet, 2026 will “most likely be the worst year in terms of hacks.” Cryptocurrency-related security breach losses have already surpassed $482 million during Q1 2026.
Kelp has remained silent regarding LayerZero’s version of events and has not addressed why the protocol continued operating with a single-verifier architecture despite receiving explicit security warnings.
Coinbase has begun testing artificial intelligence agents within its internal systems, including Slack and email.
Summary
- Coinbase introduces AI agents Fred and Balaji to assist employees with strategy and creative problem solving.
- CEO Brian Armstrong predicts AI agents may soon outnumber human employees within Coinbase operations and workflows.
- AI agents are expected to handle tasks and increase efficiency across crypto and digital transactions.
The move aims to support employees with daily tasks and improve workflow efficiency. According to CEO Brian Armstrong, the company has already introduced two agents designed to assist with different types of work.
Armstrong shared that these agents are part of a broader effort to integrate AI into company operations. He stated that employees may soon be able to create their own agents for team use. He also said that AI agents could eventually outnumber human workers at the company, noting that ”we will have more agents than human employees at some point soon”.
The company has introduced two initial agents named Fred and Balaji. Fred is based on co-founder Fred Ehrsam and acts as a strategic executive agent. It provides guidance on priorities and offers feedback similar to senior leadership.
The second agent, Balaji, is modeled after former chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan. This agent focuses on creativity and idea generation. It is designed to question assumptions and support innovative thinking. Coinbase said the goal is to help employees approach problems from new angles and improve decision-making.
Moreover, the testing comes as Coinbase continues to expand its use of artificial intelligence. Armstrong has previously stated that the company wants more than half of its code to be written by AI systems. The company is also working to train its workforce to become more familiar with AI tools.
Coinbase has more than 4,000 employees and is aiming to make them “AI-native.” This includes using AI in coding, analysis, and internal communication. The company also introduced the x402 protocol in 2025, which supports payments for AI agents using both crypto and traditional systems.
Growing role of AI agents in crypto
Industry leaders expect AI agents to play a larger role in digital transactions. Armstrong said that ”there will be more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon”. This view is shared by other executives in the crypto sector.
Some leaders believe AI agents could handle tasks such as payments, bookings, and online services without human input. Crypto is often seen as a suitable system for these transactions. This is due to its ability to support fast and automated payments across global networks.
Crypto World
Three Major Japanese Financial Institutions Tap Canton to Bring Government Bonds On-Chain
Mizuho, Nomura, and Japan’s central clearing house are launching a blockchain-based proof-of-concept for collateral management of Japanese government bonds.
Three of Japan’s most prominent financial institutions — Mizuho Financial Group, Nomura Holdings, and Japan Securities Clearing Corporation (JSCC) — have announced a joint proof-of-concept with Canton’s parent company, Digital Asset, to test digital collateral management for Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) on the Canton Network.
According to a press release shared with The Defiant, the proof-of-concept is part of a broader initiative supported by the Financial Services Agency’s (FSA) Payment Innovation Project. The move aims to verify the efficacy of blockchain for transferring JGB rights within the country’s existing legal framework, specifically the Act on Book-Entry Transfer of Corporate Bonds and Shares.
The project’s main goal is to enable 24/7 real-time collateral transactions, a meaningful upgrade from current infrastructure constrained by business hours and manual reconciliation. By integrating legacy systems with Canton’s blockchain rails, the consortium hopes to dramatically cut the administrative overhead associated with posting and substituting collateral.
The project will also test cross-border scenarios, examining how JGBs can move between clearing houses, institutional investors, clients, and agents across both domestic and international markets, per the release.
JGBs are among the widely accepted forms of eligible collateral globally, according to the release, making their on-chain availability strategically significant.
Canton Network positions itself as a public Layer 1 blockchain with customizable privacy features designed for TradFi institutions. The “public” claim has drawn heat from prominent voices across the crypto industry.
Canton’s TradFi Moves
Canton has been on an institutional partnership tear heading into 2026. Fintech Transcend recently connected to the network, enabling clients to move collateral and cash in real time across counterparties using a mix of traditional and tokenized assets.
Before that, JPMorgan announced it would issue its deposit token natively on Canton, with rollout planned in phases throughout 2026, following DTCC’s selection of Canton to tokenize a subset of the U.S. Treasury securities it holds, citing the platform’s privacy features.
Meanwhile, fellow Japanese TradFi giant Mitsui & Co. has also been expanding its on-chain footprint, with its crypto arm announced last week that it would bring its tokenized metals asset ZipangCoin to Optimism’s L2 OP Mainnet — the first deployment of the token on a public blockchain.
U.S. Treasury debt currently makes up the largest portion of distributed tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) — assets that are transferable on-chain — with over $13.7 billion, over half of which is on Ethereum, per data from RWAxyz.
In contrast, all of the $334.35 billion in tokenized repurchase agreements (repos) on Canton is considered represented value, as it only uses blockchain, in this case Canton, for record keeping.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
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