The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced that the Commissioner of Monetary Authority has granted stablecoin issuer licenses to two institutions—Ice Point Financial Technology Limited (a joint venture between Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong), HKT, and Anni Group) and HSBC—under the Stablecoin Ordinance, marking a new phase in the implementation of Hong Kong's stablecoin regulatory regime. Licensed issuers must complete relevant preparatory work before officially launching their compliant stablecoins, including technology platform and system testing, implementation of risk control measures, and staffing arrangements. Based on the current business plans of the two institutions, we expect regulated stablecoins in Hong Kong to be launched successively from the middle to the second half of this year.

Two significant XRP whale groups have accumulated approximately 130 million XRP, with the token trading close to $1.34 and maintaining a relatively stable performance over the past 30 days. According to NS3.AI, data from Glassnode and Santiment indicates that short-term holders have decreased their exposure. Meanwhile, resistance is forming around the $1.38 mark in the current technical setup.

Crypto startups in the European Union are encountering significant financial challenges due to the compliance costs associated with the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. According to NS3.AI, the licensing expenses alone range from €250,000 to €500,000, posing a substantial burden on smaller firms. Austria's Financial Market Authority provides licensing timelines of less than six months, while Germany has reduced the transition period to 12 months. This has intensified the pressure on companies unable to manage the increased compliance costs.

Market news: HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have obtained stablecoin licenses in Hong Kong.

Bitcoin has experienced a 7.5% rebound, rising from approximately $67,000 to over $72,000. According to NS3.AI, Glassnode suggests that this movement still aligns with a bear-market bounce unless Bitcoin can reclaim the $81,600 level. The report identifies the $69,000–$71,500 range as near-term support, with the True Market Mean at $78,000 potentially serving as the ceiling for a relief rally. Despite the recent price increase, spot demand for Bitcoin remains weak. ETF flows are showing only modest improvements, and options traders continue to pay a premium for downside protection, indicating cautious sentiment in the market.

The metals market continued its volatile upward trend. International silver reached a 24-hour high of $76.65, currently trading at $75.75, a 24-hour increase of 2.77%; international platinum reached a 24-hour high of $2,120.62, currently trading at $2,067.27, a 24-hour increase of 2.31%; and international gold reached a 24-hour high of $4,777, currently trading at $4,734.70, a 24-hour increase of 0.89%. Driven by macroeconomic uncertainties and capital inflows, metals maintained a generally strong and volatile pattern, with market sentiment steadily recovering. According to CoinGlass data, metal contract trading on the Gate platform remained active. XAG's 24-hour contract trading volume reached $110 million, ranking among the top in the industry; XAUT's 24-hour contract trading volume reached $65.8257 million. As market volatility intensifies, the battle between bulls and bears further drives the growth in demand for metal contract trading. Gate pioneered the metals contract trading platform, offering 24/7 uninterrupted trading and providing users with greater strategic flexibility and asset management efficiency in volatile market conditions. Gate contracts cover a wide range of traditional financial assets, including stocks, metals, forex, indices, and commodities, supporting trading in core assets such as gold, silver, platinum, and popular global stocks. Gate continues to build a more efficient and professional one-stop trading platform for multi-asset trading for users worldwide.

Australia's government has postponed the release of its 'Resources and Energy Quarterly' report due to extreme volatility caused by the U.S. and Israel's conflict with Iran, according to a government spokesperson on Friday. The report, initially scheduled for release at the end of March, will now be published by the end of June. According to Jin10, the report, issued by the Office of the Chief Economist, provides a three two-year outlook and a five-year macroeconomic forecast for the country's major mineral and energy exports. It typically includes historical, current, and projected export volumes and values of key commodities, analyzing global demand drivers and new demand sources. These forecasts are crucial for the federal budget, which is expected to be released in May. Recent surges in oil prices are anticipated to significantly boost Australia's liquefied natural gas (LNG) revenue, as over 75% of LNG exports are linked to oil prices with a typical lag of three to six months. Remaining spot cargoes are being sold at record prices, although rising diesel prices are increasing production costs for some miners. The revenue surge has led some groups to call for a 25% tax on LNG 'windfall profits.' Last month, reports indicated that the country's treasury was examining related tax measures, but the government has yet to confirm any plans.

According to the official announcement, Binance Wallet announced that this Alpha Blind Box airdrop reward pool consists of tokens from two projects: Ark of Panda (AOP), Rekt (REKT), and Yei Finance (CLO). Users holding at least 240 Alpha Points can claim a token airdrop once on the Alpha event page. After claiming, users will be assigned to different reward tiers and receive one of the following rewards: 715, 860, or 2860 AOP tokens; 192,307,700, 230,769,230, or 769,230,770 REKT tokens; or 335, 400, or 1335 CLO tokens. Rewards are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. If the rewards are not fully claimed, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every 5 minutes. Claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Alpha Points. Users must confirm their claim on the Alpha event page within 24 hours, otherwise they will be deemed to have automatically forfeited their airdrop eligibility.

America's dominance in the Middle East is 'basically over,' according to Pakistan's former ambassador to the U.S., Maleeha Lodhi. Bloomberg posted on X that Lodhi shared her views with Mishal Husain, stating that the ongoing Iran conflict has significantly weakened American influence in the region. She also noted that this shift has led to a boost in Pakistan's standing. For more insights, listeners can subscribe to the Mishal Husain Show on various podcast platforms.

According to the announcement from Binance, the platform is introducing a zero-fee trading promotion for the BTC/U spot and margin trading pair, effective from 2026-04-17 00:00 (UTC). This promotion will run until 2026-07-16 23:59 (UTC), allowing eligible users to trade without incurring maker and taker fees on this specific pair. However, during the promotion period, trading volume on the BTC/U pair will not contribute to the VIP tier volume calculation or any Liquidity Provider programs. Additionally, BNB discounts, referral rebates, and other adjustments will not apply to this trading pair. United Stables (U) is a next-generation stablecoin backed by fully fluid assets, designed to unify fragmented liquidity across various sectors including trading, payments, DeFi, institutional settlement, and AI-driven autonomous systems. It represents a "fluid" future where value seamlessly flows between humans and AI. Notably, U is the first batch of BNBChain stablecoin to support EIP-3009 gasless authorization, facilitating efficient value transfer across ecosystems. Users should be aware that standard trading fees will resume once the promotion period concludes. Trading eligibility is subject to the user's country or region of residence, with certain jurisdictions restricted from participating. These include Canada, Cuba, Crimea Region, Iran, Netherlands, North Korea, Syria, the United States and its territories, and non-government controlled areas of Ukraine. Binance reserves the right to disqualify users involved in dishonest behavior and to amend the promotion terms at its discretion. Participants must complete account verification to engage in trading these new pairs, and the list of restricted countries may change due to legal and regulatory updates.

Star Xu rejected claims in CZ’s memoir and called them false, sparking a public dispute between the two founders. The feud revived old disagreements involving OKX, Binance and Huobi over early crypto industry events and personal accusations.

In his all new memoir, former Changpeng Zhao has accused competing crypto exchanges of spending “millions in lobbying fees” and funded negative media coverage in an effort to block his presidential pardon.

Why did Covenant AI withdraw from Bittensor? How did Bittensor respond? Why did Covenant AI's withdrawal cause Bittensor's stock price to plummet by 17%?

MarketVector and Coinbase Asset Management launched a new index that combines Bitcoin and tokenised gold to track modern store-of-value investments. The index uses a volatility-based model and quarterly rebalancing to balance risk and returns between the two assets.

A high-profile memecoin gala hosted by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago is raising fresh doubts over both scheduling feasibility and ethics, as the event clashes with the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and draws scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over potential conflicts of interest.

Get a comprehensive overview of DeepSeek V4, a trillion-parameter AI model, including its performance benchmark results, engram memory architecture, API pricing, and a comparison with GPT-5.4 and Claude 4.5.

After several rumors of delays, the highly anticipated DeepSeek V4 is about to be released.

South Korea boasts one of the world's largest retail cryptocurrency investor communities. A turning point is expected in 2026: retail investors will gradually withdraw, while institutional investors will begin to enter.

Bessant and Powell urgently convened the CEOs of systemically important banks such as Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America to discuss the cybersecurity threats posed by Anthropic's latest AI model, Mythos.

Binance is making a high-impact entry into the prediction markets sector, integrating event-based trading into its Wallet app while eliminating trading and settlement fees. The move positions the exchange to compete directly with incumbents like Polymarket and Kalshi in a rapidly expanding market now handling billions in monthly volume.