Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Markets negatively react to tariffs, PayPal expands cryptocurrency offerings, Sony establishes partnership to allow crypto payments, Lazarus Group is still extremely active, over 50% of U.S. states are onboard the bitcoin reserve train, and so much more below.

Hopefully you’re finishing the week stronger than the markets. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• Investors panic and markets tank as Trump unveiled his reciprocal tariffs, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each falling 3.4% and 3.8% respectively. The overall market lost $2T+ of value in less than 28 hours.

  • In fact, the U.S. stock market had its worst day in 4 years 😅

  • Crypto markets followed as Bitcoin drops below $82k and Ethereum below $1.7k

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

• Sony to start accepting USDC payments through new partnership with Crypto.com (CMC)

• Justin Sun accused First Digital Trust misappropriating $500M of funds (TD)

• Paul Atkin’s inches closer to SEC Chair position with 13-11 vote (DT)

• Bitwise creates 3 new crypto ETFs to minimize volatility and focus on monthly income (CS)

• Former Rippling employee received $5,000 in ETH to spy on HR software competitor, Deel (DT)

• Cardano Foundation announces new digital identity platform, Veridian (TB)

• KuCoin leads exchange innovation and compliance crossing 40M users (CD)

• National Cryptocurrency Association reports majority of crypto holders are tech and construction workers (TD)

• Ethereum BLOB fees drop 73% following Dencun upgrade (TD)

• Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo previously took a paid advisory role with offshore exchange OKX (TD)

• Treasure DAO restructures due to financial crisis, including shutting down multiple projects (CC)

• Uniswap DAO approves $111M program boost in a preliminary vote (TD)

• PayPal expands crypto services with Solana and Chainlink payments in the U.S. (TB)

• Crypto donations estimated to top $2.5B in 2025 (CT)

A Message from NAME

The US National debt increased by $300,000 while you read this sentence.

Launches

• Babylon, a bitcoin staking protocol, reveals $BABY airdrop (DT)

Venture Capital

• Ultra announces $12M funding round from family office NOIA Capital for web3 gaming (UL)

• Luxury fragmented investment platform Collecto raises €2.8M seed round from well known European angels (CC)

• Bloctopus raises $1M to improve dapp development tools, including investors Hivemind Capital, Iron Key Ventures, and Techstars (PN)

• NodeFoundry AI completes $1M seed fundraise from an angel syndicate (KT)

• A new web3 startup that raised money from undisclosed VCs aims to make an impact with the new tariff trade war (TC)

• Venture fund research finds bitcoin-native startup investments increased nearly 800% in 4 years (CD)

Regulation

• A re-introduced anti-CBDC bill passes through the House Financial Services Committee (TB)

• Alabama and Minnesota join 24 other states in bitcoin reserve bill (CT)

• The state of Illinois officially drops lawsuit against Coinbase (CD)

• Finland to enforce tighter crypto regulations under MiCA rulings (HT)

• Changpeng Zhao and Kyrgyz president signed an MoU to improve blockchain infrastructure in Kyrgyzstan (CS)

Cybersecurity

• Cheap counterfeit phones are being sold loaded with crypto stealing malware (DT)

• On-chain data reveals Lazarus Group profited over $2.5M in wrapped bitcoin hack (CS)

• Bybit takes significant security precautions with new partner Zodia Custody (CS)

Extra Reads

• Stablecoin issuer Circle is gearing up for a huge IPO

Here’s 5 takeaway every potential investor should know

Meme Dump

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