Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Crypto experiences a historical market crash, Top banks explore issuing a stablecoin, The Bank of Russia allows domestic banks to engage in crypto, Morgan Stanley opens crypto access to all wealth clients, insider trading suspected after wagers on Nobel Peace Prize winner surge before announcement, and so much more

Happy Monday - Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

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• Crypto prices plunged Friday, triggering the market’s most severe wave of liquidations on record - total crypto market cap tanks over -9%

• This comes after President Trump threatened a new flare-up in US-China trade tensions

  • BTC dropped -12% to $105,896, with many other coins down -20-40%

  • +$19B worth of liquidations were triggered, with the true figure likely much higher

  • $65B in open interest wiped out, resetting positioning to July levels

  • Markets are slowly rebounding, up +8-9% from intraday lows, as the total crypto mcap soars back over $4T

Market Predictions

• Bettors on Kalshi are predicting will Trump create a National Bitcoin Reserve this year?

• Trade your predictions on a range of events, only on Kalshi

• Sign up with code LIT and get a $20 bonus when you trade $100

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

• Top banks including BofA, Goldman Sachs, and Citi explore issuing a stablecoin (DC)

• Morgan Stanley opens crypto fund access to all wealth clients (BW)

• President Trump considers pardoning former Binance CEO ‘CZ’ (BM)

• Bitcoiner María Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize (DC)

• Binance pays users $283M in compensation following Friday’s crash (TB)

• Ukrainian crypto influencer Konstantin Galich found dead after crypto’s historic wipeout (CS)

• Officials suspect insider trading after wagers on Nobel Peace Prize winner surge before announcement (BW)

• Tether CEO says “bitcoin and gold will outlast any other currency” (CD)

• Crypto salaries and incentives decline across nearly all roles and regions (DC)

• Over 1,000 wallets on Hyperliquid completely liquidated during recent sell-off (CD)

• Crypto.com CEO calls for probe into exchanges after $20B liquidations (CT)

• Collective market cap of miners approaches $90B (CD)

• Survey shows only 1 in 10 crypto roles are entry level jobs (CT)

• HashKey crypto exchange files for IPO in Hong Kong (CT)

• UK retail investment platforms says Bitcoin lacks intrinsic value and shouldn’t be part of portfolios (CD)

• BitMine adds 128,718 ETH to its treasury (CS)

• Metaplanet pauses stock acquisition rights for 20 trading days (CD)

• Sui blockchain reaches new ATH in TVL of $2.6B (TD)

• Aster delays its airdrop due to ‘potential data inconsistencies’ (DC)

• Investment firm Dominari teams up with Bitcoin project Hemi to progress its crypto treasury (CD)

• Arbitrum hires Brendan Ma, formerly of Goldman Sachs, as its head of investment strategy (TB)

• Sorare, an NFT game, migrates to Solana blockchain (TD)

Venture Capital

• Kalshi, the US-regulated prediction market, raises $300M in new funding at a $5B valuation led by by Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz with participation from CapitalG, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, and others (BW)

• Galaxy Digital raises $460M through private investment from an unnamed major asset manager to support its data center (TB)

• Umbra, a privacy protocol, raises $154.9M in USDC led by investors on MetaDAO (TB)

• Prestige Wealth closes $150M financing round through private placement led by Bitcoin financing firm Antalpha (CD)

M&A Announcements

• Securitize, a tokenization platform, in talks with Cantor Fitzgerald to go public via a SPAC (CT)

Launches

• Coinbase to launch new Amex credit card in the US (CD)

• Polymarket plans to release a native crypto token (DC)

• Hyperliquid rolls out its first livestreaming feature (CD)

• Fintech Blue Ocean Technologies to integrate tokenized US equities trading (FM)

• Ethereum Foundation and Keyring launch legal defense fund for Tornado Cash devs (TB)

• South Africans can now pay with crypto at 650K stores via Scan to Pay (CT)

• Stablecoin platform STBL launches new stablecoin USST (TD)

• Privacy blockchain Monero releases update to enhance privacy against spy nodes (CD)

• Crypto exchange Phemex launches its Market Confidence Campaign (CD)

• Gorilla Tech Group launches advanced security feature built into its AI platform (BT)

• NFT platform Art Blocks launches its final curated collection (TD)

Regulation

• Irish government urged to abandon bill that grants access to encrypted messages (CT)

• The Bank of Russia allows domestic banks to engage in limited crypto operations (BW)

• US Senate passes GAIN Act, prioritizing domestic AI and HPC chip sales (CT)

• The Bank of England may exempt crypto-exchanges from proposed limit on stablecoin holdings (DC)

• Texas legislature looks to establish strategic Ether reserve (CT)

• Singapore delays update to crypto rules for banks until 2027 (DC)

• European Banking Authority warns that crypto firms approved before MiCA pose a risk while operating (DC)

Cybersecurity

• Hyperliquid user loses $21M due to private key compromise (DC)

• Indian tax authority targets +400 wealthy Binance traders in tax evasion probe (TB)

• South Korea to seize cold crypto wallets to combat tax evasion (CT)

• CZ’s Google account targeted by ‘government-backed’ hackers (CT)

• Investigation ties 100,000 BTC Hyperliquid whale to former BitForex CEO (CT)

• Hackers deploy banking Trojan to steal crypto credentials (DC)

• AI Bankr bot resumes activity on X after suspension sparks crypto backlash (TB)

• CoinSwitch gets court approval to secure $5M stuck on WazirX after hack (DC)

• Crypto betting platform, Shuffle, suffers user data breach (CT)

Extra Reads

• Equity lending’s outdated batch settlements and manual reconciliations are failing markets, as on-chain infrastructure offers real-time, programmable solutions - Here’s why equity lending should be put on-chain

• The promise of a seamless digital economy is being sabotaged by a simple, recurring nightmare: network switching - Here’s how to fix the confusion in Web3 for newcomers

Chart of the Day

Largest liquidation in crypto history of $19.13B

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