Fed Retracts Crypto Rules, US Senator Calls Foul

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• Ethereum $ETH to launch Pectra upgrade on May 7th; introduces EIP-7702, several improvements to validator UX, a doubling of the blob count, and more.

• DeFi Development Corp $JNVR files to offer up to $1B shelf offering with US SEC; proceeds to be used to buy additional Solana $SOL.

• PumpFun deposits 117,913 Solana $SOL worth ~$17.9M into Kraken; PumpFun has deposited a total of 1,936,802 SOL worth $293M into Kraken in 2025.

• CME Group to launch $XRP futures trading on May 19th; contracts will come in two sizes: 2,500 XRP & 50,000 XRP.

• ⭐️ Coinbase $COIN partners with PayPal $PYPL; to support 1:1 PayPal USD $PYUSD-USD conversions.

• Securitize launches Mantle $MNT Index Four (MI4) Fund; backed by a $400M anchor investment from Mantle Treasury.

• Gitcoin to wind down Grants Lab, the primary software development unit behind Gitcoin and parts ways with several team members; cites no sustainable path to profitability.

Alpha

• Weekly Airdrop Recap by Earndrop.

• Movement to launch $MOVE MoveDrop by the end of April; Movement Co-founder Rushi Manche recently stated to expect additional incentives.

• OpenSea launches new XP shipment; users who tried Solana on OpenSea 2 are eligible.

• ICYMI Infrared launches Infrared Points Program; stake into Infrared's PoL vaults to earn points.

• ICYMI Avantis launches 2x XP boost for LPs until May 31st; Avantis XP Season 2 ends on May 31st.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Initia launches $INIT airdrop claim; testnet participants, power users of LayerZero, IBC, & MilkTIA, and social contributors are eligible.

• Dolomite launches $DOLO airdrop claim; Dolomite users are eligible.

• Sign launches $SIGN airdrop eligibility & allocation checker; Sign SBT holders, EthSign OG users, & more are eligible.

• Binance launches Sign $SIGN HODLer Airdrop; BNB Simple Earn and/or On-Chain Yields subscribers from April 15th to April 19th are eligible.

• ICYMI Hyperlane launches $HYPER TGE & airdrop claim; Hyperlane users are eligible.

Finance News

• ⭐️ China says it is not having any tariff talks with the US; President Trump has recently claimed of ongoing discussions with China.

• US President Trump says another tariff pause is unlikely after the 90-day pause ends; currently 16 days into the 90-day pause.

• ⭐️ US Federal Reserve withdraws previous crypto guidance; though US Senator Cynthia Lummis says the move was merely symbolic.

• Metaplanet $3350.T buys an additional 145 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$13.6M at ~$93,327 per BTC; now holds 5,000 BTC worth ~$471M.

• Semler Scientific $SMLR buys an additional 111 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$10M at ~$90,124 per BTC; now holds 3,303 BTC worth $313M.

• Tether $USDT increases stake in Adecoagro $AGRO, a Latin American agricultural firm, from 51% to 70%.

• Tether $USDT increases stake in Juventus Football Club to over 10.12%; represents 6.18% of voting rights.

Security and Exploits

• Tether $USDT freezes ~$28.67M across 12 addresses on Tron $TRX.

• ZKsync $ZK recovers $5M hacked funds; attacker accepted 10% bounty and returned 90% of the funds.

• ~$128K of Zora $ZORA stolen from 0x; 0x's ZORA airdrop was allocated to its 0x Settler contract which is permissionless and allows arbitrary calls.

• US subpoenas China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom; the three state-owned firms failed to respond to a formal congressional inquiry regarding their potential ties to Chinese military and intelligence agencies.

Token Unlocks

• Optimism $OP / ~$25M / APR 30th
• Kamino $KMNO / ~$14M / APR 30th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• RockawayX raises $125M for second early-stage crypto venture fund.

• ⭐️ Nous Research raises $50M in Series A funding from Paradigm.

• Theo raises $20M in funding led by Hack VC & Anthos Capital.

• MagicBlock raises $7.5M in Seed funding led by Faction.

• Inco raises $5M in Strategic funding led by a16z Crypto CSX.

• Catalysis raises $1.25M in Pre-Seed funding led by Hacked Emergent.

The Degen Farmer