Today's news tips:
Bithumb launches PARTI and EPT Korean Won trading pairs
Upbit will list Celestia(TIA) and io.net(IO)
Stripe launches stablecoin financial accounts to support merchants in 101 countries
Binance Alpha Launches Gorilla
OCC allows US banks to buy and sell customer-custodied crypto assets and outsource related services
Robinhood plans to launch blockchain-based US stock trading platform in Europe
Regulatory/Macro
Binance will perform wallet maintenance on the TRON network on May 9
According to Binance's announcement, the platform will perform wallet maintenance on the Tron (TRX) network at 15:00 Beijing time on May 9, and will suspend the recharge and withdrawal of the network from 14:55. The maintenance is expected to last about 1 hour, during which the trading of TRX and its tokens will not be affected. The recovery time will be determined by the stability of the network and no further notice will be given.
CZ confirms he has asked a lawyer to apply for Trump's pardon for money laundering
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) recently said in a podcast that his lawyer has formally applied to Trump for a presidential pardon, despite his previous denials of related reports. CZ said he "wouldn't mind" being pardoned and was inspired by the pardon of the founder of BitMEX to submit an application. He was fined and sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty in 2023. If the pardon is approved, it may allow him to return to his Binance.US operations position.
Robinhood plans to launch blockchain-based US stock trading platform in Europe
According to Bloomberg, Robinhood is developing a new blockchain-based platform that plans to allow European users to trade tokenized assets of U.S. securities. The platform may be based on Arbitrum, Ethereum or Solana blockchains and built in cooperation with a digital asset company. The news pointed out that as the European regulatory environment becomes clearer, asset tokenization has become a popular direction for traditional financial institutions to expand into the crypto market.
Source: Bessant has submitted plans for US sovereign wealth fund to Trump
According to CBS, earlier this year, Trump asked Treasury Secretary Bessant and Commerce Secretary Lutnick to jointly develop a proposal for a U.S. sovereign wealth fund by early May, but the White House rejected part of the proposal. Currently, multiple sources said that the proposal has been submitted. However, one of the sources said that the White House is concerned about the approach taken by the Treasury Department. A source said that the details of the fund's operating mechanism are still under discussion and no news will be announced in the near future. Trump said before traveling to the Middle East next week that he would make a "very big announcement", but this has nothing to do with the proposed sovereign wealth fund. Trump has not yet decided how to use the proceeds from the sovereign wealth fund. The White House said: The Treasury and Commerce Departments have developed plans for the sovereign wealth fund, but no final decision has been made.
OCC allows US banks to buy and sell customer-custodied crypto assets and outsource related services
The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued new guidance (Interpretative Letter No. 1184), clarifying that U.S. national banks and federal savings associations can buy and sell crypto assets in their custody based on customer instructions, and allow outsourcing of crypto asset custody and execution services to third parties, provided that they comply with third-party risk management regulations.
Stripe launches stablecoin financial accounts to support merchants in 101 countries
Stripe announced the launch of "Stablecoin Financial Accounts", which supports corporate users in 101 countries and regions around the world to hold USDC or USDB stablecoin balances, and can send and receive funds through fiat and crypto channels. The account is hosted by Stripe's Bridge, and funds can be transferred through ACH, wire transfer or crypto wallet, and support transfers to bank accounts or crypto addresses. Stripe also plans to provide USDC-denominated Visa card services. USDB is a closed-loop stablecoin, which means it is not publicly available. USDB is an infrastructure stablecoin issued by Bridge. It always corresponds one-to-one to the equivalent amount of US dollar cash and short-term money market funds held by BlackRock.
According to Jinshi, at 02:00 am Beijing time on Thursday, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged for the third time, maintaining the benchmark interest rate target range at 4.25%-4.50%, in line with market expectations, and took a cautious stance amid the increasing uncertainty in the economic outlook caused by tariff policies. Although the Federal Reserve believes that the overall economy is still "soundly expanding", the FOMC issued a rare warning in its post-meeting statement that the risks of high inflation and high unemployment are rising simultaneously, making the economic outlook even more confusing.
Viewpoint
David Bailey, CEO of Bitcoin Magazine, mentioned in an interview that Bitcoin is gradually being adopted by countries and institutions, and shared relevant data and projects. He said that currently about 50 countries are involved in Bitcoin mining through public-private partnerships, and the scale of mining in some countries has reached hundreds of megawatts or even gigawatts. For example, Bhutan's Bitcoin mining revenue has accounted for more than 50% of its GDP. In addition, he expects more sovereign countries to purchase Bitcoin through sovereign wealth funds or other forms this year, and mentioned that there are currently 700,000 Bitcoins held by Bitcoin-related securities, and this number may increase significantly. Bailey also pointed out that the model of companies like MicroStrategy purchasing Bitcoin through asset securitization strategies is being widely replicated, and about 200 companies have adopted similar strategies. This trend will expand further in the future.
Project News
Upbit will list Celestia(TIA) and io.net(IO)
According to the Upbit announcement, the platform will add support for Celestia (TIA) and io.net (IO) transactions. Celestia (TIA) will support KRW, BTC and USDT markets based on the Celestia network; io.net (IO) will support BTC and USDT markets based on the Solana network.
Binance Alpha Launches Gorilla
The APP page shows that Binance Alpha has launched gorilla (gorilla).
Bitget and Avalanche join forces to enter India and launch a $10 million Web3 development plan
According to Cointelegraph, Bitget and Avalanche announced a strategic partnership in India, and will invest at least $10 million to support the local Web3 community, including micro-grants, scholarships, hackathons and workshops, with the first batch focusing on Delhi and Bangalore. India is currently one of the fastest growing encryption and developer markets in the world, with young users accounting for nearly 75% and developers accounting for 17% of the world's new Web3 contributors.
Backpack launches SOL reserve staking and plans to distribute revenue to lending and deposit users
Armani Ferrante, founder of Backpack, tweeted that the platform has started staking SOL reserves. In the initial stage, all staking income will be returned to borrowers, and all depositors will be covered in the future. Because the pledged assets are not tracked, the TVL monitoring platform may temporarily show abnormalities. It is expected that the Web and App will be updated within a week to start the first round of income distribution mechanism.
Bithumb launches PARTI and EPT Korean Won trading pairs
According to Bithumb’s announcement, it will launch trading pairs of two new currencies, Particle Network (PARTI) and Balance (EPT), against the Korean won. PARTI is based on the BNB chain, and EPT is based on Ethereum. Trading will open at 5pm and 6pm (local time) on the same day, respectively.
Dune data shows that Unichain has recently surpassed Ethereum to become the blockchain with the highest transaction volume on Uniswap v4. It rose rapidly in mid-April and its current market share is close to or exceeds 60%, significantly ahead of Ethereum's less than 30%.
Important data
Abraxas Capital deposited 1,000 BTC to Kraken 2 hours ago and still holds 983 BTC
According to The Data Nerd, a wallet belonging to Abraxas Capital Management deposited 1,000 BTC (about $98.92 million) into Kraken 2 hours ago. The address purchased these BTC at an average price of $84,713 3 weeks ago. If all were sold, it would realize a profit of about $14.21 million. The address currently still holds 983 BTC, worth about $97.43 million.
Data: 200 million USDT transferred from HTX to Aave
According to Whale Alert monitoring, 200 million USDT (approximately US$200.14 million) was transferred from HTX to Aave at 15:44.
According to SoSoValue data, on May 7, Eastern Time, Bitcoin spot ETFs had a total net inflow of $142 million, and none of the 12 ETFs had a net outflow. ARKB ranked first with a single-day net inflow of $54.7263 million, followed by FBTC with an inflow of $39.9190 million. As of now, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs has reached $112.712 billion, accounting for 5.86% of the total market value of BTC, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $40.719 billion.
