Today's news tips:
Trump hints that the US-China tariff increase may end: No one will buy if the tariffs rise again
Global Retail Chain Giant SPAR is Testing Cryptocurrency Payments in Switzerland
US Senator: If Powell is fired by the US President, the US market will collapse
Binance Alpha and Binance Futures will list Balance (EPT)
Zhao Changpeng calls BNB a Meme Coin
sUSD de-pegging intensified to $0.6825, with a 24-hour drop of 16.5%
Regulatory/Macro
Trump hints that the US-China tariff increase may end: No one will buy if the tariffs rise again
According to Reuters, U.S. President Trump said on Thursday that the tariffs between the United States and China may be coming to an end, and hinted that an agreement on the fate of TikTok may have to wait. He told reporters at the White House: "I don't want the tariffs to continue to rise, because at a certain point, people stop buying." He added: "So I may not increase the tax further, and I may not even want to tax it at the current level. Maybe I will choose a lower tax rate because you want people to continue to consume, and at a certain critical point, people will stop buying."
Global Retail Chain Giant SPAR is Testing Cryptocurrency Payments in Switzerland
According to Bitcoin.com, global retail chain giant SPAR is testing cryptocurrency payments in Switzerland. The retail group, which has more than 13,900 stores in 48 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, was recently revealed to have accepted Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network at its store in Zug, Switzerland. The test marks one of the largest attempts by large retail chains to use cryptocurrency payments. SPAR's move shows its interest in serving the growing group of cryptocurrency holders and its willingness to explore digital payment methods. Industry insiders expect that the trial will provide an important reference for assessing the feasibility and customer demand for cryptocurrency payments in mainstream retail environments.
US Senator: If Powell is fired by the US President, the US market will collapse
According to Cointelegraph, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said: “If Federal Reserve Chairman Powell is fired by the U.S. President, the U.S. market will collapse.”
Arizona Cryptocurrency Reserve Bill Passes House Committee, Moves to Third Reading
According to Cointelegraph, a cryptocurrency reserve bill in Arizona has been passed by the House of Representatives and is now only one successful vote away from being submitted to the governor's desk for formal approval. On April 17, Arizona's Strategic Digital Asset Reserve Act (SB 1373) was approved by the full House Committee. Before the third and final reading and full vote, the bill needs to be reviewed by 60 members of the House of Representatives. SB 1373 aims to establish a digital asset strategic reserve fund, which will be composed of digital assets confiscated through criminal prosecutions and will be managed by the state's treasurer.
Slovenia plans to impose 25% tax on personal cryptocurrency profits from 2026
According to Fxstreet, Slovenia plans to impose a 25% tax on personal cryptocurrency profits from 2026, which will be levied on January 1, 2026, pending public feedback and parliamentary approval. The draft law proposed by the country's Ministry of Finance on Thursday aims to align the treatment of crypto assets with other investment tools such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Currently, Slovenian law taxes cryptocurrency income earned by companies, but individual investors are in a legal gray area and are able to make huge profits tax-free. The proposed changes are intended to end this difference and establish a more balanced framework for capital gains on various types of assets. According to the Ministry of Finance, the new rules will apply to profits obtained from converting cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies such as the euro or using them to purchase goods and services. However, according to the new guidelines, exchanges between cryptocurrencies (such as exchanging Bitcoin for Ethereum) will still be tax-free, considering the technical complexity and impracticality of taxing such transactions. It is worth noting that Slovenia's cryptocurrency regulatory proposal excludes security tokens, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), electronic currency tokens and NFTs from the scope of taxable assets. The government estimates that the tax reform could add between 2.5 million and 25 million euros per year to the state budget.
Viewpoint
Zhao Changpeng calls BNB a Meme Coin
Zhao Changpeng cited the news that BNB will be listed on Kraken soon and said: "BNB is a Meme coin." Earlier news said that BNB will be listed on Kraken on April 22 and deposits are now open.
Swiss bank Sygnum said altcoins are expected to rebound in the second quarter of 2025 as digital asset regulation improves and user engagement grows. Although Bitcoin's market dominance reached a four-year high in April, Sygnum believes that regulatory developments in the United States, such as President Trump's move to establish a digital asset reserve and stablecoin regulation, could drive broader cryptocurrency adoption. Sygnum expects that protocols that successfully gain user engagement will outperform the market, while Bitcoin's dominance may decline. The market's focus on economic value has increased competition and driven better product development, which will ultimately benefit consumers. The report points out that high-performance blockchains, while addressing the limitations of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, still face challenges in achieving widespread adoption and revenue.
Matrixport pointed out that despite the ups and downs of the altcoin craze, Bitcoin remains solid. Since the launch of the Ethereum spot ETF in the United States last year, Ethereum's market dominance has fallen by nearly 50%. Many altcoins have experienced rapid rises and then rapid declines, forming a pyramid-like price structure. For Bitcoin to continue to rise, it needs liquidity catalysts, such as the Fed's release of dovish signals or interest rate cuts, stablecoin growth, and increased futures leverage. However, the current lack of significant liquidity inflows in the crypto market makes it unlikely that altcoins will rise on a large scale in the short term. The Federal Reserve may not adjust interest rates in the summer to assess the impact of tariffs on inflation. Although the market expects four interest rate cuts in 2025, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell said he would carefully evaluate. Recently, the decline in stablecoin minting supports that Bitcoin may remain in the range of $80,000 to $90,000 in the short term. Despite the sluggish trading volume, a weaker dollar may increase global money supply, thereby supporting Bitcoin prices. In addition, the reduction in regulatory risks has also enabled Bitcoin to perform better than before in the current market adjustment.
Project News
Dolomite will hold a TGE on April 24th and will airdrop 20% of DOLO
Lending protocol Dolomite announced that its DOLO Token Generation Event (TGE) will be officially launched on April 24, and users can start claiming DOLO tokens on April 24. The total number of DOLO tokens is 1 billion, of which about 361 million will be in circulation at the TGE, including locked veDOLO. 20% of DOLO tokens will be distributed to platform users as airdrops, with the airdrop snapshot date being January 6, 2025, taking into account only activities on Dolomite before the snapshot. In addition to the airdrop, Boyco depositors will receive a 3% allocation of DOLO tokens. Earlier news, Dolomite will launch DOLO tokens on Berachain, and 20% of the total supply will be airdropped to community members.
Binance Alpha and Binance Futures will list Balance (EPT)
Binance announced that it will open Balance (EPT) trading on the Binance Alpha platform at 20:00 on April 21, 2025 (GMT+8), and will launch EPTUSDT perpetual contracts at 21:00, with a maximum leverage of 20x. To celebrate the launch, all eligible Binance users will receive an airdrop of 3,500 EPT tokens in their Alpha accounts, which will be completed before 20:10 on April 21, 2025. Airdrop qualifications are limited to users who have purchased through Binance Alpha using spot or funding accounts between 00:00 on April 11, 2025 and 23:59 on April 17, 2025.
Chainlink’s LINK token market cap surpasses The New York Times
According to Cointelegraph, Chainlink’s LINK token market value has surpassed The New York Times. The current LINK market value is $8.25 billion, and the New York Times Company’s market value is $8.04 billion.
Binance Wallet to Host Lorenzo Protocol (BANK) Token Generation Event
According to official news, Binance Wallet announced that it will hold the tenth exclusive token generation event (TGE) through PancakeSwap in cooperation with Lorenzo Protocol (BANK) from 17:00 to 19:00 Beijing time on April 18. Participants must complete a valid Binance Alpha token purchase through Binance Wallet (keyless version) or Binance Exchange within 30 days before the TGE date. An additional 84 million BANK tokens will be used for future marketing activities.
Galaxy Proposes New Consensus Method to Solve Solana Inflation Debate
According to Cryptoslate, Galaxy Research submitted a new proposal to the Solana community to reform the network's inflation governance discussion through a method called Multi-Election Staking Weight Aggregation (MESA). The mechanism attempts to introduce a market-driven process to optimize the SOL emission curve without relying on a single result vote. The proposed method will not change Solana's ultimate goal of achieving a final inflation rate of 1.5%, but depending on the results of the community vote, it may significantly shorten the timeline for achieving that goal. According to Galaxy's forecast, if the current 15% deflation rate is maintained, the network will reach the final inflation rate at epoch 2,135. Increasing the deflation rate will bring this time point forward. In the current Solana system, inflation follows a fixed, time-dependent curve with the goal of achieving a final inflation rate of 1.5%. However, Galaxy pointed out that previous votes have shown that although it is generally believed that the inflation rate is higher than necessary, it is challenging to reach a consensus on adjusting parameters. Galaxy's new proposal provides an alternative that allows validators to choose from multiple predetermined deflation rates, and the result is determined by the weighted average of these votes. Rather than dynamically adjusting inflation based on real-time metrics, MESA votes will enforce a fixed anti-inflation trajectory, and once approved, deflation rates will adjust based on the collective opinion of validators.
Alon Cohen, co-founder of Pump.fun, wrote on the X platform: “Pump.fun will continue to experiment at the intersection of social media and tokenization. Some of these attempts (such as live streaming, by the way, have now fully resumed live streaming). Whatever we do, we will do our best to ensure that it is consistent with our core user base. That being said: don’t expect me, pump.fun, or any employee to issue tokens (there will be no “secret issuance”).”
Coinbase International will launch four perpetual contract transactions including WCT and BABY
According to the announcement of Coinbase International Exchange, the platform will launch perpetual contract (PERP) transactions for four tokens, WCT, KERNEL, BABY and PROMPT, starting at 17:30 Beijing time on April 24, which is applicable to the international station and Coinbase Advanced.
Important data
According to The Data Nerd, 6 hours ago, a wallet that may belong to Sonic Labs deposited 11.78 million $S into Binance, worth approximately $5.55 million.
According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (April 17, Eastern Time), the total net inflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $108 million. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net inflow in a single day yesterday was BlackRock Bitcoin ETF IBIT, with a single-day net inflow of $80.9588 million. Currently, IBIT's total net inflow has reached $39.754 billion. The second is Fidelity Bitcoin ETF FBTC, with a single-day net inflow of $25.9049 million. Currently, FBTC's total net inflow has reached $11.282 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $94.507 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (market value to the total market value of Bitcoin) is 5.59%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $35.375 billion.
Galaxy Digital deposited another 12,500 ETH worth $20 million to Binance in the early morning
According to Lookonchain monitoring, Galaxy Digital deposited another 12,500 ETH (worth $20 million) to Binance 8 hours ago. In the past 6 days, Galaxy Digital has deposited 62,181 ETH (worth $99.46 million) to the exchange.
sUSD de-pegging intensified to $0.6825, with a 24-hour drop of 16.5%
The market data shows that the degree of decoupling of Synthetix ecological stablecoin sUSD has intensified, and is now trading at $0.6825, with a 24-hour drop of 16.5%, and its market value has fallen to $21.98 million.
Financing
Wintermute announces investment in lending protocol Euler Finance
Market maker Wintermute announced on the X platform that its investment institution Wintermute Ventures has invested in the DeFi lending agreement Euler Finance. The specific amount has not been disclosed yet.
a16z announces another $55 million investment in LayerZero
Ali Yahya, general partner at a16z, announced on the X platform: "The company has invested an additional $55 million to purchase ZRO tokens of the cross-chain messaging protocol LayerZero, with a 3-year lock-up period." a16z has previously invested in LayerZero, including its initial investment in March 2022 and a subsequent investment during LayerZero's Series B financing in April 2023. The two companies did not disclose the valuation of the financing round.
