The popular crypto commentator will stay on as an advisor to the influential firm as he doubles down on expanding the SEAL 911 security team.

The following is adapted from The Block's newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Okcoin Europe Ltd, the European subsidiary of OKX Exchange, has been fined $1.2 million (€1.05 million) by Malta's FIAU for anti-money laundering and compliance failures in 2023. The company has since taken corrective measures to address the deficiencies flagged in the review. Okcoin Europe Fined $1.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has released new commentary on stablecoins, with the agency's Division of Corporation Finance noting that this is part of the effort to provide further regulatory clarity.

CLS Global faced a $428,000 penalty from a U.S. court for orchestrating over 80,000 wash trades on Uniswap, exposing how market makers may distort token prices and raising concerns about manipulation in decentralized crypto platforms. The post US Court Fines Crypto Services Firm CLS Global for Wash Trading appeared first on Cryptonews.

The total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) has plunged over 30% from its December peak.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions against a network of financial facilitators and procurement operatives that provide supplies to the Houthis, an Iran-backed terrorist organization that has launched attacks against dozens of ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The election of US President Donald Trump was supposed to usher in a golden era of crypto. Although the regulatory stars are aligning, the crypto industry just experienced its worst quarter in years.The prices of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) recorded their worst Q1 in seven years, market sentiment fell to its lowest point since the last bear market, and Coinbase stock experienced its worst sell-off since the FTX debacle.

According to the latest Binance research, the NFT market saw a sharp drop in March 2025. Total sales volume across the top 10 blockchains fell by 12.4%, signaling weaker buyer interest.

A widely followed crypto analyst is identifying what needs to happen for the next altcoin season to ignite.

Venture capital spending may be bouncing back — with an estimated $4.5 billion spent last quarter.

Pump.fun will bring back its controversial live streaming feature, with increased moderation to avoid the worst excesses of dangerous or violent content.

In its latest in a series of what's-not-a-security statements on digital assets, the Securities and Exchange Commission has added dollar-based stablecoins.

Oak Security's Jan Philipp Fritsche says Web3 needs to stop ignoring basic OPSEC hygiene, especially as state-sponsored threats rise.

Illinois State Senator Mark Walker's Crypto Fraud Bill, known as the Digital Assets and Consumer Protection Act, progresses through the Senate, potentially reshaping how crypto activity is regulated within the state. The post Illinois State Senator Mark Walter's Crypto Fraud Bill Advances appeared first on Cryptonews.

Pump.fun, the Solana-based meme coin launchpad, has officially restored its live-streaming feature following a months-long suspension prompted by disturbing and harmful content aired on the platform. This reinstatement, currently rolled out to just 5% of users, comes with a comprehensive overhaul of content moderation policies to safeguard users and protect the integrity of the platform.

Trump's SEC says that stablecoins tied to and backed by the U.S. dollar generally aren't securities—but some questions remain.

A bill designed to stop the U.S. Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) moved a step closer to becoming law this week. The House Financial Services Committee passed Rep. Tom Emmer's (R-Minnesota) “Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act” by a vote of 27-22 on Wednesday.

Web3 banking firm Vaulta has announced a strategic partnership with digital asset provider VirgoCX Global Holdings to launch VirgoPay. VirgoPay will be a cross-border remittance network that integrates stablecoins to reduce transfer fees and speed up transactions.

"You can't IPO into a market collapsing like 2008,” Austin Campbell, CEO of payments firm WSPN, told The Block.

The total amount of blocked funds across the entire decentralized financial ecosystem has collapsed by more than 30% from December's local high.

A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

AI crypto technologies like ChatGPT and ChainGPT are transforming blockchain development workflows, but experts say these tools are more likely to enhance productivity than to replace human crypto developers. The post AI Won't Replace Crypto Developers Anytime Soon Says Industry Experts appeared first on Cryptonews.

Blockchain startup Codex has raised $15.8 million to build a layer-2 network specifically for stablecoins, signaling that more builders are rushing to capitalize on the growing industry and regulatory alignment around fiat-backed stable assets. The seed round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with additional participation from Coinbase, Circle, Cumberland Labs, Wintermute Ventures and others, Codex told Fortune.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said on Friday that stablecoins are a good thing for the nation's payment system, but he doubts the financial system can support a large number of these assets.

TL;DR While major stock indexes are posting losses above 3%, the crypto market is showing moderate and sustained gains. Gold, oil, and Treasury bonds are losing strength as safe havens amid uncertainty, while digital assets are quickly attracting capital.

The crypto market is reacting to Trump's trade war, with funding rates falling below 0.005%. As fears of global economic disruption rise, investors show extreme caution, sending volatility indicators flashing red.

Pump.fun's cautious livestreaming return highlights the ongoing challenge of balancing user creativity with effective content moderation. The post Pump.fun brings back livestreaming after suspending it for disturbing meme coin content appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Pump.fun disabled the function in November 2024 after users live streamed child abuse, bestiality and other "heinous" content to boost a token's value.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. unveiled a new blockchain-based tool Friday that posts up-to-date net asset value (NAV) data for tokenized funds directly on a blockchain. According to company officials, BlackRock will be the first client to implement this technology with their on-chain money market fund, BUIDL.

The country of Kyrgyzstan and the founder of the world's leading crypto exchange just inked a deal to advance crypto technologies in the Central Asian nation.

Ex-football player Bo Hines is in his new era — crypto — and is entering into his third month as a top crypto lead in the White House.

Malta's Financial Intelligence Authority (FIAU) fines cryptocurrency exchange OKX €1.1 million (~$1.2 million) for violations of AML in 2023.

While trade war is still weighing on investor sentiment, Sonic saw a strong rally, reaching a daily high of $0.514.

The peer-to-peer app is bringing stablecoin payments into the QR code economy.

TRON founder Justin Sun has announced a $50 million bounty program to expose the alleged $500 million embezzlement by First Digital Trust (FDT), the issuer of the FDUSD stablecoin. In an April 4 statement on social media, Sun revealed that the bounty represents roughly 10% of the stolen funds.

Solana and Ethereum lead crypto's recovery narrative despite double-digit weekly losses amid Trump's tariff turmoil.

TL;DR Stablecoin supply increased by more than $30 billion in the first quarter of 2025, reaching a new all-time high despite the broader crypto market downturn. Ethereum recorded over $3 trillion in stablecoin transactions and reached a historic milestone in active stablecoin addresses, even as ETH's price dropped 45%.

Malta's Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit has ordered OKX to pay a fine of €1.1 million for failing to comply with the nation's Anti-Money Laundering standards.

The startup is building a blockchain geared for stablecoins on Optimism in a bid to boost enterprise use cases.

The precious metal initially rallied after Trump unveiled reciprocal tariffs, but has since joined the wider market sell-off.

Malta fines OKX $1.2 million for anti-money laundering violations after compliance failures.

TL;DR Lens launched its own EVM-compatible Layer 2 chain, migrating 125 GB of data from the genesis block to improve its capabilities. The network operates as a validium with Avail's data availability technology and uses ZKsync's stack to validate transactions through zero-knowledge proofs.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced the date for its second roundtable on crypto regulation, continuing its effort to engage with industry stakeholders on digital asset oversight. According to a tweet from the agency, the roundtable, which is part of the SEC Crypto Task Force's ongoing series discussing crypto asset regulation, is set for April 11.

TL;DR Justin Sun accused First Digital of insolvency and of transferring $450 million without authorization, which caused FDUSD to lose its peg to the dollar. First Digital denied the accusations, processed $26 million in withdrawals, and accused Justin and Techteryx of trying to deflect attention from their own responsibilities.

Privileging U.S.-based stablecoin issuers over issuers abroad is shortsighted and will stifle innovation, says MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright.

A South Korean man in his 30s has been sentenced to three years in prison for defrauding a crypto investor of 2.93 billion won (approximately $2.04 million).

On the way to making decentralized finance (DeFi) more open, accessible and fair, the blockchain industry stumbled upon the very same problems that trouble the traditional financial world; but without a clear solution. High interest rates, complex repayment terms, and liquidation risks have found their way into DeFi as well, leaving borrowers burdened by the very system that was supposed to give them power.