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A U.S. court has sentenced Evan Tangeman of California to 70 months in prison for money laundering in connection with a $263 million cryptocurrency fraud ring, Decrypt reported. Tangeman admitted to laundering at least $3.5 million in stolen funds for the organization, which has been operating on online platforms since 2023. The court's sentence also took into account his obstruction of justice, including attempts to destroy evidence. He was also ordered to serve three years of supervised release.

Ethereum infrastructure developer Consensys and its founder Joseph Lubin have joined "DeFi United," a bailout program for the rsETH incident, and will provide 30,000 ETH in support, crypto lending protocol Aave announced on its official X account. Previously, Lido (LDO), Ether.fi (ETHFI), Ethena (ENA), Mantle (MNT), Tron (TRX), and Babylon (BABY) also announced they would contribute ETH to the Aave bailout.

Nasdaq-listed Solana Company has completed a capital increase of approximately $8 million, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. The company issued 3,076,922 shares of Class A common stock at a price of $2.6 per share. This investment round was led by Mirae Asset and included participation from HashKey Capital. The proceeds will be used to purchase additional SOL and for operating capital.

Crypto influencer Ted Pillows said on X that Bitcoin has historically always fallen around the time of a leadership change at the U.S. Federal Reserve. He noted that when Janet Yellen took office as Fed Chair in January 2014, BTC fell 84%. Similarly, the asset dropped 73% when Jerome Powell began his term in February 2018 and 61% when Powell was reappointed for a second term in May 2022. Pillows added that he is curious to see what will happen with the transition to Kevin Warsh. Powell's current term as chair is set to end on May 15. U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated Warsh to be the next Fed Chair, though the nomination has not yet been confirmed by the Senate. If the confirmation process is not completed by then, Powell is expected to continue as an interim chair. His term as a Fed Governor extends until January 2028, allowing him to remain on the board.

Bitmine (BMNR) announced it purchased an additional 101,901 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings to 5,078,386 ETH as of April 26. This represents approximately 4.21% of the total ETH supply. The company is currently staking around 3.7 million ETH, or about 73% of its holdings, an amount valued at approximately $8.8 billion.

The European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation has made euro-based stablecoins safer but has diminished their competitiveness, according to a recent report by Blockchain for Europe. The report, cited by CoinTelegraph, notes that euro-denominated tokens account for less than 1% of global stablecoin trading volume. It suggests this indicates the market has entered the downward slope of a "regulatory Laffer curve," where stricter rules lead to reduced activity. The analysis identifies a ban on interest and stringent reserve requirements as key problems, recommending improvements to interest and transparency rules and an overhaul of the reserve mandates. CoinTelegraph added that while potential MiCA reforms are being discussed, the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority (EBA) remain cautious due to financial stability concerns, suggesting any deregulation will take time.

Bitcoin accumulation firm Strive (ASST) has purchased an additional 789 BTC, worth $61.43 million, at an average price of $77,890, CEO Matt Cole announced on X. As of April 24, Strive holds 14,557 BTC, valued at approximately $1.13 billion.

The recent price surge of Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) may be an artificial process designed to absorb a large volume of unlocked tokens, DNTV Research analyst Bradley Park said in an interview with CoinDesk. He noted that on April 17, 703 million PENGU, equivalent to 0.79% of the supply, were unlocked. Park suggested that large holders may have used positive news to secure enough buying pressure to absorb their sell-offs. The unlocked tokens were quickly moved to 19 separate addresses, a pattern that Park believes indicates preparation for a staggered sale to avoid shocking the market. He emphasized that as positive news about PENGU was released, open interest in the futures market surged, triggering a short squeeze that further fueled the price increase. Park described this as an environment engineered by the recipients of the unlocked tokens to offload their holdings at a high price.

Tether announced the launch of its Mining Development Kit (MDK), an open-source framework for the integrated management of Bitcoin mining infrastructure. MDK is a full-stack development tool designed to enable mining operators and developers to control and operate their entire infrastructure within a single environment. The framework aims to simultaneously improve scalability and operational efficiency by integrating equipment data through a single control layer and supporting automation and AI-based optimization.

Nasdaq-listed Aethir Compute (AGPU) has announced it will build a cluster utilizing the decentralized GPU cloud infrastructure of Aethir (ATH). The project will involve 2,304 Nvidia B300 GPUs, valued at approximately $260 million. Aethir stated that this achievement demonstrates that decentralized GPU infrastructure, once considered experimental, now fully meets the performance, security, and reliability standards demanded by major global corporations.

MicroStrategy (MSTR) announced it has purchased an additional 3,273 BTC for $255 million at an average price of $77,906 per BTC. The company now holds a total of 818,334 BTC.

French authorities have indicted 88 members of a criminal organization for violent crimes against cryptocurrency holders, Decrypt reported. The group includes around 10 minors. Since 2023, France has seen 135 violent incidents targeting crypto holders, known as "wrench attacks." Authorities have warned about the seriousness of the incidents, which they say combine personal data leaks with organized crime networks, and are urging crypto holders to limit their exposure on social media.

Although Bitcoin's upward momentum is being capped by sell-offs near the $80,000 mark, the current correction may be temporary, according to an analysis by CoinDesk. Analyst Alex Kuptsikevich noted that while a concentration of sell orders at the $80,000 level is limiting gains, the current market movement appears to be a corrective phase within the broader uptrend that has been in place since March. He pointed to bullish signals from on-chain and ETF data, highlighting that Binance has seen a net inflow of approximately $3.4 billion in stablecoins this month, while U.S. spot ETFs have attracted $2.4 billion, confirming underlying demand. However, Kuptsikevich also identified DeFi hacks, which have surpassed $600 million in April alone, as a key risk factor pressuring investor sentiment.

While altcoins launched last year have posted an average gain of around 5%, those released between 2020 and 2024 are down by an average of 18% to 23%, according to a CryptoQuant contribution from crypto analyst MorenoDV. He explained that this indicates a strong trend in the altcoin market toward chasing immediate hype and the liquidity from new listings. MorenoDV argued that "alt season" is no longer a phase where all assets rise together but has been reshaped into a selective process where capital flows only to assets with new narratives. The current market, he added, has become a battlefield for short-term attention rather than a competition based on long-term fundamentals. The analyst concluded that the future market structure will be determined by whether the cryptocurrencies launched last year can defend their gains during future periods of volatility.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has announced it will list PRL at 2:00 p.m. UTC today, after previously postponing the launch due to issues with the token's circulating supply. Upbit, another South Korean exchange, also delayed its PRL listing but began supporting trading at 10:50 a.m. UTC today.

The European Union has strengthened its crypto-related sanctions against Russia for the first time in two years. According to CoinDesk, the EU has introduced a complete ban on virtual asset service providers (CASPs) and platforms within Russia, while also blocking the digital ruble (CBDC) and the ruble-pegged stablecoin RUBx. The move comes amid concerns that Russia is increasingly using cryptocurrencies to evade existing sanctions. The sanctions target 20 Russian banks, financial institutions connected to the SPFS payment network, and the Kyrgyzstan-based exchange TengriCoin. Additionally, EU residents are now prohibited from transacting with crypto and DeFi platforms based in Russia or Belarus and from providing services regulated under MiCA.

Tron (TRX) founder Justin Sun announced via X that he and HTX will provide 20 million USDT to support the crypto lending protocol Aave (AAVE). This follows previous announcements from Lido (LDO), Ether.fi (ETHFI), Ethena (ENA), and Mantle (MNT) that they would also provide ETH to aid the protocol.

South Korean exchange Upbit has announced it will list The Parallel (PRL) on its KRW, BTC, and USDT markets at 10:50 a.m. UTC on April 27. The exchange had previously postponed the listing after identifying an issue related to the token's circulating supply. In its latest announcement, Upbit explained that approximately 90 million PRL tokens moved from the foundation's initial wallet were distributed to ecosystem partners, including an overseas personnel management company and a KOL group marketing agency. The exchange stated that these tokens, part of the ecosystem and community allocation, are distributed according to a vesting schedule without lockups. It determined that the sales from external wallets were within the publicly disclosed distribution schedule and confirmed that there were no changes to team or investor allocations. Upbit added that to enhance investor protection and market transparency, it had requested the project to disclose additional major wallet addresses, and the project agreed.

Luxembourg-based bank Banking Circle has entered the stablecoin payments market after obtaining a Virtual Asset Service Provider (CASP) license, Cointelegraph reported. The bank will support Circle's (CRCL) USDC, Paxos's USDG, and its own euro-denominated stablecoin, EURI. The move comes as both traditional financial institutions, such as Societe Generale and a consortium of 12 banks, and crypto firms like Circle and Coinbase (COIN) are expanding their payment infrastructure in Europe to comply with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, the outlet noted.

The Spot Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) chart analyzes the order book for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper section displays a Volume Heatmap, while the lower section shows the CVD. - The Volume Heatmap tracks the volume of trades at specific price levels. The background color brightens when the price lingers in a certain range or moves significantly. These brighter areas can indicate potential support and resistance levels. - The CVD indicator represents buy and sell orders categorized by trade size. As buy orders increase, the corresponding colored line rises. The yellow line tracks orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line tracks large orders between $1 million and $10 million.

South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb has announced a delay in the listing of Pearl (PRL). The exchange explained that the postponement is necessary to verify an issue related to the token's circulating supply. Bithumb stated it has requested an official clarification from the project team to ensure a safer trading environment and that the start of trading will be delayed until the matter is confirmed. This follows a similar move by fellow South Korean exchange Upbit, which previously postponed its own listing of PRL indefinitely.

An address linked to the deployer of the USD AI (CHIP) contract deposited 75 million CHIP, worth $5.73 million, to OKX about an hour ago, on-chain analyst ai_9684xtpa reported on X. The sending address, which begins with 0xB9f, was created three days ago and received the tokens from the CHIP deployer address, starting with 0xE23. The entire amount was transferred to the exchange. Deposits to exchanges are typically interpreted as a precursor to selling.

Global cryptocurrency exchange Echobit has expanded its digital asset deposit and withdrawal services by integrating with South Korean exchange Upbit's account holder verification system. This integration enables safer and smoother asset transfers between the two platforms. For transactions exceeding 1 million won (approximately $730), security procedures aligned with Travel Rule standards will be applied, including the verification of matching names and birthdates. Echobit previously completed a similar Travel Rule integration with Coinone and continues to strengthen its asset transfer infrastructure with major South Korean exchanges.

Pudgy Penguins (PENGU) announced via X that its team held an open invitation event for policymakers at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington D.C. on April 24. The project stated it is building a close working relationship with the U.S. Congress and the White House, and is also serving in an advisory capacity on the White House's cryptocurrency advisory committee. Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz said that crypto projects will eventually be divided into those that have built government relationships and those that have not, adding that securing influence within Congress will lead to positive long-term growth. Co-founder Lorenzo remarked that when he and the team acquired Pudgy Penguins about four years ago, he never imagined representing the brand in Congress. He added that it was moving to see lawmakers empathize with real mass-market use cases for crypto. The Pudgy Penguins team also recently met with South Carolina Representative William Timmons and Republican Representatives Tim Moore and Michael Rulli to discuss the direction of cryptocurrency regulation.

Digital asset investment products saw a net inflow of $1.2 billion last week, marking the fourth consecutive week of inflows, CoinShares reported in its weekly fund flow report. Total assets under management (AUM) increased to $155 billion, though this remains below the $263 billion recorded in October of last year. By asset, Bitcoin products attracted $933 million in net inflows, while Ethereum products saw $192 million. "While investors are showing some caution ahead of the FOMC's interest rate decision, there is a growing atmosphere of interest in blockchain-related technology and the asset class as a whole," CoinShares noted.