What happened in the crypto markets last week? #Binance Research’s Weekly Alpha 🧵👇

1/ Macro/TradFi President @realDonaldTrump's “Liberation Day” tariff announcement triggered a sharp market selloff, with BTC down 6% on the day. The policy includes a 10% baseline tariff, started April 5, with reciprocal tariffs — some over 50% — set to follow on April 9.

2/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @vaneck_us appears to be preparing for a potential BNB ETF launch, having registered a trust company in Delaware, according to the state’s official records.

3/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) Fidelity Investments has launched a crypto-enabled individual retirement account (IRA) through its Web3 arm, Fidelity @DigitalAssets, allowing investment in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin.

4/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @Strategy has purchased 22,048 BTC for US$1.92B between March 24 and 30 at an average price of US$86,969 per Bitcoin, bringing its total holdings to 528,185 BTC, according to an SEC filing.

5/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @gamestop has raised US$1.5B through a private convertible notes offering, with plans to use the funds to purchase Bitcoin.

6/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @Metaplanet_JP has acquired 696 BTC for US$67.9M, followed by an additional 160 BTC for US$13.3M just a day later — bringing its total holdings to 4,206 BTC.

7/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) In his annual letter, @BlackRock CEO Larry Fink warned that unchecked U.S. debt can threaten the dollar’s reserve currency status, potentially ceding ground to assets like BTC. He also mentioned tokenization as a transformative force for global investing.

8/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @BlackRock has received approval from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority to operate as a crypto asset firm, officially joining the FCA’s crypto asset register.

9/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @Mastercard is building a blockchain network to bridge traditional finance and crypto, securing key partnerships and expanding its digital asset infrastructure.

10/ L1/L2 @ethereum developers have scheduled May 7, 2025, for the long-anticipated Pectra upgrade — the blockchain's most significant update since March 2024.

11/ DeFi Bitcoin DeFi protocol @babylonlabs_io will airdrop 600 million BABY tokens during its upcoming token generation event, with 6% of the supply allocated to early supporters like phase-1 stakers and GitHub contributors.

12/ DeFi (Cont.) @Uniswap has preliminarily approved a US$113M Treasury Delegation program to boost governance participation, potentially allocating 18 million UNI tokens to 12 selected delegates.

13/ Stablecoins LATAM’s largest bank, @itau Unibanco, is planning the issuance of a fiat-pegged stablecoin, awaiting regulatory clarity from Brazil's Central Bank.

14/ Stablecoins (Cont.) The U.S. House Financial Services Committee voted 32–17 to advance the STABLE Act, a bill aiming to establish a regulatory framework for dollar-backed stablecoins.

15/ Stablecoins (Cont.) USDC issuer @circle has filed a prospectus for an initial public offering with the SEC. The move comes as stablecoin regulation in the U.S. edges closer.

16/ Stablecoins (Cont.) USDT issuer @Tether_to bought 8,888 BTC in Q1 2025 for US$735M, bringing its total holdings to 92,646 BTC — making it the sixth-largest holder in a single wallet.

17/ Stablecoins (Cont.) Decentralized stablecoin protocol @usualmoney has partnered with Sherlock to offer a record US$16M bug bounty for discovering critical vulnerabilities in its codebase.

18/ Others @AmericanBTC, a Trump-backed mining firm, plans to go public with the aim of creating two sister publicly traded entities under one vertically integrated company — merging infrastructure and crypto operations.

19/ Others (Cont.) @PayPal has expanded its U.S. crypto services to include Solana and Chainlink, now allowing users to buy, sell, hold, and transfer their native tokens for the first time.

20/ Others (Cont.) @blocks CEO Jack Dorsey has confirmed that the company is actively working to enable BTC payments on its Square terminals.

21/ Interested to learn more? Be sure to check out the Binance Research website for more project and macro research reports. www.binance.com/en/research