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

1/ Macro/TradFi The reciprocal tariffs that went into effect on Wednesday are now paused for 90 days, with the exception of China that remains at 125%. The baseline 10% tariff that went into effect on 5 April will remain in place.

2/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) According to @vaneck_us, China and Russia are confirmed to be using Bitcoin to settle some energy trades.

3/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @krakenfx has partnered with @Mastercard to offer physical and digital debit cards to crypto users in the UK and Europe and let them spend their digital assets at more than 150 million merchants worldwide.

4/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @BlackRock has included @Anchorage Digital Bank as an additional custodian of its Bitcoin holdings besides its primary custodian, Coinbase.

5/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @CboeDigital, the crypto arm of Chicago Board of Options Exchange, is aiming to roll out a new BTC futures product in partnership with FTSE Russell.

5/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) @Fidelity Investments launched Crypto for IRAs after customer demand, enabling investors the opportunity to trade and hold crypto assets in tax-advantaged accounts.

7/ Macro/TradFi (Cont.) The @SECGov approved trading options on Wednesday for Ethereum ETFs issued by @iShares, @BitwiseInvest and @Grayscale.

8/ L1/L2 Interchain Labs unveiled IBC Eureka to connect the Ethereum and Cosmos blockchain systems, with plans to add Solana, Base and Arbitrum in the future.

9/ L1/L2 (Cont.) @solana developers introduced “Confidential Balances” which are a series of zero-knowledge powered token extensions to improve on-chain privacy.

10/ L1/L2 (Cont.) @rootstock_io plans to enable developers to build L2 networks on Bitcoin using the programming language BitVMX.

11/ DeFi Tokenized gold trading volume hit a two-year high this week, eclipsing US$1B as investors pivoted towards safe-haven assets amid macro uncertainty.

12/ DeFi (Cont.) @aave successfully passed a governance proposal to enable the protocol to buy back US$4M worth of its governance token.

13/ Stablecoins Ethereum-based stablecoin platform @m0foundation is expanding to Solana, with stablecoin neobank @KAST_official being the first on Solana to launch a brand-specific stablecoin project.

14/ Stablecoins (Cont.) @FTDA_US led an US$8M seed round into @capmoney_, a startup looking to launch an interest-bearing stablecoin, alongside other institutions such as Susquehanna and Triton Capital.

15/ Stablecoins (Cont.) @Tether_to is exploring a new U.S. based stablecoin aimed at institutional clients, following a clearer framework for U.S. stablecoin issuers.

16/ Stablecoins (Cont.) @worldlibertyfi proposed to distribute a small number of USD1, its dollar-pegged stablecoin, to WLFI token holders as a test of its airdrop system.

17/ Others The U.S. Department of Justice has disbanded its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and ordered its Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to cease crypto enforcement.

18/ Others (Cont.) Pakistan plans to allocate part of its surplus electricity to Bitcoin mining and AI data centers.

19/ Others (Cont.) @Ripple announced on Tuesday that it will buy multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road in a US$1.25B deal.

20/ Others (Cont.) @binance has announced the integration of Apple Pay and Google Pay into its fiat onramp ecosystem as part of a partnership with @Worldpay_Global.

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