Compiled by: ChainCatcher
Important information:
- Aave TVL fell below $30 billion, with $16.2 billion flowing out from its previous high.
- Bloomberg: Polymarket's trading volume was overtaken by Kalshi, marking repeated setbacks in its US market strategy.
- Newfire Technology acquires Avenir Group's transaction team and launches Bitcoin asset management services.
- Aethir Infrastructure secures a $260 million enterprise contract with Axe Compute.
- Tether confirms cooperation with the US government to freeze over $344 million worth of USDT.
- Trump Media Group shifts focus to crypto and financial services.
- Circle initiated a proposal on the Aave forum to raise the maximum interest rate for USDC deposits to 48.2%.
What important things happened in the past 24 hours?
According to ChainCatcher, analyst Ai Yi reports that Justin Sun has deposited a total of $1.3 billion into Spark, with USDS Farming rewards reaching $5.38 million.
Justin Sun address 0x939…6a1d1 withdrew 300 million USDS from Sky in the past 3 hours and subsequently deposited them into Spark. His current deposits on the platform are listed below:
- USDS: $436 million, representing 18.72% of the deposit pool;
- USDC: $135 million, representing 28.17% of the deposit pool;
- USDT: $93.39 million, accounting for 9.89% of the deposit pool.
More than 100 crypto institutions are urging the US Senate to advance the market structure bill.
ChainCatcher reports that, according to CoinDesk, over 100 U.S. crypto companies and industry organizations have sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee urging the advancement of the Clarity Act to establish a federal regulatory framework for the digital asset market. The signatories include Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, and Consensys.
Their core demands include clarifying the regulatory division of labor between the SEC and CFTC, protecting developers of non-custodial tools, simplifying disclosure rules, and avoiding fragmented regulatory standards across states. The signatories argue that if the U.S. lacks a comprehensive crypto regulatory framework in the long term, investment, jobs, and development activities could flow overseas.
Aethir Infrastructure secures a $260 million enterprise contract with Axe Compute.
ChainCatcher reports that Nasdaq-listed Axe Compute Inc. (NASDAQ: AGPU) has announced a 36-month, $260 million AI infrastructure contract with an enterprise customer. The contract includes a dedicated cluster of 2,304 NVIDIA B300 GPUs and a high-speed AI storage system, expected to go live in a US Tier 3 data center in the third quarter of 2026. This is Axe Compute's largest single enterprise contract to date.
Axe Compute's underlying computing infrastructure is powered by Aethir's decentralized GPU cloud. The contract includes a dedicated 4.8 MW N+1 redundant power supply, with the customer specifying the deployment location and service standards, and employing a structured payment arrangement. Aethir co-founder and CEO Daniel Wang stated that this contract is the result of months of deep collaboration between the two teams: "The enterprise-level workload supported by 2,304 NVIDIA B300 GPUs is exactly the scale we aimed for when we built Aethir's computing infrastructure. Today's announcement proves that decentralized GPU infrastructure is capable of handling AI workloads from the world's top enterprises."
Following the announcement, Axe Compute (NASDAQ: AGPU) stock price experienced dramatic fluctuations, with a daily increase of over 166%, reaching $14.47. The trading volume that day was more than 100 times higher than the three-month daily average.
Tether confirms cooperation with the US government to freeze over $344 million worth of USDT.
ChainCatcher reports that Tether has announced its support for the US government in freezing over $344 million in USDT, involving two wallet addresses. This freeze was conducted in cooperation with the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and US law enforcement agencies to prevent further flow of funds.
The freeze was based on information provided by multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies that these addresses were linked to illicit activities. Tether stated that it freezes wallet addresses when they are associated with sanctions circumvention, criminal networks, or other illicit activities. This has now become a routine response for Tether to legitimate requests from U.S. and global law enforcement agencies.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated, “USDT is absolutely not a safe haven for illicit activities. We act immediately when there is a credible connection to sanctioned entities or criminal networks. Recent events have shown what happens when platforms fail to act quickly, law enforcement fails, users are exposed, and trust is lost. We do things differently; we combine blockchain transparency, real-time monitoring, and direct coordination with law enforcement to stop the flow of funds. This is a responsibility we take very seriously as one of the largest issuers in the market.”
This operation is part of a collaboration between Tether and U.S. law enforcement agencies. The U.S. Department of Justice had previously confirmed Tether's support in law enforcement operations, successfully seizing nearly $61 million and approximately $225 million in "pork scam" funds.
According to ChainCatcher, a user profited $34,000 in the Polymarket weather forecast market by interfering with weather sensors at Paris airport. Polymarket previously used data from the Météo France sensor near Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport for settlement. The user purchased temperature options at extremely low prices, far exceeding market expectations. The user then used a portable heat source to heat the sensor, causing the readings to spike dramatically in a short period and be recorded as the day's highest temperature. This behavior occurred twice, on April 6th and April 15th. Météo France has detected the anomaly and filed charges.
According to ChainCatcher, Trump Media Technology is shifting its focus from social media to crypto and financial services. Data shows that since Trump's re-election in 2024, the company's stock price has fallen by over 60%, wiping out approximately $6 billion in shareholder wealth. Recently, the company applied to launch a crypto blue-chip ETF and plans to establish a Bitcoin reserve.
According to ChainCatcher, market sources indicate that SoftBank Group is seeking a $10 billion margin loan secured by its OpenAI shares. The loan term is two years, with an option to extend for another year. This move aims to provide financial support for SoftBank's continued investment in the field of artificial intelligence.
ChainCatcher reports that Newfire Technology (1611.HK) announced it will acquire the investment team and trading system of Avenir Group, the family office of Li Lin, for US$1.6 million.
Following the acquisition, Newfire Technology plans to launch a Bitcoin-denominated asset management service called Alpha BTC, aiming to attract investments of over 10,000 Bitcoins, valued at approximately $760 million, within one year. This strategy will generate returns through derivatives trading such as options, using Bitcoin or IBIT ETFs as underlying assets, targeting crypto-native investors and Hong Kong-based companies. Avenir Group held 18.3 million shares of BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust as of the end of 2025, valued at $908 million.
According to ChainCatcher, compiled by KOL AB Kuai.Dong (@_FORAB), FTX founder SBF is imprisoned for misappropriating approximately $16 billion in user assets, but the potential value of his investment portfolio has sparked widespread discussion.
If FTX does not go bankrupt, its estimated returns are as follows: Anthropic approximately $82.3 billion (approximately 165 times), SpaceX approximately $15 billion (approximately 75 times), Robinhood approximately $4.9 billion (approximately 8 times), Genesis Digital Assets approximately $3.5 billion (approximately 3 times), and AI programming tool Cursor approximately $3 billion (approximately 15,000 times, with an initial investment of only $200,000, representing a 5% stake). The combined potential value of these assets exceeds $100 billion.
MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay announced his departure from parent company Consensys.
According to ChainCatcher, MetaMask co-founder Dan Finlay announced today (April 23) his official departure from Consensys, ending his more than ten-year journey building MetaMask. He stated that the reason for leaving was professional burnout, the need to spend more time with his family, and expressed his best wishes for the team's future development.
Dan Finlay also expressed his delight at the recent launch of the advanced permissions feature (ERC-7715) on MetaMask, believing that the feature fills a long-standing and important gap in the product, and looks forward to experiencing the feature as a regular user in the future.
ChainCatcher reports that Nikita Bier, X Product Lead and Solana Advisor, announced two product changes for the organization and community on X, including:
XChat now supports group chats with links. Users can create a public link and share it directly to their timeline. Each group chat supports 350 members (and is continuously increasing).
Due to declining usage, the X platform will officially abandon X Communities on May 6.
TD Cowen: Crypto bill progress stalled, controversy extends beyond stablecoin yields.
According to ChainCatcher, investment bank TD Cowen stated that the disagreements surrounding the CLARITY Act go far beyond the issue of stablecoin yields, with multiple real-world obstacles potentially slowing down the legislative process.
First, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is understaffed, with only one commissioner currently in office. Under these circumstances, Congress is hesitant to entrust the agency with more cryptocurrency regulatory responsibilities, and filling the vacancy itself will take months. Second, the issue of prediction markets is escalating. Whether to include them in the legislation, and the potential for insider trading and conflicts of political interest (including controversies related to Trump's projects), could cause some Democratic lawmakers to oppose the bill.
Meanwhile, the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump family's crypto project, World Liberty Financial, is increasing the political sensitivity of the bill, making it more difficult to reach a bipartisan consensus. Geopolitics is also a variable. Discussions about Iran potentially using crypto payments are intensifying scrutiny of anti-money laundering provisions and could even lead to amendments detrimental to the industry. Furthermore, some lawmakers are attempting to include the Credit Card Competition Act, which, if pursued, could trigger new conflicts of interest and further hinder the overall legislation.
According to ChainCatcher, at the 9th BCCC Collaborative Day held on April 21, 2026, Mr. Shigeru Shimizu, Chief of the Risk Analysis and Control Division of the General Policy Bureau of the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA), delivered a special speech disclosing significant progress in the regulation of crypto assets. The FSA has submitted a bill to a special session of the Diet, proposing to transfer crypto assets from the Funds and Assets Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. The bill primarily involves four core aspects: information disclosure regulations, the establishment of a new classification system for independent operators, strengthened penalties for unregistered operators, and the preparation of regulations governing insider trading.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) is advancing three pilot projects under the "Payment Advancement Project (PIP): first, a cross-border payment trial using yen stablecoins involving the three major banks; second, on-chain settlement of securities such as government bonds, social bonds, and stocks based on blockchain technology, aiming to achieve 24/7 continuous trading; and third, an interbank tokenized deposit transfer experiment that just received support on April 3rd, which will be promoted in conjunction with the Bank of Japan's central bank reserve tokenization sandbox project. Mr. Shimizu stated that blockchain has enormous potential in improving the convenience and diversification of financial services, and the FSA will continue to promote institutional development and practical support.
According to ChainCatcher, Polymarket, which has long dominated the prediction market in terms of trading volume, is facing multiple challenges. Data from Dune Analytics shows that its global trading volume has been surpassed by its main competitor, Kalshi. In terms of valuation, Kalshi's valuation reached $22 billion after announcing a new round of funding last month, while Polymarket's valuation is $15 billion after recently receiving a $600 million investment from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
Polymarket's biggest bottleneck lies in the delayed official launch in the US market. Its US application is still in the testing phase, and its trading volume in March was only one-twentieth of Kalshi's. Technical challenges posed by the blockchain architecture, repeated product launch delays, recent fee adjustments that have sparked user dissatisfaction, and an exchange outage lasting over an hour continue to plague the platform.
Furthermore, Polymarket's practice of allowing users to place bets on controversial topics such as war and nuclear explosions has prompted a letter from Democratic members of Congress to the CFTC requesting intervention. ICE CEO Sprecher remains optimistic, but acknowledges that it's either a total wipeout or a home run.
Aave TVL fell below $30 billion, with $16.2 billion flowing out from its previous high.
According to ChainCatcher, on-chain analyst Ember's monitoring, Aave TVL has fallen below $30 billion.
The figure has dropped from $45.8 billion before the rsETH incident to $29.6 billion currently, representing an outflow of $16.2 billion.
Yi Lihua: The past wave of crypto VC and project demise stemmed from misjudging Web2; AI + Finance presents a new opportunity.
According to ChainCatcher, Jack Yi, founder of Liquid Capital, posted on the X platform: "One of the core reasons for the past wave of crypto VC and project demise was that the funds raised were basically consumed in: supporting teams to develop useless web3 products. The biggest misconception was that they were benchmarked against web2 products. Essentially, web3 is a financial industry and there is no need to repeatedly develop web2 products. In the past, the most successful companies in the crypto industry were all financial products, from stablecoins and exchanges to payment companies."
Now that the AI era has arrived, there's no need for large-scale financing to build a team, and AI + finance presents new opportunities. We believe that an excellent founder leading a few elites can create a top-tier company, which is currently the biggest opportunity for primary investment.
Circle initiated a proposal on the Aave forum to raise the maximum interest rate for USDC deposits to 48.2%.
According to ChainCatcher, Circle's Chief Economist Gordon Liao initiated a proposal on the Aave Governance Forum to urgently adjust the USDC interest rate parameter in the Aave V3 Ethereum main pool to address the situation where the pool's utilization rate has remained at an extremely high level of 99.87% for four consecutive days after the KelpDAO attack.
Liao stated that Aave's current interest rate mechanism has failed to effectively "clear" the market. The current funding pool has a supply of $1.89 billion, with a borrowing volume of $1.89 billion, leaving less than $3 million in available liquidity. Borrowing rates remain at the upper limit after the inflection point (approximately 14%), and the pool size has shrunk by about $60 million in the past 24 hours—this is because repayment funds have been used to meet queued withdrawal requests.
Therefore, the Slope 2 parameter in the USDC deposit rate curve should be immediately increased from approximately 10% to 40% through the Risk Steward mechanism, and the target should be further increased to 50% within 5 to 7 days through a governance vote. Simultaneously, the Optimal Utilization will be reduced from 92% to 87% during the transition phase, and further reduced to 85% after final confirmation. According to Liao's proposal, under the new parameter settings, when utilization reaches 100%, the maximum USDC deposit rate will increase from approximately 12.6% to 48.2%.
Meme Hot List
According to data from GMGN , a Meme token tracking and analysis platform, as of 09:00 on April 24th,
The top five most popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, and mUSD.
The top five most popular Solana tokens in the past 24 hours are: Swarms, 67, NEET, LOL, and Buttcoin.
The top five most popular cryptocurrencies in the past 24 hours are: SKITTEN, PEPE, BASED, B3, and SKYA.
What are some noteworthy articles to read in the past 24 hours?
As Aave collapsed, Spark rose into the sky.
On April 18, attackers exploited a vulnerability in the validator node of the Kelp DAO cross-chain bridge to release approximately $292 million worth of uncollateralized rsETH out of thin air, which they then deposited into Aave to borrow real WETH .
This batch of uncollateralized rsETH was accepted as compliant collateral, but the actual WETH borrowed could not be covered by an equivalent amount, resulting in Aave facing a bad debt exposure of up to $230.1 million.
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, as of the morning of April 23, Aave TVL had fallen below $30 billion, down from $45.8 billion before the event to $29.6 billion, with an outflow of $16.2 billion, a drop of more than 40%.
Lattice Capital Founder: Crypto VC, Because I Believe, I See
This week's trending topics on crypto Twitter seem to be a shared concern: does the shrinking availability of funds mean that cryptocurrencies are becoming less attractive? There's no doubt that the size of crypto venture capital is clearly shrinking.
The reasons for this trend and its implications are more controversial. Rob Hadick argues that crypto venture capital is concentrating on the best founders and the best funds, which is a sign of an industry maturing. Meltem , on the other hand, believes the contraction is due to (a) a lack of high-quality early-stage founders and (b) the small scalable surface area of cryptocurrencies compared to other high-growth industries.
I don't have much to add to this specific debate. Clearly, there are still outstanding founders building projects in the crypto space. However, compared to 2021, there are significantly fewer founders starting businesses in crypto now, while there are far more in other areas like AI. Is this due to a lack of capital, or does this gap lead to a lack of capital? Both are likely true.
A seasoned Polymarket user's thoughts: We've actually been overtaken by our competitors.
I've had this article sitting in my hands for a while now.
I've been wanting to write this for a while, but I've been holding back, hoping things would quietly correct themselves. Until this morning, when Bloomberg published "Polymarket Loses Leading Position in Predictive Markets Due to Delays and Rebounds," frankly, this report already said most of what I originally wanted to say. So I'll be quoting it extensively from now on, to let it help lighten the tone.
Polymarket is facing increasing operational setbacks in its attempts to reach its key audience (US customers) and has fallen behind its main competitors. (Source: bloomberg.com)
This title is heartbreaking. And it deserves it.
I've been watching Polymarket since mid-2024. I agree with its vision, defend the platform during every regulatory panic, and recommend it to every trader I know. Prediction markets are one of the most important pieces of financial infrastructure in the last decade, and Polymarket is the company I've always hoped to see win in this field.
Who will replace AAVE as the new king?
Ethereum and Solana follow remarkably similar lending models. The only comparable phase transition (from phase one to phase two) is about 25% faster on Solana. With phase three just beginning, it remains to be seen whether Solana can maintain this pace.
- Ethereum's first to second phases (from Compound's peak to Aave establishing its dominance): approximately 2 years
- Solana's first and second phases (from the peak of MarginFi to establishing dominance in Kamino): approximately 18 months
- Both ecosystems are now in the third stage, and new challengers are constantly narrowing the gap.
But this time, I don't think the outcome will be the same. The following will explain why.
