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The next-generation financial operating system PhotonPay has won three awards at the Mastercard Annual Partner Awards Gala, namely: New Product Launch Award (Physical Card), New Service Launch Award (MDES Digital Empowerment), and New Service Launch Award (Consulting Services). This marks PhotonPay's role as a next-generation financial operating system that is comprehensively reshaping the financial infrastructure landscape for global enterprises.The PhotonPay physical card is issued on the Mastercard network, supporting real-time consumption tracking globally, multi-level limit control, 3D Secure authentication, and significantly reducing cross-border transaction fees. The flexible open API meets the personalized customization needs of enterprises.MDES Digital Empowerment reflects the deep integration of PhotonPay with Mastercard's digital empowerment services, allowing virtual and physical cards to be linked to Apple Pay and Google Pay in seconds, with transaction security ensured throughout by tokenization technology.The Consulting Services Award recognizes the effective collaboration between PhotonPay and the Mastercard expert team, helping PhotonPay create more compliant and competitive card product solutions for global clients.Lewison, founder and CEO of PhotonPay, stated that these honors reflect Mastercard's trust in PhotonPay and PhotonPay's adherence to its own standards. The company remains focused on building financial infrastructure that provides global enterprises with the tools for borderless operation, expansion, and competition.

Gnosis DAO is conducting a Snapshot vote proposing to allow GNO holders to proportionally acquire shares of the DAO treasury through a voluntary redemption mechanism. According to analyst Ignas, the treasury holds approximately $223 million in assets (including ETH, stablecoins, and ecosystem tokens), with about 1.3 million GNO eligible for redemption, each corresponding to about $170 in treasury value, while the current trading price of GNO is around $132, representing a discount of about 27%.The vote reversed twice within 24 hours: after Gnosis co-founder Stefan George cast a dissenting vote, the situation briefly turned, but then a whale wallet holding 67,000 GNO cast a supporting vote, putting the supporters back in the lead. Currently, about 116,000 GNO are in favor (about 65%), 59,600 against, and 1,600 abstentions, surpassing the quorum threshold of 75,000 votes, with voting continuing until May 12.Supporters believe that Gnosis Ltd. has become a funding black hole structurally misaligned with the interests of holders, while opponents warn that redemption will weaken projects with actual users such as Gnosis Pay, Circles, and Gnosis Chain, and may trigger a chain reaction for other DAOs trading below net asset value.

According to the official blog of Ondo Finance, Ondo Finance (Ondo) has completed its first near-real-time tokenized U.S. Treasury fund cross-border interbank exchange in collaboration with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, Mastercard, and Ripple.In this pilot project, Ripple exchanged its Ondo short-term U.S. government bonds (OUSG) held on the XRP Ledger. After processing the exchange, Ondo sent fiat payment instructions via the Mastercard Multi-Token Network, with the settlement of funds executed by the blockchain infrastructure of Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, and the U.S. dollar funds delivered to Ripple's bank account in Singapore through its correspondent banking network.This project demonstrates the feasibility of public blockchain infrastructure working in conjunction with interbank settlement systems, establishing a framework for global banks to utilize tokenized assets for 24/7 real-time cross-border settlements.

According to Jinshi reports, the UK's financial regulatory authority has launched an investigation into Mastercard (MA.N), Visa (V.N), and PayPal (PYPL.O) due to suspicions of anti-competitive behavior regarding the flow and use of funds in the PayPal digital wallet.The UK's Financial Conduct Authority stated on Wednesday that it has not yet concluded whether the relevant companies have violated competition law. PayPal disclosed this investigation in a regulatory filing this week. A representative from PayPal stated that the company is cooperating with the FCA investigation but will not comment further as the case is still ongoing.

According to The Block, London-based crypto startup OpenTrade has completed a $17 million strategic financing round, led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital, with participation from a16z crypto, AlbionVC, CMCC Global, and others, bringing its total funding to over $30 million.OpenTrade offers on-chain and real-world asset collateralized lending and stablecoin yield products aimed at institutions, planning to use this round of funding to expand its infrastructure in both regulated and unregulated scenarios. Its products include a permissionless protocol layer and a yield vault composition framework called Curation+, which can design yield strategies across RWA and on-chain assets for fintech companies, digital banks, vaults, and asset issuers. OpenTrade claims its total locked value has surpassed $200 million, with a projected transaction volume exceeding $250 million in 2025, and is expected to accumulate over $1 billion by the end of 2026.

According to Forbes, the Bitcoin mining company GoMining plans to launch its Bitcoin native payment protocol GoBTC, based on its own block production, at the Consensus conference.The protocol offers users instant authorization and settlement on the Bitcoin mainnet within a few hours, charging merchants a fee rate of 0.2%, which is an order of magnitude lower than the 1.5% to 3.5% rates of Visa and Mastercard.

According to market news, Binance has announced the launch of a user-controlled "Withdraw Protection" feature, aimed at preventing offline coercion attacks (commonly known as "wrench attacks") against cryptocurrency holders. This feature allows users to actively lock their account withdrawal permissions for 1 to 7 days and provides a stricter "lock mode," which cannot be lifted early during the set period.Binance stated that this locking mechanism cannot be overridden by platform customer service but is controlled by internal policy, not an on-chain cryptographic lock. Binance's Chief Security Officer, Jimmy Su, indicated that this move stems from the risk trends observed on the platform, including cases where some users in high-risk areas have been forced to transfer funds. By setting a withdrawal delay, it can buy users time to respond and recover in extreme situations.Data shows that incidents of offline coercion against cryptocurrency users are significantly rising in 2025, with related attacks often bypassing traditional account security mechanisms, as the actions are completed by the users themselves under pressure. Industry insiders believe that the time-lock mechanism can change this risk model to some extent. Binance emphasizes that this feature does not affect law enforcement agencies' ability to act in accordance with the law, while also advising users to strengthen API key management and privacy protection to reduce the risk of being targeted.

According to Fortune, the stablecoin infrastructure startup Rain is currently valued at $1.95 billion and has announced a partnership with payment giant Mastercard to issue credit and prepaid cards, as well as explore pathways for using stablecoins for payment settlements.Previously, Rain primarily relied on the Visa network to issue card products, and this collaboration with Mastercard signifies its entry into the "dual card network" layout phase, further expanding its institutional client market. Rain stated that this partnership will focus on serving large institutional clients that are deeply bound to a single payment network, enabling them to introduce stablecoin settlement capabilities without changing their existing payment systems.Meanwhile, the application of stablecoins continues to expand at the industry level, with institutions such as Stripe and Coinbase promoting the integration of stablecoin payments and settlements, indicating that the fusion of traditional finance and crypto payment infrastructure is accelerating. Analysts believe that as the regulatory framework becomes clearer, stablecoins are rapidly shifting from trading tools to enterprise payment and cross-border settlement infrastructure.

According to The Block, MoonPay has launched the "MoonAgents Card," a stablecoin debit card based on the Mastercard network, designed specifically for AI agents, allowing them to spend directly from on-chain self-custody wallets.This virtual card is issued through Monavate and in collaboration with the Exodus wallet, enabling real-time conversion of stablecoins to fiat for payments to online merchants worldwide that accept Mastercard, without the need to preload funds or move assets off-chain; in case of transaction failure, funds are immediately returned to the wallet, and custody of the wallet always remains unchanged.The CEO of MoonPay stated that this addresses the pain point of AI agents being unable to spend at merchants previously. It is currently available in the UK and Latin America through MoonPay CLI, with the US and EU set to launch soon (subject to KYC completion). This move targets the trend of AI agents increasingly using cryptocurrency for transactions in the future.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden are pressuring both parties regarding Tether's alleged bribery of U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.According to reports, Tether provided undisclosed loans to a trust fund benefiting Howard Lutnick's children, while Cantor Fitzgerald, where Howard Lutnick previously worked, was also Tether's reserve asset management agency. Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden also pointed out that the previously passed "Genius Act" benefited Tether, which had lobbied in support of the bill, suggesting potential quid pro quo.

Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a document formally approving the rule change proposal submitted by the Nasdaq ISE exchange (Document No. SR-ISE-2025-26, amended by Amendment No. 5). This proposal significantly increases the same market direction position and exercise limits for iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) options from the original 250,000 contracts to 1,000,000 contracts.In the approval order, the SEC stated that after reviewing the data and analysis provided by the exchange, it believes the new limits meet the requirements of Section 6(b)(5) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which aims to prevent fraud and manipulation and protect investors and the public interest.

According to Jinshi reports, the Federal Reserve FOMC statement passed the decision to cut interest rates by 0.25 percentage points with a vote of 8 to 4. Milan voted against it, supporting the rate cut, while Harker, Kashkari, and Logan voted against including a bias towards easing monetary policy in the statement.

The Singapore Police Force's Anti-Fraud Centre, in collaboration with the Cyber Investigation Department and cryptocurrency platforms such as Coinbase, Coinhako, StraitsX, and Upbit, launched a month-long special enforcement operation from March 16 to April 15 this year, successfully intercepting over 2.86 million yuan in fraudulent funds.During the operation, authorities utilized analysis tools from blockchain intelligence companies TRM Labs and Chainalysis to identify victims involved in various cases, including impersonation of government officials, investment fraud, job scam, and online romance scams, and completed over 90 direct interventions via phone and face-to-face meetings. The police stated that the effectiveness of this operation was attributed to the rapid information-sharing mechanism between law enforcement agencies and private platforms, and emphasized the ongoing commitment to deepen public-private cooperation to address the increasingly complex threats of cryptocurrency fraud.

India is promoting the application of the digital rupee through about 10 welfare pilot projects, distributing part of the approximately $80 billion in subsidies and food benefits via e-rupee to reduce fund leakage and corruption, and to provide a clearer use case for central bank digital currency.At the same time, the Reserve Bank of India is pushing for a cross-member CBDC interconnection plan to be proposed at the 2026 BRICS summit, aiming to enhance the efficiency of cross-border trade settlements and reduce reliance on the US dollar. Currently, there are about 10 million e-rupee users, with a cumulative transaction amount of approximately $3.6 billion, which is still significantly lower than the UPI system that processes about $300 billion in transactions monthly in India.

KuCoin announced the launch of KuCard in Australia, allowing users to use cryptocurrency assets for daily consumption at merchants worldwide that accept Mastercard, with payment options through Apple Pay and Google Pay. The service initially supports 37 USDC trading pairs, covering mainstream digital assets such as BTC, ETH, and USDT, with real-time conversion to fiat currency during the settlement process. KuCoin stated that this move is an important step in enhancing compliance and transparency in the cryptocurrency payment experience, and it is the latest progress in promoting the real-world application of cryptocurrency assets after completing its registration with AUSTRAC as a digital currency exchange (DCE).

Vercel's CEO Guillermo Rauch tweeted that the team has completed an in-depth security investigation, analyzing nearly 1 PB of complete Vercel network and API logs, far exceeding the initial Context.ai account breach incident.The investigation revealed that the attackers' activities extended beyond Context.ai and have distributed malware on a broader scale, targeting account keys from platforms like Vercel. Once the keys are obtained, the attackers quickly and comprehensively enumerate non-sensitive environment variables. Current measures include deepening collaboration with industry partners such as Microsoft, AWS, and Wiz to jointly protect the broader internet ecosystem; other suspected victims have been notified and advised to immediately rotate credentials and strengthen security best practices.

SpaceX stated in its IPO application documents that orbital AI computing and the industrialization efforts on the Moon and Mars are still in the early stages, involving significant technological complexities that may not be commercially viable.Elon Musk has called space AI computing an obvious choice, believing that orbit could become the lowest-cost storage location for AI within two to three years. The documents warn that orbital AI data centers operate in harsh and unpredictable space environments, where systems may fail. Additionally, delays in the development of Starship could also limit the company's growth strategy. SpaceX currently targets a valuation of approximately $1.75 trillion and plans to raise $75 billion in the coming months.

According to BeInCrypto, Mastercard has joined the Blockchain Security Standards Committee (BSSC) as a charter-level member, collaborating with members such as Coinbase, Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, and BitGo to develop a security framework for blockchain networks and tokenized assets.Mastercard will also join a working group focused on security and privacy guidelines, with Claire Le Gal from the security solutions department, responsible for fraud prevention, cyber resilience, disputes, and threat intelligence, representing Mastercard on the BSSC board. The executive director of BSSC stated that Mastercard's payment experience is of significant value in establishing robust blockchain security rules. Mastercard has launched multi-token networks and crypto credential products aimed at embedding trust in blockchain and tokenized infrastructure.

ChainCatcher reported live that Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Mysten Labs, delivered a keynote speech at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. He stated that the core team members come from Facebook and were responsible for launching the global payment network Libra, aiming to make fund transfers as simple as sending messages. He announced that Sui will be the first high-speed public blockchain to achieve zero transaction fees for transfers across the network, regardless of the transfer amount ranging from $0.0005 to $1 billion, covering all stablecoins such as USDC, USDT, and Sui Dollar.In terms of privacy, Sui will provide bank-grade on-chain privacy, utilizing advanced cryptography to ensure that transaction history and balances are not visible to third parties, while fully compliant with regulatory requirements. Regarding yields, he introduced the Sui Dollar launched in collaboration with Stripe, which generates approximately 3.5% returns that will be directly reinvested into the network ecosystem and users, rather than flowing to intermediaries.He also announced the launch of the Bitcoin DeFi protocol Hashi aimed at institutions, allowing sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and ETF holders to deploy Bitcoin into DeFi for yields without triggering taxable events, supported by legal opinions from top U.S. law firm Fenwick & West. Additionally, Sui's on-chain deep order book DeepBook supports large transactions with extremely low slippage for instant on-chain exchanges between assets such as BTC, gold, USD, and EUR.In the AI agent economy, he pointed out that Stripe estimates a need for processing capacity of 1 billion transactions per second in the future, while Sui employs a horizontally scalable architecture similar to that of Google Search and Facebook infrastructure, capable of scaling on demand to millions or even tens of millions of TPS. The full-stack atomic composability provided by Sui is its core differentiated advantage, allowing agents to execute multiple cross-application transactions simultaneously and settle them in one go, which cannot be achieved on AWS, Google, or any existing Web3 platform. He also announced a partnership with RedotPay, enabling users to spend Sui Dollars at over 130 million merchants worldwide and positioning Sui as an alternative to SWIFT.

Vercel announced a security incident analysis, stating that some of its internal systems were accessed without authorization. This was caused by a third-party AI tool, Context.ai, used by an employee being compromised, allowing the attacker to take over their Google Workspace account and access some environment configuration data.The initial impact is that a small number of environment variables not marked as "sensitive" (such as API Keys, Tokens, etc.) may have been leaked. Relevant users have been notified and advised to rotate their credentials immediately. There is currently no evidence that data marked as "sensitive" or the supply chain (such as npm packages) has been tampered with.Vercel stated that the attacker possesses a high level of technical skill and has partnered with Mandiant and several security agencies to investigate, and has reported the incident to law enforcement. They also emphasized that platform services are still operating normally. Additionally, users are advised to enable multi-factor authentication, comprehensively rotate potentially leaked environment variables, and check account activity logs and deployment records to prevent further risks.