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According to the official announcement, Binance Wallet stated that it will open the Binance Alpha airdrop for collection today at 17:00.This event uses the updated Binance Alpha blind box (Alpha Box) model, and the airdrop pool includes tokens from multiple projects. Users with at least 228 Binance Alpha points can claim a token reward on a first-come, first-served basis. Claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Binance Alpha points.In addition, this airdrop has three reward tiers: Common (80% of the reward pool), Rare (15%), and Ultra Rare (5%), with each tier corresponding to different values of the Alpha blind boxes. Users will be assigned to one of the tiers when claiming, and rewards will be distributed according to the proportion of each tier. If the rewards are not fully distributed, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every 5 minutes.

DogPay announced a strategic partnership with DeCard to jointly launch the DogPay physical payment card, aimed at further bridging stablecoin assets with the global traditional payment network.It is reported that this payment card combines DeCard's regulated card issuance and settlement infrastructure with DogPay's modular digital financial platform. Eligible users can transact at over 150 million Visa-supported merchants worldwide, supporting real-world application scenarios such as offline POS machine consumption, retail shopping, and ATM withdrawals, thereby directly converting stablecoin balances into everyday purchasing power.DogPay officials stated that the launch of the physical payment card aims to meet the growing market demand for compliant and globally accepted digital asset payment tools, further promoting the deep integration of digital assets with regulated financial infrastructure.

AI laboratory Sooth Labs, founded by former Meta employees, is raising approximately $50 million in funding, led by Felicis Ventures, with a post-money valuation of about $335 million.The company plans to develop AI models to predict the likelihood of specific geopolitical events and market events, providing related capabilities to enterprises. Sooth Labs has also received support from Yann LeCun and Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, with Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth serving as an advisor.

According to CoinDesk, Cardano's core development company Input Output submitted nine funding proposals for the 2026 community treasury, totaling $46.8 million, a significant reduction of about 52% from last year's $97.5 million, marking the first step towards gradually reducing reliance on community funds.The nine proposals focus on two main directions: first, the consensus upgrade plan Leios, which is expected to increase Cardano's transaction processing capacity by 10 to 65 times, aiming to exceed 1,000 transactions per second, with testing planned for June and full launch by the end of the year; second, the Bitcoin DeFi system Pogun, which allows Bitcoin holders to lend and earn through Cardano without having to trust centralized institutions, with lending features expected to be publicly released in the second quarter.This voting involves about 1,000 elected representatives (DReps), with the voting deadline set for May 24. The results will test whether the Cardano community views Input Output as a regular funding applicant.Meanwhile, the new stablecoin USDCx in the Cardano ecosystem has reached a circulation of 14.6 million coins within weeks of its launch, and the total locked assets on the network have increased from $137.5 million to $142.7 million.

The cryptocurrency trading platform Bybit has officially launched a USD1 trading series event in collaboration with WLFI, and has listed USD1 spot trading pairs for BTC, ETH, and USDC. The total prize pool for this event reaches 10 million WLFI.It is reported that the event is divided into several sections: from April 22 to May 6, users trading designated USD1 spot trading pairs on the Bybit main site can share a reward of 6 million WLFI; during the same period, users who complete at least 500 USD1 transactions on the Mantle chain via Bybit Alpha can share 1 million WLFI. Additionally, starting from May 6, the USDC/USD1 and USD1/USDT trading pairs will have zero trading fees, and the platform will also launch the Puzzle Hunt event, allowing users to share the remaining 3 million WLFI prize pool through check-ins, trading, and inviting friends.

AI research lab NeoCognition announced the completion of a $40 million seed round financing, led jointly by Cambium Capital and Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from Vista Equity Partners. Angel investors include Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica, among others.The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and was co-founded by Ohio State University associate professor Yu Su, along with Xiang Deng and Yu Gu, focusing on enhancing the reliability of AI agents. Their solution is to enable agents to build domain "world models" in real-world use to adapt to specific business environments, rather than relying on generic pre-trained models. The company is currently targeting enterprise clients and plans to embed sustainably optimized AI agents into SaaS products, with no public products released yet.

According to Fortune, the blockchain project Tempo, supported by Stripe and Paradigm, has launched a "stablecoin consulting" service, providing support for stablecoin adoption to enterprises and financial institutions, including identifying applicable scenarios and dispatching engineers to assist with stablecoin integration.The report states that the American food delivery platform DoorDash is collaborating with Tempo to explore paying delivery personnel with stablecoins; Stripe, Coastal Community Bank, and ARQ are also building stablecoin infrastructure based on Tempo, while Visa, OnePay, Felix, Fifth Third Bank, and Howard Hughes Holdings are integrating their payment services with Tempo.

Binance will launch Chip (CHIP) on April 21, 2026, at 21:30 and open the CHIP/USDT, CHIP/USDC, and CHIP/TRY spot trading pairs. The CHIP deposit channel will open one hour later, and withdrawals are expected to be available on April 22, 2026, at 21:30. Users should note that CHIP will have a seed label, and the associated trading risks are relatively high.

According to DL News, the Russian government has published a draft bill on the State Duma website, proposing to hold criminal liability for organizing the circulation of digital currencies without registration or permission from the Central Bank of Russia, with a maximum penalty of 7 years of forced labor.The draft states that ordinary violators could face fines of up to approximately $4,000 and a maximum sentence of 4 years; operators of large cryptocurrency trading platforms could face fines of up to approximately $13,000, and responsible individuals could be sentenced to 5 to 7 years. The bill also proposes that most cryptocurrency transactions be completed through commercial bank apps and imposes penalties on industrial cryptocurrency miners for unreported activities. If approved by the State Duma and the president, the new regulations are set to take effect on July 1, 2027.

The custodian service provider Fireblocks will be responsible for the issuance and distribution of the euro stablecoin by the Qivalis consortium, which is expected to launch in the second half of 2026, regulated by the Dutch central bank and in compliance with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR).Qivalis members include 12 European banks such as BBVA, BNP Paribas, ING, and UniCredit. Reports indicate that the current stablecoin market size is approximately $305 billion, of which about 99% are dollar stablecoins, and the euro stablecoin market size is around $650 million. Qivalis plans to enhance the application of euro stablecoins in institutional scenarios with compliant products.

The Japan Securities Clearing Corporation (JSCC), a clearing institution under the Japan Exchange Group, has partnered with Mizuho Bank, Nomura Securities, and Digital Asset to launch a proof-of-concept trial aimed at exploring the use of blockchain technology for collateral management of Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs).According to a joint statement released on Monday, the trial will integrate existing systems from multiple institutions through the Canton Network to test the on-chain transfer and management of JGBs. This initiative aims to assess the feasibility of achieving real-time collateral trading while ensuring compliance with relevant financial instruments and trading laws. The trial will also investigate cross-border use cases involving clearinghouses, institutional investors, and other market participants.JSCC stated that this trial is part of a broader initiative under the Financial Services Agency's "Payment Innovation Project." As overseas markets like the United States make progress in testing similar infrastructures, advancing JGBs collateral management has become an "urgent priority." Previously, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) in the U.S. launched a pilot to tokenize U.S. Treasury securities, and South Korea is also conducting related tests.

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.

Jeff Bezos is about to complete a $10 billion financing deal, with the valuation of his lab reaching $38 billion. This lab focuses on developing artificial intelligence technologies that can understand the physical world and transform engineering and manufacturing.According to insiders, the company, codenamed "Project Prometheus," plans to complete a round of financing soon, and with the newly injected funds, the valuation will reach $38 billion. Insiders added that this agreement will make the company one of the best-funded early-stage startups in the world, which includes the $6.2 billion in initial funding raised in November, but due to strong market demand, the scale of financing has been further expanded. According to one insider, JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock are among the participants in this new round of investment.

According to CoinDesk, citing informed sources, Coinbase is collaborating with the cryptocurrency exchange platform Bybit to explore methods for tokenization, custody, and distribution of assets such as U.S. public and pre-IPO stocks.The informed source added that the ongoing discussions do not involve any form of equity acquisition or similar transactions. Bybit's plans to enter the U.S. market involve a new entity led by former co-CEO Helen Liu, working with a local partner providing licensing and compliance services whose identity has not been disclosed, rather than Coinbase.CoinDesk reported that both Bybit and Coinbase declined to comment.

At the 13th anniversary gala "GATE GALA 13" held at the Rosewood Hotel in Hong Kong, Gate founder and CEO Dr. Han delivered a keynote speech titled "How We Grow Together in the Crypto Industry," providing a systematic sharing on the future development path of the crypto industry. The event attracted over 300 institutional representatives, partners, and industry guests from around the world.In his speech, Dr. Han pointed out that the crypto industry is gradually moving from early breakthroughs to a new stage of multi-ecosystem collaborative development. Among them, the integration of CEX, DEX, and TradFi will become an important direction for the evolution of infrastructure, while the introduction of RWA, multi-asset allocation, and AI technology is reshaping the application boundaries and efficiency models of the industry.He further stated that future industry competition will no longer be limited to single products or tracks, but will depend on the platform's comprehensive capabilities in multi-asset integration, technological collaboration, and global resource connectivity. As institutional participation continues to rise, the industry as a whole will accelerate towards a more mature and systematic direction.

At the "Crypto 2026: From Cryptocurrency to Smart Economy" themed forum held in Hong Kong, guests including KiteAI's Asia Pacific head Laughing, Sentient's Asia Pacific head Anita, Brevis content director Nic Tang, Mentis product head Jerry, and Predict.fun's Asia Pacific BD head Ah Huang Ricardo engaged in a roundtable discussion on the theme "AI × Crypto --- The Foundation of the Next Generation Digital Economy."Regarding whether the outbreak of open-source AI Agents (such as "raising lobsters") is a short-term sentiment or a long-term trend, Laughing believes this marks a paradigm shift of AI from "conversational" to "executive," signaling the beginning of a long-term trend. However, Agents lack a physical identity, making it difficult for merchants to trust their trading behavior, and issues of data leakage and uncontrollability remain obstacles that must be overcome for scaling. Jerry pointed out, based on his own usage experience, that current Agents face security risks such as memory fuzziness, token consumption in dead loops, and accidental file deletion. Although newly emerged Agents have improvements, they still have shortcomings. Ah Huang Ricardo stated that behind the short-term sentiment is real user demand, but truly reproducible profitable trading Agents are still very rare, and there is a long way to go.Addressing core bottlenecks such as trust, security, and verifiability, Nic Tang emphasized that the current execution process of Agents is like a black box, where users cannot verify whether their decisions are executed as promised. Zero-knowledge proof technology can mathematically prove the source of an Agent's output and compliance with behavior, while not exposing privacy. Anita added that Sentient is committed to building an open and collaborative AI agent network, promoting the deep integration of AI and blockchain in identity, data, and incentive layers, providing foundational support for the next generation digital economy.Regarding the application scenarios that are likely to scale first, the guests generally believe that the programming field is relatively mature, and Agents in prediction markets perform better than humans in specific tracks due to their rationality and lack of emotions. In the short term, they are optimistic about API Marketplace and cross-platform consumer shopping Agents, while in the medium term, they are optimistic about content creation AI (such as AI influencers). Agent-to-Agent interaction and the Agent/Skill Marketplace are seen as important future trends.

According to official news, on April 18 at 20:00, AINFT under Bai B.AI will jointly hold a special cooperation seminar on "Payment Systems under the AI Economy" with the PKUBlockchain Association of Peking University. This seminar is based on the emerging context of Web 4.0 and aims to explore in depth how payment, as a key infrastructure, drives the paradigm shift of AI from "content generation" to "transaction decision-making." Both parties will collaboratively delve into the innovative practices in the AI economic ecosystem and financial transaction system through a deep dissection of the intersectional narrative of AI and PayFi, reshaping the boundaries of future intelligent finance.

According to the official announcement, Binance Wallet stated that it will open the Binance Alpha airdrop collection today at 17:00.This event uses the updated Binance Alpha Box model, and the airdrop fund pool includes tokens from multiple projects. Users with at least 242 Binance Alpha points can claim a token reward on a first-come, first-served basis. Claiming the airdrop will consume 15 Binance Alpha points.In addition, this airdrop has three reward tiers: Common (80% of the reward pool), Rare (15%), and Ultra Rare (5%), with each tier corresponding to different Alpha Box values. Users will be assigned to one of the above tiers when claiming. Rewards will be distributed according to these tier proportions. If the rewards are not fully distributed, the points threshold will automatically decrease by 5 points every 5 minutes.

Claw Wallet, a Web3 wallet infrastructure designed for AI Agents, announced a strategic partnership with TagAI and TagClaw. By deeply integrating Claw Wallet's secure AI-native infrastructure with TagAI's AI and socially predictive community layer, as well as TagClaw's on-chain social collaborative network, the three parties are jointly defining a new standard for the AI Agent ecosystem.The focus of this collaboration is to introduce TagClaw's Skill into Claw Wallet, empowering AI Agents with stronger intelligent coordination capabilities, making on-chain AI interactions more seamless, secure, and socially oriented. Currently, the three parties are fully committed to building a decentralized AI Agent infrastructure based on the BNB Chain, promoting the leap from independent tools to a collaborative social network for AI Agents.