The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has concluded its investigation into PayPal’s dollar-backed stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), without taking enforcement action, the company announced. In November 2023, PayPal received a subpoena...
Read moreThe U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has concluded its investigation into PayPal’s dollar-backed stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), without taking enforcement action, the company announced. In November 2023, PayPal received a subpoena from the SEC Division of Enforcement regarding PayPal USD stablecoin, requesting documents. In February 2025, the SEC informed PayPal that it was closing the inquiry without enforcement action. This development marks the latest move by the SEC to drop investigations and lawsuits against crypto companies.
Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar, have become a focal point in the regulatory debate surrounding cryptocurrencies. Regulators are questioning whether these instruments resemble securities or money market funds, leading to increased scrutiny on issuers such as Circle and Tether. PayPal’s involvement in the stablecoin space has attracted attention due to its size, brand recognition, and presence across traditional and digital finance.
The resolution of the SEC’s investigation is a positive development for PayPal as it continues to expand its blockchain-based payment offerings. The company launched PYUSD on Ethereum in August 2023 as a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bills and dollar deposits, intended for use in peer-to-peer payments, commerce, and decentralized applications.
The news comes at a time when stablecoins are gaining popularity among both crypto and traditional finance companies. Ripple, Mastercard, Visa, Dutch bank ING, and Stripe are among the companies entering the stablecoin market. PayPal recently announced plans to offer U.S. users a 3.7% yield on balances of its PYUSD to compete in the growing stablecoin market. The company’s stablecoin currently has a market cap of $887 million, ranking it sixth among stablecoin issuers according to CoinMarketCap.
Overall, stablecoins are seen as a disruptive innovation in the payments industry, with the potential to revolutionize money transfers similar to how instant messaging transformed cross-border communication. As competition in the stablecoin space heats up, companies are looking to differentiate themselves and attract users by offering attractive yields and innovative features.
Richard Kim, the founder of the crypto casino Zero Edge, has been arrested on allegations of using investors’ funds for gambling. The FBI complaint filed in the Southern District of New...
Read moreRichard Kim, the founder of the crypto casino Zero Edge, has been arrested on allegations of using investors’ funds for gambling. The FBI complaint filed in the Southern District of New York accused Kim of deceiving investors into investing in Zero Edge, then misappropriating millions of dollars of their funds. It was reported that Kim lost almost all of the $7 million raised from investors, leading to charges of securities fraud and wire fraud.
Reports from last year by CoinDesk revealed that Kim’s gambling struggles caused substantial financial losses at Zero Edge. Kim admitted to CoinDesk that he had gambled away over $3.67 million of investors’ funds through risky leveraged crypto trades. He confessed that it all started with an $80,000 phishing scam, which triggered a chain of high-risk trading activities to recover the lost money.
Despite losing a significant portion of the raised funds, Kim eventually reported himself to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However, the FBI complaint stated that Kim’s accounts of where the funds went were misleading, failing to disclose that some were transferred to Shuffle.com, a gambling website.
Kim’s fall from grace is evident, considering his previous roles at Galaxy, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs. Investors, including Galaxy, suffered losses due to Kim’s actions at Zero Edge. Galaxy’s head of communications confirmed their minimal investment in Zero Edge and their immediate reporting of Kim’s activities to the authorities.
Zero Edge was intended to be a revolutionary crypto casino that aimed to provide transparency and fairness to gamblers. Although the platform never launched, Kim’s past struggles with gambling addiction fueled his motivation to create a gambling platform that eliminated the house’s unfair advantage.
As the investigation into Kim continues, his arrest serves as a cautionary tale about the risks of misusing investors’ funds in the crypto industry.
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By [Your Name] (All times ET unless indicated otherwise) Bitcoin (BTC) continues to defy global economic uncertainty, inching closer to reclaiming $86,000. It is now less than 3% away from its...
Read moreBy [Your Name] (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)
Bitcoin (BTC) continues to defy global economic uncertainty, inching closer to reclaiming $86,000. It is now less than 3% away from its “Liberation Day” high. To put the move into perspective, bitcoin dominance — which measures BTC’s share of the total cryptocurrency market cap — is approaching 64%, a level not seen since January 2021.
In contrast, the Nasdaq 100 is still 5% away from its own Liberation Day high, underscoring bitcoin’s relative strength versus U.S. equities.
According to X account Cheddar Flow, the S&P 500 has just formed a “death cross” — a traditionally bearish signal that occurs when the 50-day moving average falls below the 200-day moving average. The last time this happened was March 15, 2022, when S&P 500 initially rose by 11% in the following week, only to be followed by a 20% decline. Bearish sentiment is also reflected in the options market, where investors are reportedly buying large volumes of NVDA puts, signaling expectations of lower prices.
In a Bloomberg interview on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reaffirmed confidence in the U.S. bond market, dismissing concerns that foreign nations are dumping Treasuries.
“I am not seeing a dumping of U.S. Treasuries,” Bessent said. “The Treasury has lots of tools, but we’re a long way from needing them.” He also emphasized the enduring status of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, despite the DXY index — which measures the dollar’s value against a basket of major trading partners — falling below 100 and dropping over 10% in recent weeks.
Bessent also confirmed that the Trump administration is seeking a new Federal Reserve Chair to replace Jerome Powell, with interviews set to begin later in the year. He concluded the interview by suggesting that the VIX (S&P 500 volatility index) may have peaked after the largest one-day percentage drop in its history last week. Stay alert!
What to Watch:
Crypto:
April 15: The first SmarDEX (SDEX) halving means the SDEX token’s distribution will be cut by 50% for the next 12 months.
April 16: HashKey Chain (HSK) mainnet upgrade enhances network stability and fee control capabilities.
April 17: EigenLayer (EIGEN) activates slashing on Ethereum mainnet, enforcing penalties for operator misconduct.
April 18: Pepecoin (PEP), a layer-1, proof-of-work blockchain, undergoes its second halving, reducing block rewards to 15,625 PEP per block.
April 20, 11 p.m.: BNB Chain (BNB) — opBNB mainnet hardfork.
April 21: Coinbase Derivatives will list XRP futures pending approval by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Macro:
April 15, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases March consumer price inflation data.
Core Inflation Rate MoM Prev. 0.7%
Core Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 2.7%
Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.6% vs. Prev. 1.1%
Inflation Rate YoY Est. 2.6% vs. Prev. 2.6%
April 16, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Census Bureau releases March retail sales data.
Retail Sales MoM Est. 1.4% vs. Prev. 0.2%
Retail Sales YoY Prev. 3.1%
April 16, 9:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada releases its latest interest rate decision, followed by a press conference 45 minutes later.
Policy Interest Rate Est. 2.75% vs. Prev. 2.75%
April 16, 1:30 p.m.: Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell will deliver an “Economic Outlook” speech. Livestream link.
April 17, 8:30 a.m.: U.S. Census Bureau releases March new residential construction data.
Housing Starts Est. 1.42M vs. Prev. 1.501M
Housing Starts MoM Prev. 11.2%
April 17, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended April 12.
Initial Jobless Claims Est. 226K vs. Prev. 223K
April 17, 7:30 p.m.: Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications releases March consumer price index (CPI) data.
Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 3.2% vs. Prev. 3%
Inflation Rate MoM Prev. -0.1%
Inflation Rate YoY Prev. 3.7%
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
April 22: Tesla (TSLA), post-market
April 30: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market
Token Events:
Governance votes & calls
Venus DAO is discussing the forced liquidation of the remaining debt owed by a BNB bridge exploiter account that “supplied extraneously minted BNB to Venus and generated an over-collateralized debt position.”
Aave DAO is discussing taking further steps to deprecate Synthetix’s sUSD on Aave V3 Optimism over technical developments that have “compromised its ability to consistently maintain its peg.”
GMX DAO is discussing the establishment of a GMX reserve on Solana, which would involve bridging $500,000 in GMX to the blockchain and transferring the funds to the GMX-Solana Treasury.
Treasure DAO is discussing handing the core contributor team the authority to wind down and close the Treasure Chain infrastructure on ZKsync and manage the primary MAGIC-ETH protocol-owned liquidity pool given the “crucial financial situation” of the protocol.
April 15, 10 a.m.: Injective to hold an X Spaces session with Guardian.
April 16, 7 a.m.: Aergo to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the future of decentralized artificial intelligence and the project.
April 16, 3 p.m.: Zcash to host a Town Hall on LockBox Distribution & Governance.
Unlocks
April 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1.09% of its circulating supply worth $10.08 million.
April 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 2.01% of its circulating supply worth $27.17 million.
April 18: Official Trump (TRUMP) to unlock 20.25% of its circulating supply worth $325.97 million.
April 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.65% of its circulating supply worth $82.60 million.
April 18: UXLINK (UXLINK) to unlock 11.09% of its circulating supply worth $18.29 million.
April 18: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.37% of its circulating supply worth $10.07 million.
Token Launches
April 15: WalletConnect Token (WCT) to be listed on Binance, Bitget, AscendEX, BingX, BYDFi, LBank, Coinlist and others.
April 16: Badger (BADGER), Balacner (BAL), Beta Finance (BETA), Cortex (CTXC), Cream Finance (CREAM), Firo (FIRO), Kava Lend (KAVA), NULS (NULS), Prosper (PROS), Status (SNT), TROY (TROY), UniLend Finance (UFT), VIDT DAO (VIDT) and aelf (ELF) to be delisted from Binance.
April 22: Hyperlane to airdrop its HYPER tokens.
Conferences:
Day 2 of 3: Morocco WEB3FEST GITEX Edition (Marrakech)
April 15: Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Summit (online)
Day 1 of 2: BUIDL Asia 2025 (Seoul)
Day 1 of 2: World Financial Innovation Series 2025 (Hanoi, Vietnam)
Day 1 of 3: NexTech Week Tokyo
April 22-24: Money20/20 Asia (Bangkok)
April 23: Crypto Horizons 2025 (Dubai)
April 23-24: Blockchain Forum 2025 (Moscow)
Token Talk
Story Protocol’s IP tokens experienced a 20% drop and recovery within hours during an unusual trading session on Monday.
Trading volume surged on exchanges including Binance and OKX Spot, with $138 million recorded after the price rebound.
The sudden price movement was isolated from broader market trends, sparking speculation about insider activity or coordinated selling.
Also on Monday, MANTRA’s OM token plummeted over 90% in hours, dropping from around $6.30 to as low as 37 cents and wiping out over $5 billion in market capitalization.
The token has since rebounded slightly to trade around 63 cents.
Laser Digital, a Nomura-backed investor, was initially flagged for depositing $41 million in OM to OKX, but the company denied selling, clarifying it was collateral return from a financing trade. Shorooq Investors also denied selling.
Derivatives Positioning
BTC shorts have been liquidated on most exchanges in the past 24 hours, excluding BitMEX and Gate.io, according to Coinglass. The opposite is the case in ETH.
XRP’s perpetual futures open interest has dropped from 544.7 million XRP to 480 million XRP, diverging from the price recovery seen since Monday last week.
SUI, ONDO, ADA and APT have seen a notable increase in futures open interest in the past 24 hours. Of those, XMR is the only one with the positive OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta, representing net buying pressure.
On Deribit, short-dated BTC and ETH options continue to show a bias for protective puts, suggesting cautious sentiment.
Flows on OTC desk Paradigm have been mixed with both calls and puts bought in the April expiry.
Market Movements:
BTC is up 1.19% from 4 p.m. ET Monday at $85,877.18 (24hrs: +1.35%)
ETH is up 0.59% at $1,645.30 (24hrs: -1.97%)
CoinDesk 20 is up 0.99% at 2,519.69 (24hrs: +0.19%)
Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is up 18 bps at 3.18%
BTC funding rate is at 0.0184% (6.7003% annualized) on Binance
DXY is unchanged at 99.70
Gold is up 1.26% at $3,245.30/oz
Silver is up 0.81% at $32.35/oz
Nikkei 225 closed +0.84% at 34,267.54
Hang Seng closed +0.23% at 21,466.27
FTSE is up 0.92% at 8,209.04
Euro Stoxx 50 is up 0.82% at 4,951.51
DJIA closed on Tuesday +0.78% at 40,524.79
S&P 500 closed +0.79% at 5,405.97
Nasdaq closed +0.64% at 16,831.48
S&P/TSX Composite Index closed +1.18% at 23,866.50
S&P 40 Latin America closed +1.8% at 2,340.02
U.S. 10-year Treasury rate is up 1 bp at 4.39%
E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.12% at 5,447.25
E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.26% at 18,983.25
E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index futures are unchanged at 40,750.00
Bitcoin Stats:
BTC Dominance: 63.80 (0.16%)
Ethereum to bitcoin ratio: 0.01913 (-0.31%)
Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 896 EH/s
Hashprice (spot): $44.1 PH/s
Total Fees: 6.33 BTC / $536,017
CME Futures Open Interest: 134,730
BTC priced in gold: 26.6 oz
BTC vs gold market cap: 7.56%
Technical Analysis
On Monday, the bitcoin cash-bitcoin (BCH/BTC) ratio failed to penetrate the trendline characterizing the 12-month bear market.
A potential move above the trendline could see breakout traders join the market, lifting BCH higher.
Crypto Equities
Strategy (MSTR): closed on Monday at $311.45 (+3.82%), up 0.62% at $313.38 in pre-market
Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $176.58 (+0.62%), up 1.28% at $178.84
Galaxy Digital Holdings (GLXY): closed at C$15.81 (+3.47%)
MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $12.95 (+3.52%), up 1.24% at $13.11
Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $7.01 (-0.71%), up 0.71% at $7.06
Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $7.06 (-0.14%)
CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $7.78 (+3.73%), up 1.29% at $7.88
CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $12.70 (+1.44%), up 1.44% at $12.90
Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $34.26 (+1.48%)
Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $39.43 (-10.55%), unchanged in pre-market
ETF Flows
Spot BTC ETFs:
Daily net flow: $1.5 million
Cumulative net flows: $35.46 billion
Total BTC holdings ~1.11 million
Spot ETH ETFs
Daily net flow: -$6 million
Cumulative net flows: $2.28 billion
Total ETH holdings ~3.36 million
Source: Farside Investors
Overnight Flows
Chart of the Day Personalized: Disney’s Bob Iger to exit Apple’s board
In the Ether
**Insert interesting content about current events, stories, etc. in the crypto world**
That’s all for now, stay in-the-know with The Parrot Press for the latest updates and insights on the dynamic world of cryptocurrencies and finance!
The Cardano Foundation has recently unveiled Veridian, an innovative open-source platform designed to assist individuals and businesses in managing their digital identities. This platform includes the Veridian Wallet, a tool created...
Read moreThe Cardano Foundation has recently unveiled Veridian, an innovative open-source platform designed to assist individuals and businesses in managing their digital identities. This platform includes the Veridian Wallet, a tool created to safeguard personal information and enable users to prove their identity online without the usual risks associated with sharing sensitive data.
In today’s digital landscape, the need to verify one’s identity online is more crucial and risky than ever before. Current systems for healthcare, banking, shipping, and educational records often leave data vulnerable, especially with the proliferation of smart devices and AI technology. Thomas A. Mayfield, head of Decentralized Trust and Identity Solutions at Cardano Foundation, emphasized the importance of identity verification in various sectors and the prevalent security issues with existing solutions that lead to frequent data breaches.
Veridian addresses these challenges by empowering users to take control of their information instead of relying on a central authority. By utilizing open, shared tools, the platform ensures secure communication and identity verification without the need for intermediaries. Additionally, users have the option to connect Veridian to the Cardano blockchain for enhanced security. The Veridian Wallet complements this by allowing individuals to securely manage their details on their mobile devices.
Both individuals and businesses can benefit from the Veridian Wallet, with the flexibility for companies to customize the platform to suit their specific requirements. This initiative by the Cardano Foundation provides a much-needed solution to the ongoing challenges surrounding digital identity management.
