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According to CoinDesk, Nasdaq-listed company SUI Group and London hedge fund Karatage jointly led a $15 million financing round for Nof1, an AI research lab focused on financial markets. The two previously also partnered with TwinPath Ventures to invest in Recursive Superintelligence, a self-evolving AI startup valued at over $4 billion.Both investments are based on the same core judgment: autonomous AI agents will become the core infrastructure of the investment field in the future, and companies that establish training environments today may dominate the future financial landscape.

The crypto data platform Dune Analytics announced a major restructuring on Thursday, cutting 25% of its workforce while shifting its strategic focus to two main areas: AI-driven data tools and the on-chain asset adoption by financial institutions. The company stated that it is well-funded and emphasized that it has built a complete end-to-end technology stack for crypto data infrastructure, covering data collection, quality assurance, storage, cleaning, standardization, and querying. Its core product, Dune MCP, allows teams and agents to build dashboards and workflows without the need for SQL knowledge or managing data infrastructure costs.Dune stated that it currently serves almost all leading crypto companies and is expanding to large financial institution clients to address the trend of traditional assets such as currencies, stocks, bonds, and commodities migrating on-chain. Since its establishment in 2018, Dune has experienced multiple market cycles, and this restructuring reflects a broader trend in the industry towards institutional-grade infrastructure and AI integration tools.

The Gate Research Institute recently released the "April 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Review" report, which pointed out that the cryptocurrency market in April showed an overall upward trend, with total market capitalization significantly rising compared to March. The trading volume of BTC and ETH ETFs remained high and volatile. The report indicates that the activity levels of major public chain ecosystems continue to diverge. Solana's daily trading volume remained in the range of approximately 90 million to 110 million transactions, continuing to lead.In terms of hot sectors, the report noted that Pokemon TCG RWA has become one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors of on-chain RWA and entered a secondary explosion phase in April. Major trading platforms saw monthly trading volumes exceed 220 million USD, with weekly revenue nearing 6 million USD at one point, setting a new historical high. Meanwhile, Aave experienced the most severe liquidity shock in its history in April, with TVL outflows reaching hundreds of billions of dollars within days, and net outflows for the month exceeding 9 billion USD.Regarding financing and security incidents, the Web3 industry completed a total of 51 financing rounds in April, with a total amount of approximately 834 million USD, with funds further concentrating in leading finance and infrastructure sectors. Among them, Payward topped the monthly financing with 200 million USD. On the security front, Web3 security incidents in April resulted in losses of approximately 306 million USD, a month-on-month increase of about 858%, primarily driven by a single cross-chain infrastructure attack incident involving Kelp DAO, which amounted to about 293 million USD. The report believes that against the backdrop of a market recovery, on-chain activity and capital liquidity are improving simultaneously, but the security risks of cross-chain infrastructure and high-leverage protocols still warrant ongoing attention.

The Gate Research Institute recently released the report "April 2026 Cryptocurrency Market Review," indicating that the cryptocurrency market in April showed an overall upward trend, with total market capitalization significantly higher than in March, and BTC and ETH ETF trading volumes maintaining high volatility. The report shows that the activity levels of major public chain ecosystems continue to diverge. Solana's daily trading volume remains in the range of approximately 90 million to 110 million transactions, continuing to lead.In terms of hot sectors, the report points out that Pokemon TCG RWA has become one of the fastest-growing sub-sectors of on-chain RWA and entered a secondary explosion phase in April. Major trading platforms saw monthly trading volumes exceed 220 million USD, with weekly revenue nearing 6 million USD at one point, setting a new historical high. Meanwhile, Aave experienced the most severe liquidity shock in its history in April, with TVL outflows reaching hundreds of billions of dollars within a few days, and net outflows for the entire month exceeding 9 billion USD.Regarding financing and security incidents, the Web3 industry completed a total of 51 financing rounds in April, with a total amount of approximately 834 million USD, with funds further concentrating in leading finance and infrastructure sectors. Among them, Payward ranked first for the month with 200 million USD in financing.On the security front, Web3 security incidents in April resulted in losses of approximately 306 million USD, a month-on-month increase of about 858%, primarily driven by a cross-chain infrastructure attack incident involving Kelp DAO, which amounted to about 293 million USD. The report believes that against the backdrop of market recovery, on-chain activity and capital liquidity have both increased, but the security risks of cross-chain infrastructure and high-leverage protocols still warrant ongoing attention.

The globally leading cryptocurrency trading platform Gate has released the special edition "Behind Gate: Dr. Han" for its thirteenth anniversary, presenting the multi-day itinerary of founder and CEO Dr. Han in Hong Kong in a documentary format. The content covers key moments such as team activities, client meetings, media communications, the Gate 13th anniversary blue carpet ceremony, and speeches at the University of Hong Kong, focusing on his high-intensity work pace and external communication dynamics.The video also presents Dr. Han's thoughts on iWeb3, as well as his ongoing viewpoints in public speeches and media communications, covering directions such as intelligent infrastructure and industry development trends. It is mentioned in the film that the 13th anniversary is seen as a new starting point for development, and based on long-term accumulation, the platform has completed phased preparations in technology, products, and global layout.Overall, this issue continues the series' documentary style, reflecting Gate's current accelerated pace in business advancement and industry communication from multiple aspects, including team collaboration, external communication, and brand activities. As the platform enters its 13th anniversary and its global user base surpasses 53 million, its ongoing progress in compliance and global expansion further releases clear signals for the next stage of growth.

YZi Labs announced the 25 graduation projects of its flagship incubation project EASY Residency for the third season, focusing on areas such as on-chain financial market structure reconstruction, AI agents, tokenization of real-world assets, prediction markets, and privacy compliance. The 25 projects include:Identity and payment infrastructure for AI agents on the BNB chain Bank of AI, litigation workflow legal evidence indexing tool Brief Tech, AI probability output verifiable reasoning platform Cournot, financialized social network and trading platform Dapital, programmable token issuance infrastructure Flap;On-chain marketplace for collectibles and intellectual property assets GEMINT, on-chain options and structured products platform LayerV, CEX-level on-chain liquidity platform LunarBase, multi-market agent capital acquisition platform L7, DeFi unified margin layer Möbius, permissionless margin trading protocol Nemesis;AI agent-driven automated financial decision execution layer Newsliquid, tokenized private market exposure DeFi platform Openstocks, on-chain poker skill game options market PokerFi, prediction market automation and intelligence infrastructure Polysights, physical collectibles RWA liquidity infrastructure Renaiss;Fixed-rate decentralized lending platform TermMax, compliance-oriented digital asset privacy infrastructure 0xBow, AI agent workflow self-custody authorization layer Functor, interest-free stablecoin new bank for the Muslim market Isaac, on-chain prime brokerage platform for the BNB chain MARGIN X;Frictionless stablecoin exchange N-dimensional AMM Orbswap, compliance-oriented cross-chain privacy exchange protocol SilentSwap, crypto market AI agent trading and automation infrastructure Taco AI, on-chain event-driven derivatives platform Vibe.fun.

According to CoinDesk, the three blockchains focused on stablecoins and tokenization, Arc, Canton, and Tempo, have collectively raised over $1 billion, reflecting an increasing demand from institutions for privacy-focused crypto infrastructure. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that as cryptocurrencies further enter mainstream finance, privacy features may become a key application scenario for the industry.Specifically, Circle recently raised $222 million for Arc, with a valuation of $3 billion; Digital Asset is reportedly raising $300 million for Canton, with a valuation of $2 billion; and Tempo, supported by Stripe and Paradigm, previously raised $500 million, with a valuation of $5 billion. Hougan also mentioned that the advancement of stablecoin legislation in the U.S. is providing a clearer regulatory environment for institutional investment in related infrastructure.

The U.S. Court of Appeals is hearing the appeal case of Roman Sterlingov, focusing on the key discussion of whether cryptocurrency services are subject to U.S. law. The case centers on: whether a small number of transactions conducted by law enforcement in Washington is sufficient to establish jurisdiction; and the reliability of evidence identifying the defendant through "IP overlap analysis" by the FBI. The U.S. Department of Justice argues that Bitcoin Fog, as a global money transfer service aimed at U.S. users, should be bound by U.S. law; while the defense questions the law enforcement's "artificial creation of jurisdiction."

DAPPOS officially launched the universal Agent product xBubble. This product is mainly aimed at users without a technical background, with the core advantage of delivering stable productivity results with fewer prompts, conversation rounds, and debugging times.According to reports, xBubble will automatically recommend dedicated Agents to complete users' tasks and will pre-generate these dedicated Agents using its self-developed Bubble Engine. Compared to universal Agents, these dedicated Agents have more stable performance for specific tasks and can complete tasks stably with minimal input.In terms of functionality, the product offers 10+ core capabilities upon launch, covering mainstream AI product features such as image, video, document, and website creation, and supports both local and cloud-based operation.DAPPOS's official blog stated that AI has the ability to effectively use AI on its own, and with xBubble, users can effectively use AI without needing to learn about it.

According to Crypto in America, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee has scheduled a formal markup of the cryptocurrency market structure bill, the Clarity Act, for Thursday. The final text of the relevant provisions is expected to be published before the meeting, and lawmakers must submit amendments by the deadline.Previously, the initial review was temporarily halted due to opposition from industry insiders, including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, regarding the stablecoin yield provisions. Currently, cryptocurrency institutions like Coinbase generally accept the new text, but some banks serving retail customers are still sending letters to the Senate through industry associations, requesting further tightening of the "interest on deposits" space for stablecoins to prevent depositor migration.Meanwhile, some Democratic lawmakers may vote against the bill in its entirety during the committee stage due to dissatisfaction with potential conflicts of interest clauses related to Trump and his family involving crypto. This could lead to the bill passing through the committee along party lines, but facing uncertainty in garnering bipartisan support in the full chamber later.

According to official news, Tether has launched a developer grant program that will reward developers with USDT or Bitcoin for building localized AI and payment infrastructure. There is no total grant cap for this program, and rewards will be issued based on technical tasks and deliverables, with current individual bonuses ranging from $1,500 to $4,000.This funding focuses on Tether's open-source technology stack, including wallet infrastructure, browser extensions, e-commerce integration, and particularly supports its local AI platform QVAC. Tether stated that QVAC can run AI inference directly on the device locally, without relying on cloud servers, to reduce latency, costs, and data exposure risks.In addition, Tether will also promote the development of its Wallet Development Kit (WDK) ecosystem. This tool allows developers to directly embed self-custody wallets within applications, enabling local key generation, transaction signing, and asset transfers without relying on custodial services or third-party APIs.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that a significant amount of infrastructure still forces developers to rely on centralized platforms and data business models, and Tether hopes to fund systems that can "run locally, hold value directly, and have no external dependencies" to enter the market.

DeepSeek's financing negotiations with Alibaba have broken down. DeepSeek launched a massive financing round, attracting major companies like Tencent and Alibaba to participate, but the two sides ultimately failed to reach an agreement. The core conflict lies in Alibaba's desire to strengthen its AI ecosystem through investment, while DeepSeek, as an independent model company, insists on minimizing binding terms and maintaining technological independence, unwilling to accept excessive ecosystem ties.DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has long rejected external equity financing. Although this time he has opened the door for the first time, his bottom line remains unchanged, with the most emphasis on offers with "the least additional conditions." DeepSeek's current financing round is valued at approximately 300 billion RMB (about 45 billion USD), with the fundraising focus on supplementing computing power and R&D funds, while also providing a market valuation anchor for employees to retain talent. Tencent had proposed to subscribe for up to 20% of the shares, but this was politely declined by DeepSeek as they did not want to relinquish a large proportion of control. Ultimately, the China National Investment Fund and others may lead the investment, with relatively loose terms that align more closely with DeepSeek's technological idealism.

Paul Atkins, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stated that the regulatory agency is considering new rules for on-chain financial markets and related software applications.Atkins pointed out that current software protocols such as DeFi are difficult to classify within the traditional regulatory framework of exchanges, brokers, or clearinghouses, as a single protocol often has multiple functions including trade execution, collateral management, liquidity routing, and settlement. His remarks are seen as the SEC adopting a more open attitude towards the crypto industry, which is friendlier compared to his predecessor Gary Gensler. Meanwhile, the SEC is also exploring innovative exemption mechanisms for tokenized securities and advancing the clarification of the digital asset classification system.

According to early investor Trix Ventures of Humanity Protocol ($H), their team chose the "3:10" plan offered by the Humanity Foundation on April 26, planning to immediately unlock 30% of their shares on June 25. Trix Ventures believes this is essentially a structural hedge that allows for early profit-taking.Investors stated that they invested in Humanity Protocol at a valuation of $60 million, and have currently achieved a 10x return, which is considered an ideal profit-taking in the current market environment. The institution believes that in the current macro market environment, liquidity premiums are far more defensive than forward expectations, and early exit is a standardized operation for professional institutions to realize capital recovery and risk clearance in complex market cycles. By locking in immediate liquidity, they can effectively avoid long-cycle uncertainties and ensure the safety of initial investment returns.On-chain data shows that investors have monitored that on-chain associated addresses of Humanity Protocol have locked 440 million $H tokens awaiting release, leading to the judgment that their decision is not an isolated case. Considering that Humanity has only gone through one round of financing, these investors all entered at a valuation of $60 million, and their profits have now reached 1000%. Investors believe this indicates that the choice of "3:10" is not limited to just one entity; many early investors across the network have formed a highly consistent strategy, and the market may see a concentrated chip reorganization led by early participants.Regarding potential impacts, investors stated that this portion of tokens is valued at approximately $80 million, and if they enter circulation in a short period, it will pose a severe liquidity pressure test on the secondary market. They also mentioned that under the background of large liquidity concentration release, holders of long positions in $H need to remain highly vigilant, timely assess risk exposure, and consider closing positions at the right time, which is a rational choice to avoid intensified volatility caused by short-term supply and demand imbalances.However, investors also stated that their current defensive actions are entirely based on investment discipline and risk control requirements, rather than doubts about the project's fundamentals. The institution still holds a long-term optimistic view on this core track and maintains a high recognition of the long-term vision of Humanity Protocol. They will continue to monitor liquidity fluctuations, chip reshuffling progress, and marginal changes in on-chain data, and will consider re-entering for strategic layout at the appropriate time.

According to The Block, the well-known startup accelerator Y Combinator will hold interviews in New York City for the first time, focusing on fintech and cryptocurrency startups, hoping to support more companies in this field.YC stated on Wednesday: "This is the first time YC has moved the interview process for a specific industry offline in this way, as they are meeting with founders who are forming a key ecosystem."A YC spokesperson said the interviews will take place offline in New York on May 21. The standard investment terms for selected startups are a $500,000 investment for 7% equity. Earlier this year, after YC launched this option, startups can also choose to receive funding in the form of Circle's stablecoin USDC.The YC Winter 2026 batch includes several crypto and fintech startups, including the financial infrastructure Sponge Wallet for the AI agent economy, the crypto deposit service provider Unifold, the unified trading platform for crypto, real-world assets, and prediction markets Sequence Markets, and the cross-platform trading platform for prediction markets Valence.Since its establishment in 2005, YC has invested in over 5,000 companies, with a total valuation exceeding $1 trillion. Its portfolio includes OpenAI, Airbnb, Stripe, and Reddit. YC's first crypto investment was in Coinbase in 2012, and it has since invested in over 150 crypto and fintech companies, including the prediction market platform Kalshi, the DeFi trading platform Axiom, and the NFT marketplace OpenSea. Last year, YC partnered with Coinbase to support startups building on-chain infrastructure, which YC referred to as "Fintech 3.0."

According to BBX data, yesterday (May 5) marked the dual arrival of the earnings season for cryptocurrency concept stocks and a wave of industry layoffs. The core dynamics are as follows:Strategy, Inc. (NASDAQ: $MSTR) released its Q1 2026 earnings report after the market on May 5 (official press release): net loss of $12.54 billion (per share -$38.25), primarily driven by an unrealized loss of $14.46 billion on Bitcoin holdings------the price of Bitcoin fell from about $87,000 to about $68,000 during Q1; revenue of $124.3 million (up 11.9% year-on-year), slightly exceeding consensus expectations of $123.2 million. As of May 3, the company held a total of 818,334 BTC, with an average price of $75,537 and a total cost of $61.81 billion; approximately 89,600 BTC were added in Q1 (costing about $5.5 billion), marking the second-largest single-quarter purchase in the company's history. The company's annualized return (BTC Yield) for Q1 continued to improve compared to the beginning of the year, with specific values to be disclosed in the official earnings report. Notably, the company mentioned for the first time in its risk disclosures that it may sell Bitcoin to fulfill its annual dividend obligation of about $1.5 billion, with current reserves covering only about 18 months of dividend expenses; management referred to the STRC preferred stock financing as a "great success," raising approximately $5.58 billion through STRC in Q1.Coinbase Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: $COIN) CEO Brian Armstrong announced on May 5 via the X platform and an official memo that the company will lay off about 700 employees (about 14% of the global workforce), citing the downturn in the cryptocurrency market and AI accelerating the reshaping of the company's operational model. Armstrong stated that AI has enabled the engineering team to complete in days what previously took weeks. The company will compress management levels to a maximum of five layers below the CEO/COO and replace traditional functional departments with "AI-native pods," where each manager must directly oversee at least 15 subordinates while maintaining a personal contributor role; affected employees in the U.S. will receive at least 16 weeks of base salary plus an additional two weeks of severance for each year of service. The company's Q1 2026 earnings report will be released tomorrow (May 7) after the market closes, with current analyst consensus expecting revenue of about $1.5 billion and EPS of approximately $0.23---$0.36.

SoFi Technologies announced that its stablecoin SoFiUSD will expand to the Solana network, focusing on its low cost, high throughput, and fast settlement capabilities.SoFiUSD was launched in 2025 as a fully backed dollar stablecoin, initially deployed on Ethereum, aimed at providing 24/7 near real-time settlement infrastructure for banks, fintech companies, and enterprises. As the regulatory framework gradually clarifies, banks and financial institutions are accelerating their layout in the stablecoin sector, competing with leading issuers such as Tether and Circle.

According to PR Newswire, Global Millennial Capital (GMCL) announced that its first "IPO Opportunities Fund" has completed a final fundraising of $100 million, with investors including family offices from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, as well as international wealth management institutions. The fund will provide investment opportunities in technology companies approaching liquidity events through private placements for professional and institutional investors.The fund primarily targets mid-sized technology companies with market capitalizations between $5 billion and $20 billion, focusing on areas such as artificial intelligence and DeFi technology, and emphasizing companies with scalable business models, stable revenue structures, and mature governance systems.GMCL stated that these mid-sized technology companies are in the early stages of value release but are often overlooked by large funds and early investors. The fund's strategy will focus on participating in critical stages before a company's IPO or strategic exit while strengthening risk management and investment discipline.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve's Williams stated that inflation remaining persistently above the target is clearly a focus of concern for central bank officials.