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According to CoinDesk, Kraken's parent company Payward is laying off about 150 employees. This move is part of the company's optimization adjustments in preparation for its IPO, according to two insiders. A Kraken spokesperson stated in a statement: "We continuously evaluate and adjust our organizational structure to ensure we have the right structure and talent to achieve growth objectives and better serve our customers."Meanwhile, Payward is seeking a new round of financing at a valuation of $20 billion to support its pre-IPO expansion strategy. Recently, the company completed a $600 million acquisition of stablecoin payment company Reap and a $550 million acquisition of digital asset derivatives platform Bitnomial. The previous largest acquisition occurred in 2025, when Payward acquired the U.S. retail futures platform NinjaTrader for $1.5 billion, which also holds a CFTC futures broker license.Payward submitted a confidential S-1 registration statement draft to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on November 19, 2025, taking the initial steps toward going public. In March of this year, CoinDesk reported that the company had postponed its IPO plans due to a sluggish market environment, but insiders indicated that the company still plans to move forward with the IPO once market conditions improve. At the Consensus Miami conference, Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi stated that the exchange's IPO preparations are "80%" complete.

According to Fortune, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared his views at the Sequoia Capital AI Summit, noting significant generational differences in how users of different ages utilize ChatGPT. He stated that older users tend to use ChatGPT as a substitute for Google Search, while those in their twenties and thirties use it as a life advisor, and college students use it as a deeply integrated daily operating system.In the U.S., over one-third of young people aged 18 to 24 frequently use ChatGPT, leveraging its conversational memory feature for emotional advice, workplace negotiations, medical consultations, and even major life decisions. Sequoia Capital made its first investment in OpenAI in 2021, when the company was valued at $140 billion; after significant private equity financing, its current valuation has reached $852 billion.

According to Jinshi reports, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits in the U.S. for the week ending April 25 was 1.766 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.8 million. The previous value was revised from 1.785 million to 1.776 million.

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.

According to Jinshi reports, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits in the U.S. for the week ending April 18 was 1.785 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.815 million, and the previous value was revised from 1.821 million to 1.808 million.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell stated that people are still spending, and there has not yet been a noticeable slowdown due to rising gasoline prices.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell stated that the number of people who believe the likelihood of interest rate hikes is about the same as that of interest rate cuts has increased.

The French National Anti-Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office (Pnaco) has stated that cases of kidnapping and illegal detention involving cryptocurrency are continuing to surge. Among the 12 related cases currently under investigation, 88 people have been prosecuted, including more than 10 minors, and another 75 are in custody awaiting trial.Prosecutor's data shows that since 2023, French law enforcement has recorded 135 such cases, with 18 in 2024, rising to 67 in 2025, and reaching 47 so far in 2026. Many of these cases involve violent kidnappings, ransom extortion, and forcing victims to transfer cryptocurrency assets. The prosecution pointed out that some suspects have appeared multiple times in different cases, indicating the formation of a structured criminal network behind it. The previous kidnapping incident involving Ledger co-founder David Balland is also seen as an important sign of the escalating security risks in the French cryptocurrency industry.

According to Jinshi reports, Federal Reserve Chair nominee Waller stated that if we cut interest rates, more people will benefit.

Binance Co-CEO He Yi, while answering the question "What should ordinary people do in the Web3 industry" at the BNB Chain event in Hong Kong, stated that in the early stages of any industry, there will always be a group of people who benefit from the dividends, and the cryptocurrency space is no exception. However, even those old OGs in the crypto world who once made a lot of money will be quickly abandoned if their mindset does not keep up with the development of the times.She bluntly stated that how much money a person makes essentially reflects the monetization of their understanding. For ordinary people, there may indeed be a few significant opportunities in life, such as buying and holding BTC or BNB early on, or seizing stocks like Nvidia in the AI era. However, simply acquiring assets does not equate to making money; the key is to truly understand the industry structure and the logic behind it, rather than just succumbing to FOMO.

According to CoinDesk, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has been selected for TIME magazine's 2026 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The People's Daily of China published an article titled "Disrupting the Capital Market, These Chaos of Financial Self-Media Accounts Need to Be Vigilant," which specifically names certain accounts that attract traffic for virtual currency trading by posting false profit information such as "hundred times coin" and "making millions a month from trading coins."The article again cites a previous notice from the central bank and eight other departments, emphasizing that activities related to virtual currencies are considered illegal financial activities. It points out that accounts and platforms providing traffic and technical services for illegal virtual currency trading are suspected of violating laws and regulations, which may threaten financial security and anti-money laundering efforts.

According to Jinshi reports, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits in the United States for the week ending March 28 was 1.794 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.84 million. The previous value was revised from 1.841 million to 1.832 million.