business

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.

The Web3 asset data platform RootData has outlined 104 partners of Arc, covering six core sectors: asset issuance, infrastructure, developer tools, trading, financial services, and payments. Compared to most public chains that first develop a developer ecosystem and then seek commercialization scenarios, Arc's path is clearly more aligned with the real financial circulation network. At the asset issuance level, stablecoin issuers such as AllUnity, BDACS, Bitso/Juno, and Stablecorp, as well as tokenized asset players like Centrifuge, Securitize, and WisdomTree have entered the scene, indicating that Arc prioritizes solving the "on-chain asset supply" issue, bringing dollars, bonds, and securities onto the chain. At the infrastructure level, partners like Blockdaemon, Chainalysis, Elliptic, QuickNode, and DRPC provide node services, compliance analysis, and on-chain data support. This means Arc is preparing for institutional funds, rather than following the typical Crypto public chain model of "growth first, compliance later." At the developer tools level, partners such as Axelar, Wormhole, Chainlink, MetaMask, Fireblocks, Privy, Alchemy, LayerZero, and TRM Labs are concentrated, essentially lowering the migration costs for institutions and developers, allowing funds, wallets, cross-chain, and compliance tools to be directly in place. At the trading level, institutions like Coinbase, Bybit, Kraken, Robinhood, Galaxy Digital, and B2C2 are responsible for secondary market liquidity and price discovery. The payment layer is heavily integrated by Visa, Mastercard, PhotonPay, Nuvei, EBANX, and Ramp. At the financial services level, firms like BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, State Street, Aave, Maple Finance, Morpho, and BitGo are appearing simultaneously, indicating that Arc has begun to bridge traditional banking, on-chain lending, and custody systems. On the surface, Arc appears to be a new public chain, but from an ecological structure perspective, it will serve as the new financial infrastructure for the Circle stablecoin era, directly emphasizing USDC gas fees, sub-second final settlement, compliance privacy, and native CCTP integration, aiming to directly penetrate real capital flows and attempt to become SWIFT + Stripe + DTCC. Related compilation: Arc Web3 Partner Network Compilation (continuously updated) Cryptocurrency projects actively showcasing their partner networks have become a key way to enhance transparency and market trust. It is reported that RootData welcomes Web3 projects to claim their information and continues to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. The platform has continuously released multiple editions of the cryptocurrency project ecosystem map, nominating Web3 ecosystem partners for upstream clients like Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase. If you wish to nominate your project in future ecosystem maps, please fill out the [RootData 2026 Industry Ecosystem Mapping] form to supplement your important clients and partners.

The on-chain financial application Legend has announced that it will gradually shut down the company and product services. The team stated that Legend initially hoped to make it easier for mainstream users to access DeFi's cross-chain exchange, yield generation, and payment functions through a simpler product interface. Although the product gained a number of real users, the growth scale did not reach the level required for long-term sustainable operation, so shutting down the business is the most appropriate decision for the team and investors.Legend stated that its biggest lesson learned is that mainstream users do not care whether the product is "on-chain"; they are more concerned about yields, faster payment experiences, and greater control over their funds. The team believes that truly successful products do not explain cryptographic technology to users but instead completely hide it behind the experience. According to the announcement, Legend has stopped new user registrations, and existing users must complete fund withdrawals before the application shuts down on July 12. The official team will continue to remind users to withdraw funds via email and notifications over the next 60 days, and will retain relevant documentation pages for a period of time after the shutdown.

According to The Block, eToro's revenue from its cryptocurrency business in the first quarter of 2026 fell to $2.15 billion, down from $3.5 billion in the same period of 2025; the total number of cryptocurrency transactions decreased by 32% year-on-year.During the same period, the cost of revenue from its cryptocurrency business dropped from $3.5 billion to $2.1 billion, and the cryptocurrency holdings on the balance sheet slightly decreased from $62.6 million at the end of 2025 to $60.5 million. eToro stated that it completed the $70 million acquisition of cryptocurrency wallet company Zengo during the quarter and launched cryptocurrency trading services in New York.

According to CoinDesk, wallet service provider Exodus Movement (EXOD) sold approximately $73.2 million in crypto assets in the first quarter, during which its Bitcoin holdings decreased by 1,076 coins, a decline of about 63%, leaving only 628 BTC. The fair value of its assets dropped from $149.2 million to $42.8 million.During the same period, it added 5,068 SOL, increasing its total holdings to 17,541 SOL. The company stated that the related cash-out was mainly used for the acquisition of the W3C payment business and to pay off maturing consideration, and it has converted over $70 million into dollar reserves, raising its cash, cash equivalents, and stablecoin balance from $5.2 million to $74.4 million. Affected by the impairment and disposal of crypto assets, Exodus's revenue in the first quarter fell by 36.8% year-on-year to $22.7 million, and net losses widened to $32.1 million.

Ondo Finance's official Twitter stated that an increasing number of traditional financial giants have mentioned Ondo's tokenized stock business in their earnings call, indicating that it is gradually becoming an important representative of the tokenization trend in capital markets. Among them, Broadridge CEO Tim Gokey referred to Ondo Global Markets as "the leading provider in this field" during the earnings call in April 2026. Additionally, Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson also mentioned in a previous earnings call that Ondo Global Markets is an important distribution partner for its tokenized ETF products.Ondo stated that a year ago, traditional financial institutions still regarded "asset tokenization" as a concept under observation, but now, several large financial institution CEOs have begun to see Ondo Global Markets as an important component of future capital market infrastructure.

JUST officially released its weekly report. From May 5 to May 11, the JUST ecosystem performed strongly, with a total locked value (TVL) reaching 12 billion USD, accounting for 41.79% of the TRON DeFi market. The lending market remained active, with total deposits exceeding 3.8 billion USD; at the same time, the cumulative JST burn rate has reached 13.70%, further demonstrating the deflationary effect. While the platform provides users with diversified yield options such as sTRX and USDD, it continues to optimize the asset allocation supply and demand pattern. This transparent and efficient mechanism execution, along with long-term stable value returns, not only highlights JUST's robust operational strength as a core DeFi protocol of TRON but also builds a resilient long-term value system for users.

According to Bloomberg, Ripple's main brokerage division has secured a maximum of $200 million in asset-backed debt financing from Neuberger Berman to expand its collateral financing services offered to institutional investors.The report states that the financing is provided by Neuberger Berman's specialized finance division, and Ripple can draw up to $200 million in phases based on the borrowing needs of institutional clients in the equity, fixed income, and cryptocurrency markets.

The Web3 asset data platform RootData has outlined 40 partners of Aave, covering multiple layers such as TradFi/RWA, stablecoins, infrastructure, wallets, DeFi protocols, exchanges, and custody. From its early focus on the lending efficiency of crypto assets to competing for on-chain dollar liquidity after the launch of GHO, Aave seems to be defining an interest rate system for on-chain dollars. At the TradFi and RWA layer, institutions like BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, VanEck, and JPMorgan are prominently featured, along with RWA platforms such as Centrifuge, OpenEden, and Securitize, indicating that Aave is no longer satisfied with lending native crypto assets but is attempting to meet the financing needs of real-world assets on-chain. At the stablecoin layer, partners like Circle, Tether, Ethena, Ripple, and Plasma suggest that Aave is competing for the on-chain "dollar liquidity" entry point. Whoever controls stablecoin deposits is closer to on-chain interest rate pricing power. At the infrastructure layer, partners like Chainlink, ConsenSys, Flashbots, and Mantle provide Aave with price oracles, MEV optimization, and multi-chain expansion capabilities. At the user distribution layer, wallet partners like MetaMask, Ledger, Bitget Wallet, Privy, and Turnkey are lowering the entry barriers for users; meanwhile, institutional channels like Kraken, Bybit, and Fireblocks further amplify the capital entry points. DeFi protocols such as Pendle, Maple Finance, and CoW Swap extend Aave's liquidity into fixed income, institutional lending, and trading scenarios. The recent rsETH/Kelp risk event caused Aave's TVL to drop from a peak of $44 billion to $15 billion, once again testing the risk management capabilities of this established DeFi protocol. Related collection: Aave Web3 Partner Network Collection (continuously updated) Cryptocurrency projects actively showcasing their partner networks have become a key way to enhance transparency and market trust. It is reported that RootData welcomes Web3 projects to claim their information and continues to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. The platform has released multiple editions of crypto project ecosystem maps, nominating Web3 ecosystem partners for upstream clients like Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase. If you wish to nominate your project in future ecosystem maps, please fill out the [RootData 2026 Industry Ecosystem Mapping] form to supplement your important clients and partners.

Strategy CEO Phong Le posted on platform X that the company's software business achieved its strongest quarterly performance in nearly a decade in Q1 2026, with revenue growth of 12%, including a 59% increase in cloud business revenue and a 27% increase in controllable profits. The company has 1,500 employees, serving over 3,000 clients and more than 500,000 active users, including nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies.Le stated that the combination of the Bitcoin treasury business and the software business has a unique synergy: the world-class engineering, security, enterprise sales, and compliance experience of the software business provides institutional-level expertise for the Bitcoin business; conversely, the Bitcoin mission inspires employees, attracts talent, and accelerates innovation in the software business. The company recently built the AI data platform Mosaic, integrating large language models, massive-scale computing, and data warehousing. Le expects to leverage multiple AI models in the coming year to restructure internal processes and systems, achieving workflow automation and system autonomy.

According to CoinDesk, executives from PayPal and Google Cloud stated that future AI Agent-driven business activities will operate on a cryptocurrency payment track, as AI Agents cannot use traditional bank accounts like humans.Richard Widmann, Head of Google Cloud Web3 Strategy, mentioned that AI Agents cannot directly open bank accounts on both technical and regulatory levels, while cryptocurrencies provide an "excellent machine-readable payment interface." He revealed that Google has launched the open Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2) and donated it to the FIDO Foundation, with over 120 partners, including PayPal, already on board.May Zabaneh, Senior Vice President of PayPal's crypto business, stated that the company views AI Agents as the next generation of business entry points following offline, online, and mobile payments. She pointed out that PYUSD, as PayPal's stablecoin, provides a natural programmable payment layer for AI-native payments and global transactions.A PayPal survey showed that 95% of merchant websites currently have AI Agent traffic, but only about 20% of merchants have machine-readable product catalogs. Zabaneh believes that merchants need to adapt to the AI Agent era as soon as possible, or they will miss the next opportunity for upgrading their business infrastructure. Additionally, both parties discussed the security and accountability issues surrounding AI Agents.Widmann stated that multi-party custody will become an important solution for managing Agent funds, and AI Agents should not fully control private keys but only hold partial key fragments to reduce financial risks.

Bitcoin mining company DMG Blockchain has established a new subsidiary, DMG Infrastructure, for future artificial intelligence/high-performance computing (AIHPC) business operations, and plans to drive its data centers towards AI/HPC business transformation.DMG Blockchain also disclosed that it mined a total of 21 BTC in April, down from 23 BTC in March. As of the end of April, it holds 389 BTC, a decrease of 9 BTC from the previous month, with a current hash rate of 1.54 EH/s, down from 1.63 EH/s in March.

The Web3 asset data platform RootData has organized the 153 partners and ecosystem participants of Ondo Finance, covering multiple key areas such as TradFi, public chains, custody, DeFi, exchanges, wallets, cross-chain bridges, payments, and service providers. This list fully demonstrates how Ondo has completed the transition from a single government bond yield product to an RWA infrastructure platform within three years, with its TVL growing from approximately $534 million in 2024 to over $3 billion in 2026, capturing about 58%-80% of the tokenized stock market. In the traditional finance layer, institutions such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity Investments, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, and PayPal are prominently featured, indicating that Ondo is no longer just serving traditional finance clients but is also undertaking the complex compliance packaging, on-chain issuance, and settlement capabilities involved in the tokenization process, effectively becoming Wall Street's on-chain asset "outsourcer." In the custody and institutional funding layer, the inclusion of leading custodians like Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Fireblocks, and Cobo signifies that Ondo has obtained the most critical entry permissions for institutional funds. In the on-chain liquidity layer, 15 public chains including Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and Aptos, along with DeFi protocols such as Pendle, Morpho, Curve, 1inch, and Euler, collectively form its liquidity network. Essentially, Ondo is transforming traditional finance's "static assets" into on-chain tradable, collateralizable, and composable assets. In the trading and payment distribution layer, the large-scale integration of Ripple, exchanges, wallets, and payment service providers indicates that Ondo has expanded from merely "selling yield products" to further extending into trading, clearing, and payment processes, attempting to master the complete circulation path of RWA. Related compilation: 【Ondo Finance Web3 Partner Network Compilation (Continuously Updated)】 Cryptocurrency projects actively showcasing their partner networks have become a key way to enhance transparency and market trust. It is reported that RootData welcomes Web3 projects to claim their information and continues to track and open more project business relationship disclosure channels. The platform has continuously released multiple editions of cryptocurrency project ecosystem maps, nominating Web3 ecosystem partners serving upstream clients like Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase. If you wish to nominate your project in future ecosystem maps, please fill out the 【RootData 2026 Industry Ecosystem Mapping】 form to supplement your important clients and partners.

Payward (the parent company of Kraken) has applied to the OCC for a national trust company license, planning to establish Payward National Trust Company (PNTC). This entity will provide regulated, bank-like digital asset custody and trust services to institutional and individual clients.Previously, Coinbase and Ripple have received conditional approvals for similar licenses, indicating that crypto institutions are accelerating their alignment with the compliant financial system.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) recently issued a notice reminding the public to be cautious of certain unlicensed platforms and related market promotional activities, mentioning HabitTrade.In response, HabitTrade issued a statement claiming that it is a licensed Australian brokerage and compliant financial services platform, and has not conducted any regulated business in Hong Kong, nor promoted or provided related services to the public in Hong Kong.The statement also pointed out that some third-party promotional content, video materials, and platform traffic diversion activities that have recently appeared in the market do not represent the official position of HabitTrade. The company reserves the right to trace and take legal action against any misleading promotions and violations using its brand, technological channels, or partnerships without authorization.HabitTrade stated that it will continue to adhere to a compliance-first approach and cooperate with the regulatory requirements of relevant jurisdictions to conduct necessary investigations.

The Japan Crypto Asset Business Association (JCBA) officially released the "Best Practices for Crypto Asset Staking Operations" guidelines, covering various aspects such as operational requirements, emergency response, information disclosure, compliance management, external auditing, and tax accounting, aiming to enhance the security and transparency of domestic staking services.

Coinbase released its first-quarter financial report, recording a net loss of $394.1 million, due to a significant drop in cryptocurrency prices during this period, resulting in substantial losses on the digital assets held on the exchange's balance sheet. The company reported a loss of $482 million on crypto assets held for investment purposes.Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong remains optimistic, stating that "all finance" will eventually move on-chain, and the company is built to capture this transformation. Armstrong said, "Despite the downturn in the crypto market, the fundamental growth of the on-chain economy remains strong." He also mentioned that Coinbase is transitioning from a "spot-focused crypto platform" to a platform where users can trade a variety of asset classes, including derivatives, commodities, futures, and contracts for predicting market events.In the first quarter of 2025, Coinbase (COIN) recorded a net profit of $66 million. The latest quarter marks Coinbase's second consecutive quarter of net losses, with the previous quarter recording a net loss of $667 million. Coinbase's total revenue for the first quarter of 2026 was $1.41 billion, a 31% decrease compared to the same period in 2025; trading revenue fell 40% year-on-year to $756 million; subscription and services revenue saw a smaller decline, down 14% to $584 million. The first quarter experienced significant volatility in crypto prices, with the market heavily selling off, causing Bitcoin to drop from over $97,000 in January to around $63,000 in early February. By the end of the period, BTC remained below $70,000, dragging down the entire crypto market.Coinbase attempted to downplay the quarterly losses and revenue decline by highlighting some achievements during the quarter, including its global crypto trading market share reaching 8.6%. The company also recorded an adjusted EBITDA of $303 million, down from $930 million in the first quarter of 2025. According to Yahoo Finance, the company's stock price fell about 6% in after-hours trading, to $182 per share.