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Asset manager Grayscale has filed to list an exchange-traded fund (ETF) holding a diverse basket of spot cryptocurrencies, US regulatory filings show.

On April 1, Grayscale submitted an S-3 regulatory filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is required to convert the non-listed fund to an ETF. 

The Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund, which was created in 2018 but is not yet exchange-traded, holds a crypto index portfolio comprising Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP) and Cardano (ADA). 

As of April 1, the fund has more than $600 million in assets under management (AUM) and is only available to accredited investors (entities or individuals with high net worth), according to Grayscale’s website.

The filing follows an Oct. 29 request by NYSE Arca, a US securities exchange, for permission to list the Grayscale index fund. 

Bitcoin (BTC) repeated earlier volatility at the April 1 Wall Street open as US trade tariff talk kept markets nervous.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Bitcoin stays erratic ahead of crunch tariffs

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD making rapid moves within its weekly trading range of around $83,000.

US stocks ticked lower at the open, while gold came off fresh all-time highs of $3,149 per ounce.

Talk of recession began to return to the spotlight ahead of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day,” due on April 2 and on which he promised to unveil a new round of trade tariffs.

A number of altcoins and memecoins saw a sharp sell-off on April Fools’ Day, April 1, with some tokens, including Act I The AI Prophecy, dropping nearly 60% in minutes.

Act I The AI Prophecy (ACT), a token associated with the eponymous project focused on artificial intelligence, plunged 58% from $0.19 to $0.08 in less than an hour on April 1, with its market cap shedding $96 million, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

The sharp drop of ACT came along with notable red action in the altcoin market, with memecoins like sudeng (HIPPO), CZ’S Dog (BROCCOLI), Kishu Inu (KISHU), DeXe (DEXE), dForce (DF) and more seeing significant price declines.

Cryptocurrency market at a glance. Source: Coin360

The broader crypto market hasn’t reacted negatively to panic in altcoin markets, with major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) remaining green at the time of writing.

Opinion by: Dr. Michael Tabone, senior economist for Cointelegraph

Bitcoin (BTC) has long been hailed as unbreakable and untouchable, a digital stronghold against the forces of change. Bitcoin’s bedrock of security is facing its first true test with quantum computing, which should be addressed sooner rather than later. Its cryptographic armor will crack if not addressed, forcing the network to adapt or perish.

Bitcoin’s node count is growing, but incentives are still absent

Bitcoin’s full node network has grown over time, a sign of increasing adoption and a more robust infrastructure, but the core issue remains. The voluntary act of running a node still has no financial incentive. Miners earn rewards for securing the network, yet full node operators get nothing for their role in keeping Bitcoin decentralized.

At the same time, a significant portion of these nodes are run by exchanges, custodians and large mining pools. These are centralized entities with financial incentives to maintain control. Suppose Bitcoin’s node network continues to expand without proper incentives. In that case, the risk remains that validation will become increasingly dependent on a few well-funded players rather than a truly distributed base of individual users (see Figure 1).

FBitcoin node operation has increased by only 15,605 in 8 years. Source: Bitnodes.io 

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has announced the shutdown of its non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.

In an April 1 announcement, Bybit warned its users that its NFT marketplace will cease operations on April 8, 2025, at 4:00 pm (UTC). Furthermore, at that time, the exchange will also shut down its Inscription Marketplace and its initial decentralized exchange offering initiative.

The announcement explains that the measures are part of Bybit’s “efforts to streamline our offerings.” The decision follows a similar decision by major NFT marketplace X2Y2 announced earlier this week.

Charu Sethi, president at NFT-focused Polkadot and Kusama chain Unique Network, told Cointelegraph at the time that the market moved on from speculative to utility-based:

“The speculative phase focused on collectibles and trading is over, but NFTs are now entering their next growth era as core infrastructure enabling massive opportunities in gaming, AI, fan engagement and content authentication.“

The NFT market is on a downward trend

The non-fungible token market at large is seeing a significant downturn. Daily NFT trading volume was over $18 million 364 days ago and stands at $5.34 million at the time of publication — a 70% fall.

Publicly traded US-based crypto exchange Coinbase saw its worst quarter since the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022.

Coinbase shares started 2025 trading at just over $257 on Jan. 2 and ended the quarter at a little over $172 on March 31, a dip of 33%, according to market data.

This makes the first quarter of 2025 the worst for Coinbase’s stock performance since the collapse of FTX in November 2022. In Q4 of that year, its share price went from nearly $66 on Oct. 3 to $35.4 on Dec. 30, a loss of 46.4%.

Coinbase shares year-to-date price chart. Source: Google Finance

Coinbase has gained a significant foothold in the crypto market. Its prevalence is substantial enough that some industry experts recently told Cointelegraph its emergence as the Ethereum network’s largest node operator raises concerns about network centralization.

Update April 1, 1:42 pm UTC: This article has been updated to add comments from Cyvers co-founder and chief technology officer Meir Dolev.

An unauthorized party withdrew about $70 million in digital assets from open-source payment platform UPCX, according to a security alert issued on April 1.

The blockchain security firm Cyvers flagged suspicious activity involving 18.4 million UPC tokens, estimating the value of the compromised funds at $70 million.

Cyvers said someone accessed a UPCX address and upgraded its ProxyAdmin contract. The attacker then executed a function that allows admins to withdraw, leading to fund transfers from three different management accounts. 

At the time of writing, the stolen tokens had not been swapped for other crypto assets.

Key takeaways

Smart money consists of institutional investors with advanced tools and knowledge that can influence crypto market trends.

Key concepts like order blocks, liquidity zones and fair value gaps can help traders align with smart money strategies.

Real-time tracking tools such as Glassnode, Nansen and CoinGecko allow traders to follow smart money’s moves and capitalize on them.

Following the movements of smart money is akin to navigating the open sea, using its wake to position yourself for success in the crypto market.

Smart money refers to the money being invested by individuals or organizations that know the markets inside and out. We’re talking about institutional investors, hedge funds and well-seasoned traders. These are the big players who have access to more information and tools than most of us, and they use that knowledge to make strategic decisions.

A former executive of the Web3 game Blade of God X (BOGX) accused the project of abandoning its blockchain-based roadmap after raising funds through the crypto space.

On April 1, BOGX’s former chief marketing officer Amber Bella claimed in an X post that despite being funded by Web3 sources, the game “completely abandoned” its Web3 goals and the team working on its Web3 features.  

“Web3 was completely abandoned, and my Web3 team’s salaries went from delayed payments to no payments at all,” Bella claimed.

The former game executive also said that instead of compensating users and repaying funds to non-fungible token (NFT) buyers, the game’s founder, Tnise Liu Yang, decided to block her from all personal communication channels.

Related: Kalshi sues Nevada and New Jersey gaming regulators

The use of hydrocarbon fuels in Bitcoin mining has seen a sharp decline over the past 13 years, with the use of coal energy dropping significantly.

The share of coal energy use in Bitcoin (BTC) mining has dropped from 63% in 2011 to 20% in 2024, according to a new report released by the industry organization MiCA Crypto Alliance in collaboration with the risk metrics data platform Nodiens.

In parallel, the share of renewable energy used in Bitcoin mining has steadily increased, growing at an average rate of 5.8% per year.

Bitcoin absolute energy consumption trends and share of renewable and coal energy. Source: MiCA Crypto Alliance

The data reflects a steady shift of Bitcoin mining to cleaner and more sustainable energy solutions, with the study forecasting further decarbonization and mitigation of BTC’s environmental footprint in the coming years.

Japan-based Metaplanet has expanded its Bitcoin holdings, purchasing 696 BTC for 10.2 billion yen ($67 million), the company announced in an April 1 post on X.

The investment lifts Metaplanet’s total Bitcoin stash to 4,046 BTC, valued at over $341 million at the time of writing.

Source: Metaplanet

Stock split targets investor accessibility

The acquisition comes shortly after Metaplanet issued 2 billion Japanese yen ($13.3 million) of bonds to buy more BTC, Cointelegraph reported on March 31.

Source: Simon Gerovich

Tether, issuer of the USDT stablecoin, acquired 8,888 Bitcoin in the first quarter of 2025, according to onchain data.

Onchain transaction data shows that Tether moved its newly acquired Bitcoin (BTC), worth roughly $750 million at the time of writing, from a Bitfinex address to a wallet it controls. Data provided by onchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence shows that the firm currently holds 100,521 BTC, worth about $8.46 billion.

Tether’s Bitcoin balance chart. Source: Arkham Intelligence

The news follows mid-February reports that Tether could be forced to sell part of its Bitcoin holdings to comply with proposed US regulations. JP Morgan wrote in a report that potential stablecoin regulation could consider a significant portion of the firm’s current reserve as non-compliant:

“Under the proposed bills, Tether would have to implicitly replace its non-compliant assets with compliant assets. […] This would imply sales of their non-compliant assets (such as precious metals, Bitcoin, corporate paper, secured loans.”

Still, Tether argued against the conclusion of the JP Morgan analyst. A Tether spokesperson criticized the analysts in correspondence sent to Cointelegraph, saying “they understand neither Bitcoin nor Tether” and highlighting that the US stablecoin laws have yet to be finalized.

A US dollar-pegged stablecoin launched by a cryptocurrency platform tied to US President Donald Trump’s family could complicate ongoing bipartisan efforts to pass stablecoin legislation in Congress, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest.

The Trump-linked World Liberty Financial (WLFI) crypto platform launched the World Liberty Financial USD (USD1) US dollar-pegged stablecoin in early March, prompting concerns over potential conflicts of interest.

Despite political pushback from Democratic Party lawmakers, WLFI’s stablecoin plans are in line with the current US stablecoin legislation, according to Anastasija Plotnikova, co-founder and CEO of blockchain regulatory firm Fideum.

“The planned backing, audits, qualified custody, public blockchains and no native yield-bearing — all these elements are well in line with the GENIUS and STABLE acts,” she said in an interview with Cointelegraph.

“I would argue that this is a direct expression of support to the US-based stablecoins, and in any case, the stablecoin issuer is subject to the authorization of OCC, state regulators and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve,” she added.

Hackers stole more than $1.63 billion in cryptocurrency during the first quarter of 2025, with the Bybit exploit accounting for more than 92% of total losses, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield.

PeckShield reported that over $87 million in crypto was lost to hacks in January, while February saw a dramatic spike to $1.53 billion, largely due to the Bybit attack. That incident was one of the largest crypto thefts to date.

In addition to the Bybit hack, other attacks in February caused $126 million in losses. This included a $50-million exploit targeting Infini, a $9.5-million hack on zkLend and an $8.5-million loss from Ionic.  

Hack-related losses dropped significantly in March, decreasing by 97% from February. PeckShield reported only $33 million in crypto assets were stolen last month. Some funds were even recovered, helping offset damage to users and protocols.

Crypto hacks saw a 131% year-over-year increase

According to PeckShield, the first quarter of 2025 saw more than 60 crypto hacks. The blockchain security firm said the $1.63 billion loss in Q1 2025 represented a 131% year-over-year increase from the first quarter of 2024, when losses reached $706 million.

Binance has discontinued spot trading pairs with Tether’s USDt in the European Economic Area (EEA) to comply with the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has delisted spot trading pairs with several non-MiCA-compliant tokens in the EEA in line with a plan disclosed in early March, Cointelegraph has learned.

While spot trading pairs in tokens such as USDt (USDT) are now delisted on Binance, users in the EEA can still custody the affected tokens and trade them in perpetual contracts.

USDT is available for perpetual trading on Binance. Source: Binance

According to a previous announcement by Binance, the spot trading pairs for non-MiCA-compliant tokens were to be delisted by March 31, which is in line with a local requirement to delist such tokens by the end of the first quarter of 2025.

Opinion by: Tomer Warschauer Nuni, chief marketing officer of Kima Network

No one should be surprised that the crypto space is actively discussing the new wave of enthusiasm around AI and its limitless uses. According to proponents, AI represents the most promising approach to enhancing blockchain technologies and decentralized applications, driving greater autonomy and efficiency across the ecosystem.

The use of AI agents in crypto trading and interoperability between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) has been quite fruitful. They also help improve user experience within the ecosystem and play a key role in enhancing the scalability of blockchain networks as they grow.

In December 2024, VanEck reported that AI agents were already numbering 10,000 and that they were expected to reach 1 million in 2025. This projected growth shows how seemingly inevitable this future is for believers and skeptics alike.

The current state of AI agents in the digital world 

It is easy to see why everyone is excited about integrating AI agents into nearly every digital process. They enhance several processes with no or less effort from humans.

Bitcoin (BTC) faces a new “consolidation zone” as exchange inflows tag multiyear lows, new analysis says.

In an April 1 post on X, Axel Adler Jr., a contributor to onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, declared that Bitcoin sellers had “dried up.”

Average exchange inflows down 64% since November

Bitcoin sell-side pressure has eased considerably since its first push above the $100,000 mark in late 2024, data shows. 

Analyzing BTC inflows to major crypto exchanges, Adler revealed a sharp drop in the seven-day average total sent for sale.

“The average selling pressure on top exchanges has dropped from 81K to 29K BTC per day,” he said alongside a CryptoQuant chart. 

OpenAI is set to launch an “open” version of its language model this year, allowing developers to run the model on their own hardware.

In an update posted to X on March 31, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the artificial intelligence firm would release the powerful “new open-weight language model with reasoning” in the coming months but first wanted to gather feedback about “how to make it maximally useful.”

“We’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but other priorities have taken precedence. Now it feels important to do,” he said, adding it was the first “open-weight” model since GPT-2 in 2019.

Adding that: “We still have some decisions to make, so we are hosting developer events to gather feedback and later play with early prototypes.”

Source: Sam Altman

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sent a crew of four private astronauts on the first manned space flight to orbit the Earth’s poles, in a mission bankrolled and led by a wealthy crypto investor.

Chun Wang, the Chinese-born Maltese entrepreneur who founded the Bitcoin (BTC) mining pool F2Pool, paid for and is leading SpaceX’s “Fram2” mission, which is named after a 19th-century Norwegian Arctic exploration ship.

Wang and three others blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1:46 am UTC on April 1, on a three- to five-day orbit that will be the first human space mission to fly over the North and South poles.

Liftoff of Fram2 and the @framonauts! pic.twitter.com/XBL5juCnHQ

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 1, 2025

Wang hasn’t disclosed how much he paid SpaceX for the flight, but he brought along German polar scientist Rabea Rogge, Norwegian cinematographer Jannicke Mikkelsen and Australian Arctic adventurer Eric Philips.

Non-fungible token (NFT) project Gutter Cat Gang (GCG) saw a rocky token launch of its GANG token on Apechain on March 31, attributed to a “technical issue” by a third party, though others pointed to reportedly low interest in the token.

While GCG didn’t confirm these figures, it did state in a March 31 Discord post that no GANG tokens were distributed due to it encountering a “technical issue” by a third party. 

“Bad news,” the chief architect of GCG, “Yugen,” wrote on GCG’s Discord channel. “The contract is stopping us from the 100% liquidity claim day 1,” which Yugen said is preventing participants from cashing in and out.

“We’ve tried to fix it for at least an hour and no success,” said Yugen, who added:

“You will, be getting your $GANG. But not today. I will come back with a new exact date and time.”

Source: GCG/ Discord

The token sale was described as a “fumble” by X user and NFT enthusiast “Easy,” who pointed out that the team locked up 100% of the token supply in the vesting contract — running contrary to the GCG’s tokenomics plan.

Under that plan, 12.5% of GCG NFTs and 15% of Seed Round allocations were meant to unlock instantly, with the rest of the tokens scheduled to vest daily over the next 18 months.

A recent Fidelity Digital Assets report questioned whether Bitcoin’s price had already seen its cyclical “blow off top” or if BTC (BTC) is on the cusp of another “acceleration phase.” 

According to Fidelity analyst Zack Wainwright, Bitcoin’s acceleration phases are characterized by “high volatility and high profit,” similar to the price action seen when BTC pushed above $20,000 in December 2020.  

While Bitcoin’s year-to-date return reflects an 11.4% loss, and the asset is down nearly 25% from its all-time high, Wainwright said the recent post-acceleration phase performance aligns with BTC’s average drawdowns, compared with previous market cycles. 

Bitcoin historical downside after acceleration phases. Source: Fidelity Digital Assets Research

Wainwright suggests that Bitcoin is still in an acceleration phase but is moving closer to the completion of the cycle, as March 3 represented day 232 of the period. Previous peaks lasted slightly longer before a corrective period set in. 

Losses to crypto scams, exploits, and hacks dropped to just $28.8 million in March, far from February’s spike to $1.5 billion in losses after the Bybit hack.

Code vulnerabilities accounted for the most losses, at over $14 million, while wallet compromises were used to steal over $8 million, blockchain security firm CertiK said in an April 1 post to X.

The most significant loss for the month was the $13 million March 25 smart contract exploit of the decentralized lending protocol Abracadabra.money.

After accounting for returned funds, a total of $28.8 million was stolen through exploits, hacks and scams in March. Source: CertiK

In a separate March 27 report, the blockchain security firm said, “The attacker was able to borrow funds, liquidate themselves, then borrow funds again without repaying them.”

Vanuatu has passed laws to regulate digital assets and provide a licensing regime for crypto companies wanting to operate in the Pacific island nation, which a government regulatory consultant has called “very stringent.” 

The local parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act on March 26, giving crypto licensing authority to the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission (VFSC) along with powers to enforce the Financial Action Task Force’s Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Financing and Travel Rule standards with crypto firms.

The VFSC has sweeping investigation and enforcement powers under the laws, with penalties stipulating fines of up to 250 million vatu ($2 million) and up to 30 years in prison.

“God help any scammer that goes into Vanuatu because you’ll go to jail,” Loretta Joseph, who consulted with the regulator on the laws, told Cointelegraph. “The laws are very stringent.”

“The thing is, we don’t want another FTX debacle,” she added, referring to the once Bahamas-based crypto exchange that collapsed in 2022 due to massive fraud committed by its co-founders, Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang, along with other executives.

The hacker behind the $9.6 million exploit of the decentralized money-lending protocol zkLend in February claims they’ve just fallen victim to a phishing website impersonating Tornado Cash, resulting in the loss of a significant portion of the stolen funds.

In a message sent to zkLend through Etherscan on March 31, the hacker claimed to have lost 2,930 Ether (ETH) from the stolen funds to a phishing website posing as a front-end for Tornado Cash. 

In a series of March 31 transfers, the zkLend thief sent 100 Ether at a time to an address named Tornado.Cash: Router, finishing with three deposits of 10 Ether.

“Hello, I tried to move funds to a Tornado, but I used a phishing website, and all the funds have been lost. I am devastated. I am terribly sorry for all the havoc and losses caused,” the hacker said.

The hacker behind the zkLend exploit claims to have lost most of the funds to a phishing website posing as a front-end for Tornado Cash. Source: Etherscan

The founder of the recently hacked decentralized finance protocol SIR.trading has made an emotional plea to the attacker, asking them to return around 70% of the stolen customer funds otherwise, the protocol will not survive.

“Here is my proposal, keep $100k as a fair share for your critical bug find, and return the remaining,” SIR.trading’s pseudonymous founder “Xatarrer” wrote in a March 31 onchain message to the attacker following the $355,000 hack on March 30.

“We’ll call it even. No legal games, no drama,” they added. 

Xatarrer said that SIR.trading was built on the back of four years of late-night coding and $70,000 from friends and believers without any additional venture capital funding.

“We grew to $400k TVL organically without any advertising. If you keep 100% of the funds, there is no chance for us to survive.”

Xatarrer even praised the hacker for the sophisticated hack, stating that it was “almost beautiful if it wasn’t for all the funds people lost.”

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is calling for legislative changes in the US to allow stablecoin holders to earn “onchain interest” on their holdings.

In a March 31 post on X, Armstrong argued that crypto companies should be treated similarly to banks and be “allowed to, and incentivized to, share interest with consumers.” He added that allowing onchain interest would be “consistent with a free market approach.”

Source: Brian Armstrong

There are currently two competing pieces of federal stablecoin legislation working their way through the legislative process in the US: the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy (STABLE) Act, and the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

In reference to the stablecoin legislation, Armstrong said the US had an opportunity to “level the playing field and ensure these laws pave a way for all regulated stablecoins to deliver interest directly to consumers, the same way a savings or checking account can.” 

A new semi-permissionless privacy tool, Privacy Pools, has launched on Ethereum, allowing users to transact privately while proving their funds aren’t linked to illicit activities.

The privacy tool, launched by Ethereum builders 0xbow.io on March 31, earned support from the likes of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who not only backed the privacy project but made one of the first deposits on the platform. 

0xbow.io said that it implements “Association Sets” to batch transactions into the anonymous Privacy Pools and that a screening test is conducted to ensure that those transactions aren’t linked to illicit actors, such as hackers, phishers and scammers.

gm Ethereum ☀️

It is our great honor to announce the mainnet launch of Privacy Pools!

ETH users can now achieve on-chain privacy, while still dissociating from illicit funds

It is now up to all of us to Make Privacy Normal Again 🫡

More info in this thread 👇 pic.twitter.com/3nJO0AxoD1

— 0xbow.io (@0xbowio) March 31, 2025

The Association Sets are “dynamic” — meaning that if a transaction is admitted but later found to be illicit, it can be removed from the set without disrupting any other deposits, 0xbow.io said.

North Korean cyberwarfare attacks on the cryptocurrency industry are growing in sophistication and in the number of groups involved in such criminal activity, crypto firm Paradigm warns in report titled “Demystifying the North Korean Threat.”

North Korea-originated cyberattacks range from assaults on exchanges and social engineering attempts to phishing attacks and complex supply chain hijacks, the report says. In some cases, the attacks take a year to play out, with North Korean operatives biding their time.

The United Nations estimates that between 2017 and 2023, North Korean hackers have netted the country $3 billion. The total haul has skyrocketed in 2024 and this year, with successful attacks against crypto exchanges WazirX and Bybit, which together netted attackers around $1.7 billion.

Paradigm writes that the North Korean organizations orchestrating these attacks number at least five: Lazarus Group, Spinout, AppleJeus, Dangerous Password, and TraitorTrader. There is also a coalition of North Korean operatives who pose as IT workers, infiltrating tech companies around the world.

Related: Typosquatting in crypto, explained: How hackers exploit small mistakes

Hyperliquid is one of the current bull market’s standout DeFi success stories. With daily trading volumes having reached $4 billion, the exchange has become the largest decentralized (DEX) derivatives platform, commanding nearly 60% of the market.

Hyperliquid still lags far behind Binance Futures’ $50 billion daily average volume, but the trend suggests that it has started to encroach on centralized exchange (CEX) territory.

What’s behind Hyperliquid’s parabolic rise?

Launched in 2023, Hyperliquid gained popularity in April 2024 after launching spot trading. This, combined with its aggressive listing strategy and easy-to-use onchain user interface, helped to lure in a wave of new users.

The platform’s real explosion, however, came in November 2024, following the launch of its HYPE (HYPE) token. Hyperliquid’s trading volume skyrocketed, and it now boasts over 400,000 users and more than 50 billion trades processed, according to data from Dune.

Hyperliquid cumulative trades and users. Source: Dune