Good Morning,

Here’s a quick preview of today’s content: Reports come out thatRipple tried to buyout the worlds largest stablecoin, crypto influencer Pomp is looing to IPO, Robinhood sees Q1 crypto struggles amongst good earnings, April sees nearly 9-figures of stolen digital assets, monthly stablecoin transactions skyrocket, and so much more.

Happy Thursday – Bring on the Q2 bull run. Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

  • Bitcoin’s rise above $95,000 reversed following U.S. economic data that came in worse than expected – more on this below

  • Marco: Q1 GDP contracted for the first time since 2022, while the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge aligned with expectations from experts

    • Private-sector employment increased by only 62,000 jobs in April, below the anticipated 108,000 and sharply lower than March’s 147,000, according to ADP Employment figures

    • Analysts said the Fed could implement cut rates at its policy meeting in May following the latest economic update

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • Q1 U.S. GDP declined by -0.3%, marking the first negative reading since 2022, (vs. expected 0.2% growth) – a full breakdown of yesterday’s sour economic report here

  • Ripple attempted to buy Circle for up to $5B (TB)

  • Robinhood beats earnings but stock dips after crypto revenue miss – see full Q1 earnings breakdown here

  • Crypto influencer Anthony Pompliano filed for a $200M IPO for ProCap Acquisition Corp., a SPAC targeting investments in tech or digital assets (BBG)

  • Crypto giant Galaxy Digital preps Nasdaq select market debut (DT)

  • An media firm has acquired the film rights for the man behind the $800M lost bitcoin fortune buried in a Welsh landfill since 2013 (TB)

  • Solana ETF approval odds hit 90% in new Bloomberg report (CT)

  • Semler scientific buys another $15.7M in bitcoin (BM)

  • Coinbase joins fight against IRS in major supreme court case on user data (CD)

  • Solana’s bold plan: put wall street on the blockchain (TB)

  • Blackrock’s next move according to SEC filing: $150b tokenized bond offering (CD)

  • Telegram fund to tokenize $500M debt on ton (DF)

  • Visa to power new USDC cards with Baanx (CD)

  • Ubisoft joins crypto gaming innovation push with LayerZero (BW)

  • Mercado Bitcoin brings tokenized assets to wormhole (TB)

  • CZ now advising countries on crypto reserve strategies (DT)

  • Coinbase now offering bitcoin loans up to $1m after big 9 figure surge (TB)

  • Coinbase roadmap includes Worldcoin listing and trading on Optimism (DF)

  • Former Messari exec joins ultra-exclusive crypto network Medici as president (DT)

  • Elon musk could make X the next crypto super app according to Scaramucci (TB)

  • Survey discovers 60% of crypto users juggle multiple wallets (DT)

  • Eric Trump says banks against crypto will become extinct (WG)

  • Arthur Hayes doubles down on $1M bitcoin call by 2028 (TB)

Venture Capital

  • Re7 capital launches new $10M fund focused on 30 SocialFi startups (TB)

  • Terminal 3 announces $8M financing led by Illuminate Financial and CMCC Titan Fund for web3 data privacy (FS)

  • Stablecoin startup Zar lands $7M seed led by A16Z, VanEck, and Dragonfly Capital (YF)

  • Decentralized AI project Gata closes $4M seed round from investors Yzi Labs, Gate Blockchain, and many more (PA)

  • Borderless Capital and GEODNET co-lead $2.6M seed for DePIN platform ROVR Network (CS)

  • Kaia receives venture backing from Blockchain Capital, 1kx and many others (AI)

Launches

  • Visa teams with Bridge to launch stablecoin-backed cards (TB)

  • Flappy bird returns (again) but without crypto features on Telegram version (DT)

  • Sony partners with Plume to offer on-chain access to RWA markets (TB)

Regulation

  • PayPal’s stablecoin clears a major regulatory hurdle as SEC drops probe (DT)

  • North Carolina votes to allow crypto in 5 state funds (DF)

  • Australia finance watchdog cracks down on inactive crypto exchanges to weed out illegitimate players (CT)

Cybersecurity

  • $92M total lost in April crypto hacks as defi hacks spike (TB)

  • KuCoin pledges $2B to crypto security trust project (CD)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

Stablecoin transaction volume hits record monthly high in April, nearing $1.9T

Meme Dump

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