Hungarian election winner Péter Magyar is set to travel to Italy’s Riviera International Film Festival on May 5 to attend the international premiere of of documentary “Spring Wind – The Awakening.”
The doc charts the political journey that culminated with his historic April 12 victory in the country’s general elections. Directed by Tamás Yvan Topolánszky, “Spring Wind – The Awakening” takes viewers behind the scenes of Magyar’s political rise that has led to the dethroning of Hungary’s longtime prime minister Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power, rejecting Orbán’s far-right policies and anti-European Union stance.
The doc, independently produced by Topolánszky and Claudia Sümeghy with Juno 11 Pictures and Halluci-Nation, played prominently in Hungary in movie theaters, on HBO, and also as an online freebie in the lead-up to the Hungarian elections. Juno 11 Distribution is handling international sales.
“‘Spring Wind’ has become the most viewed Hungarian documentary ever in cinemas and it has 3.3 million views on YouTube in two days and it has been leading the HBO ratings list for two weeks,” Magyar stated in an Instagram post. “My thanks to the creators of this film that has reached out compatriots and to the organizers of the film festival for the invitation.”
Magyar’s center-right Tisza party gained 141 seats out of 199 in parliament — the largest majority in Hungary’s post-Communist history.
The 10th edition of the Riviera International Film Festival, which is held in the picturesque seaside town of Sestri Levante on Italy’s ligurian coast and is headed by Los Angeles-based Italian producer Stefano Gallini-Durante, will run May 5-10.
When Nakadai Tatsuya, one of Japan’s most celebrated actors, decided that his young student’s surname was too dull for the stage, he reached for an unlikely inspiration. Hashimoto Koji — as the actor was called then — had been working at a Tokyo municipal office before auditioning for Nakadai’s acting school. The word for such an office in Japanese is yakusho. The stage name followed naturally, carrying with it a wish: that this unknown clerk’s range of roles would one day be as wide as possible.
Forty-eight years later, Yakusho Koji arrived in Udine to collect the Golden Mulberry Award for lifetime achievement at the Far East Film Festival — presented by Wim Wenders, no less — and the name has more than fulfilled its promise.
For Yakusho, the award carries a specific weight. “It’s like if I was a horse in a horse race — it’s like somebody is giving me the last whip of love,” he told Variety. “It means that I still have something to do, and I can go on a little further.”
The career that earned that whip began not with film but with period television. His breakthrough came playing Oda Nobunaga, the volatile 16th-century warlord, in an NHK taiga drama that ran for much of the year. The role aired when Yakusho was 26 and was the first that allowed him to live on acting alone. “Until then,” he said at a masterclass at the festival, “I was doing part-time jobs alongside studying acting.”
His transition to film came through Itami Juzo, who cast him as a mysterious man in white in “Tampopo” after spotting him in a television drama wearing a similar suit. The 1985 noodle-western became a cult classic abroad — particularly in the U.S., where it enjoyed a long run — though it underperformed locally. What Yakusho remembers most vividly is a scene that went further than intended. His character dies covered in blood, and during the shoot he hit his face on an iron bar and started bleeding for real. “They asked whether I should go to the hospital,” he recalled, “but since the character was supposed to die covered in blood, I asked them to keep rolling.” The shoot continued with Yakusho lying in the rain, bleeding genuinely, until a passing woman became convinced she was witnessing a murder and tried to call the police.
It was Imamura Shohei’s “The Eel” that placed him on the world stage. When the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1997, Imamura — who had little appetite for press attention — had already left France. Yakusho had also departed, and spent a day confined to his Paris hotel room trying to secure a flight back. He made it to the ceremony and was called to the stage by Catherine Deneuve. “I had a feeling some people in the audience might have mistaken me for Imamura Shohei,” he recalled. “So my opening words were, ‘I am not Imamura Shohei’ — and when the audience laughed, I relaxed a little.”
The mid-1990s were a pivotal stretch. In a single year in 1996, Yakusho made three films: the near-silent “Sleeping Man,” Suo Masayuki’s “Shall We Dance?,” and the yakuza picture “Shabu Gokudo.” The discipline required by the first movie — long stretches of minimal dialogue in which he had to generate meaning through stillness and pauses — he credits directly with unlocking the gentle precision of his performance in “Shall We Dance?.” What he could not have anticipated was that “Shall We Dance?” would eventually reach Wenders, who often watched it with his family at Christmas. “If there had been no ‘Shall We Dance?’,” Yakusho said, “Wim Wenders would never have known me.”
That connection led, decades later, to “Perfect Days,” which won him best actor at Cannes. For Yakusho, the experience crystallized something fundamental about the craft. “What you do is that you go to a film set and you just keep chasing human life,” he told Variety. “You keep chasing living human beings in order to portray them.” His guiding principle in choosing roles is similarly distilled. “Overall, what interests me is beauty,” he said. “I want to participate in beautiful films, in beautiful stories, in movies with beautiful people. I speak of beauty in a very wide sense — it can be the beauty within a yakuza movie.”
Physical preparation has always been central to his process. For “Shall We Dance?” he trained in ballroom dancing for four months, practicing steps in the corner of a period drama set he was shooting concurrently, in full costume. For “The Eel” he learned barbering. For “Under the Open Sky” he practiced on a sewing machine at home — and broke one. The goal, he said, is always the same: “I want the skill to sink into my body to the point where I’m no longer conscious of it during a performance. Whether it’s dancing or cleaning toilets, if I’m still thinking about the technique, I can’t do the acting that actually matters.”
Now 70, he is candid about what age demands. “Filmmaking is grueling,” he said. “When I’m playing a 70-year-old character, I feel I need the physical capacity of someone at least five years younger to get through the shoot.” But he sees aging as an asset as much as a constraint — a lived texture that cannot be faked, and one he credits with making his performance in “Perfect Days” possible in ways it would not have been earlier in his career.
He has a new project in the pipeline, a smaller film set to begin shooting in June, directed by someone with a background in CGI whose name he declined to reveal. He retains ambitions behind the camera too. His sole directorial outing, “Toad’s Oil” in 2009, left him humbled by the demands of the job — “I realized directing was this difficult,” he said — but he has continued developing projects since, writing scripts with friends and pushing them forward. The obstacle is consistent: investors will only commit if he stars in the films himself, and the pictures he wants to make are small and resolutely non-commercial. “The kind of film I want to make is not a large-scale commercial film,” he said, “so the money doesn’t come together. And I can’t ask the staff to work for nothing.”
On the evidence of what Japanese cinema has produced in recent years, he is quietly optimistic about the generation following his own. “There is a new generation of directors, and they have talent,” he told Variety. “I just hope from the bottom of my heart that all the production companies will be able not to make their talent collapse.”
As for the lifetime achievement honor, Yakusho is choosing to read it as acceleration rather than conclusion. The horse, he said, still has ground to cover.
Despite significant price drops in XRP, Ripple aims to solidify its leading position in the blockchain ecosystem.
At this point, Ripple is expanding its corporate digital asset services by forging new partnerships to continue its global growth.
Accordingly, KBank, one of South Korea’s largest banks, has partnered with Ripple to test on-chain money transfers.
The bank announced today at its headquarters in Seoul that it has formed a strategic partnership with Ripple.
According to the statements, the two companies will collaborate on a proof-of-concept study to evaluate potential improvements in the speed, cost, and transparency of cross-border money transfers.
The primary goal of the collaboration is to verify the effectiveness of a blockchain-based money transfer system.
With this partnership, Kbank plans to leverage Ripple’s global payment network and infrastructure to evaluate potential improvements in transaction speed, cost structure, and transaction transparency.
KBank CEO Choi Woo-hyung said, “This collaboration with Ripple will be an opportunity for K-Bank to enhance its competitiveness in blockchain-based international money transfer technology.”
Fiona Murray, Ripple’s General Manager for Asia-Pacific, said, “This collaboration will be an opportunity for KBank to enhance its competitiveness in blockchain-based international money transfer technology.”
Admiral Samuel Paparo, Jr., who leads U.S. forces across the Indo-Pacific, told a Senate panel that Bitcoin matters to national security.
“Bitcoin is a reality,” he said. “It is a valuable computer science tool as a power projection. And outside of the economic formulation of it, it has got really important computer science applications for cybersecurity.”
The next day, at a House hearing, Paparo confirmed that the Pentagon is running its own Bitcoin node and carrying out “a number of operational tests to secure and protect networks using the Bitcoin protocol.” It was the first time the military had publicly said so.
The admission did not come in a vacuum. Iran is now taking Bitcoin as payment for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Taiwan is weighing it as a reserve asset in case China moves against its finances.
Russia said last week it will accept Bitcoin for international trade starting in July. What was once a fringe digital currency is increasingly being treated as a tool of statecraft.
China stockpiles Bitcoin while banning it at home
China’s position is the most complicated. Beijing banned Bitcoin and all crypto activity in 2021, citing environmental damage, fraud risks, and illegal money flows. Yet China already holds the second-largest government Bitcoin stockpile in the world.
In May 2025, the International Monetary Institute, China’s top financial think tank, translated and shared a report by former White House economist Matthew Ferranti arguing that Bitcoin could help central banks guard against inflation, sanctions, and financial crises. The institute passed it to Communist Party policymakers with a note saying Bitcoin’s rise as a reserve asset “deserves continued attention.”
The clearest sign of China’s real intentions is a legal fight with Washington. According to Cryptopolitan’s report, the U.S. Department of Justice seized 127,000 Bitcoin, worth roughly $15 billion, from Chen Zhi, a Chinese billionaire accused of running fraud operations across Southeast Asia that drained hundreds of American victims.
Before U.S. authorities could detain him, Chinese officials pulled Chen back to China in January, filing their own charges against the 38-year-old. China has no extradition deal with the United States.
Beijing then accused Washington of stealing the Bitcoin through a hack as far back as 2020, claiming U.S. agents broke into Chen’s mining operation, LuBian, and later dressed it up as a law enforcement seizure.
The stakes are straightforward: if China recovers Chen’s holdings, it would control roughly 321,000 Bitcoin, well ahead of the United States at 198,000.
America’s mining strength runs on Chinese hardware
Two Republicans are pushing to cut China’s advantage on the mining end.
In March, a bill, Mined in America, was introduced by Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. It addresses the 97% of China’s hardware used in 38% of the US global Bitcoin mining activity. About 82% of the global production that specialized chip miners depend on is controlled by Bitmain. Dennis Porter of the Satoshi Action Fund called this “a liability”.
The bill bans certified miners from buying any new China-made hardware from next year. By 2030, the miners are required to fully transition from the existing hardware.
The bill would create a voluntary certification program through the Department of Commerce. Certified miners can no longer buy new Chinese hardware after January 1, 2027, and would need to completely stop the use of any such hardware by 2030.
It also locks in President Trump’s March 2025 executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and lets certified miners sell freshly mined Bitcoin to the Treasury at a tax advantage. “Digital asset mining is a big part of our economy. We should be doing it here in America,” said Senator Cassidy.
In China, the crypto rules have become stricter. Now it’s illegal to even promote crypto online on any platform. The rule will take effect on September 30th.
Congressman William Timmons put the broader contest simply: “If you can’t control your citizenry as it relates to information and money, what do you have left?” The country banning Bitcoin for its people is racing to stockpile it for itself.
UTXO Management, a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA), announced the formation of UTXO Preferred Income Strategies LP, a Delaware limited partnership structured to provide access to income from preferred digital credit securities.
The fund introduces a dual-class structure designed to serve different allocator objectives within a single vehicle.
The structure includes a Senior Income Class and a Total Return Class. The Senior Income Class targets a fixed annual coupon paid monthly as return of capital sourced from preferred dividend streams, according to a company release.
Distributions flow first to this class, ahead of fees and junior allocations. The structure seeks to deliver yield above short-term U.S. Treasury bills, supported by a junior equity cushion. This class carries no management or performance fees.
The Total Return Class targets return through residual income after senior distributions. The strategy includes disciplined leverage, relative value positioning across the preferred digital credit stack, and participation in new issuance. This class absorbs first loss and captures upside tied to spread compression and income growth.
The fund’s initial portfolio is expected to include digital credit instruments such as the Strategy Variable Rate Perpetual Stretch Preferred Security (STRC). These instruments form part of a growing segment within capital markets that blends features of fixed income with digital asset exposure.
Chief Investment Officer Tyler Evans said the digital credit market has reached a stage of development that supports structured products, though access remains limited across institutional channels.
“We designed our first structured credit product, UTXO Preferred Income Strategies LP, to give allocators access to these dividend-paying securities, with the capital structure enhancements, institutional servicing, and operational transparency they require,” Evans said.
UTXO’s expansion into credit
Since 2019, UTXO Management and its affiliates have launched and managed several investment vehicles across the Bitcoin ecosystem. These include the Bitcoin Ecosystem Fund, focused on venture investments, and 210k Capital, LP, a hedge fund strategy centered on Bitcoin and related instruments. The launch of UTXO Preferred Income Strategies LP marks the firm’s entry into structured credit, extending its platform into income-oriented strategies.
UTXO Management operates as a Bitcoin-native asset manager across public and private markets. The firm allocates capital across liquid securities, venture investments, and strategic partnerships tied to Bitcoin infrastructure and adoption. Nakamoto Inc., its parent company, holds and operates a portfolio of Bitcoin-native businesses.
The fund will be offered to accredited investors who also meet the definition of qualified purchasers under applicable securities laws. Interests will be sold through private placement and will not be registered under the Securities Act of 1933. Investment decisions must rely on the fund’s offering documents, which contain full details on terms, risks, and structure.
The strategy involves a high degree of risk. Digital credit securities face regulatory uncertainty, liquidity constraints, and valuation challenges. The fund may employ leverage, which can increase losses. The dual-class structure depends on the performance of underlying assets and the sufficiency of the junior equity layer to protect senior distributions.
No capital has been deployed under the strategy at the time of announcement. Target yield and return figures represent internal objectives based on modeled scenarios and do not constitute forecasts or guarantees. Actual performance may differ based on market conditions, issuer credit quality, and broader economic factors.
Disclaimer: Bitcoin Magazine is published by BTC Inc, a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. UTXO Management is also a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA)
This post UTXO Management Launches Dual-Class Digital Credit Income Fund first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.
Iran discusses diplomatic solutions with regional partners as Trump says Iran could telephone if it wants to talk.
Published On 27 Apr 202627 Apr 2026
Iran has stepped up diplomatic efforts to end the war with the United States, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi shuttling between Pakistan and Oman on Sunday before flying to Russia on Monday.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday Iran could telephone if it wanted to negotiate an end to the two-month US-Israel war on Iran after scrapping a visit to Islamabad by his representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
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The two main sticking points are the issues of Iran’s nuclear programme and access to the crucial Strait of Hormuz, which remains under de facto Iranian blockade.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have escalated attacks against Lebanon, killing at least 14 people on Sunday despite a US-brokered ceasefire.
Here is what we know on day 59 of the conflict:
War diplomacy
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi arrived in Saint Petersburg early on Monday and is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Russian and Iranian state media.
Discussions on bilateral ties and regional issues, including the US-Israel war on Iran, will be held, Araghchi said.
According to Araghchi, Iran and Oman, as coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz, had agreed to continue expert-level consultations to ensure safe transit and protect shared interests in the waterway.
Araghchi said his talks in the Pakistani capital were “very productive” and included a review of “the specific conditions under which negotiations between Iran and the US could continue”.
Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Islamabad, said according to one diplomatic source, recent events have “served as a catalyst”, reinforcing the view that “there needs to be a permanent end to hostilities”.
“We are being told here in Islamabad that we are inching towards a framework of sorts, which will provide a background to which all of these sides can come to an agreement – and not just the Iranians and the Americans, but essentially the Gulf countries as well,” he reported.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organisations in Vienna, said the US must abandon “blackmailing” and “ultimatums” in its negotiating position if talks with Iran are to move forward.
In Iran
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had no intention of unblocking the Strait of Hormuz.
“Controlling the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining the shadow of its deterrent effects over America and the White House’s supporters in the region is the definitive strategy of Islamic Iran,” the IRGC said on its official Telegram channel.
In US
Trump said a shooting at a Washington media dinner on Saturday would not divert him from the war on Iran. “It’s not going to deter me from winning the war in Iran. I don’t know if that had anything to do with it, I really don’t think so, based on what we know,” Trump told reporters at the White House after the incident.
The US president reiterated that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, while saying he was open to talks with Tehran.
In Lebanon
The Ministry of Public Health said Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Sunday killed 14 people, including two women and two children, and wounded 37.
State media outlet National News Agency reported that Israeli forces raided the entrance to Kafra in southern Lebanon at dawn on Monday and cut off the road leading to the town.
Hezbollah rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accusation that it was jeopardising a ceasefire, saying in a statement that its attacks on Israeli targets in southern Lebanon and northern Israel were “a legitimate response to the enemy’s persistent violations of the ceasefire since the first day of the announcement of the temporary truce”.
Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert, who co-created “For All Mankind” and now its spin-off “Star City” with Ronald D. Moore, are adamant that people are dreaming of space exploration again.
“With the Artemis II launch that just happened, I felt that excitement again. It wasn’t about space tourism; it wasn’t about the wealthy. It was about being inspired,” Wolpert tells Variety at Canneseries where “Star City” world premiered April 26.
Apple TV’s “Star City” – a Sony Pictures Television production – follows the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Rhys Ifans, Anna Maxwell Martin, Agnes O’Casey, Alice Englert and Solly McLeod star.
“There was this moment in the late ’60s and early 70s when we were pushing each other forward. It was a competition, but it did lead toward amazing things. There’s an exploration gene in our DNA and space is the last frontier.”
As Russian invasion on Ukraine continues, they acknowledge it’s a “complicated time” to tell a story set in the Soviet Union.
“Our point of view is that human beings are human beings. Their system and their government are obviously negative, but there are many people living under that government who don’t agree with it or are just trying to live a normal life,” notes Wolpert.
Nedivi adds: “We are students of history, and sadly, history repeats itself. This period speaks to a lot of what’s happening now. It’s a reminder, and a warning, of what can happen if we’re not careful. We can easily return to that horror.”
As he points out, the characters quickly discover “it’s more dangerous on the ground than it is in space.” While they reference real-life space pioneers such as Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, others are fictionalized.
“Everybody knows everything about the U.S. program. There were movies, TV shows, books, magazines. The Soviets, however, wanted to keep theirs a secret. The stories we heard were incredible and insane. We couldn’t believe they were true.”
Take the landing of Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, says Wolpert.
“They went off course and landed in the middle of a snowbound forest in Siberia, surrounded by wild animals. They had to survive there! These cosmonauts and engineers became superstars and because of that, they were kept under careful watch. The idea of being so terrified of something you’re also so proud of is fascinating.”
In the series, cosmonauts are controlled by the system. It follows their every move, writes their speeches and decides who they are going to marry.
“Again, this was based on something that actually happened: Tereshkova had an arranged marriage with another cosmonaut. They weren’t able to feel safe,” says Wolpert.
Despite all this struggle, they wanted to show that the human spirit can overcome pretty much everything.
“That’s the story we wanted to tell. We live in very dark times. Every time I read the newspaper, I want to cry. These characters really spoke to us,” notes Nedivi.
“Honestly, we were amazed that Apple would even make it. To their credit, they never saw it through the lens of politics or what sells and what doesn’t. It’s a testament to Apple’s confidence that we were able to tell a story like this, which is very rare on TV.”
Although “Star City” is in English, they set out to create an international show.
“‘Chernobyl’ was definitely one of our inspirations. We even shot in Lithuania, just like they did. This show epitomizes an international production. Here we are: two American writers with a British cast and a show shot in Lithuania and premiering in France,” says Nedivi.
“Many people in our Lithuanian crew grew up in the shadow of the Soviet Union. Their parents would come and look at the costumes and buildings in horror. It’s important to explore cultures outside your own. Now more than ever, because our world is shrinking. What unites us is this wonder about venturing further into space. This is for all of us. This is for all mankind.”
Wolpert claims that people’s perspective changes when they go up there.
“So many of them started to speak out against conflict and work across borders. Science and facts can actually break down barriers between different societies.”
His co-creator adds: “They say: ‘Write what you know,’ which is the biggest lie of all. But you can’t help but write from what you’re feeling. Seeing how our society has evolved and changed over the last five years has definitely informed my psyche, but our hope is that this show is a lesson in embracing exploration again. The world can be better. I believe that.”
South Korea-based cryptocurrency exchanges Upbit and Bithumb have announced they will add the Perle ($PRL) token to their trading platforms. According to the announcements, $PRL will be traded against the Korean won (KRW), BTC, and USDT. While trading is planned to begin today, some platforms have updated their opening times, postponing them to the evening.
Deposit and withdrawal options for $PRL will be activated shortly after the announcement. However, only the Solana network will be supported, and transfers from other networks will not be accepted. Exchanges have warned users to carefully check network compatibility before making transactions.
Temporary trading restrictions will be implemented in parallel with the new listing. Accordingly, buy orders will be limited for the first 5 minutes after trading begins. Sell orders below 10% and above 100% of the designated reference price will not be allowed during the same period. Furthermore, only limit orders will be valid for the first two hours.
The Perle project offers a blockchain-based infrastructure focused on the production and verification of data used in artificial intelligence (AI) training. The platform aims to ensure transparency and traceability by recording data generated and verified by human experts on the blockchain. The $PRL token serves as a reward and incentive mechanism for users contributing to this ecosystem.
Experts say that listing $PRL on major exchanges could increase the project’s visibility and lead to increased trading volume.
Markets are leaving April with a plethora of macro events to watch. Four major central banks, the Bank of Japan, U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England, all set interest-rate policy this week.
Layered on top is a slate of U.S. data including first-quarter GDP and March PCE inflation alongside earnings from Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood and some of the biggest tech companies, whose results could either reinforce or unwind the current tone.
Markus Levin, Co-founder of XYO, told CoinDesk that bitcoin is entering the week “with strong momentum around the $78,000 level, and while the Fed is expected to keep rates unchanged, persistent inflation could reinforce a hawkish tone and we could see bitcoin pull back to $72,000–$74,000 range once again in the short-term.”
Tech giants’ earnings, Levin added, could also be a crucial indicator “in reinforcing or challenging the current trajectory given their outsized influence on equity markets, while developments around the U.S.–Iran talks will steer sentiment through oil and dollar movements.”
What to Watch
(All times ET)
Crypto
May 1: Full shutdown of Magic Eden’s wallet services.
Macro
April 27, 10:00 p.m.: Bank of Japan Interest Rate Decision est. 0.75% (Prev. 0.75%)
April 29, 8:45 a.m.: Bank of Canada Interest Rate Decision (Prev. 2.25%)
April 29, 01:00 p.m.: U.S. Fed Interest Rate Decision est. 3.75% (Prev. 3.75%)
April 30, 4:00 a.m.: Euro Area Inflation Rate YoY Flash for April (Prev. 2.6%)
April 30, 6:00 a.m.: Bank of England Interest Rate Decision est. 3.75% (Prev. 3.75%)
April 30, 07:15 a.m.: European Central Bank Interest Rate Decision est. 2.15% (Prev. 2.15%)
April 30, 07:30 a.m.: U.S. GDP Growth Rate QoQ Adv for Q1 est. 1.5% (Prev. 0.5%)
April 30, 07:30 a.m.: U.S. PCE Price Index YoY for March(Prev. 2.8%); Core YoY (Prev. 3%)
April 30, 07:30 a.m.: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims for period ending April 25 est. 219K (Prev. 214K)
May 1, 09:00 a.m.: U.S. ISM Manufacturing PMI for April est. 52.5 (Prev. 52.7)
Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
April 28: Visa (V), post-market, $3.1
April 28: Robinhood Markets (HOOD), post-market, $0.4
April 28: Galaxy Digital (GLXY), pre-market, -$0.65
April 30: Mastercard (MA), pre-market, $4.41
April 30: Riot Platforms (RIOT), post-market, -$0.32
April 30: CoinShares (CSHR), annual report expected
May 1: WisdomTree (WT), pre-market, $0.25
Token Events
Governance votes & calls
Frax DAO is voting to add sGHO and USCC as yield strategies within sfrxUSD, expanding the stablecoin’s backing asset set. Voting ends April 26.
Ether.fi DAO is voting on a treasury contribution to restore rsETH’s backing following the KelpDAO bridge exploit. Voting ends April 27.
Compound DAO is voting on a proposal to update rsETH price feeds on its WETH and wstETH Ethereum mainnet markets. Voting ends April 27.
Decentraland DAO is voting on the “2030 Transition Plan,” a strategic roadmap for the platform’s governance and metaverse product positioning. Voting ends April 30.
Nouns DAO (Prop 959) is voting on a 501(c)(3) feasibility study to explore nonprofit status for the DAO, with significant implications for treasury management and grant-making. Voting ends April 30.
Beefy DAO is voting on Q2 2026 contributor funding and Staworth contributor renewal. Voting for both ends April 30.
RootstockCollective is voting on a grant milestone payment for Blockscout’s Global Wallet. Voting ends April 30.
Arbitrum DAO is voting to transfer 6,000 ETH and roughly $150,000 in idle USDC from its main treasury to the Treasury Management Portfolio. Voting ends May 5.
Unlocks
April 28: Jupiter (JUP) to unlock 1.54% of its circulating supply worth $9.67 million.
May 1: to unlock 1.08% of its circulating supply worth $40.43 million
Token Launches
April 27: Chiliz (CHZ) to roll out FanTokens V2.0
April 28: Binance to delist Dego Finance (DEGO), DENT (DENT) amd
April 28: Pharos mainnet launches
April 30: MegaETH (MEGA) token generation event expected to occur.
May 1: Venice (VVV) to cut token emissions from 6 million to 5 million per year.
London’s Queer East Festival is back for its seventh edition, showcasing cinema and performing arts in venues across the British capital fromMay 1 to June 6.
The annual exploration of East and Southeast Asia’s ever-evolving queer landscape will kick off at the Barbican with the U.K. premiere of the landmark 4K restoration of the 1986 Taiwanese film The Outsiders, the first screen adaptation of Pai Hsien-Yung’s groundbreaking novel Crystal Boys, which was directed by Yu Kan-Ping. The restored version includes previously censored material, with the Queer East Festival vowing to present it “in its full, hallucinatory glory.”
Among other highlights of the seventh edition include the likes of Park Joon-ho’s 3670, which the fest calls “a milestone in South Korean queer cinema, portraying the hidden codes of Seoul’s gay scene,” Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s feature debut and Thailand’s international Oscar submission A Useful Ghost, a Thai feature skewering “the establishment and cultural hypocrisy,” Xiaodan He’s Montreal, My Beautiful, starring screen icon Joan Chen in a cinematic journey of self-discovery, Jota Mun’s Between Goodbyes, as documentary about queer adoption and the legacy of South Korea’s overseas adoption program, and Tracy Choi’s coming-of-age drama Girlfriends.
Also part of Queer East 2026 are the likes of Kuo-Sin Ong’s Singapore drag comedy A Good Child, Nigel Santos’ Open Endings, a drama about four queer women navigating love, sex and chosen families, Yihwen Chen’s Queer as Punk, a documentary about a punk band, led by a trans man, in Malaysia where being LGBTQ+ is criminalized, lesbian cinema pioneer Ulrike Ottinger’s 1989 classic Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia, and Cactus Pears, Rohan Kanawade’s debut feature and winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2025.
‘Girlfriends,’ courtesy of Queer East Festival
Alongside the film program, Queer East presents talks, workshops, live performances and a late-night rave on May 16. Also, the second iteration of the Queer East Industry Day at BFI Southbank on May 24 will bring together film professionals from diverse backgrounds to discuss “the current challenges in queer and Asian independent film production and exhibition.”
About this year’s mix of features and shorts from across Asia and its diaspora communities and its mix of newer and older movies, Queer East Festival program director Yi Wang said: “To look back is a crucial step in understanding how to move forward. This year’s program places a strong focus on queer cinema heritage, featuring a series of screenings with 35mm prints, stunning 4K restorations, and rare archival materials spanning over six decades of queer filmmaking across Asia. While sometimes overlooked, these films hold the collective memory of our communities, and by bringing them to the big screen again, we want to create a space for dialogues between our queer past and today’s audiences.”
THR talked to the festival programmer about the lineup for the Queer East Festival 2026, how the fest came about and how it has grown since then.
Why and how did you decide to found the Queer East Festival?And how far do you feel you have come?
The idea of creating Queer East was quite personal. I was actually working in performing arts, such as theater amd dance production, and didn’t really have a direct connection with film. But as someone who immigrated to London [from Taiwan] back in 2014 to do my master’s degree and someone who is always very keen on queer cinema, I didn’t really see a lot of East and Southeast Asian queer cinema. We see quite a lot of classics, such as Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet. But it’s quite rare to see more contemporary Asian cinema. And I just had this idea to do that if no one’s doing it.
Queer East programming director Yi Wang
I just didn’t want to do it by myself. I approached people, talked to different cinema curators and then put together this idea of Queer East that was originally planned for April 2020. Obviously, there was the pandemic. So, we couldn’t really do the festival as we had originally intended, but we had online screenings and still managed to do some in-person screenings and gained quite a lot of attention. And really liked the idea of putting queer Eastern and Southeast Asian cinema together. It started with the idea of a small weekend showcase, but now, we have become one of the largest queer Asian festivals in the U.K. It has been quite a ride for me.
How has the number of films screened at the fest grown?
This year we have 130-something films, including [more than 90] shorts. I think the first year, it was around 15 films. Now, we work with 14 venues in London, including the BFI Southbank, the Barbican and ICA.
Your festival has a really diverse program covering films from different genres and countries. Have you noticed hurdles or so for queer Asian cinema in Asia or elsewhere?
In Asian countries, including in Thailand, the Philippines, and even Vietnam, which has heavy censorship, there’s queer cinema being made every year. I think it’s more about expectations in the West. Sometimes people still think Asian cinema is supposed to be only about arthouse, high culture or serious political films.
My idea of queer is to have films that talk about social, societal, political issues, but also comedies and romance films. So, it is broader-based. Part of the reason I started Queer East was that I feel it’s very important that we look at queer cinema in a more three-dimensional way. There is such a big variety. And that is why we have loads of films from different countries talking about different perspectives of queerness.
‘The Outsiders,’ courtesy of Queer East Festival
In unveiling this year’s lineup, you highlighted how the past of cinema can help elucidate the future…
Yeah, film heritage and the film archive have been a key focus in my curation. We are screening films that never had a chance to get an international presence and every year we try to bring rarely seen and under-the-radar queer Asian cinema to the U.K. audience. This year, the festival opens with The Outsiders, which is a screen adaptation of one of the most important gay novels in the Mandarin-speaking world and a film that has been quite important in queer Asian film history. Because the film was made during censorship under martial law in Taiwan, the film was heavily cut. I think there were 21 cuts. This is the first time they have reintroduced those censored materials to the film in this 4k restoration.
You are also showing films in 35mm prints. What can you tell me about those?
We have two 35mm prints from Japan. One was made in 1959, the other was made in the ’60s, and both of them are really important in Japanese queer film history. [They are Keisuke Kinoshita’s Farewell to Spring and Masahiro Shinoda’s With Beauty and Sorrow.] These are films that people may know about, but they never get a chance to see them on the big screen.
We have a lot of young audiences, people under 30, or in their early 20s, and they have never had a chance to see these films on the big screen. Every year, I encounter all these young audiences who come to me saying: “Oh my God, I heard about this film but never had a chance to see it on the big screen.” So, it is really inspiring for them to see how queer film was made and how queer life was depicted in the past.
‘Between Goodbyes,’ courtesy of Queer East Festival
We touched on how political cinema can be. Do you think of Queer East as an event that does or can encourage political debate?
Even our idea of queer comes from a slightly political way of challenging the very white gay men-centric queer cinema landscape in the U.K. and across Europe. And every year, we have films that address current social issues, for example, films about trans communities across different Asian countries. Our festival also features strong films either made by queer female filmmakers or about queer women, which, again, is something that you usually can’t see a lot of.
Is there anything else you’d highlight about Queer East and its festival audience?
Actually, people always say that it’s like a community, that people come together. And I really want to keep it as a festival that brings people together.
