Category: Business

Institutional investors are warming to digital assets, with improving sentiment and broader use cases emerging as key drivers of adoption, according to a new survey from Tokyo-based bank Nomura and its crypto unit Laser Digital.

The study, based on responses from more than 500 investment professionals in Japan, found that 31% of respondents now hold a positive outlook on crypto over the next year, up from 25% in 2024. Meanwhile, negative sentiment has declined, pointing to a gradual shift in perception as the asset class matures.

A central theme is diversification. Some 65% of respondents said they view crypto as a portfolio diversifier, while 79% of those considering exposure plan to invest within three years. Most expect relatively modest allocations — typically between 2% and 5% — suggesting institutions are still in the early stages of adoption.

That shift is being supported by a changing regulatory and policy backdrop. In Japan, policymakers have spent the past year refining crypto frameworks, including discussions around classification, taxation and investor protections. Globally, clearer rules in major markets — alongside the approval and expansion of crypto investment products such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and tokenized assets — have reduced some of the uncertainty that previously kept institutions on the sidelines.

As a result, interest is expanding beyond simple price exposure. More than 60% of respondents expressed interest in staking, lending, derivatives and tokenized assets, reflecting growing demand for yield-generating strategies and more sophisticated portfolio construction.

Stablecoins are also gaining traction, with 63% of respondents identifying potential use cases ranging from treasury management to cross-border payments and investment in tokenized securities.

Still, barriers remain. Concerns around volatility, counterparty risk and the lack of established valuation frameworks continue to weigh on adoption. Regulatory uncertainty, while improving, has not fully disappeared.

Even so, the survey suggests the conversation is shifting. Rather than debating whether to invest in crypto, institutions are increasingly focused on how to do so — a sign that digital assets are moving closer to becoming a standard component of institutional portfolios.

Traditional finance giants Charles Schwab and Citadel Securities are both considering entering prediction markets, with each separately weighing up how they wish to get involved in the fast-growing sector.

“I think at some point we likely will have prediction markets,” Rick Wurster, the CEO of the banking and investing titan Schwab, told investors during a call on Thursday.

He added that prediction markets weren’t “of tremendous interest” when he recently asked a group of Schwab clients about them, but it was an area the company would “take a hard look at, and it would be quite straightforward for us to offer.”

Prediction markets such as the popular Kalshi and Polymarket have exploded in use over the past few months, with both platforms seeing a record combined total monthly trading volume of $23.6 billion in March, according to Token Terminal.

However, Kalshi, Polymarket and other prediction market platforms have also caught the ire of some US state regulators, who have accused them in court of offering unlicensed sports betting.

Some federal lawmakers have also vowed to crack down on prediction markets, claiming the platforms weren’t doing enough to stamp out insider trading.

Wurster said Schwab’s potential offering would steer away from allowing bets on areas such as sports, politics and pop culture as it looks to position itself as a partner for building long-term wealth.

“Prediction markets that are not aligned to that are not something that we want to pursue,” he said. “If you look at the stats on the success of gamblers, they’re not strong, and people generally lose money.”

Citadel “keeping an eye” on prediction markets

Meanwhile, Citadel Securities president Jim Esposito said at a Semafor conference in Washington, DC, on Thursday that the company is “absolutely keeping an eye on developments” in prediction markets.

“We’re not there yet, there’s not that much liquidity,” he added, but said that the market is likely to “ramp and scale,” and it was “certainly possible” that the market-making firm would potentially look to get involved.

Related: Democrats question CFTC chair on insider trading in prediction markets

Esposito said Citadel was “not looking at sports at the moment at all, I don’t see us entering that market,” but did signal an interest in some event contracts.

He added that Citadel could see its retail and institutional clients use some event contracts as a hedge for risks to their investments, such as contracts for elections, which have been known to move markets.

“That’s going to be some of the biggest risks to investors’ portfolios that they’re going to have to grapple with,” Esposito said. “Having a clean and distinct way to hedge certain risks, I think there’s a good use case and industrial logic to it.”

Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?

Jordi Visser, a veteran macro investor with over 30 years of experience, assessed recent market developments. According to Visser, while artificial intelligence and commodity scarcity are ushering the world into a new economic era, Bitcoin is re-emerging with its “scarcity” argument.

Visser argues that investor psychology and central bank policies are changing in the digital age. Stating that the Fed has perfected its QE (quantitative easing) game plan, Visser said, “I don’t think we’ll see multi-year recessions or prolonged bear markets again in the rest of my life. The moment a crack appears in the system, it is intervened with money printing and interest rate cuts.”

He also added that in the hyper-connected world, investors experience “amnesia,” quickly forgetting negative events and focusing on new narratives.

According to the analyst, despite the deflationary pressure created by artificial intelligence (AI), a serious inflationary risk is looming in the short term. Visser argued that the AI world has reached its physical limits and is experiencing massive processor (CPU), memory (DRAM), and energy shortages.

Visser, particularly highlighting Elon Musk’s “Terra Fab” announcement, predicts that this bottleneck in the hardware and commodities sectors will keep inflation well above the Fed’s target of 2%, reaching 4% and higher.

Visser, who analyzed Bitcoin’s recent performance from a technical and macroeconomic perspective, stated that according to Elliott Wave theory, Bitcoin has completed its correction phase and entered a new uptrend from the $60,000 level.

He argued that Bitcoin is now priced not just as a growth asset, but as a representative of “digital scarcity” in a world experiencing processor and energy shortages. He stated that traditional software companies (SaaS) are threatened by AI, but computing-focused firms like Oracle and Bitcoin miners will profit from this process.

Visser stated that Bitcoin’s place in portfolios will become undeniable by the end of the year, sending this message to asset managers and investment advisors: “By the end of the year, we will reach a point where you will have to explain why 3% to 5% of your portfolio isn’t Bitcoin.”

*This is not investment advice.

For years, $NEO‘s treasury was held in a setup that would be unusual for most financial institutions: hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets were controlled through personal wallets, with no multisig protections and little formal oversight.

That person, according to co-founder Da Hongfei, is Erik Zhang, $NEO‘s other co-founder and the architect of its core protocol.

“Around 85% is controlled by Eric alone with single signature,” Da said in an interview. “It had never been transferred to any individual or any multi-sig.” The native $NEO and $GAS tokens Zhang holds are currently worth between $200 million and $250 million, Da estimated. That’s more than $NEO‘s current $197 million market capitalization.

Zhang, for his part, has accused Da of separate problems. The two founders have been airing those disputes in public since December.

The fight has since produced rival governance plans and an unsuccessful mediation effort in Hong Kong.

Da published his restructuring proposal on GitHub on April 9. It calls for redomiciling the Neo Foundation from Singapore to the Cayman Islands, replacing the current two-founder governance with an independent five-member board, barring both founders from that board for 24 months, and redistributing roughly 26 million $NEO and 40 million $GAS to tokenholders.

Zhang’s counter-proposal called staying on the board keeping the Foundation in Singapore, not move it to the Cayman Islands.

Most pointedly, Zhang’s proposal calls for a formal investigation into historical asset management, including provisions to address potential corruption, improper asset transfers, and concealment of public assets.

Da dismissed those provisions flatly. “I think it’s a very blunt and empty accusation,” he said. “There is no corruption, no misuse of funds.”

For some observers, however, the numbers seem quite stark. $NEO‘s treasury holds ~$460 million in assets, roughly double the project’s $197 million market value, while the token has dropped 98% from its 2018 peak.

Mutual disarmament

$NEO‘s FY2025 financial report, its first comprehensive disclosure since 2020, revealed over 1,100 $BTC, more than $100 million in stablecoins and cash, and a portfolio of venture investments including an unliquidated stake in Binance.

Da broke the treasury into two halves. The first, the native $NEO and $GAS tokens, sits largely under Zhang’s single-signature control. The second, bitcoin, ether, stablecoins, fund-of-fund investments, and bank balances, is managed by NGD, the entity Da runs.

Those non-token assets, once relatively modest, have grown to over $200 million, driven largely by the appreciation of its $BTC and ETH holdings accumulated through early-stage investment returns.

The result is a treasury split almost evenly between two people who are no longer speaking productively, each holding leverage over the other, neither willing to move first.

Da framed his proposal as mutual disarmament.

“NGD will lose its control over most of the assets, including the $BTC and stablecoins, which are over $200 million. And Eric will lose his personal control of the majority of the $NEO tokens,” he said.

“Basically, me and Eric need to sacrifice our individual control over assets. I think that’s the fundamental change.”

He said he’s willing, but doesn’t know if Zhang is.

Da’s restructuring depends entirely on Zhang’s cooperation for its most critical step of transferring the single-signature token holdings to a multisig lock address. In an April 10 AMA, Da committed to a one-to-three month timeline.

Asked what happens if Zhang refuses, Da was candid.

“If there’s one person holding around half of a crypto native token and not willing to hand over to a multi-sig, constitutional governance, then what the community should do, I think the answer should come from the community itself.

CoinDesk reached out to Erik Zhang for comment and had not heard back by time of publication

Ali Martinez, an analyst closely followed in the cryptocurrency markets for his technical analysis, shared a new assessment highlighting critical levels for Stellar ($XLM).

According to Martinez, the $XLM price has been moving within a distinct channel since February. During this period, each upward attempt has been rejected at the $0.179 level, followed by a pullback to the $0.147 support zone. The analyst argues that this pattern has formed a recurring price behavior for months.

Martinez noted that recent developments show $XLM is once again approaching the $0.179 resistance level, stating that this area has historically acted as a strong “sell” zone. However, he added that this level is about to be tested for the fourth time, and pointed out that in technical analysis, frequently tested resistance levels tend to weaken over time.

According to Martinez, the critical scenario for investors will be a daily close above this level. The analyst stated that a clear break above $0.179 could indicate that the selling pressure accumulated in this region has been exhausted.

Martinez stated that this situation could trigger a strong upward movement in the $XLM price, predicting that the first target after a possible breakout could be around $0.22, representing a rise of approximately 20 percent.

*This is not investment advice.

The crypto market just witnessed a sharp move as GTC price surged by 51.35% in just 30 minutes, climbing from $0.111 to a current price of $0.168. This rapid increase underscores a significant uptick in market activity, with traders eager to capitalize on the momentum. The observed volatility suggests a responsive market environment, prompting heightened interest from participants.

Market Snapshot

Gitcoin is currently trading at $0.168, showcasing an impressive 24-hour change of +75.00%. The asset reached a high of $0.168 and dipped to a low of $0.093 within the same period. Daily trading volume has climbed to $6,015,211.12, indicative of robust market participation. Gitcoin’s market capitalization stands at $13,512,720, reflecting its growing traction in the crypto space.

What Could Be Behind This Move

Analysts suggest that the recent surge in GTC price may be attributed to evolving macroeconomic factors, particularly in light of interest rate changes and dollar strength. These broader economic conditions often influence investor sentiment, leading to increased activity in alternative assets like cryptocurrencies. Additionally, the mixed signals across the crypto market may have encouraged traders to seek opportunities in altcoins, including GTC. Market observers note that such shifts can trigger rapid price movements as traders respond to perceived value and potential gains.

Broader Market Trends

The overall cryptocurrency market appears to be experiencing fluctuations, with major assets showing varied momentum. This mixed sentiment often leads to altcoin rotations, where traders pivot from larger cryptocurrencies to smaller ones, fostering price spikes in less prominent assets like GTC. On-chain data indicates that increased trading volume often correlates with these movements, suggesting that traders are actively repositioning within the market.

Trading Activity

GTC’s significant price increase also aligns with notable trading activity, as the high volume of transactions indicates a growing interest among traders. Such dynamics can foster a more volatile trading environment, leading to sharp spikes like the one observed. The current bullish sentiment surrounding GTC could further escalate if trading volume continues to rise, pushing the price even higher as momentum builds among market participants.

What Traders Are Watching Next

Moving forward, traders are closely watching key support and resistance levels. The next resistance sits at approximately $0.175, while support is observed near $0.150. A break above this resistance could signal potential continuation of the upward trend, while a fall below the support level might prompt caution among traders. Moreover, broader market conditions, including upcoming economic reports and regulatory developments, could further influence GTC’s trajectory in the coming days.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions.

Crypto oversight is climbing the global policy agenda as regulators push faster enforcement across digital asset markets. The latest FATF declaration signals tighter scrutiny ahead, with cross-border compliance pressure set to rise for crypto firms and jurisdictions.

Key Takeaways:

• FATF increased pressure on jurisdictions to enforce crypto standards faster.
• Stablecoins face sharper scrutiny as illicit finance risks grow.
• Jurisdictions could face tougher accountability if gaps persist.

FATF Tightens Global Crypto Compliance Push

Crypto oversight climbed the global policy agenda after Financial Action Task Force (FATF) ministers increased pressure on countries to close gaps in digital asset regulation. In a declaration issued on April 17, the intergovernmental standard setter linked stronger anti-money laundering enforcement to faster action on virtual assets. The message was clear: jurisdictions that lag on crypto rules will face greater scrutiny.

The declaration framed crypto within a broader push to modernize defenses against illicit finance. Ministers stated in the declaration:

“We support responsible innovation in finance.”

That language is notable because FATF did not portray blockchain-based finance as inherently risky. Instead, it said technology, including artificial intelligence, can strengthen supervision and compliance when backed by safeguards. The same section also supported work on emerging payment technologies and related risks, while urging quicker implementation of crypto standards across the FATF network.

Recommendation 15, titled “New Technologies,” remains FATF’s main global standard for virtual assets (VA) and virtual asset service providers (VASPs). The group revised the recommendation in 2018 and adopted its interpretive note in June 2019 to clarify how anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing rules apply to crypto activity. The framework requires countries to assess virtual asset risks, apply a risk-based approach, and ensure VASPs are licensed or registered. It also requires supervision by competent authorities, sanctions for non-compliance, customer due diligence, recordkeeping, suspicious transaction reporting, and international cooperation. The June 2019 interpretive note and related guidance also form the basis for the Travel Rule, which requires originator and beneficiary information to accompany covered transfers.

Stablecoins and Offshore Firms Face Greater Scrutiny

Stablecoins and offshore firms are drawing sharper attention as implementation gaps persist. FATF’s 2025 targeted update states Recommendation 15 remains the benchmark for global crypto compliance reviews and found that only 29% of 138 assessed jurisdictions were largely compliant with virtual asset requirements, while one jurisdiction was fully compliant. A March 3, 2026, report examines stablecoin misuse in peer-to-peer transfers through unhosted wallets and cites Chainalysis data showing stablecoins made up 84% of illicit virtual asset transaction volume in 2025. A March 11, 2026, report on offshore VASPs outlines methods for detecting, registering, supervising, and sanctioning firms that exploit weaker oversight.

Crypto drew its clearest warning in the ministerial text itself. Ministers stated in the declaration:

“Considering the inherently cross-border nature of virtual assets, we call for the rapid and effective implementation of the FATF Standards in the virtual assets sector across the global network, and through our peer-review process, will hold countries who fail to expeditiously implement the Standards to account.”

The broader takeaway is that FATF is not introducing a new crypto rulebook. It is pressing countries to enforce the existing one faster, more consistently, and with fewer cross-border loopholes.

US media personality and former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner has escaped a class-action lawsuit after a federal judge ruled her memecoin was not a security under US law.

California federal judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. wrote in an order on Thursday that the lawsuit failed to plausibly plead that Caitlyn Jenner (JENNER) tokens were investment contracts, as they didn’t pool investor money or use funds to develop “any related product or technology.”

“Defendants stated that ‘[t]he $JENNER token is a memecoin on the Ethereum blockchain intended solely for entertainment purposes,’ and that its value would increase because Jenner would use her fame and influence to promote it, increasing demand,” the order said.

“Promotion alone, however, does not establish a common enterprise absent pooling or a structure linking investor fortunes,” it added.

A group of JENNER memecoin buyers first sued Jenner and her late manager, Sophia Hutchins, in November 2024, claiming they lost thousands of dollars as the token’s price collapsed and that JENNER was an unregistered securities offering.

Blumenfeld tossed the suit in May 2025 for failure to state a claim, and the group filed an amended complaint later that same month, led by Lee Greenfield, a UK citizen who claimed he lost more than $40,000 investing in JENNER.

The amended complaint had argued that investors had pooled their assets as Jenner promised that once the token reached a market value of $50 million, a 3% transaction fee would fund token buybacks, marketing, donations to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and a token for ownership in Jenner’s Olympic gold medal.

Blumenfeld wrote that the amended complaint heavily focused on planned donations to Trump, but didn’t explain how investors believed that doing so would provide a financial return to them.

“Nor is it clear that the alleged plan to distribute fractionalized ownership interests in Jenner’s gold medal has any bearing on Greenfield’s claim, since the plan was not announced until August 2024—after the last of his purchases—and was never executed,” he added.

Blumenfeld denied allowing the class group another chance to amend the lawsuit and added that claims regarding contracts and common law fraud under California law were best sent to state court.

JENNER was first launched on the Solana blockchain via the memecoin creator Pump.fun in May 2024. It was soon embroiled in controversy after Jenner and other memecoin launching celebrities claimed they were scammed by Sahil Arora, a claimed collaborator on the tokens.

Jenner relaunched the token on Ethereum, which investors claimed diminished the value of the original Solana token. The token has since essentially lost all of its value after hitting a peak value of nearly $7.5 million in June 2024.