Tag: CRYPTOS FoxBusiness.

Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant, has taken a significant step to accelerate cryptocurrency adoption. By integrating $XRP as a payment method into its platform, the company provides direct access to 44 million users.

According to the announcement, users can now make payments with $XRP through the Rakuten Pay app. This integration will enable $XRP use at over 5 million merchant locations across Japan. Users can also buy and sell this digital asset developed by Ripple through the app, purchase $XRP with Rakuten points, and store their assets in the Rakuten Wallet.

Ripple ecosystem manager Tatsuya Kohrogi stated that this development is a significant milestone for the crypto sector. According to Kohrogi, this integration will introduce digital assets not only to crypto-focused users but also to millions of everyday shoppers.

According to the company, the scale of the integration is remarkable. Rakuten has over 100 million members and an annual e-commerce volume of 5.6 trillion yen. Furthermore, over 3 trillion loyalty points in circulation (worth approximately 23 billion dollars) can now be converted to $XRP.

*This is not investment advice.

On Tuesday, the Canton (CC) price fell by around 4% over the last 24 hours despite its listing on one of South Korea’s major cryptocurrency exchanges, Upbit.

Despite the drop in the price, the daily trading volume of Canton has witnessed a spike of around 345% on a daily chart, which shows growing trading activity on the network. At the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is trading at around $0.1463, down 3.9% on the daily chart, according to CoinMarketCap.

South Korea’s Biggest Exchange Prepares to List Canton

On April 14, South Korea’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Upbit, officially announced the listing of Canton (CC) on its KRW, $BTC, and USDT trading pairs. While the deposits and withdrawals were planned on April 14, Upbit has declared that it has postponed the launch, saying that extra checks were needed during testing.

After this development, the CC price has witnessed some small movements. The listing on Upbit will help it to bring more Korean buyers and gain higher liquidity once trading starts. This listing announcement has soared the token’s price above $0.1601.

The drop in the Canton price is coming amid the bullish momentum in the crypto market, in which the Bitcoin ($BTC) price soared above $75,000 after seeing major liquidation in the short positions. Institutional investors have started injecting money via major exchanges again after witnessing a rally in the last few days.

While there is still a tense situation in the Middle East, in the last few days, there have been some developments, which investors are seeing as a sign of de-escalation in the war between the U.S. and Iran.

However, Canton is facing its own selling pressure as some investors have started booking profits after recent major developments, such as listings.

At present, the price chart of Canton is developing a descending channel pattern in the last few days. In this pattern, both the top line and the bottom line are moving in a downward direction. The price is currently stuck between them until it finally breaks out in one direction.

In the last few days, the cryptocurrency has retested various lower highs, which means that every time the price tries to go up, it fails to reach the previous high levels.

Technical indicators are suggesting that the cryptocurrency is currently in the balance zone. The 14-day Relative Strength Index is revolving around 47, which tells that the cryptocurrency is currently in the neutral zone without any sign of being in the overbought and oversold zone.

The 50-day moving average is very close to the current price level. Because of this, it is difficult to trace its direction at the moment. However, the positive momentum in the overall crypto market is suggesting that if buyers start to accumulate CC tokens, then it might see some recovery. As of now, traders are seeing the $0.14 as the major support level.

Canton (CC) Gets Recognition as Grayscale Adds It to the List of Consideration

Recently, Grayscale has revealed the addition of Canton to its official list of assets under consideration for the second quarter of 2026. This recognition from the world’s biggest has sparked euphoria in its community. It has now been added to the smart contracts platform category alongside other tokens such as Celo and Toncoin.

“Assets Currently in the Grayscale Product Suite lists digital assets held by a Grayscale product as of April 10, 2026, either as part of a single-asset product or a multi-asset product,” stated in the official announcement.

The addition of the CC in this list clearly says that Grayscale’s research team is actively assessing CC as a future investment product, such as a trust and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This comes after Grayscale announced the launch of a new exchange-traded fund (ETF) that is focused on Avalanche (AVAX) in March.

Morgan Stanley’s freshly launched Bitcoin exchange-traded fund pulled in nearly $62 million within its first week of trading — a debut that landed in the middle of the strongest week for crypto investment products in three months.

Macro Shifts Fuel The Comeback

That broader rebound was driven by more than one firm’s market entry. Crypto funds globally attracted $1.1 billion in net inflows for the week ending April 11, according to asset manager CoinShares.

The turnaround came after five straight weeks of outflows that drained roughly $4 billion from the market and left investor sentiment battered heading into April.

CoinShares head of research James Butterfill pointed to two specific triggers: early ceasefire signals out of Iran and a softer-than-expected US inflation reading. Both helped ease nerves that had kept institutional money on the sidelines.

US investors led the charge. Based on CoinShares data, American buyers accounted for $1.06 billion — about 95% of total global flows for the week. US spot Bitcoin ETFs absorbed the largest share, pulling in $833 million, per data from Farside Investors.

Bitcoin And Ethereum Both Draw Fresh Money

Bitcoin funds worldwide attracted $871 million. Ethereum, which had recorded outflows for three consecutive weeks before this, saw $196.5 million flow back in. Weekly trading volumes climbed 13% to $21 billion, though that number still sits well below the year-to-date average of $31 billion, reports indicate.

The positioning among big investors told an interesting story. At the same time institutions were buying into Bitcoin and Ethereum, short-Bitcoin products — funds that profit when Bitcoin’s price falls — recorded $20 million in inflows.

That was the highest single-week total for those products since November 2024. Money was moving in, but some of it was being used as a safety net.

$XRP funds, which had briefly outpaced Bitcoin the previous week with nearly $120 million in inflows, cooled significantly. Reports show $XRP investment products brought in a little over $19 million during the same period.

Morgan Stanley Moves Deeper Into Crypto

Beyond the weekly numbers, Morgan Stanley’s expanding footprint in the space drew attention. The bank has already filed for Ethereum and Solana ETFs following its Bitcoin fund launch.

According to reports, Morgan Stanley executive Amy Oldenburg said the firm also plans to roll out crypto services including a tokenized money market fund and tax-harvesting options for clients.

Year-to-date, Bitcoin ETF inflows have reached just under $2 billion — about 82% of all crypto ETP inflows recorded in 2026. Ethereum remains in the red for the year, sitting at $130 million in cumulative outflows despite last week’s recovery.

Total assets under management across crypto investment products climbed back to levels not seen since early February.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

As tensions between the US and Iran in the Middle East continue unabated, Bitcoin ($BTC) remains strong.

Bitcoin, although it fell to the $70,000 level after the first talks between the US and Iran over the weekend ended without a result, has risen again to the $74,000 level.

This rise was influenced by news that a second round of talks between the two countries would begin and by growing expectations that the Bank of Japan would not raise interest rates this month.

While Bitcoin is trying to remain strong amidst recent developments, some analysts predict that $BTC could fall to $50,000 before experiencing a sustainable recovery.

At this point, LVRG Research Director Nick Ruck predicts that the $50,000 level could be the last major buying opportunity before a real recovery begins.

Ruck stated that Bitcoin’s price falling to these levels would represent a healthy cycle reset, given the broader economic pressures and weak capital flows into cryptocurrencies.

Ruck also stated that Bitcoin has fallen by approximately 40% from its recent all-time high, with significant participation from institutional investors, a smaller drop than in previous bear markets. In this context, Ruck noted that the current bear market has its own unique macro-structural characteristics, arguing that for these reasons, a drop of more than 60% might not occur in this cycle.

Aside from Nick Ruck, Bitcoin investor and analyst Ivan Liljeqvist also stated that Bitcoin has not yet reached its bottom.

“I don’t think we’ve hit the bottom yet, and I don’t think $60,000 is the bottom. The trend is still downward. There’s no bullish momentum right now.”

*This is not investment advice.

Visa (V) has made its first foray into running blockchain infrastructure, the company said on Tuesday, operating as an “anchor validator” node on the Stripe-backed Tempo blockchain.

Visa, a long-time collaborator of the payments services provider, configured and managed the validator node entirely in-house, following six months of joint work with Tempo’s engineering team to integrate the card giant’s infrastructure directly into the blockchain, according to a press release.

Visa plans to run nodes on some other blockchains following the Tempo integration. The card network had previously said it will join the Canton Network, where there are plans to serve as a “Super Validator.”

For the past seven years or so, Visa’s blockchain engineers have been “living and breathing stablecoins,” said the head of Visa’s crypto team, Cuy Sheffield. Now the focus is on supporting the evolution of new payment flows such as machine-to-machine commerce using AI agents, he added.

“We’ve been an early design partner, working very closely with the Tempo team, looking at designing infrastructure that can support many types of new payment flows, and particularly agentic payment flows,” Sheffield said in an interview with CoinDesk.

Tempo, which is also backed by crypto investment firm Paradigm, went live last month with Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), a protocol that lets software and AI agents pay for services autonomously.

“Visa is a big part of MPP,” Sheffield said. “We added the MPP card spec. We announced Visa CLI, which is a wallet that is built on top of MPP where agents can use a Visa card to be able to spend. So we’ve been deeply involved in the Tempo and the MPP ecosystem, and now we’re running the underlying infrastructure on Tempo.”

There’s no doubting Stripe’s conviction when it comes to assembling an end-to-end blockchain-based system for stablecoin payments. But, taking a step back, some people might question how open and decentralized such a system is.

Sheffield, in response, said Visa is simply being pragmatic, looking for products that can drive payment volume.

“Our view has always been that decentralization is a spectrum,” Sheffield said. “There are many use cases where decentralization for the sake of decentralization doesn’t solve a problem. I think we’re now entering a phase in the crypto industry where decentralization is not the primary value prop. It’s whether a new payment infrastructure is fast, efficient, programmable and can outperform some existing payment infrastructure for certain use cases.”

Stripe moved into the stablecoin industry when it acquired stablecoin specialist Bridge for $1.1 billion in 2024. Earlier this year, Mastercard made a similar move, buying stablecoin firm BVNK for $1.8 billion.

Asked if Visa had any plans to offer its own stablecoin, Sheffield said:

“It’s so early and the rules haven’t even been fully written yet. We spent a bunch of time with the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and others,” he said. “I think there are many different roles that Visa can play, but everything we do, we want to make sure that we’re doing it in partnership with our clients and our network.”

Stable [$STABLE] price action is showing renewed strength after a successful reversal from key trend line support near $0.025. The reaction from this level appears to be firm and timely, as the token’s price action did not hesitate upon hitting the zone. Buyers just stepped in quickly and pushed token prices higher.

This kind of move often marks the early phase of a continuation, especially when it follows a controlled pullback rather than a sharp breakdown.

Trendline support reinforces the market structure

The bounce from $0.025 tells more than affirming the significance of the short-term support. Indeed, it reinforces the broader bullish structure that has been building over recent sessions. On the daily chart, the price action respected the trend line and reversed without violating key levels.

That behavior matters. It indicates that the market is still trading within a structured trend rather than slipping into weakness. Buyers are defending positions, and the move higher reflects confidence rather than short covering.

As long as the price holds above this support zone, the structure still leans to the bulls’ favour.

Liquidity at $0.034 Becomes the Immediate Magnet

With momentum building, the market investors are shifting their attention to the liquidity cluster around $0.034. Over $500K worth of unmitigated liquidity sits in this price level. Borrowing from previous similar scenarios, the markets tend to move toward such zones as they represent areas of pending orders.

The current price path suggests alignment toward that level. The move does not appear stretched yet, which increases the probability of a continuation push.

Still, the reaction at $0.034 will be key. A clean sweep could open room for further expansion, while hesitation may trigger short-term consolidation.

Stable’s funding rates suggest room for growth

That’s not all; derivative data also sparks bullish signals. The asset’s Funding Rates remained relatively low, below 0% at press time, pointing to an undervalued market environment. The developments imply that the rally is not driven by excessive leverage, which reduces the risk of sudden reversals.

This supports a healthier trend and suggests that the current move has room to develop before reaching overheated conditions.

Will Stable sustain momentum?

$STABLE is building a strong case for continuation. The trend line held. Momentum is rising. Liquidity sits just above the current price, and funding conditions remain supportive.

For now, the path toward $0.034 looks technically justified. If buyers maintain control, the market could move to clear the liquidity cluster. The next reaction will determine what comes after.

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Final Summary

• $STABLE price action is gaining momentum after a successful reversal from a key support.
• Undervalued Funding Rates suggest the rally may extend further before reaching overheated conditions.

The memecoin news shaking Washington this week is a formal Senate investigation into an April 25 conference at Mar-a-Lago where attendance is restricted to the top 297 $TRUMP token holders and the top 29 receive VIP access to the president, with Senators Warren, Schiff, and Blumenthal sending a letter to Fight LLC demanding documents and answers by April 21.

The senators wrote directly that “Congress must also take steps to prohibit and prevent these egregious conflicts of interest,” framing the investigation as part of a broader inquiry into whether Trump is using the presidency for personal crypto profit. The $TRUMP token price surged when the conference was announced, giving the president a direct financial interest in promoting an event that drives token purchases. The senators argued that this dynamic creates a pay-to-play structure in which buying more of the president’s memecoin increases your probability of gaining face time with him.

The timing matters for crypto legislation. As this week’s CoinMarketCap coverage of the investigation noted, the CLARITY Act markup is targeted for late April, meaning the memecoin investigation and the Senate vote are scheduled to land in the same two-week window.

A previous Trump memecoin dinner in May 2025 drew similar congressional criticism but did not produce a formal Senate Banking Committee investigation. This iteration has escalated for several reasons. The scale is larger: 297 attendees instead of 220, with a tiered access structure that explicitly links presidential access to coin holdings. The foreign national concentration among top holders has been documented by Bloomberg. And the SEC dropped fraud charges against Justin Sun, the top holder, approximately 11 days after a senior enforcement director left the agency, a sequence that drew separate scrutiny from Senator Blumenthal.

What the Investigation Demands From Fight Fight Fight LLC

The senators are requesting documents and communications related to Trump’s involvement in planning and promoting the conference, records on how event revenues are shared, any communications with ethics officials about the venture, and information about the steps taken to address conflicts of interest. The April 21 deadline for document production leaves one business day before the conference itself, meaning the investigation is designed to run concurrently with the event rather than precede it.

Why This Matters Beyond the Dinner Itself

The memecoin investigation directly affects the legislative math on the CLARITY Act. Democrats have consistently said ethics language preventing government officials and their families from profiting from crypto is a red line for their support. The White House has said it will not accept language that targets the president individually. That gap has been the defining political obstacle in the CLARITY Act negotiations since January. The Apr 25 dinner, arriving in the same week as the targeted Senate markup, puts both sides back at the same impasse the bill has been stuck at for three months.