Federal Reserve Governor Jefferson: No Need to Hurry to Further Cut Interest Rates, Strong Economy Makes Caution Appropriate

April 29 — Iran has warned it will take “unprecedented military action” if the U.S. continues detaining Iranian-linked vessels, per a senior Iranian security official cited by Iranian media outlet Press TV. (IG)

April 29 — Galaxy Digital has led a $20 million financing round for fintech firm Fence, with participation from Parafi Capital and Crane Ventures. Fence plans to leverage blockchain, smart contracts and tokenization to overhaul backend processes in the $6 trillion asset-backed finance market. The funding will primarily support Fence’s U.S. market expansion and product development. Per reports, most structured credit transactions still rely on manual workflows — Excel, PDFs and emails — for loan tracking, collateral verification and cash flow processing, leading to low efficiency and limited transparency. Fence aims to deliver real-time data updates and automated settlements via a unified system. Fence pulls loan data via APIs and uses smart contracts to auto-execute payments and cash flow distributions when conditions are met. It also tokenizes loan shares in financing vehicles, enabling investors to transfer positions, collateralize debt or receive automated payments. Current

April 29: Visa announced it has officially integrated Polygon into its Global Stablecoin Settlement Program. Issuing and acquiring banks partnering with Visa can now settle transactions via the Polygon network. Polygon claims it’s the world’s largest USD stablecoin payment network, citing data from Allium and Dune: - 34% of USD stablecoin transfers occur on Polygon—more than twice BNB Chain’s share - 54% of USDC transfers are on Polygon, beating the total of all other chains combined - 36% of global USDC transactions take place on Polygon - Polygon has roughly 3.19 million weekly active stablecoin users - On-chain stablecoin supply hit a record $36.2 billion - 178.1 million USD stablecoin transactions were recorded in March Visa added its stablecoin settlement program’s annualized transaction volume reached $7 billion this quarter—up 50% from three months ago. Polygon emphasized its network offers sub-cent fees, ~4-second transaction finality, and has been used for re

April 29: Bitcoin’s daily spot trading volume has fallen below $8 billion—its lowest level since October 2023, well below February’s peak of over $25 billion. On-chain data firm Glassnode says low volume typically signals reduced market depth, making prices more sensitive to large capital flows. Analysis notes that shrinking buy-sell order book depth means a handful of large orders could trigger sharp price swings, suggesting the current low-liquidity environment may actually boost BTC volatility. Yet the options market is betting on a "low-volatility" scenario: Volmex’s BVIV index (measuring BTC’s expected 30-day volatility) has dropped below 42% annualized, hitting a nearly three-month low. CoinDesk cites Marex analysts as saying the market is in a state of "superficial calm yet underlying caution" ahead of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision, with thin liquidity. The next round of market drivers is more likely tied to macro factors than the crypto industry’s internal

April 29 — Per a Financial Times report, Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency industry billionaire and Tether shareholder, provided roughly ￡5 million in funding to UK MP Nigel Farage ahead of the 2024 UK general election. Farage later decided to resume his role as leader of the UK Reform Party, a right-wing political party in the country. The report notes Harborne has been actively engaged in both the crypto industry and conservative political donations, and he previously had ties to the UK Brexit movement. This significant donation has once again sparked concerns about the influence of crypto capital on British politics.

On April 29, Coinbase announced it will list several U.S. stock perpetual contracts, including: AMD-PERP (Advanced Micro Devices) ARM-PERP (ARM) INTC-PERP (Intel) MU-PERP (Micron) SNDK-PERP (SanDisk) Coinbase noted the perpetual contract markets will officially go live for trading subject to meeting market liquidity conditions, and will be available to retail and institutional users in supported regions.