Short sellers continue to increase their short positions, and the funding rate indicates that traders are generally treating the uptrend as a rebound.

April 23rd — HTX market data shows SPK briefly surged nearly 30% after its SPK/KRW trading pair listed on Upbit, last trading at $0.0466.

April 23 — Per official sources, Upbit is set to list Spark (SPK).

On-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa) noted on April 23 that address 0x2Dc…1AA2D has again accumulated 800 billion PEPE tokens after an 8-month lull, with the holding now valued at $3.08 million. Previously, the same address withdrew 660 billion PEPE tokens on August 14 when the token traded at $0.0000122. Following the latest purchase, its average cost basis now sits at roughly $0.0000074286. The current unrealized loss on the position totals $5.094 million.

Crypto influencer @aaronjmars reported on April 23 that a man used a hairdryer to tamper with a Météo France temperature sensor, manipulating Polymarket’s “Paris Temperature” market and netting $34,000 in profits. Polymarket’s Paris temperature settlement relies on data from a sensor sited near the runway at Charles de Gaulle Airport—one that’s largely unattended. The trader bet on a long-shot outcome at rock-bottom odds: for example, buying “22°C” contracts when most traders were predicting 18°C, since no one thought the day’s high would hit that mark. He then used the portable heat source (the hairdryer) to briefly warm the air around the sensor, spiking the reading enough to count as the day’s high. The temperature quickly returned to normal minutes later, but the market settled on that spiked value—lining his pockets. The scheme worked on April 6 and 15, until Météo France uncovered it and filed a lawsuit.

**Circle’s Gordon Liao Proposes Aave v3 USDC Parameter Tweaks Amid Near-100% Utilization** On April 23, Circle Chief Economist and Head of Research Gordon Liao unveiled a set of proposed adjustments for USDC on Aave v3 Ethereum Core during the Aave Governance Forum. The push comes as the pool’s USDC has remained near 100% utilization for days, with its variable borrowing rate stuck flat near the post-kink ceiling (~14%)—a sign the rate failed to efficiently clear the market. Over the past 24 hours, the pool’s supply shrank by roughly $60 million as repayments fully matched withdrawal queues, prompting Liao to call for parameter recalibration. Key proposals include: - **Slope 2**: Target 50% (up from ~10% current); Risk Stewards to temporarily set it to 40% - **Optimal Utilization Rate (U\*)**: Target 85% (down from 92%); temporary adjustment to 87% - **Slope 1, Base Rate, Reserve Factor**: Remain unchanged at 3.5%, 0%, and 10% respectively - **Slope 2 Risk Oracle**: Suspe

On April 23rd, Eric Ya-Hua, founder of Liquid Capital (formerly LD Capital), took to social media to share his insights: “One of the key reasons for the wave of crypto VC and project failures in the past is that most funding went to supporting teams building useless Web3 products—with the biggest mistake being benchmarking against Web2 offerings. At its core, Web3 is a financial industry, so there’s no need to replicate Web2 tools. The most successful crypto companies to date are all finance-focused: stablecoins, exchanges, payments—every major winner falls into this category. Now, as the AI era takes shape, two truths stand out: first, large funding rounds aren’t needed to hire massive teams; second, AI + finance is a new frontier. We believe top founders with a small group of elites can build leading companies—and this is currently the biggest opportunity in primary market investing.”