Cryptocurrency Billionaire Christopher Harborne Once Made a ￡5 Million Political Donation to Nigel Farage

On April 29, Andre Cronje told Cointelegraph in an interview that many DeFi protocols today aren’t “truly decentralized” — instead, they function more like “for-profit companies run by teams” that rely heavily on upgradeable contracts, multisigs, off-chain infrastructure, and human operational controls. He noted the industry still overfocuses on smart contract audits, missing operational risks that mirror Traditional Finance (TradFi). Recent attacks, he argued, stemmed not from code vulnerabilities but off-chain infrastructure, permission mismanagement, and social engineering. The discussion comes amid a spike in DeFi security incidents. In April, protocols including Flying Tulip, Drift Protocol, and Kelp were breached: Drift lost roughly $280 million, while Kelp saw losses of around $293 million. In response, Flying Tulip rolled out a “Withdrawal Circuit Breaker” that delays or queues withdrawal requests during abnormally large outflows, giving the team roughly 6 hours to rea

April 29th – Securitize, the Beleld-backed tokenization platform, announced a partnership with global stock transfer agent giant Computershare. The deal lets U.S. public companies issue on-chain tokenized equity (Issuer-Sponsored Tokens, or ISTs) outside the existing stock system. Under the arrangement, investors can now choose to hold stocks via a traditional securities account OR directly hold the corresponding on-chain equity assets in a digital wallet. Computershare will remain the transfer agent, handling shareholder registry management, dividend distributions, stock splits, and other corporate actions. Reports note the structure’s key goal is to steer clear of the “wrapped shares” model common in the traditional crypto space. Unlike derivative tokens that merely represent claims to stocks, ISTs directly stand for true equity ownership—not off-chain stock mapping certificates. Carlos Domingo, Securitize’s executive, said ISTs aren’t derivative products layered on existing

April 29 — According to market data from Bitget, WTI and Brent crude oil extended their short-term rally. WTI crude climbed more than 4%, while Brent crude rose 3.69%. On the news front, Iranian media outlet Press TV cited a senior Iranian security official as saying Iran has issued a warning: if the U.S. continues to seize Iranian-linked vessels, Iran will take "unprecedented military action."

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