French President: France Will Not Participate in the New US "Hormuz Plan"

On May 4th, Ethereum announced it successfully completed the **Glamsterdam Upgrade** on May 1st—marking the largest capacity expansion in its history by raising the block gas limit from 60 million to 200 million. This adjustment significantly boosts on-chain throughput, lowers costs for complex smart contract interactions, and aims to strengthen the high-performance public chain’s competitiveness. To tackle state bloat and operational strain on nodes from the expansion, the upgrade introduces **Verkle Trees** and a **State Expunging mechanism**: nodes can prune historical data older than one year and offload it to decentralized storage/archive nodes, keeping validator hardware requirements manageable. A **base fee smoothing mechanism** is also rolled out to mitigate gas fee volatility risks. The expansion has major Layer 2 ecosystem implications: thanks to reduced mainnet data settlement costs, Rollup costs are projected to drop by roughly 70%, spurring fee competition among l

May 4 — Per Israel’s i24 News, sources report the U.S. Houthi operation will commence within hours. The U.S. will deploy troops to safeguard vessels, with no close-range naval escort planned. (FX168)

On May 4, Payward — Kraken’s parent company — announced it has completed its acquisition of Bitnomial, marking official approval to offer cryptocurrency derivatives services in the U.S. Post-transaction, Payward now holds a full suite of licenses from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) — including Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), Designated Contract Market (DCM), and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) statuses — enabling it to offer spot margin, perpetual futures, and options trading to eligible U.S. customers. Payward Co-CEO Arjun Sethi said the firm will first launch spot margin products on Kraken, then roll out perpetual futures and options gradually. Headquartered in Chicago, Bitnomial is among the few U.S. platforms with a full set of crypto derivatives licenses. Post-acquisition, it will retain its original licenses and business structure, acting as the core of Payward’s U.S. derivatives strategy. Additionally, Payward noted the deal will also

On May 4, Galaxy Digital Research Director Alex Thorn noted that as quantum computing hardware advances, the Bitcoin community is shifting from decentralized debate to preliminary consensus on the quantum threat. The core approach is to phase in post-quantum cryptography (PQC) via a soft fork, upgrading the address system and enhancing long-term security. The report notes Bitcoin’s signature mechanism—based on the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)—is theoretically vulnerable to Shor’s algorithm. Roughly 2 million BTC tied to early p2pkh addresses face a potential “collect now, decrypt later” risk due to exposed public keys. The community is leaning toward a “migration window” mechanism: guiding users to move funds to new quantum-resistant addresses, with unmigrated funds to be frozen or destroyed after a multi-year grace period to avoid market disruptions from extreme scenarios. Additionally, the consensus calls for boosting “cryptographic agility,” letting the p

May 4 (Monday) – Per Bitget market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index closed up 338.12 points (a 5.12% gain) at 6936.99 on Monday, May 4, notching a new all-time high. SK Hynix’s share price finished up 12.5%, hitting a record closing high.

**May 4th Update** The United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced its withdrawal from OPEC on May 4, removing roughly 12% of the bloc’s output and eliminating the group’s second-largest idle capacity (after Saudi Arabia). The move has sparked two key market concerns: supply stability and OPEC’s organizational cohesion. Global oil supplies were already strained by disruptions in the Hormuz Strait and the Iran conflict. The UAE’s exit further erodes OPEC+’s ability to regulate global oil markets. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman has long led OPEC+ decision-making by leveraging Saudi production capacity and royal backing from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In recent years, however, his more centralized approach has narrowed negotiating room for member nations—fueling dissatisfaction, including from the UAE. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have a long-running quota dispute. While Abu Dhabi secured a quota increase in the past, tensions have not eased fundamentally. UAE Energy Mi