The popular AI framework Virtuals Protocol will host an in-person meet-up in Hong Kong on Friday, January 17.

On May 7, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand told the Consensus conference that cryptocurrency market structure legislation will fail to secure the votes needed to pass if it lacks ethical clauses. She emphasized the need to bar members of Congress, senior government officials, the President and Vice President from profiting off their insider access to the crypto sector. Several Democratic senators have raised concerns over former President Donald Trump’s ties to crypto, with Bloomberg estimating he has made at least $1.4 billion in profits from crypto-related venture capital. The bill had previously stalled in the Senate over stablecoin reward processing disputes but now has a compromise framework. Ethical clauses, however, have emerged as a new roadblock. Gillibrand said she’s working with the White House and lawmakers from both parties to ensure those provisions are included. She’s also pushing to add consumer protection and anti-money laundering measures. The legislatio

On May 7, U.S. President Donald Trump said: “Regarding Iran, they want to strike a deal. Iran wants to negotiate, and we’ll see if we can reach an agreement that’s good for us.”

On May 7, Circle announced that its USDC tokenized money market fund’s assets under management (AUM) have surpassed $3 billion, making it the world’s largest tokenized money market fund. This milestone underscores the ongoing growth of tokenized money market funds and highlights the expanding role of on-chain collateral in the digital asset market. USDC, Circle’s blockchain-based tokenization of traditional money market funds, enables institutional investors to hold, trade, and manage yield-generating assets on-chain. The fund primarily invests in short-term U.S. Treasury bonds and Treasury-backed repurchase (repo) agreements.

On May 7, Telegram founder Pavel Durov shared in his personal channel that TON has the fastest block finality time among Layer 1 blockchains. Data shows TON’s finality clocks in at roughly 0.6 seconds—faster than Avalanche (about 1 second) and BNB Chain (around 1.1 seconds). For comparison, Ethereum’s finality takes 13 minutes, while Bitcoin’s is approximately 1 hour.

**Market Note: $920M Oil Short Preceded Axios’ U.S.-Iran Deal Report** Analysis from research firm The Kobeissi Letter shows a ~$920 million crude oil short position was established roughly 70 minutes before Axios reported the U.S. and Iran were near a 14-point agreement to end tensions. The trade occurred at 3:40 AM EDT (15:40 Beijing time) — a window with no major breaking news — involving nearly 10,000 crude oil short contracts. Its nominal value made it an unusually large transaction for that early hour. Seventy minutes later, at 4:50 AM EDT (16:40 Beijing time), Axios confirmed the U.S. was “close” to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to de-escalate the Iran situation. By 7:00 AM EDT (19:00 Beijing time), oil prices had plummeted more than 12%, leaving the short position with a paper profit of ~$125 million, per FXStreet.