Huobi HTX has launched AERGO perpetual contracts and kicked off a contract trading party.

April 16 — Former Trump senior aide and White House advisor Stephen Miller said that if Iran takes the wrong path, the United States can indefinitely continue blocking Iranian ports. (Al Jazeera)

April 16: In response to the BIP-361 "Quantum Freeze" proposal put forward the previous day, BitMEX Research released a research article stating that this one-size-fits-all freeze would have significant impacts—potentially disrupting markets and user funds before a tangible quantum threat emerges. The article also proposes an alternative solution: First, enter a "Canary Watch State" in five years. A special "Canary Fund" address will be pre-deployed on-chain, with cryptographic proof that no one possesses its private key. As long as the address remains unspent, it indicates no functional quantum computer capable of stealing Bitcoin has emerged, and funds in quantum-vulnerable addresses can still be used normally. Only when an on-chain transaction successfully moves funds from this address will it signal that quantum attacks pose a practical threat, triggering immediate activation of the freeze mechanism.

April 16: On-chain lending platform Votre has closed a $3.75 million seed round, led by a16z CSX with participation from MaC Venture Capital and angel investors. Proceeds will be allocated to scaling Votre’s technical infrastructure and enhancing its lending platform’s functionality. (Via Vctavern)

April 16: Per Farside Investors, Bitcoin ETFs saw net inflows of $186.1M yesterday, with IBIT posting $291.9M in net inflows, FBTC recording $47.3M in net outflows, and ARKB seeing $42.2M in net outflows. Ethereum ETFs had net inflows of $67.9M, with ETHA posting $31.5M in net inflows and Grayscale ETH adding $24.8M in net inflows.

April 16: The market’s key driver has shifted from “whether conflict would escalate” to “whether risks have been fully priced in.” U.S.-Iran negotiation signals have strengthened sharply—including talks on extending the ceasefire, gradual timeline clarity, and Iran’s note that maritime shipping hasn’t been fully disrupted—driving a pullback in earlier extreme supply shock expectations. That said, the U.S. has also ramped up sanctions on Iran’s energy and financial systems, meaning risks haven’t been eliminated, just shifted to a “controlled containment” state. This dynamic shows up directly in energy market pricing: The abnormal WTI-Brent premium has started to weaken, signaling a slight cooling of the market’s extreme “physical deliverability premium” bets—but spot market tightness hasn’t eased. More critically, OPEC’s big production cuts and lingering shipping risks have kept oil prices sticky on the upside. That explains the gap between Fed and Treasury statements: One stresse

**April 16: CoW Swap announced it has regained control of the cow.fi domain name.** The platform has been operating on cow.finance for a while and is now gradually transitioning back to its original domain. In an official statement, the team noted that on April 14, an attacker used a fake document to trick the DNS registrar into handing over control of the cow.fi domain. The attacker then launched a two-stage, highly realistic phishing site: first, tricking users into signing a malicious transaction via a wallet clone, then stealing mnemonic phrases and passwords through a fake wallet popup. This attack targeted the domain registrar—not a compromise of CoW Swap’s own infrastructure or private keys. Affected users are advised to immediately use tools like Revoke.cash to revoke all wallet authorizations and consider moving funds to a new wallet.