Huang Renxun has left Beijing, and NVIDIA has not disclosed whether Huang Renxun met with the DeepSeek founder.

April 20th — The U.S. “Clarity Act” has entered a critical negotiation phase this week, with its timeline (committee review in April or delay to May) hinging on recent developments. The Senate Banking Committee kicked off the week by focusing on the confirmation hearing for Federal Reserve Chair nominee Kevin Wash, and must decide by Friday whether to schedule a vote on the bill for the week of April 27th. Banking groups led by the North Carolina Bankers Association are lobbying against the stablecoin yield restriction clause in the bill, urging members to contact Senator Thom Tillis’s office to push for amendments. Industry groups are also reportedly reaching out to other committee members. After over two months of talks, crypto and banking stakeholders reached a compromise late last month, with the crypto industry largely satisfied. However, calls for amendments from the banking side have intensified since a White House Economic Advisory Committee report downplayed stablecoi

April 20 – Abu Dhabi-based regulated tokenization infrastructure firm KAIO has closed an $8 million strategic funding round led by Tether, with participation from multiple crypto and institutional investors, pushing total funding to $19 million. New backers include Systemic Ventures, Further Ventures, and Laser Digital; existing shareholders such as Brevan Howard Digital also participated in the round. KAIO aims to tokenize traditional fund products from firms including BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane, lowering the entry barrier to just $100 for eligible investors. The firm plans to expand into credit, structured products, and ETFs, and partner with Mubadala Capital—a UAE-based private equity giant with $385 billion in assets under management—to launch on-chain funds. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino noted that KAIO will tokenize institutional-grade assets to boost accessibility, creating new avenues for capital formation and investment. KAIO’s platform integrates a compli

April 20th: On-chain sleuth ZachXBT tweeted, raising questions about Kraken’s launch of spot trading for M (Memecore) on July 3, 2025. ZachXBT noted that $7.9 million in suspicious funds were withdrawn from Kraken to 18 newly created addresses, which now hold a combined 11.7 million M tokens—worth $39.8 million at current rates. Insiders have pumped the token’s price to a $6 billion market cap, with a fully diluted valuation of $18 billion. Kraken is among the few platforms supporting spot trading for M. In a recent announcement, the project team only highlighted one “achievement”: $66 million in total trading volume on its Launchpad, plus the claim of thousands of “users” from its incentivized InfoFi event.

April 20 When asked if Iran was open to negotiations, Trump said he didn’t know—and that Iran should be ready to negotiate. Trump also noted that if the ceasefire agreement expires, a “bomb” will go off. He added it’s “okay” if Iran doesn’t participate in the ongoing negotiations in Pakistan. Discussions on Iran’s nuclear program will occur during those talks. (PBS)

April 20th — CoinDesk, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported Wednesday that Coinbase is partnering with crypto exchange Bybit to explore tokenization, custody, and distribution of U.S. publicly traded stocks, pre-IPO equities, and other assets. Sources added the ongoing discussions do not involve any equity acquisitions or similar transactions. Bybit’s U.S. market entry centers on a new entity led by former co-CEO Helen Liu, which is collaborating with an undisclosed local partner that provides licensing and compliance services — not Coinbase. Both Bybit and Coinbase declined to comment, per CoinDesk.

April 20th — On-chain analyst Ai Whale (@ai_9684xtpa) reports that the “ETH Leveraged Whale” (which netted $44.61 million in profits over two months) closed 4,000 ETH long positions earlier today, realizing $144,000 in gains. Another address linked to the whale (0x6c8…d84f6) also took profits in the past half hour, liquidating 20,000 ETH (valued at $46.33 million) for a $551,000 gain. The whale still holds 20,000 ETH, with an unrealized profit of $296,000.