Tether Leads Funding Round for Payment Infrastructure Company Speed to Complete $8 Million Strategic Financing

April 2 — Data from Bitget shows international crude oil surged in intraday trading. WTI crude’s intraday gain climbed to 10%, with the benchmark last trading at $109.04 per barrel. Brent crude, meanwhile, is currently up 8.8%. (IG)

On April 2nd, Mergermarket’s Sam Kerr stated that the ongoing market downturn spurred by the Middle East conflict could potentially shrink the size of SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO). The slide in U.S. stock indices has narrowed the company’s available issuance windows. The Wall Street Journal reported that a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) indicates SpaceX is targeting a July IPO. “Issuing any deal in a weak market—no matter how high-quality the company—limits the valuation you can secure,” Kerr said. He added that the expected size of SpaceX’s IPO itself has compounded the company’s challenges, though Musk may be banking on retail investor participation to boost demand. (Source: Golden Finance)

April 2, Polygon unveiled a Private Mempool—a private gateway for submitting transactions that shields individual transactions from front-running and sandwich attacks. Users just need to swap their RPC endpoint for the corresponding private entrypoint to use this feature; no additional steps are required.

U.S. pre-market crypto-related stocks posted broad declines on April 2, per Bitget market data. Notable drops include: Bitmine (BMNR) -4.52%, Sharplink Gaming (SBET) -4.33%, Riot Platforms (RIOT) -4.30%, Robinhood (HOOD) -3.58%, Bullish (BLSH) -3.59%, Coinbase (COIN) -3.34%, MARA Holdings (MARA) -3.11%.

On April 2nd, Justin Sun posted on social media about TRX and Huobi HTX: Over the past few years, TRX has acted as Huobi HTX’s platform token, giving users access to various platform discounts—this was to recognize their close collaboration. Now that Huobi HTX has fully launched independent operations, with its business on solid ground and growing profit potential, the time is right for independent empowerment. On one hand, TRX has performed strongly, with high market recognition, and no longer needs to rely on its Huobi platform token status for growth. On the other hand, Huobi HTX’s business is stable and has strong momentum. Making HTX Huobi’s sole platform token is a better choice for both sides. This will let Huobi focus on empowering HTX independently, driving its further development. Sun believes this adjustment will be highly beneficial for HTX.

On April 2 (local time), explosions were heard in Tehran and Karaj, Iran, with power outages reported in parts of Karaj. (CCTV)