Initial Jobless Claims in the U.S. for the Week Ending came in at 209K, compared to the expected 205K.

April 3rd – The White House released a pre-distribution briefing ahead of its annual budget rollout, with U.S. President Trump set to propose a discretionary budget plan on Friday. The proposal calls for a significant defense spending hike from Congress while reaffirming his push for steep cuts to domestic program outlays. The budget request earmarks $1.5 trillion for defense—up sharply from the $1 trillion proposed for the 2026 fiscal year. The new figure includes a $1.1 trillion baseline budget authorization for the Department of Defense, plus an additional $350 billion earmarked for U.S. operations related to Iran. Non-defense spending would be cut by 10%, or roughly $73 billion. Trump’s defense spending push marks the largest annual increase since World War II. While Republican lawmakers are not expected to advance many of the proposed cuts, defense spending hikes are more likely to gain support. The budget serves as a key guideline for upcoming funding fights and gives inves

April 3: Multiple Iranian media outlets report a U.S. advanced fighter jet was shot down in Iran’s Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, with local authorities offering a reward for the American pilot’s capture.

**Daqing Court Sentences Two for Stealing Oil Field Electricity to Mine Bitcoin** April 3rd — A court in Heilongjiang’s Daqing City has jailed two men for stealing electricity from an oil field to run Bitcoin mining machines, China Newsweek reported. The Honggang District People’s Court sentenced Zhang to 10 years in prison and Zhao to four years and 10 months on theft charges, per the recently released first-instance judgment. Prosecutors found that on September 8, 2024, Zhang illegally tapped into high-voltage lines owned by an oil extraction plant of a Daqing limited liability company. He used the stolen power to operate 24 Bitcoin mining machines at an abandoned pigsty on a slaughterhouse he rented. Zhang later recruited Zhao to join, increasing the total number of machines to 36. The pair acted for illegal profit, the court ruled. Case details are also posted on China Judgments Online.

April 3rd — Antpool’s cloud mining product (from the crypto mining pool Antpool) has caught the eye of plenty of new investors. The offering breaks down physical mining machine hashrate into smaller units, lowering barriers to hardware procurement and operation for users looking to get into mining. Antpool now offers full-platform access: users can subscribe with one click via the official website or App Store, enabling “buy now, mine now” functionality. The platform handles unified operation and hosting, letting non-professional users tap into professional mining farm-level hashrate resources.

On April 3, Hyperliquid officially announced that trading results from its binary market testnet are now immediately eligible for inclusion in its mainnet-level bug bounty program. Note: The current bug bounty scope does not cover multi-outcome markets. Frontend feedback is welcome but not eligible for program rewards. Previously, Hyperliquid had announced that HyperCore will support outcome trading (per HIP-4). Outcome contracts are fully collateralized, with settlement prices bounded within a fixed range. They act as a generic foundational transaction element for use cases including prediction markets and bounded option-like instruments.

April 3, the White House announced that Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget requests $1.5 trillion in defense spending.