US AI Industry Executives Raise $50 Million to Form Super PAC Supporting Deregulation-friendly Candidate

April 4 Oxford Economics Institute stated that U.S. March employment figures significantly overstated the strength of the pre-Iran conflict job market, as the data reflected concurrent declines in both the labor force and household employment. Job growth will slow as the Iran conflict weighs on real economic activity. The conflict’s impact on inflation is immediate, while negative effects on consumer spending, business investment and hiring will become more apparent in the coming months. The institute’s baseline forecast still holds that the Federal Reserve will look past a one-time oil price shock this year and cut interest rates twice to guard against potential future weakness in the labor market.

On Friday, April 4 (local time), U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge James Boasberg denied the Justice Department’s request to revisit its ruling in the criminal case involving Jerome Powell— a decision that had earlier blocked a subpoena in the probe of the former Fed chair. In his March 13 ruling, Boasberg found the subpoena issued to the Federal Reserve Board in January 2023 was improper: it aimed to pressure Powell to either accede to Donald Trump’s demand for rapid interest rate cuts or resign. The subpoena was issued by Jeanine Pirro, Washington, D.C.’s chief federal prosecutor and a staunch Trump ally, who has vowed to press ahead with the investigation and said her office intends to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sources say top DOJ officials back the appeal, which could delay the confirmation of Kevin Wash’s nomination to lead the Federal Reserve. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a Senate Banking Committee member, has slammed

April 4 (NBC News) — In a brief phone interview, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. fighter jet crash would not impact U.S.-Iran negotiations. Trump declined to discuss specifics of the ongoing search and rescue operation after the jet went down in Iran, but expressed frustration with certain reports about the incident, noting it was a clearly tense, sensitive military operation. When asked if the day’s events would affect talks with Iran, Trump replied, “No, not at all. No, this is war, and we are in combat.” Earlier on April 3, Iran’s military public affairs arm announced its national integrated air defense network had successfully downed a U.S. A-10 attack jet via tracking and monitoring in the southern waters near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran labeled the aircraft part of “aggressive enemy forces.” U.S. officials confirmed later that day an A-10 “Warthog” attack jet crashed near the Strait of Hormuz, and the pilot was rescued. (Source: Golden Finance)

April 4th — Per EmberCN monitoring, Chainlink’s quarterly token unlock wrapped up roughly one hour ago. A total of ~19 million LINK (valued at ~$165 million) was unlocked and transferred from three non-circulating supply addresses. On-chain data shows ~14.375 million LINK (~$125 million) was sent to Binance, while ~4.625 million LINK (~$40.1 million) went to the multi-signature address 0xD50...8Af. Notably, Chainlink typically unlocks 10 million to 20 million LINK from its non-circulating supply each quarter, with most tokens flowing to Binance and a small portion to the aforementioned multi-sig address. These funds are then used for the LINK staking reward distribution contract to allocate yields to staking users.

April 4: Per EmberCN monitoring, FTX/Alameda sold 6.94 million DRIFT tokens (valued at $320,000) via Wintermute six hours earlier—following a $285 million exploit on Drift Protocol. Alameda, an investor in Drift Protocol, received 8.33 million DRIFT through vesting one year ago, when the tokens were worth $6.22 million. By the day of the sale, their value had shrunk to $380,000.

As of April 4th, CME’s FedWatch Tool shows the probability the Federal Reserve will hike rates by 25 basis points at its April meeting stands at 0.5%, with the odds of holding rates steady at 99.5%.