Vance: U.S.-Iran Ceasefire is a "Fragile Truce," Prepared for "Unprecedented Economic Leverage"

April 8 — Per Globenewswire, U.S. publicly traded self-hosted crypto firm Exodus Movement has released its updated digital asset holdings as of March 31. Key updates include: - Bitcoin (BTC) holdings increased to 628 BTC (monthly net gain of 18 BTC) - Ethereum (ETH) holdings rose to 1,857 ETH (monthly net gain of 17 ETH) - Solana (SOL) holdings climbed to 17,541 SOL (monthly net gain of 1,847 SOL)

On April 8th, Layer 1 blockchain network Pharos announced it has completed a $44 million Series A funding round, led jointly by several undisclosed leading institutions—including Asian private equity funds, a listed new energy firm, and Hong Kong-based regulated financial institutions. The capital will be used to speed up the buildout of on-chain real-world asset (RWA) infrastructure across Asia and globally.

On April 8, Arkham monitoring data indicates that roughly one hour ago, Belldex’s ETHA transferred 8,513 ETH (valued at $19.14 million) to Coinbase Prime. Additionally, it sent 416.654 BTC (worth $29.86 million) to Coinbase Prime via IBIT.

**April 8: Senior Iranian Official Says Strait of Hormuz May Reopen This Week If Ceasefire Framework Reached Before U.S.-Iran Islamabad Talks** A senior Iranian official stated on April 8 that if a ceasefire framework agreement is reached prior to the U.S.-Iran meeting in Islamabad, Iran could reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday or Friday. The waterway’s reopening will be limited, require coordination with the Iranian military, and all vessels will still need to secure permission. Earlier reports noted delegations from both countries are expected to hold further discussions in Islamabad on April 10 to reach a final agreement resolving all disputes. Per PolyBeats monitoring, the probability of “navigation resuming in the Strait of Hormuz this month” on the prediction market Polymarket has jumped from 26% to 41% in less than an hour.

On April 8, Polymarket announced it has completed its acquisition of Brahma, a DeFi infrastructure firm. The integration aims to boost Polymarket’s platform trading reliability, execution speed, and capital efficiency—while lowering barriers to entry for new users and strengthening interoperability across blockchain networks.

April 8: Standard Chartered Bank said Thursday it’s weighing moving part of its subsidiary Zodia Custody—its digital asset storage firm—under internal management. The proposal would merge Zodia’s crypto custody business with the bank’s Luxembourg digital assets unit, while Zodia will remain an independent software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider.