The United States Prohibits Domestic Individuals or Entities from Paying Transit Fees for the Strait of Hormuz to Iran

On April 29th, former PayPal president and current Lightspark CEO David Marcus announced the launch of a new Bitcoin wallet featuring an AI-powered agent for buying BTC and sending/receiving funds.

April 29 — U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has rejected former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) request for a new trial, dismissing his purported new evidence as baseless and “highly conspiratorial.” In a Tuesday court order, the judge noted SBF’s claims — that FTX was actually solvent, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) withheld information, and witnesses feared testifying due to government threats — directly contradict the official record. SBF had accused former FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame and ex-Head of Data Science Daniel Chapsky of skipping court out of fear, but the judge emphasized SBF could have subpoenaed or compelled their testimony but took no action. SBF was convicted by a New York jury in November 2023 on seven fraud counts and later sentenced to 25 years in prison. Last week, he voluntarily withdrew his new trial motion, citing an inability to get a “fair hearing” from Judge Kaplan, though his appeal remains pending. The judge also criticized SBF f

April 29th — Decentralized oracle provider RedStone has launched its settlement layer, RedStone Settle, to tackle the liquidity gap facing real-world assets (RWAs) in DeFi lending. Traditional DeFi protocols rely on near-instant settlement for risk management, but redemption periods for tokenized RWAs (like funds or bonds) often stretch 60 to 180 days. This creates a mismatch: a large portion of RWA can’t be effectively used as collateral. RedStone Settle solves this via an on-chain auction mechanism: When a liquidation is triggered, liquidity providers (LPs) can bid instantly for positions to inject immediate liquidity into the protocol, taking on the delayed redemption risk of the underlying asset themselves.

April 29th — Eric Trump, son of former U.S. President Donald Trump, pushed back against a Forbes article accusing him of large-scale Bitcoin arbitrage to scam MAGA investors. Trump labeled Forbes a “disgrace to the journalism industry.” Just over a year ago, his Bitcoin firm American Bitcoin (ABTC) did not exist. Seven months and 25 days later, ABTC listed on Nasdaq. Today, it holds more than 7,000 Bitcoins, ranking as the 16th largest publicly traded Bitcoin company globally. The firm is backed by nearly 90,000 mining machines, 28 exahashes per second (EH/s) of hash rate, and uses top-tier energy sources in the U.S. Fourth-quarter highlights for ABTC include: - Bitcoin holdings on its balance sheet rose 58% - Mining costs were 53% below Bitcoin’s market price - Revenue hit $78.3 million, a 22% jump from the prior quarter ABTC is among the fastest-growing companies to break into the “Top 100” in the Bitcoin sector, with daily efforts to expand mining capacity. Trump note

On April 29, Forbes released a critical piece targeting Eric Trump—son of former President Donald Trump—over his Bitcoin venture, American Bitcoin (ABTC), labeling it a "disaster." The outlet accused ABTC of being an arbitrage-focused scheme that exploited MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, despite Eric billing the firm as a "money-printing machine." Founded in 2025, ABTC quickly listed on Nasdaq, leveraging the Trump family brand and Bitcoin hype to hit a $13.2 billion valuation. Eric repeatedly touted ABTC as the "Bitcoin world leader" on earnings calls, but Forbes exposed the company had fewer than a handful of full-time staff and relied on story-driven marketing over tangible operations. ABTC repeatedly sold overvalued shares to acquire Bitcoin; Eric made little to no personal investment yet saw his net worth jump from roughly $1.9 billion to $2.8 billion, while other insiders pocketed substantial gains. Ordinary investors—especially MAGA backers—faced massive los

On April 29th, per OnchainLens monitoring, BitMine — Ethereum’s first treasury company — added 107,992 ETH to its staking pool two hours prior, worth $248 million. The firm’s total staked ETH now stands at 3,923,389, valued at $8.98 billion.