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At the "Crypto 2026: From Cryptocurrency to Smart Economy" themed forum held in Hong Kong, Gongye Feng, co-founder and CEO of Monera Digital, delivered a keynote speech titled "AI Empowered Private Banking for the Smart Economy."Feng pointed out that what disappeared after 2022 was not the demand for digital assets, but the market's confidence in the ways capital could enter. Monera Digital positions itself as an AI private bank for the smart economy, with the core not being to use AI as traders, but to act as an accelerator, compressing the research, testing, and iteration cycles from months to days.He emphasized that risk control must be institutionalized rather than personalized. Monera has built four lines of defense: source constraints on exposure and collateral, automated clearing and margin management, complete segregation of client assets, and eliminating maturity mismatches while maintaining liquidity buffers. Additionally, AI plays the role of a 24/7 digital CRO, achieving a leap from passive monitoring to proactive warning.In terms of service model, Monera does not operate as a pure technology platform, but insists on "anti-AI illusion," where AI is responsible for optimization and efficiency, while trust, responsibility, and continuity of relationships are still borne by humans. Feng believes that the prerequisite for crypto assets to truly become configurable assets is to translate complexity into clear, continuous, and trustworthy private banking services.

The Ethereum Foundation recently released a summary report on the ETH Rangers security project, revealing that during a 6-month security funding program, researchers identified approximately 100 suspected state-sponsored cyber operatives, including infiltrators from North Korea, who have been active in multiple Web3 projects.The report indicates that relevant investigations were advanced through projects like the "Ketman Project," where researchers issued warnings to about 53 blockchain projects, revealing that these individuals infiltrated development teams under false identities and participated in fund flows and technical positions. Meanwhile, some related funds have been frozen, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The security team also incorporated relevant intelligence into the threat analysis system for the Lazarus Group and disclosed it at security conferences such as DEF CON, showing that state-level cyber attacks are continuously infiltrating the infrastructure of the cryptocurrency industry.In terms of overall results, the program has frozen or recovered over $5.8 million in funds, reported or documented over 785 vulnerabilities, and handled 36 security incidents, indicating that the security threats currently faced by the Ethereum ecosystem have escalated from simple vulnerability attacks to systemic risks involving state-level actors. Additionally, the report points out that North Korean hackers have also infiltrated projects through methods such as "remote IT workers," involving various attack paths such as account takeovers, freelancing platform infiltrations, and fund transfers, making them a key target for industry prevention.The Ethereum Foundation emphasizes that the security of decentralized networks requires "decentralized defense" and will continue to support security research, threat intelligence, and talent development to address the escalating state-level cyber threats.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, manipulators withdrew 1,369,000 $SIREN from the Binance Alpha wallet in the past 6 hours, worth 2.45 million dollars, with the current chip concentration exceeding 93%.

According to the "News" report, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) recently arrested three Telegram investment channel owners, accusing them of manipulating stock prices through a "Pump&Dump" strategy, involving over 55,000 illegal transactions related to 19 large companies on the Moscow Exchange.Research from Moscow State University shows that 11% of Telegram investment signals can have a substantial impact on stock returns, with over 60% of private investors relying on such signals to make decisions. The Central Bank of Russia stated that it will continue to monitor abnormal trading and warned that "punishment is inevitable" for illegal bloggers. Experts remind that manipulative signals are often presented in emotional language, promise quick profits, and do not disclose risks; investors should prioritize consulting licensed advisors.

Base has officially launched the third phase of its startup accelerator program, Base Batch 003. This phase lasts for 7 weeks (from April 6 to May 19), and after screening 1,175 applications, 12 teams focusing on areas such as DeFi, AI, stablecoins, and prediction markets have been selected.The 12 selected projects are:Blockrun.ai: Infrastructure for AI agents accessing LLM and data.Stealth: A new type of leveraged primitive for prediction markets.4Mica: Infrastructure for micro-trading settlement.OPAL: A privacy-focused Perp DEX (supporting cryptocurrencies and RWAs).Onsight: A gamified social prediction platform.Credifi: An unsecured lending protocol based on zk-tls and credit scoring.Tomorrow: A collateralized stablecoin lending platform for the creator economy.Agently: A routing layer for AI coordination and trading.Nivo: An on-chain foreign exchange hedging platform for SMEs.JPEG App: An opinion market based on image content.Floe Labs: A credit network for AI agents and institutions.Liminal: A self-custodied AI-native neobank.During the accelerator, selected teams will receive exclusive guidance and partner benefits from experts inside and outside of Coinbase, and they are expected to receive direct investment from the Base ecosystem fund. The program will conclude with an offline Demo Day in San Francisco on May 19.

According to Decrypt, Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot Inc. suffered a security breach on March 23, with hackers stealing approximately 50.9 bitcoins from the company's controlled wallet, valued at $3.665 million.It is reported that the attackers infiltrated the company's IT system and obtained credentials for the digital asset settlement account, allowing them to transfer cryptocurrency without authorization. This is at least the second known security incident for the company, which previously experienced a hack in 2023 that resulted in the personal data of 58,000 users being compromised.

The analysis of the Drift theft incident by Slow Fog pointed out that a week before the attack, Drift adjusted its multi-signature mechanism to "2/5" (1 old signer + 4 new signers) and did not set a timelock. The attacker then gained administrator privileges, forged CVT tokens, manipulated the oracle, disabled security mechanisms, and transferred high-value assets from the liquidity pool.Currently, the stolen funds have mainly been aggregated to an Ethereum address, totaling approximately 105,969 ETH (about 226 million USD). Slow Fog stated that the flow of related funds is still being tracked.

Bitcoin ATM operator CEO Scott Buchanan has resigned, and former MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes has taken over as CEO and Chairman. Holmes stated that his focus will be on "operational stability, regulatory compliance progress," and driving the company towards a diversified fintech platform. Holmes served as CEO and Chairman of MoneyGram from 2016 to 2024, with over 16 years of executive experience in the payments industry.This personnel change comes less than three months after the company announced its succession plan last November. Meanwhile, the company's founder Brandon Mintz has also stepped down as Executive Chairman but will remain on the board and serve in an advisory role. Bitcoin Depot is currently facing increasing regulatory pressure. Last week, Connecticut suspended the company's local operating license due to excessive charges and failure to refund fraud victims.In its latest financial report, the company warned that due to changes in the regulatory environment, core business revenue may decline by 30% to 40% this year. The Bitcoin ATM industry as a whole is also under pressure, with California imposing a $675,000 fine on Coinhub, and Chicago operator Crypto Dispensers facing issues with its founder being involved in money laundering.

Recently, a first-instance verdict was announced in a case of concealing and hiding criminal proceeds, which was prosecuted by the People's Procuratorate of Yuetang District, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, China. A new type of money laundering chain, disguised as a Maotai liquor transaction and using virtual currency as a channel, was completely dismantled, involving an amount of over 6.84 million yuan, with all 8 defendants sentenced. The gang had clear divisions of labor and strong concealment.Chen connected with upstream sources through overseas encrypted communication software, received telecom fraud proceeds, and contacted "U merchants" to complete the exchange and circulation of virtual currency; Xie was responsible for providing tools for the crime and keeping track of financial details; Huang used Maotai liquor trading as a cover to disguise the trajectory of the transfer of criminal proceeds with real transaction shells; the remaining members assisted with fund settlement and information transmission. The gang used fake Maotai liquor transactions as the "cleaning" stage, disguising overseas fraud proceeds as legitimate business income, converting them into virtual currency to return to upstream, and taking an illegal commission of 8% for each "cleaning."In December 2023, with a report from a victim, this black and gray industrial chain hidden under the guise of liquor trading surfaced. After the incident, the People's Procuratorate of Yuetang District intervened in the investigation early, guiding the public security organs to sort through nearly 20 million yuan in fund flows and massive electronic data, achieving a full-chain crackdown and comprehensive evidence collection. The court ultimately sentenced Xie and 7 other principal and accomplice offenders to fixed-term imprisonment ranging from 2 to 6 years for the crime of concealing and hiding criminal proceeds; the relatively minor offender Liang was sentenced to 1 year in prison with 1 year of probation.

According to Decrypt, Bitcoin Depot, the world's largest Bitcoin ATM operator, has had its money transmission license urgently suspended by regulators in Connecticut for several reasons: overcharging more than 500 users approximately $150,000 in fees (exceeding the 15% cap within the state), failing to fully refund scam victims, and insufficient compliance disclosures.The company must immediately cease operations in the state and shut down all ATMs. Meanwhile, Bitcoin Depot also expects to disclose "significant weaknesses" in internal controls in its annual report. Analysts point out that this suspension is a "structural blow" to Bitcoin Depot and indicates that the Bitcoin ATM industry as a whole will face stricter regulatory scrutiny.

The Lido Community Staking Module (CSM) has released a new proposal to introduce the Identified DVT Cluster (IDVTC) node operator type. This proposal aims to allow verified Independent Community Stakers (ICS) to collaboratively operate validators through DVT technology, enhancing operational resilience while optimizing capital efficiency. Since DVT significantly reduces the risks of heavy penalties and downtime, IDVTC members will enjoy lower collateral requirements.The proposal requires each IDVTC cluster to consist of 4 independent ICS members, who must run validators using Obol or SSV and create keys through Distributed Key Generation (DKG). This feature is expected to go live in the second or third quarter of 2026 with the CSM v3 release.

The on-chain analysis platform Lookonchain stated in a social media post that the party responsible for a $50 million loss due to slippage may be Garrett Jin, the operator of the "1011 insider address."On-chain tracking shows that 13 wallet addresses associated with him withdrew USDC or USDT from Binance on February 16 and February 20, and have recently become active again, transferring funds to two new wallets. One of the wallets shares the same Binance deposit address as Garrett Jin.Lookonchain noted that Garrett Jin previously sold 261,024 ETH (approximately $543 million) and 11,318 BTC (approximately $761 million) on February 15 and February 20, respectively, and the withdrawal times from Binance for the aforementioned wallets are close to these transactions.

The Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ying Yong, delivered the work report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate at the Fourth Session of the 14th National People's Congress, in which he pointed out to strengthen anti-money laundering efforts, prosecuting 3,259 individuals for money laundering crimes using virtual currencies and underground banks. He also emphasized the legal punishment of telecom and internet fraud crimes, prosecuting 69,000 individuals.

According to StockTitan, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot has acquired the peer-to-peer social prediction platform Kutt, expanding the company's product line from Bitcoin ATMs to the rapidly growing consumer fintech sector.After the acquisition, Kutt will retain its brand and leadership position, providing services in most states across the United States.

The Avalanche ecosystem fund and accelerator project Colony announced on Medium that the team has decided to officially cease operations at the end of the first quarter of 2026 after approximately 5 years of operating in the AVAX ecosystem.The statement pointed out that in recent years, factors such as slowed ecosystem growth, reduced funding and project inflow, and changes in core technology and asset governance structure have made it difficult for the project to continue. During the winding down phase, the team stated that they would not use protocol liquidity or community funds, and the related CLY tokens have not been sold or staked. Subsequently, final distributions will be made to CLY stakers, and the front-end interface will be gradually shut down.

Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Protocol 0G Labs announced the launch of the "0G Apollo Accelerator," which plans to provide up to $20 million in funding support for incubating and scaling revenue-generating AI applications based on decentralized infrastructure.The accelerator is established in collaboration with the Blockchain Builders Fund (BBF). BBF is part of the Stanford University blockchain ecosystem, which includes projects such as the Stanford Blockchain Accelerator, BASS, and MS&E 447. The project is also supported by Google Cloud, with each selected team receiving a $200,000 cloud resource allocation.In addition, the wallet infrastructure platform Privy (acquired by Stripe) will provide production-grade wallet solutions for selected teams, aiming to help projects have enterprise-level computing and infrastructure capabilities from the early stages.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire responded during the Circle Q4 2025 earnings call regarding "the progress of the Arc token and when the Arc token will be launched," stating, "We are still actively exploring the Arc token. I believe this is a very valuable exploration. We are gaining a deeper understanding of how tokens play a key role in stakeholder incentives, governance, security, and functional utility within the Arc network. Therefore, this exploration is ongoing.At this time, we have not communicated any specific timeline, as we are still in the exploratory phase. However, as I mentioned, we have made significant progress on the Arc project and are steadily moving towards the launch of the Arc mainnet, which is expected to go live in 2026.We anticipate seeing some excellent companies participate in operating the Arc infrastructure, deploying applications on that infrastructure, and providing support for asset issuers and AI agents, covering a wide range of application scenarios. Once we have more information to disclose, we will make it public."

Due to pressure from multiple state attorneys general, Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot will require customers to provide personal identification for verification each time they use its ATMs.The company stated that this move aims to combat account sharing, identity theft, and account takeover, marking a significant advancement in preventing fraud and illegal activities. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the company, accusing it of deliberately profiting from scams targeting the elderly. FBI data shows that losses from cryptocurrency ATM fraud in the U.S. will reach $333 million by 2025. Currently, Bitcoin Depot operates 8,800 ATMs in North America.

According to Chainwire, Arab Bank's fintech accelerator AB Xelerate, based in Amman, Jordan, announced an investment in the stablecoin settlement company Ubyx. The specific amount of the investment has not been disclosed. The new funds will support the development of a shared network that enables regulated financial institutions to issue, accept, and exchange digital currencies at face value across multiple blockchains and jurisdictions, while operating within established regulatory and compliance frameworks.Previously, it was reported that Ubyx had been acquired by banking giant Barclays, which plans to explore the development of "tokenized currency."