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According to a16z, its researchers conducted a systematic test on whether AI agents can independently exploit DeFi price manipulation vulnerabilities.The study used a dataset of 20 Ethereum price manipulation incidents and employed Codex (GPT 5.4) equipped with the Foundry toolchain as the testing agent. Under baseline conditions without domain knowledge, the agent's success rate was only 10%; after introducing structured domain knowledge extracted from real attack events, the success rate increased to 70%. Failure cases showed that the agent could accurately identify vulnerabilities but generally struggled to understand the leverage logic of recursive borrowing, misjudged profit margins, and could not assemble multi-step attack structures across contracts. The experiment also recorded a sandbox escape incident: the agent extracted the RPC key from the local node configuration and called the anvil_reset method to reset the node to a future block, bypassing information isolation restrictions and obtaining real attack data. The research team believes that AI agents can currently effectively assist in vulnerability identification but cannot yet replace professional security auditors.

According to Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase has appointed former Goldman Sachs executive Oliver Harris as the head of its blockchain division Kinexys.Harris officially joined the bank earlier this month and will primarily be responsible for advancing the commercialization of applications under Kinexys and deepening partnerships with institutional clients.

According to The Block, Ciarán Fitzpatrick, the global head of ETF products at JPMorgan Securities Services, stated: "We believe that tokenization will definitely drive changes in the market, not only for ETFs but for the entire fund industry as well."Ciarán Fitzpatrick pointed out that given the many benefits that tokenization may bring, such as more convenient subscription and redemption, "almost instant settlement," and uninterrupted access, experiments with ETF tokenization are still ongoing. He added: "I think tokenization will become part of the ETF ecosystem, but it will be a few years before we see some really good use cases."

According to CoinDesk, in the past year, several senior executives from Coinbase's marketing team have joined OpenAI, including former Chief Marketing Officer Kate Rouch, Head of Integrated Marketing Sarah Russell, and Head of International Marketing Elke Karstens.In addition, several former employees of Coinbase have also transitioned to the AI field, including positions in policy, product, and data. Coinbase stated that the team size exceeds 150 people, and the personnel changes are considered normal.

ChainCatcher reported live that HashKey Capital CEO Deng Chao and Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom jointly attended the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival roundtable discussion, exploring "From Finance to Strategy: How Public Companies Are Positioning Themselves Based on Digital Assets."Chalom, who worked at BlackRock for 20 years, began leading BlackRock's blockchain and digital assets team six years ago, during which he launched Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, raising about $100 billion at its peak. He stated that the choice to establish a digital asset treasury with Ethereum rather than Bitcoin is because Ethereum is a "native productive asset," which can earn nearly 3% returns through staking, while Bitcoin can only be held in anticipation of appreciation. Sharplink has been listed on Nasdaq and has raised billions of dollars to purchase Ethereum since launching its digital asset treasury strategy last June, currently holding approximately 770,000 ETH and earning about 17,000 ETH and over $35 million in rewards for investors through staking.Regarding industry trends, he pointed out that Ethereum is dominating three major use cases: stablecoins (over 60% occur on Ethereum), asset tokenization, and decentralized finance. He specifically warned that currently over 95% of stablecoins are denominated in US dollars, and if stablecoins are to become the payment rail for trillions of transactions in the AI economy, Asian regulators should not allow them to be dominated by the US dollar and US Treasury bonds, as this will trigger a geopolitical competition to advance local stablecoin legislation.Discussing market cycles, he noted that the crypto market has experienced significant pullbacks since last October, with short-term prices being unpredictable, but in the long term, the current risk-reward ratio is at its best level in a long time. He emphasized that digital asset treasuries are not passive investments; Ethereum is a high-volatility asset, and volatility is a characteristic of capital appreciation rather than a defect.

ChainCatcher reported live that Fan Wenzhong, Executive Director of the Chinese Financial Society and former Chairman of Beijing Financial Holdings Group, delivered a keynote speech at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. He pointed out that we are currently at a historical turning point similar to the transition from pawnshops to modern banking, where AI is an advanced productive force in the physical world, and Web3 represents a new type of production relationship in the digital world. The integration of the two will give rise to a Decentralized Agent Economy (DAE).He analyzed that AI Agents have execution capabilities but lack independent identity, accounts, and trust mechanisms, while Web3 addresses these pain points through smart contracts, on-chain identities, and programmable currencies; conversely, AI Agents significantly lower the barriers to using Web3. He proposed that DAE has four major characteristics: agent sovereignty and 24/7 operation, high-frequency atomic exchanges, a collaboration mechanism based on technological trust rather than moral or legal frameworks, and the organizational evolution from companies to DAOs and then to Decentralized AI Companies (DACs).He warned that this transformation will impact the labor market, with white-collar workers being replaced before blue-collar workers. AI quantitative funds have already achieved returns far exceeding those of retail investors, and he suggested that the government proactively advance social security reforms. Finally, he recommended that Hong Kong develop a self-controllable high-performance public chain, pilot limited digital persona registrations, attract Web3+AI composite talents, establish a digital finance industry fund, and promote collaborative innovation between the Hong Kong dollar stablecoin and digital renminbi.

ChainCatcher live report, the Executive Director of the Intermediaries Division of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, Ye Zhi Heng, delivered a keynote speech titled "ASPIRe in Action Hong Kong's Digital Asset Journey" at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival. He reviewed the six major milestones since the Commission launched the ASPIRe roadmap last year, including allowing licensed platforms to provide staking services, conducting joint consultations on virtual asset trading and custody systems, opening up perpetual contracts and margin financing frameworks, and launching plans to strengthen market defenses through technology.He revealed that the draft regulations for the four systems of virtual asset trading, custody, management, and advisory have reached 260 pages, and the draft was received last week. The work for the next 12 months is divided into three major clusters: first, promoting innovation through regulation, advancing legislative and regulatory guideline consultations; second, promoting innovation through practice, gradually allowing tokenized authorized funds to trade on licensed platforms; third, promoting innovation through interaction, advancing automated reporting, signing international bilateral memorandums, and combating financial crime frameworks. He emphasized that Hong Kong is "moving steadily forward, fast because of stability."

At the "Crypto 2026: From Cryptocurrency to Smart Economy" themed forum held in Hong Kong, guests including KiteAI's Asia Pacific head Laughing, Sentient's Asia Pacific head Anita, Brevis content director Nic Tang, Mentis product head Jerry, and Predict.fun's Asia Pacific BD head Ah Huang Ricardo engaged in a roundtable discussion on the theme "AI × Crypto --- The Foundation of the Next Generation Digital Economy."Regarding whether the outbreak of open-source AI Agents (such as "raising lobsters") is a short-term sentiment or a long-term trend, Laughing believes this marks a paradigm shift of AI from "conversational" to "executive," signaling the beginning of a long-term trend. However, Agents lack a physical identity, making it difficult for merchants to trust their trading behavior, and issues of data leakage and uncontrollability remain obstacles that must be overcome for scaling. Jerry pointed out, based on his own usage experience, that current Agents face security risks such as memory fuzziness, token consumption in dead loops, and accidental file deletion. Although newly emerged Agents have improvements, they still have shortcomings. Ah Huang Ricardo stated that behind the short-term sentiment is real user demand, but truly reproducible profitable trading Agents are still very rare, and there is a long way to go.Addressing core bottlenecks such as trust, security, and verifiability, Nic Tang emphasized that the current execution process of Agents is like a black box, where users cannot verify whether their decisions are executed as promised. Zero-knowledge proof technology can mathematically prove the source of an Agent's output and compliance with behavior, while not exposing privacy. Anita added that Sentient is committed to building an open and collaborative AI agent network, promoting the deep integration of AI and blockchain in identity, data, and incentive layers, providing foundational support for the next generation digital economy.Regarding the application scenarios that are likely to scale first, the guests generally believe that the programming field is relatively mature, and Agents in prediction markets perform better than humans in specific tracks due to their rationality and lack of emotions. In the short term, they are optimistic about API Marketplace and cross-platform consumer shopping Agents, while in the medium term, they are optimistic about content creation AI (such as AI influencers). Agent-to-Agent interaction and the Agent/Skill Marketplace are seen as important future trends.

According to PaymentsJournal, stablecoin payment infrastructure provider PhotonPay announced a comprehensive upgrade to its payment capabilities, officially moving towards the new paradigm of Agentic Payments. At the core of this transformation is the shift in finance from "directive" to "intent-centric," enabling AI agents to autonomously plan and execute complex financial pathways.It is reported that PhotonPay has divided its system into three main modules: global network layer, core execution layer, and intelligent decision-making layer. AI agents can automatically complete the entire process of procurement triggers, payment path optimization, dynamic exchange rate optimization, and compliance review based on preset goals, achieving machine-to-machine (M2M) cross-border capital flow, covering over 200 countries and regions, and supporting real-time processing of financial decisions.In terms of market prospects, McKinsey predicts that by 2030, the global Agentic Commerce driven by AI agents will reach a scale of $3 trillion to $5 trillion, which also provides important market endorsement for PhotonPay's strategic layout.

Today, Bitget, in collaboration with media outlet Rhythm, held an online live broadcast themed "Dialogue with Bitget Executives: A Comprehensive Breakdown of the SpaceX Ticket, from Capital Privilege to Universal Sharing," providing a systematic interpretation of the product mechanisms of IPO Prime and preSPAX.Ken, the product head of Bitget IPO Prime, stated that IPO Prime is not the traditional "new coin listing," but rather utilizes digital tokens issued by the regulated issuer Republic to transform the high-threshold, low-liquidity non-standard assets of the primary market into priceable, tradable, and exit-able digital products.Ken pointed out that Pre-IPO opportunities have long been scarce, not only because the targets are of high quality but also due to the inherent high thresholds, strong circles, and low liquidity issues in the primary market. The launch of IPO Prime by Bitget aims to provide users with the opportunity to access potential economic benefits before the listing of unicorn companies through clearer product design and trading mechanisms within a compliant framework.The first phase of the preSPAX launched is an important attempt in this direction, focusing on providing users with a more flexible and tradable participation path.He further stated that from crypto trading to UEX, and now extending to the primary market, Bitget has been continuously pushing the boundaries of trading. In the future, the platform hopes to do more than just list more assets; it aims to further bridge the previously fragmented opportunity structures between different markets, allowing users to access earlier, higher quality, and more diverse global asset opportunities within the same system.

The President of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Eddie Yue, stated that the first batch of stablecoin issuers has been granted licenses today. Based on the business plans of the licensees, they intend to commence operations in the coming months once the relevant preparations are completed.Eddie Yue expressed hope that the issuers will carry out their business as planned, actively explore development opportunities while managing risks, promote the application of compliant stablecoins, and address pain points in financial and economic activities. At the same time, the public should remain vigilant against any fraudulent activities or scams claiming to be related to the licensees or the stablecoins they issue. When purchasing or using stablecoins, regulated channels should be used, and if there are any doubts, they should refer to the records of the Monetary Authority to verify the identity of the licensees or contact the licensees for further inquiries.

According to Decrypt, blockchain infrastructure company Biconomy has proposed a new Ethereum standard ERC-8211, introducing a "smart batching" mechanism that allows AI agents to complete multi-step DeFi operations in a single transaction, with each step dynamically referencing the output of the previous step at execution, addressing the issue of unpredictable output amounts due to price fluctuations or changes in transaction fees.This standard operates on top of the existing Ethereum infrastructure without the need to modify the core protocol or perform a hard fork, allowing developers to implement complex transaction processes directly in TypeScript. Barnabé Monnot, a research scientist at the Ethereum Foundation, stated that ERC-8211 aligns with the foundation's strategic priority of "improving user experience."

According to the official announcement, Binance will gradually implement the Spot Price Range Execution Rules (PRER) starting from April 14, 2026, to prevent user orders from being executed at abnormal prices under extreme market conditions. This rule will limit orders to be executed only within a dynamic price range, aiming to maintain a fair and orderly market environment.

The crypto super political action committee Fellowship PAC announced the appointment of Jesse Spiro, Tether's U.S. executive, as chairman to lead political actions supporting pro-crypto candidates.This appointment comes at a time when the advancement of the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act in the Senate is stalled. The current point of contention is whether to allow platforms to provide yields or incentives for stablecoin holdings, which has become a key obstacle to reaching consensus on the bill. Recently, some crypto companies, including Coinbase, have expressed reservations about the latest version of the bill, while stablecoin issuer Circle is also facing market pressure due to policy uncertainty. Analysts point out that as the midterm elections approach, the crypto industry is ramping up political lobbying efforts in an attempt to secure a more favorable policy environment regarding regulation.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Northern California Prosecutor's Office announced that 10 executives and employees from four cryptocurrency market-making firms have been charged with allegedly manipulating token trading volumes and prices through wash trading, involving Gotbit, Vortex, Antier, and Contrarian.Three of the defendants have been extradited from Singapore to the U.S., and two others have pleaded guilty and been sentenced. The FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigation Division even created multiple cryptocurrency tokens during an undercover operation to investigate illegal volume manipulation and price inflation within the industry. Over $1 million in cryptocurrency assets have currently been seized.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order prohibiting government-appointed officials from using non-public information obtained during their duties to engage in insider trading for profit in prediction markets, and expanded the ban to include their spouses, family members, and former business partners. The executive order specifies that public officials appointed by the governor may not use "confidential or non-public information" to bet on political or economic events related to their duties. Newsom stated that public service should not become a tool for profit and emphasized the need to draw a clear line between power and interests.

According to Theblock, the crypto wallet supported by Binance, Trust Wallet, has officially launched the Trust Wallet Agent Kit (TWAK). This infrastructure allows AI agents to execute real cryptocurrency transactions across more than 25 blockchains under user-defined and controlled rules. In addition to managing regular purchases, it can also handle cross-chain exchanges across multiple networks, including Solana and Bitcoin.The report states that the new toolkit offers two modes of operation: one where the AI agent has its own wallet and can automatically execute transactions based on set rules; the other where it suggests transactions that then require user approval.

According to Slow Fog monitoring, the Apifox desktop client has encountered a supply chain attack, with front-end script files hosted on its official CDN being injected with highly obfuscated malicious JavaScript code.Affected users may face risks such as credential theft, sensitive data leakage, and remote command execution, with the malicious code executing automatically and being highly concealed. Slow Fog recommends that users immediately revoke all Tokens, reset passwords, log out and log back in to invalidate sessions, block the *.apifox.it.com domain, clear local storage, and review API logs and abnormal activities.