Author: James Wilson

Liquid Capital’s Li Hua Yi says there’s “no reason to take profits” after the Strait of Hormuz reopens, citing S&P highs, MicroStrategy’s BTC buys and altcoin rotation. Summary Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua told followers there is “currently no reason to take profits” after the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, arguing peace is now the “only best choice” for both sides. Yi pointed to the S&P 500’s push to fresh highs, MicroStrategy’s renewed Bitcoin purchases and a rotation into so‑called “Hawthorn Coin” as signs this rebound still has room to run. His comments underscore how traders are framing the…

HBAR price prediction improved Friday as Hedera gained 1.4% and Stellar’s XLM added 1.5% to top the CoinDesk 20 performance update, placing the index at 2,125.52, up 0.3% from Thursday’s close, with just 9 of 20 assets trading higher as Bitcoin approached the $76,000 resistance level that has capped every major rally attempt in 2026. Summary Laggards included Near Protocol at -2.3% and Polkadot at -1.6%, reflecting the selective nature of Friday’s session as capital rotated toward payment-layer and enterprise-backed tokens rather than broad altcoin names. HBAR’s 24-hour trading volume surged 57.6% to over $103 million, a signal of directional…

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, agreed to acquire Bitnomial, the first US crypto derivatives platform to hold all three CFTC licenses simultaneously, for up to $550 million in cash and stock, in a deal that values Payward at $20 billion and is expected to close in the first half of 2026. Summary Bitnomial is the first crypto-native US firm to hold all three CFTC licenses required for a full-stack derivatives business — a designated contract market, a derivatives clearing organization, and a futures commission merchant — giving Payward the infrastructure to run an exchange, clear trades, and offer brokerage…

Summary Coinglass data show about $1.044 billion of Ethereum longs would be exposed to forced liquidations on major centralized exchanges if ETH drops below $2,323. On the upside, a clean move above $2,563 would flip pressure onto bears, with roughly $531 million of short positions at risk of liquidation across the same venues. The new band extends an April pattern in which more than $1.8 billion of leverage has repeatedly clustered in tight ranges, turning 5–7% moves into outsized liquidations for over‑levered traders. Fresh Coinglass heatmap data suggest Ethereum is again sitting between two sizeable liquidation walls, with leverage stacked…

Bitcoin technical analysis turned decisively bullish Thursday as BTC cleared $77,000 and climbed above its 100-day moving average for the first time since the early February selloff, triggering a 12%+ surge in Strategy shares as the company’s 780,897-BTC treasury gained roughly $1.6 billion in value in a single session. Summary BTC absorbed $450 million in sell orders stacked between $75,900 and $76,300, breaking through resistance that has rejected price three times over the prior two months. Strategy jumped over 12% on the BTC move, extending a run since the company’s April 13 disclosure that it purchased 13,927 BTC for $1…

Bitcoin price prediction turns cautious as BTC failed to sustain its third breakout attempt above $76,000, repeatedly touching the level only to reverse, while 46 consecutive days of negative funding rates on Binance have created the most compressed short positioning since the FTX crash bottom of late 2022. Summary BTC briefly cleared $76,000 before reversing in the most prominent bearish pin bar on the daily chart since the March rejection at $74,500, keeping the asset in the $60K-$75K consolidation range it has occupied for over ten weeks. Binance perpetual funding rates have remained negative for 46 straight days even as…

CFTC AI news came directly from Capitol Hill Thursday as Chairman Mike Selig told the House Agriculture Committee that artificial intelligence tools, specifically Microsoft’s Copilot, are filling surveillance and investigation gaps at an agency that has lost roughly 25% of its workforce since 2025, even as Congress prepares to hand it primary oversight of the US crypto market. Summary Tools such as AI are going to be very helpful in surveilling and bringing the investigations, and we’re incorporating that into various workflows,” Selig told lawmakers, citing Copilot as one productivity tool across the agency. The CFTC currently operates with only…

Summary Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused crypto exchange Zondacrypto of using “Russian funds linked to organized crime” and “Russian security services” to finance opposition politicians and block a MiCA‑style crypto bill. Tusk told parliament that some lawmakers fighting his government’s crypto‑asset legislation were “serving the interests” of Zondacrypto, which he said sponsored a CPAC event in Poland where former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem endorsed nationalist Karol Nawrocki’s presidential bid. President Nawrocki, elected in June 2025 with backing from former U.S. President Donald Trump, has twice vetoed MiCA‑aligned regulation, leaving Polish exchanges in legal limbo and deepening…

Stanford’s 2026 AI Index shows the performance gap between US and Chinese AI models has compressed to just 2.7%, down from a double-digit lead as recently as 2023, as Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 holds a 39-point Elo lead over ByteDance’s best-performing model on the benchmarks Stanford tracks. Summary The 423-page report, released April 14, finds that the US and Chinese models have traded first place multiple times since early 2025, with DeepSeek-R1 briefly matching the top US model in February 2025 before being surpassed. The US leads China in private AI investment ($285.9 billion vs $12.4 billion) and notable model…

President Trump said Thursday the White House is investigating the deaths and disappearances of 10 scientists with ties to classified US defense, nuclear, and aerospace research, calling the pattern “pretty serious stuff” after leaving a meeting on the topic — as a lawmaker called for a formal FBI probe into what investigators have not yet confirmed is anything other than coincidence. Summary Trump told reporters on the White House lawn: “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half. Some of them were very important people.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said…