Some industry insiders speculate the crypto sector may be just one market cycle away from full-scale mainstream adoption. Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said he hopes that cryptocurrencies and blockchain will simply become an invisible part of daily infrastructure by 2031, much like the internet today. Speaking on Scott Melker’s Wolf of All Streets podcast posted Thursday, Zhao said that while new use cases and advances will continue to emerge, he hopes talk of the technology will subside as it becomes part of everyday life. “I think in five years, I'm hoping we'll just use crypto,” he added. “There will be other use cases for the blockchain, for data storage, so there will be other cases, but I'm hoping in five years, we stopped talking about the technology, we are just using it and it will be used everywhere.” Read more
Japan tightens oversight with insider-trading bans and new disclosure rules as crypto markets attract more institutional participation. The Japanese government amended the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act on Friday to classify crypto assets as financial instruments. The amendment also bans insider trading and other activities that involve buying and selling based on undisclosed information, Nikkei reported. The amended act will also now require cryptocurrency “issuers” to be more transparent and disclose information once a year. Read more
Fidelity and Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETFs also saw a combined $68.2 million in inflows, while four other Bitcoin ETFs also tallied inflows on Thursday. Investors piled $269.3 million into BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust on Thursday, in its best-performing day since early March, around the time the US-Iran war started to kick into high gear. The inflows helped to end two days of net outflows among the 12 US spot Bitcoin ETFs, which recorded a net inflow of $358.1 million. Bitcoin ETF inflows are just one way to gauge retail and institutional demand for Bitcoin. Read more