Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF drew $30.6 million in first-day inflows, ranking second behind BlackRock’s IBIT as US spot Bitcoin ETFs clocked net outflows on Wednesday. The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), the first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) offered by a US bank, recorded $30.6 million in inflows on its trading debut, giving the Wall Street bank a respectable entry into the spot Bitcoin ETF market. MSBT started trading on the NYSE Arca on Wednesday, generating $34 million in trading volume, slightly above the expectations of Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, who predicted first-day volume would reach $30 million. As of April 8, MSBT held 444.4 Bitcoin (BTC), worth around $31.7 million, accounting for 0.03% of the estimated 1.29 million BTC collectively held by US spot BTC ETFs. Read more
Dubai’s regulator issued new guidance placing token launches into three buckets, tightening disclosure and governance standards for stablecoins, RWAs and other digital assets. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) published detailed guidance on Thursday that clarifies how token issuers should structure, disclose and distribute virtual assets in the emirate, sharpening rules for stablecoins and real-world asset (RWA) tokens. The document, which interprets VARA’s existing Virtual Asset Issuance Rulebook rather than creating new law, sets out three distinct issuance pathways and spells out who is responsible for what in each. Rather than treating all tokens as if they pose the same risks, the framework draws clear lines between Category 1 issuances (including fiat-referenced virtual assets and asset-referenced virtual assets), Category 2 issuances that must be distributed via a VARA-licensed intermediary, and exempt virtual assets with limited functionality. Read more
Four astronauts travelling back to Earth from the far side of the moon on Nasa’s Artemis II mission spoke of their emotions as they wrapped up the unprecedented flight and prepared to re-enter the atmosphere in a “fireball”, during their first press conference from space on Wednesday. The Artemis II crew, flying in their Orion capsule since launching from Florida last week, are due to splash down off the Southern California coast on Friday evening after reaching the moon earlier this week. They cruised along a path that took them past the shadowed, lunar far side to become the farthest-flying humans in history. On the trip back home, they will reach speeds of up to 38,365 kph as they enter Earth’s atmosphere, a high-risk phase of the mission that will put Orion’s heatshield to the test as it gets battered by intense atmospheric friction. “I’ve actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023 when we got assigned to this mission,” said Artemis II mission pilot Victor Glover, when asked how he was feeling...