Some community members questioned the size of the $50 million package and warned that the proposed AAVE token grant could concentrate voting power. Aave Labs has asked tokenholders to approve a funding package worth about $50 million in exchange for redirecting all revenue from Aave-branded products to the Aave DAO treasury. The proposal includes up to $42.5 million in stablecoins — $25 million as a primary grant and $17.5 million tied to product milestones. It also includes 75,000 Aave (AAVE) tokens, worth about $8 million at the time of writing. The stablecoin grants, if approved, will be streamed over time, and milestone payments will be released upon product launches. In return, Aave Labs would route 100% of product-level revenue to the DAO. That includes fees generated by aave.com, the planned Aave App and Aave Card, Aave Pro, Aave Kit and Aave Horizon. The framework also asks tokenholders to ratify Aave V4 as the protocol’s long-term technical foundation and outlines plans to create a foundation to hol...
US spot Bitcoin ETFs are on track for a fourth consecutive week of losses as Standard Chartered cut its 2026 Bitcoin target to $100,000. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw heightened selling on Thursday, with outflows accelerating the same day Standard Chartered lowered its 2026 Bitcoin forecast. Spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs recorded $410.4 million in outflows, extending weekly losses to $375.1 million, according to SoSoValue data. Unless Friday brings substantial inflows, the funds are on track for a fourth consecutive week of losses, with assets under management (AUM) nearing $80 billion, down from a peak of almost $170 billion in October 2025. Read more
Crypto treasury firm ETHZilla recently sold some of its crypto to begin a tokenization push by buying two jet engines leased to a US airline. Crypto treasury company ETHZilla has launched a token offering access to equity in jet engines that the company acquired last month as part of its pivot into tokenized assets. ETHZilla said on Thursday that the token, called Eurus Aero Token I, was being launched through its new subsidiary, ETHZilla Aerospace, and is backed by two commercial jet engines that are leased to “a leading US air carrier.” The company has priced each token at $100, with a minimum purchase of 10 tokens. ETHZilla said it’s targeting an 11% return rate based on holding it for the full term of the engine leases that extend into 2028. Read more
Chainalysis says that despite the rising use of crypto in trafficking networks, the transparency of blockchain may give visibility into the operations, aiding law enforcement. Crypto flows to suspected human trafficking networks increased 85% year over year in 2025, but crypto analytics firm Chainalysis said blockchain transparency could help disrupt the operations. Chainalysis said in a report on Thursday that the total transaction volume to suspected trafficking networks, largely based in Southeast Asia, reached “hundreds of millions of dollars across identified services.” It added that the services are “closely aligned” to scam compounds, online casinos, and Chinese-language money-laundering networks, which have recently grown in popularity. Read more
Israeli authorities said a military reservist and a civilian were arrested after allegedly using classified information to place bets related to military strikes on Iran. Israeli authorities have arrested and indicted two people for allegedly using secret information to place bets on the predictions market Polymarket related to Israel striking Iran. In a joint statement on Thursday, Israel’s Defense Ministry, its internal security service Shin Bet, and police said a military reservist and a civilian were arrested after an investigation found that the reservist obtained classified information to place the bets. The prosecutor’s office will pursue criminal charges for security-related offenses, bribery, and obstruction of justice. Authorities said the reservist was working for Shin Bet. Read more
Bitcoin open interest falls to $34 billion as investor demand dries up and traders’ concerns shift to worrying US macroeconomic data. Is TradFi exiting BTC? Key takeaways: BTC open interest falls to $34 billion, but stable BTC-denominated volume suggests leverage demand remains unchanged. Weak US jobs data and Bitcoin options skew indicate a bearish shift, even as gold and stocks show relative strength. Read more
Bitcoin has seen record realized losses in one of the cryptocurrency’s largest-ever capitulation events as short-term holders sold at steep losses amid its decline. Bitcoin has posted $2.3 billion in realized losses in what one analyst says is one of the largest capitulation events in history, rivaling its crash in 2021. Bitcoin’s (BTC) seven-day average realized net losses hit $2.3 billion, analyst IT Tech said in a note on CryptoQuant on Thursday, which it called “one of the largest capitulation events in BTC history, rivaling the 2021 crash, 2022 Luna/FTX collapse, and mid-2024 correction.” “This puts us in the top 3-5 loss events ever recorded,” IT Tech added. “Only a handful of moments in Bitcoin's history have seen this level of capitulation.” Read more
Al Green is running against Christian Menefee in the Democratic Party primary elections next month, with Texas one of the first states to vote. The pro-crypto political action committee (PAC) Protect Progress will reportedly spend $1.5 million opposing Texas representative Al Green in the upcoming Democratic Party primary over his past opposition to crypto. “As a member of the Financial Services Committee, Representative Al Green has decided to try and stop American innovation in its tracks,” Protect Progress, an affiliate of the major crypto PAC Fairshake, told The Hill on Thursday. Green, a Democrat who has represented Texas's 9th congressional district in the House since 2005, opposed the stablecoin regulating GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act, two crypto-focused bills that the House passed last year. Read more
CFTC chair Mike Selig launched the Innovation Advisory Committee in January, nominating 12 members as charter members before expanding the final list to 35 on Thursday. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has added a slew of crypto executives, including those from Coinbase and Ripple, to its Innovation Advisory Committee, who will shape how the regulator crafts policy. CFTC chair Mike Selig said on Thursday that the 35 members of the committee will “ensure the CFTC’s decisions reflect market realities” and enable it to “develop clear rules of the road for the Golden Age of American Financial Markets.” The committee launched in January, replacing the Technology Advisory Committee, which drew on the advice of tech leaders to dissect how new technologies were impacting the derivatives markets more broadly. Read more