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Changqiao Securities issued a notice to implement the relevant industry supervision requirements during the two-year concentrated rectification period set by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, promoting the standardized development of cross-border securities business in mainland China. The following adjustments will be made to the services for existing investors' accounts in mainland China:Trading services in mainland China: New positions and additional purchases for all varieties, including stocks, are suspended; only sell and close positions operations are supported.Fund transfer services in mainland China: Fund transfers in are suspended, while transfers out remain normal, fully ensuring the safety of your funds.The above arrangements will take effect from June 12, 2026, Beijing time. This adjustment will not affect the services provided to existing investors outside mainland China, nor will it affect the safety of existing assets for all clients. Clients can normally check their accounts, holdings, and sell existing positions.On May 22, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that the illegal cross-border business activities of Tiger Brokers (NZ) Limited, Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Limited, and Changqiao Securities (Hong Kong) Limited violated Chinese securities, fund, and futures laws and regulations, disrupted market order, and must be resolutely cracked down on. According to relevant regulations, the CSRC intends to decide to confiscate all illegal gains of Tiger, Futu, and Changqiao's relevant entities both domestically and abroad, and impose severe penalties according to the law.

According to Fortune, the crypto-focused venture capital firm Variant has completed the fundraising of its new fund, Variant 4, totaling $222 million. The fund will invest in projects at their earliest stages, focusing on the theme of "autonomy" to integrate AI and crypto applications.Partner Jesse Walden stated that in the future, the label "crypto investor" will disappear, and crypto will become a universal "underlying pipeline" like internet infrastructure. The core is to provide users and businesses with greater autonomy and security through decentralized and contract security architecture, supporting the development of applications including DeFi platforms Uniswap and Morpho.

The BNB ecosystem decentralized derivatives trading platform StandX officially launched the SIP-5 Universal Markets Listing framework, allowing anyone to deploy perpetual contracts, prediction markets, Pre-Market, RWA derivatives, and structured derivatives trading pairs with one click by staking DUSD or its future governance tokens.It is reported that the core formula of SIP-5 is UM = Seed + Oracle Grid + Shield. Among them, Seed refers to the staking funds of the deployer (Sponsor) for listing, which will enter the community market maker incentive pool 100%; Oracle Grid provides three layers of price source support, including integration with Pyth and Chainlink; Shield serves as an optional first-loss buffer layer to absorb extreme risks.In addition, deployers can receive up to 70% of the trading fee share and can achieve automatic fee rollback to the market-making pool by enabling Stand Mode. The protocol has previously established infrastructure such as DUSD yield stablecoins maintaining an APY of 8%-10%+, and has hinted at conducting a TGE within the year.

According to a report by 21st Century Business Herald, Futu Holdings' US stock pre-market once fell over 40%. In terms of news, the China Securities Regulatory Commission plans to decide to confiscate all illegal gains of Tiger, Futu, and Changqiao's domestic and foreign related entities, and impose severe penalties according to the law.In response, the company's customer service staff stated that the company has been paying attention to relevant regulatory developments and is carefully studying the related content. Once the information is complete, the company will respond uniformly. Currently, the company's business operations are normal, and customers' account assets and various services are not affected.

According to Blue Whale News, the China Securities Regulatory Commission previously announced that it has initiated an investigation and issued a prior notice of administrative penalties against Tiger Brokers (NZ) Limited, Futu Securities International (Hong Kong) Limited, and Changqiao Securities (Hong Kong) Limited for illegal securities business operations within the country and related entities.Tiger responded by stating: "The company has noted the relevant notification and will strictly comply with regulatory requirements to actively cooperate with related work. Currently, all of the company's business operations are normal. Tiger always prioritizes compliance and maintains close communication with regulatory agencies."

According to Businesswire, Kraken's parent company Payward announced that it has received preliminary approval for brokerage, investment, and management licenses granted by the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in Dubai, UAE, to expand its cryptocurrency business in the UAE.Payward expects to offer spot, margin, and OTC trading, staking services, and Kraken Prime services for institutional clients through locally regulated entities, as well as support for peer-to-peer cryptocurrency asset transfer functionality.

According to Fortune, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Variational announced the completion of a $50 million Series A funding round, led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and Coinbase Ventures.The company is headquartered in the Cayman Islands and is dedicated to building an on-chain derivatives protocol for institutional and traditional financial traders. By aggregating liquidity from traditional finance and the crypto market, it aims to provide an on-chain market for real assets such as oil and commodities that can be traded instantly. Its core product, the Omni platform, adopts a zero-fee model and combines a liquidity pool mechanism to enhance market depth and execution efficiency.Variational stated that its goal is not to compete directly with centralized exchanges but to connect multi-source liquidity through a "brokerage-style" model, including traditional financial market makers and mainstream crypto trading platforms, to address the "liquidity cold start" problem in on-chain markets.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, Harvard Management Company first established a position in cryptocurrency during the market rise in the second quarter of 2025; in the third quarter, when the BTC price approached historical highs, it significantly increased its holdings, with the number of shares increasing by 257%. IBIT once accounted for 20% of its holdings, making it its largest public position; during the market pullback in the fourth quarter, it reduced its BTC holdings while establishing a position in ETH, clearing all ETH after holding it for only one quarter and exiting at a loss.Its BTC acquisition cost ranged from $107,000 to $114,000, and the ETH acquisition cost was $4,000, resulting in a loss of over $150 million in the cryptocurrency sector within a year.

According to The Block, sovereign wealth funds, universities, and banks have recently disclosed their 13F holdings reports for the first quarter of 2026. On the sovereign wealth fund side, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala increased its holdings in BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (ticker IBIT), raising its share count from 12,702,323 to 14,721,917, adding over $90 million in holdings, with a total holding value of nearly $660 million. Mubadala's Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC) maintained its IBIT holdings unchanged, holding 8,218,712 shares valued at $315.8 million.Several university endowments reported that their cryptocurrency ETF holdings remained largely stable. Harvard University's endowment reported holding 3,044,612 shares of IBIT, valued at approximately $117 million. This is a 43% decrease from the 5.35 million shares held at the end of 2025, after Harvard had already reduced its holdings by 21% in the fourth quarter. IBIT is no longer its largest holding (overtaken by TSMC, Alphabet, Microsoft, and SPDR Gold Trust). Harvard also completely liquidated its previously established position in BlackRock's Ethereum spot ETF valued at $86.8 million from the previous quarter.Dartmouth College reported holding 201,531 shares of IBIT, valued slightly above $9 million, unchanged from the previous quarter. The college transferred its Ethereum ETF holdings from Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust to Grayscale's Ethereum Staking ETF, keeping its 178,148 shares unchanged. Dartmouth also disclosed a new holding in Bitwise Solana Staking ETF, holding 304,803 shares, currently valued at nearly $3.67 million. This is the first time an institutional endowment fund has expressed interest in expanding its investment scope beyond Bitcoin or Ethereum into other cryptocurrencies.Meanwhile, Brown University maintained its holdings of 212,500 shares of IBIT, while Emory University simplified its Bitcoin fund holdings from two to one. The school liquidated its 4,450 shares of IBIT while increasing its holdings in Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust from slightly over 1 million shares to 1,354,148 shares.Traditional financial institutions are also actively rebalancing positions and hedging. Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) increased its direct holdings in IBIT and enhanced the use of put and call options for hedging. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) increased its holdings by 214,370 shares of IBIT after liquidating its previously held Trump-related U.S. Bitcoin stocks. Barclays also disclosed its IBIT positions, including approximately 4.46 million shares of spot stock and a significant number of put and call option positions related to the ETF. Hong Kong-based Laurore has reduced its IBIT holdings from 8,786,279 shares to 6,846,279 shares.

The venture capital firm a16z supports the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and opposes a series of crackdowns by various states on prediction markets. On Friday, a16z submitted an 18-page comment letter to the CFTC, stating that the actions taken by state regulators against prediction market platforms—including cease-and-desist orders and proposed bans—are creating "serious barriers to fair access" for users.In just the past month, the CFTC has filed a series of lawsuits against Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, claiming that these states are attempting to regulate markets overseen by the federal government, which exceeds their jurisdiction. a16z argues that requiring trading platforms to block U.S. users based on their state of residence conflicts with the CFTC's rules on fair market access. The company wrote, "Being forced to deny fair access to users from states seeking to license or ban certain event contracts could severely compress available liquidity."CFTC Chairman Mike Selig asserts that the event contracts of prediction markets fall under swap contracts, placing them within the CFTC's "exclusive jurisdiction." State regulators and state attorneys general counter that platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket offer unlicensed gambling products. a16z also discussed the utility provided by what it calls prediction markets, stating that their pricing mechanism is a "unique form of price discovery" that helps "reveal the probabilities of uncertain events." The company further argues that blockchain-based prediction markets are more transparent than traditional platforms, claiming that "the auditability of on-chain transactions" makes it easier for participants and regulators to oversee.In April, the prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi surpassed a cumulative trading volume of $15 billion.

According to Jinshi reports, ECB President Lagarde stated that the central bank discussed various options, including the possibility of raising interest rates.

Gate held the Institutional Circle event in Hong Kong, focusing on the theme "AI Reshaping Crypto Liquidity & Market Access," gathering several institutional representatives from the Asia-Pacific region to discuss the evolution of the crypto market structure and the path to liquidity reshaping. Gate's founder and CEO Dr. Han attended the event and interacted with institutional guests on-site.At the event, Gate's Global Institutional Head Addis Hu delivered the opening speech and shared insights on the platform's service capabilities and market changes in the context of deepening institutional participation. AWS Senior Regional Business Development Manager Ethan Hui shared industry insights from the perspectives of technical infrastructure and asset services.During the discussion session, attendees engaged in in-depth discussions on the evolution of liquidity, changes in market structure, and trends in multi-asset allocation against the backdrop of continuous institutional capital inflow. Overall, this event provided institutions with a reference for understanding current market structure changes and future allocation logic, further reflecting that the industry is moving towards a more mature and structured development stage.

Varys Capital's head of venture capital, Tom Dunleavy, posted on X that the financing environment in the cryptocurrency market has changed dramatically over the past six months. Previously, VCs had to constantly network, write content, appear on podcasts, participate in Spaces, promote their investment logic, and make countless calls every week to invest in good projects... But now, as long as there is money to spend, that's enough. Current projects are being "pushed in front of VCs," without VCs having to actively dig for them; as long as others know you have funds, projects will come knocking.Most VC firms are now in one of the following three states: they are out of money, they are shifting to later stages (Series A and beyond), or they are fundraising (but not smoothly). Fundraising that used to take 2-3 weeks now often drags on for 2-3 months. Projects with questionable business models or those that simply replicate the latest hot narratives can no longer secure new funding or follow-on investments (which is a good thing).Currently, there may be fewer than 20 firms that are still making pre-seed/seed investments. VCs can basically choose the projects they want to invest in at their leisure and have more time to conduct due diligence. The investment cycle in 2025 and 2026 is likely to become a historically significant "golden opportunity," but the premise is that VCs can hold on.

According to CoinDesk, Bitcoin has risen nearly 7% since Sunday, but the upward momentum has slowed after reaching the $72,000 range, with institutional fund direction unclear. The market is focused on two major uncertainties: the U.S. March CPI data (expected to exceed 3% year-on-year, driven by energy prices) and the progress of U.S.-Iran negotiations over the weekend.The options market shows that institutions are simultaneously favoring $80,000 call options on Deribit and BlackRock's IBIT-related call options while maintaining a high proportion of put options to hedge against downside risks. If the CPI exceeds expectations, it may strengthen the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike expectations, putting pressure on risk assets, including Bitcoin.

According to Jinshi reports, Huatai Securities believes that the better-than-expected rebound in March's non-farm data shows the resilience of the U.S. labor market. However, under the conflict in the Middle East, the impact of high oil prices on inflation expectations is more critical for the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.Recently, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East has intensified, and the oil supply gap caused by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up oil prices and inflation expectations. Inflation is currently the core variable of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

According to The Block, Michael Selig, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, stated that when assessing which prediction market contracts are susceptible to manipulation, the agency will "largely respect the opinions of various sports leagues."Previously, the National Football League (NFL) sent letters to prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket, requesting them to stop offering contracts on single game outcomes, drafts, injuries, and other easily manipulated or predetermined contracts, believing that such contracts could incite manipulative behavior.On the legislative front, bipartisan lawmakers have proposed bills aimed at prohibiting federally regulated prediction markets from launching sports-related contracts, and several states have challenged the legality of such platforms through legal means. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball has chosen a collaborative approach, reaching an agreement with Polymarket and signing an information-sharing agreement.