Ethereum’s lead in the $16.1T tokenization race could slip away if maxis don’t insist it’s the only acceptable source for truth for RWAs. For years, the default assumption in the Ethereum community has been that it will inevitably become the global settlement layer for finance. It didnt matter that retail was jumping ship for faster and cheaper chains like Solana and Aptos TradFi would recognize that Ethereum is the most battle-tested, credibly neutral and decentralized network, making it the only viable option for what Boston Consulting Group predicts will be a $16.1-trillion market by 2030. There are signs the prophecy is coming true. BlackRock, Fidelity, Wisdom Tree, Sony, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Coinbase are all making Ethereum the core of their onchain strategies. Last week, Ethereum-based platform Blocksquare announced a $1-billion deal with Vera Capital to tokenize US real estate, and Securitize and Ethena teamed up to launch the Converge L2 to tokenize billions more real-world assets (RWAs). Read more
Former Love Island Australia star turned crypto influencer, Vanessa Sierra, shares her secrets for going viral in crypto. Vanessa Sierra went on Australian national television to find love but that didnt work out. A few years later, she accidentally got big on Crypto Twitter, which is almost as good. She says anyone can learn to go viral in crypto if they follow the right steps. Sierra thinks Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin would do well on Love Island as he is quite a funny person. I think hed be entertaining, Sierra tells Hall of Flame, but adds theres little chance hed ever join the show. After making a name for herself on Love Island Australia in 2019 and spending 14 days in the villa, Sierra says she had no intention of blowing up on Crypto Twitter. Read more
Swiss bank Sygnum says altcoins may see a resurgence in Q2 2025, Mantra CEO plans team token burn: Hodler’s Digest Mantra CEO John Mullin said he is planning to burn all of his teams tokens in order to win back the trust of the networks community following the sudden collapse of the Mantra (OM) token on April 13. Im planning to burn all of my team tokens and when we turn it around the community and investors can decide if I have earned it back, Mullin posted to X on April 16. Mantra set aside 300 million OM, 16.88% of the tokens nearly 1.78 billion total supply, for its team and core contributors. They are currently locked and were scheduled to be released in stages between April 2027 and October 2029, according to an April 8 blog post. Read more
Korea’s “cage pumping” crypto market manipulation, Chinese exchange grooming scandal, 67K scammed in Indian pig butchering con. Asia Express. Major cryptocurrency exchanges are under fire over allegations that they gave leveraged platform-locked funds to university students in China to encourage speculative trading. The controversy has drawn comparisons to the countrys campus lending scandal nearly a decade ago, when students burdened with debt were offered exploitative naked loans in exchange for nude pictures as collateral. Bruce Xu, co-founder of ETHPanda, claimed that centralized exchanges were giving students non-withdrawable trial funds for futures trading. Profits could be kept, and students who posted high-return screenshots on WeChat were reportedly offered additional rewards. Xu called the model a way of grooming the next generation of gambling degens. Crypto media outlet BlockBeats called on all exchanges to halt any trial fund promotions targeting students, describing the campaigns as exploitative...