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North Korean hackers posing as American tech entrepreneurs quietly registered companies in New York and New Mexico as part of a campaign to compromise developers in the crypto industry, security firm Silent Push said Thursday.

Two businesses, Blocknovas and Softglide, were created using fictitious identities and addresses. The operation is tied to a subgroup within the Lazarus Group.

The North Korean-backed hacking unit has stolen billions worth of crypto in the past years using sophisticated techniques and strategies that target unsuspecting individuals or companies.

“This is a rare example of North Korean hackers actually managing to set up legal corporate entities in the US in order to create corporate fronts used to attack unsuspecting job applicants,” said Kasey Best, director of threat intelligence at Silent Push, said.

The hackers’ playbook is as manipulative as it is effective: use fake LinkedIn-style profiles and job postings to lure crypto developers into interviews. Then, during the recruitment process, they are tricked into downloading malware disguised as job application tools.

Silent Push identified multiple victims of the operation, especially those contacted through Blocknovas, which researchers say was the most active of the three front companies. The firm’s listed address in South Carolina appears to be an empty lot, while Softglide was registered through a tax office in Buffalo, New York.

The firm added that the malware used in the campaign includes at least three virus strains previously tied to North Korean cyber units. These programs can steal data, provide remote access to infected systems, and serve as entry points for additional spyware or ransomware.

The FBI has seized the Blocknovas domain, per Reuters. A notice posted to the site states it was taken down “as part of a law enforcement action against North Korean cyber actors who utilised this domain to deceive individuals with fake job postings and distribute malware.”

Arbitrum (ARB) was set to make a splash.

The Layer 2 network, home to a growing number of decentralized AI platforms, was preparing to announce a milestone: it had been named Nvidia’s exclusive Ethereum partner for the chipmaker’s new Ignition AI Accelerator, an offshoot of its Inception program that supports promising AI startups with infrastructure credits and mentorship.

Then came the pivot.

“We received some last-minute comms from Nvidia requesting to pause the announcement, however, they didn’t provide any specific details as to why,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk in an email.

It’s a telling moment, and a reminder that despite crypto’s continued efforts to align with the booming AI sector, Nvidia’s programs still explicitly exclude crypto-related projects. A quick look at the Inception Accelerator’s criteria (Ignition is an offshoot of it, given the Inception badge on its site) shows a clear disqualifier: cryptocurrency.

This stance isn’t new, and while it may frustrate crypto developers looking to tap into Nvidia’s ecosystem, it reflects a longer history of distance, and occasional disparagement, from the company’s leadership.

Back in 2018, co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang described the fallout from the ICO boom as giving Nvidia a “crypto hangover.” Ethereum’s price collapse left the company saddled with unsold GPU inventory, and Nvidia later paid a $5.5 million fine over how it reported crypto-related revenue impact.

Years later, in a 2023 interview with The Guardian, Nvidia CTO Michael Kagan was more direct: “Crypto doesn’t bring anything useful for society,” he said, adding, “I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity,” contrasting it to AI.

This skepticism has stood in stark contrast to Nvidia’s embrace of artificial intelligence, and occasional tolerance of blockchain.

At the company’s 2024 Graphics Technology Conference, Huang appeared onstage with Illia Polosukhin, co-author of Attention Is All You Need, the paper that introduced Transformer models, which are the foundation for modern AI tools like ChatGPT. While Polosukhin also co-founded the NEAR blockchain, the discussion centered squarely on AI, not crypto.

The closest nod to the industry came when Huang, in characteristically broad strokes, said: “We got programmable humans, we got programmable proteins, we got programmable money.” The remark, likely rhetorical, wasn’t a signal of support for crypto, despite the AI token bulls, and indeed not of any strategic shift.

Even though Nvidia has been clear on its position about crypto, some in the industry continue to interpret moments like these as cracks in the door, a potential softening that might eventually lead to inclusion. But with crypto still formally excluded from Nvidia’s flagship programs and the company declining to comment on its current stance, the door appears just as firmly shut.

For now, Nvidia’s message seems clear: crypto’s not invited.

Crypto majors were little changed over the past 24 hours as markets settled from a rally, and then profit-taking from earlier in the week. Bitcoin (BTC) traded above $93,000 in Asian morning hours Friday, with traders pointing to increased optimism of short-term gains.

“With BTC holding firmly above $90K, sentiment is becoming increasingly optimistic,” QCP Capital said in a Telegram broadcast. “Call options at $95K strikes for end-April and end-May expiries have dominated flow, pointing to a tactical appetite for further upside.”

Call options are contracts giving the buyer the right to purchase an asset at a set price before a deadline. A flurry of call option buying activity indicates traders are betting bitcoin’s price will exceed $95,000 by late April or May — a tradeable signal for retail traders.

“Still, with macro risks temporarily subdued and trade tensions cooling, BTC is likely to consolidate in a narrow $90K–$94.5K range while awaiting a decisive push toward the elusive $100K mark,” the firm said, reiterating its tone of remaining “cautious” as market sentiment hinges on macroeconomic factors.

Among majors, XRP, BNB Chain’s BNB stayed flat and Solana’s SOL showed a 2% bump. Dogecoin (DOGE) and Cardano’s ADA zoomed more than 4%, while shiba inu (SHIB) added 5%.

The broad-based CoinDesk 20, a liquid index tracking the largest tokens by market capitalization, rose 1.2%.

Outside of majors, Sui Network’s SUI continued a multiday rally to bring weekly gains to over 62%. Catalysts include the ecosystem company xPortal, which is releasing a payment card that runs on the Mastercard network. 

https://x.com/SuiNetwork/status/1915395312111530191

Data from DefiLlama shows that the total value locked (TVL) on the Sui Network has exceeded $1.6 billion, an increase of over 9% in the past 24 hours.

Additionally, the decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Sui Network has seen its 24-hour trading volume reach $599 million, showing a 35% growth compared to the previous week.

The Federal Reserve has joined its fellow U.S. banking regulators in deleting its crypto guidance of previous years, including notices that banks should get pre-approvals before they get involved in crypto activity.

Now, all three agencies — including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — have joined in reversing those previous policies, leaving crypto matters at banks in the hands of their managers and compliance executives. In the absence of guidance, the banking industry awaits new laws from Congress to define how the digital assets industry should operate in the U.S.

“These actions ensure the Board’s expectations remain aligned with evolving risks and further support innovation in the banking system,” the Fed said in the Thursday statement announcing the change.

Banking supervision of its state member banks is one of the multiple roles performed by the Fed, which is better known for its monetary policy work. The agency’s move on Thursday will specifically remove four pieces of crypto guidance the board signed onto in 2022 and 2023, highlighting risks to banks posed by the sector.

Fed officials “will instead monitor banks’ crypto-asset activities through the normal supervisory process.”

Read More: FDIC Reverses U.S. Crypto Banking Policy That Demanded Prior Approvals

Real estate tokenization—once a niche experiment—may soon become a core pillar of how property is financed, owned and traded, according to a Thursday report by Deloitte Center for Financial Services.

The market of tokenized real estate could reach $4 trillion by 2035, growing at a compound annual rate of 27% from the current size of under $300 billion, the firm forecasted.

Tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) is a red-hot sector at the intersection of crypto tech and traditional finance. It consists of creating digital versions of assets like bonds, funds and real estate, that represent ownerships on blockchain rails.
The process offers operational efficiencies, cheaper and faster settlements and broader investor access.

For the real estate sector, tokenization’s appeal lies in its ability to automate and simplify complex financial agreements, the report explained, such as launching a real estate fund on-chain with coded rules handling ownership transfers and capital flows. An example for this is Kin Capital’s $100 million real estate debt fund tokenization platform Chintai with trust-deed-based lending, Deloitte noted.

The report outlines a three-pronged evolution of tokenized property: private real estate funds, securitized loan ownership, and under-construction or undeveloped land projects. Of these, tokenized debt securities are expected to dominate, hitting $2.39 trillion in value by 2035, based on the report’s forecast. Private funds could contribute around $1 trillion, while land development assets may account for some $500 billion.

Despite the advantages, challenges remain, the report noted, especially around regulation, asset custody, cybersecurity and default scenarios.

Read more: Tokenized Funds’ Rapid Growth Comes With Red Flags: Moody’s

El Salvador’s Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD), the agency in charge of regulating digital assets in the Central American nation, is seeking to establish a cross-border regulatory sandbox with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“We want to create international collaboration,” Juan Carlos Reyes, president of the CNAD, told CoinDesk in an interview. “Our biggest message is that digital assets don’t have any geographical barriers. Collaboration with regulators should not have international barriers either.”

El Salvador is in a unique situation in that it did not boast of strong financial institutions, or even of an existing ecosystem of developers, when President Nayib Bukele made bitcoin legal tender in 2021. That means the CNAD was able to start with a blank slate when it introduced a regulatory framework tailored to crypto.

Almost two years later after Reyes took over the agency, El Salvador’s advanced regulatory framework has incentivized crypto giants such as Tether, Bitfinex and Binance to open shop in the country.

The idea, Reyes said, is for the U.S. SEC to now use El Salvador as a live, real-world case study to evaluate streamlined regulatory approaches for digital assets — in other words, for the SEC to learn from El Salvador’s experience as it revamps its own regulatory framework in a post-Gensler world.

The pilot program proposed by the CNAD involves different scenarios: a U.S.-licensed traditional finance broker obtaining a digital asset license under CNAD regulations, and the development of two small-scale tokenization offerings facilitated by a CNAD-licensed tokenization company. Each scenario would be capped at $10,000.

These initiatives would support some of the objectives laid out by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in February, when she wrote that the SEC Crypto Task Force, which she now leads, would take a very different approach towards crypto regulation from here on out.

“CNAD really looked at [Pierce’s document] with a critical eye as to how we can help,” Erica Perkin, owner of The Perkin Law Firm and a member of CNAD’s advisory group, told CoinDesk. “We’re here. There’s data [the SEC] might want to collect. It’s difficult to collect in the U.S. … We’ve built a framework that’s nimble enough to work on the exact issues that the SEC is looking at, and we’re here to help and collect information on how we can best do that.”

The CNAD met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force on April 22 to discuss the initiative. The meeting was constructive, according to Reyes and Perkin. “They asked good questions,” Perkin said. “They’re in an information-gathering phase. They were engaged and open to discussion.”

Reyes has already signed regulatory cooperation agreements with countries such as Argentina and Paraguay. In his view, the SEC seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the regulatory needs of digital assets, whereas regulators in other jurisdictions have tended to see crypto regulation from a traditional finance perspective.

“The quality of people that make up the SEC Crypto Task Force is quite impressive. They get it. They understand the technology,” Reyes said. “We were able to have discussions that were on point about what’s needed in order to regulate the technology… It was very refreshing.”

U.S. Senator Dave McCormick, the former chief executive of massive hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is putting his own cash into bitcoin (BTC) as the committee he’s on is at the tip of the spear for a legislative effort to regulate the digital assets industry.

McCormick has made repeated recent investments in the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to disclosures this week. Because of the ranges used in such lawmaker disclosures, the latest amounts invested last month can only be said to be between $310,000 and $700,000.

The new investment follows McCormick’s disclosure of as much as $450,000 in the Bitwise ETF in February, potentially bringing his total investment closer to a million. His investments represent the bulk of bitcoin investing in Congress this year. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, invested a much smaller amount, favoring BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT).

The Republican senator from Pennsylvania, who has held a series of high-profile government posts throughout his career, is new to the Senate and was put on the Senate Banking’s Committee’s subcommittee that deals with digital assets. That’s the group of lawmakers likely closest to the coming action on crypto legislation that’s expected to move this year.

As a Senate candidate last year, the former hedge fund exec argued America needed to lead on crypto. He said during the subcommittee’s first digital assets hearing in February, “This Congress must work alongside President Trump to pass bipartisan digital asset legislation that will guide the future of innovation and secure a robust economic future for the U.S.”

While his bitcoin stake is outpacing other lawmakers, he’s been putting the bulk of his investments in municipal securities in recent months, the disclosures show.

Read More: Congress’ Most Prolific Crypto Trader Is a Georgia Trucking Operator

Japanese investment giant SoftBank is dipping its toes back into crypto by backing a new bitcoin (BTC) investment vehicle, Twenty One Capital, in conjunction with Tether, Bitfinex, and Cantor Fitzgerald.

For some, the SoftBank Group—which has $308.7 billion assets under management—taking an interest in bitcoin is a welcome development and another sign of mounting institutional crypto adoption. After all, SoftBank functions more or less like a Japanese sovereign wealth fund, according to Jeff Park, head of alpha strategies at Bitwise.

But for seasoned observers, it could be more of a déjà-vu than a breakthrough.

Flashback to 2019, SoftBank made headlines when its founder, Masayoshi Son, took a gigantic loss on a personal bitcoin investment.

Son had taken exposure to cryptocurrency in late 2017, when the ICO mania was at its peak and bitcoin was trading at an all-time high of around $20,000.

With bitcoin now trading at $93,000, Son’s investment would have been very profitable had he held on. But he sold in early 2018 as bitcoin began to crash, resulting in a $130 million loss, according to the Wall Street Journal.

So the question investors could be asking themselves now is, would this time be different?

To find a clue, let’s take Oracle (ORCL) stock as an example. Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that SoftBank would be part of a $100 billion push to build AI infrastructure in the U.S. in conjunction with OpenAI and Oracle (ORCL).

One would say this is a bullish outcome for ORCL stock. However, since the announcement was made on Jan. 22, coinciding with ORCL topping at $188 per share, the stock fell 28%, while the Nasdaq has gone down 12% in the same period of time.

Other outside factors, including macro headwinds and geopolitical tension, could explain the underperformance. It could also be just a plain coincidence. However, one analyst tied this Oracle selloff to Softbank’s involvement in the AI infrastructure project.

“When SoftBank enters an asset you own, you sell. I don’t make the rules,” Quinn Thompson, founder of crypto hedge fund Lekker Capital, wrote in a post on X, citing the Oracle pullback.

Michael Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy had both believers and skeptics. But a new rival just emerged, already holding nearly $4 billion BTC on its balance sheet—and it’s a bullish sign, according to at least one Wall Street analyst.

When SoftBank, Tether, and Cantor Fitzgerald unveiled plans to launch a new bitcoin investment company called Twenty One, structured explicitly around holding bitcoin as its primary business, many called it a significant rival to Saylor’s Strategy (MSTR). Its day-one bitcoin balance sheet holding would rank it as the third-largest publicly held bitcoin treasury on day one.

In traditional finance, one could argue that such a big competition could hamper a dominant company’s market share and capital raise opportunities, especially since Twenty One is already potentially launching with over 42,000 BTC at launch (worth nearly $4 billion at spot price).

However, TD Cowen analysts Lance Vitanza and Jonnathan Navarrete see it as the exact opposite: “The proposed launch of Twenty One reflects the most-meaningful validation of Strategy’s bitcoin treasury operations to date,” leaving the analysts “incrementally bullish” on the stock.

The analysts added that the new rival could even convert MSTR’s biggest skeptics, institutional investors, into believers in Saylor’s bitcoin buying strategy. The move would also increase demand for bitcoin from a high-profile entrant, which could outweigh any pressure on Strategy’s cost of capital and attract more capital into buying bitcoin.

“Certainly this is what Michael Saylor professes to believe,” the analysts wrote, pointing to the Strategy founder’s long-standing push for more companies to adopt similar strategies.

TD Cowen maintained its $550 price target for MSTR and projects the company could hold 757,000 BTC by the end of fiscal year 2027 — about 3.6% of bitcoin’s total supply. The analysts said that if bitcoin hits an average price of $170,000 by then, TD Cowen estimates that stash could be worth $129 billion.

The bullish impact of this rivalry is already prominent in the market. The shares of Cantor Equity Partners (CEP), Twenty One’s SPAC vehicle, have already climbed as much as 130% since the announcement, while MSTR stocks held strong.

Read more: Cantor Skyrockets 130% as Traders FOMO Into the Stock on Bitcoin SPAC Frenzy

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) said it will introduce free conversions between PayPal’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, PYUSD, and the U.S. currency in a move aimed at accelerating the shift toward on-chain payments.

The move, open to both retail and institutional customers, is part of a partnership aimed at promoting PYUSD as a payment currency. Coinbase also plans to use its platform to offer PYUSD to PayPal’s extensive network of merchant partners, which could ease the use of stablecoins in everyday transactions.

Stablecoin rivalry heats up

Stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies, predominantly the dollar — are one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto. They are marketed as a faster and cheaper alternative to legacy payment systems, and are increasingly popular for payments across borders. Standard Chartered projected the sector to grow to $2 trillion by 2028 from the current $220 billion.

With regulation for stablecoins advancing in the U.S., the competition is heating up among issuers while banks and traditional payment firms are also eyeing the market. Binance, the largest crypto exchange, and Circle, issuer of the second largest dollar-backed stablecoin, have already linked up to use Circle’s USDC as a trading pair and payment method. Circle introduced a remittances network this week.

Market leader Tether, issuer of the $140 billion USDT, is mulling issuing a stablecoin designed for U.S. users.

Meanwhile, PayPal, whose stablecoin debuted in 2023 and has grown to $860 million, recently introduced a 3.7% annual yield on PYUSD for U.S. token holders to attract more users.