Austrian fintech unicorn Bitpanda has secured its third license under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework, further expanding its regulatory footprint across the bloc.

Bitpanda announced on April 10 that it would receive a new MiCA license from Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA), its third after approvals from regulators in Germany and Malta.

Its latest approval marks “another step toward building the most regulated crypto platform in Europe,” the exchange said in an announcement on X.

Source: Bitpanda

MiCA, which took full effect on Dec. 30, 2024, is designed to provide a harmonized legal framework for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) across the EU. Despite this goal, Bitpanda’s pursuit of multiple licenses raises questions about how consistently MiCA is being interpreted and enforced across the bloc.

Bitpanda’s MiCA collection story

Vienna-headquartered Bitpanda was one of the first crypto asset service providers (CASP) to receive a MiCA license after the framework entered into full force.

Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) was the first regulator to issue a MiCA license for Bitpanda, the firm announced on Jan. 23.

According to Bitpanda’s announcement on LinkedIn, it subsequently secured another MiCA license from the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA).

Related: Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

“Following yesterday’s announcement of our first MiCAR license, this second license sends a clear message: Bitpanda is setting the standard as Europe’s most secure and well-regulated crypto platform,” the company wrote.

Bitpanda announced receiving a MiCA license from the MFSA in a LinkedIn post. Source: LinkedIn posting date extractor

At the time of publication, none of the relevant regulators — Austria’s FMA, Germany’s BaFin, or Malta’s MFSA — maintain publicly available registries showing which firms have received MiCA licenses.

Data from Austria’s Financial Market Authority on Bitpanda’s licensing. Source: FMA

According to Austria’s FMA records, Bitpanda currently holds four different approvals in Austria and Germany for entities including Bitpanda Asset Management GmbH, Bitpanda Financial Services GmbH, Bitpanda GmbH and Bitpanda Payments GmbH.

Does MiCA provide for multiple licenses in EU states?

Proposed in 2020, the MiCA framework is designed to set comprehensive regulations for CASPs across the EU, creating “uniform EU market rules for crypto-assets,” according to a key MiCA regulator, the European Securities and Markets Authority.

Despite MiCA’s aim to harmonize crypto regulation across the EU, Bitpanda’s pursuit of multiple licenses suggests regulatory inconsistencies may still exist among member states.

Cointelegraph approached Bitpanda for comment regarding its approach to securing multiple MiCA licenses but did not receive a response at the time of publication.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025

Tokenized gold trading volume surged to a two-year high this week, topping $1 billion as investors pivoted toward safe-haven assets amid global uncertainty triggered by US President Donald Trump’s import tariffs.

The weekly trading volume of tokenized gold surpassed the $1 billion mark for the first time since March 2023, when a US banking crisis saw the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the voluntary liquidation of Silvergate Bank. Signature Bank was also forced to close operations by New York regulators on March 12, two days after Silvergate’s liquidation.

Tokenized gold has experienced a significant surge in trading interest since early February, when global trade war fears started spreading to digital markets, according to a CEX.io research report shared with Cointelegraph.

Top tokenized gold assets, trading volume. Source: CoinGecko, Cex.io

Since Trump’s first tariff announcement on Jan. 20, Paxos Gold (PAXG) trading volume has surged by over 900%, Tether Gold (XAUT) trading rose over 300% and Kinesis Gold (KAU) volume increased by more than 83,000%.

Tokenized gold has become one of the best-performing crypto categories since Trump’s inauguration, surging over 21% in market cap and over 1,000% in trading volume, while stablecoins saw an 8% market cap increase and a 285% trading volume expansion during the same period.

Tokenized gold, market cap. Source: Cex.io

Tokenized gold is part of the growing real-world asset (RWA) tokenization sector, which refers to financial products and tangible assets such as real estate and fine art minted on the blockchain.

Related: BlackRock ‘BUIDL’ tokenized fund triples in 3 weeks as Bitcoin stalls

Gold prices hit new highs

The surge in tokenized gold coincides with a record-setting performance in physical gold. On March 31, gold hit an all-time high of over $3,100 per ounce and was trading above $3,118 at the time of writing.

BTC, gold, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Since the beginning of 2025, the price of gold has risen over 18%, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC), which has fallen by more than 12% year-to-date, TradingView data shows.

Gold’s robust price performance after key tariff-related events highlights a growing appetite for safe-haven assets, according to Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at Cex.io.

However, tokenized gold remains far from being a physical gold competitor at the current “stage of RWA development,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding:

“Tokenized gold presents a compelling alternative for crypto-native investors who might otherwise look to Bitcoin or stablecoins.”

“In this context, tokenized gold has primarily served as a diversification tool, gaining increasing traction in investor portfolios as market uncertainty deepens,” he added

Related: Stablecoins, tokenized assets gain as Trump tariffs loom

Geopolitical trade tensions caused by Trump’s import tariffs have inspired a flight to safety among crypto investors, specifically toward stablecoins and tokenized assets.

Following the 2023 banking crisis, the Federal Reserve created the Bank Term Funding Program, offering banking loans of up to a year in return for posting “qualifying assets” as collateral.

This emergency measure was what started the Bitcoin bull run in 2023, according to BitMEX co-founder and former CEO Arthur Hayes.

Magazine: Ripple says SEC lawsuit ‘over,’ Trump at DAS, and more: Hodler’s Digest, March 16 – 22

United Kingdom regulators are increasingly concerned about the impact of stablecoins and the broader crypto industry on the country’s financial system and monetary stability.

During Financial Policy Committee meetings held on April 4 and 8, regulators noted that while the current “interconnectedness of unbacked crypto asset markets with the real economy and financial sector is growing but remains relatively limited,” stablecoins and crypto markets have expanded significantly in the past year, drawing heightened regulatory attention.

The UK, its central bank and its local regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, have been developing frameworks for stablecoins to ensure financial resilience. The committee claims to have determined the factors that make a stablecoin resilient:

“A key determinant of the resilience of stablecoins was the liquidity, credit and market risks of their backing assets, which were in place to ensure that redemptions can be met in a timely manner at par, even in periods of stress.“

The committee raised alarm over the “greater issuance of sterling offshore stablecoins with inappropriate backing assets.” This has implications for UK financial markets and “even with appropriate regulation, greater use of stablecoins denominated in foreign currencies could make some economies vulnerable to currency substitution,” the committee said.

Bank of England. Source: Wikimedia

Related: Builders beware — The UK’s 2026 crypto regime is coming

Currency substitution risks spark concern

Committee members are worried that if stablecoin use were to move beyond crypto settlements, it could result in “implications for retail and wholesale cross-border payments.” In retail flows, stablecoin use by households and small and medium-sized enterprises could, for cross-border payments, “result in currency substitution,” increasing counterparty risk.

The statement followed reports about growing stablecoin adoption not limited to crypto remittances in emerging markets, especially in Africa. A recent report from Chainalysis found that stablecoins now make up nearly half of all transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Similarly, a late 2024 report suggested that a number of emerging economies across Africa have the potential to become digital asset hubs. Ben Caselin, chief marketing officer of Johannesburg-based crypto exchange VALR, told Cointelegraph at the time:

“South Africa is the entryway to the rest of Africa with a good rule of law and independent judiciary. It’s easy to open a company in South Africa.”

Still, reports of similar trends in developed economies with easily accessible financial infrastructure are scarce. Experts often point to the unavailability of banking services and unstable local fiat currencies as the reason why developing countries — from Africa in particular — are eager to adopt dollar-based stablecoins and crypto.

Related: 3 reasons why stablecoin growth thrives globally — Will US follow under Trump?

UK is not alone in worrying

The United Kingdom is in good company in worrying about the impact of stablecoins and the broader crypto industry on monetary stability. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) recently warned that crypto will increasingly threaten traditional financial markets’ stability as the industry grows and becomes more entwined with conventional finance players. ESMA’s executive director, Natasha Cazenave said:

“We cannot rule out that future sharp drops in crypto prices could have knock-on effects on our financial system.”

Local regulators are already acting on those concerns. In late March, the European Union’s insurance authority proposed a blanket rule that would mandate insurance firms to maintain capital equal to the value of their crypto holdings as part of a measure to mitigate risks for policyholders.

Magazine: Ridiculous ‘Chinese Mint’ crypto scam, Japan dives into stablecoins: Asia Express

Over the past decade, issuance of Tether’s USDt (USDT) has consistently mirrored Bitcoin (BTC) price cycles, with mints often clustering around bull runs and burns following corrections.

Data from Whale Alert shows the relation between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price movements by plotting Tether’s net minting and burning alongside the price of Bitcoin from 2015 to early 2025. 

While many in the industry have long speculated about the correlation between USDT supply and BTC performance, this data set provides a clearer timeline for evaluating that relationship.

Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin with over $144 billion in market capitalization, has become a key liquidity vehicle in crypto markets and is often viewed as a proxy for broader capital inflows.

The data from Whale Alert reinforces how tightly its issuance patterns track with Bitcoin’s price cycles, though the direction of causality remains up for debate.

Large issuances of USDT coincide with Bitcoin price spikes. Source: Whale Alert

According to crypto analyst and researcher Mads Eberhardt, a greater supply of stablecoins — including Tether — has historically correlated with positive performance in crypto markets. This relationship is also evident when looking at Tether’s mint and burn chart over time.

“However, it’s important to note that we have not observed this correlation over the past few months,” Eberhardt said. “I expect that as stablecoins see increasing adoption in non-native crypto use cases, this correlation will gradually weaken over time.”

USDT issuance and Bitcoin price spikes

Whale Alert’s data shows a consistent pattern of periods of aggressive USDT minting frequently coinciding with or closely preceding major Bitcoin bull runs. This was also apparent in late 2020 and throughout 2024 when net new USDT issuance climbed into the tens of billions as Bitcoin’s price accelerated upward.

A series of large USDT mints in late October and November 2024 accompanied Bitcoin’s rise from $66,700 to over $106,000. Source: Whale Alert

In a more recent example, Bitcoin went on a bull run from $66,700 on Oct. 25, 2024, to over $106,000 on Dec. 16. The first significant mint in this cycle was a $1-billion issuance at the end of BTC’s trip to $72,000 on Oct. 30, before a short-lived correction. Bitcoin had another climb from $65,000 to $75,000, with another $6 billion minted at the end of this rally on Nov. 6. 

Bitcoin posted moderate gains over the next three days, during which Tether minted an additional $6 billion in two batches. This was followed by a sharp rally that pushed Bitcoin to $88,000.

A mint of $6 billion on Nov. 18 marked the beginning of Bitcoin’s next leg up, kicking off a rally that pushed the price to just under $99,000 by Nov. 22. In the same stretch, Tether issued another $9 billion in three separate batches. Another mint of $7 billion on Nov. 23 came just before a brief pullback and Bitcoin’s ultimate surge to $106,000 by Dec. 17.

The timing of USDT mints in late 2024 suggests that issuance can serve as a near-term signal of rising demand — but not necessarily as a pure leading indicator.

With USDT now over a decade old since its 2014 launch, its role in Bitcoin price cycles is dwindling, Ki Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant, told Cointelegraph.

“Most of the new liquidity entering the Bitcoin market today is coming through MSTR and [exchange-traded funds], primarily via Coinbase’s BTC/USD market or [over-the-counter] desks. Stablecoins are no longer an important signal for determining Bitcoin’s market direction,” Ju said.

“In fact, the total amount of stablecoins held on exchanges is lower than it was during the 2021 bull market,” he added.

Total stablecoins held on exchanges today is lower than it was during the 2021 bull market. Source: CryptoQuant

In many of the observed cases, the largest mints occurred during or after price momentum was already underway. 

For example, the $6-billion mint on Nov. 6 came after Bitcoin had already rebounded from $65,000 to $75,000. Similarly, more than $15 billion in USDT was minted between Nov. 18 and 23 amid rapid upward price action rather than ahead of it.

That said, there are several notable exceptions. A pair of mints totaling $7 billion around Nov. 13 and the $7 billion minted on Nov. 23 appeared shortly before fresh rallies, indicating that in some cases, large issuances may anticipate or help catalyze further price movement.

“These days, most newly issued stablecoin liquidity is either for global trade settlements or represents profits from Bitcoin’s rise being converted into liquid form, which increases market cap — not necessarily fresh inflows,” Ju said.

Related: Trump ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs create chaos in markets, recession concerns

USDT burns and lag behind Bitcoin corrections

Conversely, periods of sustained USDT burns — when USDT is removed from circulation — often occur during or shortly after market corrections. This pattern suggests that redemptions tend to follow price pullbacks.

This was visible in the weeks after Bitcoin’s December 2024 peak above $106,000. As BTC declined through January and into March 2025, several red bars — representing USDT burns — appeared on the chart.

Dec. 26, 2024: A major USDT burn of $3.67 billion occurs just after Bitcoin drops from around $106,000 to $95,713.

Dec. 30, 2025: A smaller burn of $2 billion follows as Bitcoin continues to decline toward the $92,000 level.

Jan. 10, 2025: A $2.5-billion USDT mint occurs before Bitcoin rebounds to over $106,000.

Feb. 28: Another $2 billion in USDT is burned following a month-long decline from Bitcoin’s six-digit peaks to around $84,000.

Unlike mints, burns rarely precede downward moves in the same way that some mints appear in front-run rallies. Instead, they tend to confirm what’s already underway. This makes them useful for tracking post-peak behavior and assessing the scale of market cooling, rather than identifying tops in real time.

Such patterns are observed throughout USDT’s existence, including a record-breaking $20-billion USDT burn on June 20, 2022, when Bitcoin tumbled from over $65,000 to around $21,000.

However, experts agree that burns don’t offer definite post-peak signals. “Currently, we have no evidence of a correlation between burns and market tops, nor as a lagging indicator,” Jos Lazet, founder and CEO of asset management firm Blockrise, told Cointelegraph.

Shifting stablecoin landscape impacting the USDT and Bitcoin relationship

While historical data shows a clear relationship between USDT supply changes and Bitcoin price movements, there are several factors that impact the price of Bitcoin, and the industry has yet to find concrete evidence that suggests USDT issuance directly influences the price of Bitcoin, or if they flow directly into Bitcoin.

“It is not feasible to relate USDT supply (or minting) to a specific trading volume, as the majority of the trading against stablecoins happens on centralized exchanges, especially relating to Bitcoin,” Lazet said.

“What can be easily seen is that the (far) majority of the trading volume relates to Bitcoin, and similarly the Bitcoin trading volume is largely done against USDT. However it (probably) won’t be feasible to directly correlate these events.”

While the connection between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price action remains debated, external forces could soon reshape how stablecoins interact with crypto markets. The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework places new compliance requirements on stablecoin issuers operating within the European Union. As a result, several exchanges have announced the delisting of USDT from their platforms. 

In the US, the proposed legislation could also reshape how centralized stablecoins like USDT are issued, backed and redeemed. Increased regulatory scrutiny may reduce the flexibility and responsiveness of issuers or prompt a shift toward more compliant alternatives.

Related: Stablecoin adoption grows with new US bills, Japan’s open approach

At the same time, competition is intensifying. Rivals like USDC (USDC), with a strong compliance posture, are gaining ground, especially among institutions. USDC lost a chunk of its market cap in 2022 and 2023 following the Silicon Valley Bank debacle, dropping from around $56 billion to around $24 billion. Since then, it has recovered to an all-time high market capitalization of over $60 billion at the time of writing.

USDC market capitalization has recovered to an all-time high. Source: CoinGecko

Meanwhile, decentralized stablecoins such as Dai (DAI) are appealing to decentralized finance-native users who prioritize censorship resistance and onchain transparency.

Tether’s influence on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market remains significant. But whether USDT mints and burns will continue to serve as reliable indicators of capital flow in the coming years will be influenced by how regulatory forces, user preferences and infrastructure developments reshape the stablecoin landscape.

Magazine: New ‘MemeStrategy’ Bitcoin firm by 9GAG, jailed CEO’s $3.5M bonus: Asia Express

Over the past decade, issuance of Tether’s USDt (USDT) has consistently mirrored Bitcoin (BTC) price cycles, with mints often clustering around bull runs and burns following corrections.

Data from Whale Alert shows the relation between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price movements by plotting Tether’s net minting and burning alongside the price of Bitcoin from 2015 to early 2025. 

While many in the industry have long speculated about the correlation between USDT supply and BTC performance, this data set provides a clearer timeline for evaluating that relationship.

Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin with over $144 billion in market capitalization, has become a key liquidity vehicle in crypto markets and is often viewed as a proxy for broader capital inflows. The data from Whale Alert reinforces how tightly its issuance patterns track with Bitcoin’s price cycles, though the direction of causality remains up for debate.

Large issuances of USDT coincide with Bitcoin price spikes. Source: Whale Alert

According to crypto analyst and researcher Mads Eberhardt, a greater supply of stablecoins — including Tether — has historically correlated with positive performance in crypto markets. This relationship is also evident when looking at Tether’s mint and burn chart over time.

“However, it’s important to note that we have not observed this correlation over the past few months,” Eberhardt said. “I expect that as stablecoins see increasing adoption in non-native crypto use cases, this correlation will gradually weaken over time.”

USDT issuance and Bitcoin price spikes

Whale Alert’s data shows a consistent pattern of periods of aggressive USDT minting frequently coinciding with or closely preceding major Bitcoin bull runs. This was also apparent in late 2020 and throughout 2024 when net new USDT issuance climbed into the tens of billions as Bitcoin’s price accelerated upward.

A series of large USDT mints in late October and November 2024 accompanied Bitcoin’s rise from $66,700 to over $106,000. Source: Whale Alert

In a more recent example, Bitcoin went on a bull run from $66,700 on Oct. 25, 2024, to over $106,000 on Dec. 16. The first significant mint in this cycle was a $1-billion issuance at the end of BTC’s trip to $72,000 on Oct. 30, before a short-lived correction. Bitcoin had another climb from $65,000 to $75,000, with another $6 billion minted at the end of this rally on Nov. 6. 

Bitcoin posted moderate gains over the next three days, during which Tether minted an additional $6 billion in two batches. This was followed by a sharp rally that pushed Bitcoin to $88,000.

A mint of $6 billion on Nov. 18 marked the beginning of Bitcoin’s next leg up, kicking off a rally that pushed the price to just under $99,000 by Nov. 22. In the same stretch, Tether issued another $9 billion in three separate batches. Another mint of $7 billion on Nov. 23 came just before a brief pullback and Bitcoin’s ultimate surge to $106,000 by Dec. 17.

The timing of USDT mints in late 2024 suggests that issuance can serve as a near-term signal of rising demand — but not necessarily as a pure leading indicator.

With USDT now over a decade old since its 2014 launch, its role in Bitcoin price cycles is dwindling, Ki Young Ju, CEO of blockchain analytics firm CryptoQuant, told Cointelegraph.

“Most of the new liquidity entering the Bitcoin market today is coming through MSTR and [exchange-traded funds], primarily via Coinbase’s BTC/USD market or [over-the-counter] desks. Stablecoins are no longer an important signal for determining Bitcoin’s market direction,” Ju said.

“In fact, the total amount of stablecoins held on exchanges is lower than it was during the 2021 bull market,” he added.

Total stablecoins held on exchanges today is lower than it was during the 2021 bull market. Source: CryptoQuant

In many of the observed cases, the largest mints occurred during or after price momentum was already underway. 

For example, the $6-billion mint on Nov. 6 came after Bitcoin had already rebounded from $65,000 to $75,000. Similarly, more than $15 billion in USDT was minted between Nov. 18 and 23 amid rapid upward price action rather than ahead of it.

That said, there are several notable exceptions. A pair of mints totaling $7 billion around Nov. 13 and the $7 billion minted on Nov. 23 appeared shortly before fresh rallies, indicating that in some cases, large issuances may anticipate or help catalyze further price movement.

“These days, most newly issued stablecoin liquidity is either for global trade settlements or represents profits from Bitcoin’s rise being converted into liquid form, which increases market cap — not necessarily fresh inflows,” Ju said.

Related: Trump ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs create chaos in markets, recession concerns

USDT burns and lag behind Bitcoin corrections

Conversely, periods of sustained USDT burns — when USDT is removed from circulation — often occur during or shortly after market corrections. This pattern suggests that redemptions tend to follow price pullbacks.

This was visible in the weeks after Bitcoin’s December 2024 peak above $106,000. As BTC declined through January and into March 2025, several red bars — representing USDT burns — appeared on the chart.

Dec. 26, 2024: A major USDT burn of $3.67 billion occurs just after Bitcoin drops from around $106,000 to $95,713.

Dec. 30, 2025: A smaller burn of $2 billion follows as Bitcoin continues to decline toward the $92,000 level.

Jan. 10, 2025: A $2.5-billion USDT mint occurs before Bitcoin rebounds to over $106,000.

Feb. 28: Another $2 billion in USDT is burned following a month-long decline from Bitcoin’s six-digit peaks to around $84,000.

Unlike mints, burns rarely precede downward moves in the same way that some mints appear in front-run rallies. Instead, they tend to confirm what’s already underway. This makes them useful for tracking post-peak behavior and assessing the scale of market cooling, rather than identifying tops in real time.

Such patterns are observed throughout USDT’s existence, including a record-breaking $20-billion USDT burn on June 20, 2022, when Bitcoin tumbled from over $65,000 to around $21,000.

However, experts agree that burns don’t offer definite post-peak signals: “Currently, we have no evidence of a correlation between burns and market tops, nor as a lagging indicator,” Jos Lazet, founder and CEO of asset management firm Blockrise, told Cointelegraph.

Shifting stablecoin landscape impacting the USDT and Bitcoin relationship

While historical data shows a clear relationship between USDT supply changes and Bitcoin price movements, there are several factors that impact the price of Bitcoin, and the industry has yet to find concrete evidence that suggests USDT issuance directly influences the price of Bitcoin, or if they flow directly into Bitcoin.

“It is not feasible to relate USDT supply (or minting) to a specific trading volume, as the majority of the trading against stablecoins happens on centralized exchanges, especially relating to Bitcoin,” Lazet said.

“What can be easily seen is that the (far) majority of the trading volume relates to Bitcoin, and similarly the Bitcoin trading volume is largely done against USDT. However it (probably) won’t be feasible to directly correlate these events.”

While the connection between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price action remains debated, external forces could soon reshape how stablecoins interact with crypto markets. The Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework places new compliance requirements on stablecoin issuers operating within the European Union. As a result, several exchanges have announced the delisting of USDT from their platforms. 

In the US, the proposed legislation could also reshape how centralized stablecoins like USDT are issued, backed and redeemed. Increased regulatory scrutiny may reduce the flexibility and responsiveness of issuers or prompt a shift toward more compliant alternatives.

Related: Stablecoin adoption grows with new US bills, Japan’s open approach

At the same time, competition is intensifying. Rivals like USDC (USDC), with a strong compliance posture, are gaining ground, especially among institutions. USDC lost a chunk of its market cap in 2022 and 2023 following the Silicon Valley Bank debacle, dropping from around $56 billion to around $24 billion. Since then, it has recovered to an all-time high market capitalization of over $60 billion at time of writing.

USDC market capitalization has recovered to an all-time high. Source: CoinGecko

Meanwhile, decentralized stablecoins such as Dai (DAI) are appealing to decentralized finance-native users who prioritize censorship resistance and onchain transparency.

Tether’s influence on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market remains significant. But whether USDT mints and burns will continue to serve as reliable indicators of capital flow in the coming years will be influenced by how regulatory forces, user preferences and infrastructure developments reshape the stablecoin landscape.

Magazine: New ‘MemeStrategy’ Bitcoin firm by 9GAG, jailed CEO’s $3.5M bonus: Asia Express

Jack Dorsey, a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and former Twitter CEO, is encouraging Signal Messenger to integrate Bitcoin for peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, a move that could shift the platform’s crypto strategy away from altcoins.

“Signal should use Bitcoin for P2P payments,” Dorsey wrote on X on April 9, replying to a post by Bitcoin developer Calle, who suggested that Bitcoin (BTC) would be a perfect fit for Signal’s private communication channel.

Source: Jack Dorsey

Dorsey’s call to action was echoed by other industry leaders, including former PayPal president David Marcus, who wrote that “all non-transactional apps should connect to Bitcoin.”

The endorsements reflect a growing push to promote Bitcoin as a functional payment system rather than just digital gold or a pure store of value, which alone — according to Dorsey — won’t ensure the success of BTC.

Signal offers payments with Sentz, formerly MobileCoin

Founded in 2014, Signal is an open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls and video calls.

The messenger currently offers in-app payments in MobileCoin (MTCN), a privacy-focused ERC-20 token, which rebranded to Sentz in November 2023.

Signal’s website mentions the old name of Sentz (MobileCoin) as the only supported cryptocurrency within the messenger. Source: Signal

Backed by high-profile industry players like BlockTower Capital and Coinbase Ventures, Sentz was founded in 2017 by Josh Goldbard and Shane Glyn to enable a “fast, private, and easy-to-use cryptocurrency.”

Related: Kraken taps Mastercard to launch crypto debit cards in Europe, UK

Signal came under fire over its MobileCoin integration in 2021, with many raising concerns over potential ties between Signal’s founder and MTCN, opacity around its issuance and suspicious gains leading up to the partnership’s announcement.

Cointelegraph reached out to Signal regarding potential plans to integrate Bitcoin but had not received a response as of publication.

Social media apps historically pushed altcoins

Signal is far from being alone in pushing altcoin payments instead of offering its users payments in Bitcoin, which is designed for P2P payments as its core use case, according to its anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.

Although former PayPal president Marcus is now advocating for Bitcoin usage by all non-transactional apps, he previously led Meta’s (formerly Facebook) project developing the firm’s own payment cryptocurrency, initially known as Libra, which eventually failed.

Source: DogeDesigner

Telegram, another messenger popular in the community, has also been aggressively pushing its ecosystem to use Toncoin (TON), a crypto asset linked to Telegram founders, though not technically managed by Telegram.

Elon Musk’s “everything app” X has also been suspected of planning to launch its own coin for a long time, but Musk publicly denied that in August 2023.

Magazine: 3 reasons Ethereum could turn a corner: Kain Warwick, X Hall of Flame

Bybit’s market share has rebounded to pre-hack levels following a $1.4 billion exploit in February, as the crypto exchange implements tighter security and improves liquidity options for retail traders.

The crypto industry was rocked by its largest hack in history on Feb. 21 when Bybit lost over $1.4 billion in liquid-staked Ether (stETH), Mantle Staked ETH (mETH) and other digital assets.

Despite the scale of the exploit, Bybit has steadily regained market share, according to an April 9 report by crypto analytics firm Block Scholes.

“Since this initial decline, Bybit has steadily regained market share as it works to repair sentiment and as volumes return to the exchange,” the report stated.

Block Scholes said Bybit’s proportional share rose from a post-hack low of 4% to about 7%, reflecting a strong and stable recovery in spot market activity and trading volumes.

Bybit’s spot volume market share as a proportion of the market share of the top 20 CEXs. Source: Block Scholes

The hack occurred amid a “broader trend of macro de-risking that began prior to the event,” which signals that Bybit’s initial decline in trading volume was not solely due to the exploit.

Related: Can Ether recover above $3K after Bybit’s massive $1.4B hack?

It took the Bybit hackers 10 days to launder all the stolen Bybit funds through the decentralized crosschain protocol THORChain, Cointelegraph reported on March 4.

Source: Ben Zhou

Despite efforts, 89% of the stolen $1.4 billion was traceable by blockchain analytics experts.

Related: THORChain generates $5M in fees, $5.4B in volume since Bybit hack

Lazarus Group’s 2024 pause was repositioning for Bybit hack

Blockchain security firms, including Arkham Intelligence, have identified North Korea’s Lazarus Group as the likely culprit behind the Bybit exploit, as the attackers have continued swapping the funds in an effort to render them untraceable.

Illicit activity tied to North Korean cyber actors declined after July 1, 2024, despite a surge in attacks earlier that year, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

The slowdown in crypto hacks by North Korean agents had raised significant red flags, according to Eric Jardine, Chainalysis cybercrimes research Lead.

North Korean hacking activity before and after July 1. Source: Chainalysis

North Korea’s slowdown “started when Russia and DPRK [North Korea] met for their summit that led to a reallocation of North Korean resources, including military personnel to the war in Ukraine,” Jardine told Cointelegraph during the Chainreaction show on March 26, adding:

“So, we speculated in the report that there might have been additional things unseen in terms of resources reallocation from the DPRK, and then you roll forward into early February, and you have the Bybit hack.”

https://t.co/jOlqMt4Hag

— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) March 26, 2025

The Bybit attack highlights that even centralized exchanges with strong security measures remain vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks, analysts said.

The attack shares similarities with the $230 million WazirX hack and the $58 million Radiant Capital hack, according to Meir Dolev, co-founder and chief technical officer at Cyvers.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

Crypto stocks have surged as part of a broader recovery in the US stock market on April 9 following President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on sweeping global tariffs.

The Wednesday, April 9 trading day closed with Michael Saylor’s Strategy up 24.76% to $296.86, while crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) closed up 17% to $177.09, according to Google Finance data.

Crypto mining companies also saw gains, with MARA Holdings (MARA) up 17%, Cipher Platforms (CIFR) up 16.59%, and Riot Platforms (RIOT) rising 12.77%.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, surged 24.76% during the trading day. Source: Google Finance

Most of the gains in crypto stocks and the broader US market came in the final three hours of the day’s trading session, spurred by an afternoon post from Trump on his social media platform, Truth Social. 

In the post, Trump announced a 90-day pause on his global “reciprocal tariffs,” instead lowering the tariff rate to 10% on every country besides China, which he increased to 125% due to the country’s counter-tariffs against the US.

The S&P 500, which tracks the 500 largest public US companies, closed 9.52% higher, its third-largest single-day gain since World War II, according to reports. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq 100 posted a 12.02% gain over the trading day.

APAC markets and Bitcoin see gains

Asia Pacific markets saw an uptick as trading began on Thursday, April 10, local time. Australia’s ASX 200 index is up 4.55% at the time of writing, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 opened the trading day almost 10% higher.

Related: Bitcoin, stocks crumble after ’90 day tariff pause’ deemed fake news — BTC whales keep accumulating

Although Trump’s initial mention of tariffs in early February shook the markets and was a key catalyst in Bitcoin dropping below the $100,000 price level, it was his major escalation in early April that triggered significant volatility across the markets.

On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication. 

It came only two days after Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) has also experienced an uptrend. At the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading 7.52% higher than 24 hours ago, at $82,065, according to CoinMarketCap data.

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This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulation under federal securities laws.

The SEC needs to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws,” OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s Crypto Task Force.

Faure and Brookover argued that NFT marketplaces don’t meet the legal definition of an exchange under US securities laws as they don’t execute transactions, act as intermediaries or bring together multiple sellers for the same asset.

“The Commission’s past enforcement agenda has created uncertainty. We therefore urge the Commission to remove this uncertainty and protect the ability of US technology companies to lead in this space,” Faure and Brookover wrote.

OpenSea’s legal team has asked the SEC to issue informal guidance on NFT Marketplaces. Source: SEC

“In preparing this guidance, the Crypto Task Force should specifically address the application of exchange regulations to marketplaces for non-fungible assets, similar to the recent staff statements on memecoins and stablecoins,” Faure and Brookover added. 

Under a notice published on April 4, the SEC said stablecoins that meet specific criteria are considered “non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s division of corporation finance said in a Feb. 27 staff statement that memecoins are not securities under the federal securities laws but are more akin to collectibles.

NFT marketplaces don’t fit broker definition, says OpenSea

Faure and Brookover argued the Crypto Task Force should also exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from having to register as a broker, arguing they don’t give investment advice, execute transactions, or custody customer assets.

“We ask the SEC to clear the existing industry confusion on this issue by publishing informal guidance. In the longer term, we invite the Commission to exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from proposed broker regulation,” they said.

Related: OpenSea pauses airdrop reward system after user backlash

Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former Chair Gary Gensler.

The regulator has dismissed a number of enforcement actions it previously launched against crypto firms and has dropped probes into crypto companies over alleged securities law violations, including one into OpenSea.

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