GM!
Today’s top news:
Crypto majors up 2-5%, Hype leads; Bitcoin at $81,000 BTC ETFs see $1.15B in net inflows over past 2 sessions DTCC to begin tokenized stock trading in July WLFI countersues Justin Sun stating he suppressed the token price Telegram to replace TON Foundation as largest validator and driver of TON (TON +30%) Haun Ventures Raises $1B Against a Cooling Crypto VC MarketKatie Haun closed $1 billion for two new funds Monday, at a moment when crypto venture capital is in a genuine slump.
April 2026 saw just $659 million in crypto VC funding across 63 deals, a 74% drop from March and the lowest monthly figure since July 2024. Year-to-date 2026 crypto VC stands at $5.64 billion, still fairly substantial but down sharply from the pace set in 2025 (on the back of mega-rounds from Binance, Polymarket, and Kalshi). Monthly funding has declined every month since October 2025’s $3.84 billion peak, tracking a 37% contraction in global crypto market cap over the same period.
The new funds expand that thesis to AI agents. Haun’s argument is that AI agents will need regulated financial infrastructure to operate: wallets, payment rails, compliance layers, and the firms that built stablecoin rails are best positioned to build it. The fund’s largest current bet is Erebor, Palmer Luckey’s federally insured digital bank at a $4.35 billion valuation, designed from the ground up to serve AI and defense technology companies rather than retail consumers. Haun was clear she isn’t pivoting: “We’re not becoming an AI fund. But AI agents will need regulated financial plumbing, and the firms that built stablecoin infrastructure are best positioned to build it.”
The firm now sits 9th among public corporate Bitcoin holders, within striking distance of Riot (15,680 BTC) and Coinbase (15,389 BTC). As of May 1, Strive also held $97.9 million in cash and $50.4 million in Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, giving it a layered Bitcoin exposure play across both direct holdings and structured products.
Strive describes itself as “the first publicly traded asset management Bitcoin treasury company” and measures performance by Bitcoin per share rather than earnings. YTD BTC yield of 18.7% is its primary headline metric. CEO Matt Cole has centered the firm around what he calls “digital credit,” structured finance products generating yield through Bitcoin exposure, anchored by its SATA preferred stock.
Digital credit—a concept Michael Saylor himself is “striving” for…
The service tokenizes DTC-custodied assets including Russell 1000 stocks, major ETFs, and US Treasuries, while preserving all existing legal protections, ownership rights, and entitlements. The underlying assets stay in DTC custody.
What changes is the form: a holder gets a blockchain token that mirrors the real thing and can move across digital networks in ways legacy systems cannot. DTCC received its SEC no-action letter in December, covering a defined set of assets on pre-approved blockchains, so it should be in the clear.
The Industry Working Group building the service includes Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Citadel Securities, Circle, Coinbase, Kraken, Anchorage Digital, Ondo Finance, and Fireblocks—the broadest coalition of TradFi and crypto-native firms assembled around a single tokenization initiative. DTCC CEO Frank La Salla: “Our vision is coming to fruition: launching our tokenization service and successfully bridging TradFi and DeFi.”
The legal dispute, which started as a frozen token disagreement, has escalated into a multi-front war involving allegations of market manipulation, hidden smart contract controls, straw purchases, and a coordinated short-selling campaign.
WLFI’s core allegation: Sun-affiliated wallets moved $300 million to Binance at the moment WLFI launched for public trading in September 2025, executing what the company calls “a large, deliberate, short-selling campaign designed to suppress $WLFI’s price” at launch. WLFI says it froze Sun’s 2.9 billion tokens to prevent further harm—and that Sun agreed to the freeze mechanism in his original investment contract. After the freeze, Sun began publicly calling WLFI a “scam,” accusing the team of embedding secret “backdoors” in smart contracts, and allegedly privately threatening that his lawsuit would “light World Liberty on fire.” WLFI is seeking damages and a public retraction.
