[News Brief] Apr 22, morning | Possibility Raised That U.S. Fed Rate Hikes Could Weigh on the Cryptocurrency Market

Expectations have emerged that the U.S. Federal Reserve may raise its benchmark interest rate this year.

According to @WatcherGuru, the market is discussing the possibility of a Fed rate hike within the year. Higher rates could lead to tighter liquidity and a stronger U.S. dollar, which may weigh on risk assets such as cryptocurrencies.

According to Odaily, Bitcoin News said via X that BlackRock’s IBIT Bitcoin holdings have fallen by about 100,000 BTC in less than two months.

IBIT’s BTC holdings peaked at 822,736 on May 6 and have since declined to 734,261. IBIT is BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF and is considered one of the key indicators of institutional demand.

According to Whale Alert, 1,493 BTC (about $89.92 million) was transferred from an unknown wallet to Coinbase Institutional.

Large inflows to exchanges can be interpreted as possible selling pressure, but they may also be intended for institutional custody or over-the-counter transactions, so actual selling has not been confirmed.

Odaily reported that Robinhood has launched the public mainnet of its Layer 2 blockchain, 'Robinhood Chain.'

With this mainnet launch, Robinhood now supports tokenized stock trading in more than 120 countries. It also unveiled 'Robinhood Earn,' a decentralized lending product based on USDG that offers yields of around 7%.

Robinhood is expanding beyond its traditional securities brokerage business into cryptocurrencies, tokenized assets, and AI-powered trading.

PANews, citing The Block, reported that U.S.-listed Forward Industries (FWDI) acquired more than 500,000 SOL during the recent fiscal quarter, increasing its Solana holdings to about 7.55 million SOL.

The company said the holdings are worth about $776 million. Forward Industries is regarded as one of the major publicly listed Solana-holding companies and the largest corporate treasury holder of SOL.

The company also said it issued 93,642 shares through an at-the-market (ATM) offering this quarter and repurchased its own shares when the stock price traded below the per-share SOL net asset value. It explained that its goal is to maximize SOL holdings per share and enhance long-term shareholder value.

Following the news, FWDI shares rose more than 17% intraday, while Solana’s price climbed to around $77.

According to CoinDesk, the European Union began the review and revision process on the first anniversary of the full implementation of MiCA, its crypto-asset regulatory framework.

The initial areas under review include stablecoin regulations and cross-border equivalence mechanisms. MiCA is a regulatory framework designed to unify rules for crypto-asset issuance, trading, and service provision across the EU.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, U.S.-listed company Hyperscale Data purchased 49.249 BTC.

The purchase was worth about $2.9 million. It is another example of a company adding BTC to its corporate treasury assets.

Securitize, a tokenization firm backed by BlackRock, is set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SECZ.

According to Odaily, Securitize has supported the issuance of on-chain securities for firms including BlackRock.

Securitize President Brett Redfearn said that moving real-world assets onto blockchain can allow investors to control assets digitally and reduce intermediary steps in traditional finance.

Redfearn added that DeFi could offer investors more ways to utilize assets within the tokenized securities ecosystem, and that future growth will also depend on whether external developers continue building in the space.

The market had previously speculated that Robinhood might launch new tokenized stock products compatible with DeFi.

Odaily reported that Ethereum Institutional, a nonprofit founded by former Ethereum Foundation figures, will launch in 2026 and provide free consultation to banks and asset managers seeking to enter the Ethereum ecosystem.

Ethereum Institutional will serve as a single point of contact for institutions covering Ethereum, Layer 2 networks, and related applications.

The organization was founded by David Walsh, Marius Smith, and Matthew Dawson. It was incubated within the Ethereum Foundation before becoming independently operated.

Ethereum Institutional said it will not charge advisory or consulting fees and adopted a nonprofit structure to avoid bias toward any specific vendor or product.

It also plans to work with Eid Labs, Etherealize, and the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to connect institutional demand and explain Ethereum’s value to the banking sector. Eid Labs will focus on turning that demand into technical products.

WatcherGuru reported that assets under management for Binance’s stock trading service exceeded $1 billion just 30 days after launch.

The report, citing WatcherGuru, said Binance secured $1 billion in assets within a month of launching the stock trading product, a result interpreted as part of the exchange’s broader strategy to expand its investment offerings.