[News Brief] Apr 22, morning | Trump to Discuss Crypto Clarity Act with U.S. Senators

President Trump is scheduled to discuss crypto clarity legislation with U.S. senators on the 16th local time, according to Watcher.Guru.

The talks appear to be tied to legislative efforts to clarify regulatory standards for the cryptocurrency market in the United States.

Speaking on Fox, Coinbase’s Chief Policy Officer said regarding the U.S. Clarity Act, “The policy shift has already happened,” adding, “The Clarity Act is an opportunity to make that permanent law.”

Source: Bitcoin Magazine. He also said he is “very confident” the bill will pass. The Clarity Act is intended to establish a clearer regulatory framework for digital assets in the U.S., and the industry is closely watching whether it will reduce regulatory uncertainty.

According to Odaily, on July 14 spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $181 million, while spot Ethereum ETFs saw net inflows of $58.34 million. Neither category saw any outflows that day.

Among Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock’s IBIT drew $139 million in net inflows, while Fidelity’s FBTC saw $21.07 million. All of the Ethereum ETF net inflow went into BlackRock’s ETHA.

Hyperliquid (HYPE), XRP, and Solana ETFs saw no trading activity that day. Morgan Stanley filed amended documents related to spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs, including service providers such as Coinbase Custody and staking provisions.

Japanese policymakers are pursuing reforms to include cryptocurrencies under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. The move is being interpreted as part of regulatory preparations for a future crypto ETF framework.

BlackRock recently withdrew 2,152 BTC from Coinbase Prime within the span of one hour, Odaily reported, citing Onchain Lens.

The withdrawal was worth about $140 million. Onchain Lens said that unlike prior Coinbase Prime custody transfers for IBIT, this kind of movement often corresponds to newly added BTC being allocated into IBIT.

Odaily reported that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $4.5 billion in net outflows in June, the weakest monthly performance since their launch in January 2024.

Bitcoin fell 20.48% in June and dropped to $58,190 on July 1, marking its lowest level in 21 months.

Citi lowered its 12-month Bitcoin price target to $82,000 from $112,000. It had previously cut the target from $143,000 to $112,000 on March 17. Citi also revised its 12-month Ethereum target down to $2,240 from $3,175.

Strategy sold 32 BTC worth about $2.5 million between May 26 and May 31, its first sale since December 2022. As of May 31, it held 843,706 BTC, and its board approved a plan allowing up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin sales.

Open interest in leveraged Bitcoin futures fell from about $31.3 billion around May 30 to about $21.6 billion in early June. Meanwhile, major holders reportedly accumulated more than 270,000 BTC over the past two weeks.

According to Odaily, the Bank of Korea raised its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage point to 2.75%.

The hike was the first since January 2023 and was in line with market expectations.

According to Wu Blockchain, security firm Blockaid said it detected signs of a suspected exploit worth about $18 million involving an Arbitrum-based Ostium vault.

Blockaid believes the attacker used a registered price upkeep forwarder and oracle reports approved for a future timestamp to create artificial trading profits, triggering around $18 million in USDC payouts from the vault.

The exploit transaction and attacker address have been disclosed, and the incident remains under investigation. Ostium is an RWA perpetuals trading protocol focused on stocks, commodities, and foreign exchange markets. It has previously raised about $27.8 million from backers including General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, and GSR.

According to CoinGlass data, liquidations in the crypto futures market totaled about $294 million over the past 24 hours.

A total of 73,451 traders were liquidated, with short liquidations at about $214 million and long liquidations at about $79.36 million.

By asset, ETH led with about $118 million in liquidations, while BTC recorded about $56.39 million. The largest single liquidation occurred on the Binance ETHUSDT contract and was worth about $11.88 million.

According to foreign media reports, Strategy President and CEO Phong Le said in a Bloomberg TV interview that the company will not stop buying Bitcoin and aims to become “the biggest buyer of Bitcoin in the near future.”

He said debt risk would only become a concern if Bitcoin fell to around $8,000 to $10,000, adding that he feels “very comfortable” with the company’s current financial position.

Le explained that the recent sale of more than $215 million worth of Bitcoin and the increase of cash holdings to $3 billion were measures to meet short-term liquidity needs of preferred shareholders and to demonstrate the liquidity of the company’s Bitcoin holdings.

He added that if STRC returns to its $100 par value, the company plans to issue more preferred shares to fund additional Bitcoin purchases.

Aave Labs has officially launched Aave V4, its decentralized lending protocol, on the Avalanche network.

According to a July 16 PANews report citing Cryptopolitan, this is the first external network expansion of Aave V4 since its deployment on Ethereum.

The move is part of Aave founder Stani Kulechov’s broader plan to integrate tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

Aave V4 uses a core-branch structure to isolate risk by liquidity hub. On Avalanche, one core liquidity hub and three independent markets are being operated: a main market, an AVAX-related market, and a foreign exchange market.

SBI Group, DigiFT, and Startale Group completed a proof of concept for tokenized securities using the yen-denominated stablecoin JPYSC on the Ethereum testnet, Odaily reported.

The test included near real-time settlement of fund subscription payments and automated on-chain dividend distribution through smart contracts.

SBI Group and DigiFT are moving forward with the tokenization of the ‘SBI Japan High Dividend Equity Fund,’ which is managed by SBI Asset Management and has about $1.3 billion in assets under management.

The three companies plan to explore links between tokenized Japanese equities and institutional DeFi platforms, and to test collateralized lending and on-chain asset management use cases with Morpho and Gauntlet.