Aethir Lands $260M Axe Compute Deal; New Fire Technology Buys Avenir's Trading Team

Key headlines - Aave's TVL slipped below $30 billion, down $16.2 billion from its prior peak. - Bloomberg: Kalshi has overtaken Polymarket in trading volume as Polymarket's U.S. rollout continues to stumble. - New Fire Technology (1611.HK) acquired Avenir Group's investment team and trading system and will roll out Bitcoin-denominated asset management. - Aethir-backed infrastructure helped Axe Compute secure a $260 million enterprise contract. - Tether said it supported U.S. authorities in freezing more than $344 million in USDT. - Trump Media & Technology Group is pivoting toward crypto and financial services. - Circle proposed raising Aave's USDC max deposit rate to 48.2%. Top developments in the past 24 hours Sun Zhen moves $1.3B into Spark; USDS farming rewards reach $5.38M Onchain analyst Aunt Ai said Sun Zhen has deposited a cumulative $1.3 billion into Spark, with USDS farming rewards totaling as much as $5.38 million. Over the past three hours, address 0x939…6a1d1 withdrew 300 million USDS from Sky and deposited it into Spark. Current Spark deposits cited: USDS $436 million (18.72%); USDC $135 million (28.17%); USDT $93.39 million (9.89%). More than 100 crypto firms and groups urge Senate action on market structure bill CoinDesk reported that over 100 U.S. crypto companies and industry organizations sent a letter to the Senate Banking Committee urging movement on the CLARITY Act to establish a federal digital-asset regulatory framework. Signatories include Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, and Consensys. The letter calls for clearer SEC/CFTC jurisdiction, protections for developers of noncustodial tools, simplified disclosures, and avoidance of fragmented state standards. The group warned that absent a comprehensive framework, investment, jobs, and development could move offshore. Axe Compute signs $260M AI infrastructure deal; Aethir provides underlying GPU cloud Nasdaq-listed Axe Compute Inc. (NASDAQ: AGPU) said it signed a 36-month AI infrastructure contract with an enterprise client worth about $260 million, the largest single enterprise deal in its history. The buildout includes a dedicated cluster of 2,304 NVIDIA B300 GPUs and a high-speed AI storage system, slated to go live in Q3 2026 at a Tier 3 data center in the U.S. The compute layer is powered by Aethir's decentralized GPU cloud. The contract includes a dedicated 4.8 MW N+1 redundant power configuration, with deployment location and service standards set by the client under a structured payment arrangement. Aethir cofounder and CEO Daniel Wang said the engagement followed months of collaboration and signals decentralized GPU infrastructure can support top-tier enterprise AI workloads. Following the announcement, AGPU saw sharp volatility, jumping more than 166% intraday to $14.47, with volume more than 100x its three-month daily average. Tether backs U.S.-led freeze of over $344M in USDT Tether said it supported U.S. government action to freeze more than $344 million in USDT across two wallet addresses, in coordination with the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and U.S. law enforcement, to prevent further fund movement. Tether said the action was based on information from multiple agencies linking the addresses to illegal activity and that it freezes wallets tied to sanctions evasion, criminal networks, or other illicit conduct. CEO Paolo Ardoino said USDT is not a safe haven for illicit activity and that the company combines onchain transparency, real-time monitoring, and direct law-enforcement coordination. Tether added that the U.S. Department of Justice previously confirmed Tether assistance in enforcement actions leading to the seizure of nearly $61 million and about $225 million in "pig-butchering" scam funds. Polymarket user nets $34,000 by manipulating a weather sensor A user reportedly earned $34,000 on Polymarket by interfering with a weather sensor used to settle a Paris temperature market. Polymarket had relied on a Météo France sensor near Charles de Gaulle Airport. The user bought low-priced options far above market expectations, then used a portable heat source to warm the sensor and create a temporary spike that registered as the day's high. The incidents occurred on April 6 and April 15. Météo France detected the anomaly and filed a complaint. Trump Media shifts toward crypto and financial services Trump Media & Technology Group is moving its focus from social media toward cryptocurrency and financial services. Data cited in the report shows the stock has fallen more than 60% since Trump's reelection in 2024, wiping out roughly $6 billion in shareholder value. The company has applied to launch a crypto blue-chip ETF and plans to build a Bitcoin reserve. SoftBank seeks $10B loan backed by OpenAI stake Market sources said SoftBank Group is pursuing a $10 billion margin loan secured by its OpenAI holdings. The facility would have a two-year term with an option to extend one additional year, aimed at funding continued AI investments. New Fire Technology buys Avenir trading team; targets 10,000 BTC for Alpha BTC Xinhuo Technology (New Fire Technology, 1611.HK) said it will acquire the investment team and trading system of Li Lin's family office, Avenir Group, for $1.6 million. New Fire plans to launch Alpha BTC, a Bitcoin-denominated asset management service targeting more than 10,000 BTC in inflows within a year (about $760 million). The strategy will seek returns via derivatives such as options, using Bitcoin or the IBIT ETF as underlying assets, targeting crypto-native investors and Hong Kong enterprises. The company said that as of end-2025, Avenir Group held 18.3 million shares of BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust valued at $908 million. Commentary claims SBF portfolio could have exceeded $100B in gains absent FTX collapse KOL AB Kuai.Dong (@_FORAB) said that while FTX founder SBF is imprisoned for misappropriating about $16 billion in user funds, discussion has resurfaced about the potential value of his investment portfolio. The post estimated potential outcomes: Anthropic about $82.3 billion (roughly 165x), SpaceX about $15 billion (about 75x), Robinhood about $4.9 billion (about 8x), Genesis Digital Assets about $3.5 billion (about 3x), and AI coding tool Cursor about $3 billion (about 15,000x based on a $200,000 investment for a 5% stake). Combined potential value was cited as over $100 billion. MetaMask cofounder Dan Finlay exits Consensys MetaMask cofounder Dan Finlay said on April 23 he is leaving ConsenSys after more than a decade working on MetaMask, citing burnout and a desire to spend more time with family. He said he was pleased with the recent launch of MetaMask's advanced permission feature (ERC-7715). X updates: XChat shareable group links; X Communities to shut down May 6 X product lead and Solana advisor Nikita Bier said XChat now supports group chats with public, joinable links that can be shared on a timeline. Group chats support up to 350 members, with the cap expected to increase. X will discontinue X Communities on May 6 due to declining usage. TD Cowen: CLARITY Act progress stalls amid broader disputes TD Cowen said disagreements around the CLARITY Act extend beyond stablecoin yield issues and could slow passage. The firm cited the CFTC's limited staffing (only one commissioner), rising debate over prediction markets and concerns about insider trading and political conflicts of interest (including controversy around Trump-linked projects), heightened sensitivity tied to the Trump family's World Liberty Financial, and geopolitical scrutiny around potential crypto payments involving Iran that could tighten AML provisions. TD Cowen also noted some lawmakers may try to attach the Credit Card Competition Act, adding friction and delays. Japan's FSA advances shift of crypto regulation and launches stablecoin payment pilots Market sources said that at the "9th BCCC Collaborative Day" on April 21, 2026, Shigeshi Shimizu, Chief of the Risk Analysis Division at the FSA's Comprehensive Policy Bureau, outlined regulatory plans. The FSA has submitted a bill at an extraordinary Diet session to move crypto-asset oversight from the Fund Settlement Law to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, focusing on disclosures, a new category for independent operators, tougher penalties for unregistered operators, and insider-trading rules. The FSA is also advancing three "Payment Innovation Projects (PIP)" pilots: (1) a yen stablecoin cross-border payment test with three major banks; (2) blockchain-based onchain settlement for government bonds, corporate bonds, stocks and other securities to enable 24/7 trading; and (3) a bank-to-bank tokenized deposit transfer pilot backed on April 3, to be developed alongside the Bank of Japan's central bank reserve tokenization sandbox. Bloomberg: Kalshi overtakes Polymarket; U.S. strategy hits repeated snags Bloomberg reported that Polymarket, long a leader in prediction-market volume, has been overtaken globally by rival Kalshi, citing Dune Analytics. Kalshi said last month it raised funding at a $22 billion valuation, while Polymarket is valued at $15 billion after a recent $600 million investment by Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). Polymarket's main constraint is a delayed official U.S. launch, with its app still in testing and March volume said to be just one-twentieth of Kalshi's. The report also cited blockchain-architecture constraints, repeated product delays, fee changes that upset users, and an outage lasting more than an hour. Polymarket also drew scrutiny after Democratic lawmakers urged the CFTC to intervene over markets tied to sensitive topics such as war and nuclear explosions. ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher said the deal could end up a total failure or a home run. Aave TVL drops below $30B; $16.2B exits from prior high Onchain analyst Yujin said Aave's TVL has fallen below $30 billion, down from $45.8 billion before the rsETH incident to $29.6 billion now, implying $16.2 billion in outflows. Yi Lihua: Crypto is finance, not Web2; AI + finance is the new opening Liquid Capital founder JackYi (Yi Lihua) wrote on X that recent crypto VC failures and project blowups were driven by teams building "useless Web3 products" modeled after Web2. He argued Web3 is fundamentally a financial industry and that the most successful crypto companies have been financial products such as stablecoins, exchanges, and payments. In the AI era, he said large teams and heavy funding are less necessary, and "AI + finance" is a major early-stage opportunity. Circle proposes raising Aave USDC max deposit rate to 48.2% Circle Chief Economist Gordon Liao posted a proposal on the Aave governance forum to urgently adjust USDC interest-rate parameters in the Aave V3 Ethereum main pool after utilization stayed at 99.87% for four consecutive days following the KelpDAO attack. Liao said the current mechanism has failed to "clear" the market: supply is $1.89 billion and borrowing is $1.89 billion, leaving under $3 million in available liquidity. Borrow rates remain around the upper range (about 14%), and over the past 24 hours the pool shrank by about $60 million as repayments were used to meet queued withdrawals. Liao proposed using the Risk Steward mechanism to raise the Slope 2 parameter from roughly 10% to 40% immediately, with a governance vote in 5 to 7 days to push the target to 50%. Optimal utilization would be lowered from 92% to 87% during the transition, then to 85% upon final approval. Under the proposal, the maximum USDC deposit rate at 100% utilization would rise from about 12.6% to 48.2%. Meme popularity (GMGN) as of April 24, 09:00 Top 5 ETH tokens (24h): HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD Top 5 Solana tokens (24h): swarms, 67, neet, LOL, Buttcoin Top 5 Base tokens (24h): SKITTEN, PEPE, BASED, B3, SKYA Notable reads highlighted - "As Aave's house crumbles, Spark's tower rises." The piece recaps the April 18 exploit in Kelp DAO's cross-chain bridge validator nodes that allegedly allowed minting about $292 million of unbacked rsETH, deposited into Aave to borrow WETH, creating potential bad debt of up to $230.1 million. - "Crypto VCs see because they believe." A discussion of whether shrinking VC capital signals reduced crypto attractiveness, with debate over whether capital is concentrating among top founders/funds or whether the early-stage founder pipeline has weakened as more talent moves into AI. - "A seasoned Polymarket user's perspective." A reaction to Bloomberg's reporting on Polymarket losing volume leadership amid U.S. launch delays and operational issues. - "Who will dethrone AAVE to become the new king?" An analysis comparing lending-market cycles on Ethereum and Solana, arguing both ecosystems are entering a new phase with challengers closing the gap.