Drift Protocol, a Solana-based perpetual futures DEX, was hit by an attack that pushed DRIFT down about 40% over the following 24 hours and sent DRIFT perpetual funding above 6,000% in the immediate aftermath. Coinbase separately received conditional OCC approval for a national trust charter, while X announced a new account-lock for first-time crypto mentions that requires identity verification to regain posting access.

Telegram's Wallet said on April 2 that it will use Lighter to support native leveraged perpetual trading, letting users trade crypto as well as stocks, metals, and oil with up to 50x leverage. The wallet reports more than 150 million registered users, about 25 million of whom are active, while Telegram has over 1 billion users. Lighter's LIT token rallied about 30% and retested $1 after the integration update.

Coinbase said on April 2 it received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust charter and stressed it is not turning into a bank. The company says the structure is aimed at institutional custody and crypto-market infrastructure under federal oversight, and it will not take deposits or make loans.

NovaBay Pharmaceuticals is shifting away from its legacy pharma operations and repositioning around crypto, including an on-chain treasury approach tied to token holdings and staking. The company said in a Form 8-K that it will adopt the name Stablecoin Development Corporation and start trading under the ticker SDEV on NYSE American on 3 April.

LastPass US is moving forward with a proposed class action settlement tied to a data breach that occurred between August 2022 and November 2022. The deal includes an $8.2 million fund that may reimburse up to $10,000 per person for documented extraordinary losses, plus smaller amounts for other eligible losses and added monitoring services. Claims must be filed by July 2, 2026, ahead of a July 14, 2026 final approval hearing.

President Donald Trump has appointed Todd Blanche as interim U.S. Attorney General, replacing Pam Bondi, after a Justice Department shake-up. Earlier this year, Blanche shut down the DOJ's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and told prosecutors to avoid cases based mainly on regulatory violations. A July 2025 disclosure says he moved crypto and Coinbase shares to family members before taking office, while reports said he still held $159,000 to $485,000 in crypto when he signed an enforcement memo.

Drift Protocol said a Solana-based perp DEX was exploited on April 1, 2026, with about $286 million removed in roughly 12 minutes after attackers prepared fake collateral and used pre-signed admin transactions. The incident coincided with TVL falling from about $550 million to under $250 million, while DRIFT slid as much as 37%–42% to around $0.04–$0.05. As of April 3, the protocol had sent an onchain outreach message and had not announced a full reimbursement plan.

On April 2, 2026, Coinbase Global (COIN) joined the Linux Foundation to formally establish the x402 Foundation, a nonprofit set up to steward an open-source protocol built around HTTP 402 "Payment Required". The X402 protocol turns the long-unused status code into a machine-readable payment flow that lets websites, APIs, and autonomous AI agents price and settle requests via digital wallets, including stablecoin-based settlement such as USDC.