ALERT: Vitalik says the DNS system is under attack and is advising users not to visit potentially affected websites for now, recommending IPFS as an alternative.

Circle's latest disclosures show that in the seven days through April 16, the company minted about $5.9 billion of USDC and redeemed roughly $5.5 billion, lifting net circulation by around $400 million. Total USDC in circulation is $78.6 billion, backed by approximately $78.8 billion in reserves. The reserve mix includes about $46.3 billion in overnight repurchase agreements, $20.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities maturing in under three months, $11 billion in deposits at systemically important institutions, and $600 million in other bank deposits.

Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) has introduced a minting and redemption service that lets corporate clients and high-net-worth individuals convert U.S. dollars to USD Coin (USDC) — and back — directly from their bank accounts. SGB said the offering is designed for real-time, continuous settlement, reducing dependence on correspondent banking networks that can delay international transfers. The service runs on the bank's proprietary clearing infrastructure, SGB Net, which connects traditional banking rails with blockchain networks to streamline movement between fiat and digital assets. As part of the launch, SGB will temporarily waive gas fees and banking charges for transactions executed on the Solana blockchain. The bank is also offering volume-based incentives during the promotional period. At launch, the service supports USDC transactions of $100,000 or more. SGB said it plans to expand support to additional stablecoins, including USDT, USDe, and USDG. SGB, founded by Singapore's Whampoa Group, framed the initiative as a way to provide institutional customers access to digital assets within a regulated banking environment, supported by compliance and security controls. The move comes as banks globally test stablecoin and blockchain-based settlement to improve payment speed and efficiency. JPMorgan Chase operates a blockchain-enabled payments network and launched JPM Coin for institutional dollar transfers and liquidity management. BNP Paribas has participated in projects exploring tokenized deposits and digital-euro-style settlement systems. In Europe, a consortium of 10 banks — including ING, UniCredit, and BNP Paribas — formed a company last year as part of a stablecoin initiative and plans to launch a euro-backed stablecoin in the second half of 2026. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said, "That is what we need, and that is what we want. I also strongly encourage banks to further explore the launch of tokenized deposits."

BlockBeats reported on April 18 that crypto markets showed a broad rebound, with several key indicators turning higher. Total stablecoin market capitalization rose 0.88% over the past week to $321.408 billion, marking a new all-time high. USDT, which had been shrinking in recent weeks, resumed expansion, with circulating supply up 1.26% and market share climbing to 58.06%. DeFi total value locked (TVL) across the sector also recovered to around the $100 billion range, currently standing at $99.682 billion. Over the same period, weekly DEX trading volume increased 16.27% to $39.395 billion.

PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin is extending a steady run of growth, with a sharp acceleration that began in July 2025. Its market capitalization is now about $4.11 billion. Ripple's RLUSD also posted sustained gains, rising consistently from March 2025 and topping out early last month at nearly $1.6 billion in market value. Since then, RLUSD has reversed course, with its market cap sliding to roughly $1.25 billion. Even so, RLUSD has expanded strongly since March 31, putting it in position to challenge for fresh all-time highs in the near term.

On-chain tracking account @lookonchain reports that a wallet address it says is "possibly linked to Arthur Hayes" (@CryptoHayes) transferred 3,000 ETH to the @Binance and @Bybit_Official exchanges. The post cites data from @arkham. Ethereum (ETH) is up more than 7% over the past week, but it has yet to regain the $2,500 level since late January.

Ethereum spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted $127 million in net inflows on April 17 (U.S. Eastern Time), marking the seventh straight day of net additions, according to SoSoValue data cited by Odaily Planet Daily. Fidelity's FETH led the day with $84.13 million of net inflows, taking its cumulative net inflows to $2.356 billion. BlackRock's ETHA followed with $30.7951 million, bringing its cumulative net inflows to $11.83 billion. As of publication, Ethereum spot ETFs held a combined net asset value of $14.263 billion. Their net asset ratio stood at 4.87% of Ethereum's total market capitalization, while cumulative net inflows since launch reached $11.944 billion.

Onchain analyst Ember (@EmberCN) said Aztec Network, an Ethereum privacy Layer 2 project, sent its final tranche of 5,020 ETH—worth about $12.3 million—to Coinbase early today, marking the completion of its conversion of the full 19,400 ETH (around $59.1 million) raised in a public auction last December. The project sold 15% of its AZTEC token supply, or 1.5 billion tokens, at $0.0473 in the auction—about 50% below the current price. At the time of the token generation event (TGE), the team withdrew 4,234.6 ETH to seed liquidity, while the remaining roughly 15,200 ETH was moved to Coinbase in stages over the past three months.

Blockchain tracking data from @lookonchain shows an unidentified whale has withdrawn 31.55 million $SIREN tokens, valued at about $64.67 million, from @Binance Alpha. The withdrawals were executed over a two-week stretch that coincided with a sharp rally in @genius_sirenBSC. At the time of writing, $SIREN on @BNBCHAIN carries a market capitalization of $1.32 billion and is up 3,936% over the past year.