YZi Labs boosts Predict.fun stake; Drift Protocol hit for $200M+; Coinbase's x402 joins Linux Foundation

Key highlights - Stablecoin card infrastructure startup Kulipa closed a $6.2 million seed round led by Flourish Ventures and 1kx. - Solana-based derivatives venue Drift Protocol suffered a major security incident, with on-chain losses estimated at $200 million+ (some estimates near $270 million). - Metaplanet bought 5,075 BTC in Q1, lifting total holdings to 40,177 BTC. - YZi Labs made a strategic follow-on investment in Predict.fun. - Coinbase's agent-based AI payments protocol x402 joined the Linux Foundation, with broad industry backing. Top stories (past 24 hours) Telegram's crypto wallet rolls out perpetuals Telegram's built-in crypto wallet, "Wallet in Telegram," launched perpetual futures trading powered by Lighter. The product supports more than 50 markets spanning metals, stocks, oil, and cryptocurrencies, with leverage up to 50x. YZi Labs adds to Predict.fun investment YZi Labs announced a strategic additional investment in Predict.fun after the Q2 cohort of its EASY Residency program. Susquehanna Crypto also participated. Since graduating from EASY Residency, Predict.fun has scaled rapidly, recording more than 4 million matched orders and over $1.8 billion in trading volume. Coinbase x402 enters the Linux Foundation ecosystem Coinbase's agent-based payment protocol x402 has officially joined the Linux Foundation to develop it as open, standardized infrastructure, CoinDesk reported. The project has formed an initial governance body, the x402 Foundation, with Cloudflare and Stripe as founding members. Other organizations that have expressed interest include Adyen, Amazon Web Services, American Express, Ant International, Base, Circle, Google, KakaoPay, Mastercard, Microsoft, Polygon Labs, Shopify, the Solana Foundation, and Visa. Linux Foundation CEO Jim Zemlin said the foundation will advance x402 through an open, community-governed model focused on transparency, interoperability, and broad participation. Google Cloud's Web3 and Digital Assets GM James Tromans said joining reflects Google's commitment to interoperable, AI-driven trading standards. Polymarket taps Pyth Pro for traditional-asset markets Prediction market platform Polymarket integrated Pyth Pro as the data source for a new set of traditional-asset contracts. The rollout covers assets from gold and silver to major stock index ETFs, with real-time charts updating every second and daily closing markets. X to auto-lock first-time crypto posters to curb phishing X Head of Product Nikita Bier said the platform will automatically lock accounts that post cryptocurrency-related content for the first time and require identity verification. Bier said the measure is aimed at eliminating 99% of malicious incentives, and noted that phishing emails remain a persistent problem due to insufficient blocking. Financing: Kulipa raises $6.2 million seed Kulipa, which provides stablecoin payment card infrastructure, announced a $6.2 million seed round co-led by Flourish Ventures and 1kx, with participation from White Star Capital and Fabric Ventures, The Block reported. Kulipa lets fintechs issue white-label stablecoin payment cards without running card operations in-house. Founder and CEO Axel Cateland said the round was completed in December using a SAFE structure, but did not disclose timing details, tranche structure, valuation, or board arrangements. Security: Drift Protocol incident impacts Solana DeFi Drift Protocol, a Solana-based derivatives platform, reported unusual activity and is investigating after an attack that on-chain data suggests led to losses of at least about $200 million, with some estimates near $270 million. The team told users not to deposit funds and stressed, "This is not an April Fools' joke." Multiple liquidity pools were affected, including JLP Delta Neutral, SOL Super Staking, and BTC Super Staking. One transfer of about 41.7 million JLP tokens was valued around $155 million, and additional assets including SOL, USDC, cbBTC, and wBTC were also withdrawn. The incident could rank among the largest DeFi exploits since the Wormhole bridge hack on Solana. Solana Foundation chair: human error, not a contract flaw Solana Foundation chair Lily Liu said the Drift incident had broad ecosystem impact and that the Drift team is working around the clock to investigate and contain it, with ecosystem support ongoing. Liu said the smart contracts "have withstood the test" and argued that many incidents ultimately stem from social engineering and operational security failures rather than code vulnerabilities. Policy: stablecoin yield text under closed-door review April 2–3 Politico reported that three sources said crypto firms and Wall Street institutions will review revised text for a stablecoin yield agreement on April 2–3. The draft was jointly prepared by Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks. Access is limited to relevant parties; last week, visitors to Capitol Hill could read the text on site but could not take copies. Energy geopolitics: Gulf states reassess Hormuz-bypass pipelines The Financial Times reported that Gulf countries are reconsidering major pipeline export projects designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz amid concerns over Iran's ability to threaten the chokepoint over the long term. Officials and executives said pipelines are costly, politically complex, and slow to build, yet may be the only way to reduce reliance on Hormuz. The report highlighted Saudi Arabia's 1,200-kilometer East-West Pipeline, built in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq "Tanker War", which can transport 7 million barrels per day to Yanbu on the Red Sea, fully bypassing the strait. Saudi Arabia is weighing options to route more crude via pipelines, including capacity expansion and new routes. Polymarket fees surge as "full fee" model takes hold According to @defioasis data, Polymarket has shifted into a fully fee-based model, with fees jumping over the past two days. Total fees for the latest full day, April 1, reached $927,000, and daily fees are expected to surpass $1 million in coming days. At the April 1 run rate, annualized fees would be about $338 million. U.S. Treasury begins GENIUS Act implementation The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued an 87-page notice of proposed rulemaking to begin implementing the GENIUS Act framework for stablecoins, launching a 60-day public comment period. Under the act, payment stablecoin issuers with total issuance of no more than $10 billion may opt into state-level regulation if the state framework is deemed "substantially similar" to the federal regime. Treasury said the notice will set broad principles for assessing "substantial similarity." Blockstream CEO Adam Back: $1.5 billion BTC purchase planned The Bitcoin Historian reported that Blockstream (BSTR) CEO Adam Back told CNBC he plans to purchase $1.5 billion in Bitcoin—about 21,000 BTC—within the next few weeks. Stablecoin yield bill text reportedly delayed Cointelegraph reported that crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett said the text of the stablecoin yield bill will not be released as planned this week, amid concerns that publication could give opponents time to slow the bill ahead of Senate consideration. Market data: DEX volumes cool in March DefiLlama data shows total DEX trading volume in March was $202 billion, close to March last year's $251.3 billion. Solana DEX volume in March was about $57.3 billion, the lowest since September 2024. Corporate treasury: Metaplanet ramps BTC accumulation Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said the firm bought 5,075 BTC in Q1 2026 at an average price of about $79,898, investing roughly $405.48 million and generating a year-to-date Bitcoin return of 2.8%. As of March 31, the company held 40,177 BTC at a total cost of about $4.18 billion, averaging $104,106 per BTC. Meme token popularity (GMGN, as of April 3, 09:00) - Top ETH tokens (24h): HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, UNI - Top Solana tokens (24h): VDOR, swarms, Punch, 114514, neet - Top Base tokens (24h): SKITTEN, PEPE, BASED, B3, SKYA Worth reading (past 24 hours) Drift's $200M+ loss in seconds ripples across Solana A deep dive into the Drift exploit described more than $220 million in user assets allegedly stolen in roughly ten seconds around 1:00 a.m. The Drift token fell more than 40% shortly after, with FDV around $44 million. Given Drift's ties across Solana DeFi, tokens including SOL and JUP also saw unusual declines. Drift had raised more than $52 million, with reported backers including Multicoin Capital, Polychain, Robot Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Ethereal Ventures, and Jump Capital. What Wall Street wants from DeFi: yields, not just tokenization An opinion piece argues tokenization is a means, not an end, and that institutional adoption hinges on "financializing yields." It notes DeFi TVL rising from roughly $115 billion to over $237 billion since 2025, driven more by institutional capital and RWAs than retail speculation. The thesis: the institutional version of DeFi is evolving toward "programmable, reconfigurable, interest-rate-hedgeable fixed-income infrastructure," supported by advances in privacy and compliance tooling.