Binance is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and IRS, according to Bloomberg. The outlet previously reported in March that Binance was being investigated by the CFTC over allegations that it allowed U.S. residents to trade derivatives that violated local rules.

Block.one, the firm behind the EOS network and asset, has announced plans to launch a new cryptocurrency exchange in 2021. The new venue, called Bullish Global, will seek to combine elements of centralized and decentralized exchanges. EOS has rallied about 40% on the news.

Historically, drops in BTC dominance have preceded weakness in crypto markets. In 2017, when BTC made record highs, the coin’s dominance was about 60%. Several weeks later when ETH made record highs, BTC dominance had fallen to roughly 35% and BTC’s price to around USD 14,000. 

Crypto mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has launched a mining pool it claims will be fully compliant by only processing transactions that “meet U.S. regulatory standards.” We review what the application of such compliance measures could mean for BTC.

Facebook’s stablecoin project, Diem, is due to begin a pilot test this year, according to CNBC. The project and digital currency, initially referred to as Libra, has since been renamed to Diem and has walked back many of its original features due to regulatory scrutiny. 

Tether (USDt) has surpassed a market cap of USD 50 billion. The world's largest stablecoin has added an unprecedented 45 billion to its market cap in the last year, growing assets 10x.

In the past several weeks, Charles Schwab, NatWest, and HSBC have expressed caution over the adoption of crypto. While the asset class has seen accelerated adoption, there remains plenty of institutional reservation.

After BTC achieved a record high of roughly USD 64,500 on April 14, the asset, along with the broader crypto market, saw an aggressive sell-off. The move was preceded by alt-coin outperformance that added an estimated USD 373 billion to crypto market cap ex-BTC in the past 3 weeks.

Recent interest in DeFi applications has mostly been limited to those on Ethereum while upcoming BTC layer-2 applications have largely been overlooked. We review recent progress to RSK, a smart contract blockchain secured by the bitcoin network. 

Fox Business has reported that the Biden administration is developing a regulatory approach for the crypto space. Broad anxiety over new rules is likely overblown and another unlikely major contributor to last weekend's volatility.