10 April 2026: What's New in DeFi?
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1) Strategy acquired an additional 4,871 BTC between April 1–5, 2026, deploying approximately $330M, bringing total holdings to 766,970 BTC, valued at around $53B at current prices.
The latest purchases reduced its average cost basis slightly to $75,644 per BTC (vs. $75,694 on March 31).
For Q1 2026, the firm recorded a $14.46B unrealised loss on its bitcoin position, according to its latest 8-K filing which translates into a $2.42B deferred tax asset.
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2) Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich shared an update that in Q1 2026 the company purchased 5,075 BTC for $405.48M (around $79,898 per coin), delivering a 2.8% BTC yield year-to-date.
As of March 31, 2026, the firm holds 40,177 BTC acquired for roughly $4.18B at an average price of about $104,106.
This latest acquisition places Metaplanet as the third-largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, still well behind Strategy's 762,099 BTC but narrowing the gap with Tether-backed Twenty One, which holds 43,514 BTC.
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3) Bitmine acquired 71,252 ETH last week, marking its fastest weekly accumulation since December 2025.
As of April 5, 2026, the firm holds 4,803,334 ETH, representing 3.98% of total supply, alongside 198 BTC, $864M in cash, and additional crypto positions.
Of this, 3,334,637 ETH (~69% of holdings) is staked, valued at $7.1B, generating approximately $196M in annualised staking revenue with a ~2.78% yield. Total crypto, cash, and other holdings stand at $11.4B.
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4) Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal signaled that the U.S. Clarity Act is nearing a breakthrough, despite friction around stablecoin yield rules, as policymakers push to solidify the country’s position in global crypto markets.
He dismissed banking industry warnings about deposit flight on the back of incentivising stablecoin, as largely speculative, noting there’s still no real-world evidence to support those claims. Grewal pointed to a potential Senate committee markup within weeks, setting the stage for a broader vote.
Coinbase continues to push back against any provisions that would restrict rewards on idle stablecoin balances, framing them as a threat to innovation and user benefits.
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5) Polymarket has announced a major upgrade to its exchange over the next 2–3 weeks which includes the introduction of a new collateral token, Polymarket USD, backed 1:1 by USDC, replacing USDC.e.
The upgrade will introduce a new Conditional Token Framework Exchange V2, a simplified order structure, faster order matching, and support for EIP-1271 signatures (which allow smart contract wallets to sign and validate trades).
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6) Polygon activated the Giugliano hardfork at block 85,268,500 (around 2pm UTC on April 8), introducing a 2-second reduction in transaction finality through earlier block announcements and adding fee parameters to block headers.
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7) Aave DAO confirmed LlamaRisk will absorb risk coverage following Chaos Labs’ exit after three years.
CEO Omer Goldberg cited “fundamental misalignment” on V4 scope, stating the engagement had run at a loss: “Even with an increase of $1 million, we’d still be operating AAVE’s risk with negative margins.”
Chaos had requested $8M vs the DAO’s proposed $5M renewal. Stani Kulechov confirmed the two-layer risk model will be maintained.
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8) YZi Labs, the venture firm backed by Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, has made a follow-on investment in prediction market platform Predict.fun
The investment comes as Binance revealed it is testing an in-app prediction market feature in collaboration with Predict.fun, which is built on BNB Chain and previously went through YZi Labs’ incubation program.
Predict.fun is targeting the next phase of growth by improving capital efficiency, converting idle collateral into yield-generating assets via DeFi integration and creating a liquidity flywheel to maximize capital use.
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9) Pump.fun led a $1M pre-seed round in Pumpcade, a livestream-focused prediction markets platform, alongside Foundation Capital and angel investor RadioSolace.
The platform allows users to instantly launch prediction markets directly within livestreams, with outcomes that can settle in seconds or minutes, enabling rapid, real-time engagement.
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10) CME Group plans to introduce Avalanche (AVAX) and Sui (SUI) futures on May 4, pending regulatory approval.
The launch will include AVAX futures (5,000 AVAX) and Micro AVAX futures (500 AVAX), as well as SUI futures (50,000 SUI) and Micro SUI futures (5,000 SUI).
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The Latest Listings - $BASED
$BASED is the native utility token of the Based ecosystem.
Based is a non-custodial DeFi application layer that aggregates multiple financial services into a single interface.
Built on top of existing infrastructure such as Hyperliquid, it provides access to perpetuals trading, spot trading, and prediction markets through integrations to the platform.
Users interact through a single wallet and retain full custody of their funds while accessing these services.
Based also offers a Visa Platinum card that enables users to spend crypto and trading gains anywhere Visa is accepted which provides cashback rewards in $BASED on purchases.
$BASED has a fixed total supply of 1,000,000,000 tokens, allocated as:
36% to Genesis Distribution
23.64% to Ecosystem & Rewards
20.36% to Investors
20% to Core Contributors.
Of the Genesis Distribution (360 million tokens), 24% was released at the Token Generation Event (TGE) on 30 March 2026.
The utility of $BASED is embedded across the protocol, with holding and staking serving different roles.
Holding $BASED provides baseline benefits, such as reduced trading and prediction market fees, lower on/off-ramp fees, and access to the Based Visa card with cashback rewards.
Staking $BASED unlocks enhanced benefits and higher tiers, including increased cashback rates (up to 8%), higher card spending limits, and deeper fee reductions. Staking also determines eligibility for additional incentives such as launchpools, airdrops, and AI consumption credits.
Bybit listed $BASED on the Spot trading platform on 30 March 2026.
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