CEPO News & Events

Wednesday's session is shaped by two converging forces: a geopolitical surprise that rewired overnight risk appetite, and an institutional landmark in digital asset access. The Trump-brokered U.S.-Iran ceasefire and the debut of the first bank-affiliated spot bitcoinETF in the U.S. arrived on the same morning, creating an unusually dense convergence of catalysts for crypto-linked equities. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with "Crypto Currents," daily from The Fly. Join us at 2 PM ET for your essential briefing on the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency on FlyCast radio.MORGAN STANLEY LAUNCHES SPOT BITCOIN ETF AT INDUSTRY-LOW 0.14% FEE:Morgan Stanley(MS)crossed an institutional threshold Wednesday, becoming the first U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to offer a spot bitcoin ETF.According to a press release, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, or MSBT, began trading today at a unitary fee of 0.14%, undercutting BlackRock'sIBIT at 0.25% and every other incumbent in the category. Coinbaseis named as bitcoin custodian and BNY(BK)handles cash, making both firms primary beneficiaries of AUM growth as Morgan Stanley's roughly 16,000-advisor distribution network channels client capital into the vehicle. Commentary in today's source material notes that Strategy's(MSTR)CEO projected up to $160B in potential flows through Morgan Stanley's $8T AUM network, a figure that, even partially realized, would represent a durable demand floor beneath the bitcoin price.The competitive fee dynamic carries clear equity implications: MSBT's debut intensifies pressure on existing ETF issuers' revenue per AUM dollar while expanding the addressable institutional pipeline. Strong first-session inflows could force fee compression responses from BlackRock, Fidelity, and other incumbents, with implications for Coinbase's custody revenue mix and the competitive structure of the bitcoin ETF market.CEASEFIRE DRIVES CRYPTO EQUITY SURGE AS INSIDER-TRADING FLAGS CLOUD THE RALLY:that bitcoin surged to an intraday peak of $72,738, a 4.9% gain, after President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran.Investopedia notedthat shares of Strategy, Coinbase, MARA Holdings, and Robinhoodall jumped in premarket trading alongside the move. Bitcoin opened Wednesday at $71,926, up 4.5% from Tuesday and crossing $70,000 for the first time since March 26, while etheradvanced 6.3%.The rally did not arrive without integrity questions.Bitcoin.com News reportedthat on-chain analysts flagged a cluster of newly created wallets with zero prior transaction history that turned approximately $10,000 into $154,000 or more bybetting on the ceasefire outcomeat 3–10% odds on Polymarket, with four suspected insider wallets netting a combined estimated $663,000 in profits. A separate whale on Hyperliquid placed a $60M 5x short on oil and a $16M 10x long on bitcoin hours before Trump's announcement, in tandem, earning roughly $5M in under two hours. No formal investigation has been announced and the allegations remain unconfirmed, but the short-covering cascade that followed cleared mechanical overhead: total cross-asset liquidations hit an estimated $403M to $427M in 24 hours, including a single-hour spike of $209M, leaving crypto-linked equity technicals in a more constructive posture.ETF INFLOWS ABSORB WHALE DISTRIBUTION AS BITCOIN FLOAT TIGHTENS:The ceasefire-driven advance is unfolding against a backdrop of significant large-holder supply movement. Source data indicates wallets holding 1,000 or more BTC sent approximately 42,000 BTC to exchanges in the first week of April, the highest seven-day whale exchange inflow since January 2026, concentrated in addresses that acquired bitcoin at $15,000–$35,000 in 2022–23 and are now booking multi-year gains. That distribution wave is being partially absorbed by institutional buying:Yahoo Finance reportedthat U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $471M in net inflows on April 6, their largest single-day haul since late February, with BlackRock's IBIT adding $181.9M on April 7. The net result is a tug-of-war between long-term holder profit-taking and fresh institutional demand arriving via ETF wrappers, a dynamic in which MSBT's debut opens a new absorption channel.BULLISH POSTS $60.4B IN MARCH VOLUME; MAWSON RECONSTITUTES BOARD UNDER ACTIVIST PRESSURE:Bullish(BLSH)disclosed two sets of March operating data Wednesday.According to a company press release, pure spot trading volume for March reached $52.9B, with BTC monthly average volatility at 48% and ETH at 46%. Aseparate SEC filingreported the regulatory aggregate, spot plus derivatives, at $60.4B, with BTC spot at $29.1B and ETH spot at $8.0B.In a separate governance development, Mawson Infrastructure Group(MIGI)disclosed a full governance overhaul Wednesday.According to an SEC filing, the company announced the complete reconstitution of its board of directors and the appointment of new executive leadership, including a new executive chairman, CEO, and COO, effective immediately following a cooperation agreement with the Endeavor Investor Group. The Endeavor-backed reconstitution signals an activist-driven push to sharpen capital deployment at a time when compressed mining margins are intensifying institutional pressure on operational efficiency across the sector.FORUM MARKETS PIVOTS TO NVIDIA GPU BRIDGE LOANS TOKENIZED ON ETHEREUM:Forum Markets(FRMM)filed multiple disclosures Wednesday revealing an operational pivot.According to an SEC filing, the company entered an arrangement to deploy capital into short-term NVIDIAGPU chip infrastructure bridge loans targeting annualized mid-teens returns, with a plan to tokenize a portion of each loan on Ethereum. The company also updated its at-the-market equity offering program through a Second Amended and Restated Sales Agreement with Clear Street and Texas Capital Securities,as disclosed in a separate SEC filing, with anaccompanying prospectus supplementamending its $500M ATM common stock program to reflect the updated agents.The GPU bridge loan strategy merges two dominant infrastructure themes, AI compute demand and on-chain issuance, into a single financing product. For equity investors, using Ethereum as a tokenization rail for each loan converts what would otherwise be a niche private credit strategy into a live proof-of-concept for real-world asset issuance on a public blockchain, squarely relevant to broader narratives around Coinbaseas a key Ethereum ecosystem gateway.EXODUS TREASURY REACHES 628 BTC WHILE SECURITIZE PUTS NASDAQ EQUITY ON-CHAIN:, Exodus Movement(EXOD)reported that its digital asset treasury held 628 bitcoin, 1,857 ether, and 17,541 solanaas of March 31, while monthly active users reached 1.5M despite an industry-wide decline in crypto trading volumes. The continued accumulation of BTC, ETH, and SOL during a period of market stress mirrors, at smaller scale, the approach taken by Strategy, positioning Exodus as a mid-tier multi-asset digital treasury proxy.In a separate on-chain securities development,according to a company press release, Securitize placed the ordinary shares of Currenc Grouponto a blockchain, enabling 24/7 trading, lower-cost transactions, and fractional ownership for the first time on a publicly listed equity, a working demonstration of the broader NYSE-Securitize tokenized securities platform under development. Separately,according to a company press release, Virtune AB listed the Virtune Coinbase 50 Index ETP on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, marking the first-ever crypto index ETP in Poland and extending the Coinbase brand's reach into Eastern European retail markets via a benchmark covering up to 50 crypto assets.EMPERY DIGITAL DISCLOSES $142M IN BUYBACKS, NYT NAMES BLOCKSTREAM'S ADAM BACK AS PROBABLE SATOSHI:, Empery Digital(EMPD)announced its 2026 Annual Meeting will be held on July 29, and disclosed it has repurchased 24.6M shares at an average of $5.77 under its $200M buyback program, implying approximately $142M deployed to date. The share repurchase disclosure stands in contrast to the ATM offering activity seen across much of the sector, signaling balance-sheet discipline at a firm whose core asset, bitcoin, is in the middle of a geopolitically charged repricing.On the speculative side,the New York Times published an investigative reportconcluding that Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream and the figure behind a pending Nasdaq de-SPAC vehicle called Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company, or BSTR, completing a merger with Cantor Equity Partners I, is the most probable identity behind Satoshi Nakamoto.BBC News reportedthat Back categorically denied the identification. The story carries limited near-term equity impact given the denial and the speculative nature of the claim, but sentiment around the pending BSTR public vehicle could be affected as the story circulates.PRICE ACTION:As of time of writing, bitcoin was trading at $71,121.37, while ether was trading at $2,204.10,according to price data from TipRanks.

Bitcoinand etherstart March stuck in a post-Iran shock range as corporate treasuries ramp up BTC and ETH accumulation into ETF outflows and macro risk, setting up a tug-of-war between listed "bitcoin standard" plays, tokenization pivots, and mining-to-AI transitions. Stay up on the crypto news that matters with "Crypto Currents," daily from The Fly. Join us at 2 PM ET for your essential briefing on the fast-moving world of cryptocurrency on FlyCast radio.BITCOIN, ETHER ETFS POST $9.15B IN OUTFLOWS AS FEBRUARY TURNS WORST IN A DECADE:U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs have seen about $6.39B in net outflows over four straight months, while ether ETFs shed roughly $2.76B, the longest losing streak since launch and a clear sign of cooling institutional appetite for listed products, according toMEXCandChainCatcher. Bitcoin has nearly halved from its October high above $126,000 and ether is down more than 60% from August peaks above $4,950, capping a February where BTC fell about 15% and ETH nearly 20%, both among their weakest February returns in a decade, according toCoinglass data cited by Cointelegraph.JPMORGAN SEES CLARITY ACT AS 2H CATALYST, REAFFIRMS $266K BTC TARGET:JPMorgan'sresearch desk still leans structurally bullish, arguing the CLARITY Act, a comprehensive U.S. crypto market structure bill could be approved by mid-2026 and unlock bank and broker participation, and it reiterates a long-term bitcoin target of $266,000 on a volatility-adjusted gold framework.IRAN STRIKES SHOW BTC TRADING LIKE RISK ASSETS, GOLD OUTPERFORMS:The Iran strikes delivered a live-fire test of the "digital gold" story, and bitcoin failed to decouple from risk assets. BTC dropped 3–4% to around $63,250 immediately after U.S./Israel launched coordinated attacks on Iran, briefly rebounded above $67,000, and is now hovering back near pre-strike levels around the mid-$60Ks, having erased the initial shock move but not the broader February drawdown, according toThe Wall Street JournalandBarron's.Gold has outperformed sharply, climbing more than 5% over three days while bitcoin traded roughly flat, undercutting the hedge narrative and reinforcing BTC's role as a high-beta macro risk asset, according to. Nearly 46% of bitcoin supply, about 9.09M BTC, now sits at an on-chain loss, a profile historically associated with mid-to-late bear phases and heavier pressure on listed proxies like Coinbaseand bitcoin miners when geopolitical volatility spikes, according to.STRATEGY, PROCAP DOUBLE DOWN ON BTC WHILE BITMINE BUILDS $9.9B ETH TREASURY:Strategycontinued to lean into its bitcoin policy, disclosing purchases of 3,015 BTC for $204.1M between February 23 and March 1, funded by at-the-market equity issuance that raised roughly $237M across common and preferred, according to the company'sForm 8‑The company now holds 720,737 BTC at an average cost near $75,985 per coin, well above the current spot price, implying about $7B in unrealized losses, even as the board raised the STRC preferred dividend to 11.5%, its seventh consecutive hike since mid‑2025, according toYahoo Finance.Anthony Pompliano's ProCap Financialadded 450 BTC via structured put assignments with FalconX, taking its treasury to 5,457 BTC while simultaneously repurchasing more than 782K common shares at a discount to NAV and positioning itself as a mid-tier public BTC holder, according to a.On the Ethereum side, Bitmine Immersion Technologiesdisclosed a $9.9B balance sheet anchored by 4,473,587 ETH, about 3.7% of total ETH supply, including 3,040,483 ETH staked and generating an estimated $172M in annualized staking revenue, with chairman Tom Lee explicitly "buying the mini crypto winter" after acquiring roughly 50,928 ETH in the last week, according to.F2POOL FOUNDER BUILDS LARGE ETH POSITION; TETHER SHIFTS $151M IN TOKENIZED GOLD:Ethereum positioning is being reshaped by whales and corporates: Bitmine's on-chain footprint confirms its status as the largest ETH treasury among public companies, while Arkham Intelligence flags a wallet linked to F2Pool founder Chun Wang that withdrew about $67.5M of ETH from Binance over two weeks and now holds roughly $150M of ETH on Aaveafter routing about $240M in stablecoins through exchanges, according toU.Today. In tokenized commodities, Tether moved 28,723 XAUT, around $151M of tokenized gold, to Abraxas Capital, the largest such transfer in nearly three weeks and a data point that rhymes with Neptune Digital Assets' plan to add tokenized gold and silver to its treasury as a volatility buffer alongside BTC and staking assets, according toChainCatcher.ETF FLOWS STAY MIXED AS SOLANA ETP INFLOWS CONTRAST WITH BTC, ETH PROFIT-TAKING:ETF flow trackers show a mixed picture beneath the headline outflows: across 10 bitcoin ETFs and nine ether ETFs, March 2 saw modest single-day net outflows of (548) BTC and (12,307) ETH, but both assets still show sizable seven-day net inflows, suggesting short-term profit-taking rather than a wholesale institutional exit, according toKuCoin's flash note. SolanaETPs are a notable outlier, posting both positive daily and weekly inflows, highlighting residual risk appetite for higher-beta layer‑1 exposure even as large‑cap benchmarks struggle.COINCHECK CLOSES 3IQ DEAL AS BSTR BITCOIN SPAC REVIVES TREASURY LISTING PLAYBOOK:On the infrastructure side, Coincheck Groupclosed its acquisition of roughly 99.8% of Canadian manager 3iQ, adding a pioneer in bitcoin, ether staking, and solana staking ETPs to its franchise and deepening a strategy aimed at global institutional distribution beyond its Japan exchange roots, according to. Cantor Equity Partnersadvanced its BSTR bitcoin SPAC,that would list a dedicated treasury vehicle seeded with 30,021 BTC and around $1.4B in financing instruments under Blockstream CEO Adam Back, even as the broader bitcoin SPAC market has largely gone dormant.FORUM MARKETS DUMPS ETH TREASURY LABEL; JIUZI CHASES $300M CRYPTO-FUNDED PLACEMENT:Forum Markets, the former ETHZilla, began trading today under its new ticker and brand, formally abandoning an Ethereum treasury model that coincided with a roughly 96% share-price collapse and pivoting toward tokenized real‑world asset infrastructure, including fractionalized ownership of commercial jet engines, according to a. Jiuzi Holdingsmeanwhile expanded a crypto-funded private placement from $60M to a targeted $300M to build out on-chain custody and treasury infrastructure, underscoring that for some small caps, crypto remains a capital formation and balance sheet story rather than a pure trading proxy, according to.DIGI POWER X ARMS 200 GOES LIVE AS RIOT EARNINGS TEST MINING-TO-AI STORY:The mining-to-AI narrative continues to build as hashpower-exposed names seek higher-margin compute revenue streams. Digi Power X, a former bitcoin miner, has commissioned its first ARMS 200 modular data center at its Alabama facility and expects GPU-as-a-Service revenue to begin in April 2026, guiding to about $15M in annualized revenue per MW and laying out a roadmap to 10 MW in Alabama by Q3 and additional capacity in New York by Q2, according to apress release carried by the Detroit Free Press.Riot Platformsreports Q4 results after the close today, with the Street looking for low double‑digit revenue growth and a modest EPS loss as investors focus on how quickly its planned 1.7 GW power pipeline and AI/HPC pivot can offset softer bitcoin economics and rising geopolitical risk premia, according to the company'sIR site. With bitcoin having just logged its worst February since 2013 and nearly half of supply at a loss, earnings commentary from Riot and peers will help equity investors gauge whether miners remain geared macro trades or evolve into diversified compute utilities.VC FLOWS SHIFT TO INFRASTRUCTURE AS STS DIGITAL RAISES $30M FOR CRYPTO OPTIONS:Venture funding in crypto hit roughly $883M in February, but deal counts fell to a 5.5‑year low, with capital increasingly directed to stablecoin infrastructure, custody, and compliance rather than speculative token launches, and roughly 85% of 2025 token debuts now trading below issue levels, according toMEXC's recap of The Block data. STS Digital, a Bermuda-based trading and options venue, raised $30M from a roster of traditional and crypto-native investors to expand its institutional-grade spot and options platform, reinforcing the theme that market structure and derivatives rails, not consumer tokens, are where late-cycle VC dollars are concentrating, according toFinTech Futures.PREDICTION MARKETS FACE SCRUTINY AFTER $529M IN IRAN-RELATED POLYMARKET BETS:Prediction markets also drew scrutiny after Polymarket saw about $529M traded on Iran-related contracts, with a handful of newly created wallets generating an estimated $1.2M in profits and attracting attention from both blockchain analytics firms and U.S. lawmakers, according to.PRICE ACTION:As of time of writing, bitcoin was trading at$70,011.61, while ether was trading at$2,079.83,according to price data from TipRanks.

BSTR announced it has entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners I, Inc. (CEPO), a special-purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of Cantor Fitzgerald. Upon closing, the combined company is expected to trade under the ticker symbol (BSTR). The company will be led by Adam Back, CEO, and Sean Bill, chief investment officer. The capital raise includes: up to $1.5B of fiat-denominated financing; $400M of common equity committed at announcement, priced at $10.00 per share; up to $750M in convertible senior notes, $500M committed at announcement, with investor options to subscribe for up to an additional $250M, with a conversion price set at $13.00 per share; up to $350M in convertible preferred stock, $30M committed at announcement, with investor options to subscribe for up to an additional $320M, with a common stock equivalent conversion price set at $13.00 per share; 5,021 Bitcoin in-kind PIPE with commitments from long-time Bitcoin "OGs," the first PIPE funded entirely though in-kind contributions from the Bitcoin community, priced at $10.00 per share; 25,000 Bitcoin to be contributed by founding shareholders, advised by Blockstream Capital Partners, priced at $10.00 per share and up to $200M in contribution from CEPO, subject to CEPO shareholder redemptions, priced at $10.00 per share. The aggregate PIPE commitment - up to $1.5B plus 5,021 Bitcoin - nearly doubles the next-largest PIPE for a Bitcoin treasury SPAC merger at announcement and, together with the 25,000 Bitcoin to be contributed by the founding shareholders, gives BSTR what would be the fourth largest public corporate Bitcoin treasury worldwide. Net proceeds will be used to acquire additional Bitcoin and to build a suite of Bitcoin-native capital-markets products and advisory services. The board of directors of both BSTR and CEPO have unanimously approved the business combination. The transaction is expected to close in Q4, subject to CEPO shareholder approval and other customary closing conditions.