Daily News: OpenAI Completes $40 Billion in Financing; Initia's Airdrop Page Is Now Online

OpenAI completes $40 billion financing, setting a record for the largest private tech company funding According to CNBC, artificial intelligence company OpenAI announced the completion of a $40 billion financing round, marking the largest private tech company funding in history. This round values OpenAI at $300 billion (including new capital).

SoftBank led the round with $30 billion, while other investors included core backer Microsoft, as well as Coatue, Altimeter, and Thrive. OpenAI plans to allocate approximately $18 billion to the Stargate project in collaboration with SoftBank and Oracle. Notably, if OpenAI fails to transition into a for-profit entity by December 31, 2025, the financing amount could decrease by $10 billion.

Coinbase CEO: U.S. stablecoin legislation should allow consumers to earn interest on stablecoins Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated in a post that "U.S. stablecoin legislation should allow consumers to earn interest on stablecoins. The government should not favor one industry at the expense of another. Both banks and cryptocurrency companies should be allowed and incentivized to share interest with consumers.

Stablecoins have already found a suitable market by digitizing the dollar and other fiat currencies, but we have yet to unlock a key component for the average person and the U.S. economy: on-chain interest."

U.S. House of Representatives to hold a hearing on crypto market structure legislation on April 9 According to crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett, the House Financial Services Committee's Subcommittee on Digital Assets will hold a hearing next Wednesday (April 9) titled "The Future of American Innovation and Digital Assets: Adjusting U.S. Securities Laws for the Digital Age."

This hearing aims to accelerate the advancement of stablecoin and market structure bills, with the goal of submitting them to President Trump before the August recess. This will be the 119th Congress's first public effort to establish a federal regulatory framework for the U.S. cryptocurrency industry.

Circle hires investment banks to advance IPO process, expected to publicly file application by the end of April According to Fortune, stablecoin USDC issuer Circle has hired JPMorgan and Citibank to assist with its initial public offering (IPO), which is expected to publicly file listing application documents by the end of April. This will be the largest cryptocurrency-related IPO since Coinbase.

Hut 8 and Eric Trump announce the founding of Bitcoin mining company American Bitcoin According to an official press release, mining company Hut 8 Mining (NASDAQ/Toronto Stock Exchange: HUT) and Eric Trump, the second son of former U.S. President Donald Trump, have announced the establishment of American Bitcoin, a company dedicated to industrial-scale Bitcoin mining and strategic Bitcoin reserve development.

American Bitcoin aims to become the world's largest and most efficient pure Bitcoin mining company, targeting over 50 EH/s hash rate with an average cluster efficiency of less than 15 J/TH. The company plans to pursue independent public listing in the future.

Partners include Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Hut 8 will serve as the exclusive infrastructure and operations partner for American Bitcoin. Eric Trump stated, "It is an honor to collaborate with Hut 8, a recognized leader in the Bitcoin space. By combining Hut 8's exceptional operational capabilities in data centers and our shared passion for Bitcoin and decentralized finance, we are prepared to strengthen the foundation and drive significant future growth."

Donald Trump Jr. added, "Simply purchasing Bitcoin is only half the story. Mining under favorable economic conditions opens up greater opportunities."

Elon Musk clarifies: Department of Government Efficiency has no connection to Dogecoin, only a naming coincidence According to Decrypt, Elon Musk clarified at the America PAC town hall meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on March 30, that the U.S. federal Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.) has no association with the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, and the government has no plans to use it.

Although the D.O.G.E. website briefly displayed Dogecoin's Shiba Inu mascot in February, leading to a 14% surge in Dogecoin's market value to $58 billion, Musk emphasized that this was merely a naming coincidence.

CZ burns approximately $3.6 million worth of BROCCOLI and TUT tokens, warns against sending tokens for interaction According to monitoring by Arkham, CZ's public donation address recently burned $1.1 million worth of BROCCOLI (0xa14), $540,000 worth of BROCCOLI (0x6d5), and $1.95 million worth of TUT tokens.

CZ subsequently posted, "I sent some high-value tokens (six or seven figures) from my address to a burn address. There are now some new AI solutions that can automate this process, but they have not yet passed security reviews. The remaining tokens will be handled later.

Please do not send tokens to this address expecting interaction."

Following the burn, the asset balance of CZ's public donation address dropped to approximately $1.85 million, with the top asset being BNB (1,780 tokens). The proportion of meme token assets decreased to 42%.

Initia announces details of its first airdrop, eligibility query page now online According to official information, the Initia Foundation has revealed details of its first token airdrop plan, totaling 50 million INIT tokens (5% of the network's total supply). The claim period will be within 30 days after the mainnet launch, and an eligibility query page is now available. The airdrop distribution plan is as follows:

• Testnet participants (89.46%)

• Ecosystem partners (4.50%)

• Social contributors (6.04%), further divided into:

  • Discord participants (1%)

  • Telegram active users (0.0374%)

  • Twitter/X interactions (5%)

Initia emphasized that all project contributors are ineligible for the airdrop, and their wallets and social accounts have been excluded from the eligibility list. Anti-sybil measures have been implemented to exclude bot accounts. The snapshot date was March 28, 2025.

NFT marketplace X2Y2 announces closure on April 30, 2025 According to official news, NFT marketplace X2Y2, which has operated for nearly three years with a total trading volume of $5.6 billion, has officially announced that it will shut down platform services on April 30, 2025. The platform's smart contracts will remain active, but the marketplace itself will cease operations.

X2Y2 CEO TP stated that X2Y2 once became the second-largest NFT marketplace after OpenSea and is currently the third-largest platform in the industry. However, due to a 90% decline in NFT trading volume compared to peak levels, the team has decided to pivot toward areas with more long-term value.

In the future, X2Y2 will transition to the intersection of AI and crypto, developing a decentralized and innovative yield platform aimed at creating a sustainable value cycle.

Strategy increases Bitcoin holdings by 22,048 BTC at an average price of $86,969 Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, announced that the company purchased 22,048 BTC between March 24 and March 30 at an average price of $86,969, totaling $1.92 billion. As of March 30, 2025, Strategy's year-to-date BTC return has reached 11.0%.

To date, Strategy has acquired a total of 528,185 BTC at a cumulative cost of $35.63 billion, with an average purchase price of approximately $67,458 per BTC.

Tether adds 8,888 BTC in Q1, total holdings reach 92,647 BTC According to on-chain analyst Ember (@EmberCN), USDT issuer Tether withdrew 8,888 BTC (approximately $735 million) from Bitfinex through its reserve address at the end of Q1.

Data shows that Tether now holds a total of 92,647 BTC (approximately $7.64 billion), making it the sixth-largest Bitcoin-holding address globally. Since May 2023, Tether has allocated 15% of its profits to purchasing Bitcoin to enhance reserves, with an average acquisition cost of approximately $41,147 per BTC.