Institutional Tokenization Amid Global Uncertainty (2026-04-29)

Bitwise CEO: The fiat currency system is “dead”

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said that despite Bitcoin and gold being declared “dead” multiple times, the reality is that the fiat currency system is “dead.”

[Odaily Planet Daily]

Khomeini’s grandson: Iran’s Supreme Leader maintains oversight of all affairs

According to Iran’s Mehr News Agency on the 9th, Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Iran’s first Supreme Leader Khomeini, said that Iran’s Supreme Leader is fully in control of national affairs, and relevant decisions are being advanced in an orderly manner.

Hassan Khomeini said when meeting with managers and rescue workers of the Iranian Red Crescent Society on the same day: “The Supreme Leader has a full grasp of the overall situation, and relevant decisions are advanced in accordance with procedures and approved and signed by him.”

At the same time, he called on all sectors of society to respect the decisions made by the Iranian national system and trust the “ability, understanding and judgment” of officials on the front line.

[Odaily]

Binance Research Report: Users from emerging markets will account for 77% of its total user base in 2026.

Binance’s latest research states that emerging market users will account for 77% of its total users in 2026, up from 49% in 2020, and these users are increasingly using crypto exchanges for savings, payments, and investments.

The report states that 83% of users who use two or more products on the platform are from emerging markets, and their savings usage rate is more than 2 times that of users in developed markets. In addition, approximately 36% of emerging market users with holdings of no less than $10.00 allocate at least half of their assets to stablecoins.

In addition, there are still 1.30 billion adults worldwide who lack financial services, 4.70 billion people who cannot access credit, and 1.40 billion low-income country savers whose deposits do not earn interest.

[CoinDesk]

BlackRock Plans to Launch 2 Tokenized Money Market Funds for Stablecoin Holders

According to Bloomberg, BlackRock is planning to launch two money market funds for investors holding cash in stablecoins.

The company has filed to launch a digitized share class for the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL), which is approximately $6.10B in size. The fund primarily invests in cash, U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and other securities with remaining maturities not exceeding 93 days.

The associated tokenized securities will be offered on the Ethereum blockchain and will operate in parallel with existing traditional share classes.

[ChainCatcher]

Kelp DAO: rsETH contract operations will be executed in collaboration with Aave in the next 24 hours, no user action is required.

Kelp DAO tweeted that it will be executing a series of contract operations in collaboration with Aave within the next 24 hours, as part of the next phase of the rsETH asset support process. No action is required from users during this period.

Kelp also reminded that information regarding the reopening time window should only be based on content released through official channels, and subsequent arrangements will be announced after the relevant operations are completed.

[Foresight News]

Garrett Jin deposited over $250.00M worth of Ethereum to Binance

On May 9, according to Onchain Lens, Bitcoin early holder Garrett Jin (Bitcoin OG 10/11) deposited 108,169 ETH into Binance, which is worth approximately 250 million USD at the current price.

[PANews]

Base: Q1 transaction volume exceeded $100 million; 90% of on-chain AI agent stablecoin transactions occurred on Base.

Base’s official tweet stated that the total payment amount for the x402 protocol has exceeded $100.00M in the first quarter of this year.

Among them, over 90% of the total amount of stablecoins used for transactions by on-chain AI intelligent agents (Agentic) occurred on the Base network.

[ChainCatcher]

Binance: Emerging market users to account for 77% in 2026, crypto trading platforms are being used as “shadow banks”

According to CoinDesk, Binance released a research report stating that users from emerging markets now account for 77% of the platform’s total user base, up from 49% in 2020. The report notes that an increasing number of users are utilizing cryptocurrency exchanges for savings, payments, and investment—not merely for trading.

Binance stated that globally, 1.3 billion adults still lack access to financial services, 4.7 billion adults lack access to credit, and approximately 1.4 billion depositors in low-income countries earn no interest on their deposits. Against this backdrop, crypto platforms are filling the gap left by traditional financial services.

The report shows that around 36% of emerging market users allocate at least half of their assets to stablecoins—a phenomenon Binance views as evidence that stablecoins are increasingly being perceived as savings tools. It further notes that stablecoin cross-border transfers can cost as little as USD 0.0001 and settle nearly instantly, offering a significant advantage over traditional SWIFT cross-border remittances, which average over USD 20 in fees.

[ChainCatcher]

Wasabi Protocol Updates on Security Incident Handling Progress: Final User Compensation Plan Not Yet Confirmed

Decentralized contract trading protocol Wasabi Protocol has released a security incident update. It stated that attackers exploited a Spring Boot Actuator configuration vulnerability in its AWS infrastructure to steal the private keys controlling the EVM smart contracts, and stole approximately $4.80 million in user funds and $900,000.00 in protocol treasury funds from the relevant contracts, for a total loss of approximately $5.70 million.

The attack chain started with a public network server used for analysis, whose Actuator heap dump was not properly password protected, allowing the attacker to obtain credentials for another server and ultimately gain control of the smart contract private keys. This incident only affected EVM deployments, including some vaults on Ethereum, Base, Blast, and Berachain. The Solana deployment and Prop AMM were not affected.

There is no final update on the user compensation plan yet, but “compensating all affected users” remains the team’s top priority, and future investigation progress updates will be released in the Discord community.

[Foresight News]

A whale transferred $180 million worth of ETH to Binance.

According to Arkham monitoring, a Hyperunit whale transferred $180 million worth of ETH to Binance.

[Odaily Planet Daily]

Institution: The Iran war is depleting global oil buffer inventories at an unprecedented pace.

On May 9, news reports indicated that global oil inventories are being depleted at a record pace due to the Iran war disrupting petroleum transportation through the Persian Gulf—eroding buffer stocks originally intended to shield against supply shocks. The rapid drawdown of inventories means the risk of even more extreme price spikes and supply shortages is drawing nearer.

With the Strait of Hormuz nearing closure for nearly two months, governments and industries worldwide have increasingly fewer options to cope with a supply shock exceeding 1 billion barrels. The sharp inventory depletion also implies that, even after the conflict ends, markets will remain vulnerable to future supply disruptions for an extended period.

Morgan Stanley estimates that, between March 1 and April 25, global oil inventories declined by an average of approximately 4.8 million barrels per day—far surpassing the previous quarterly inventory decline peak recorded in data compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Crude oil accounted for nearly 60% of this decline, with the remainder consisting of refined products.

[PANews]

Kelp is collaborating with Aave to perform rsETH contract operations, and there is no user action required at this time.

May 9th news, according to Kelp’s official tweet, the Kelp team will execute a series of collaborative contract operations with Aave in the next 24 hours to advance the rsETH asset endorsement process. Users do not need to take any action during this period.

Kelp reminds users to obtain rsETH-related progress and reopening time information only through official channels, and will announce subsequent arrangements after this round of on-chain operations is completed.

[PANews]

Institution: The Iran war is depleting global oil buffer inventories at an unprecedented pace.

As the Iran war disrupts oil transportation through the Persian Gulf, global oil inventories are being depleted at a record pace—eroding the buffer stocks originally intended to shield against supply shocks. This rapid inventory drawdown means the risks of even more extreme price spikes and supply shortages are drawing nearer.

With the Strait of Hormuz nearing closure for nearly two months, governments and industries have increasingly fewer options to cope with a supply shock exceeding 1 billion barrels. The sharp inventory depletion also implies that, even after the conflict ends, markets will remain vulnerable to future supply disruptions for an extended period.

Morgan Stanley estimates that global oil inventories declined by approximately 4.8 million barrels per day on average between March 1 and April 25—a figure far surpassing the previous quarterly inventory drawdown peak recorded in data compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Crude oil accounted for nearly 60% of this decline, with the remainder comprising refined products.

The key point is that the oil system also requires a minimum inventory threshold. Natasha Kaneva, Head of Global Commodities Research at JPMorgan Chase, stated this means reaching the “untouchable” safety stock level before inventories actually hit zero.

[Odaily]