According to ChainCatcher, Bitcoin treasury company Strategy said in a post on X that it has accumulated Bitcoin equal to 2.2 times the market's natural supply. The firm reported year-to-date gains of about 24,675 BTC, worth roughly $1.7 billion, translating into a 3.7% Bitcoin yield.

Odaily Planet Daily reports that OPEC’s crude output recorded its sharpest monthly fall in at least four decades in March, as Middle East conflict disrupted exports from key members. Surveys indicate the group’s production sank by 7.56 million barrels per day, about 25%, to 22 million bpd. Based on figures compiled by the agency since 1989, the March decline was the largest on record. In absolute terms, the drop also exceeded the reduction seen during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Daniel Yergin writes in "The Prize" that between October and December that year, the market lost a combined 5 million bpd, though the global market was far smaller at the time. Iraq, the member most reliant on the Strait of Hormuz, posted the steepest contraction, with output falling by 2.76 million bpd to 1.63 million bpd. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates followed, helped by the ability to reroute some exports through alternative pipelines. Saudi output declined by 2.07 million bpd to 8.36 million bpd, while the UAE fell by 1.44 million bpd to 2.16 million bpd. Tanker-tracking data showed Saudi exports dropped about 50% in March despite access to Red Sea routes. (Jin10)

April 7 — Citadel Securities said retail investors were net sellers of U.S. equities and options last week, reversing a rare multiyear pattern of persistent buying. Net spending in March fell 55% from February and was down 70% from the January peak. The firm noted options positioning has become more defensive, with demand rising for downside hedges. Historically, similar bouts of retail selling have often been followed by a strong short-term rebound in the S&P 500, averaging a 4.1% gain over the subsequent two months. The shift comes as markets digest heightened volatility tied to March's oil-price jump and tensions involving Iran. The S&P 500 is down about 5% year to date, while Brent crude has climbed 80%.

Phone records reviewed by media outlets indicate there were seven calls between Javier Milei and a backer of LIBRA on the night of the project's launch, according to a report.

BREAKING: Bitcoin fell below $68,000 after Iran halted all direct diplomatic communications with the U.S.

The White House said it is not considering the use of nuclear weapons in Iran.

TL;DR: The Solana Foundation has introduced STRIDE, a continuous security evaluation program for DeFi protocols featuring TVL-based tiers of benefits. The initiative will be independently operated by Asymmetric Research, which will assess protocols across eight areas and publish the findings in a public repository. The launch follows a recent security incident at Drift Protocol, where attackers stole about $286 million in less than twelve minutes. Solana is positioning STRIDE (Solana Trust, Resilience and Infrastructure for DeFi Enterprises) as a response to what it described as the lack of an enduring security standard across its DeFi stack. STRIDE is not a bug bounty or a one-off audit. It is designed as a continuous monitoring and assessment framework run by Asymmetric Research. Protocols will be evaluated across eight categories, including operational security, access controls, multisig configurations, and governance vulnerabilities. Results will be posted to a public repository for users and investors. Benefits are tied to a tiered TVL structure. Protocols with more than $10 million in total value locked that pass the assessment qualify for foundation-funded 24/7 threat monitoring at no cost to the team. Protocols above $100 million in TVL gain access to formal verification tools, which use mathematical proofs to analyze all possible smart contract execution paths rather than relying on sampled scenarios. Solana said this threshold captures the set of protocols whose failure could pose systemic risk. Alongside STRIDE, the Solana Incident Response Network (SIRN) is operating as a shared intelligence and coordinated response coalition. Its five founding members are Asymmetric Research, OtterSec, Neodyme, Squads, and Zeroshadow. Response prioritization is based on TVL and the estimated impact of each incident. Solana said STRIDE v0.1 is already live. Existing security tooling across the network—such as Hypernative, Range Security, Riverguard, and Sec3 XRay—has addressed specific threat vectors; STRIDE aims to bring these capabilities under a unified evaluation framework.

Morgan Stanley said its Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, $MBST, is scheduled to launch tomorrow.

Velora (formerly ParaSwap) has published a new governance proposal, ME News reported, dated April 7 (UTC+8). The proposal would narrow governance to structural decisions related to the VLR token, end the staking program and stop reward distributions, and close the DAO treasury, using its remaining balance to cover infrastructure services. It also calls for halting DAO-level fee routing and updating the multisig setup to match the revised governance remit. According to the proposal, the changes would not affect VLR's token supply, vesting and unlock schedule, allocations, or transferability. Going forward, governance would focus on VLR-related structural matters, while protocol operations and infrastructure support would continue under the project's development team. (Source: Foresight News)