SEC Chair Paul Atkins said Monday that the SEC's "Regulation Crypto Assets" proposal has been submitted to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for White House review ahead of publication. The package centers on a startup exemption, a fundraising exemption and an investment contract safe harbor for issuers, with Atkins saying the agency wants market feedback to keep the framework workable.

Polygon will activate the Giugliano hardfork on mainnet on April 8, targeting faster finality and new fee data fields. The Polygon Foundation said it is set for block 85,268,500 at about 2:00 p.m. UTC, and node operators need to update Bor to v2.7.0 or Erigon to v3.5.0 ahead of the activation.

The Solana Foundation said on Monday it introduced STRIDE, a security auditing and monitoring program for Solana-based DeFi protocols, alongside the Solana Incident Response Network for real-time coordination. STRIDE assesses projects across eight areas such as program security, governance controls, operational security, and incident response, with results intended to be published publicly. The update follows a reported ~$280 million loss at Drift Protocol after a social-engineering attack tied to North Korean-linked actors.

Ethereum defended the $2,000 level and pushed to a local peak of $2,147, with ETH last quoted near $2,136 after rising 4.81% in 24 hours and 3% over the week. Derivatives activity has led the move, as Binance's spot-to-futures volume ratio fell to 0.13 while futures inflows climbed to $66.9 billion. Spot liquidity weakened alongside reported outflows, keeping the risk of a $2,000–$2,100 consolidation in play.

Bitcoin briefly climbed to $69,550 on Monday, rising 3.30% while remaining about 45% below its $126,000 all-time high set on October 6, 2025. The move triggered heavy derivatives liquidations, with over $276 million in leveraged positions wiped out across 80,200 traders. Short sellers absorbed most of the hit as BTC again tested the $70,000 area it has failed to reclaim repeatedly since early February.

Several private banks in Argentina are running a limited pilot of JPMorgan's JPM Coin to improve interbank settlement and reconciliation times. The first phase uses traditional settlement rails with on-chain recording, aiming to cut costs and boost speed and operational efficiency. Banks still cannot offer crypto services to clients unless the Central Bank changes its 2022 Communication A 7506 rule.

Strategy said it recorded a $14.46 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin holdings in the first quarter of 2026, alongside a $2.42 billion deferred tax asset linked to those paper losses. The company also bought 4,871 BTC from April 1 to April 5 for about $330 million, lifting total holdings to 766,970 BTC, valued near $53 billion at current prices.

Crypto analyst Nehal outlined a Bitcoin trading roadmap in an April 5 post, describing how investor psychology may shift through 2026. He projected BTC could peak near $215,000 in May, which he framed as a gain of more than 200% from a current price above $69,000. The plan also sketches a possible bull-trap phase in June and distribution that could extend into July and August.