President Donald Trump has appointed Todd Blanche as interim U.S. Attorney General, replacing Pam Bondi, after a Justice Department shake-up. Earlier this year, Blanche shut down the DOJ's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and told prosecutors to avoid cases based mainly on regulatory violations. A July 2025 disclosure says he moved crypto and Coinbase shares to family members before taking office, while reports said he still held $159,000 to $485,000 in crypto when he signed an enforcement memo.

Drift Protocol said a Solana-based perp DEX was exploited on April 1, 2026, with about $286 million removed in roughly 12 minutes after attackers prepared fake collateral and used pre-signed admin transactions. The incident coincided with TVL falling from about $550 million to under $250 million, while DRIFT slid as much as 37%–42% to around $0.04–$0.05. As of April 3, the protocol had sent an onchain outreach message and had not announced a full reimbursement plan.

On April 2, 2026, Coinbase Global (COIN) joined the Linux Foundation to formally establish the x402 Foundation, a nonprofit set up to steward an open-source protocol built around HTTP 402 "Payment Required". The X402 protocol turns the long-unused status code into a machine-readable payment flow that lets websites, APIs, and autonomous AI agents price and settle requests via digital wallets, including stablecoin-based settlement such as USDC.

Japan’s revised Payment Services Act framework limits “digital-money type stablecoins” to licensed domestic issuers, with rules effective from June 2023 and additional refinements scheduled by June 2026. JPYC Co. launched a fully regulated yen-pegged stablecoin in October 2025 and set targets of 10 trillion yen in circulation over three years and 60 trillion yen within five years. The structure also constrains access to foreign dollar stablecoins, with USDT largely restricted and USDC offered through a limited regulated pathway via SBI VC Trade.

X is rolling out an "auto-locking and verification" policy that will temporarily lock accounts the first time they post about cryptocurrency and require identity checks before the post can proceed. The change, shared by X Head of Product Nikita Bier via Wu Blockchain on April 2, 2026, is aimed at reducing scams tied to hacked celebrity accounts and newly created scam profiles.

Drift Protocol said Friday it initiated onchain outreach to wallets holding Ether linked to an exploit that outside firms estimate at roughly $280 million to $286 million. The team said it sent messages from Ethereum address 0x0934faC to four wallets associated with the exploiter, asking them to contact Drift via Blockscan chat. The outreach followed Thursday onchain messages from an unknown ENS user demanding 1,000 ETH to withhold alleged identity information.

On April 2, 2026, Coinbase and the Linux Foundation launched the X402 Foundation to steward an open-source standard that uses HTTP status code 402 as a built-in payment trigger. The X402 flow lets servers quote a price and accepted tokens, while clients submit a signed payment payload (including stablecoins or other ERC-20 tokens) within normal web/API requests. Early tooling is tied to Base, with Cloudflare's Agents SDK supporting transactions on Base Sepolia using USDC.

On April 2, 2026, the Linux Foundation announced the x402 Foundation at the MCP Dev Summit North America in New York. The effort includes Coinbase formally contributing the x402 protocol to the Linux Foundation to support open, internet-native payments over HTTP for AI agents, APIs, and apps. The foundation launched with backing from more than 20 companies, while the Solana Foundation was cited as an early adopter with nearly 65% of this year's x402 transaction volume.