Binance Appoints Thiago Sarandy as Brazil General Manager

April 17th — A Texas man, Robert Dunlap, was sentenced to 23 years in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution to victims by Judge LaShonda A. Hunt, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. The conviction stems from Dunlap’s orchestration of a cryptocurrency scam that defrauded nearly 1,000 investors of more than $20 million. Between 2018 and 2023, Dunlap claimed to run a crypto company and sold a fake digital asset called “Meta-1 Coin” via the “Meta-1 Coin Trust.” He made multiple false statements to potential and actual investors: alleging the token was backed by up to $1 billion in art (including works by Picasso, Dalí, and Van Gogh) and $440 billion in gold; falsely asserting an accounting firm had audited the gold and certified its value. To conceal he never actually possessed the gold or art, Dunlap forged legal documents.

April 17th — Bloomberg reported that regional officials familiar with the matter said some Gulf states and European leaders believe a U.S.-Iran peace deal could take around six months, and are pushing to extend the current ceasefire to cover that period. The officials noted leaders across countries want the Strait of Hormuz reopened immediately to restore energy flows, and have privately warned a global food crisis could hit if the strait isn’t reopened for shipping by next month. They also said energy prices could rise further if the conflict drags on longer. Per the officials, Gulf countries still believe Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons — a stance unchanged after U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran — so they argue any peace deal should bar Iran from uranium enrichment or possessing long-range ballistic missiles. Still, Gulf states broadly oppose resuming hostilities and want the U.S. to resolve its dispute with Iran diplomatically. (FX Street)

**April 17 Update** On April 16 local time, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a Democratic-led resolution, narrowly rejecting it by a 214-213 margin. The measure called on President Trump to end military actions against Iran and require congressional authorization for any further military engagement with the country. The resolution had already failed in the Senate the day prior. Democrats have stated they will continue introducing similar resolutions until hostilities with Iran cease or congressional authorization is secured for additional military action. Under the U.S. Constitution, only Congress holds the power to declare war. A 1973 law passed by Congress limits presidential military action without congressional authorization to cases involving an attack on the U.S. or an imminent national security threat.

On April 17th, ORDI extended its sharp rally, per HTX data—briefly surpassing $9.5 before trading at $9.022 currently, with a 212% 24-hour price gain. Total liquidations for ORDI contracts across all exchanges over the past 24 hours hit $22.75 million, including $5.18 million in long liquidations and $17.57 million in short liquidations.

April 16th — Mizuho Bank analysts said in a Thursday report that X Money, the financial feature from Musk’s X platform, could disrupt the U.S. payments industry but may face regulatory hurdles for its crypto integration plans. In a client note, analysts Dan Dolev and Andrew Jenkins wrote that X Money is positioned as X’s financial infrastructure layer, aiming to integrate instant messaging, bank deposits and business transactions — similar to the super app models of WeChat Pay or Alipay. With X’s 500-600 million monthly active users (MAUs) and Musk’s background as a PayPal co-founder, “X Money has the potential to shake up U.S. payments,” they added. On the regulatory front, the analysts flagged two key potential obstacles: 1) New York’s proposed “CRYPTO Bill” would criminalize unlicensed virtual currency operations in the state, raising the compliance threshold for X’s future crypto plans; 2) The “Clarity Act” could restrict non-bank platforms from offering user yields, pote