South Korea blocks 14 crypto exchanges on Apple Store — Report  

US Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that if President Donald Trump eventually moves to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, it could undermine investor confidence in the integrity of US capital markets and trigger a financial crash.During an appearance on CNBC, the Massachusetts Senator said the President does not have the legal authority to remove Powell from his position. Moreover, removing Powell would weaken the financial infrastructure of the US, Warren added:”If Chairman Powell can be fired by the President of the United States, it will crash the markets. The infrastructure that keeps this stock market strong and, therefore, a big part of our economy strong, and a big part of the world economy strong, is the idea that the big pieces move independently of politics.””If interest rates in the United States are subject to a president who just wants to wave his magic wand, this doesn’t distinguish us from any other two-bit dictatorship,” Warren continued.Trump discusses US economic policies with reporters. Source: The White HousePresident Trump has repeatedly called for Powell’s termination, citing the chairman’s hesitancy to lower interest rates. Lower interest rates are usually considered a positive catalyst for risk-on asset prices, including cryptocurrencies, and could reverse the market downturn brought on by the trade war and current macroeconomic pressures.Related: Fed’s Powell reasserts support for stablecoin legislationTrump’s feud with the Federal Reserve chairmanTrump criticized Powell for not cutting interest rates and called for his termination again in an April 17 Truth Social post, which inflamed speculation that he would follow through on threats and find a way to remove the chairman.Senator Rick Scott echoed Trump’s calls to remove Powell. “It’s time to clean house of everyone working at the Federal Reserve who isn’t on board with helping the American people and fighting for their best interests,” Scott wrote in an opinion piece published on Fox News. Source: Donald TrumpThe Trump administration has repeatedly stated that lowering interest rates is a top priority. Market analyst and investor Anthony Pompliano recently speculated that Trump deliberately crashed financial markets to force lower interest rates.At the time, Pompliano cited a reduction in the yield of the 10-year US Treasury Bond to just 4%. The 10-year bond yield has climbed back up to 4.3% since then.Magazine: Meebits and CryptoPunks are like Hot Wheels for adults: New MeebCo owner Sergito

Tokenized stocks are on track to exceed $1 trillion in market capitalization in the coming years as adoption accelerates, two industry executives said at the TokenizeThis conference in New York. The total addressable market for tokenized stocks — a type of tokenized real-world asset (RWA) —  is difficult to project but is “definitely a bigger trillion-dollar market,” Arnab Naskar, STOKR’s CEO, said during an April 16 panel at the event.In 2025, demand for the instruments has “exploded” from institutions ranging from Web3 wallets to neobanks to traditional financial services firms, according to Anna Wroblewska, Dinari’s Chief Business Officer. “We’ve had an enormous influx of demand from a much broader scope of potential partners than you might even imagine […] it’s actually been really interesting,” Wroblewska said.Tokenized stocks are still a small portion of the total RWA market. Source: RWA.xyzRelated: Tokenization can transform US markets if Trump clears the waySmall but growing market shareAs of April 18, tokenized stocks comprise around $350 million in cumulative market capitalization, according to data from RWA.xyz. This represents only a sliver of the total RWA market, which is worth upward of $18 billion, the data shows. But this could change as tokenized stocks capture a growing share of the US equities market, Wroblewska said. The US stock market has an aggregate value of more than $50 trillion, according to Siblis Research. There is a “huge appetite for US public equities… even individual investors globally want exposure to US capital markets. Tokenization makes it fast and cheap,” Wroblewska said. She added that tokenized US Treasury Bills are already in high demand for similar reasons. They currently comprise nearly $6 billion in total market cap, RWA.xyz data shows. Meanwhile, Coinbase is considering making tokenized shares of its stock available on Base, its Ethereum layer-2 network.Collectively, tokenized RWAs represent a $30 trillion market opportunity globally, Colin Butler, Movement Labs’ global head of institutional capital, told Cointelegraph in an August interview.“Tokenization will become a mirror of the market. If the user experience is better, faster, and cheaper, people will default to tokenized assets,” Wroblewska said.Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered

Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO of cryptocurrency payment firm MoonPay, is calling on US lawmakers to leave a path open to state-level regulators when passing legislation on stablecoins.In an April 18 X post, Soto-Wright said he wanted Congress to “keep state-regulated issuers in the game” when it comes to stablecoin regulation, referencing efforts in the House of Representatives and Senate to create a federal regulatory framework. Lawmakers are considering whether to pass the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, in the Senate and the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, in the House.“While the cryptocurrency industry has called for federal legislation for years, it has been these state regulators who have provided and continue to provide regulatory clarity and supervision to ensure consumer protection and enable growth in the sector,” said Soto-Wright. “As federal legislation now approaches the finish line, it is essential to preserve viable state pathways for PSIs [permitted stablecoin issuers] that place the state regulators who meet the standards set out in GENIUS and STABLE on equal footing with federal regulators.”April 17 letter from MoonPay CEO to congressional leadership. Source: Ivan Soto-WrightThe MoonPay CEO’s comment echoed those of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), which wrote to leadership on the House Financial Services Committee in an April 1 letter and recommended a similar state-level approach. Both the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee voted to advance the bills in March and April, respectively, paving the way for a full floor vote.Related: Lawmaker alleges Trump wants to replace US dollar with his stablecoinThe STABLE Act, a companion bill modeled after the GENIUS Act, proposed regulating payment stablecoins by limiting them to “permitted payment stablecoin issuers,” allowing for “state qualified” ones. Soto-Wright said the GENIUS bill “stacks the deck” for permitted stablecoin issuers through federal regulators over state-level ones and the Federal Reserve to be the “sole federal regulator for all state PSIs.”Trump family-backed venture launched its own stablecoinIt’s unclear whether the bills have the necessary votes to pass both chambers before being signed into law by US President Donald Trump. The president and his family members have also backed the launch of their own stablecoin through World Liberty Financial, despite allegations of conflicts of interest and potential complications getting the bills through the House and Senate.  World Liberty Financial, which launched in September 2024, has already received roughly $600 million — largely through token sales — from investors including Tron founder Justin Sun, market maker DWF Labs, venture capital firm Oddiyana Ventures, and investment platform Web3Port. According to the project, its USD1 stablecoin was not tradable as of March 24.Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions