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Taiwan's Political Donation Law was reviewed 13 times, and in principle, it bans the use of cryptocurrencies and live streaming tips (super chats) as political donations; if the amendment passes, candidates accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, or other cryptocurrencies or super chats will be considered illegal.
The trigger was the controversy over Huang Kuo-chang's super chat donation, with the Control Yuan emphasizing the difficulty in auditing and the high risks involved.
Common violations include unapproved dedicated accounts, exceeding limits, foreign donations, and donations made in others' names.

The world's richest man, Elon Musk, did not attend the Paris prosecutor's summons on Monday. Since French authorities requested access to the X platform's algorithms and user data in July 2025, Musk has maintained a tough opposition stance, and the standoff has evolved into a comprehensive confrontation spanning AI regulation and political power struggles.
(Background summary: Musk's "strongest AI on Earth," Grok 3, is freely available to users)
(Additional background: Musk releases "strongest AI on Earth," Grok 3! Performance surpasses GPT-4o)
Bloomberg, citing AFP and Agence France-Presse reports, stated that Paris prosecutors officially confirmed Musk's absence on Monday. Paris officials explicitly declared, "The investigation will not come to a halt because of this."
The legal confrontation can be traced back to July 2025. At that time, Paris prosecutors launched an investigation, initially focusing on the algorithms of the X platform.

UAE Central Bank Governor Balama proposed, during the IMF Spring Meetings, that the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve establish a US dollar–Dirham currency swap mechanism to stabilize exchange rates. If the US dollar supply becomes tight, the UAE may switch to settling oil in RMB, undermining the petrodollar system. China has become the UAE’s largest buyer; the RMB settlement share has surpassed 41% starting March 2026, while Saudi Arabia has reached about 45%, indicating that the shift in settlement has become structural. The UAE believes the United States has provoked the conflict and therefore needs the U.S. to provide insurance. At the same time, Gulf allies are re-evaluating their long-term reliance on U.S. military bases in the region; for the first time, a trust crisis in the petrodollar system has been openly used by allies as leverage.

The US-Iran ceasefire expires on the evening of April 22, and Trump says it is unlikely to be extended. Meanwhile, the US military’s three aircraft carrier strike groups are unusually assembled in the Middle East to carry out a naval blockade to apply pressure. Iran’s senior officials respond in kind: Kalibaf refuses to negotiate under threats, and Khamenei reiterates three major positions while accusing the U.S. of breach. With talks between the two sides yielding no results, geopolitical tensions have pushed up oil prices and driven demand for Bitcoin as a safe haven.

Glassnode Week 17 Report shows a contradictory structure in Bitcoin: spot and derivatives markets are experiencing increased selling pressure and rising short-selling sentiment, but inflows into US spot ETFs and long-term holder confidence provide a downward buffer for the market. Long-term capital and institutional buying are driving the market to gradually form a bottom, with short-term selling pressure being gradually absorbed, and a clearer direction is expected to emerge in the future.

Grinex was hit by a large-scale hacker attack on April 16, incurring losses of approximately 1 billion rubles (about 13–15 million US dollars), and announced a temporary suspension of operations. Large amounts of funds were laundered and routed using USDT, converted into TRX and ETH via TRON and Ethereum, in an attempt to evade freezing. As the successor to Garantex, the incident dealt a severe blow to Russia’s cross-border payment and ruble exchange channels. Official authorities accused Western intelligence agencies, saying the attack threatened financial sovereignty, and have already referred the matter to law enforcement.

OpenAI shut down the AI research writing platform "Prism" on April 20, 2026, after only three months of operation, becoming a casualty of its "no longer pursuing side projects" strategy. This decision caught many scholars off guard, resulting in a large amount of unfinished research data being locked, and users in urgent need of alternatives were forced to turn to other tools like Overleaf. This incident highlights the risks of relying on experimental tools.

Google DeepMind and MIT jointly developed the AI system CoDaS, which can autonomously analyze wearable data, discover the correlation between "late-night doom scrolling" and depression, and write scientific papers without human guidance. Its efficiency reduces a 37-day workload to 6 to 8 hours, revolutionizing traditional research methods.

Ethereum whale Bitmine recently announced it acquired 101,627 ETH, marking the largest increase in nearly four months. Chairman Tom Lee stated that the crypto winter is coming to an end and that Ethereum will become a wartime store of value. Bitmine currently holds nearly 5 million ETH and earns stable income through staking, demonstrating its leading position in the crypto market.

On Tuesday night at 10:00 PM in Taiwan, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on Kevin Wirth’s nomination for Chair of the Federal Reserve. This is Wirth’s first appearance in a formal setting on Capitol Hill. This article is sourced from Wall Street Insights.
(Background: In-depth > The Seven Research and Applications of AI Agents)
(Additional context: Has a genius high school student cracked the EasyCard? Security experts: The MIFARE Classic vulnerability was publicly disclosed 15 years ago!)
Table of Contents
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Why Quantitative Tightening: Milan’s List of Reasons
Key Diagnosis: “Demand,” Not “Supply,” Is What’s Holding Back the QT
How Much Can Be Tightened: Quantitative Estimates of $1.2 Trillion to $2.1 Trillion
How to Tighten: A “Menu-Style” Analysis of 15 Options
Wirth’s Signal: From Technical Papers to Policy Expectations
CITIC Interpretation: Which Are Feasible, Which Are Too Idealistic
Market Impact

OpenAI's Chief Technology Officer of the Enterprise Applications Division, Srinivas Narayanan, announced his departure on April 19th, marking the third senior executive to leave the company within the same week. Foreign media described it as a "leadership turnover week." Narayanan stated that he wishes to return to India to be with his aging parents due to family reasons. Against this backdrop, changes have occurred across multiple core fronts, including consumer-grade and scientific applications, indicating that OpenAI is undergoing a strategic shift in focus.

After David Sacks, the former White House AI and Cryptocurrency Czar, stepped down, he made his first public remarks on the AI industry, drawing “left and right” in the All-In Podcast: on one hand, he praised Anthropic for carving out differentiation by leveraging enterprise-side coding demand, and for validating that its ARR explosion model is the correct approach; on the other hand, he sharply criticized Anthropic for “regulatory capture,” saying that pushing for a mandatory licensing regime harms startups, and warning that if the United States becomes obsessed with AI doomerism, it could end up suffering a defeat in the competition between the U.S. and China.
（Background summary: Trump’s crypto strategist David Sacks steps down from the White House after a 130-day term, with multiple pieces of legislation remaining undecided）
（Background addendum: Big short seller Michael Burry fires back: Palantir is just a low-margin SaaS outsourcing company! Anthropic is eating it up）

Cardano Foundation recently integrated with DFX.swiss, enabling 137 SPAR supermarkets in Switzerland to accept ADA payments and settle in Swiss francs, with transaction fees reduced by about two-thirds. The payment system does not rely on centralized exchanges, helping to reduce merchant risk and providing users with a safer and more private payment experience. This case demonstrates the potential of Cardano in physical retail and marks an important milestone for its ecosystem.

The U.S. Department of Defense has listed Anthropic as a supply chain risk, but the National Security Agency is using its AI tool Mythos, revealing internal contradictions. Anthropic continues to engage with the White House and push forward with tool usage despite facing lawsuits. This reflects divisions and conflicts within the U.S. government regarding AI national security policies, as AI capabilities have surpassed existing policy frameworks.

xAI launched Grok 4.3 Beta on April 17, adding the ability to generate PDF, PowerPoint, Word, and Excel files, but requiring a $300 monthly subscription, making it unavailable to users paying $30. This strategy targets heavy developers and was silently released without announcement, spreading the news through high-influence users.

Moody's analysts point out that the impact of stablecoins on the banking industry is currently limited, mainly constrained by U.S. regulations prohibiting interest-bearing features. However, as market capitalization grows to $300 billion and tokenized assets expand, the banking sector faces long-term competitive pressure. The interest-bearing provisions of the CLARITY Act have become a point of controversy; failure to advance these provisions will affect cryptocurrency market regulation and innovation. Overall, the expansion of stablecoins still requires adjustments to the regulatory framework.

Trump revealed at a conservative event in Arizona on April 17 that the government has uncovered many interesting files during the review of UFO-related materials and will quickly release the first batch of data. This is his first update since signing the executive order. Although the Pentagon's investigation did not find evidence of alien technology, the public remains skeptical, and conspiracy theories continue to persist.