Crypto Morning Brief: NVIDIA’s Earnings Exceed Expectations; OpenAI Plans to File IPO Application as Early as Friday

Author: TechFlow

Yesterday’s Market Highlights

Trump: U.S.-Iran negotiations have entered the “final stage”

Trump stated that U.S.-Iran negotiations have entered the “final stage” and added, “Let’s wait and see.”

According to Bitget market data, all three major U.S. stock indices continued rising, each gaining over 1%.

Bipartisan U.S. lawmakers reintroduce the EQUAL Act to advance crypto tax reform and request IRS study on tax exemption for small-value transactions

Per CoinDesk, bipartisan U.S. lawmakers Steven Horsford, Max Miller, Suzan DelBene, and Mike Carey jointly reintroduced the Digital Asset Protection, Accountability, Regulation, Innovation, Taxation, and Yield Act (the “EQUAL Act”) this Wednesday. Key provisions of the updated bill include: (1) specifying that regulated payment stablecoins generate no gain or loss if their cost basis is no less than 99% of their redemption value; (2) establishing a safe harbor for broker-dealer trades or taxpayer account trades; (3) clarifying how wash sale rules apply to digital assets; and (4) directing the IRS to assess the current tax burden associated with small-value crypto transactions and study the feasibility—and potential for abuse—of exempting transactions under $200 from taxation.

The crypto industry has long advocated for tax exemptions on small-value transactions to promote broader adoption of cryptocurrencies in everyday payments. Representative Horsford noted that tax policy forms the foundation of the crypto regulatory framework, and that current tax law remains silent on many core issues related to digital assets.

Former CFTC Chair: U.S. conducting closed-door research on digital dollar infrastructure

According to CoinDesk, Timothy Massad, former chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that although Trump previously publicly opposed central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and government-backed dollar stablecoins, the U.S. may ultimately launch a government-backed, on-chain digital dollar solution amid global momentum toward tokenized finance.

Massad said the White House is conducting closed-door research into related infrastructure, and the U.S. has already joined the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) Project Agora. Mark Gould, Head of Payments at the Federal Reserve, noted that a digital dollar currently falls outside the Fed’s mandate—but if one were launched, the Fed would be responsible for its implementation.

LayerZero releases KelpDAO security incident report: to revise security strategy and rebuild affected cloud infrastructure

LayerZero Labs published its post-incident report on the KelpDAO attack, confirming that the KelpDAO rsETH cross-chain bridge—built atop LayerZero’s cross-chain communication protocol—was compromised, resulting in the theft of approximately 116,500 rsETH (valued at ~$292 million). Multiple security firms—including Mandiant and CrowdStrike—as well as independent researchers, attributed the attack to the North Korea–linked hacking group TraderTraitor (UNC4899). The report states the attack began on March 6, 2026, when attackers used social engineering to compromise a LayerZero developer account, obtain session keys, infiltrate the RPC cloud environment, corrupt internal RPC node data, and manipulate response outputs to deceive monitoring systems and the decentralized verification network (DVN).

LayerZero Labs officially announced it will revise its security strategy—including prohibiting its own DVN from acting as the sole signer in single-validator configurations—and rebuild the affected cloud infrastructure, while also introducing short-lived credentials, just-in-time privilege escalation, and multi-party approval mechanisms to strengthen security.

Morgan Stanley files revised application for Solana ETF, ticker symbol MSOL

Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart reported that Morgan Stanley submitted its revised application for a Solana ETF this morning, with the proposed ticker symbol MSOL.

Tether acquires SoftBank’s stake in Twenty One Capital to bolster Bitcoin strategy

Tether announced it has acquired SoftBank’s shares in Twenty One Capital (XXI), increasing its ownership stake. Following the transaction, SoftBank’s board representative at XXI stepped down per the shareholder agreement. Tether stated the move reflects its continued confidence in XXI’s long-term Bitcoin strategy and views XXI as one of the key opportunities to build a publicly traded company “from scratch around Bitcoin.”

NVIDIA Q1 FY2027 revenue hits $8.16 billion, surpassing consensus of $7.87 billion

NVIDIA (NVDA.O) released its earnings after U.S. market hours on Wednesday. Its Q1 FY2027 revenue totaled $8.16 billion, exceeding consensus estimates of $7.87 billion. Data center revenue reached $7.52 billion, beating consensus of $7.28 billion. NVIDIA also announced an $8 billion share repurchase program and raised its quarterly cash dividend from $0.01 to $0.25 per share. Moreover, NVIDIA’s data center spending—the primary driver of its revenue—shows no signs of slowing. The company forecasted Q2 revenue of $9.1 billion (±2%), above the consensus midpoint of $8.68 billion, though the highest analyst estimate reached $9.6 billion.

Catena Labs secures $30 million Series A round led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto

Per Fortune, Catena Labs—founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle—has closed a $30 million Series A funding round led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, and QED.

Catena Labs focuses on building tools enabling AI agents to conduct financial transactions securely. It has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter in New York, seeking regulatory authorization to process payments and hold customer funds. The company previously raised an initial $18 million in 2025, also led by a16z crypto.

Crypto custody firm Copper seeks sale at ~$500 million valuation

According to CoinDesk, crypto custody firm Copper is seeking to sell the company at a valuation of approximately $500 million and has engaged Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald to assist with the process. Copper’s core asset is its ClearLoop custody-based settlement system, which enables institutional clients to execute delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlements without moving assets onto-chain—effectively eliminating settlement risk. The firm currently serves over 1,000 active counterparties and processes over $50 billion in notional monthly trading volume. Copper had previously considered an IPO but postponed plans amid weak Bitcoin prices and heightened investor focus on AI-related ventures, leading to broad caution across the crypto IPO market.

OpenAI preparing IPO filing, earliest submission possible this Friday

Per the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI is collaborating with investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to prepare its initial public offering (IPO) filing for submission in the coming days or weeks.

According to sources, the banks are assisting OpenAI in drafting its prospectus, with plans to submit it confidentially to regulators shortly—potentially as early as this Friday. OpenAI aims to begin its listing process as soon as September this year, though timelines remain subject to change.

SpaceX S-1 filing discloses 18,712 BTC holdings, average cost basis ~$35,300

In its S-1 registration statement, SpaceX disclosed that, as of March 31, 2026, it held 18,712 bitcoins, with a cost basis of approximately $661 million—implying an average acquisition price of roughly $35,300 per bitcoin. The fair market value of these holdings was approximately $1.293 billion.

Market Data

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Karpathy joins Anthropic—Anthropic may be emptying OpenAI’s friend circle

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