🤯 Deepfakes, Suspended Accounts and a New $668M Token

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 💥 Memecoin madness in Africa

• 🥶 Tariff talk sends chill through markets 

• 🔥 Pump.fun: No airdrops, no auctions

• ⚙️ Arweave’s decentralized supercomputer

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Central African Republic Launches Memecoin Amid Authenticity Concerns

Central African Republic President Faustin-Archange Touadéra's official X account on Sunday announced the launch of a memecoin named CAR on Solana memecoin launchpad Pump.fun. 

Although Touadéra described the token as an experiment to show “how something as simple as a meme can unite people” and put the Central African Republic on the map, market participants weren’t so sure about the token’s authenticity.

An accompanying video announcement he shared was flagged as "suspicious" by deepfake AI detectors and the token’s dedicated X account was suspended.

Touadéra said on Sunday that he was working with the social media platform to restore the page, also noting that the country’s supply of the tokens was locked through token infrastructure platform Streamflow.

At one point, CAR crossed $668 million in market cap.

Bitcoin Dips, Recovers on News of More Trump Tariffs

The crypto market charted a path to recovery after briefly sliding late on Sunday. The price action followed President Donald Trump telling Associated Press reporters that the U.S. would impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports.

Bitcoin dropped to an intraday low of $94,745 before recovering to around $97,600 at press time. Ether dropped as low as $2,530 before climbing back above $2,640.

Trump additionally reaffirmed plans for additional reciprocal tariffs later in the week, further fueling concerns about global economic stability. 

Although Bitcoin is often viewed as a hedge against inflation and economic instability, its recent reactions to trade policy have been more in line with traditional risk assets such as U.S. equities.

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Pump.fun Co-founder Says Token Launch Rumors ‘Wrong’

Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen has denied rumors of an imminent token launch by the Solana-based memecoin launchpad.

“Seeing rumors about a potential pump fun token — these are wrong,” Cohen said on X. “Would advise not to listen to anything that didn’t directly come from @pumpdotfun.” 

Cohen’s comments came after rumors began circulating on social media about a Pump.fun plan to conduct a Dutch auction in partnership with unnamed centralized exchanges, launch a possible airdrop for early adopters, and mint a token with a maximum supply of 420 million units.

Cohen said the Pump.fun team had always been committed to rewarding its users properly and that “good things take time.” 

Pump.fun is facing a class action lawsuit in a New York federal court over allegedly operating an unauthorized securities exchange, and regulatory warnings from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority for failing to obtain permission to do business in the country.

Arweave Launches Mainnet for Computing Platform AO

Decentralized storage network Arweave has officially launched the mainnet for its computing platform, AO. 

The launch comes after a year-long testnet phase and will officially make its previously distributed native AR tokens transferable. 

AO is described as a "hyperparallel computer" offering a distributed computing environment with parallelized processing capabilities. It leverages Arweave’s permanent data storage to ensure immutable and accessible data for onchain computation.

AO is designed to host decentralized applications, including AI-driven autonomous agents. More than $700 million had already been pre-bridged to the AO testnet prior to its launch.

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• 📅 The SEC delayed its decision on BlackRock’s request to allow options trading on its spot Ethereum ETF until April 9, while also seeking public comment on a similar proposal by Fidelity, citing the need for more time to evaluate the risks.

• 🎤 Kanye West teased interest in crypto, claiming he was offered $2 million to launch a token before asking to speak with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, sparking speculation about a possible memecoin launch. Hours later, the rapper denied any such plans, calling memecoins scams that “prey on the fans with hype,” prompting prediction markets tracking a possible launch to crash from 40% to 13%.

• 📈 BlackRock increased its stake in Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, to 5%, acquiring 11.2 million shares.

• 💡 A16z-backed Story Protocol revealed tokenomics for its upcoming layer 1 intellectual property management network, allocating 58.4% of its 1 billion IP token supply to the community, with 21.6% for early backers and 20% for core contributors.

• 🇯🇵🚫 Japan’s finance sector regulator asked Apple and Google to block five unregistered crypto exchanges — Bybit, MEXC, LBank, KuCoin, and Bitget — for operating without local licenses, prompting Apple to comply. Google has yet to respond.

• 🇧🇷 Brazilian stock exchange B3 will introduce Bitcoin options and futures for Ether and Solana, expanding its $860 million monthly crypto derivatives market, which now rivals the country’s traditional exchanges in trading volume.

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