It's Wednesday, April 1st. I'm your host, and this is Fulgur News. Here's what's moving today. Bitcoin snapped a 5-month losing streak with a green March candle and is testing the $68,000 to $70,000 zone as geopolitical tensions around Iran show early signs of easing. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $1.3 billion in March inflows, the first monthly gain of 2026. On Capitol Hill, the CLARITY Act just broke through a major deadlock on stablecoin yield rules, moving it closer to a Senate floor vote. And in education, Boston is about to become the first major U.S. city to roll out an AI literacy curriculum across its public schools. Let's get into it.
Bitcoin opened April back above $68,000, and the chart everyone's watching is that $70,000 resistance level. After 5 consecutive red monthly candles, the longest losing streak since 2018, March finally printed green. That alone is psychologically significant. But every push toward $70,000 is still being sold into. There's a crowded zone of sellers up there, and the market hasn't resolved that internal constraint yet.
Let's zoom out on Q1. Bitcoin closed the quarter near $66,280, down about 24% for the year. Fidelity published an interesting note saying this drawdown is actually less dramatic than previous cycles, calling it evidence of a maturing market with reduced volatility and stronger institutional confidence. Wall Street is starting to notice that Bitcoin's crashes are getting smaller over time. Though not everyone agrees. Bloomberg's Mike McGlone still insists Bitcoin could revisit $10,000. That feels like a stretch, but bearish voices are part of any healthy market.
On the macro side, the big catalyst right now is Iran. Trump signaled a 3-week target to end the conflict, and Iranian President Pezeshkian said Tehran is prepared to end the war under certain conditions. Asian stocks surged 4%, S&P futures jumped, and Bitcoin caught a bid alongside risk assets. But the April bounce faces a real test with Fed minutes looming. Traders are weighing whether easing war fears can sustain this move or whether the next Fed signal cuts the recovery short.
ETF flows tell an interesting story too. Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their first monthly inflows since October, $1.3 billion in March. But Q1 overall was still red, about $500 million of net outflows. The encouraging part is that ETF assets under management only fell about 7% from their October highs despite a roughly 50% price decline from the all-time high near $126,000. That's resilience.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley just launched a Bitcoin ETF at 14 basis points, opening a $6.2 trillion advisory channel. That's a distribution pipeline that could matter a lot more in the next leg up than any single month of flows. And on the supply side, Strategy is set to resume buying Bitcoin this week. Michael Saylor's firm raised funds to purchase at least 1,111 BTC, increasing the odds of upward pressure in April.
One more thing worth flagging. Google Quantum AI published a 57-page paper showing they've reduced the estimated hardware needed to crack elliptic-curve cryptography. They specifically used Bitcoin to illustrate what a future signature failure could look like. This isn't an imminent threat, but it's a reminder that post-quantum migration planning can't wait forever. A new Senate bill is also targeting China's dominance in Bitcoin mining hardware, framing ASIC supply chains as a national security risk. America holds roughly 38% of global mining capacity, but the machines still come overwhelmingly from China.
Let's talk Washington, because something actually moved this week. The CLARITY Act, the big stablecoin regulation bill, just broke through one of its most contentious deadlocks. Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks reached an in-principle deal on stablecoin yield, which has been the single biggest sticking point.
The compromise restricts passive stablecoin rewards, basically interest-like returns, to prevent stablecoins from competing directly with bank deposits. But it still permits activity-based rewards for things like governance participation and liquidity provision. This is a meaningful distinction. It addresses the traditional banking lobby's fear of deposit flight while leaving room for DeFi-style incentive structures.
The bill also introduces issuer capital requirements, transparency standards, and consumer protections. Major players like Coinbase and Stripe influenced the final draft, and the industry broadly sees this as a positive step. A Senate hearing could happen as early as this month, making April a critical window for U.S. crypto policy.
But not everyone's celebrating without caveats. Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr came out this week acknowledging that the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act provide clearer guidance, but he warned that significant risks remain. His concerns center on the quality and liquidity of reserves, the potential for redemption runs during market stress, and the continued use of stablecoins in illicit finance. Barr's essentially saying: good that we have rules now, but the rules only matter if enforcement is real.
Meanwhile, the CFTC's new chair Michael Selig, now 100 days into the job, said the agency is ready to oversee the entire crypto market if Congress gives it the mandate. And the CFTC's enforcement director put prediction market insider traders on notice, directly pushing back on the myth that insider trading rules don't apply there.
On the enforcement front, 10 people were charged in a crypto wash trading case, with 3 extradited. These are executives from market makers like Gotbit and Vortex in what prosecutors are calling market-manipulation-as-a-service. This is a clear signal that the enforcement apparatus is tightening even as the legislative framework catches up.
Over in the Asia-Pacific, Australia just passed its digital asset licensing bill, requiring exchanges and custodians to obtain financial services licenses within 6 months. And Hong Kong missed its March target for issuing the first stablecoin licenses, with the HKMA saying only that the process is still advancing. The global regulatory picture is filling in, piece by piece.
The digital asset treasury company model is getting stress-tested right now, and the results are mixed. Let's start with Nakamoto Inc., the company built around a Bitcoin-native operating thesis.
Nakamoto sold 284 Bitcoin in March for approximately $20 million. That might not sound like much, but it's notable because the whole point of a Bitcoin treasury company is to hold Bitcoin. The proceeds went to establish a U.S. dollar operating reserve, which is corporate-speak for: we need cash to run the business. At the end of 2025, Nakamoto held 5,342 BTC valued at about $467.5 million, and they reported a $166.2 million fair value loss for the year. Their stock is down roughly 40% year-to-date.
Analysts are flagging this as a potential canary in the coal mine. One called it a signal of possible industry-wide DAT contagion, pointing out that Nakamoto's holdings peaked at over $711 million in October 2025 when Bitcoin hit its all-time high near $126,000. The question is whether other treasury companies will be forced to sell too.
The elephant in the room is Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, which now holds about 76% of all Bitcoin held by public treasury companies. They purchased 45,000 BTC in just the past month and are set to buy at least another 1,111 this week. Strategy's STRC perpetual preferred stock kept its dividend payout steady at 11.5% for April after 7 straight increases. The 30-day volume-weighted average price is stabilizing near $100. So the biggest player is still aggressively accumulating while smaller players are being forced to liquidate.
On the institutional front, there are some significant moves. Franklin Templeton is launching a dedicated crypto division called Franklin Crypto by acquiring 250 Digital, a CoinFund spinoff. This goes beyond ETFs into active digital asset strategies targeting institutional demand. CoinShares, the European crypto asset manager, started trading on Nasdaq today after a $1.2 billion SPAC deal. And Citadel-backed EDX Markets applied for a U.S. trust charter to offer custody and asset services.
One interesting development in corporate treasury more broadly: Ripple added digital asset support to its treasury management platform, giving corporate finance teams real-time visibility across traditional and digital asset accounts. And Convera partnered with Ripple to integrate stablecoins into cross-border payment infrastructure, where payments start and end in fiat but settle through regulated stablecoins in the middle. That's a practical use case that CFOs actually care about.
Let's shift to AI in education, because something meaningful is happening beyond the usual hype. Schools are actually deploying AI at scale now, and the approaches are more thoughtful than you might expect.
Boston is about to become the first major U.S. city to roll out an AI literacy curriculum across its public schools. Mayor Michelle Wu announced the initiative, backed by a $1 million donation from tech entrepreneur Paul English. Starting this fall, high school students will take courses covering how AI tools work, their ethical implications, and real-world applications. The program is a public-private partnership involving the city, universities, and industry, with an AI advisory board providing ongoing feedback. The goal is straightforward: every Boston public school graduate should be AI-fluent.
This matters because it's not just about teaching kids to use ChatGPT. It's about building literacy around how these systems work, where they fail, and what the ethical boundaries should be. That's the kind of foundation that actually prepares people for a world where AI is embedded in everything.
Meanwhile, OpenAI held a session detailing how school districts across the country are deploying ChatGPT for teachers. Houston ISD, Capistrano Unified, and Fairfax County are all moving from pilot projects to system-wide rollouts. The common thread across successful deployments is that AI is positioned as a tool to streamline repetitive tasks like lesson planning and parent communication, not as some revolutionary standalone initiative. Districts that are doing this well have strong leadership involvement, role-specific training, and clear guidelines for responsible use. They're also being transparent with families about what's happening.
Globally, Cognita is rolling out an AI learning platform across 90 schools in multiple countries. Their platform, developed with a company called Flint, gives teachers real-time insights into student understanding during lessons. The pilot showed that AI reduces teachers' cognitive load and supports better classroom decision-making without replacing professional judgment. The key to adoption was structured training, including live sessions and self-paced modules.
And the International Baccalaureate program is developing an AI chatbot to help teachers quickly access curriculum resources. It's in pilot testing now with plans for full deployment by June. The IB is also drafting 5 principles for responsible AI use, refined through international consultations that account for cultural differences in how AI is perceived.
What strikes me about all of this is the pattern. The institutions that are succeeding with AI in education aren't the ones making the biggest promises. They're the ones doing the most careful work around training, guidelines, and community trust.
Here's the thing I keep coming back to today. Whether it's stablecoin regulation, Bitcoin treasury strategy, or AI in schools, the pattern is the same. The hype phase is over. The execution phase is here. The winners from this point forward aren't the ones with the boldest claims. They're the ones doing the careful, unglamorous work of actually building systems that hold up under stress. Keep that lens handy. It'll serve you well in April. I'll talk to you tomorrow.