Today in crypto, Kraken's parent company to acquire Bitnomial, and Bitcoin surged above $77,000 after Iran’s foreign minister declared the Strait of Hormuz open for the remainder of the ceasefire. Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation shared details of the Ketman Project, which identified 100 North Korean operatives working in the crypto space.
Kraken’s parent company to acquire Bitnomial
The parent company of the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, Payward, announced on Friday that it will acquire Bitnomial, a US-licensed cryptocurrency and derivatives exchange.
Bitnomial has secured licenses from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer exchange, clearinghouse and brokerage services, according to Payward’s announcement. Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said:
“Bitnomial spent a decade building it: crypto settlement, crypto collateral, continuous 24/7 markets. These are capabilities that cannot be retrofitted onto legacy systems. They have to be built natively.”
Payward said it plans to leverage Bitnomial’s CFTC-regulated infrastructure to offer crypto derivatives trading to US residents and integrations for its institutional clients, allowing them to offer crypto services to their own customers.
Bitcoin rises, oil falls after Iran says Strait of Hormuz is open
Iran’s foreign minister said Friday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to commercial vessel traffic for the remainder of the current ceasefire, prompting quick market reactions.
“In line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is declared completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi in a Friday X post.
US President Donald Trump confirmed the opening of the passage in a Friday post on Truth Social.
Bitcoin (BTC) briefly hit $77,037 on Friday following the news, rising around 1%, following a 5% weekly recovery, according to TradingView data.
Brent crude oil futures sank to around $85 per barrel, falling 10% on the news, according to Tradingeconomics data.
Easing geopolitical tensions may bring more risk appetite among crypto investors. However, the two-week ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran is set to expire on April 22, with the threat of renewed escalation continuing to weigh on market sentiment.
EF-funded program exposes 100 DPRK workers in crypto
The Ethereum Foundation said it funded a six-month project that exposed 100 North Korean operatives who had infiltrated Web3 companies under fake identities.
The foundation on Thursday shared a recap of its ETH Rangers program, which was launched in late 2024 to provide "stipends for individuals doing public goods security work" within the ecosystem.
One of the recipients used the capital to build the Ketman Project to focus on investigating “fake developers” embedded within crypto, particularly operatives from the North Korea.
During the six-month stipend period, the Ketman Project identified "100 different DPRK IT workers operating within Web3 organizations" and reached out to about 53 projects to alert them about having potentially employed active DPRK operatives.
"This work directly addresses one of the most pressing operational security threats facing the Ethereum ecosystem today," the Ethereum Foundation said.
