Morning Minute: $11T+ Schwab Goes All In on Crypto

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And check retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes oregon less, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Crypto majors rally arsenic Trump says warfare should extremity soon; BTC astatine $75,700
• Stocks adjacent greenish for record-tying 12th time successful a row
• Schwab moves to connection spot BTC & ETH trading soon, with hefty fee
• Tether commits $127M to Drift portion Circle faces suit implicit failing to freeze
• CFTC seat Selig faces unit connected prediction markets and Hyperliquid

💰 Schwab Moves All In connected Crypto

Charles Schwab confirmed connected its Q1 net telephone Thursday that spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading is unrecorded successful a phased rollout nether the “Schwab Crypto” brand, operated done Charles Schwab Premier Bank.

Employees summation entree first, past early-access registrants, past the afloat lawsuit base. Custody and colony handled by Paxos. Notably, fees are 75 ground points per trade, substantially higher than ETFs.

CEO Rick Wurster besides told analysts the steadfast volition “likely” connection prediction markets astatine immoderate constituent arsenic well, specifically carving retired fiscal lawsuit contracts arsenic antithetic from sports and authorities bets.

For perspective, Schwab has $11.8 trillion successful lawsuit assets and 16,000 fiscal advisors. Goldman Sachs filed for a Bitcoin income ETF this week. Morgan Stanley disclosed $1.24B successful Bitcoin ETF vulnerability successful its Q1 13F and launched its ain ETF astatine 0.14%. The 3 biggest names successful American retail and organization concern are each making large moves wrong crypto now. The institutions aren’t coming, they’re here.

Key Details:

• Charles Schwab launched phased spot BTC and ETH trading via “Schwab Crypto” astatine 75 bps per trade, with custody done Paxos
• The scale: $11.8 trillion successful lawsuit assets and 16,000 fiscal advisors; present a nonstop rival to Coinbase and Robinhood for retail crypto access
• The week successful context: Goldman filed for a Bitcoin income ETF; Morgan Stanley disclosed $1.24B successful BTC ETF vulnerability successful Q1 and launched its ain ETF astatine 0.14%; Schwab going spot direct

⚖️ The CFTC Chair Is Getting Hit From Both Sides

CFTC Chair Mike Selig appeared earlier the Senate Agriculture Committee Thursday and got squeezed from 2 directions astatine once.

Republican and Democratic senators alike pushed backmost connected the CFTC’s assertive stance defending prediction markets successful tribunal portion simultaneously demanding to cognize what the bureau is doing astir Hyperliquid, the offshore perpetual futures speech that has been pulling measurement distant from regulated US venues with nary CFTC oversight whatsoever.

Selig’s presumption connected prediction markets: national exclusive jurisdiction, afloat stop. States suing to restrict them are “attempting to nullify national law.” He filed an amicus little to backmost that up.

The Hyperliquid occupation is harder. It’s a afloat decentralized perp speech operating offshore, extracurricular CFTC reach, moving markets connected assets the CFTC would modulate if they were onshore. Senators connected some sides privation answers connected however the bureau plans to code that gap. Selig’s answer, essentially, was that the Clarity Act would help. The aforesaid Clarity Act that’s inactive sitting successful markup.

Key Details:

• CFTC Chair Mike Selig faced bipartisan Senate pushback Thursday on 2 fronts: his assertive tribunal defence of prediction markets jurisdiction, and the agency’s inability to modulate Hyperliquid’s offshore perp trading
• On prediction markets: Selig maintains CFTC has “exclusive regulatory authority” careless of declaration type
• On Hyperliquid: decentralized offshore perp speech is pulling regulated measurement offshore with nary CFTC reach; Selig’s reply points to the Clarity Act arsenic the fix

🪂 Tether Bails Out Drift, And Takes Solana’s USDC Market With It

Tether committed up to $127.5M to money the betterment of Drift Protocol, the Solana-based perpetual DEX that was drained of ~$285M successful an April 1 North Korean hack. It’s portion of a $147.5M full bundle with partners, structured arsenic a revenue-linked recognition installation that repays the $295.7M successful idiosyncratic losses implicit clip from Drift’s trading revenue.

Drift’s DRIFT token jumped 20% connected the news.

Tied to the header - Drift is relaunching with USDT arsenic its colony layer, not USDC. On Solana, USDC has a 2.65x marketplace headdress vantage implicit USDT. Drift had $550M successful TVL earlier the hack and 128,000 users.

Circle, for its part, faced disapproval for not freezing the stolen USDC faster - the attacker moved $232M from Solana to Ethereum utilizing Circle’s ain cross-chain protocol portion Circle declined to enactment without a tribunal order. Tether conscionable utilized a bailout to flip the ascendant stablecoin connected 1 of Solana’s largest protocols.

Key Details:

• Tether committed $127.5M - portion of a $147.5M bundle - to back Drift Protocol’s recovery after an April 1 North Korean hack drained ~$285M
• The stablecoin flip: Drift relaunches connected USDT, not USDC; Tether goes from a 2.65x underdog connected Solana to the colony furniture of Solana’s largest perp DEX
• The Circle contrast: attacker moved $232M USDC via Circle’s ain cross-chain protocol; Circle declined to frost without a tribunal order

🎨 Foundation Is Shutting Down

Foundation, 1 of the defining NFT creation platforms of the 2021 boom, announced Wednesday it is shutting down aft a planned merchantability to integer creation institution Blackdove collapsed.

CEO Kayvon Tehranian posted an unfastened missive connected X: “Our extremity successful pursuing a merchantability was ever to spot Foundation unrecorded on. That’s nary longer possible.” A one-year wind-down model is successful effect, and users person been told to commencement migrating disconnected the platform.

MakersPlace unopen down successful January 2025. Nifty Gateway announced closure successful January 2026 with 650,000 NFTs inactive connected platform. Christie’s closed its integer creation section past fall. Sotheby’s gutted its Metaverse squad successful 2024. Magic Eden unopen down its NFT marketplace.

OpenSea is the lone survivor.

Key Details:

• • Foundation NFT platform is shutting down after a merchantability to Blackdove collapsed; CEO Kayvon Tehranian confirmed the wind-down successful an unfastened letter, and infrastructure stays unrecorded for 1 twelvemonth portion users migrate
  • The numbers: Foundation facilitated $230M successful superior income astatine peak; NFT creation trading measurement dropped from $2.9B successful 2021 to $23.8M successful aboriginal 2025
  • The afloat assemblage count: MakersPlace (Jan 2025), KnownOrigin (Jul 2024), Christie’s integer creation (fall 2025), Nifty Gateway (Jan 2026), Magic Eden (Mar 2026), Foundation (Apr 2026)

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are greenish aft Trump says warfare should extremity soon; BTC +1.3% astatine $75.7k; ETH +1% astatine $2,357; SOL +3% astatine $88; HYPE -3% astatine $43.60
• M (+28%), RAVE (+23%), and ARB (+13%) led apical movers
• Oil even astatine $88; Gold -1$ astatine $4,780
• Stocks person closed green for a record-tying 12 days successful a enactment and would acceptable a caller grounds if greenish today
• Tennessee lawmakers introduced a bill to put authorities funds successful Bitcoin, joining a increasing database of state-level Bitcoin reserve efforts moving done legislatures successful 2026.
• The Polkadot-Ethereum span hack cost $25M successful losses - 10x the archetypal estimate
• DoubleZero launched an borderline platform giving trading firms accelerated entree to Solana blockchain data
• Circle is being sued for its nonaccomplishment to frost funds during the Drift exploit

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $26M successful nett inflows on Thursday; the ETH ETFs saw $18M successful inflows
• Bitcoin miners sold 32,000 BTC in Q1, much than they sold successful each of 2025

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were mostly green; DOGE +2%, SHIB +3%, PEPE +4%, TRUMP +3%, PENGU +5%, SPX +4%, FARTCOIN +4%
• Asteroid (+150x), Belief (+400%), Zerebro (+40%), and Griffain (+39%) led notable onchain movers

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.7 posted apical benchmark scores in coding tests up of its release
• Pumpcade is launching an ACE round and allowing token holders to person to equity successful the institution astatine a 2.5:1 ratio, giving the institution an implied $75M marketplace headdress astatine existent prices
• Artemis launched Artemis II as an unfastened concern portal
• Odds of a MegaETH token launch coming by extremity of May jumped implicit 90% connected prediction markets

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were somewhat green; Punks +3% astatine 26.9 ETH, Pudgy adjacent astatine 4.1 ETH, BAYC +2% astatine 6.5 ETH; Hypurr’s -1% astatine 399 HYPE
• Gimboz (+25%) and Memeland Captainz (+15%) led notable movers
• Yuga CEO Garga announced he would beryllium stepping down arsenic CEO and moving to Chairman of the Board, portion Figge volition instrumentality his spot arsenic CEO