Singapore-based MetaComp announced on Friday that Alibaba took part in its Pre-A+ funding round, lifting the stablecoin firm's total capital raised over the past three months to $35 million. MetaComp plans to use the new funds to scale its StableX Network for compliant, real-time cross-border payments across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

The European Central Bank has presented its Appia roadmap as a long-term framework for tokenized wholesale financial markets based on central bank money, with the Pontes distributed ledger settlement solution targeted for launch in the third quarter of 2026. The plan outlines how market DLT infrastructures will connect to the Eurosystem's TARGET Services and is accompanied by a public consultation open until April 22.

Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, bought 17,994 Bitcoin for $1.28 billion last week, increasing its total reserves to 738,731 BTC. The latest purchase, executed at an average price of $70,946 per BTC, came while the asset was trading below the firm's overall average acquisition cost of $75,985.

Nasdaq announced on Monday that it is working with U.S. crypto exchange Kraken, its parent Payward, and Backed, the issuer of xStocks, to build an equities transformation gateway for tokenized shares. The initiative follows Nasdaq's tokenization filing with U.S. securities regulators in September 2025 and Kraken's acquisition of Backed in December, with full issuer services expected to start in the first half of 2027.

Crypto investment products saw $619 million of inflows last week, with Bitcoin ETPs alone attracting $521 million and turning positive year-to-date. Total assets under management in crypto ETPs rebounded to $135.4 billion, even as geopolitical risks connected to Iran weighed on sentiment.

Vancouver city staff have concluded Bitcoin is not an eligible municipal investment under the Vancouver Charter and advised council to halt Mayor Ken Sim's 2024 proposal to establish a Bitcoin reserve, ahead of a Tuesday vote. The initiative, originally passed with six votes in favor and two against, aimed to diversify the city's financial reserves and use Bitcoin as an inflation hedge, but faces renewed scrutiny amid the cryptocurrency's price decline.

On Wednesday, US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $462 million in net inflows, led by BlackRock's IBIT with $307 million, while Bitcoin briefly moved past $73,000. Over the last three trading days, cumulative ETF inflows reached $1.1 billion, pushing year-to-date flows back to around $700 million after a prior $3.8 billion outflow stretch.

On Tuesday, US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $225.2 million in net inflows as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) attracted $322.4 million, offsetting sizable redemptions from rival products. Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale’s GBTC saw outflows of $89.3 million and $28.2 million, while weekly inflows for US spot Bitcoin ETFs reached $683.3 million amid ongoing market fear and geopolitical uncertainty.

The European Central Bank, in a new working paper titled "Stablecoins and Monetary Policy Transmission" released on Tuesday, warns that rising stablecoin adoption is associated with declining retail bank deposits and weaker lending to firms. The study finds that as households and companies move funds from bank deposits into stablecoins, banks may face higher funding costs and monetary policy transmission to the real economy could be disrupted, especially given the dominance of US dollar-pegged stablecoins.