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Ripple $4B-$5B bid to purchase Circle rejected — Report

Blockchain payments firm Ripple has reportedly bid up to $5 billion in an effort to acquire stablecoin issuer Circle, but the offer was rejected.

According to an April 30 Bloomberg report, Ripple put in a bid of between $4 billion and $5 billion as part of an attempted takeover of Circle, which was rejected as being too low. Ripple hasn’t considered whether to make another bid to purchase the stablecoin issuer.

The reported acquisition came less than 30 days after Circle applied for an initial public offering (IPO) in the US. Cointelegraph reached out to representatives of Circle and Ripple for comment, but did not receive a response from either at the time of publication.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

Price predictions 4/30: BTC, ETH, XRP, BNB, SOL, DOGE, ADA, SUI, LINK, AVAX

Key points:

Bitcoin’s 7-day volatility is the lowest in 563 days, signaling an impending range expansion.

Bitcoin’s breakout above $95,000 could swiftly take it to $100,000 and above.

Although the probability is low, traders should remain cautious about a pullback in the near term.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been trading in a tight consolidation near the $95,000 level for several days. K33 Research head of research Vetle Lunde said in a post on X that Bitcoin’s 7-day volatility has hit a 563-day low.

A range expansion usually follows a low-volatility period. Although it is difficult to predict the direction of the breakout, a tight consolidation just below a crucial resistance increases the likelihood of an upside rally. Several analysts are also optimistic that Bitcoin’s break will occur to the upside.

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

Although

Global demand grows for non-dollar stablecoins, says Fireblocks exec

Governments outside the US, including Singapore, are increasingly interested in stablecoins not tied to the US dollar, despite their currently limited liquidity, Fireblocks director of policy Dea Markova told Cointelegraph at Token2049.

In an exclusive interview, Markova described the competition with dollar-pegged stablecoins as “all about sovereignty.” She compared the situation to earlier tensions between governments and US payment giants like Visa and Mastercard. “Now we’re seeing the same dynamic with stablecoins — on a smaller scale for now — but they’re definitely emerging as a new arena for sovereign concerns,” she said.

According to Markova, dollar-pegged stablecoins operating in the European Union are already “having a massive headache,” particularly from central banks. “Even though they’re compliant and regulated, they’re having a fixed push back.”

Dea Markova at Token2049. Source: Cointelegraph

The European Central Bank is increasing pressure to accelerate the development of a digital euro, citing concerns over

Bitcoin selling at $95K is ‘profit-taking pressure test’ but BTC whales are still buying

Key Takeaways:

US GDP shrank -0.3% in Q1, far below +0.3% forecasts, sparking recession fears.

Bitcoin faces selling pressure with its spot volume delta dropping $300 million in 3 days.

Whales are accumulating BTC, but smaller holders are selling, hinting at profit-taking.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price dropped under $93,000 on April 30, after the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data revealed a -0.3% contraction in Q1. While the GDP missed expectations of +0.3%, the GDP Price Index soared to 3.7%—the highest since August 2023. Polymarket odds of a recession in 2025 hit 67%, with consumer confidence at its lowest since May 2020.

Quarterly US GDP growth data. Source: X.com

Meanwhile, in March 2025, PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) inflation fell to 2.3% (above the expected 2.2%), and Core PCE dropped to 2.6% (in line with expectations). Still, February’s Core PCE was revised from 2.8% to 3.0%, signaling mixed

Ex-Binance CEO chides Europe over crypto adoption

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the former CEO of crypto exchange Binance, said most European countries were moving “nowhere” in terms of the adoption of digital currencies.

Speaking at the Token2049 conference in Dubai on April 30, Zhao said that areas of the United Arab Emirates were “extremely pro-business,” leading to crypto adoption in Dubai, while others like Bhutan were building national Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) stockpiles. According to Zhao, the US was pressing other countries’ hands by exploring its own policies for a crypto reserve, but those in Europe didn’t seem to be reacting.

“I don’t see Europe in this discussion,” said Zhao, highlighting one exception. “Montenegro is actually quite pro-crypto. We had an active dialogue with [the] prime minister there, and he’s a very forward-thinking person, leader. But other than Montenegro, I don’t have any other,

Grayscale launches Bitcoin adopters exchange-traded fund

Asset manager Grayscale launched the Grayscale Bitcoin Adopters exchange-traded fund (ETF), an investment vehicle that tracks companies employing a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury, or holding strategy.

According to the April 30 announcement, the ETF will provide exposure to companies across seven business sectors, including Bitcoin mining firms, automotive companies, and energy.

Some of the most notable firms in the ETF include Michael Saylor’s Strategy, mining company MARA, automotive manufacturer Tesla, BTC treasury company Metaplanet, and aerospace energy firm KULR Technology Group.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Adopters ETF highlights the growing trend of Bitcoin acquisition companies using the scarce digital asset to drive up shareholder prices and to protect their corporate financial reserves against the inflation inherent in fiat currencies.

Public companies with Bitcoin holdings. Source: River

Bitcoin drops under $93K after US GDP data shows shrinking economy, raising recession alarms

Key points:

US GDP shrank in Q1, raising recession alarms while also prompting calls for Fed rate cuts.

Bitcoin dropped to $92,910 as GDP figures were released, but sustained buy-side demand could provide support.

Today’s crypto derisking is likely transitory; market fundamentals remain strong.

Bitcoin (BTC) price took an abrupt tumble as data showed the US gross domestic product (GDP) retracting by 0.3% in Q1, raising alarms among analysts anticipating a recession. Following the news, BTC price dropped to an intra-day low of $92,910, while the DOW and S&P 500 fell by 1% and 1.3% respectively.

While the GDP figures are shocking at face value, CNBC pointed out that the drop was primarily due to “a surge in imports ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.” Imports are subtracted from GDP, suggesting that the pullback is more transitory than endemic.

After an initial 1% price drop, Bitcoin

EU digital product passports won’t solve food fraud, but blockchain can

Opinion by: Fraser Edwards, co-founder and CEO, Cheqd

Brutal honesty has its place, especially when confronting discomfort, so here’s one that can’t be sweetened with honey: 96% of imported honey in the UK is fake! Tests found that 24 of 25 jars were suspicious or didn’t meet regulatory standards.

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) can fix this.

The UK Food Standards Agency and the European Commission both urge reform to tackle this concern by creating a robust traceability database within supply chain networks to ensure consumer transparency and trust. Data, however, is not the problem. The issue is people tampering with it.

This is not the first time products have been revealed to be inauthentic, with the Honey Authenticity Network highlighting that one-third of all honey products were fake in 2020, a fraudulent industry amounting to

Bitcoin price recovers, Ethereum RWA value up 20%: April in charts

April 2025 witnessed crypto markets rocked by more tariffs at the direction of US President Donald Trump — controversial policies that could have influenced the outcome of Canada’s elections on April 28.

On April 2, Trump levied “discounted reciprocal tariffs” on 185 countries and territories. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2,200 points on April 4, while the S&P 500 dropped nearly 6%, its largest decline since March 2020. Bitcoin (BTC) went along for the ride but broke from stocks as it recovered toward the end of the month.

Blockchain adoption metrics for Ethereum are looking good, as the network now boasts 60% real-world asset (RWA) tokenization value. Major firms like BlackRock are sure the blockchain will be the standard for RWAs, but other observers believe that scaling issues could create problems.

On matters of policy, pro-crypto legislators in a number of US states are pushing

China’s DeepSeek launches new open-source AI after R1 took on OpenAI

Chinese artificial intelligence development company DeepSeek has released a new open-weight large language model (LLM).

DeepSeek uploaded its newest model, Prover V2, to the hosting service Hugging Face on April 30. The latest model, released under the permissive open-source MIT license, aims to tackle math proof verification.

DeepSeek-Prover-V2 HuggingFace repository. Source: HuggingFace

Prover V2 has 671 billion parameters, making it significantly larger than its predecessors, Prover V1 and Prover V1.5, which were released in August 2024. The paper accompanying the first version explained that the model was trained to translate math competition problems into formal logic using the Lean 4 programming language — a tool widely used for proving theorems.

The developers say Prover V2 compresses mathematical knowledge into a format that allows it to generate and verify