Gate News: On April 7, Paul Atkins, Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said at the Vanderbilt University Digital Assets Summit that the SEC’s proposed crypto “safe harbor” framework has been submitted to the Information and Regulatory Affairs Office (OIRA) for review under the Office of Management and Budget, and that only one final step remains before it is formally released. The proposal includes a “start-up exemption” provision, allowing crypto projects to raise a certain amount of funding within a four-year period, while requiring specific disclosures to protect investors. Atkins also revealed that the SEC is moving forward with an “innovation exemption” mechanism, which would create a regulatory sandbox for on-chain assets, but the initiative has sparked controversy between crypto advocates and traditional financial institutions. Atkins emphasized that related legislation still needs to be advanced to ensure the regulatory framework has staying power across administrations.

A court in Honggang District, Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, ruled that two men were convicted of stealing electricity by illegally tapping an oil-field high-voltage power line to power Bitcoin mining. The principal offender, Zhang, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined 50,000 yuan, while the accomplice, Zhao, was sentenced to 4 years and 10 months and fined 20,000 yuan. The total value of the stolen electricity exceeded 800,000 yuan.

The People Power Party of South Korea has introduced a new bill, calling for the repeal of the cryptocurrency trading tax that is set to take effect in 2027, aiming to win support from younger voters and affect the value of votes. Analysts believe it may simply be a political strategy, and the actual impact is unclear; in the future, the bill could be postponed or amended again.

Riot Platforms produced 1,473 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, with daily output down 4% year over year. Net revenue for the quarter was $289.5 million, and computing power deployment reached 42.5 EH/s, up 26% year over year. Total electricity costs fell to 3.0 cents per kilowatt-hour, down 21% year over year.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice to promote the development of small and medium-sized enterprises through affordable computing power services, innovate service models, improve the dedicated section of computing power platforms, implement flexible billing methods, and encourage local authorities to support small and medium-sized enterprises through subsidies such as computing power vouchers.

Axe Compute (NASDAQ: AGPU) released its FY2025 annual financial report, showing a total contract amount of $12 million over the past 30 days, an estimated Q2 revenue of $835,000, and more than 20 clients. Following the earnings release, AGPU’s stock price surged by up to 152%, with trading volume reaching a record high. All computing power is supplied by the Aethir network, covering 94 countries and deploying over 435,000 GPUs.

The Ethereum Foundation’s Barnabé Monnot introduced an “execution tickets” mechanism at the EthCC conference. The goal is to reduce block proposer monopolistic power by using a protocol auction for transaction execution and ordering rights, thereby increasing transparency and fairness. The revenue from execution tickets will be directly burned, ensuring that MEV profits are fairly distributed to all ETH holders, and lowering the participation barrier for home stakers. This mechanism is a core proposal of the Ethereum roadmap’s “Scourge” phase, and it will effectively prevent transaction censorship.

The European Central Bank, in its latest DeFi report, used data from DeFiLlama for the first time, indicating that regulators are paying close attention to decentralized finance. The report sheds light on the problem of concentrated governance power, which is of great significance for policy-making. Improving DeFiLlama’s credibility can help promote cooperation between regulators and DeFi platforms. In the future, DeFi may face stricter compliance requirements, while also bringing governance challenges.

Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms announced that it will move its registration to the United States and rename itself to Keel Infrastructure, focusing on digital infrastructure development. The new stock ticker KEEL will become effective on April 1. The company will pivot into a developer centered on power, plans to expand into power-constrained markets, and will invest its funding into high-performance computing and AI infrastructure.

The Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority will roll out a regulatory framework for crypto exchange-traded derivatives in 2026, requiring a leverage cap of 5:1, applicable to all licensed virtual asset service providers. The new rules emphasize risk control, allowing institutions and retail investors to participate in derivatives trading, while preserving the power to intervene when markets are volatile. This initiative is intended to attract global crypto firms and drive the maturation and development of the crypto market in the Middle East.