A new report shows that Binance almost has a monopoly in the CEX market in terms of crypto airdrop distribution and staking rewards. In 2024, the exchange received $2.6 billion of a total of $2.7 billion in rewards, amounting to 94% of the entire market segment.
In an exclusive press release shared with BeInCrypto, Binance also revealed that it’s making substantial changes to its airdrop services to improve user experience and make participation easier.
In the past year, the exchange has become synonymous with the latest airdrops, as most users are accessing their rewards through the platform.
Exchanges with Most Launchpool Rewards and Airdrops in 2024. Source: CoinMarketCap
Based on this impressive performance in the airdrop sector, Binance has substantially upgraded a few of its services. The platform has revamped its Launchpool and BNB Earn pages, making it easier for users to both track and participate in airdrops.
“With these upgrades, we’re making it easier than ever for users to unlock the full potential of BNB and participate in high-quality token launches. The redesigned Binance Launchpool and BNB pages reflect our commitment to user education, simplicity, and maximizing rewards,” said Jeff Li, VP of Product at Binance.
The updated BNB page will give Binance users key benefits, such as real-time information on airdrops across its platforms, including Launchpool, Megadrop, and HODLer Airdrops.
Users will also see features like trading fee discounts, VIP perks, and a historical rewards section. These improvements are designed to help the firm maintain its significant dominance while continuing to focus on integrity.
Hopefully, these improvements will allow the firm to maintain its significant dominance while maintaining its usual integrity. Last month, Binance Research identified some systemic problems with airdrops in general, and the exchange seems particularly concerned with its reputation.
A local media report claims that Q1 2025’s four worst-performing ETFs in the UK were all related to crypto and blockchain. These products track more nebulous market indicators, not specific tokens.
However, global recession fears are also spurring a downturn in ETFs tied to specific assets. This data from Britain is only one piece of the puzzle, but it doesn’t suggest an optimistic outcome in the near future.
However, according to a local media report, a few crypto products are the worst-performing ETFs in the UK in Q1 2025.
Morningstar, a British finance publication, claimed that Q1 2025’s four lowest-performing ETFs in the UK were crypto and blockchain-related.
The worst offenders were VanEck Crypto & Blockchain Innovators UCITS ETF (DAPP), Global X Blockchain UCITS ETF (BKCH), and iShares Blockchain Technology UCITS ETF (BLKC).
Worst-Performing ETFs in the UK. Source: Morningstar
It is very important to note that all these ETFs are tied to the crypto market in general, not specific tokens. As friendlier US regulators have signaled fresh approvers, issuers are launching more of these indirect products.
Three of the four worst-performing ETFs in the UK are traded by major crypto-related issuers.
All that is to say, this recent data from the UK could give valuable insights into the global crypto ETF market. None of these results paint an optimistic picture, and the bearish news from token-specific ETFs only makes the market seem more dismal.
It may be too soon to say, but institutional crypto funds may be in for a contraction.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had previously confirmed that El Salvador is upholding its commitment to halt Bitcoin accumulation within its public sector.
Yet, on-chain data reveals a different reality that the Central American nation is continuing to grow its Bitcoin reserves quietly.
Bitcoin Accumulation Continues in El Salvador Despite IMF’s Policy Claims
In an April 26 press briefing, Rodrigo Valdes, Director of the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, stated that El Salvador is complying with the agreed non-BTC accumulation policy.
“In terms of El Salvador, let me say that I can confirm that they continue to comply with their commitment of non-accumulation of bitcoin by the overall fiscal sector, which is the performance criteria that we have,” Valdes stated.
“The program of El Salvador is not about bitcoin. It’s much more, much deeper in structural reforms, in terms of governance, in terms of transparency. There is a lot of progress there. And also, on fiscal. And authorities have been making a lot of progress implementing the reform,” he continued.
Beyond BTC, Valdes stressed that fiscal reforms are another priority for El Salvador. These measures could unlock access to as much as $3.5 billion in financial assistance, potentially boosting private sector investments and supporting sustainable economic growth.
El Salvador’s efforts are tied to its December 2024 agreement with the IMF for a $1.4 billion loan. As part of the deal, the financial regulator required the government to revise its Bitcoin policies.
These changes included removing mandatory BTC acceptance for merchants, ending Bitcoin-based tax payments, and scaling back the Chivo wallet project.
Stacy Herbert, Director of the National Bitcoin Office, emphasized that El Salvador will continue to expand its strategic Bitcoin reserve.
She explained that this move helps the country maintain its first-mover advantage in the crypto space.
“El Salvador continues front-running the rest of the world by adding to its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. First mover advantage intensifies,” Herbert said.
Meanwhile, the country’s embrace of emerging technologies continues to attract international attention. Stablecoin issuer Tether recently relocated its headquarters to El Salvador, praising the nation’s favorable regulatory environment.
In addition, El Salvador recently signed a letter of intent with AI leader NVIDIA to develop sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure. This move will strengthen its position as a rising innovation hub in Latin America.
At Paris Blockchain Week, BeInCrypto sat down with Andrey Fedorov, the Chief Marketing Officer and acting Chief Business Development Officer at STON.fi, to dive deep into the platform’s mission, roadmap, and broader views on the DeFi sector.
Andrey Fedorov shared insights into how Omniston, a liquidity aggregation protocol developed by STON.fi, aims to simplify and streamline decentralized liquidity access across the TON blockchain and beyond. It presents a unified integration point for DeFi apps, liquidity providers, and users alike.
Andrey Fedorov on Omniston
Omniston is a decentralized liquidity aggregation protocol that connects DeFi apps to TON liquidity. This protocol is built for the TON blockchain, which means that when users want to swap TON-based tokens, Omniston finds the best deals. I’d say this is a protocol and not an exchange in itself, but it does connect apps, for example, for some exchanges, wallets, games, some other apps that need to access liquidity. So, there are users in these apps who want to swap and trade tokens.
Andrey Fedorov at Paris Blockchain Week
Usually, DeFi apps need to find and integrate with various liquidity sources — a process that’s time-consuming, complex, and often expensive due to the integration work involved. That’s where Omniston comes in. Basically, instead of connecting to five or ten different liquidity sources one by one, you just integrate with Omniston once. It’s like this one plug-in point.
So when a DeFi app connects to Omniston, it automatically gets access to all these different liquidity sources that are already connected. And it works both ways — liquidity providers, market makers, and anyone who has liquidity, they also get access to the user base of those apps.
And the cool thing is, anyone can plug into Omniston. If you have access to liquidity, whether it’s on-chain (like liquidity pools or vaults) or off-chain (like private funds), you can integrate through Omniston. This makes your liquidity available to all the apps connected to Omniston.
As a result, users benefit from deeper liquidity, and liquidity providers can earn yield by serving those users. We use the term “liquidity providers” broadly — it includes market makers and any other entities that can supply liquidity.
About Omniston’s roadmap
Right now, Omniston is mainly focused on providing access — so we’re not charging anything at this stage. The idea is really to drive usage. We want people to connect and start building with it. Liquidity providers can already earn money, and the same goes for DeFi apps — they can build on top of Omniston and create their own revenue models.
As for monetization on our side, we think it’ll come, but probably not in the traditional ‘pay-to-use’ way. We just launched about a month ago, so it’s still very early. The priority right now is adoption. We want to get more apps plugged in, more liquidity providers onboarded. Once we scale that up, we’ll explore monetization options — but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll start charging across the board.
The STON.fi team is still finalizing KPIs. We’re testing everything live — this is a working product — so we’re figuring out the numbers as we go. But if I had to name one core metric right now, it’s connectivity. We want to connect as many applications as possible, and aggregate as much liquidity as we can. That’s the north star for us.
Looking at the roadmap, the next big step is cross-chain swaps. Omniston currently runs on the TON blockchain, but we’ve already built the architecture for cross-chain functionality, and we’re actively testing it. Over the next few months, we’ll be working on integration testing.
Of course, we’re taking it step by step. The next chain will likely be Tron, and then we’ll move into EVM ecosystems. But it’s not going to be all at once — we’re rolling this out gradually.
TON — The Ideal Blockchain for Omniston?
There are two reasons why we chose TON. First, it is a technically strong blockchain. Second, it’s rapidly becoming the native chain of Telegram, which has a massive user base of over one billion people.
TON helps us access these huge markets. A technically strong blockchain plus a huge market is a good fit. Additionally, the TON ecosystem offers solid developer support and growing resources, making it a compelling platform on which to build.
I would also add that the TON ecosystem is growing very fast, with strong support from the TON Foundation. Plus, with so many projects on the chain, they craft good documentation that shows the use cases and so on. For developers building on TON, this means they benefit not just from the strong support but also from the collective experience and momentum of the broader community — which is incredibly valuable.
The Impact of Crypto and Blockchain Regulation
First of all, I don’t think regulation is a limitation per se. It’s something we monitor closely, and we take all regulatory developments into account as we grow.
I would say that Europe has made some progress over here because of MiCA. Regulation in the United States is fragmented, but we still need to watch them closely. Our goal is to remain fully compliant — and we view that as necessary and inevitable.
Promising Crypto Trends
Everybody is speaking about AI agents. The concept is definitely compelling and has strong future potential, but the challenge is that there aren’t many clear, practical use cases yet. What we need to do now is find these good use cases, and currently, I would say that there are not so many. That’s the problem. But again, we need to watch this space closely.
From what I understand, AI agents are already being used to evaluate whether there is a balance in the market. It is interesting to use them for this specific test case, but this is only one. It is the most obvious one.
There’s definitely room to explore more impactful ways to combine AI with crypto. It’s an area worth studying closely, and while we’re still in the early stages, I don’t see any fundamental limitations holding us back.
