U.S. presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr. has expressed his support for Bitcoin and opposition to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in a Twitter thread. Kennedy believes that CBDCs would give the government unprecedented power to surveil and control economic life, while Bitcoin allows people to conduct transactions without government interference. He also highlighted examples of governments financially censoring their political enemies, citing the Canadian government's freezing of the bank accounts of over 200 individuals protesting against the vaccine mandate. Several U.S. politicians and states have also taken a stand against CBDCs, citing the risk of financial censorship, though some stakeholders have warned that anti-CBDC moves could hurt Bitcoin.

April 2023 was an exciting month for the crypto market as the Ethereum network was upgraded to enable staking withdrawals on April 12. Meanwhile, BTC and ETH reached yearly highs, gaining 2.7% and 2.6% on the month, respectively.

May 5 (Cointime) -&nbsp;OpenSats, a non-profit organization that supports free and open-source software and projects related to Bitcoin,&nbsp;<a href="https://opensats.org/blog">announced</a>&nbsp;that it has received a donation of $10 million from #startsmall, Jack Dorsey's philanthropic initiative.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Half of the donation amount, $5 million USD, will be used to advance the new and growing nostr ecosystem.

Fintech firm Block (SQ) reported $2.16 billion in bitcoin revenue in its Cash App unit during the first quarter, up 18% from $1.83 billion in Q4 and up 25% from Q1 2022, the company said in its shareholder letter on Thursday.

Block reported a gross profit of $770 million for Q1, which is a 16% increase from the previous year.

A spike in transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain involving Ethereum-style tokens and NFT-like “inscriptions” has driven up congestion on the network, pushing the average fee rate to the highest in nearly two years while showering miners of the cryptocurrency with extra revenue.

Arbitrum’s Chronos Reaches $217M TVL With Staking, Becomes 8th Largest DEX; Decentralized Exchange SushiSwap Rolls Out V3 Liquidity Pool on 13 Chains; Deloitte Enters the Polkadot Ecosystem To Issue Reusable Digital Credentials

Amid rising pressure on the US banking sector, Western Alliance, the latest bank that was reportedly said to be facing collapse, issued a statement on Thursday. The bank’s management said it was not exploring a sale and that it did not hire an advisor to explore strategic options. The statement came as the bank’s shares continued to tumble on Thursday, with a drop in value by 39%. Earlier, reports suggested it was exploring potential sale. Meanwhile, another bank, PacWest Bancorp is believed to be likely facing a collapse, as its stock price dropped around 48% on Thursday.