Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Bitmine chairman Tom Lee has tipped an end to the “mini-crypto winter” impacting Ether, as the company bought another $139 million in ETH. Forrester said that Stripe’s recently released Machine Payments Protocol could be a game-changer for automated AI transactions and Sweden’s H100 signed a letter of intent to acquire two Bitcoin treasury companies and their BTC holdings, which could make it the second-largest Bitcoin treasury company in Europe.

Bitmine chair sees ‘mini-crypto winter’ thaw for Ether

Bitmine Immersion Technologies chairman Tom Lee has tipped an end to the “mini-crypto winter” impacting Ether, as the company bought another $139 million in ETH last week.

Lee said in a statement on Monday that Bitmine has maintained a higher buying pace over the last three weeks as it expects the end to a several-month-long Ether slump in its “base case.”

The crypto markets crashed in October last year, with Bitcoin falling from its all-time peak above $126,000 during the month, while Ether declined from its August high of $4,946. Analysts have been debating when the crypto markets will see a meaningful rebound.

Lee pointed to positive catalysts, such as the CLARITY Act advancing in Congress and crypto’s relative stability despite recent turmoil in Iran, as signs that winter is starting to thaw.

_After its latest purchase, Bitmine has 4.6 million Ether. Source: _StrategicEthReserve

Lee’s statements came as Bitmine disclosed it had purchased an additional 65,341 Ether in the past week (worth $139 million), bringing total holdings to more than 4.6 million tokens.

Stripe protocol could mark turning point for micropayments, Forrester says

Stripe’s newly launched Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) could mark a turning point for micropayments — a long-promised but underutilized use case in crypto and beyond — as AI agents reshape how transactions are made.

That’s the key takeaway from newly published analysis by Forrester senior analyst Meng Liu, who argues that MPP may succeed where decades of earlier efforts failed.

Introduced earlier this month, MPP enables AI agents to execute transactions automatically, removing the need for human approval at each step. It is described as an open protocol for coordinating payments between AI agents and services. Liu frames this as a structural shift from human-initiated payments to machine-to-machine transactions.

Micropayments, which are typically small transactions worth a few cents or dollars, have long been seen as a way to monetize digital content, services and data, but have struggled to gain traction at scale.

A major barrier to adoption has been human behavior, including cumbersome digital checkout processes and reluctance to approve small charges, Liu said.

_Liu describes the history of micropayments as a “graveyard” of failed attempts, largely due to behavioral constraints. Source: _Forrester

Sweden’s H100 eyes Europe’s No. 2 Bitcoin treasury with 3,500 BTC deal

Sweden-listed health-tech and Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company H100 Group has entered into a letter of intent (LOI) with the shareholders of privately-held Norwegian Bitcoin companies Moonshot and Never Say Die to acquire all shares of the target companies in exchange for newly issued H100 stock.The proposed transaction would be completed with newly issued H100 shares and no cash consideration, a structure intended to preserve the sellers’ Bitcoin exposure while moving the assets into a larger listed vehicle, according to a Monday press release.

A definitive agreement is expected by April 22, with closing targeted after H100’s annual general meeting. H100’s public materials currently show inconsistent AGM dates: its investor-relations calendar lists April 21, while a March 12 company notice referred to an AGM on May 21.

If the deal goes ahead, it would make H100 the second-largest listed Bitcoin treasury company in Europe behind Germany’s Bitcoin Group, which holds 3,605 BTC. H100 currently holds 1,051 Bitcoin, while the target companies hold about 2,450 BTC, bringing H100’s total to 3,501 BTC (worth around $239.7 million at current prices) after the deal, the release states.

H100 stock price, all-time chart. Source: Yahoo Finance

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