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World Launches Onchain Prediction Market on Solana Through Phantom

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World Launches Onchain Prediction Market on Solana Through Phantom

The platform, unmasked in late June after two-plus years as an anonymous “Trade Everything” teaser account, opens trading in Phantom’s CASH stablecoin and leans on Chainlink oracles instead of human-run resolution.

World, a prediction market built on Solana, went live inside the Phantom wallet and at world.xyz on July 1, using Chainlink as its primary oracle infrastructure, according to the project’s own X post.

The platform lets users trade event contracts on crypto prices and the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with sports, geopolitics and macroeconomic markets planned in the coming weeks.

World is non-custodial, funds move only when a user enters a market, and positions, settlement and redemptions occur onchain. Winning positions settle automatically in $CASH, Phantom’s stablecoin, rather than requiring users to manually claim payouts.

Anonymous Teaser

World’s identity was a mystery for roughly two and a half years before this week’s unveiling. The @world_xyz account had circulated on X since late 2023 with little more than a glowing globe graphic, cryptic posts and the tagline “Trade Everything,” fueling speculation the project could be a meme coin, a trading app or broader Solana infrastructure.

The project’s identity surfaced not through a product announcement but through a legal disclosure: a page on Phantom’s site named “World Prediction Markets” as the non-custodial protocol powering the wallet’s onchain prediction markets, providing order routing to Solana liquidity providers for positions opened on or after June 1, according to Phantom’s disclosure page and help-center documentation. The disclosure was first spotted and publicized on X in late June, per Solana Compass, ahead of this week’s public launch.

World’s team has not been publicly identified, and the project has no announced token. No funding round or investor backing has been disclosed. World replaces a prior arrangement in which Phantom’s in-app prediction markets ran on Kalshi, the CFTC-regulated exchange, via order-routing infrastructure that launched inside Phantom in December 2025.

Chainlink Steps In for Resolution

Chainlink supplies World with market data and resolution infrastructure through Chainlink Data Streams and the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE). CRE, which Chainlink launched in November 2025, is an orchestration layer letting developers deploy workflows executed across decentralized oracle networks, extending consensus-based verification to off-chain computation and data delivery.

Other event-contract platforms have moved the same direction: Polymarket integrated Chainlink oracles in September 2025 to automate settlement of short-duration crypto price markets, and Aave adopted Chainlink Automation and CRE to automate governance operations across 18 chains. Chainlink separately struck an oracle deal with ADI Predictstreet, an official FIFA World Cup 2026 partner running its own prediction markets.

Pedro Miranda, head of consumer at the Solana Foundation, was quoted in the announcement: “Prediction markets are one of the most powerful applications you can build on a high-performance blockchain. World is designed to show what Solana makes possible: real-time markets, onchain settlement, and a user experience that meets people where they are.”

A Fast-Growing Market

World enters a sector that has expanded rapidly over the past year. Kalshi raised $1 billion in May at a $22 billion valuation and passed $100 billion in lifetime trading volume in June, with single-day volume topping $1 billion for the first time during a stretch of overlapping sports events. Polymarket took a $2 billion strategic investment from Intercontinental Exchange in October 2025 at roughly an $8-9 billion valuation and relaunched for U.S. users after acquiring the CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse QCX for $112 million, a deal that closed after the Department of Justice and the CFTC dropped a probe into the platform.

World is not the only Solana-native entrant. Jupiter unveiled a competing “Forecast” beta on June 29 offering 15-minute bitcoin price markets, per its own announcement. Other Solana-based prediction market efforts include Drift Protocol’s BET product and Hxro Network’s Parimutuel Protocol.

Regulatory scrutiny of the sector continues. The CFTC, now chaired by Michael Selig, has moved to expand event-contract access rather than restrict it, publishing a formal rulemaking notice on prediction markets in June, according to the CFTC. Kalshi has continued to face state-level legal challenges over sports-related contracts even as a federal appeals court ruled in April that federal commodities law preempts state gaming law in at least one case, per Skadden’s summary of the Third Circuit decision.

Onchain Backdrop

World’s launch comes as trading activity on Solana has picked up after a volatile year. The network’s decentralized exchange volume totaled roughly $67.3 billion over the trailing 30 days, up about 58% from the prior 30-day period, according to DefiLlama. Solana’s total value locked in DeFi stood at roughly $4.85 billion, down from about $8.68 billion a year earlier, per DefiLlama.

CASH, the stablecoin World uses for settlement, launched in September 2025 as the first stablecoin issued on Bridge’s Open Issuance platform. Its circulating supply has grown to about $121 million, according to DefiLlama — a fraction of USDC’s roughly $73.9 billion and USDT’s roughly $184.9 billion, but up from about $100 million in December, as The Defiant previously reported.

SOL traded at $76.91, up 5.6% over 24 hours and 11.5% over the past week, while LINK traded at $7.38, up 3.1% over 24 hours but down roughly 16.8% over the past month, according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum Nonprofit Launches to Expand Institutional Adoption

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Ethereum Nonprofit Launches to Expand Institutional Adoption

An Ethereum founder and some of its biggest treasury holders are behind a new independent nonprofit launched to coordinate the blockchain’s institutional outreach, underscoring the ecosystem’s push to attract more banks, asset managers and financial institutions as competition from rival blockchains intensifies.

The nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, was introduced on Wednesday with backing from Ether (ETH) treasury companies BitMine Immersion Technologies and SharpLink, as well as blockchain co-founder Joe Lubin and other contributors. It plans to expand beyond New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore into additional financial hubs while offering education, standards development, industry research and institutional events.

In a social media post announcing the launch, Ethereum Institutional said the ecosystem has lacked “a credible, independent front door” for engaging financial institutions, arguing that such a role is needed to accelerate institutional adoption.

Source: Ethereum Institutional on X.com

The launch comes as Ethereum continues to dominate the markets for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), even as rival blockchains step up efforts to attract institutional users. According to Token Terminal, Ethereum hosts nearly 58% of the tokenized RWA market. Data from DeFiLlama also shows the network accounts for roughly half of the $311 billion stablecoin market.

Although competition is intensifying, Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain for stablecoins. Source: DeFiLlama

To be sure, the development also comes as Ether prices remain under pressure, weighing on the balance sheets of companies with large ETH treasuries. BitMine and SharpLink are both sitting on sizable unrealized losses, with the cryptocurrency’s price recently falling to a low near $1,500. 

ETH was trading at more than $1,620 at last look on Wednesday, with a market cap of $195.4 billion, Coingecko data showed. It was trading above $4,000 as recently as Oct. 27.

Nevertheless, institutional adoption remains one of the crypto industry’s strongest trends. According to 21shares, current asset prices have yet to reflect growing demand from portfolio managers, asset managers and financial institutions.

Related: Credit unions managing $25B in assets join stablecoin infrastructure program

Ethereum Foundation overhaul reshapes institutional strategy

The institutional push comes as the Ethereum Foundation undergoes a broad organizational overhaul. The nonprofit, which supports Ethereum’s core protocol development and ecosystem growth, has spent the past year navigating leadership changes, internal debates over governance and development priorities, growing competition from rival blockchains and criticism over Ether’s market performance.

Last month, co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang stepped down, one of roughly 19 reported departures from the foundation this year. The leadership shake-up was followed by a restructuring that included laying off 20% of the foundation’s workforce.

Amid the restructuring, the ecosystem has also seen the emergence of new independent organizations aimed at advancing Ethereum’s long-term development. In June, the same backers behind Ethereum Institutional launched Ethlabs, a nonprofit research organization focused on advancing Ethereum’s scalability.

Related: Buterin fires back at Ethereum Foundation critics, recommits to neutrality

StanChart sees positives in news

Standard Charter’s Geoff Kendrick said that today’s announcement, paired with the earlier launch of Ethlabs, “have direct positive implications for both Ethereum layer 1, layer 2s and the Ethereum originated DeFi protocols.”

“Very importantly the anchor funders for both organizations are the three commercial giants in the Ethereum ecosystem,” StanChart’s global head of digital assets research said in a Wednesday note to clients. “Their expertise will drive commercialisation of the Ethereum ecosystem at the time TradFi is entering at scale.”

Kendrick recently reaffirmed his ETH price forecasts of $4,000 for the end of 2026 and $40,000 for the end of 2030.

Goliath Ventures CEO pleads guilty in $400 million crypto Ponzi case

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Goliath Ventures CEO pleads guilty in $400 million crypto Ponzi case

Christopher Alexander Delgado, the former CEO of Goliath Ventures, pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering charges stemming from a crypto investment scheme prosecutors said stole at least $400 million from investors.

Delgado, a Florida resident, pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

He faces up to 20 years in prison for each fraud count and up to 10 years on the money laundering count.

Goliath Ventures, formerly Gen-Z Venture Firm, solicited investors from at least January 2023 through January 2026 with pitches for monthly payouts it claimed came from crypto liquidity pools, prosecutors said. Delgado admitted in his plea agreement to causing at least $250 million in investor losses.

Investor money was used to pay earlier investors, fund withdrawals and cover luxury spending, according to prosecutors. Delgado bought at least 6 residential properties worth between $1.15 million and $8.5 million each, plus Lamborghinis, Rolls-Royces, Rolex watches, dozens of Louis Vuitton bags and custom Tiffany jewelry, with the funds.

1,700 UK Investors Sue Binance Over Derivatives Offerings

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1,700 UK Investors Sue Binance Over Derivatives Offerings

Almost 1,700 UK investors are reportedly suing Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao for 150 million British pounds ($200 million), alleging the crypto exchange offered and sold crypto derivatives without regulatory approval.

The law firm representing the investors, KP Law, said Binance’s leverage tokens, futures contracts and options offerings breached the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and that these products continued to be offered after the Financial Conduct Authority banned such products from being offered to retail customers in January 2021.

“There appeared to be no effective barrier preventing UK customers from accessing them,” the law firm said.

Binance told Cointelegraph it would “defend against these claims through the appropriate legal process” and it “remains committed to its obligations to users and to operating in accordance with applicable law.”

Source: Cointelegraph

The lawsuit adds to a growing list of legal and regulatory challenges for the crypto exchange, including recently failing to secure a Markets in Crypto-Assets-compliant license from a European Union member state before the July 1 deadline. 

Binance has also been facing allegations that it facilitated $850 million in transactions tied to a sanctioned Iranian financier that flowed to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The crypto exchange strongly denied the allegations.

Binance UK customers lost “tens of thousands of pounds”

One of the affected customers, Tomas Sutas, was a financial controller who allegedly invested more than $132,400 into Binance’s derivatives products before the value of his investments was wiped out, the Financial Times reported.

Reuters also reported that multiple UK users lost “tens of thousands of pounds” through the products.

Related: Australia’s crypto travel rule is coming into effect: Here’s what’s changing 

KP Law said it is still identifying the full scope of affected customers.

“While the precise number of UK customers affected is not publicly known, Binance is one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, meaning that a substantial number of users could potentially have been exposed to these issues.”

Binance’s operations in the UK became heavily restricted in June 2021 when the FCA informed Binance Markets Limited that it couldn’t operate in the region without written consent.

Reuters noted that the lawsuit was filed in the London High Court. 

The Binance-affiliated Nest Exchange and “persons unknown” were also named as defendants.

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves 

Jefferies wouldn’t buy the dip as Open USD heats up stablecoin race

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Jefferies wouldn’t buy the dip as Open USD heats up stablecoin race

“Large groups of large companies coordinate poorly, have misaligned incentives, slow things down and rarely create the space for real durable innovation,” he wrote.

Test for the consortium model

That skepticism is shared by Lorenzo Valente, director of digital asset research at ARK Invest, who noted that crypto has seen several consortium-backed stablecoin initiatives over the years, including Meta’s Diem project and Paxos-led Global Dollar Network.

“Every year we get our consortium-style initiative around a stablecoin,” Valente wrote in an X post. “While the set of players here is obviously potent, I remain highly skeptical any of these initiatives can hit scale.”

He said Open Standard’s biggest challenge may be coordinating more than 140 participants with competing interests.

“A consortium of hundreds of rivals has no precedent for working,” he said. “The pace of decision-making across competitors is going to be glacial.”

Valente likened the model to decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, whose governance structures often struggled to make timely decisions.

“‘Owned by everyone’ almost always means accountable to no one,” he said. “I’d bet on the two operators who can ship unilaterally over a committee that has to ask hundreds of rivals for permission.”

He also questioned whether large banks, payment networks and technology companies would remain committed if the project encounters regulatory pressure. Circle and Tether, he noted, have spent years building global regulatory infrastructure and licensing, while a consortium could find it harder to stay aligned if conditions become more challenging.

MiCA Transition Ends After Wave of Last-Minute Crypto Licenses

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MiCA Transition Ends After Wave of Last-Minute Crypto Licenses

A slew of last-minute licenses were issued to cryptocurrency companies in Europe as Wednesday marked the end of the transitional period under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

Four companies were authorized in Italy this week, including asset management platform Hodlie, crypto exchange Young Platform, trading platform CryptoSmart and crypto service provider Hercle, bringing Italy’s total to eight authorized crypto asset service providers (CASPs), according to a Tuesday announcement from the Bank of Italy. The central bank said the country’s financial regulator, Consob, approved the licenses in coordination with it.

The French financial markets regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), also added three new companies on Tuesday, including crypto investment platform Mereau Finance, blockchain infrastructure provider Iceblock and crypto service provider Aplo, bringing the total number of licensed CASPs to 31.

In Malta, digital asset prime broker FalconX announced Monday that it had received a MiCA license, while Venga announced on Wednesday that it had received CASP authorization from Spain.

The licenses were issued during the final stretch of MiCA’s 18-month transitional period, which ended on Wednesday. By Friday, the European Securities and Markets Authority’s (ESMA) interim register showed 244 authorized CASPs across the European Union and European Economic Area.

France’s whitelist includes newly licensed CASPs. Source: AMF

Related: Polish president vetoes crypto bill for third time ahead of MiCA deadline

Largest MiCA-authorized exchanges emerge as transition ends

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, remains unlicensed under MiCA. The exchange applied for authorization in Greece but later withdrew its application, saying it will seek authorization in another member state.

Greece is among the EU member states that have yet to issue a MiCA license.

On June 23, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said crypto service providers that remain unauthorized by the deadline must take “immediate” steps to wind down their EU activities. 

With Binance remaining unlicensed under MiCA, the largest MiCA-authorized exchanges by spot orderbook liquidity include OKX, Coinbase, Bybit, Crypto.com, Gate and Bitstamp, according to DefiLlama data.

MiCA-regulated cryptocurrency exchanges in Europe. Source: DefiLlama

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

New York Life Partners with Centrifuge on Tokenized Corporate Bonds

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New York Life Partners with Centrifuge on Tokenized Corporate Bonds

New York Life Investment Management is tokenizing a high-yield corporate bond strategy for the first time, partnering with Centrifuge on the NYLIM Anemoy fund settled in USDC.

New York Life Investment Management, a $807 billion asset manager, is putting a high-yield corporate bond strategy onchain for the first time. The firm partnered with tokenization platform Centrifuge to launch the NYLIM Anemoy U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Segregated Portfolio, ticker HYB.

The partnership, announced Tuesday, marks NYLIM’s first tokenized product and one of the first high-yield corporate bond strategies available onchain. Subscriptions and redemptions settle in Circle’s USDC, and the underlying portfolio, investment process and risk management stay under NYLIM’s control. Centrifuge, whose protocol carries $1.64 billion in TVL per DefiLlama, provides the tokenization rails.

Junk Bonds Go Onchain

“Tokenization represents a compelling evolution in how investment solutions can be accessed, managed and distributed across both public and private markets,” said Thomas Sy, head of multi-asset solutions at NYLIM, in the companies’ joint release.

HYB is structured as a BVI segregated portfolio, the same wrapper Centrifuge uses across its fund lineup, giving tokenholders direct shareholder recourse to the underlying assets. The offering documents state the product is not being offered or sold to U.S. persons. Centrifuge CEO Bhaji Illuminati told The Block the fund is aimed at stablecoin issuers, DeFi users and DAO treasuries seeking yield beyond Treasury-backed products, with a liquidity arrangement through Grove, part of the Sky ecosystem, meant to support near-instant redemptions.

High-yield corporate bonds, commonly called junk bonds, carry higher credit risk in exchange for higher yields than investment-grade debt. Tokenized real-world assets to date have leaned on Treasuries and private credit; HYB extends that onto sub-investment-grade corporate debt.

Wall Street’s Widening List

NYLIM joins Apollo Global Management and Janus Henderson on Centrifuge’s roster of traditional asset managers, whose Anemoy-branded funds already span Treasury bills and a AAA-rated CLO portfolio exceeding $700 million in assets. Coinbase separately named Centrifuge its preferred tokenization infrastructure partner and took a stake in the firm.

The deal follows asset managers extending tokenized fixed income beyond government debt, including Baillie Gifford’s UK-regulated tokenized bond fund built on Solana and Ethereum with BNY. Centrifuge co-founder Anil Sood said the NYLIM deal “is about moving funds onto infrastructure that is more transparent, more efficient, and more composable.”

Cantor says crypto market near bottom as bitcoin (BTC) cycle points to October low

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Cantor says crypto market near bottom as bitcoin (BTC) cycle points to October low

Crypto markets have struggled in recent months, with bitcoin falling more than 50% from its late-2025 peak after a sharp June selloff driven by persistent exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows, elevated interest rates and weaker risk appetite.

Ether (ETH) and most major altcoins have underperformed bitcoin during the downturn, although a handful of sectors, including decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization, have shown relative resilience.

While crypto adoption is expanding across stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, onchain credit and DeFi, the bank argued that usage alone does not drive token value. Instead, long-term winners will convert activity into sustainable cash flow or lasting monetary demand.

Cantor identified Hyperliquid as the clearest example of fee-driven token economics through HYPE buybacks and burns, while bitcoin remains the benchmark monetary asset and Ethereum the dominant collateral layer for onchain finance.

Solana, Sui, XRP and Zcash each have differentiated strengths, the report said, but still need to prove they can translate ecosystem growth into durable token demand.

The bank also highlighted digital asset treasury companies as an overlooked investment theme, arguing the strongest firms are evolving beyond passive crypto holders into active operators that generate yield, build infrastructure and provide institutional access to digital assets.

It initiated coverage of digital asset treasury companies Forward Industries (FWDI) and Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH) with overweight ratings and price targets of $7.90 and $0.90, respectively.

EthLabs launches as Ethereum undergoes its biggest leadership transition in years

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EthLabs launches as Ethereum undergoes its biggest leadership transition in years

That transition has also reshaped the Ethereum Foundation itself.

Earlier this year, the foundation published a renewed mandate emphasizing Ethereum’s core values: including credible neutrality, self-sovereignty and open infrastructure, while reducing its involvement in some implementation-focused initiatives. Combined with ongoing budget constraints, the shift has resulted in restructuring across the organization.

Dietrichs views those changes less as a crisis than an overdue evolution. “It’s more a transition period,” he said. “Ethereum is now much more intentionally, proactively reorienting itself to be ready for this new time period.”

Filling in the gaps

But as the turmoil started to unveil itself at the EF, many have started to wonder whether EthLabs would replace it. Dietrichs sees that rather than competing with the foundation, EthLabs intends to complement it. “We’re deliberately positioning ourselves to fill the gaps that the Ethereum Foundation now deliberately leaves,” Dietrichs said. “We’re not trying to create a competing vision for Ethereum.”

Those gaps, he argues, center on adoption-oriented engineering work, like improving Ethereum’s scalability, strengthening layer-1 performance, advancing interoperability, and identifying the technical barriers preventing broader institutional use.

“The gap we see is this more practical, adoption-oriented work, making Ethereum, practically useful for the real world,” he said. EthLabs plans to continue work its founders previously led within the foundation, including layer-1 scaling research, while expanding into areas like interoperability and engagement with financial institutions exploring blockchain infrastructure.

Bitcoin (BTC) climbs toward $60,000 level after Fed Chair Warsh said inflation risks has come down

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Bitcoin (BTC) climbs toward $60,000 level after Fed Chair Warsh said inflation risks has come down

Bitcoin BTC$59,642.58 climbed back toward the $60,000 level on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said inflation risks had eased while reaffirming the central bank’s commitment to returning inflation to its 2% target.

Warsh declined to provide guidance on the Federal Reserve’s next interest-rate decision, saying policymakers would debate incoming data at their meeting in four weekds, during a panel discussion at the European Central Bank’s annual forum in Sintra, Portugal.

Instead, he emphasized that the Fed remained focused on price stability.

“Inflation risks have come down,” Warsh said. “If there were people in households or the business sector, in the financial markets, who thought that this central bank was going to be comfortable with an inflation objective above 2%, well, I guess they’d be disappointed. We’re going to deliver price stability in the U.S.”

Bitcoin pared earlier losses to trade back around the $60,000 level, an increase of more than 2% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk Data.

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