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ERC-7943 Author Says Institutions Can’t Play Defi’s ‘Pirate Game’

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ERC-7943 Author Says Institutions Can’t Play Defi’s ‘Pirate Game’

For years, crypto has thrived on speculative capital flows and the explosive popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens and applications.

That still holds true for rising sectors such as perpetual decentralized exchanges and prediction markets. But as Wall Street pushes deeper into tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), not all of the industry’s existing systems cater to the kinds of financial products institutions want to bring onchain.

An author of the newly finalized ERC-7943 (uRWA) token standard said that the fragmented infrastructure powering much of DeFi wasn’t designed for regulated financial assets, which often require identity frameworks and interoperability standards.

“If you want to bring regulated assets onchain, you can’t really escape regulations,” Dario Lo Buglio, co-founder and head of blockchain at tokenization platform Brickken, told Cointelegraph. 

“You can still play your pirate game on DeFi without regulated assets.”

DeFi veterans have been wary of freezing functions in tokens, but the same controls appeal to institutions. Source: ethereum.org

Existing standards don’t cover every RWA use case

Another token standard, the ERC-3643 — also known as the T-REX or Token for Regulated Exchanges — is one of the dominant frameworks used for tokenized securities on Ethereum.

The standard already includes many of the compliance-oriented features institutions require, like identity-based permissions and mechanisms that allow issuers to intervene under specific circumstances.

The framework was designed primarily around securities and does not necessarily translate across the broader range of tokenized assets now entering blockchain markets, Lo Buglio said. Thus, interoperability is increasingly difficult as more institutions experiment with bringing traditional financial products onchain.

“As tokenization becomes easier, the harder problem is making those assets work across different compliance systems, custodians, exchanges, wallets and institutional platforms,” Markus Levin, co-founder of XYO, told Cointelegraph.

Levin said standards such as uRWA could help standardize how tokenized assets carry information tied to identity, permissions, compliance requirements and transfer rules across Ethereum-based systems.

“Done well, that makes regulated assets far easier to move, verify and integrate without every institution building its own isolated infrastructure,” he said.

Tokenized RWAs grew from roughly $6.4 billion at the start of 2025 to about $34 billion as of Thursday, according to RWA.xyz data. Standard Chartered estimates this value to pop to $2 trillion by the end of 2028, while the Boston Consulting Group projects $18.9 trillion by 2033.

In measurements that classify stablecoins as RWAs, the total market capitalization is approaching $340 billion. Source: RWA.xyz 

Related: Wall Street’s tokenization boom has a liquidity problem: Axis CEO

Levin added that institutions have largely prioritized assets with predictable cash flows, real yield and established legal structures.

“The market is tokenizing what benefits most from faster settlement, programmable collateral and lower operational friction,” he said.

Privacy as the next institutional requirement

Privacy remains another major obstacle for institutions experimenting with onchain finance, particularly for firms unwilling to expose portfolio activity or transaction flows on public blockchains.

“We don’t want BlackRock listing their entire portfolio onchain transparently to everyone, but they still want to transact onchain,” he said.

BlackRock’s institutional liquidity fund is worth about $2.5 billion. Source: RWA.xyz

Related: DeFi hacks shake institutional confidence as risks outpace yields

Lo Buglio argued that many existing tokenization frameworks were originally designed around public Ethereum-based systems and do not always translate cleanly to privacy-oriented chains, where transaction models and data structures often differ from traditional EVM environments.

Canton Network, which was launched with backing from firms including Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and Cboe Global Markets, was designed around privacy-preserving financial coordination between institutions.

Unlike public blockchains where transaction activity is broadly visible across the network, Canton allows data to remain visible only to relevant participants while still synchronizing settlement between institutions.

Its architecture has irked some developers who argue the network lacks key characteristics associated with public blockchains, including a globally shared state.

The debate reflects a growing divide between crypto-native DeFi infrastructure and the types of blockchain systems many large financial firms appear more willing to adopt for regulated assets.

AI agents may push RWAs beyond TradFi

Much of the current conversation around tokenized RWA has centered on banks and institutional systems. But some builders believe the infrastructure now being developed for RWAs could eventually branch out to machine-driven financial systems.

“As AI agents begin to move capital autonomously, they will need assets that exist on-chain in a form they can read and act on,” Taran Dhillon, head of digital assets at tokenization company Kula, told Cointelegraph.

According to Dhillon, many productive RWAs still remain largely disconnected from automated financial systems because they lack standardized digital infrastructure.

“The standards being built today need to work across jurisdictions and asset classes, not just within the existing corridors of established financial markets,” he said.

Lo Buglio similarly argued that ERC-7943 was designed less as a single dominant implementation and more as a framework allowing tokenized assets to move across increasingly interconnected blockchain environments.

ERC-7943 moved to the “final” stage in its Ethereum Improvement Proposal process on Wednesday, meaning developers can deploy contracts based on the standard without expecting further specification changes. The next phase will likely focus on adoption across tokenized asset platforms.

The emergence of another tokenization standard may not immediately solve the lack of standardization issue it aims to address.

Lo Buglio acknowledged that ERC-7943 was intentionally designed as a more flexible and less “opinionated” framework than some earlier standards.

Large financial institutions and blockchain developers continue to experiment with proprietary infrastructure and custom compliance systems.

Magazine: Big Questions: Do we really only need 2–5 cryptocurrencies?

Bitcoin Miners Face AI Squeeze As Hash Rate Flattens And Network Enters New Security Phase, Fidelity Says

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Bitcoin Miners Face AI Squeeze As Hash Rate Flattens And Network Enters New Security Phase, Fidelity Says

Digital asset markets are slogging through a choppy 2026, with prices under pressure even as the underlying plumbing of the system quietly advances — from tokenization on Wall Street to quantum‑resistant upgrades on Bitcoin. 

A new mid‑year update from Fidelity Digital Assets frames the year as one of “structural retooling,” where regulatory progress, infrastructure build‑out, and institutional experimentation are doing more work than headline prices suggest.

Bitcoin is down about 13% year‑to‑date amid liquidation‑driven deleveraging, stubborn inflation and geopolitical shocks that have pushed rate expectations back toward tightening, Fidelity notes. 

Yet the asset has outperformed many traditional benchmarks during recent flare‑ups in global conflict, hinting at renewed demand for liquid, politically neutral assets when stress spikes.

At the same time, demand for crypto exposure through mainstream channels remains resilient, with options on spot BTC exchange‑traded products—launched only in late 2024—now seeing open interest comparable to options settled in native bitcoin, according to the report. 

Tokenization is another quiet growth area, as large financial institutions roll out blockchain‑based products and major exchanges take stakes in digital‑asset platforms, helped by joint SEC–CFTC guidance and draft legislation like the CLARITY Act that aim to formalize a digital‑asset taxonomy.

AI, mining and Bitcoin’s security debate

One of the more novel developments so far this year is the interplay between AI and bitcoin mining capacity. Fidelity noted the 30‑day average hash rate and mining difficulty are each down roughly 8–9% from earlier highs—before a modest rebound—suggesting miners may be redirecting power and infrastructure toward higher‑margin AI data center workloads.

On‑chain, the firm reports that expanding the amount of data allowed in Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN field has not triggered the feared “blockchain bloat,” with block sizes and utilization still tracking within projected ranges. 

Instead, attention has turned to node diversity and long‑term security: Bitcoin Core still accounts for about 77% of nodes versus roughly 17% for Bitcoin Knots, raising what Fidelity calls a non‑zero risk of fragmentation under certain conditions even as work accelerates on proposals like quantum‑resistant Pay‑to‑Merkle‑Root outputs.

Bitcoin vs. gold

Outside crypto, gold has reasserted itself as a preferred macro hedge, surging nearly 30% earlier in the year before settling back to a still solid 3–4% gain year‑to‑date, according to the report. 

Fidelity points to persistently strong central‑bank buying and evidence that gold is overtaking U.S. dollars and Treasuries in some reserve mixes, alongside isolated but symbolically important moves such as Iran accepting BTC for certain payments tied to traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Crypto Market Is Pricing IPOs Better Than Wall Street Does: Report

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Crypto Market Is Pricing IPOs Better Than Wall Street Does: Report

HTX Research says crypto markets are beginning to challenge one of Wall Street’s most protected functions: price discovery for high-demand assets before they go public.

In a new report titled On-Chain U.S. Equities — From Crypto Perpetuals to the Shift in Pricing Power, the research arm of HTX argues that the next major crypto trading opportunity may not come from another token cycle.

Instead, it may come from putting traditional assets — especially U.S. equities and pre-IPO AI companies — onto crypto-native trading rails.

The report comes as crypto exchanges are expanding beyond Bitcoin, Ether and altcoins into synthetic exposure for equities, commodities, ETFs and private technology companies.

The shift is being driven by a simple market problem.

Crypto trading infrastructure has become faster, more liquid and more composable. But the quality of crypto-native assets has not kept pace.

Many altcoins and memecoins remain driven by attention, community momentum and short-term narratives rather than cash flows or earnings.

U.S. equities offer a different kind of product.

SIFMA data shows that U.S.-listed companies had a combined market cap of $66 trillion in Q1 2026. Equity, ETF and options volumes also reached record highs during the quarter, giving crypto platforms a large and liquid asset universe to replicate or reference.

AI stocks are especially attractive to traders.

They have frequent catalysts: earnings, capital expenditure plans, model launches, chip demand, cloud contracts and IPO roadshows.

That event density resembles the volatility cycle crypto traders already understand.

HTX Research argues that perpetual futures are a better fit for crypto users than tokenized stocks.

Tokenized stocks mainly serve holding demand. Perpetuals serve trading demand.

That distinction matters because crypto users are already familiar with leveraged derivatives, stablecoin margin, long-short positioning and 24-hour trading.

In equity perpetuals, traders can express views on Nvidia earnings, SpaceX valuation chatter or an OpenAI roadshow without using a traditional broker.

The report’s clearest case study is Cerebras Systems.

Cerebras priced its IPO at $185 per share on May 13, 2026, selling 30 million Class A shares and preparing to list on Nasdaq under the ticker CBRS.

The shares opened at $350 on May 14, 89% above the IPO price, giving the AI chipmaker a fully diluted valuation of about $106.75 billion, Reuters reported.

HTX Research says the on-chain pre-IPO perpetual for Cerebras had priced the company above traditional private secondary market levels for months before the listing.

That makes Cerebras an important test case.

The report argues that on-chain traders were closer to the eventual public-market clearing price than some private secondary venues.

The conclusion is provocative but limited.

It does not mean crypto markets are always better at pricing private companies. It means that, in some high-demand technology assets, continuous global trading may capture investor consensus faster than fragmented private secondary markets.

Private secondary markets are often episodic.

They depend on available sellers, negotiated blocks, transfer restrictions and asymmetric information.

Pre-IPO perpetuals work differently.

They offer continuous pricing, global participation and stablecoin collateral, but they do not provide actual equity ownership or shareholder rights.

That distinction is central to the regulatory and investor-risk debate.

CoinDesk reported earlier this month that OKX plans to offer perpetual futures tied to private companies including OpenAI, SpaceX and Anthropic. The products offer synthetic price exposure, not ownership or shareholder rights.

Similar products have already drawn scrutiny.

OpenAI publicly distanced itself from Robinhood’s OpenAI-linked tokenized product in 2025, saying the tokens were not actual OpenAI equity and that any transfer of OpenAI equity would require company approval.

That warning still applies to the broader market.

A pre-IPO perp is not a share. It is a derivative contract referencing a valuation or price proxy.

For traders, that can be useful.

For investors, it can also be confusing.

The broader trend is not limited to crypto exchanges.

Kraken launched tokenized U.S. equities for non-U.S. investors in 2025, allowing 24/7 exposure to U.S. stocks such as Apple, Tesla and Nvidia through xStocks. Reuters described tokenization as issuing digital representations of publicly traded securities.

Traditional market infrastructure is moving in the same direction.

The New York Stock Exchange is working on a digital platform for 24/7 trading of digital tokens. The proposed platform would support instant settlement, dollar-sized orders and stablecoin-based funding, subject to regulatory approval.

That makes HTX Research’s thesis less isolated.

Crypto venues are not only trying to bring equities into crypto. Traditional venues are also studying how crypto-like settlement and trading hours could reshape equities.

HTX is positioning itself as one of the crypto-side participants in that shift.

According to the company’s announcement, HTX listed 66 TradFi perpetuals as of May 21, 2026, including pre-IPO names such as SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic, along with AI mega-caps, Wall Street blue chips, commodities and ETFs.

The exchange has also launched HTX AI Skills, an open capability protocol designed for AI agents to execute crypto trading operations.

HTX said the tool supports spot trading, futures trading, leverage adjustment, take-profit and stop-loss settings, and is compatible with OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex and Cursor.

The two products address different parts of the same market shift.

TradFi perpetuals expand what users can trade.

AI Skills changes how they may interact with exchanges.

Together, they point to a broader redesign of crypto trading infrastructure: more assets, faster execution and more automated interfaces.

The risk is that access may expand faster than investor understanding.

Synthetic equity products can create price signals. They can also create misleading assumptions about ownership, voting rights, dividends, custody and legal claims.

That is why the next phase of tokenized equities will likely be shaped as much by regulators as by traders.

For now, HTX Research’s argument captures a real change in market structure.

Crypto exchanges are no longer only competing to list the next token. They are competing to become trading platforms for everything that moves.

The above article “Crypto Market Is Pricing IPOs Better Than Wall Street Does: Report” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/crypto-market-is-pricing-ipos-better-than-wall-street-does/

Read Also: Is India Moving From Crypto Uncertainty Toward a Clearer Policy Framework?

Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.

Image Credits: HTX Research, Shutterstock, Canva, Wiki Commons

Why the Ethereum Foundation is suddenly again at the center of crypto’s culture war

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Why the Ethereum Foundation is suddenly again at the center of crypto’s culture war

The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization that has long served as the closest thing Ethereum has to a central steward, has been facing renewed questions about its future after a wave of high-profile departures and mounting criticism from across the crypto industry.

In recent weeks, critics have accused the foundation of becoming insular, slow-moving and disconnected from the increasingly competitive realities of the blockchain industry, reigniting a years-long debate over whether the EF still serves a meaningful role inside Ethereum’s sprawling ecosystem, or whether the network has begun to outgrow the institution that helped create it.

“The EF is completely out of touch,” said Zak Cole, a longtime Ethereum contributor, during a recent appearance on Laura Shin’s Unchained podcast. “They’re funding hippos in Asia and doing a bunch of stuff nobody in the world gives a s*** about other than Vitalik and his little cabal.”

The backlash intensified after several prominent contributors departed the foundation earlier this year, a total of eight since January 2026, fueling speculation about whether the EF was entering a period of decline at a moment when Ethereum itself has become increasingly important to the broader crypto economy.

That question carries weight because the foundation has historically occupied a uniquely influential, and often deliberately ambiguous, position inside the ecosystem.

Founded in 2014 ahead of Ethereum’s launch, the Switzerland-based nonprofit originally functioned as the network’s organizing body. In Ethereum’s earliest years, the foundation funded client teams, coordinated developers, supported research and helped shepherd the network through technical upgrades and existential crises alike.

“The Ethereum Foundation started as the single sole organization around Ethereum,” said Hudson Jameson, a former coordinator at the Ethereum Foundation now serving as head of ecosystem at Certik. “Over time it has tried to minimize itself in order to raise other organizations and coordinating entities up.”

When Ethereum launched in 2015, few other institutions existed around the network. But over the last decade, Ethereum evolved from an experimental blockchain project into the financial backbone for much of crypto, underpinning decentralized finance, stablecoins, tokenized assets and an expanding network of layer-2 chains.

Today, Ethereum secures trillions of dollars in assets across its ecosystem. Yet the institution at its center still operates more like a research nonprofit than a traditional corporate entity, embracing a culture rooted in open-source coordination, decentralization and long-term experimentation rather than aggressive execution or market competition.

As Ethereum expanded into a sprawling ecosystem of companies, developers, layer 2 networks and venture-backed startups, the foundation increasingly attempted to step back from its role as Ethereum’s de facto center of gravity, at least in theory.

“There was still this need for a central coordinator,” Jameson said, particularly around network upgrades and ecosystem-wide technical coordination.

Chris Buolos, president of Dromos Labs, the main developer firm behind decentralized exchange Aerodrome which is on top of Ethereum layer-2 network Base, said the foundation still plays a role few other organizations in the ecosystem can credibly replicate.

“The EF is at its best as a research org, a credibly neutral convener, and a leading voice for advocacy, standards and roadmap,” Buolos said. “Having a neutral party in the room when otherwise-competing teams need to align on best practices is worth more than it sometimes gets credit for.”

That balancing act, remaining influential while trying not to appear controlling, has long defined the Ethereum Foundation. It has also made the organization a recurring lightning rod during periods of market stress, leadership transitions or ideological disagreements about Ethereum’s future.

Some critics argue the foundation has failed to adapt as Ethereum matured into critical financial infrastructure.

“Ethereum is no longer a startup,” Cole said. “It’s a mature and robust ecosystem. There’s billions, trillions of dollars on the line. Livelihoods are dependent on that.”

CoinDesk reached out to a representative at the foundation for comment, and had not heard back at the time of publication.

Others have previously accused the EF of prioritizing ideology over execution and moving too slowly as rival blockchain ecosystems aggressively compete for developers, users and institutional capital.

Buolos said some of the criticism directed at the foundation is justified, particularly around product direction and coordination with Ethereum’s application layer.

“The substantive critique, that direction has been unclear and wasteful and that the app layer has been a secondary concern, is fair,” he said. “The EF has tried to be many things to many constituencies at once, which is not only difficult to execute on but takes focus away from perhaps more product-oriented players.”

Jameson, however, argued that the recurring backlash reflects a deeper identity crisis inside Ethereum itself. “The biggest reason for there to be hoopla every time there is a communication crisis from the Ethereum Foundation is because every cycle we get new people and old people leave,” Jameson said.

Ethereum’s tensions sometimes reflect competing visions for what the network is supposed to become, according to Jameson. Some participants view Ethereum primarily as a financial asset and market platform, while others still see it as a broader social and technical project centered on self-sovereignty, neutrality and censorship resistance.

“People think they know what Ethereum is to them,” Jameson said.

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s co-founder, pushed back last week against many of the recent criticisms in a lengthy post published last week, arguing that critics fundamentally misunderstand what the Ethereum Foundation is trying to become.

“EF is not a ‘center of Ethereum,’” Buterin wrote. “Rather EF is ‘one node, with a defined purpose, alongside other nodes.’”

According to Buterin, the foundation was never intended to function as a permanent executive authority over Ethereum, nor compete with venture-backed crypto companies focused on aggressive expansion or market capture. Instead, he said the EF is intentionally narrowing its scope around what he described as Ethereum’s core values: censorship resistance, openness, privacy and security, internally referred to as “CROPS.”

“The EF is choosing to use its remaining resources to pursue longevity over breadth,” Buterin wrote. “The EF focuses specifically on those activities critical to the success of ethereum as a censorship/capture-resistant, open, private and secure system, that would not happen otherwise.”

Whether the Ethereum Foundation is actually shrinking into irrelevance, or simply evolving into a smaller and more narrowly defined institution, remains an open question.

Still, Buolos said framing the foundation’s current transition as existential likely overstates the situation.

“A smaller org concentrated on the research only it can credibly do, such as post-quantum work, privacy, neutrality and other long-horizon questions that don’t have a commercial sponsor, is probably a healthier shape than the sprawl of the last few years,” he said. “The talent loss is real and the transition will be painful, but a leaner org aimed at hard problems with long timelines is useful to the ecosystem.”

But the debate itself reflects a broader reality: Ethereum today is no longer merely an experimental blockchain project. It is simultaneously an ideological movement, a financial system and a piece of global digital infrastructure. And the institution that helped build it is still struggling to define what role it should play next.

Read more: Ethereum’s identity crisis is deepening after high-profile ‘brain drain’ frustrates the community

Anonymous Plaintiff Seeks Legal Title To $293 Billion In Dormant Bitcoin, Without Holding Any Private Keys

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Anonymous Plaintiff Seeks Legal Title To $293 Billion In Dormant Bitcoin, Without Holding Any Private Keys

A pseudonymous individual calling himself “Noah Doe,” along with two Wyoming LLCs, has filed suit in New York Supreme Court seeking a court declaration that they are the legal owners of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses holding roughly 3.8 million BTC — worth an estimated $293 billion at current prices. 

The case, filed March 11, 2026, and amended May 1, 2026 (Index No. 153119/2026), is believed to be the first attempt in U.S. history to claim title to Bitcoin under a lost-and-found property statute.

The legal vehicle is New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B, a statute designed for tangible lost objects — a wallet found on a sidewalk, say, or jewelry left in a cab. The law says a finder who reports lost property to police, makes reasonable efforts to locate the owner, and receives no response within a set period can eventually take legal title to the item. 

Noah Doe’s complaint argues that dormant Bitcoin addresses are “lost property” under that framework, that his USB drives of address data delivered to the NYPD 17th Precinct satisfy the deposit requirement, and that title to all 39,069 addresses vested in him across three dates: December 26, 2025, March 31, 2026, and April 14, 2026.

The statute has never been applied to cryptocurrency. Article 7-B was written for physical objects that a finder picks up and hands to authorities. The plaintiff never held private keys to any of these addresses and could not have transferred the coins to the police or to any owner who came forward. 

A Bitcoin address, unlike a lost wallet, remains fully accessible to its original owner regardless of whether someone else has identified it — the coins do not move unless the true keyholder signs a transaction.

What the bitcoin lawsuit targets

The 39,069 addresses named as defendants are not a random sample of dormant Bitcoin. 

According to blockchain research firm Galaxy Digital, which published a detailed analysis of the case in May 2026, roughly 21,923 of the defendant addresses carry what researchers call the “Patoshi” nonce pattern — an onchain fingerprint widely attributed to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Those addresses alone hold approximately 1.096 million BTC, worth around $84.7 billion.

Also on the defendant list: one address holding 79,957 BTC stolen in the 2011 Mt. Gox hack — coins that have been actively tracked by investigators for over a decade — and one address that is a Counterparty “burn” address, meaning it is provably unspendable and was never controlled by any person. The Mt. Gox coins are the subject of ongoing recovery proceedings and are not, by any conventional definition, abandoned.

The median defendant address holds 50 BTC, currently worth approximately $3.86 million. The average holds 97.25 BTC, worth around $7.5 million. 

According to Galaxy’s onchain data, 99.9% of the defendant addresses hold BTC worth considerably more than $10.

That $10 figure is central to the case’s architecture. The complaint relies on an unnamed expert’s opinion that each address was worth less than $10 “as is” at the time of finding, on the basis that recovering the contents is uncertain. 

That single valuation places all 39,069 addresses into Section 257(2) of Article 7-B — the statute’s fastest track, which vests title in the finder just one year after the find date, with no multi-year police holding period required.

The $10 figure is the legal linchpin of the lawsuit, because it is the number the plaintiffs use to argue that the wallets qualify for New York’s fastest lost-property title path, even though the coins themselves are worth far more on the market.

If the addresses were valued closer to their market prices, they would fall into the statute’s top bracket, which carries a three-year police holding requirement. The one-year shortcut the complaint relies on would not be available. 

The complaint’s three title-vesting dates correspond exactly to the three found dates plus one year — a timeline that only works if the sub-$10 valuation holds. The expert behind that valuation is not named anywhere in the filings.

The connection to the 2025 Dusting Campaign

The defendant addresses did not emerge from nowhere. Galaxy Research identified all but one of them in an October 2025 report on a blockchain “dusting” campaign — a practice where tiny amounts of BTC are sent to addresses, often to track wallet activity.

Between June and July 2025, over 39,000 addresses received OP_RETURN messages — a Bitcoin data field used to embed text — claiming the sender had taken constructive possession of the coins. 

Galaxy’s research showed those messages appeared to be groundwork for a legal abandonment claim. That report won Best Crypto Research for 2025 from the Association of Cryptocurrency Journalists and Researchers.

Galaxy’s May 2026 analysis traced the funding for both the 2025 dusting campaign and the 2026 court-ordered onchain service to a single Bitcoin address, which Galaxy calls the “Bankroll” address. The firm found that 99.6% of the 2025 dusting transactions were funded within two hops from that address, and the same address funded the 2026 service operation.

Because the defendants are anonymous Bitcoin addresses, the court authorized alternative service under CPLR § 308(5): each address received a 546-satoshi payment (roughly 4 cents) carrying an OP_RETURN message linking to a website hosting the pleadings. Galaxy confirmed 98 batch transactions across Bitcoin blocks 950,446 to 950,576, reaching all 39,069 addresses between May 21–22, 2026.

Whether that constitutes adequate legal notice is an open question. Onchain service has precedent in Ethereum cases, where wallets are account-based and tokens dropped into an address tend to surface in wallet software. 

Bitcoin operates differently — wallets are built around unspent transaction outputs, and most Bitcoin wallet software does not display OP_RETURN payloads at all. Many wallets filter incoming dust transactions as spam by default.

What a win would — and would not — mean

Crypto legal observers across the industry agree that even a complete plaintiff victory would not allow Noah Doe to move a single coin. Without private keys, a court declaration confers no ability to transact on the Bitcoin network. The protocol does not recognize court orders; only a valid cryptographic signature moves BTC.

The practical concern, as Galaxy and legal commentators have noted, is different. A court declaration could function as a “cloud on title” — a legal document the plaintiffs could present to a regulated exchange or custodian if any of the listed coins appeared at a centralized venue. 

That could trigger asset freezes and force original owners to surface and prove ownership, potentially at the cost of their anonymity. It is that leverage over regulated intermediaries, rather than any ability to seize coins directly, that gives the case its potential significance.

Because the defendants are pseudonymous addresses that will not appear in court, a technical default is possible around late June 2026, approximately 30 days after service. A motion for default judgment would likely follow. 

The court retains discretion to hold a hearing before issuing a declaration of title, and legal observers note that the novelty of the theory and the scale of the claim are factors that tend to invite judicial scrutiny. 

Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO SpaceX contracts suffers 45% flash crash, liquidating $1.5 million

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Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO SpaceX contracts suffers 45% flash crash, liquidating $1.5 million

Hyperliquid’s SPACEX-USDH perpetual contract suffered a violent flash crash on Thursday afternoon, plunging from an open of $2,277 to a low of $1,254, a near-45% collapse, within a single 30-minute window before partially recovering to around $2,169. The move liquidated 405 users across 1,393 positions, wiping $1.51 million in notional value, Hyperliquid data shows.

What makes the episode particularly striking is the volume concentration. Over the past 24 hours the contract had drifted quietly, generating just $4.87 million in total trading volume across an open interest base of under $2.9 million. Then one candle absorbed what was likely the bulk of that entire figure and the market had no depth or liquidity to absorb it.

The median liquidated position held just $31 in margin, pointing to a retail-heavy user base taking on 3x leverage with minimal cushion.

The Hyperliquid SPACEX-USDH is a crypto perpetual contract for SpaceX’s market valuation. As the company is private, people cannot buy its stock ahead of its anticipated IPO. To get around this, Hyperliquid created a synthetic perpetual contract that allows investors to bet on what they think the company will be worth.

Traders aren’t buying actual shares of Elon Musk’s rocket company, nor do they get any ownership or shareholder rights.

Unlike perpetual futures on Bitcoin or Ethereum, which anchor to deep, liquid spot markets, the SPACEX contract has no public price benchmark, with SpaceX shares trading only through private secondary markets gated to accredited investors.

At settlement, the mark price of $2,132 still sat more than $220 above the oracle price of $1,908, implying the contract remained at a premium even after the carnage.

SpaceX is targeting an IPO in June.

UPDATE (May 28, 2026, 17:31 UTC): Adds additional context.

Vitalik Buterin Endorses Interfold, Privacy Protocol for On-Chain Voting and Secret Auctions

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Vitalik Buterin Endorses Interfold, Privacy Protocol for On-Chain Voting and Secret Auctions

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted Interfold, a privacy protocol combining zero-knowledge proofs, fully homomorphic encryption, and threshold encryption for secure on-chain voting and auctions.

Vitalik Buterin announced his endorsement of Interfold, a privacy-preserving protocol optimized for on-chain voting and secret-ballot auctions that implements concepts he has advocated for nearly a decade. ‘

The protocol uses a threshold encryption key, zero-knowledge proofs to verify voter eligibility, and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to perform arbitrary computations on encrypted votes before threshold-decryption.

According to Buterin, Interfold achieves multiple security guarantees: voter anonymity can be made unconditional if eligibility is proven with zero-knowledge SNARKs; censorship resistance is guaranteed by Ethereum since votes post directly on-chain with proofs that all posted votes are included in the result; and correctness of the output can be ensured via ZK proofs over FHE.

Liveness and coercion resistance depend on M-of-N honesty among committee members, which Buterin describes as unavoidable with present-day technology.

The protocol’s primary limitation is that “ZK over FHE” currently supports only additive vote tallying, as more complex computations involving multiplication remain too computationally expensive. Buterin noted work in progress on slashing-based and optimistic computation approaches to handle more complicated vote manipulations.

Buterin cited the protocol’s technical documentation as comprehensive, indicating mature development. He also noted that ideal long-term solutions would incorporate obfuscation to eliminate the need for M-of-N committee structures entirely. The protocol directly addresses privacy and security challenges in decentralized voting systems, a key concern for blockchain-based governance mechanisms.

Sources: Vitalik Buterin (Twitter/X)

Why DeFi’s $20 billion TVL drop is just a market stress-test

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Why DeFi’s $20 billion TVL drop is just a market stress-test

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been hit by recent criticism and negative commentary following a $20 billion drop in total value locked (TVL) and $1.1 billion lost to hacks like the $292 million Kelp DAO bridge exploit.

DeFi isn’t safe anymore because AI is becoming ‘superhuman’ at hacking, former OpenZeppelin CTO and co-founder Manuel Aráoz said this week. “DeFi is dead,” said one commentator on X recently.

Andrew Forson, president of DeFi Technologies, has an entirely opposite view and a bit of criticism of his own: “DeFi is way more than those protocols that have been hacked,” Forson said in an interview with CoinDesk. “Those who don’t know that, are suffering from deep ignorance.”

“We’ve been at a conference where people are talking a lot about central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and centralized bank money.” he added, referring to the recent Digital Money Summit in London. “But the elephant in the room is that you have Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, and it’s working pretty much perfectly. Everybody else is trying to recreate that.”

Forson said that traditional finance and security alarmists significantly overstate localized code exploits to score reputational points against decentralized networks, completely missing the history milestones happening right under their noses.

While a $11 million bridge failure makes immediate headlines, the absolute core of the DeFi sector, the stablecoin base layer, is seeing unprecedented institutional adoption. “Stablecoins at the end of 2025 held over $150 billion in U.S. Treasuries,” Forson revealed. “That is more than Saudi Arabia. That is more than Germany in terms of their central banks and governments. All of those treasuries are used to back currencies and stablecoins that are predominantly used foremost in DeFi.”

Stablecoins held positions in U.S. T-bills exceeding $153 billion as of December 2025, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Volumes expanding

Far from an ecosystem in collapse, Forson emphasized that core stablecoin volumes are expanding at a rate of 20% to 30% month-over-month.

Blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis estimates that stablecoins moved more than $35 trillion last year, a figure that is expected to reach anywhere between $730 trillion to over a quadrillion dollars by 2035.

Furthermore, the network security layer remains completely untouched by the “superhuman” AI hackers hyped by security firms. “You haven’t heard of any core hacks to the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks,” Forson noted. “You haven’t heard of any core hacks to Circle’s USDC or Tether’s USDT.”

While security executives look at the open-source transparency of blockchain code as a fatal liability in the age of AI, Forson flips the argument on its head: onchain clarity is actually DeFi’s ultimate defense mechanism.

“One of the good things about the whole DeFi space is the transparency,” Forson explained. “When something goes wrong, everybody sees it, everybody talks about it and they fix it.”

He contrasted this with traditional legacy banking, where systemic errors can sit obscured in “private buckets” for years before a corporate auditor notices or publicizes a breach.

Wall Street embracing crypto

Recalling historic corporate collapses like Enron, Forson noted that financial systems have always had to engineer safeguards after market shocks – just as Wall Street introduced automated stock-loss provisions following the 1987 crash.

The fact that DeFi operates continuously – 24 hours a day, 365 days a week – means protocol gaps are exposed, stress-tested, and permanently patched exponentially faster than in any closed-door banking system.

“Toddlers learn to walk by falling,” Forson said, reminding critics that the entire blockchain space is only 16 years old. “There will always be people, entities, and technologies that have errors or push the envelope. But it doesn’t mean you completely shut down that entire field of finance.”

Forson concluded saying that “if the Wall Street players don’t participate in this space now, they will lose market share, because someone else will.”

However, the fact is that Wall Street is racing to tokenize the entire stock market and major financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, JPMorgan, Charles Schwab, all have rolled out crypto services one way or another.

UniCredit warns Europe may struggle to contain crypto-bank crisis under MiCA rules

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UniCredit warns Europe may struggle to contain crypto-bank crisis under MiCA rules

Europe may struggle to contain a financial shock tied to crypto firms and banks because its crisis tools are more limited than those used in the U.S. during the 2023 banking turmoil, a senior official with European bank UniCredit said Thursday.

Elena Carletti, UniCredit’s deputy vice chair and head of the board’s risk committee, said European authorities may not be able to guarantee crypto-linked deposits in the same way U.S. regulators did after the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Reuters reported.

Speaking at a banking conference hosted by Madrid’s IESE Business School, Carletti said the U.S. decision to protect all deposits, including funds held by stablecoin issuers, helped stabilize crypto markets during the crisis.

“The same decision cannot be easily taken in Europe,” Carletti said.

The comments come as the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, pushes stablecoin issuers closer to traditional banks. The rules require certain stablecoin reserves to be held in liquid assets such as bank deposits and government securities.

That link could have become a problem during the Silicon Valley Bank collapse in March 2023. Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, revealed that $3.3 billion of its reserves were held at the bank at the time of the crisis. USDC briefly lost its dollar peg as investors rushed to redeem tokens.

U.S. regulators later guaranteed all deposits at SVB and Signature Bank, including balances above federal insurance limits, helping restore confidence in crypto markets.

Carletti warned that Europe’s deposit guarantee system, which generally protects up to 100,000 euros ($116,500) per depositor per bank, may not be able to absorb similar stress if large stablecoin reserve accounts come under pressure.

“That means that we are forcing a certain alliance of stablecoin and ⁠crypto ​providers with the banking sector without the ​possibility of extending insurance in the same way, and that to me is a double ​form of weakness,” she added.

Aave Labs’ Push Gains UK FCA Crypto Registration

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Aave Labs’ Push Gains UK FCA Crypto Registration

Aave Labs’ UK subsidiaries, Push Labs Ltd. and Push Virtual Assets Ltd., known together as Push, received Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) cryptoasset registration as cryptoasset exchange providers under the UK’s current Anti-Money Laundering regime.

The registration was obtained for “certain cryptoasset activities” and supports the decentralized finance (DeFi) company’s plans to build regulated stablecoin on- and off-ramping infrastructure in the country, Aave said Thursday.

Aave Labs’ Push describes itself as a “simple way to move between Euros and stablecoins,” according to its homepage. The FCA’s online registry shows that the London-headquartered firm has been registered with the regulator since May 12.

The regulatory greenlight allows the subsidiary of the largest decentralized lending protocol to develop its on- and off-ramping stablecoin infrastructure under regulatory permission in the UK. 

The approval comes as the UK is moving closer to implementing comprehensive crypto regulation under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA), effective October 2027. The framework will require crypto companies to have full FCA authorization to conduct crypto activities in the UK, such as trading or custody.

The FCA previously said that the authorization under the upcoming crypto regime will not be automatically granted to companies that have already been registered under the existing Money Laundering Regulations (MLRs).

Source: Aave

Push by Aave Labs targets zero-fee stablecoin infrastructure for next million users

Push says it enables users to convert between euros and stablecoins with no push fees and spreads, offering on- and off-ramping between bank accounts and crypto wallets. 

“Aave Labs is building for the next million users, and regulated products with zero-fee stablecoin on/off-ramping are necessary to do it,” said Aave in the X announcement.

Push by Aave Labs, homepage. Source: Push.co

The platform offers non-custodial ramping services, meaning that Push doesn’t hold custody of users’ funds as stablecoins are transferred directly to users’ crypto wallets.

Push is currently available for residents of Ireland and says it is expanding across Europe, with support for additional countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) launching soon.

Competing solutions include Coinbase’s onramp, which offers zero fees for USDC (USDC) transfers on Base. Other solutions include Ramp Network, Bleap and Alchemy Pay.

Related: UK proposes near-24/7 settlement to prepare markets for tokenization

Aave is the largest decentralized lending protocol and the second-largest DeFi protocol with $13.6 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to data aggregator DefiLlama.

DeFi protocol rankings by TVL. Source: DefiLlama

The regulatory nod comes over a month after Aave Labs was granted $25 million in stablecoins by the protocol’s DAO under the “Aave Will Win” framework, aiming to accelerate the protocol’s growth and fund its operations. 

The DAO also granted Aave Labs 75,000 Aave (AAVE) tokens to incentivize developers to help grow the protocol, Cointelegraph reported on April 13.

Magazine: How crypto laws changed in 2025 — and how they’ll change in 2026

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