The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has backed Kalshi in the company’s legal fight against the state of Ohio, asking an appeals court to affirm that the regulator has jurisdiction over prediction markets.
The CFTC filed an amicus brief in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, accusing Ohio of “jurisdictional overreach” after state authorities told Kalshi last year to stop offering sports event contracts in the state, calling them unlicensed sports gambling.
Kalshi sued Ohio authorities in October, seeking to have a federal court stop the Ohio Casino Control Commission and the state attorney general from taking action, but the court denied the request in March, leading Kalshi to appeal the decision.
“The federal district court in Ohio took an improperly narrow view of the Commission’s jurisdiction, and we are asking the Court of Appeals to correct that error,” CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said in a statement. “As I’ve said repeatedly, the CFTC will not allow overzealous state governments to undermine the agency’s longstanding authority over these markets.”
The dispute is one of many similar cases determining whether states have the power to restrict federally regulated prediction markets and has implications for major prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
The CFTC’s latest amicus brief is its second backing a prediction market after it filed one in the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court in February supporting Crypto.com in a legal battle against regulators in Nevada.
In its brief, the CFTC argued that “Ohio’s jurisdictional overreach into the Commission’s sphere threatens regulatory upheaval,” as the agency oversees event contracts trading as swaps or binary options on designated contract markets (DCMs).
Source: Mike Selig
“If States can restrict event contracts on sports, the Commission’s longstanding jurisdiction over these other event contracts could be imperiled too,” it wrote. “The Court should enforce the Commission’s exclusive jurisdiction and hold that Ohio cannot regulate event contracts traded on DCMs.”
Related: Prediction market battle gets closer to Supreme Court
The CFTC’s brief comes after it sued five states to assert its jurisdiction over prediction markets, launching action against regulators in Wisconsin, New York, Arizona, Connecticut and Illinois.
The states had either sent cease-and-desist letters or had sued the prediction markets Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Coinbase, all of which are CFTC-regulated DCMs, over their offering of sports event contracts.
“States cannot circumvent the clear directive of Congress,” Selig said last month after the CFTC sued Wisconsin. “Our message to Wisconsin is the same as to New York, Arizona, and others: if you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you.”
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee released the full text of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act just after midnight Monday, placing the 309-page manager’s amendment in public view 48 hours before the panel’s scheduled Senate markup on Thursday, May 14.
Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), Subcommittee on Digital Assets Chair Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) issued the bill text alongside a section-by-section summary. “This bill reflects serious, good-faith work across the committee and delivers the certainty, safeguards, and accountability Americans deserve,” Scott said. “It puts consumers first, combats illicit finance, cracks down on criminals and foreign adversaries and keeps the future of finance here in the United States.”
Lummis described the text as the product of “nearly a year of bipartisan, blood, sweat, and tears.”
The stablecoin yield deal
The legislation’s most contested provision — Section 404, which governs stablecoin yield — reached its current form through three stages of negotiation. On May 1, the compromise text became public. On May 4, Senators Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) issued a joint statement declaring the deal final, saying they “respectfully agree to disagree” with continued banking industry pressure.
The final language bars stablecoin issuers and affiliated digital asset service providers from paying yield on stablecoin balances if that yield is the functional or economic equivalent of bank interest. Activity-based rewards — cashback on payments, transaction-based incentives, and rewards tied to commerce — remain permitted. Holding a stablecoin with no activity generates no return.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong held a live event on X on Monday in which he said, “Not everyone got everything they wanted, but they got the must-haves.” Armstrong added that Coinbase is working with at least five of the largest global banks and wants integration to be “win-win.” The SEC, CFTC, and Treasury Department will have twelve months after enactment to write the joint implementing rules.
Banking groups push back
The banking industry has not stood down. The American Bankers Association, the Bank Policy Institute, and the Independent Community Bankers of America sent a joint letter over Mother’s Day weekend to bank CEOs, urging congressional engagement to block the stablecoin provisions.
Their core argument: yield-bearing stablecoins function as substitutes for insured deposits and threaten bank funding for mortgages and lending.
The industry front shows fractures, however. Reports indicate that large banks with consumer-facing arms oppose the language, while banks without them are more receptive, and some community banks have signaled quiet support.
Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad called the deposit-flight argument “a fabrication and wildly overstated,” and noted that fully reserved stablecoins are not the same as fractionally-reserved bank deposits.
Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) called the ABA’s mobilization the “banking cartel in full panic mode” on X and confirmed his vote in favor during the upcoming Senate markup.
Galaxy Digital research published last week contended that stablecoin growth would pull trillions in foreign capital into U.S. banking infrastructure at a rate that “materially exceeds any domestic deposit migration.”
DeFi protections hold
On the DeFi front, the bill retains language drawn from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which shields software developers who do not control customer funds from treatment as money transmitters.
The DeFi Education Fund said in a statement that “the most important provisions for developers and infrastructure providers — the BRCA and protections under the Exchange Act — are in this bill,” and that the group would monitor amendments this week. A separate accord among Senate lawmakers, reported Monday by Punchbowl News, adds allowances for prosecutors to pursue crypto money-laundering cases within the Clarity Act framework.
A Senate ethics stalemate
The bill’s biggest remaining fault line is ethics. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, released a statement condemning the newly unveiled crypto market structure bill text as a threat to investors, national security, and the financial system.
She called out the bill for containing zero ethics provisions to address President Trump and his family’s $1.4 billion in crypto gains, demanding no committee member support legislation that fails to curb those conflicts of interest.
Democrats have drawn a firm line: Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said at Consensus Miami that there would be “no one voting for this bill” without an ethics provision barring members of Congress, senior administration officials, and the president from profiting through insider status in the crypto industry.
White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt countered that the administration accepts ethics rules applying “across the board, from the president all the way down to the brand new intern on Capitol Hill,” but rejects anything targeting a specific officeholder or family.
The Thursday Senate markup is not the finish line. If the Banking Committee approves the bill, it must then merge with a version passed by the Senate Agriculture Committee, which holds jurisdiction over digital commodities. A Senate floor vote requires 60 votes — a threshold that makes Democratic support necessary and makes the ethics provision a practical prerequisite for passage.
The White House is targeting a July 4 signing as a 250th-anniversary milestone.
Decentralized finance mobile “superapp” Legend has announced it is winding down after about two years of operation, adding to a string of crypto apps deciding to shut down this year.
Legend was a DeFi aggregator that aimed to bring DeFi to its users rather than forcing them to sign into multiple different wallets or applications to use their crypto.
“We believed the right interface could put DeFi’s most powerful primitives in front of mainstream users.” Legend co-founder Jayson Hobby said on Tuesday.
However, despite the product finding an audience, it didn’t “grow to the scale the company needed to be sustainable long-term,” said Hobby. “Closing is the right call for our team and our investors.”
Over 20 DeFi, NFT and GameFi protocols have announced they are shutting down this year, including ZeroLend, which said in February that it planned to shut down after three years of operations, citing an unsustainable business model.
Closure notice on the Legend website. Source: Legend.xyz
Solana DeFi aggregator Step Finance said it was closing down in February after a $40 million treasury wallet breach in January, and DeFi derivatives protocol Polynomial also ceased operations in February.
Balancer Labs, the team behind the DeFi protocol Balancer, shuttered in March after mounting financial pressure following a $116 million hack in November.
Meanwhile, Seamless Protocol, a DeFi lending protocol on Base, said it was winding down in April, blaming volatile market conditions.
Users don’t care whether product is onchain or not
Legend is a non-custodial, mobile-first DeFi aggregator launched around late 2024 by former Compound Finance executives, including CEO Hobby. It is used for earning, trading, borrowing and swapping assets like stablecoins and Ether via integrations with other DeFi protocols such as Aave, Compound and Uniswap.
It aimed to bring DeFi to its users rather than forcing them to sign into multiple different wallets or applications to use their crypto.
It announced its first funding round, raising $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures, in February 2025.
Related: Kelp DAO eyes unpausing withdrawals after attackers’ rsETH on Arbitrum is burned
However, Hobby said that mainstream users don’t care if a product is onchain or not. “They want outcomes,” he said. “Better yield, faster payments, more control over their money.”
“The product that wins isn’t the one that explains crypto better, it’s the one that hides it completely. The benefits are felt, not explained.”
Legend has not disclosed active user counts or total value locked figures, as it operates as an aggregator, but the TVL for the broader DeFi ecosystem has tanked 50% since October in the wider crypto bear market.
The Legend app will keep running normally for the next 60 days and will go offline on July 12, said Hobby.
Magazine: DeFi’s billion-dollar secret: The insiders responsible for hacks
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Ahead of the Senate Banking Committee’s anticipated markup of the CLARITY Act on Thursday, the bill is facing a fresh wave of opposition—this time from major labor unions.
In a letter that warned senators the measure could put retirement security at risk, multiple unions argued the legislation would introduce new instability into retirement plans for workers who have little control over how their savings are managed.
Labor Unions Raise Alarm On CLARITY Act
According to CNBC, a letter and email first seen by the network show the AFL-CIO, along with the Service Employees International Union, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sent a message to every senator on Friday.
The unions said the legislation “jeopardizes the stability of workers’ retirement plans, including public pensions, and introduces significant volatility to retirement savings accounts.”
They also warned that the bill encourages the crypto industry to take “outsized risks,” arguing that if those bets fail, the costs would fall on working people and retirees rather than on crypto executives or wealthy investors.
The AFL-CIO also reportedly sent an additional email to members of the Senate Banking Committee on Friday. In that message, the union argued that without “sufficient regulation,” embedding cryptocurrencies and other digital assets into the broader economy could destabilize workers’ financial stability.
The labor push adds to pressure already building from the banking sector, where trade groups have been pushing for revisions to key CLARITY Act provisions and to parts of the GENIUS Act for stablecoins that have already been enacted.
Last-Ditch Pitch Ahead Of Hearing
As Bitcoinist reported on Monday, Banking trade groups have opposed the stablecoin-rewards provision, arguing it gives crypto companies too much flexibility and could pull deposits away from the regulated banking system.
They also described what they said is a last-ditch effort to win over skeptical Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee ahead of the upcoming hearing.
Even as criticism mounts, senators say negotiations have been ongoing and the committee’s markup is now expected to be based on newly released CLARITY Act text.
On Monday night, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, Subcommittee on Digital Assets Chair Cynthia Lummis, and Senator Thom Tillis, released market structure bill language.
Updated Digital Asset Text
In their release, the senators said the text reflects “continued negotiations with Democratic colleagues” and extensive input from lawmakers, regulators, law enforcement, financial institutions, innovators, and consumer advocates.
Chairman Scott said the CLARITY Act reflects what he described as good-faith work that will benefit “families, small businesses, investors, and innovators” by offering clear rules.
He added that the CLARITY Act is intended to deliver certainty, safeguards, and accountability, put consumers first, combat illicit finance, and crack down on criminals and foreign adversaries—while also keeping what he characterized as the future of finance in the United States.
Lummis, who said Wyoming “led the way” on digital asset legislation and that Washington is now catching up, praised the updated text as the product of nearly a year of bipartisan work.
She described it as bringing the CLARITY Act one step closer to giving the industry the clarity it says it needs, and framed the markup as a move toward solidifying US leadership in digital asset advancement.
The daily chart shows the total crypto market cap at $2.63 trillion. Source: TOTAL on TradingView.com
Featured image created with OpenArt, chart from TradingView.com
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Ethereum liquid restaking platform Kelp and decentralized lending protocol Aave have completed a series of steps to restore rsETH backing, including burning the exploiter’s rsETH tokens.
Kelp DAO detailed a post-exploit recovery for its liquid staking token rsETH on Tuesday, confirming that the hacker’s tokens were burned on the layer-2 Arbitrum network.
The 117,132 rsETH, currently worth about $278 million, will be refilled progressively over two weeks from Aave Recovery Guardian, a multisignature wallet controlled by the DeFi United recovery group and Kelp’s own recovery safe into the LayerZero OFT adapter, a smart contract that handles locking, minting, burning and releasing rsETH during cross-chain transfers.
Kelp DAO confirmed that rsETH on mainnet and layer-2 networks, which has a market capitalization of $1.5 billion, remains fully backed at all times.
The move to recover the liquid staking tokens will bring users impacted by one of this year’s largest DeFi exploits one step closer to recovery.
Kelp was hacked in April when attackers widely attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group exploited its rsETH adapter bridge contract, the software that manages the platform’s liquid restaking token, and drained about $293 million.
Blockchain security firm OpenZeppelin reported at the time that no smart contract bug had been publicly identified, adding that “the system failed operationally,” and this is a category of risk the DeFi industry has “consistently underweighted.”
Tracking the exploited funds. Source: Cyvers
Withdrawals will resume within 24 hours
Kelp said it will unpause withdrawals, “tentatively within 24 hours,” after the first tranche is returned to the smart contract. All rsETH operations, including deposits, redemptions, bridging and claims, will resume as usual after the contracts are reactivated.
The protocol has also completed a “security hardening pass,” and bridging security now requires four independent attestors and 64 block confirmations, while it has deprecated some layer-2 routes.
Related: At least a dozen crypto entities attacked since Drift Protocol hack
It is also in the process of migrating to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) for “further strengthened cross-chain bridging.”
Derivatives traders undeterred by DeFi hacks
Kelp is a prominent liquid restaking protocol on Ethereum, primarily built on top of EigenLayer, where users deposit ETH or other supported liquid staking tokens for additional yields.
The protocol’s total value locked hit an all-time high of just over $2 billion in September 2025 but has since declined by about 26% to $1.55 billion, according to DeFiLlama.
Cointelegraph reported this week that metrics showed ETH derivatives traders were holding steady and haven’t flipped bearish despite the recent DeFi exploits.
However, spot prices are down around 1% on the day, with Ether falling to a 12-day low of $2,260 in late trading on Tuesday.
Magazine: DeFi’s billion-dollar secret: The insiders responsible for hacks
Wells Fargo reported larger positions in Ether exchange-traded funds in the first quarter while reshuffling its Bitcoin ETF holdings across several products, according to its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The bank said it raised its holdings in Ether (ETH) ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) and the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW), according to its latest Form 13F filing released on Monday.
ETHA rose 63.5% from about 672,600 shares in Q4 2025 to roughly 1.1 million shares in Q1 2026, while ETHW increased by 37% from about 186,800 to more than 257,000 shares, showing a broad-based increase across Ether-linked funds.
Bitcoin (BTC) ETF exposure, by contrast, showed a more mixed pattern: positions in the iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) were slightly reduced, while Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Trust (BITB) and Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF (BTC) holdings increased by roughly 24% and 41%, respectively.
The filing suggests Wells Fargo reported larger Ether ETF positions at quarter-end, even as its Bitcoin ETF exposure was more mixed.
Accumulation amid ETH price dip
Wells Fargo’s Ether ETF accumulation came during a period of weakening spot prices. According to CoinGlass data, Ethereum posted two consecutive quarterly declines, falling around 28% in Q4 2025 and 29% in Q1 2026.
Over the same period, spot Ether ETFs saw sustained outflows, totaling roughly $769 million across three straight months of withdrawals.
Despite the broader downturn, Wells Fargo held around $21.5 million in Ether ETFs in Q1 2026, with ETHA as the largest position at $17.6 million.
Bitcoin dominates holdings, equity rotations favor Strategy over Galaxy
Bitcoin ETFs remain the dominant crypto ETF exposure in Wells Fargo’s portfolio, with IBIT making up the bulk of the exposure at roughly $250 million.
In equities, Wells Fargo made a more pronounced shift in crypto-linked holdings. The bank significantly reduced its stake in Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital (GLXY), cutting its position from about 2.5 million shares in Q4 2025 to roughly 78,600 shares in Q1 2026, a decline of nearly 97% and an estimated $54.7 million reduction in exposure.
Related: Galaxy Digital posts $216M Q1 loss as crypto market slides 20%
On the other hand, Wells Fargo significantly increased exposure to Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder.
The bank raised its stake from about 322,700 shares in Q4 2025 to roughly 726,000 shares in Q1 2026, a gain of around 403,000 shares, or 125%, and an estimated $41.6 million increase in exposure.
Magazine: Strategy reveals why they would sell BTC, Trump Media posts loss: Hodler’s Digest, May 3 – 9
The following gives an overview of the fintech, digital and wider economic development of the Southeast Asian nation of Malaysia in 2026.
Malaysia has long been viewed as one of Southeast Asia’s more structured digital economies. It is less chaotic than its regional peers, but arguably more deliberate in how it builds financial innovation. The past few years, the country’s fintech ecosystem was already among the most developed amongst the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This was supported by strong regulation, high digital adoption, and a diversified financial sector. Now, that positioning has deepened. Malaysia is no longer simply a regional participant in fintech. It is increasingly shaping the architecture of digital finance in Southeast Asia.
Minus ASEAN nations of Singapore and Brunei, Malaysia is one of the wealthiest nations in the region with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of over $16,000. Last year, GDP as a whole grew 5.2 per cent. This is supported by domestic demand, exports, and investment.
Spanning towards the fintech sector
Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY
Malaysia’s economy is highly diversified, spanning manufacturing, services, finance, and digital industries, with Kuala Lumpur serving as the financial and commercial hub. Major institutions such as Maybank remain central to the financial system, while increasingly embracing digital banking and fintech partnerships.
This economic structure has enabled Malaysia to build one of the most mature fintech ecosystems in the region. There are over 500 fintech players in the country. In terms of active players, there are, as of last year, shy of 400 active fintech players. Payments remain the dominant segment, followed by e-wallets, lending platforms, and digital wealth services. Importantly, the ecosystem is no longer defined by early-stage experimentation. Rather, it is entering a phase of scale, integration, and regulatory sophistication.
At the heart of this transition is Bank Negara Malaysia, which is the country’s central bank. In the last few years, they have taken a highly proactive approach to fintech development. One of the most notable milestones has been the full rollout of five licensed digital banks, which are now operational and targeting underserved segments such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), younger consumers, and rural populations. This move signals a deliberate effort to expand financial inclusion through digital-first models.
At the same time, Malaysia’s payments infrastructure has undergone significant upgrades. Last year, the launch of RENTAS+ positioned Malaysia as ASEAN’s first country with a 24/7 real-time gross settlement system, enabling continuous interbank transfers and improving liquidity efficiency. Complementing this, the DuitNow ecosystem has expanded rapidly, with millions of QR acceptance points and widespread consumer adoption, reinforcing Malaysia’s transition towards a cash-lite society.
What is particularly notable this year is the shift towards open finance. Bank Negara Malaysia has introduced exposure drafts outlining a consent-driven data-sharing framework, designed to give consumers greater control over their financial data while enabling innovation across the ecosystem. This marks a critical evolution from open banking concepts towards a broader, system-wide approach to financial data interoperability.
Alongside this, Malaysia is also advancing in digital assets and next-generation finance. The launch of the Digital Asset Innovation Hub in 2025 created a controlled environment for testing new financial products, including tokenised deposits and stablecoin-based settlement solutions in collaboration with major banks and corporates. These initiatives suggest that Malaysia is positioning itself not just as a consumer fintech market, but as a laboratory for financial innovation.
Boosting financial and digital inclusion
Financial inclusion in Malaysia is relatively high compared to many emerging markets, with widespread access to banking services and digital payments. The growth of e-wallet usage, which accounts for a significant share of e-money transactions, highlights how digital finance has become embedded in everyday life. At the same time, fintech solutions are increasingly targeting SMEs, where access to financing remains a persistent challenge despite the sector accounting for over 96 per cent of businesses.
Beyond financial services, Malaysia’s broader digital transformation agenda continues to reinforce fintech growth. Government strategies emphasise digital economy expansion, with projections suggesting digital technology could contribute over 25 per cent of GDP in the coming years, according to PwC. This aligns with the country’s ambition to position itself as a regional hub for digital services, Islamic finance, and technology innovation.
Institutionally, Malaysia benefits from a well-developed ecosystem of regulators, industry bodies, and innovation platforms. Regulatory sandboxes, fintech associations, and strong collaboration between banks and startups have created a relatively balanced environment. This is one where innovation is encouraged, but within clearly defined regulatory boundaries.
On thing to note – one aspect of financial inclusion in Malaysia has been the popularity of QR payments. Like much of Asia, this is a reflection of its impact in the country. In fact, the country is reported to be the second highest user of QR payments in the world behind China.
Despite Malaysia’s successes, challenges remain. Competition from regional fintech hubs such as Singapore and Indonesia continues to intensify, while regulatory complexity and the need for continuous innovation place pressure on both incumbents and startups. Additionally, ensuring that fintech growth translates into meaningful inclusion. This is in particular with SMEs and lower-income segments.
Malaysia represents one of the more complete fintech ecosystems in Southeast Asia – they combine scale, structure, and strategic intent. By this year, its fintech landscape is no longer defined by growth alone, but by maturity, integration, and a clear sense of direction. The challenge now is to sustain innovation, deepen inclusion, and maintain regional competitiveness in an increasingly crowded and fast-evolving fintech landscape.
Richie is a global economic development advisor and Managing Partner of Santos-Diaz LLC, specializing in international trade and foreign direct investment across the UK, Middle East, and North America. With over 15 years of experience and a Masters from SOAS University of London, he has advised high-level governments and multinational corporates while contributing to major outlets like Forbes and the World Economic Forum. Currently based in Dubai, he leverages his background in emerging markets and RegTech to bridge the gap between global policy and private sector growth.
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A Florida man accused of running a nearly three-year crypto investment scheme is speaking out — and saying sorry.
Christopher Delgado, former CEO of Goliath Ventures, sat down for a televised interview this week to apologize to the people who lost money under his watch.
Confined To A Luxury Estate
Delgado is currently out on bail, but he is not a free man. He is confined to his home — an 11,000 square foot estate in Florida — and fitted with an ankle monitor.
That estate, according to US prosecutors, was bought with investor funds. Three other Florida properties, bringing the combined real estate total to $14.5 million, were also allegedly purchased using money from investors.
Prosecutors with the Orlando US Attorney’s Office charged Delgado with fraud and money laundering on February 20 over an alleged $328 million crypto investment Ponzi scheme. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts.
In the interview, which aired on ABC-affiliated station WFTV, Delgado said he wanted to explain what happened and make clear how sorry he was. “They put their trust in me, and I failed them,” he said.
Who Were The Crypto Investors?
The people who lost money were not wealthy speculators. Reports indicate the investor pool included nurses, teachers, firefighters, and retirees — people who handed over their savings based on promises of steady monthly returns from cryptocurrency liquidity pools.
One investor lost roughly $720,000. That person was told returns were guaranteed and that the money could be pulled out at any time.
According to federal prosecutors, Goliath Ventures operated as a Ponzi scheme from January 2023 through January 2026. Company funds were used not only on real estate but also on lavish company events, Christmas parties, and upscale travel.
BTCUSD currently trading at $80,574. Chart: TradingView
When asked how Goliath handled investor money, Delgado acknowledged the company was paying people what he called an astronomical amount.
By the time of his arrest, Delgado said only $160,000 remained in Goliath’s bank account.
JPMorgan Pulled Into Legal Fight
The case has spilled beyond Delgado himself. In March, a group of investors filed a proposed class action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, claiming the bank played a role in moving funds tied to the alleged scheme.
Based on reports, the lawsuit claims $253 million was deposited into a JPMorgan account between January 2023 and June 2025, with about $123 million of that later transferred to Goliath wallets at Coinbase.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView
Editorial Process for bitcoinist is centered on delivering thoroughly researched, accurate, and unbiased content. We uphold strict sourcing standards, and each page undergoes diligent review by our team of top technology experts and seasoned editors. This process ensures the integrity, relevance, and value of our content for our readers.
NEAR Intents upgraded its frontend to enable single-flow swaps from over 100 tokens directly into ZEC, leveraging intent-based architecture for crosschain transactions.
NEAR Intents announced an expanded crosschain swapping capability, allowing users to swap from 100+ tokens directly into Zcash (ZEC) through a single transaction flow on an upgraded frontend. The update leverages NEAR’s intent-based infrastructure to facilitate the multi-token-to-ZEC conversions, streamlining the user experience for accessing privacy-focused digital assets across blockchains.
The upgrade demonstrates NEAR’s focus on crosschain interoperability through its Intents protocol, which abstracts complex backend routing logic to simplify user interactions. By integrating Zcash into the broader swapping ecosystem, NEAR Intents targets users seeking to consolidate multiple token holdings into a single privacy-enhanced asset without navigating multiple separate protocols or bridges.
Sources: NEAR Intents
This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.
Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, is working with asset manager Franklin Templeton to expand the use of tokenized financial products for institutional investors.
The companies said Tuesday they will develop a range of blockchain-based investment offerings, including tokenized yield products, tokenized equities and custody services tied to digital assets.
The move comes as large financial firms explore testing tokenized versions of conventional assets. BlackRock, Fidelity and JPMorgan have all expanded blockchain-related financial products over the past two years, particularly tokenized Treasuries and money market funds.
Tokenization refers to representing traditional financial assets such as stocks, bonds or money market funds on blockchain networks, where they can be traded and settled digitally. Supporters argue the approach can reduce settlement times, expand market access and allow assets to move more easily between financial platforms.
The collaboration joins two firms that have taken different routes into tokenized finance. Franklin Templeton has spent years building blockchain-based investment products. Payward has focused on crypto trading infrastructure through Kraken and its xStocks tokenized equities platform, which the company says has processed more than $30 billion in trading volume since starting up in 2025.
The firms plan to explore actively managed tokenized investment products that could trade onchain and become available to institutional investors and, in some jurisdictions, retail Kraken users.
Kraken also plans to integrate BENJI, Franklin Templeton’s suite of tokenized money market funds, into its platform. The funds could serve as collateral or cash management tools for institutional trading clients seeking blockchain-based alternatives to traditional treasury operations.
Analysts view tokenized Treasury funds as one of the fastest-growing sectors in digital assets because they offer yields tied to government securities while operating on blockchain rails. In practice, that can allow institutions to move collateral around the clock instead of waiting for banking hours or multiday settlement periods.
Read more: Kraken parent Payward seeks fresh funding at $20 billion valuation ahead of planned IPO
