YLDS is an SEC-registered, USD-pegged stable asset from Figure.
Figure Technology Solutions (Nasdaq: FIGR) — a fintech company that builds blockchain-native financial products including lending, trading, and digital asset infrastructure — today announced the launch of YLDS on the Stellar network, marking the first time a regulated, yield-bearing dollar product has been made available on the chain.
YLDS is Figure’s SEC-registered stablecoin issued by Figure Certificate Company, combining stablecoin liquidity with money market-style yield. The product is designed for regulated entities such as fintechs and neobanks that require compliant onchain dollar holdings. Notably, Figure HELOC — a token representing home equity loans originated on-chain — currently ranks #9 among all cryptocurrencies by market cap, a signal of the scale Figure has achieved in tokenizing real-world financial assets, though not without controversy.
“We built YLDS to do what banks do with your deposits: hold dollars, earn yield, move money, but onchain and regulated,” said Mike Cagney, executive chair of Figure. “Fintechs and neobanks can now access that product on the Stellar network.”
Stellar processed $55.6 billion in stablecoin payment volume in 2025 and hosts more than $2 billion in onchain tokenized real-world assets from issuers including WisdomTree, Ondo, and Franklin Templeton. According to rwa.xyz data, Stellar ranks as the fourth-largest chain by distributed RWA value, with $1.6 billion tokenized on the network. The launch builds on Stellar’s expanding DeFi infrastructure, which was further strengthened when RedStone brought institutional-grade oracle price feeds to the network in March — unlocking more sophisticated financial products on the chain.
Raja Chakravorti of the Stellar Development Foundation called the launch an expansion of “dollar-denominated stablecoin products that combine yield, usability, and global reach.”
Earlier this year, the blockchain developed by Figure, Provenance, saw its TVL hit an all-time high of $1.2 billion, driven entirely by Figure Markets’ activity, as The Defiant reported.
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MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — CoinDesk’s flagship Consensus conference kicks off today at the Miami Beach Convention Center, bringing thousands of people together for the annual big-tent event to discuss the digital assets sector.
Day one of the conference will see local officials and startup executives lay out the state of the crypto world. Arthur Hayes, Lily Liu, Jesse Pollak, Anatoly Yakovenko, Mike Cagney, Brad Garlinghouse and more will present keynotes or take place in firesides to open the conference, weighing in on everything from the current macroeconomic environment to the future of AI tooling to the growth of decentralized finance. Keep an eye on this liveblog for updates throughout the day.
On the policy front, CoinDesk will see discussions about the U.S. Department of Justice’s fight against developers of mixers and hear from Congressional staffers about how exactly crypto-specific legislation is being written. Congressman Steven Horsford will discuss his effort to reform how the U.S. handles taxes around crypto transactions, while CFTC Chairman Michael Selig talks about his agency’s growing efforts to wrangle crypto and prediction markets.
Agentic payments, privacy tools and more familiar crypto tooling will — naturally — also see discussions throughout the day.
Tomorrow will also see CoinDesk host its Capital Markets Summit, bringing together traditional finance veterans with companies trying to bring these products onchain. A key theme at Consensus Hong Kong this past February was the growth of tokenization as a way for these long-established firms to build faster, more efficient tooling for their existing products. Is that trend real and will it continue? Come find out.
Tomorrow — and throughout the week — we’ll also have meetups for folks interested in different topics, like prediction markets or the midterm election, to connect with each other. Definitely take advantage of those; the Consensus Lobby has been one of the most-appreciated aspects of this event for the last decade, but now you can hang in a dedicated space for it instead of hoping for an empty corner in an actual lobby.
At Fintech Meetup 2026, Teresa Biko, Head of Business Development for the U.S. at Aevi, addressed an issue that has plagued the financial services industry for years: the fragmentation of payments. Aevi highlights that the payments landscape is complicated by an array of specific acquirers, different hardware, local methods of payment, and varying regulations. This complexity is particularly frustrating for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), who are often forced to rebuild pieces of their payment infrastructure every time they try to scale or enter a new market.
A major risk Aevi identifies is the resulting lack of flexibility, which severely limits an ISV’s growth potential. If a company is locked into a specific acquirer or device, their expansion is restricted by that vendor’s market reach and capabilities, which may not match the ISV’s global ambitions. The solution, according to Aevi, lies in establishing a true abstraction layer, or open orchestration, that completely separates the ISV from the underlying complexities of in-person payments.
This open orchestration approach fundamentally shifts the balance of power and by gaining independence from specific vendors, ISVs acquire significant control. This power can be leveraged in multiple ways, such as negotiating favorable pricing terms with both acquirers and hardware providers which is something that is often impossible under current, restrictive contracts. This newfound flexibility allows ISVs to dictate their own pace of growth and market entry. Aevi projects that this change will be transformative. Payments, which many ISVs currently view as a necessary evil will become a major strategic advantage and this efficiency and speed will allow them to scale and win in new markets much faster.
Bitcoin bears likely consider $80,000 as an area to take profits around, but onchain data suggests it is the opposite.
Bitcoin’s net realized profits, the metric that tracks the dollar value of coins sold above their original purchase price across the network, spiked to $207.56 million on Sunday, the highest reading in a month, per data from onchain analytics firm Santiment.
The print arrived as bitcoin briefly crossed $80,000 for the first time since January before reversing to $79,000 late Monday and rising above $80,000 again in Asian morning hours Tuesday.
Realized profit spiking during a rally — rather than a sell-off — is indicative of holders sitting on gains realizing profits and newer participants entering the market at current levels.
The cost-basis suggest a change in the underlying market structure.
Cost basis refers to the price at which a holder originally bought their coins, and it shapes how they react to future price moves. Old holders cashing out on Sunday transferred their coins to buyers willing to pay around $80,000, which raises the average entry price across the network.
That thickens the layer of holders whose break-even point sits close to current levels, and they tend to be the most likely to panic if prices drop. New buyers at are unlikely to dump on a routine pullback as they just got in.
The size of the move also fits the bullish read. The $207 million print is a one-month high, not an all-time high. Genuine cycle tops produce realized profit events that climb into the multiple billions, after which the market typically rolls over within days.
The onchain read aligns with the options-market positioning that CoinDesk reported earlier Tuesday.
Volatility markets did not chase the breakout, as traders are still paying more to protect against a drop than to bet on a sharp move higher, which shows the broader market remains cautious.
But options desks are also seeing demand for cheap call ratio trades, a structure that works best if bitcoin keeps climbing steadily without exploding through a higher strike. This suggests directional traders remain cautious while more sophisticated options flow is positioning for a steady grind higher.
Whether the breakout extends depends on the macro tape that the on-chain data cannot see, with the Iran-U.S. ceasefire fraying. Strategy reporting earnings later on Tuesday the April nonfarm payrolls print dropping Friday. Any of those can override what the chain is signalling.
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Charles Hoskinson pushed back against criticism that Cardano prioritized governance over scaling, arguing that the network’s current roadmap reflects years of research rather than a delayed pivot. The dispute comes as Input Output’s latest treasury proposals put Leios, Peras, layer-2 infrastructure and developer tooling back at the center of Cardano’s 2026 technical agenda.
In a post on X, the Cardano founder said he was “getting insanely tired” of what he called a “false narrative” that scaling had been abandoned in favor of governance. Hoskinson argued that scaling work had been continuous since before Shelley, spanning layer-2 designs, the eUTXO accounting model, zero-knowledge research, partnerchains and, ultimately, Leios.
“It was an enormously challenging problem that we relentlessly attacked from many different angles including L2 innovations, a brand new accounting model- eutxo- zero knowledge ideas, partnerchains, and capstoning with Leios,” Hoskinson wrote. “Many of these ideas required deep r&d and original publications. This cannot be made faster by throwing more people at it. It’s research.”
Cardano Scaling Debate Heats Up
His comments land at a sensitive moment for Cardano governance. Input Output has submitted nine treasury proposals for community review, describing them as tied to Cardano’s 2030 vision and focused on scalability and decentralization. IO says the 2026 funding request totals $46.8 million, down from $97.5 million last year, and is intended to help deliver key roadmap components while moving more development capacity into a broader contributor ecosystem.
That structure is part of the tension. In a separate exchange, Hoskinson warned against a fragmented voting outcome after community members debated whether the IO proposals should be treated as a coordinated package or as separate funding items. Responding to concerns that DReps could approve only a subset of the proposals, he wrote: “Sadly, this is the end result of a piecemeal roadmap. It’s an iPhone by committee, with people deciding whether they prefer the fingerprint sensor to wireless charging. You end up with a bizarre, useless product.”
The core of Hoskinson’s argument is that Cardano’s scaling path could not be separated cleanly from its governance path. Voltaire, in his view, was not a detour from throughput work but a prerequisite for deploying major upgrades in a system where parameters, client diversity and treasury spending now require community legitimacy.
“No one was pulled from scaling research and development,” he wrote. “There were dozens of scientists and engineers brainstorming and prototyping for years. A semi-centralized and not secure halfway house could have been implemented that crashed all the time like other blockchains. Or we could do it right like we’ve always done things with the Cardano ecosystem. We chose the latter.”
Leios sits at the center of that defense. IO’s treasury overview describes the consensus proposal as the largest technical initiative in the current portfolio and says it is designed to deliver sustainable throughput capacity at the protocol level. The same overview says a Leios testnet is expected soon, with mainnet targeted by the end of 2026, alongside a broader delivery model involving Intersect, Tweag and TxPipe.
Hoskinson presented that as the payoff from Cardano’s slower, research-heavy approach. “We now have a full design for Leios, Peras, and a great L2 strategy. They are elegant and future proof. We now have the best scaling strategy in the entire cryptocurrency space. That’s what the time bought us.”
The layer-2 side of the roadmap is also part of the argument. IO’s proposal package includes production hardening for Hydra, a planned Midgard mainnet launch, and shared L2-agnostic primitives meant to support current and future Cardano scaling systems. The overview frames Hydra and Midgard as complementary rather than competing designs, with Hydra targeting known-party, high-frequency environments and Midgard aimed at open, permissionless applications.
Hoskinson also used Bitcoin’s post-quantum debate as a contrast, arguing that Cardano’s governance system gives it a route to resolve contentious technical issues without splitting authority between informal factions. He claimed Bitcoin’s debate over whether to move or leave vulnerable coins exposed is “the single greatest endorsement of the value of governance,” adding that Cardano would “sidestep this issue thanks to governance.”
At press time, ADA traded at $0.2528.
ADA remains below key resistance, 1-monthly chart | Source: ADAUSDT on TradingView.com
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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The emergency motion challenges a New York court order redirecting recovered Kelp DAO exploit funds toward decades-old terrorism judgments against North Korea.
Aave LLC, a software development company contributing to the Aave Protocol, filed an emergency motion in the Southern District of New York on Monday seeking to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO last week that locks up roughly $71 million in recovered ETH tied to the April 18 Kelp DAO bridge exploit.
The 29-page memorandum, filed before Judge Margaret M. Garnett by Morrison Cohen LLP, asks the court to vacate the notice immediately, or alternatively to schedule an expedited hearing with a temporary vacatur in the interim. As a third option, if the notice is maintained at all, the filing demands that plaintiffs post a cash bond of “no less than $300 million” to cover the damages Aave argues the freeze is causing.
The restraining notice was served on May 1 by Gerstein Harrow LLP on behalf of plaintiffs who hold unpaid judgments against North Korea from prior litigation between 2010 and 2016. The firm argues that public attribution of the exploit to the Lazarus Group is sufficient to treat the recovered funds as DPRK property eligible to satisfy those judgments.
Aave LLC contests that framing on multiple grounds. The motion argues that a thief does not acquire lawful ownership of stolen property by taking possession of it, that property recovered from a thief during a theft remains the victim’s, and that plaintiffs have offered no admissible evidence beyond “internet-post hearsay opinions” tying the attacker to their specific judgment debtor.
In a pointed footnote, Aave LLC accuses Gerstein Harrow of misrepresenting case law to the court, calling the firm’s claim that “DAOs like Arbitrum DAO have been held to be general partnerships” a “flatly false” assertion designed to “pull a fast one.” Neither Samuels v. Lido DAO nor Sarcuni v. bZx DAO, the two cases cited by plaintiffs, has held any DAO to be a partnership, the filing notes.
The disputed funds are the 30,765 ETH frozen by the Arbitrum Security Council on April 21, days after the bridge exploit, which drained roughly $293 million in rsETH and left Aave with between $124 million and $230 million in bad debt. The filing pegs the actual theft from Aave Protocol users at approximately $230 million worth of ETH borrowed against unbacked rsETH collateral.
The “DeFi United” coalition published a technical implementation plan last week to refill rsETH backing and clear the exploiter’s outstanding borrow positions on Aave and Compound. That plan depends in part on the Arbitrum Security Council releasing the frozen ETH. The related Arbitrum DAO Snapshot proposal authorizing the release has drawn support from more than 1,400 wallet addresses representing approximately 139 million ARB.
“The global DeFi community came together to recover assets stolen from users, and we are not going to let those assets be wrongfully redirected,” said Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave Labs, in a press release viewed by The Defiant. “These funds belong to the affected users they were stolen from, full stop.”
Aave LLC said it does not dispute the legitimacy of the underlying grievances against North Korea but maintains they cannot lawfully be addressed through the seizure of stolen assets belonging to innocent third parties without any connection to the DPRK.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
At the Retail Technology Show, the focus on the checkout experience centered not just on the point of sale, but on the collaborative nature of the entire retail environment. Colin Neil, CEO at DNA Payments, joined the discussion to explain that the most critical role for a payment provider is the support it offers to its partners. Neil emphasized that a customer’s checkout experience is determined by a vast ecosystem, making it essential for providers to offer flexible technology that can adapt to various partner needs and integrated systems.
Rather than identifying a singular, massive shift in the industry, Neil suggested that the evolution of payments is fundamentally dictated by shifting customer expectations. Today’s consumers are increasingly looking for greater speed and enhanced flexibility in how they complete their purchases. To prepare clients for these demands, DNA Payments focuses on ensuring that the payment provider remains a seamless part of the overall journey. By prioritizing frictionless technology, providers can help retailers simplify the checkout process without sacrificing the variety of payment choices customers now expect.
Key Highlights from Colin Neil:
Ecosystem Collaboration: Neil highlights how the checkout experience is a result of the whole ecosystem, requiring payment providers to be strong, supportive partners.
The Necessity of Flexibility: Why offering flexible technology is the most important way for a provider to ensure a successful merchant and customer interaction.
Consumer-Led Innovation: The role of payments is increasingly dictated by the customer’s demand for more speed and more choice during the transaction.
Seamless Integration: A look at how DNA Payments focuses on remaining a seamless part of the customer journey to reduce friction for retailers and shoppers alike.
Coinbase is set to slashing its workforce by roughly 14%, or 660 employees in response to negative market conditions and AI challenges.
CEO Brian Armstrong announced the cuts in an X post on Tuesday, citing the “two forces” that converged in his firm’s decision to slash staff.
Coinbase has more than 4,700 employees, according to its website, so 14% would be equivalent to around 660.
“While we’ve managed through that cyclicality many times before and come out stronger on the other side, we’re currently in a down market and need to adjust our cost structure now so that we emerge from this period leaner, faster, and more efficient for our next phase of growth,” said the CEO of the Nasdaq-listed company.
The second reason is AI, and how it is changing the way Coinbase operates, he said. “Over the past year, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks,” Armstrong stated, adding that “the pace of what’s possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it’s accelerating every day.”
The Coinbase CEO said that employees laid off in the U.S. will receive a minimum of 16 weeks’ base pay, plus 2 weeks of severance pay for every year they were employed by the company. He also said that those not in the U.S. would receive similar support under local law.
“Over the past 13 years, we have weathered four crypto winters, gone public, and built the most trusted platform in our industry,” he said.
A wave of crypto layoffs this year has highlighted the gap between two convenient narratives: macro headwinds and AI transformation. Algorand cut its staff by 25% in late March, citing “the uncertain global macro environment” and a broader crypto downturn. Gemini Space Station (GEMI) said it would eliminate roughly 200 positions in February, about a quarter of its staff, a figure that had grown to 30% by mid-March. On Thursday, Crypto.com said it is trimming 12% of its workforce, about 180 roles.
All but Algorand pointed directly to macro conditions, weak token prices and a pivot toward greater use of AI in the workflow.
UPDATE (May 5, 2026, 11:50 UTC): Amends lede and adds rationale for estimate of number of employees laid off.
K Wave Media, a Nasdaq-listed media and entertainment company, said it is redirecting up to $485 million in remaining financing capacity from a Bitcoin treasury strategy into an artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout, according to a Monday 6-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The capital will be deployed into data centers, graphics processing unit (GPU) compute operations and related AI infrastructure investments under an amended securities purchase agreement with Anson Funds, the structured equity financing counterparty to the company.
The amendment revises a prior $500 million equity purchase facility, which had been structured to support a Bitcoin treasury strategy, leaving $485 million available for deployment into AI infrastructure initiatives, according to the filing. The Bitcoin treasury was previously announced in 2025 as part of the company’s broader capital markets repositioning.
The company said the shift forms part of a broader restructuring that also includes the planned disposition of its wholly owned subsidiary Play Co., Ltd. and the expected elimination of approximately $48 million in debt and related contingent liabilities.
The move marks a sharp strategic reversal for K Wave Media, which had only positioned itself around a Bitcoin treasury strategy in June 2025, alongside earlier initiatives tied to Korean cultural intellectual property and tokenized securities concepts.
K Wave share price down ~28% pre-market. Source: Yahoo! Finance
The company’s share price has been volatile following the announcement and was down 28.25% at the time of writing since Friday’s close, from ~$0.406 per share to ~$0.294, according to Yahoo Finance data.
Board approves shift toward AI infrastructure strategy
K Wave Media said in the filing that its board has approved a strategic repositioning toward AI infrastructure, including investments in data centers, GPU compute and acquisitions across the AI value chain.
In a statement included in the filing, chief executive officer Ted Kim said the company aims to become “a meaningful participant in the rapidly growing AI infrastructure sector,” citing plans to build a scalable platform across compute and related technologies.
The company also said it is evaluating a potential corporate rebrand, including the name “Talivar Technologies,” subject to shareholder approval at its annual meeting scheduled for early July 2026. The restructuring, including the subsidiary disposal and debt reduction, is intended to significantly de-leverage the company’s balance sheet.
Cointelegraph reached out to K Wave Media for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt
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The DTC unit will begin processing limited tokenized trades in July before opening the service more broadly in October.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) on Monday laid out a concrete timeline for its long-awaited tokenization service, saying it plans to facilitate initial trades of tokenized real-world assets in July before a broader launch in October.
The company said the service, being built by its subsidiary The Depository Trust Company (DTC), is being designed in collaboration with more than 50 financial industry firms.
DTC’s tokenization service will allow real-world, DTC-custodied assets to be tokenized while preserving the same entitlements, investor protections, and ownership rights as the underlying securities held in traditional form, according to a press release.
The update follows the SEC’s no-action letter issued in December 2025, which authorized DTC to offer the service to its participants and their clients for a three-year period. Eligible assets under the authorization include constituents of the Russell 1000 index, major equity index ETFs, and U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds.
The industry working group has been central to shaping the service’s rollout, with DTCC framing the broad participation as evidence that traditional finance is ready to plug into blockchain rails through trusted intermediaries.
“DTC’s tokenization service is designed to provide systemic scale where deep liquidity already lives,” said Brian Steele, DTCC Managing Director, President, Clearing & Securities Services.
The service will be built on DTCC’s ComposerX platform suite, which the firm has positioned as a bridge between traditional and digital markets. DTCC has also said it will use the Canton Network as the underlying infrastructure for tokenizing U.S. Treasury securities.
The phased rollout reflects DTCC’s broader push to position itself at the center of tokenized market infrastructure as Wall Street pivots toward on-chain settlement.
In March, DTCC co-published a joint report arguing that interoperability between blockchain and traditional ledgers is essential for digital asset securities to scale. The firm has also been at the center of debates over how tokenized equities will settle, particularly as Nasdaq pursues its own tokenized stock listings.
DTCC said it will continue working with the industry group to align best practices, prove out operational and technical workflows, and demonstrate that tokenized assets issued through the service can interoperate across multiple chains.
This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.
