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U.S. regulator warns prediction markets against cutting corners in event contracts

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has claimed a role as the leading regulator of prediction markets firms run by companies such as Kalshi, Coinbase, Polymarket and Crypto.com, issued an advisory on Friday reminding the businesses that they shouldn’t cut corners with far-ranging contract certifications meant to encompass a wide array of events.

The agency said that “broad, template-style certifications should not be submitted,” marking the second time in recent months that the regulator has had to warn about overly generalized submissions.

Many of the “designated contract markets” regulated by the CFTC “continue to self-certify event contracts” (in other words, prediction market contracts) as broad templates “without supplying the terms and conditions of each proposed permutation and a concise explanation and analysis with respect to the product’s terms and conditions, the underlying commodity, and the product’s compliance,” the agency said.

The regulator said skirting the process can undermine its ability to work out whether the firm “has supplied all information, explanation and analysis required” and has “adequately evaluated the settlement methodology, data sources, and core-principles compliance of all permutations of the contract.”

Europe’s high regulatory bar could spark new crypto industry M&A wave

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“As it uses existing rules, it’s going to be much less like a standalone framework,” Lightstone said. “A crypto firm will be treated like any normal traditional financial institution,” adding that “it will still be hard to get FCA authorization.”

For established banks and investment firms already operating under those rules, adapting to crypto may be relatively straightforward. For newer crypto businesses, however, the cost of building governance, capital and custody systems from scratch could prove considerably more burdensome.

That challenge is particularly evident in the FCA’s proposed client asset regime, applying the Clients Asset Sourcebook (CASS) framework, which would require firms to segregate customer crypto assets from company funds under trust arrangements while introducing crypto-specific operational safeguards around private keys and reconciliations.

“The CASS requirements are very onerous,” Lightstone said. “That could encourage those newcomers to merge [with], be acquired by, a traditional firm that’s already subject to CASS and has those controls in place.”

Banking adoption

The prospect of consolidation comes as banks themselves appear more willing to enter digital assets now that regulatory uncertainty is beginning to lift.

“As of today, there is less than 20% of all the banks in Europe [that] offer today any type of crypto services, so it’s heavily underserved,” said Simon Schneider, CEO of Sygnum Europe.

BitMart to shut down after nine years, exchange token crashes 58%

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BMX, the platform’s token, fell to about 8 cents, down 58% over 24 hours, cutting its market value to roughly $27 million. The token was already down about 70% over the past year, so Sunday’s drop extended a long decline rather than starting one.

The exchange’s trading figures are significant, despite the closure. BitMart reported about $1.6 billion in 24-hour volume, up 51% from the previous period, with bitcoin accounting for nearly half of it. That jump more plausibly reflects users unwinding positions and moving funds out than any fresh demand, but it leaves open why a platform still clearing that kind of flow is closing.

Meanwhile, the withdrawal terms carry more friction than a routine exit. BitMart said requests may face additional review covering identity verification, device and IP checks, withdrawal-address screening, source-of-funds questions and sanctions checks, and warned that processing could stretch if request volumes spike.

BitMart lost about $196 million to a hot-wallet breach in December 2021, one of the larger exchange hacks of that cycle, and covered customer losses at the time.

Why is SHIB up 35%? Shiba Inu rockets higher as S.Korean traders lead mystery rally

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Shiba Inu rose 36% to about $0.0000057 on Sunday, adding roughly a billion dollars to its market value in a day, with no announcement or development to account for it.

The token now carries a market cap near $3.4 billion on almost $380 million of daily volume, its highest turnover ranking in months.

Nothing has emerged from Shibarium, the network’s layer-2, and the wider dog-token complex has lagged. Dogecoin gained 6% over the same stretch, and smaller-cap tokens moved as much as 10%, which pointed to something specific to SHIB rather than a rotation into memecoins.

South Korean buying stands out. Upbit’s SHIB/KRW pair is the single largest market at about $62 million, over a tenth of global volume, and it prints a slight premium to Binance and the other dollar venues.

The country’s traders are known to drive exuberant rallies in high-volatility tokens, and the token’s climb fits that pattern, with a first push late Saturday, nine flat hours, then a second move through the Asian morning.

Dango Blockchain to Shut Down, Halt Perp DEX Trading

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Layer-1 blockchain Dango will wind down operations by halting trading on its perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) on Wednesday and shutting down its network on Aug. 13.

“Despite our best effort, various reasons have led us to conclude there is no viable path to a lasting commercial success,” Dango said in a Friday X announcement.

Dango founder Larry Liu added that the team faced cash shortages, legal challenges that slowed momentum, the loss of team members, and broader market conditions.

Dango launched its mainnet in January after raising $3.6 million in a 2024 seed round led by Hack VC and Lemniscap. It rolled out its perpetual DEX in April, only to suffer a roughly $410,000 exploit days after launch. The attacker later returned the funds in exchange for a bug bounty.

Related: BitMEX hit with 623 BTC lawsuit on day it announces shutdown

Dango’s open interest dwarfed by Hyperliquid, Aster

According to DefiLlama, Dango’s total value locked fell from a peak of roughly $4.5 million in early May to about $1.6 million before the announcement. 

The perp DEX market is increasingly competitive and dominated by a handful of platforms. 

Hyperliquid held more than $11 billion in open interest on Saturday, which represents the value of outstanding perpetual futures contracts that haven’t been closed.

Perp DEX ranking by open interest. Source: DefiLlama

Only Aster and Variational also hold more than $1 billion in open interest. Dango held just under $391,000 in open interest.

CoinGecko said in its second quarter industry report that Hyperliquid became the second-largest perpetual exchange by open interest on July 1, behind only Binance.

A summer of crypto shutdowns

Dango’s shutdown adds to a growing list of crypto platform closures in July, including 11-year-old perpetual futures pioneer BitMEX.

Restructuring adviser Roshan Dharia told Cointelegraph that BitMEX’s shutdown reflects structural pressures facing mid-sized centralized exchanges, where liquidity has increasingly concentrated among the industry’s largest players and regulatory compliance costs continue to rise. 

“The top five platforms now control an estimated 80% of global spot volume, leaving mid-tier and regional exchanges with shrinking margins and no viable path to scale,” Dharia said.

Other recent closures include DEX aggregator Odos Protocol and perp DEX Satori Finance.

Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

Bitcoin advocacy group to join US State Department’s ‘digital freedom’ program

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The Bitcoin Policy Institute and three partner organizations will be able to send employees to work alongside State Department officials to address issues including digital freedom.

Russia’s largest bank Sberbank plans crypto trading infrastructure by December

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Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, plans to build cryptocurrency trading infrastructure and launch a digital depository by Dec. 1 as Russia moves to bring crypto trading, custody and settlement into its regulated financial system.

The depository, according to Interfax, will record clients’ ownership of cryptocurrency and process most transactions outside the underlying blockchain. Sberbank will operate active wallets for client-initiated deposits, withdrawals and transfers.

The plan follows the Federation Council’s approval of a law regulating cryptocurrency trading through licensed brokers, exchanges, asset managers and depositories.

The framework is set to take effect Sept. 1, though rules requiring transactions to pass through licensed intermediaries will apply from July 2027.

Public exchange trading will be limited to cryptocurrencies that meet Bank of Russia liquidity thresholds, including an average market capitalization above 5 trillion rubles ($64 billion) and an average daily volume above 1 trillion rubles ($12.8 billion) over 2 years.

Qualified investors will be able to access a broader range of assets. Crypto payments for goods and services inside Russia remain prohibited.

Sberbank started offering qualified investors structured bonds tied to bitcoin last year, and completed a bitcoin-backed lending pilot with miner Intelion Data in December.

North Korea arrests hackers accused of laundering stolen bank funds through crypto

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North Korean authorities arrested former military hackers accused of stealing state funds from two banks and laundering the proceeds through cryptocurrency.

The group, according to a Daily NK report citing an anonymous source in Pyongyang, allegedly breached the internal systems of the Central Bank of the DPRK and Foreign Trade Bank, diverted foreign currency and state trade funds, and moved the money into overseas crypto wallets.

The report could not be independently verified.

Chinese brokers then converted the assets into U.S. dollars and yuan, Daily NK said. Contacts in the border cities of Sinuiju and Hyesan allegedly exchanged the crypto for cash in real time, with the group splitting transfers into small amounts to avoid detection and using encrypted messaging apps, unregistered phones and Chinese wireless equipment.

North Korea’s National Intelligence Agency arrested the suspects at a Pyongyang safe house on July 12 after officials detected discrepancies in foreign-currency payment approvals and suspicious overseas IP activity, according to the report.

The laundering route mirrors methods used by North Korean hacking groups to cash out stolen crypto.

Mirae plans to turn crypto exchange Korbit into something Korea hasn’t seen before

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Korbit currently holds less than 1% of South Korea’s domestic crypto market, far behind giants Upbit and Bithumb. When asked directly about its strategy to compete, Mirae Asset stressed that the goal is not to overtake any other company or exchange, but to promote sustainable growth of the digital assets industry in South Korea.

“We intend to combine Mirae Asset’s extensive global investment expertise with Korbit’s digital asset capabilities to promote the sound and sustainable growth of the digital asset industry in Korea and globally.”

In other words, Mirae Asset isn’t trying to outdo Upbit or Bithumb, but to offer a one-stop shop that brings together institutional investment capabilities, research, education, and digital asset infrastructure under one roof.

The group also told CoinDesk it would strictly comply with AML, KYC, and fraud-detection standards across all areas, a signal that Digital X is being positioned for institutional clients as much as for retail traders.

Mirae Asset’s affiliate Mirae Asset Consulting recently increased its stake in Korbit to 97.15%, completing the acquisition after receiving regulatory approval from South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission.

“The acquisition was carried out through lawful procedures following a thorough review of the relevant laws and regulatory framework. Mirae Asset Consulting was selected as the acquiring entity after comprehensive consideration of each affiliate’s business purpose and role, as well as its potential synergies with the digital asset business,” the firm said.

Poolin files for bankruptcy after collapse from bitcoin’s biggest mining pool

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Bitcoin mining company Poolin has filed for bankruptcy alongside its two U.S. affiliates Lonestar Dream and Lonestar Taproot with estimated liabilities between $100 million-$500 million, TheEnergyMag reported on Friday.

The Singapore-based firm, which once dominated the industry, filed for Chapter 11 protection in New Jersey on July 22 with debts of around $173 million,

A $52 million bid for two mining sites in West Texas is currently on the table from Thor CALAP LLC. The sites represent the better part of the company’s assets.

Poolin was one of the biggest mining pools in bitcoin at its peak meaning more bitcoin was being mined through Poolin than through any other single pool on earth. Glassnode data shows its share of global hashrate reached roughly 18-20% in 2019.

Users were already complaining about withdrawal delays on Poolin’s Telegram channels in late 2022, a period plagued by crypto companies facing liquidity squeezes as that year’s market downturn came to a head. Co-founder Kevin Pan acknowledged in a WeChat post that the company was “facing liquidity problems” while insisting user funds were safe.