Phantom, a developer of self-custodial crypto wallets particularly popular in the Solana ecosystem, secured a no-action letter from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), allowing it to offer users access to certain regulated derivatives markets without registering as a broker.
In a statement Tuesday, the CFTC’s Market Participants Division said it would not recommend enforcement action against Phantom for failing to register as an introducing broker, provided the firm meets a set of conditions. The relief applies to Phantom’s software acting as a non-custodial interface that connects users directly with CFTC-registered entities, such as futures commission merchants and designated contract markets.
Phantom said in a blog post that the letter enables it to integrate access to regulated derivatives and event contracts directly in its app through registered partners, while ensuring users submit orders straight to exchanges. The company emphasized it does not custody customer funds or intermediate trades.
Phantom described the outcome as “first-of-its-kind” for this model and the result of proactive engagement with regulators. “Rather than building first and seeking forgiveness later, we took a different approach,” the team wrote in the blog post, adding that early dialogue with the CFTC helped clarify how non-custodial interfaces can operate within existing rules.
“A critical part of making crypto safe and easy to use is building financial products that are governed by clear, common-sense regulations. When warranted, engaging regulators early to find compliant pathways for these new products produces better outcomes for our users, for the industry, and for regulators themselves. This letter is proof of that,” said Phantom CEO Brandon Millman in a blog post.
“We’re grateful to the CFTC for working through a genuinely novel question with us, and we look forward to bringing more innovative products to consumers in a way that gives them confidence and sets the right precedent,” he added.
Read: Prediction Markets Are Coming to Phantom’s 20M User Via Kalshi
The tokenized real-world asset ( RWA) market pushed past $27 billion in onchain value this week, cementing one of crypto’s fastest-growing sectors as institutions quietly take over the rails. Tokenized Asset Market Sees Massive Growth As of Tuesday, March 17, 2026, data from rwa.xyz shows distributed onchain value — excluding stablecoins — hitting an all-time […]
The Institutes’ new designation provides a framework and best practices for effectively and responsibly using AI in risk management and insurance, providing skills on how to improve AI literacy and ensuring it remains relevant even as specific tools and technologies continue to evolve.
AI is no longer experimental in insurance: It’s already reshaping underwriting, claims, customer experience, and decision-making across organizations. In fact, the understanding and utilization of AI was the single most important priority among insurance executives in 2025, with two-thirds placing AI at the top of their technology and innovation agendas, according to the International Insurance Society (IIS) 2025 Global Priorities survey (IIS is affiliated with The Institutes). To meet this strategic priority, The Institutes Designations developed the Associate in Insurance AI™ (AIAI™). This new designation enables individuals to improve their AI literacy and prompt techniques, better interpret AI-driven insights, and guide the AI transformation across their organization and teams.
“The Associate in Insurance AI designation teaches professionals to not only use AI tools, but to exercise the judgment and leadership required to deploy them responsibly.”Share
As the first designation to cover AI specifically in the context of risk management and insurance, AIAI offers a structured, practical approach to understanding and applying AI in real-world insurance contexts. It provides individuals with the skills needed to contribute effectively in an AI-enabled environment while helping them stay relevant and adaptable as their roles evolve. However, knowing when not to use AI is just as important as knowing how to use it. AIAI explicitly explores what AI should not be used for in addition to scenarios where it’s most effective, including when human judgment should override automated outputs and how to avoid overreliance on AI tools.
“AI is fundamentally changing how organizations assess risk, serve customers, and make decisions,” said Adam Carmichael, CPCU, President of The Institutes Knowledge Group. “But technology alone isn’t the advantage. The real differentiator is a workforce that understands how to effectively and ethically apply AI within the context of RMI. The Associate in Insurance AI designation teaches professionals to not only use AI tools, but to exercise the judgment and leadership required to deploy them responsibly.”
Ideal for any RMI professional who needs a practical AI foundation to be effective in their work and remain competitive, AIAI supports individuals across career stages—from entry-level professionals building future-ready skills to experienced leaders seeking to lead effectively in an AI-enabled environment.
The Associate in Insurance AI (AIAI) is backed by The Institutes’ more than 115 years of experience as a not-for-profit, committed to helping individuals and organizations succeed by educating, elevating, and connecting those interested in risk management and insurance to create a more informed, resilient world. The new credential empowers professionals to serve as change agents within their organizations, advocating for responsible innovation and fostering a culture of experimentation and thoughtful AI adoption across teams. AIAI includes three new courses and an ethics requirement from The Institutes Knowledge Group to provide foundational, insurance-specific AI knowledge and skills.
Sam Altman’s World today rolled out a developer toolkit aimed at one of the internet’s next trust problems: how websites can tell whether an AI agent is acting for a real person or as part of a bot swarm.
The company said its new AgentKit beta lets developers attach a cryptographic proof of a unique human to an AI agent. It enables websites to distinguish “human-backed” agents from automated traffic. The product plugs into x402, the HTTP-based payments standard launched by Coinbase in May 2025 and later backed by a joint x402 Foundation effort with Cloudflare.
The launch arrives as merchants and platforms brace for a sharp rise in autonomous software making decisions and purchases online.
According a McKinsey study, agentic commerce could represent $3 trillion to $5 trillion in global consumer commerce by 2030. Another study by Bain estimates AI agents could drive 15% to 25% of U.S. e-commerce sales by the end of the decade.
That growth is creating a new infrastructure problem. Most websites still treat automated traffic as suspicious by default, a posture shaped by years of scraping, spam and denial-of-service attacks. World’s pitch is that the next wave of automation will include legitimate assistants acting for real consumers, and that the web needs a way to admit those agents without opening the door to swarms controlled by a single actor.
How does it work? According to the details shared by the company, a verified World ID holder registers an agent wallet through an onchain registry called AgentBook. When that agent hits a website that supports x402, the site can ask for payment, proof of unique human backing, or both. If the proof checks out, the site can grant access, apply a discount or offer a limited free-trial allocation tied to the underlying person rather than to each individual bot or wallet. World’s developer docs say usage counters can be tracked per human per endpoint, meaning multiple agents tied to one person would share the same allowance.
How AgentKit works? Image Credit: World
The above image illustrates the idea in simple terms. An agent arrives at a site using AgentKit, the site checks the agent’s registration through AgentBook, and then routes the request based on the result. Human-backed agents can be granted access or discounts, while unregistered agents can be limited or denied. That design matters because the distinction World is trying to introduce is not whether software is automated, but whether that automation can be traced back cryptographically to a unique human without revealing that person’s identity.
“Payments are the ‘how’ of agentic commerce, but identity is the ‘who,’” Erik Reppel, head of engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform and founder of x402, said in a statement shared with AlexaBlockchain.
“By integrating World ID with the x402 protocol, developers now have a complete trust stack: a way for agents to pay for what they need and a way for platforms to verify there is a real human behind the wallet,” Erik added.
This aligns with Coinbase’s own positioning of x402 as a way for APIs, apps and AI agents to make stablecoin payments directly over HTTP.
The move is notable partly because x402 by itself was designed around payment as access control. Coinbase said when it introduced the protocol that it enables stablecoin payments directly over HTTP using the long-unused “402 Payment Required” status code, allowing agents and services to pay programmatically for data, APIs and software. Cloudflare also describes x402 as a standard for charging and paying for resources without accounts, sessions or API keys.
But micropayments do not solve every abuse problem. A malicious actor with enough economic incentive can still spin up thousands of agents and pay a few cents per request if the payoff is large enough. In that sense, World’s add-on is less about payments than about Sybil resistance — the ability to know how many distinct humans are behind a cluster of software agents. That distinction becomes critical in use cases like ticketing, restaurant reservations, promo claims, limited free trials and ranking systems, where one person operating 1,000 bots is very different from 1,000 people each using one bot.
The timing also reflects how quickly the broader agentic-commerce stack is forming. Since 2025, Coinbase has pushed x402 and adjacent tooling for autonomous wallets and payments, while Cloudflare has added x402 support to its agents tooling.
Google, meanwhile, introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol earlier this year as an open standard for agentic commerce and said it is compatible with the Agent Payments Protocol, or AP2, for agentic payments support. Google’s cloud team has described AP2 as a protocol combining programmable payments with A2A and MCP-style interoperability for AI agents.
That means World’s launch is a sign that identity is joining payments and messaging as a core layer of the agent web. If x402 and AP2 are trying to answer how software agents pay, World is trying to answer who those agents represent.
There is precedent for the idea, though not at this scale or with the same architecture. BrightID, for example, has long offered a privacy-focused “proof of uniqueness” system intended to help applications enforce one-person-one-account access without relying on conventional identity documents. Academic and industry work on “personhood credentials” has also argued for privacy-preserving systems that let users prove they are real people without disclosing broader personal information.
World itself has been moving in this direction for more than a year. In January 2025, the company published material on AI agents and proof of human. World executives saw delegated proof-of-personhood for agents as a logical next step for the network. More recently, World has framed proof of human as increasingly necessary in an internet where AI agents and bots are taking over more traffic and interactions.
World network now spans more than 160 countries and counts more than 16 million verified humans. That installed base gives World a potentially meaningful distribution advantage if developers decide they need a reusable proof-of-human layer for AI agents.
Even so, World enters the market with baggage. Since launch, the project formerly known as Worldcoin has drawn scrutiny from privacy regulators over its biometric verification model. In 2024, Spain temporarily banned Worldcoin’s iris-scanning operations, Portugal ordered a halt to data collection, and Hong Kong directed the company to cease operations over privacy concerns. Spain’s data watchdog later ordered deletion of iris scan data collected since the service launched.
The commercial case for the product is easier to see. Platforms want to let useful agents in, but not at the cost of losing control over abuse, inventory or ranking integrity. The tension is no longer theoretical. In a recent devlopment, California federal judge temporarily blocked Perplexity AI’s shopping agent from accessing Amazon, with Amazon arguing the agent unlawfully accessed customer accounts and disguised automated activity as human browsing. This dispute shows the broader legal and commercial fight over how autonomous software should interact with websites.
In that context, World’s AgentKit may appeal less as a crypto feature than as a traffic-governance tool. A merchant could allow an AI assistant to book a table, buy a ticket or test an API, while still enforcing one-person limits. A publisher or discovery platform could accept agent-driven submissions or ranking signals while reducing the risk of one actor flooding the system. A telecom or authentication service could tie scarce resources, such as temporary numbers or free verification attempts, to a unique person rather than to an unlimited number of bots. Those are practical controls that payments alone do not provide.
There is one additional wrinkle: naming. Coinbase already has its own product called AgentKit, a separate framework introduced in 2024 to help developers build onchain AI agents. World’s Agent Kit beta is a different product entirely, even though it integrates with Coinbase’s x402 ecosystem.
Why the launch matters? The industry has spent the past year building rails for agents to talk, pay and transact. What has been missing is a broadly reusable way to express that an agent represents a single human without forcing that person to expose their full identity. If agentic commerce is going to move from demos to scaled consumer and enterprise use, that gap will need to be closed. World is betting that proof of unique human becomes one of the core primitives for doing it.
The article “Can Websites Trust AI Agents? Sam Altman’s World Thinks AgentKit Is the Answer” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/World-Introduces-AgentKit-Beta/
Read Also: MoneyGram, Pairpoint and eToro Back Midnight’s Privacy Blockchain Before Mainnet
Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.
Image Credits: World, Shutterstock, Canva, Wiki Commons
Crypto e-commerce platform Bitrefill said it was the target of a cyberattack earlier this month that resulted in stolen funds and limited exposure of customer data, with indicators pointing to the North Korean-linked Lazarus Group as a likely perpetrator.
The breach, which began on March 1, originated from a compromised employee laptop, according to the company’s incident report.
Attackers were able to extract legacy credentials tied to production systems, allowing them to escalate access across Bitrefill’s infrastructure, including segments of its internal database and certain cryptocurrency hot wallets.
Bitrefill said the attackers drained an undisclosed amount of funds from its hot wallets while also exploiting its gift card inventory systems to place suspicious purchases with vendors. The company did not specify the total financial impact but stated it will absorb the losses using operational capital.
The intrusion was first detected through irregular purchasing patterns and anomalies in supplier activity.
In response, Bitrefill temporarily took its systems offline to contain the breach across its global operations. The company said services, including payments and account access, have since returned to normal levels.
As part of the attack, approximately 18,500 purchase records were accessed. The exposed data includes email addresses, cryptocurrency payment addresses and metadata such as IP addresses.
Around 1,000 of those records involved encrypted customer names, which are being treated as potentially exposed due to the possibility that attackers accessed encryption keys. Bitrefill said it has notified affected users directly.
Despite the breach, the company emphasized that it stores minimal personal data and does not require mandatory know-your-customer verification for most transactions. Any KYC-related information is handled by external providers and is not stored within Bitrefill’s systems. The firm added there is no evidence that its full database was exfiltrated or that customer data was the primary target.
“Based on our investigation and logs, we don’t have reason to think that customer data was the objective,” the company said, noting that the attackers appeared to conduct limited queries consistent with probing for valuable assets such as cryptocurrency holdings and gift card inventory.
North Korea’s Lazarus Group was involved
Bitrefill cited several indicators linking the attack to the Lazarus Group, including similarities in malware, reused infrastructure such as IP addresses and email accounts, and on-chain transaction patterns.
The group, often associated with North Korea, has been tied to some of the largest crypto thefts in recent years through its specialized subgroup, Bluenoroff.
Cybersecurity firms including zeroShadow, SEAL911 and RecoverisTeam assisted in the response and investigation, alongside on-chain analysts and law enforcement. The company said it is implementing additional security measures, including expanded monitoring systems and internal controls, to prevent similar incidents.
The attack highlights ongoing concerns around state-sponsored cyber threats in the digital asset sector.
According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, groups linked to North Korea were responsible for more than $2 billion in crypto thefts in 2025, accounting for a significant share of total illicit activity in the space.
Bitrefill said operations have stabilized following the incident and expressed confidence in its recovery, noting that customer activity and sales volumes have returned to typical levels.
Jack Mallers has been officially confirmed as a speaker at Bitcoin 2026, returning to the stage where he made Bitcoin history to share his perspective on Bitcoin’s expanding role in payments, capital markets, and global finance. As Co-Founder and CEO of Twenty One Capital (NYSE: XXI) and Founder and CEO of Strike, Mallers now sits at the intersection of two consequential Bitcoin companies operating today, one reshaping how people spend and save Bitcoin, the other redefining what a publicly traded Bitcoin company can be.
Twenty One Capital launched on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2025, debuting with a treasury of 43,514 Bitcoin — the third-largest public corporate Bitcoin holding in the world, behind only Strategy and MARA Holdings. The company is majority-owned by Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, and Bitfinex, with significant minority ownership from SoftBank Group, and has committed to operating with public-market transparency, including publishing on-chain proof of holdings for real-time shareholder verification. Speaking on CNBC at launch, Mallers made the mission clear: the company plans to “buy as much Bitcoin as we possibly can” not as a passive treasury vehicle, but as a full Bitcoin-native operating business building capital markets advisory, lending models, and educational media on top of its BTC holdings.
Strike, the company Mallers founded in 2020, has become one of the most widely used Bitcoin financial platforms in the world. Built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, Strike allows users to make and receive payments, buy and sell bitcoin with no added fees, and convert their paychecks directly into Bitcoin all without requiring prior crypto experience. In March 2026, Strike received both a BitLicense and a money transmitter license from the New York State Department of Financial Services, allowing the company to operate in one of the most tightly regulated digital asset markets in the United States. “Strike is building the leading Bitcoin financial institution,” Mallers said in a statement. “With our BitLicense, we can now bring that mission to New York, the global center of finance.”
With Twenty One Capital now live on the NYSE and Strike completing its all-50-states U.S. expansion, Mallers arrives at Bitcoin 2026 carrying more institutional weight than ever, and the same conviction he’s held since day one: that Bitcoin is honest money, and that the infrastructure being built around it will determine what the next chapter of global finance looks like.
JACK MALLERS, FOUNDER & CEO OF STRIKE AND TWENTY ONE, TO SPEAK AT BITCOIN 2026 ⚡️
— The Bitcoin Conference (@TheBitcoinConf) March 3, 2026
Bitcoin 2026 Returns to Las Vegas Bigger Than Ever
Bitcoin 2026 will take place April 27–29 at The Venetian, Las Vegas, and is expected to be the biggest Bitcoin event of the year.
Focused on the future of money, Bitcoin 2026 will bring together Bitcoin builders, investors, miners, policymakers, technologists, and newcomers from around the world. The event will feature a wide range of pass types, including general admission passes designed specifically for those new to Bitcoin, alongside premium passes for professionals, enterprises, and institutions.
With multiple stages, immersive experiences, technical workshops, and headline keynotes, Bitcoin 2026 is designed to serve both first-time attendees and long-time Bitcoiners shaping the next era of global adoption.
Past Bitcoin Conferences in the U.S.
Bitcoin’s flagship conference has scaled dramatically over the past five years:
2021 – Miami: 11,000 attendees
2022 – Miami: 26,000 attendees
2023 – Miami: 15,000 attendees
2024 – Nashville: 22,000 attendees
2025 – Las Vegas: 35,000 attendees
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📍 Location: The Venetian, Las Vegas 📅 Dates: April 27–29, 2026
With tens of thousands of attendees expected and hundreds of major speakers like Jack Mallers already confirmed, now is the time to lock in your ticket.
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Why Attend Bitcoin 2026?
Bitcoin 2026 is the definitive gathering for anyone serious about the future of money. With 500+ speakers, multiple world-class stages, and programming spanning Bitcoin fundamentals, open-source development, enterprise adoption, mining, energy, AI, policy, and culture, the conference brings every corner of the Bitcoin ecosystem together under one roof.
From headline keynotes on the Nakamoto Stage to deep technical sessions for builders, institutional strategy discussions for enterprises, and beginner-friendly Bitcoin 101 education, Bitcoin 2026 is designed for everyone—from first-time attendees to the leaders shaping Bitcoin’s global adoption.
Whether you’re looking to learn, build, invest, network, or influence, Bitcoin 2026 is where Bitcoin’s next chapter is written.
Bitcoin 2026 Pass Types: Something for Everyone
Bitcoin 2026 offers a range of pass options designed to meet the needs of newcomers, professionals, enterprises, and high-net-worth Bitcoiners alike.
🎟️ Bitcoin 2026 General Admission Pass
Ideal for newcomers and those looking to experience the heart of the conference.
Limited access on Days 2 & 3
Entry to Main Stage
Access to Genesis Stage
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🎟️ Bitcoin 2026 Pro Pass
Designed for professionals, operators, and serious Bitcoin participants.
Includes all General Admission features, plus:
Full 3-day access, including Pro Day
Entry to the Pro Pass Reception
Access to Enterprise Hall, Enterprise Stage, and Networking Lounge
Conference App networking features
Access to the Bitcoin For Corporations Symposium
Entry to Compute Village and Energy Stage
Complimentary lunch, coffee, tea, and snacks
Dedicated registration and check-in
Reserved seating at Main Stage
Huge savings when you bundle your hotel and Pro Pass
🐋 Bitcoin 2026 Whale Pass
The all-inclusive, premium Bitcoin 2026 experience.
Includes all Pro Pass features, plus:
Reserved seating at Main Stage
All-inclusive gourmet food and beverages
Entry to Whale Night and Whale Reception
Access to all official after-parties
Networking app access to connect with other Whales
Premium access to The Deep — an exclusive networking lounge with intimate speaker sessions
Complimentary stay at The Venetian when you bundle your whale pass and hotel (use promo code ‘WHALEHOTEL’ here)
This is the most immersive way to experience Bitcoin 2026.
🎉 Bitcoin 2026 After Hours Pass
Your ticket to the night.
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Access to 3 official Bitcoin 2026 after-parties
2-hour open bar at each event
Evening events across Las Vegas, April 27–29
Network with Bitcoiners, builders, and industry leaders after hours
More headline speaker announcements are coming soon.
WHY THIS MATTERS: The mass onboarding figures released by GoCardless are a crucial validation point for the entire UK open banking movement, signaling the technology’s transition from a novel concept to a commercially mature payment rail. The core challenge facing account-to-account (A2A) adoption has always been ease of access and reliability, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). By simplifying the onboarding process and integrating reliability features like ‘intelligent routing’—which ensures payment completion even if A2A is unavailable—the platform effectively removes the risk barrier for businesses. This milestone confirms that a viable, high-performance alternative to legacy card networks now exists, offering merchants significant cost savings and faster settlement times, thereby accelerating the broader economy’s shift toward instant payments as the default method for digital commerce.
Bank payment company GoCardless has today announced that more than one in three customers have taken open banking payments through its platform, driving growth of ‘Pay by Bank’ across the UK economy.
The impressive number of open banking customers — 37,323 since the launch of its first open banking product, Instant Bank Pay, in 2021 — underscores how GoCardless has democratised access to the new technology. While competitors often require long sales cycles and complex integrations to use open banking, GoCardless has enabled small and medium-sized businesses to tap into its benefits immediately by signing up via the GoCardless website and using the dashboard, with no technical expertise required.
The fintech has an equally notable track record with enterprise customers. Industry leaders including JustGiving and Capital on Tap also place their trust in GoCardless’ open banking solutions, proving their ability to handle high-volume, mission-critical transactions with ease.
As open banking payments become mainstream, GoCardless has developed a high-performance solution that makes adoption viable and highly effective today. Key features include:
Full payer coverage from day one through ‘intelligent routing’ that automatically shifts payers to Direct Debit if open banking isn’t available.
A ‘bank guess’ feature: the GoCardless platform has seen 70% of UK payers over the past 15 years. This data is leveraged to auto-fill payment details and create a smoother checkout experience.
99.5% uptime, ensuring reliable service — a critical factor for early adopters and a common concern across the industry.
By providing widely accessible ‘Pay by Bank’ solutions, GoCardless offers businesses a genuine alternative to card payments, ultimately reducing fees and enabling more secure, seamless transactions.
Shaun Puckrin, Chief Product Officer at GoCardless, said: “We’re immensely proud that over 35,000 businesses have placed their trust in GoCardless for open banking. That number is a testament to the range of businesses we’ve enabled, and our dedication to growing ‘Pay by Bank’ so merchants have a real choice when it comes to how they get paid. As open banking continues to mature, our product combines ease of access, scale and reliability so early adopters feel confident with a solution that works today, whilst future-proofing for tomorrow.”
What is open banking?
Open banking describes the process of banks and other financial institutions opening up data for regulated providers to access, use, and share, in a safe and secure manner — and only with the customer’s consent.
Open banking payments are powered by this concept. Built on modern API technology, they replace clunky manual bank transfers and expensive card networks with direct account-to-account connectivity.
By combining this new technology with established methods like Direct Debit, businesses can bridge the gap between innovation and reliability, using open banking for instant, one-off payments payment while tapping into a trusted and preferred way to pay for recurring transactions.
Key benefits
For businesses
Reduced costs: Eliminates the high interchange fees associated with card networks; for instance, businesses using GoCardless’ Instant Bank Pay save up to 48% compared to collecting payments with cards.
Instant confirmation: Payments are authorised in real-time, reducing Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and the need for manual reconciliation.
Lower failure rates: Direct account-to-account flows bypass common card issues like expiration dates or stolen cards.
For payers
Frictionless checkout: No need to type in long card numbers; payments are authorized with a simple tap via their existing mobile banking app.
Enhanced security: Transactions can only be authorised through the payer’s online banking platform, meaning sensitive payment details are never shared with the merchant.
Greater clarity: Payers gain real-time visibility over their outgoings, as money leaves the account instantly, unlike the “pending payment” lag of traditional cards.
Transparency & control: Customers remain the sole decision-makers over their data and can revoke consent or authorisation at any time through their banking app.
FF NEWS TAKE: This move unequivocally shifts the competitive landscape by proving that Pay by Bank can scale reliably and securely for both SMBs and major enterprises. The key takeaway is the successful marriage of A2A payments with robust fallback mechanisms, addressing historical reliability concerns. The next vital step for the industry is to see how this simplified model will integrate with and encourage the adoption of Variable Recurring Payments (VRP), which promises to unlock the full potential of open banking beyond one-off transactions.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that her office filed gambling and related criminal charges against the companies behind prediction markets platform Kalshi.
In a Tuesday notice, Mayes said that the charges alleged that Kalshi operated an “illegal gambling business in Arizona without a license” and offered election wagering, in violation of state laws. Arizona authorities alleged that Kalshi’s prediction markets platform allowed state residents to bet on event contracts related to sports and state and federal elections.
“Kalshi may brand itself as a ‘prediction market,’ but what it’s actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate Arizona law,” said Mayes. “No company gets to decide for itself which laws to follow.”
Source: Arizona Attorney General’s Office
According to the AG’s office, the charges followed Kalshi filing its own lawsuit against Arizona “preemptively in an attempt to avoid accountability under Arizona law.” State authorities have filed similar lawsuits against the companies of prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.
Related: Kalshi suffers court loss in Ohio over sports betting lawsuit
“Sadly, a state can file criminal charges on paper-thin arguments,” a Kalshi spokesperson told Cointelegraph. “States like Arizona want to individually regulate a nationwide financial exchange, and are trying every trick in the book to do it. As other courts have recognized and the CFTC affirms, Kalshi is subject to federal jurisdiction. It’s different from what sportsbooks and casinos offer their customers, and it should not be overseen by a patchwork of inconsistent state laws.”
Last week, an Ohio judge denied Kalshi’s request for a preliminary injunction in a similar case against state authorities, saying that the company had failed to show that the sports event contracts available on the platform were subject to the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). However, in February, a federal judge in Tennessee blocked state authorities from enforcing gambling laws against Kalshi.
CFTC chair backs “exclusive authority” over prediction markets
Now the sole commissioner on the CFTC since acting chair Caroline Pham stepped down in December, Chair Michael Selig has publicly said that the federal regulator would defend prediction market platforms from state-level lawsuits.
Last week, Selig opened a proposed rule up to public comment on how the Commodity Exchange Act would apply to prediction markets, potentially changing how the agency approaches regulation and enforcement in the future.
Magazine: Spot Bitcoin ETFs first green week, crypto ATM losses surge 33%: Hodler’s Digest, Mar. 8 – 14
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Strategy paused its Bitcoin (BTC) accumulation via STRC preferred stock after failing to raise fresh capital since Friday, marking a notable shift after two aggressive weeks of buying.
Strategy’s STRC dashboard ft. at-the-market sales. Source: STRC.LIVE
Key takeaways:
STRC has dipped below its $100 par value, forcing Strategy to halt its Bitcoin buying spree.
Previous STRC dips below $100 have coincided with declines in BTC prices.
STRC drops below $100 par value
The pause coincided with STRC trading below its $100 par value, a key threshold for Strategy’s at-the-market (ATM) issuance model.
STRC is a yield-focused preferred stock, which income investors buy for monthly dividends.
Strategy typically issues new shares only when STRC trades at or above par to raise capital efficiently. When the price falls below $100, the company must offer better terms or sell at a discount, making issuance unattractive.
As a result, the funding channel shuts off, stalling STRC-backed BTC buys, which appears to be the case since Friday.
Before the pause, Strategy was in heavy accumulation mode, buying 22,337 BTC in the week ending March 15, partly funded by about $1.18 billion in STRC-linked sales.
STRC ATM analysis. Source: BitcoinQuant.CO
The week before, it bought another 17,994 BTC, with roughly $377 million coming from STRC proceeds.
In total, Strategy added over 40,000 BTC in two weeks, with STRC serving as a key funding source. That’s roughly six times the total Bitcoin mined over the same two-week period.
STRC fractals hint at BTC dipping below $70,000
Historically, pauses in Strategy’s STRC-driven Bitcoin accumulation aligned with short-term BTC pullbacks.
For instance, after STRC slipped below its $100 par value in January, Bitcoin fell nearly 40% over the next three weeks.
BTC/USD vs. STRC daily performance chart. Source: TradingView
A similar setup in November 2025 preceded a BTC price decline of around 25%, suggesting that the latest STRC move below $100 could again raise the risk of a near-term BTC price pullback.
Related: Bitcoin’s ‘powerful move’ nears as Bollinger Bands warn of volatility
The chances of a drop are high as Bitcoin pulls back after testing $76,000, a level coinciding with the upper boundary of its prevailing bear flag pattern.
BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView
BTC could slide toward the $66,000–$68,000 area, which aligns with the pattern’s lower trendline support, if the correction persists this week.
A bear flag breakdown, on the other hand, risks sending the Bitcoin price to as low as $51,000.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. While we strive to provide accurate and timely information, Cointelegraph does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information in this article. This article may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Cointelegraph will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information.
In one of its first actions since signing a memorandum of understanding with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it would interpret how “non-security crypto assets” fall under federal securities laws.
In a Tuesday notice, the SEC said its interpretation of how to address crypto assets would serve as an “important bridge” as lawmakers in the US Congress consider market structure legislation which will codify how financial regulators oversee digital assets.
The commission said the interpretation would provide a “coherent token taxonomy for digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, stablecoins, and digital securities,” address how a “non-security crypto asset” may or may not be considered an investment contract under the SEC’s purview, and clarify federal securities laws on “airdrops, protocol mining, protocol staking, and the wrapping of a non-security crypto asset.”
“This is what regulatory agencies are supposed to do: draw clear lines in clear terms,” said SEC Chair Paul Atkins. “It also acknowledges what the former administration refused to recognize -– that most crypto assets are not themselves securities. And it reflects the reality that investment contracts can come to an end.”
Source: SEC on X
According to Atkins’ prepared remarks for the DC Blockchain Summit on Tuesday, “only one crypto asset class remains subject to the securities laws” under the interpretation, and those were “traditional securities that are tokenized.” The commission called on market participants to review the interpretation to “better understand the regulatory jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC” on cryptocurrencies.
Related: SEC, CFTC sign memo to regulate crypto, other markets in harmony
The SEC notice came as lawmakers in the US Senate continue to negotiate terms under which they may reach an agreement on a digital asset market structure bill. The legislation is expected to give the CFTC more authority in overseeing cryptocurrencies.
Shakeup in SEC enforcement leadership draws criticism
On Monday, the SEC announced that its enforcement division director, Margaret Ryan, resigned from the agency. Its principal deputy director, Sam Waldon, was named as acting enforcement director.
In response to Ryan’s departure, former SEC official John Reed Stark said “not a single person on this planet” believed the commission’s claims that the enforcement director prioritized investor protection and “renewed focus on holding individual wrongdoers accountable” at the agency.
“The SEC has abandoned its identity,” said Stark on Monday. “It has transformed from the cop on Wall Street’s beat into something far more troubling, a regulatory body that functions less like a law enforcement agency and more like a concierge service for the largest financial players in the country.”
A 19-year veteran of the regulator, Stark was founder and chief of the SEC’s Office of Internet Enforcement, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Atkins, along with SEC Commissioners Mark Uyeda and Hester Peirce — all Republicans — remain the only three leaders at the agency on a panel intended to consist of a bipartisan group of five members. As of Tuesday, US President Donald Trump had not announced any plans to nominate other commissioners to the SEC or CFTC, which had only one Senate-confirmed member.
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