Kalshi is seeking to raise fresh capital at a valuation of about $40 billion, nearly doubling the $22 billion valuation it targeted in its previous funding round, according to a Financial Times report citing people familiar with the matter.
The prediction markets platform could close the fundraising as soon as the third quarter of this year, FT said.
If completed, the deal would widen Kalshi’s valuation lead over rival Polymarket, which was last reported to be seeking funding at $15 billion. The two platforms have emerged as the dominant names in the prediction markets sector, while many other entrants have increased the industry’s competitive landscape.
Kalshi’s previous funding round, which valued the company at $22 billion, attracted a roster of high-profile investors including Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Morgan Stanley.
Competition in the sector has intensified as firms race to capture users and expand product offerings.
Kalshi operates as a federally regulated exchange in the United States, a distinction that has helped it attract mainstream investors and institutional backing. Meanwhile, Polymarket, which uses blockchain infrastructure and cryptocurrency-based settlement, has gained popularity among crypto traders and has become widely followed during recent election cycles.
Hyperliquid’s HYPE token is down 22% from its $75 all-time high, bringing its 2026 uptrend to a key test of support. Market participation has cooled across the derivatives markets, while the spot flows show early signs of stabilization after strong selling pressure in early June.
The $50-$54 area now stands out as the most important support zone beneath current prices and the first major trend test since January.
Spot selling begins to ease for HYPE
HYPE fell below $60 on Wednesday after rejecting another retest of its all-time high near $76. The decline has pushed the price toward the 50-day exponential moving average, a level that has acted as trend support throughout the rally from March.
The recent pullback resembles HYPE’s consolidation in May 2025. At that time, the token printed a new high near $40 before entering a multi-week pause that cooled momentum without producing a bearish break on the daily chart.
HYPE price comparison, July 2026 and May 2025. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The relative strength index is following a similar setup, rolling over from overbought conditions while remaining above the levels typically associated with trend reversals.
However, onchain data paints a cautious picture. Aggregated spot cumulative volume delta (CVD), which measures net buying and selling activity in spot markets, has improved from recent lows during the correction. The recovery has reduced the earlier sell imbalance, though spot CVD remains deeply negative at nearly $95 million.
HYPE price, open interest, spot and futures CVD, funding rate. Source: Velo
The shift suggests selling pressure is easing rather than aggressive accumulation. Spot buyers have started absorbing supply near current levels, though the scale of demand remains modest compared to $110 million in selling recorded during HYPE’s decline from $76 in early June.
The derivatives activity continues to weaken. Open interest has fallen to $1.73 billion from $2.2 billion, while derivatives CVD has continued trending lower and now sits near negative $389 million, down from $400 million at the beginning of June. Currently, HYPE traders appear to be reducing exposure rather than opening new positions.
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$50 support comes into focus
The next major test lies between $50 and $54, where the rising 50-day exponential moving average aligns with an unfilled daily fair-value gap. The zone represents the first significant support cluster below the current prices.
Holding above the region preserves HYPE’s sequence of higher highs and lows, which has remained intact since January. It also keeps the current pullback consistent with previous consolidations that developed within the broader uptrend.
A daily close below $53 would mark the first meaningful bearish shift on the daily chart this year. The 100-day EMA near $51.6 becomes the next support level, followed by the lower boundary of the fair value gap near $49. Below that, the next notable support area sits near $38.
For now, the most important signal is the gap between improving spot flows and declining participation across leveraged markets. The strength of demand around the $50-$54 support zone may offer the clearest indication of whether HYPE’s correction is nearing exhaustion or preparing for a deeper retracement.
Speaking in terms of accumulation, crypto trader Altcoin Sherpa said,
“HYPE, I think anywhere in the 55-64 area is a pretty good place to accumulate this one. I think it goes to $100 later this year personally and is still the best altcoin…but it’s going to also depend a lot on bitcoin IMO.
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Yakovenko’s comments stood out because they came from one of Ethereum’s most prominent competitors. While debates between Ethereum and Solana supporters have often been contentious, Yakovenko’s reaction reflected a view shared by many currently at the top of the industry: that leaner organizations can sometimes make better decisions than larger, more bureaucratic ones.
The emergence of EthLabs is particularly significant because it arrived the day before the foundation’s layoffs and budget cuts, underscoring what supporters see as a broader trend: Ethereum’s research and development ecosystem increasingly extending beyond the foundation itself.
“I feel that the job cuts at the EF were necessary for their budget, longevity, and CROPs alignment,” said Hudson Jameson, head of ecosystems at CertiK and a former employee at the Ethereum Foundation. “As sad as the layoffs are, it was an inevitability to keep the EF lean long term.”
Jameson described EthLabs’ launch as exciting, noting that its founding team includes respected veterans of Ethereum’s research and development community. “The founding team at EthLabs are long-time, well-respected members of the Eth R&D community,” he said. “I can’t wait to see what they will accomplish.”
For years, critics and supporters alike have debated whether Ethereum relies too heavily on the Ethereum Foundation. As the ecosystem has grown into a global network of developers, infrastructure providers, layer-2 networks, institutions and companies, some leaders have argued that the foundation should become less central rather than more influential.
Bitcoin price has crashed through $60,000, touching lows not seen since October 2024 and erasing months of gains in a matter of days. At press time, bitcoin price trades at $59,566 — down more than 10% in 24 hours and roughly 53% off its all-time high of $126,277 set last October.
The drop has been brutal, fast, and — for many holders — a gut punch that raises a question nobody wants to ask: how much lower can this go? No single event really broke bitcoin price. What happened instead was a convergence of bad news that hit all at once.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net outflows of approximately $113.8 million as of June 23, marking a fourth consecutive day of withdrawals. BlackRock’s IBIT led the exits with roughly $182 million in outflows, while Fidelity’s FBTC and ARK 21Shares’ ARKB attracted about $23 million and $31 million, respectively.
The Federal Reserve made things worse. With U.S.-Iran tensions pushing crude oil prices higher and reigniting inflation fears, Fed officials began walking back any talk of rate cuts — and some floated the possibility of rate hikes. That sent a clear signal to risk asset markets: the liquidity spigot is closing.
Then came Strategy. The company, long seen as an anchor of corporate Bitcoin conviction with its “never sell” posture, sold 32 BTC between May 26–31.
This might (or might not) be the end for bitcoin price
Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick, Global Head of Digital Assets Research, put out a client note in early June declaring that Bitcoin price’s drop to $59,000 marks the definitive cycle bottom — and reaffirmed the bank’s year-end target of $100,000. That’s roughly 70% upside from current levels. Kendrick tied his conviction to three signals he said needed to materialize: renewed ETF inflows, fresh corporate treasury purchases, and declining oil prices as geopolitical tensions ease.
On June 23, the first of those signals flickered. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $39.2 million in net inflows — the first positive day after a prolonged bleeding streak — led by ARK 21Shares’ ARKB at $31 million.
Corporate buyers have not stopped. Strategy purchased 520 BTC for approximately $35 million this week. Strive Asset Management added 759 BTC at an average price near $65,850. These are not panic sells — these are institutional bids placed into a falling market.
On-chain, roughly half of all Bitcoin supply is now underwater. In prior cycles, that crossover has marked the floor — not the beginning of a deeper collapse.
Prediction markets company Kalshi has filed a lawsuit against state officials in Illinois over legislation it says “expressly bans sports event contracts” on its platform.
In a Tuesday filing in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kalshi alleged that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and other officials on the state’s gaming board “usurped” the authority of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over prediction markets.
Specifically, the company alleged that legislation signed into law last week in Illinois, requiring prediction market platforms to be licensed in the state to offer sports event contracts, violated federal law. Kalshi claimed that it would be “irreparably harmed” when the law, Illinois Senate Bill 3019, takes effect on July 1.
“If Kalshi complies with the new state law by ceasing to offer its sports event contracts in Illinois, that would put Kalshi in violation of the CFTC’s uniformity requirements, harm Kalshi’s commercial interests, and require the company to implement complex and expensive technological solutions to limit access in Illinois — incurring costs that would not be recoverable when Kalshi ultimately prevails in the action,” said the complaint.
Source: PACER
The Illinois law, passed as part of a state budget package for the fiscal year 2027, included a 0.2% tax on crypto transactions and has already been heavily criticized by many in the industry.
The legislation amended the state’s definition of an “exchange wager” to include “an agreement, contract, transaction, or swap that is offered, traded, or executed on a prediction market or exchange tied to a sporting contest or sporting event,” making prediction market companies subject to the same rules as entities offering sports betting.
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“[…] Kalshi faces similar irreparable harms if it attempts to comply with SB 3019 by offering sports events contracts in compliance with Illinois’s costly and restrictive licensing and regulatory regime,” said the company. “Nor can Kalshi avoid these harms by simply disregarding the unlawful state requirements because an enforcement action by Illinois could subject Kalshi to criminal penalties.”
Legal fights eventually headed to the Supreme Court?
Kalshi’s lawsuit was the latest in a jurisdictional fight between federal and state authorities over sports betting on prediction markets.
The CFTC, headed by Commissioner Michael Selig, has claimed exclusive authority over the companies under the Commodity Exchange Act, arguing that the platform’s event contracts are “swaps” within its jurisdiction. The agency has filed several lawsuits against state authorities over this claim, most recently in response to Kentucky’s restrictions on prediction markets.
Some experts expect that the legal battles will end up at the US Supreme Court, given the opposing claims by federal regulators and state gaming officials.
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SecondFi, the Cardano wallet formerly known as Yoroi, says it has patched a major exploit that drained roughly 16 million ADA, worth approximately $2.4 million, from 374 user wallets across three separate attacks.
The root cause was a flaw in SecondFi’s proprietary wallet generation software. The vulnerability sits at the address level, meaning simply moving a seed phrase to another wallet offers no protection. “The security risk occurs when an affected user signs a transaction,” the team said on X.
Before attackers could reach a further 129 million ADA, SecondFi said it triggered emergency rescue measures, routing the funds to an independent third-party custodian. An external accounting firm has been engaged to verify those holdings and affected users can submit claims to SecondFi.
Blockchain security firm SlowMist estimates total losses could exceed $20 million when accounting for the full range of compromised wallets and tokens, a figure that remains unconfirmed pending an independent audit.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson acknowledged the incident but noted the dollar amount was modest relative to other crypto hacks, though he stressed that offered little consolation to those affected. “It hurts them whenever they lose anything,” he said. “This is the unfortunate reality of crypto.”
ADA is currently trading around $0.15, its lowest level since 2020.
Binance has withdrawn its application for a Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license in Greece and will seek authorization in another European Union country, the crypto exchange said Wednesday via several X posts.
While Binance did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment, Gillian Lynch, head of Europe and the United Kingdom, told Reuters that “Binance is not leaving Europe.” Her comment follows her firm’s bid to secure a licence in Greece to offer crypto services in the EU went sour.
Last week, Binance said its European regulatory MiCA application was compliant despite reports of Greek rejection. “Our understanding is that the HCMC (Hellenic Capital Market Commission) completed its review of the application and considered it compliant with MiCA requirements, and that the application was also reviewed at ESMA level,” a Binance spokesman told CoinDesk via email on June 16.
The decision comes days before a June 30 deadline. Under MiCA rules, crypto firms must obtain a license from at least one EU member state by July 1 to serve clients across the 27-nation trading bloc. Unlicensed firms must wind down their EU activities.
Several Democrats and one Republican who were supported by more than $8 million worth of ads funded by cryptocurrency-aligned political action committees (PACs) won their respective US primaries on Tuesday, setting up their candidacies for the November election.
Party primaries for US House of Representatives and Senate candidates in Utah, Maryland and New York resulted in wins for many aligned with crypto industry interests. PACs like Fairshake and its affiliates, largely backed by crypto companies Coinbase and Ripple Labs, spent a combined $8 million on media to support the candidates it considered likely in favor of digital asset policies for the next session of Congress.
In New York, Democrat Ritchie Torres won a primary for the state’s 15th congressional district with 71.9% of the vote, while in Utah, Republican Blake Moore won in the 2nd district with 57.5% of the vote. Fairshake affiliate Protect Progress reported $5.5 million in expenditures to support Adrian Boafo, who won the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 5th district with 32% against other candidates who opposed “spending from crypto billionaires.”
“We went big and we went early,” said Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter. “We did our part to move Adrian Boafo from fifth place to the halls of Congress.”
Source: The New York Times
Fairshake, which reported having “$150 million cash on hand” in June after its spending in several US state primaries, may have already influenced voters in key elections in its attempts to send candidates to Congress it considers to be “pro-crypto.” Other PACs aligned with crypto interests that have reported spending on 2026 candidates included Fellowship, backed by Cantor Fitzgerald and Anchorage Digital, and the Blockchain Leadership Fund, a hybrid PAC backed by Anchorage and Chainlink Labs.
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Not every pro-crypto candidate emerged a winner on Tuesday. Alex Bores, a Democrat running in New York’s 12th District, lost to Micah Lasher. He criticized Bores in a June debate, saying that he potentially benefitted from Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen spending $3.5 million to support his campaign.
Next primaries in Colorado and Arizona, but no reports of spending yet
Many expect Fairshake and other crypto-aligned PACs to turn their attention to candidates in Colorado and Arizona next. The two states are scheduled to hold primaries on June 30 and July 21, respectively, but Fairshake affiliates had not disclosed significant spending in any of the races as of Wednesday.
In 2024, the PAC and its affiliates poured more than $10 million into media to support Ruben Gallego’s Senate race in Arizona and $2.1 million for Democratic Representative Yadira Caraveo in Colorado’s 8th district. Gallego won his race, while Caraveo lost in the November 2024 election to Republican Gabe Evans.
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Total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) has fallen by about 39% in 2026 so far, declining to just over $70 billion from roughly $115 billion in January.
A Wednesday report from crypto data aggregator CryptoRank attributed the decline to the broader market correction that followed the October 2025 crypto market peak.
After Bitcoin reached a record high above $122,000, a market-wide liquidation event on Oct. 10, 2025, erased more than $19 billion in leveraged positions and accelerated a deleveraging cycle across digital assets.
Despite the decline, CryptoRank noted that the current drawdown remains far smaller than during the 2021-2022 bear market, suggesting a more resilient DeFi market.
Fallout from Kelp DAO exploit accelerated the DeFi TVL decline: analyst
CryptoRank said security incidents added another layer of pressure on DeFi in 2026, with 121 hacks and roughly $942 million in losses year-to-date. While exploits were not the primary driver of the decline, the data provider said their frequency likely weighed on user confidence and reinforced capital outflows from DeFi.
According to Nicolai Søndergaard, senior research analyst at crypto intelligence platform Nansen, the fallout from the $293 million Kelp DAO exploit on April 18 compressed into days what would otherwise have been weeks of DeFi outflows. Aave users withdrew about $15 billion in deposits in the four days following the exploit.
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The second quarter of 2026 became the most-hacked quarter on record by incident count, with 83 exploits targeting crypto protocols. However, the $755 million stolen during the quarter remained well below the $3.56 billion lost in the fourth quarter of 2020, the costliest quarter for crypto hacks on record.
The falling total value stolen is not due to more robust industry security but a sign that hackers are expanding their attack surface, according to Dmytro Matviiv, CEO of crowdsourced security and bug bounty platform HackenProof. He told Cointelegraph that the lower aggregate losses are “misread as progress,” but only the leading protocols have become harder to exploit, forcing attackers to expand their attack surface.
Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, said that the cyber exploits are making users more cautious, but added that these may also result in capital leaving “weaker” DeFi protocols for those with “stronger venues and clearer yield models,” leading to more industry consolidation.
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AI agents can now access 0x Protocol’s Swap API by paying $0.01 per request in USDC directly from their own wallets, with no API key required, via the HTTP 402 and x402 standard built with Alchemy AgentPay.
AI agents can now access 0x Protocol’s Swap API by paying $0.01 per request in USDC from their own wallets, with no API key or account setup required. The integration, built with Alchemy AgentPay, runs on the HTTP 402 standard and extends the protocol’s DeFi liquidity aggregation to autonomous software agents for the first time.
The mechanism follows the x402 protocol flow: an agent sends an HTTP request to the 0x endpoint, the server returns a 402 Payment Required response, the agent signs a USDC payment on-chain, and a proxy verifies the transaction before releasing swap data. Payment is accepted via x402 on Base and Solana, or via the Machine Payment Protocol (MPP), per the 0x thread on X Tuesday.
Why Agents Need This
Traditional API access requires an account, a credit card, a key, and a billing cycle. None of those map cleanly to an autonomous process that may need to execute a single swap query before spinning down. The pay-per-request model lets an agent call the endpoint when it needs it and pay only for what it consumes, at $0.01 per call.
0x’s Swap API aggregates liquidity across major DEX venues, making it one of the more practical data sources for any agent that needs onchain pricing or routing. Opening it to API-keyless access removes the setup step that would otherwise require human intervention before an agent can run.
Growing Stack
The launch adds 0x to a stack of AI-agent payment infrastructure that has grown quickly since early June. AWS plugged Coinbase’s x402 into CloudFront on June 19, letting any site behind Amazon’s CDN charge agents per request in USDC. Coinbase for Agents launched standalone agent accounts on June 11. Mastercard’s Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) and Ripple’s XRPL AI Starter Kit both launched June 10.
The x402 network has processed 75.41 million transactions totaling $24.24 million in volume over the past 30 days, per x402.org. 0x has not disclosed how many agent requests its Swap API has received since the feature launched, and the announcement includes no volume projections.
