Category: Business

Florida moved closer to becoming the latest U.S. state to enact stablecoin rules at the local level, following the State Senate’s passage of Senate Bill 314 on Friday.

Sam Armes, founder and President of the Florida Blockchain Business Association, described Senate Bill 314’s passage as a historic moment on X. He believes the bill will be signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a crypto advocate, within the next 30 days.

A spokesperson for DeSantis told Decrypt that the governor has not yet received the bill from the legislature. “Once delivered to his office, he will review it in its final form,” she added.

The measure, which passed unanimously on Friday, folds stablecoins into the Sunshine State’s existing regulations by explicitly defining them as a form of “monetary value” under the Florida Control of Money Laundering in Money Services Business Act.

The legislation meanwhile authorizes the Florida Department of Financial Services to accept approved stablecoins for payments, such as state-issued licenses and taxes, alongside a pilot program to study how the government could utilize stablecoins itself.

Republican Florida State Senator Colleen Burton told lawmakers that the legislation aims to integrate state oversight with federal guidelines, as established under a dual-track system in the GENIUS Act—a federal framework for stablecoins passed into law last year.

“It’s important that we do this today,” she said, noting that the bill would allow Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation to become the primary regulator of payment systems using stablecoins.

In many ways, Florida’s framework for stablecoins mirrors rules pertaining to traditional transactions. That includes requiring so-called money services businesses to maintain records of stablecoin transactions valued at more than $10,000, which is already the case for other digital assets defined as “virtual currencies.”

In 2019, Texas became the first state to recognize stablecoins as a form of “monetary value” regarding money transmission rules, according to analysis from law firm Paul Hastings. In 2023, additional rules were adopted under that state’s Money Services Modernization Act.

Popular prediction markets platform Kalshi is facing a class action lawsuit related to its handling of a market on the unseating of Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.  

Filed in the District Court for the Central District of California, the suit alleges that the platform ran a “predatory scheme to exploit retail consumers” by creating expectations that it would pay out correct predictions, yet failed to do so in its recent “Ali Khamenei out as Supreme Leader?” market. 

The plaintiffs allege that they expected that in the event of Khameni’s death—which was confirmed by multiple outlets on February 28—holding contracts for Khameni out by March 1 would resolve to “yes,” ultimately paying each share $1 as a correct prediction. 

Instead, the prediction market utilized a “death carveout provision,” a rules clause which indicated that if the Supreme Leader left office “solely because they have died,” then the market would “resolve based on the last traded price.” In other words, with this clause, the exchange did not pay out “yes” shares at $1.00, as expected by the plaintiffs. 

“Plaintiffs and the proposed class members—who correctly predicted the outcome—did not receive the amounts they were promised,” the suit reads. “Plaintiffs Risch and Gliksman, like thousands of other consumers who correctly predicted the outcome, received arbitrary amounts unilaterally determined by [Kalshi] that were significantly lower than their respective contract values.” 

As social media pushback began to build on February 28, the day of Khameni’s death, Kalshi CEO Tarek Monsour took to X to explain his firm’s decisions. 

“We don’t list markets directly tied to death,” he said. “When there are markets where potential outcomes involve death, we design the rules to prevent people from profiting from death. That is what we did here.” 

The plaintiffs allege those rules, like the death carveout “upon which defendants relied was not adequately disclosed to plaintiffs or the proposed class members at the time they entered into their trades.” 

“In these instances, we make the caveat clear in the rules and in the market page, but today is a good learning that we can do more in terms of improving the UX and adding more ways to surface the rules,” said Monsour. 

As a result, the firm reimbursed all fees and net losses, with Monsour highlighting that “no trader lost money” on the market. 

Plaintiffs in the case held around $259.84 worth of positions in the market, which ultimately generated more than $54 million in total trading volume. 

In the suit’s relief requests, plaintiffs and all others similarly situated are requesting compensatory damages representing the full value of “yes” payouts, and “punitive damages in an amount sufficient to punish defendants and deter similar conduct in the future.” 

“We stand by principle and law,” Mansour posted on X in acknowledgement of the suit, reiterating that the firm didn’t deviate from rules, prevented a market where traders can benefit from a person’s death, and made no money on the market. 

Kalshi recently raised funds at an $11 billion valuation as prediction markets surge in popularity and trading volumes. (Disclaimer: Decrypt’s parent company, Dastan, operates the prediction market platform Myriad.) 

Leading crypto exchange Binance denied violating Iranian sanctions compliance in a letter sent in reply to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), who recently launched a probe into the firm following media reports on purported violations.

Blumenthal’s probe followed a Wall Street Journal report that alleged that Binance allowed $1.7 billion worth of transactions tied to Iranian entities and sanction-evading trades from Russia to occur on the platform. 

“Binance takes its legal obligations seriously and shares your interest in the safety of its platform,” the exchange wrote in the letter. “The recent reporting on which your inquiry relies, however, is demonstrably false, unsupported by credible evidence, and defamatory in several material respects.” 

The alleged infractions identified two Hong Kong-based partners, Hexa Whale and Blessed Trust, that allegedly facilitated sanctions-evading transactions and approximately 2,000 other accounts associated with Iranian entities, according to the Wall Street Journal reporting.

But according to Binance, after law enforcement requests about those two firms, additional internal investigations led to offboarding of their accounts. 

“After receiving the requests, Binance investigators initiated a comprehensive review to determine not only Binance’s exposure to the wallets implicated by the outreach, but any other Binance users with such exposure,” the firm said of its investigation into Hexa Whale. It offboarded the account in August 2025, it said. 

A similar internal investigation followed for Blessed Trust, and once more led to the offboarding of the account in January 2026. 

“Once again, Binance appropriately investigated and addressed these issues,” the exchange said.”

In disputing the alleged reporting inaccuracies, Binance also backed its compliance processes, noting that it has “invested hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance infrastructure to build a strong compliance program,” which it said boasts more than 1,500 employees worldwide. 

“Binance has a rigorous compliance program that is consistently growing stronger. When there is credible risk information, Binance investigates, mitigates, offboards accounts, and reports to appropriate authorities,” it wrote. “With respect to the matters described in the letter, that compliance process was, in fact, effective.” 

The recent allegations against the firm come after it pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering laws and sanctions requirements in 2023. At that time it agreed to pay $4.3 billion penalty, and its co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison for his role.  

Zhao was pardoned by President Donald Trump last October after serving his sentence in 2024.

A Washington man has been sentenced to two years in prison after diverting $35 million in funds from his former employer to his own DeFi platform—and losing nearly all of it.

Nevin Shetty, 42, was found guilty of wire fraud last November for taking and misusing funds from the private software company at which he worked.

Shetty, who drafted a “conservative” company investment policy, secretly moved $35 million in company funds to his side business HighTower Treasury, after being told in April 2022 that his role as CFO would end due to performance issues. Those funds were then invested in high-yield DeFi lending protocols that promised returns of 20% or more.

Per the DOJ’s statement, Shetty planned to pay his employer a “comparatively small, fixed amount,” keeping the remainder of the returns for HighTower. Initially, the scheme paid off, earning some $133,000 in its first month for Shetty and his HighTower business partner.

The wheels came off in May 2022, following the Terra collapse and the subsequent crypto winter, with Shetty’s HighTower crypto investments plummeting in value from $35 million to near zero.

After confessing to colleagues at his employer, Shetty was fired from the company, which, according to trial judge Tana Lin, suffered “significant and severe effects” as a result of his theft, adding that his actions “almost put the company out of business.”

Shetty’s two-year prison sentence is significantly lower than the nine years requested by the prosecution, which urged for “stern punishment” to reflect the “web of lies” and impact on the company, which was forced to lay off 60 people in order to adapt to the “massive loss” caused by his fraud.

Shetty was ordered to pay $35,000,100 and will be placed on supervised release for three years after prison. Judge Lin also imposed a special condition blocking him from serving as an officer or director of a company without prior permission from the probation office.