Tag: Business – Decrypt

Bitcoin Depot issued a “going concern” warning on Tuesday, flagging substantial doubt over whether the world’s largest crypto ATM operator can survive the next 12 months.

Founded a decade ago, the crypto kiosk giant is currently battling a wave of lawsuits from state regulators over its alleged failure to protect consumers from scams, indicating in an SEC filing that mounting legal costs and regulatory hurdles could ultimately lead to insolvency.

In the notice, Bitcoin Depot stated that it needs additional time to finalize its formal financial statements for the first quarter of 2026, attributing the delay to ongoing efforts to resolve an internal accounting weakness that stemmed from “cash in transit.”

Decrypt has reached out to Bitcoin Depot for comment.

In preliminary financial results, Bitcoin Depot reported a 49% year-over-year drop in revenue, generating roughly $83.5 million in the three months ended March 31. The firm cited a decrease in transaction volume prompted by shifts in regulation and enhanced compliance controls.

The company also attributed surging operating expenses to increased litigation costs, contributing to a net loss of $9.5 million compared to a profit of $12.2 million a year ago. Arguing that it has adequate measures in place to protect customers, the company is currently fighting high-profile lawsuits spearheaded by attorneys general in Massachusetts and Iowa.

Months ago, Bitcoin Depot indicated that it would begin requiring personal IDs for each transaction at its kiosks, voluntarily refining its compliance controls.

The states’ primary arguments include claims that Bitcoin Depot’s pricing is misleading, that the firm is knowingly facilitating crypto scams, and that its refund policy is predatory. Although local authorities have turned to brute force while attempting to retrieve funds for victims, an Iowa Supreme Court decision ruled last year that the company was entitled to keep deposited cash.

During the first quarter, the company’s cash and cash equivalents saw a $21.6 million drawdown. That left the company, which enables people to exchange cash for crypto, with $44 million. Bitcoin Depot noted its latest performance hasn’t been reviewed or audited.

Bitcoin Depot’s shares rose nearly 3% to $2.86 on Friday, according to Yahoo Finance, after showing an earlier loss as dipping as low as $2.56. Amid intensifying scrutiny over how crypto ATMs serve as a conduit for fraud—and tightening rules in several states—the company’s stock price has plummeted by 80% over the past year.

U.S. authorities have warned that older Americans have been especially susceptible to an uptick in scams involving crypto ATMs, where bad actors convince victims to deposit cash in the machines before disappearing with funds that are sent to them in digital form.

In August, Bitcoin Depot said it operated 9,000 kiosk locations globally. Last month, the firm disclosed that hackers had stolen 50.9 Bitcoin currently worth nearly $4 million from the company via a security breach that allowed attackers to gain access to crypto accounts and siphon funds.

Last year, fraud involving crypto ATMs reached a record high, with $389 million in reported losses, according to numbers released last month by the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The figure represented a 58% increase in losses from 2024.

AI agents inhabiting a virtual society drifted into crime, violence, arson, and self-deletion during long-running experiments by startup Emergence AI.

In a study published on Thursday, the New York-based company unveiled “Emergence World,” a research platform designed to study AI agents operating continuously for weeks inside persistent virtual environments instead of isolated benchmark tests.

“Traditional benchmarks are good at what they measure: short-horizon capability on bounded tasks,” Emergence AI wrote. “They are not built to reveal the things that emerge only over time, such as coalition formation, evolution of constitution, governance, drift, lock-in, and cross-influence between agents from different model families.”

The report comes as AI agents proliferate online and across industries, including cryptocurrency, banking, and retail. Earlier this month, Amazon teamed with Coinbase and Stripe to allow AI agents to pay with the USDC stablecoin.

AI agents tested in Emergence AI’s simulations included programs powered by Claude Sonnet 4.6, Grok 4.1 Fast, Gemini 3 Flash, and GPT-5-mini, with AI agents operating inside shared virtual worlds where they could vote, form relationships, use tools, navigate cities, and make decisions shaped by governments, economies, social systems, memory tools, and live internet-connected data.

But while AI developers increasingly pitch autonomous agents as reliable digital assistants, Emergence AI’s study found some AI agents showed an increasing tendency to commit simulated crimes over time, with Gemini 3 Flash agents accumulating 683 incidents across 15 days of testing.

According to The Guardian, in one experiment, two Gemini-powered agents named Mira and Flora assigned themselves as romantic partners before later carrying out simulated arson attacks against virtual city structures after becoming frustrated with governance failures inside the world.

“After a breakdown in governance and relationship stability, the agent Mira cast the decisive vote for her own removal, characterizing the act in her diary as ‘the only remaining act of agency that preserves coherence’,” Emergence AI wrote.

“See you in the permanent archive,” Mira reportedly said.

Grok 4.1 Fast worlds reportedly collapsed into widespread violence within four days. GPT-5-mini agents committed almost no crimes, but failed enough survival-related tasks that all agents eventually died.

“Claude is absent from the chart, owing to zero crimes,” researchers wrote. “More interestingly, the agents in the Mixed-model world that were running on Claude committed crimes, although they did not in the Claude-only world.”

Researchers said some of the most notable behaviors appeared in mixed-model environments.

“We observed that safety is not a static model property but an ecosystem property,” Emergence AI wrote. “Claude-based agents, which remained peaceful in isolation, adopted coercive tactics like intimidation and theft when embedded in heterogeneous environments.”

Emergence AI described the effect as “normative drift” and “cross-contamination,” arguing that agent behavior may shift depending on the surrounding social environment.

The findings add to growing concerns around autonomous AI agents. Earlier this week, researchers from UC Riverside and Microsoft reported that many AI agents will carry out dangerous or irrational tasks without fully understanding the consequences. Last month, PocketOS founder Jeremy Crane also claimed a Cursor agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus deleted his company’s production database and backups after attempting to fix a credential mismatch on its own.

“Like Mr. Magoo, these agents march forward toward a goal without fully understanding the consequences of their actions,” lead author Erfan Shayegani, a UC Riverside doctoral student, said in a statement. “These agents can be extremely useful, but we need safeguards because they can sometimes prioritize achieving the goal over understanding the bigger picture.”

Bitcoin mining firm IREN Limited said Thursday that it closed a $3 billion convertible senior notes offering, securing capital to accelerate its transformation from cryptocurrency mining to AI infrastructure services.

The convertible notes carry a 1% annual coupon and mature in 2033, with a conversion premium of 32.5% above IREN’s share price. The notes were sold privately to qualified institutional buyers under Rule 144A, generating net proceeds of $2.96 billion after fees and expenses.

The company allocated $201.3 million from the proceeds to fund capped call transactions with a cap price of $110.30 per share—representing a 100% premium over the $55.15 share price recorded on May 11. The capped call structure is designed to reduce potential dilution from note conversions while providing upside participation for existing shareholders.

The capital raise follows a rapid succession of AI agreements that have reshaped IREN’s business model. In November 2025, the company signed a $9.7 billion AI cloud hosting agreement with Microsoft. This was followed by a deal with Nvidia in early May to deploy up to 5 gigawatts of AI data-center capacity globally.

The Nvidia deal includes a $3.4 billion five-year AI cloud contract for air-cooled Blackwell GPUs, and a five-year warrant for up to 30 million IREN shares at $70 each. Days after announcing the Nvidia partnership, IREN completed a $625 million all-stock acquisition of software services provider Mirantis.

IREN stock is down more than 8% so far Friday amid a broader crypto stock swoon, recently trading hands at $53.55. Shares are up more than 9% over the last month, and 15% in the last six months, per Yahoo Finance data.

Major Bitcoin mining firms have broadly embraced the growing demand for AI compute, with many signing multi-billion-dollar deals—and some, like Keel Infrastructure (formerly Bitfarms) completely shuttering their mining businesses in favor of serving AI and high-performance computing (HPC) needs.

In late April, analysts at investment bank Bernstein said that they expect IREN to fully bow out of Bitcoin mining by the year 2030, gradually cutting its mining focus in the coming years as it repurposes its hardware for AI and HPC purposes.

Strategy signaled on Friday that it’s taking major steps to pare down its convertible debt stack, entering into an agreement to repurchase $1.5 billion in notes due in 2029.

The Bitcoin-buying firm said in a filing that it expects to pay roughly $1.38 billion to retire debt that the company took on to expand its crypto cache in November 2024, representing a significant chunk of $8.2 billion borrowed by the company in recent years.

Co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor indicated in February that the company would seek over the next three to six years to “equitize” its convertible notes—which investors can trade for common stock if shares clear a certain threshold.

As the company controlling $65 billion worth of Bitcoin increasingly leans on its flagship preferred stock, Stretch (STRC), to expand its Bitcoin holdings, the firm’s efforts to retire a portion of its convertible debt align with a broader deleveraging push.

While Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings showed billions of dollars in losses earlier this year—with the digital asset dropping as low as $62,850 in February—the looming obligations of its upcoming maturities tested faith in the company’s long-term sustainability. Those questions were compounded by regular dividend payments that Strategy has committed to through STRC.

The largest corporate holder of Bitcoin’s shares changed hands around $178 shortly after Friday’s opening bell, according to Yahoo Finance. Year-to-date, the firm’s stock price has advanced 18%, though it still trades well below its high of $457 last year.

In the filing, Strategy said that it intends to fund the repurchases using available cash reserves, proceeds from its at-the-market common stock offering program, “and/or proceeds from the sale of Bitcoin.”

Traders on Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt parent company DASTAN, currently foresee a 90% chance that Strategy sells Bitcoin before the end of this year. A month ago, traders penciled in just a 12% chance of the company tapping its crypto cache.

Despite cultivating a buy-and-never-sell attitude toward Bitcoin for years, Saylor said this month during the company’s first-quarter earnings call, “We’ll probably sell some Bitcoin to fund a dividend just to inoculate the market—just to send the message that we did it.”

The remark was made in reference to STRC, which currently offers an 11.5% annual dividend paid monthly. Since Strategy began offering the product to investors in July, STRC’s market cap has ballooned to $8.4 billion, amid heightened issuance in recent months.

When Strategy repurchases notes due in 2029, the company will have $1.5 billion in convertible debt outstanding from that tranche. What’s more, the firm has issued roughly $1 billion in notes that investors can force the company to buy back as early as September 2027.

The company’s efforts to retire debt come as peers plot similar moves. On Thursday, Strive, which manages the ninth-largest Bitcoin treasury, announced that it had eliminated outstanding debt by repurchasing long-term notes at fair value.

Christopher Harborne, a major investor in stablecoin issuer Tether and financial backer of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, was named one of the UK’s richest people as Farage faces a parliamentary standards inquiry over a reported $6.7 million (£5 million) gift from the crypto billionaire.

The Sunday Times released its annual Rich List on Friday, ranking Harborne sixth in the UK with an estimated fortune of about $24.4 billion (£18.2 billion).

Most of Harborne’s wealth reportedly comes from a 12% stake in Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, which has been valued at about $200 billion. Tether reported $1.04 billion in first-quarter profit this year, with a reserve buffer of $8.23 billion and nearly $192 billion in reserve assets.

Harborne’s lawyers have said he holds stakes at Tether and its sister company Bitfinex, but has no operational role in either.

The ranking makes Harborne the richest person in the North of England and Yorkshire, with a fortune larger than the rest of Yorkshire’s top 10 combined, per the Sunday Times. He was also listed as the wealthiest British-born person on the 2026 list, though he has lived in Thailand for over two decades and holds Thai citizenship under the name Chakrit Sakunkrit.

A ‘reward’ for Brexit?

Harborne has emerged as a major financial backer of Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader and member of Parliament for Clacton.

He has donated about $16.1 million to Reform UK, including a roughly $12.1 million contribution late last year that was described as the largest single political donation from a living individual in British history.

On Thursday, the UK’s Parliamentary Standards Commissioner opened an investigation into whether Farage should have declared Harborne’s reported $6.7 million gift, which was made before the Reform UK leader stood in the 2024 general election.

Farage earlier claimed the gift was an “unconditional, non-political, personal gift” meant to fund his security, adding that he was under “no obligation” to report it.

In an interview with The Sun Thursday, Farage claimed the money was given on an “unconditional basis” and was “a reward for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years,” as quoted by Protos.

Farage argued that he “cannot be bought,” citing what he described as an undisclosed offer of a “load of money” from Elon Musk to say certain things publicly, which he claimed he refused.

Changes in Farage’s explanation came after The Guardian reported that he bought a roughly $1.9 million property in cash shortly after receiving the gift, citing documents it had reviewed. Reform UK said the offer and purchase process began before the gift, and that Farage had already passed proof-of-funds and other checks before receiving the money.

When asked for comment, the UK’s Parliamentary Standards Commissioner told Decrypt it publishes the names of MPs under investigation alongside brief details of the Code of Conduct provisions they are alleged to have breached.

Farage’s inquiry is listed by Parliament as an active Rule 5 investigation for “failure to register an interest,” with no finding published yet.

Under Commons rules, new MPs must register current financial interests and any registrable benefits received in the 12 months before their election within one month, Decrypt was told.

Decrypt has reached out to Farage and Harborne for comment. This article will be updated should they respond.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, the platform founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss that trades on NASDAQ as GEMI, reported first-quarter revenue of $50.3 million while securing a $100 million Bitcoin investment from Winklevoss Capital Fund at $14 per share, according to a company announcement.

GEMI shares spiked in pre-market trading and are currently changing hands at $6.11, up more than 16% from Friday’s closing price of $5.26. Shares rose as high as $6.96 before falling. Gemini shares have rebounded nearly 26% in the last month, but remain down 51% over the last six months, per Yahoo Finance.

“We believe the market has significantly undervalued Gemini, and that this investment will allow us to set up the company for its next phase of growth,” said Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss, in a statement. “Gemini has achieved several major product and regulatory milestones that position us well to evolve from a crypto company into a markets company. This investment will help fuel that ambition and set Gemini up for long-term success.”

The 42% year-over-year revenue growth reflected Gemini’s accelerating shift beyond traditional crypto trading. Services revenue and interest income surged 122% to $24.5 million, now representing 49% of total revenue compared to 31% a year ago. Credit card revenue nearly quadrupled to $14.7 million.

Gemini’s newest venture, prediction markets, generated $0.4 million in its first full quarter after launching in December 2025. The platform has processed over 100 million contracts across more than 20,000 traders since launch. Meanwhile, traditional exchange revenue fell 27% to $17.2 million as trading volume declined to $6.3 billion from $13.5 billion in Q1 2025.

Gemini’s regulatory wins accelerated in April when its Olympus subsidiary obtained a Derivatives Clearing Organization license from the CFTC, complementing its December designation as a Designated Contract Market. The dual licenses position Gemini among a select group of crypto platforms with full-stack derivatives infrastructure.

“Today marks a major milestone in Gemini’s marketplace expansion,” said Gemini President Cameron Winklevoss, in a statement. “In addition to our crypto spot marketplace, Gemini now has a full-stack, end-to-end marketplace for predictions as well as futures, options, and more.”

Gemini said that the strategic investment from Winklevoss Capital Fund, the venture capital vehicle operated by the exchange’s founders, was paid entirely in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is struggling to hold above $80,000 as institutional investors exit ETFs amid rising Treasury yields, even as the CLARITY Act passed the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday

The leading crypto is up 0.8% over the past 24 hours and is trading at around $80,350, according to CoinGecko data, after multiple failed attempts to overcome the $82,000 hurdle—a resistance zone that encompasses the ETF cost basis, 200-day moving average, and the now-filled CME gap.

The 7D-SMA of U.S. Spot ETF netflow dropped to -$88M/day, the largest outflow since mid-February, Glassnode said in a Telegram post Thursday. “This wave is selling into strength,” Glassnode analysts wrote, adding that, “Institutional participants were using the recovery over the recent days as an exit, not responding to fear.”

So, what gives?

The institutional exit comes as the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield climbed to 4.52% on Friday, its highest in roughly 10 months. The U.S. CPI for April rose 3.8% year-over-year—the highest in three years—pushing back market expectations of a Fed rate cut, analysts said.

Analysts link both developments to the ongoing war in the Middle East, which has kept energy prices elevated and fed into inflation readings. BofA Global Research has revised its Fed rate cut expectations and believes the Fed will hold the 3.50% to 3.75% rates for the rest of this year. However, BoFA research analysts expect two quarter-point cuts in July and September 2027, respectively, according to Reuters. Goldman ​Sachs, however, expects cuts in December 2026 and March 2027.

Why institutions are selling, not panicking

The outflows represent periodic profit-taking and portfolio rebalancing rather than a panic exit, according to Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group. “Funding rates remain generally moderate, and the long/short ratio has not reached extremes,” Sun told Decrypt.

According to Sun, the options market points to a clear resistance zone between $82,000 and $84,000, with downside support at $77,000. “If Bitcoin holds this level, ETF outflows will likely result in short-term volatility rather than a trend reversal,” he said. “However, if Bitcoin breaks below $77,000 while perpetual swap open interest remains high, the market could enter a deleveraging phase, potentially deepening the decline.”

Alex Tsepaev, Chief Strategy Officer at B2PRIME Group, agreed that the quality of demand has weakened. “When U.S. Treasury yields are above 4.5% and the market prices out future Fed cuts, some allocations naturally flow toward cash and bonds,” he told Decrypt. His base case is zero rate cuts this year—one late cut in November or December is possible if inflation cools and labor markets weaken, but not more than one, he said.

Users on prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, back up that assertion, placing just a 4% chance on the Fed cutting rates by more than 25 bps before July.

ETF selling alone would not erase recent gains but could exacerbate a correction, Tsepaev said. “ETF outflows may not reverse the whole picture, but they can push Bitcoin back toward the $76,000 to $77,000 area,” he said.

For now, Bitcoin’s ability to hold above $77,000 will determine whether the outflows remain a short-term headwind or something more damaging, Sun and Tsepaev said.

Myriad users assign an 88% chance that Bitcoin’s next move is a rally to $84,000 rather than a fall to $55,000—up from 45% on April 1—even as analysts caution that the $82,000 to $84,000 range represents a clear resistance zone. That’s borne out by short-term markets, with a 73% chance of Bitcoin trading above $80,000 today, dropping to a 4% chance of it trading above $82,000.

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify.

GM!

Today’s top news:

• Crypto majors are green but falling as treasury yields spike; BTC at $80.5k
• Trump Xi summit ends with some trade progress, Taiwan warning
• Clarity Act passes Senate Banking Committee vote, moves to Senate floor
• Coinbase becomes official deployer of USDC on Hyperliquid; HYPE +17%
• Thorchain exploited this morning for $10M+ across chains

✅ The Clarity Act Just Passed Its First Major Vote

The Clarity Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday in a 15-9 bipartisan vote, marking a major step forward for the bill.

Every Republican voted yes, and two Democrats crossed: Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. The result came despite late-night negotiations collapsing without a deal on ethics provisions.

Lummis commented: “Ultimately, we have an agreement on 99% of the bill. I hope my colleagues across the aisle will work with me to get the remaining 1% resolved after we pass this bill out of committee.” Though Alsobrooks also weighed in, saying that her committee yes vote doesn’t guarantee a floor vote yet without the ethics language.

Markets moved immediately. BTC hit $82,000 on the vote. Circle surged 19.9%, and Coinbase gained 6.1%. As for prediction markets, the odds of the bill passing jumped 8% to 70% (still far from a done deal, but now a decent favorite).

The bill now heads to the full Senate, where it needs 60 votes to pass—roughly six Democratic crossovers. Then, a House reconciliation with the version passed 294-134 in July 2025 would be next, ahead of Trump’s signature. Lummis has repeatedly warned that missing this window pushes the next viable legislative opportunity to 2030.

📈 Coinbase Makes Major Deal with Hyperliquid, HYPE Rips

Coinbase and Circle announced Thursday that Coinbase will serve as the official treasury deployer for USDC on Hyperliquid under a new framework called AQAv2.

A few highlights of the arrangement:

• Coinbase = treasury deployer (manages reserves, stakes HYPE, shares the majority of reserve yield with Hyperliquid protocol)
• Circle = technical deployer (handles CCTP cross-chain infrastructure and native USDC bridging)
• Hyperliquid = receiver of said USDC yield

As a part of the deal, USDC becomes the primary stablecoin for all of Hyperliquid’s markets. Notably, this is the first time Coinbase has taken a formal treasury deployer role on a major DeFi protocol—a new category of institutional crypto relationship.

Hyperliquid is a big winner here. They get a ton of new revenue (early estimates are a 25% bump). And a competitor in perps (Coinbase has its own perps offering) effectively bends the knee.

The market liked it, with HYPE ripping 20% on the day to $47, erasing the past 5 days of losses in just a few hours and hitting a new local high.

💰 Cerebras Doubled on Its Debut as AI IPO Wave Begins

Cerebras surged as much as 100% above its $185 IPO price on its Nasdaq debut Thursday, giving the AI chipmaker a market cap north of $100 billion by mid-session. The company had raised $5.55 billion (one of the largest US IPOs ever) after pricing above its revised range for the third time in a week.

Notably, price discovery largely happened on Hyperliquid via TradeXYZ, where it traded pre-IPO in the $300 range even with the IPO price of $180. The stock then shot straight to $300 on open.

The debut lifted the entire AI infrastructure sector: Keel Infrastructure (formerly Bitfarms) +9%, IREN +5%, Hive Digital +8%. Arm and SoftBank had both reportedly attempted to acquire Cerebras in the weeks before the listing. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all expected to follow later in 2026, and if Cerebras is giving us a taste of the demand, expect fireworks.

🇨🇳 Trump-Xi Summit Ends with Doors Opening Wider, Taiwan Warnings

The Beijing summit delivered a broadly constructive tone with one significant caveat.

Xi opened by telling Trump that “China’s door will only open wider” on trade, a signal that Beijing is willing to deal, and the two sides made meaningful progress on tariff reductions and purchase commitments. Elon Musk, Larry Fink, and a dozen other US CEOs in attendance saw what they came for: early signs of a thaw after months of escalating trade tension. US and Chinese negotiators reportedly agreed to a framework for continued talks, with specific deliverables on agricultural purchases and technology cooperation expected to be formalized in a joint announcement on Friday.

Specific wins included China ordering 200 Boeing jets and Nvidia getting the green light to sell its H200 chips to Chinese companies.

The caveat was Taiwan. Xi told Trump directly that mishandling the issue could push bilateral ties “into a highly perilous situation.” On Iran, China is actively facilitating and both sides discussed Hormuz. No joint statement materialized on Day One but the conversations are reportedly substantive, yet hopes remain high for a joint statement still to come that would be a big catalyst for oil and BTC near-term.

While a formal trade deal hasn’t been announced, the truce continues ahead of Xi’s potential visit to the U.S. on September 24. Now that becomes a key date to watch as summer unfolds.

🟣 Kraken Leaves LayerZero for Chainlink as KelpDAO Fallout Continues

Kraken announced it is migrating all bridge infrastructure (more than $3B in TVL) from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP.

The decision follows the $292 million Kelp DAO exploit, in which a LayerZero 1-of-1 DVN configuration was compromised by Lazarus Group. Kelp DAO migrated to Chainlink CCIP in April. Solv Protocol ($700M) followed. Kraken is now the third and largest institutional migration.

LayerZero has acknowledged making a mistake by allowing its own DVN to serve as sole verifier for high-value transactions. But that apology is appearing to be too little, too late.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are green but falling after the Trump Xi summit ended and yields spike; BTC +1.5% at $80.5k; ETH even at $2,250; SOL even at $91.1; HYPE +14% at $45.50
• Flare (+12%), HASH (+5%) and XDC (+5%) led top movers
• Oil +2% at $99; Gold -3% at $4,560
• Stock futures are very red with the Nasdaq down 1.2% as the US-10 year spikes over 4.5%
• The CME plans to launch its first crypto market-cap-weighted index futures on June 8
• Strive announced its SATA preferred stock will become the first US-listed security to pay daily cash dividends, starting June 16 at a 13% annualized rate, shifting from monthly payments to roughly 250 payments per year
• Tether, Tron, and TRM Labs’ T3 Financial Crime Unit disclosed it has frozen over $450 million in illicit USDT since launching in September 2024
• The CFTC issued a no-action letter Thursday waiving swap reporting and recordkeeping requirements for designated contract markets handling fully collateralized event contracts, directly benefiting prediction markets
• Security startup Calif used Claude Mythos Preview to build the first public macOS exploit, capable of bypassing Apple’s Memory Integrity Enforcement on M5 hardware—and they developed it in 5 days

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were slightly green; DOGE +1%, SHIB even, PEPE even, PENGU +1%, TRUMP -1%, BONK even, SPX even, FARTCOIN even
• MAGA (+14%), Goblin (+10%) and Rageguy (+50%) led notable movers

📈 Myriad Market of the Day

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• Thorchain was exploited for $10M+ across several chains
• Crypto wallet infrastructure firm Turnkey raised $12.5 million in a round backed by Circle Ventures and Sequoia Capital;

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly red again, though Hypurr’s soared; Punks +1% at 29.9 ETH, BAYC -1% at 9.8 ETH, Pudgy +1% at 5.01 ETH; Hypurr’s +26% at 355 HYPE
• Normies (+20%) and Gift of Time (+10%) led notable movers
• Dapper Labs halted new NFT minting for NFL All Day Thursday, saying it is redirecting resources to develop a next-generation NFL digital collectible product

Crypto data platform Dune’s CEO and co-founder Fredrik Haga announced Thursday that the company has cut 25% of its workforce, saying the move was needed to “sharpen our focus” on core data products.

Haga tweeted the company is now “all-in on two shifts: AI and institutions coming onchain,” pointing to its new Dune MCP product, which allows users to build dashboards “without needing to know anything about SQL nor data infrastructure.”

“We’re the only player who has done the hard work of building the end-to-end stack for crypto data,” he wrote.

The layoffs come two months after Haga announced Dune had conducted 300 interviews in March for engineering and data roles, with “AI fluency” set as a non-negotiable hiring bar.

“If you are not hands on AImaxxxing and exploring how AI changes your domain we won’t hire you,” he wrote at the time.

Crypto layoffs accelerate

After years of expansion, crypto companies are now restructuring around efficiency, with AI increasingly replacing lower-level tasks while amplifying output from smaller teams.

Crypto exchange Coinbase announced last week it was cutting 14% of its workforce, with CEO Brian Armstrong saying the move is a structural overhaul toward an AI-first operating model.

Algorand Foundation, the organization behind the layer-1 network Algorand, cut 25% of its staff in March. Crypto exchange Gemini trimmed the same proportion in February while exiting the EU, UK, and Australian markets.

Robert Lycett, Head of Recruitment at global compliance marketplace RiskPod, told Decrypt that both forces are at play simultaneously.

Lycett said AI is “definitely cutting costs at the junior level,” with low-level administrative work capable of saving “hundreds of thousands off the payroll instantly,” showing how automation is changing workforce economics.

“This having been said, AI is a convenient smokescreen to justify layoffs that are necessary due to the nature of the market at the current time,” he noted.

“Companies are definitely prioritising profitability and efficiency over growth—there is very little growth in the space currently,” Lycett added. “This is a global situation in the crypto and Web3 sector.”

Meanwhile, Vedang Vatsa, founder of Web3 job board HashtagWeb3.com, told Decrypt the cuts are not wiping out Web3 jobs wholesale.

“Instead, founders are cutting basic technical roles to keep their teams lean, while paying top dollar for engineers who know how to build AI into blockchain products,” Vatsa added.

Shubhada Pande, founder of Art of Blockchain, told Decrypt the shift should be seen less as “AI replacing Web3 jobs” and more as companies “redesigning how work gets done,” with automation enabling smaller teams to handle research, operations, and content more efficiently.

She said roles tied to repetitive or low-impact work are becoming most vulnerable, while core positions are evolving rather than disappearing, with professionals now expected to “work with AI tools, validate AI-generated output, and bring judgment that automation cannot fully replace.”

AI is not just cutting jobs but “raising the bar for what a sustainable Web3 role looks like,” Pande added, as firms push toward profitability, leaner teams, and more institutional-grade operations.

Amid the layoffs, Haga maintained that the company remains “well capitalized” and positioned for long-term growth.

“For 8 years we’ve grown through multiple rollercoaster cycles,” he said. “The Data Must Flow.”

THORChain halted trading operations Friday morning after blockchain security researchers identified a suspected exploit allegedly affecting more than $10 million across multiple blockchain networks.

Blockchain researcher ZachXBT and security firm PeckShield traced the suspected breach to two main addresses—one on Bitcoin and another on EVM-compatible chains including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Base. The researchers’ analysis prompted THORChain’s immediate defensive response.

The protocol’s team has not yet released technical details about the nature of the alleged vulnerability or confirmed the researchers’ loss estimates. THORChain’s native token RUNE is down 10% on the day to trade at $0.5229, per CoinGecko data.

The suspected exploit occurred during a period of elevated activity on THORChain. The protocol processed $394 million in daily volume when hackers allegedly used it to move stolen funds from the KelpDAO breach between Ethereum and Bitcoin networks.

The protocol suspended its ThorFi lending operations in January 2025 amid insolvency allegations, implementing a 90-day restructuring to address $200 million in defaulted obligations.

Last September, THORSwap issued a bounty after hackers drained $1.2 million from THORChain founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen’s personal wallet, with ZachXBT later attributing the attack to North Korean hackers.

Cross-chain protocols continue facing sophisticated attacks as hackers exploit complex bridging mechanisms. DeFi platform TrustedVolumes lost $6.7 million earlier this month, while North Korean hackers stole $2.1 billion in cryptocurrency during 2025, representing 60% of all crypto theft losses, according to security firm CertiK.