Cryptopolitan

The volume war between Kalshi and Polymarket is spilling into public view. In the fresh rebuttal, executives are now openly disputing how big the market really is and what counts as “real” activity. This comes in when the prediction markets are facing constant scrutiny over multiple insider trading cases emerging on the platforms.

John Wang, Kalshi’s head of crypto, pushed back against claims that the two platforms did hit almost the same trading volumes in March. In a post, he said Kalshi processed $13 billion in March, while Polymarket handled closer to $10 billion. He tried to clear the air over disputing estimates that put both near $12 billion.

Kalshi Claims 70% wash trading in Polymarket’s top markets

Wang argued that comparisons often ignore structural differences between the platforms. He suggested that a fair comparison would separate Polymarket US volume as it’s largely sports-focused. Kalshi’s head of crypto put the steelman Spencer’s take in the middle and called it Poly Panama.

In an X post, he mentioned that even within Polymarket’s core markets, there are further adjustments needed. Wang pointed out that war-related contracts make up a huge share of Polymarket’s political volume. However, this is a category that Kalshi does not offer. If this section is kept apart, then it materially changes the comparison.

Wang also raised concerns about data quality. He claims that wash trading accounts for as much as 70% of activity in some of Polymarket’s top markets. Meanwhile, this figure is difficult to verify.

Another Kalshi-affiliated came in to support the claim. He stated that publicly shared figures were “not even sort of accurate. However, he cited Dune dashboard data showing Polymarket at roughly $9.5 billion in March volume. This number is quite low compared to Kalshi’s $13 billion.

Kalshi and Polymarket were nearly tied on total volume in March at ~$12B each. Strip out sports and it’s a different picture.

Polymarket did $7.5B in non-sports volume. Kalshi did $1.6B.

It’s weird that they’re even in the same category given very different positioning for… pic.twitter.com/XR0nHgoYE1

— Spencer Bogart (@CremeDeLaCrypto) April 26, 2026

As of April 2026, Kalshi has jumped over Polymarket in total trading volume. The platform had established itself as the market leader with around $37.5 billion in year-to-date notional volume. Meanwhile, Polymarket stood at around $29.2 billion. 

The debate comes in when prediction markets are rapidly scaling into a multi-billion-dollar sector. On the other hand, they are also facing high regulatory and legal pressure.

Prediction markets face heat over insider trading cases 

The most high-profile case emerged this week. US prosecutors have reportedly charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke with using classified intelligence to place bets on Polymarket. The bets were linked to the capture of Nicolás Maduro. Authorities allege the trades generated more than $400,000 in profit.

Around the same time, Kalshi disclosed that it had fined and suspended three congressional candidates for betting on their own election outcomes. This raises similar concerns about insider access to information.

Regulators are also beginning to take a harder stance globally. In Brazil, the Banco Central do Brasil has moved to block prediction markets entirely. It cited risks to investor protection and market integrity. The restrictions apply to contracts linked to events such as politics, sports, and social outcomes.

The US is witnessing a surge in criticism that is becoming more direct. Donald Trump said he was “not happy” with prediction markets. He described them as “somewhat of a casino.” However, these platforms continue to frame their products as financial instruments rather than bets.

That distinction is now being tested. A complaint in Wisconsin targeting firms including Kalshi and Polymarket argues that their own marketing materials resemble gambling services more than regulated financial products.

Despite the scrutiny, both platforms are continuing to expand. Kalshi says its crypto-related markets have grown rapidly in recent months, with volumes increasing nearly 10x, while Polymarket remains dominant in global, on-chain event trading.

The CFTC seems to be moving ahead from attempting to ban certain event contracts to actively asserting its “exclusive jurisdiction”. On March 12, 2026, the agency began a formal process to build a framework for prediction markets. It sought public input on whether event contracts should be classified as “swaps” or “futures”.

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Folks, the quantum trade is already on Wall Street’s screen, but the boys can’t seem to agree on when this potential tool of doom actually becomes useful.

Though to be fair, Goldman Sachs (GS) once looked early in the race. I mean, just three years ago, the bank hired a small group of scientists and worked with Amazon (AMZN) to test whether quantum computing could help wealthy clients get stronger portfolio returns.

The test was kind of a smack on Goldman’s face, as they had to find out that the algorithm would need millions of years to finish the task. The computer would also need at least 8 million logical qubits, which are protected quantum bits used to build a reliable machine. Today’s systems still have fewer than 100.

Banks are chasing quantum gains as the hardware still falls far short

Goldman later cut most of that team during a wider cost-cutting round. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), meanwhile, went the other way, keeping more than 50 physicists, computer scientists, and mathematicians working on optimization, machine learning, and cryptography.

Some on the Street think quantum will be the next big computing trade after artificial intelligence, while others are not ready to spend heavily on a tool that still has limited use in real business.

Tech and market experts say quantum computing could help with drug research, machine learning, finance risk models, and other hard problems that normal computers struggle to solve.

The issue is the clock we’re working with. Useful quantum systems are still seen as years away since they use physics such as superposition and entanglement. A normal computer works with bits, which are either 0 or 1. A qubit, short for “quantum bit,” can exist as a mix of two states before it is measured. When the machine handles qubits in the right way, wave effects can raise the chance of getting the needed answer.

A large quantum computer could run some calculations far faster than a classical computer; it could also help physicists run physical simulations and break some common encryption systems. Another super interesting angle to the story is Xanadu Quantum Technologies, whose founder, Christian Weedbrook, became a billionaire within literally 6 days of the company going public.

Christian’s stake in Xanadu was valued at about $1.5 billion by midday Friday after the company’s value more than tripled during the week, and Xanadu closed at $31.41 on Friday, up by 251% on the weekly charts, per data from Google Finance.

Xanadu says it plans to build one of the first quantum data centers by 2030, and it uses photons, or light particles, sent through fiber-optic links.

Then, we have the most valuable company on earth (Nvidia), which released open-source artificial intelligence models on Tuesday to support research in quantum computing.

Google lowers the bitcoin threat estimate as exposed wallets face the bigger risk

Now let’s talk about the elephant in the room: Bitcoin. But first, a trip down memory lane, all the way to 1994, when mathematician Peter Shor created Shor’s algorithm, a method that can break the trapdoor behind some cryptographic systems.

Peter’s algorithm solves the discrete logarithm problem efficiently. A classical computer would need longer than the universe has existed for some versions of that math. Shor’s method handles it in polynomial time, where the difficulty grows slowly as numbers get larger.

The algorithm has been known for more than 30 years. Bitcoin still works because no one has built a quantum computer with enough stable qubits to keep coherence through the full attack, but we wonder:- how many qubits would be enough?

Previous estimates had pointed to millions of physical qubits, but last month, Google (GOOGL, GOOG) released an investigative report that reduced that number to fewer than 500,000.

The paper also laid out a more direct attack path. Part of Shor’s algorithm depends only on fixed elliptic-curve data. That data is public and the same for every Bitcoin wallet. A future quantum machine could do that part early and wait in a ready state.

Once a public key appears, either in the mempool during a transaction or on-chain from an earlier spend, the machine would only need to complete the second stage.

Google’s report estimated this part will take about nine minutes to be done, whereas Bitcoin’s average block time is 10 minutes, so that gives a potential attacker a short window (41% to be precise) to calculate the private key and submit a competing transaction that sends the coins somewhere else.

The larger issue is already sitting on the blockchain, where 6.9 million bitcoin, roughly one-third of the total supply, is held in wallets where the public key has already been exposed forever. Those coins face an at-rest attack. But again, who knows when the danger will actually get here?

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Senator Thom Tillis said Sunday that he will now vote to confirm Kevin Warsh as Donald Trump’s choice to run the Federal Reserve, ending a Senate blockade that had tied Kevin to a nasty fight over chairman Jerome Powell, DOJ power, and the Fed’s independence.

The North Carolina Republican Senator wanted the Justice Department to drop its criminal probe into Powell, as Cryptopolitan previously reported.

Tillis said this is a fight over whether the DOJ was being used to scare the central bank, and added that his decision likely gives Kevin a fast road to confirmation before Powell’s chair term ends on May 15.

Tillis says he is dropping his condition because the DOJ gave him the answer he wanted before Kevin could advance

Tillis told NBC that he spent the weekend getting the assurances he wanted from DOJ officials.

“We worked a lot over the weekend to make sure that we were very clear that we have assurances from the DOJ that I needed to feel like they were not using the DOJ as a weapon to threaten the independence of the Fed. So this will allow Mr. Wash to move on with his confirmation on time.”

The senator also said he had “a number of discussions” with DOJ officials. He said they made it clear that “the current investigation is completely and fully ended.” That was the line Tillis had been waiting for before letting Kevin go ahead.

DOJ announced Friday that it was dropping the Powell probe. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said the department was clearing space for Federal Reserve Inspector General Michael Horowitz to review cost overruns tied to the building work.

That part is not new. Michael was already doing a second review after Powell asked for it last July. His first review, done in 2021, found no wrongdoing.

The whole fight grew out of Trump’s attacks on Powell and the Fed’s office project, saying the renovation showed bad management at the central bank. Cryptopolitan reported last year that Powell said the criminal probe was “intimidation” and part of Trump’s push for lower interest rates.

In March, a federal judge blocked subpoenas from Jeanine’s office and said they were backed by “essentially zero evidence.”

Powell keeps his Fed board seat option as Kevin heads toward the Senate floor

Tillis had already said earlier this month that he liked Kevin as the nominee, and called him “a perfect candidate” in an NBC News interview.

After a Senate hearing on Kevin’s nomination, Tillis told reporters, “Let’s get Warsh in there.” He also said, “Let’s get Chair Powell comfortable with actually exiting at some point, not to 2028, and do that by eliminating a bogus investigation that started this whole drama.”

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters on Sunday that DOJ officials would let Michael handle the review while prosecutors stepped back. “He has a lot of tools. He can talk to people, and he can look at records. We have a lot of faith in [him], we’re going to let that process play out,” Todd said.

Todd then added that: “I’m not going to pre-judge what the investigation will find and say there’s absolutely going to be charges or absolutely not going to be charges. That wouldn’t be fair to the process. We are, we are going to let the investigation unfold, let him do his work.”

Powell can still stay at the Fed as a regular governor after his chair term ends. Fed chairs usually leave both roles at the same time, but this situation is not clean, and some Fed watchers think Powell may stay if the DOJ can reopen the matter later.

His lawyers already pointed that way in court. A March 13 legal filing said, “Chair Powell’s counsel made clear that, to defend the Federal Reserve’s independence, Chair Powell could not resign while the criminal investigation is pending.”

The Senate Banking Committee is expected to send Kevin’s nomination to the full Senate on Tuesday. That same day, Powell is set to lead the Fed’s next two-day rate meeting. The Fed is expected to leave rates unchanged while it studies the economic damage from the Iran war and the jump in energy prices.

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Scallop Protocol got hit by a flash loan exploit on Sunday. The attacker reportedly drained around $142,000 (150,000 SUI) in what appears to be a highly targeted oracle manipulation attack. This one didn’t touch the protocol’s core contracts but exposed a deeper design flaw.

An attacker reportedly exploited a deprecated side contract tied to Scallop’s sSUI rewards pool. Their team urges that the core protocol remain intact and that all user deposits are safe. However, the loss is fully contained to that isolated part.

Old code or Oracle flaw?

Analysts suggest that the core issue was the manipulation of Scallop’s custom oracle price feeds. This allowed the attacker to artificially depress SUI/USDC rates and borrow assets at those distorted prices. It then repaid the flash loan within the same transaction. In the end, the suspect walked away with the difference.

This follows a familiar DeFi attack pattern; however, the execution in this event was unusually precise. The attacker didn’t target active code or standard SDK routes. They interacted with an older V2 contract from November 2023. This was a version that had been left but remained callable on-chain. Sui keeps all deployed contract versions immutable and accessible. That’s why this outdated package became a hidden attack surface.

Sui price hasn’t taken a hit after the exploit. It is up by almost 2% in the last 24 hours. Sui is trading at $0.94 at the press time. Its 24 hour trading volume hovers around $187 million.

An expert in a post mentioned that the flaw itself was subtle but severe. In the deprecated contract, a key variable “last_index” was never initialized when a new account was created. This allowed the attacker to claim rewards as if they had been staking since the beginning of the pool.

With the reward index having grown over time, the attacker passed through to credit themselves with the entire reward pool in a single transaction. He mentioned that the Spool index grew to 1.19B over 20 months. 

Attacker staked 136K sSUI and got credited with 162 trillion points. However, the rewards pool ran a 1:1 exchange rate (numerator and denominator both = 1), so 162T points converted directly to 162K SUI worth of rewards. The pool only had 150K SUI in it and all of them got drained.

On-chain data shows the stolen funds were quickly routed through a mixing service, similar to Tornado Cash on Sui. This makes the recovery even more difficult.

Scallop back online after hack

Scallop’s team responded by temporarily pausing operations. It then reported that they have unfrozen the core contracts and all operations have resumed. An X post highlighted that the issue was not related to the core protocol and was isolated to a deprecated rewards contract. In the end, tser deposits were not impacted and all funds remain safe. The withdrawals and deposits are now operating normally.

🚨 Scallop hit by flash loan exploit on Sui, loses $142,000 in oracle manipulation attack

DETAILS 👇

WHAT HAPPENED?

> On April 26, 2026, the Scallop lending protocol experienced a flash loan exploit targeting a deprecated side contract related to its sSUI spool rewards pool

>… pic.twitter.com/xoZbLzGCf0

— Sophia Hodlberg (@sophiaHodlberg) April 26, 2026

The attacker reportedly contacted the team and offered to return 80% of the funds in exchange for a white-hat bounty. The incident is now being investigated. The team will check how the flaw passed prior audits by firms such as OtterSec and MoveBit.

Cryptopolitan reported that many of April 2026’s major incidents have not come from core protocol logic. They emerged from old contracts, adapters, or infrastructure layers that remain accessible but overlooked. The cumulative losses exceeded $750 million by mid-April. April 2026 alone has accounted for over $600 million in stolen funds across 12 major incidents. 

Kelp DAO and Drift Protocol, all together has account for approx 95% of April’s losses. The attack on Kelp resulted in $177 million in bad debt on Aave. Meanwhile, Arbitrum’s Security Council successfully froze 30,766 ETH (approx worth $71 million) of the stolen funds.

Hyperliquid is still the biggest token in the DeFi category. HYPE price is up by 10% in the last 30 days. It is trading at $41.95 at the press time. Chainlink stands at the 2nd stop. LINK traded around $9.4.

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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is trying to chase insider trading across crypto, oil futures, and prediction markets while its own headcount is being carved down. The agency has lost 24% of its staff since Donald Trump returned to office, putting it at its lowest staffing level in 15 years.

Prediction markets now let traders bet real money on government raids, wars, elections, sports, celebrity events, Fed decisions, court fights, crypto policy, and almost every messy public event with a deadline.

The cuts happened under Caroline Pham, a Republican nominated by Biden and later promoted by Trump to acting chair.

CFTC cuts enforcement staff while insider-trading risks spread across prediction markets

A former senior CFTC official allegedly said the staffing cuts hit the wrong people. “There were cuts that were not exactly logical,” the former official said. “They targeted people who were experienced and well-regarded. Real enforcement lawyers were fired. And there was a major reduction in trial attorneys.”

Chairman Michael Selig, who was appointed under Trump, has said the agency is filling empty seats left after the Elon Musk-backed Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, pushed resignations across the federal workforce. “To the extent there are any gaps, we’re filling those gaps,” Michael said. “But thanks to our renewed focus on efficiency and bringing on new technologies, we are operating more effectively and efficiently than we ever have before.”

He also said, “There are no gaps in our ability to fulfill our mission.”

Michael has pointed to AI as one reason the smaller workforce can still function. He said the technology helps review public comments for prediction-market rules. Staffers can use Microsoft (MSFT) Copilot to draft memos, reports, and presentations. He also said software now helps process company applications that used to be handled through emails and manual checks. A recent CFTC report said applications from firms seeking approval for prediction-market exchanges are at record levels.

Lawmakers question Selig as crypto, oil, and political bets strain the agency

Michael asked Congress earlier this year to fund 108 enforcement workers, down from 140 filled positions in 2025, a 23% drop in the division that is supposed to catch market abuse. The agency’s Chicago office went from 20 enforcement lawyers to zero, according to CNN.

At Michael’s first hearing as CFTC chair, lawmakers from both parties pressed him on whether he needs more funding, more staff, or new laws to control prediction markets. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, an Illinois Democrat, was not sold on the staffing story. “I have deep concerns around the ability they’ll have to provide the proper oversight that taxpayers in this country deserve from the CFTC,” Nikki said. “He referred to efficiencies, which to me, is code for mass layoffs.”

Nikki has put forward a bipartisan bill that would stop executive branch political appointees, the president, lawmakers, their families, and other covered people from betting on government actions through prediction sites. Since Michael’s hearing, at least two more Democratic lawmakers have backed the bill.

Democrats also questioned Trump-linked ties to the sector. Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) has announced plans for its own prediction platform. Donald Trump Jr. is a paid adviser to Kalshi and an investor in Polymarket, the two biggest names in the space.

The Trump administration cleared Polymarket last year to serve US customers, though its American site is not fully running yet.

Polymarket’s top rival, Kalshi, meanwhile, had to issue $2.2 million in refunds and now faces lawsuits after a disputed market tied to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed by the US and Israel during the war they started unprovoked. Kalshi also punished three congressional candidates after finding that they bet on their own races.

Prediction exchanges must police themselves first. Michael told lawmakers the companies are the “first line of defense” against insider trading. Once the CFTC approves an exchange, the company can certify that each market follows federal law.

The CFTC had 535 employees by February this year after layoffs, buyouts, and early retirements. Even if Congress approves Michael’s request for $410 million and 650 full-time jobs, the CFTC would still be smaller than it was during most of Trump’s first term.

The former CFTC official said the agency will have to pick which cases it can actually fight. “They’re going to have a lot of work to do, and they are going to have to triage,” the official said. “Some stuff will go unaddressed. They won’t be able to pursue as many matters as they would’ve at full strength.”

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The Trump Treasury is now taking donations from Americans who want to help pay down the US national debt, which is now at yet another all-time high of $39 trillion, according to the department’s own official website.

That means regular Americans, many already dealing with high prices, expensive gas brought on by Trump’s illegal war in Iran, rent, groceries, and living paychecks to paychecks, are now expected to send their own money to Washington to help pay the bill they played barely a part in accruing.

About four decades ago, the national debt was close to $907 billion, but today, interest on that borrowing has become one of the biggest costs in the federal budget. For the fiscal year that started last October, interest payments are now higher than what Washington spends on Medicare and higher than the defense budget.

A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 57% of Americans wanted the president and Congress to make cutting the budget deficit a top priority, up from 45% one year earlier.

Washington asks taxpayers for cash while borrowing costs pass Medicare and defense

Economists have been warning that the federal debt path looks bad because Congress and the White House keep approving spending faster than the government can pay for it. The pressure grew after President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the law will add $3.4 trillion to deficits over the next ten years.

Trump’s team says tariff money and faster economic growth will help cover the cost, but the CBO’s latest data is pointing to a much bigger federal burden, and also predicts that the national debt will surge to $54 trillion over the next decade.

Fitch Ratings had cut the United States’ long-term credit grade in mid-2023, taking it from AAA to AA+, saying it is because of weaker public finances, a heavier borrowing load, and political fights in Washington that continue to block serious action.

Moody’s Ratings, owned by Moody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO), followed in May. It became the third major rating agency to strip the US of its highest grade, lowering the rating from Aaa to Aa1 on its 21-level scale. Moody’s said interest costs could rise from 9% of federal revenue to 30% by 2035.

“Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s wrote.

Trump and Biden administrations’ records show both added quite a lot to the federal tab

Interest rates were quite high after inflation hit a 40-year high in 2022, so the Biden administration had to finance borrowing in a harsher market. By September 2022, less than two years into office, Biden had approved about $4.8 trillion in borrowing.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said that the total included $1.85 trillion for the American Rescue Plan, the COVID relief law, and $370 billion for the bipartisan infrastructure package. Biden defended the spending and pointed to a $1.7 trillion drop in the deficit during his term.

The US deficit did fall between fiscal years 2020 and 2022, but a lot of that came because emergency COVID programs ended, so a huge amount of temporary pandemic aid simply left the books.

Trump’s first term also added a major amount to the national debt. It grew by about $7.5 trillion during those four years. Part of that came from the COVID crisis, when Congress and the administration approved support for households and businesses after the economy was hit hard.

The fiscal year 2020 deficit reached $3.1 trillion, the largest annual shortfall in US history. Fiscal year 2021 brought the second-largest gap, covering the end of Trump’s first term and the start of Biden’s term, with the deficit topping $2.7 trillion.

The CBO’s 2025 long-term budget outlook says federal interest spending will rise from about 3.1% of gross domestic product in fiscal year 2024 to about 5.3% of GDP by 2054.

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Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG) is putting up to $40 billion into Anthropic, even though Anthropic’s Claude sits right across the table from Gemini in the AI model fight.

On paper, that looks like a company handing rockets to its rival, but allow us to familiarize you with the mind of Alphabet CEO Sundararajan Pichai.

What this guy is trying to do here is get control of Anthropic’s computing infrastructure while also keeping Claude tied to Google’s cloud pipes.

On Friday, Google committed $10 billion in cash at a $350 billion valuation, with the rest ($30 billion) coming only after Anthropic hits agreed-upon targets. Interesting, isn’t it?

Google turns Claude traffic into cloud revenue while Gemini stays under pressure

Sure, Anthropic fights Google on AI models, but Claude’s API traffic can still run on Google Cloud, which means Google can earn money when customers use Claude, even if those customers are not using Gemini.

Every Claude request on Google’s infrastructure becomes cloud income, so this is just a tenant getting locked into the landlord’s building.

The Anthropic-Google deal comes with about 5 gigawatts of TPU compute tied to Google’s stack for the next five years, which matters for all companies already using Claude in real products.

One example in the notes is Fortuna, which uses Claude agents for e-commerce customer service. For users like that, Claude is no longer backed only by Anthropic’s own balance sheet. It now has Alphabet’s financial weight behind the compute it needs.

Gemini and DeepMind teams still need more GPU and TPU resources for their own work, so I bet watching a competitor get huge compute support doesn’t feel so cute.

Some of the staff were allegedly told the company needs to make sure Google wins “in any scenario.” Several current and former Google executives and employees have said businesses are starting to use AI tools that can build products from simple chatbot prompts, but Google does not yet have one clean product answer for that demand.

Gemini is spread across different tools, names, and workflows, which honestly slows teams down and makes the product story harder to follow.

Pichai puts Gemini into products, coding work, and defense talks

This is the kind of chess master Sundar has always been, long before he became Google CEO in 2015. As Cryptopolitan reported in our Op-ed on Sundar last year, the CEO has spent years turning research into products used by billions of people all over the world.

After OpenAI made ChatGPT the loudest name in AI in 2022, Sundar had to answer questions about whether it was still leading. So what did he do? Well, he combined Google Brain and DeepMind, built Gemini, and put it into Search, Android, Chrome, Google Cloud, and its own app.

Google is also back in U.S. defense AI talks. The Pentagon is reviewing how much it depends on current vendors and is looking at more partners after tensions around systems like Claude, according to a report from The Information, citing two people briefed on them.

The possible agreement would allow the U.S. Department of Defense to use Gemini for classified and other lawful work.

The military wants faster AI tools inside daily operations, especially for decisions and battlefield awareness.

A Pentagon official allegedly told reporters: “The Pentagon will continue to rapidly deploy frontier AI capabilities to the warfighter through strong industry partnerships across all classification levels.”

The department is testing several AI platforms while building its own rules for handling them.

Inside Google, Sundar also says AI now writes a huge share of code. In a post on The Keyword, he said: “Today, 75 per cent of all new code at Google is now AI-generated and approved by engineers, up from 50 per cent last fall.”

He also said one complex code migration was finished six times faster with AI agents and engineers than human engineers could do one year earlier.

Sundar added: “We’re now shifting to truly agentic workflows. Our engineers are orchestrating fully autonomous digital task forces, firing off agents and accomplishing incredible things.”

Admiral Samuel Paparo, Jr., who leads U.S. forces across the Indo-Pacific, told a Senate panel that Bitcoin matters to national security.

“Bitcoin is a reality,” he said. “It is a valuable computer science tool as a power projection. And outside of the economic formulation of it, it has got really important computer science applications for cybersecurity.”

The next day, at a House hearing, Paparo confirmed that the Pentagon is running its own Bitcoin node and carrying out “a number of operational tests to secure and protect networks using the Bitcoin protocol.” It was the first time the military had publicly said so.

The admission did not come in a vacuum. Iran is now taking Bitcoin as payment for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Taiwan is weighing it as a reserve asset in case China moves against its finances.

Russia said last week it will accept Bitcoin for international trade starting in July. What was once a fringe digital currency is increasingly being treated as a tool of statecraft.

China stockpiles Bitcoin while banning it at home

China’s position is the most complicated. Beijing banned Bitcoin and all crypto activity in 2021, citing environmental damage, fraud risks, and illegal money flows. Yet China already holds the second-largest government Bitcoin stockpile in the world.

In May 2025, the International Monetary Institute, China’s top financial think tank, translated and shared a report by former White House economist Matthew Ferranti arguing that Bitcoin could help central banks guard against inflation, sanctions, and financial crises. The institute passed it to Communist Party policymakers with a note saying Bitcoin’s rise as a reserve asset “deserves continued attention.”

The clearest sign of China’s real intentions is a legal fight with Washington. According to Cryptopolitan’s report, the U.S. Department of Justice seized 127,000 Bitcoin, worth roughly $15 billion, from Chen Zhi, a Chinese billionaire accused of running fraud operations across Southeast Asia that drained hundreds of American victims.

Before U.S. authorities could detain him, Chinese officials pulled Chen back to China in January, filing their own charges against the 38-year-old. China has no extradition deal with the United States.

Beijing then accused Washington of stealing the Bitcoin through a hack as far back as 2020, claiming U.S. agents broke into Chen’s mining operation, LuBian, and later dressed it up as a law enforcement seizure.

The stakes are straightforward: if China recovers Chen’s holdings, it would control roughly 321,000 Bitcoin, well ahead of the United States at 198,000.

America’s mining strength runs on Chinese hardware

Two Republicans are pushing to cut China’s advantage on the mining end.

In March, a bill, Mined in America, was introduced by Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming. It addresses the 97% of China’s hardware used in 38% of the US global Bitcoin mining activity. About 82% of the global production that specialized chip miners depend on is controlled by Bitmain. Dennis Porter of the Satoshi Action Fund called this “a liability”.

The bill bans certified miners from buying any new China-made hardware from next year. By 2030, the miners are required to fully transition from the existing hardware.

The bill would create a voluntary certification program through the Department of Commerce. Certified miners can no longer buy new Chinese hardware after January 1, 2027, and would need to completely stop the use of any such hardware by 2030.

It also locks in President Trump’s March 2025 executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and lets certified miners sell freshly mined Bitcoin to the Treasury at a tax advantage. “Digital asset mining is a big part of our economy. We should be doing it here in America,” said Senator Cassidy.

In China, the crypto rules have become stricter. Now it’s illegal to even promote crypto online on any platform. The rule will take effect on September 30th.

Congressman William Timmons put the broader contest simply: “If you can’t control your citizenry as it relates to information and money, what do you have left?” The country banning Bitcoin for its people is racing to stockpile it for itself.

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Senior executives are walking out the door at some of the biggest names in enterprise software, heading straight to the AI companies that are already hammering their former employers’ stock prices. The double blow of collapsing valuations and a leadership drain has left the sector in a position few saw coming just a year ago.

OpenAI and Anthropic have recently recruited top talent from Salesforce, Snowflake, and Datadog, offering large pay packages and the chance to carry their existing business relationships into a new role. Salesforce and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.

Denise Dresser was one of the most prominent hires. He was the CEO of Slack under Salesforce and has since taken the chief revenue officer job at OpenAI. Jennifer Majlessi, another Salesforce veteran, recently announced on LinkedIn that she was joining OpenAI as head of go-to-market.

“What makes this opportunity especially meaningful is my genuine belief in the product. I’ve seen how useful this technology can be in both work and life,” she wrote. Anthropic has also pulled talent from Salesforce, according to a person with knowledge of the hires.

Two separate sources told CNBC that OpenAI has also been quietly recruiting forward-deployed engineers from Palantir, a role considered among the most specialized in the industry, involving hands-on work helping clients overhaul their operations using software tools.

The new talent war is not about researchers anymore

The talent rush used to be about scientists. Labs competed for researchers with multimillion-dollar salaries and signing bonuses worth tens of millions. That battle has not gone away, but a new one has opened up.

As of January, upto 40% of OpenAI’s business is generated through enterprise clients. It will reach 50% by year’s end, as per Sarah Friar, CFO at the firm.

In November, OpenAI said it has over 1 million business customers around the world. It shows OpenAI is not just looking for people who can build AI, as the company already knows it more than most. But it still requires people who can attract the biggest companies in the world and who already have a foot in the door.

For the companies losing these executives, the timing could not be worse. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF, which tracks the software sector, is down nearly 20% this year. AI fear is making investors pull out investments from traditional software names.

Stocks fell as OpenAI moved to replace, not just compete

It’s not only stock prices that are concerning. It’s how OpenAI has made moves that show it doesn’t want to work within the software industry; it aims to simply replace it.

In February, the company launched Frontier, a system made to create and run autonomous agents that can function across software, handle data and perform difficult business tasks without any need for a human supervisor. Another such name is an agent called Operator, which handles office work through different applications.

The Frontier Alliances program partnerships with McKinsey, BCG and Accenture, was announced for practices to take over entire departments of big companies with the use of AI agents

Markets took a sharp downturn. ServiceNow fell more than 20% in the year to that point, with a further drop of 4.39% on February 23 alone. Palantir has been down roughly 25% since January. CrowdStrike fell 9.37% on the same day.

ServiceNow’s chief executive Bill McDermott went as far as using his own money to buy back shares. Palantir and CrowdStrike said AI agents can’t survive without the infrastructure and governance their companies provide.

Some employees at software firms are not waiting to find out who is right. Oracle this month began laying off thousands of workers as it shifted resources toward AI cloud computing. Meta and Microsoft have also cut headcount in recent weeks.

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A new poll shows that Russians are losing their patience with Vladimir Putin. His approval rating has dropped to its lowest since the Ukraine war started. The economy is also on the brink, while the internet blackouts are adding to the frustration of millions.

Putin’s approval rating is now at 65.6% according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. It may not look as bad, but it is down 12.2 this year from its peak 88%. In reality, the true sentiment may have been masked by the country’s strict policy against war criticism, which it considers a criminal offense.

Peace talks have been in vain, and Trump himself is caught up in Iran’s mess. There’s no one currently pushing for a deal.

A Russian government official told The Washington Post that Russia hasn’t even fully captured one region, Donestsk, which it wanted to in 2022. Now people are tired as the war has dragged on longer than WWII.

An economy running on empty

The economy is making things worse. GDP fell 1.8% in January and February combined. Unpaid commercial bills hit a record $109 billion in January, according to Russia’s federal statistics service.

Nearly 440,000 businesses are behind on their taxes. At a business forum in Moscow this month, executives and economists lined up to attack the government in unusually blunt terms. Vladimir Bogalev, who runs a tractor manufacturing company, said those in power had completely lost touch with the real economy and were actively discrediting themselves.

Putin himself went on television on April 15 to publicly demand answers from his ministers, calling the economic numbers worse than even his own government had predicted.

Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov told a separate business conference that the country’s financial reserves are “largely exhausted.” The central bank, which had raised interest rates above 20% to fight inflation, has since cut them five times in a row, bringing the benchmark rate to 14.5%. But economists now warn of the opposite problem, that the economy could overcool into a full recession.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov delivered the starkest warning yet, telling parliament that without urgent action, Russia could face a revolution by autumn, comparing the situation to 1917, when the Bolsheviks overthrew the government.

Sweden’s military intelligence chief told the Financial Times that Russia’s defense industry is losing money, corrupted from within, and dependent on state bank loans. “It’s not a sustainable growth model,” he said.

A temporary boost has come from rising oil prices since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. But Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian ports and refineries forced Moscow to cut oil production by 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day in April, eating into those gains.

Crackdown at home reveals ghosts of the Soviet past

Russia hasn’t been doing enough to deal with public frustration. Instead, they are making it worse by imposing harder crackdowns. One of the country’s biggest publishers, Eksmo, was raided for portraying LGBTQ content in young adult fiction.

Police searched the offices of Novaya Gazeta, the last significant independent newspaper. Russia’s Supreme Court labeled Memorial, the country’s oldest human rights group, an extremist organization, a move the United Nations called the criminalization of human rights work.

The FSB Academy, where Putin trained as a KGB officer, was renamed after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the feared founder of the Soviet secret police.

On blackouts, Putin referred to them as measures to deal with counterterrorism operations.

There was no warning for the public since the criminals could use it to their advantage. Russians weren’t convinced with this hollow explanation. “We already lived behind the Iron Curtain once,” said Tatyana, 53, a logistics manager. “Now we have a digital one.” A 19-year-old student named Igor was more direct. “Everyone wants to leave,” he said. “No one wants to tie their future to this country.”

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Self-proclaimed eccentric billionaire Elon Musk is asking SpaceX investors to believe the company is going to take humanity into a global utopia, because… of course he is.

The richest man on earth is calling SpaceX the future landlord of space, AI, satellites, cloud compute, mining, and even half the solar system since he always needs extra drama.

The company is being tied to a possible $1.8 trillion valuation, while an IPO filing previously reported by Cryptopolitan said its total addressable market is $28.5 trillion, which is literally larger than one-fifth of the world economy.

“Any failure or delay in the development of Starship at scale or in achieving the required launch cadence, reusability and capabilities thereof would ⁠delay ​or limit our ability to execute our growth strategy,” the filing interestingly said.

Elon Musk is tilting SpaceX’s focus on $23 trillion corporate AI market

The biggest part of SpaceX’s pitch is corporate AI, a market the aforementioned filing values at $22.7 trillion. If SpaceX took the whole corporate AI market through orbital data centers and kept a 30% software-style margin, that would mean about $7 trillion in profit.

For Elon and SpaceX, rockets are the base, satellites are the cash machine, AI is the giant prize, and orbital data centers are the bridge between both worlds. Space mining sits a bit out, where the spreadsheet starts acting like it had three energy drinks.

Over-hyped market claims have burned investors before. Uber Technologies (UBER) did something similar before its 2019 IPO. It told investors its total market could reach $12.3 trillion. That included $5.7 trillion from ride-hailing, with the rest coming from freight and food delivery. But the company then had to prove what part of that world it could actually own.

That is the same thing going for SpaceX, because yes, the company has real power in launch and satellites, but the IPO case reaches into markets that do not yet look like normal operating businesses.

To me, it’s evident that Elon is setting huge targets so teams build many major businesses at once. And the harsher version is that a sky-high valuation needs sky-high math.

SpaceX widens the gap with Europe while Elon’s private control faces investor questions

For Europe, SpaceX seems like a seal on its fate in this potential future global utopia. I mean, SpaceX launched 170 rockets last year. Europe launched eight. That difference gives SpaceX a clear opening in a region with major government space demand and old satellite systems that need replacing.

European leaders want sovereignty and “strategic autonomy,” but their space system is tied up in politics. ArianeGroup, the private maker of the Ariane 6 heavy rocket, employs 8,700 people across France and Germany and receives up to €340 million in yearly support.

In 2025, ArianeGroup placed about 16 tonnes of payload in orbit, while SpaceX placed more than 2,400 tonnes into orbit, literally more than a 100-to-one gap.

Then there is the governance problem. In January 2018, Elon needed $100 million and borrowed from SpaceX. Then between 2019, 2020, and 01, he borrowed $500 million in total.

Internal SpaceX documents obtained by The New York Times allegedly showed interest rates from below 1% to nearly 3%, with Elon repaying the loans by the end of 2021. The thing is though, under SEC’s laws, public companies can’t just give executives loans like that.

Everyone knows SpaceX consistently helps other Elon-linked companies. It lent money to Tesla (TSLA) when the carmaker needed cash, put funds into SolarCity, and bought xAI, his cash-hungry AI company.

Some investors, including Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, had concerns at times that Elon’s interests came before other shareholders.

“There were a few cases where one company was doing considerably better than another, and I borrowed money,” he said in a 2016 interview. “If I ask investors to put money in, then I feel morally I should put money in as well. I should not ask people to eat from the fruit bowl if I have not myself been willing to eat from the fruit bowl.”

Trump was evacuated from the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night.

Multiple gunshots were heard inside the ballroom.

The incident happened after Trump returned from a crypto conference.

More updates are expected as officials confirm what happened and who was involved. Refresh the page and stick with us.

Donald Trump stood up before a crowd of his largest $TRUMP meme coin holders at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday and wrongfully claimed that crypto was invented in the United States, just as his meme coin was crashing some more.

“The crypto industry was created in America. We invented it, and its growth has been led by America, and its future will be made in America and other countries,” said Trump.

It is worth noting that crypto was founded by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, whom the entire world has tried and failed to uncover for well over a decade. If he were American, surely the CIA would have figured that out by now. Unless, of course, the CIA is Satoshi Nakamoto, in which case we sincerely apologize to the POTUS.

Anyway, Trump’s Saturday gathering was tied to wallet rankings, VIP access, and branded gifts, even as crypto traders kept asking the obvious question: why celebrate a coin that has wrecked late buyers this badly?

Naturally, Trump used his 45-minute keynote [slurred] speech to talk about the Iran war he started, his crypto policy record (only one crypto bill has been passed), AI, and the recent rally in Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), the chipmaker he invested billions of US taxpayer money in, before then boosting its stock via a series of entanglements with other companies that Trump himself championed.

Trump hosts major $TRUMP holders while the token trades near $2.59

$TRUMP traded at $2.56 on Saturday afternoon, down 10.4% in 24 hours, which is far below its record above $70, which came during the post-inauguration buying rush in January 2025, based on CoinGecko data. 

The meme coin crashed to $15 by May 2025, which was the time Trump held a similar gathering for top meme coin holders.

Back to the event, people in the room said supporters rushed toward the front to hear Trump speak. Secret Service agents kept telling people to stay seated, but some did not listen. The event was not just a speech.

The 29 largest $TRUMP holders were invited to a VIP reception with the president, and then apparently received Trump fragrances, posters, trading cards, and watches. The official site for the coin and the event said there would be no private meetings with Trump and that no gifts would be accepted. As of the time this article was written, Trump was already back in Washington.

The guest list included Cathie Wood, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Tony Robbins, and Mike Tyson. During the eligibility period for the Mar-a-Lago gathering, $TRUMP produced $1.35 billion in trading volume, based on data from Nansen.

Justin Sun stands on business in fight with Trump family as degens back him online

The event also came during a public legal fight involving Justin Sun, the biggest known public investor in $TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial.

Cryptopolitan previously reported that Justin sued the Trump family’s main crypto project earlier this week and accused it of “criminal extortion” after his WLFI tokens were frozen. He said the freeze came because he refused to invest more money into the company.

WLFI has traded near its all-time low. Justin was not seen at Saturday’s event. He also sold his full 3% stake in $TRUMP in one sale.

Justin said in his lawsuit statement: “I have always been and remain an ardent supporter of President Trump and his Administration’s efforts to make America crypto friendly.” He added that the lawsuit did not change how he felt about Trump or the administration.

Justin blamed people on the World Liberty team, saying they acted against Trump’s values. He said they froze all his tokens, took away his right to vote on governance proposals, and threatened to burn the tokens for good. He said he tried to settle the fight without court action, but the team refused to restore his tokens and rights.

Justin also said: “All I want is to be treated the same as every other early investor who received tokens, no better, no worse.”

The crypto community has mostly sided with Justin. The so-called self-proclaimed degens have been especially loud, and the fight has spilled onto X, where Justin and Eric Trump have traded public shots. Justin was not at Trump’s event.

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A disruption on Litecoin briefly rattled the network on Saturday. A bug in its MimbleWimble Extension Block (MWEB) execution allowed invalid transactions to slip through outdated mining nodes. The Litecoin team stated that non-updated nodes processed a malformed MWEB transaction. This enabled coins to be pegged out to third-party DEXs. 

The issue reportedly created a window where fraudulent transactions could be accepted by parts of the network that had not applied the latest patch. The exploit left minor damage on the token. LTC price dipped marginally over the last 24 hours. LTC is trading at $56 at the press time.

Litecoin reorg sparks 51% attack debate

The Litecoin team in a X post reported that the network executed a 13-block reorganization. This rolled back the affected chain segment and removed all invalid transactions. The team clarified that all legal transactions that happened at that time remain intact. The exploit itself was patched.

Analysts Alex Shevchenko and Zacodil flagged the unusual reorg early. However, some interpret it as a potential 51% attack.

On-chain data support the concern at first glance. Blocks between 3095930 and 3095943 took over three hours to mine. It took a long time in comparison to the expected 30 minutes based on Litecoin’s 2.5-minute block time. This suggests an average block time of roughly 13.5 minutes. That was more than five times slower than normal.

Preliminary the fork was happening starting 3095930 till 3095943

— Alex Shevchenko 🇺🇦 (@AlexAuroraDev) April 25, 2026

One analyst noted that such conditions often come across as the pattern of a 51% attack. In such a situation, an attacker builds a competing private chain before replacing the public one. However, the Litecoin team suggested that the event was a bug-triggered anomaly rather than a successful chain takeover. However, the reorg acted as a corrective mechanism.

NEAR Intents had initially estimated around $600,000 in exposure linked to the incident. It would cover user losses. With the invalid transactions now excluded from the main chain, the actual financial impact may be lower. Meanwhile, the team is yet to issue an updated statement.

XRP val critiques PoW over Litecoin event

A validator from the XRP Ledger commented that Litecoin may have seen conditions similar to a 51% attack. Vet argued Proof of Work is the worst security model because “you’re only as secure as someone else is willing to spend more $ to attack the network than PoW is incentivizing miners.”

Vet in a X post stated that networks like Litecoin rely on sufficient hash power to deter attacks. This means that security is closely linked to the value of the underlying asset. He argued the XRP Ledger is built differently. Their consensus algorithm has an absolute final settlement, which means validated blocks are protected and can’t be reorganized.

He added that network security doesn’t rely on XRP’s price. The network is as secure with $1 XRP or $1000 XRP, which is very important for a reliable settlement machine. XRP price has dipped marginally over the last 24 hours. XRP is trading at around $1.42 at the press time. Despite the debate, the Litecoin team maintains that the network is now stable. 

In another post, Vet noted that there was no majority hash rate attack. Instead, it was a bug in Litecoin allowing a window for double spending, not the miner side. Now the interesting part is the 13-block reorganization. The attacker’s double-spend transactions were rolled back by honest miners using essentially the chain reorganization to restore the original state.

Alex Shevchenko, in a post, looked over the matter as a zero-day or an inside job. He mentioned that the data shows the attacker was planning to swap LTC into ETH. This was funded 38h ago from Binance. 

The attacker knew about the bug for some time. He added that the DoS attack was just putting nodes down to decrease the hashrate. There was indeed a bug in the MWEB txs. However, these two are different things. The MWEB bug is a protocol bug, and DoS is just a way to exploit it.

DeFi protocols have lost over $750 million to exploits in 2026 through mid-April. This includes the $292 million Kelp DAO bridge drain on April 19. There was another $285 million attack on the Solana-based perpetuals platform Drift on April 1. Cryptopolitan reported how THORChain seems to be becoming a hub for crypto hackers to move funds.

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Donald Trump tried to “save face” on Saturday by announcing that he had canceled negotiations with Iranian leaders in Islamabad after they had already stood his envoys up and told the whole world they weren’t going to be there.

Hours after they made that perfectly clear, Trump went on Truth Social to say:

“I just cancelled the trip of my representatives going to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with the Iranians. Too much time wasted on traveling, too much work! Besides which, there is tremendous infighting and confusion within their ‘leadership.’ Nobody knows who is in charge, including them. Also, we have all the cards, they have none! If they want to talk, all they have to do is call!!!”

Iranian officials remain unfazed by US theatrics

Before heading back to Washington later on, Trump told reporters that the Islamabad trip made no sense because it involved “too much travel.” He said the US had “all the cards” and added that nothing had changed in recent days.

He also said, “Too much travelling, takes too long, too expensive. I’m a very cost conscious person.” The president framed the cancelled trip as a cost and time issue, but the reality is, America needs this deal more than Iran.

And the Iranians know that, so even though both sides claim they want peace, Iran isn’t willing to be pushed around for it. They’ve made clear what they want in negotiations, and they aren’t budging on a single one.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were the US envoys expected to travel. The White House had said on April 24 that both men would go to Islamabad on Saturday for more talks with Iran. On the same day, Iran’s foreign minister arrived in Pakistan for meetings, but an Iranian official said there were no scheduled negotiations with the US.

That killed the mood fast. Pakistan had been acting as the mediator and had even closed parts of its capital for days to prepare for possible talks. But by April 25, Iran’s foreign minister had already met Pakistan’s prime minister and the country’s army chief, then left for Oman without any announcement about when Trump’s team would arrive.

On April 11, senior US and Iranian officials met in Pakistan for more than 21 hours, but of course, no deal came out of it, though both sides said the talks had made progress.

Then on April 19, Trump said his representatives would return to Pakistan, but the plan stalled after Iran said it had not decided whether it would join.

On April 21, Trump agreed to extend the ceasefire with Iran for an open-ended period, so diplomacy could continue. Four days later, the talks were still floating in the air. While attending a cryptocurrency event at Mar-a-Lago, where he was due to speak, Trump spent the day taking calls and confirming to media outlets that the trip was off.

A New York Post reporter who was in Islamabad covering the expected talks reportedly got a text from Trump telling her, “Come home!!!” That pretty much told the story. The table was set, the room was ready, and the main event did not happen.

Israel strikes Hezbollah sites while the Strait of Hormuz keeps oil markets nervous

The failed US-Iran push landed while Israel was hitting Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Forces to “vigorously attack Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” his office said.

The IDF also posted several Telegram updates on Saturday, accusing Hezbollah of breaking the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah and Israel have each accused the other side of violating that same agreement, so yes, another ceasefire is already sitting in the usual Middle East paperwork shredder.

While attention stayed on Trump, Iran, and the missing Islamabad talks, the IDF said it was still striking Hezbollah-linked buildings in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said the targets were used to threaten IDF troops and Israeli civilians.

Earlier this week, Trump said the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire would be extended by three weeks. That extension is now running beside fresh strikes and new claims from both sides.

Trump said the US Navy is clearing Iranian mines from Iran’s waterway, the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries about 20% of the world’s oil.

If you want a calmer entry point into DeFi crypto without the usual hype, start with this free video.

Have you been to Kenya? Are you familiar with Kenyans on the streets and online get-togethers? Whatever Kenyans want, they demonstrate, threaten to abandon, and have global trending hashtags to that effect. This time around, the round-up was sent to Binance after freezing several crypto accounts. And Binance has responded.

According to reports, the leading crypto exchange is set to address Kenyans next week. The exchange has already confirmed that it will host a live X Spaces session next week in partnership with the AML Association of Kenya. 

Binance prepares to face Kenyan’s next week

According to a statement by comedian Eddie Butita, Binance will go live on X Spaces with the AML Association of Kenya to clarify the facts and address compliance concerns.

Next week, Binance will go live on X Spaces with the AML Association of Kenya to clarify the facts and address concerns around compliance. More details to follow. @binance @BinanceAfrica pic.twitter.com/i8VcGU8JEI

— Eddie Butita OGW (@eddiebutita) April 25, 2026

So how did we get here? As earlier reported by Cryptopolitan, Kenyan crypto traders voiced frustration after months of restricted access to funds on Binance. The exchange’s compliance with directives from law enforcement agencies sparked discussions about customer rights, regulation, and overreach.

According to affected traders, their Binance accounts have been frozen for more than 2 months at the behest of DCI, with no charges laid, no court order issued, and no timetable for resolving the matter. 

“No complainant identified. No formal charges. No timeline given,” the trader posted on X. “Funds remain inaccessible. Meanwhile, real life doesn’t pause. Bills are piling up. Debt is growing.” 

The public mood has soured significantly, with a boycott gaining steam under the hashtag #BinanceUnmasked. 

These actions coincide with developments in the country’s legal context, such as the 2025 Virtual Assets Service Provider Act, as well as changes to the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, which classify cryptocurrency platforms as reporting entities. 

Binance argues that it works with local law enforcement agencies, as such measures are consistent with existing regulations.

What this means for Kenya’s crypto ecosystem

Kenya ranks among the most dynamic and active countries in Africa for crypto activities. Millions of users use platforms such as Binance to make transactions and remittances, and to save money. The current tensions highlight the growing pains of rapid adoption and the need to meet stricter oversight.

The comments under Eddie Bututa’s X post are negative at this point. Binance’s partnership with the Kenyan authorities has scarred its reputation among traders. 

The National Treasury also mentioned that the submissions of all the interested parties regarding the Draft VASP Regulations 2026 have been received. This will set the ball rolling for the completion of the entire process.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Draft VASP Regulations are meant to bring into effect the provisions of the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act passed in the year 2025.

Some of the major recommendations in this regard include imposing strict capital requirements, which could be as high as Ksh 500 million for stablecoin issuers; stringent AML/CFT and consumer protection guidelines; asset isolation; and restrictions on market manipulation. Supervision of the entities is to be carried out through collaboration between the CBK and the CMA.

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Meet the chain where hackers cash out; that’s how analysts are summing up THORChain. Fresh data again tied the protocol has dropped the debate into the light. In a post, the analyst pointed out that multiple high-profile exploits have routed funds through THORChain. Amid all the funds flowing out, the protocol continued to generate fees. 

The list of exploited funds being driven out from THORChain includes the FTX exploiter ($124 million), Bybit hacker ($1.2 billion+), and Balancer exploiter ($120 million). It also holds the name of the recent KelpDAO attack ($175 million in just 36 hours).

THORChain bags millions in fees

Data shows that THORChain reportedly generated around $910,000 in fees just from the KelpDAO incident. This exceeded its previous month’s total of $709,000. Meanwhile, the protocol has maintained a stance of neutrality, even as hundreds of millions in illicit funds pass through its rails.

According to data from Arkham Intelligence, the attacker split the stolen funds across three wallets. They were holding around 25,000 ETH (approx $57–59 million each). Only one of those wallets has actively begun laundering. Its balance dropped from 25,000 ETH to around 3,800 ETH.

A good portion of those funds has already been bridged into Bitcoin using THORChain. On-chain data shows that nearly 99% of the funds in that wallet have moved. This adds to a surge in protocol usage. Swap volume on THORChain reportedly hit $540 million in 24 hours. It helped the protocol generate about $660,000 in fees during that period.

Lookonchain reported that the KelpDAO hacker had swapped all 75,701 ETH (approx worth $175 million) through THORChain. Mantle has proposed providing 30,000 ETH (approx worth $70 million) to Aave as a loan. While Lido announces a one-time donation of 2,500 stETH (approx worth $5.8 million)

The approach from attackers looks pretty straightforward. THORChain allows cross-chain swaps without intermediaries or know-your-customer checks. This allows stolen assets to move quickly between ecosystems. It often happens from Ethereum to Bitcoin. This is where tracing becomes more fragmented due to the UTXO model. Ether price has dropped by almost 3% over the last 24 hours. ETH is trading at $2,310 at the press time.

The laundering activity picked up pace after intervention from the Arbitrum Security Council. It froze 30,766 ETH (approx $71 million) linked to the exploit. This move managed to restrict access to a portion of the funds, which required governance votes for any recovery.

THORChain defends neutrality

The freeze may have also pushed the attacker’s strategy. The exploiter began moving funds more aggressively soon after it. This highlights an ongoing tension in DeFi between intervention and decentralization. Protocol-level actions can limit damage, but they may also push attackers toward faster and more complex laundering routes.

This pattern is not new, as attackers often allow wallets to remain dormant for months before reactivating them. The delay in moving funds allows it to outlast initial tracking efforts from investigators

THORChain, in a post, stated that it was modeled after Bitcoin. This lets it be permissionless and censorship-resistant. It mentioned that there’s no single person or entity in control of the protocol, and there’s no admin key. It added that there’s no 2-of-3 multisig and there are 95 nodes spread globally that control the network.

THORChain was modelled after Bitcoin, to be permissionless and censorship resistant.

There’s no single person or entity in control of the protocol. There’s no admin key. There’s no 2-of-3 multisig. Currently, there’s 95 nodes spread globally that control the network. For the… pic.twitter.com/Za2Obrh9dO

— THORChain (@THORChain) April 21, 2026

The protocol stated that Bitcoin is neutral because the code is neutral, and the nodes enforce it. Similarly, THORChain is neutral because the code is neutral, and the nodes enforce it.

The protocol has been in headlines due to its large-scale exploits and fund links. This dates back to the February 2025 hack of Bybit. Attackers linked to the Lazarus Group stole roughly $1.5 billion in assets. This includes over 400,000 ETH. A major portion of those funds was laundered through THORChain. 

It is estimated that over 70% of the stolen assets flowed through the protocol. It led the protocol’s daily volumes to exceed $700 million at that time. The massive laundering activity generated over $3 million to $5.5 million in transaction fees for the protocol. The attackers were identified as the North Korean Lazarus Group by the FBI.

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Two Hong Kong women lost a combined HK$9.7 million (US$1.24 million) to crypto scammers over the past few weeks, according to local media outlets.

Hong Kong police issued a public warning after more than 80 fraud cases were reported in a single week. The total losses exceeded HK$80 million or US$10.2 million.

Woman loses US$1 million in ‘AI’ crypto scam

In the larger of the two cases, a woman lost upward of HK$7.7 million or US$1 million.

The victim was contacted on Telegram by someone posing as an investment expert. The scammer promised guaranteed high returns through what they described as “quantitative trading” and “AI algorithms” applied to crypto markets.

Persuaded by the pitch, the victim was directed to a fraudulent investment website. She made 17 separate transfers of Tether’s USDT and Ethereum from her crypto wallet to one controlled by the scammer. She only realized something was wrong when her repeated attempts to withdraw earnings were blocked with a string of excuses.

Police said that scammers increasingly exploit crypto’s reputation for high returns by deploying buzzwords like “AI-driven trading” and “guaranteed quantitative profits.” Those phrases are common lures with no basis in legitimate trading.

Woman loses over US$256,000 in a crypto romance scam

The second crypto scam case unfolded over a longer period and involved manipulation of a different kind.

A scammer first approached the victim, a woman aged over 50, on Instagram, engaging with her posts and sending affectionate messages on a daily basis. Over time, the scammer nurtured a romantic relationship with the victim before presenting an illusory crypto investment scheme with assured profits.

The woman was initially asked to pay HK$40,000 or US$5,000 as a handling fee to open an account on a fake investment platform. She then visited a physical shop on seven separate occasions to exchange cash for USDT and transfer it to a wallet belonging to the con artist. In total, she lost more than HK$2 million or US$256,000.

The scammer disappeared once the transfers were complete. He essentially ghosted her and cut off all contact. This is a common tactic used by romance scammers once they believe they have extracted all the money they can from a victim.

Romance scams, in general, rely on months of relationship-building before any financial request is made. This prolonged timeline is what makes them effective. The victim becomes emotionally invested and trusts the scammer. They’re more likely to comply with requests for money.

The Hong Kong Police called on the public to be wary of unsolicited contact from self-described investment experts. They also urged caution with overly affectionate online relationships, particularly when they eventually involve requests for money.

Crypto scams and protocol hacks are on the rise. Cryptopolitan recently reported a story of famous musician G Love losing 5.92 BTC worth around $424K to a fake Ledger app. The funds were siphoned after the victim entered his seed phrase into the fake app. Crypto sleuth, ZachXBT, traced the funds to KuCoin, where the BTC coins were laundered across several wallets.

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U.S. monthly crude exports are on track to hit a new all-time high of 5.48 million barrels per day after the Strait of Hormuz shutdown sent buyers in Asia and Europe looking for American supply.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration said U.S. exports of crude and petroleum products rose to nearly 12.9 million barrels per day last week, the highest ever recorded. Kpler data also showed U.S. liquefied natural gas shipments reached a record last month.

Hormuz closure sends Asian and European buyers after U.S. crude cargoes

According to the EIA, Dated Brent traded more than $25 per barrel above the front-month Brent futures contract in early April, which is apparently a very rare gap for two prices that normally stay much closer.

The premium grew because buyers needed real barrels fast after Hormuz traffic stopped. Shipments that should have crossed the strait became uncertain, so refiners had to find other supply.

About 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products were shipped every day through the strait before the war.

EIA said, “Slow declines in production of these crude oil grades led most Brent price assessments to devise methods to incorporate West Texas Intermediate (WTI), priced at Midland in the United States, into the basket of Brent crude oil grades in 2023.”

The front-month Brent futures contract trades on Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), as it is the main Brent futures contract because both physical oil firms and financial traders use it.

Dated Brent tracks actual cargoes loaded on set dates from selected North Sea terminals. It can also include a WTI shipment delivered to Rotterdam on a CIF basis. After purchase, the oil is sent to a port, then to a refinery, where it is processed into fuels like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

JPMorgan says oil prices still have not risen enough to close the supply gap

JPMorgan (JPM) analyst Natasha Kaneva said the oil market still needs higher prices to deal with the supply shock caused by the Iran war. Brent futures have averaged about $100 per barrel in April, while physical cargo prices have traded closer to $121 per barrel. Kaneva said both prices are still too low to cut demand enough.

Kaneva put the April supply loss at 13.7 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would normally raise output to ease that kind of shortage, but the war has blocked them from exporting through the Strait of Hormuz.

“Nearly all of the world’s spare capacity is concentrated in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and it was effectively cut off from global oil markets, stripping the industry of its traditional shock absorber,” Kaneva said.

Countries are now pulling from commercial and strategic oil stocks at about 7.1 million barrels per day, which lowers the global gap to 6.6 million barrels per day. Demand is also expected to drop by 4.3 million barrels per day in April, mainly in the Middle East and Asia, where Gulf supply matters most, according to the bank.

“What is striking is that these losses have occurred at prices that do not appear extreme by historical standards,” Kaneva said. “Even so, higher pump prices are starting to curb discretionary driving in the U.S., while rising airfares are beginning to soften jet demand.”

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