Cryptopolitan

Prediction market giant Polymarket has stepped up surveillance and compliance controls following a high-profile insider trading scandal. The prediction market operator is collaborating with Chainalysis to tighten oversight following the $410,000 insider bet on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

According to Polymarket, it will work with Chainalysis to create a more reliable and transparent betting environment and, hopefully, set the gold standard for market oversight.

It also stated that they will collaborate to introduce new monitoring and detection tools and reinforce on-chain security to prevent threats. Chainalysis will also help train Polymarket’s team, build new detection capabilities, and support complex investigations.

Chainalysis and Polymarket will introduce a new detection model

Primarily, their deal centers on a detection model built on Chainalysis Data Solutions, which would sift through and identify wagers made using insider information. The model would add more muscle to the multi-level security setup Polymarket already relies on to spot rule-breakers.

Speaking on the partnership, Shayne Coplan, Founder and CEO of Polymarket, emphasized that the platform intends to prioritize transparency. He commented, “This partnership with Chainalysis pairs that transparency with the monitoring and enforcement infrastructure to back it up, and helps us continue to build the most trusted source of truth in markets.”

Jonathan Levin, Co-Founder and CEO, Chainalysis, also noted that, with the team-up, they are paving the way for on-chain markets to grow into the world’s most reliable and trusted tools for understanding global news as it happens.

The recent clampdown, however, follows a string of messy headlines about traders making a killing off insider information or manipulated storylines. Recently, a US special forces soldier, Van Dyke, allegedly made more than $400,000 on classified information of Maduro’s capture.

So far, Dyke pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges against him in court and has been granted bail of $250,000. Though the federal judge restricted his travel, limiting him to parts of North Carolina, New York, and California. His case represents the first time the Department of Justice (DOJ) has pursued insider trading charges involving a prediction platform.

More recently, the US Senate passed a unanimous vote to bar senators and their staff from trading in prediction markets. As earlier reported by Cryptopolitan, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno had led the charge on the resolution, even asserting at one point, “United States Senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck, period.” 

Nevertheless, Polymarket, after the Senate’s decision, voiced its support, calling it a progressive move that aligns perfectly with its own existing anti-insider policies. 

How are prediction platforms holding up against lawmaker criticism?

Overall, prediction markets are holding their ground against state and public opposition. A Bitget-Polymarket report found traders pushed monthly volumes to a staggering $25.7 billion in March during a crypto dry spell.

Their analysis showed retail participants are leading the activity, moving away from isolated bets toward more consistent engagement, especially in sports. Dune Analytics also reported similar results, noting that markets saw over $23.7 billion in trading volume in March.

In the past few months, prediction platforms have been embroiled in several controversies. Polymarket and Kalshi are still caught in the middle of a showdown, with state governors pushing for bans on the platforms in the name of protecting residents, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) arguing over its sole authority to regulate them.

A group of Democratic lawmakers recently even pushed the CFTC to address “the rapid erosion of integrity” in prediction markets. In a letter to the agency, they requested that the agency take measures to curb insider trading and corruption within the platforms. Meanwhile, New York recently filed suit against Coinbase Financial Markets and Gemini Titan, contending that their prediction market platforms violate state gambling laws.

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US stocks went ballistic all through April and gave Wall Street its strongest month since 2020, with investors piling back into tech while oil, inflation, and the Iran war kept the macro side messy.

The S&P 500 ended the month at a record close after gaining 14.2% from its March 30 low. That rebound added about $8.1 trillion in market value across 23 trading days, which is the kind of number that makes even crypto traders blink twice.

The Nasdaq Composite rose 15.29% in April, its best monthly run since April 2020, when markets were bouncing from the early Covid crash.

The tech trade got help from earnings, with Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT) all beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations and showing stronger cloud numbers.

Big Tech carries stocks as AI demand pushes traders back into growth names

Alphabet (GOOGL) jumped 10% after its earnings report and finished April up 34%. That was its strongest month since October 2004, the same year it went public.

Amazon (AMZN) gained 27% for the month, helped by its cloud performance and the wider rush into AI-linked tech. Meta Platforms (META) had a rough Thursday, falling 9% after saying it would spend more on capital projects, but the stock still ended April higher by nearly 7%.

Chip stocks had an even wilder month because data center demand is still pulling serious money into the sector. Broadcom (AVGO) gained 35% in April.

Qualcomm (QCOM) jumped close to 40% for the month after having its strongest session since last year on Thursday. Micron Technology (MU) climbed 53%, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) surged 74%. Nvidia (NVDA) rose about 14%, giving the AI chipmaker its strongest month since June.

Intel (INTC) had the loudest rebound in the group. Its shares doubled in April, giving the company its best month in 55 years. 

Intel is still trying to fix years of late launches and weak production results that allowed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSM) and Nvidia (NVDA) to pull ahead in AI hardware. Traders are now paying attention to Intel’s 18A chips, which are coming out of its new Arizona factory.

Another reason Intel got attention is the return of demand for central processing units as agentic AI spreads. Bank of America (BAC) expects the CPU market to more than double by 2030.

Oil, inflation, Fed cuts, and Asia keep pressure around the stock rally

April’s rally in stocks came even as energy prices turned ugly. Brent crude climbed above $125 a barrel on Thursday, sending gasoline to about $4 per gallon across the US.

That matters because expensive fuel can keep inflation hot, squeeze consumers, and make the Federal Reserve less willing to cut interest rates.

Citi (C) lifted its rating on US stock markets to overweight versus other regions in April. Beata Manthey, Citi’s head of global equities strategy, said “tech is carrying the weight” of the wider market. The data backed that up. Tech stocks were flying, but the economy did not look clean.

The US economy grew at a 2% annualized rate in the first quarter, when economists had expected 2.2%. Investors then cut back their bets on Fed rate cuts for this year because oil and gas prices raised the risk of another inflation problem.

Meanwhile, trading in Asia was thin because the May Day holiday shut several large markets. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (.AXJO) rose 0.74% to 8,729.80. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 1.28% to 25,776.53. South Korea’s KOSPI (.KS11) dropped 1.38% to 6,598.87. India’s Nifty 50 (.NSEI) lost 0.74% to 23,997.55. China’s Shanghai Composite (.SSEC) added 0.11% to 4,112.159.

Japan traded higher. The Nikkei 225 (.N225) rose 0.38% to 59,513.12. The Topix recovered from earlier losses and ended up 0.04% at 3,728.73.

The yen also firmed a little against the dollar on Friday after reports said Tokyo stepped into the market on Thursday to support the currency. The yen was last at 156.56 per dollar after crossing 160 earlier in the week and touching 160.72, its weakest level in two years.

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BTC ended April in the green, with 11.87% net growth. The leading coin closed in the green for the second month in a row and completed the most successful month for the year to date.

BTC reversed some of the deep losses from February and moved up to $76,960.11 in early May. The coin has accrued 12.94% in gains for Q2 to date, leading to more bullish expectations of a price reversal.

BTC ended April with nearly 12% in net gains, repeating the recovery pattern from 2025. | Source: CoinGlass.

The recent monthly gains arrived after a five-month streak of net losses. Based on the fear and greed index at 26 points, traders are still not confident to set up large long positions. However, April achieved a reversal, abandoning the ‘extreme fear’ trading from the previous month. 

Historically, April has mostly been a positive month for BTC, with only five years with a red monthly candle. BTC made a similar return in April 2025, paving the way for the all-time highs later in the year. May is a more bearish month on a five-year time frame, with deeper losses and shocks.

BTC passed several stress tests in April

BTC passed several stress tests in April, with both macro factors and crypto insider shocks. April saw a record of hacks and exploits, as Cryptopolitan reported earlier.

Oil shocks and the uncertainty of the situation in the Strait of Hormuz also led to fearful trading. Trader interest shifted to stocks and oil futures, while BTC attracted mostly whales on the spot and futures markets. 

The leading coin gained support from ongoing accumulation by whales and some cohorts of retail wallets. Demand also came from treasury companies, with Strategy performing its third-largest weekly purchase in history, adding 34,164 BTC as of April 20. 

BTC dominance recovered slightly to 58.2%, as interest in altcoins and tokens remained at historical lows. The coming months may continue with a sentiment of BTC maximalism, as the rest of the crypto market deals with hacks and the lost trust in DeFi lending. 

BTC options point to a relief rally

BTC options markets may be the reason for a short-term relief rally. On May 1, a total of $1.74B in BTC options expired, with another $394M in ETH options. 

The BTC weekly event expired with a put/call ratio of 1.1, suggesting cautious positioning and downside protection. The relatively small event for the new month still suggested prevailing downside protection.

Ahead of the options expiry event, the market was close to the maximum pain point of $76,000 per BTC.

Put options have now shifted to $75,500, setting up a higher level of downside protection.

BTC options suggest strong downside protection, and more bullish positioning if BTC breaks out above $80,000. | Source: CoinGlass.

The biggest accumulation of call options is at $79,500-$80,000 per BTC, which is seen as a level potentially triggering a breakout. 

Options markets still signal cautious downside protection rather than an upcoming bull market. The weekly options’ expiry near maximum pain may lead to a gamma squeeze, as traders abandon the attempt to push the price to the maximum pain point, where the most options expire worthless.

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Eric Trump is no longer shown on the leadership page of Alt5 Sigma Corp., the Las Vegas company that became closely tied to the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial Inc.

His name had appeared on the company’s website as recently as March, when he was listed as an adviser and board observer. By last week, Eric was no longer there.

Alt5, which now calls itself AI Financial (NASDAQ: ALTS), became part of the Trump crypto story after it agreed to hold World Liberty tokens on its balance sheet in August, and agreed to build a $1.5 billion crypto reserve. In return, World Liberty received stock in AI Financial and board seats..

Alt5 keeps other World Liberty names listed while Eric leaves the public page

Eric was first lined up for a stronger role at Alt5. The early plan had him joining the board as a director. He was expected to sit there with Zachary Witkoff, the son of presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, and Zak Folkman. Zachary and Zak are also co-founders of World Liberty Financial.

That plan did not stay the same. Eric later became a board observer, not a director. A board observer can usually attend board meetings, read materials, and stay close to the company’s internal discussions. The person does not normally vote on board decisions.

Zachary and Zak are still listed on the company’s board page. Alt5 reported a loss of more than $341 million in its latest fiscal year. In its newest annual filing, management warned investors that there was serious doubt about whether the company could keep running for another year.

World Liberty faces legal heat, falling token prices, and questions over outside crypto ties

The trouble around World Liberty has been getting louder. Last month, Cryptopolitan reported crypto billionaire Justin Sun sued the company. Justin accused World Liberty of extortion and of illegally freezing his tokens. Eric responded on X and called the lawsuit “ridiculous.”

Other Trump-linked crypto assets have also lost value since launch. Shares tied to a Bitcoin mining company have fallen. The $TRUMP virtual token has also been steadily crashing.

AI Financial has also agreed to buy Block Street, a crypto infrastructure startup owned by one of the company’s own advisers. SEC filings say the Las Vegas company signed the deal last Monday. The purchase could be worth up to $43 million.

Morgan, the adviser behind Block Street, pushed back against the idea that the deal was self-dealing. He told Fortune that Block Street is not making revenue. He also said he had offered the startup to several public companies in late 2025 and turned down proposals with possible value above $100 million in “upside.”

Another issue comes through AB, a crypto venture that announced an arrangement with World Liberty less than a month after the Trump administration brought criminal charges and sanctions against a large alleged scam network. One AB-linked project was a planned “blockchain”-themed resort in East Timor.

Two men tied to that resort were later named in the U.S. crackdown. They were the controlling shareholder and the general manager of the resort project. U.S. officials said the men had worked for the Prince Group, which the government described as one of Asia’s biggest criminal organizations.

The Justice Department said on October 14 last year that Prince Group ran at least 10 violent scam compounds in Cambodia. Officials said enslaved workers were forced to run online fraud, including “pig butchering,” where scammers build fake relationships with victims before stealing their money.

That same day, the Treasury Department sanctioned more than 140 people and companies over alleged Prince Group activity and money-laundering networks.

A lawyer for World Liberty denied any relationship with the sanctioned men. He said the company did not know about the planned resort when it announced the AB arrangement.

He also said the AB deal was not a partnership, but a “limited non-exclusive technology integration” that would allow AB’s network to use the Trump family’s USD1 stablecoin. The lawyer added, “WLF takes its compliance obligations very seriously.”

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The XRP ecosystem is once again at the center of both optimism and long-term technological concern, as Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse doubles down on XRP being the company’s “North Star,” even as broader discussions around quantum computing risks begin to surface in the crypto industry.

XRP Ledger validator Vet cautions that some quantum processors might eventually compromise the very earliest wallets of the XRPL, the equivalent of the “Satoshi Era” Bitcoin addresses.

Vet said, after studying 7.8 million accounts looking for quantum threats, that most of the XRPL network is safe, but 0.02% of the total XRP supply, the Genesis wallets, are vulnerable to quantum decryption. That puts approximately 23.16 billion XRP completely secure from potential quantum risks.

He wrote, “23.16B XRP is completely Quantum Safe. These accounts either rotate keys or never sign a transaction.”

Recent statements from Garlinghouse have reinforced XRP’s position as the core asset guiding Ripple’s long-term strategy. In multiple appearances and social media posts, the CEO has consistently described XRP as the “North Star” of the company, meaning every major product and institutional initiative ultimately aligns with the token’s ecosystem.

According to recent industry reports, Garlinghouse reiterated that “all roads lead back to XRP,” framing it as the foundation of Ripple’s payments, custody, and institutional blockchain services.

Vet asks users to change to more secure wallets and protect themselves from quantum attacks

In a subsequent post, Vet detailed that the 300,000 Genesis wallets were receive-only and therefore their cryptographic signatures have not been revealed, rendering them quantum-resistant.

He further commented, “Dormant, vulnerable XRP whales are almost nonexistent. The rest are active and have their public key exposed, but it is also reasonable to expect to rotate keys if needed.”

Additionally, responding to a question on X, Vet said users can protect themselves by adopting quantum-safe signatures or rotating their keys, but raised concerns about what happens to inactive accounts—should their assets be left vulnerable, frozen, redistributed, or burned?

So far, the XRPL has already put key pieces in place to enable forward migration in a post-quantum era. According to reports, if traditional encryption ever fails, the network is prepared to flip the switch on a backup plan for a secure migration.

XRPL is looking to fully deprecate classical signatures and force a shift to post-quantum security measures. 

The network said it would be stepping up trials of globally recognized cryptographic standards recommended by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The team is also aiming to integrate new quantum-resistant signature schemes alongside today’s elliptic curve signatures, first on Devnet for developer trials.

What did Google say on its quantum research and cryptographic protections?

Google recently published a white paper showing that future quantum systems might crack current cryptographic protections with fewer qubits and gates than once believed. According to analysts, the analysis means that the quantum threat has shifted from theoretical to credible, and the timing of quantum-safe upgrades is absolutely critical.

Google reported that a 500,000-qubit solution could run some cryptographic circuits almost instantly, reducing the number of qubits required for an ECDLP-256 algorithm by almost 20 times, which is sufficient to secure most blockchains.

However, according to a researcher, bad actors are “playing the long game” by collecting ledger data now and betting that future tech will eventually unleash a master key, employing a more ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ approach. The threat at hand is still modest, but the findings serve as a ‘start-your-engines’ alert for any future secured systems seeking long-term value.

Nevertheless, Google has promised the crypto community that it will continue to pioneer the process into the post-quantum age, alongside Coinbase, the Stanford Institute for Blockchain Research, and the Ethereum Foundation, to meet its 2029 timeline. The announcement also encouraged users to ditch exposed wallets and offered policy options for handling abandoned crypto assets.

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A U.S. Senate effort to overhaul crypto market structure through the CLARITY Act is approaching a mid-May committee markup, though negotiations remain strained by disputes over ethics rules, stablecoin yield provisions, and political concerns tied to Donald Trump’s crypto-related business interests.

The legislation would establish a federal framework dividing oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a long-sought regulatory clarity effort for the industry.

Bipartisan agreement remains uncertain as lawmakers struggle to resolve both technical and politically sensitive issues.

Legislative push toward May markup

Sen. Tim Scott, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said the CLARITY Act is nearing a critical stage, with lawmakers aiming for a bipartisan committee vote in May. Sen. Thom Tillis told Politico he would oppose final passage without ethics provisions included.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins described the agency’s March guidance as “an important bridge” while Congress develops permanent rules, Axios reported.

The House passed its version in July 2025 by 294–134, including 78 Democrats. The Senate Banking Committee released a 278-page draft in January 2026, but multiple scheduled markups have been postponed.

Banks continue to oppose proposals that would let crypto firms offer yield on stablecoin deposits. Standard Chartered estimates stablecoins could divert up to $500 billion in US bank deposits by 2028, per Reuters.

A White House Council of Economic Advisers report countered that stablecoin yield would displace only about 0.02% of total bank loans, roughly $2.1 billion, as Cryptopolitan reported when industry group NC Blockchain pushed Tillis to advance the bill last week.

Trump crypto ties drive ethics standoff

Bloomberg reported Trump has earned at least $1.4 billion through crypto-related ventures, including World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance and stablecoin project. His family also holds a stake in bitcoin mining firm American Bitcoin.

Democrats argue that these financial ties raise the potential for conflicts of interest in shaping digital asset regulation. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) told The Block that bipartisan support depends on resolving ethics and illicit finance concerns.

Earlier this year, the Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a related crypto bill without Democratic support, with lawmakers citing Trump-related crypto ties as a key concern.

Vote math tightens as time runs out

The bill needs 60 Senate votes, meaning unanimous Republican support plus seven Democrats. That path tightened after Sen. John Kennedy said he would not support it, per Punchbowl News. Kennedy’s defection drops effective Republican backing to 52 from 53, raising the Democratic threshold from seven to eight.

Polymarket odds moved from 38% to 46% over the past week. Estimates cited by The Block place the probability between 15% and 50%.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis has warned that failure to pass this Congress could delay comprehensive crypto regulation for years. Sen. Bernie Moreno delivered an ultimatum at a Washington event on April 22, declaring the bill must clear Congress by end of May.

Digital policy analyst Adrian Wall told Reuters: “If this doesn’t get passed and put in front of the President’s desk by July, I think everyone feels that window will have been closed because of the mid-terms.”

The Polymarket move suggests the market sees the path widening. The 60-vote math says it has not widened by enough.

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The Financial Conduct Authority finalised rules on Thursday allowing UK asset managers to maintain official investor registers on blockchain and introduced an optional Direct-to-Fund dealing model that removes intermediaries from fund transactions.

The changes, set out in policy statement PS26/7, take effect immediately. They apply to about 2,600 firms managing an estimated £16.5 trillion in assets across the UK market.

The policy formalises a framework the regulator has tested since January 2025, when it authorised the UK’s first tokenised UCITS fund under the industry “Blueprint” model. PS26/7 turns that pilot into permanent rules.

Onchain records gain regulatory recognition

Under the new rules, authorised fund managers can use distributed ledger technology (DLT) as the official register of investor ownership.

A full off-chain duplicate is no longer required, provided firms maintain operational resilience and comply with governance, data protection, and financial crime standards.

The framework builds on an industry “Blueprint” model already used to approve the UK’s first tokenised UCITS fund.

Funds may operate on public or private blockchains, including across multiple networks, as long as investor rights and fee structures remain unchanged.

Simon Walls, the FCA’s executive director of markets, said tokenisation would “play an important role in asset management” and that the regulator had delivered “a practical framework to give firms confidence in how fund tokenisation can operate within the FCA’s rules.”

Direct-to-fund dealing reduces intermediaries

The FCA also introduced an optional Direct-to-Fund (D2F) dealing model.

Under D2F, the fund or its depositary becomes the counterparty to investor transactions. This removes the need for an asset manager or intermediary between the investor and the fund.

Transactions are executed in a single step, with units issued or cancelled as cash moves directly between investor and fund. The regulator said the structure could reduce operational friction and better align with faster settlement systems, including blockchain-based infrastructure.

Firms will still be able to use traditional dealing models or combine both approaches within umbrella fund structures.

Three-stage roadmap signals what comes next

PS26/7 sits at stage one of a broader FCA digital assets path. Stage two extends to traditional securities moved on-chain. Stage three involves tokenised cash flows enabling portfolio management through wallets and smart contracts. The regulator said it may explore settlement using digital cash and stablecoins in consultations later in 2026.

The framework sits alongside the broader cryptoasset regime. As Cryptopolitan reported, the FCA’s CP26/4 consultation proposes Consumer Duty rules, safeguarding requirements for client cryptoassets, and stricter governance for large stablecoin issuers. That regime takes effect in October 2027.

The industry has been signalling this shift for months

Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan and head of research Ryan Rasmussen wrote in a July client note that “tokenisation, the shift to issuing stocks, bonds, and other real-world assets on blockchains instead of traditional rails, is having a moment.”

The global stocks and bonds market is worth roughly $257 trillion combined, against current tokenised real-world assets at about $25 billion.

Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev offered a sharper version at Token2049 in October. “Tokenisation is like a freight train. It can’t be stopped, and eventually it’s going to eat the entire financial system,” he told the conference, predicting most major markets will have tokenisation frameworks within five years.

The first tokenised UCITS launched 16 months ago. The framework that authorised it is now permanent.

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The U.S. Senate has taken a rare unanimous step. It voted on Thursday to ban lawmakers, staff, and chamber officers from betting on prediction markets. Senate Resolution 708 passed by unanimous consent and took effect immediately as a change to the Senate’s standing rules.

The vote came eight days after federal prosecutors indicted a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant for using classified information to win more than $400,000 on Polymarket, and one week after Kalshi fined three congressional candidates for betting on their own races.

Republican Senator Bernie Moreno introduced the measure. Democratic Senator Alex Padilla widened it to include Senate staff.

Moreno framed the issue bluntly. “United States senators have no business engaging in speculative activities like prediction markets while collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck,” he said, according to Reuters.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer backed the move. He warned against turning public service into speculation.

“We must never allow Congress to turn into a casino where members representing the public can gamble on wars or economic crises,” Schumer said.

Prosecutors acted on U.S. Army Master Sergeant’s bet

The vote did not happen in a vacuum. It followed a case that stunned both lawmakers and regulators.

Federal prosecutors charged Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a 38-year-old Army Special Forces master sergeant stationed at Fort Bragg, with using classified information to place wagers on Polymarket. The trades were tied to Operation Absolute Resolve, the U.S. military mission that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on January 3.

Van Dyke “was involved in the planning and execution” of the operation, the Justice Department said in announcing the indictment. Prosecutors allege he placed approximately $33,034 in 13 bets between December 27 and January 2, all on “Yes” positions for contracts predicting U.S. forces would enter Venezuela by January 31.

The wagers won him approximately $409,881 in profit. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a parallel civil complaint, calling it the agency’s first insider trading action involving prediction markets.

Van Dyke pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday and was released on $250,000 bail.

Experts warn that prediction markets remain vulnerable

For many experts, the case confirmed long-standing concerns.

“The idea that insider trading is somehow permissible in prediction markets is a myth,” said David Miller, CFTC Director of Enforcement. He named insider trading on prediction markets as one of the agency’s five enforcement priorities going forward.

Academic research published days earlier reached a similar conclusion. Columbia Law professor Joshua Mitts and University of Haifa professor Moran Ofir analyzed two years of Polymarket data through February 2026 and identified more than 210,000 suspicious wallet-market pairs.

Flagged traders posted a 69.9% win rate, well above chance, and accumulated approximately $143 million in aggregate anomalous profit.

Mitts told American Banker that prediction market regulation is “a lot trickier” than securities-market enforcement because the contracts are commodities, not securities, and so fall outside the SEC’s classical insider trading framework.

When outcomes are yes-or-no and trading is thin, even one informed bet can move the market.

The polymarket ban has limits

Despite the strong vote, the Senate’s action has clear limits. This is not a criminal law. It is an internal rule. That means the Senate polices itself. Penalties could include reprimands, loss of committee roles, or fines tied to ethics violations.

But there is an important catch.

If a lawmaker uses insider information, existing federal laws could still apply. Regulators and prosecutors can still step in. So the rule acts more like a guardrail than a hammer. It is designed to stop the behavior before it starts.

How does this ban compare to the stalled stock trading ban?

Feature Prediction Market Ban Stock Trading Ban (Proposed) Status Already in force Still stalled Who it covers Senators and staff Members of Congress What it bans Event-based bets Stock trades Enforcement Senate ethics system Would require federal law Penalties Internal sanctions Proposed legal penalties

A narrower, simpler rule passed in a single afternoon. The broader stock trading ban, debated for nearly a decade, remains stuck. Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., have introduced separate legislation to ban all federally elected officials and government employees from using insider information on prediction markets.

Young called Resolution 708 “a good first step.”

Prediction markets remain a global gray area

Around the world, prediction markets sit in a legal gray zone. In the U.S., regulators are starting to treat them like financial derivatives.

In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority has taken a cautious approach. Across Europe, rules vary widely. Some countries treat them as gambling. Others treat them as financial instruments.

This patchwork creates gaps. And those gaps can be exploited.

Regulators are watching the Van Dyke case closely. A conviction would set a precedent for how Rule 180.1 of the Commodity Exchange Act applies to government-sourced classified information.

As Cryptopolitan reported in March, Polymarket has already updated its insider trading rules across both its DeFi platform and its U.S. exchange, citing pressure from regulators and the Ritchie Torres bill that has drawn 40 Democratic co-sponsors.

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Hackers stole over $625 million across 20 to 30 separate attacks in April 2026 alone. That’s nearly one attack every single day. DefiLlama posted a chart on X showing that April averaged nearly 1 attack per day, compared with previous monthly records that rarely exceeded 12 to 15 incidents.

This outstripped the total for all previous quarters, pushing the month toward a record high for security breaches.

Why did two attacks cause almost all the damage?

Several high-impact incidents defined the month. On April 1, 2026, the Drift Protocol lost $285 million. A North Korean group spent about six months building trust with Drift employees, only to steal the funds in 12 minutes using pre-signed withdrawal instructions.

As earlier reported by Cryptopolitan, KelpDAO followed suit on April 18, losing $293 million after attackers tricked its system into releasing tokens with no real backing.

Both attacks originated from North Korea, but used different methods, demonstrating a level of sophistication the DeFi industry was not ready for. Together, these two incidents alone accounted for the majority of April’s losses. This shows how a small number of sophisticated attacks can destabilize large portions of the DeFi ecosystem.

Why did one hack freeze billions in money that had nothing to do with KelpDAO?

The group behind the KelpDAO attack deposited the stolen tokens as collateral on Aave and borrowed nearly $190 million in real Ethereum against them. 

Aave was now holding worthless tokens as security for real loans, and the platform’s deposits fell from $26.4 billion to around $17.9 billion in just 48 hours. Stablecoin pools on the platform hit 100% utilization, and according to Galaxy Research, Aave’s bad debt rose to between $123.7 million and $230 million.

Over $13 billion exited DeFi protocols within days of the attack as users panicked and began withdrawing funds. Platforms like Morpho, Spark, Lido, Yearn, Beefy, and Ethereum itself froze certain operations due to massive outflows as trust across the industry broke down.

None of these accounts for the collateral damage seen across TVL, user trust, valuations, and the space’s morale. DeFi remains a niche market until risk can be properly priced.” DeFi analyst, as quoted by BeInCrypto.

Who is responsible, and how much have they stolen in total?

According to TRM Labs, government-backed hacking units in North Korea were responsible for 75% of all crypto hack losses through April 2026 ($577 million out of a total $759 million).

As documented by the United Nations, the US Treasury, and multiple blockchain intelligence firms, North Korea steals crypto to fund its government and weapons programs due to severe international sanctions. TRM Labs reported that North Korea stole over $6 billion in crypto since 2017.

“What we are watching is not a North Korean campaign that is broader — it is one that is sharper,” Ari Redbord, Global Head of Policy and Government Affairs at TRMLabs, said. “North Korea is moving faster and more precisely than ever.”

What happened to the rest of April, beyond the two big attacks?

Rhea Finance lost $18.4 million on April 10. Tether froze $3.29 million of those funds in time, but the attacker used flash loans to manipulate prices and drain the pool of the remaining amount.

Similarly, the crypto exchange in Kyrgyzstan, Grinex, lost $13.74 million in USDT on April 15 after hackers split the funds across 54 wallets and converted them into SunSwap to make them difficult to track. Hyperbridge also lost $2.5 million on the Polkadot network, and CoW Swap $1.2 million on April 14.

Onchain analyst Wazz posted on X on April 29, saying, “Hundreds of wallets (many of which haven’t been active in 7+ years) just got drained by the same address on ETH mainnet.” He added, “Seems like a new live exploit, worth flagging.”

It didn’t end there, though, because Wasabi Protocol lost approximately $5 million on the last day of April after an attacker used a compromised deployment key to exploit the system

Is DeFi getting safer or more dangerous?

Both, depending on how you look at it. For example, response times after attacks have greatly improved over the years, as more than 14 organizations pledged over $300 million to the DeFi United rescue fund after the KelpDAO incident.

The Arbitrum Security Council even froze $71 million of the attacker’s funds using emergency powers, something that was never possible a few years ago. 

However, the attacks are also evolving faster than defenses can keep up, because the two biggest April incidents exploited human manipulation. Years ago, most hacks exploited bugs in the smart contracts.

If losses continue at this rate, with the same number of hacks, the industry might lose about $7.5 billion in the coming months. That’s 3 times the losses in 2024.

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A crypto-stealing tool called StepDrainer is draining money from wallets across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, and at least 17 other networks.

StepDrainer operates as a malware-as-a-service kit. It uses fake but realistic Web3 wallet pop-ups to trick people into approving transfers. Some of those screens are made to look like Web3Modal wallet connections.

Once someone connects their wallet, StepDrainer looks for the most valuable tokens first and automatically sends them to wallets controlled by the attackers, according to LevelBlue.

StepDrainer misuses smart contract tools

StepDrainer misuses real smart contract tools like Seaport and Permit v2 to show wallet approval pop-ups that look normal. But the details inside those pop-ups are fake.

In one case, cybersecurity researchers found that victims saw a fake message saying they were receiving “+500 USDT,” making the approval look safe.

StepDrainer loads its harmful code through changing scripts and gets its setup from decentralized on-chain accounts.

That setup helps the attackers dodge normal security tools because the harmful code is not stored in one fixed place where it can be easily scanned.

StepDrainer is not just one person’s project. Researchers said there is a developed underground market selling ready-made drainer kits, making it easier for many attackers to add wallet-stealing features to scams they already run.

EtherRAT siphons crypto from Windows users

Researchers also found another malware besides StepDrainer, called EtherRAT. It targets Windows through a fake version of the Tftpd64 network admin tool.

According to LevelBlue, EtherRAT hides Node.js inside a fake installer, makes sure it stays on the computer through the Windows registry, and uses PowerShell to check the system.

EtherRAT first targeted Linux. Now it is bringing malware tricks and crypto theft to Windows.

EtherRAT quietly runs in the background. It checks things like antivirus tools, system settings, domain details, and hardware before it starts stealing.

According to a recent Cryptopolitan report, over 500 Ethereum wallets have been drained in the past 24 hours. The attacker siphoned more than $800K in crypto assets and then swapped the funds via ThorChain.

Many of the drained wallets have been inactive for over 7 years, according to on-chain research Wazz. The drained funds were directed by a single wallet address controlled by the attacker.

Cybersecurity researchers advise users connecting wallets to unknown sites to verify the domain, read the transaction details before signing, and remove any unlimited token approvals.

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An open-source crypto trading project received a malicious npm package called @validate-sdk/v2 after Anthropic’s Claude Opus AI model made it a dependency. This gave hackers access to users’ crypto wallets and funds.

Security researchers from ReversingLabs (RL) found the breach in the openpaw-graveyard project, which is an autonomous crypto trading agent hosted on npm. They called it PromptMink.

The bad commit was made on February 28, 2026. ReversingLabs says that the package pretends to be a tool for checking data but really steals secrets from the host environment.

North Korean hackers linked to PromptMink malware

ReversingLabs said that the attack came from Famous Chollima, a North Korean state-sponsored threat group.

The group has been spreading malicious npm packages since at least September 2025. They have been improving a two-layer strategy that is meant to trick both human devs and AI coding assistants.

The first layer is made up of packages that don’t have any malicious code. These “bait” packages, like @solana-launchpad/sdk and @meme-sdk/trade, seem like real tools for crypto developers.

They list a few second-layer packages that carry the actual payload, along with popular npm packages like axios and bn.js as dependencies.

When the second-layer packages are reported and taken down from npm, the attackers just put in a new one without losing the reputation they’ve built around the bait packages.

ReversingLabs says that when @hash-validator/v2 was taken off of npm, the attackers released @validate-sdk/v2 the same day with the same version number and source code.

AI agents are more susceptible to hacks than humans

Security researchers stated that Famous Chollima’s method seems more suited to taking advantage of AI coding assistants than human developers. The group writes long, detailed documentation for its malicious packages, which researchers call “LLM Optimization abuse.”

The goal is to make packages look real enough that AI agents will suggest and install them without any problems. The infected packages were “vibe-coded” by generative AI tools. Leftover LLM responses are visible in the file comments.

Since late 2025, the PromptMink malware has taken on many different forms.

It started as a simple JavaScript infostealer, then grew into big single-executable applications, and now comes as compiled Rust payloads that are made to be stealthy, according to ReversingLabs.

When the malware is installed, it looks for configuration files related to crypto, steals wallet credentials and system information, compresses and sends project source code to itself, and drops SSH keys on Linux and Windows machines so it can always access them remotely.

The PromptMink campaign is not the only recent attack targeting crypto developers through package managers.

Last month, Cryptopolitan reported on GhostClaw, a malware that targeted the OpenClaw community through a fake npm installer. It harvested crypto wallet data, macOS Keychain passwords, and AI platform API tokens from 178 developers before removal from the npm registry.

PromptMink and GhostClaw use social engineering as an entry point and target developers working in crypto and Web3. What makes PromptMink different is that it targets AI coding agents and uses them as the attack path.

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Hertz Global Holdings announced a new unit, Oro Mobility on Thursday. It is partnering with Uber Technologies on two different deals for both driverless cars and regular ride services. Hertz stock went up 17.14% to $6.55 during trading.

Oro Mobility will handle the day-to-day operations for Uber’s self-driving taxi program. This includes charging the vehicles, fixing them when needed, keeping them clean, and managing the facilities where they’re stored. The company plans to start this service in the San Francisco Bay Area before the year ends, with possible growth into more cities by 2027.

The second partnership focuses on regular rides with human drivers. Oro will run its own fleet of vehicles on Uber’s platform using drivers who work directly for Oro. Company officials said this setup helps handle increasing customer demand while making sure riders get the same quality of service each time. This program is already running in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and Northern New Jersey will get the service this spring.

Hertz explained that launching Oro Mobility fits into its broader plan to move beyond just renting cars to tourists and business travelers. The company wants to use what it already knows about managing large numbers of vehicles to support both computer-driven and human-driven transportation services.

The deals expand on an existing arrangement between the two companies, where Uber drivers can rent vehicles from Hertz.

Uber is going far beyond ride services

On Wednesday, Uber revealed a new feature in its app in the realm of hotel bookings at its Go-Get event in New York. It is working with Expedia for the hotel booking tool in its app. Users can surf through over 700,000 hotels all over the world to make bookings. The feature seems especially convenient for tourists to have both car ride services alongside hotel bookings in just one app.

If that wasn’t good enough, the company has also included a Travel Mode feature for local spots suggestions and restaurant reservations.

Uber is also incorporating voice commands with an AI assistant for customers to book rides. The system understands where you want to go and what type of ride you need, then shows the best options.

These latest updates suggest that the company is aiming to become the go-to app for all travel needs. It may be getting a cut from hotels, which it doesn’t own, for each booking. The new multipurpose features will help retain customers on the app.

A new Shop for Me service lets customers request items from any store, even ones not listed in the app. Users can ask for specific products from local shops, whether it’s a gift, specialty foods, or household items.

Select cities will soon get Eats for the Way, letting riders who book Uber Black or Uber Black SUV reserve vehicles that show up with coffee or snacks already inside. After confirming the ride reservation, customers can add their drink or food order.

Investors betting on a rebound

The change in direction comes while Uber shares have struggled to gain ground in early 2026. Meanwhile, traders buying and selling options contracts seem to think better days are ahead.

Data from Barchart shows the ratio of put options to call options for contracts ending in mid-September sits at just 0.22. This heavily favors bullish bets, with the top price target at $87 representing a possible 17% jump over the next five months.

Uber’s quarterly earnings report, set for May 6, could move the stock significantly. Analysts expect revenue to hit $13.3 billion, which would mark a gain of more than 15% compared to the same period last year.

Despite falling from its 2026 peak, the stock has held steady around two key technical levels, its 20-day and 50-day moving averages. This suggests investors who believe in the stock haven’t given up yet.

Analysts covering Uber largely share the optimistic view seen in options trading. The overall rating sits at “Strong Buy,” with the average price target near $106. That would represent potential gains of more than 40% from current levels.

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The Ethereum Foundation has opened applications for the seventh cohort of its Ethereum Protocol Fellowship today, Thursday, April 30.

The program is designed to bring new developers into core protocol work months after co-founder Vitalik Buterin announced a period of fiscal restraint for the organization.

The applications for the cohort tagged EPF7 are going to be open through May 13, and the cohort is expected to run from June through November. 

The selected participants will receive monthly stipends and mentorship from active core developers. An introductory town hall is scheduled for May 6 at 1500 UTC.

In January, Buterin wrote on X that the Foundation was “entering a period of mild austerity” to balance an aggressive technical roadmap with long-term financial sustainability. The Foundation held roughly 172,000 ETH at the time and had faced criticism for annual spending that previously reached as high as $100 million, according to Cryptopolitan’s earlier reporting. 

Currently, the Foundation holds over 92,500 ETH per Arkham Intelligence, having sold some of its holdings to BitMine six days ago.

What is the Ethereum Foundation’s upcoming cohort about?

According to the Foundation’s protocol support team, the coming cohort will be smaller compared to previous rounds. The team stated that they are “prioritizing depth of engagement over breadth.”

Fellows who join the cohort will get to work more closely with the mentors, and this should also enable them to make “higher-impact contributions to the projects they take on.”

The program targets software engineers with a solid technical foundation who are self-directed and motivated by open-source work. The makeup has always revolved around gathering a diverse group with the goal of advancing Ethereum’s roadmap. 

Fellows will contribute to client implementations, testing, specifications, and core protocol research. Past participants have joined client teams and remained long-term contributors, according to the Foundation.

The May 13 application deadline will determine the size and composition of the cohort. Buterin’s January commitment to personal austerity, including earmarking 16,384 ETH for ecosystem goals over five years, set expectations that the Foundation would do more with less. 

How did Ethereum use its resources in Q1?

A day before the EPF7 announcement, the Foundation’s Ecosystem Support Program published its Q1 2026 allocation update. The report lists grants across cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs, security tooling, and protocol research, suggesting that while spending discipline has tightened, core development funding continues.

The Ethereum Foundation presents the initiatives it has supported since 2024. Source: Ethereum Foundation

Among the funded projects are maintenance for the EthereumJS TypeScript stack, Lighthouse client development for the Fusaka transition, L2BEAT’s 2026 operations, and a performance benchmarking initiative to stress-test states 10 times the size of the mainnet. 

The Foundation also funded several positions through its 2026 internship program in areas including protocol consensus, cryptography, and protocol security.

The Ethereum Applications Guild, a new nonprofit announced on April 29, adds another layer to the Foundation’s developer recruitment effort. In its bio on X, the organization describes itself as “a global non-profit collaborative organization dedicated to advancing the innovation, adoption, and real-world impact of Ethereum-native applications.”

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Apple (AAPL) beat Wall Street’s fiscal second-quarter targets with $111.18 billion in revenue and $2.01 in diluted earnings per share, while iPhone sales reached $56.99 billion and missed the analyst forecast by a small margin.

Analysts polled by LSEG had expected $109.66 billion in revenue and $1.95 in EPS. The stock barely changed in extended trading after the report, because the numbers were strong, but not spotless.

The cleanest part of the quarter came from Services, not hardware. Services revenue climbed to $30.98 billion, up from $26.65 billion a year earlier.

iPhone revenue rose from $46.84 billion to $56.99 billion, but analysts expected $57.21 billion. That was the only major line in the report that fell short, and it was the second iPhone miss in three quarters.

Apple beats profit and revenue targets as Services revenue hits a new high

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said, “Today Apple is proud to report our best March quarter ever, with revenue of $111.2 billion and double-digit growth across every geographic segment.” Tim also said the iPhone reached a March-quarter revenue record because of demand for the iPhone 17 lineup.

He said Services reached another all-time record during the quarter. Tim also pointed to new products added to Apple’s lineup, including the iPhone 17e, the M4-powered iPad Air, and MacBook Neo.

Kevan Parekh, Apple’s CFO, said, “Our strong business performance during the March quarter generated over $28 billion in operating cash flow and drove new March quarter records for both operating cash flow and EPS.”

Kevan said demand for Apple’s products and services helped push the company’s active device base to a new all-time high across every major product category and region.

For the three months ended March 28, Apple posted $80.21 billion in product revenue, compared with $68.71 billion in the same quarter last year. Services brought in $30.98 billion, up from $26.65 billion. Total net sales were $111.18 billion, compared with $95.36 billion a year earlier.

Apple’s product costs came in at $49.18 billion, up from $44.03 billion. Services costs reached $7.22 billion, compared with $6.46 billion. Total cost of sales was $56.40 billion, while gross margin reached $54.78 billion.

Apple’s research and development costs rose to $11.42 billion from $8.55 billion. Selling, general, and administrative expenses reached $7.48 billion, up from $6.73 billion. Total operating expenses came in at $18.90 billion.

Apple reports stronger regional sales and approves a $100 billion buyback

Apple’s operating income reached $35.89 billion, up from $29.59 billion last year. Other expense was $52 million, down from $279 million. Income before taxes was $35.83 billion. Apple paid $6.26 billion in tax costs, leaving net income at $29.58 billion, compared with $24.78 billion a year earlier.

For the first six months of the fiscal year, Apple reported $254.94 billion in total net sales, up from $219.66 billion. Products brought in $193.95 billion, while Services produced $60.99 billion. Total cost of sales for the six-month period was $130.93 billion. Gross margin reached $124.01 billion.

Six-month operating expenses were $37.28 billion, with R&D at $22.31 billion and SG&A at $14.97 billion. Operating income reached $86.74 billion. Income before taxes was $86.84 billion. Apple’s net income came in at $71.68 billion, up from $61.11 billion.

Regional sales were higher across the board. Americas’ revenue reached $45.09 billion, up from $40.32 billion. Europe came in at $28.06 billion, compared with $24.45 billion. Greater China produced $20.50 billion, up from $16.00 billion. Japan posted $8.40 billion, while the rest of the Asia Pacific reached $9.14 billion.

By product line, Apple’s Mac revenue was $8.40 billion, compared with $7.95 billion. iPad revenue reached $6.91 billion, up from $6.40 billion. Wearables, Home, and Accessories brought in $7.90 billion, compared with $7.52 billion.

Basic EPS was $2.02, up from $1.65. Diluted EPS was $2.01, also above $1.65 last year. Basic shares used in the EPS count fell to 14.67 billion from 14.99 billion. Diluted shares fell to 14.73 billion from 15.06 billion.

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Two new deals by ventures with ties to the Trump family could soon become fresh probe points for Democratic lawmakers such as Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, and Richard Blumenthal, who have initiated past inquiries into the first family’s business dealings. 

Earlier today, Fortune reported that AI Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: AIFC), a publicly traded crypto firm with links to President Donald Trump’s family, has purchased Block Street Corp., a crypto infrastructure business founded by one of its own advisors, Matthew Morgan. The deal is worth up to $43 million. 

In another press release, Autonomous Power Corporation (Powerus), a US-based drone maker, announced that it closed a deal for its Guardian-2 Interceptor systems after a U.S. Air Force trial. 

The Trump connection in both deals is expected to be a red flag for lawmakers. 

What is the AI Financial deal about?

Block Street Corp. is designed to help companies issue digital tokens. The acquisition is meant to expand its payment systems into “tokenized assets” and “real-world asset tokenization.”

Since August 2025, when Ai Financial, formerly known as Alt5 Sigma, announced a partnership with the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial to stockpile $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency, shares have fallen more than 90%.

Following the acquisition, Morgan, who is the biggest shareholder of Block Street, joined AI Financial as the “global head of vision.”

He told Fortune that Block Street was offered to multiple public companies in late 2025, and he rejected offers with “potentially more than $100 million in upside.” 

Matthew denies that the transaction is self-dealing, but records show Block Street was only created in late October 2025 and has yet to generate any revenue. 

Is the Powerus deal legitimate?

According to the release by Powerus, the Guardian-2 Interceptor is a “low-cost, semi-autonomous, high-speed counter-drone interceptor platform” that is designed to neutralize enemy drones directed at US assets. 

It recalled that the air force tested it out to “address critical capability gaps for small teams operating ‘outside the wire'” for a “lightweight, deployable capability to detect, track and defeat Group 1-3 small unmanned aerial systems in austere environments.” 

Speaking about the deal, Brett Velicovich, Co-Founder of Powerus, said: “This is about saving American lives,” citing round-the-clock threats to critical infrastructure and lives in the Middle East. Velicovich added, “The Guardian-2 works. The kill chain works.” 

According to a PBS report, Powerus denied any conflicts of interest after it brought POTUS’ eldest sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., on board in March. 

Why are Democrats investigating Trump? 

Democratic Senators and Representatives have opened multiple investigations into the Trump family’s financial ties to the crypto industry.

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is investigating a $314 million purchase of 16,000 Bitmain mining machines by American Bitcoin Corp., a company connected to Eric Trump.

Cryptopolitan previously reported on her request to the Commerce Department for records on communications between Bitmain, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and agency officials. Warren intends to determine whether national security decisions at the Commerce Department have been influenced by firms with Trump family business ties. 

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, launched a separate investigation into the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank for granting crypto exchange Kraken a limited-purpose master account. 

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is demanding records about why the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropped fraud charges against Justin Sun, a major investor in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial platform. 

Blumenthal’s letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins also pointed out that the SEC’s top enforcement official, Margaret Ryan, left the agency shortly before the case against Sun was dismissed. 

Cryptopolitan previously covered the joint efforts of Senators Warren, Adam Schiff, and Blumenthal to investigate the memecoin conference held at Mar-a-Lago, which was only open to the largest holders of the $TRUMP token.

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The U.S. economy picked up speed at the start of 2026, but the war in Iran is casting a long shadow over what comes next.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that gross domestic product grew at a 2% annual rate from January through March, bouncing back from a weak 0.5% expansion in the final three months of 2025.

The rebound came partly because the federal government had room to spend again after a 43-day shutdown dragged on growth late last year. Government spending and investment grew at a 9.3% annual rate in the first quarter, adding more than half a percentage point to overall growth.

AI boom lifts business investment, housing slumps

Consumer spending makes up to 70% of US economic activity. It grew 1.6% in the first quarter, which is slower than last year’s number of 1.9%. However, it was the business spending that showed a steep rise of 8.7% annual rate, largely driven by the AI spending boom.

Housing, however, remains a drag, with residential investment falling at an 8% annual rate for the fifth straight quarter. Imports surged at a 21.4% annual rate, cutting more than 2.6 percentage points from first-quarter growth.

The report covers a period that includes roughly a month of fighting in Iran. Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas flows, has pushed energy prices higher, feeding inflation and squeezing consumers. Thursday’s release is the first of three Commerce Department estimates.

Powell calls the economy resilient in final presser

A day earlier, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the economy had been “quite resilient” in the face of the energy shock and would likely keep growing above 2% this year. Speaking at his final press conference as Fed chair, he pointed to steady consumer spending and booming data center construction as the main drivers.

“Growth is really solid across our economy,” Powell said. “Some of it is just the apparently insatiable demand for data centers all over the United States. So a lot of business investment going into building data centers, and every reason to think that that continues.”

Powell added that inflation should ease through the year as last year’s tariff-driven price spike fades. But the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50% to 3.75%, citing “a high level of uncertainty” from the Middle East conflict as reported by Cryptopolitan. The Fed’s rate cuts in late 2025 were aimed at protecting the job market, but with rates now near neutral, further easing looks unlikely in the near term.

IMF warns against rate cuts, flags debt risk

The International Monetary Fund, which completed its annual review of the U.S. economy in April, expects GDP growth to reach 2.4% in 2026. But it struck a cautious note on monetary policy, warning the Fed has little room to cut rates this year.

Rising energy prices, the ongoing passthrough of tariff costs to core inflation, and broader commodity price risks all point in the wrong direction for a rate cut. The IMF said easing would only be justified if the job market weakens significantly while inflation falls at the same time.

The fund noted that the U.S. economy performed well in 2025, with growth hitting 2% despite the government shutdown and a shifting policy environment. But it flagged longer-term concerns. The general government deficit is expected to stay in the 7% to 7.5% of GDP range, with debt potentially exceeding 140% of GDP by 2031.

The IMF warned that this fiscal path poses risks not just for the U.S. but for the global financial system, given the central role of U.S. Treasury markets worldwide.

On trade, the IMF acknowledged that tariff uncertainty is expected to weigh on U.S. activity and spill over negatively to trading partners. It urged Washington to work with other countries to reduce trade barriers and address the distortions driving global imbalances.

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Elon Musk called most crypto projects scams while testifying in Oakland this week, pulling Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and an old OpenAI token plan into his court fight with Sam Altman.

Inside the courtroom, Elon was asked about OpenAI’s short-lived 2018 plan to raise funds through an initial coin offering, or ICO. He said, “Some of them have merit, but most of them are scams,” based on a post from New York Times reporter Mike Isaac.

Elon brings OpenAI’s 2018 token plan into the fight over its charity roots

The ICO issue came up because OpenAI once looked at creating a crypto token to help fund the nonprofit. An ICO is when a crypto team sells tokens to raise cash. The term borrows from IPO, but it is not the same thing as selling stock.

The late-2010s ICO boom pulled in a lot of risky money, then many of those token projects collapsed after getting funded. Crypto traders remember that period clearly. It was noisy, fast, and full of people pretending a white paper was a business.

That old plan now sits inside a much larger legal fight. Elon claims OpenAI broke its founding agreement when it built a commercial business and took a major investment from Microsoft (MSFT). In court, he said OpenAI “[stole] a charity.” 

His case is built around the idea that the company was created to serve the public, not to become another closed AI power center racing for revenue.

OpenAI denies that version of events. The company says Elon knew it might need a for-profit structure to raise enough money.

In a company blog post, OpenAI said he supported the ICO plan, which would have included a for-profit arm. That claim is important because it pushes back against his argument that the later business structure came out of nowhere.

Later, while answering questions from his own lawyer, Elon said he was “reassured” by OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman and others that the nonprofit would keep acting as a charity. OpenAI and Sam have accused him of harassment.

They also say the lawsuit is really aimed at hurting a rival to xAI, the AI company Elon co-founded in 2023. So the court is now dealing with charity promises, AI money, Microsoft, and a crypto fundraising idea from six years earlier. Very normal tech-world disaster menu.

Tesla’s Bitcoin numbers show why Elon’s crypto comment landed inside a bigger market story

Elon has not always sounded this cold on crypto. During the pandemic bull run, he became one of the loudest public names tied to the market.

Tesla (TSLA) bought $1.5 billion of Bitcoin in 2021, putting crypto directly on the balance sheet of a major public company. That made Tesla one of the earlier big corporate buyers at the time.

His tweets about Dogecoin also helped turn the meme coin into a giant retail trade. DOGE was already strange by design, but Elon gave it a much bigger audience. Traders watched his posts like price alerts. Some made money. Some got burned. That is crypto. Nobody needs a sermon.

Tesla then sold 75% of its Bitcoin in mid-2022. Because of that sale, the company did not fully benefit from the later rally after Donald Trump’s election, when Bitcoin climbed above $125,000 in 2024. Tesla still kept part of its position, but the remaining coins took a hit in the first quarter of 2026.

Regulatory filings show Tesla reduced the value of its remaining 11,509 Bitcoin by $222 million in Q1 2026. As of March 31, the company listed $786 million in crypto holdings and reported an after-tax impairment loss of $173 million. Bitcoin was down 10% for the year and traded at $75,350 at the time of writing.

Elon finished his testimony on Thursday morning. Sam Altman and Greg Brockman were in court for much of the questioning. After being introduced, Sam and Greg sat behind their lawyers and listened. Greg also took notes on a yellow legal pad.

A large part of Elon’s testimony focused on his break with OpenAI’s leaders while they searched for enough money to compete with Alphabet Inc.’s Google (GOOGL) and other for-profit AI companies. “In strict monetary terms, I contributed $38 million,” Elon said this week.

After Elon left the stand, Jared Birchall, who runs his family office, testified. Jared told jurors that Elon paid rent for OpenAI’s office in the early years. He also said Elon later told him to stop paying that rent in 2020.

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On-chain investigators noted multiple Ethereum wallets drained after up to seven years of no activity. The exploit caused up to $800K in losses, with the proceeds moved and mixed through ThorChain. 

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), user @WazzCrypto disclosed that hundreds of wallets have had their funds drained. While wallet-draining is not a new type of attack, one thing that stood out this time was that the affected wallets were dormant for up to 7 years. Aside from the on-chain record, over the past 24 hours, there have been reports on X by some users confirming their wallets had been drained.

Hundreds of wallets (many of which haven't been active in 7+ years) just got drained by the same address on ETH mainnet

Seems like a new live exploit, worth flagging https://t.co/QiKU1b86Uv pic.twitter.com/o1uU85CLPT

— Wazz (@WazzCrypto) April 30, 2026

The ongoing attack mostly affected wallets aged 4 to 8 years, according to on-chain data. The oldest wallet had not moved funds in nearly 14 years. Even advanced and experienced crypto users reported having their wallets drained after no known interactions with smart contracts or protocols. 

The most worrying part of the attack is the unknown vector for compromising the wallet’s private keys. Users may prevent losses by preemptively moving funds to new storage with a safely generated private key.

Ethereum attack sweeps hundreds of wallets

The attacker swept over 500 wallets, collecting 2 ETH to swap into XMR for privacy. The wallets contained not only ETH, but other assets as well, and some of the tasks may have been done manually, as noted by on-chain researcher @tayvano. Some of the wallets were not fully drained, and researchers are still searching for signs of wallet filtering or clustering. 

Following the initial asset sweep, the attackers moved to mixing the coins and tokens, similar to other recent DeFi hacks. The actions were similar to other attempts to disguise funds performed by DPRK hackers. 

A total of 324.741 ETH was bridged as wrapped assets on the Bitcoin network using ThorChain. Around $32,000 in ETH were stored in another wallet. Some of the funds were swapped into 9.56 BTC.

Wallets may be exposed through trading bots, contracts, or npm attacks

One possible explanation includes leaked private key databases, activated after years to claim coins. Other hypotheses include flawed Electrum wallet usage, which has been linked to contaminated versions. It is possible that some of the old addresses were in a database of compromised keys. 

As Cryptopolitan reported, similar attacks have happened in connection with the LastPass breach. One of the hypotheses is that another batch of wallets and passwords was exposed. 

The recent wallet-draining attacks happened just days after the Bitwarden hack, but other npm supply chain attacks have shown it is possible to steal crypto from hot wallets.

The other possible explanation is the usage of trading bots, which often require the user to input a private key. 

The recent wave of attacks has led to a decline in trust in DeFi protocols, and continues to make the argument against efforts to present Ethereum and other chains as suitable for large-scale financial activity.

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Powerful Russian businessmen and state-run banking institutions have been profiting from schemes designed to evade Western sanctions, according to a new investigation into Moscow’s “shadow financial system.”

Russia has deployed a multi-billion-dollar network for cross-border money transfers, often using cryptocurrency, that has allowed it to import almost anything it needs, from iPhones to drones, the authors have found.

Here’s how the system works

Russia’s isolation from global finances, achieved by measures like its disconnection from SWIFT, has actually benefitted oligarchs like Roman Abramovich, state-owned sanctioned banks such as PSB, and people connected to the Federal Security Service (FSB).

The findings were made public through a new report produced by the independent investigative media outlet Proekt, long labeled as an “undesirable organization” in the Russian Federation, based on financial documents obtained from key players in the payments market.

The study sheds light on how Russia’s parallel banking system functions, allowing it to circumvent financial restrictions and continue to register around $2 billion in foreign trade daily.

A significant portion of this massive volume passes through Moscow City, the international business center in the heart of the Russian capital, the researchers note.

The services of payment processors with offices there, such as SpectrePay or VD Technolab, enjoy significant demand nowadays, from both companies and individuals.

But the market for international settlements is not limited to small platforms like these. In fact, it’s much better represented by companies like A7, Russia’s largest payment agent.

The scheme works as follows. When a Russian buyer wants to pay for an item abroad, they deposit rubles into A7. The money is then transferred to Kyrgyzstan through the PSB bank, which co-owns it.

Kyrgyz-registered intermediaries purchase cryptocurrency on the Grinex exchange, also linked to A7, concealing the Russian origin of the funds.

And then other affiliated companies in third countries, often in the Middle East or Southeast Asia, convert the coins into local currency and pay the seller who ships the goods to Russia.

What’s the role of the Oligarchs?

A7 is the creator of the Russian ruble-pegged stablecoin A7A5. Backed by ruble deposits at the sanctioned PSB, the crypto is issued by a Kyrgyzstan-registered entity, Old Vector.

Launched in early 2025, it already accounts for nearly half of the non-dollar stablecoin market. A top executive of the project recently admitted it has processed transactions worth well over $100 billion.

A7 is majority-owned by Ilan Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch holding a Russian passport, wanted in his home country for his role in a massive bank theft, as noted in a report by Radio Liberty.

Formerly Promsvyazbank, PSB is his main partner in the company. It’s headed by the son of former Russian Prime Minister and ex-spy chief Mikhail Fradkov and sanctioned for funding Russia’s military.

According to Proekt, A7 has more owners than the officially known Shor and PSB. The publication noted that the state development corporation VEB (Vnesheconombank) is “supporting” the project.

It also highlighted that unofficially, another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, may be playing an important, albeit secret, role in the firm, too.

One of his associates told the media outlet that “Abramovich has no connection to A7, is not its beneficiary, and does not own any shares in it.”

However, a source from the payments industry described the oligarch as acting as a “roof” for the company, providing protection and sponsorship.

The West is well aware of its activities, and A7 is also subject to sanctions. At the same time, it continues to move money around the world through more than 20 shell firms.

Around 2,000 people work for the payments provider, which holds up to 19% of all Russian cross-border transfers, according to its own estimates, making it the largest player in this market.

Proekt’s report also reveals that other prominent figures involved in the industry include the son and other relatives and friends of Nikolai Patrushev, former director of the FSB and aide to Putin.

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