x
Bitcoin recently climbed above the $79,000 mark for the first time since January, and analysts from VanEck are spotting some pretty promising signs that things could keep heading up. One of the big indicators they are looking at is the funding rate, which actually turned negative recently. Historically, when the funding rate dips like this, it tends to be a bullish signal that leads to solid returns. In fact, when things have looked like this in the past, the coin has often seen double-digit gains over the following month.
The network is also showing some interesting resilience right now. Even though the hash rate took a bit of a hit lately and is down about 7.5 percent from its all-time high, it has managed to bounce back from several recent slumps. This kind of recovery combined with the current market positioning usually points toward significant price appreciation. Even with a tiny bit of daily fluctuation, the general trend over the last thirty days has been a steady climb, leaving investors feeling optimistic about where things are heading next. Source
Volo Protocol has been hit by a security breach that saw about $3.5 million in digital assets snatched from a few specific vaults. The team acted quickly to freeze the affected areas and notify the Sui Foundation, luckily managing to keep around $28 million in other vaults completely safe. The stolen loot included wrapped bitcoin, gold-backed tokens, and stablecoins, but the protocol has already managed to block or freeze about $2 million of the total loss. This incident is part of a bit of a rough patch for decentralized finance lately, coming right on the heels of a much larger hack on another platform over the weekend.
The good news for anyone using the platform is that the team plans to absorb the losses themselves instead of making the users pay for it, although they are still working out the exact details of how that will work. It turns out that a lot of these crypto thefts over the last decade have been down to simple security issues like compromised private keys rather than actual bugs in the code. Volo is currently working with partners across the ecosystem to try and claw back the rest of the funds and get everything back to normal for their liquid staking services. Source
Amazon Web Services has just made it much easier for big companies to bridge the gap between traditional cloud computing and blockchain technology by adding Chainlink services to its marketplace. This move brings Chainlink's well-known data feeds, real-time data streams, and proof-of-reserve solutions directly into the AWS ecosystem. It means that developers can now access reliable market data and verify asset backing for stablecoins using the same familiar tools they already use for their cloud infrastructure, all while keeping things secure and compliant with enterprise standards.
This is a pretty significant deal considering AWS holds about 31 percent of the global cloud market and serves millions of customers. By integrating these oracle services, AWS is providing the architecture needed for things like real-time trading and monitoring reserves without the usual headaches of connecting off-chain data to smart contracts. Chainlink has already handled trillions of dollars in transaction value, and this partnership looks to build on that track record by offering a safer way for institutions to dive into tokenised assets and decentralised applications. Source
Brazil has decided to block 27 different prediction market platforms, including big names like Kalshi and Polymarket, after the government decided these services don't fit into the country's legal framework. The Ministry of Finance and the National Telecommunications Agency moved to shut them down because they view many of these contracts as gambling rather than actual financial investments. Under new rules starting in early May, platforms are banned from offering bets on sports, politics, entertainment, or social events. The only types of contracts still allowed are those tied to serious economic indicators like inflation, interest rates, or commodity prices.
The authorities are particularly worried that these platforms could lead to higher levels of household debt, especially among students and small business owners. By banning international services like PredictIt and Robinhood’s forecasting features alongside local Brazilian sites, the government hopes to protect citizens from financial harm during a period where they are trying to reduce overall national debt. This crackdown in Brazil follows a similar trend seen in Europe, where countries like France and Belgium have already started penalising platforms that operate without specific authorisation. Source
DeepSeek has just released its massive V4-Pro model, making a huge splash by offering high-end performance at a fraction of the cost of its Western competitors. Launching just hours after OpenAI’s GPT-5.5, this new Chinese model boasts 1.6 trillion parameters but uses a clever mixture-of-experts approach to keep compute costs incredibly low. It is priced at a staggering 98 percent less than GPT-5.5 Pro, meaning a million input tokens cost less than two dollars. The lab achieved this by inventing new attention mechanisms that allow the model to process huge amounts of data—up to a million tokens at once—without the usual massive spike in memory usage or cost.
While it slightly trails behind the very best closed-source models in general knowledge, V4-Pro is already beating them in specialised areas like competitive programming and complex STEM problems. It is particularly strong for developers because it keeps its chain of thought intact even when performing multi-step tasks, making it a powerful tool for building AI agents. Because the model is open-weight and can be run locally for free, it provides a highly customisable and budget-friendly alternative for businesses that want to process entire codebases or massive legal documents without breaking the bank. Source
A researcher named Giancarlo Lelli has successfully used a quantum computer to crack a 15-bit elliptic curve key, which is essentially a miniature version of the security used to protect Bitcoin. While Bitcoin itself uses much tougher 256-bit keys, this achievement is being hailed as the largest public demonstration of a quantum attack on this specific type of cryptography. The project behind the challenge, Project Eleven, noted that while the gap between 15 bits and 256 bits is still significant, the technical requirements to pull off these kinds of attacks have been dropping sharply since last year.
This breakthrough has reignited the debate over how long crypto has before quantum computers become a genuine threat to the trillions of dollars secured by these algorithms. Some experts believe the community has about three to five years to upgrade their security, while others argue that practical threats are still decades away since current quantum systems are mostly experimental lab projects. However, recent reports from tech giants like Google suggest that breaking modern encryption might actually require far fewer qubits than previously thought, making the need for post-quantum solutions feel a bit more urgent for the industry. Source
The Department of Justice has officially closed its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, which effectively clears the way for Kevin Warsh to be confirmed as his successor. Senator Thom Tillis had been holding up the nomination until the probe was resolved, and with the investigation now over, the Senate Banking Committee is expected to move forward with a vote as early as next week. Prediction markets have already reacted to the news, with odds of Warsh being confirmed before Powell leaves on 15 May jumping significantly following the announcement.
Warsh, who previously served as a Fed governor, has come under fire from some politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren, who worry about his close ties to the president and his substantial personal fortune. His financial disclosures revealed a net worth exceeding 100 million dollars, including various investments in crypto projects like Solana and Polymarket. While critics worry these holdings could lead to conflicts of interest, Warsh has remained a vocal critic of recent monetary policy, and his supporters are keen to see him take the lead once Powell’s term concludes in mid-May. Source
The Ethereum Foundation recently pulled back on its staking efforts by unstaking more than 17,000 ETH, which is worth about 40 million dollars. This move came right after the foundation had almost reached its internal goal of staking 70,000 ETH. While the foundation hasn't officially explained why they are withdrawing these funds, the move has sparked a fair bit of chatter among investors who wonder if a sell-off might be coming. Since earlier this year, the group has been steadily increasing its stake to help fund research and grants, but this sudden pivot suggests a change in strategy or a need for liquidity.
There are also some deeper governance questions at play here. Vitalik Buterin has previously mentioned that if the foundation stakes too much of the total supply, it could make it harder for them to stay neutral if the community ever has a major disagreement about the network's future. This unstaking event also happens to be taking place while the broader decentralised finance world is trying to steady itself following a massive hack on another platform. While the foundation finds its balance, other major players in the ecosystem are currently banding together to provide emergency backing to prevent further market instability. Source
Markethive has just rolled out a new subscriptions interface that acts as a central hub for members to track their services and explore new tools for growth. The dashboard uses a handy colour-coded system to show what is currently active, what is still being developed, and what is available to join right now. Each product comes with its own summary and a simple button to either manage an existing account or sign up. The system is designed to be very user-friendly, featuring pop-up windows for quick payments and a slider that lets you filter through different categories like integrated or pending services.
The first five products live on the site offer some pretty serious upgrades for digital entrepreneurs. You can grab a vanity promo code to make your referral links look more professional, or jump on the news feed upgrade to quadruple your post visibility and access AI writing tools. There is also a profile page upgrade that turns a basic CV into a dynamic marketing tool with real-time visitor tracking. For those looking for the full package, the premium and entrepreneur one tiers bundle all these features together with extra perks like SEO tools and lifetime residual income. It is a big step toward Markethive’s goal of building a self-sovereign ecosystem that rewards its community for staying active and engaged. Source
Western Union is getting ready to launch its own US dollar-backed stablecoin, known as USDPT, with a rollout expected this May. CEO Devin McGranahan shared during a recent earnings call that the company is moving past the experimental phase and is now focused on how quickly they can scale their digital asset operations. This new stablecoin is being built on the Solana network and will be issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. It is designed to be a core part of their money movement platform, helping to bridge the gap between digital currencies and traditional cash.
Beyond just the stablecoin, the company is launching a digital asset network this week to link crypto wallets to their massive global retail footprint. This network will allow users to convert their digital holdings into local currency at over 360,000 locations worldwide. Later in the year, they also plan to introduce a stable card so people can hold and spend their stablecoins more easily. By teaming up with various exchange and banking partners, Western Union aims to make digital assets a standard part of how they handle payments and settlements across the globe. Source
Anthropic is stepping up its game to protect the integrity of the 2026 US midterms by introducing new safeguards for its Claude AI models. Recent testing shows that their latest versions, including Claude Opus 4.7 and Sonnet 4.6, are hitting impressive marks for political neutrality and election policy compliance. The company put these models through rigorous stress tests to ensure they won't help carry out sneaky influence operations or spread misinformation. Instead of giving biased answers, the AI is designed to stay neutral and will even display a special banner directing users to TurboVote for reliable, nonpartisan information on things like voter registration and polling stations.
This move comes as the tech world faces more pressure to keep AI from messing with elections. Interestingly, while Anthropic is busy building these digital fences, prediction markets like Kalshi are already cracking down on real-life candidates who tried to bet on their own races, which they are calling a form of political insider trading. Anthropic plans to keep a close eye on how their systems perform throughout the election cycle and even intends to roll out similar banners for the upcoming elections in Brazil. Source
Michael Saylor has dropped yet another hint that his company is about to add more Bitcoin to its massive treasury. By sharing a detailed chart of their previous purchase history, Saylor is following a pattern that usually signals a buy is just around the corner. This comes barely a week after the company picked up over 34,000 coins, bringing their total stash to a staggering 815,061 BTC. Even though the company faced some heavy unrealised losses earlier this year when the market dipped, they are now back in the black with Bitcoin prices climbing above $78,000.
The company is moving at such a fast pace that they are currently buying up about three times the amount of Bitcoin being mined, which some analysts think could lead to a serious supply shock. There are even projections suggesting the firm could reach over 1.2 million BTC by the end of the year using new capital-raising strategies. While some market watchers are a bit nervous about how much equity the firm is issuing to fund these buys, the leadership seems fully committed to making digital assets the foundation of their corporate treasury. Source
A heated debate has broken out between Matter Labs co-founder Alex Gluchowski and the creators of Canton over what actually qualifies as a blockchain. Gluchowski argues that true financial systems need a shared global state where rules are enforced across every participant, something he claims Canton lacks. He suggests that Canton essentially mimics the old ways of traditional finance by relying on private, bilateral relationships rather than a public ledger like Ethereum. From his perspective, without a single source of truth that everyone can verify, you lose the core security benefits that make blockchain technology revolutionary.
On the other side, the team at Digital Asset, which built Canton, argues that their model is exactly what big banks like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs actually need. They prioritise privacy and regulatory control, ensuring transactions are only shared with the parties involved rather than being broadcast to the whole world. They dismiss the idea that a lack of global state makes their system less trustworthy, insisting that participants still verify their own data without needing to trust a central authority. While ZKsync tries to bridge this gap using zero-knowledge proofs to keep data private while still anchoring it to a public network, the two sides remain fundamentally split on whether the future of institutional finance should be open or permissioned. Source
Tennessee has officially joined Indiana as the second US state to ban Bitcoin and crypto ATMs, making it a criminal offence to own or run these machines. Governor Bill Lee signed the new law following concerns from state representatives that these kiosks have turned into a major gateway for scammers to exploit residents, particularly the elderly. Under the new rules, operators have until July 1 to shut down their machines, or they could face charges equivalent to a Class A misdemeanour. This is a significant shift for the state, which currently hosts hundreds of these kiosks in places like petrol stations and shops, especially around the Nashville area.
The crackdown comes as federal authorities report a massive spike in fraud involving crypto ATMs, with the FBI noting that older Americans lost hundreds of millions of dollars to these types of scams last year alone. While some states are trying to manage the issue with transaction limits or refund mandates, Tennessee has opted for a total ban to protect its citizens from being pressured into draining their savings. This move reflects a growing trend of state governments taking drastic measures to kerb financial crimes linked to physical crypto hardware as the technology becomes more widespread. Source
Aave Labs is leading a major rescue mission to recover from the massive Kelp DAO exploit by asking Arbitrum to hand over 30,765 Ether currently frozen in a hacker's wallet. This chunk of crypto, worth about $73.5 million, would be funnelled into a relief fund called DeFi United. The goal is to fix the backing of the rsETH token and pay back users who got caught in the crossfire. The proposal has some serious weight behind it, with big names like LayerZero, Compound, and Kelp DAO all signing on to support the plan as they try to stabilise the ecosystem after the $293 million heist.
The DeFi United initiative has already pulled in around $21 million from various founders and platforms, but there is potentially another $215 million on the way if various community votes pass. Aave was particularly bruised by the hack, seeing billions in value vanish and getting stuck with nearly $190 million in bad debt after the exploiter used stolen tokens as collateral. If the Arbitrum community agrees to release the funds to a secure recovery address, Aave expects to have the situation sorted and holders compensated within about seven weeks. Source
New research from the London Business School and Yale University suggests that the accuracy of prediction markets like Polymarket actually comes from a tiny group of savvy traders rather than the collective knowledge of the public. According to the study, only about 3.5 per cent of accounts are responsible for the vast majority of price discovery, essentially doing the heavy lifting to make these markets predictive. While the remaining majority of users generate most of the trading volume, they do not actually contribute much useful information; instead, their losses effectively fund the profits of that informed minority.
The findings show that this small group of market makers and skilled takers captures over 30 per cent of total gains, with market makers pocketing an average of 11,830 US dollars per account. Meanwhile, roughly 67 per cent of users end up as losers who absorb almost all the aggregate losses. With monthly trading volumes now topping 15 billion US dollars, the study highlights growing concerns about insider trading, noting that the pseudonymous nature of these platforms makes them very attractive for those with private information. Ultimately, very few people are making a living from this, with other data suggesting only 0.015 per cent of traders earn consistent enough profits to consider it a full-time job. Source
Coachella is transforming its famous music festival into a high-tech testing ground by partnering with Google DeepMind to experiment with advanced AI tools. During the 2026 event, the festival's innovation team developed three distinct prototypes using world-model technology, which creates interactive digital environments. One of the most ambitious projects involves capturing live performances and rebuilding them as 3D environments. This allows fans to explore a past show as a living archive, replaying sets from different perspectives or with entirely new visuals generated in real time.
The festival is also looking out for artists and gamers with new digital platforms. They have created a stage-design tool that helps performers, especially those with smaller budgets, visualise their shows on 3D models of the Coachella stages under various lighting and crowd conditions. Additionally, a new mobile game called Coachella vs. The Game lets fans explore digital worlds inspired by the line-up before they even set foot on the grass. While these projects are currently internal proofs of concept, they build on the festival's history of using AR and blockchain technology to make the live music experience more immersive and accessible. Source
French law enforcement has indicted 88 individuals, including 10 minors, in a major crackdown on a series of violent crypto-related crimes known as wrench attacks. These incidents involve physical force, such as home invasions and kidnappings, to pressure victims into handing over their digital assets. Vanessa Perrée, the national prosecutor for organised crime, revealed that 75 of those charged are currently in pre-trial detention as investigators look into 12 specific cases. The authorities have noticed a worrying trend, with 47 attacks recorded already this year following a sharp rise throughout 2025.
The investigation has uncovered structured criminal networks, with some suspects linked to multiple violent incidents across the country. Prosecutors are warning crypto holders to be incredibly careful about what they share on social media, as broadcasting wealth online can make them easy targets for extortion. Interestingly, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has weighed in on the situation, suggesting that a leak of tax data by a former official might have helped criminals identify wealthy investors. As the global rate of these physical attacks continues to climb, French officials are working to dismantle the remaining parts of these gangs and track the flow of stolen funds. Source
Disclaimer: These articles are provided for informational purposes only, mistakes may be made, and they are not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other advice.
.png){kind=small}
to find the NewsFeed
