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Kalshi faces Nevada setback as judge rejects defense

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U.S. court freezes 70 BTC in Blockfills dispute as investor sues over locked funds

A Nevada court has moved to keep Kalshi out of the state’s event-contract market while the legal fight continues. 

Summary

  • Nevada judge backed regulators and said Kalshi’s event contracts are no different from sports betting.
  • The ruling extends Kalshi’s Nevada ban while the court reviews longer-term restrictions through April 17.
  • The case deepens the clash between state gambling laws and federal oversight claims over prediction markets.

The ruling came after the Nevada Gaming Control Board asked the court to block the company from offering contracts tied to sports, elections, and entertainment outcomes.

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The case adds to a wider debate over whether prediction market contracts fall under federal derivatives law or state gambling rules. Kalshi has said its products are financial contracts, while Nevada regulators have argued that the offerings match gambling activity under state law.

Judge Jason Woodbury said he would grant a preliminary injunction against Kalshi at a hearing in Carson City. According to Reuters, the order prevents the company from allowing Nevada residents to trade event contracts without a gaming license.

The move extends a temporary restraining order issued on March 20. That order will stay in effect through April 17 while the court completes the next steps in the case.

Kalshi had argued that its contracts are “swaps” and fall under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The company has maintained that federal law gives the CFTC authority over these products.

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The judge did not accept that position. Reuters reported that Woodbury said buying a contract tied to a game result is the same as placing a wager through a sportsbook. He said, “No matter how you slice it, that conduct is indistinguishable.”

State regulators score early court win

The ruling marks the first time a state has secured a court-enforced ban that is currently active against Kalshi. That gives Nevada an early legal win as more states question prediction markets tied to sports and similar events.

Utah has also moved against the sector. Lawmakers there passed a bill last month that classifies proposition-style bets on in-game events as gambling and seeks to block such products from platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket.

The dispute also comes as the CFTC continues to defend its role in prediction markets. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said last month that the agency is ready to fight in court to protect its jurisdiction from states and other regulators.

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Selig also described prediction markets as “truth machines” during an industry conference. He said markets where users risk money on outcomes can offer a clearer signal about future events than opinion polls, setting up a sharper clash between federal oversight claims and state gaming laws.

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Crypto World

Bitcoin tends to outperform gold and stocks after global shocks, Mercado Bitcoin finds

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(Mercado Bitcoin)

Bitcoin tends to outperform traditional safe haven assets like gold in the two months following major global crises, according to new analysis from Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin.

The study, led by Rony Szuster, head of research at the Latin American crypto platform, examined 60-day windows after economic or geopolitical shocks such as the COVID-19 outbreak and U.S. tariff escalations. Bitcoin posted stronger returns than both gold and the S&P 500 in each of the periods analyzed.

In April last year, after the Trump administration announced sweeping tariffs, the price of bitcoin jumped 24% over the following 60 days. Gold rose 8%, and the S&P 500 gained 4%, the firm found.

A similar pattern emerged at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, when BTC rose 21%, while the other assets trailed.

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(Mercado Bitcoin)

Szuster cautioned that judging bitcoin’s performance too soon after a crisis can be misleading.

“It’s like watching the first few minutes of a movie and thinking you already know how it ends,” he said. “In moments like this, investors sell positions to reduce risk or raise cash, and even defensive assets can fall.”

That happens as investors scramble for liquidity, yet bitcoin has consistently bounced back, the firm found. The pattern appears to be repeating in the current U.S.-Iran conflict, where bitcoin is the only one of the three assets in positive territory so far, according to Szuster.

Data backs this up. Since the war started, bitcoin has risen by more than 2.2%, from around $65,800 to $67,300 at the time of writing. Gold, the traditional safe haven, has meanwhile dropped around 11%, while the S&P lost 4.4% of its value in the index’s steepest monthly drop since 2022.

Despite its volatility, bitcoin was the best-performing asset over the past decade, he added.

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Read more: Bitcoin’s recent crash to $60,000 warned stocks first – now they’re following

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ProductionReady’s Jimmy Song Pitches Case for Conservative Bitcoin Software

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Decentralization, Nodes, Bitcoin Adoption

The Bitcoin (BTC) network needs a “conservative” Bitcoin client node software implementation to preserve its monetary properties and strengthen network decentralization, according to Jimmy Song, co-founder of ProductionReady, a non-profit organization funding open source Bitcoin node software development and education.

The organization has a “bias” against significant code changes, unless there is “overwhelming” community support for the change, Song told Cointelegraph.

“The general principle is: if you’re not sure a change makes the money better, don’t make it,” he said. 

Decentralization, Nodes, Bitcoin Adoption
The number of Bitcoin nodes, broken down by software implementation, between 2016 and 2026. Source: Coin Dance

ProductionReady expects to restore the 83-byte OP_Return data limit for arbitrary, non-monetary information in Bitcoin transactions, he said, adding that keeping node storage costs down by limiting arbitrary data is essential to network decentralization. He said:

“The more self-sovereign Bitcoin users are, the more decentralized and resilient the network becomes. That means keeping the cost of running a node low enough for ordinary people to do it. 

“When storage and bandwidth requirements grow, fewer people verify for themselves, and the network centralizes by default. A conservative client takes that tradeoff seriously,” Song continued.

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Maximizing nodes and making them accessible to the average user hardens the Bitcoin network, reducing the chances of cheating by submitting false transactions or a few actors colluding to centralize the network. 

Decentralization, Nodes, Bitcoin Adoption
Bitcoin Core continues to be the software of choice for node runners, with 77.8% of the network running some version of the Core software and 21.8% running Bitcoin Knots. Source: Coin Dance

Related: 72% of subsea cables would need to fail to impact Bitcoin, study shows

Bitcoin Core 30 removes the OP_Return data limit, sparking major pushback

Node storage and onchain spam became hot-button topics in 2025 after Bitcoin Core developers unilaterally changed the 83-Byte data limit in Bitcoin Core version 30, the latest major upgrade to the reference implementation for Bitcoin node software.

The limit was changed to 100,000 bytes despite significant pushback from the Bitcoin community. For context, the proposal to change the limit received about 4 times as many downvotes as it did upvotes, according to the proposal’s GitHub pull request page.

Bitcoin Core 30 went live in October 2025, triggering a historic surge in the number of Bitcoin nodes running Bitcoin Knots, an alternative implementation of the node client software.

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Decentralization, Nodes, Bitcoin Adoption
The number of nodes running Bitcoin Knots surged to record highs in 2025, following the release of Bitcoin Core 30. Source: Coin Dance

There are 4,746 Bitcoin Knots nodes, representing over 21.7% of nodes on the network, according to Coin Dance.

Only about 1% of the network was running the Knots software in 2024 before the decision to remove the OP_Return function was announced.

Magazine: Bitcoin may face hard fork over any attempt to freeze Satoshi’s coins