Key Takeaways

• Polymarket has formed a strategic alliance with Chainalysis for insider trading detection and prevention
• Federal authorities arrested a US military member for allegedly using secret intelligence to place bets on the platform
• The Senate approved new regulations prohibiting lawmakers from participating in prediction market trading
• The platform aims to secure $400 million in funding at a $15 billion company valuation while pursuing CFTC authorization for US operations
• Prediction market trading activity reached $25.7 billion in monthly volume during March 2026

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The decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket has formed a strategic collaboration with Chainalysis, a leading blockchain intelligence company, to strengthen its defenses against insider trading and fraudulent market activities. The partnership was officially revealed on Thursday.

Through this collaboration, Chainalysis will deliver advanced analytical capabilities to identify abnormal trading behaviors and generate blockchain-backed documentation for governmental and regulatory investigations.

“Polymarket has zero tolerance for insider trading, fraud, and market manipulation in any form. We are committed to identifying and removing bad actors from our platform,” the company declared in its official statement.

This strategic move follows multiple incidents where traders allegedly leveraged confidential information related to real-world developments to generate profits.

Recently, federal prosecutors charged an on-duty US Army servicemember with exploiting classified military intelligence to make profitable wagers on Polymarket prior to the apprehension of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro.

The partnership announcement coincides with Polymarket’s efforts to obtain $400 million in investment capital at a proposed $15 billion company valuation, as reported by The Information.

Intensifying Regulatory Environment

Simultaneously, the company is actively seeking regulatory clearance from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to restore full operations within the United States. Polymarket reached a settlement agreement with the CFTC in 2022 over accusations of providing unauthorized binary options trading products.

Subsequently, the platform purchased QCEX, a derivatives trading venue with CFTC registration, and introduced an American version of its marketplace last year.

This Thursday, the US Senate approved a modification to its Standing Rules that establishes an immediate prohibition on senators engaging in prediction market transactions.

Meanwhile, New York state authorities have initiated legal proceedings against Coinbase Financial Markets and Gemini Titan, alleging their prediction market offerings constitute illegal gambling activities under state legislation.

Trading Activity Continues Upward Trajectory

Despite mounting regulatory challenges, prediction market platforms have experienced explosive growth in user activity. Trading volumes climbed to $25.7 billion for the month of March 2026, according to joint research from Bitget Wallet and Polymarket.

Individual retail participants represent the primary force behind this expansion, with behavioral patterns shifting from sporadic wagering to sustained engagement.

A comprehensive academic investigation examining all Polymarket transactions spanning 2023 to 2025 revealed that merely 3.14% of user accounts demonstrated consistent profitability.

This elite segment, combined with professional market makers, accumulated over 30% of total platform profits despite representing less than 3.5% of all registered accounts.

Shayne Coplan, CEO of Polymarket, emphasized that the Chainalysis collaboration enhances the platform’s inherent blockchain transparency. “This alliance combines our transparent infrastructure with sophisticated monitoring and enforcement capabilities,” he stated.

Competing platform Kalshi has similarly implemented measures to prevent insider trading as both organizations compete for multi-billion dollar market valuations.

Crypto wallet startup Oobit has introduced a Visa-backed virtual card that allows AI agents to execute payments in USDT without human input.

According to Oobit, the new “Agent Cards” draw funds directly from Tether’s treasury, removing the need for fiat conversion or on-ramps when AI systems initiate transactions. 

The company said these cards enable automated spending across online services, including subscription renewals, advertising budgets, and cloud infrastructure provisioning triggered by pre-set workflows.

Oobit stated that each card is assigned to a single AI agent, ensuring a traceable identity and a clear audit trail across transactions. 

Spend limits and merchant-level restrictions are enforced within the transaction layer, which the company said keeps activity confined to approved parameters after businesses complete know-your-business compliance checks.

Integration with major AI frameworks allows the system to operate across commonly used tools. Oobit confirmed compatibility with solutions from OpenAI, Claude, AutoGen, and LangChain, enabling businesses to deploy agents that can act on operational instructions without manual oversight.

Oobit advisor Alex Obchakevich said in a post on X that these agents could also extend beyond payments to trading crypto and equities.

Oobit said the Agent Cards have been issued to a founding group of businesses, with onboarding set to expand gradually through June 30. Access remains restricted as the company evaluates usage and compliance requirements before a wider release.

Industry leaders have increasingly pointed to AI agents as future participants in digital payments. 

“There will be more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon,” said Brian Armstrong, while Jeremy Allaire added in January that “literally billions of AI agents” could be transacting on-chain within three to five years. 

Oobit said the next trillion internet users would be AI-driven systems.

Earlier developments show how the company has been linking crypto wallets to traditional payment networks. 

In January, Oobit added support for Phantom, connecting Solana-based assets to Visa’s infrastructure and allowing users to spend digital assets across more than 80 million merchants. The integration used its DePay system to settle payments directly from non-custodial wallets, converting crypto into fiat at checkout while merchants received local currency.

Key Highlights

• Real-world asset tokenization expanded by more than 420% between January 2025 and April 2026, reaching $30.2 billion
• US Treasury tokens dominated the sector, soaring from $3.9 billion to beyond $15 billion
• Gold-backed tokens generated $90.7 billion in spot trading volume during Q1 2026
• Europe’s MiCA regulation provided the clarity needed to attract traditional finance institutions
• Equity tokenization exploded from $2 million to approximately $487 million in market capitalization

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The market for tokenized real-world assets has experienced explosive expansion, climbing from $5.8 billion in early January 2025 to surpass $30.2 billion by late April 2026, data from analytics provider RWA.xyz reveals. This represents an increase exceeding 420% across approximately 16 months.

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The primary catalyst behind this remarkable expansion was tokenized US Treasury securities. This asset category surged from $3.9 billion to more than $15 billion, establishing itself as the dominant force within the tokenized asset ecosystem. Treasury tokens now represent over half of the sector’s entire market capitalization growth during this timeframe.

BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, commonly referred to as BUIDL, debuted in March 2024. The product provides institutional participants with blockchain-based exposure to short-duration US government securities. Fidelity entered the market in September 2025, introducing the Fidelity Digital Interest Token as its competing tokenized offering.

According to Dominick John, a research analyst at Zeus Research, tokenized Treasury products essentially transform blockchain infrastructure into a distribution mechanism for institutional money. He noted that capital flows have pivoted away from speculative positions toward yield-generating strategies.

Legislative developments have contributed significantly to this momentum. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation has facilitated the entry of conventional financial institutions into blockchain-based products. Zhong Yang Chan, head of research at CoinGecko, observed that tokenization activity has “noticeably accelerated” as pilot programs evolved into mainstream operational standards.

Gold Tokens Experience Dramatic Growth Amid Global Uncertainty

Tokenized commodity products have emerged as another high-performing segment. Their combined market capitalization reached $5.55 billion by the conclusion of Q1 2026, representing a 289% increase from $1.43 billion. Tether and Paxos gold-backed token products comprise 89.1% of this category.

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Spot trading activity for tokenized Gold products hit $90.7 billion throughout Q1 2026 alone. This quarterly figure exceeded the entire 2025 annual volume of $84.64 billion. Market observers attribute the dramatic increase to climbing Gold valuations sparked by international conflicts and expanded listing availability on major platforms including Binance.

Trading activity demonstrates significant variability. Volumes peaked above $21 billion during October 2025 when physical Gold prices reached all-time highs, before declining to approximately $14 billion in the subsequent month.

Equity and Fund Tokenization Shows Promise Despite Limited Scale

The tokenized stock market expanded from a modest $2 million valuation in mid-2025 to approach $487 million by the end of Q1 2026. Circle leads this category with $173 million, while Tesla holds $61.7 million, Nvidia commands $42.6 million, and Alphabet represents $36.9 million.

Notwithstanding this substantial percentage growth, tokenized equity trading activity continues to represent under 1% of conventional financial market volumes.

Tokenized exchange-traded fund products climbed to nearly $300 million by Q1 2026’s close, up sharply from merely $620,000 in July 2025.

John from Zeus Research indicated that continued expansion will hinge on whether tokenized equity products, investment funds, and private credit instruments can achieve meaningful scale. ARK Invest forecasts that the broader digital asset market could expand to $28 trillion by 2030.

Bitcoin could be setting up for a multimonth price decline, after a rally in April driven mainly by futures traders while spot demand declined, according to the crypto analytics firm CryptoQuant.

Bitcoin gained around 20% in April, rising from $66,000 to a peak of $79,000 in a rally “driven entirely by growth in perpetual futures demand,” CryptoQuant said in a report on Thursday. 

Meanwhile, spot demand for Bitcoin contracted throughout the rally, “indicating that the market’s marginal buyer was speculative, not fundamental,” it said.

“The divergence between rising price and contracting spot demand is one of the clearest on-chain signals that price gains are speculative rather than structural,” CryptoQuant added.

Bitcoin is trading around $77,000 at the time of writing, rising 2.1% over the past 24 hours. CryptoQuant said Bitcoin’s correction from $79,000 last month is consistent with rallies led only by strong futures demand.

Current demand for Bitcoin mirrors a pattern at the start of the 2022 bear market, when futures demand surged while spot demand dropped, a setup that “ultimately preceded a sustained price decline.”

Source: CryptoQuant

Related: Bitcoin price hits one-week low as $100 oil sparks fresh Asia crisis fears

“History suggests this setup carries meaningful downside risk as Bitcoin remains in a bear market regime,” CryptoQuant said.

The report is in contrast with a note on Tuesday from Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan, which said the Bitcoin treasury company Strategy has been the “single biggest factor” in Bitcoin’s recent rally.

“There have been multiple drivers of the recent rally, including strong buying from ETFs [exchange-traded funds], $3.8 billion since March 1, and renewed purchases by long-term holders. But Strategy has been the single biggest factor,” Hougan argued.

CryptoQuant added that its Bull Score Index, which analyzes market and network activity to gauge market sentiment on a scale of 100, fell from 50 to 40 in April despite the price increase.

“The Bull Score returning back to 40 indicates conditions are ‘getting bearish’ and places the market in the same range that historically preceded continued price weakness,” CryptoQuant said.

Magazine: Bitcoin will not hit $1M by 2030, says veteran trader Peter Brandt

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Strategy (MSTR), the largest publicly traded bitcoin BTC$76,987.97 holder, has maintained an 11.5% dividend rate for May on its perpetual preferred stock, Stretch (STRC), marking a third consecutive month at that dividend rate.

The volume weighted average price (VWAP) during April came in at $99.76, which was close enough to its $100 par value to justify holding the rate unchanged.

STRC has seen a series of increases since listing in July 2025 with a 9% dividend as the company aims to reduce volatility and keep the price anchored near its $100 par value.

Strategy markets STRC as a short-duration, high-yield savings alternative, paying monthly cash distributions.

STRC is currently trading at $99.75 and has remained below par since April 15. Based on historical patterns, a return to $100 for STRC is expected next week.

MSTR common stock has also shown signs of recovery, closing April at $165, up 33%, its first positive month in nine.

The stock fell fell 75% across eight consecutive losing months from August 2025 to March 2026, according to TradingView data.

Bitcoin also rose 12% in April, its best monthly performance since April 2025.

In addition, Strategy is considering a shift to semi-monthly dividend payments for STRC, moving away from its current monthly distribution structure to further reduce volatility.

Read More: Why Michael Saylor’s Strategy decided to make STRC’s dividend bi-monthly

A South Korean court overturned Bithumb’s six-month partial business suspension Thursday, according to Yonhap News.

The news agency cited legal sources, saying that the 2nd Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court’s Judge Gong Hyeon-jin had accepted Bithumb’s application for a stay of execution on the same day it was presented. There was no clarification on whether a 36.8 billion won ($24.6 million) fine was also suspended. South Korea’s financial watchdog imposed the fine and suspension in March, alleging massive violations of local anti-money laundering rules.

Bithumb, one of South Korea’s largest crypto exchanges, filed a request with the court requesting it end the suspension and fine imposed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in March along after the regulator said it discovered the exchange had committed millions of violations of the country’s anti-money laundering rules.

The sanctions stemmed from violations of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, the Financial Services Commission said in March.

The FIU said Bithumb committed about 6.65 million violations, of which 3.55 million involved failures to carry out required customer identity verification, while 3.04 million were related to cases where the exchange failed to properly block transactions that should have been blocked.

While the court ruling ending the suspension is good news for the exchange, it follows reports that South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission has initiated a probe into Upbit, Bithumb and other platforms regarding the sharing of order books with overseas platforms.

The case against Bithumb is part of South Korean regulators’ increased oversight of the cryptocurrency market. In 2025, the FIU handed Dunamu, the operator of the country’s largest exchange, Upbit, a three-month partial suspension and a 35.2 billion won fine for compliance gaps. Korbit, a rival platform, faced a smaller penalty of 2.73 billion won along with institutional warnings.

Bithumb was established in 2014 and currently ranks among the largest exchanges in South Korea by trading volume, according to CoinGecko data. The end of the suspension comes two months after Bithumb mistakenly distributed billions of dollars worth of bitcoin to users.

Latin American users have increased their reliance on stablecoins, with dollar-pegged tokens now accounting for a larger share of crypto purchases than Bitcoin.

According to Bitso’s 2025 crypto adoption report, 40% of purchases on its platform involved U.S. dollar-linked stablecoins such as Tether’s USDt and Circle’s USDC, while Bitcoin accounted for 18%, the first time stablecoins have overtaken the asset in the region. The exchange based its findings on activity from nearly 10 million retail users across Latin America.

Bitso said the pattern points to rising demand for what it described as “digital dollarization,” as users in inflation-prone economies seek alternatives to weakening local currencies.

Countries dealing with persistent price instability and limited access to banking services have seen users turn to stablecoins to store value, make payments, and send remittances tied to the U.S. dollar.

While the U.S. dollar itself faces inflation, Bitso noted it remains comparatively more stable than many regional currencies and continues to serve as a dominant unit of exchange, making dollar-pegged assets attractive for daily financial use.

Growth in global supply has supported that trend, with the stablecoin market reaching roughly $320 billion, expanding across both emerging and developed markets. Regional use cases continue to centre on payments and cross-border transfers, where access to dollar liquidity often remains restricted through traditional channels.

Developments in local markets have followed. As previously reported by crypto.news, Mercado Libre introduced a cross-border remittance product in early April using its Meli dollar stablecoin across Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. The rollout came after the company discontinued its earlier Mercado Coin issuance this year.

Bitso’s report said Bitcoin still holds a central position in portfolios despite reduced purchase share, with the asset present in 52% of holdings in 2025, compared with 53% a year earlier. The exchange described Bitcoin as the region’s primary long-term digital store of value, even as short-term buying activity has tilted toward stablecoins.

Price movements over the past year have reinforced its mixed profile, with Bitcoin rising above $126,000 in October before retreating to levels in the low $60,000 range.

Research from MarketVector highlighted characteristics such as fixed supply, decentralised structure, and resistance to changes in issuance, placing Bitcoin alongside gold in long-term value-preservation frameworks.

Key Takeaways

• Data from DeFi Llama confirms April 2026 set a record for the highest number of cryptocurrency hacking incidents in a single month
• Security analysts documented over 24 separate breaches resulting in combined losses exceeding $600 million
• Kelp DAO suffered the month’s most devastating attack, losing $292 million in the exploit
• Drift Protocol experienced the second-largest breach at over $280 million, later revealed to be a sophisticated six-month intelligence operation
• Security researchers discovered an active exploit on April 30 targeting inactive Ethereum wallets

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The cryptocurrency industry experienced its darkest chapter in April 2026, setting an unprecedented record for the volume of security breaches. While the total dollar amount stolen didn’t surpass previous record-setting months, the frequency of attacks reached historic levels. Data analytics platform DeFi Llama documented that exploit incidents comfortably exceeded 20 for the first time in cryptocurrency history.

April Crypto Hacks Hit Record High, Exploit Losses Reach 651 Million Dollars

According to DefiLlama, April saw the highest number of crypto hacking incidents on record. CertiK Alert reported that confirmed losses from exploits totaled about $651 million in April, including… pic.twitter.com/rydZC5vVu2

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 1, 2026

Industry analyst Stacy Muur identified a minimum of 24 distinct security incidents by month’s end, calculating aggregate losses surpassing $600 million.

The month’s most catastrophic breach targeted Kelp DAO, a decentralized finance platform, resulting in $292 million in stolen assets. This massive exploit raised alarm bells regarding potential bad debt exposure at Aave, considered one of the DeFi ecosystem’s most prominent lending protocols. Multiple entities mobilized with emergency funding and contributions to address the deficit.

Drift Protocol, a perpetuals trading platform built on Solana, experienced the month’s second-most damaging attack with losses exceeding $280 million. Drift’s team later clarified that the breach wasn’t a conventional smart contract vulnerability. They characterized it as a “structured intelligence operation” that attackers had carefully orchestrated over approximately half a year.

Human-Targeted Attacks Overtake Technical Exploits

The attack methodologies employed throughout April have become a focal point for security analysts. A crypto observer using the handle CuriousCrypto on X highlighted that neither Drift nor Kelp DAO fell victim to coding flaws or smart contract vulnerabilities. Rather, malicious actors leveraged social engineering tactics to compromise individuals holding administrative key access.

This represents a critical shift in attack patterns. Enhanced code auditing procedures and technical security measures would have proven ineffective against these human-focused attack vectors.

Hyperbridge, a protocol native to the Polkadot ecosystem, also fell victim to attackers in April, losing $2.5 million. The perpetrator initially extracted roughly 245 ETH before deploying a fabricated cross-chain message to circumvent a critical security validation. This manipulation enabled them to create approximately one billion bridged DOT tokens, which were subsequently liquidated on exchanges.

Long-Dormant Ethereum Wallets Targeted in Mass Drain

Blockchain security analyst Wazz raised the alarm on April 30 regarding what appeared to be an ongoing exploit targeting Ethereum’s mainnet. Hundreds of wallet addresses, many dormant for more than seven years, were systematically emptied by a single attacker address within a compressed timeframe.

Wazz characterized the situation as a “new live exploit, worth flagging,” while acknowledging that comprehensive details remained unverified at that time.

The notorious Lazarus Group, a cybercrime organization with ties to North Korea, was reportedly responsible for approximately 95% of April’s cumulative financial losses, per security reports. This collective had been previously implicated in the massive $1.4 billion Bybit compromise that occurred in February 2025.

While DeFi Llama’s historical data shows three separate months where cryptocurrency losses exceeded $1 billion in total value, April 2026’s significance lies in the unprecedented quantity of individual attacks rather than aggregate dollar amounts.

On April 30, the Arbitrum DAO initiated a governance vote to authorize the release of 30,766 frozen ETH to DeFi United, an action directly related to addressing consequences stemming from the Kelp DAO incident.