*** NOT FOR PUBLICATION – EMBARGOED TILL 5AM ET APRIL 30 ****

XO Market is betting that the future of prediction markets won’t be dictated by centralized teams deciding what people can trade on, but by users themselves.

The startup, which just closed a $6 million seed round led by 20VC, Picus Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Venture Together and a group of angels including Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins, is positioning itself as the “YouTube of prediction markets,” according to co-founder Ali Habbabeh.

“Today’s major platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket act more like Netflix,” Habbabeh told CoinDesk in an interview. “They decide what markets exist. We’ve flipped that model entirely. On XO, users create the markets themselves.”

The distinction is critical. While incumbents rely on internal teams to curate and list prediction markets, XO allows individuals or companies to spin up their own markets, set parameters and fees, and let others trade on them. The result, Habbabeh said, is a broader, and often more creative, set of opportunities.

“We believe the future of prediction markets is user-generated. The best markets aren’t decided by a platform, they emerge from the community.”

Mainnet beta launch

The model appears to be gaining traction. Since starting its mainnet beta in mid-November, XO has generated more than $150 million in trading volume, attracted over 30,000 users and seen more than 600 user-created markets. An earlier pilot began in April 2025 with a testnet rollout.

“The metrics look strong because the incentives are aligned,” Habbabeh said. “If you create a compelling market, people trade on it. If you don’t, it dies naturally.”

That “natural selection” dynamic may be a double-edged sword. Even Habbabeh points out that competing user-generated platforms like Nine Lives and Warm Protocol struggled to convert the concept into meaningful liquidity, resulting in inactive markets or minimal trading activity.

It is unlikely that Polymarket or Kalshi will offer user-generated markets, according to Habbabeh, because they would need to find market makers willing to provide liquidity for thousands of different events and would have to alter their infrastructure. Their current models are also extremely profitable, he added.

Prediction markets are gaining traction beyond their niche origins, drawing increased interest from retail traders and institutional participants alike as a new venue for pricing uncertainty. Advances in digital-asset infrastructure have lowered barriers to entry, while a series of high-profile political and economic events has underscored the limitations of traditional forecasting tools.

The result is a growing number of platforms where contracts tied to real-world outcomes are traded with increasing liquidity, positioning prediction markets as an emerging, and lightly regulated, complement to conventional financial markets.

Total industry volume jumped roughly fourfold to more than $60 billion in 2025, up from about $15 billion–$16 billion the year before, with platforms like Polymarket driving much of that growth.

On Polymarket specifically, monthly trading exploded from just $54 million at the start of 2024 to over $2.6 billion the following November, helping push cumulative volume past $9 billion in a single year.

XO Vaults

Alongside its core platform, XO is preparing a new product aimed at “democratizing” another key part of the ecosystem: market making.

The forthcoming “XO Vaults” will allow users to pool capital into strategies that provide liquidity across prediction markets, something traditionally dominated by professional firms.

“On platforms like Kalshi or Polymarket, liquidity is controlled by a handful of large market makers,” Habbabeh said. “With XO Vaults, anyone can become a market maker.”

Users will be able to create vaults tied to specific strategies or categories, such as sports or politics, and earn fees by supplying liquidity. Others can invest in those vaults, effectively gaining exposure to market-making returns without actively trading.

“It’s similar to copy trading, but for liquidity provision,” Habbabeh said. “We’re targeting yields of around 8% to 10% annually based on what market makers typically earn.”

The product, expected to debut within weeks, could introduce a new yield primitive in decentralized finance, blending prediction markets with passive income strategies.

“Not everyone wants to bet on outcomes,” Habbabeh said. “Some people just want to earn from the activity around those markets.”

Parlays

The XO team is also developing a feature it says could reshape how parlays work in prediction markets.

“It’s not your typical copy-paste of sportsbook parlays into prediction markets,” said Habbabeh.

The feature, tentatively named “XO Stories,” aims to give users more creative control by linking multiple outcomes beyond traditional parlays. Though details remain limited, the team says pricing will be dynamic, offering a new take on prediction markets.

Built on XO Vaults, the system is meant to support complex, multi-outcome structures without simply aggregating existing trades. Habbabeh shared few details, but suggested it could reshape how users think about and use parlays.

The best content comes from users

Despite increased regulatory scrutiny around prediction markets, particularly in the U.S., Habbabeh said he believes XO’s onchain, permissionless design could offer advantages.

“Everything on XO is transparent and onchain,” he said. “That puts us in a different category compared to more centralized platforms.”

For now, the focus remains on growth and product expansion.

As XO builds out its ecosystem, Habbabeh is confident the user-generated model will continue to differentiate it.

“The internet showed us that the best content doesn’t come from centralized studios, it comes from users,” he said. “We think prediction markets will follow the same path.”

Read more: AI agents are quietly rewriting prediction market trading

US Senator Thom Tillis says he will push the Senate Banking Committee to advance the stalled crypto market structure bill, as the text of the bill has made progress and is ready for another vote.

Tillis, a key Senate Banking Republican, told reporters on Wednesday that he would ask Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott “to move forward with scheduling a markup” when the Senate is back in session on May 11.

“I think that we’ve made a lot of progress,” Tillis said. “But at the end of the day, until you have a forcing mechanism of a markup, everybody that really doesn’t want it done is going to have one more thing that they want to talk about, and I think it’s time to get it before the committee, move it forward.”

The Senate’s crypto market structure bill would lay out how the US’s two most influential financial market regulators would oversee crypto. The House passed its version of the bill, the CLARITY Act, in July, but the Senate’s version has been plagued by delays as lawmakers and lobbyists have sought to edit provisions.

Thom Tillis holding a press gaggle with reporters on Wednesday. Source: Chase Williams

The Senate Banking Committee delayed the bill’s markup in January after major crypto lobbyist Coinbase pulled its support over a provision banning crypto exchanges from paying stablecoin yields.

Banking lobbyists have fought to keep the provision in the legislation, arguing that banning third parties from paying stablecoin yields closes a perceived loophole in the GENIUS Act, which prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying yield.

“I believe we’ve heard the concerns [and] addressed a lot of the concerns of the bank,” Tillis said. “There may be a few more that we can get there if they want to come and work in good faith; otherwise, I’m going to encourage the chair to move forward with the markup.”

Related: Key US senator lifts block on Trump’s Fed pick Kevin Warsh

Tillis added that he hoped to publicly release the legislative text at least four days before the markup, after crypto and banking stakeholders are given a preview.

Other provisions at issue in the bill, which senators have worked to resolve, concern ethics and protecting software developers.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that Tillis said the crypto bill would “need to address the law enforcement concerns” around a provision that would protect crypto software developers from prosecution if others commit illegal activity on their platforms.

Tillis told reporters on Wednesday that he was “generally in support” of the progress Senator Cynthia Lummis had made on the provision.

On Monday, Tillis backed a demand popular among Senate Banking Democrats, saying he wouldn’t support the bill unless it included ethics provisions limiting how government officials can use and promote crypto.

“There has to be ethics language in the bill before it leaves the Senate, or I’ll go from one of the people working on negotiating it to voting against it,” Tillis said.

Magazine: Will the CLARITY Act be good — or bad — for DeFi?

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.

Quick Summary

• Meta exceeded Q1 2026 profit forecasts, reporting EPS of $10.44 compared to analyst estimates of $6.67
• Quarterly revenue reached $56.3 billion, representing a 33% year-over-year increase
• 2026 capital expenditure forecast elevated to $125B–$145B range from prior $115B–$135B outlook
• Shares declined approximately 8% during premarket hours following the earnings announcement
• The company executed zero share buybacks this quarter, contrasting with nearly $13B in repurchases last year

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Meta Platforms delivered impressive first-quarter results, yet investors responded with a selloff. Shares tumbled roughly 8% in Thursday’s premarket session after the social media giant announced an upward revision to its annual capital spending forecast.

Meta Platforms, Inc., META

The financial results themselves were undeniably robust. Meta reported earnings of $10.44 per share alongside revenue totaling $56.31 billion. Analyst consensus had projected $6.65 earnings per share on $55.52 billion in sales. The top line represented a 33% surge versus the year-ago period.

One important caveat: the earnings figure received a substantial lift from an $8.03 billion tax benefit. Excluding this one-time gain, adjusted earnings per share lands at $7.31—still comfortably above forecasts, but representing a more modest beat than the headline figure suggests.

The primary concern driving the stock decline centered on capital expenditure projections. Meta increased its 2026 spending outlook to a bracket of $125 billion to $145 billion, elevated from the previously communicated $115 billion to $135 billion range. The new midpoint of $135 billion represents a $10 billion jump from the prior forecast.

Management attributed the spending increase to rising costs for hardware components and expanded data center infrastructure. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Meta had been extending the operational lifespan of certain server hardware due to memory chip supply constraints.

Rising Investments Compress Cash Generation

The accelerated spending trajectory is creating pressure on free cash flow generation. Additionally, Meta abstained from any stock repurchase activity during the quarter. This marks a significant departure from typical behavior—the company allocated nearly $13 billion toward buybacks throughout 2025.

Truist Securities analyst Youssef Squali noted that Meta “continues to earn the right to invest as long as it delivers faster top line growth for longer near-term and higher free cash flows long-term.”

Regarding user metrics, Meta’s family of applications recorded an average of 3.56 billion daily active users during March, reflecting 4% annual growth. The figure experienced a modest sequential decline, which Meta explained was due to internet connectivity issues in Iran and limited WhatsApp availability in Russia.

Advertising metrics delivered encouraging trends. Meta increased ad impressions by 19% while simultaneously achieving 12% higher average prices per ad. This dual improvement underscores the effectiveness of its AI-powered engagement algorithms and targeting capabilities.

CEO Commentary

Mark Zuckerberg characterized the period as a “milestone quarter,” highlighting robust engagement across applications and the debut of the initial model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Full-year operating expense guidance remains unchanged at $162 billion to $169 billion. Looking to Q2 2026, Meta projected revenue between $58 billion and $61 billion—with the midpoint of $59.5 billion trailing slightly behind Wall Street’s $59.6 billion consensus estimate.

Meta also acknowledged continuing legal and regulatory challenges across both European Union and United States jurisdictions as potential obstacles to business operations and financial performance.

The second-quarter revenue guidance midpoint of $59.5 billion falls marginally short of analyst expectations.

Ripple has expanded its presence in the UAE by opening a new Middle East and Africa headquarters in Dubai, increasing its capacity to grow its regional operations.

According to Ripple, the office is based in the Dubai International Financial Centre and is intended to support rising demand for regulated blockchain payment and custody services across the region.

Ripple said the new facility provides space to double the size of its regional team as it scales support for clients and partners across the Middle East and Africa. 

The company stated that its presence in Dubai dates back to 2020, with the region now accounting for a significant share of its global customer base, including institutions such as Zand Bank, Ctrl Alt, Garanti BBVA, Absa Bank, and Chipper Cash. 

“In recent years the Middle East has become an increasingly vital driver of Ripple’s global growth. From our earliest days in the UAE, we have seen first-hand the appetite from local businesses for regulated, blockchain-powered payment infrastructure, an appetite that is only growing,” said Reece Merrick, Managing Director for Middle East and Africa at Ripple.

Dubai officials have positioned Ripple’s expansion as evidence of growing institutional confidence in the emirate’s digital asset framework. 

“Ripple’s expansion within DIFC is a strong signal of the confidence that world-leading digital asset firms have in Dubai as a global hub for blockchain technology,” said His Excellency Arif Amiri, Chief Executive Officer of the DIFC Authority, adding that the company has operated with “ambition and accountability” while connecting institutions to regulated and scalable financial infrastructure.

Ripple’s regional growth has been supported by regulatory approvals tied to its operations in Dubai. The company stated it became the first blockchain payments provider to receive a full license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority in March 2025, allowing it to offer regulated cross-border digital payment services from within DIFC. 

Ripple also confirmed that RLUSD, its dollar-backed stablecoin, has been approved by the DFSA as a recognised crypto token, enabling regulated firms within DIFC to use the asset.

Ripple said the expansion will allow it to deepen support for clients and partners across the Middle East and Africa as adoption of regulated blockchain infrastructure continues to grow. The company added that a larger Dubai-based team will help extend its reach in the region while building on existing relationships with financial institutions already using its services.

XRP traders are showing stronger risk appetite on Binance as funding rates move higher. The shift comes as large holders continue to buy the dip, even as XRP trades below its recent April high.

CryptoQuant analyst Arab Chain said XRP’s 30-day average funding rate on Binance has reached 0.0002. This marks its highest level since early February.

Funding rates had stayed negative for months and fell as low as -0.0007. That period showed stronger short positioning and weaker confidence among derivatives traders.

Long positions gain momentum

The move into positive territory suggests more traders are opening long positions. The 30-day moving average also helps filter short-term market noise.

Arab Chain said the rise may show a broader change in trader behavior. It could point to early accumulation or continued upside momentum if demand holds.

XRP whales have also increased their holdings during the recent price pullback. Wallets holding 10 million to 100 million XRP bought 420 million tokens.

Addresses holding at least 1 billion XRP added another 730 million XRP. Together, these groups acquired 1.15 billion XRP in 11 days.

XRP price remains under pressure

According to crypto.news data, XRP traded at $1.37 at the time of reporting. The token fell 1.22% in 24 hours and 3.66% over the past week.

The price has also corrected nearly 10% from its April 17 peak of $1.51. XRP’s market cap stood at about $84.42 billion, with 62 billion tokens in circulation.

Santiment also reported that XRP has reached its second-highest bullish social sentiment in two years. The firm linked part of the rise to Rakuten’s XRP integration in Japan.

However, Santiment said adoption news does not often trigger instant price breakouts. It noted that market moves may appear after the first wave of excitement cools.

TLDR:

• Ethereum taker buy volume surpassed $1B on Binance within one hour after ETH dropped below $2,300.
  
• OKX recorded nearly $20M in ETH buying flows in the same one-hour window following the price decline.
  
• The Federal Reserve held interest rates unchanged at 3.5%–3.75% and flagged rising short-term inflation risks.
  
• ETH was trading at $2,256.46, reflecting a 3.01% drop in 24 hours and a 3.77% decline over seven days.

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Ethereum recorded a sharp surge in buying activity as prices fell below the $2,300 mark. Within a single hour, taker buy volume on Binance crossed $1 billion. A comparable reaction was also logged on OKX, where nearly $20 million in buying flows were recorded.

This buying wave came even as the Federal Reserve held interest rates unchanged. At the time of writing, ETH was changing hands at $2,256.46.

Traders Step In as ETH Falls Below Key Price Zone

Ethereum had previously rebounded above $2,450 before pulling back by roughly 10%. The drop below $2,300 triggered a wave of aggressive long positions from active traders.

This price level appeared to draw buyers who viewed the pullback as a short-term entry point. The response was fast, with large volume recorded within a single hour across major platforms.

Crypto analyst Darkfost drew attention to the buying activity, noting that taker buy volume surged above $1B on Binance alone. Nearly $20M in buying flows were also recorded on OKX over the same period.

According to Darkfost, some investors aggressively stepped in on the long side at these price levels. The move reflected renewed short-term interest in ETH among active market participants.

At the time of writing, Ethereum was down 3.01% over the past 24 hours. Over the prior seven days, the asset had declined by 3.77%.

Despite recent price weakness, the buying response showed traders remained engaged at lower levels. The 24-hour trading volume stood at over $19.4 billion.

Ethereum remains within a broader range structure, with no confirmed breakout in either direction. The pullback from $2,450 kept the asset in a zone closely watched by traders.

Market participants continued to monitor buy and sell pressure at current levels. Any sustained increase in volume could influence the next directional move for ETH.

Fed’s Rate Decision Adds Pressure on Broader Risk Assets

The Federal Reserve held interest rates unchanged within the 3.5% to 3.75% range at its latest meeting. The central bank also noted that short-term inflation could rise again, partly due to higher energy prices.

Many market observers read this tone as relatively hawkish. Risk assets, including cryptocurrencies, often face headwinds when the Fed signals a cautious policy outlook.

However, some traders appeared undeterred by the Fed’s messaging on Wednesday. The buying surge in Ethereum came directly after the rate decision was announced.

A portion of the market still held a constructive short-term view on ETH despite the macro backdrop. This reaction stood in contrast to the broader caution introduced by the Fed’s statement.

ETH trading at $2,256.46 reflected a market navigating mixed signals from both monetary policy and on-chain demand. Traders continued to watch the $2,300 level as a key reference zone.

A reclaim of that level could shift near-term sentiment back toward buyers. Until then, the range-bound structure is likely to remain in place.

The broader context of rising energy prices and a cautious Fed adds uncertainty to crypto markets in the near term.

Nevertheless, the buying volume data shows that institutional and retail appetite for ETH persists at lower price levels.

How the market responds to the next macro catalyst will likely determine whether this buying pressure holds. For now, the $2,300 zone remains the focal point for traders watching ETH closely.