Pantera Capital founder and CEO Dan Morehead said cryptocurrency markets may be undervalued compared with artificial intelligence stocks, which he described as overheated after a strong run.

Morehead framed the divergence as one of the largest he has seen between the two sectors, speaking at an event in New York on Tuesday.

“It’s just my intuition that although AI is very important, it’s going to go up big time over the long haul, seems to be pretty fully priced right now,” he said.

By contrast, “crypto…is incredibly cheap,” according to Morehead.

Pantera’s internal data backs that view. Morehead said an index of leading AI companies is “trading at 33% over its log trend of the last four years,” while bitcoin BTC$76,222.93 has fallen well below its own historical trajectory. “It’s 43% cheap to its trend,” he said, calling it “the biggest divergence we’ve seen in history.”

The gap comes as investor enthusiasm has tilted heavily toward AI, with large funding rounds and rising public market valuations. Crypto, meanwhile, has struggled to regain momentum despite broader adoption and regulatory progress in the U.S.

“The majority of institutions still don’t get it. They still don’t have any exposure,” Morehead said, adding that limited participation leaves room for future demand. Only a minority of large investors currently hold digital assets, he noted, even as the asset class matures.

That dynamic contrasts with AI, where investors have moved quickly to price in expected growth. For Morehead, the imbalance creates an opportunity for those willing to take a longer view.

He also pointed to structural cycles in crypto markets. “The four-year cycle is real,” he said, referring to bitcoin’s supply schedule. If past patterns hold, he suggested the market could remain in a weaker phase in the near term, even as the long-term outlook stays positive.

Beyond relative valuations, Morehead tied crypto’s appeal to broader macro trends. He described digital assets as a hedge against currency debasement, noting that inflation and monetary expansion have pushed investors toward scarce assets. “It’s actually all those things aren’t moving. It’s a massive devaluation of paper money,” he said.

Morehead sees convergence between AI and blockchain technologies. Pantera has invested in several projects at that intersection, and Morehead argued the two sectors are linked. “There’s really no world in which AI is important that crypto isn’t part of it,” he said.

Pantera views crypto as a relative value trade for now As capital continues to flow into AI, Morehead’s thesis rests on the idea that markets will eventually rebalance, drawing attention back to digital assets that remain, in his view, underpriced.

Visa (V) is expanding its stablecoin push by adding support for five more blockchains as it leans into a multichain approach to global payments.

The payments giant said Wednesday its stablecoin settlement pilot now spans nine networks and has reached a $7 billion annualized run rate, up 50% from the prior quarter. The program lets issuers and acquirers settle transactions using stablecoins instead of traditional banking rails.

The newly supported blockchains are Coinbase’s Base, Polygon, Canton Network, Circle’s Arc and Stripe-backed Tempo, joining existing integrations with Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Stellar.

Visa’s move comes as stablecoins — cryptocurrencies with prices tied to fiat money — are gaining ground as a way to move money across borders. Visa has been testing that model through pilots and regional rollouts, including USDC settlement tied to card programs in more than 50 countries.

Instead of waiting days for funds to move through banking systems, partners can settle transactions using blockchain-based dollars that move in near real time. By supporting multiple networks, Visa is aiming to give partners access to different pools of liquidity without added complexity.

“Our partners are building in a multi-chain world, and they expect their options to reflect that reality,” said Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth products and strategic partnerships. “Expanding our stablecoin settlement pilot program to more blockchains means our partners can choose the networks that best fit their needs, while relying on Visa to provide a common settlement layer across all of them.”

KuCoin EU has appointed a new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) chief and expanded its compliance team in Vienna, weeks after Austrian regulators barred the exchange from taking on new business under Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) regime.

The MiCA-licensed entity named Carmen Kleinhans as its Anti-Money Laundering officer, alongside two deputy AML officers drawn from former Austrian regulators and bank compliance chiefs. According to a Wednesday release, the team will oversee AML, Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) and sanctions controls, as well as enterprise-wide risk management and regulatory engagement.

The move follows a February decision by Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) to prohibit KuCoin EU from onboarding new clients or signing new contracts after finding that key AML/CTF and sanctions compliance roles were not adequately staffed, breaching internal organizational requirements.

The hires mark an effort by the exchange to address those gaps and align more closely with traditional financial services compliance expectations, as regulators increasingly focus on governance and controls rather than solely technical breaches.

Related: Thailand crypto platforms freeze 10K accounts in AML crackdown: Report

Wider regulatory pressure on KuCoin

The new staffing push also comes against a broader backdrop of rising AML and sanctions scrutiny in crypto, with regulators increasingly willing to freeze or partially suspend business over governance and staffing failures rather than just technical breaches of securities or licensing rules.

A Tuesday report by blockchain security auditor CertiK showed that KuCoin and OKX were among the exchanges hit with some of the largest AML-related penalties in 2025, highlighting how enforcement has shifted toward financial crime and controls rather than solely securities law issues.

Notable AML-Related Penalties in 2025. Source: CertiK

At a group level, KuCoin has also faced regulatory action in other jurisdictions. In January 2025, it agreed to pay nearly $300 million and exit the US market for two years in a criminal resolution over unlicensed money-transmission and AML failures, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

On March 30, the parent company of KuCoin agreed to pay a $500,000 civil penalty to settle a case by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission alleging it operated an unregistered offshore commodities exchange. Earlier that same month, KuCoin received a warning from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority over allegedly offering virtual asset services in the emirate without the required local licence.

Whether the hires are enough to restore normal operations under KuCoin EU’s Austrian authorization now depends on the FMA’s assessment of whether the required control functions have been fully and suitably restored.

Cointelegraph reached out to KuCoin EU for comment, but had not received a response by publication.

Magazine: How AI just dramatically sped up the quantum risk for Bitcoin

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.

Automated Market Makers (AMMs) are a foundational innovation within decentralized finance (DeFi), enabling permissionless and continuous trading without relying on traditional intermediaries. By replacing centralized order books with algorithmic pricing mechanisms, AMMs have transformed how digital assets are exchanged, making liquidity more accessible and markets more efficient

How AMMs Replace Traditional Order Books

In traditional financial markets, trading is facilitated through order books, where buyers and sellers submit bids and asks at specific prices. A trade occurs only when these orders match. While effective, this system depends on active participants and can suffer from low liquidity, especially for less popular assets.

AMMs eliminate the need for matching counterparties. Instead of waiting for a buyer or seller, users trade directly against a liquidity pool—a smart contract containing pairs of tokens supplied by liquidity providers (LPs).

This shift introduces several key advantages:

• Always-available liquidity (as long as funds exist in the pool)
• Permissionless participation (anyone can provide liquidity or trade)
• Elimination of intermediaries (reducing reliance on centralized exchanges)

The x * y = k Model Explained Simply

At the core of most AMMs lies a mathematical formula that governs pricing. The most widely used is the constant product formula:

$x\cdot y=k$

Where:

• x = quantity of Token A in the pool
• y = quantity of Token B in the pool
• k = constant (must remain unchanged after trades)

How it works:

• When a trader buys Token A, they remove some of it from the pool.
• To maintain the constant (k), the pool requires more Token B to be added.
• This adjustment changes the ratio between x and y, which in turn alters the price automatically.

In simple terms:
The more you buy, the more expensive it gets. The more you sell, the cheaper it becomes.

This dynamic pricing mechanism ensures continuous liquidity—but it comes with trade-offs.

Slippage and Price Impact

Because AMMs rely on pool ratios rather than fixed prices, large trades can significantly shift the balance of assets. This leads to two important concepts:

1. Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual executed price.
It occurs because the price moves during the transaction.

• Small trades → minimal slippage
• Large trades → higher slippage

2. Price Impact

Price impact refers to how much a trade changes the market price within the pool.

For example:

• If a liquidity pool is shallow (low funds), even a moderate trade can cause a large price swing.
• In deep pools (high liquidity), the same trade has a much smaller effect.

Bottom line:
Liquidity depth determines how stable prices are during trading.

Why Uniswap Changed Trading Forever

The launch of Uniswap marked a turning point in crypto markets. Before AMMs, decentralized exchanges struggled with low liquidity and poor user experience.

Uniswap introduced:

• Simple, elegant AMM design based on x * y = k
• Permissionless liquidity provision, allowing anyone to earn fees
• Seamless token swaps directly from wallets
• Trustless execution via smart contracts

This model unlocked a wave of innovation:

• Yield farming
• Liquidity mining
• Decentralized trading ecosystems

More importantly, it removed gatekeepers. Anyone with a token could create a market for it instantly—no approvals, no listings, no centralized control.

Conclusion

Automated Market Makers are more than just a trading mechanism—they are the core infrastructure of DeFi. By replacing order books with mathematical models and liquidity pools, AMMs enable open, efficient, and decentralized markets.

Understanding how AMMs function—from the constant product formula to slippage dynamics—provides a deeper insight into how value flows across decentralized ecosystems.

👉 Mastering AMMs isn’t optional in DeFi—it’s the difference between guessing and actually understanding how the system works.

Andre Cronje, the founder of Flying Tulip, argues that a large swath of what many call decentralized finance is no longer DeFi in the strict sense. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Cronje said many protocols have evolved into “teams running for-profit businesses” with upgradeable contracts, off-chain infrastructure, and formal operational controls rather than purely immutable on-chain code.

The shift, Cronje contends, alters the very security model of the space. Where early DeFi hinged on immutable smart contracts, newer systems increasingly rely on proxy upgrades, multisignature controls, infrastructure providers, and human response protocols. “I think what we have today, Flying Tulip included, is no longer DeFi. It’s not decentralized finance. It’s teams running for-profit businesses,” Cronje declared.

The remarks come as the industry confronts a wave of April exploits that broaden the security conversation beyond code audits to questions of operational risk. Flying Tulip itself recently introduced a withdrawal circuit breaker intended to delay or queue withdrawals during abnormal outflows. The move followed high-profile incidents involving Drift Protocol and a related restaking platform, Kelp, which together highlighted the scale of losses in the tens of hundreds of millions of dollars.

According to Cointelegraph’s coverage, the DeFi sector has grappled with losses estimated around $280 million for Drift Protocol and roughly $293 million tied to the Kelp scenario. These figures, while not the sole measure of risk, contributed to a broader debate about how to secure user funds in environments that blend on-chain mechanics with off-chain dependencies.

Crucially, the discussion centers not only on code but on governance, upgrade paths, and the resilience of the entire threat model—encompassing people, processes, and technology stacks that support deployed contracts.

Key takeaways

• DeFi’s security paradigm is expanding from immutable on-chain code to include upgrade processes, multisignature governance, and off-chain infrastructure as critical risk factors.
• Emergency controls such as circuit breakers are increasingly viewed as potential safety nets, but they raise concerns about centralization risk and the possibility of introducing new attack surfaces.
• Industry voices diverge on the right balance between automated safeguards and human intervention; the goal remains to minimize human-centric weaknesses while maintaining funds safety.
• Regulators and traditional finance observers see the evolution as a training ground for resilience, with upgrades and cross-project collaborations shaping a more robust DeFi ecosystem.
• Practically, users and builders should watch how governance, timelocks, and upgrade controls are implemented, and how these mechanisms interact with cross-chain interoperability and bridge security.

The evolving security landscape: from code to controls

In Cronje’s assessment, the DeFi world has shifted from a singular focus on auditing immutable contracts to considering who can alter code, how changes are approved, and whether timelocks or multisig approvals exist to guard against rash or malicious upgrades. He emphasized that audit checks are still essential but insufficient if a system’s governance and upgrade mechanisms can be exploited or manipulated by a compromised actor.

“The focus over all of the industry is still very much on the contract side and not sort of the more TradFi side,” Cronje told Cointelegraph. He pointed to recent exploits that leveraged traditional Web2-style weaknesses—infra access, social engineering, and other human-centered vectors—as evidence that security must extend beyond code audits.

To address upgrade risk, Cronje described Flying Tulip’s circuit breaker as a strategic pause rather than a permanent block. The aim is to “give us time to react” to abnormal capital outflows. The system is designed to pause withdrawals for a window—about six hours for Flying Tulip’s configuration, potentially longer for smaller teams with limited geographic distribution. He framed the circuit breaker as one layer in a multi-layered defense, alongside audits, timelocks, and distributed multisignature controls.

Still, industry voices varied on the desirability and design of emergency controls. Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance and Yield Basis, told Cointelegraph that recent incidents illustrate centralization risks and off-chain dependencies rather than pure contract bugs. He warned that a circuit breaker could itself become a vulnerability if the mechanism grants signers the power to alter code or freeze withdrawals in a compromised state.

Egorov argued for DeFi designs that can withstand shocks without requiring manual intervention. “The goal of DeFi design should be to minimize human-centric points of failure, not add to them,” he said. In his view, a resilient system should keep operating safely even when some actors are compromised, reducing reliance on privileged intervention.

Industry reactions: resilience, centralization, and the road ahead

The April incidents have also drawn involvement from traditional financial institutions. Standard Chartered published a note framing the Kelp episode as a signal of DeFi’s growing pains rather than a fatal flaw. The bank highlighted how the total lift in liquidity from the DeFi United coalition surpassed $300 million and noted ongoing upgrades—such as Aave V4 and the Ethereum Economic Zone—that aim to harden the ecosystem and reduce reliance on bridge-based cross-chain flows.

The bank characterized the heightened attention to decentralization and off-chain dependencies as a natural evolution for a space that remains early in its maturation. By incorporating these lessons, proponents argue, DeFi can improve operational resilience and user protection over time, even as the core codebase remains a critical focal point.

DeFi United’s fundraising activity—reported as over $321 million raised or committed according to the coalition’s site—illustrates a broader push to coordinate capital and governance in ways that strengthen defenses and liquidity for recovery scenarios. The big-picture takeaway for builders and investors is clear: risk management in DeFi is transitioning from a purely code-centric problem to a holistic program that blends on-chain security with robust governance, incident response, and cross-chain reliability.

What this means for builders and users

The shift Cronje describes has practical implications for developers, investors, and users. First, upgradeability introduces a new category of risk that must be mitigated with transparent governance, clear upgrade paths, and stringent access controls. Projects that rely on proxy patterns or admin keys will need to demonstrate robust disclosure and rigorous security reviews of their upgrade processes.

Second, the growing emphasis on operational risk elevates the importance of off-chain infrastructure and third-party dependencies. Audits can verify code correctness, but a compromised infrastructure provider or a successful social-engineering campaign can still endanger funds. This reality argues for diversified infrastructure, strict access management, and redundant systems to reduce single points of failure.

Third, the debate about circuit breakers highlights a tension between safety and centralization. While pause mechanisms can prevent cascading losses during extreme events, they also introduce a centralized layer that could be politicized or misused if not designed carefully. The consensus among many builders remains that any emergency control should be transparent, auditable, and have clear, time-bound constraints that limit abuse vectors.

For investors, these dynamics imply a recalibration of risk models. The strongest DeFi projects in the coming years may be those that demonstrate comprehensive governance architectures, robust migration and upgrade protocols, and explicit plans for incident response that minimize human-centric vulnerabilities while preserving user access and trust.

What to watch next

As the industry absorbs these lessons, observers will be watching how new security frameworks evolve. Expect continued experimentation with circuit breakers, time-locked upgrades, and multi-party governance, all aimed at reducing both on-chain and off-chain risk. Regulators and traditional financial actors will likely scrutinize governance processes and operational controls, seeking to codify best practices that can scale with the sector’s growth.

Readers should monitor how major DeFi protocols balance upgradeability with immutability, and how bridges and cross-chain infrastructure evolve to minimize single points of failure. The ongoing dialogue around resilience—covering code, governance, and operational risk—will shape which projects gain broader adoption and how quickly the sector can recover from future shocks.

• The ApeCoin token has shed 12% of its price value in the past 24 hours.
• Pudgy Penguins and Blur have also dipped as NFT sector tokens suffer profit-taking.
• APE faces potential deeper losses to $0.081 unless fresh catalysts emerge.

ApeCoin (APE), the governance token powering the ApeCoin ecosystem tied to the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs, has seen a sharp reversal.

After riding a brief NFT sector rally, APE plunged 12% over the past 24 hours and was trading around $0.14 at the time of writing.

The decline erased much of its intraday gains, during which the token briefly surged above $0.18. The losses highlight the volatile nature of meme and NFT-linked tokens amid broader market profit-taking.

APE pares gains after sector rally fades

ApeCoin’s downturn follows a broader NFT sector rally that lifted several related tokens before momentum faded. The token surged over the past week alongside peers such as Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU and Blur’s BLUR, driven by renewed hype around non-fungible tokens.

PENGU, for instance, climbed as the Pudgy Penguins NFT collection’s floor price spiked, drawing speculative inflows into the ecosystem. BAYC floor prices also rose during the rally.

However, the momentum proved short-lived. Both PENGU and APE have since given up a significant portion of their gains, with PENGU’s daily trading volume dropping 50% to $132 million.

The pullback reflects profit-taking after NFT-linked assets briefly outperformed the broader market.

APE’s retreat mirrors this trend, as traders exited positions amid fading enthusiasm.

Data from CoinMarketCap shows APE’s 24-hour trading volume surged to nearly $300 million at the peak before normalizing as selling pressure increased.

The token’s failure to hold above the key $0.18 resistance level points to weakening buyer conviction, further accelerating the decline.

What next for APE token?

Like most meme and NFT-related tokens, ApeCoin faces an uncertain near-term outlook, largely tied to cooling sentiment in the NFT market.

While spikes in NFT activity often support tokens like APE, the broader market’s lack of sustained momentum has limited upside.

Analysts point to ongoing weakness in NFT fundamentals, with sales volumes and transaction activity failing to match the hype-driven price surges seen in recent weeks.

Data from platforms such as OpenSea and Blur indicate a decline in overall NFT sales over the past seven days, putting additional pressure on ecosystem tokens.

From a technical perspective, indicators suggest the possibility of further downside. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) has pulled back from overbought levels and is trending around 68. While not yet bearish, a move toward 50 or lower could open the door for a retest of the all-time low near $0.081.

On the upside, a recovery in sentiment could push APE toward the $0.20 and $0.30 levels, though that would likely require renewed strength in the broader NFT market.