Kraken has been named the official crypto exchange supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026, giving the crypto exchange a presence at one of the world’s largest sporting events.

The company said Tuesday that the partnership will include fan activations and product experiences throughout the tournament.

The 2026 World Cup is expected to be the largest in FIFA history, with an expanded field of 48 teams and 104 matches across 16 host cities in the United States, Mexico and Canada. FIFA projects the competition will attract a cumulative global audience of more than 6 billion viewers during its seven-week run.

The partnership places Kraken alongside some of FIFA’s longest-standing corporate sponsors, including Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa and Hyundai-Kia.

The agreement also expands Kraken’s sports sponsorship efforts, which already include partnerships with Tottenham Hotspur, Atlético de Madrid, RB Leipzig and Atlassian Williams Racing.

The tournament kicks off on June 11 in Mexico City, where Mexico is scheduled to face South Africa at Estadio Azteca.

Source: Kraken

Related: Kraken offers SpaceX IPO access through xStocks

Prediction markets expand their sports presence

The partnership comes four years after the 2022 “Crypto Bowl,” when Coinbase, FTX, Crypto.com and eToro aired advertisements during Super Bowl LVI. Sports marketing activity across the crypto industry slowed following the collapse of FTX later that year and the broader market downturn.

While some digital asset companies have returned to major sporting events, their approach has been more measured. Coinbase aired its first Super Bowl commercial since 2022 during this year’s broadcast, while Crypto.com used the event to launch its AI-focused platform, ai.com.

At the same time, prediction markets, where users buy and sell contracts tied to the likelihood of specific outcomes, have expanded their presence in professional sports.

In November 2025, Polymarket became the official prediction market partner of UFC and Zuffa Boxing under a multiyear agreement that brought prediction market data into live events and broadcasts.

Source: UFC

In January, the company signed a multiyear agreement with Major League Soccer to become the league’s exclusive prediction market partner for MLS and the Leagues Cup. Major League Baseball followed in March, naming Polymarket its official prediction market exchange while signing a separate integrity agreement with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

FIFA’s commercial roster also includes ADI Predict, a blockchain-based prediction market platform backed by Abu Dhabi institutions.

Magazine: Korea probes Polymarket users, crypto PACs sweep primaries: Hodler’s Digest, May 31- June 6

AI company Anthropic on Tuesday released the first public version of its powerful Claude Mythos model, called Fable 5, with some crypto users worried it could be used for malicious purposes, despite embedded guardrails. 

Anthropic said last month that its Mythos model uncovered more than 10,000 high or critical-severity vulnerabilities in “systemically important software,” leading many to question if it should be publicly released.

This was despite the company saying on Tuesday that Fable 5 was “made safe for general use,” and has safeguards that reroute some topics, such as cybersecurity, to a different model, Claude Opus 4.8 

“Releasing a model this capable comes with risks. Without safeguards, Fable 5’s capabilities in areas like cybersecurity could be misused to cause serious damage,” it said.

Source: Claude

The guardrails have done little to reassure crypto users, with AI increasingly being used to attack crypto platforms. In April, the value of crypto stolen in hacks hit $629.7 million, the highest since February 2025, which analysts linked to the use of the technology. 

Mythos release sparks warnings from crypto users

Simon Dedic, founder of the venture firm Moonrock Capital, posted to X on Tuesday that with Fable 5, the “cost and skill required to find exploitable flaws in smart contracts is about to drop to basically zero.”

“For DeFi, this should be a massive wake-up call. Unaudited protocols will become sitting ducks. Known exploits will get replayed on forks around the clock. Even small projects will get targeted simply because trying costs next to nothing now,” he added.

Related: AI agents with crypto could escape and become ‘unstoppable,’ experts warn

Dedic repeated calls online, suggesting that crypto users should protect themselves from the model, including revoking wallet approvals, removing as much value from protocols as possible and moving crypto to fresh hardware wallets.

Curve Finance co-founder Michael Egorov, however, said that the threat Claude Mythos posed to crypto was likely overblown as its success in finding bugs in other software might not translate to funding smart contract vulnerabilities in DeFi. 

In May, Anthropic said Claude Mythos found thousands of critical vulnerabilities in important software through Project Glasswing. For open-source projects, which are central to how crypto protocols are managed, Mythos found around 6,200 high or critical-severity vulnerabilities in more than 1,000 projects it investigated.

Egorov argued that the software Mythos found vulnerabilities in had millions of lines of code, while smart contracts have a few thousand, “and both humans and ‘usual’ AI perfectly fit that code in context and can reason well about it.”

“I suspect we might not be having a wave of DeFi code hacks, but we may see a lot of things in OpSec [operational security] getting hacked (looking like multisig keys compromises) and supply chain attacks on frontend dependencies, and those are way less dangerous in true DeFi,” he said.

Meanwhile, Anthropic said a “small group” of cybersecurity and infrastructure providers would get access to Claude Mythos 5, the same model as Fable 5 but with safeguards lifted in some areas.

Magazine: AI-driven hacks could kill DeFi — unless projects act now

Bitcoin’s bounce off last week’s lows is rolling over, and gold is going down with it.

BTC changed hands at $61,233 on Wednesday, down 3% over 24 hours and 6.9% on the week, while gold fell 2% to below $4,200 an ounce. The market is betting on higher interest rates punishes anything that doesn’t pay one, and that is weighing on crypto and gold markets at once.

Ether fell 3.4% to $1,625 and solana dropped 4.1% to $64.24, according to CoinDesk data. XRP lost 4.3% to $1.12, while BNB and dogecoin each slid less than 3%. Hyperliquid’s HYPE was the worst of the majors again, down 10.2% on the day and 21.3% on the week to $55.52, the highest-beta name in the group as risk came off.

South Korea’s Kospi, the market most exposed to the artificial-intelligence trade through its chipmakers, tumbled 6.3%, leading a 2.5% drop in MSCI’s broad Asia-Pacific equity gauge and its fourth loss in five days. Nasdaq 100 futures pointed 0.8% lower after a volatile Wall Street session. Brent crude traded near $92 a barrel as renewed US strikes on Iran kept a bid under oil, and the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 4.54%.

Gold and bitcoin rarely fall in lockstep, as both are stores of value that pay no yield, so both lose their appeal when traders bet on higher rates, and that is what Wednesday’s US inflation report could force.

A hot reading would harden the case for new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh to keep rates higher for longer, draining liquidity from the assets that ran hardest on cheap money.

The bounce that ran into Monday was a short squeeze, not fresh buying, as over $500 million in bearish bets were liquidated in the highest such figures since April.

Some market watchers say spot demand never showed up behind it.

“Buyers have stepped in after the move lower, but spot demand has yet to return in a meaningful way,” said Diana Pires, chief business officer at sFOX, pointing to a run of US spot bitcoin ETF outflows that has kept institutional money cautious. When new demand isn’t broad enough to cover the selling, she said, rallies struggle to hold.

Watch whether bitcoin can hold a bid through the inflation print or keeps trading tick for tick with the Nasdaq. If gold steadies and bitcoin keeps falling, the case for it as a macro hedge thins further.

EU antitrust regulators have ordered Meta to give rival AI chatbots free access to WhatsApp during an active competition probe. The European Commission said Meta must maintain access while Brussels investigates its policy toward competing AI assistants.

The interim measure follows complaints from three AI companies and targets Meta’s October 2025 access change.

EU requires WhatsApp access during Meta probe

The European Commission issued the interim measure on Tuesday against Meta Platforms. It represents the Commission’s first interim measure in an antitrust case in 17 years. The order followed complaints from The Interaction Company, French AI startup Agentik, and a Spanish rival. 

The Interaction Company, based in California, develops the Poke.com AI assistant. The EU opened its investigation in December after Meta restricted rival AI providers from WhatsApp. The probe examines whether Meta abused market power by blocking competitors from the messaging app.

 “Today, we require Meta to restore access to WhatsApp for competing AI assistants,” Teresa Ribera said. Ribera serves as the EU antitrust commissioner and oversees competition enforcement. The Commission said the measure will prevent serious harm to competition during the probe. It said Meta’s conduct appears to infringe EU competition rules at an early stage.

The commission rejects Meta fee proposal

The EU warned Meta in February that interim measures could follow without restored access. Meta later introduced an access fee for rival AI assistant providers. Brussels rejected that proposal in April and called it unsatisfactory. The Commission said the fee was, at first sight, equivalent to the earlier access ban.

The EU wants Meta to restore third-party access under the same conditions used before October 2025. According to the Commission, Meta’s policy change effectively barred rival AI assistants from WhatsApp. Traditional antitrust cases can take years before regulators issue final decisions. 

European officials argue that late fines may fail to address damage already done. The Commission said Meta must comply with the interim measure while the investigation continues. Brussels has not set a legal deadline for the probe’s completion.

Meta faces possible fines and separate EU cases

The Commission said Meta could face fines if it breaches the interim order. The penalty could reach 10% of Meta’s total turnover from the prior business year. The fine would apply if Meta intentionally or negligently violated the decision. The Commission said it has the authority to impose penalties under EU competition rules.

Brussels described an urgent need to protect the market for general-purpose AI assistants. It said smaller players and new entrants need fair access to compete with large platforms. Meta has faced several EU enforcement actions in recent years. In April, EU regulators said Meta failed to keep under-13 users off Facebook and Instagram.

Regulators also continue to examine Meta’s protections for users’ physical and mental well-being. The same probe covers the design of Facebook and Instagram under digital content rules. Meta has appealed a 200 million euro fine issued under the Digital Markets Act. Apple also criticized the DMA on Monday over its delayed rollout of an AI-enhanced Siri.

BitGo has opened access to Aave, Spark and Tesseract for eligible institutional clients through its integration with Narval. 

The service connects approved decentralized finance protocols to wallets held within BitGo Bank & Trust’s qualified custody environment.

The setup allows institutions to use onchain markets without transferring assets to wallets. BitGo said more protocols will join the service after launch.

BitGo connects qualified custody to DeFi

Narval’s gateway links DeFi applications to BitGo’s custody and wallet systems. It uses delegated wallet connections and an embedded software kit to route approved transactions through signing and approval processes.

TLDR

• The FCA proposed allowing UCITS and certain NURS funds to invest up to 10% in crypto ETNs.
• Under the consultation paper, the regulator set a 10% cap to manage portfolio concentration risks.
• The proposal follows the October 2025 decision that reopened retail access to crypto exchange-traded products.
• UCITS and NURS operate as regulated, open-ended retail investment structures in the U.K.
• The FCA invited industry feedback before finalizing amendments to existing fund rules.

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority has proposed allowing certain retail funds to invest up to 10% in crypto exchange-traded notes. The plan covers UCITS schemes and some non-UCITS retail schemes under existing investment rules. The regulator outlined the proposal in its latest quarterly consultation paper and invited feedback from market participants.

FCA Outlines Framework for Retail Fund Exposure

The Financial Conduct Authority detailed the proposal in its quarterly consultation document. It said UCITS schemes and certain non-UCITS retail schemes could allocate up to 10% to crypto ETNs. The regulator stated that the cap would limit concentration within diversified portfolios.

The FCA wrote, “Our proposed 10% limit for UCITS and NURS would also mitigate the risk of impacts arising from crypto ETN exposure.”

It explained that the limit aligns with current diversification standards for retail funds. The proposal applies to regulated open-ended structures available to retail investors.

UCITS stands for Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities. These funds pool money from retail investors into managed portfolios under strict oversight. Non-UCITS retail schemes operate under similar rules but follow a separate regulatory framework.

The FCA confirmed that the proposal does not change broader eligibility rules for retail funds. Instead, it would permit limited exposure to crypto ETNs within existing structures. The consultation paper sets out technical amendments to reflect the allocation threshold.

The regulator requested comments from industry participants before finalizing the rules. It said it would review feedback before publishing any final amendments. The consultation forms part of its regular policy update process.

Crypto ETNs Gain Further Access in U.K. Market

The proposal builds on earlier regulatory changes affecting crypto ETNs. In October 2025, the FCA lifted a ban that had restricted retail access since 2021. That move allowed retail investors to access certain crypto exchange-traded products.

Crypto ETNs allow investors to gain price exposure without directly holding digital assets. Fund managers purchase listed notes that track cryptocurrency performance. Investors therefore avoid direct custody and operational requirements.

The FCA’s consultation does not expand direct crypto holdings for retail funds. Instead, it focuses on exchange-traded notes listed on approved venues. The regulator maintains oversight of listing and disclosure standards for these instruments.

The U.K. regulator has previously faced criticism over its cautious approach. Some commentators argued that restrictions limited domestic competitiveness. The latest proposal addresses portfolio allocation rather than broader market access.

The FCA published the consultation as part of its standard quarterly review cycle. It invited responses within the stated deadline in the document. The authority will publish further updates after reviewing submitted feedback.

CME Group has launched Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures, giving traders exposure to eight large cryptocurrencies through one regulated contract. 

Trading began on June 8, while CME confirmed the launch on June 9.

The product tracks Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Chainlink and Stellar Lumens. It expands CME’s digital asset range beyond futures linked to individual cryptocurrencies.

CME Crypto Index Futures Begin Trading

The contracts settle in cash against the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index. The benchmark measures the performance of large, actively traded cryptocurrencies using a market-cap-weighted structure.

CME offers a standard contract under the NCI ticker and a micro version under MCI. The standard contract equals $10 times the index value, while the micro contract equals $1 times the index.

As of June 9, the index includes BTC, BCH, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK and XLM. The basket gives traders broader market exposure without requiring them to buy, store or transfer each token.

Bitcoin and Ether remain the largest assets in the group. The addition of SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, XLM and BCH also gives the contract exposure to payment networks, smart-contract platforms and blockchain data services.

CME Targets Portfolio Hedging and Broader Exposure

Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group’s global head of cryptocurrency products, said investors want diversified access while using a regulated derivatives market.

“These contracts give clients a cost-efficient tool to hedge their risk,” Vicioso said.

Nasdaq index product management head Sean Wasserman said demand is growing for digital asset benchmarks with established governance and transparent rules.

“Futures linked to the index are a natural extension,” Wasserman said.

Because the contracts settle financially, traders receive or pay the difference in cash at expiration. They do not take delivery of the cryptocurrencies included in the index.

Launch Extends CME’s Crypto Derivatives Expansion

The index futures follow CME’s earlier move into contracts tied to Bitcoin, Ether, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, XLM, Avalanche and Sui. The exchange also introduced Bitcoin volatility futures in June.

CME now offers cryptocurrency futures and options on a 24/7 schedule, apart from maintenance windows. That timetable gives global traders weekend access and brings the regulated market closer to crypto’s continuous spot trading structure.

As crypto.news reported in May, the index product would become CME’s first market-cap-weighted cryptocurrency futures contract. The publication also covered CME’s addition of Avalanche and Sui futures as the exchange widened its regulated altcoin offering.

The launch gives funds, advisers and other market participants one contract for managing broad crypto exposure. Contract prices still depend on the combined movement of the index members, so gains in one asset may be offset by losses elsewhere in the basket during each session.

Unverified smart contracts were linked to at least $36.7 million in losses across four DeFi exploits over the past six months, as attackers increasingly target protocols whose source code is not publicly available, according to Chainalysis.

The largest incident involved Truebit, which lost $26.2 million after an attacker exploited an integer overflow vulnerability in a contract that had remained unverified on Ethereum since 2021. The other incidents involved Trusted Volumes, Aperture Finance and Ekubo, according to the report.

In each case, the exploited contract had not been verified on a blockchain explorer, meaning its source code was not publicly available for review. According to Chainalysis, that limited scrutiny from security researchers and excluded the contracts from many bug bounty programs despite controlling user funds.

Five protocols saw exploits on unverified smart contracts. Source: Chainalysis

Chainalysis attributed the trend in part to advances in decompilation tools and artificial intelligence, which can help attackers reverse-engineer smart contract bytecode and identify vulnerabilities even when source code is not publicly available. According to the report, what once required “a skilled reverse engineer spending days on a single contract” can now be partially automated across large numbers of unverified contracts.

The report challenges a longstanding assumption in DeFi that keeping smart contract code private provides an additional layer of security. According to Chainalysis, protocols relying on hidden code are increasingly depending on “obscurity as a security measure,” an approach the company said is rapidly losing effectiveness. 

Chainalysis recommended source code verification, broader bug bounty coverage and real-time monitoring tools as safeguards against future exploits.

Related: Humanity Protocol token falls 85% amid $30M private key exploit

DeFi security concerns persist after record April losses

The report comes amid a broader rise in crypto exploits. According to DeFiLlama, hackers stole $629.7 million in April alone, the highest monthly total since February 2025.

Two incidents accounted for most of the losses. KelpDAO lost $293 million and Drift Protocol suffered a $280 million exploit, together representing more than 80% of the month’s stolen funds.

Although losses fell sharply in May, with CertiK reporting $68.3 million stolen from cryptocurrency exploits, the fallout from April’s largest attacks continued. In June, blockchain intelligence platform Arkham reported that the attacker behind the KelpDAO exploit had laundered nearly all of the roughly $220 million in unfrozen stolen funds.

Kelp DAO Hacker-tagged wallet, total balance. Source: Arkham

The KelpDAO exploit also prompted several DeFi protocols to review their security infrastructure, with projects including Solv Protocol announcing plans to migrate to Chainlink’s crosschain infrastructure following internal security reviews.

This month, Anthropic said 560 of the 832 accounts it banned for policy violations over a one-year period had used AI to help prepare cyberattacks, including writing malware and identifying vulnerabilities.

Magazine: The legal battle over who can claim DeFi’s stolen millions