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BNC Shareholder Dispute Sparks Governance Tensions

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BNC Shareholder Dispute Sparks Governance Tensions

Binance-affiliated investment firm YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs) publicly accused asset manager 10X Capital on Wednesday of failing to comply with US securities disclosure requirements. The dispute comes amid broader governance changes at CEA Industries.

In an official blog post, the firm alleged that 10X Capital failed to comply with SEC rules requiring disclosure of ownership stakes once a certain threshold is reached.

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YZi Labs Accuses 10X Capital of Reporting Violations

The dispute centers on CEA Industries, known by its Nasdaq ticker, BNC. The company describes itself as managing the world’s largest corporate treasury of BNB. 

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For crypto market participants, the situation is particularly relevant. BNC’s treasury strategy ties it closely to the Binance ecosystem. Governance or asset management changes at the company could affect how its large BNB holdings are managed.

Both YZi Labs and 10X Capital hold positions in BNC, and recent developments indicated an escalating contest over governance. 

The latest accusations come just one week after BNC publicly refuted earlier claims made by YZi Labs regarding the company’s compliance with Nasdaq rules tied to the timing of its Annual Meeting of Stockholders. In that February 13 statement, BNC said it was fully compliant and rejected what it described as “false” and “reckless” assertions.

In a formal letter addressed to 10X Capital on Wednesday, YZi Labs alleged that the asset manager failed to properly report its ownership stake in CEA Industries.

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Under US securities law, investors who accumulate more than 5% of a public company’s shares must disclose their holdings. That way, other shareholders are aware of potential shifts in influence.

According to YZi Labs, 10X Capital has owned more than 5% of BNC’s shares since late 2025. However, it did not file a Schedule 13D to formally report that stake or disclose that it may have been acting together with other shareholders.

YZi Labs also alleged that 10X Capital founder Hans Thomas, who serves on BNC’s board, did not submit the required SEC filing that directors must complete to disclose their initial share ownership in the company.

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“SEC disclosure rules are not ‘personal preferences’ or ‘optional housekeeping’ – they are the baseline standard and non-negotiable obligations for anyone who wants a seat on a public company Board,” said Alex Odagiu, an investment partner at YZi Labs. “If you cannot manage timely Section 16 filings and clear ownership disclosure, you should not be managing a public company.”

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The allegations surfaced the same day BNC’s Board of Directors announced a proposal to amend its Asset Management Agreement with 10X Capital. 

Governance Stakes Rise Over Asset Deal

In its proposal, the Board said it is seeking lower management fees, a shorter contract term, and more flexible termination provisions. It described the move as part of a broader effort to enhance operational flexibility and long-term value.

It followed what it described as a comprehensive review of the agreement and came after YZi Labs publicly confirmed the termination of a previously undisclosed side agreement with 10X that had restricted amendments to the deal. 

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With that restriction lifted, the Board said it is moving forward with renegotiation discussions.

The developments unfold alongside YZi Labs’ own regulatory filings. The investment firm previously disclosed that it had crossed the 5% ownership threshold following the company’s share repurchases and later formed a shareholder group.

Crossing that threshold is significant under both federal securities law and Nevada corporate law, where CEA Industries is incorporated. 

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While federal rules require disclosure, Nevada law governs shareholder rights and board authority. Ownership levels can affect a shareholder’s ability to initiate actions, such as consent solicitations, or to influence governance decisions.

Against that backdrop, the timing of the disclosure dispute and the Board’s push to revise 10X’s asset management agreement suggest the disagreement may extend beyond regulatory filings. It may also reflect deeper questions over control and strategic direction at the BNB-focused public company.

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Moonwell’s AI-coded oracle glitch misprices cbETH at $1, drains $1.78M

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Crypto VC Funding Reaches $244M as Mesh Leads

Moonwell’s lending pools racked up about $1.78M in bad debt after a cbETH oracle mispriced the token at nearly $1 instead of around $2.2k, enabling bots and liquidators to drain collateral within hours of a misconfigured Chainlink-based update reportedly using AI-generated logic.

Summary

  • Misconfigured cbETH oracle set price near $1 vs roughly $2.2k, triggering a ~99% valuation gap that broke Moonwell’s collateral math.
  • Liquidators repaid around $1 per position to seize over 1,096 cbETH, leaving Moonwell with roughly $1.78M in protocol-level bad debt.
  • Faulty formula and scaling logic were reportedly co-authored by AI model Claude Opus 4.6, spotlighting new DeFi risk around AI-written oracle and pricing code.

Decentralized finance lending protocol Moonwell suffered a $1.78 million exploit due to a pricing oracle bug that misvalued Coinbase-wrapped ETH (cbETH), according to reports from the platform.

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The vulnerability originated in oracle calculation logic reportedly generated by the AI model Claude Opus 4.6, which introduced an incorrect scaling factor in the asset price feed, according to the protocol’s disclosure. Attackers borrowed against severely underpriced collateral, extracting funds before the error was detected and corrected.

The cbETH mispricing effectively collapsed the collateral requirement for borrowing within affected pools. Because lending systems rely on accurate collateral ratios, the incorrect price allowed attackers to extract assets with minimal backing value, according to the protocol’s technical analysis.

Price oracles represent critical security components in DeFi lending systems. Incorrect asset valuation can enable under-collateralized borrowing or liquidation failures. Many major DeFi exploits have historically involved oracle manipulation or pricing errors rather than core protocol flaws, according to industry security reports.

The Moonwell incident differs from traditional oracle exploits in that the faulty logic appears linked to automated AI code generation rather than malicious oracle data feeds, according to the protocol’s preliminary investigation.

The exploit highlights risks associated with AI-assisted smart-contract development in financial applications. Language models can accelerate coding workflows, but financial protocols require precise numerical correctness, unit handling and edge-case validation, according to blockchain security experts.

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In DeFi systems, small arithmetic or scaling mistakes can translate into systemic vulnerabilities affecting collateral valuation and solvency. The incident raises questions about whether AI-generated contract components may require stricter auditing standards than manually written code, according to security researchers.

AI-assisted development is increasingly used across Web3 engineering workflows, from contract templates to integration logic. Security models and audit frameworks have not yet fully adapted to AI-generated contract code, according to industry observers.

The broader implications center on how automated code generation errors in financial logic represent a new category of DeFi risk. Oracle math, scaling factors and unit conversions remain high-precision domains where automation failures can propagate into protocol-level vulnerabilities, according to technical analysis of the incident.

As AI-assisted smart-contract development expands, audit methodologies will likely need to evolve toward verifying not only code correctness but generation provenance and numerical invariants, according to blockchain security firms.

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Kalshi Data Could Inform Fed Reserve Policy, Say Researchers

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Kalshi Data Could Inform Fed Reserve Policy, Say Researchers

Three researchers at the US Federal Reserve argue that prediction market Kalshi can better measure macroeconomic expectations in real time than existing solutions and thus should be incorporated into the Fed’s decision-making process.

The “Kalshi and the Rise of Macro Markets” paper was released on Feb. 12 by Federal Reserve Board principal economist Anthony Diercks, Federal Reserve research assistant Jared Dean Katz and Johns Hopkins research associate Jonathan Wright.

Kalshi data was compared with traditional surveys and market-implied forecasts to examine how beliefs about future economic outcomes change in response to macroeconomic news and statements from policymakers.

Source: Tarek Mansour

“Managing expectations is central to modern macroeconomic policy. Yet the tools that are often relied upon—surveys and financial derivatives—have many drawbacks,” the researchers said, adding that Kalshi can capture the market’s “beliefs directly and in real time.”

“Kalshi markets provide a high-frequency, continuously updated, distributionally rich benchmark that is valuable to both researchers and policymakers.”

Kalshi traders can bet on a range of markets tied to the Federal Reserve’s decision-making, including consumer price index inflation and payroll, in addition to other macroeconomic outcomes such as gross domestic product growth and gas prices.

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The Fed researchers said Kalshi data should be used to provide a risk-neutral probability density function, which shows all possible outcomes of Fed interest rate decisions and how likely each one is. 

“Overall, we argue that Kalshi should be used to provide risk-neutral [probability density functions] concerning FOMC decisions at specific meetings” arguing that the current benchmark is “too far removed from the monetary policy interest rate decision.”

However, Fed research papers are only “preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion” and do not impact the central bank’s decision-making.