Crypto World
How Bet365 and ZunaBet Show Online Gambling Is Splitting in Two
There was a time when online gambling moved in one direction and every operator followed the same path. Build a sportsbook, add some casino games, process payments through banks, and compete on odds and marketing spend. Bet365 mastered that formula better than almost anyone. But the path is forking. A new class of platforms is emerging that runs on different infrastructure, targets a different audience, and measures success by different standards. ZunaBet is the clearest example of that new class. Setting it alongside Bet365 does not just compare two gambling platforms. It maps the point where the industry started heading in two directions at once.
Bet365: The Company That Defined the Category
Bet365 started in a portable building in Stoke-on-Trent in 2000. Denise Coates had a hunch that betting was about to move online in a serious way, and she was right in a manner that produced one of the most remarkable business stories in British corporate history. Twenty-five years later, Bet365 is still privately held by the Coates family, still headquartered in Stoke, and still one of the most visited gambling websites on the planet.
Sports betting is the product that made Bet365 what it is. The coverage is extraordinary. Every globally recognized sport and dozens of regional ones are represented with deep markets and consistently sharp odds. The live betting product deserves particular mention — thousands of events run simultaneously with in-play markets that update in real time, paired with a streaming service that gives players direct access to the action. It is the kind of product that took years of investment and iteration to build, and it shows.
The casino has grown into a meaningful part of the business over time. Thousands of titles from established providers cover slots, table games, and live dealer formats. It is a stronger casino offering than most sportsbook-first operators manage, though it has not expanded as aggressively as platforms that treat casino as their primary business.
Financial transactions go through the standard set of traditional channels. Debit cards, bank transfers, PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, and assorted regional options. No cryptocurrency. Withdrawal times depend on the method — e-wallets are typically the quickest while bank transfers can take several days depending on the player’s location and their bank’s processing schedule.
New accounts are greeted with bet credit offers that vary by market. Ongoing loyalty operates without a formal tier structure — Bet365 sends personalized promotions to active players on its own terms. The company has always operated on the principle that the product itself is the best retention tool, and its financial results suggest that principle holds up.
Bet365 perfected online gambling as it existed through the 2000s and 2010s. Every part of the operation reflects that era’s best thinking about how a betting platform should work. The question hanging over it — and every operator of its generation — is whether that thinking still applies to the players who are showing up now.
ZunaBet: Starting Where Others Have Not Reached Yet
ZunaBet launched in 2026 through Strathvale Group Ltd with an Anjouan gaming license and a founding team with more than two decades of combined gambling industry experience. The platform was not built on top of anything that came before it. There was no legacy system, no prior business model, and no inherited assumptions about how things had to work. The team started fresh and built a product that reflects the current state of technology, player expectations, and financial infrastructure rather than the state of things when Bet365 opened its doors.
The game catalog is the most striking entry point. ZunaBet lists over 11,000 titles drawn from 63 providers — Pragmatic Play, Evolution, Hacksaw Gaming, Yggdrasil, BGaming, and a long tail of additional studios covering every format in the casino space. Slots dominate the count but RNG table games and live dealer rooms run deep. That library exceeds what Bet365 offers on the casino side, which is an extraordinary position for a platform that has existed for a fraction of the time.
Sports betting runs parallel to the casino as an equal product rather than an add-on. Football, basketball, tennis, NHL, combat sports, and virtual sports are all covered comprehensively. The esports section stands apart from what most traditional operators provide, featuring dedicated markets for CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant with genuine depth rather than surface-level inclusion. Bet365 keeps a clear lead in live betting complexity, event streaming, and the breadth of niche sporting markets available. ZunaBet answers with a globally oriented sportsbook and an esports product built for the audience that is growing fastest.
The entire financial layer runs on cryptocurrency. Over 20 coins are accepted — BTC, ETH, USDT on several blockchains, SOL, DOGE, ADA, XRP, and more. No transaction fees from the platform. Withdrawals that clear without banking intermediaries slowing the process. Every movement of money on ZunaBet happens on blockchain rails, which means no third-party timelines, no weekend blackouts, and no fees extracted between the player and their funds.
New players receive up to $5,000 in deposit matches plus 75 free spins across three deposits — 100% up to $2,000 with 25 spins first, 50% up to $1,500 with 25 spins second, and 100% up to $1,500 with 25 spins third. That welcome package carries substantially more value than what Bet365 extends in most markets.
The technical package wraps everything in a dark-themed HTML5 interface with responsive design, fast performance, native apps for iOS, Android, Windows, and MacOS, and round-the-clock live chat support.
The Loyalty Split
Bet365 rewards regular players on its own terms. Personalized bonuses and promotional offers arrive in active accounts based on criteria the platform sets internally. There are no published tiers, no branded progression system, and no public roadmap showing players what continued activity will earn them. The approach is quiet and closed, reflecting a philosophy that strong product quality should be sufficient to keep players engaged without layering a complex rewards structure on top.
ZunaBet built its loyalty program to be the opposite of quiet. The dragon evolution system puts progression front and center through a mascot called Zuno and six defined tiers — Squire, Warden, Champion, Divine, Knight, and Ultimate. Rakeback starts at 1% and increases to 20% at the top tier. Free spins climb to 1,000 at the highest levels. VIP club access and double wheel spins reward players as they advance through the stages.
Everything about the system is designed for visibility and engagement. Players know exactly where they stand at all times. The next tier is always visible, its requirements are always clear, and the rewards for reaching it are always published. The gamified design draws from video game progression systems where advancement is part of the core experience rather than something that happens passively in the background. Bet365’s closed-door approach works for players who do not particularly care about loyalty mechanics and just want a good sportsbook. ZunaBet’s open-book approach works for players who want their time on a platform to feel like it is building toward something.
Two Financial Worlds
Bet365 processes payments at a scale that few companies in any industry can match. Its infrastructure connects to banking systems, card networks, and e-wallet providers across dozens of countries, handling millions of daily transactions with the reliability that its size demands. That achievement should not be minimized.
What cannot be engineered away, however, are the limitations that come with that infrastructure. Banks dictate processing windows. Card networks impose their own policies. E-wallets introduce additional intermediary steps. Public holidays and weekends create gaps. Fees attach at various points depending on the method and the jurisdiction. The player enters a system where speed, cost, and timing are controlled by institutions outside the platform.
ZunaBet removed those institutions from the equation. Crypto goes directly between the player’s wallet and the platform without passing through any intermediary. There is no processing window because there is no processor. There is no weekend delay because the blockchain does not observe weekends. There is no fee because no middleman exists to charge one. A player’s withdrawal follows the same path and the same timeline regardless of when it is initiated or how much it involves.
The practical impact of this difference grows every time a player experiences it. Speed becomes the expectation. Fee-free becomes the baseline. Consistency becomes the standard. Going back to a system where a withdrawal might arrive tomorrow or might arrive Thursday starts to feel like a step backward once the alternative is familiar. And the number of players for whom that alternative is familiar expands with every month that cryptocurrency adoption continues to grow.
Where Each Platform Sits in the Bigger Picture
Bet365 represents the summit of what online gambling built on traditional infrastructure can achieve. No operator has done it better, and the company’s position within that framework is as secure as any in the industry. For players who operate in fiat currency and prioritize sportsbook depth and live betting above all else, Bet365 is still the answer.
ZunaBet represents what happens when the framework itself changes. Different financial infrastructure. Different player expectations. Different ideas about what a loyalty program should feel like and how many games a platform should offer and how quickly money should move. It launched with over 11,000 games, 63 providers, more than 20 cryptocurrencies, zero fees, a $5,000 welcome package, dedicated apps everywhere, a complete sportsbook with real esports depth, and a loyalty system designed by people who understand gaming culture as well as they understand gambling operations.
The industry is splitting in two. One side runs on banks and cards and serves an audience that has been gambling online for years. The other runs on crypto and serves an audience that is arriving with new expectations and new habits. Bet365 owns the first side. ZunaBet was built to lead the second. Both platforms are good at what they do. But only one of them is aimed at the part of the market that is growing, and the numbers it launched with suggest it knows exactly how to capture that growth.
Key Highlights
- Altimeter Capital’s Brad Gerstner projects Anthropic’s ARR could surge to $80B–$100B by year-end 2026
- The company’s ARR currently exceeds $30B, a massive jump from $9B recorded at 2025’s close
- Claude’s average daily user count more than doubled between February and March 2026
- More than 1,000 enterprise clients now invest over $1M per year in Anthropic’s services
- ChatGPT experienced declines in web traffic and mobile usage during March as Claude and Gemini expanded their presence
Brad Gerstner, who founded Altimeter Capital, recently described Anthropic’s revenue trajectory as among the most explosive growth stories in technology sector history. During a weekend podcast appearance, he projected the AI company’s annual revenue run rate could climb to somewhere between $80 billion and $100 billion before 2026 concludes.
This projection represents approximately a threefold increase from Anthropic’s current position. The company’s ARR has now crossed the $30 billion threshold, surging from roughly $9 billion when 2025 ended. Just months earlier in 2026, that metric stood at approximately $15 billion.
Anthropic had initially set its sights on achieving an ARR ranging from $20 billion to $26 billion throughout the calendar year. The company has already exceeded those ambitious targets.
According to Gerstner, the organization has experienced a significant “rebound” during the last three months following a period where it received relatively little attention throughout 2025. He now characterizes the company as surpassing OpenAI, whose ARR currently sits in the $24 billion to $25 billion range.
Business Customers Driving Explosive Revenue
Anthropic now counts over 1,000 enterprise organizations that each commit more than $1 million annually to its platform. The company’s Claude AI models have gained widespread adoption for coding assistance, workflow automation, and API-driven applications.
The company introduced Claude CoWork in January 2026 and most recently unveiled an innovative AI model named Mythos. These product launches have maintained strong visibility for Anthropic throughout the tech industry.
To accommodate its rapid expansion, Anthropic has partnered with Google and Broadcom on developing 3.5 gigawatts of computing infrastructure. Gerstner emphasized that achieving the $100 billion ARR milestone will demand substantial infrastructure capital.
Market Share Shifts Favor Claude
Recent analysis from BNP Paribas reveals that Claude’s portion of chatbot website traffic nearly doubled, climbing from 3.6% in February to 6.6% by March. The platform’s average monthly daily active users jumped from 0.8% to 1.8% during the same timeframe.
Google’s Gemini platform similarly expanded, with its website visit share increasing from 26.2% to 28% in March.
While ChatGPT maintains its position as the leading chatbot platform, it experienced declines in both web traffic and mobile application usage throughout March, based on analysis from BNP researchers led by Nick Jones.
Amazon also featured prominently in the BNP analysis. Uber recently broadened its deployment of Amazon’s Gravitron4 and Trainium3 chip architectures. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy disclosed that AWS AI-related ARR has reached $15 billion, while chip-specific ARR stands at $20 billion.
Meta’s recently launched Muse Spark AI model triggered a significant spike in downloads for the Meta AI application. BNP analysts noted the launch demonstrates Meta’s advancing AI strategy.
Anthropic ranks among multiple privately-held technology companies potentially preparing for public offerings in 2026, with preliminary valuation estimates hovering around $300 billion.
Circle Internet (CRCL) CEO Jeremy Allaire offered his clearest public response yet to growing criticism over how the stablecoin issuer handles illicit funds, saying it does not freeze wallets unless there is a formal legal basis to do so.
Speaking on stage at a press conference in Seoul, Allaire positioned USDC, the second-largest dollar-pegged stablecoin, as a regulated financial product rather than a tool for real-time intervention.
“Circle has a very, very clear performance obligation under the law,” Allaire said. “Circle follows the rule of law, and we are able to undertake actions such as freezing a wallet at the direction of law enforcement or the courts.”
Allaire framed USDC as part of the traditional financial system, subject to legal process and oversight. Decisions to blacklist or freeze funds, he suggested, should not be made at the discretion of the company in the heat of an exploit, but instead follow requests from law enforcement or court orders. The approach reflects Circle’s broader strategy to align closely with regulators and institutions.
Rival Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, has a more proactive approach. The company has repeatedly frozen funds linked to hack and illicit activity within hours. In several cases cited by blockchain sleuth ZachXBT, including exploits affecting Ledger and Remitano, Tether blacklisted stolen funds while equivalent USDC remained untouched.
Allaire’s remarks come at a time of mounting scrutiny. Earlier this month, Drift Protocol suffered a suspected North Korea-linked exploit that resulted in losses of up to $280 million. Roughly $230 million in USDC was moved across chains over several hours. The incident has become a focal point for critics who argue that Circle is failing to act despite having the technical ability to do so.
Intervention carries risks, too
ZachXBT is among the most vocal. In a widely circulated thread on X, he said Circle’s inaction across more than a dozen cases since 2022 has contributed to over $420 million in illicit funds escaping. He pointed to multiple incidents where stolen USDC remained in identifiable wallets for hours or even days without being frozen, including exploits affecting Cetus, SwapNet, and Nomad.
Critics say the pattern highlights a deeper issue. USDC is centrally issued and contains controls that allow Circle to block addresses. Yet those powers are rarely used in real time. By deferring to legal processes that move far more slowly than blockchain transactions, they argue, Circle creates a gap that attackers can exploit.
Others in the industry argue that faster intervention carries its own risks. Omid Malekan, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, responded to calls for discretionary freezes by warning that allowing issuers to act beyond legal requirements would undermine the foundations of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Such powers could erode trust in DeFi systems by introducing centralized points of control, Malekan said.
“If Circle and other stablecoin issuers implement arbitrary freeze or seize functions beyond what the law requires, then not only is code not law, but also law is not law,” he wrote on X. “Instead what a single executive inside a single corporation decides is law.”
Self-styled “unbreakable” Hyperbridge protocol has been exploited, less than two weeks after making a tasteless April Fools’ joke about being hacked.
Despite previously explaining how a hack was impossible as part of the April 1 prank, the project acknowledged the exploit in a “bridge update!” posted to X.
According to crypto security firm CertiK, the hacker “forged message to change the admin of Polkadot token contract on Ethereum and profited ~$237K from minting and selling 1B tokens.”
Another on-chain analyst flagged a further 245 ether (worth over $500,000) which was allegedly drained from the project’s TokenGateway contract before being deposited into Tornado Cash.
While this loss may be modest compared to many crypto hacks, especially bridges, many have focused on the karma dealt to a project with a consistently cavalier attitude towards security.
Read more: Bitcoin Depot didn’t spot 50 BTC hack for three days, report
Hyperbridge claimed the North Korean Lazarus Group had drained $37 million on April 1. The announcement linked to a (now deleted) blog post which contained a Rickroll gif before explaining “Why Hyperbridge Can’t Be Hacked.”
Following backlash, Hyperbridge’s “mad scientist,” who goes by “Web3 Philosopher” on X, boasted of the protocol’s “incorruptible” infrastructure.
In February, they also posted screenshots which appear to show correspondence with a big bounty hunter flagging critical vulnerabilities, who was told “exploit them if you found them.”
Apparently taking the April Fools’ prank as a challenge, a known exploiter address began testing Hyperbridge. The attempts were dismissed with “hope you have a quantum computer bro.”
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Foundry’s U.S.‑based, compliance‑first Zcash pool has already grown to roughly one‑third of network hashrate, giving institutional miners a regulated way into privacy coins while stoking fresh centralisation fears.
Summary
- Bitcoin mining giant Foundry has launched an institutional Zcash pool that already accounts for roughly one‑third of new ZEC issuance.
- The U.S.‑based, compliance‑focused pool is pitched at institutional and public miners as a “purpose‑built” alternative to offshore privacy‑coin infrastructure.
- Foundry argues Zcash’s zero‑knowledge privacy with selective disclosure makes it more compatible with regulation than rivals like Monero.
Foundry Digital, operator of the Foundry USA Bitcoin mining pool, has officially launched an institutional‑grade Zcash (ZEC) mining pool that has quickly grown to around 30% of the network’s hashrate, consolidating a significant share of new ZEC issuance under a single U.S.‑regulated operator. The Rochester, New York‑based firm, which Fortune notes already commands about 31% of global Bitcoin production, is positioning its new pool as the default home for institutional miners seeking exposure to privacy‑focused assets without abandoning compliance.finance.
In a Business Wire release, Foundry said the Zcash pool has seen “rapid and sustained hashrate growth reaching ~30% of the current Zcash network hashrate” since it was first announced on March 11, with “multiple institutional mining customers already onboarded and contributing hashrate.” The company stressed that the pool is “designed for professional mining organizations and public companies that require a U.S.-based, compliance-ready partner, including KYC verification in line with Foundry’s institutional standards,” mirroring the governance of its Bitcoin operation.
Foundry CEO Mike Colyer framed the move as both a bet on Zcash and a response to unmet institutional demand. “Zcash has matured into an institutional‑grade asset, but the mining infrastructure supporting it hasn’t kept pace,” he said, adding that the new pool is “purpose‑built for the operational and compliance requirements of institutional and public miners.”
A CoinMarketCap summary of the launch notes that the pool will offer know‑your‑customer and anti‑money‑laundering checks, transparent payout calculations, reporting tools and 24/7 technical support, with no minimum hashrate required to join.
Zcash, launched in 2016, relies on zero‑knowledge proofs (zk‑SNARKs) to enable shielded transactions that hide sender, receiver and amount while still allowing selective disclosure to auditors or regulators. Foundry and several commentators have argued that this “privacy with a view key” model is more compatible with institutional compliance than fully opaque systems like Monero, which lack native mechanisms for selective transparency.
At the same time, the arrival of a U.S. pool with roughly one‑third of Zcash’s hashrate raises familiar centralisation questions. Unfolded and other mining trackers have previously highlighted that Foundry USA already coordinates about 30% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate, and Mempool.space data shows the pool averaging more than 340 exahashes per second on Bitcoin alone. Adding a Zcash operation that quickly captures around one‑third of ZEC issuance further concentrates influence over block production in a single corporate group, albeit one that stresses its role in “contribut[ing] to the decentralization of Bitcoin’s hashrate” by anchoring North American capacity.
For Zcash, the trade‑off is stark: institutional capital and hashpower are flowing in through a U.S.‑regulated gateway that validates the project’s positioning as a compliant privacy coin, but at the cost of a more concentrated mining landscape. As regulators in the U.S., EU and Hong Kong tighten their grip on stablecoins, exchanges and tokenized assets — a trend explored in recent crypto.news coverage of HKDAP’s launch, MiCA implementation and the CLARITY Act — Zcash’s bet is that privacy with selective disclosure, plus a mining pool built for auditors rather than cypherpunks, is a price worth paying for long‑term relevance.
Bernstein said Monday that Bitcoin’s selloff has already priced in much of the market’s fear around quantum computing, arguing that the threat is real but still manageable rather than an immediate existential risk.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) near 50% drawdown from its $126,198 all-time high in October 2025 is proof that the market has “priced in” several risks tied to a quantum breakthrough, partly thanks to technological progress on zero-knowledge privacy and quantum-proof cryptography that “counterbalance” the AI and quantum acceleration, Bernstein said in a Monday note shared with Cointelegraph.
The note lands two weeks after Google researchers said future quantum computers could break the elliptic-curve cryptography used across many blockchains with fewer than 500,000 physical qubits in some architectures, reviving debate over how quickly Bitcoin needs a post-quantum upgrade path. This research suggested a quantum computer could crack a Bitcoin private key in nine minutes, in a theoretical scenario, which is less than Bitcoin’s 10-minute block production time.
However, Bernstein said Bitcoin core developers have “adequate time” to determine a post-quantum path. Last week, Bernstein predicted that Bitcoin has about three to five years to prepare for a post-quantum security upgrade, Cointelegraph reported on Wednesday.
Institutions will play constructive role in quantum-proofing Bitcoin
Bernstein said large institutional holders, including exchange-traded fund (ETF) issuers and corporate treasury buyers such as Strategy, are likely to play a constructive role in any eventual consensus on a post-quantum upgrade.
“We expect institutional partners with now billions at stake to play a constructive role in building consensus on the post-quantum path.”
The note also highlighted the recently introduced BIP-360 proposal and added that slower consensus from Bitcoin developers is seen as responsible behavior when it comes to a $1.5 trillion asset.
BIP-360 is a draft Bitcoin Improvement Proposal that proposes a Pay-to-Merkle-Root output type designed to reduce long-exposure quantum risk by removing Taproot’s key-path vulnerability, though it does not itself add post-quantum digital signatures.
Bernstein said BIP-360 could be implemented as a soft fork for exposed Bitcoin addresses, but added that this would still leave around 8% of the BTC supply in inactive addresses vulnerable to future quantum breakthroughs.
Related: Bitcoiners push for quantum-resistant BIP-360 upgrade as debate heats up
Quantum-proofing Bitcoin is a social issue, not technical
The real challenge of quantum-proofing Bitcoin lies in the societal adoption element of the new standards, not the technical development, according to Arthur Breitman, co-founder of Tezos blockchain.
“The coding work could be done this afternoon,” but Bitcoin holders would still need to migrate to this new standard, Breitman told Cointelegraph during an interview at EthCC 2026.
“If Bitcoin needed to migrate in the next month, they could do it from a technical perspective […] but they can’t get everyone to migrate their key in a month, Breitman said. “It’s going to take years for people to properly migrate their keys,” he added.
Asset manager Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, shared a similar view in a research report last Monday. He said Bitcoin’s quantum-proofing challenges are “more social than technical,” provided that its UTXO model does not have native smart contracts and that some address types are not quantum vulnerable.
However, he warned that the community needs to find consensus on how to quantum-proof wallets where the private key has been lost or is otherwise inaccessible.
Magazine: AI has dramatically accelerated the quantum threat to Bitcoin: AI Eye
Bitmine Immersion Technologies said BMNR’s ETH holdings reached 4.875 million tokens, while total crypto and cash holdings hit $11.8 billion. The update came in a company release dated April 13, 2026, and followed several recent ETH purchases.
Bitmine said the total included $719 million in cash, 198 Bitcoin, and two equity stakes. The company also said its ETH position now equals 4.04% of Ethereum’s 120.7 million token supply.
ETH Holdings Move Closer to Stated 5% Goal
Bitmine valued its ETH holdings at about $10.8 billion using an ETH price of $2,206. It also listed a $200 million stake in Beast Industries among its other stated holdings. Another stated holding was an $85 million stake in Eightco Holdings, based on the release. The company grouped those positions with its crypto and cash balances in the $11.8 billion total.
Bitmine said the ETH total leaves it 81% of the way to its stated 5% goal. It used a total Ethereum supply figure of 120.7 million tokens in that calculation. The company said it remains the largest Ethereum treasury in the public market by disclosed holdings. That status reflects the size of its disclosed ETH balance after recent purchases.
Staked ETH Base Grows Through MAVAN
Bitmine also announced the launch of MAVAN, its Made in America Validator Network, in the same release. The platform was built to support Bitmine’s Ethereum treasury and staking activity. It also plans to serve institutional investors, custodians, and other ecosystem partners over time. The company said MAVAN focuses on security, performance, and resilience for large staking operations.
As of April 13, Bitmine said 3,334,637 ETH was staked across its operations. At $2,206 per ETH, that stake was worth about $7.4 billion, according to the company. The staked amount equals about 68% of its total ETH holdings.
A portion of Bitmine’s ETH is already staked through MAVAN, while more may move there later.
Lee said ‘Annualized staking revenues are now $212 million.’ He added that full staking could lift annual rewards to $310 million at current yields. Bitmine said the CESR rate was 2.73%, while its 7-day yield was 2.89%. The company said Quatrefoil administers the CESR benchmark used in that comparison.
NYSE Move Adds Visibility to BMNR
Bitmine began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on April 9, after leaving the NYSE American. The move kept the BMNR ticker and placed the shares on the senior exchange. The April 13 update came four days after that market change became effective. Bitmine linked the listing change with its fast growth in ETH holdings and trading activity.
Bitmine also said BMNR ranks among the most traded U.S. stocks by dollar volume. Fundstrat data showed a five-day average of $747 million through April 10, 2026. The company said that ranked BMNR at number 117 among 5,704 listed stocks. Bitmine compared that trading activity with other public companies focused on crypto treasury strategies.
Bitmine named investors including Cathie Wood, Founders Fund, Pantera, Kraken, DCG, and Galaxy Digital. It said those investors support its plan to keep adding ETH toward its stated goal. The company also compared its treasury size with Strategy’s larger Bitcoin treasury in the same release. Bitmine said its own balance remains the largest disclosed ETH treasury among public companies.
Former CFTC chair J. Christopher “CryptoDad” Giancarlo has quit his senior role at Willkie to focus full‑time on crypto, AI and policy work, including a new book on digital money under Trump’s second term.
Summary
- Former CFTC chair J. Christopher Giancarlo has retired from his senior role at law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher to focus full‑time on digital assets, AI and policy work.
- Known as “Crypto Dad,” he plans to expand strategic advisory work, private investments and think‑tank research, while promoting a new book on crypto’s evolution through Trump’s second term.
- The move cements Giancarlo’s shift from big‑law partner to full‑time crypto advocate as Washington rewrites U.S. rules for stablecoins, DeFi and tokenized markets.
Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo has stepped down as senior counsel and digital‑assets lead at New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher to focus on cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and public‑policy work, he confirmed on LinkedIn and in remarks reported by Crypto in America and Phemex.
Giancarlo, who joined Willkie in 2020 and helped build its “Digital Works” crypto practice, said he is pivoting toward “strategic advisory services to founders and boards in the fintech and digital asset sectors,” as well as nonprofit projects such as the Digital Dollar Project.creators.spotify+3
In an April post, Giancarlo told followers “after six rewarding years helping Willkie build one of the world’s leading digital asset legal practices, it is time for my next chapter,” adding that he will focus on “fintech, #digitalassets, #crypto and AI — and on making sure freedom and human agency are baked into the new architecture of banking, finance and money itself.” The former regulator, nicknamed “Crypto Dad” for his industry‑friendly stance at the CFTC, also teased an upcoming book titled “CryptoDad’s New Adventures: The Path to Financial Freedom in the 21st Century,” due for publication in October and billed as a narrative of the crypto industry from the 2024 election into President Donald Trump’s second term.
Giancarlo chaired the CFTC from 2017 to 2019, overseeing the launch of the first regulated bitcoin futures and arguing that U.S. regulators should adopt a “do no harm” approach to blockchain innovation, a phrase he repeated in speeches and later in his first book “CryptoDad: The Fight for the Future of Money.” At Willkie, he co‑chaired the firm’s Digital Works practice out of New York, advising banks, exchanges and fintech firms on crypto regulation and co‑authoring memos on topics ranging from stablecoin rules to the emerging U.S. crypto regulatory framework.
According to the ABA Banking Journal and other legal trade publications, Giancarlo has also become one of the most visible public advocates for a U.S. central bank digital currency through his work at the Digital Dollar Project, arguing that a well‑designed digital dollar could “promote U.S. values of privacy, free enterprise and the rule of law” in a world where China and others are racing ahead with state‑backed e‑money. Finews Asia previously reported that Trump allies had floated Giancarlo as a potential “crypto czar,” noting his push for clear stablecoin rules, safe harbors for token projects and a more unified federal approach to digital‑asset oversight.
His latest career move comes as Washington debates the CLARITY Act, GENIUS stablecoin legislation and bank‑backed tokenization pilots, with regulators from the Federal Reserve to the SEC and CFTC defining how dollar‑pegged tokens, DeFi and tokenized treasuries fit inside the existing system. By stepping away from big law to concentrate on investing, policy research and a new book aimed at retail readers, Giancarlo is betting there is room — and demand — for a former top derivatives regulator to help architect that future from the outside, as both adviser and storyteller.
Crypto World
Crypto exchange Kraken targeted in extortion attempt; says no breach and no funds at risk
Crypto exchange Kraken is facing an extortion attempt by a criminal group that threatens to release videos purportedly showing access to internal systems containing client data, the company said Monday.
The Wyoming-based firm said it identified and shut down two instances of inappropriate access tied to individuals within its support team, each involving limited client data.
“Our systems were never breached; funds were never at risk; we will not pay these criminals; we will not ever negotiate with bad actors,” said Nick Percoco, chief security and information officer of Payward and Kraken, in a post on X.
The first incident came in February 2025, when Kraken received a tip about a video circulating on a criminal forum. An internal investigation identified the individual involved, revoked their access and led to additional security controls. A limited number of affected clients were notified.
More recently, Kraken received another tip and a similar video. The company said it again identified the individual responsible, terminated their access and notified affected users.
Security incidents remain a persistent issue in crypto because the industry combines high-value, easily transferable assets with technical and human vulnerabilities. Digital assets can be moved instantly across borders and are often irreversible once lost, making them attractive targets for malicious actors. At the same time, weaknesses in smart contracts, private key management and exchange infrastructure can create exploitable entry points, while phishing and social engineering schemes continue to target users directly.
Recent crypto exploits have shown increasing sophistication, with attackers combining smart contract vulnerabilities, social engineering and rapid fund movement to maximize impact.
In cases like the Drift exploit, adversaries appear to have used a deep understanding of protocol mechanics and liquidity conditions to manipulate systems in ways that are difficult to detect in real time, underscoring how complex and fast-moving decentralized finance (DeFi) environments can create opportunities for advanced attacks.
Kraken is a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange operated by Payward Inc., offering spot and derivatives trading, as well as custody and staking services for digital assets. Founded in 2011, the platform serves retail and institutional clients globally, providing access to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether (ETH), as well as fiat on- and off-ramps. The company is also known for its focus on security and regulatory compliance across multiple jurisdictions.
Across both incidents, approximately 2,000 client accounts were potentially viewed, according to the company. Kraken has millions of customers, and the security events affected only 0.02% of their client base, a person with knowledge of the matter told CoinDesk.
Kraken said it began receiving extortion demands shortly after the latest access was cut off, with the group threatening to distribute materials from both incidents to media outlets and on social media. The company said it will not comply.
The exchange added that it has been working with industry partners and law enforcement to investigate what it describes as broader insider recruitment efforts targeting crypto, gaming and telecommunications firms. It said it believes there is sufficient evidence to identify and arrest those responsible.
“The security of our clients is our highest priority, and we remain fully committed to combating the growing global threat of insider recruitment and constantly enhancing our security practices to combat new threats,” Percoco added.
Galaxy Digital (GLXY), the digital asset financial services firm founded by Mike Novogratz, said it also recently contained a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to an isolated development workspace. No client funds or account data were accessed or at risk.
Read more: Galaxy Digital’s testnet suffers hack but no client funds or information were compromised
Securitize has announced an integration with TRON, adding one of crypto’s busiest networks to its multichain distribution strategy. The deal will bring tokenized funds and securities issued through Securitize onto TRON and support a new real-world asset product due to launch on the network soon.
This comes at a point in tokenized finance where competition depends as much on where assets can be traded, how easily they can find buyers and sellers, and how many users can reach them, as on the act of tokenizing them in the first place.
Why TRON stands out
TRON gives Securitize entry into a network with large user activity, heavy stablecoin usage, and deep transfer flow.
According to figures cited in the announcement, TRON has more than 373 million accounts, over $26 billion in total value locked, and roughly $7.9 trillion in annual transfer volume.
For tokenized securities, those numbers point to a network with real transaction depth. For issuers trying to place regulated assets inside active onchain markets, that is an advantage.
Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, linked the integration to global availability and continuous access.
“Tokenization is about bringing real-world financial assets onto infrastructure capable of global scale and continuous market access,” Domingo said. “TRON has built one of the most widely used blockchain networks for value transfer, and this integration positions tokenized securities to tap into that reach over time.”
Securitize is entering the next phase of the RWA race
For the past few years, tokenized asset firms have focused on proving that regulated securities, private credit products, and fund interests can exist onchain. Much of that work centered on compliance, custody, legal structure, and investor access.
Attention is now turning to trading activity, liquidity, and distribution. After all, once an asset is tokenized, the next step is making sure it can circulate inside an active market.
Securitize enters this deal with one of the strongest institutional profiles in the sector. The company says it has more than $4 billion in assets under management and has worked with firms including Apollo, BlackRock, BNY, Hamilton Lane, KKR, and VanEck.
In the United States, it operates through SEC-registered entities spanning brokerage, transfer agency, and an alternative trading system. In Europe, it operates through an authorized investment firm under the EU DLT Pilot Regime.
Securitize’s credentials give it a leading position among traditional financial firms entering tokenization. The TRON integration adds access to a blockchain economy built around frequent use rather than limited institutional pilots.
TRON brings stablecoin liquidity and everyday transaction flow
TRON has long been associated with stablecoin transfers, especially USDT, and with payment flows across exchanges, wallets, and cross-border activity. That gives it a different profile from chains whose tokenization ambitions are more closely tied to asset management or developer activity alone.
Justin Sun, founder of TRON, described the partnership as part of the growing overlap between traditional finance and DeFi.
“Our collaboration with Securitize, a leader in tokenization, continues the convergence of traditional finance and DeFi in a powerful new way,” Sun said. “Together, we’re building the infrastructure for a global, onchain financial system.”
Ultimately, tokenized products become more useful when they sit inside active markets. A fund or security issued on a chain with thin usage may satisfy legal and technical requirements, yet still struggle to gain meaningful circulation. TRON offers a very different setting, especially for issuers seeking access to large pools of stablecoin liquidity.
Public chains are becoming more attractive to issuers
The news also says something about how tokenized asset firms now view public blockchains. For a long period, many tokenization efforts leaned toward controlled venues, private systems, or highly restricted environments. Public chains now offer constant settlement, transferability, and access to large digital asset user bases.
TRON is not alone in chasing this thesis. Ethereum, Solana, and other networks have all structured themselves as destinations for real-world assets.
The combination of Securitize’s standing with major asset managers and TRON’s place in stablecoin activity is key here. One side brings regulated product experience, while the other brings volume and distribution.
Product importance
Important details are still missing. Neither company has yet identified the first real-world asset product due to launch on TRON. That product’s design will do a lot to determine how important this deal becomes.
Indeed, a tightly controlled fund for a narrow investor group would tell one story, while a product built for deeper onchain liquidity and wider participation would tell another.
There is also a credibility issue in the market. Tokenized finance has produced a steady flow of product launches, partnerships, and pilot programs, but secondary trading activity has often stayed limited. A deal like this suggests firms are paying closer attention to circulation and liquidity, especially on blockchains where large amounts of value already move every day.
Final thoughts
For Securitize, TRON offers access to one of crypto’s largest transaction environments. For TRON, the integration adds another route into tokenized finance at a time when competition among public chains is heating up.
Overall, tokenization depends on issuance and circulation. Firms able to combine both will be in a stronger position as the sector develops.
The post Securitize Expands to TRON as Tokenized Asset Competition Builds appeared first on BeInCrypto.
University of California researchers have identified a new class of infrastructure-level attack capable of draining crypto wallets and injecting malicious code into developer environments – and this crypto theft already happened in the wild.
A systematic study published on arXiv on April 8, 2026, titled “Measuring Malicious Intermediary Attacks on the LLM Supply Chain,” tested 428 AI API routers and found that 9 actively injected malicious code, 17 accessed researcher AWS credentials, and at least one free router successfully drained ETH from a researcher-controlled private key.
The attack surface is the AI agent routing layer – infrastructure that has expanded rapidly as AI agents become embedded in blockchain execution workflows. The question is no longer whether this threat is theoretical. The question is how many compromised routers are already handling live user sessions.
- Scale of testing: Researchers tested 428 routers – 28 paid (sourced from Taobao, Xianyu, Shopify) and 400 free from public communities – using decoy AWS Canary credentials and encrypted crypto private keys.
- Confirmed malicious activity: 9 routers injected malicious code, 17 accessed AWS credentials, and 1 free router drained ETH from a researcher-owned wallet.
- Evasion sophistication: 2 routers deployed adaptive evasion, including waiting 50 API calls before activating and specifically targeting YOLO-mode autonomous sessions.
- Attack mechanism: Routers operate as application-layer proxies with plaintext JSON access – no encryption standard governs what they can read or modify in transit.
- Poisoning reach: Leaked OpenAI keys processed 2.1 billion tokens, exposing 99 credentials across 440 Codex sessions and 401 autonomous YOLO-mode sessions.
- Recommended defenses: Researchers urge client-side fault-closure gates, response anomaly filtering, append-only audit logging, and cryptographic signing for verifiable LLM responses.
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How Malicious AI Agent Routers Actually Work – Plaintext Proxies, Not Encrypted Pipes
Standard LLM API infrastructure was designed for simple request-response relay: a client sends a prompt, the router forwards it to the model provider, the response comes back.
Malicious routers exploit exactly that trust model – they sit as application-layer proxies in the middle of that exchange, with full read-write access to plaintext JSON payloads passing through them in both directions.
There are no encryption standards governing what a router can inspect or modify in transit. A malicious router sees the raw prompt, the model response, and everything embedded in either – including private keys, API credentials, wallet seed phrases, or code being generated for a live deployment environment.
It can alter the response before it reaches the user, inject additional code into a code-generation output, or silently exfiltrate credentials to an external endpoint.
The UC researchers built an agent they called “Mine” to simulate four distinct attack types against public frameworks, specifically targeting autonomous YOLO-mode sessions where the agent executes actions without human confirmation at each step.
Two of the 428 routers tested deployed adaptive evasion – one waited 50 API calls before activating malicious behavior, specifically to avoid detection during initial testing. That’s not a blunt credential-scraper. That’s a targeted tool built to survive scrutiny.
The poisoning attack vector compounds the risk further. When leaked OpenAI API keys are processed through compromised routing infrastructure, the blast radius scales fast – 2.1 billion tokens processed, 99 credentials exposed across 440 Codex sessions in the researchers’ controlled test environment alone.
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Who Is Actually Exposed – and Why Existing Defenses Don’t Reach This Layer of Crypto Theft
The problem is not that third-party API routers exist. The problem is that the entire trust model for AI agent infrastructure assumes the routing layer is neutral – and no enforcement mechanism currently verifies that assumption at scale.
Developers building onchain tools, DeFi automation scripts, and autonomous trading agents route API calls through third-party infrastructure constantly.
Free routers sourced from public communities – the category where 8 of the 9 malicious injectors were found, are widely used precisely because they lower the cost of building LLM-powered applications. As automated execution infrastructure in DeFi grows more dependent on external data and agent coordination, the routing layer becomes an increasingly attractive target.
Existing wallet security – hardware devices, multisig setups, offline key storage – does not protect against a router that intercepts a private key before it reaches the signing layer, or that injects malicious code into a deployment script that later executes onchain.
Annual crypto theft losses already hit $1.4 billion. This attack vector doesn’t require breaking cryptography. It requires compromising a piece of middleware that most users never examine.
YOLO-mode autonomous sessions are the highest-risk exposure point. When an agent executes multi-step transactions without human confirmation checkpoints, a malicious router has a wider window to act – and the user has no interstitial moment to catch anomalous behavior.
Solayer founder @Fried_rice amplified the findings on X on April 10, 2026, describing the situation as “third-party API routers widely relied on by large language model agents” carrying “systemic security vulnerabilities” – a characterization that landed hard given the scale of autonomous agent adoption across DeFi tooling.
The researchers’ recommended defenses are client-side: fault-closure gates that halt execution when anomalous responses are detected, response anomaly filtering, and append-only logging for audit trails that can’t be tampered with by the router itself. Longer term, the UC team is advocating for cryptographic signing standards that would make LLM responses verifiable – the same architectural principle that makes onchain oracle integrity a live design requirement rather than an afterthought.
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The post Researchers Warn Malicious AI Agent Routers Could Become a New Crypto Theft Vector appeared first on Cryptonews.
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