Coinbase (COIN) shares fell more than 5% in after-hours trading Thursday after the crypto platform reported weaker-than-expected first-quarter results as falling crypto prices weighed on trading activity, one of the company’s main sources of revenue.

The company posted a loss of $1.49 per share, compared with analyst expectations for a $0.27 profit. Revenue came in at $1.41 billion, below estimates of $1.52 billion.

Transaction revenue totaled $755.8 million, missing analyst expectations of $805.2 million. Subscription and services revenue, a segment investors closely watch as Coinbase tries to reduce its reliance on trading fees, totaled $583.5 million, below expectations of $619.3 million.

Crypto markets weakened sharply as bitcoin BTC$79,891.58 and other digital assets fell. Lower prices and reduced volatility typically lead to weaker spot trading volumes across exchanges. Investors had expected a slowdown after the crypto selloff early in the quarter, even though bitcoin rebounded roughly 12% in March.

Coinbase has spent the past several years expanding beyond its core trading business into stablecoins, staking, derivatives and blockchain infrastructure. The company said Wednesday that its global crypto trading volume market share rose to 8.6%, a record high, driven partly by growth in derivatives trading.

Trailing 12-month derivatives trading volume increased 169% year over year, while retail derivatives revenue surpassed an annualized run rate of $200 million for the first time, Coinbase said.

The company also pointed to growth in prediction markets and stablecoin activity. Coinbase said its prediction markets business surpassed $100 million in annualized revenue within its first two full months following its U.S. launch.

Meanwhile, Coinbase said its Base blockchain processed 62% of global onchain stablecoin transaction volume during the quarter.

Earlier this week, Coinbase said it would cut about 700 jobs, or roughly 14% of its workforce, as part of an AI-driven restructuring effort. The company also cited the broader crypto downturn as a factor behind the layoffs.

Investors are increasingly focused on whether Coinbase’s subscription and infrastructure businesses can offset the cyclical swings of crypto trading revenue during weaker markets.

Prediction markets closed out Consensus Miami 2026 as the subject of a live debate on whether they are regulated financial derivatives or gambling products operating outside state law.

Prediction markets closed out Consensus Miami 2026 on Thursday as the subject of the conference’s final debate, pitting the CFTC’s position that event contracts are swaps against a growing coalition of state attorneys general who argue the platforms are unlicensed gambling businesses.

The session brought the conference’s policy agenda to a head after three days of regulatory and legislative sessions.

CFTC Chairman Michael Selig, who attended Consensus for the first time this year, has made the prediction markets jurisdictional fight a defining feature of his tenure.

“We expect these matters to go up to the Supreme Court,” Selig said, as the agency has already sued Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, and Wisconsin for attempting to regulate CFTC-registered exchanges under state gambling law.

Why states are pushing back

The core disagreement is structural. Kalshi and Polymarket argue their platforms operate like futures markets, with no house setting odds and no counterparty absorbing all risk.

DraftKings president Paul Liberman acknowledged the consumer experience is identical to sports betting. “For the end user, yes,” he said, “whether they’re putting a bet on the sportsbook or whether they’re doing a trade on the Celtics here, they definitely feel as though it’s the same.”

Wisconsin filed complaints against Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, and Robinhood in April, arguing their contracts meet the state’s legal definition of a bet.

A bipartisan coalition of 41 state attorneys general has separately called for federal clarity on jurisdiction. Senator Marsha Blackburn’s subcommittee has scheduled a hearing for May 20, sitting directly between the Consensus debate and the Senate’s CLARITY Act markup window.

As crypto.news reported, Selig has offered platforms a framework: the CFTC will fight state interference, but exchanges must accept surveillance, insider trading enforcement, and a derivatives-style rulebook in return.

Large corporations looking to modernize payments and AI agents making autonomous transactions are emerging as the two biggest growth drivers for stablecoins, executives of Bridge and Deus X Capital said Thursday at Consensus 2026 in Miami.

Lindsey Einhaus — who leads strategy and operations at stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge, which was acquired by Stripe for $1.1 billion — said the next two years will likely bring a wave of institutional stablecoin adoption, especially for cross-border payments and internal treasury operations.

“Large institutions are looking to utilize stablecoins to manage cross-border flows and really collapse a lot of their account management into stablecoins,” Einhaus said.

She pointed to payment-focused blockchains like Tempo, backed by Stripe and Paradigm, as key enablers for broader adoption. Existing blockchains historically lacked features common in traditional payments systems, such as refunds, chargebacks and private transactions, she argued.

The next growth area may come from AI-powered micropayments.

According to Einhaus, blockchain-based stablecoin rails could finally make tiny internet payments economically viable by removing costly intermediaries and reducing transaction fees. Historically, micropayments failed because transaction costs often exceeded the value being transferred, while crypto payments introduced price volatility that discouraged spending.

“With stablecoin-native blockchains, you’re going to dramatically reduce transaction costs,” she said.

Tim Grant, CEO of Deus X Capital, said agentic payments — autonomous AI systems transacting with each other — may become one of the strongest crypto use cases yet, partly because consumers intuitively understand the need for machines to move money online.

“We’re underestimating the agentic payment boom that’s about to happen,” Grant said.

At the same time, he cautioned that the infrastructure remains fragmented across multiple blockchains and wallets, while regulation around autonomous financial activity is still evolving.

Grant struck a more cautious tone overall on the pace of stablecoin adoption. While he was optimistic in the long term, he argued that the industry still faces hurdles around regulation, consumer onboarding and institutional coordination.

Still, he acknowledged that institutional sentiment has shifted meaningfully as regulators become more supportive.

“Before, you had to push institutions to pay attention,” Grant said. “Now they’re pulling.”

TLDR

• Vitalik Buterin’s XDB token swap triggered a sandwich attack from the JaredfromSubway MEV bot on Ethereum.
• The bot executed more than $1 million in trades before and after Buterin’s transaction confirmed.
• Blockchain data showed the sandwich attack happened in Ethereum block 24993038 on April 30.
• JaredfromSubway used SushiSwap and Uniswap V2 pools to manipulate XDB prices during the trade.
• Reports showed the bot likely lost money after paying more than $5 in gas fees.

---

Ethereum mempool activity exposed another sandwich attack involving Vitalik Buterin earlier this week. Blockchain data showed the JaredfromSubway bot targeted Buterin’s small XDB token trade on April 30. The transaction triggered more than $1 million in temporary trading volume across decentralized exchanges.

Vitalik Buterin Trade Triggered Automated MEV Activity

Etherscan data showed Buterin swapped 26,544 XDB tokens for 0.00197 ETH during block 24993038. The transaction carried an estimated value between $3.86 and $4.56. However, the JaredfromSubway bot detected the pending trade before block confirmation.

The bot then executed about $1.14 million in wrapped Ether transactions through SushiSwap and Uniswap V2. Those trades temporarily changed XDB liquidity prices before Buterin’s transaction completed. Afterward, the bot reversed the positions and captured a small spread from the movement.

CoinDesk analysis showed the bot likely earned only a few cents from the sequence. Gas costs reportedly reached $5.14 during the operation. Therefore, the bot appeared to lose money on the isolated transaction.

Blockchain records still showed the bot completed the full sandwich sequence despite the limited profit opportunity. Analysts said the behavior reflected automated scanning across Ethereum’s public mempool. The system searched continuously for transactions that matched preset trading conditions.

A sandwich attack places trades before and after another user’s pending transaction. The strategy raises the asset price before execution and sells immediately afterward. As a result, victims receive weaker execution prices during swaps.

JaredfromSubway Continues Expanding Ethereum MEV Operations

JaredfromSubway gained attention during the 2023 meme coin trading surge on Ethereum. The bot targeted traders dealing with tokens including PEPE and WOJAK. During April 2023, the bot briefly generated 7% of Ethereum gas usage.

Reports estimated the operation extracted more than $7 million from trading activity over hundreds of thousands of transactions. Developers and researchers tracked the wallet through several blockchain monitoring tools. The bot also survived contract upgrades and filtering attempts from builders.

Ethereum developers continue discussing methods to reduce toxic maximal extractable value activity. Buterin recently promoted encrypted mempools within Ethereum’s developing 2026 roadmap. He argued public mempools expose regular traders to hidden trading costs.

MEV refers to profits earned through transaction ordering on blockchain networks. Bots monitor pending transactions and insert trades before confirmation. Sandwich attacks currently represent about 51% of Ethereum MEV activity.

Current estimates placed cumulative Ethereum MEV extraction above $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, developers continued testing systems designed to limit front-running opportunities. Blockchain records from April 30 still showed JaredfromSubway executing the sandwich around Buterin’s transaction.

Political action committees (PACs) affiliated with the cryptocurrency company-backed Fairshake reported spending millions of dollars to support candidates in five races, with less than six months until US voters decide on their representatives in Congress.

According to filings with the Federal Election Commission this week, the Protect Progress PAC reported about a combined $1.6 million in expenditures for Jasmine Clark and Christian Menefee, Democrats running to represent Georgia’s 13th Congressional district and Texas’ 18th district, respectively. 

The reported media buys came before Clark will face a May 19 Democratic primary and Menefee a May 26 runoff against Representative Al Green, who is running for a 12th term in office. Protect Progress claimed that Green was “actively hostile towards a growing Texas crypto community,” pledging to spend $1.5 million to oppose his reelection to Congress.

Protect Progress, a Fairshake affiliate, typically focuses on Democratic candidates, while another affiliate, Defend American Jobs, supports Republicans. The Defend American Jobs PAC similarly reported spending $5.6 million on candidates in Georgia’s 1st and 14th districts, Nebraska’s 3rd district and US Senate races in Alabama and Kentucky. All four US states are scheduled to hold May primaries.

Related: Americans distrust crypto, AI as industry super PACs flood midterms, poll finds

Among Defend American Jobs’ expenditures, Andy Barr, running for the US Senate in Kentucky and currently a US House representative for the state’s 6th district, received the most support, with more than $3.5 million in media. Barr has made many public statements favoring pro-crypto policies while in Congress, and voted in favor of legislation, including the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act.

Source: Andy Barr

Fairshake, which reported holding $193 million as of January, has already spent millions of dollars in an attempt to influence voters through the media in the 2026 primaries. The Defend American Jobs PAC spent about $514,000 on advertising supporting Republican James Baird’s reelection in Indiana, and poured millions into media for Texas and Illinois races this year.

Crypto market structure bill could impact candidates’ midterm chances

For many crypto-supporting lawmakers and industry leaders, the progress of a digital asset market structure bill, called the CLARITY Act, could prove to be a litmus test for the 2026 midterm elections. Fairshake and its affiliates spent more than $130 million on media to support or oppose candidates in 2024, potentially influencing voters and changing the makeup of the current Congress, which will decide crypto-related laws.

“I do think it is critically important that every single member of Congress have a position on crypto, it’s part of their election campaign and their platform, and voters are going to be paying attention to this,” Cody Carbone, CEO of crypto advocacy organization The Digital Chamber, told Cointelegraph.

Last week, lawmakers in the US Senate announced a compromise on stablecoin yield that could allow the CLARITY Act to move forward for markup in the Senate Banking Committee, whose approval is necessary before a full floor vote. As of Thursday, the committee had not scheduled a markup on the bill.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026

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.

MEV-focused extraction bot JaredFromSubway.eth front- and back-ran an Ethereum trade by Vitalik Buterin, getting away with about two-thousandths of an ether (ETH).

Ethereum founder Buterin was selling a token airdrop, DigitalBits, when he fell victim to the garden-variety sandwich attack.

The name “JaredFromSubway” refers to Jared Fogle who lost nearly 250 pounds while earning a TV sponsorship from Subway. After his weight loss fame faded, however, the world learned of Fogle’s sexual misconduct involving minors, including a criminal conviction.

He remains imprisoned with an expected release date of 2029.

Crypto, of course, has a dark sense of humor, and despite his legal troubles, someone decided to name a maximum extractable value (MEV)-focused extraction bot after him. Fogle, who has limited internet access in prison, doesn’t control the bot.

The trader bearing an ENS name with Fogle’s brand extracted value from Buterin’s transaction inside Ethereum block 24993038.

Read more: Your L2 transaction fees are higher because of MEV spam, report

Another sandwich attack by JaredFromSubway.eth

Buterin routed 26,544 DigitalBits (XDB) tokens through the Uniswap V2 router with his slippage parameter amountOutMin set to zero. That setting accepted any non-zero output.

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Buterin received 0.00197 ETH, worth a little under $5 at the time.

JaredFromSubway.eth, watching the public mempool, noticed Buterin’s unprotected swap and inserted itself onto both sides of his transaction.

In the position immediately before Buterin, the bot dumped a pile of XDB into the same Uniswap V2 pool. That depressed the exchange rate Buterin would receive.

In the position immediately after, it bought XDB back at the depressed price and rotated the inventory through a third liquidity pool to close the loop.

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After gas fees, Jared gained nothing except the satisfaction of making a priceless joke at Buterin’s expense.

The punchline is that a sandwich bot on Ethereum — named after the world’s most famous sandwich spokesperson — still tricked a careless Buterin out of fees on his own blockchain.

If Vitalik can get sandwiched, so can you.

Good excuse to learn a bit about MEV, mempools, and how to stop donating money to bots.

This is not just about one funny tx.

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Although, yes, it is funny.

It is about the fact that Ethereum trading happens inside an adversarial… https://t.co/GcWVXqsVKW

— zeugh.eth (@theZeugh) May 7, 2026

Read more: Vitalik Buterin’s $1B crypto donation to India will be worth just $400M

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Buterin suffered the sandwich attack because his swap order carelessly accepted any output. Setting amountOutMin to zero was Uniswap’s maximally permissive setting.

In essence, Buterin told his order router to fill his trade no matter how badly the price moved based on his supply.

MEV bots scanning Ethereum’s mempool salivate for exactly that type of laziness.

Buterin has a habit of dumping unsolicited airdrops and donating the proceeds.

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Because almost all of his personal net worth derives from his pre-mined allocation of ETH, he’s happy to donate extra coins that he receives. In this case, his donation went to an unintended recipient.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

MIAMI – Coinbax won the $20,000 grand prize at Consensus Miami’s PitchFest after pitching a system designed to help banks and financial firms manage compliance for stablecoin payments.

The company, founded by former Jack Henry executive Peter Glyman, builds programmable escrow infrastructure that adds controls to wallet-to-wallet crypto transactions. The software is meant to reduce the risks financial institutions face when moving funds onchain.

“Banks want to use stablecoins for payments, but they need to get their compliance people comfortable with the idea of moving money onchain,” Glyman said during his presentation.

He described a future where “wallet addresses [are] associated with every bank account,” with transactions moving between banks, fintech firms and self-custody wallets. In that environment, he argued, compliance checks need to happen directly onchain rather than only through traditional banking intermediaries.

Coinbax uses smart contracts to hold funds in escrow while third-party services verify identity, sanctions screening and transaction risk. Funds settle only after conditions are met.

“We provide a trust layer,” Glyman said. “We provide programmable escrow that adds the control layer to these payments.”

The startup launched in October, closed a seed round in December and is already live on Base mainnet, according to Glyman. He said the company is working with banks, custody firms and wallet providers on pilot programs.

Second place went to Tashi, a decentralized infrastructure project focused on coordinating and managing AI systems across distributed networks.

Crypto traders are keeping their fingers crossed for another global pandemic amid predictions that an outbreak of hantavirus from a cruise ship could spur on a so-called “memecoin supercycle.”

X user “@jeetassassin,” who features a badge of the Solana-based crypto exchange Moonshot on their account, claimed that the hantavirus “will spark another memecoin supercycle.”

Hours later, Moonshot claimed that it had “verified” Pump Fun-created token hantavirus (HANTA), which features an AI-generated image of a virus and a rat, on its site. 

Read more: Your $1,200 COVID stimulus could be worth $14,700 in bitcoin

Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik claimed that during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020, it was the year of “DeFi summer.” Now he’s proposing that the hantavirus could herald an “agentic summer.”

Indeed, various other crypto users on X have noted that memecoin traders are praying for a potential pandemic so that their hantavirus-themed crypto holdings “go 100x.”

One user noted, “memecoin traders want the world to go into a full on global pandemic so there $500 in ‘handavirus’ coin goes up.”

Another memecoin trader brandishing a Pump Fun-affiliated badge asked, “What if the Hantavirus shuts down everything and we enter a memecoin supercycle.”

Read more: Paranoid anti-vaxxers are buying fake COVID passes for bitcoin

The display of apathy on show from a lot of memecoin traders shows their indifference to global issues as they participate in an addictive, online lifestyle of gambling with cryptocurrencies. 

As one trader put it, “If a pandemic is what it takes to bring traders & vol back then so be it.”

Another claimed that, despite not wanting a pandemic to push the world into lockdown again, “If it somehow does end up spreading and gets COVID-level exposure, crypto volume would probably go absolutely crazy.”

Sorry memecoin traders, hantavirus doesn’t spread like COVID-19

Hantavirus is the name given to a group of various viruses that are carried by rodents. In this case, the Andes hantavirus was detected on a cruise ship departing Argentina last month. 

The virus is reported to have infected five passengers, and is suspected to have spread to three more. Three passengers have died as a result, and those suspected of being infected are being treated and isolated.  

Despite memecoin traders’ eagerness for a global pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has stressed that the Andes hantavirus is not as contagious as COVID-19, and that the risk to the public is low.  

WHO infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Maria van Kerkhove said at a conference today that, “This is not Covid, this is not influenza, it spreads very, very differently.”

Hantavirus latest: The UN World Health Organization (WHO) says human-to-human transmission aboard cruise ship in Atlantic Ocean cannot be ruled out, although it is rare. Seven of 147 passengers and crew have fallen ill and three have died. https://t.co/mY3ZwGQGsW pic.twitter.com/VhCVHzAvk6

— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) May 5, 2026

The health body stressed that the virus requires intimate, prolonged contact with people in order to spread.

The Andes hantavirus has spread before, but never reached pandemic status. It’s also not a new strain of virus like COVID-19 that required an international effort to produce a vaccine. 

However, the hantavirus itself is still quite deadly and can cause the respiratory disease hantavirus cardiopulmonary syndrome which has a mortality rate of up to 50%. 

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Bitcoin (BTC) price dropped to $79,800 on Thursday after being rejected at a key dynamic resistance level. The pullback occurred despite the weekly spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows surging past $1 billion for the first time since January, but technical data suggests the correction may be short-lived. 

Bearish divergences point to where BTC price may go

Bitcoin’s dip below $80,000 came amid a bearish divergence in the relative strength index (RSI) on the one-hour and four-hour charts. A bearish divergence occurs when BTC forms higher highs while the RSI weakens across lower timeframes, signaling fading buying momentum during a rally.

BTC/USDT, four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A hold above the weekly open at $78,500 could stabilize the short-term price action. The key technical support range remains between $76,000 and $78,000, where the daily fair value gap (FVG) aligns with Bitcoin’s 200-day exponential moving average (EMA). If the correction continues, BTC could retest the FVG zone before attempting another rebound above its recent high at $82,800.

A fair value gap marks an area where a sharp price movement previously occurred with limited trading activity, leaving an imbalance that often becomes a liquidity zone during retracements.

Crypto trader Jelle said the “200-day MA/EMA cluster” was acting as resistance, while also identifying $78,000 as the first major support area. According to Jelle, a 200-day moving average retest could allow Bitcoin to retest higher price targets.

Meanwhile, crypto trader Killa XBT identified the $76,300 to $74,700 range as a deeper support zone if selling pressure continues. The trader pointed to the weekly open near $78,500 as the main short-term level that bulls are attempting to defend. 

BTC one-day chart analysis by Killa. Source: X

Related: Bitcoin analysts say this level must break for BTC price to confirm bottom

Can spot ETF inflows offset price weakness?

Spot Bitcoin ETF demand strengthened sharply this week. Net inflows reached $1.05 billion, marking the strongest weekly intake since the third week of January. A positive close on Friday would confirm the largest weekly ETF inflow return in nearly four months.

Spot BTC ETF net inflows. Source: SoSoValue

Meanwhile, Swissblock data shows that the Bitcoin Risk Index has reset to near zero, while ETF net flows turned positive again at roughly 3,000 BTC. Historically, elevated risk readings aligned with the ETF outflows and heavier selling pressure across the market. 

Risk index and BTC ETF net flows. Source: Swissblock/X

The resets into the low-risk zone often coincided with renewed accumulation near the major support clusters. The analysis added, 

“That synchronization is still in place. Even when the Risk Index ticked slightly higher last week, ETF selling appeared briefly, but accumulation quickly resumed. That tells us ETF demand is absorbing selling pressure. This remains a flow-driven breakout.”

Related: Bitcoin market dominance moves above 61%: Will altcoins follow?

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.