Formula by Cointelegraph PR head Katerina Zemskova says AI-fueled content saturation has pushed Web3 projects to ditch rigid retainers and build founder-led, macro-aware narratives instead of generic press blitzes.

The Web3 public relations industry is facing what Formula by Cointelegraph Head of PR Katerina Zemskova calls a “press-release blindness” crisis, as crypto companies continue spending thousands of dollars on media distribution campaigns that often generate little measurable business impact.

In an interview with Formula, Zemskova said the explosion of AI-generated content has fundamentally changed how crypto audiences consume information, forcing projects to rethink how they build trust with investors, users and regulators.

“The volume of announcements is so high, and they look so similar to one another, that audiences have simply stopped seeing them,” Zemskova said. “A company pays for distribution, gets a clean-looking report, and the actual business impact is low.”

Her comments arrive as crypto markets become increasingly narrative-driven, with Bitcoin and altcoins reacting not only to blockchain developments but also to political messaging, interest-rate expectations and institutional capital flows.

AI content surge collides with political crypto cycle

Zemskova argued that AI has made mass content production nearly worthless as a competitive advantage because “there is now more content than there is attention.”

“Publishing in volume has become easy, which means it no longer sets you apart,” she said. “Part of your content needs to be optimized for machine indexing, so that you show up in ChatGPT, Gemini, news aggregators. Another part needs to be written so that a living human being stops and reads to the end.”

The warning comes as crypto projects aggressively compete for visibility ahead of a politically charged second half of 2026. Markets have increasingly reacted to U.S. election rhetoric, regulatory positioning and geopolitical tensions, with traders rotating between Bitcoin (BTC), large-cap altcoins and tokenized real-world assets based on macro sentiment.

In a previous crypto.news story, altcoins surged after softer inflation data revived expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts. Another crypto.news story showed how geopolitical fears and Treasury yield spikes triggered widespread crypto liquidations.

Zemskova said crypto projects increasingly struggle because audiences no longer trust generic branding language.

“Presence without personality kills conversion,” she said. “Investors do not trust such projects, neither do partners, neither do users.”

Crypto firms pushed toward founder-led narratives

According to Zemskova, Web3 firms should borrow strategies from major consumer brands like Nike, which built public-facing ambassador programs around researchers and engineers rather than relying solely on corporate messaging.

“You remember that behind the product, there are living human beings who actually care,” she said. “In Web3, this technique is almost never used, and it should be.”

Formula has since shifted away from rigid long-term retainers toward what Zemskova described as a modular campaign structure tailored to market conditions and project stage.

“One month it might be AMA sessions and a podcast series,” she said. “Another month, opinion columns and KOL work. A third, press releases and distribution ahead of a TGE.”

The evolving approach reflects how crypto communications are increasingly tied to financial market positioning. As institutional investors enter digital assets, narrative control around regulation, adoption and macroeconomics has become more valuable for both Bitcoin and the broader altcoin sector.

In another crypto.news story, tokenized equities and hybrid financial products gained momentum as traders sought 24-hour exposure to politically sensitive markets.

Zemskova said many PR agencies still fail to adapt to the pace of change shaping the crypto industry.

“If a PR agency offers you the same package locked in for 12 months ahead, that is a bad sign,” she said. “The 2026 market does not look like the 2024 market, and six months from now it will be different again.”

She added that crypto companies should stop viewing PR as a fixed operational expense and instead treat reputation as a strategic asset tied directly to capital formation, hiring and regulatory relationships.

“Reputation in crypto is an asset that determines how much capital you raise, who you hire onto your team, and how regulators speak to you,” Zemskova said.

Minnesota has signed a new crypto custody law that lets banks and credit unions hold digital assets for customers from Aug. 1.

Gov. Tim Walz signed HF 3709 into law, allowing state-chartered banks and credit unions to offer virtual-currency custody services. The law covers the safekeeping, control, or management of virtual currency and private keys on behalf of another person.

The law takes effect on Aug. 1, 2026. It applies to crypto custody services that start on or after that date. Banks may offer the service in a fiduciary or nonfiduciary role, while credit unions may provide custody services to members under the same state and federal limits.

What rules must banks and credit unions follow?

The law requires any bank or credit union offering crypto custody to act in a safe and sound manner. Institutions must keep written policies for risk management, internal controls, cybersecurity, business continuity, and compliance.

Banks and credit unions must also send written notice to the Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce at least 60 days before launching the service. That notice must describe the services and the institution’s risk management framework.

The law also requires customer crypto assets and related control systems to stay separate from the institution’s own assets. Banks and credit unions may use qualified third-party service providers or subcustodians, but they must keep oversight responsibility.

Rep. Bernie Perryman, one of the bill’s authors, said HF 3709 would allow Minnesota financial institutions to “evolve alongside their customers and members” rather than push residents toward out-of-state or offshore providers.

Why is Minnesota also banning crypto ATMs?

The custody law comes as Minnesota moves in the opposite direction on crypto ATMs. Walz signed SF 3868 on May 5, banning virtual currency kiosks across the state. The ban takes effect on Aug. 1, 2026, and operators must remove public kiosks by Dec. 31, 2026.

The measure blocks the installation, operation, maintenance, or public use of virtual currency kiosks in Minnesota. Operators must also pay out customer funds before shutting down. Customers may receive U.S. dollars based on market value or crypto sent to a selected wallet.

The Minnesota Credit Union Network said the custody law gives residents “a safer way to manage crypto” through regulated institutions. That framing fits the state’s new approach: allow bank custody under supervision, while removing ATM channels tied to fraud concerns.

How does this fit wider crypto regulation?

Minnesota’s move comes as U.S. banks face clearer rules around digital asset services. Earlier reports noted that the OCC allowed regulated banks to buy, sell, and provide custody for crypto held for customers.

Crypto ATM pressure is also rising outside Minnesota. Canada has moved toward a crypto ATM ban over fraud concerns, while Bitcoin Depot filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after regulatory pressure, revenue decline, and security issues.

DeFi yields on blue-chip stablecoins now trail bank cash and tokenized Treasuries, forcing CoinEx to pitch Flexible Savings as a liquidity tool, not a rate stunt.

CoinEx’s pitch for crypto-denominated savings now lands in a market where, for the first time in a full cycle, many on-chain savings products pay less than mainstream dollar savings accounts while still carrying protocol and platform risk. 

Crypto yields lose their risk premium

Commentators have recently described the shift as a quiet inversion of DeFi’s original bargain. One widely shared summary of April 2026 rate conditions put it bluntly: “DeFi stablecoin yield in April 2026 is a quiet tragedy → Aave / Morpho / Euler: ~1.8%–3.1% → Interactive Brokers cash: ~3.14%,” arguing that the “risk premium that justified DeFi’s existence has inverted.” In other words, the extra return that once compensated for smart contract exploits, oracle failures and governance risk has narrowed or disappeared on undifferentiated stablecoin lending.

Where CoinEx Flexible Savings fits

In this environment, crypto savings products are being judged less by headline APY and more by how they integrate into a user’s overall balance sheet. A 2026 guide to interest-bearing crypto accounts noted that platforms now emphasize terms, liquidity and payout structure — “Flexible Savings” versus “Fixed-term Savings,” daily versus end-of-term payouts — rather than simply marketing “up to” rates divorced from real conditions.

According to CoinEx, its Flexible Savings product is a “principal-protected wealth management” solution where users subscribe with idle balances, interest starts accruing from the next full hour, is calculated hourly, and is credited in a single daily payout at 00:00. Assets can be redeemed at any time, returning instantly to the spot account and stopping interest accrual upon redemption, a structure that some characterize as “focusing on liquidity” for investors “seeking returns without locking up their assets.”

Regulation, meanwhile, is tilting the field toward banks, especially around dollar-pegged assets. Reporting on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act describes how the latest draft “prohibits offering yield directly or indirectly on stablecoin balances,” banning anything “economically or functionally equivalent to bank interest” and explicitly targeting exchange programs that had passed stablecoin rewards through to users. As one FinTech Weekly analysis put it, banks “would get regulatory clarity but lose the competitive tool that made stablecoins threatening to the deposit base,” with the current text landing “closer to the bank position than the White House compromise that preceded it.”

For savers already holding Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) or stablecoins, the result is a more nuanced choice than the old “DeFi beats banks” slogan. Crypto savings through products such as CoinEx Flexible Savings now sit alongside tokenized Treasuries — averaging about 3.38% seven-day APY in recent surveys — and high-yield dollar accounts, functioning less as a replacement for insured cash and more as a portfolio-efficiency tool for keeping dormant crypto balances working within a clear, transparent risk framework.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies chairman Tom Lee says the crypto treasury company took advantage of a recent Ether price drop under $2,200 to scoop up another 71,672 Ether for its stockpile.

Ether (ETH) has traded between $2,081 and $2,341 over the past seven days. It was trading at $2,128 as of Tuesday and was down 8.7% over the same period.

“Over the past week, we acquired 71,672 ETH. We view the recent pullback of ETH to below $2,200 as an attractive opportunity. Bitmine is expected to reach the alchemy of 5% sometime in 2026,” Lee said on Monday.

Bitmine is the largest Ether treasury company and has consistently bought the token, even during market downturns, in a business model similar to Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury firm, Strategy.

Bitmine’s total treasury holdings stand at more than 5.2 million, with the company’s goal to hold 5% of the token’s circulating supply of 120.7 million. It bought 26,659 Ether between May 4 and May 11, breaking its three-week streak of adding more than 100,000 Ether per week. 

It comes amid reports that an Ethereum whale who previously cashed out their Ether also bought the dip over the weekend, making a return to the asset.

Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain said in an X post Saturday that a whale who bought Ether more than a decade ago and sold their holdings a year ago has started buying again. 

Source: Lookonchain

The OG whale purchased 1,951 Ether at $2,182, and Lookonchain speculated “he may keep buying.”

Ether under pressure amid Middle East conflict

Lee said Monday that rising oil prices, which soared after the conflict in the Middle East escalated earlier this year, have been a consistent drag on Ether’s price. He predicted that a reversal in oil prices could lead to Ether recovering.

Ether reached an all-time high of $4,946 in August 2025 but has since fallen about 57%. Analysts have predicted the token could still rise before the end of the year.

Related: Ethereum Foundation hits ‘Glamsterdam’ milestones, names new protocol leads 

Financial institution Citigroup predicted in March that Ether could reach $3,175 in the next 12 months. In a bull case, however, it could hit $4,488, driven by stablecoin and tokenization interest and usage.

Meanwhile, CoinGecko, citing prediction market data, speculated that Ether has a 48% chance of ending the year at $1,500 and a 25% chance of ending the year at $3,500.

Earlier this year, banking giant Standard Chartered had a more bullish outlook. Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital assets research, said in a January report that Ether could hit $7,500 by the end of the year, driven by growing adoption of blockchains and onchain products.

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

Decentralized finance protocol Echo Protocol was exploited after an attacker minted about 1,000 unauthorized eBTC on the protocol, which is deployed on the Monad blockchain.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield and analytics platform Lookonchain both reported the incident on Tuesday, noting that a hacker minted 1,000 synthetic Bitcoin (eBTC) worth around $76.7 million.

“We are currently investigating a security incident impacting the Echo bridge on Monad.  All cross-chain transactions remain suspended while the investigation is underway,” Echo Protocol said on Tuesday.  

This latest exploit comes in a month that has seen at least 12 protocols compromised, including THORChain, Verus Protocol’s Ethereum bridge, Transit Finance, TrustedVolumes and Ekubo.

According to PeckShield, the attacker attempted to launder some of the loot by depositing 45 eBTC worth around $3.45 million into DeFi lending and liquidity management protocol Curvance. 

The attacker then borrowed 11.3 wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) worth $868,000 against it, bridged the tokens to Ethereum, swapped them for ETH, and sent 384 ETH worth about $822,000 to the Tornado Cash mixing service. 

The attacker still holds 955 eBTC worth about $73 million, according to DeBank.

Echo Protocol is a Bitcoin DeFi platform focused on Bitcoin liquidity aggregation, liquid staking, restaking, and yield generation. It creates unified, liquid BTC assets such as eBTC for users to bridge and deploy in DeFi for additional yield. The protocol is deployed on Monad, a high-performance, layer-1, EVM-compatible blockchain.

The hacker still holds 95% of the stolen crypto. Source: DeBank 

Admin private key compromised 

Blockchain developer “Marioo” reported that it was not a smart contract bug, but an admin private key compromise, and the root cause was “operational, not technical.”

The eBTC contract “worked exactly as designed,” they said, adding that the vulnerabilities included a single signature for the admin role, no timelock, no minting supply cap or rate limit, and no “supply sanity check” by Curvance for the freshly minted collateral.

Related: Hackers used AI to craft zero-day attack to bypass 2FA: Google

Curvance reported that it was aware of the “anomaly” detected in the Echo eBTC market on Curvance and confirmed that there was no compromise with its own smart contracts. It paused the affected market for investigation. 

Monad co-founder Keone Hon clarified on X that “the Monad network is not affected and is operating normally.”

Meanwhile, Echo Protocol said it will provide updates through its official channels as more information becomes available. 

DeFi hacks surge in 2026

The year has been challenging for DeFi security, with dozens of protocols exploited for hundreds of millions in crypto and more than 20 protocols shuttering services. 

Two of the largest hacks this year included the exploit of the Drift Protocol, which lost $285 million, and Kelp DAO, which was exploited for $292 million in April. 

On Monday, Verus Protocol’s Ethereum bridge was exploited through a fake cross-chain transfer message that allowed a hacker to steal at least $11.6 million in crypto.

Decentralized liquidity protocol THORChain halted trading on Friday after blockchain investigator ZachXBT flagged a suspected $10 million exploit. 

Meanwhile, Transit Finance suffered a deprecated smart contract exploit, resulting in the loss of $1.88 million last week. 

Magazine: DeFi’s billion-dollar secret: The insiders responsible for hacks