Crypto World
Polymarket revamps marketing, expands U.S. hiring ahead of fall events
Polymarket banner outside the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 7th, 2025.
Kevin Stankiewicz | CNBC
Prediction market platform Polymarket is preparing for what’s expected to be a busy fall season for event contract exchanges by making high-profile hires and restructuring its marketing strategy.
Polymarket hired Travis VanderZanden, founder of E-Scooter startup Bird in 2017, as its chief growth officer. VanderZanden previously worked at Uber Technologies and Lyft as well.
Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan “is the visionary of the prediction market space, and this is a massive market opportunity,” VanderZanden said in a statement to CNBC. “It’s an exciting time to come in as we build out the executive team to help guide the next stage and make sure we’re buttoned up for the long haul.”
Bloomberg first reported VanderZanden’s appointment last week.
Shayne Coplan, chief executive officer of Polymarket, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, US, on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025.
Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images
VanderZanden will also oversee Polymarket’s marketing, a person familiar with the matter said. That’s an area of the company’s business that came under scrutiny following a Wall Street Journal investigation that claimed the company conducted misleading marketing campaigns.
The Journal said Polymarket ensured it looked as though content creators it used were winning on the platform when, in fact, they were not using any of their own money. That report led to an investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the federal regulator for prediction markets.
Polymarket has implemented a new organizational structure for the marketing team set to be led by VanderZanden, updated its guidelines for promotional partners and conducted training sessions with staff to inform them of new policies, the person familiar with the matter said. The company is now working with AlixPartners, a consulting firm, to monitor content released by promotional partners and confirm that it follows the new guidelines, the person said.
Other prominent managers have been added to strengthen Polymarket in 2026 as well.
Megan McGrath, formerly of Robinhood, is now the chief compliance officer of Polymarket’s U.S. exchange, and Natalie Oblazny, formerly at Coinbase, heads regulatory affairs for the domestic platform. Polymarket’s U.S. exchange debuted in May and operates separately from the international market.
Polymarket also hired Shana Bautista, a former FBI official who worked at Coinbase, as its global head of investigations and intelligence, while Paul Jordan joined from Nasdaq and will serve as the chief risk officer for Polymarket U.S.
All of the new staff come as prediction market platforms prepare for two major drivers of traffic this fall. The start of the NFL season in September and the runup to midterm elections in November are expected to boost trading volumes after domestic and international activity dipped following the end of the World Cup in July.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
Crypto World
Coinbase Wins Abu Dhabi License for Tokenized Securities Hub
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Coinbase has received a Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market to build what it calls its international tokenization hub, clearing the exchange to arrange deals in investments and provide custody ahead of a launch of tokenized… Read the full story at The Defiant
Crypto World
Software stocks break away from bitcoin: What the rare divergence means for crypto

IGV’s rebound is reshaping a relationship it held with bitcoin for years, but history suggests bitcoin could still catch up.
Crypto World
EToro reports second quarter crypto loss even as total profit beats estimates
EToro’s (ETOR) crypto trading was $7.2 million in the red in the second quarter of 2026, a decline of nearly 120% from the $37.7 million it made a year earlier, according to its second-quarter earnings released Tuesday.
The Tel Aviv, Israel-based trading platform reported $1.35 billion in cryptoasset revenue, around 29% lower than the $1.91 billion a year earlier. Its cost of revenue from cryptoassets was $1.35 billion, leaving a $7.2 million loss, compared with a $37.7 million gain a year earlier.
EToro said it is developing onchain perpetual futures and that crypto buying power is “coming soon.” Crypto activity has cooled, however: the company reported 1.4 million crypto trades in July, down 73% from a year earlier, while the average crypto trade fell 50% to $182.
Overall, eToro’s net contribution rose 9% year over year to $229 million, driven mainly by equity trading, while funded accounts increased 18% to 4.28 million. Shares fell as much as about 11% after the announcements. The report also noted that the adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.68 beat analysts’ estimates of $0.61.
Shares nevertheless traded more than 12% lower in the hours following the earnings release at around $29.80.
Crypto World
Walmart Stock: Check Out Potential Profit With A High-Risk Trade
Walmart (WMT) is due to report earnings on Aug. 20, and the options market is pricing in a 5.7% move in either direction, which is a larger-than-normal potential move for Walmart earnings. Walmart stock has been in a downtrend since mid-May. But it has bounced off its late-July low and, on Monday, closed back above its 21-day exponential moving average.…
Copyright ©2026 Investor’s Business Daily, LLC. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Crypto World
Christopher Harborne launches US firm amid Farage ‘gift’ scandal
Christopher Harborne, the Tether and Bitfinex equity holder with close ties to Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK, has previously stuck to creating businesses and not-for-profits in England and a few other jurisdictions. However, he’s now decided to start a company in the United States — Skyline Apex LLC.
The billionaire has recently seen his name in the British tabloids due to his unreported £5 million “gift” to Farage at a time when the Reform Party leader wasn’t confined to regular campaign finance rules and regulations.
Due to the scandal, Farage is now facing a by-election against novelty candidate “Count Binface” and a slew of other third-parties.
Read more: Reform UK pulls crypto bill from website amid Christopher Harborne ‘gift’ scandal
Harborne, who made his wealth through working at McKinsey and his own aviation fueling business, became a Tether and Bitfinex shareholder early in the entities’ lifetimes and has accrued an extraordinary amount of money.
International man of hate, but don’t tell anyone
Harborne’s apparent support for closed borders and his anti-immigrant rhetoric extends far beyond UK shores. However, seemingly unaware of his own hypocrisy, he’s called Thailand home for decades, living there under the name “Chakrit Sakunkrit.”
Meanwhile, as media coverage of Harborne and his dealings has ramped up over the past five years, the reclusive crypto investor has gone out of his way to silence any outlet reporting on his donations, gifts, and bizarre lifestyle.
A 2020 Panorama documentary that detailed Harborne’s involvement with Brexit has been wiped from the internet and Harborne has been litigious toward even small media outlets and journalists reporting on him.
However, a couple of years ago, Harborne finally bit off more than he could chew.
Lawsuit loss and nonstop bad news
In 2024 Harborne decided to take Wall Street Journal parent company, Dow Jones, to court in Delaware for defamation claims.
The suit revolved around a 2023 article published by the WSJ titled “Crypto Companies Behind Tether Used Falsified Documents and Shell Companies to Get Bank Accounts” that made mention of Harborne, his company AML Global, and their interactions with now defunct Signature Bank.
Read more: Nigel Farage aide received $9M on Polymarket account, report
Despite the WSJ removing that section, stating it “has been removed to avoid any potential implication that AML’s attempt to open an account there was part of an effort by Tether, Bitfinex or related companies to mislead banks, or that Harborne or AML withheld or falsified information during the application process,” Harborne moved forward with the suit and years of litigation against Dow Jones.
In 2026, the lawsuit was quietly concluded, with both parties agreeing to a stipulated dismissal. No major news site has brought any attention to this.
In the meantime, Harborne has been constantly named-and-shamed in Britain for his antics involving Farage and Reform, with no ability to stop the onslaught.
New business, new Harborne
While it’s currently unclear what Harborne’s Wyoming business will involve — aviation fuel, crypto, or something else entirely — it does give the billionaire a foothold in the US, a market he’s previously avoided.
There are no shortage of possibilities for why Harborne has chosen now to spin up the entity, from a chance to influence local and federal elections in a discreet manner to using his purchasing power to gain green card status, and, eventually, a third citizenship.
Needless to say, due to Wyoming’s strict corporate privacy laws, the public-at-large won’t have any answers for a long time to come.
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Crypto World
ENS Tokenholders Hand Endowment Control to a Staffed Foundation
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ENS tokenholders approved and executed a proposal that turns the ENS Foundation into a staffed organization with a full-time executive director and a five-seat board, and hands it onchain control of the DAO's endowment. The opposition centered on the keys. The executable swapped the sole owner of… Read the full story at The Defiant
Crypto World
How a new FlightAware lawsuit threatens Kalshi’s cancellation bets
Kalshi faces a lawsuit in a New York federal court over claims the prediction markets platform is using flight data and a trademark without permission to run bets on airline cancellations.
FlightAware, which operates the world’s largest flight-tracking platform, filed the suit in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York on Monday, seeking damages and an injunction against further use of its data and logo.
Kalshi started offering bets on nationwide and local flight cancellations on July 14, the same day it submitted its regulatory filing to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to list such event contracts. The contracts allow users to bet on the percentage of scheduled flights that would be canceled during a specific period.
FlightAware alleges Kalshi had agreed to terms barring commercial use of its data, including through a fee AeroApi account that a Kalshi employee registered for in 2022.
Kalshi responded to FlightAware’s cease-and-desist letter, denying “it violated FlightAware’s license or infringed the FlightAware mark and asserted that its references to FlightAware constituted nominative fair use.”
Crypto World
Bitcoin falls to $63,500; Anthropic to watermark Claude’s AI content after EU regulations
Bitcoin slipped 2% to about $64,200 on Monday, dragged down less by any single catalyst than by the corporations that once championed it turning their attention to AI, says Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro.
The wider market fell 2% to $2.18 trillion, with roughly ten coins falling for every one that rose.
The names doing the pivoting are the ones that gave crypto institutional cover, holders led by Strategy and miners like MARA, which spent the past two years rebranding themselves around AI data centers.
Institutional money is now selling bitcoin to build liquidity or rotate into that trade, Kuptsikevich said, and with corporate enthusiasm draining, the risk is that BTC position liquidation accelerates over the coming weeks.
Corporations joined crypto when it flattered their image, the reverse of the stock market, where retail usually arrives last and takes the losses. As those companies leave, Kuptsikevich argues, they hand crypto back to the retail base that built it, returning bitcoin to its ideological roots even if the exit stings on the way out.
Bitcoin is sitting just above its 50-day moving average, which has traded nearly flat for three weeks, a standoff between sellers distributing and buyers absorbing. Watch whether that line holds.
Crypto World
'Men of a Certain Age' Is One of TIME's 50 Most Underappreciated TV Shows

Crypto World
ADI Chain and Shipfinex Partner to Tokenize $500M Vessel Pipeline
A Dubai-based maritime tokenization platform, Shipfinex, has teamed up with Abu Dhabi blockchain network ADI Chain to test how vessel-linked assets could be represented and financed on-chain. The partners say they are tokenizing a pipeline of roughly 35 vessels valued at about $500 million, aiming to create additional funding options for shipowners.
The concept centers on placing the vessels into separate special-purpose vehicles (SPVs). Tokens would then be issued to reflect economic exposure to each ship—potentially structured as vessel-backed credit, charter-related income, or other rights tied to the underlying assets. ADI Chain is expected to handle the distribution and settlement layer, with primary allocations and distributions planned to use stablecoins denominated in UAE dirham, US dollars, and other currencies.
Key takeaways
- Shipfinex and ADI Chain are piloting tokenization of a vessel pipeline worth about $500 million across around 35 ships.
- The structure uses separate SPVs per vessel, with tokens representing ship-specific economic interests such as credit or charter income.
- ADI Chain will provide the stablecoin-oriented distribution and settlement infrastructure for the pilot.
- The project is still in an operational readiness stage, with no Maritime Asset Tokens publicly issued yet and the regulated issuance route still being finalized.
- The announcement aligns with broader growth forecasts for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including Standard Chartered’s estimate that the sector could reach $4 trillion by end-2028.
How the pilot is structured: SPVs and ship-linked tokens
Tokenizing shipping assets is notoriously complex, largely because the industry is fragmented and ship-level cash flows can vary widely depending on charter terms, routes, and financing arrangements. Shipfinex’s approach, as described in the announcement, attempts to translate that complexity into a modular on-chain wrapper: each vessel is moved into its own SPV, and tokens are intended to map to the economics of that specific vehicle.
That could matter for investors and lenders because it potentially enables more granular exposure than traditional fund structures—at least in theory—letting market participants choose how they want to participate in a given ship’s revenue stream or credit profile. The partners have also framed the tokens as potentially representing vessel-backed credit, charter-linked income, or other interests, suggesting room for multiple payoff designs depending on the underlying deal economics.
Stablecoin settlement: why ADI Chain’s role matters
ADI Chain, based in Abu Dhabi, is described as the partner providing distribution and settlement infrastructure. The planned use of currency-denominated stablecoins—specifically UAE dirham- and US dollar-linked assets, plus additional denominations—signals that the settlement model is being built to reduce friction in cross-currency payments, which is a common challenge in international shipping finance.
For market participants, stablecoin settlement can also influence how quickly transactions clear and how tokenized positions can be serviced operationally. Even so, the project’s success will likely depend on the operational details of issuance, custody, and investor onboarding, especially given the regulatory process the partners say remains unfinished.
Still in a pilot: issuance route not finalized
While the partnership outlines a significant vessel pipeline, it is important that the project is not yet live in terms of publicly issued tokens. The arrangement is described as being in a pilot and operational-readiness phase. The partners state that Maritime Asset Tokens have not been publicly issued and that the regulated issuance pathway is still being finalized.
This staging matters because tokenization efforts in RWAs can fail at different points: legal structuring, regulatory approvals, or the practical ability to support ongoing distributions and compliance. By highlighting that the regulated issuance route is still under development, Shipfinex and ADI Chain appear to be treating the first phase as a test of readiness rather than an immediate launch of investable tokens.
Investors watching similar initiatives may therefore want to track what changes next—particularly whether the pilot culminates in a formally approved issuance structure, and how ongoing payments tied to charter activity or credit terms are operationalized.
RWA tokenization momentum: from shipping to broader forecasts
The shipping pilot comes as tokenized RWAs continue to attract attention across traditional finance and crypto-native infrastructure. RWA.xyz data cited in the report indicates that assets tracked on its platform totaled about $38.1 billion as of Aug. 9. Within that figure, US Treasury debt accounts for roughly $16.2 billion and commodities about $4.9 billion.
Standard Chartered’s outlook also points to continued expansion. In a report released Monday, the bank forecast that tokenized RWAs could reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, according to Geoff Kendrick, the global head of digital asset research at the bank. The scale of that projection suggests that the market is expected to grow beyond early niches—though it also underlines the difference between long-term forecasts and near-term, pilot-stage delivery.
In shipping specifically, the scale remains small relative to the total addressable market. The announcement cites Clarksons Research data valuing the world fleet and orderbook at about $2.1 trillion at the start of 2026. Compared with that estimate, the $500 million vessel pipeline represents a limited slice—meaning this pilot is likely best viewed as a proof-of-process and market test rather than a near-term transformation of shipping finance.
Still, even incremental moves can be significant in RWAs if they demonstrate repeatable mechanics: asset segregation, token-to-cashflow mapping, stablecoin-based settlement, and the ability to maintain compliance over time. That is precisely where pilots tend to earn or lose momentum.
For readers, the key next indicators to watch are whether Shipfinex and ADI Chain progress from operational readiness to a clearly defined regulated issuance route, and how they handle the practicalities of ongoing distributions tied to ship-level economics—especially once any tokens transition from closed testing to broader market participation.
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