Crypto World
What are creator fees? How launchpads pay founders
Launching a memecoin used to be a one-time event. Now, on platforms like Pump.fun, the person who creates a token can earn a cut of every trade, potentially for as long as it trades. That single change has reshaped who launches coins, why, and how the money flows. Here is how creator fees work, how they are evolving, and where they go wrong.
Summary
- Creator fees are a share of trading activity that a memecoin launchpad routes to the person who created a token, turning a launch into a potential ongoing income stream rather than a one-time event.
- On Pump.fun, the dominant Solana launchpad, creator fees can reach a small percentage of each transaction, and the system has evolved from rewarding coin creation to trying to reward genuine trading.
- A 2026 update introduced creator-fee sharing, letting teams split fees across multiple wallets, transfer token ownership, and assign percentages to community administrators.
- The mechanic has produced a new playbook in which some creators airdrop their fees back to holders to build loyalty, while the same tools can sustain hype around a token the creator profits from.
- Creator fees align incentives in theory but introduce real risks in practice, from incentivizing spam launches to enabling fee extraction at the expense of retail traders.
Creator fees are payments that a memecoin launchpad routes to the person who created a token, taken as a small percentage of the trading activity in that token, which turns launching a coin from a one-time act into a potential source of ongoing income. This is a genuinely important shift in how memecoins work, and it is easy to miss if you only watch token prices. In the older model, someone who launched a token might profit only by holding and selling their own allocation; the act of creating the coin itself paid nothing directly. Modern launchpads changed that by sharing a slice of every trade with the token’s creator, so that a coin which trades actively can pay its creator continuously, sometimes substantially, regardless of whether the creator buys or sells.
That single mechanic reshaped the incentives of the entire memecoin economy: it changed who launches coins, why they launch them, how they behave afterward, and increasingly how communities and influencers are paid. Understanding creator fees is therefore central to understanding why the memecoin space looks the way it does. The mechanic also sits at the heart of recent flashpoints in crypto, from launchpads redesigning their fee systems to influencers pledging to airdrop their accumulated fees back to traders. To make sense of those stories, you need to understand what creator fees are, how launchpads make money around them, how the systems have evolved from rewarding mere coin creation toward rewarding real trading, the newer fee-sharing tools that let creators split and redistribute their take, the community playbook this has enabled, a concrete worked example of the money involved, and the real risks and abuses the model invites.
This guide walks through each. The goal is not to encourage launching coins or chasing fees, but to explain a mechanism that now shapes the behavior of nearly every memecoin you might encounter, so that you can read the incentives behind a token rather than just its price chart. Once you see who gets paid and how, a great deal of otherwise baffling memecoin behavior starts to make sense.
What creator fees actually are
At the simplest level, a creator fee is a cut of trading taken automatically and paid to a token’s creator. When a launchpad hosts a token, it typically charges fees on trades, and it can direct a portion of those fees to the wallet associated with whoever created the coin. Because the fee is a percentage of trading volume, the creator earns more when the token trades more, which ties the creator’s income to the activity around the coin rather than to a single sale of their own holdings. This is structurally different from the traditional way token creators made money, which was to hold an allocation and sell it, an approach that aligns the creator with dumping on buyers.
A creator fee, by contrast, pays the creator from the flow of trading itself, which in principle gives them a reason to want sustained activity instead of a quick exit. It helps to separate the creator fee from the other fees in the system, because a launchpad’s economics involve several layers. When you trade a memecoin on a launchpad, the fees on that trade can be split among multiple parties: the protocol, meaning the platform itself; the liquidity providers who supply the pool the token trades against once it has graduated to a normal market; and the creator. Each takes a defined slice.
The creator fee is the portion earmarked for the token’s originator, and on the leading Solana launchpad it can reach a small but meaningful percentage of each transaction. Multiplied across high trading volume, even a fraction of a % per trade can add up to large sums for a coin that catches fire. So the basic picture is this: every trade in a launchpad memecoin pays a toll, and one slice of that toll flows to whoever created the coin, for as long as people keep trading it. That simple arrangement is the engine behind much of what follows.
How launchpads make money around fees
To understand creator fees, it helps to understand the business of the launchpad itself, because the two are intertwined. A memecoin launchpad is, at its core, a fee machine: it earns from the enormous volume of trading that flows through the tokens it hosts, regardless of whether any individual token succeeds or fails. This is a crucial point that explains much of the industry’s behavior. The platform benefits from activity and speculation in aggregate, so its incentive is to maximize the number of coins launched and the volume traded, even though the vast majority of those coins will lose nearly all their value.
The launchpad wins on volume; the individual trader usually does not. The leading Solana launchpad illustrates the scale of this. It has captured a dominant share of Solana’s memecoin launches, on the order of three-quarters of them, and it has generated very large revenues from platform fees. Notably, it has directed the overwhelming majority of its platform revenue, well over 90%, into buying back its own token, retiring a substantial portion of that token’s supply, one of the most aggressive buyback programs in crypto.
That detail matters because it shows how the fee flows ultimately circulate: trading fees fund the platform, which funds buybacks of the platform’s token, which benefits the platform’s token holders. Creator fees are one branch of this larger fee economy, the branch earmarked for the people who create the coins. Seen this way, the whole system is an arrangement for converting speculative trading volume into revenue and distributing it among the platform, its token holders, liquidity providers, and creators. The traders supplying the volume are the source of all of it.
From rewarding creation to rewarding trading
Creator-fee systems have not stood still; they have evolved in response to the problems they created, and that evolution is instructive. An earlier generation of the dominant launchpad’s fee system, introduced in late 2025 as part of a broader program, was designed to reward successful token creators, and it worked in the sense that it pulled in a wave of new participants, many of whom had never used a crypto application before, who began launching coins to earn fees. Platform activity surged, with trading volumes reportedly doubling. But the design had a flaw that its own operators came to recognize: by rewarding the act of creating coins, it skewed incentives toward low-risk coin creation instead of toward the high-risk trading that actually sustains a launchpad’s health.
In other words, it paid people to mint tokens, which produced a flood of low-quality launches, when what the platform needed was active trading and liquidity. This led to a rethink. The platform’s operators concluded that creator fees needed to change so that they rewarded genuine trading activity and the people who provide liquidity, instead of simply rewarding deployment. They signaled a shift toward what they described as a market-based approach, in which traders, not the people deploying coins, would effectively determine whether a token’s narrative deserved fee support, moving the reward toward the activity that generates real volume.
The operators also made a pointed cultural statement, indicating that no member of the platform’s own team would accept creator fees, and framing the feature as being for the active traders the community calls trenchers. That is why who the fees are aimed at matters in the broader Solana memecoin culture. The direction of travel, then, is away from paying people merely to launch tokens and toward channeling fees in a way that supports trading and liquidity. Whether that fully works in practice is open to question, but the evolution itself reveals the central tension in creator fees: a reward meant to encourage good behavior can easily encourage the wrong behavior, and designing it well is genuinely hard.
Creator-fee sharing and the newer tools
The most consequential recent change to creator fees was the introduction, in early 2026, of a fee-sharing system that gave creators far more flexibility in how their fees are handled, and understanding it clarifies several recent headlines. Under the older model, directing fees to a specific person or address was cumbersome, and the system sometimes required users to trust others to allocate fees properly, which weakened transparency. The fee-sharing update addressed this by letting a token’s team split its creator fees across multiple wallets, up to ten of them, and assign specific percentages to each, as well as transfer ownership of a coin and revoke certain authorities over it. Importantly, the update also let community administrators, the people who take over a coin in what is called a community takeover, assign fee percentages after a token has launched, opening the fee stream to community structures instead of only the original deployer.
This may sound like a technical plumbing change, but its effects are significant. By making it easy to split and redirect creator fees, the update turned the fee stream into something that could be shared among a team, distributed to a community, or routed to specific purposes, instead of flowing solely to one anonymous creator. It enabled coordinated projects to pay multiple contributors, allowed communities that revive an abandoned coin to capture the fees, and, as the next section describes, made it practical for creators to redistribute their fees back to holders as a loyalty mechanism. The broader significance is that creator fees stopped being a simple, single-recipient reward and became a flexible tool that could be programmed to serve different incentive structures.
That flexibility is powerful, and like most powerful tools in this space, it can be used to align a community or to manufacture loyalty around a token the controllers profit from. The mechanics are neutral; the uses are not. This is why creator fees should be read as the incentive design behind tokens rather than as a simple reward feature. The question is never only whether fees exist; it is who controls them, where they flow, and what behavior they encourage.
The community playbook this enabled
The fee-sharing tools, combined with the sheer size of fees a viral coin can generate, gave rise to a new playbook that has reshaped how influencers and communities interact with memecoins. The traditional influencer-coin pattern was extractive: an influencer launches or promotes a token, the price spikes on their attention, and they sell into it, leaving followers with losses. The newer playbook inverts part of that. Instead of pocketing accumulated creator fees, some creators now airdrop portions of those fees back to the community of holders and traders, framing it as sharing the rewards with the people who drove the coin’s success.
This redistribution, returning earned fees to holders instead of extracting and exiting, has been received notably well in a culture long cynical about influencers benefiting at retail’s expense. A high-profile instance brought this playbook to wide attention when a prominent Solana influencer, amid a memecoin frenzy built on his name, publicly criticized the launchpad over its handling of rewards and pledged to airdrop his accumulated creator fees, reported in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, back to traders, framing it in the community’s own slang as giving them a boost the platform would not. That was the fee-airdrop playbook in action. The move generated goodwill and reinforced a narrative that the influencer had alignment and skin in the game.
But the same episode illustrates the playbook’s double edge. A fee-airdrop program is a truly community-friendly gesture, and it is also a powerful tool for sustaining attention and buying pressure around a token the creator holds a large position in and profits from. Redistributing fees can align a creator with holders, and it can also be a sophisticated way to keep a speculative coin alive a little longer. Both readings are valid, and the honest view is that creator-fee redistribution is a real improvement over pure extraction while remaining a tool whose ultimate effect depends on the intentions and holdings behind it.
The mechanic does not, by itself, make a memecoin safe. It may reduce one type of extraction while preserving others. It may prove genuine alignment, or it may simply extend the life of a trade that still depends on fresh buyers arriving. The difference depends on the creator’s holdings, transparency, and behavior after the airdrop.
A worked example: where the money goes
To ground the abstraction, walk through a simplified example of how creator fees flow, using round numbers for clarity instead of precision. Imagine a creator launches a memecoin on a launchpad where the creator fee is set at a small fraction of 1% of each trade, and the coin catches a wave of attention. Suppose that over a busy stretch the token does $50 million in cumulative trading volume as buyers and sellers churn through it. Even at a creator-fee rate of, say, around 0.5% of trading, that volume would generate on the order of a couple of hundred thousand dollars in creator fees flowing to the wallet associated with the coin, entirely separate from any gain or loss on the creator’s own token holdings.
This is why a single viral coin can pay its creator a life-changing sum from fees alone, and why the prospect of those fees draws so many people to launch tokens. Now layer on the fee-sharing tools. With the newer system, that creator could split the fee stream across multiple wallets, perhaps paying several contributors who help run the project, or assign a percentage to a community administrator after a takeover, or set aside a portion to airdrop back to holders. So the same $200,000 might be divided among a small team, partly redistributed to the community to build loyalty, and partly retained.
The numbers here are illustrative, not a claim about any specific coin, but they capture the real dynamic: meaningful sums, generated from the trading volume of ordinary buyers, flowing to creators and increasingly programmable into splits and redistributions. The essential point the example makes is where the money originates. Every dollar of creator fees comes from the trading activity of the people buying and selling the coin. The fee is a transfer from traders to creators, dressed up in various ways.
Understanding that is the key to reading any claim about creator fees with clear eyes, because it locates who pays and who is paid. A fee can be redistributed, split, or framed as community alignment, but it still begins as a toll on trading activity. That does not make it automatically abusive. It does mean the economic direction of the flow should be clear before anyone treats it as a benefit.
Risks, abuses, and what to watch
Creator fees, for all their cleverness, introduce a set of risks and potential abuses that anyone interacting with memecoins should understand. The first is that fees incentivize spam. When launching a coin can pay, people launch enormous numbers of low-quality coins purely to chase fees, flooding the market with tokens that have no purpose beyond generating trades, which is precisely the problem the launchpads themselves identified and tried to redesign around. The second is fee extraction layered on top of other extraction.
A creator can earn substantial fees while also holding a large token position, and the combination gives them strong tools and strong motives to pump attention around a coin, sustain trading, and benefit regardless of whether holders ultimately profit, which can shade into the pump-and-dump dynamics that critics attribute to influencer-driven micro-caps. That is where how fee extraction can shade into abuse becomes relevant. Not every creator-fee model is a rug pull, but the same environment that supports fee extraction also supports scams, liquidity drains, and insider exits. The difference often lies in wallet concentration, transparency, and whether the creator can profit while holders are left with the downside.
The third risk is trust and transparency in how fees are allocated. Because fee streams can be split, redirected, and assigned to various wallets, it is not always clear who is actually receiving a coin’s fees or what they will do with them, and earlier systems were criticized for requiring users to trust others to allocate fees properly. The fourth is that the entire structure is funded by retail traders, the people supplying the volume, most of whom lose money on the highly volatile tokens involved, while fees flow to creators and platforms regardless. There are also broader integrity questions hanging over the dominant launchpad, including a major lawsuit alleging an insider-driven system that favored privileged participants at retail’s expense, a reminder that the fee economy operates in a lightly regulated and contested environment.
The practical guidance that follows from all this is to read creator fees as an incentive structure, not a feature that benefits you. When you encounter a memecoin, ask who earns its fees, how large their position is, and whether the activity around it is organic or manufactured by people who profit from the trading. Creator fees explain a great deal of memecoin behavior, and almost none of it is designed in the interest of the trader supplying the volume. They are part of the launch mechanism fees ride on, and understanding both the curve and the fee stream is how you see the full extraction path.
Frequently asked questions
What is a creator fee in crypto?
A creator fee is a share of trading activity that a memecoin launchpad routes to the person who created a token, taken as a percentage of each trade. It turns launching a coin into a potential ongoing income stream, because the creator earns from the flow of trading instead of only from selling their own holdings. On the leading Solana launchpad, the creator fee can reach a small percentage of each transaction, which can add up to large sums for a coin that trades heavily. It is one of several fees on a trade, alongside the protocol’s cut and the fees paid to liquidity providers, and it is specifically the slice earmarked for the token’s originator.
How much can a creator earn from fees?
It depends entirely on trading volume, since the fee is a percentage of trading. For a coin that fails to attract attention, the fees are negligible. For a coin that goes viral and trades tens of millions of dollars in volume, even a fraction of a % per trade can generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, separate from any gain on the creator’s own holdings. This is why viral coins can pay their creators life-changing sums from fees alone, and why the prospect draws so many people to launch tokens. The flip side is that the overwhelming majority of launched coins generate almost nothing, because most never attract meaningful trading.
What is creator-fee sharing?
Creator-fee sharing is a system introduced on the leading Solana launchpad in early 2026 that lets a token’s team split its creator fees across multiple wallets, up to ten, and assign specific percentages to each, as well as transfer a coin’s ownership and revoke certain authorities. It also lets community administrators who take over a coin assign fee percentages after launch. The effect is to turn the creator fee from a single-recipient reward into a flexible tool that can pay a team, fund a community, or be redistributed to holders. It made the fee stream programmable, which enabled new uses like airdropping fees back to a community, while also raising questions about who actually controls a coin’s fees.
Why do some influencers airdrop their creator fees?
Because it builds goodwill and a narrative of alignment. The traditional influencer-coin pattern is extractive, with the influencer selling into the hype they create. Airdropping accumulated creator fees back to holders inverts part of that, framing the influencer as sharing rewards with the community that drove the coin, which plays well in a culture cynical about influencer extraction. A prominent example saw a Solana influencer pledge to airdrop his fees back to traders during a frenzy built on his name. The honest read is that this is both a truly community-friendly gesture and a tool for sustaining hype around a token the influencer profits from, since the same move keeps attention and buying pressure alive.
Are creator fees bad for traders?
Creator fees are funded by traders, since every dollar of fees comes from the trading volume of people buying and selling the coin, so they represent a transfer from traders to creators and the platform. They also create incentives that often work against traders: they reward spamming low-quality coins, they give creators tools and motives to manufacture hype around tokens they profit from, and they fund a system in which platforms and creators earn regardless of whether holders win or lose. They are not inherently fraudulent, and redistribution can return some value to communities, but they are best understood as an incentive structure that benefits creators and platforms. That structure is funded by the speculative activity of retail traders who mostly lose.
Which launchpad pays creator fees?
The most prominent is the dominant Solana memecoin launchpad, which captured roughly three-quarters of Solana’s memecoin launches and built an elaborate creator-fee system, including the 2026 fee-sharing tools described here. It directs a small percentage of each trade to a coin’s creator and has evolved its system from rewarding coin creation toward trying to reward genuine trading and liquidity. Other launchpads on Solana and other chains have their own fee models, and the specifics vary. But the general concept, routing a slice of trading fees to token creators, has become a standard feature of the memecoin launchpad model instead of something unique to any single platform.
This article is educational information, not financial advice or an endorsement of launching or trading any token. Details of launchpad fee systems, rates, and features reflect reporting available as of June 29, 2026, and can change. Memecoins are extremely high-risk and frequently lose most or all of their value, and the fee structures described are funded by trading activity that mostly results in losses for participants. Verify current platform terms independently and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.
Sovereign wealth funds are reportedly increasing exposure to spot Bitcoin, a development MidChains CEO Basil Al Askari said may reflect growing institutional interest at current price levels. Speaking on Cointelegraph’s “Chain Reaction” podcast on Monday, Al Askari said he could confirm at least one—and potentially two—in the coming weeks—sovereign wealth funds accumulating spot Bitcoin.
While retail participation has slowed, Al Askari pointed to stronger momentum from institutions and corporates, arguing that the present price environment is functioning as an “entry level” for larger funds that can wait through long accumulation cycles.
Key takeaways
- MidChains CEO Basil Al Askari says one, possibly two, sovereign wealth funds are accumulating spot Bitcoin, potentially in the coming weeks.
- Al Askari frames the current price level as attractive “entry level” positioning for mega funds with long time horizons.
- He expects the effect on markets to be gradual rather than a rapid cascade, but sees it as a clear signal to other institutions.
- Coinbase institutional strategy head John D’Agostino earlier said institutional buyers view the dip as an opportunity, particularly among UAE family offices and sovereign-linked investors.
- Despite spot Bitcoin ETF outflows in the U.S., corporate treasuries—especially Strategy—continue adding to BTC holdings.
Sovereign funds add spot Bitcoin exposure
Al Askari’s remarks center on state-backed capital moving into Bitcoin at a time when retail demand appears to be cooling. A sovereign wealth fund is typically a government-owned investment pool funded by national reserves, so the implication is less about short-term trading and more about long-term allocation decisions.
To help contextualize the scale of that player base, the article notes sovereign wealth funds collectively control more than $13 trillion globally, citing Visual Capitalist. Al Askari described these allocations as experiments for institutions that may have been waiting for a more compelling price to begin building positions.
Importantly for investors, he argued that this type of activity is unlikely to trigger an immediate, dramatic repricing. Instead, it can act as a confidence signal—encouraging other institutions that view larger funds as leaders to “start to get involved.”
Why a “long horizon” matters for Bitcoin supply dynamics
Al Askari suggested the strategic value of such accumulation lies in Bitcoin becoming “more and more scarce” over time as larger holders with longer investment horizons lock in supply. In his view, the key mechanism is not just who buys, but how long they plan to hold.
That distinction matters because it reframes the narrative from near-term momentum to liquidity and available float over extended periods. If more institutional capital transitions from sporadic exposure to sustained accumulation, the market’s effective supply can tighten gradually—potentially influencing volatility and depth even when short-term flows look mixed.
“I do think this is what will happen, is that over the longer term period, we’ll start to see Bitcoin becoming more and more scarce as a result of larger holders with much longer time horizons on their holding periods as far as looking at investments.”
ETFs see U.S. outflows even as corporate treasuries buy
The broader picture is mixed across investor segments. According to the source, sustained U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF outflows have totaled more than $4.1 billion so far this month, referencing Cointelegraph coverage of ETF flow performance and noting that Bitcoin ETF outflows are exceeding that threshold.
At the same time, corporate treasuries—particularly Strategy—continue accumulating. The article states that Strategy has scooped up 3,657 BTC this month, pointing to Cointelegraph reporting on the company’s reserve purchases.
This divergence—ETF outflows on one side and corporate accumulation on the other—can be read as a shift in where new demand is showing up. When exchange-traded product flows weaken but corporate balance-sheet demand persists, it suggests the marginal buyer may be changing rather than demand disappearing altogether.
Institutional “discount buying” and sovereign-linked appetite
Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy, John D’Agostino, previously weighed in on how institutional investors interpret the current market. In a CNBC interview earlier this month, D’Agostino said the “dip” is being welcomed by institutional investors, adding that he had just returned from the Middle East and observed that UAE family offices and sovereign-linked investors were not unhappy to buy at a discount.
The remarks underscore a practical reality for large-scale allocation: for patient capital, drawdowns can improve entry terms and reduce the risk of buying at potentially overextended levels. For traders, it also highlights that short-term market declines may not deter longer-term participants—especially those able to execute steadily rather than chase trends.
Known sovereign examples: Mubadala and Bhutan
The source highlights specific sovereign-related examples to illustrate the pattern. It notes that Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company invested $437 million in BTC via BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) shares in February 2025. It also points to Bhutan’s Druk Holding and Investments as an early and more direct sovereign holder, while stating that the company has been selling some BTC this year, referencing Cointelegraph coverage of those sales.
Taken together, these examples point to a broader institutional learning curve: sovereign entities have already tested mechanisms for gaining Bitcoin exposure, and the current phase may be characterized by more deliberate scaling and timing—potentially shifting from ETF vehicles toward spot accumulation, as Al Askari suggested.
For readers, the next thing to watch is whether ETF outflows remain elevated as corporate and sovereign-related buyers continue adding, and whether Al Askari’s “one, possibly two” additional sovereign funds materialize publicly in the weeks ahead. That will help clarify whether this is a one-off window for discounted entries—or the start of a more durable institutional accumulation cycle.
Crypto exchange users in Australia will soon face stricter rules on all transfers as the country’s travel rule is set to come into force on Wednesday, aligning it with similar rules in the EU, US and UK.
From July, all crypto sent and received on locally-regulated crypto exchanges will require users to provide additional information, such as the name of the person the crypto is being sent to or received from, and the name of the platform.
Gabby Lewis, the head of fraud and financial crime at Swyftx, told Cointelegraph that for most exchange users, “the impact should be very limited. They’ll provide the required details once, and then these will be saved for future use.”
The rules are set to bring Australia in line with other countries that have implemented the travel rule for years, which the Financial Action Task Force, an international policy-making body, first extended to crypto in 2019.
Crypto users have long expressed concern that the rule would impact the anonymity of the technology and the risks of data linking crypto transfers to personal information being leaked.
However, Lewis said that the “travel rule isn’t crypto-specific. It already applies across financial services and has been implemented in areas including Singapore, the United States, New Zealand and the UK. Australia is now following suit.”
The rule aims to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing and scams by increasing the traceability of crypto transfers. It will be enforced by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), the country’s financial intelligence agency.
Transfers from a regulated crypto exchange to a self-custodial address, such as a cold storage wallet, will also prompt a user to verify and declare that they are the owner of that address.
“We’re generally talking about a quick confirmation that the wallet is theirs,” Lewis said. “The additional steps mainly come into force for transfers that involve another party or another exchange.”
Australia’s travel rule has no minimum value threshold, meaning a transfer of any size will require an exchange to gather information, aligning it with countries including France, the Netherlands and Japan that have no minimum.
Source: Sam Green
Other countries have set minimum reporting thresholds, such as the US, which only collects information on transfers starting at $3,000.
Some crypto exchanges operating in Australia have already begun to implement the travel rule, such as Kraken, which started on March 31, and CoinJar, which started on Tuesday.
Related: Australia passes digital asset bill bringing crypto platforms under licensing
Crypto users online have recently given mixed reactions to the rule, which the Australian parliament passed into law in 2024.
“With these new rules, you can forget about sending crypto anonymously,” a Reddit user wrote earlier this month.
“New travel rule is insane,” another Reddit user wrote earlier in June. “Thinking of moving everything to cold storage instead now.”
In response, one Reddit user said that “the regulated platforms were never anonymous.”
“This is less of a problem than you’re making it out to be unless you’re involved in activities the authorities would be interested in already,” another user wrote.
Magazine: Crypto scammers face death, Aussie CGT makes Asian hubs attractive: Asia Express
Self-exiled Chinese billionaire Miles Guo has been sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison after being convicted in a fraud scheme that prosecutors said stole more than $1 billion from investors through multiple ventures, including cryptocurrency.
Summary
- Miles Guo was sentenced to 30 years in a U.S. prison and ordered to forfeit $889 million after his fraud conviction.
- Prosecutors said the scheme raised more than $1 billion from investors through multiple ventures, including the Himalaya Exchange and Himalaya Coin.
- The sentencing comes as crypto related financial crime continues to face tighter enforcement in both the United States and China.
According to multiple media reports, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres handed down the sentence on Monday and ordered Guo, also known as Guo Wengui, to forfeit $889 million in restitution.
The sentencing follows a July 2024 jury verdict that found Guo guilty on nine fraud and conspiracy charges after prosecutors accused him of raising money from hundreds of thousands of online followers through false investment promises tied to businesses under his control.
Crypto scheme formed part of fraud case
Federal prosecutors had alleged that Guo attracted investors by presenting himself as a critic of the Chinese Communist Party after fleeing China more than a decade ago, while using that reputation to promote fraudulent investment opportunities.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, one of those ventures was the Himalaya Exchange, a cryptocurrency ecosystem that collected more than $262 million from victims. The department said Guo later spent investor funds on luxury assets, including a mansion and high end vehicles.
Earlier court filings from the DOJ said Guo orchestrated a scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of more than $1 billion after his arrest in March 2023.
At the sentencing hearing, the Associated Press reported that Guo told the court he came to the United States “to destroy the CCP.” AP also reported that Judge Torres said Guo had preyed on supporters seeking democracy in China and had continued to deny causing financial harm.
SEC case remains part of wider enforcement action
Separate from the criminal prosecution, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Guo and his financial adviser, William Je, in March 2023 over an alleged fraud that raised hundreds of millions of dollars through an unregistered crypto asset known as H Coin, or Himalaya Coin.
According to the SEC complaint, Guo falsely claimed the token was backed by gold and assured investors they would be reimbursed for any losses. The regulator also accused Guo and Je of diverting investor funds to finance luxury purchases, including a mansion and a Ferrari, while seeking permanent injunctions, civil penalties and the recovery of alleged illegal gains.
The SEC and DOJ announced their actions on the same day in March 2023, with the Justice Department filing a 12-count indictment that included securities fraud, wire fraud, investment fraud and money laundering charges against Guo. William Je was also charged with obstruction of justice, while authorities said they seized about $634 million held across 21 bank accounts linked to the investigation.
Guo is also known for his association with former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon. In 2020, the pair announced the New Federal State of China initiative, describing it as an effort to overthrow the Chinese government.
Elsewhere, Chinese authorities have also stepped up enforcement against cryptocurrency-related financial crimes.
China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate said on June 25 that prosecutors had charged more than 1,200 people for drug related money laundering cases between January 2025 and May 2026, including schemes involving cryptocurrencies.
The disclosure came as China announced a death sentence for a convicted drug trafficker found to have laundered more than 48 million yuan, or about $7 million, through cryptocurrency as part of a cross-border narcotics operation.
The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on June 29 that President Donald Trump cannot remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, for now. Still, the decision preserves the Fed’s independence at the worst possible time for Bitcoin.
The ruling locks in a hawkish Fed that has already eliminated rate cut expectations for 2026 and put hikes back on the table. High rates keep pressure on zero-yield assets like Bitcoin, and Monday’s decision removes one of the few near-term paths to a more dovish board.
A Hawkish Fed Just Got More Secure
Cook’s survival matters for rate policy. Trump wanted her gone so he could, instead, install a governor more open to rate cuts. The court blocked that move.
The timing stings for crypto markets. The June Federal Open Market Committee meeting eliminated rate cut projections for 2026 entirely and put hikes back on the table. Bitcoin ETF outflows continued through June as investors rotated away from zero-yield assets.
BTC dropped below $60,000 on Monday, meaning it is now down more than 50% from its all-time high.
Monday’s ruling locks in the Warsh-led, hawkish Fed, at least until lower courts resolve the underlying case. Trump cannot sidestep that by firing governors at will.
“This was never about mortgage documents … It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure.”
— Lisa Cook, Federal Reserve Governor, statement
What Case Does Trump Have Against Cook?
The case against Cook centers on allegations from FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who accused her of mortgage fraud in August 2025. Pulte claims Cook listed two properties, one in Michigan and one in Georgia, as primary residences within weeks of each other in 2021, notably before she joined the Fed board.
Cook’s attorney called the claim baseless, saying it rests on a single ambiguous reference in one mortgage document.
Cook and her allies argue that the timing reveals the real motive. Trump moved to fire her after months of pressuring the Fed to cut rates faster, and Cook had voted to hold rates steady. Ultimately, the court said no to the firing.
Yet, the fact that this case reached the Supreme Court at all is proof of concept. As Trump’s appointment of Warsh showed, political pressure on the Fed does not require firing anyone. It just requires choosing the right chair.
The post Supreme Court Blocks Trump From Firing Governor Leaving Bitcoin with Hawkish Fed appeared first on BeInCrypto.
For years, crypto wallets have served as the gateway to decentralized finance (DeFi). They allow users to store digital assets, sign transactions, and interact with blockchain applications. While these functions remain essential, the next generation of wallets is evolving into something much more powerful: intelligent financial agents capable of managing digital assets autonomously, making informed decisions, and optimizing financial strategies.
This transformation marks a major milestone in the evolution of Web3, where artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology converge to create smarter, more efficient financial systems.
The Evolution of Crypto Wallets
The earliest cryptocurrency wallets were simple tools designed to store private keys securely. As blockchain ecosystems matured, wallets expanded their capabilities by supporting decentralized applications (dApps), NFT management, staking, cross-chain transactions, and token swaps.
Despite these improvements, users still perform most tasks manually. Finding the best yield, monitoring market conditions, rebalancing portfolios, and protecting assets from emerging risks require continuous attention and technical knowledge. Intelligent financial agents aim to eliminate much of this complexity.
What Are Intelligent Financial Agents?
An intelligent financial agent is an AI-powered software system that operates on behalf of a user while respecting predefined rules and permissions. Instead of simply executing commands, these agents analyze blockchain data, evaluate market opportunities, and carry out financial actions automatically.
Unlike traditional automated trading bots that follow rigid instructions, intelligent agents continuously learn from changing market conditions and adapt their strategies based on user preferences and objectives.
For example, an intelligent agent could:
- Monitor multiple DeFi protocols for the highest risk-adjusted yields.
- Automatically rebalance a crypto portfolio.
- Pay recurring blockchain subscriptions.
- Execute cross-chain transfers at the lowest possible cost.
- Protect funds by moving assets away from protocols experiencing security concerns.
- Optimize tax reporting and transaction records.
The wallet becomes more than storage—it becomes an active financial assistant.
How AI Enhances On-Chain Decision Making
Artificial intelligence excels at processing enormous amounts of information far faster than humans. Blockchain networks generate vast streams of real-time data, including liquidity movements, governance proposals, protocol upgrades, transaction volumes, and market sentiment.
AI agents can analyze these data sources simultaneously to identify trends and opportunities that would be difficult for individuals to detect manually.
Rather than asking:
“Which lending protocol currently offers the best return?”
Users may simply instruct:
“Maximize my yield while keeping portfolio risk low.”
The intelligent agent can evaluate multiple protocols, compare risks, execute transactions, and continue monitoring performance after deployment.
Automation Beyond Trading
Many people associate AI in crypto with automated trading, but intelligent financial agents have much broader applications.
They can simplify everyday blockchain interactions by:
- Managing staking positions automatically.
- Claiming and compounding rewards.
- Voting in decentralized governance according to user preferences.
- Managing NFT collections.
- Scheduling recurring payments.
- Executing payroll for decentralized organizations.
- Monitoring wallet security continuously.
This allows users to focus on strategy instead of repetitive operational tasks.
Personalized Financial Management
One of the greatest strengths of intelligent financial agents is personalization.
Every investor has different goals, risk tolerance, liquidity needs, and investment horizons. AI agents can build customized strategies based on these individual preferences.
For example:
- Conservative users may prioritize capital preservation.
- Income-focused investors may maximize staking rewards.
- Active traders may seek short-term opportunities.
- Long-term holders may automate dollar-cost averaging.
Instead of offering generic financial advice, intelligent agents continuously adapt to each user’s evolving objectives.
Challenges and Risks
Despite their promise, intelligent financial agents introduce new challenges.
Security remains the highest priority. Permitting AI systems to manage digital assets requires robust safeguards, including permissioned execution, transaction limits, multi-signature approvals, and transparent audit trails.
Privacy is equally important. AI systems handling sensitive financial information must protect user data while maintaining decentralization whenever possible.
There are also regulatory considerations. As autonomous financial software becomes more sophisticated, governments and regulators will likely develop new frameworks governing AI-driven financial services.
The Future of Autonomous Finance
The long-term vision extends beyond individual wallets.
Future decentralized ecosystems may consist of networks of AI agents collaborating. One agent could negotiate loans, another could optimize liquidity, while another manages governance participation—all operating under user-defined objectives.
In this environment, financial management becomes increasingly autonomous, efficient, and accessible.
Rather than replacing human decision-making, intelligent financial agents serve as trusted assistants that help users navigate increasingly complex decentralized ecosystems with greater confidence.
Conclusion
The transition from traditional crypto wallets to intelligent financial agents represents one of the most exciting developments in Web3. By combining blockchain’s transparency with AI’s analytical capabilities, users can move beyond manual asset management toward autonomous, personalized financial assistance.
As these technologies continue to mature, wallets will no longer function solely as secure storage for digital assets. They will evolve into intelligent companions capable of monitoring markets, executing complex financial strategies, managing risk, and helping users achieve their financial goals with minimal friction.
The future of decentralized finance isn’t just about owning digital assets—it’s about empowering intelligent systems to help manage them responsibly, securely, and efficiently.
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KuCoin is facing new scrutiny after blockchain investigator ZachXBT claimed the exchange sent legal warnings to a victim whose stolen funds were allegedly routed through KuCoin-linked accounts.
Summary
- A crypto investigator claims KuCoin sent legal warnings after stolen funds were allegedly routed through accounts.
- The case centers on a reported $250K Atomic stealer theft and five alleged KuCoin deposit addresses.
- The dispute adds pressure as KuCoin remains under scrutiny over past AML and compliance failures.
The case involves a reported $250,000 Atomic stealer theft from Aug. 18, 2025, according to ZachXBT’s Telegram post.
ZachXBT listed one theft address and five alleged KuCoin deposit addresses. He claimed the accounts involved “purchased mule KYC,” a term used for accounts verified with another person’s identity. The claims have not been confirmed by court filings or an official KuCoin statement.
The screenshot shared with the post appears to show a message signed by KuCoin Customer Care and Support Team. It says KuCoin respects the right to raise concerns through legal and regulatory channels, but warns that false or unlawful statements may lead to legal claims.
The message also says, “All rights are expressly reserved.” The post drew further attention after DNBWIZARD shared the exchange on X and said, “Hilarious @kucoincom threatening to sue me.”
KuCoin allegations echo earlier compliance concerns
The dispute comes after years of pressure on KuCoin’s compliance record. In January 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice said KuCoin pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business and agreed to pay more than $297 million in penalties. The DOJ said KuCoin failed to maintain effective AML and KYC programs and allowed suspicious activity on its platform.
The DOJ had charged KuCoin and two founders in March 2024, alleging that the exchange failed to maintain proper anti-money laundering controls. Prosecutors said KuCoin had received more than $5 billion and sent more than $4 billion in suspicious and criminal funds between 2017 and 2024.
Related stolen funds cases remain in focus
As reported by crypto.news, a fake Ledger Live app stole at least $9.5 million from more than 50 victims earlier this year. That report said the stolen funds were routed through more than 150 KuCoin deposit addresses and into a centralized mixing service.
The same report said blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced stolen funds through transactions into KuCoin deposit addresses linked to AudiA6. It also noted that recovery would likely require law enforcement action and cooperation from exchanges.
As previously reported by crypto.news, KuCoin secured a MiCA license in Austria through its European subsidiary in late 2025. The approval allowed the exchange to offer regulated services across the European Economic Area under the EU’s passporting rules.
However, Austria’s regulator later barred KuCoin’s European arm from new business and onboarding customers, citing compliance staffing issues. The restriction followed KuCoin’s earlier push to present itself as a regulated European platform.
ARK Invest’s biggest crypto stock purchases over the past three trading days were Coinbase and Circle, whose shares have fallen 17% and 27.6%, respectively, over the past month.
Tech-focused asset manager ARK Invest has capitalized on the recent crypto market downturn, buying a combined $43.5 million worth of shares in crypto firms such as Coinbase and Circle over the past three trading days.
Data from ARK Invest shows the asset manager bought another 122,544 shares in Coinbase (COIN) worth about $18.6 million since Thursday, while adding another 169,777 shares in Circle (CRCL) worth roughly $12.9 million over the same time frame.
The firm also purchased nearly $5.2 million worth of shares in crypto exchange Bullish (BLSH) and added another $5.12 million in brokerage firm Robinhood (HOOD), which has pushed aggressively into the crypto tokenization space in recent months. It also bought $1.69 million worth of shares in crypto-friendly bank SoFi Technologies (SOFI) on Monday.
ARK’s purchases come as investors have turned bearish on these crypto-related stocks. CRCL, COIN and BLSH have fallen 27.6%, 16.9% and 26.3%, respectively, over the past month. During that time, Bitcoin (BTC) slipped to a near two-year low of $58,190, while confidence that the CLARITY Act will pass before the US midterm elections in November has faded.
Changes made to ARK’s ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) on Monday. Source: ARK Invest
Most of the newly purchased shares were added to the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), the firm’s flagship fund, followed by the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW).
Related: Kiwoom eyes Bithumb stake as Korean brokerages push into crypto: Report
The ARK Blockchain & Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) was also topped up with crypto-related stocks.
ARK also added to its positions in Elon Musk’s SpaceX (SPCX) and software intelligence platform Palantir (PLTR) over the past three trading days.
Over the same period, ARK reduced positions in Alibaba (BABA), Roku (ROKU), Strata Critical Medical (SRTA) and several other companies.
Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves
Bitcoin is down over 1% on Tuesday as the Japanese yen slipped to four-decade lows against the U.S. dollar, triggering volatility in currency markets.
The leading cryptocurrency by market value traded below $60,000, holding below the pivotal 200-week simple moving average.
On Monday, Strategy, the world’s largest publicly listed BTC holder, authorized plans to buy back as much as $1 billion each of its preferred and Class A common shares, and is launching a $1.25 billion “monetization program” to raise capital with bitcoin sales. Essentially, it may sell BTC worth over a billion dollars in an already weak market — a sharp pivot from founder Michael Saylor’s longtime mantra of “never sell your bitcoin.”
This pivot, however, may offer little long-term solace, according to some observers. Strategy’s preferred stock STRC, a yield-generating play, has cratered in recent weeks, weakening the company’s major funding channel for BTC purchases.
“The can has been kicked down the road for a year or two,” Jeff Dorman, CIO of Arca, said on X.
Prediction-market platforms are increasingly trying to control more of their own trading stack—an “operational consolidation” trend that analysts at Bernstein say could accelerate mergers and acquisitions across crypto exchanges, brokerages, sportsbooks, and consumer trading apps.
In a research report released on Monday, Bernstein argued that major players are consolidating both distribution and execution functions, tightening links between what used to be separate parts of the market. The shift matters for investors and operators because it can change fee structures, reduce dependence on external infrastructure providers, and potentially reshape how regulators view these products.
Key takeaways
- Bernstein characterizes the sector’s shift as “operational consolidation,” with platforms merging distribution, brokerage, exchange, and clearing functions.
- Several mainstream consumer and prediction platforms have moved toward tighter in-house routing and infrastructure control, according to Bernstein’s examples.
- Owning more of the stack can preserve fees that previously went to outside partners, making acquisitions an efficient way to fill gaps or gain licenses.
- Greater vertical integration may also increase legal and regulatory pressure as the line between financial trading and gambling becomes harder to define.
- State-by-state approaches—alongside ongoing legal challenges—could limit how quickly consolidation proceeds.
Platforms move from partnerships to vertical control
Historically, prediction markets often relied on third-party infrastructure for routing, exchange operations, or clearing—arrangements that made it easier to launch products without building everything internally. Bernstein says that model is weakening as leading consumer platforms consolidate functions across the prediction-market workflow.
In its report, Bernstein pointed to examples spanning different parts of the ecosystem. Robinhood has routed major World Cup contracts through Rothera, the exchange it jointly owns with Susquehanna, according to Bernstein’s account. DraftKings is also cited by Bernstein for launching DKeX and shifting volume away from venues that previously handled some execution, including CME and Crypto.com infrastructure.
The report also highlights consolidation efforts at the crypto-operations layer. Bernstein cited Coinbase’s acquisition of The Clearing Company—framed in related coverage as a move tied to expanding prediction-market capabilities—and Coinbase’s launch of event contracts, adding to the pattern of larger consumer crypto firms seeking greater control over the prediction-market stack.
Why “owning the stack” can change deal economics
Bernstein’s central argument is straightforward: integration can be a direct business advantage. By controlling more of distribution, brokerage, execution, and clearing, platforms can keep revenue streams that would otherwise be shared with specialized partners.
That matters because acquisitions can become a faster path to operational control than building from scratch. Bernstein suggested that deal-making may accelerate as companies pursue missing components—whether that means distribution reach, exchange capabilities, or clearing infrastructure—using purchases to close gaps and strengthen end-to-end product delivery.
However, vertical integration doesn’t only affect profitability. It also reshapes the competitive landscape: businesses that historically operated in different industries—consumer finance apps, sportsbooks, exchanges, and crypto trading infrastructure providers—can end up competing under a single set of product and customer expectations.
Regulatory conflict is the largest constraint
Bernstein singled out regulation as the principal friction point for larger integrations. As prediction markets blend with brokerages, sportsbooks, and exchanges, regulators may scrutinize whether specific products should be treated as financial derivatives or as gambling.
The report suggests that these classifications are not merely academic. They drive enforcement priorities, licensing requirements, and how courts determine jurisdiction. Bernstein warned that such questions could feed antitrust disputes as firms attempt to merge capabilities across multiple market segments.
The regulatory tension has already played out in the U.S. Minnesota enacted what the CFTC described as the first outright ban on prediction markets, while Illinois adopted legislation requiring platforms to obtain a state license before offering sports event contracts—developments Bernstein cited through earlier coverage.
Kalshi challenged restrictions in both states, arguing that federally regulated exchanges fall under the CFTC’s exclusive authority. Bernstein’s framing implies that these legal fights create a practical uncertainty: consolidation may make commercial sense, but execution could remain constrained until regulators and courts clarify where federal derivatives oversight ends and state gambling authority begins.
What to watch as consolidation accelerates
With platforms continuing to move routing, exchange functions, and clearing in-house, the next phase of the sector may hinge less on product launches and more on legal outcomes—particularly whether courts establish a clearer boundary between federal trading regulation and state gambling rules. Until that boundary hardens, consolidation could keep happening, but with deal structures and operating decisions likely shaped by ongoing jurisdictional risk.
Onchain demand stayed soft through the slide, according to Glassnode data. The number of active addresses, a rough gauge of how many users are actually transacting, sat around 618,000, in the middle of its recent range rather than breaking higher.
The value of coins moving across the network held near $4.2 billion, just above the bottom of its range around $3.6 billion, pointing to subdued rather than surging activity, the firm said in a Monday report.
Total transaction fees, or what users pay to move funds and a read on competition for space in each block, kept contracting. Together, the three say demand has not picked up even with prices lower.
Adding to the caution, Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, said Monday it may sell more than a billion dollars of the token under a new program to shore up its finances, a reversal of founder Michael Saylor’s long-standing refusal to sell.
The prospect of those sales hangs over an already thin market. That leaves crypto where it has traded for weeks, pinned by a strong dollar and a lack of fresh demand rather than any single shock.
The next tests are whether the dollar’s climb stalls and whether the yen’s slide forces Japan to step in, a move some warn could unwind the cheap-yen borrowing long used to fund risk trades worldwide.
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