TLDR:

• Hyperliquid HIP-3 recorded a $5.4 billion all-time high in perpetual trading volume on March 23, 2025.
  
• Silver led all assets with $1.3 billion in volume, followed by WTI Crude Oil at $1.2 billion on that day.
  
• Brent Crude Oil and gold added $940 million and $558 million, making commodities the dominant trading category.
  
• HIP-3 is establishing product-market fit as an on-chain venue for commodity and macro derivatives trading.

Hyperliquid HIP-3 recorded an all-time high in perpetual trading volume on March 23. Total volume reached $5.4 billion in a single day, based on Artemis data.

The milestone marks a notable shift in how traders are using the protocol. Commodities and macro assets drove the bulk of that activity. Silver, crude oil, and gold led the volume charts on that day.

Commodities Dominate HIP-3 Trading Volume

Silver topped the leaderboard with $1.3 billion in volume on March 23. WTI Crude Oil followed closely, recording $1.2 billion in trades on the same day.

Brent crude oil came in third with $940 million in total activity. Gold also posted $558 million, adding to the commodity-heavy trading picture on HIP-3.

The Nasdaq and S&P 500 contributed $370 million and $271 million, respectively, to the overall total. Together, these macro instruments accounted for a large share of the day’s recorded volume.

The data shows traders are actively using HIP-3 to access traditional financial market exposure. This range of assets reflects the growing breadth of the platform’s appeal.

Artemis data confirmed the record was achieved in a single trading session on March 23. The performance points to rising demand for commodity and macro derivatives on-chain.

HIP-3 is emerging as a preferred venue for traders reacting to real-world asset price movements.

HIP-3 Finds Product-Market Fit in Macro Trading

The record volume follows a pattern of macro news events driving activity on Hyperliquid HIP-3. Traders appear to use the platform to quickly respond to commodity price changes. This behavior mirrors how professional macro traders typically operate in traditional financial markets.

The trading breakdown shows a clear preference for assets tied to global economic developments. Silver and crude oil alone accounted for over $3.4 billion of the total recorded volume.

That concentration around commodity assets points to a specific trader behavior forming on the platform.

Artemis data supports the view that trading patterns are closely tied to macro news cycles. The platform is gaining traction among traders who monitor global economic developments closely. As macro activity grows, HIP-3 is positioning itself as a key on-chain venue for commodity derivatives.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has hired a new head of design with deep roots in crypto product development, as the platform continues to expand into payments and financial services.

Benji Taylor said in Wednesday post that he now leads design for X under its ties to xAI and SpaceX.

Taylor founded Los Feliz Engineering, the team behind self-custody crypto wallet Family. Aave Labs, the development firm behind $42 billion decentralized lender Aave, acquired the company in 2023, after which Taylor served as chief product officer until October 2025. Most recently, he was head of design at Base, the Ethereum-based blockchain network built by crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN).

X product lead Nikita Bier said he had tracked Taylor’s work for years and pushed to bring him on, calling one of his past products among the best designed he had seen.

The hire adds a designer with hands-on crypto experience at a time when X telegraphed its plans to roll out features to support payments and broader financial features on the platform.

Earlier this month, Musk said that X Money is set to launch in April, offering peer-to-peer transactions, bank deposits, a debit card and cashback rewards in more than 40 U.S. states. It was also proposed to pay a 6% yield on balances.

However, there wasn’t any mention of blockchain or crypto element in X Money at the time.

TLDR:

• Utila now supports native TRX staking, wallet delegation, and energy rental within a single enterprise platform.
  
• TRON processes over $20 billion in daily transfers, making cost-efficient resource management critical for operators.
  
• Energy rental through JustLend and TronScan providers can cut single USDT transfer costs by up to 80%.
  
• The integration eliminates third-party signing systems, keeping compliance, visibility, and policy controls fully intact.

Utila, an institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure platform, has launched native TRON resource management capabilities.

The new integration allows users to stake TRX, delegate resources across wallets, and rent energy programmatically.

It targets fintechs, payment companies, and exchanges on the TRON network. The solution reduces transaction costs while keeping security, policy controls, and transaction visibility intact.

Streamlining TRON Resource Management for Enterprise Operations

TRON serves as the dominant settlement layer for USDT, with a circulating supply of roughly $85 billion. Daily transfer volumes on the network regularly exceed $20 billion.

For businesses where TRC-20 USDT forms a core payment flow, managing network resources efficiently is a direct operational priority.

Every TRC-20 transfer on TRON requires energy and bandwidth to process. At high volumes, the cost of acquiring and allocating these resources adds up quickly. Utila’s new capabilities bring staking, delegation, and energy rental into one unified platform.

Previously, managing these resources at scale often meant routing transactions through third-party signing systems.

Those systems frequently sat outside existing wallet infrastructure, policy controls, and audit processes. Utila’s integration removes that gap entirely.

Bentzi Rabi, Co-Founder and CEO at Utila, spoke to the core problem the integration solves. “The scale of TRON’s blockchain infrastructure as the backbone of global stablecoin payments creates a clear need for enterprise-grade tooling that reduces costs without introducing operational risk,” he said.

He added that organizations can now optimize transaction economics directly within their existing infrastructure, with no external providers, no separate signing flows, and no compliance gaps.

Multiple Resource Mechanisms Available for High-Volume Operators

Teams using Utila can stake TRX to a super representative of their choice. This generates energy and bandwidth that cover transaction fees while also earning staking rewards through delegated voting rights. Once a wallet’s transactions are fully covered by staked energy, no TRX is burned on those transactions.

After obtaining resources through protocol staking, teams can delegate them across wallets within their organization via the API.

This gives operators flexible control over how resources are distributed without relying on external processes. The approach suits payment aggregators, remittance services, and payout platforms operating at scale.

For teams that prefer not to commit capital to long-term staking, Utila also supports energy rental. Platforms such as JustLend and TronScan-integrated providers are supported for this purpose.

This rental approach can reduce the cost of a single USDT transfer by up to 80%, depending on baseline fees.

Sam Elfarra, Community Spokesperson for TRON DAO, pointed to the broader need for this kind of tooling. “As a leading settlement layer for stablecoin transactions, the efficient management of TRON’s resource model, alongside strong security and compliance standards, is essential,” he said.

Elfarra noted that Utila’s native integration consolidates these capabilities into a single platform, giving payment companies and fintechs the tools needed to scale with greater efficiency and confidence.

Crypto markets drifted sideways on Wednesday as spot ETF flows whipsawed between inflows and outflows, and lawmakers grilled witnesses at a hearing on tokenized securities.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $71,000, up 2% over the past 24 hours. ETH and SOL gained 3% to $2,175 and $91.5, respectively. Meanwhile, Ripple (XRP) climbed 1.5%.

Total crypto market capitalization incresed 2% to $2.51 trillion, according to Coingecko.

ETF Flows Flip Negative

Spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net outflows of $74.5 million on March 24, with Fidelity’s FBTC leading the selling at $45.3 million, followed by Bitwise’s BITB at $16.6 million. The reversal came just one day after the products attracted $167 million in net inflows, led by IBIT’s $160.8 million contribution, according to SoSoValue.

Ethereum ETFs continued to underperform, recording net outflows of $40.8 million on March 24, led by BlackRock’s ETHA with $25 million.

Despite the daily volatility, Bitcoin ETFs have logged roughly $2.5 billion in gross inflows in March, translating to about $1.6 billion in net flows, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas.

House Holds Tokenization Hearing

The House Financial Services Committee convened on Wednesday to examine how tokenization is reshaping capital markets. Lawmakers broadly agreed that tokenized securities need the same regulatory guardrails as traditional instruments, though committee Democrats raised concerns about anonymous wallets masking foreign ownership and the “gamification” of trading, according to CoinDesk.

Big Movers

Nearly all of the Top 100 digital assets posted gains over the last 24 hours.

Today’s top gainers are SIREN and MemeCore (M), which surged 114% and 40%, respectively.

Monero (XMR) and Near Protocol (NEAR) are the biggest losers.

Around 81,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for $222 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin accounted for $73 million, while ETH made up $63 million.

Friday’s PCE inflation reading is the next major macro catalyst — a print above 3% could pressure Bitcoin as rate-cut expectations evaporate, while a reading below 2.8% could spark a rally.

Franklin Templeton and Ondo are launching tokenized ETFs that trade 24/7 directly in crypto wallets, giving non-U.S. investors round-the-clock access to U.S. stocks, bonds and gold.

Franklin Templeton is partnering with Ondo Finance to offer tokenized versions of its ETFs tradeable 24/7 directly from crypto wallets, the firm announced on Wednesday in a move that sidesteps the brokerage accounts and fixed trading hours that have defined fund investing for decades. According to Bloomberg, the products span U.S. equities, fixed income, and gold, with an initial rollout targeted at investors in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Franklin Templeton, which manages more than $1.6 trillion in assets, said the U.S. market launch will depend on further regulatory clarity around how third parties can distribute registered funds on-chain. The asset manager has been steadily building its on-chain infrastructure since 2021, when it launched the world’s first blockchain-integrated U.S.-registered mutual fund, and has since expanded to networks including Stellar, Polygon, and Arbitrum. In a previous crypto.news story, Sandy Kaul, Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton, stated that tokenized digital wallets will eventually hold the “totality” of an individual’s financial life — a thesis this latest product launch moves materially closer to reality.

Ondo Finance, for its part, brings a distribution network that has scaled rapidly. The platform crossed $2.5 billion in total value locked and surpassed $12 billion in cumulative trading volume since launching in September 2025, listing more than 250 tokenized stocks and ETFs across Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain. A previous crypto.news story detailed how Ondo’s Nexus initiative already expanded tokenized Treasury backing to include Franklin Templeton alongside BlackRock and PayPal.

The choice to prioritize non-U.S. markets first reflects both the regulatory landscape and existing infrastructure. Ondo secured regulatory passporting from Liechtenstein authorities, giving it access to over 30 European Economic Area countries. That framework is already active — in February 2026, Ondo partnered with Blockchain.com to make 200+ tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs available via the Blockchain.com DeFi wallet to eligible EEA users. Binance and MetaMask have also integrated Ondo’s tokenized offerings, with Binance reviving tokenized stock trading through its Alpha program and MetaMask enabling eligible non-U.S. users to access Ondo assets from mobile wallets.

Franklin Templeton’s latest move lands against a backdrop of accelerating institutional tokenization. The tokenized real-world asset market has exceeded $22 billion globally, with tokenized Treasuries alone surpassing $3 billion in total value locked by 2024. CEO Jenny Johnson has stated that 2026 would see increased institutional investment flowing into tokenized vehicles beyond simple Bitcoin holdings.

The products are designed to give investors outside traditional brokerage ecosystems — particularly in emerging markets — fractional, around-the-clock access to U.S. asset classes that have historically required intermediaries and banking infrastructure. In a previous crypto.news story, Franklin Templeton’s on-chain money market fund on Arbitrum was already laying the groundwork for this kind of multi-chain distribution. Wednesday’s announcement represents the clearest step yet toward making that vision a commercial reality.

TLDR:

• Monument Bank targets £250M in tokenized deposits on Midnight’s privacy-enhancing public blockchain network.
• Deposits remain fully backed, redeemable in GBP, and protected under the UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
• Phase two opens retail access to private equity, commodity funds, and structured products via the Monument app.
• Phase three introduces Lombard-style lending, letting customers borrow against investments without liquidating their assets.

Monument Bank is set to become the first UK-regulated bank to tokenize retail customer deposits on a public blockchain. The bank, regulated by the Bank of England, manages roughly £7 billion in deposits.

Working with the Midnight Foundation, Monument plans to bring up to £250 million in deposits onto the Midnight network.

The program targets mass-affluent customers seeking access to modern financial tools while retaining full regulatory protection under existing UK frameworks.

Tokenized Deposits Open New Doors for Retail Banking Customers

Monument’s approach centers on representing customer savings as digital tokens on Midnight’s privacy-enhancing blockchain.

Each token corresponds one-to-one with funds held at the bank, functioning as a digital mirror of a traditional deposit. Customers will earn interest just as they would with a standard savings account.

The deposits remain fully backed by Monument and redeemable in pounds sterling. They also stay protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, preserving the same safeguards customers already rely on.

Blockchain infrastructure operates behind the scenes, requiring no direct handling of digital assets by the customer.

Midnight’s architecture ensures that transaction data stays shielded and accessible only to Monument Bank and its customers.

This privacy-focused design addresses one of the central challenges facing blockchain adoption in regulated finance. It allows the bank to operate on a permissionless network without exposing sensitive financial information.

Fahmi Syed, President of the Midnight Foundation, addressed this directly. “Financial institutions around the world are exploring how blockchain infrastructure can support regulated financial products, but one of the persistent challenges has been balancing transparency with the privacy requirements of modern banking,” he said.

Monument’s model demonstrates how a regulated bank can bring traditional products on-chain while staying within compliance and consumer protection frameworks.

Monument’s Founder, Mintoo Bhandari, framed the move as a continuation of the bank’s core mission. “Monument was founded on the promise of bringing the most innovative and valuable financial offerings, safely and securely, to the often overlooked and underserved mass-affluent community in the UK and beyond,” he said.

With over 100,000 customers, the bank is embedding these capabilities directly into the consumer experience, setting this initiative apart from institutional-only tokenization efforts seen elsewhere.

Three-Phase Rollout Targets Investments and Lending Access

Beyond deposits, Monument has outlined a broader three-phase roadmap to expand what customers can do within its platform.

The second phase will introduce tokenized real-world asset products managed by global asset managers, accessible directly through the Monument app.

Customers will gain exposure to private equity, commodity funds, and structured products without buying or managing digital assets themselves.

These asset classes have historically been available only to ultra-high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors.

Monument’s structure is designed to change that by delivering institutional-grade products through a retail banking interface. The blockchain infrastructure running underneath remains invisible to the end user.

The third phase will introduce Lombard-style lending, allowing customers to borrow against their investments without selling them. Monument CEO Ian Rand noted the broader ambition behind this rollout.

“By combining these innovative capabilities with our exceptional client-centric service model, and the protections provided by the regulated banking framework of the UK, we are excited to deliver services that help our clients manage, and build, their prosperity,” he said.

This model has long been a feature of private banking services, offering more cost-effective credit access than standard borrowing. Bringing it to mass-affluent customers marks a notable shift in how consumer lending could work.

Daniel Fozzati, Founding Partner of The Building Blocks, called it “a world first by leveraging the UK’s innovation ecosystem.”

Research from Boston Consulting Group estimates tokenized financial assets could reach between $4 trillion and $16 trillion by 2030, and Monument’s initiative positions it early in that market.

Key takeaways

• Argentina’s nationwide ban on Polymarket shows that rapid global growth does not shield platforms from local regulation, especially when their core activity resembles unlicensed gambling.

• Authorities applied an “economic reality” approach, focusing on user behavior rather than the technology, and concluded that staking money on uncertain outcomes aligns with traditional definitions of gambling.

• Weak identity and age verification measures were a major concern, with regulators highlighting the risks of underage participation and inadequate user safeguards as justification for enforcement.

• Polymarket’s inflation-related markets intensified scrutiny in Argentina, raising fears about insider information, the monetization of sensitive economic data and potential influence on public perception.

Prediction markets are gaining popularity worldwide. People are increasingly using them as high-stakes forecasting tools for topics ranging from politics to the economy.

But in Argentina, that growth has hit a wall. A Buenos Aires court has mandated a countrywide block on Polymarket, arguing that the platform operates as an unlicensed gambling site with insufficient safeguards for its users.

This crackdown underscores a broader global debate over whether prediction markets should be treated as information tools, financial instruments or forms of digital betting.

This article explores why Argentina has blocked Polymarket despite its global growth, examining concerns over unauthorized gambling, weak user protections and inflation-linked bets. It discusses how regulators are increasingly treating prediction markets based on their real-world economic activity rather than their crypto-based structure.

A rapidly expanding platform meets firm legal resistance

Polymarket has established itself as one of the leading crypto-powered prediction markets globally. Participants wager on a wide range of future events, from political elections to macroeconomic indicators, using stablecoins as the medium.

Its swift rise stems from several key drivers:

• Growing fascination with instantaneous, market-driven forecasting

• Heightened engagement during high-profile international events

• The unique appeal of turning knowledge and insights into tradable financial stakes

Nevertheless, this momentum has drawn increased regulatory scrutiny. In Argentina, that scrutiny has escalated into decisive action.

Did you know? Prediction markets date back centuries. In the 1500s, Europeans placed bets on papal elections, showing that wagering on future events long predates modern crypto-based platforms.

Enforcement measures taken by Argentina

A court in Buenos Aires mandated that the national communications authority, Ente Nacional de Comunicaciones (ENACOM), enforce a ban on Polymarket and related domains throughout the country. The directive includes:

• Removing or restricting the platform’s applications in the Google and Apple app stores for users in Argentina

• Implementing blocks through internet service providers nationwide

The proceedings originated from a formal complaint lodged by Lotería de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (LOTBA), the Buenos Aires City Lottery authority, with prosecution led by a dedicated gambling crimes office.

Although the ruling came from a municipal court, its enforcement effectively spans the nation, prompting debate over how localized decisions can impose sweeping digital barriers.

Regulators’ rationale for deeming Polymarket unlawful

The core contention is straightforward. When individuals stake real money on uncertain future outcomes, the activity constitutes gambling.

Argentine officials have largely disregarded the underlying blockchain and cryptocurrency elements, instead adopting a practical “economic substance” approach that examines actual user behavior.

Under this view:

• Participants commit funds as stakes

• Outcomes remain uncertain

• Payouts depend directly on event resolution

This framework closely matches conventional legal definitions of gambling. Since Polymarket allegedly operates without the required local licensing or approval, authorities contend that it violates national gambling regulations.

Concerns about identity verification and age controls

A primary focus of the authorities’ critique centers on deficiencies in user safeguards. Regulators argued that Polymarket did not enforce adequate:

Such shortcomings create risks that:

In regulatory environments, these protective gaps are enough to justify intervention, regardless of any cryptocurrency involvement.

Did you know? The US once experimented with political futures markets at the University of Iowa, where participants traded real-money contracts on election outcomes as part of a university-run academic research project.

Heightened scrutiny over inflation-related markets

Argentina’s persistent economic challenges, particularly high inflation, make economic indicators politically and socially sensitive. Polymarket featured active markets predicting the country’s official inflation statistics. At times, these market prices aligned remarkably closely with the eventual official releases.

This alignment sparked concerns, including:

• Possible access to nonpublic or insider information among participants

• The commercialization of sensitive national economic data

• The potential for market-driven distortions

Given the significance of inflation in Argentina, this further intensified regulatory alarm.

How global expansion fuels local regulatory pushback

Polymarket’s international prominence is precisely what makes it impossible for regulators to ignore. As the platform expands:

• User participation surges

• Transaction volumes and capital inflows increase

• Public visibility and political attention intensify

An initiative once seen as an innovative venture now appears to be an unregulated betting system that operates outside oversight. In this dynamic, the platform’s rapid growth brought it into the regulatory spotlight.

A growing pattern of global restrictions

Argentina’s measures do not stand alone. Comparable regulatory actions have taken shape in various regions:

• Warnings, limitations or outright bans in select European markets

• Regulatory interventions across parts of Latin America

• Ongoing legal and compliance discussions in the US

This pattern signals a clear regulatory shift. Scrutiny is moving away from technical architecture and toward functional reality. When platform activities resemble gambling or unregulated financial speculation, authorities are more likely to apply corresponding controls.

The enduring dilemma: Gambling versus financial innovation

Prediction markets inhabit a persistent regulatory gray area. Advocates maintain that they deliver substantial value by:

• Enhancing the discovery and aggregation of dispersed information

• Offering immediate, market-based reflections of collective expectations

• Frequently surpassing the accuracy of conventional polling

Opponents counter that they promote:

• Purely speculative wagering

• Inadequate protections for participants

• Vulnerability to insider advantages or market manipulation

This inherent uncertainty complicates classification and makes it easier for authorities to apply preexisting gambling statutes.

Factors driving greater caution in Latin America

Regions such as Latin America exhibit particular regulatory vigilance due to:

• Pronounced economic instability and volatility

• Acute sensitivity to financial and macroeconomic data

• A strong focus on consumer safeguards

• Lower tolerance for unlicensed financial operations

In such contexts, platforms involving real-money stakes, even when presented as predictive “markets,” are more likely to face restrictions.

Did you know? Decentralized prediction platforms often use stablecoins instead of more volatile cryptocurrencies to make outcomes easier to calculate and reduce exposure to price fluctuations during trades.

The striking paradox: a municipal ruling with nationwide effect

Issued by a Buenos Aires city court, the order nonetheless resulted in a nationwide block on Polymarket. This illustrates the realities of digital platforms:

• Their services transcend borders

• Enforcement occurs locally

• Consequences extend nationally

It also explains why users quickly turned to tools like virtual private networks (VPNs), highlighting the practical limits of territorial jurisdiction on an interconnected internet.

Implications for prediction markets going forward

The Polymarket episode in Argentina highlights a critical lesson: Expansion alone does not ensure legitimacy or regulatory tolerance. As these platforms continue to scale, they will face:

• Increasing regulatory scrutiny

• Growing demands for jurisdictional compliance

• Stronger requirements for participant protections

Platforms operating in legal gray areas may ultimately have to choose between formal regulation and persistent barriers.

BitGo and ZKsync are teaming up to offer banks a full-stack infrastructure for tokenized deposits, as financial institutions look to bring traditional money onto blockchain rails without stepping outside regulatory boundaries.

The effort combines BitGo’s institutional custody and wallet services with ZKsync’s Prividium, a permissioned, privacy-preserving blockchain designed for regulated entities. The joint offering aims to enable banks to issue, transfer, and settle tokenized deposits while maintaining compliance and control.

The move reflects a growing trend among crypto infrastructure firms to court banks by packaging blockchain capabilities into compliance-friendly systems—sidestepping the need for institutions to build and manage complex onchain architecture themselves.

Tokenized deposits have emerged as a new trend for banks experimenting with blockchain-based payments. Unlike stablecoins, which typically sit outside the traditional banking system, tokenized deposits keep funds within it, potentially enabling programmable transactions without altering existing regulatory frameworks.

ZKsync creator Matter Labs is positioning its Prividium network as a bridge between public blockchain innovation and institutional requirements such as privacy and permissioning. Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski said in a press release that tokenized deposits represent “how banks bring money onchain without leaving the regulatory system.”

The companies said the combined stack is already being tested with regulated financial institutions, with broader production rollout targeted for later this year.

Read more: BitGo, Susquehanna Crypto offering institutional OTC access to prediction markets