Crypto

Besides freezing crypto, the strike force also seized a Telegram channel used to recruit unsuspecting job seekers and took down 503 fake crypto investment websites. The US Department of Justice revealed on Thursday that it has frozen more than $701 million in crypto linked to investment scams targeting Americans as part of an ongoing operation.  The US Scam Center Strike Force and its law enforcement partners targeted scam centers aimed at Americans, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said Thursday. The cryptocurrency was "restrained" through voluntary actions by crypto exchanges and legal processes, it added.  Read more

The Wall Street giant has announced a fund build specifically for stablecoin issuers. Here is what it does and means for the market.

Stablecoin issuers must invest a minimum of $10 million into Morgan Stanley’s money market fund, MSNXX, to access the stablecoin reserve offering. Morgan Stanley’s investment management arm has launched “Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio,” an offering that allows stablecoin issuers to park the reserves backing their stablecoins in one of the bank's money market funds while earning interest. The offering is part of the Morgan Stanley Institutional Liquidity Funds trust (MSNXX), which aims to preserve capital, provide daily liquidity and distribute income while maintaining a $1 net asset value, Morgan Stanley said on Thursday. “Developing innovative ways to work with stablecoin issuers is another step towards modernizing the financial infrastructure,” said Amy Oldenburg, head of Morgan Stanley’s digital asset strategy. The bank said the offering seeks to comply with the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act (GENIUS Act), a framework that was signed into law in July, which led several T...

Spot bitcoin ETFs logged their first 8-day inflow streak since October, but on-chain profit-taking is already running at 3x the rate that has marked every local top this year.

The White House’s office of technology policy said that foreign entities are using proxy accounts and jailbreaking techniques to distill capabilities from American AI models. The Trump administration has unveiled plans to combat “industrial-scale campaigns” by Chinese-based entities to copy AI technology developed by US companies.  In a statement on Thursday, the assistant to the president for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael J. Kratsios, said the government has "information" indicating that foreign entities — primarily based in China — are deliberately targeting major US AI firms to distill their AI models. "Models developed from surreptitious, unauthorized distillation campaigns like this do not replicate the full performance of the original. They do, however, enable foreign actors to release products that appear to perform comparably on select benchmarks at a fraction of the cost," Kratsios said. Read more

Jane Street has filed to dismiss Terraform’s insider trading suit, arguing the reasons for Terra’s collapse have already been litigated. Trading firm Jane Street has asked a US court to toss a lawsuit brought by the administrator of the bankrupt Terraform Labs, accusing the company of insider trading that worsened the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. In a motion to dismiss filed in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, Jane Street argued Terraform’s suit was an attempt “to extract cash from Jane Street to foot the bill for a fraud that Terraform itself perpetrated on the market.” “Terraform now claims it was victimized by Jane Street’s trading,” it added. “The problem with this theory is that Terraform’s fraud scheme — in which Jane Street had no involvement — has already been prosecuted, adjudicated, and punished.” Read more

Crypto markets weaken amid rising Japan inflation, Iran war oil disruptions, and expectations of a hawkish Bank of Japan.

Mantle, EtherFi Foundation, Golem Foundation, Lido DAO, Ethena, LayerZero, Ink Foundation and Tyrdo have all made pledges to the “DeFi United” recovery effort. Decentralized finance protocols have banded together in an attempt to restore the backing of rsETH following the $293 million exploit of the Kelp restaking platform on Saturday, which has triggered a liquidity shock. The amount pledged has now exceeded 43,500 Ether, worth over $101 million, which decentralized lending platform Aave has called the “DeFi United” relief effort. Crypto protocols involved include Lido DAO and the Golem Foundation, with the largest pledges coming from the EtherFi Foundation and Mantle at the time of writing.  “We believe ecosystem collaboration matters most in moments like this, and our priority is achieving the strongest possible available outcome for users, said Aave on Thursday.  Read more

The state's complaint highlights language used by prediction market platforms as language for gambling, not investing.

US prosecutors alleged that Gannon Ken Van Dyke asked Polymarket to delete his account after profiting from trades tied to the military operation in Venezuela. A US Army soldier involved in the capture of Nicolás Maduro has been charged with making over $400,000 by allegedly betting on the removal of the former Venezuelan president on a prediction market platform.  In a statement on Thursday, the US Department of Justice alleged that Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke was involved in the planning and execution of “Operation Absolute Resolve” that led to the capture of Maduro at a residence in Caracas, Venezuela, in January.  Van Dyke allegedly used this information to buy “yes” shares in related Polymarket contracts, including "Maduro out by January 31" and "Trump invokes War Powers against Venezuela by January 31,” according to the DOJ.  Read more

Bitcoin’s rally above $79,000 may be a sign that the downtrend is ending, but a multi-day candle close above $80,000 would help strengthen the odds of a trend change holding. On Thursday, Bitcoin (BTC) continued to wrestle with the $78,000 level as bulls attempted to cement their newfound hold over the market.  The convergence of an improving market structure, institutional investors’ fresh allocation to the spot ETFs and investors’ belief that the Senate will pass the CLARITY Act before the US mid-term elections provided the much-needed narrative catalyst the market had been waiting for.  On the institutional side of the market, fresh capital helped place strengthening support in the $68,000 to $70,000 price range. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen a $2.03 billion inflow in April; Strategy purchased 34,000 BTC for $2.54 billion; and Morgan Stanley’s newly launched MSBT BTC ETF took in over $153 million in its first two weeks of trading.  Read more

MN Trading Capital founder Michael van de Poppe doesn’t expect Bitcoin to drop below $75,000 in the near term, even as Polymarket traders price in a different outcome. Momentum from Bitcoin’s recent rally could spill into the altcoin market, which could see gains of as much as 60% if Bitcoin continues to rise, according to a crypto analyst. “I think this leg has enough room to continue to $86K, and altcoins to run 30-60% from here,” MN Trading Capital founder Michael van de Poppe said on Thursday.  A move to $86,000, a level Bitcoin hasn’t seen since Jan. 28, would represent about a 10% increase from its current price of $77,890, according to CoinMarketCap data. Read more

A renewed uptrend or a substantial pullback: what's coming next for ETH?

Federal prosecutors say an Army soldier made over $400K betting on Venezuela-related outcomes on Polymarket using classified intelligence.

Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke allegedly tried to conceal his bets about the raid on Venezuela that led to Nicolas Maduro's arrest.

The Fellowship PAC disclosed that it had spent $1.75 million in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, facing Senator John Cornyn in a May runoff. The crypto-aligned Fellowship political action committee (PAC), led by stablecoin issuer Tether’s head of government affairs, reported spending more than $3 million on advertising related to US Senate races, with the majority going toward to support a Texas Republican candidate. In a Tuesday filing with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC), Fellowship PAC disclosed that it had spent $1.75 million in support of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The Republican is facing off against incumbent Senator John Cornyn in a May 26 runoff to determine who will become the party’s candidate for the 2026 US Senate race. In addition to Paxton, the PAC reported spending $350,000 on advertising for Mike Collins in Georgia’s Senate race, $350,000 on Barry Moore in Alabama’s Senate race, and $250,000 and $350,000 on Blake Miguez and Julia Letlow, respectively, for House a...

On Forge Global, Anthropic shares are hovering around $1 trillion while OpenAI trades at $880 billion — a reversal nobody saw coming three months ago.

Inflows to the spot Ether ETFs topped $633 million over the past 10-days, but are the flows significant enough to trigger a rally to $3,000? Key takeaways: The spot ETH ETFs recorded ten consecutive days of net inflows, totaling $633 million. Weekly DApps revenue on the Ethereum network fell to $13 million, following a broader decline seen in Solana and BNB Chain. Read more

Retail crypto activity fell 11% in Q1 as macro pressures weighed on markets, though Turkey and emerging economies showed resilience, TRM Labs data shows. Global crypto adoption declined in the first quarter as retail activity weakened under mounting macroeconomic and geopolitical pressures, underscoring the sector’s continued sensitivity to broader market conditions. TRM Labs’ Q1 Global Crypto Adoption Index showed an 11% year-over-year drop in retail crypto volumes, to $979 billion. The decline marked a second consecutive quarterly contraction and the sharpest pullback since the 2022 bear market. The downturn was largely driven by a stronger US dollar, higher interest rates and a broader risk-off environment, all of which weighed on retail participation, TRM said. The softer demand coincided with a 22% drop in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) during the quarter. Read more

Grok AI places XRP in an $8–$15 range if ETH hits $54k. XRP trades at $1.33 with seven SEC ETF decisions looming. Full Q2 2026 price analysis inside. The post Grok AI Just Predicted XRP Could Hit $15 If Ethereum Reaches $54,000: Is the Math Actually Realistic? appeared first on Cryptonews.