Cryptopolitan

If you spend any time on crypto YouTube right now, you will see the exact same tutorial. “How to use Claude to write a Solana trading bot in 5 minutes.”

The trend is massive. On the surface, it looks like the ultimate democratization of algorithmic trading. Everyday retail traders are suddenly using autonomous agents to map out high-frequency logic that used to require a team of quants.

But from overseeing hundreds of autonomous AI agent deployments on the front lines, I have noticed a stark reality. The democratization of algorithmic trading is currently an illusion.

I run an OpenClaw managed hosting company – Agent37. And a massive trend I’m noticing is that a large percentage of retail traders abandon their custom AI bots within the first 2 weeks of trading. The killer is not a flawed algorithm. The killer is the LLM token cost.

The “Inference Tax” Mental Model

To understand why retail AI trading is stalling, you have to look at the unit economics.

Thanks to LLMs, writing trading logic is virtually free. You can prompt an AI to create a momentum indicator in minutes. But running that logic 24/7 is where traders hit a brick wall. I call this the Inference Tax. It is the hidden cost of constantly querying frontier models to analyze live market data.

Think about the math. If a bot wakes up every five minutes to analyze a chart, parse market sentiment, and decide whether to execute a swap on Solana, it is burning tokens constantly. Many retail traders default to top-tier models like GPT-5.4 or Claude Opus because they are the smartest available.

But these models are incredibly expensive for continuous loops. Traders often end up spending ten dollars a day on API calls just to generate two dollars in trading profit. The cost of intelligence exceeds the value of the trade.

The Frontier Model Fallacy

This leads to the biggest misconception in the AI crypto space right now. People think they need a genius-level AI to execute a simple trading strategy. They do not.

The smartest algorithmic traders realize a contrarian truth. You do not need a frontier model to buy Solana when it drops five percent. You need a cheap, lightning-fast model paired with an incredibly strict system prompt.

Instead of burning cash on massive APIs, the optimal path is to use smaller, highly capable open-weight models like Qwen 3.5 Flash. You tune the system prompt specifically for your algorithm. The model acts as a highly efficient, specialized worker rather than a general-purpose genius. This drops the Inference Tax to near zero.

The New Logistics Bottleneck

If using smaller models is the obvious solution, why is everyone still going broke on API fees? The answer is logistics.

Setting up local, cost-effective models is a technical nightmare for the average trader. To do this yourself, you have to: 

⁠Rent optimized cloud infrastructure.

⁠Figure out how to host and serve a model like Qwen 3.5 Flash.

⁠Manage Python environments and continuous execution loops.

⁠Keep the server awake and monitor for crashes.

Most retail traders do not know how to be DevOps engineers. When faced with this complexity, they default back to the expensive API, bleed money for 48 hours, and shut their bot down.

Abstracting the Infrastructure

The future of retail crypto trading will not be won by the people who know how to write the best prompt for Claude. It will be won by platforms that make cheap, specialized inference completely invisible to the user.

If Web3 and AI are going to merge successfully, everyday users need the ability to visually deploy a strategy, automatically route the logic through cost-effective models, and run it in an isolated container. The infrastructure must get out of the way.

The barrier to algorithmic trading used to be the code. Now, it is the hosting and inference costs. The moment we abstract those away, retail traders can finally compete.

Polymarket recorded over $10 billion in monthly trading volume last month without a single U.S. citizen being able to use its main international platform. Today, the company has decided that this arrangement is no longer acceptable.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Polymarket has been in active discussions with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in recent weeks, pushing to lift the ban on US-based customers trading directly on its international exchange. The people familiar with the talks asked not to be named. If it works, it would be the biggest expansion in prediction market history. It is also coming at arguably the messiest moment the company has faced since its 2022 regulatory blowup.

The Gap Bloomberg Is Actually Describing

This is worth getting straight, because it is easy to blur. Polymarket already has CFTC approval to operate in the US. In November 2025, the regulator issued an Amended Order of Designation allowing Polymarket to run a federally regulated intermediated trading platform here. Americans can technically access its markets through futures commission merchants and brokerages. The company relaunched in December 2025 on an invite-only basis with restricted markets.

That is not what today’s Bloomberg report is about.

What Polymarket is now pushing for is permission to bring its actual main exchange to US users, the same platform the rest of the world trades on. The company had been trying to build a separate US-facing product as a workaround. Per Bloomberg, that effort has failed to fully launch. Therefore, rather than keep funding a parallel product that isn’t working, the company went back to Washington.

$112 Million and Four Years of Groundwork

Getting here was neither quick nor cheap. Polymarket paid a $1.4 million CFTC fine in 2022 and agreed to exit the US market for running an unregistered derivatives exchange. It spent the next three years building internationally, eventually clearing over $3 billion in monthly trades by October 2025, all without American users on its main platform.

The regulatory rehabilitation happened in stages. The CFTC and DOJ dropped their separate investigations into Polymarket in July 2025 without new charges. Within days, the company spent $112 million acquiring QCEX, a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse, giving it the infrastructure to legally re-enter the US. Intercontinental Exchange, owner of the New York Stock Exchange, committed up to $2 billion the same month, eventually completing roughly $1.64 billion in direct investment. By February 2026 Polymarket was valued at $9 billion.

Separately, the company today also rolled out CTF Exchange V2, its largest technical infrastructure upgrade since launch, alongside a new collateral token called pUSD backed 1:1 by USDC. The Bloomberg report and the exchange upgrade landed on the same day.

Five Days Ago, the CFTC Charged a Soldier for Trading on It

On April 23, the CFTC filed its first ever insider trading complaint involving event contracts. It was tied directly to Polymarket.

The defendant is Gannon Van Dyke, a US Army service member from North Carolina. The CFTC alleges he used classified information from a military operation known as Operation Absolute Resolve to purchase over 436,000 “Yes” shares on a Polymarket contract tied to the removal of Nicolás Maduro, clearing over $400,000 in profit. The DOJ filed parallel criminal charges in the Southern District of New York. The CFTC confirmed it was the first time the agency used what regulators call the “Eddie Murphy Rule”, the prohibition on trading based on misappropriated government information, to bring event contract charges.

Van Dyke is not an isolated case. Israeli Air Force officers have reportedly been investigated and indicted for betting on the timing of strikes against Iran. One crew member told investigators during interrogation: “the entire squadron is on Polymarket, the entire air force is betting.” Close to $850,000 in bets on nuclear detonations appeared on the platform when the Iran conflict began. Polymarket removed that market shortly after most of the positions were placed.

This is the backdrop against which the company is asking for broader US access.

A Shrinking Regulator, 19 State Lawsuits, and Two Country Bans in Two Days

The CFTC is now smaller than at any point in the past 15 years. Staffing has dropped 24% under Trump, leaving the agency at around 535 employees. A CNN report last week detailed growing concern among lawmakers that the regulator simply cannot police an industry growing at this pace. Under the current framework, CFTC-approved prediction market platforms are required to self-certify that their individual market offerings comply with federal rules. The CFTC is not reviewing each contract. That self-regulatory model is drawing more fire by the week.

State-level enforcement adds another layer of friction. The Nevada Gaming Control Board sued Polymarket in January 2026 for offering event contracts to state residents without a gaming license. Massachusetts courts ruled that similar contracts constituted illegal sports wagering under state law. Kalshi, Polymarket’s main US rival, is currently fighting over 19 active state-level actions. The CFTC and DOJ recently sued Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois for their enforcement attempts against federally regulated prediction market platforms — a dispute in which the Third Circuit sided with the platforms.

Brazil banned Polymarket two days ago, on April 26. Portugal banned it in March. And hanging over the entire regulatory picture: Donald Trump Jr. is a paid adviser to Kalshi and an investor in Polymarket, while Trump’s own social media company has announced plans to launch a prediction platform. Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation specifically targeting that overlap.

What Happens If the CFTC Says Yes

March 2026, with US users locked off the main platform, produced over $10 billion in trading volume. The United States remains the single largest market Polymarket cannot yet fully access.

Opening the main exchange to American traders would not just add users. It would change the scale of every contract on the platform, Fed decision markets, election bets, geopolitical contracts. It would also make the intermediated FCM model already approved largely redundant, and render the failed domestic alternative a sunk cost.

The business case for Polymarket making this push is straightforward. Whether the CFTC is willing to hand Polymarket that expansion right now, while processing its first ever event contract insider trading case, while state regulators chip away at the federal framework, and while the agency itself is operating at 15-year low staffing, is a completely different question.

If you want a calmer entry point into DeFi crypto without the usual hype, start with this free video.

LayerZero will commit 10,000 ETH to help clean up the $292 million Kelp DAO exploit, 5 days after watching rivals write big checks. The company posted on X, saying it will deposit 5,000 ETH into the DeFi United rescue fund and another 5,000 ETH directly into Aave to strengthen its liquidity. It also pledged to support GHO liquidity. 

Following the attack, DeFi United is racing to restore full backing for the token. The coalition has since published a technical recovery plan that relies on staged ETH deposits into Kelp’s lockbox contract,

How did the $292M hack actually happen, and what did it break?

On April 18, 2026, attackers stole $292 million from Kelp DAO by feeding its bridge fake data to mimic a real transaction. Kelp stopped further attempts 46 minutes later, but the system had already released the first 116,500 rsETH in a single transaction.

LayerZero blamed TraderTraitor, a subunit of North Korea’s Lazarus Group, linked to another $285M hack on April 1 2026. When combined, the Lazarus Group has drained over $575 million from DeFi in just 18 days using two different attack methods. 

Instead of dumping the stolen tokens on the open market, the attacker deposited about 90,000 rsETH into Aave and borrowed roughly $190 million worth of real ETH and other assets. That left Aave with bad debt that the protocol failed to fix.

Aave’s TVL dropped by about $ 13 billion, from $32 billion to $20.3 billion, within days. Users were unable to withdraw USDC or USDT due to exhausted liquidity.

Who is to blame, and why did it take LayerZero five days to commit?

The blame is appended to both Kelp DAO and LayerZero. Kelp DAO had a weak 1-of-1 setup, making it a single point of failure as only one LayerZero verifier could validate messages. And while LayerZero cautioned that multi-verifier options are safer, Kelp says the default setup used the one described by LayerZero.

David Schwartz, Ripple CTO Emeritus, raised some concerns about LayerZero’s explanation. He cited previous comments by LayerZero CEO Bryan Pellegrino that no application used only the LayerZero DVN, calling them false. X users reacted very aggressively because many users labeled LayerZero as the one behind the mess. They also called it out for not donating aid to Aave while others deposited large checks.

Five days later, LayerZero contributed 10,000 ETH, once the recovery fund had crossed $300 million in total pledges. Consensys and Joe Lubin pledged 30,000 ETH, and Mantle made a 30,000 ETH low-interest loan before LayerZero acted. Stani Kulechov posted on X and then pledged 5,000 ETH, while Kelp contributed 2,000 ETH — just before LayerZero.

What is DeFi United, and how does the recovery plan work?

DeFi United is the rescue coalition formed to support Aave after the attacks. According to reports, 14 entities joined and contributed grants, deposits, and lines of credit to rescue Aave users. 

Who has pledged to DeFi United and how much

Contributor Amount Structure Consensys & Joe Lubin 30,000 ETH (~$69M) Grant/pledge Mantle 30,000 ETH (~$69M) Low-interest loan Aave DAO (pending vote) 25,000 ETH (~$57.5M) Treasury deployment Arbitrum Security Council 30,766 ETH (~$71M) Frozen attacker funds, pending gov. vote LayerZero 10,000 ETH (~$23M) 5K to DeFi United + 5K to Aave + GHO support Stani Kulechov (Aave founder) 5,000 ETH (~$11.5M) Personal pledge Kelp DAO 2,000 ETH (~$4.6M) Contribution Lido, EtherFi, Ethena, others Multiple smaller pledges Ecosystem support Circle Buying AAVE tokens Protocol support Total pledged >$300M combined Per Unchained 

The recovery plan has two main parts. First, supporters will slowly convert their pledged ETH into rsETH and deposit it into the Kelp DAO bridge. 

Second, they will liquidate the attacker’s remaining positions on Aave and Compound through special steps to recover more funds. Arbitrum also froze 30,766 ETH from the attacker’s wallet, so most of the missing funds will be recovered if governance approves.

What does this mean for DeFi?

According to Galaxy Research, DeFi lost more than $605 million in only 20 days across 12+ protocols. Applications built on LayerZero must now upgrade to a stronger multi-verifier step, as LayerZero now rejects any application that uses a 1-of-1 verifier.

According to DeFi, no single group controls the system. But as we’ve seen, recovery relied on centralized powers like Arbitrum approving emergency actions, Circle freezing wallets, and Aave rushing governance votes.

So the question that remains is whether the system proved it can handle self-recovery, or whether it only survived because central actors stepped in. The answer to that depends on whether protocols upgrade their systems before the next incoming attack.

If you want a calmer entry point into DeFi crypto without the usual hype, start with this free video.

Eric Trump went after Forbes on X after the magazine ran a story on American Bitcoin (ABTC), the Trump-linked mining company now trading on the Nasdaq (NDAQ).

Eric said, “Forbes has become a political weapon and an embarrassment to journalism. This reads as politically motivated propaganda. Friends – educate yourselves as to the source of your information — in this case, China!”

Eric also said that American Bitcoin did not exist just over a year ago, but now holds more than 7,000 BTC. He said the company is the 16th largest publicly traded bitcoin company in the world, with nearly 90,000 miners, 28 exahash of capacity, and American energy behind its operations.

He also said the company grew its bitcoin balance by 58% in Q4, mined BTC at a 53% discount to the market price, and reported $78.3 million in Q4 revenue, up 22% from the prior quarter.

Forbes calls American Bitcoin a money laundering scheme with a twist

Forbes said Eric joined a February earnings call and pitched American Bitcoin as a fast-rising name in crypto. He said, “We are fast becoming the leader in the bitcoin world, and I truly think we have the greatest brand of all.” He also thanked Mike Ho, Asher Genoot, Matt Prusak, and “everybody at American Bitcoin.”

The magazine then pointed to a filing that said American Bitcoin had only two full-time employees one month after that call. Those two are likely Mike, the CEO, and Matt, the president. Mike also works at Hut 8 (HUT) as chief strategy officer.

A former investor-relations worker at one of Mike’s other companies now lists herself as chief of staff at American Bitcoin. Another worker says she became social media manager in January. Asher is executive chairman and sits on a five-person board with Mike and three independent directors.

When American Bitcoin hit public trading on Sept. 3, investors valued it at $13.2 billion, even though it had about $270 million in BTC. Since then, its diluted stock has fallen 92% from the top. Forbes estimated Eric’s wealth rose from $190 million to $280 million, while retail investors lost about $500 million.

Forbes tracks the share sales, bitcoin buys, mining costs, and foreign investor angle

The company started after the 2024 election. Two weeks after Trump defeated Kamala Harris, the company that became American Bitcoin was formed in Delaware. It first looked like an AI data-center plan.

Hussain Sajwani, the Dubai developer tied to the Trump family through a golf project, came to Mar-a-Lago and announced a $20 billion plan for U.S. data centers. Soon after, Eric and Don Trump Jr. backed American Data Centers, which Eric called “crucial for the development of AI infrastructure in the United States.”

One month later, the plan changed. Eric and Don Jr. connected with Asher and Mike, who already had Hut 8, a data-center and bitcoin-mining business. Bitcoin rewards had been cut by 50%, which made mining harder on the profit side.

Forbes said Asher and Mike gave the Trumps a 20% stake in mining equipment, while Hut 8 kept the sites, daily operations, back-office work, and some executives. Eric later told CoinDesk the name needed two words, “America” and “Bitcoin,” before the final name became American Bitcoin.

Eric has also said banking pressure pushed him into DeFi. He said, “I got canceled by every single bank in the country. Every single one of the big banks, they started canceling us.”

Forbes said Capital One (COF) and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) closed some Trump accounts in 2021, but lenders still worked with the family. From January 2021 to mid-2022, Trump, Eric, and Don Jr. refinanced almost $700 million in debt.

Forbes said about 70% of American Bitcoin’s crypto came from selling shares and buying BTC, not from mining. In the first 27 days after listing, the company sold 11 million shares for $90 million, paid about $2 million in costs, and bought roughly 725 BTC.

From early October to mid-November 2025, it sold 7 million shares for $44 million, and in late November, it sold 47 million shares for about $106 million.

From Jan. 1 to March 25, American Bitcoin sold 84 million shares for $111 million and bought about 1,430 BTC, according to Forbes estimates, with total crypto buys at $525 million, now worth about $390 million, leaving a $135 million gap. Mining ran at about $47,000 per BTC before full costs, while the all-in cost sat near $90,000.

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The XRP Ledger is quickly transitioning to become a distribution layer for real-world financial assets, not just payments. The tokenized U.S. Treasuries held on the network have soared to more than $418 million, according to data, jumping from roughly $50 million a year earlier. 

The eight-fold increase, coupled with growing transfer activity, indicates the XRPL is also being used to issue and move traditional financial instruments on a large scale. The trend illustrates how real-world assets (RWAs) are extending the network beyond just remittances and into high-throughput financial infrastructure. 

According to Evernorth, a treasury-focused firm, the numbers highlight that the value of tokenized U.S. Treasuries on XRPL has ballooned from roughly $50 million 12 months ago to more than $418 million today. The increase coincides with broader institutional experiments and integrations, such as partnerships linked to Ripple and South Korea’s K-Bank. All this growth is not only a function of supply. 

XRPL tokenized Treasuries have also experienced enormous growth in transfer volume, jumping dramatically. Year-to-date movement had totaled some $352.3 million versus about $70.1 million during the same period previously. This is almost a fivefold increase just in the first four months of the year. Evernorth described the movement simply: supply is rising, but so is the flow. 

In other words, more Treasuries are being issued on the ledger, and those that are already tokenized can move more freely between wallets and platforms. That combination suggests real use, not merely passive issuance. Increased transfer activity is particularly significant. 

It indicates that the XRPL is not just housing tokenized assets but is functioning as a distribution rail – that is, where tokenized assets are traded, transferred, and settled. That’s a major requirement for RWAs to scale.

Who is driving the surge in RWAs on XRPL?

Available data shows that many platforms are contributing to the expansion. The largest participant is Justoken, with approximately $1.8 billion in tokenized value linked to the XRPL ecosystem. 

There is roughly $396.7 million in stablecoin-related issuance, such as RLUSD, on the cards, with VERT Capital accounting for about $382.2 million. Other projects are now beginning to enter this space as well. 

Ondo and Ctrl Alt recently undertook a $280 million diamond tokenization project. They expanded their asset base from government debt to other types. The move into commodity and alternative asset classes has already given the impression that XRPL is evolving into a large-scale tokenization layer. “Vet,” an XRPL validator, pointed out that issuance is increasing across the spectrum. 

The validator said that new integrations and platforms are helping make the network more appealing to issuers seeking a rapid, low-cost settlement environment. This broad engagement is important. RWAs normally need multiple players: issuers, custodians, investors, and liquidity providers. 

Why does rising Treasury activity matter?

Tokenized U.S. Treasuries are among the most conservative assets in finance. Once instruments are moved onto a blockchain, they gain credibility and attract institutional interest. 

Once “risk-averse capital” opts for a particular network, the choice comes through in the data, Evernorth said. Treasuries also provide foundational collateral. They can back lending, liquidity pools, and stablecoin reserves. 

As more Treasuries are introduced to XRPL, they provide a base layer for other financial products to build on. It increases overall network utility. Its growing transfer volume proves this point. 

Common assets that are frequently transferred can also be used in trading, collateralization, and settlement. This changes the paradigm from XRPL from a payments network to an infrastructure for actual financial markets. The timing is also notable. 

RWAs are in vogue across the crypto sector, as entities seek on-chain yield-bearing assets. Tokenized Treasuries offer predictable returns, making them an attractive option in times of financial uncertainty. XRPL’s low fees and quick settlement rates are making it competitive in that market. 

The eight-fold increase in supply and surge in transfers together indicate a change of heart. XRPL is increasingly used as a high-throughput distribution layer for financial assets. 

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Galaxy Digital (Nasdaq: GLXY) saw a $216 million net loss in Q1 2026, according to its latest earnings report released on Tuesday that shows a $0.49 loss per share on both diluted and adjusted terms.

The company said the quarter was mainly hurt by lower crypto prices, as the total crypto market value down about 20% during the same period.

Galaxy ended the quarter with $2.8 billion in total equity and $2.6 billion in cash and stablecoins. Total assets dropped to $9.99 billion, down from $11.35 billion in Q4 2025. Total equity fell to $2.78 billion from $3.04 billion.

Cash and stablecoins stayed almost flat at $2.605 billion, compared with $2.606 billion in the prior quarter. Net crypto assets and investments fell to $1.36 billion from $1.68 billion, a 19% drop.

Galaxy also reported an adjusted gross loss of $88 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative $188 million.

Galaxy absorbs the crypto slump through its trading, treasury, and revenue

Galaxy’s net loss was smaller than the $482 million loss recorded in Q4 2025, and even though the company’s adjusted EBITDA also improved from negative $518 million in Q4, it still remained a loss.

The Digital Assets business, which is basically the core crypto side of Galaxy, brought in $49 million in adjusted gross profit. That was down from $51 million in Q4, a 4% decline.

Adjusted EBITDA for that unit came in at negative $19 million, compared with negative $29 million in the previous quarter. Galaxy said fee revenue and transaction income helped the unit hold up while crypto prices and market activity weakened.

Galaxy’s Treasury & Corporate reported an adjusted gross loss of $140 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative $167 million due to unrealized losses from crypto and investment positions.

In Q4, the same unit had a much larger adjusted gross loss at $454 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative $488 million, so things actually got a little better this time around, just not good.

GAAP stayed huge because of the way the business records revenue and transaction costs. Galaxy reported $10.21 billion in gross revenues and gains from operations, nearly the same as $10.22 billion in Q4. Gross transaction expenses fell to $10.02 billion from $10.31 billion, a 3% decrease. Across the full company, adjusted gross profit improved from negative $398 million in Q4 to negative $88 million in Q1.

Galaxy starts Helios revenue as CoreWeave takes the first data hall

Galaxy also gave a major update on Helios, its data center campus, which handed the first data hall to CoreWeave (Nasdaq: CRWV) under the Phase I lease agreement, with revenue recognition beginning in April 2026.

Galaxy expects the data center business to start adding more adjusted gross profit and adjusted EBITDA in Q2, after it posted $3.1 million in adjusted gross profit this quarter, down from the $4.6 million in Q4, with adjusted EBITDA coming in at negative $0.9 million.

Helios also got more power capacity approved. ERCOT cleared another 830 megawatts for the campus, bringing total approved capacity to more than 1.6 gigawatts.

Galaxy is also working through tenant talks for the extra capacity, with Phase II already in progress, with civil and structural work underway for a 260 megawatt expansion. The first Phase II data hall deliveries are expected in the first half of 2027.

Asset Management & Infrastructure Solutions generated $18 million in adjusted gross profit. Galaxy ended Q1 with around $5.0 billion in assets under management and $3.2 billion in assets under stake.

Asset Management brought in $69 million of net inflows during the quarter, even as crypto prices fell. After quarter end, BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) selected Galaxy as an approved validator for staking tied to the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF, its first crypto ETP with rewards.

Galaxy also announced a new fintech hedge fund built around traditional finance, blockchain infrastructure, and new technology, with launch expected on May 1st.

During Q1, Galaxy bought back 3.2 million Class A shares for $65 million, covering more than the dilution tied to 2025 employee stock awards. The company also completed its voluntary exit from the Toronto Stock Exchange, leaving Nasdaq as its only public market.

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Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) missed on profit in the first quarter of 2026, with diluted EPS at $0.38, while crypto revenue dropped 47% from last year to $134 million, according to latest earnings report released on Tuesday.

HOOD crashed by 2.30% after hours as traders focused on the weak crypto line, even though total net revenue up 15% year over year to $1.07 billion.

Robinhood CFO Shiv Verma said customers kept using new products, net deposits grew at a 20% plus annualized rate, equities and options posted double-digit growth, and prediction markets, futures, and index options reached record levels.

Shiv also said:

“And Q2 is off to a good start in April, as equity and option trading volumes are on track to be the highest month of the year, and even with tax season, net deposits are approximately $5 billion month-to-date.”

Robinhood reports higher revenue while crypto trading revenue falls hard

Robinhood posted $623 million in transaction revenue, up 7% from a year earlier. Event-contract activity helped carry that side of the business, with other transaction revenue jumping 320% to $147 million. Options revenue rose 8% to $260 million, while equities revenue increased 46% to $82 million.

The crypto business brought in $134 million, down 47%, which is not a tiny miss for an audience that watches digital-asset revenue like a hawk.

Net interest revenue rose 24% to $359 million as interest-earning assets grew. Lower short-term rates and weaker securities-lending activity cut into that gain. Other revenue increased 57% to $85 million, helped by Robinhood Gold subscription revenue of $50 million, up 32%.

Robinhood’s net income rose 3% year over year to $346 million. Adjusted EBITDA increased 14% to $534 million. Total operating expenses rose 18% to $656 million, as the company spent more on marketing, growth projects, and acquisition costs. Adjusted operating expenses plus share-based compensation came in at $607 million, up 14%, including $14 million tied to Rothera and Trump Accounts.

Funded Customers increased by 1.7 million, or 6%, to 27.4 million. Investment Accounts grew by 2.1 million, or 8%, to 29.1 million. Total Platform Assets rose 39% to $307 billion, helped by fresh deposits, stronger equity prices, and assets added through deals.

Net Deposits came in at $17.7 billion, equal to 22% annualized growth versus platform assets at the end of Q4 2025. Over the last twelve months, Net Deposits reached $67.8 billion, a 31% growth rate versus platform assets at the end of Q1 2025.

Robinhood adds traders, products, buybacks, banking deposits, and tokenization plans

Robinhood’s trading activity stayed active outside crypto revenue. Equity and options volumes grew by double digits, while prediction markets, futures, index options, shorting, and margin reached record activity.

Cortex Digests has been used by nearly 1 million customers. Cortex Assistant is being rolled out across the app with real-time AI insight tools.

Robinhood Social beta launched to 10,000 customers with verified live trades and profile-based community features.

Banking deposits passed $2 billion from more than 125,000 Funded Customers, and about 40% of those users signed up for direct deposit.

Robinhood Strategies crossed 285,000 Funded Customers and $1.6 billion in assets under management. The company added trust and custodial accounts, unveiled the Robinhood Platinum Card, and said the Robinhood Gold Card passed 800,000 Funded Customers.

Robinhood also launched the IPO of Robinhood Ventures Fund I, a New York Stock Exchange listed closed-end fund that gives retail investors exposure to private companies.

In April, the U.S. Department of the Treasury named Robinhood as broker and sole initial trustee for Trump Accounts. The company is working with BNY Mellon (NYSE: BK) on the standalone app, customer support, education, and custody.

Outside the United States, Robinhood received in-principle approval from Singapore’s Monetary Authority to offer brokerage services. It also launched the public testnet for Robinhood Chain, a financial-grade Ethereum (ETH) Layer 2 built for tokenized real-world assets. The testnet has processed more than 100 million transactions.

Retirement AUC rose 90% to $27.4 billion. Margin Book increased 93% to $17.0 billion. Cash and Deposits rose 71% to $16.7 billion. Cash Sweep fell 8% to $26.0 billion after more than $6 billion of balances went into customer free credit balances in February.

Robinhood’s equity notional trading volume rose 54% to $638 billion. Options contracts increased 17% to 586 million. Crypto notional volume totaled $66 billion, with $24 billion from the Robinhood app and $42 billion from Bitstamp. Event contracts reached 8.8 billion.

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Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche’s promise to developers at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas has been dismissed by Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s defense team. 

Despite the Trump administration’s crypto-positive attitude, the ongoing prosecution of non-custodial developers has become something of a hole in the hull of what is supposed to be a regulatory tight ship. 

What did the Attorney General Blanche actually say? 

Speaking on a panel hosted by Coinbase’s (NASDAQ: COIN) Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that software developers would no longer face prosecution for writing code. 

He said coders would be exempt from prosecution if it is proven that they are not third-party users, and are not helping or knowledgeable about what a third-party user is using their product for. 

However, he contradicted himself later on, stating that being a coder doesn’t excuse anyone from criminal liability. 

The CEO of Coin Center, Peter Van Valkenburgh questioned how the DOJ determined what classifies as publishing noncustodial software and “helping” or “knowing” about a bad user.

“What counts as ‘helping’? What counts as ‘knowing’?” He added.

Laurent Salat, creator and developer of OXT, pointed out that under such vague interpretations of what counts as knowledge, a federal agent could incriminate an operator of a non-custodial bitcoin service with a simple email.

Why is Roman Storm still facing prison? 

Cryptopolitan reported that Roman Storm was convicted in August 2025 of one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. A jury was unable to decide on whether or not to charge Storm with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. 

Even though the U.S. Treasury lifted sanctions on Tornado Cash in 2025, the DOJ filed for a retrial on the deadlocked counts in March 2026. 

AG Blanche’s “knowledge” standard is the exact legal theory used to convict Roman Storm in the first place. In his case, the government introduced evidence that he received emails from third parties about misuse of Tornado Cash, conducted Google searches about prominent hacks, and shared media reports about those hacks with team members. 

Prosecutors have argued this constitutes sufficient “knowledge” to establish criminal liability for transmitting illicit funds, a theory that even Judge Katherine Polk Failla, who is presiding over the case, questioned.

Storm himself posted on X that developers “CAN be prosecuted for your software,” adding that it does not matter whether a developer can stop the software from functioning.

Storm’s counsel Brian Klein argued at the hearing that any technology created for legitimate purposes can be misused, and that a developer’s awareness of such misuse does not amount to assisting criminals. His team cited case law, including a sugar seller who knew his product was being used to manufacture illegal alcohol during prohibition.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla has tentatively set Storm’s retrial date for October 26, 2026. If convicted on the remaining charges, he faces up to 40 years in prison.

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Coreweave (CRWV), SoftBank Group (9984.T), Broadcom (AVGO), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nvidia (NVDA), and Oracle (ORCL) fell because traders are no longer treating OpenAI’s spending plans like free money.

A report said OpenAI has not hit some of its own growth and sales goals, and that was enough to hit the whole AI infrastructure trade on Tuesday.

The damage was not small. Oracle dropped 4%, even with its $300 billion five-year compute partnership with OpenAI still in place. Broadcom lost 4%. AMD fell 3%.

Nvidia slipped more than 1%. Qualcomm (QCOM) went down 0.2%, though it finished above its weakest level after getting some help Monday from reports that it is working with OpenAI on smartphone chips.

Coreweave, the debt-heavy neocloud stock tied closely to AI compute demand, fell more than 5%. SoftBank, one of OpenAI’s largest investors, sank about 10% in Asia.

OpenAI misses growth targets and investors sell the companies tied to its compute demand

The report said OpenAI has recently missed its own targets for user growth and revenue. That matters because OpenAI has signed massive deals for data centers and long-term computing power.

OpeAI’s finance chief Sarah Friar warned colleagues that slower sales could make it harder for OpenAI to fund future compute deals, which landed hard because OpenAI has become one of the biggest demand engines for the AI supply chain.

OpenAI fought back against the criticisms though. Sam Altman and Sarah said, “We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.” They also said any claim that they are split or stepping back from buying computing resources is “ridiculous.”

Oracle also stood by the partnership. A company spokesperson said, “We’re incredibly excited about our partnership with OpenAI and remain focused on building and delivering the capacity they need to support rapidly growing demand.” The spokesperson added, “OpenAI’s new 5.5 model is a significant step forward, and we expect continued momentum as access to their technology expands across cloud providers.”

For years, Sam has tried to secure as much data-center capacity as OpenAI can get. His view has been that not having enough computing power is the biggest limit on OpenAI’s growth. That thinking led to a huge run of deals last year and left the company tied to about $600 billion in future spending promises.

ChatGPT slows, Gemini gains users, and OpenAI faces a three-year cash burn test

OpenAI’s “buy everything” compute strategy had support from Sarah and the board while ChatGPT looked almost unstoppable. Then growth slowed near the end of last year, and the mood inside the company became less relaxed.

OpenAI had set an internal goal of reaching one billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of last year. It has not announced that number. That has made some investors uneasy because the AI boom is already priced like growth will keep coming fast.

The company also missed its yearly ChatGPT revenue target after Google (GOOGL) Gemini grew strongly late last year and took share from OpenAI. Subscriber cancellations have also been an issue. Earlier this year, OpenAI missed several monthly revenue targets after Anthropic gained ground in coding and enterprise products.

OpenAI recently raised $122 billion, the largest funding round Silicon Valley has seen. That gave the company more cash, but the spending load is still huge. With all the computing power OpenAI has signed up for, the company expects to use that money within three years, even if it hits aggressive sales goals. Some of the funding also depends on partner agreements, so not every dollar is fully locked in with no strings attached.

There are still areas growing inside OpenAI. Codex, its coding tool, is gaining popularity. The company is also cutting costs by scaling back projects such as Sora, its video-generation app. OpenAI has released GPT-5.5, a model that beat several industry benchmarks.

But the stock reaction showed that traders are now watching cash, targets, and compute bills more closely than hype. For Coreweave, Oracle, SoftBank, Broadcom, AMD, and Nvidia, that is the problem.

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After riding the tap-to-earn wave and crashing dramatically, TON is making a strategic comeback. The network is placing itself in the race to become the go-to platform for autonomous AI agents by introducing a new open, self-custodial wallet standard, which grants each agent a personal on-chain wallet.

Released today, April 28, 2026, the new standard introduced by the TON Tech team is pivotal to the network’s rise after its failed attempt at infiltrating the gaming era. With TON currently trading at $1.29, the pressure is on the network to find the next credible growth engine.

Toncoin price. Source: CoinMarketCap

What is the agent wallet standard?

TON’S new agentic wallet standard was created to give AI agents their own on-chain financial identity. Each wallet is made up of a smart contract that consists of two separate keys: one for the user and the other for the agent, allowing the agent to approve and carry out transactions using only its own operator key. 

This means the agent can make swaps, pay fees, and interact with decentralized apps on its own without needing access to the user’s main wallet or exposing user credentials.

Additionally, the system is also designed to ensure users keep full control, as any fund placed in the agent’s control is limited to the amount the user chooses. Furthermore, the user can change the agent’s key, remove its access, or withdraw funds whenever they wish through a dedicated dashboard at agents.ton.org. 

Lastly, there’s no cap on how many agents a user can deploy, so users who wish to have multiple agents can do so, with each agent having access to its own independent wallet and balance. 

An earlier Cryptopolitan report cited McKinsey analyst projections that AI agents could be running anywhere from $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global consumer commerce by 2030.

TON joins the agentic payment wave 

The agentic AI trend is growing immensely throughout the ecosystem, with TON’s edge in this race being its integration with Telegram, which grants developers direct access to over a billion daily users, an added benefit most chains can’t provide.

While the future looks bright, it’s worth noting that the agentic wallet contracts have not yet passed a formal security audit. TON’s own documentation described the current version as a developer preview, hinting that the product needs further testing before being widely adopted.

What TON has made clear, however, is that it is no longer counting on casual games to carry the network. However, given what happened with Hamster Kombat and its evident crash, the crypto market is going to need more than a promising architecture before rewarding TON with a sustained recovery.

Can TON avoid a repeat of the tap-to-earn era downturn?

In 2024, the TON blockchain introduced one of the fastest-growing digital products in history called Hamster Kombat. The project ended up pulling in over 300 million users and was publicly praised as a breakthrough moment in Web3 adoption. 

After the launch of its native token HMSTR in September 2024, Hamster Kombat lost over 260 million active players, thus shedding 86% of its users within three months. The token itself dropped more than 76% from its launch price, eventually taking a toll on other projects, including Catizen, Tapswap, and other tap-to-earn games. 

With the lessons from the collapse now in the history books, the question now is whether the TON blockchain can return to those highs. And if it does, how will it avoid returning to its current lows?

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Despite opposition from its employees, Google signed an AI contract deal with the Pentagon. Foreign governments in Europe and Asia are now seriously reevaluating doing business with firms linked to the U.S. government. 

The growing pattern of U.S. AI firms deepening ties with the Pentagon has escalated the urgency for European and Asian governments to find alternatives that are clean from American influence for their tech needs.

Google faces backlash over Pentagon AI deal

In 2025, the Pentagon signed agreements of up to $200 million each with major AI companies, including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Reportedly, the Pentagon attempted to make versions of OpenAI and Anthropic available on classified networks without the standard restrictions they apply to users. 

Google’s latest Pentagon deal reportedly drew significant criticism from its own employees. The company previously faced a major internal revolt over Project Maven, a 2018 Pentagon drone-imagery contract that it ultimately chose not to renew after thousands of employees signed petitions and some resigned in protest. 

The new deal allows the Pentagon to use Google’s AI ​for “any lawful government purpose”, but also includes safeguards such as “the parties agree that the AI System is not intended for, ​and should not be used for, domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons (including target selection) without appropriate human oversight and control.”

However, the ‌agreement also ⁠says Google does not have the right to control or veto lawful government operational decision-making. 

The primary cause of concern for American citizens, foreign partners, and adversaries is that there is a gray area as to what constitutes lawful government use. As Cryptopolitan reported, the Pentagon and the Trump admin publicly disputed with Anthropic about limits that the AI firm insisted on.

The race to make Europe great again is on

Foreign governments do not trust that U.S.-based AI companies can serve foreign clients without also serving U.S. national security interests. The 2018 CLOUD Act that compels American tech firms to hand over data to U.S. law enforcement, even when that data is stored on foreign soil, only strengthens this concern. 

France, for instance, announced last year that its Health Data Hub would leave Microsoft Azure for a domestically operated cloud company called Scaleway. 

Scaleway was also among four companies that won a separate €180 million sovereign cloud tender from the European Commission, worth roughly $211 million. Amazon’s AWS European Sovereign Cloud notably did not make the cut.

The European Commission’s tender carried the additional goal of encouraging the market to “offer sovereign digital solutions that comply with EU laws and values.”

France is also replacing Windows with Linux across government systems. Austria, Denmark, Italy, and Germany are swapping Microsoft’s productivity suite for open-source tools like LibreOffice. As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, Germany has decided not to even consider Palantir for its military, at least for now, according to Vice Admiral Thomas Daum. 

The EU’s Apply AI Strategy, published in March 2026, promotes what it calls a “buy European” approach to AI procurement. 

However, France’s domestic intelligence agency recently renewed a contract with Palantir despite the push to reduce reliance on U.S. providers and Palantir’s chief executive, Alex Karp’s, controversial opinions on defense technology. 

European search engine Qwant partnered with German nonprofit Ecosia to launch Staan, a privacy-focused search index, but Ecosia has roughly 20 million users compared to Google’s billions. 

Scaleway and OVHCloud are credible cloud providers, but neither is near the scale of AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Whether or not these alternatives can compete on capability remains an open question.

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Decentralized finance helped Russia’s favorite stablecoin, A7A5, reach trillions of rubles in annual turnover, according to a top manager of the sanctioned project.

The role of such cryptocurrencies has been growing for Russian trade under Western sanctions, the latest of which specifically targeted digital coins tied to the ruble.

A7A5 handles transactions worth over 7.5 trillion rubles

Integration with decentralized finance (DeFi) has allowed the Russian fiat-pegged stablecoin A7A5 to process 7.5 – 8 trillion rubles ($100-106 billion) in cross-border transfers within a year.

The revelation was made by the project’s Director for International Development, Oleg Ogienko, who shed light on the mechanisms that enabled the coin’s growth.

The crypto executive spoke at a financial forum this week organized by the PSB bank, which is backing the project. He was quoted by the business news portal RBC as stating:

“DeFi has become our salvation. It was the bridge to decentralized finance that allowed the stablecoin to scale. Without it, there would be neither liquidity, nor the instrument currently in use.”

Ogienko noted that while only around 1.65 trillion rubles’ worth of digital financial assets (DFAs) are issued in Russia, global transactions on public blockchains involving Russian users exceed 20 trillion rubles (over $266 billion).

As defined in Russian law, DFAs are a category that encompasses a range of products, such as tokenized securities, based on private blockchains and offered by approved issuers.

The closed nature of this Russian DFA market model remains the main impediment to liquidity inflows into the sector, Ogienko argued.

In contrast, A7A5 operates on the Tron and Ethereum networks and is listed on both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

This has allowed it to become the largest non-dollar stablecoin since its launch in early 2025 and the 19th largest overall.

According to data from DeFiLlama, its capitalization now exceeds $548 million, accounting for nearly half of the market of cryptos linked to fiat currencies other than the Greenback.

Despite the differences with Russian DFAs, the financial authorities in Moscow classified A7A5 as a digital financial asset last September, permitting Russian businesses to use it in international settlements.

Thus, besides DeFi, the significant demand from Russian firms facing foreign trade restrictions imposed over the war in Ukraine became the other major factor contributing to A7A5’s success.

Russian stablecoin recognized as tool for sanctions evasion

Reportedly created by the Russian company A7, the leading ruble-pegged stablecoin is now issued by the Kyrgyzstan-based entity Old Vector, which claims to be “fully independent.”

However, it’s still supposedly backed by ruble deposits at the sanctioned PSB, formerly Promsvyazbank, and its transactions are processed by the Tokeon platform, which is part of the PSB Group.

These and other organizations linked to cryptocurrency, such as the recently hacked exchange Grinex, have been hit with multiple sanctions by Western governments.

In its latest, 20th package of sanctions, the European Union specifically targeted stablecoins tied to the Russian national currency, like A7A5 and RUBx, as well as the digital ruble itself.

Meanwhile, the head of the Central Bank of Russia noted on Tuesday that the role of digital assets in cross-border settlements has grown.

At the same time, Governor Elvira Nabiullina made it clear that the monetary authority remains opposed to their use for domestic payments.

Russia is preparing to legalize and comprehensively regulate crypto transactions this spring, including investment, trading, and taxation.

Commenting on the legislation currently considered in parliament, Oleg Ogienko highlighted a proposal to permit the issuing of Russian digital assets and rights on public blockchains.

Once that happens and the geopolitical situation improves, giving Russia access to the global crypto system, he expects the country’s digital-asset market to grow exponentially.

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GlassWorm, a known malware, has put 73 harmful extensions into OpenVSX’s registry. Hackers use it to steal developers’ crypto wallets and other data.

Security researchers found that six extensions have already turned into active payloads. The extensions were uploaded as fake copies of well-known listings that weren’t harmful. According to a report from Socket, the bad code comes in a later update.

GlassWorm malware attacks crypto devs

In October 2025, GlassWorm first appeared. It used invisible Unicode characters to hide code intended to steal crypto wallet data and developer credentials. The campaign has since spread to npm packages, GitHub repositories, the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, and OpenVSX.

A wave hit hundreds of repositories and dozens of extensions in the middle of March 2026, but its size caught people’s attention. Several research groups noticed the activity early on and helped stop it.

The attackers appear to have changed their approach. The latest batch doesn’t embed malware right away; instead, it uses a delayed activation model. It sends a clean extension, builds an install base, and then sends a bad update.

“Cloned or impersonating extensions are first published without an obvious payload, then later updated to deliver malware,” Socket researchers said.

Security researchers found three ways to deliver the malicious code across the 73 extensions. One way is to use a second VSIX package from GitHub while the program is running and install it using CLI commands. Another method loads platform-specific compiled modules like [.]node files that contain the core logic, including routines for getting more payloads.

A third way uses heavily obfuscated JavaScript that decodes at runtime to download and install malicious extensions. It also has encrypted or fallback URLs for getting the payload.

The extensions look a lot like genuine listings.

In one case, the attacker copied the icon of the genuine extension and gave it a name and description that were almost the same. The publisher name and the unique identifier are what set them apart, but most developers don’t look closely at these things before installing.

GlassWorm is built to go after access tokens, crypto wallet data, SSH keys, and information about the developer environment.

Crypto wallets are continuously under attack from hackers

The threat goes beyond just crypto wallets. A different but related incident shows how supply chain attacks can spread through devs infrastructure.

On April 22, the npm registry hosted a bad version of Bitwarden’s CLI for 93 minutes under the official package name @bitwarden/cli@2026.4.0. JFrog, a security company, found that the payload stole GitHub tokens, npm tokens, SSH keys, AWS and Azure credentials, and GitHub Actions secrets.

JFrog’s analysis found that the hacked package modified the install hook and binary entrypoint to load the Bun runtime and run an obfuscated payload, both during installation and while running.

According to the company’s own records, Bitwarden has more than 50,000 businesses and 10 million users. Socket linked that attack to a bigger campaign tracked by Checkmarx researchers, and Bitwarden confirmed the connection.

The problem relies on how npm and other registries operate. Attackers exploit the time between when a package is published and when its contents are checked.

Sonatype found about 454,600 new malicious packages infesting registries in 2025. Threat actors looking to gain access to crypto custody, DeFi, and token launchpads have begun targeting registries and releasing malicious workflows.

For developers who installed any of the 73 flagged OpenVSX extensions, Socket recommends rotating all secrets and cleaning their development environments.

The next thing to watch is whether the remaining 67 dormant extensions activate in the coming days, and whether OpenVSX implements additional review controls for extension updates.

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After nearly 60 years of coordinated oil strategy with the world’s most powerful producers, the United Arab Emirates has decided to leave OPEC+ on May 1, 2026. The action coincides with a shift away from collective control toward a national energy strategy driven by geopolitical concerns, particularly disruptions stemming from the US-Iran dispute. 

The UAE joined OPEC in 1967 through Abu Dhabi, and it remained a member even after the United Arab Emirates was established in 1971. It has actively supported the stability of the world oil market and improved communication between producing countries at this time. 

The decision to exit OPEC followed an internal assessment of the UAE’s production capacity and long-term policy direction, indicating a deliberate change rather than an abrupt split. According to officials, the change was primarily motivated by evolving market conditions and the need for greater flexibility in the output strategy. 

The limitations of OPEC+ cooperation in responding quickly to evolving global energy risks are evident in volatility across vital supply routes, such as the Strait of Hormuz, and in broader regional tensions. 

UAE prioritizes flexibility and national energy strategy

The UAE said its decision to leave OPEC is part of a broader economic and strategic shift aimed at giving it greater flexibility in managing oil output. The government said in a statement that the move “enhances the UAE’s ability to respond to evolving market needs” and reflects its “long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile.”

The government also said, “The time has come to focus our efforts on what our national interest dictates and our commitment to our investors, customers, partners, and global energy markets.” 

The action to withdraw is also consistent with efforts to enhance output while preserving lower-carbon production, as well as greater investment in domestic energy capacity. By leaving OPEC+, the UAE presents itself as a trustworthy, independent supplier that can modify supply to meet changes in global demand. 

The nation made it clear that it will continue to support market stability despite Brexit, portraying the move as a policy change rather than a departure from international energy cooperation. 

The government further made it clear that its commitment to the stability of the world market will not change as a result of the withdrawal. The statement stated, “This decision does not alter the UAE’s commitment to global market stability or its approach based on cooperation with producers and consumers.” 

According to the UAE, its future production strategies would be “guided by responsibility and market stability, taking into account global supply and demand.” To support economic growth and diversification, it plans to continue collaborating with partners to expand its resource base. 

Energy alliances fragment under geopolitical pressure

The UAE’s exit marks a structural shift in OPEC+ cohesion, with analysts characterizing the move as a major setback for an organization that has traditionally relied on coordinated supply management to influence international oil markets.

The alliance’s ability to maintain collective control over output and pricing in an increasingly complex energy landscape is called into question by the departure of one of its major producers, highlighting growing internal friction. 

The fragmentation is occurring amid serious supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, where a significant portion of global oil flows have been affected, highlighting how geopolitical instability is eroding the effectiveness of integrated energy frameworks. 

ABN AMRO’s report published on 25 March 2026 revealed that, according to energy flow assessments, the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has significantly impacted global oil and gas flows, eliminating an estimated 16–20 million barrels per day of crude and processed products from international markets. 

The persistence of supply gaps highlights how geopolitical escalation is overwhelming short-term stabilization mechanisms and reinforcing energy insecurity across importing economies.

This remains evident even amid coordinated releases of 412 million barrels from the International Energy Agency’s member countries’ reserves and partial sanction waivers that permit limited Iranian and Russian cargo flows.

The disruption of global crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz has highlighted sharp variations in energy dependency: Asian nations like Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan depend on the Strait for more than 60% of their oil imports, while others risk even greater vulnerability, reaching 75%. 

According to a Cryptopolitan report, dated Feb 17, 2026, the crisis has also shown that nations are increasingly relying on bilateral supply adjustments with the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at 415 million barrels, China’s stocks at about 1.3 billion barrels, and global onshore inventories at 2.58 billion barrels. 

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Vice Admiral Thomas Daum, Inspector of Cyber and Information Space and Germany’s highest-ranking officer in the domain, has dashed the prospects of deploying Palantir software in its flagship military cloud project.

The military leader cited concerns over data sovereignty and the US firm’s operational model, saying that he does not see that happening right now.

The decision comes at an uncomfortable period for American tech companies that have included patronage from international governments as part of their revenue channels while burning through capital ahead of highly anticipated stock market listings.

Why is Germany shutting Palantir out of its military cloud?

Germany’s armed forces are building a secure private cloud for data processing and AI applications, a project it considers indispensable to modern digital defense.

Palantir, through its Maven platform, already serves NATO and several member states. Germany, a member state, also uses intelligence outputs, as Daum acknowledged. 

However, the vice admiral pointed out that external parties, namely representatives of Palantir, are operating this technology, and that granting a private US firm access to Germany’s national database is, for him, currently inconceivable.

Germany has reportedly shortlisted three candidates for the project, and two are based in Germany, while one is headquartered in France. The companies are Almato, Orcrist, and ChapsVision, respectively. Their software is expected to be tested this summer, with a contract to be awarded before year-end.

Palantir’s political profile is a major reason for Germany’s reservations. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has previously flagged concerns about Palantir’s co-founder Peter Thiel’s minority stake in German drone manufacturer Stark Defense.

That contract was only cleared after the ministry received assurances that Thiel held no operational authority over the company.

Is Germany’s caution part of a wider pushback against US AI dependency?

Berlin’s decision may not be in isolation, as research by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) showed that governments worldwide are racing to achieve what they call “AI sovereignty,” driven by fears of overreliance on a small number of providers and their home countries.

The United Kingdom has reportedly committed £500 million to a sovereign AI unit, while France and Brazil are building domestic regulatory frameworks with similar intent. China itself is another major AI powerhouse, ranking very close to the United States.

However, Washington seems to be fighting such AI independence from coming to fruition, as reported in February, a State Department cable signed by Secretary Marco Rubio instructed diplomats to lobby against foreign data sovereignty laws, stating that they could disrupt AI and cloud services provided by US firms.

The cable singled out the EU’s GDPR as unnecessarily burdensome, and recent developments suggest that framing has hardened European resolve rather than softened it.

Can US AI firms afford to lose international government business?

Germany’s procurement stance comes at a time when some of the US AI sector’s largest players prepare for public listings while carrying losses that dwarf their revenues.

SpaceX’s AI division accounted for 61% of the company’s $20.74 billion in total capital expenditure in 2025 while running an operating loss of $6.4 billion, according to Reuters.

None of the three major AI IPO candidates, SpaceX, OpenAI, or Anthropic, expects to reach profitability before the end of the decade.

OpenAI’s situation is particularly strained ahead of a planned listing as early as the fourth quarter of this year. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company missed internal targets for both weekly active users and annual ChatGPT revenue last year, after Google’s Gemini captured market share.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has warned internally that the company may struggle to fund future computing contracts if revenue growth does not accelerate, while some board directors are not exactly pleased with CEO Sam Altman’s strategy of locking up $600 billion in future data center commitments.

If other sovereign powers continue to route defense and critical infrastructure business toward domestic or European alternatives, the addressable markets these firms are selling to investors will contract before they ever fully materialize, which can be disastrous to their respective bottom lines.

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The Korean National Tax Service (NTS) revealed that it has successfully recovered $23 million (33.9 billion won) in overdue taxes from wealthy individuals hiding money overseas. The announcement was also framed as a demonstration of the extent of its reach, which leveraged its international ties and cooperation. 

The agency has also unveiled a plan to go after cryptocurrency investors using artificial intelligence (AI) as part of a new data-sharing agreement that provides the NTS with information from hundreds of jurisdictions worldwide. 

South Korea goes after $23 million in evaded taxes

The Korean National Tax Service (NTS) announced that since July 2025, and through its collaboration with tax authorities in three different countries, it has collected 33.9 billion won (approximately $23 million) from five major tax evaders. 

Tracking individuals who hid money abroad used to be very difficult, but now the NTS exchanges information with 163 jurisdictions worldwide and uses automatic data exchange with 119 countries to find accounts. 

In a recent case, a professional sports player in Korea left the country for an overseas team without paying taxes. The NTS identified the player’s hidden assets through international information-sharing. The athlete eventually paid the full amount through a local representative. 

In another instance, a foreign business operator left Korea during a tax audit. The NTS traced their financial accounts and luxury vehicle to a third country and requested the government’s assistance in seizing the assets. 

The individual paid their taxes to avoid losing the assets. The NTS even entered an overseas bankruptcy court in Indonesia to claim money from a developer who owed billions of won. 

What is the new crypto tracking system?

A public bid is currently open for a “Virtual Asset Integrated Analysis System” that will enable the NTS to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to analyze transaction patterns. If the AI detects unusual trading activity that appears to be tax evasion, it will flag the account for an audit. The project is worth 3 billion won (approximately $2.02 million). 

According to the official bidding documents, the system will be built between April and November 2026, with a pilot launch scheduled for November 2026. 

By 2027, the NTS will also automatically receive crypto transaction data from 56 countries under a new global reporting framework.

Attorney Sinyoung Choi of Cha & Kwon Law Offices warned that this system will remove the “anonymity” of crypto. She also stated that the burden of proof is on the taxpayer. If the AI identifies an unreported transaction, it could result in penalties. 

However, Cryptopolitan recently reported that the opposition People Power Party (PPP) met with the heads of the five major Korean exchanges, including Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax, to discuss canceling the tax. 

PPP Floor Leader Song Eon-seok argues that because the government abolished the Financial Investment Income Tax (FII Tax) on stocks, it is unfair to tax crypto investors. He claims that taxing crypto but not stocks is a “double taxation problem.”

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According to CBS News, Kyle Holder, a 73-year-old woman from New York, lost all of her $300,000 retirement savings in three months after replying to a WhatsApp message that advertised a crypto investment course.

A WhatsApp message turns into a costly crypto scam

Holder got the message she didn’t ask for in December 2024, when she was recovering from an injury that had kept her from working as an occupational therapist. She told CBS News that she saw it as a chance to “use my time, start something new, and make money, to carry me into my older years.”

The victim was then put in touch with someone who went by the name “Niamh” and said she was a single mother. Niamh and a supposed customer service representative helped Holder set up crypto wallets and move tokens. After the victim invested a small initial amount, they returned large gains. This is a classic tactic in investment fraud known as “pig butchering.”

Over the following two months, Holder sent a total of $300,000 to 14 different crypto wallets. When the money stopped appearing in her wallet, she confronted Niamh directly about whether she had been defrauded. Niamh averted blame, telling Holder she had made “a fatal mistake” by sending assets to a wrong address.

The victim fell into severe depression and was after all brought to a hospital by social services. She now lives in an assisted care facility supported by Medicaid.

IRS traces wallets to $5 million criminal network

The IRS Criminal Investigation New York Field Office traced the 14 wallet addresses back to five wallets used to funnel ~$5 million stolen from multiple victims.

IRS agent Harry Chavis said that investigators believe the criminals used AI tools available on the dark web to scrape personal information and identify vulnerable targets. “They’re using these dark AI tools to write scripts to literally go specifically to the victim,” Chavis said.

Chavis urged victims not to let shame stop them from contacting authorities. He continued, “These are highly sophisticated scams and anyone can be a victim.”

FBI data shows crypto fraud losses hit $11 billion in 2025

The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received 453,000 cyber-related fraud complaints in 2025. The total losses reached $21 billion, according to the bureau’s latest annual report. Investment scams accounted for 49% of those complaints.

Cryptocurrency-related fraud was the costliest category. A total of $11 billion in losses was recorded across 181,565 complaints. The FBI identified 22,364 complaints tied to AI tools with combined losses of $893 million.

The pattern extends beyond anonymous online schemes.

In a separate case sentenced on April 23, a federal court in the Northern Mariana Islands gave Sze Man Yu Inos a 71-month prison term for a bitcoin wire fraud scheme that targeted older women across Saipan, Guam, Washington, and California. Prosecutors said Inos built personal relationships with victims before soliciting money under false investment pretenses, resulting in $769,355 in ordered restitution.

The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection says common indicators of AI-driven scams include unsolicited contact and messages that push urgency or demand secrecy. The Federal Trade Commission has stated that any business requesting cryptocurrency payments is not legitimate, and that guaranteed investment returns in crypto markets are a red flag.

Victims can file reports through the FBI’s IC3 portal or the FTC’s Report Fraud website. Federal agents say early reporting improves the chances of tracing stolen funds and identifying perpetrators.

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After a two-year regulatory pilot, the Israel Capital Market Authority has made a cautious move toward regulating digital assets by approving its first shekel-pegged stablecoin framework, BILS. The action highlights the growing demand for regulated, fiat-backed digital currencies amid the global stablecoin market, which has surpassed $320 billion.

The Israel Capital Market Authority authorized the introduction of BILS, to be launched by licensed provider Bits of Gold under regulatory supervision in Israel. The token will enable cross-border shekel transfers, smart contract execution, foreign exchange with major stablecoins like USDC, and liquidity provision. 

The stablecoin market is currently valued at over $320 billion and processes approximately $46 trillion in transactions annually. Stablecoins have also evolved from a crypto-native product to a payment and settlement infrastructure. 

Regulatory sandbox enables controlled stablecoin testing phase

According to the Israel Capital Market Authority, the government’s broader digital asset strategy aligns with the draft stablecoin law, which will be made available for public comment. It stated that the approval came after a two-year procedure in which Bits of Gold tested stablecoin issuance in a controlled setting while operating under a regulatory sandbox.

Yuval Rouach, founder and CEO of Bits of Gold, said that the regulators evaluated issuance procedures, client asset custody, risk management systems, business continuity planning, cybersecurity protections, and adherence to financial regulations during the pilot.

The framework mandates that the stablecoin be fully backed by the Israeli shekel on a 1:1 ratio, with reserves held in separate accounts within Israel.

“The approval represents a milestone not only for our company, but for the evolution of financial infrastructure. BILS creates a direct bridge between the Israeli shekel and the global digital assets economy, enabling real-time payments, on-chain trading and programmable financial applications based on a regulated local currency.”

-Yuval Rouach, Bits of Gold founder and CEO.

The authority’s head, Amit Gal, stated that the action promotes technological innovation while preserving financial stability, safeguarding customers, and lowering systemic risks.

Against this backdrop, the approval puts Israel in line with a broader global trend in which governments are progressively influencing stablecoins as regulated parts of financial infrastructure rather than unregulated cryptocurrency assets.

The emergence of sovereign-backed stablecoins like BILS suggests a move toward more state-integrated digital currency systems as international organizations such as central banks and international financial authorities demand greater regulation. 

Global regulators align on stablecoin oversight frameworks

Similar legislative strategies are being explored in other countries, including the UK, where legislators have established a framework for stablecoins denominated in sterling.

On November 10 of last year, the Bank of England proposed a regulatory framework for sterling-denominated systemic stablecoins that categorizes digital tokens by their use for financial market settlement, corporate transactions, and payments. 

According to the bank, the framework assigns less regulation to non-systemic tokens used in restricted cryptocurrency trading activities, while placing extensively used stablecoins under joint supervision by the Bank of England (BoE) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Stablecoin regulation is increasingly being portrayed as a cross-border policy concern, according to a recent Cryptopolitan report dated April 20, 2026. Global institutions have warned that fragmented national approaches could increase vulnerabilities in interconnected financial markets. 

The report noted that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned that stablecoins do not yet have the structural protections necessary to serve as widely used payment methods without posing systemic risks. The BIS argued that if stablecoin adoption picks up, issuers may draw liquidity into new digital channels, prompting deposit withdrawals from existing banking channels and shifting credit intermediation in favor of non-bank financial firms that are more vulnerable to market stress.

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Bitcoin’s weekend crash to below $77,000 in minutes exposed a fragile market structure dependent on institutional liquidity that disappears during off-market hours. Cascading liquidity events over the weekend due to “brittle” order books triggered nearly $100 million in long liquidations almost instantly.

The plunge and subsequent long liquidations were not just a result of bad news, but a mechanical failure of a market that has become increasingly “bifurcated” between deep liquidity weekdays and “ghost-town” weekends.

Professional analysts at OwMarket and Binance argue that Bitcoin has yet to bridge the “Liquidity Sensitivity” gap. They emphasize that the OG token remains a high-beta risk asset on weekends, sensitive to geopolitical or macro noise when the “institutional floor” is absent.

Meanwhile, more analysts are currently focusing on a high-volatility corridor between $74,000 and $82,000 where dense clusters of leveraged positions are most vulnerable to the next market “hunt.” They are also monitoring structural warning signs to predict when the next “cascade” is imminent. 

Notably, a 20-30% increase in open interest (OI) over 48 hours without a corresponding price move typically precedes a major deleveraging event within 72 hours. On the other hand, perpetual swap rates exceeding 0.1% (longs overleveraged) or falling below -0.05% (shorts overleveraged) also serve as early warning signals of liquidations.

Standard deleveraging event spirals into broader market ‘air pocket’

The weekend Bitcoin drop vividly illustrates how structural gaps can turn a routine correction into a volatile plunge. In this environment, the lack of active institutional market makers on weekends allowed a standard deleveraging event to spiral into a broader market “air pocket.” 

Specifically, automated systems triggered forced closures of leveraged long positions as prices breached psychological levels like $77,000, creating a self-reinforcing downward loop in a market with a few active buyers to absorb the flow. The resulting mechanical selling overshadowed any organic demand, as Bitcoin behaved more like a “liquidity outlet” for cash rather than a “digital gold” safe haven. 

Analysts at Kaiko Research also note that Bitcoin is increasingly behaving like a split system: deep and efficient during U.S. weekday hours (driven by ETFs), but brittle and high-risk on weekends. That leaves positions exposed to a “Monday Catch-up” effect, in which markets aggressively reprice as soon as institutional liquidity providers return. 

Meanwhile, Kaiko and the BIS have also noted that thin liquidity and high leverage create a “reflexive loop.” Thin books create large price gaps, which trigger more liquidations, further hollowing out the books as market makers pull back to protect capital.

Analysts warn that a daily close below the $74,000-$74,259 level (described as a critical “line in the sand” and technical “supply wall”) would threaten a deeper setback toward the $60,000 psychological floor.

Macro sensitivity forces Bitcoin to trade in tandem with tech stocks

Macro sensitivity stemming from a strengthening U.S. dollar following the nomination of Kevin Warsh to the Fed has intensified the “risk-off” sentiment, forcing Bitcoin to trade in tandem with high-beta tech stocks rather than decoupling.

Viewed as an inflation hawk, Warsh has signaled a preference for “monetary discipline” and a smaller Fed balance sheet. That has provided a “structural floor” for the U.S. dollar (DXY), which, as global liquidity tightens, puts downward pressure on Bitcoin. 

Meanwhile, the failure of the U.S.-Iran peace talks in Pakistan (and the subsequent U.S. Navy blockade of the Strait of Hormuz) spiked oil prices toward $95-$110/barrel. However, rather than seek Bitcoin as a hedge, institutional managers have treated it as a liquidity source, selling it alongside tech stocks to cover broader portfolio risk.

Because Bitcoin is now heavily integrated into the same “risk-on-risk-off machinery” as equities via spot ETFs, it is increasingly sensitive to the same macro signals as software and semiconductor stocks.

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