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Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure One ship paid $2 million just to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. That single data point tells you everything about the state of the world’s most critical oil corridor right now. Ships Sit Idle As Clock Runs Out US President Donald Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum Saturday, threatening to destroy Iranian power plants if free passage through the Strait of Hormuz is not restored by Monday night. The warning — posted on Truth Social — came as maritime data showed tanker transits through the strait have…
As platforms such as Polymarket gain mainstream visibility during U.S. election cycles and major geopolitical events, their prices are increasingly cited as real-time signals of truth. The pitch is seductive: let people put money behind beliefs, and the market will converge on reality faster than polls or pundits. But that promise collapses when a contract creates a financial incentive for someone to change the very outcome it claims to measure.The problem is not volatility. It is design.When a forecast becomes a planThe most extreme example is the assassination market, a contract that pays if a named individual dies by a…
Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure XRP is exhibiting a large-scale technical formation on its monthly chart that has drawn significant attention. Egrag Crypto, a widely followed XRP analyst on X, has identified a macro W pattern developing across years of price history. This is a structure that, if it plays out in full, has a 25% to 35% chance of carrying the XRP price to a target of $22. The pattern structure has a higher chance of bullish continuation, but only if key levels continue to hold in the short term. Macro…
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission published interpretive guidance explaining how they might define what is or isn’t a security in crypto; the CFTC also issued a no-action letter for a non-custodial wallet provider to facilitate derivatives and prediction markets transactions; Arizona is filing criminal charges against a prediction market provider; and by the way we kind-of-sort-of have hints of movement on market structure legislation.What a week, huh?You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.The narrativeThe U.S. Securities and…
Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure Her lawyer puts the total losses from the botched HAWK token launch at roughly $200,000 — a figure that, in the world of crypto, barely registers. But for Hailey Welsh, better known online as the “Hawk Tuah Girl,” the fallout from that December 2024 disaster was anything but small. Hawk Tuah: Death Threats And Silence Followed The Crash Welsh told YouTube channel Channel 5 that she went into hiding for months after the token’s collapse, driven there by a wave of death threats and public anger. “I’m…
The first couple of months of 2026 have forced the Ethereum community into a kind of introspection—one that goes beyond price, beyond technical upgrades, and into the question of what the network is actually trying to be.Even before this year, there has been a sense among builders and executives that Ethereum was on the verge of another growth phase—this time driven not by crypto-native users but by institutions and technology. Neobanks, as some argued, would quietly onboard millions by abstracting away the complexity of wallets and gas fees. Ethereum, in this framing, wouldn’t need to win users directly. It would…
A US bank is preparing to hand out millions of dollars after a data breach exposed customers’ personal information. The Nebraska-based Union Bank and Trust Company (UBT) has agreed to shell out $2.4 million to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the lender of failing to implement or maintain adequate data security measures to protect customers’ private information. According to the lawsuit, the “CL0P Ransomware Gang” committed a cyberattack in May 2023 that exploited the bank’s third-party MOVEit file-transfer software, developed by Progress Software Inc., to gain access to customers’ personal information. Progress warned the bank of an “unauthenticated SQL…
Strategy (MSTR), the leading corporate holder of bitcoin, has described the launch of its Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock (STRC) as the firm’s “iPhone moment,” and despite its support in BTC accumulation, risks remain.Before digging into these risks, it’s worth noting that while the focus is on STRC, specifically over its larger liquidity and adoption, they also apply to similar preferred offerings, including another bitcoin treasury company, Strive’s preferred offering, SATA.These instruments are “not well understood through the lens of traditional credit or equity,” and instead require a different analytical framework, said NYDIG’s Global Head of Research Greg Cipolaro in a…
Gold is approaching a technical bear market, down nearly 20% from its January all time high. Traditionally viewed as a store of value and hedge against geopolitical uncertainty, gold’s recent performance challenges that narrative. Despite escalating tensions in the Middle East, prices have fallen around 10%, since the war started at the end of February.Markets have also repriced the interest rate outlook, with cuts now largely pushed out and policy expected to remain restrictive through December 2026. At the same time, rising oil prices, driven by geopolitical risk, are adding upward pressure on inflation, reinforcing the higher for longer rate…
Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure The latest on-chain data shows that a prominent Ethereum whale has returned to the crypto market over the past week, as the ETH price persists above the $2,000 level. ETH Whale Held $538M In Crypto In 2022 According to data from Arkham Intelligence, an Ethereum OG whale known as thomasg.eth has been on an Ether buying spree (valued at approximately $19.5 million) over the past week. The entity acquired spot Ether, wrapped ETH (WETH), and Aave-deposited ETH across Arkham-tracked wallet addresses, with the latest purchase worth $3…