38804
CryptoDiffer.com https://twitter.com/CryptoDiffer Contact @makscryptodiffer 🗣CHAT https://t.me/joinchat/Brbs51k5cWoRBKtsgmb6Ew
Dune Analytics Cuts 25% Of Workforce Amid AI, Institutional Pivot
Crypto data platform Dune has cut 25% of its staff as the company shifts focus toward AI-powered products and institutional adoption.
CEO Fredrik Haga said Dune is now “all-in” on AI and institutions coming onchain, highlighting its new Dune MCP tool that lets users build dashboards without SQL or data infrastructure knowledge.
OKX Eyes Strategic Stake in South Korea’s Coinone
OKX is reportedly in talks to acquire a ~20% stake in South Korean crypto exchange Coinone, while Korea Investment & Securities is expected to take a similar-sized position through new share issuance rather than secondary sales.
Coinone is South Korea’s third-largest crypto exchange and one of only five platforms licensed for fiat-to-crypto trading, making regulated market access the main strategic value of the deal.
The move also comes as South Korea prepares new ownership limits for exchanges under the upcoming Digital Asset Basic Act, which could force major shareholders to dilute over time.
Kalshi has partnered with Interactive Brokers
Interactive Brokers has launched a first-of-its-kind unified prediction markets platform, giving its 4.8M clients access to Kalshi, CME Group, and ForecastEx from a single interface — alongside stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, and bonds.
Kalshi also recently partnered with Tradeweb (minority stake) for institutional rates and credit market integration.
Turnkey has closed a $12.5M Strategic Funding Round
Turnkey offers an infrastructure that powers non-custodial wallets, automated onchain transactions, and verifiable enterprise operations, with recent customers including Flutterwave, Polymarket, and Anchorage Digital.
Turnkey has also surpassed $100 billion in stablecoin transaction volume and recently partnered with Lightspark to power Grid Global Accounts, combining traditional banking reach with stablecoin settlement rails.
Layer 2 Fees 2026 Breakdown: Who’s capturing value?
The L2 race is no longer about launching chains, it’s about capturing users, liquidity, and fees. 2026 data shows Base, Arbitrum, and a few emerging ecosystems pulling far ahead of all others.
Solstice Schedules SLX Token Generation Event For May 21
Solstice is set SLX TGE for May 21, as it expands its Solana-native real yield stack across USX and YieldVault.
Solstice positions USX as a fully collateralized, dollar-denominated settlement layer and a gateway to permissionless payments, savings, and broader DeFi access. Users can stake USX in YieldVault to receive eUSX, a yield-bearing token distributed via epoch-based rewards.
Coinbase Becomes Hyperliquid’s Official USDC Treasury Deployer
Coinbase has been appointed as Hyperliquid’s official treasury deployer for USDC, replacing USDH as the platform’s native stablecoin under the aligned quote asset framework.
As part of the transition, Native Markets will wind down USDH and grant Coinbase rights to acquire the USDH brand assets. Users will be able to redeem USDH for USDC or fiat without fees during the migration period.
TG Mini-App Studio Dropee will hold its TGE on May 27th
Dropee is the the world's first tool to create, deploy, and distribute mini-apps on Telegram at scale, positioning DROPEE as the central asset powering rewards, boosts, VIP features, and tooling purchases across its entire ecosystem of Telegram experiences.
Dropee has 12M total users, 4M monthly active users, 300K daily active users, and $400K in monthly recurring revenue.
Notion Launches Agent Orchestration to Build and Manage AI Workflows
Notion enables users to connect, coordinate, and manage multiple AI agents directly inside their workspace, without switching between tools or writing custom code. At launch, Notion has partnered with Claude, Codex, Cursor, Warp, and other leading agent tools.
Users can trigger agents, pass context between them, and monitor workflows, all from within the familiar Notion interface they already use for notes, docs, and project management.
Agentic Finance Ecosystem: Mapping the AI-Crypto Stack
As AI continues transforming industries worldwide, crypto is becoming one of its most native and practical applications through on-chain agents. These systems can analyze data, move capital, and execute strategies in real time, redefining user experience.
21Shares Launches First Hyperliquid ETF on Nasdaq
21Shares launched Hyperliquid ETF (THYP) on Nasdaq, giving traditional investors direct exposure to HYPE through banks and brokerage accounts.
The fund is physically backed and structured as a grantor trust, meaning it holds actual HYPE tokens rather than synthetic exposure. This structure also allows part of the holdings to be staked, with staking rewards distributed to shareholders.
Custody is handled by Anchorage Digital and BitGo, while staking is supported through Figment. Around 30–70% of HYPE holdings may be staked, with the option to increase that share depending on fund conditions.
Magic Eden Commits $75M to iGaming Venture Dicey
Magic Eden announced a $75M commitment to Dicey, its newly launched iGaming venture offering a casino and sportsbook. The capital will fund Dicey's bankroll, operations, and marketing.
Dicey's roadmap includes conventional casino and sportsbook offerings alongside proprietary innovations. The flagship feature, "Be The House," enables players to take positions on both sides of the table, taking on house risk alongside standard player positions.
Crypto Compliance Leader Elliptic Closes $120M Series D funding
Founded in 2013, Elliptic spent over a decade building the deep proprietary dataset in the industry, spanning 65+ blockchains; a structural data advantage the company has used to build an AI-native compliance platform at enterprise scale, introduced in 2025.
Round was led by One Peak, with Nasdaq Ventures, Deutsche Bank, British Business Bank joining; existing investors AlbionVC, Evolution Equity Partners, and J.P. Morgan also participating.
Binance’s CMO Rachel Conlan Joins Incrypted Conference 2026
Rachel Conlan, Global CMO at Binance, has been confirmed as an offline speaker at Incrypted Conference 2026, taking place June 13 in Kyiv, Ukraine. As head of marketing for the world's largest exchange, overseeing communications to hundreds of millions of users, her in-person appearance in Ukraine is a notable signal of the market's standing on the global Web3 map.
Binance Ukraine is joining the event as Diamond Partner, deepening the exchange's integration into the local ecosystem ahead of the conference.
Ebay Rejects Gamestop’s $56B Takeover Bid As Not Credible
eBay rejected GameStop’s unsolicited proposal to acquire the marketplace for $56 billion, saying the offer is “neither credible nor attractive.” The bid outlined a $125-per-share cash-and-stock structure, despite GameStop being far smaller by market cap than eBay.
eBay cited major concerns around financing uncertainty, operational execution risk, and the potential debt burden the deal would create. While GameStop said it has a $20 billion financing commitment and roughly $9 billion in cash, the remaining gap and conditions attached to financing were viewed as significant hurdles.
Gemini Lands $100M Bitcoin-Funded Investment
Gemini secured a $100M strategic investment from Winklevoss Capital Fund as it continues reshaping its business beyond exchange-driven revenue. The fund bought Class A common stock at $14 per share and completed the deal in Bitcoin.
The backing came alongside the company’s first-quarter results, which showed revenue of $50.3 million, above the $47.9 million expected by analysts. Net loss also came in lighter than forecast at $0.93 per share versus the anticipated $1.03.
While exchange revenue declined 27% year-over-year to $17.2 million, credit card revenue surged nearly 300% to $14.7 million, and services revenue plus interest income rose 122% to $24.5 million.
THORChain Pauses Network After Suspected Multi-Chain Exploit
THORChain suffered a multi-chain exploit affecting one of its Asgard vaults, with estimated losses currently ranging from $7.4M to over $10M across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, and Base.
THORChain paused swaps, outbound transactions, and network activity to prevent further losses while validators investigate the incident.
The attack targeted THORChain’s core custody infrastructure, where native assets are held through decentralized TSS-controlled Asgard vaults rather than wrapped bridges. Because these vaults secure native BTC, ETH, and other assets directly, the exploit impacts the protocol’s most critical layer.
CoinList Launches Passage RWA Distribution Platform
CoinList has launched Passage, an "access layer" platform for capital markets, designed to handle compliant distribution, capital access, allocation, and infrastructure for tokenized assets across treasuries, real estate, private credit, commodities, and pre-IPO shares.
CoinList is also working with Peaq and Dualmint to offer tokenized yield opportunities through Passage, with details on the first available asset to be announced shortly.
Kraken Ditches LayerZero for Chainlink CCIP
Kraken is deprecating its LayerZero infrastructure and migrating to Chainlink CCIP as the exclusive cross-chain service for kBTC and all future Kraken Wrapped Assets, covering Ink, Ethereum, Unichain, and Optimism.
The decision makes Kraken the fourth major firm to drop LayerZero following the $292M Kelp DAO exploit in Apri; joining Kelp DAO itself, Solv Protocol, and Re.
Stitch Raises $25M Series A Led By Andreessen Horowitz
Financial infrastructure platform Stitch raised $25M in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from existing backers Arbor Ventures, COTU Ventures, Raed Ventures, and SVC.
Stitch says it’s building an “operating system” for financial institutions, aiming to unify core components like ledgers, workflows, payments, cards, and lending into a single cloud-native stack delivered via one API.
ZachXBT Alleges Insiders Control 95%+ Of LAB Supply
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT published a thread claiming insiders control over 95% of LAB’s token supply and worked with an unknown market maker to push the AI trading terminal token to a ~$6B FDV.
He said retail can’t reliably verify LAB’s float, ownership, or vesting, pointing to inconsistent supply data across aggregators and a lack of clear breakdowns in LAB’s docs. ZachXBT also referenced the team’s prior project Eesee, alleging investors were left behind after the team moved on.
Code4rena Shuts Down; Immunefi Steps In to Absorb Customers and Researchers
Auditing platform Code4rena has announced it will wind down operations, with Immunefi stepping in to absorb its bug bounty customers. All contests and bounties will be completed, and active engagements will be seen until the platform fully shuts.
The shutdown arrives less than two years after security firm Zellic acquired Code4rena in 2024, having previously raised $6M from Paradigm in 2023 to fund auditor incentives.
Hermes Agent Hits 140K GitHub Stars, Becomes the Most Popular AI Agent Framework
Hermes, developed by Nous Research, became the most-used agent in the world in under three months, positioning it as the leading successor to OpenClaw in the open-source agentic AI ecosystem.
4 capabilities distinguish Hermes from existing frameworks:
– self-evolving skills (the agent writes and refines its own skills with each new task or piece of feedback)
– contained sub-agents (short-lived isolated workers assigned to individual sub-tasks with minimal context overhead)
– reliability by design (every skill, tool, and plugin is curated and stress-tested by Nous Research so Hermes functions reliably even with 30B-parameter local models)
– active orchestration layer that consistently outperforms competing frameworks using identical underlying models
Wells Fargo Boosts Ethereum ETF Holdings By 63% To 1.1M Shares In Q1
Wells Fargo significantly increased its exposure to Ethereum ETFs during Q1 2026, raising its stake in BlackRock’s ETHA ETF by over 63% to nearly 1.1M shares. The bank also boosted its holdings in Bitwise’s Ethereum ETF by 37%.
While slightly trimming its position in BlackRock’s IBIT, Wells Fargo expanded exposure to other Bitcoin products, including Bitwise’s BITB and Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF, signaling a more diversified crypto allocation strategy.
Outside ETFs, the bank more than doubled its stake in Strategy, increasing holdings to around 726,000 shares. At the same time, Wells Fargo sharply reduced its Galaxy Digital position by nearly 97%.
Charms Closes $1.5M to Build AI Character Economy
Charms ai is building a platform where AI characters function less like chatbots and more like digital assets with memory, personality, ownership, and their own economies. The startup has now raised $1.5M in pre-seed funding from Lattice, JME, Base Ecosystem Fund, and Gidorah via Echo.
Instead of renting access to characters inside closed platforms, creators on Charms keep ownership while fans can participate in the character’s growth.
Fees are shared between creators, the platform, referrers, and the character itself, with part of revenue going into a treasury that helps fund its ongoing AI compute and long-term presence.
Before public launch, Charms reached 6,000 users, generated over 100,000 chats, and recorded more than $1M in market activity, showing early demand for AI-native creator economies.
👉 x.com/charmsai/status/2054224448585072796?s=20
Osero Raises $13.5M to Scale Stablecoin Yield Infrastucture
Osero, a stablecoin savings infrastructure startup incubated by Stablewatch, raised $13.5M in a SAFT round led by Sky Ecosystem and Plasma. The project is focused on expanding adoption of USDS and sUSDS by giving users and platforms easier access to the Sky savings rate.
$10M of the raise is allocated to reserve requirements, serving as a protection buffer for users and for Sky Protocol. Each deployment must pass Sky’s internal risk framework, modeled after Basel III banking standards.
The company is building three products:
- App for direct access to savings rates
- Earn for wallets, exchanges, custodians, and neobanks to offer yield without managing DeFi strategies
- Foundry for asset managers bringing structured products and tokenized assets onchain.
Ethereum Foundation has introduced Clear Signing
Clear Signing is an open standard that replaces opaque hex strings in transaction prompts with plain-language descriptions, making human-readable transactions the default across Ethereum wallets and signing interfaces.
The effort builds on existing clear signing work pioneered by Ledger and extends it into a unified, ecosystem-wide open standard. Contributors span the full Ethereum stack: wallets and hardware (Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, WalletConnect, zkNox), security (Cyfrin), infrastructure (Fireblocks, Zama), and tooling (Sourcify, Argot).
Binance plans to delist 5 crypto assets on May 27th
Automata (ATA), Harvest Finance (FARM), Enzyme (MLN), Phoenix (PHB), and Syscoin (SYS) trading will be ceased at 3:00 UTC. Users will be able to withdraw assets till July 28th.
Prices of respective tokens were hit significantly
– Automata (ATA): -30.1%
– Syscoin (SYS): -30.1%
– Enzyme (MLN): -27.7%
– Phoenix (PHB): -24.4%
– Harvest Finance (FARM): -22.7%
Bitcoin Ordinals Explorer Ord & Trading App Zap to Shut Down June 1
Ord io, one of the primary explorers for Bitcoin Ordinals and inscriptions, and Zap, its associated self-custodial memecoin trading app, are both closing on June 1. Creator Leonidas King cited running out of funding with no path forward as the reason for the shutdown.
Launched in 2023, Ordio grew into a full-featured platform with community upvotes, Satributes for tracking rare satoshis, and Block Vision for real-time Runes minting data, and has accumulated over 1 million users. Zap, built by the same team, aimed to let users buy and trade Bitcoin memecoins in under 30 seconds, a benchmark the team says it hit, but without enough traction to sustain the business.
Tea Protocol Confirms TEA TGE for June 4 via Aerodrome
Tea Protocol confirmed the TEA launch on Aerodrome, with the TGE scheduled for June 4. The team also said CEX listings are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Tokenomics allocation is split across Incentives & Airdrops (28.0%), Ecosystem & Governance (21.8%), Protocol Development (18.6%), and Early Supporters & Advisors (15.6%). The remaining supply is allocated to Reserve Sale (8.0%) and Liquidity Provision (8.0%).