Autor Cointelegraph By Brayden Lindrea

US President Donald Trump has backed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as having the “exclusive authority” over prediction markets, as state regulators’ action against the platforms mounts.“It is critically important that the CFTC’s exclusive authority over Prediction Markets is maintained, and that they will thrive,” Trump posted to his social media platform Truth Social on Tuesday.Trump also took aim at several officials whose states have launched legal action against prediction markets, including Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com and Robinhood.“Under my leadership, we are setting ‘rules of the road’ that are the Gold Standard for the States,” Trump wrote. “We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules!”Source: Donald TrumpMultiple state authorities have argued that prediction markets are violating state laws by offering gambling without a license, and have sued or issued cease-and-desist orders to multiple platforms.Prediction markets such as Kalshi have sued various state authorities to fend off legal action, claiming it is regulated solely by the CFTC.CFTC Chair Mike Selig has also opposed the states, arguing his agency has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets as federally regulated designated contract markets.The agency has sued several states, including Minnesota, Illinois, New York and Arizona for taking action against prediction markets.Trump said in his post that “other Countries are after this new form of Financial Market, and we want to remain at the top.”“It is a major Industry, and we must protect it,” he added.Last month, Trump told reporters he was “not happy” with prediction markets and was “never much in favor” of them in response to a question about well-timed bets on the platforms on events linked to the Iran war, which has drawn the ire of several Democrats who have called for stricter measures.Related: Hyperliquid launches prediction markets for real-world events Trump, whose son Donald Trump Jr. is invested in and on the advisory board for Polymarket and is also an adviser to Kalshi, softened his stance on prediction markets days later, saying the US would “get left out in the cold” if it didn’t allow the platforms.In March, the CFTC established an advisory team to oversee the listing and trading of event contracts and to ensure that market participants satisfy anti-manipulation, surveillance and market integrity requirements.It claimed that prediction markets fall within the CFTC’s existing derivatives framework under the Commodity Exchange Act.Magazine: How to fix suspected insider trading on Polymarket and Kalshi

Nathan Allman, the founder and CEO of Ondo Finance and one of the pioneers of blockchain tokenization, has died aged 32.“It is with profound sadness that we announce the unexpected passing of Nathan Allman, Ondo’s founder,” Ondo Finance said in an X post on Monday. “Our hearts are with his family and loved ones.”“Nate’s brilliance, humility, and drive shaped every part of what Ondo is today,” Ondo said. “His belief in the power of technology to create a more open, accessible financial system lives on in everything we build. The impact he had on this industry, and on all of us personally, cannot be overstated.”Allman was key in helping Ondo bring $3.86 billion worth of tokenized real-world assets on-chain in the form of US Treasuries, stocks and commodities. More than 111,680 token holders own a tokenized RWA issued by Ondo.Nathan Allman (left) speaking at the Ninth Annual Fintech Conference in Philadelphia in November. Source: YouTubeThe tokenization movement that Allman contributed to by founding Ondo in 2021 helped capture the attention of Wall Street giants such as BlackRock, who see potential in the technology to make trading and settlement more efficient.Allman previously worked in Goldman Sachs’ digital asset team prior to founding Ondo. Before that, he founded the crypto hedge fund ChainStreet Capital, which focused on algorithmic, event-driven trading.Ondo said that the company’s president, Ian De Bode, would serve as CEO.“It’s been an incredibly sad day for Ondo Finance,” De Bode told Cointelegraph. “Nate was not only an incredible founder and visionary, but also a very close personal friend. He will be missed dearly.”“The mission of Ondo, Nate’s mission, has not changed,” he added. “If Nate were here, he would want to continue executing with excellence. We will make him proud.”Ondo vice president and head of marketing, Ben Grossman, said Allman “was a once-in-a-generation founder and visionary. He was absolutely brilliant, with a vision and drive that shaped the industry and everyone around him. He will be enormously missed.”Ondo did not share further details on Allman’s death. An Ondo spokesperson said that Allman’s family has requested privacy at this time.

Ethereum liquid staking protocol Kelp DAO says its restaked Ether token has been restored with a five-week recovery effort after the protocol suffered a $293 million exploit by North Korea’s Lazarus Group on April 18.Kelp DAO posted to X on Monday that the final tranche of 20,373.7 Kelp DAO restaked ETH (rsETH) tokens was sent to the LayerZero smart contract responsible for locking, minting, burning and releasing rsETH during cross-chain transfers. “This closes the operational part of the rsETH recovery plan,” Kelp said. Several crypto protocols contributed funds to help restore rsETH’s backing under the DeFi United initiative.Source: Stani KulechovThe Kelp DAO hack in April caused a ripple effect throughout the crypto lending market that disrupted billions of dollars in liquidity and resurfaced concerns about the interconnectedness of decentralized finance protocols.Aave was one of the hardest hit as the Kelp DAO attacker put a large portion of the stolen 116,500 rsETH up as collateral on its lending platform to borrow wrapped Ether, leaving $190 million in bad debt and triggering a wave of withdrawals.The Kelp DAO hack was one of 25 crypto hacks in April, which saw a combined $630 million worth of losses, the worst month since February 2025, when crypto exchange Bybit was hacked for a record $1.5 billion.The first tranche of 25,000 rsETH was transferred on May 13, allowing rsETH bridging between the Ethereum mainnet and the blockchain’s layer 2 networks to reopen. Kelp reopened withdrawals for rsETH the following day and said on Tuesday that rsETH mints, redemptions and rewards operations “have been running normally.”. Aave’s TVL bleed stops, but has not recoveredThe Kelp DAO exploit contributed to Aave’s total value locked falling from $26.4 billion to below $14 billion, losing its long-held position as the largest DeFi protocol by TVL.Related: Crypto hackers stole $17B over past 10 years: DefiLlama DefiLlama data shows that net outflows from Aave’s lending markets have eased over the past month.However, Aave’s TVL has shown no signs of recovery, hovering between the $13.9 billion and $15.1 billion mark since about a week after the incident took place.Source: Aave’s change in TVL in 2026. Source: DefiLlamaMagazine: The legal battle over who can claim DeFi’s stolen millions Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund market is closing in on recording net outflows for this year after Friday saw the funds hit six consecutive days of outflows.Net inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs so far in 2026 have shrunk to $536 million after the market bled another $105.2 million on Friday, as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) lost $68.9 million and the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) recorded outflows of $36.3 million.While no other US-based Bitcoin ETF registered a change in flows, Friday’s outflow contributed to the $1.55 billion that has bled out of the ETFs since May 14, the last recorded net inflow among all the funds.Flows into the US spot Bitcoin ETFs since May 6. Source: Farside InvestorsNet inflows into the US spot Bitcoin ETFs are one of the top metrics that signal how strong institutional demand for Bitcoin is and whether fresh capital is flowing into crypto.Institutional market maker Jane Street reduced its Bitcoin ETF holdings by around 70% in the first quarter, while investment bank Goldman Sachs reduced its Bitcoin ETF position by 10%.While the US Bitcoin ETF market is still in net inflow territory for 2026, most of those inflows have come from IBIT, which has seen net inflows of $2.7 billion so far this year.However, its inflows this year are not on pace to eclipse the $25 billion that it took in over 2025, while most of its competitors have retraced in 2026.The US-based spot Ether ETFs have recorded net outflows so far in 2026, while new altcoin ETFs have not captured the same demand as their predecessors. Related: SEC seeks public comment as it weighs prediction market ETFs One of the more positive developments has been the launch of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust ETF (MSBT), which entered the market on April 8 and has already attracted $264 million in net inflows to date.The $264 million in net inflows already puts it above the Bitcoin products offered by Invesco and WisdomTree, which launched in January 2024.The US Bitcoin ETF market was also expecting the Donald Trump-backed Truth Social to launch a Bitcoin product sometime this year until its sponsor, asset manager Yorkville America, requested to withdraw multiple crypto ETFs for Trump’s media company on Tuesday.Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart suspected that Yorkville America’s decision to pull out may have been due to the competitive landscape for Bitcoin ETFs, particularly with MSBT offering a market-low fee of 0.14%. Magazine: eToro founder timed Bitcoin top perfectly due to belief in 4 year cycles 

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly postponed its plan to allow trading of tokenized stocks after stock exchange officials raised concerns over how the plan would be implemented.Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the SEC’s “innovation exemption” for crypto-based stocks was expected to be released during the week, with SEC staffers having already reviewed a draft of the tokenized stock trading proposal.The SEC has reportedly received input from hundreds of market participants on how to best implement the rules, but it has not made a decision to change its proposal.Under the SEC’s proposal, platforms offering tokenized stocks would need to guarantee investors receive the same rights as traditional shareholders, including dividends and voting rights.Market participants reportedly raised concerns to the SEC over the potential proliferation of unauthorized third parties issuing tokens without the consent of public companies and how ownership would be verified on semi-pseudonymous blockchains.The SEC has been more open to crypto-powered financial products under the Trump administration, which has coincided with Wall Street having a growing interest in tokenization and stablecoins.Data from RWA.xyz shows that $34 billion worth of real-world assets have been tokenized, including $1.55 billion in tokenized equities, but adoption has lagged expectations by Citibank and McKinsey, which respectively predicted in 2022 and 2024 that tokenization would become a multi-trillion-dollar market by 2030. Crypto industry supports decision to delayCrypto industry executives have backed the SEC’s decision to delay the exemption. Carlos Domingo, the CEO of crypto tokenization platform Securitize, said in a post to X on Friday that it is important to ensure the “exemption applies to the right instruments.”“Better delay it than get it wrong and unleash all sort of problems.”Related: Kraken parent Payward sees revenue surge as tokenization expands Tom Farley, the CEO of crypto exchange Bullish posted to X that the SEC was “realizing that public companies are the only entity who can issue tokens that are a share of stock! Great job delaying and getting this right.”Source: Tom FarleyThe delay came after SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said on Thursday that she expected the exemption to be “limited in scope” and would only support “digital representations” of equity securities, similar to what investors can currently purchase in the secondary market.In January, the SEC made distinctions between types of tokenized securities, classifying them into “custodial” and “synthetic” forms.Custodial tokenized securities are issuer-sponsored tokenized stocks custodied by regulated intermediaries and have full shareholder rights, while synthetic tokenized securities provide price exposure without actual ownership of the underlying shares.Magazine: eToro founder timed Bitcoin top perfectly due to belief in 4 year cycles