Autor Cointelegraph By Felix Ng

Thousands of crypto wallets are at risk of being drained due to the use of weaker-than-intended recovery phrases, an exploit that Blockchain security research firm Coinspect has dubbed “Ill Bloom.”The wallets at risk span Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Rootstock, Tron and Solana, Coinspect said in a disclosure on Sunday, with the issue related to weak randomness — an insecure pseudorandom number generator — used during recovery phrase generation on certain software wallets. “If funds recently moved without your permission, this vulnerability may be why,” Coinspect said. The vulnerability has impacted wallets generated as early as 2018 and more often occurs in lesser-known mobile software wallets. At least $5 million has been drained from exposed wallets since May 27, though there could have been exploits on additional networks and addresses, meaning the number of wallets at risk may be much higher. A snapshot of one analyzed address set as of June 30. Source: CoinspectCoinspect said it was not publishing details of the active exploit at this stage, but has released a wallet-checking tool for users to see whether their address is potentially exposed. “We’re closely monitoring the Ill Bloom wallet weak randomness risk alert from Coinspect,” SlowMist posted to X on Monday. Data shows that an attack on May 27 affected 431 wallets out of 2,114 vulnerable wallets, draining a total of $3.1 million in cryptocurrency. Another $2 million was moved on Sunday from exposed wallets.The historical sum of stolen amounts per chain in the May 27 attack. Source: Coinspect“Current evidence tells us that users that generated their seed with a hardware wallet are not affected,” said Coinspect. “Further research indicates that most current software wallets are also not vulnerable,” it added. “The strongest candidates are users who generated their seed in less widely used mobile software wallets.”Related: Taiko reopens bridge after $1.7M exploit, says users made wholeWeak wallet seeds cause headachesThis type of vulnerability has emerged several times in the past. In 2023, Ledger’s security team discovered that wallet seeds generated by the Trust Wallet browser extension were vulnerable to brute-force attacks. The flaw resided in the wallet’s entropy generation for new addresses, which limited the total possible mnemonic combinations to roughly four billion and could allow a motivated attacker to run an attack in less than a day with just a few GPUs. Trust Wallet patched the bug before any funds were stolen. In the same year, a vulnerability in the Libbitcoin Explorer crypto wallet led to $900,000 in crypto being stolen through private key brute forcing. Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

US-based users are the biggest political bettors on Polymarket, despite the crypto-based prediction market’s efforts to restrict US citizens from using the decentralized platform, according to new research. Blockchain research firm Allium estimated in a report published on Thursday that US-based users are the single biggest political market of any country by contracts traded and wallet count on Polymarket — not to be confused with Polymarket US, which is a US-regulated platform that launched in December with a narrower set of markets.“Blocking access did not end US participation; it made the US the largest single political market on Polymarket by volume,” the report said. “The demand is still there, now offshore and beyond US oversight.”The data suggests that Polymarket’s efforts to restrict US users from its global platform have not entirely worked, adding to an expanding list of headaches for the company in the fast-growing predictions market sector, which is under legal and political scrutiny.Polymarket was forced to cut off US users’ access to its global platform as part of a $1.4 million settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2022.Allium based its figures on the 6% of wallets it tagged with a country, meaning the data should be seen as directional only. Source: AlliumAllium found that US users are more interested in foreign conflict-related markets than the rest of the platform’s users, with five of the US cohort’s top 12 markets by notional volume relating to the Iran war.It also shows a lesser interest in election-related markets, which is a category of prediction markets allowed on Kalshi and Polymarket US. “US money pours into foreign wars, lately Iran, and largely skips the elections the global crowd trades,” said Allium. Cointelegraph contacted Polymarket for comment. Polymarket’s effort to geoblock US usersAllium’s figures align with another study published in June by Rutgers University statistician Harry Crane, who estimated that 30% of trading volume on Polymarket comes from the US. Crane estimated that people based in the US sent between $10.6 billion and $26.7 billion through Polymarket between May 2025 and April 2026, despite Polymarket blocking US-based IP addresses and VPNs, which could be used to skirt the block.The researcher looked at the times of day the trades were made and the markets in which the trades were made to link certain trades to US users. An excerpt of Polymarket’s FAQ page on its geographic restrictions. Source: PolymarketPolymarket has reportedly been clamping down on users who use VPNs by blocking certain IP addresses tied to VPN services, The Information reported in May.Related: Polymarket hit by $2.9M theft, users to be refunded Where is Polymarket blocked?Polymarket is completely blocked in more than 34 countries, the latest being Spain, which blocked local users from Polymarket and Kalshi as a “precautionary measure” as authorities open an investigation into whether the companies are operating without necessary licensing. Another four countries, including Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Poland, are in “close only,” meaning users in these countries can close existing positions but cannot open new trades. There are also four restricted regions, Ontario in Canada, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine, where Polymarket is blocked but is available elsewhere in the country. Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

The Erik Voorhees-founded Venice AI has achieved unicorn status after raising $65 million in Series A funding at a $1 billion valuation. Led by Dragonfly and with backing from Coinbase Ventures, F-Prime, North Island Ventures, Morgan Creek and others, the funding round announced on Wednesday marks the company’s first external capital raise since launching in 2024. The fundraising came in the same month Anthropic was forced to suddenly cut foreign access to two of its latest AI models, and comes just weeks after OpenAI was accused in a class-action lawsuit for sharing ChatGPT data with third parties, highlighting the potential appeal of privacy-focused AI platforms. “This capital will be used to uphold the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution as they relate to mankind’s interaction with AI,” Voorhees said in an X post on Wednesday. The First Amendment is part of the United States Constitution protecting five essential freedoms including the freedom of speech. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Venice AI courts privacy-focused usersVenice AI, which claims to have 3.5 million users, offers access to over 200 AI models but adds a proxy between the user and the models and allows users to choose the level of privacy they want.For models from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Google, the proxy obscures users’ IP address, account and session data. Other models offer higher levels of privacy.Source: Erik Voorhees“Control over intelligence is the defining fight of the coming decade,” Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at Dragonfly, said on Wednesday. “Whoever owns the AI delivery stack owns a direct window into your interior life. They log all your chats, train on them, and will hand them over when asked. And in the end, they decide the terms on which you’ll get to access the most powerful systems humankind has ever built.” Voorhees said the capital will be used to further build out its own data center infrastructure, owning the GPUs that power its platform rather than being forced to rent them at higher costs. The remaining capital will be used to grow its customer base, enter new markets, hire talent and acquire “additive businesses,” he added. Venice Token rose 6% on Wednesday. Source: XAI privacy concerns in spotlight The capital raise comes amid mounting concerns over user privacy when using AI models. Earlier this year, lawyers told Cointelegraph that a user consulting an AI for legal matters could have their chat logs used against them in court. Related: AI’s power crunch turns Bitcoin miners’ grid access into an assetIn February, Ethereum Foundation AI lead Davide Crapis and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed a way to use zero-knowledge proofs and other methods to ensure that a user’s interactions with large language models are private. Conversations about privacy when using AI were stirred again in May, when a proposed class action was filed in California federal court accusing OpenAI of disclosing private ChatGPT user data to Google and Meta. The complaint alleged that OpenAI embedded Meta Pixel and Google Analytics into the ChatGPT.com website, so that when a user sends a query, the website allegedly sends duplicate data to Meta and Google alongside advertising cookies and personally identifiable information, which is then used to target advertisements to the user. Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury firm Solana Company signed an agreement to support the development of Alatau City, Kazakhstan’s planned digital-first megacity.The company signed a memorandum of understanding to advise and help build Alatau City’s blockchain and crypto infrastructure during the Alatau City Roadshow in Shenzhen and Hong Kong in June, which reportedly secured 30 cooperation agreements with a combined investment potential of over $6 billion.“We look forward to deepening this partnership and expanding the Solana ecosystem’s footprint across the region,” said Solana Company chair and CEO Joseph Chee.The deal further pushes Kazakhstan into Solana’s corner. Last year, Kazakhstan launched Central Asia’s first Solana Economic Zone in the country’s capital of Astana with the Solana Foundation.The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) launched its first Solana ETF last week, giving investors regulated exposure to Solana (SOL) through one of the biggest stock exchanges in Central Asia. The Solana Foundation also signed a memorandum of understanding with Alatau City to develop its blockchain capabilities during the China roadshow. Solana Co.’s work in Alatau City The collaboration between Solana Company and Alatau City will cover four areas: digital asset treasury, blockchain infrastructure, accelerating the institutional adoption of blockchain and platform development. Alisher Abdykadyrov, CEO of the Alatau City Authority, said the MOU will also see Solana Company participate in the development of the Alatau Crypto Cluster, a dedicated pilot zone and special economic area in the upcoming city where crypto will be permitted for everyday transactions. Alatau City’s ambitious plans for megacityThe Alatau City megaproject was first unveiled to an international audience by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in May 2024. The city is still primarily in early development and planning stages. The village of Zhetygen, pictured in March 2023, before it was designated a city and renamed to Alatau. Source: Wikimedia CommonsPlanners envision it as a fully integrated smart city with low-altitude aircraft, robotaxis and autonomous drones handling urban transportation and deliveries, with hydrogen energy powering its economy. During the Solana Summit Kazakhstan 2026, Arman Tastanbekov, deputy CEO of the Alatau City Authority, said that Alatau City would be built with artificial intelligence, digital identity and blockchain technology from the beginning. It hasn’t come without its challengers, however, with Kazakhstan’s National Bank and Financial Monitoring Agency reportedly expressing concerns about the constitutional changes required to support a crypto-based economy, The Diplomat reported in March. Other independent news reports suggest that the current residents of Alatau City are still dealing with a lack of gas, water, electricity and internet connectivity, suggesting the futuristic city is still far from reality. Cointelegraph reached out to Alatau City for comment. Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

South Korean tech giant LG Electronics is working with the Ethereum layer-2 network Arbitrum to build a blockchain-based advertising network aimed at serving the digital ad industry. Arbitrum would give advertisers and publishers a shared database of ad inventory and track how customers interact with advertisements, with the company exploring how to bring the service to market this year, Fortune reported on Thursday.“We are evaluating whether this approach can deliver meaningful value to advertisers, publishers and audiences,” said Samuel Byungsun Park, the head of LG Electronics’ blockchain research lab. LG Group’s headquarters is in Seoul, South Korea. Source: Seoul InstituteDigital ad spend is estimated to have reached $679 billion in 2025, making up 68% of worldwide ad spend, according to global advertising giant Dentsu. Traditional ad networks require costly intermediaries to automate and manage the buying and selling of ad space between advertisers and publishers.A blockchain-based ad network would cut out intermediaries, aiming to make ad buys more efficient and provide transparency to advertisers about who their ads have reached. “It means that you can basically run the market in an automated way in software,” Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder told Fortune. “You don’t need manual intervention.”The price of Arbitrum (ARB) gained 5.44% on Thursday on news of the new layer-2 blockchain, which Arbitrum confirmed on X. Cointelegraph contacted Arbitrum and LG Electronics for comment. Related: Citi launches blockchain marketplace for private companies’ shares: ReportLG has been exploring opportunities in crypto for nearly a decade. In 2018, LG CNS, a subsidiary of the LG Corporation, launched an in-house blockchain called “Monachain” aimed at businesses that could be used for digital authentication, payments and supply chain management. LG Electronics developed a decentralized crypto wallet called Wallypto using the Hedera Hashgraph network at the height of the 2022 NFT boom. It served as a companion wallet for the LG Art Lab, an NFT platform that allowed users to display digital artwork on their TVs. The NFT platform was shut down in June 2025, adding to a wave of NFT marketplace closures that year, while LG Electronics terminated Wallypto a few months later in September. Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?