In brief The SEC issued a new policy letting certain DeFi interfaces avoid broker-dealer registration. The move was praised by industry leaders as a major victory for decentralized finance. It indicates the SEC is barreling forward on crypto even as the Senate’s Clarity Act remains in limbo. The SEC unveiled a new policy Monday exempting…
In brief StarkWare became the latest firm building on Ethereum to reduce its headcount in the name of achieving greater efficiency. The team behind Starknet is being consolidated into two “purpose-focused units” that will focus on revenue-generating initiatives, such as business development Several crypto-native firms have slimmed operations this year, with OP Labs and Polygon…
In brief Crypto.com will co-present UFC Freedom 250 at the White House on June 14, marking America’s 250th birthday. The exchange is creating a $1 million bonus pool in CRO tokens for fighters. Ilia Topuria faces Justin Gaethje in the main event, which coincides with the crypto exchange’s 10th birthday. Crypto.com will co-present a UFC…
In brief SoftBank, NEC, Honda, and Sony each took 10%+ in a new AI development company, joined by major banks and steelmakers. The company’s trillion-parameter model targets Physical AI—robots, autonomous vehicles, and industrial machines—not conversational chatbots. Japan’s government NEDO agency has earmarked ¥1 trillion (~$6.7B) over five years, with Japanese data kept domestic and off…
In brief The new MiniMax M2.7 matches top closed models in benchmarks. The model underwent a quite license shift to restrict commercial use post-release. The move was justified as a way to prevent service providers from “nerfing” the model when offering it to developers. MiniMax M2.7 is here, the weights are on Hugging Face, and…
In brief The UK’s AI Safety Institute found that Anthropic’s Claude Mythos Preview can autonomously execute complex cyber attacks. It became the first AI model to complete a 32-step corporate network attack simulation from start to finish without human assistance. Mythos Preview discovered and exploited vulnerabilities autonomously when given network access in controlled evaluations. The…
In brief A Polymarket trader walked away with $252,000 in profit after the UFC incorrectly identified a fight’s winner for the second time in two weeks. An X account linked to the Polymarket trader said that they had noticed the error by looking at the bout’s official scorecard. The incident shows how athletes’ performances aren’t…
In brief Kraken is being extorted for an undisclosed sum by criminals that have access to customer data. The firm’s security executive said it will not negotiate or pay the criminals. The exchange is working with law enforcement, and believes it has sufficient evidence to identify and arrest those responsible. A criminal group is threatening…
In brief Justin Sun publicly clashed with the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial, accusing the company of misconduct. The dispute follows World Liberty freezing Sun’s tokens last fall. Over the weekend, WLFI’s price plunged to an all-time low price amid other recent developments around the firm. A months-simmering spat between the Trump family’s crypto company…
In brief Crypto funds attracted $1.1 billion in weekly inflows last week, the highest in three months. Bitcoin dominated flows with $871 million while Ethereum reversed recent outflows with $196.5 million. Short-Bitcoin hedging products saw their largest inflows since November at $20.2 million. Crypto investment products surged back to life last week as improving macro…