Justin Sun, Tron, & BitTorrent Settle with US SEC

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Justin Sun, Tron Foundation $TRX, & BitTorrent Foundation $BTT settle with US SEC; to pay $10M fine; SEC sued Sun in 2023 alleging violation of federal securities laws.

• Curve $CRV accuses PancakeSwap of copying its code without asking; requests PancakeSwap team to contact them for licensing & collaboration to avoid legal problems.

• Pudgy Penguins $PENGU sued by 'Original Penguin' parent company PEI Licensing; alleges Pudgy Penguins apparel "mislead and deceive" consumers; sent cease-and-desist as early as October 2023.

• Binance $BNB responds to US Senator Blumenthal’s inquiry over alleged Iranian-linked sanctions evasion; says inquiry references recent media reports which contain "false, unsupported, and defamatory claims..."

• Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) invests in OKX $OKB at $25B valuation; amount was not disclosed; OKX to provide US users access to ICE futures & NYSE tokenized equities markets in H2 2026.

• Coinbase Prime $COIN launches regulated futures and unified cross-margin across spot & derivatives; provides 24/7 trading access for 20+ futures contracts.

• Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) issues cease-and-desist against KuCoin $KCS; says exchange lacks license to provide virtual asset services in/from Dubai.

• Cango $CANG temporarily takes down 30% of mining capacity; cites "fleet optimization and relocation efforts"; recently sold 4,451 Bitcoin $BTC (~303M) to partially repay bitcoin-collateralized loan.

• Bit Digital $BTBT increases Ethereum $ETH treasury holdings to 155,434 ETH (~$309M); currently staking ~138,336 ETH (89%) (~$275M).

Alpha

• ⭐️ Polymarket $POLY & Kalshi reportedly in talks to raise at $20B valuations; 'Senior Intern' @mustafap0ly recently teased "...POLY next" on X in February.

• Conduit claims previously teased "REDACTED Meridian Testnet"; says network can reach "up to 3 Ggas/s, up to 20,000 TPS, & ~10 ms latency"; uses Optimism's OP Stack & EigenCloud's EigenDA.

• Legion launches Valor Points for Legion Score; users can earn Valor Points through Republic (Legion Discord) missions & activities.

• ICYMI Backpack $BACK partners with Superstate to launch onchain IPOs; access IPO share allocations through tokenized equities; users can join the waitlist for "priority access."

• ICYMI MetaMask $MASK to close MetaMask LINEA Rewards Season 1 claim in ~1 week; to potentially launch Season 2 soon; Polymarket projects ~31% chance MetaMask launches token by end of 2026.

• ICYMI Predict[.]fun acquires Probable, an onchain prediction platform incubated by PancakeSwap & YZi Labs; early Probable users to be "recognized"; Probable Points to convert to Predict Points.

Airdrops

• ⭐️ Paradex $DIME launches airdrop claim; Paradex XP holders are eligible; claim closes in ~2 weeks.

• Opinion $OPN launches airdrop claim; Opinion points holders & Discord role holders are eligible; claim closes on June 5th.

• idOS $IDOS launches airdrop; tokens already distributed, claim not required; idOS points holders are eligible.

• Avantis $AVNT launches airdrop #2 claim; allocation split into 4 equal tranches (25% each), each with 24-hour claim window; Avantis Season 3 Points holders are eligible.

• Mezo $MEZO to launch TGE & airdrop claim soon; airdrop allocation checker is already live; Mezo Mats (points) holders & Mezo Bitcoin borrowers were eligible to register.

• ICYMI Reya $REYA teases "airdrop claim loading ▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░░ 51%" on X; to launch airdrop soon; 45% of REYA token supply is allocated for the community.

Finance News

• ⭐️ US Oil Prices surge above $90/barrel as US President Trump says "there will be no deal with Iran..."; to potentially "unsanction" Russian crude oil; Qatar warns oil prices may see $150 within days.

• US Under Secretary of War Emil Michael says "there is no active DoW negotiation with Anthropic"; though Polymarket projects 41% chance Anthropic will make a deal with the Pentagon.

• US Trump Administration reportedly drafting new AI chip export regulations (Nvidia $NVDA, AMD $AMD, Intel $INTC); would require US government approval to ship AI chips anywhere outside the US.

• Core Scientific $CORZ secures up to $1B in financing from Morgan Stanley $MS; currently pivoting away from Bitcoin mining; to use its Bitcoin to finance the shift.

• US SEC & US CFTC reportedly plan to move into same building to enhance coordination & alignment; though merging the agencies is not in the plan.

• US Economy unexpectedly loses -92,000 jobs in February, below expectations of +58,000 gain; unemployment rate rises to 4.4%, above expectations of 4.3%.

• SoFi $SOFI selects BitGo $BTGO to provide stablecoin infrastructure services and support distribution for SoFiUSD, its upcoming US dollar-pegged stablecoin.

• Tether to provide up to $150M in GPU services & $100M in advertising to Rumble $RUM as part of a strategic partnership; also partnered to recently launch Rumble Wallet.

• Revolut applies for full US national bank license with OCC & FDIC; ZeroHash applies for US national trust bank license with OCC; Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity, & BitGo recently secured approval for banking licenses.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ US FBI arrests John 'Lick' Daghita, son of US government contractor, who allegedly stole ~$46M in crypto from the US Marshals Service; ZachXBT published investigation into 'Lick' in January.

• Binance $BNB secures ISO 22301 certification for Business Continuity Management; also aligns with requirements of the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

• Aave $AAVE publishes transparency report on Aave V4 security program; resulted in ~345 days of cumulative security review; backed by $1.5M dedicated security budget.

• Solv Protocol's $SOLV BRO Vault exploited for ~38 SolvBTC ($2.6M) due to double-minting flaw; to cover losses for affected users; other vaults unaffected.

• OpenAI launches Codex Security, an "application security agent that helps you secure your codebase by finding vulnerabilities, validating them, and proposing fixes you can review and patch."

• Anthropic's Opus 4.6 finds 22 security vulnerabilities (14 high-severity) in Mozilla Firefox; most have since been patched; Mozilla researchers now experimenting with Claude for security purposes internally.

Token Unlocks

• Ethena $ENA / ~$20M / MAR 05th
• Hyperliquid $HYPE / ~$5.5M / MAR 06th
• Wormhole $W / ~$1M / MAR 06th
• Optimism $OP / ~$2.5M / MAR 07th
• Aptos $APT / ~$11M / MAR 12th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• QFEX raises $9.5M in Seed funding led by General Catalyst.

• Utexo raises $7.5M in funding led by Tether, Big Brain Holdings, & Portal Ventures.

• Axiym raises an undisclosed amount in Strategic funding from Tether.

The Degen Farmer