Congress Presses CFTC Chair on Betting & Hyperliquid Risk

CFTC Chair Mike Selig drew bipartisan fire at a House Agriculture Committee hearing as lawmakers challenged the agency’s grip on prediction markets and crypto perpetual futures. The clash centered on whether war contracts, sports event bets, and offshore platforms like Hyperliquid belong inside a credible regulatory perimeter.

Democrats focused on suspiciously timed trades placed before major Trump announcements, including oil wagers that reportedly swelled just minutes before a March 23 Iran-related post moved prices. Republicans, meanwhile, warned that enormous offshore perpetuals volume could spill into domestic markets and harm U.S. consumers directly.

Selig said the CFTC is pursuing insider-trading enforcement and drafting a prediction markets rulemaking that will invite public comment. Yet he defended the agency’s broad statutory reach over event contracts, a stance lawmakers mocked after he struggled to distinguish a sports wager from a nearly identical financial contract.

The hearing underscored a widening policy fight as crypto-backed derivatives and event markets push beyond their niche origins into mainstream finance. Selig has recently backed broader retail access to perpetual futures, but the testimony signaled tougher scrutiny of platforms whose scale, opacity, or subject matter alarms both parties.

Charles Schwab Eyes Prediction Markets With $11.8T Assets

CEO Rick Wurster announced plans to integrate prediction markets into the Charles Schwab platform during a recent first-quarter earnings call. This strategy targets financial event wagers while avoiding pop culture or sports gambling. The firm oversees $11.8 trillion in assets and intends to launch these features soon.

The brokerage also confirmed it will provide Bitcoin and Ethereum trading access to its massive client base within coming weeks. Users can expect fees around 0.75% per trade as the company expands digital asset capabilities. These updates position the firm against competitors like Robinhood and Coinbase.

Tether Provides $148 million To Save Drift Protocol

Tether and partners secured a $148 million funding package to rescue Drift Protocol after a massive North Korean exploit. The capital supports user recovery following $295 million in losses that occurred earlier this month. This deal shifts the settlement layer from Circle's USDC to Tether's USDT.

The Solana based perpetuals exchange intends to relaunch as a perpetual futures platform using this fresh liquidity and incentive programs. North Korean attackers previously drained $270 million by posing as quantitative traders for several months. Officials believe this transition ensures better security through Tether's active wallet freezing capabilities.

Hyperbridge Hack Loss Jumps to $2.5 Million

Hyperbridge now says losses from its Polkadot-Ethereum bridge exploit were about $2.5 million, not the roughly $237,000 first reported. The team traced the attack to faulty Merkle Mountain Range proof verification. That weakness let the attacker mint assets, drain escrow, and dump fake bridged DOT.

The revised accounting also found damage across Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain, plus an earlier theft of about 245 ETH. Hyperbridge said stolen funds were traced to a Binance deposit address. Bridge activity remains paused while patches, audits, law-enforcement outreach, and possible user compensation continue.

Data of the Day

Novora reviewed more than 150 crypto protocols and found fewer than 1% publicly disclose market-maker terms, despite such arrangements shaping token liquidity and price behavior. Meteora was the lone protocol identified with disclosed details. The sample spanned sectors from decentralized exchanges and bridges to layer-1s, with valuations reaching $45 billion.

The study also exposed a wider investor-reporting gap. While 91% of the protocols generated trackable revenue, only 18% published quarterly updates and just 8% issued token-holder reports. Novora argued crypto markets operate without basic information that traditional investors expect, even as analytics coverage now exceeds 85%.

More Breaking News

• South Korea will pilot blockchain deposit tokens for Treasury spending in the fourth quarter, testing programmable payments that limit where funds go while cutting audits and card-network fees.
• Adam Back said Bitcoin’s eventual post-quantum migration could expose how much of Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated 500,000 to 1 million BTC remains accessible, as vulnerable coins must move.
• Charles Hoskinson argued Bitcoin’s proposed quantum fix cannot recover roughly 1.7 million pre-2013 coins, saying the plan mislabels a hard fork and cannot rescue Satoshi-linked holdings.
• Ethereum’s DEX aggregator market has turned more competitive, with Kyber taking about 31%, CowSwap 22%, and former leader 1inch sliding to 15% as concentration fades.
• French police rescued a mother and child after kidnappers sought a 400,000 euro crypto ransom, underscoring France’s worsening wrench-attack wave targeting digital-asset entrepreneurs and their families.
• Ethereum Foundation executive Josh Stark is stepping down after five years, leaving during a broader leadership overhaul and renewed mainnet-scaling push that has reshaped the organization.
• The UK’s FCA opened consultation on seven crypto activities before rules arrive in October 2027, giving firms from September 2026 to seek authorization under a broader regime.
• Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said a yuan stablecoin presents tremendous opportunity, even as Chinese regulators bar offshore issuance without approval and Hong Kong advances licensed stablecoin projects.

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