Crypto Industry News & Market Trends

Kraken Parent Payward Makes Deep Cuts as IPO Pressure Mounts

Payward, the parent of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is cutting 150 jobs ahead of its planned U.S. stock-market listing. The reduction affects about 5% of its 3,000-person global workforce.　　The move forms part of a broader optimization push aimed at improving margins. Management wants a leaner financial profile before going public.　　Layoffs Continue a Multi-Year Lean-Out　　The latest cuts extend a sustained workforce reduction that began in October 2024. Payward eliminated about 400 roles then, or roughly 15% of staff.　　The reduction followed shortly after Arjun Sethi joined David Ripley as co-CEO. Further cuts then followed in early 2025 as the company merged overlapping teams.　　A Payward spokesperson declined to address specific personnel decisions. The company continually evaluates its structure to align talent with strategic priorities.　　Meanwhile, hiring continues in select growth areas, including derivatives, payments, and tokenized assets.　　Workforce optimization has become a common pre-IPO playbook for crypto firms. Therefore, trimming costs strengthens key profitability metrics that public investors scrutinize.　　IPO Plans Remain on Hold　　Payward filed a confidential S-1 registration statement with the SEC in November 2025. The filing targets a public valuation near $20 billion.　　However, the firm paused its listing timeline in March 2026. Weaker performance among recent crypto listings had cooled investor appetite.　　Co-CEO Arjun Sethi has

05-15Industry

US CPI rises 0.6% in April, bond yields climb amid inflation concerns

Inflation just reminded everyone its not done yet. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.6% in April, coming in hotter than economists expected and pushing year-over-year inflation to 3.8%, the highest reading since May 2023.　　The numbers behind the spike　　That annual rate climbed from 3.3% in March to 3.8% in April. April‘s 0.6% monthly increase represents a deceleration from March’s 0.9% jump.　　Energy was the primary culprit. Energy prices surged 3.8% in April alone, accounting for more than 40% of the entire monthly CPI increase.　　Shelter costs, the single largest component of the CPI basket, continued their stubborn march higher. Food prices also posted moderate increases.　　Core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.4% month over month. On a year-over-year basis, core inflation stands at 2.8%.　　Why crypto investors should pay attention　　The mechanism is straightforward. Higher bond yields make risk-free government debt more attractive relative to speculative assets. When a Treasury bond pays a competitive return with zero default risk, the opportunity cost of holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other non-yielding asset goes up.　　Protocols offering 5% APY look a lot less attractive when Treasuries offer similar returns with a fraction of the risk.　　Disclosure: This article

05-15Industry

TON’s agentic wallets turn Telegram bots into spending entities

TONs new Agentic Wallets standard lets Telegram AI bots hold user‑funded wallets on TON, spending within tight limits as semi‑autonomous financial actors inside chat.TON Tech has launched “Agentic Wallets,” an open, self‑custodial standard that lets AI agents on Telegram hold funds and execute on‑chain transactions on the TON blockchain without per‑action user approval.Each agent gets a dedicated wallet funded and owned by the user, with hard spending limits and revocable access, effectively turning bots into bounded financial actors that can trade, pay subscriptions, and interact with DeFi inside Telegrams roughly 1 billion‑user ecosystem.The move is being pitched by TON Techs Andrew Grekov as the shift from “assistants to actors,” but it also opens a new attack and governance surface around agent misbehavior, prompt‑injection, and blurred liability between users, developers, Telegram, and the TON network.　　TON Tech — the infrastructure team behind The Open Network — rolled out Agentic Wallets on April 28, 2026, describing them as “self‑custody wallets designed for autonomous AI agents on TON” that finally give Telegram bots a native way to move money. According to TON‘s docs and supporting announcements, each AI agent can spin up its own on‑chain wallet, funded directly by the user; the agent then

05-15Industry

Bybit Ranks No. 2 in Open Interest Among Major Crypto Exchanges, Leads CEXs in OI-to-Volume Ratio

Bybit, the worlds second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, ranked second in open interest among major cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges analysed and posted the highest open interest-to-trading volume ratio among centralized exchanges, according to an analysis published by crypto media outlet ChainCatcher, which examined April 2026 CoinGlassdata across nine major derivatives trading platforms.　　Bybit accounted for 12.78% of total open interest among the exchanges studied.　　Open interest, or OI, refers to the total value of derivatives contracts that remain open in the market. The metric is commonly used to measure sustained market participation and active capital deployment.　　Among centralized exchanges, Bybit recorded the highest OI-to-trading volume ratio at 0.81. The analysis said the ratio reflects comparatively strong position retention among users, indicating that trading activity on the platform is supported by longer-held positions rather than short-term turnover alone. Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives platform included in the study, was the only exchange overall to post a higher ratio.　　“Our rising open interest reflects a more mature mix of participants, including mid-frequency trading firms supported through our institutional offerings, as well as new traditional finance participants taking longer-term positions,” Yoyee Wang, Head of Institutional and Enterprise Business at Bybit said. “That is contributing to deeper and more

05-15Industry

THORChain exploit hits Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BSC - Hackers steal over $10 mln

Bitcoin Ethereum　　THORChain exploit hits Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BSC – Hackers steal over $10 mln　　Bitcoin Ethereum News　　On the 15th of May, THORChain, whose native token is RUNE, was exploited, as revealed through ZachXBTs Telegram channel.　　Understanding THORChains exploit　　According to ZachXBT, THORChain has lost more than $10 million worth of crypto. The chain was compromised across multiple networks. They included Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], BNB Smart Chain [BSC], and Base Chain.　　There were many tokens involved in the THORChain exploit, which include USDT, USDC, WBTC, DAI, THOR, LUSD, XRUNE, GUSD, AAVE, Chainlink [LINK], FOX, among others.　　Mainly, more than 36.75 BTC worth over $3 million and $3.54 million in ETH were lost. The total amount lost could rise as investigators currently continue to track the hacker.　　Source: Arkham　　The hacker then swapped all the tokens to ETH and transferred them to a single wallet. This indicated that cross-chain bridges remained the most vulnerable link in decentralized finance (DeFi) security.　　The hack put the whole blockchain under pressure, given how the entire ecosystem is interconnected.　　Source: X　　In response, the protocol has paused all trading activities and executed a global emergency halt across the network. However, there is no official statement from the team regarding the exploit.　　RUNE token crashes 15%　　On the

05-15Ethereum

Ethereum Price Reaching $4,000 Isn’t A Moonshot, Here’s What It Is

Ethereum　　Ethereum Price Reaching $4,000 Isn‘t A Moonshot, Here’s What It Is　　Bitcoin Ethereum News　　Crypto analyst Tice has declared that an Ethereum price rally to $4,000 isnt a moonshot but one that is bound to happen. This came as he revealed that he was accumulating ETH based on the technicals, which point to a buy sentiment.　　Analyst Reveals Ethereum Price Rally To $4,000 As A Structural Magnet　　In an X post, Tice stated that an Ethereum price rally to $4,000 wasnt a moonshot but a structural magnet. He further remarked that he was loading up on ETH while everyone is giving up. His conviction in ETH is based on the technicals, which point to an imminent rally for the second-largest crypto by market cap.　　The analyst noted that ETHs structure was compressing while liquidity had been flushed. At the same time, the Ethereum price is forming higher lows under maximum doubt, and it is clear that the forced selling has been absorbed. Tice declared that this is not a weakness but the accumulation phase coming to an end, which will then usher in the breakout.　　Tice also mentioned that the Ethereum price structure has refused to break under this much fear, which points to an imminent

05-15Ethereum

$1.75 Trillion SpaceX IPO Hardwires Elon Musk As Single-Point Founder Risk

Founder lockups at SpaceX, Meta and AlphabetA $7.5 Trillion Mars Milestone Is Not a Valuation　　The main pay tranche awards Musk up to 200 million Class B shares. It vests only if SpaceX reaches a $7.5 trillion market capitalization. The same trigger requires a permanent Mars colony of at least one million residents.　　SpaceX just gave Elon Musk the most unhinged bonus structure Ive ever seen　　• 200 MILLION shares if he turns Mars into a functioning city with 1 million people and hits a $7.5 trillion valuation　　• Another ~60 million shares if he builds massive data centers… in space　　• Miss…　　— TheLizVariant (@TheLizVariant) May 1, 2026　　The $7.5 trillion threshold sits above the combined market value of Apple, Microsoft, and Saudi Aramco. The Mars criterion has no precedent, no infrastructure to project against, and no off-world regulatory framework.　　Neither benchmark fits standard valuation methods.　　A second tranche grants up to 60.4 million shares for orbital data centers with 100 terawatts of compute. The award mirrors xAIs terrestrial AI race. The S-1 admits such operations may not be commercially viable.　　That is the price of single-point governance combined with speculative pay design. Investors are asked to fund a company they cannot influence and price milestones no model can

05-15Industry

Exaforce raises $125M to scale AI-powered security operations platform

Exaforce just closed a $125 million Series B round to expand its agentic security operations center platform, a system that deploys AI agents to handle threat detection and incident response. The raise brings the companys total funding to $200 million.　　Mayfield and Khosla Ventures co-led the round, with HarbourVest, Peak XV, Seligman Ventures, and AICONIC also participating. This follows a $75 million Series A completed roughly a year earlier, and the company has tripled its valuation within that twelve-month period.　　What Exaforce actually does　　The platform combines three core components: AI agents the company calls “Exabots,” designed to autonomously investigate security alerts; a real-time security knowledge graph that maps relationships between entities, events, and threats across an organizations infrastructure; and managed detection and response services that layer human expertise on top of the automated system.　　The company says its platform has processed millions of investigations across its customer base.　　Why investors keep pouring money into AI security　　Exaforce has grown to more than 130 employees, a threefold increase that mirrors the companys valuation trajectory.　　Exaforce specifically positions its platform as designed to counter “AI-era attack patterns.” Mayfield and Khosla Ventures, both firms with deep enterprise software portfolios, co-led the Series B.　　Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial

05-15Industry

Strive Rises Nearly 6% after Becoming ‘Daily Dividend Company’

Strive is now operating debt-free　　Strive said it ended the quarter with after buying back the remainder of its long-term notes.　　“Today, Strive stands debt-free, with zero margin requirements, and zero encumbered Bitcoin; a balance sheet purpose-built to thrive through Bitcoin volatility.”　　Strive shares flip to positive year-to-date　　Strive (ASST) shares rose 5.8% to $17.70 Thursday following the companys earnings statement and gained another 0.73% in after-hours trading.　　The company is now up 2.43% year to date but still down more than 81% over the past year.　　Strive ended Q1 with 13,628 Bitcoin, including 5,048 Bitcoin acquired through its purchase of Semler Scientific during the quarter. It has since added another 1,381 Bitcoin, bringing its total to 15,009 Bitcoin worth $1.22 billion at current prices.　　On Wednesday, another Bitcoin company, Nakamoto, rose 2.7% after reporting that its revenue increased 500% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 to $2.7 million, with $1.1 million of that coming from a new strategy of using its Bitcoin holdings as collateral to earn yield.　　Meanwhile, Q1 results from some of the larger players in the crypto industry were a mixed bag.　　Stablecoin issuer Circle rallied 15% after reporting its revenue rose 20% quarter-on-quarter to $694 million, beating estimates, while crypto exchange Coinbases shares slid after it reported

05-15Industry

Kooc Media Expands PR Distribution Network With Dedicated AI Startup Services

Every AI company that books a PR package with Kooc Media will be included and featured on AgentLocker.ai at no extra cost. This means clients get two forms of visibility from a single booking — press coverage across news websites and an ongoing listing in a growing AI directory.　　For AI startups, this is a practical addition. Directory listings help with search engine visibility by creating another indexed page with relevant keywords and a link back to the companys website. They also give potential users a second path to finding the product outside of news articles or social media. As AgentLocker.ai continues to grow, these listings will deliver ongoing exposure well beyond the initial PR campaign window.　　Who This Service Is Built For　　Kooc Medias AI PR service is designed for any company with artificial intelligence at the core of its product. This includes AI SaaS startups, generative AI platforms, AI chatbot developers, AI agent builders, natural language processing tools, computer vision companies, AI-powered analytics platforms, machine learning startups and AI automation tools.　　The service is also a strong fit for AI companies that overlap with Kooc Medias other specialist areas. AI tools built for cryptocurrency trading, fintech applications or iGaming platforms can benefit

05-15Industry

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