Hana Bank Buys $670M Stake in Upbit’s Parent Dunamu in Korea’s Largest Bank-Crypto Deal

Hana Bank, one of South Koreas “Big 4” banks, has bought a $670 million stake in Dunamu, the parent company of crypto exchange Upbit. The acquisition makes Hana Bank the fourth largest shareholder in Dunamu with a 6.55% stake. This is the largest bank investment into a crypto exchange in Korean history, and it lands as part of a broader move by Korean banks to position themselves directly inside the digital asset space rather than around it.  One of South Koreas “Big 4” banks bought a $670M stake in the parent company of Upbit.  Hana Bank now holds 6.55% of Dunamu, becoming the 4th largest shareholder.  What Hana Bank Just Bought Into  Dunamu owns Upbit, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea by volume. Upbit handles the majority of retail crypto trading activity in the country and has been a dominant fixture in the Korean market for years.  A 6.55% stake in Dunamu doesn‘t give Hana Bank full control, but it gives the bank a significant seat at the table for one of Asia’s most active crypto trading platforms.  Hana Bank gets exposure to Dunamu‘s growth, access to crypto market data flows, and a strategic relationship that can be leveraged across the bank’s own product roadmap.  Why

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Crypto gives back gains as macro headwinds overwhelm regulatory optimism

For about 48 hours, crypto had something genuine to celebrate. The CLARITY Act, a landmark piece of stablecoin regulation, cleared the Senate Banking Committee on a 15-9 vote. Bitcoin rallied on the news. Then the macro environment showed up like a cold shower on a Monday morning and reminded everyone whos actually in charge.  By Friday morning, BTC had slipped back near $79K, Ethereum fell below $2.3K, and Solana dropped under $90. The Fear and Greed Index sits at 43, firmly in “Fear” territory, up slightly from last weeks reading of 38 but hardly a vote of confidence.  Oil, inflation, and the rate cut mirage  Here‘s the thing about regulatory wins: they matter in the long run. But in the short run, the bond market doesn’t care about stablecoin legislation. It cares about oil prices and what the Federal Reserve is going to do next.  The chain reaction here is straightforward. Higher oil means higher transportation and manufacturing costs, which means stickier inflation, which means the Fed keeps rates elevated for longer. Markets are now pricing in rate hikes by March 2027, not cuts. Read that again. The consensus has flipped from expecting rate relief to expecting more tightening.  For crypto, this is about as

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Visa and WeFi test “on‑chain banking” for stablecoin spending

Visas WeFi pilot lets self‑custodied stablecoins fund everyday card payments across Europe, Asia and Latin America.Visa is partnering with DeFi‑native platform WeFi to pilot stablecoin‑based payments and “on‑chain banking” services across selected markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America.The collaboration aims to make self‑custodied stablecoin balances spendable anywhere Visa is accepted, with WeFi acting as an orchestration layer between DeFi and regulated payment rails.The pilots build on Visas broader stablecoin program, which already runs a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate across nine blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Stellar.  Visa and WeFi have launched a collaboration to explore on‑chain banking and stablecoin‑based payment use cases in selected markets, expanding the card network‘s stablecoin program beyond back‑end settlement into consumer‑facing financial services. In a joint announcement published via Chainwire and subsequent coverage, Visa said the initiative would focus on “how on‑chain value can interact with familiar payment experiences within the existing regulatory framework,” using WeFi’s infrastructure to connect DeFi‑native assets to Visas global acceptance network.  Visa turns stablecoin rails into consumer banking infrastructure  WeFi describes its platform as an “orchestration layer” between decentralized finance and regulated payment infrastructure, built to support use cases such as cross‑border spending, on‑chain value storage and everyday card

05-16

Axel Adler Jr: Psychology of Bitcoins $82,000 Rejection

Analyst Axel Adler Jr. thinks BTC keeps getting rejected because of investor psychology.He called the rejection “behavioral supply”, pointing to recurring signals from STH SOPR.When SOPR reaches 1.0, it means short-term holders are essentially breaking even.  Bitcoin has tried to crack $82,000 three times now and failed every time, which prompted some analysts to say that this might not be due to chart patterns. For instance, crypto analyst Axel Adler Jr. thinks Bitcoin keeps getting rejected not because of weak tech, but because of investor psychology.  He pointed out on X that signals from the Short‑Term Holder SOPR (Spent Output Profit Ratio) keep popping up, saying:  According to Adler, the same thing happens every time Bitcoin tries to rally. It gets near $82,000, the STH SOPR hits that key 1.0 level, sellers step in, and the momentum dies.  According to CoinMarketCap, Bitcoin is currently trading at around $80,500.  What is STH SOPR?  Short‑Term Holder SOPR is a blockchain metric that shows whether people who just bought Bitcoin are selling for a gain or a loss.  When SOPR reaches 1.0, it means short-term holders are essentially breaking even. That level often becomes psychologically important because many traders who endured recent rough patches choose to exit positions once they

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Packs of Empty Waymos Are Weirding Out Atlanta Neighborhood

Residents on Battleview Drive in Atlanta say dozens of empty Waymo vehicles repeatedly circled their cul-de-sac before sunrise.The incident adds to growing complaints about how robotaxis behave when they are repositioning between rides.Waymo said it addressed the routing issue and is working with its fleet partner to prevent similar incidents.  Residents in one Atlanta neighborhood say their mornings now begin with empty robotaxis slowly looping through their cul-de-sac before sunrise.  According to a report by Atlanta-based WSBTV on Friday, residents along Battleview Drive in northwest Atlanta said Waymo vehicles have spent recent weeks repeatedly circling their dead-end street, sometimes in large waves between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. One resident estimated about 50 vehicles passed through in a single hour.  “On a dead-end street, Waymo after Waymo after Waymo drive on, usually early in the morning,” one resident told WSB-TV.  Residents said Waymo vehicles first appeared in the area about two months ago, but the constant circling intensified in recent weeks. The vehicles were reportedly empty and not picking up passengers.  In an attempt to keep the driverless vehicles from coming into the area, a resident placed a childrens street sign near the road. However, this reportedly caused several Waymos to become stuck while attempting

05-16

Senate Banking Committee Advances CLARITY Act in 15-9 Vote, Setting Up Historic Floor Showdown

The US Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 on Thursday to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, clearing the most significant procedural hurdle yet for comprehensive crypto market structure legislation and setting up a full Senate floor vote in the coming weeks.  All 13 Republican members of the committee were joined by Democrats Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks in voting to send the bill forward, while nine Democrats voted against. The markup followed more than 100 amendments filed by senators on both sides of the aisle in the days leading up to the vote, with Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren alone filing over 40.  Committee Chair Tim Scott opened the session by framing the bill as focused on consumer protection, keeping crypto innovation onshore, and safeguarding US national security interests in digital assets. Warren countered that the legislation was “written by the crypto industry for the crypto industry” and accused Republicans of moving to “grease the skids” for President Donald Trump‘s crypto-related business interests. “Nothing made it into this bill that wasn’t approved by the crypto industry,” Warren said.  Senator Cynthia Lummis, a leading Republican advocate for the legislation, pushed back, describing CLARITY as a “pro law enforcement” and “pro consumer” framework. Democratic Senator

05-16

State Street’s tokenized fund servicing is the boring infrastructure shift that actually matters

State Street is wiring its Luxembourg fund stack so tokenized fund units run on the same custody, NAV and TA rails as traditional funds, turning RWAs from brochure‑ware into production infrastructure.By end‑2026, State Street will let clients issue and service “digitally native” fund structures from Luxembourg via its Digital Asset Platform, alongside conventional funds in one operating model.Tokenized fund shares will plug into existing NAV, custody, transfer‑agency and compliance workflows, closing a “glaring hole” that kept RWA pilots stuck in walled gardens with fuzzy legal settlement.If this works, European managers can launch tokenized share classes and feeders with full legal finality, while DeFi protocols interface with assets custodied by a systemically important bank, not a sidecar startup.  State Street is wiring its Luxembourg fund stack to treat tokenized fund units as first‑class citizens, not side projects, and thats a much bigger deal than another “bank experiments with RWAs” headline suggests.  State Street heads into 2026 with a buzz  State Street Corporation has said it intends to deliver a “tokenized fund servicing capability” from Luxembourg by the end of 2026 through State Street Investment Services, extending its existing fund administration, custody and transfer‑agency services to “support digitally native fund structures alongside traditional funds within

05-16

Anthropic Partners with Gates Foundation in $200M AI Initiative

Anthropic, the $380 billion AI research giant behind the Claude language model, has announced a $200 million partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The four-year collaboration aims to deploy AI-driven solutions in global health, education, and economic mobility, focusing on underserved regions and high-impact challenges.  This partnership will combine Anthropic‘s technical expertise with the Gates Foundation’s decades of experience in health and development. The funding includes grants, usage credits for Anthropic‘s Claude AI, and engineering resources to build tools and datasets. The collaboration highlights Anthropic’s growing focus on using AI for public benefit, a strategy led by its Beneficial Deployments team.  Global Health and Life Sciences  The largest share of the partnerships resources will target global health initiatives. A key focus is improving health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, where 4.6 billion people lack essential healthcare services. Anthropic and the Gates Foundation plan to use AI to accelerate vaccine and therapy development, optimize health data usage for government decision-making, and enhance disease outbreak detection.  Claude will play a pivotal role in healthcare research, helping scientists screen drug candidates for neglected diseases like polio, HPV, and preeclampsia. For example, HPV, which causes around 350,000 deaths annually—90% of which occur in low-income regions—will

05-16

ZachXBT: THORChain Hit by Over $10M Multi-Chain Exploit

Hackers are reportedly shifting assets across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Base.The incident first popped up on Telegram channels tied to ZachXBT, and then on X.ZachXBT also reported that after this incident, THORChain paused trading.  Cross‑chain liquidity protocol THORChain appears to have been hit by a big hack affecting multiple blockchains, according to on‑chain sleuth ZachXBT and other crypto intelligence accounts tracking suspicious fund movements.  Early estimates put the stolen funds at over $7.5 million, and the hackers are reportedly shifting assets across multiple chains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Base.  The incident first popped up on Telegram channels tied to ZachXBT, then spread further when crypto intel accounts on X picked it up.  ZachXBT later publicly responded on X, confirming that suspicious money movements tied to the hack are still being tracked. After additional efforts, he then also stated that the money stolen is actually over $10 million.  The on‑chain investigator also reported that after this incident, THORChain paused trading. There are still no official statements or details on how the hack happened.  THORChains Vulnerability to Cross-Chain Risk  THORChain works differently from most DeFi platforms since it focuses on native cross‑chain swaps and routing liquidity across blockchains.  Unlike protocols that only run on one blockchain,

05-16

Hyperliquid Token Price Jumps 23% in a Day: Can The Bullish HYPE Sustain?

HYPE, the native token of decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, jumped more than 23% in the past 24 hours, climbing toward $47 on Friday to hit its highest level since October 2025.  What is driving the sudden HYPE rally, and does the token have enough momentum to extend its bull run in the coming days?  Key takeaways:This week‘s multiple US spot HYPE ETF launches have strengthened the token’s institutional-demand narrative.Coinbase becoming Hyperliquids USDC treasury deployer boosts HYPE prices.  HYPE ETF launches fuel institutional demand hopes  The biggest immediate catalyst behind HYPEs rally appears to be the arrival of US-listed Hyperliquid exchange-traded products.  On Friday, Bitwise launched its spot Hyperliquid ETF, trading under the ticker BHYP on the NYSE.  The fund gives investors regulated exposure to HYPE and intends to stake a portion of its holdings through Bitwises in-house staking division. Its sponsor fee is set at 0.34%, with a full waiver for the first month on the first $500 million in assets.  The launch follows 21Shares Hyperliquid ETF, THYP, which debuted on Nasdaq on Tuesday.  A day later, onchain data resource Lookonchain claimed that wallets linked to venture capital firm a16z had purchased nearly $67.5 million worth of HYPE tokens.  The purchases reportedly took place in the month leading up to

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