Lawmakers in the lower house of the Polish parliament, the Sejm, have passed a bill implementing the European Union Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA), amid a probe into the collapse of Zondacrypto, the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

 

The passage of the bill marks a third attempt after the president vetoed earlier versions proposed by lawmakers. Following the latest parliamentary approval, the bill now awaits the president’s decision before it can become law.

 

The Polish government has until July 1, 2026, the end of the transitional period, to implement the MiCA framework. If the deadline is missed, virtual asset service providers risk having their licenses expire. Without valid authorization, crypto firms in Poland would no longer be permitted to provide crypto asset services to clients in Poland or across the European Union.

 

As a result, affected companies may be forced to shut down their operations in Poland or relocate to another EU member state in order to obtain a crypto asset service provider license, which is generally more costly and time-consuming. This requirement applies primarily to domestic crypto entities, while foreign crypto companies operating in Poland are expected to remain unaffected by this policy.

 

Zondacrypto Collapse

The passage of the bill adopting MiCA comes as Polish prosecutors have launched an investigation into the collapse of Zondacrypto, the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.

 

Zondacrypto has halted withdrawals for thousands of users since December 2025, leaving many unable to access their funds. According to Polish authorities, about 30,000 users have been affected, with estimated losses exceeding 350 million zlotys ($95.93 million).

 

Amid Zondacrypto’s financial struggles and its admission that it lost access to a cold wallet holding about 4,500 BTC, allegedly linked to its former CEO, who has been missing since 2022, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has alleged that the exchange’s collapse is linked to fraud and its existing ties with Russian mafia groups.

 

According to Tusk, Zondacrypto’s success comes from “Russian money linked to the so-called Bratva Mafia group and Russian intelligence agencies.” Describing its roots as sinister, Tusk accused Zondacrypto of sponsoring right-wing opposition politicians. By advancing the bill supporting MiCA, Tusk aims to reduce the ease with which cryptocurrencies are used to finance sabotage activities in the country.

 

 

Payward, the parent company of the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, has partnered with Franklin Templeton, the leading global investment management company, bringing traditional financial products on-chain.

 

The partnership, which aims to converge traditional finance and digital asset markets and expand the utility of tokenized assets, leverages Franklin Templeton’s decades of experience as a global investment manager and leader in the tokenization space, alongside Payward’s crypto-native trading, custodial, and on-chain infrastructure.

 

Since tokenization is at the center of the partnership, the companies will explore launching several new actively managed investment strategies on xStocks, Payward’s tokenized asset platform. As a result, the two companies are expected to introduce tokenized yield-focused products and equities available to institutional clients through Kraken’s Prime and over-the-counter services. To offer the best investment experience, these tokenized products will be transparent, flexible, and programmable.

 

“Payward and Franklin Templeton are building toward a model of finance where the distinction between traditional assets and digital infrastructure no longer holds,” said Arjun Sethi, Co CEO of Payward and Kraken.

 

“The convergence between these two worlds is only going to deepen, and what collaborations like this one unlock is a new class of products that would not have been possible even three years ago: assets that carry the credibility of multi-decade managers and the programmability of digital infrastructure.”

 

BENJI Integration to Follow

Part of the partnership plans will involve integrating BENJI into Kraken's infrastructure. BENJI is a digital token created by Franklin Templeton that represents ownership of, or shares held by, an investor in a regulated money market fund. It is what investors actually hold and trade on-chain.

 

By integrating BENJI into Kraken, Franklin Templeton makes it easier for institutions to access and use the BENJI money market fund within its trading and custody systems, increasing capital efficiency and the fund's utility.

 

“The focus should be on making on-chain assets more functional for the full range of market participants once they are there,” said Sandy Kaul, Head of Digital Assets and Innovation at Franklin Templeton.

 

“By expanding the utility of BENJI and exploring new tokenized products, our work with Payward reflects the growing need to serve both digital native and institutional customers with solutions built for how capital increasingly moves on-chain.”

 

 

KRWQ, a stablecoin pegged to the South Korean won, is expanding to Solana following a recent announcement from IQ, the company behind the stablecoin.

 

The expansion, according to IQ, is aimed at enhancing KRWQ support for various Korean won-denominated trading applications on Solana, including perpetual futures, on-chain foreign exchange markets, arbitrage strategies, cross-margin trading, and other institutional and algorithmic trading systems and applications.

 

 

“The Korean won is a major global currency with substantial activity in offshore derivatives markets, yet it has remained largely inaccessible in crypto native trading systems,” IQ said in a statement to reporters. “KRWQ allows market participants to trade, hedge, and deploy capital using Korean won liquidity directly on chain.”

 

Regarding its decision to launch KRWQ on Solana, the IQ team cited Solana’s low latency and deep liquidity as key reasons for selecting the network.

 

“Solana provides the performance and ecosystem depth needed to scale KRW liquidity on chain,” said Dave Shin, chief operating officer of KRWQ. “We are seeing clear demand for non-USD trading pairs, particularly in derivatives.”

 

As KRWQ’s adoption continues to grow among both retail and institutional users, IQ expects increased usage of the stablecoin across a wide range of applications, including cross-border settlements and advanced trading systems.

 

About the KRWQ stablecoin 

KRWQ is a stablecoin developed by IQ in collaboration with Frax Finance, a notable decentralized finance project. It was created with the main goal of bringing the Korean won (KRW) onto the chain.

 

By enabling 24/7 trading, instant settlement, and low-cost on-chain transactions, KRWQ addresses major inefficiencies in offshore KRW trading, increasing demand for and use of KRW in global payments and decentralized finance, while reducing dependence on US dollar-pegged stablecoins.

 

Since its launch in October 2025, KRWQ has rapidly gained traction as the first on-chain settlement layer for Korean won trading, expanding beyond Base, its initial deployment chain, and going live on Fraxtal, Codex, Morph, and Hydrex. KRWQ was also recently listed on EDX Markets, an institutional-focused cryptocurrency exchange, across spot and perpetual futures.

 

KRWQ now has a spot trading volume of nearly $40 billion and a Non-Deliverable Forward (NDF) market worth about $60 billion.

 

 

Charles Schwab, the United States based brokerage and banking firm, has launched Schwab Crypto, a spot crypto trading platform that provides direct access to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading, along with educational content and support from experienced professionals for users.

 

 

“We know our clients want to conduct more of their financial lives at Schwab. With Schwab Crypto, clients who want direct access to the asset class can trade it alongside their other investments, while benefiting from the service, education, and research they expect from us,” said Jonathan Craig, Head of Retail Investing at Charles Schwab.

 

The spot trading platform will provide direct trading in BTC and ETH, with more cryptocurrencies to be added in the future as the platform expands. Traders will also be able to view and trade both crypto and non crypto products across all of Schwab’s platforms, including its website, Schwab Mobile, its mobile app, and thinkorswim, its advanced trading platform, with 24/7 professional support available to traders.

 

Through Schwab Coaching, its educational program, Charles Schwab will provide in depth digital assets education and resources, including insights and commentary from the Schwab Center for Financial Research and crypto focused content, all aimed at helping investors understand the digital assets market and how digital assets fit into a broader investing strategy.

 

How Schwab Crypto Works 

Through Charles Schwab Premier Bank (CSPB), Schwab clients will be given a separate crypto account for the purpose of trading on Schwab Crypto, the retail trading platform. However, this account will remain linked to the clients main brokerage accounts, with CSPB serving as the primary custodian of all client digital assets.

 

Paxos, a leading blockchain infrastructure company regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, will be responsible for handling all trade execution and subcustody services.

 

Regarding Paxos’s role, Joe Vietri, Managing Director and Head of Digital Assets at Charles Schwab, said, “Paxos is a strong partner for blockchain infrastructure. Their regulatory standing and digital asset expertise will help us deliver the seamless, integrated experience our clients expect from Schwab.”

 

 

After months of gridlock and four hours of pointed debate, the Senate Banking Committee voted 15-9 to advance the Clarity Act, sending one of the most consequential pieces of financial legislation in recent memory toward a full Senate floor vote. Two Democrats joined all Republicans on the panel in support, a small but symbolically meaningful show of bipartisan backing that industry advocates say could prove decisive when the bill eventually needs 60 votes to pass the full chamber.

 

For the digital asset industry, the vote felt like a long time coming. The bill, formally titled the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, has been kicking around Capitol Hill for well over a year. The fact that it cleared committee at all, given the partisan atmosphere that dominated much of Thursday's hearing, was seen by many in the space as a genuine win.

 

Rules of the Road, Finally

At its core, the Clarity Act tries to solve a problem that has dogged the crypto industry since its earliest days: nobody could quite agree on who was in charge. The SEC and the CFTC have spent years in an uneasy standoff over which agency has jurisdiction over which digital assets, leaving companies in legal limbo and pushing some development offshore. The bill would draw a cleaner line, classifying digital assets as either securities or commodities and assigning oversight accordingly.

 

The market responded before the committee even finished voting. Coinbase surged more than 8% on the session, as investors bet that regulatory clarity could finally unlock the broader institutional participation that has been sitting on the sidelines. Galaxy Digital climbed over 6%. Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder, was up 7%. Bitcoin itself ground higher, hitting session highs near $81,500.

 

"For too long, regulatory uncertainty has sent talent, investment, and innovation overseas, strengthening foreign competitors while leaving American builders without the certainty they need to compete," said Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, who called the committee vote a "defining moment." Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse was blunter: "If the largest economy in the world is going to lead on crypto, and it must, this is the moment."

 

Still Some Runway Ahead

Thursday's vote was a milestone, but it is not the finish line. The bill still needs to be reconciled with a separate version approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee, and the full Senate will require 60 votes to pass it, meaning a significant number of Democrats will have to come on board. The House passed its own version of the legislation last year, so the two chambers will also need to hammer out a unified text before anything heads to President Trump's desk.

 

The largest outstanding issue is an ethics provision intended to limit government officials, including the president, from profiting off crypto. Democrats have made clear they will not move forward without some version of it, while White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt has said the administration will not tolerate language targeting a specific officeholder. Both sides appeared at least open to finding common ground, with Cody Carbone of the Digital Chamber telling reporters that a deal on the ethics provision is likely a prerequisite for getting the bill to a floor vote at all. The window, several lawmakers noted, is probably August.

 

A Framework Built to Last

What makes the Clarity Act different from the patchwork of guidance and enforcement actions that have defined crypto policy for the past decade is its ambition. It does not try to pigeonhole digital assets into frameworks designed for equities or futures contracts decades ago. It builds something new, with defined registration pathways for digital commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers, as well as clear definitions covering blockchain applications, protocols, and smart contracts.

 

Ji Hun Kim, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, put it plainly after the vote: "Clear durable rules will help drive greater institutional and retail adoption, support innovation, create more high quality jobs in the U.S., protect Americans, and ensure that our country leads when it comes to digital assets policy and innovation."

 

The GENIUS Act, which passed the full Senate 68-30 last year, showed that comprehensive crypto legislation can attract broad support once the details are sorted. The Clarity Act is a harder lift, covering more ground and touching more competing interests. But Thursday's committee vote suggests the political will is there, and the industry is watching closely.

 

"Durable, lasting digital asset policy must be built on a bipartisan foundation," Mersinger added. By that measure, the Clarity Act is not finished yet. But for the first time in a long while, it looks like it might actually get there.

 

Why This Matters for the Future of Digital Assets

Let's be clear about all of this: Thursday was a great day for anyone who believes that digital assets have a meaningful role to play in the future of finance. I am certainly one of those. Not because the Clarity Act is perfect, and not because it's done, but because it signals something important that has been missing for years: the U.S. government is starting to treat this industry like it's here to stay.

 

The case for optimism goes beyond this single vote. The GENIUS Act passing 68-30 last year proved that stablecoin legislation could attract real bipartisan support. Institutional investment in Bitcoin ETFs has steadily matured. Major financial players who once dismissed crypto as a fringe asset are now building infrastructure around it. The underlying technology, particularly in DeFi and tokenization, keeps advancing regardless of what Washington does. What regulation does is create the conditions for all of that to compound. It clears the path for pension funds, endowments, and large asset managers who have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for legal certainty before committing serious capital.

 

That said, the Senate still has to close the deal, and that is not a given. The remaining sticking points on the ethics provision and law enforcement concerns are real, not just noise. Lawmakers like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand have been consistent that they will not deliver Democratic votes without meaningful conflict-of-interest guardrails, and that is a fair position. The 60-vote threshold means the bill needs to be genuinely bipartisan, not just technically so.

 

On timing, the realistic window is narrower than it might appear. Industry insiders, including Cody Carbone of the Digital Chamber, have pointed to August as a likely deadline if the bill is to move this year. Congress typically slows through the fall ahead of elections, and the legislative calendar fills up fast. That gives negotiators roughly ten to twelve weeks to reconcile the two committee versions, finalize the ethics language, and lock down the 60 votes needed for a floor vote. It is achievable, but it requires both parties to decide they want a deal more than they want a talking point.

 

If it does pass, the long-term impact will be substantial. Clear rules attract capital. Capital attracts builders. Builders create products that bring in users. That cycle, running inside a legitimate regulatory framework and anchored in the world's largest economy, is how digital assets stop being a niche and become infrastructure. You know...that "mass adoption" that people have been talking about for years? Well, this could be it. It might not look like how we all imagined, but what ever really does? Thursday was one huge step in that direction. The Senate now needs to finish what it started and we need to come together to make sure they all know that they need to do just that. Let's get it done.

 

The Ethereum Foundation has appointed Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik as co-leads of its protocol cluster, following the departure of some of its prominent engineers.

 

“While Barnabé and Tim are moving on from the Ethereum Foundation soon, and Alex Stokes will be on sabbatical, the Protocol cluster, as it exists today, is in large part due to their work. Under their coordination, Protocol launched tracks and helped to ship Fusaka to mainnet in December 2025, introducing PeerDAS and raising the mainnet gas limit on the path to 200M and beyond,” the foundation wrote in a blog post.

 

“Tim, Barnabé, and Alex shaped Protocol in ways that will outlast their time as cluster leads. We are grateful, and we are looking forward to what each of them takes on next.”

 

What to Know About the New Co-Leads

Will Corcoran is a research coordinator within the protocol, with experience working on zkVM proving, post quantum consensus, and the Fast Confirmation Rule. He has also facilitated numerous community calls, breakout rooms, and in-person protocol events, giving him a deep understanding of how the protocol works.

 

Kev Wedderburn leads the zkEVM team in the protocol and has experience working at the intersection of research and engineering, while Fredrik leads the protocol’s security and has been deeply involved in cross-cluster work.

 

About the Protocol Cluster 

The protocol cluster, often called the protocol, is the core group within the Ethereum Foundation responsible for designing, researching, coordinating, and developing Ethereum's base layer, or L1, blockchain protocol. After its rebranding in 2025, it had one goal: to tackle Ethereum's biggest challenges.

 

To address these challenges, the protocol prioritizes three main areas: enhancing Ethereum's scalability, improving user experience, and strengthening the security and resilience of the Ethereum blockchain network.

 

The protocol also oversees several technical domains, including AllCoreDevs meetings, cryptography, prototyping, security, zkEVM, and peer-to-peer systems. It is currently working on Glamsterdam, the next major Ethereum L1 upgrade, which will introduce features such as enshrined proposer builder separation, known as ePBS under EIP 7732, and gas repricing to support higher gas limits.

 

The restructuring of the Ethereum protocol comes shortly after key figures in the foundation, Josh Stark, last month, and Tomasz K. Stańczak, more recently, left the protocol. Other developers within the foundation have also departed to join other Layer 1 blockchain projects such as Tempo.

 

 

Corpay, the leading corporate payments company, has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK to provide stablecoin wallets and settlement capabilities to its global customer base.

 

The partnership, announced on Monday, will see the integration of stablecoin wallet capabilities into Corpay’s financial platform, enabling its customers to view stablecoin balances alongside their fiat balances, while also providing embedded stablecoin wallets for sending, receiving, storing, and converting stablecoins, all within the platform.

 

 

Corpay will also integrate stablecoin rails into its treasury operations, reducing reliance on pre-funded accounts when sending and receiving funds. This is expected to improve capital efficiency and enhance the way funds are moved globally. As a result, customers will no longer be limited to traditional banking hours, as the embedded stablecoin rails will allow them to process transactions even outside these hours.

 

“At our scale, the ability to move liquidity quickly and reliably is critical,” said Mark Frey, Group President, Corpay Cross Border Solutions. “Stablecoins introduce a 24/7 settlement capability that strengthens our existing infrastructure. BVNK provides the technology and compliance framework we need to deliver this securely and at scale.”

 

Jesse Hemson Struthers, CEO of BVNK, said in a statement that he believes stablecoins are reshaping the foundation of global payments, and that Corpay’s scale and reach make the two companies ideal partners in bringing these stablecoin capabilities into the mainstream.

 

What to Know About Corpay and BVNK

Corpay is a global S&P 500 corporate payments company that enables businesses and users to manage and pay expenses in a simple and controlled manner. In 2025, it recorded revenue of about $4.5 billion, a 14% year over year increase, and reported $1.26 billion in revenue last quarter. Corpay currently serves over 800,000 business clients globally.

 

BVNK, on the other hand, is an enterprise-grade stablecoin payment infrastructure company that enables businesses and corporates to send, receive, store, convert, and settle transactions using stablecoins. 

 

As one of the most notable stablecoin infrastructure companies, BVNK processed about $30 billion in annualized stablecoin payment volume last year and has been integrated into several major traditional finance platforms, including Visa, Mastercard, Worldpay, and Deel.

 

 

Global crypto asset manager Bitwise will be taking full control of Superstate’s Crypto Carry Fund (USCC), a tokenized private fund that provides qualified purchasers with exposure to crypto-based strategies.

 

The announcement, made via a Bitwise press release, will see the asset manager transition into the role of investment manager of the fund, with the fund renamed the Bitwise Crypto Carry Fund. Although Bitwise will assume management of the fund, Superstate will continue to operate the fund’s on-chain infrastructure, ensuring no disruption during the transition process.

 

 

"Capital markets are moving on-chain. It's happening fast, and tokenized investment strategies are a core part of this platform shift," said Hunter Horsley, Bitwise CEO.

 

"Traditional and crypto native institutions are increasingly using tokenized funds to benefit from their 24/7 trading, utility in decentralized finance, transparency, and efficiency. We're thrilled to join Superstate's best-in-class infrastructure with Bitwise's track record in crypto asset management to continue to expand access to the full range of opportunities for investors in crypto."

 

This partnership between Bitwise and Superstate will see Bitwise deepening its presence in the tokenized fund market, with Superstate taking a step back from tokenized fund management to focus on FundOS, its platform used to manage on-chain tokenized funds.

 

The transition is expected to be completed by June 1, 2026, with the fund’s ticker USCC remaining unchanged, as well as its smart contract and token address.

 

USCC and the Tokenized Funds Market

USCC is Superstate’s tokenized private fund that provides qualified investors exposure to crypto basis and cash and carry trading strategies, allowing them to earn yield from the persistent premium of crypto futures prices over spot prices.

 

The fund currently has assets under management exceeding $267 million, with over $100 million of the fund’s assets being deployed across notable decentralized finance platforms, including Aave and Kamino. Investors include hedge funds, venture capital firms, high-net-worth crypto users, and blockchain protocols.

 

The tokenized funds market has also grown remarkably, with the global tokenized and real-world assets market reaching $33.5 billion. The market is projected to reach $18.9 trillion by 2031 and has attracted several notable traditional finance companies, including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan. 

 

 

MoonPay is not slowing down. The crypto payments giant announced Monday the acquisition of Dawn Labs, an applied AI research startup focused on autonomous trading tools for digital asset markets. Alongside the deal, the company launched Dawn CLI, a product that lets users build and execute trading strategies using plain-English prompts. No coding background required.

 

The move pushes MoonPay deeper into what it calls the "agentic" layer of crypto, where AI systems can reason, plan, and now, apparently, trade on your behalf. It also adds another chapter to the company's broader infrastructure buildout, which has been accelerating through 2025 and into this year.

 

Plain English, Real Trades

Dawn Labs founder Neeraj Prasad, who now serves as Chief Engineer of MoonPay Labs, put it bluntly: until now, building a systematic trading strategy meant being a developer, a quantitative analyst, and a portfolio manager all at once. Dawn CLI collapses all of that into a single interface. You describe what you want, the system writes the code, and then it runs.

 

The platform is launching first on Polymarket, the decentralized prediction market that has seen explosive growth over the past two years, attracting traders betting on elections, sports results, economic data, and geopolitical events. Prediction markets have gone from a niche crypto experiment to a mainstream information layer, and tools to actually trade them systematically have lagged badly behind the demand. That's the gap MoonPay is targeting.

 

"We're starting with prediction markets because they are one of the fastest-growing sectors, and many traders in the space are underserved by existing tooling," Prasad said. Additional trading venues and asset types are on the roadmap for the coming months.

 

Infrastructure First Model

The Dawn Labs deal sits within a larger strategic context. Earlier this year, in February, MoonPay launched MoonPay Agents, a non-custodial software layer built on its developer-focused command-line interface that lets AI agents access crypto wallets, execute trades, perform cross-chain swaps, and off-ramp back to fiat, all autonomously. CEO and founder Ivan Soto-Wright described the thinking in stark terms: "AI agents can reason, but they cannot act economically without capital infrastructure. MoonPay is the bridge between AI and money."

 

The service works through a one-time KYC process, after which an agent can transact on behalf of the verified user within preset permissions. Wallets are non-custodial and stored on the user's device, not held by MoonPay. It also supports the x402 standard, a machine-to-machine payments protocol that has been gaining traction across the industry, with Stripe and Cloudflare both adding support in recent months.

 

A Broader Industry Shift

MoonPay is not alone in this push. Gemini launched its own agentic trading feature for AI agents back in April, and Coinbase, Stripe, and Amazon have each rolled out AI-compatible stablecoin payment rails in recent months. Solana and Google have made similar moves. The pattern is clear enough: major players across crypto and fintech are racing to build the financial plumbing that AI agents will need to operate as independent economic actors.

 

For MoonPay specifically, it sees this as a natural extension of what it already does. The company, founded in 2019, serves more than 500 enterprise clients and 30 million users globally. Its core business has always been connecting fiat payment systems to blockchains. Extending that to AI systems is, in some ways, the logical next step.

 

Prasad said the company does not view AI agents and human traders as separate customer bases. "We've been building MoonPay around four pillars: fund, tokenize, trade, and spend," he explained. "Our agentic products put that same stack in the hands of both humans and machines."

 

What Comes Next

Following the Agents launch in February, MoonPay unveiled a Ledger integration in March, allowing AI-initiated transactions to be signed on a hardware device, a notable security step for users wary of handing autonomous control to software alone. The Dawn CLI launch now adds an execution layer on top of that infrastructure, specifically aimed at traders who want strategy-building capabilities without the technical overhead.

 

Whether retail traders will warm to the idea of an AI agent placing bets on Polymarket on their behalf remains to be seen. But MoonPay is clearly positioning itself well ahead of that question. If the agentic economy arrives on the timeline its backers expect, the company wants to be the rails it runs on.

 

Leading startup accelerator Y Combinator will be holding the first-ever interview session in New York City, keenly focused on fintech builders developing projects around tokenization, stablecoins, prediction markets, and trading.

 

 

According to a YC spokesperson, the New York event will be the first of its kind, as it will focus on a specific sector, with accepted startups joining the Y Combinator Summer 2026 batch, which will begin on June 23 in San Francisco. Once a startup is accepted into the accelerator program, Y Coombinator will invest immediately in the company, even before the summer batch begins.

 

With New York becoming a major fintech hub in the U.S. and accounting for around 30% of all U.S. fintech investment in 2025, while also being home to roughly 1,500 crypto and fintech startups, Y Combinator is making this move to tap into this fast-growing sector and back more startups in the space.

 

Y Combinator Investing in Crypto

Through its funding, Y Combinator has helped support some of the most successful companies in the crypto space, with several reaching and surpassing unicorn status.

 

In 2012, Y Combinator invested about $150,000 into the crypto exchange Coinbase, acquiring an approximately 7% stake in the company. With support from Y Combinator and other early investors, Coinbase has grown into one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, with a market cap of around $52 billion.

 

Y Combinator also invested early in the decentralized exchange Uniswap, contributing about $120,000 in 2018. Like Coinbase, Uniswap has grown into one of the largest decentralized exchanges, with a valuation of around $2 billion.

 

The startup accelerator has also invested in the prediction market sector, backing Kalshi at an early stage. With support from early investors, including Y Combinator, Kalshi has grown into one of the leading prediction market companies and recently raised $1 billion in a Series F round, reaching a valuation of $22 billion.

 

Other crypto companies that have benefited from Y Combinator’s support include the NFT marketplace OpenSea, blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs, and the Solana-based trading platform Axiom, with all of these companies surpassing the $1 billion valuation mark.

 

 

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has just rolled out a new wallet feature to combat the rising cases of wrench attacks against crypto holders.

 

Announcing the launch of this feature, Binance wrote in a Monday blog post, “Most security advice you will read about crypto assumes that the threat is digital. Some of the main threats include malicious phishing links, imposter scams, SIM swaps, and compromised seed phrases, and the industry has built strong defenses against them.”

 

“But there is a category of risk that those defenses do not cover: physical coercion. These are situations where someone is pressured, in person, to move their own funds. Such cases are rare, but when they happen, the losses can be severe and irreversible.”

 

When activated, this new withdrawal protection feature blocks all on-chain withdrawals from a user's Binance account for a preset lockdown period, during which no one, not even the owner of the wallet, can move crypto assets out of the wallet.

 

The new withdrawal protection feature can be enabled from the settings section of the Binance wallet. While 48 hours is the default lockdown period, a user can choose to change this to anywhere between 1 and 7 days, depending on their preferences.

 

 

To enhance flexibility, Binance added a toggle feature that allows users to end the lockdown period early, especially in emergency cases when a user needs to move crypto assets from their wallet. It is also important to note that this feature only restricts withdrawals, thus users can still trade, hold positions, and carry out other in-wallet activities even when the withdrawal protection feature is enabled.

 

Crypto Wrench Attacks on the Rise

Crypto wrench attacks have steadily risen over the last few years. According to a CertiK report, there were 72 verified cases of physical attacks and coercion against crypto holders in 2025, an increase of nearly 71% from the 41 cases recorded the previous year, with losses amounting to over $41 million.

 

This year has not been an exception, as there have been several recorded cases of wrench attacks, with France being an epicenter of these attacks.

 

Just last month, a family of five in France was held captive by two men who invaded their home and extorted approximately €700,000 worth of cryptocurrencies.

 

In another attack in France, a mother and her son were kidnapped by four armed men who demanded about $471,000 for their release. The victims were held hostage for about 20 hours before they were eventually released, and the suspects were arrested by law enforcement officers.