Hi! In today’s edition:
🇪🇺 Binance is preparing to suspend services in the EU
🦈 Aave founder Stani Kulechov has rejected the framing of a report claiming Kraken wants a piece of the protocol
🔓 Polymarket users have lost an estimated $3 million in yet another exploit
📉 BitGo is reducing its headcount and yes, the official statement mentions AI
Binance is Suspending EU Operations
Binance this week has told customers in France, Italy, Spain, and Poland that it will suspend crypto services by July 1, the Financial Times reported Friday.
The report comes a day after co-CEO Richard Teng publicly declared the exchange was "not leaving Europe." Binance withdrew its MiCA license application in Greece on Wednesday, having failed to secure approval from the Hellenic Capital Market Commission.
MiCA requires every crypto-asset service provider to hold a CASP license from at least one EU member state by July 1 to serve clients anywhere in the 27-nation bloc.
Binance in emails to affected users said assets "remain safe and secure and will remain accessible at all times,” CoinDesk reported Friday.
Binance now plans to apply for a license in France, the Financial Times reported, but any approval is expected to come after the July 1 deadline.
Aave Founder Disputes Reports of a Kraken Bid
Stani Kulechov fired back Thursday after CoinDesk reported that Kraken parent Payward is in talks to buy a 15% stake in Aave at a $385 million valuation.
"There is NO WAY we'd sell AAVE at a 70% discount," he wrote on X.
The $385 million figure reported by CoinDesk represents roughly 30% of AAVE's current fully diluted token valuation, implying a 70% haircut compared to what the open market prices the protocol at today.
Kulechov said that Aave Labs holds a token allocation that market participants have approached about purchasing through long-term partnerships, rejecting CoinDesk's framing as "inaccurate."
He said that all protocol revenue, GHO revenue, and product revenue flows entirely to the Aave DAO under the "Aave Will Win" framework passed in April.
Kulechov added that the team is working on Aavenomics 3.0, which will include a new automated, non-discretionary AAVE buyback mechanism. Aave DAO in November passed a proposal implementing a $50 million annual buyback program.
Polymarket Users Lose Funds in Third-Party Vendor Hack
Some Polymarket users have seen their funds stolen after attackers injected malicious code into the platform's website through a compromised third-party vendor, the platform said Thursday.
Analysts estimate that the exploit affected fewer than 15 users, who saw roughly $3 million in pUSD stablecoin drained. The funds were converted to ETH and briefly parked in several Ethereum wallets, which have started moving.
Polymarket said it has patched the vulnerability, removed the malicious code, and will refund all affected users. But it is the prediction market's second security incident in two months: in May, a private-key compromise drained $700,000 from an internal company wallet used for user rewards. Both episodes targeted third-party dependencies and internal infrastructure rather than Polymarket's core smart contracts — suggesting the platform's perimeter is harder to defend than its protocol.
BitGo Cuts 15% of Staff to Chase AI and Stablecoins
BitGo co-founder and CEO Mike Belshe announced Thursday that the crypto custody firm is cutting nearly 15% of its workforce — approximately 90 employees based on the company's last disclosed headcount of 603 — to concentrate resources on security, trading, stablecoins, settlement, and AI-powered infrastructure. He called the move "a one-time action" and said no further cuts are planned.
The restructuring comes less than six months after BitGo's NYSE debut in January at $18 per share, which raised $212.8 million. Shares closed Thursday at $4.80, down more than 4.5% on the day and roughly 73% below the IPO price. The company reported widening Q1 net losses despite $3.8 billion in Q1 revenue. BitGo joins a wave of crypto firms that have announced headcount reductions in 2026, including Coinbase, Robinhood and Dune.
🏦 Invesco filed with the SEC to launch the Invesco Stablecoin Reserves Onchain Fund, a tokenized government money market fund structured to hold GENIUS Act-compliant reserves for stablecoin issuers, maintaining a $1 NAV and investing in cash, short-term Treasuries, and overnight repo agreements. The fund will run on a public blockchain via tokenization firm Superstate as sub-transfer agent, and joins a growing field that already includes Morgan Stanley, State Street, BlackRock, and others racing to manage reserves for a stablecoin market Citi estimates could hit $4 trillion by 2030.
⚖️ Rosen Law Firm opened a securities investigation into Strategy (MSTR), examining whether Michael Saylor's bitcoin treasury company misled investors, soliciting shareholders across the entire capital stack including MSTR common stock and its four preferred share classes. The probe comes as MSTR dropped to roughly $86 on Thursday, its lowest since February 2024, while STRC fell to $74 — 26% below its $100 par value — as Bitcoin fell to $58,000.
⚖️ CoinEx denied a Wall Street Journal and TRM Labs report alleging it served as a $3.84 billion gateway to sanctioned Iranian crypto entities over seven years, including $2.7 billion in flows with Nobitex, Iran's largest exchange. The Seychelles-registered exchange said blockchain's open, traceable nature means transactions passing through a platform do not prove awareness or participation, and added it has begun exiting all Iran-related exposure following last month's U.S. Treasury sanctions on Nobitex and other Iranian exchanges.
🏦 Kraken closed a USDC-denominated onchain warehouse facility with Maple, structured as a bankruptcy-remote SPV designed to bring institutional asset-backed securities infrastructure onchain for the first time. The facility funds Kraken's OTC lending program with senior financing from Maple, allowing institutional clients to borrow against BTC and ETH collateral without selling, while Kraken Financial, a Wyoming-chartered SPDI, holds the underlying assets.
🔒 Coinbase's Base resumed operations after a roughly two-hour outage Thursday. Developers say they are still investigating the root cause of the issue.
🌏 Thailand's Department of Special Investigation issued an arrest warrant for Chinese businessman Wang Yicheng over his alleged role in illegal crypto mining operations that stole roughly $28 million in electricity, using mining proceeds to launder money from scams and online gambling. Authorities believe Wang has fled the country.
🏦 Nomura signed an MOU with Circle to pursue strategic collaboration on onchain financial infrastructure in global markets including Japan, covering instant settlement with fiat-backed stablecoins, collateral management, fund transfers, and capital markets transactions. The partnership pairs Circle's stablecoin and blockchain expertise with Nomura's position as one of Japan's largest financial institutions.
🇯🇵 SBI Holdings agreed to acquire Bitbank for approximately 46.7 billion yen ($289 million), in a deal that would make it a wholly owned subsidiary and give SBI the combined position of Japan's largest crypto exchange by assets under custody, with roughly $6.8 billion in assets and 2.92 million accounts. The transaction, subject to Fair Trade Commission approval, is expected to close around October.
💸 Animoca Brands made a strategic investment in AllScale, a stablecoin payment infrastructure provider, to explore payment flows and agentic commerce use cases across Animoca's portfolio of more than 600 companies. The investment positions AllScale to expand into agentic payments, where AI agents can transact autonomously using stablecoins as a native settlement layer.
Dean Eigenmann: Crypto's Graham Moment
