Senate Banking Drops the CLARITY Act Text Before Thursday's Markup

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🏛️ The Senate Banking Committee dropped the latest CLARITY Act text just after midnight, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong saying parties got "the must-haves" while Senator Warren signaled ethics provisions remain a priority

• 💰 Payward, the parent company of Kraken, is raising fresh capital at a $20 billion valuation as co-CEO Arjun Sethi says the exchange is "80% ready" for an IPO

• ⚡ Alpenglow, the biggest consensus overhaul in Solana's history, is now live on a community test cluster, with mainnet activation possible as soon as next quarter

• 🔄 The Ethereum Foundation names Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik as new Protocol cluster co-leads as Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko depart and Alex Stokes goes on sabbatical

• 🛡️ Binance says its AI defenses prevented $10.53 billion in user losses from scams and phishing over the past 15 months, blocking 22.9 million attempts in Q1 2026 alone

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Senate Banking Releases CLARITY Act Text 48 Hours Before Markup

The Senate Banking Committee released the latest text of the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act just after midnight Tuesday, the manager's amendment that will serve as the basis for Thursday's markup.

Chairman Tim Scott (R-SC), Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) put out the bill alongside a section-by-section summary. The text includes the Tillis-Alsobrooks stablecoin yield compromise as Section 404, plus a new Section 109 on insider trading and a new Section 904 dubbed the "Build Now Act," per Galaxy's Alex Thorne.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X: "Not everyone got everything they wanted, but they got the must-haves." Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren released a critical comment signaling ethics remains a priority. The bank lobby is still pushing for tighter stablecoin language.

Kraken Parent Payward Raises Fresh Capital at $20 Billion Valuation

Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, is raising new capital at a $20 billion valuation as it accelerates toward a possible IPO, CoinDesk reported.

The round comes on the heels of two big acquisitions: Reap Technologies at $600 million and derivatives venue Bitnomial at $550 million, both struck at the same $20 billion mark. At Consensus Miami, co-CEO Arjun Sethi said Kraken is "80% ready" to go public.

Not everyone agrees on price. In April, Deutsche Börse bought a 1.5% stake at a valuation implying just $13.3 billion, signaling a steep gap between private-round pricing and secondary-market sentiment.

Solana's Alpenglow Hits Community Testing With Mainnet Possible Next Quarter

The biggest consensus overhaul in Solana's history is officially live for testing. Anza, the core development team behind Solana's Agave validator client, said Monday that Alpenglow is running on a community test cluster.

The upgrade replaces TowerBFT and Proof-of-History with a new architecture intended to collapse finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to around 150 milliseconds. Validators overwhelmingly approved it last September, with 98% voting in favor under SIMD-0326.

Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko said at Consensus Miami last week that mainnet activation could come next quarter if testing goes smoothly. SOL traded around $97 on the news.

Ethereum Foundation Names Three New Co-Leads to Its Protocol Cluster

The Ethereum Foundation is reshuffling the team responsible for Ethereum's base layer. Will Corcoran, Kev Wedderburn, and Fredrik Svantes will co-lead the Protocol cluster as longtime developers Barnabé Monnot and Tim Beiko depart the foundation. Researcher Alex Stokes is going on sabbatical.

The transition lands as the EF works to ship Glamsterdam, the next major network upgrade, in the first half of 2026, followed by Hegotá later in the year. Svantes leads the foundation's Trillion Dollar Security initiative.

The cluster's outgoing leadership oversaw the December 2025 Fusa upgrade, which introduced PeerDAS and raised Ethereum's gas limit on the path to 200M.

Binance Says AI Defenses Blocked $10.5 Billion in User Losses

Binance said Monday its AI-powered security systems prevented roughly $10.53 billion in user losses between Q1 2025 and Q1 2026, protecting more than 5.4 million users.

In Q1 2026 alone, the exchange said it intercepted 22.9 million scam and phishing attempts and safeguarded about $1.98 billion in user funds. Binance has deployed more than 24 AI initiatives and 100+ models, with AI now powering 57% of its fraud controls.

The disclosure lands amid a brutal threat backdrop: crypto fraud reached $17 billion in 2025, up 30% year over year, with AI-enabled scams 4.5x more profitable than traditional ones.

🎧 TODAY on UNCHAINED ON AIR 🚨

DEX in the City, 12pm ET: Three acquisitions in one week (MoonPay/DFlow, Bullish/Equiniti, Kraken/Reap) and mega raises at Circle, Canton, and Haun/a16z. Is crypto winter over? Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, Vy Le, and GSR's Josh Riezman dig into the M&A frenzy, Atkins' SEC speech, the Clarity Act, and public companies launching tokens.

Then, Arthur Hayes joins Laura: Why the AI race plus money printing is the perfect setup for crypto. His Tehran Toll Booth scenario is now playing out in the data, and he's still long HYPE.

Join us on X, YouTube or PumpFun.

• 🎮 Ronin will hard fork on May 12 to migrate from an independent sidechain to an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the OP Stack, four years after its $625 million Lazarus-linked bridge exploit. The transition introduces a Proof of Distribution model that cuts RON token inflation from over 20% to below 1%, with EigenDA handling data availability.

• 💰 Michael Saylor's Strategy bought 535 bitcoin for $43 million after a brief pause, bringing total holdings to 818,869 BTC worth roughly $66.5 billion. Saylor walked back his earlier signal about potential dividend-related bitcoin sales, saying the company would buy 10 to 20 BTC for every one sold and remain a "net accumulator."

• 🌷 Tom Lee's BitMine slowed its weekly accumulation to 26,659 ETH worth roughly $62 million, its smallest weekly buy since the firm became an Ethereum treasury, as it nears its 5% supply target. Lee declared "crypto spring has commenced," noting a May close above $2,100 would mark ETH's third consecutive monthly gain — a pattern never seen in a crypto bear market.

• ⚖️ Anchorage Digital is stepping back from a leading role in the Global Dollar USDG stablecoin consortium that includes Robinhood and Kraken, citing the need for "increased neutrality." CEO Nathan McCauley said roughly 20 banks and tech giants are now exploring stablecoin issuance through Anchorage's white-label platform.

• ⛏️ MARA Holdings reported Q1 revenue of $174.6 million, down 18% year-over-year, with net losses widening to $1.3 billion driven by unrealized losses on its 35,303 bitcoin holdings. MARA said it does not expect to pursue large-scale ASIC purchases going forward but emphasized bitcoin mining remains its "operational foundation" amid an AI infrastructure pivot anchored by its $1.5 billion Long Ridge acquisition.

• 📉 Bakkt reported $243.6 million in Q1 revenue, down 77% from $1.07 billion a year ago, swinging to an $11.7 million net loss as the firm pivots to stablecoin infrastructure. BKKT shares fell 11% after-hours as CEO Akshay Naheta outlined a three-pillar strategy around regulated digital asset markets, programmable payments, and international investments.

• 🏛️ Augustus received conditional OCC approval to charter Augustus Bank, N.A. as the world's first clearing bank for the AI era, built on a stablecoin and AI-native core. The company, which has raised $40 million from Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures, Creandum, and the founders of Ramp, Deel, and Circle, counts Kraken among its clients, with 25-year-old co-founder Ferdinand Dabitz set to become the youngest CEO of a federally chartered US bank in over 100 years.

• 💳 S&P 500 payments firm Corpay partnered with BVNK to add embedded stablecoin wallets and settlement capabilities across its global network, serving over 800,000 clients. Corpay processes more than $12 billion in monthly corporate payments and $26 billion in monthly FX volume across 145 currencies.

• 🏦 Ripple Prime secured a $200 million debt facility from Neuberger Berman's specialty-finance group to expand institutional margin lending across equities, fixed income, and digital assets. The prime brokerage arm has tripled its revenue year-over-year since Ripple acquired Hidden Road in 2025.

• 🇫🇷 French BTC treasury firm Capital B raised €15.2 million ($17.8 million) in a private placement backed by Blockstream CEO Adam Back and French asset manager TOBAM. The proceeds will fund the purchase of 182 additional BTC, bringing Capital B's total holdings to roughly 3,125 BTC.

• 🏦 Galaxy-backed Boundary Labs raised $2 million in pre-seed funding to launch USBD, an institutional stablecoin with continuous onchain verification of reserves and net asset value. The Ethereum-based stablecoin targets asset managers, hedge funds, and family offices through a separate yield-bearing sUSBD token, with launch slated for early summer.

• 🤖 MoonPay acquired Dawn Labs and launched Dawn CLI, an AI-native trading product that lets users build and execute strategies for prediction markets using plain-English prompts. The platform starts with Polymarket support before expanding to additional venues, with non-custodial wallets and reviewable strategy code addressing autonomous trading risks.

• 🔮 AurumX completed its strategic acquisition of Manadia, integrating the prediction market infrastructure into AurumX's on-chain financial system as a core module for information finance. Built on the Veritas oracle layer, Manadia will soon launch its decentralized prediction market as a flagship product within the AurumX ecosystem.

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