Treasury Comes for Binance Over $1 Billion in Iran-Linked Flows

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🇮🇷 The Treasury Department privately demanded Binance comply with its 2023 monitoring program after reports that more than $1 billion flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked entities

• 📉 Coinbase posted a $394 million net loss in Q1, its second straight quarterly loss, as revenue fell 31% to $1.4 billion and transaction revenue plunged 40%

• 🛡️ Aave is rewriting how DeFi lists collateral, adding cybersecurity and technical reviews to its risk framework after the $293 million KelpDAO exploit nearly broke the protocol

• 🟣 BitMine may ease off its weekly ETH purchases after Tom Lee disclosed the firm holds nearly $12 billion in ether and could hit its 5% supply target in six weeks

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Treasury Demands Binance Comply With Monitoring Program After $1B Iran Flow: Report

The U.S. Treasury Department has privately demanded that Binance comply with the monitoring program tied to its 2023 guilty plea, according to a Thursday report from The Information. The directive followed allegations that more than $1 billion flowed through the exchange to Iran-linked entities between March 2024 and August 2025.

Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Gene Lange reminded Binance in a recent letter to share "critical data records and documents" with the independent monitor. Binance pleaded guilty in November 2023 to sanctions and AML violations, paid $4.3 billion in penalties, and accepted independent monitors reporting to the DOJ and FinCEN.

The pressure follows "Operation Economic Fury," the U.S. campaign launched in April to disrupt Iran's financial infrastructure. Binance's BNB token fell to about $641 on the news.

Coinbase Posts $394 Million Q1 Loss as Trading Revenue Tumbles 40%

Coinbase reported a $394 million net loss in the first quarter, its second consecutive quarterly miss, sending shares down more than 5% in after-hours trading. Revenue fell 31% year over year to $1.4 billion, missing analyst expectations of around $1.49 billion.

Transaction revenue, the core of Coinbase's business, dropped 40% to $756 million, with retail customer activity bearing the brunt of the decline. CFO Alesia Haas said total crypto market cap and trading volumes were both down more than 20% quarter over quarter, calling macro conditions "genuinely tough."

A $482 million unrealized loss on Coinbase's corporate crypto holdings drove most of the GAAP figure. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $303 million, a 67% year-over-year decline but the company's 13th consecutive positive quarter on that metric. The earnings followed Tuesday's announcement of a 14% workforce reduction.

Aave to Overhaul Collateral Standards After $293M KelpDAO Exploit

Aave Labs plans to fundamentally reform how it lists collateral following last month's near-catastrophic KelpDAO exploit. Chief Legal and Policy Officer Linda Jeng announced the changes Thursday at Consensus Miami 2026.

Going forward, every asset proposed as collateral will face reviews of cybersecurity, interoperability, and technical architecture, alongside the traditional volatility and liquidity assessments. Aave will also publish minimum standards for asset listings, with the goal of setting a new bar across DeFi.

The catalyst was the April 18 exploit of KelpDAO's LayerZero-powered bridge, which let an attacker mint 116,500 unbacked rsETH and deposit roughly 89,000 of them into Aave as collateral to borrow nearly $200 million in ETH and wstETH. Aave's TVL fell by roughly $10 billion in the days that followed.

BitMine May Slow Ethereum Buying as $12 Billion Stash Nears 5% Supply Goal

BitMine Immersion Technologies may slow the pace of its Ethereum purchases, Chairman Tom Lee said Thursday at Consensus Miami 2026. The Ethereum treasury firm now holds 5.18 million ETH, worth roughly $11.9 billion, equal to about 4.29% of the circulating supply.

Lee said BitMine could hit its stated 5% target, the firm's "alchemy of 5%" goal, in roughly six weeks at its current pace of more than 100,000 ETH per week. "I'm not sure we want to get to 5% too quickly," he said, adding that "there's other things to be doing in crypto right now."

Those other things include a recently announced $4 billion share repurchase program and the firm's MAVAN institutional staking platform, which currently stakes about $14 billion across ETH, SOL, and Canton. Shares of BMNR fell roughly 4% on the news.

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• 🔄 Binance founder CZ floated reviving Binance.US to give American traders access to global crypto liquidity, citing improved U.S. policy as the CLARITY Act advances. Speaking at Consensus Miami, CZ said many developers who left for Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and Singapore are now returning, and pitched BNB Chain as a payment rail for AI agent transactions.

• 🐂 JPMorgan said Strategy's bitcoin buying could reach $30 billion this year at the current pace, well above the roughly $22 billion the company bought in each of 2024 and 2025. Strategy has added 145,834 bitcoin worth roughly $11 billion year-to-date, with much of the buying happening below its average cost basis of $75,000.

• 📈 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs posted a 5-week buying streak with $3.8 billion in cumulative inflows, pushing total net assets to a record $108.76 billion. The 25-delta skew is compressing toward neutral as traders unwind downside protection, signaling broader institutional appetite returning amid Iran peace talks and AI-driven equity gains.

• 🔒 Solv Protocol migrated $700 million in tokenized bitcoin infrastructure from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP following a security review and recent cross-chain hacks. Combined with Kelp DAO's earlier shift after a $292 million exploit, the migrations bring nearly $1 billion in assets to Chainlink's bridge infrastructure.

• 📉 Hyperliquid Strategies posted a $165.4 million net loss for the nine months ended March 31. The Nasdaq-listed firm has spent $216 million accumulating HYPE since its inception in December 2025, bringing its total holdings to 20 million tokens with $103 million in cash remaining.

• 🏛️ Donald Trump Jr. denied rumors that he and his brothers had abandoned World Liberty Financial, calling speculation about the Trump-linked crypto firm "news to me." The denial came at Consensus Miami amid WLFI's escalating legal battle with Tron founder Justin Sun.

• 🚔 Marlon Ferro was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for his role in a $250 million crypto theft ring, where he served as the "instrument of last resort," breaking into homes to steal hardware wallets. The 20-year-old, known online as "GothFerrari," was also ordered to pay $2.5 million in restitution.

• 🪙 Bitwise will take over management of Superstate's $267 million tokenized Crypto Carry Fund on June 1, marking the asset manager's first move into tokenized funds. The fund will be renamed the Bitwise Crypto Carry Fund while continuing to run on Superstate's blockchain infrastructure.

• 🤖 Amazon Web Services launched Bedrock AgentCore Payments with Coinbase and Stripe, enabling AI agents to autonomously make stablecoin payments for APIs, data feeds, and paywalled content. Built on Coinbase's x402 protocol and Stripe's Privy wallet, the system processes USDC payments on Base and Solana in roughly 200 milliseconds.

• 🎯 Kalshi raised $1 billion at a $22 billion valuation in a Series F round led by Coatue, with participation from Sequoia, a16z, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest. The prediction market platform's institutional trading volume jumped 800% over six months as annualized volume tripled to $178 billion.

• 🐙 Kraken parent Payward agreed to acquire Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments firm Reap for $600 million in cash and stock, valuing Payward at $20 billion. The deal marks Kraken's first infrastructure acquisition in Asia and adds card issuance and cross-border payments to its B2B platform.

• 🪐 Saturn raised $2 million in seed funding led by The Spartan Group, with participation from Anchorage Digital and Susquehanna Crypto, to build the application layer on Bitcoin powered by Strategy's STRC. The protocol packages STRC distributions into USDat, a Treasury-backed stablecoin, and sUSDat, its staked version that captures STRC reward exposure for eligible global users.

1. Hyperliquid Research Collection: 2026 Hyperliquid Q1 Report

2. Shaunda Devens: HIP-4: Outcome Markets