pol

Investigative journalist Whitney Webb released a series of investigations about the origins and ambitions of Polymarket.She stated that the claim in Polymarket's official narrative that "Shayne Coplan founded the company alone in 2020 and started it in a bathroom" is not true; the origins of Polymarket can be traced back to the earlier company TokenBnk and has connections to Israeli-related crypto projects.Webb said that the first part of the series will outline Polymarket's early history and discuss its potential connections with Peter Thiel-related forces and DARPA's early prediction market projects.

According to BBX data, the prediction market faced a dual attack yesterday, with traditional exchange infrastructure accelerating its on-chain transition. The core dynamics are as follows:The prediction market/event contract ecosystem where Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: $HOOD) operates suffered a dual regulatory blow yesterday: first, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has launched a comprehensive investigation into Polymarket (privately held), covering its social media activities and suspected wash trading behaviors; second, a Michigan court ruled to prohibit Kalshi (privately held) from offering sports betting services to residents in Michigan. Although these two incidents directly target Polymarket and Kalshi, their strategic importance to Robinhood cannot be ignored—Robinhood provides event contract products linked to KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC through its subsidiary Robinhood Derivatives LLC, making it the largest distribution channel for prediction markets among regulated brokers in the U.S. The CFTC's escalation of enforcement investigations into similar platforms will directly impact Robinhood's event contract business compliance framework and product expansion speed; in June, the average daily trading volume in this sector reached a historic record.Nasdaq, Inc. (NASDAQ: $NDAQ) announced yesterday that it has chosen Pyth Network (on-chain price oracle protocol) as its on-chain distribution partner for TotalView (Nasdaq's full market depth data product), marking the first time Nasdaq has integrated its core institutional-level market data into a blockchain network—TotalView provides full-level buy and sell quotes and transaction data for the U.S. stock market, historically only available to traditional financial institutions (subscription-based); on-chain distribution means that DeFi protocols, decentralized exchanges, and smart contracts can now access Nasdaq-level real-time equity market data as an on-chain pricing basis for the first time. The Pyth Network token (PYTH) subsequently rose by over 6%, with the market interpreting this as a historic fusion point between traditional securities market infrastructure and decentralized finance.

Tom Lee posted on platform X, expressing his happiness to see the Ethereum Foundation carefully addressing key issues regarding the critical role of neutral blockchains like Ethereum in financial infrastructure, economics, and government and policy markets.

According to Jin Shi reports, Russell Investments Senior Investment Strategist BeiChen Lin stated in a report that employment growth in the United States is expected to remain strong in June, which means inflation may continue to dominate the decision-making path of the Federal Reserve. He pointed out that if the labor market remains robust, inflation is likely to be a key factor influencing the Federal Reserve's next actions. Relevant data will be released on Thursday.

Founder of Strategy, Michael Saylor, made his first public statement after the release of the digital credit capital framework: "Stronger credit, stronger equity, more Bitcoin." Michael Saylor's declaration seems to provide a motivational explanation for the launch of the digital credit capital framework, which aims to ultimately achieve a strategic logic of holding more Bitcoin by strengthening the credit and equity structure.

SHAZ announced the completion of a $1.6 billion financing to support a six-year strategic partnership with NVIDIA; 11 hours ago, a fund under Leopold Aschenbrenner announced an increase in its holdings of SHAZ to 19.9%. The former rose by 1.45%, while the latter saw an after-hours increase of 14%. The SEC requires that public reports be submitted when a fund's shareholding exceeds 5%.

According to Bloomberg, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is conducting a broad investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket, covering its business activities including social media operations.Previously, The Wall Street Journal reported that Polymarket hired dozens of social media creators, primarily of college age, to create fake trading videos to attract users. This investigation encompasses other aspects of the company's business. The CFTC and the Department of Justice concluded an investigation last year into whether Polymarket violated the ban on U.S. users, but some U.S. users still access its main platform by circumventing the ban through VPNs and other means.Since reaching a settlement with the CFTC in 2022, Polymarket has technically prohibited U.S. users from using its main platform, but the company is taking steps to reintroduce its main exchange to the U.S. and is cooperating with the CFTC to lift the ban. Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis sent a letter to the CFTC last Thursday, requesting confirmation of whether an investigation into Polymarket's advertising practices is ongoing and inquiring how the agency has prevented Polymarket from attracting U.S. users since the 2022 action.

According to Jinshi, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Intercontinental Exchange Group (ICE) plans to launch new futures contracts linked to global monetary policy decisions and U.S. natural gas inventories, aimed at providing investors with a way to hedge against economic event risks. ICE plans to introduce futures products based on interest rate decisions from the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of England, expected to go live on August 10 after obtaining regulatory approval.

According to BBX data, last weekend Japan's largest financial group completed the most important cryptocurrency acquisition, and U.S. bipartisan senators launched a new regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms. The core developments are as follows:SBI Holdings, Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 8473) announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank (privately held) for approximately $289 million. After the transaction is completed, SBI's cryptocurrency business will surpass all competitors, creating Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchange. SBI Holdings is one of Japan's largest independent financial services groups, already owning cryptocurrency-friendly network bank SBI Shinsei Bank, cryptocurrency asset custodian SBI Digital Asset Holdings, and multiple Bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency venture capital investments. Bitbank is one of Japan's largest spot BTC exchanges and holds an official cryptocurrency exchange license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan. This acquisition marks a shift for traditional Japanese financial institutions from "strategic trial" in the cryptocurrency sector to "scale acquisition dominance," alongside the joint stablecoin plan of the three major banks: Mitsubishi UFJ ($MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui ($SMFG), and Mizuho ($MFG) (targeting March 2027), forming the most intensive wave of cryptocurrency layout in Japan's financial industry by 2026.U.S. Senators John Curtis (Republican, Utah) and Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) reported on June 28 that they jointly sent a letter to the CFTC, urging it to conduct a formal investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket (privately held), citing a "concerning" investigative report regarding Polymarket's "deceptive marketing" practices, which accused it of systematic misleading in user acquisition and risk disclosure. This is the third regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms initiated by Congress this year (previously, the House Oversight Committee launched an insider trading investigation on May 22); the two senators come from different parties, which is significant. For Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: $HOOD), this investigation poses indirect pressure—Robinhood's prediction market/event contract business (which achieved a record daily trading volume in June) faces the same regulatory qualitative disputes as Polymarket; however, Robinhood's defensive advantage lies in its ongoing application for a CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM) license, providing a clearer compliance path compared to Polymarket.

Blockchain intelligence company AMLBot's monitoring data shows that recently Polymarket users on the Polygon network had approximately $3.1 million PUSD stolen due to a front-end malicious script intrusion.The attackers implanted a malicious script that induced users to sign authorization transactions (involving EIP-7702 delegated execution), resulting in the users' wallets being emptied. The stolen funds were then converted to USDC.e through Relay, bridged to Ethereum, and ultimately exchanged for ETH, which was concentrated in a designated address. Currently, about 1891.9 ETH is distributed across three new wallets.AMLBot pointed out that this attack is similar to the incident involving the 2024 1inch web application, where a wallet theft script was implanted in the Lottie Player library, both cases involved third-party scripts being compromised, leading to front-end contamination.

According to CoinDesk, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng stated that the significant decline in the crypto market in the first half of 2026 does not have a single cause. Geopolitical tensions, investors shifting funds to AI, and the typical four-year cycle of crypto may collectively lead to the continued decline of Bitcoin and other crypto assets. Bitcoin reached a historical high of over $126,000 last October and has since fallen by about 50%. At the beginning of this year, Bitcoin opened near $89,000, briefly rose to just above $96,000, and then dropped to around $60,000.In the long term, the crypto industry will continue to develop, and the demand for fintech will increase as the number of transactions continues to rise, so they are not concerned about the industry itself or short-term price fluctuations. They stated that emerging industries like AI are absorbing "hot money" from the crypto sector, but in the long run, this could be a positive factor. When discussing prediction markets, Zhao Changpeng mentioned that the rapid growth of prediction markets as tools for price discovery and liquidity is a good thing for the public.Regarding regulation, Zhao Changpeng stated that separate bills like the U.S. Clarity Act are important but more tactical matters that will not determine the long-term growth of the crypto industry. He hopes the Clarity Act can pass and believes that if U.S. legislation is delayed, other countries may take the lead in advancing rule-making.Zhao Changpeng also mentioned that if the U.S. Democratic Party regains control of at least one chamber of Congress after the midterm elections, there may be a review of Trump's support for the crypto industry and his pardons for crypto executives. Zhao Changpeng stated he "has nothing to hide" and is willing to cooperate if relevant parties seek information. When discussing political influence, Zhao Changpeng said he tries to stay away from U.S. politics but believes that any anti-crypto individuals may now lose a significant number of votes.

According to Bitcoin.com, the European Cybercrime Centre recently led a joint operation codenamed "Endgame," which was the result of collaboration among law enforcement agencies from Canada, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.These agencies jointly targeted the network infrastructure that provided services to criminals, utilizing three key types of "cybercrime-as-a-service" (CaaS) malware: SocGholish, Amadey, and StealC, to collect victims' information and sensitive data.Law enforcement agencies took action against a total of 326 servers and 142 domain names, seizing illegal cryptocurrency worth approximately $47 million and recovering over 27 million stolen credentials.

Polymarket's Vice President of Product Engineering and former Craft co-founder Balint Orosz tweeted that Polymarket has acquired the productivity app Craft Agents, and some team members from Craft will join Polymarket.

According to the Wall Street Journal, several U.S. lawmakers are calling for an investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket, as its advertising is alleged to potentially contain misleading content.It is reported that the lawmakers believe Polymarket may not clearly disclose the nature of its products and associated risks in its marketing, which could mislead users. Some legislators have requested regulatory agencies to intervene and assess the compliance of its advertising and information disclosure standards.

According to CNBC, Polymarket stated that its annual revenue has significantly exceeded $1 billion, a development that comes just six weeks after its U.S. trading platform lifted the waiting list. The platform operates independently from its international DeFi prediction market and will gradually expand user access after its launch in December this year.Driven by the FIFA World Cup, the trading activity in the prediction market has significantly increased, with trading volumes across multiple platforms rising simultaneously. Data shows that the daily trading volume on the U.S. platform has grown from about $50 million in mid-May to over $200 million on June 20 (based on Dune Analytics data).Meanwhile, its international platform set a record for weekly trading volume during the World Cup, reversing the downward trend seen in April and May. The U.S. business was previously restricted due to regulatory issues in 2022, but resumed operations in the form of a regulated exchange after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Department of Justice dropped their investigation and did not file charges in 2024.Currently, the U.S. platform is primarily mobile-based, requiring users to download the app via a QR code to trade, with the desktop version not yet available. Polymarket stated that it will continue to optimize market experience, liquidity, and product design to enhance both institutional and consumer-level experiences in the prediction market.

According to the official announcement, Gate has optimized and upgraded the VIP level evaluation rules. Starting today, Polymarket trading volume and asset holdings will officially be included in the VIP level evaluation system. This adjustment further broadens the VIP upgrade path, allowing Polymarket trading users to fully enjoy the level growth and exclusive rights brought by trading activities and asset holdings.It is reported that Gate continues to improve the VIP exclusive rights ecosystem, creating a high-end service system around multiple dimensions such as trading, wealth management, and lifestyle. Recently, the platform has successively launched VIP exclusive airdrop activities for whiskey, gold jewelry, and more, as well as providing exclusive financial products, higher-level income rights, and diversified benefits such as sports event viewing and invitations to offline activities.Gate will continue to organize VIP users to watch events at Inter Milan and F1 venues, experiencing exclusive hospitality and the atmosphere of top-tier events, creating a richer exclusive experience for high-level users.