Internal Slack messages revealed that the North Korean operative worked on core MetaMask code for approximately one month before being terminated. Although Consensys confirmed that the infiltrator was stopped before any damage was done, the market remains skeptical of MetaMask’s ability to guarantee the safety of its users’ funds. According to the report, the North Korean software engineer worked under the alias “Tyler Knapp” and used the GitHub handle “imyugioh.” He was hired as a consultant through a third-party service provider with a long-standing relationship with Consensys.

Consensys says North Korean operative was terminated after one month

Consensys confirmed that the North Korean software engineer was not hired directly through its internal hiring pipeline, insisting that the third-party hiring agency may have been responsible for the breakdown in proper screening. Internal Slack messages reviewed show that Tyler Knapp worked on the core MetaMask platform code. He had access to the core MetaMask codebase that converts crypto to fiat currency via third-party payment providers and vice versa.

The North Korean also contributed to MetaMask’s mobile wallet codebase on GitHub. Those contributions began on March 9 and abruptly stopped in April, the same month Consensys cut off his access, meaning the operative had roughly a month of activity within the company’s systems. Consensys general counsel Matt Corva revealed that the company discovered the threat quickly after Tyler was hired. The company followed its security protocols and terminated access immediately upon identifying the threat.

Corva also said a subsequent investigation found no misappropriation of assets or data, no malicious code pushed into production, and no impact on user safety. In April, Corva sent a company-wide alert ordering all product releases suspended pending investigation and instructing staff not to interact with the individual. He also asked employees to keep the matter internal while the probe continued, a request that suggests Consensys was trying to control the narrative well before the story became public this week.

North Korean operatives posing as remote software engineers have repeatedly landed real jobs at American companies. These companies achieve this with the help of US-based facilitators running laptop farms that make it appear the worker is logging in from within the country. One Arizona woman was sentenced last year for running such an operation, which prosecutors say generated more than $17 million for North Korea-linked entities, according to reporting from The Guardian.

Earlier this year, two more American nationals were sentenced for facilitating similar schemes that the Department of Justice says touched close to 70 US companies. Crypto firms are an especially attractive target because a developer’s ordinary access can extend well beyond source code into transaction signing infrastructure, the layer where stolen funds actually move. Blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs has estimated that North Korea-linked actors were behind roughly two-thirds of all crypto stolen in hacks last year, a figure that includes the $1.5 billion Bybit theft widely attributed to Pyongyang.

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“Robinhood trenches are brutal,” BubbleMaps, an on-chain analytics firm, wrote on X, calling the memecoin market “a tough game.” Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum Orbit layer-2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum to cut fees, went live on July 1, 2026. However, of the 164,538 traders active across the network’s top 50 tokens, only 37% have made a profit.

The remaining 63% have lost money. Cryptopolitan reported CASHCAT (CASHCAT), the token modeled on Robinhood’s old cat mascot, jumped 718% in 24 hours to a $68 million market cap on July 8, when Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev publicly warmed to memecoins on the network. However, since then, the token has bled out.

BubbleMaps says traders are facing Robinhood trenches

The token is trading at roughly $0.0557, down about 75% from its July 11 all-time high of $0.2252, with a market cap near $55.7 million and about 4,840 holders. Around 25,000 wallets reportedly held CASHCAT on July 13, when the token carried a market cap near $150 million. Beyond tallying winners and losers, BubbleMaps ran distribution checks on individual tokens and found that CASHCAT shows no major holder clusters and a solid spread of ownership.

A handful of clusters that were present at token launch have already sold out of their positions. The checks show that the losses on CASHCAT come from ordinary price action, not from a concentrated group sitting on the supply. CASHDOG, on the other hand, was flagged and labeled as heavily bundled. BubbleMaps said its holders were funded through one-time contracts, implying a coordinated setup rather than organic buying.

Robinhood is currently covering gas fees for wallet transactions during the first 90 days in order to pull in more users. That incentive, paired with the CASHCAT frenzy, has brought $3.1 billion in volume over seven days to the decentralized exchanges on the chain. Meme tokens such as Wen Lambo, Tendies, and Hoodrat follow closely behind. DeFiLlama pegged the total value locked on the chain at about $227 million on Saturday.

The tokenized stocks Robinhood actually built the chain to sell have drawn far less interest so far, accounting for just $12.66 million in market cap on the network. At its peak, CASHCAT alone was worth twelve times that figure. The industry is observing whether activity on the chain remains constant once the gas subsidy expires in late September and traders start covering their own fees.

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The dispute extends beyond social media since Base now handles a major share of on-chain stablecoin activity and secures $11.61 billion in total value, according to L2BEAT.

Coinbase also reported a record 8.6% share of global crypto trading volume in Q1 2026.

The debate emerged on X on July 18 after trader Rune spoke with Cobie, who recently took charge of the Coinbase Base application, about why users should choose the platform. 

Cobie acknowledged Coinbase has often been “a little bit in an ivory tower and a little bit distant from users,” particularly those focused on crypto-native activity.

Coinbase Admits Distance From Users

Rune described Coinbase as “a consumer app that doesn’t care about their consumers” and said recent events showed that “believing in anything @base-related for more than 24 hours is a mistake.” His posts received hundreds of likes, reflecting wider frustration within the broader community.

Cobie clarified that he leads the Base consumer app and Coinbase trading products, including the main Coinbase app and Advanced trading. He stressed that he does not run the Base blockchain.

Jesse Pollak remains responsible for Base network operations. On July 16, Pollak said he was handing the consumer app to Cobie so he could focus on Base, which he described as the biggest opportunity to build a blockchain for the global financial system.

Base Leadership Resets Product Strategy

The leadership change follows a difficult quarter. Pollak described the period as “a punch in the face” and outlined a renewed focus on trading, payments, and AI agents. 

He also acknowledged that Base’s move into social applications had not worked, leading the project to concentrate on areas with stronger long-term potential.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had already addressed the setback. On July 13, he said the company’s content coins project had failed, stating, “We have messed up, time to turn the page.” Armstrong added that Coinbase shifted away from the project earlier in the year and now prioritizes trading, payments, and AI agents.

Base Scale Raises Stakes for Coinbase

Coinbase reported in its Q1 2026 shareholder letter that Base handled 62% of global on-chain stablecoin transaction volume, exceeding the combined total of other blockchains. 

It also processed more than 90% of global on-chain volume tied to agentic stablecoins, while stablecoin trading volume on Base increased tenfold from a year earlier.

L2BEAT currently classifies Base as a Stage 1 optimistic rollup. However, the network may fall to Stage 0 in about 30 days as its proof system does not meet upcoming trusted-setup requirements. The governance review is separate from the ongoing public dispute.

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On-chain analyst EmberCN reported the transaction as memecoin trading, protocol revenue, and Solana network activity showed a slowdown.

The Solana-based platform launched in January 2024 and charges a 1% fee on token swaps. Its growth during the memecoin boom generated fee income, while Kraken transfers converted part of that revenue into cash.

Pump.fun SOL Transfers Reach $812 Million

EmberCN estimates that Pump.fun sold about 4.81 million SOL between January 2024 and July 18, 2026. Those sales were valued at roughly $812 million, with an average selling price of $168.70 per token.

The latest Kraken deposit forms part of that pattern. Pump.fun has generated more than $1 billion in cumulative revenue since launch, including about $664 million during 2025. Revenue reached approximately $124.7 million in the first quarter of 2026.

Different data providers report larger totals as they measure separate categories. EmberCN tracks SOL sent to Kraken and believed to have been sold. 

DefiLlama reported about $1.86 billion in cumulative fees and more than $1.2 billion in protocol revenue as of July 18, 2026. Those figures cover income earned across Pump.fun products rather than token sales alone.

Memecoin Slowdown Hits Solana Activity

A June 16, 2026 report said Pump.fun activity fell 80% over the previous three months. Average daily revenue dropped to about $800,000 in June from roughly $4.8 million six months earlier.

Only 0.26% of newly created tokens reached the market capitalization required to move onto other exchanges. Traders also shifted toward perpetual futures platforms such as Hyperliquid, reducing the on-chain activity that previously supported Solana’s fee generation.

The slowdown matters for Solana as Pump.fun served as one of the network’s largest fee-producing applications. Lower token creation and trading volumes have reduced the economic contribution that memecoin activity once delivered to the blockchain.

PUMP Token Falls as Revenue Weakens

PUMP declined nearly 40% over six months and traded near $0.0016 on July 18, 2026, according to DefiLlama. That price stood well below its $0.0088 peak, while the token’s market capitalization was about $655 million.

The decline followed a surge in demand that helped Pump.fun raise $600 million through an ICO completed in 12 minutes.

STORM Partners identified Pump.fun as a central platform in the 2024 and 2025 memecoin boom. Estimates indicated that it helped launch about 11 million tokens by mid-2025, although fewer than 1% reached exchanges such as Raydium.

EmberCN’s wallet tracking showed that Pump.fun still transferred SOL to Kraken periodically through July 18, 2026. DefiLlama revenue data and Solana network fee metrics provide separate measures of the platform’s shrinking activity and its effect on the wider ecosystem.

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One of the world’s largest crypto payment platforms, BitPay, will be able to continue to operate in Europe, while several industry players are leaving the market. The US-based fintech announced its European subsidiary has obtained regulatory approval in accordance with the Union’s new rules for the sector, stating in a press release: “BitPay B.V. has been authorized as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) under the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM).”

BitPay calls MiCA license a “significant growth point”

The company described the development as “a significant growth point” that will allow it to expand cryptocurrency and stablecoin payments in the member states of the 27-strong bloc. The licensing under the single framework will allow merchants to accept decentralized digital currencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and fiat-pegged coins like Tether’s USDT, including in cross-border transactions. Consumers will have broader access to various tools for spending and managing crypto assets.

Quoted in the official announcement, BitPay’s Chief Compliance Officer for Europe, Thom de Jong, emphasized: “Receiving a MiCA authorization from the AFM is an important milestone for BitPay and strengthens our ability to serve businesses and consumers with regulated digital asset services across the EU.” De Jong also noted that the EU law, which recently went into full force, creates a unified framework for what he described as “responsible crypto innovation across Europe.”

“And this authorization adds a strong validation of our compliance-first approach for our customers,” added the regional manager. Founded in 2011, the Atlanta, Georgia-headquartered BitPay is one of the oldest businesses in the crypto space that pioneered blockchain payment processing. The company has offices in North America and Europe, and has raised over $70 million in funding from leading investment firms. Besides the latest regulatory nod from the Netherlands, it already holds money transmitter licenses and other approvals in a number of jurisdictions.

Europe hailed as important continent for the future of payments

The Old Continent “is one of the most important regions for the future of payments,” remarked Jonathan Arler, Head of Europe at BitPay. He added that the platform is now positioned to support retailers and consumers in the region from Amsterdam, amid growing demand for ways to spend and accept digital currencies. “BitPay will continue investing in its European operations, strategic partnerships, and regulated payment infrastructure,” the company vowed.

The main goal is to “make cryptocurrency more practical and accessible for businesses and consumers across the EU,” BitPay stressed on Thursday. A transitional period to allow crypto firms active in the European market to obtain proper authorization under MiCA expired on July 1, as reported by Cryptopolitan. Many businesses in the industry, including major ones such as Binance, the largest digital-asset exchange by daily trading volume, failed to secure a license on time.

Meanwhile, other prominent players in the sector, such as the rival U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, managed to obtain a European permit. On Wednesday, the Chair of the EU’s Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA), Bruna Szego, issued a warning in that regard. According to the official, mass migration of users could overwhelm crypto services in Europe, with platforms leaving the EU facing client outflows while licensed providers may have to deal with a significant influx of new users.

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According to officials, the victim unknowingly entered a work-from-home scheme built around fake product reviews. He was told to deposit cryptocurrency to match the value of the items he was supposedly reviewing, with a promise of commissions and a full refund plus profit once the products were sold. The bad actors behind the scam kept on increasing the amount to be deposited as the products got bigger. When they had drained everything they could from the victim, they cut contact and told him the balance was “stuck in the blockchain” unless he paid one more fee.

Florida reimburses stolen funds to scam victim

Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office investigators were able to trace the stolen deposits to a larger consolidation wallet, which was used to hold funds pooled from several different frauds. Prosecutors then pursued civil forfeiture. The scammers declined to contest the case; therefore, the court entered a default judgment, which saw the recovered amount paid back to the victim. “Instead of setting records, we prefer to prevent fraud but are proud to deliver justice and make this victim whole,” Uthmeier stated.

He credited the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and Chief Assistant Statewide Prosecutor John Paul and said the funds were pulled back from what he described as transnational criminals. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters stated, “Recovering more than $700,000 and returning it to the victim is an outstanding result,” Waters said in the release, thanking Uthmeier’s team for its work holding fraudsters to account. The reason a single $710,000 refund makes headlines is that most crypto-fraud money is never recovered.

Many crypto investigations end with a conviction, while the victims are left empty-handed or with far less than the value of what was stolen from them. An example is the OneCoin case, where the Department of Justice only recently opened a compensation process using more than $40 million in forfeited assets, years after the scheme defrauded an estimated 3.5 million people out of over $4 billion. In Arizona, the state attorney general’s office stated that residents lost more than $177 million to crypto-ATM fraud schemes in 2024 alone.

The development led the state to pass a law giving Bitcoin-ATM victims a narrow 30-day window to request a refund. Despite this, victims say that they are only getting part of their money back after a slow process. Given the above cases, the Jacksonville case then becomes a ray of hope. Uthmeier used the case to repeat warnings about work-from-home fraud, which he said tends to target the most vulnerable.

The attorney general’s office listed upfront charges for background checks or equipment, requests to buy gift cards or crypto as part of a job, unsolicited job offers by text, and interviews conducted only over text as red flags that people should be looking out for. The office advised anyone considering an online job to contact the company directly to confirm it is real before sending any money.

The post Florida recovers $710,000 for crypto fraud victim first appeared on Coinfea.

Tether recorded 36.25 million new wallets in the third quarter of 2024, a 9% increase. By November 2025, Ardoino said the total had reached roughly 500 million and was on track to exceed 530 million in early 2026.

USDT Wallet Growth Accelerates

More than 35 million customers joined the network during the fourth quarter of 2025. USDT’s market capitalization reached $187.3 billion. On-chain data showed 139.1 million holders, while monthly active users hit a record 24.8 million.

Tether linked the expansion to real-world demand rather than speculative trading. Its attestation for the first three quarters of 2025 reported 174.4 billion USDT in circulation with adequate reserves. 

Ardoino has consistently presented USDT as a banking, savings, and remittance tool for regions where traditional finance falls short.

Widespread access and low-cost cross-border transfers have also supported adoption. In many developing economies, USDT serves as a digital alternative to the US dollar. It is also used for exchange trading outside the United States, with new supply entering through institutional purchases and retail fiat deposits.

Tether Broadens AI and Energy Investments

Tether is expanding beyond stablecoins into artificial intelligence, communications infrastructure, energy, financial technology, and technology media. 

It recently upgraded its QVAC software development kit and integrated TurboQuant, which compresses complex AI models so applications can run efficiently on everyday devices without specialized data centers.

Antalpha committed up to $40 million to Tether Gold at market rates through mid-2026. Backed by physical gold, XAUT combines asset stability with blockchain transaction speed.

Africa Expansion Supports Digital Payments

Tether also backed Kenyan fintech Kotani Pay as Sub-Saharan crypto transactions rose 52% annually. 

Chainalysis data showed the region generated more than $205 billion in on-chain activity between July 2024 and June 2025, although it remained the smallest global crypto market.

“At Kotani Pay, we have been fortunate to witness and build on the rising usage of blockchain technology on the continent across a variety of use cases. 

This strategic investment from Tether better positions us to continue our work as a bridge to the on-chain economy, connecting millions of Africans to the global financial system,” said Felix Macharia, CEO and Co-founder at Kotani Pay.

Ardoino said, “Kotani Pay’s vision and strong regional presence make it the right fit to drive our shared goals in Africa. Together, we aim to provide businesses and individuals with access to digital assets for their global operations, reduce friction in cross-border transactions, and build a more inclusive financial future while promoting the informed use of digital assets.”

The post Tether Adds 30 Million USDT Wallets Quarterly as User Base Reaches 500 Million first appeared on Coinfea.

Artemis data shows activity has risen sharply since January, when daily volume stood near $5 million. The latest figure represents an increase of about 44 times within roughly seven months.

The increase has occurred while broader cryptocurrency prices stayed under pressure through much of the year.

The expansion comes while Bitcoin trades about 30% lower for the year. Rather than depending on direct cryptocurrency ownership, Kalshi users trade fixed-risk contracts linked to future price outcomes. Each contract limits the possible loss to the amount paid, while a winning position returns one dollar per contract.

Fixed Risk Contracts Draw More Traders

Crypto contract volume has climbed steadily since May, despite weak and largely directionless market conditions. The structure gives traders a defined way to express a price view without buying or holding the underlying asset.

A user can place a contract on where Bitcoin may trade by the end of a week and know the maximum exposure before entering. 

The contract cannot lose more than its purchase price. That capped structure differs from spot trading, where changing prices can create uncertain losses during sharp market swings.

The record also arrives outside a broad crypto rally. Volume growth during a market decline shows that activity is not limited to periods of rising prices. 

Instead, users are returning to contracts that allow them to trade market direction with predetermined risk.

CFTC Oversight Expands Kalshi Access

Kalshi operates under Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulation and offers access across all 50 states. Its contracts are also distributed through Robinhood and Webull, placing them inside brokerage platforms already used by millions of funded customers.

That distribution reduces several barriers associated with crypto prediction markets. Users do not need an onchain wallet or a separate account at an unfamiliar venue. They can access contracts through applications they already use for other financial products.

The combination of federal regulation and brokerage integration gives Kalshi a broader route to retail traders. It also separates the platform from services that depend mainly on crypto-native infrastructure and wallet-based participation.

Kalshi Takes Former Polymarket Ground

Kalshi now accounts for about 84% of crypto prediction-market volume, taking ground that Polymarket previously controlled. The shift reflects Kalshi’s rapid expansion within a category once closely associated with its rival.

Kalshi carries a $22 billion valuation and is widely expected to pursue an initial public offering. Its July 15 record adds to the platform’s documented growth in daily crypto contracts since January. Those contracts give users a regulated venue for trading views on digital asset prices without directly buying or holding cryptocurrency.

The post Kalshi Crypto Contract Volume Hits Record $217.98 Million first appeared on Coinfea.

Julien Thomas, a principal engineer at Morpho, confirmed that the lending protocol was back online after initially reporting on the AWS CloudFront that caused the downtime in the first place. Julien wrote: “All Morpho services are back and stable. Performance may still be impacted, but the app & the api are functioning.” Amazon Web Services also reported the problem on its status page around the time Morpho experienced its downtime. The cloud service provider noted that between 12:45 AM and 4:18 AM PDT, CloudFront customers using VPC Origins experienced 5xx errors.

Morpho resumes activity after AWS CloudFront downtime

AWS engineers explained that the system that pushes routing configuration to AWS network processors stopped loading the updated data correctly once the fleet that handles connections to private VPC origins reached its internal capacity limit. CloudFront is Amazon’s content delivery network, the layer that routes web traffic to a site’s servers. VPC Origins, the feature at the center of the failure, is a newer option that lets customers serve applications from behind private load balancers without exposing back-end infrastructure to the open internet.

The company said the issue has now been resolved. As Amazon reported, the 5xx errors downtime affected CloudFront customers using VPC Origins. The AI platform Hugging Face, the UK’s National Lottery, and players of Bethesda’s Fallout 76 could also not get online, just as Morpho users. The tradesea trading platform said it had to ship a workaround to keep its web platform online, containing the downtime to its mobile app.

The downtime is the latest to have knocked down the services of a crypto platform. As recently as May, Coinbase went dark after “a room overheating in an AWS datacenter when multiple chillers failed.” The outage struck Morpho’s hosted interface, not its onchain contracts, and the distinction matters. Morpho is an onchain lending network that connects lenders and borrowers, and it reported more than $11 billion in deposits when it raised $175 million in June, in a round co-led by Paradigm, a16z crypto, and Ribbit.

DeFiLlama currently lists Morpho’s total value locked at about $7.33 billion, spread mainly across Ethereum and Base. Neither Morpho nor AWS has published a full incident report tying specific user impact to the CloudFront failure. Julien noted that performance could stay degraded even after services returned, so users may want to watch for a formal post-mortem and confirm transactions settle as expected before assuming full recovery.

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The nonbinding resolution carries no legal weight, nor does it stop the president’s clemency power. However, it puts all 100 senators on record against clemency for Bankman-Fried. The effort was steered by Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican, and Sen. Rubén Gallego, an Arizona Democrat. The United States senators introduced the motion on June 17, days after Bankman-Fried formally petitioned for a pardon with the White House through the Justice Department’s Pardon Attorney’s Office, Cryptopolitan reported.

United States senators barred from lobbying for SBF’s pardon

Sen. Lummis said SBF was trying to avoid the consequences of his conviction. “SBF has clearly ramped up his pardon campaign, and Senator Lummis wants Fried to know she and her colleagues think he’s right where he belongs,” said a spokesperson for Sen. Lummis’ office.

Sam Bankman-Fried has been lobbying for a presidential pardon over the past year, more especially after President Donald Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in November. On June 8, he formally filed a clemency application, despite the president’s having said earlier this year that he had “no intention of pardoning” the convicted FTX founder.

SBF was convicted in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the 2022 collapse of FTX, which wiped out $183 billion of value across the crypto market. He was sentenced to 25 years. Prosecutors described the scheme as one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history, with FTX customers losing more than $8 billion. Bankman-Fried will only be eligible for release in 2044.

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