Altcoins have lost their appeal after years of sliding with no recovery, leading to accelerated retail capitulation and general selling pressures. The current selling pressure has surpassed the 2022 market crash and the subsequent bear market. In 2026, altcoin holders are no longer willing to wait for years for an eventual recovery. The current selling trend, excluding Ethereum, affects legacy assets, some VC-backed tokens, and platforms with no significant fee activity. As Cryptopolitan reported, new batches of altcoins outperformed assets from previous market cycles.

Altcoin selling pressure hits a new peak in June

As of June 17, the altcoin season index sits at 49 points, in neutral territory between BTC dominance and interest in other assets. Among the top 100 assets, only 36 have net gains in the past three months, based on CoinMarketCap data. Altcoins have also abandoned the rise of narratives, and instead, liquidity concentrates with specific assets and platforms. Real activity, high daily fees, or signs of liquidity inflows are the main drivers of value in altcoin platforms.

Despite the selling pressure, Binance is gaining activity from altcoin trading. Altcoin volume returned above 50% of all Binance activity in June, rising for the past week. At the same time, ETH and BTC activity on Binance slowed down, showing that the most active altcoins still attracted speculative trading. Based on Cryptoquant data, altcoin volumes dropped to local lows of around 30% in March. Binance is the leading venue for altcoins, due to the involvement of market makers and its own curation and liquidity programs for selected assets.

Altcoins tied to revenue-producing ecosystems may retain their value. Already established activity hubs like the Binance ecosystem will support BNB. Solana (SOL), despite the recent losses, also retains relative stability. On the other hand, Cardano has been disappointing due to its lack of apps and revenue. ADA fell to $0.17, lower than the 2022-2023 bear market. Selected DeFi tokens may also retain their gains.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) was among those tokens, recently posting new records above $75. Meme tokens have dramatically slowed down their activity, and most new launches remain in the ‘trenches’, not even graduating to DEX activity. At the same time, trading activity has switched to perpetual futures, spreading to tokenized commodities and equities. This has further undermined the trading of altcoins without significant vetting and fundamental value.

The market has already adapted to mini altcoin seasons, which lift a small selection of assets, instead of causing parabolic rallies for all altcoins. Listings, liquidity pairs, and attention from market makers will differentiate the true winners. Even blue-chip assets like SOL are trading at over 70% below their all-time peaks. Traders remain more cautious and selective, despite indicators of a potential market reversal.

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The Russian government has previously announced plans to limit the cryptocurrencies available to its citizens to only the three most liquid digital assets. Non-professional investors will be allowed to trade BTC, ETH, and Tether’s dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT.

The exact list of pre-approved coins, first hinted at a month ago, was confirmed by a top executive of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). The financial authority does not plan to expand it for the time being or increase applicable investment limits, its deputy governor told RBC Radio. Vladimir Chistyukhin referred to the time after the implementation of Russia’s upcoming law “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights.”

Russia approves digital assets for trading

The legislation, which passed its first parliamentary hurdle in April, must be adopted and come into force by July 1, 2026. In an interview, the First Deputy Chairman noted that ahead of the bill’s second reading, the CBR had indicated it could add more coins, but elaborated: “However, if we consider the initial period after the law enters into force, we do not intend to expand the scope beyond the three currencies … Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT.”

Chistyukhin also stressed that the Bank of Russia continues to see cryptocurrency as a volatile instrument that carries various risks, including that of funds being blocked, as in the case with Tether. According to the draft crypto law, only the cryptocurrencies that meet a set of strict criteria will be admitted to the regulated Russian market for non-qualified investors. These include having a market cap exceeding $60 billion, an average daily trading volume over 1 trillion rubles for the same period, and a trading history of at least five years before admission.

This will result in a pretty short list, which may include only leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana (SOL), BNB, and TRON, among a few others, Russian media commented earlier. Also quoted by the leading Russian crypto news outlet Bits.media, Chistyukhin pointed out that a future expansion will cover primarily domestic non-dollar stablecoins, so that they are “not discriminated against foreign ones.”

He remarked this would make sense only if more of them emerge, noting: “We have one company that has already issued a token for international settlements and is using it. We’ll see how this develops. Perhaps we’ll expand it. But not right away.” While the banker did not name it explicitly, a ruble-pegged stablecoin called A7A5, created by the Russian payments platform A7 and currently issued by the Kyrgyzstan-based entity Old Vector, has become the largest non-dollar stablecoin over the past year.

Russia recognized it as a digital financial asset that can be used in foreign trade to bypass financial restrictions imposed over the war in Ukraine. Speaking to RBC, Vladimir Chistyukhin also stated he sees no need to increase the previously announced crypto investment limit for Russian citizens, as it will mitigate potential losses. Non-qualified investors will be able to acquire no more than 300,000 rubles’ worth of digital assets annually, or around $4,000.

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The attacker minted 13.76 million wrapped ALPH through unauthorized bridge activity, while several major assets also left custody contracts. The team has shut down the bridge and said recovery work is now the main priority.

Hackers Drain Multiple Bridge Assets

The incident affected USDT, USDC, WETH, WBTC, and WBNB across Ethereum and BNB Chain. Early security reporting from Blockaid said the attacker had gained control over three of four guardian keys and used forged Verified Action Approvals to authorize transfers.

Blockaid said the operation lasted about seven minutes. During that period, the attacker created more wrapped ALPH than the previous wrapped supply and unlocked other assets from bridge custody.

On-chain analyst Specter reported that both Ethereum and BNB Chain bridge contracts were hit. The analyst also said stolen funds moved from BNB Chain to Ethereum, and part of the proceeds later entered Tornado Cash.

Alephium Disputes Guardian Key Report

Alephium later challenged the early assessment and said the exploit did not come from a guardian key compromise. The project said the incident came from an off-chain vulnerability in the bridge backend that appeared under specific edge cases.

The team also gave a breakdown of drained funds. It said the attacker took 200,967 USDT, 17,594 USDC, 5.18 WETH, and 0.335 WBTC from Ethereum. On BNB Chain, the losses included 36,750 USDT and 24.386 WBNB.

Alephium said its technical team is focused on remediation, recovery, and further communication. The project also promised more updates in the coming week as it works through the damage.

Liquidity Providers Told To Exit Pools

Alephium urged users not to add liquidity to ALPH pools on Uniswap or PancakeSwap. It also asked existing liquidity providers to withdraw funds and avoid swaps against affected pools.

The warning came because the attacker cannot redeem the unauthorized wrapped ALPH through the bridge while it remains offline. However, more liquidity or trading activity could help the attacker turn those tokens into value.

ALPH recently traded at $0.037, while its market value stood above $5 million. DefiLlama data showed about $756,000 in total value locked across Alephium DeFi protocols and more than $308,000 in bridged value.

The attack adds to a difficult month for cross-chain bridges. Gravity Bridge lost $5.4 million on May 30, Verus-Ethereum lost about $11.5 million on May 18, and THORChain faced a $10 million coordinated attack on May 15. These incidents have renewed scrutiny on bridge security as attackers continue targeting systems that move assets across separate chains and networks.

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According to reports, the country included cryptocurrencies among the underlying assets for transactions involving non-deliverable over-the-counter (OTC) financial instruments. It was done through a resolution issued by the Council of Ministers and the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus (NBRB), local media unveiled. The joint resolution, dated May 23 and published by the Pravo.by portal on Tuesday, enters into force on Wednesday, May 27.

Cryptocurrencies approved to serve as underlying assets in Belarus

According to the document quoted by the business news outlets Office Life and Myfin.by, the updated list now includes the following assets:

• Futures contracts and options;
• Interest rates on the international capital market;
• Stock index values;
• Digital tokens, including cryptocurrencies.

The non-deliverable OTC instruments are usually direct contracts between market players, without the participation of an exchange, that do not involve the actual delivery of the underlying assets. Instead, these products pay investors the change in the value of the asset they are based on over the predetermined period of the transaction. Positions are closed when these contracts expire, and the parties settle the difference in cash, the publications explained.

Reports that Belarus may recognize cryptocurrencies as underlying assets for them came out earlier this year. The move is expected to create more opportunities for crypto investment in Belarus, which is trying to integrate digital coins into its finances. In the past few years, Belarus has been taking a series of steps to expand the circulation of decentralized digital money in its economy. It became the first nation in the post-Soviet space to legalize crypto-related activities such as mining and trading almost a decade ago.

The country did that with a decree signed by President Alexander Lukashenko in 2017, which entered into effect in the spring of the following year. Entities registered as residents of the Hi-Tech Park (HTP) in Minsk, a hub for software and fintech business, were permitted to work with coins. In January 2026, another decree issued by the longtime Belarusian leader regulated the establishment of so-called “cryptobanks.”

The latter will be combining the features and functions of traditional banking institutions with those of cryptocurrency exchanges and service providers. To obtain a license, such entities must again be residents of the HTP and registered with the country’s monetary authority. In mid-May, the management of the IT cluster approved 26 cryptocurrencies that the new crypto banks will be allowed to operate with. The list includes the most popular and capitalized coins on the market, like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), Ripple’s XRP, and Binance’s BNB token.

Other jurisdictions in the region have been trying to catch up with Belarus, including Russia, where lawmakers are currently reviewing a comprehensive regulatory framework. The Russian law “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” which is designed to legalize crypto transactions, including investment and trading, must be adopted by the summer. Companies and individuals from the two allied countries have been actively using cryptocurrencies and stablecoins to circumvent international sanctions imposed over Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

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Global Ledger data shared with Cryptopolitan shows the platform handles stablecoin flows and whale-led transfers after the war in Iran disrupted market activity. 

The exchange now processes lower volumes than its 2024 peak, yet it remains a major regional crypto route for users inside the sanctioned country.

Whale Transfers Keep Nobitex Volumes Alive

Nobitex processed $46.97 million in volume in 2026 so far, which equals about $9.4 million per month. That is below the $207 million monthly volume recorded at its 2024 peak.

Global Ledger analysis found that turnover has fallen more than 18 times from that high point. The exchange also recorded a 50 percent drop in traffic after Iran’s conflict began in March.

However, Nobitex kept its role in Iran’s crypto market. The platform remains linked to the broader centralized exchange system, with $3.06 billion moved from Nobitex to other centralized exchanges.

The report said $1.13 billion of those flows went through the top 10 centralized markets. Large accounts dominated the activity, as 4% of addresses with more than $200,000 in transactions generated 85% of total Nobitex volume.

Stablecoins Dominate As BTC Deposits Fade

Nobitex activity has shifted heavily toward stablecoins, with USDT remaining the main asset used on the platform. The exchange relies strongly on USDT through the TRON network, and the stablecoin now accounts for about 84.4% of trading volume.

BTC deposits nearly disappeared after the conflict escalated. Only 0.08 BTC was deposited to Nobitex after the US attacks on Iran, marking an 86.5 percent decline in Bitcoin deposits.

ETH moved in the opposite direction. Deposits rose from 599 ETH before the war to 2,021 ETH after the conflict, showing a 3.4 times increase.

Other assets showed weaker demand. LTC deposits dropped 34% after the war, while TRX inflows declined 6%. USDT deposits fell only 9%, which kept the token at the center of Nobitex flows.

Suspicious Withdrawal Adds Fresh Scrutiny

Arkham Intelligence data shows Nobitex currently holds about $11.1 million in assets. In the past day, a suspicious wallet withdrew $18.85 million across several chains, although the movement has not been flagged as an exploit.

The withdrawal included $8.07 million in BNB, $3.19 million in SHIB, and $1.09 million in USDT. The funds are still held in the first destination wallet.

Nobitex remains under close watch due to concerns over money laundering and sanctions evasion. Its recent activity shows that Iranian crypto users still rely on digital assets for transfers, trading, and access to stablecoin liquidity despite pressure.

The post Nobitex Whale Activity Continues Despite Iran War Shock first appeared on Coinfea.

Users holding Wrapped Toncoin or bridge-issued j-tokens must move assets back to their native chains before the deadline. The decision follows TON’s growth into a broader DeFi network with native stablecoin support.

Users Face September Withdrawal Deadline

TON confirmed that the Toncoin and Token Bridge at bridge-v3.ton.org will stop all operations after the September deadline. The network said all earlier user transfers have been processed, while executed but unclaimed transfers were completed after fees were covered on both TON and EVM chains.

Users with Wrapped Toncoin on Ethereum or BNB Smart Chain must bridge the assets back to TON. Holders of jUSDT, jUSDC, jDAI, jWBTC, and other j-tokens on TON must also move them back to Ethereum.

TON Retires Legacy Cross-Chain Infrastructure

TON had already announced the bridge retirement in April 2025. From May 10, 2025, users could no longer bridge Toncoin from TON to Ethereum or BNB Smart Chain, though inbound bridging and pending claims remained available.

The bridge was first launched on Ethereum in August 2021 and later expanded to BNB Smart Chain in October 2021. At that time, Toncoin had limited exchange access and lacked native DeFi infrastructure, making the bridge a key route for trading through platforms such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

Modern Bridge Options Replace Old System

The bridge handled 31,893 transfers and moved over 101 million TON tokens without a successful hack or exploit. Wrapped Toncoin also reached 35,694 holders on Ethereum and 113,495 holders on BNB Smart Chain.

TON now points users toward LayerZero, Stargate, Symbiosis, and Rhino.fi for newer cross-chain transfer options. These platforms support native asset movement and reduce reliance on wrapped-token models, though LayerZero has faced scrutiny after the April Kelp DAO exploit.

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Proposal 96, named Protocol Fee Expansion Vote 3, would activate protocol fee collection on the three networks and direct those fees into UNI token burns. 

The vote opens on May 24, 2026, as the DAO seeks to widen a mechanism active beyond the Ethereum mainnet.

Proposal Expands UNIFication Beyond Ethereum

The latest proposal follows the rollout of UNIfication, a governance overhaul approved in late 2025. That framework introduced protocol fee collection and a burn process designed to reduce UNI supply when fees are withdrawn from designated contracts.

If approved, the expansion would bring BNB Chain, Polygon, and Celo into the same system used on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, OP Mainnet, and several other supported networks. The move would raise the number of chains covered by the program to 11 outside the Ethereum mainnet.

The vote is using the expedited governance route created under UNification. This process allows fee parameter updates to skip the RFC stage and proceed to a five-day Snapshot vote before an on-chain vote.

Fee Contracts Drive The Burn Process

Under the system, protocol fees flow into a contract called TokenJar. Searchers that withdraw those fees must burn an equivalent value of UNI through Firepit, then bridge the burned tokens back to Ethereum and send them to the 0xdead address.

For BNB Chain and Polygon, the proposal would set the v2 factory fee recipient to the TokenJar. It would also transfer v3 factory ownership to a V3OpenFeeAdapter contract.

Celo requires extra steps because an earlier proposal failed due to a configuration issue. The new proposal would transfer the v2 feeToSetter role from Wormhole to a DUNI-owned CrossChainAccount and move v4 PoolManager ownership to the same account.

Wormhole’s Native Token Transfer system would handle cross-chain messaging for BNB Chain and Polygon, while Celo would follow the OP stack architecture used by other layer 2 networks.

Uniswap Fees Highlight Wider Market Impact

Uniswap’s fee expansion has drawn attention because the earlier rollout coincided with a sharp UNI rebound in late 2025. The token remains well below its May 2021 record, trading near $3.30 and down more than 92% from its all-time high.

Defillama data shows Uniswap has generated $5.57 billion in cumulative fees, with annualized fees near $477 million. The protocol also holds about $3.3 billion in total value locked across more than 40 chains.

BNB Chain holds $117 million in Uniswap TVL and generated $3.53 million in fees over 30 days. Polygon holds $76.5 million in TVL and produced $1.02 million in 30-day fees. Neither network sends protocol revenue to UNI burns.

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According to Blockaid’s research, over 54,000 fake tokens are impersonating known stablecoins. A total of 2.1 million fake stablecoin instances have been detected across 17 million total token deployments since the GENIUS Act was instituted in July 2025. Most of these clones target USDT, with over 34,000 fake tokens detected, followed by USDC with around 12,000. PayPal’s PYUSD has an impersonation count of 1,600, while DAI follows with 400 tokens.

Fake stablecoins on the rise since July 2025

Cloned stablecoins are distributed across various networks. Around 41.3% of fake stablecoin tokens were found on Ethereum, followed by 28.6% on BNB Smart Chain, and 14.8% on Base. More clones were found on layer-2 networks. Arbitrum recorded 6.9% of fake stablecoins, Polygon had 6.7%, and Optimism had 0.6%. Avalanche had the lowest share with 0.5% of fake stablecoin tokens.

Dusting and memo injection were the most common techniques used to distribute these fake tokens. In dusting, scammers send small amounts of fake tokens to active wallets, hoping users will attempt to swap them on DEXs and discover they have no value. Memo injection involves inserting fake token symbols or malicious contract addresses into a transaction’s memo field.

This attack is common on networks like Solana and Hedera. In this attack, the victim may copy-paste this information and interact with a malicious contract. In addition, hackers have also been deploying rogue dApps. Over 4,200 malicious dApps have exploited stablecoin branding within their URLs and page titles. Around 80 new malicious dApps using stablecoin branding were detected per week throughout 2025, with a sharp spike in Q4.

A total of 661 new malicious dApps were deployed in a single month between October and November of 2025. 2,100 unique victim addresses have interacted with these malicious dApps according to Blockaid. The research found that 87% of dApp impersonation cases targeted Ethereum, followed by 10% on BNB Smart Chain and 1% on Polygon. Ethereum is targeted the most due to its high volume of DeFi activity and the maturity of its stablecoin ecosystem.

Industry players call on government to fix GENIUS Act

After creating websites that mimic legitimate stablecoin platforms, attackers run social media campaigns. They exploit trending topics on platforms like X and Telegram. They also try to phish people through direct messages and emails. They exploit YouTube and create deepfake celebrity endorsements and fake tutorials. Once a victim interacts with a malicious dApp, the attack can take several forms, including seed harvesting and compromised transaction approvals.

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025. The bill faced opposition from bankers and lawmakers. Bankers feared that the legislation could mark the end of banking as people know it. They also warned that it would create a “Wild West” of unregulated stablecoins and threaten financial stability. Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that the GENIUS Act could enable tech giants and wealthy financiers to create crypto-based currencies capable of tracking user behavior.

“If Congress doesn’t fix the GENIUS Act, billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos could launch stablecoins that track your purchases, exploit your data, and squeeze out competitors,” Warren said on X (formerly Twitter) in June 2025. However, the GENIUS Act created new opportunities for scammers to exploit the market. The stablecoin market cap is standing at over $309 billion according to data from CoinGecko. Tether’s USDT leads with a market cap of $184 billion, followed by Circle’s USDC with $77 billion.

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BNB Smart Chain will follow the overall upgrade of the Binance decentralized ecosystem. The Fermi hard fork is expected on January 14, with the main goal of decreasing block time and increasing transaction output. The hard fork will accelerate BNB Smart Chain to 0.45-second blocks, reaching a major protocol milestone. It builds on previous Pascal and Maxwell forks.

BNB Smart Chain prepares for the Fermi hard fork

The upgrade will push BNB Smart Chain closer to the limits of block propagation, retaining predictable uptime with a higher transaction load. Nodes will upgrade to version 1.6.4 and later 1.6.5 to run the updated network parameters. The BNB decentralized ecosystem gave way to Solana in terms of popularity, but remained a staple in trading and other apps.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, BNB Chain is fourth in terms of app revenues, standing behind Solana, TRON, and Ethereum. The chain moved ahead of Base, with $21M in revenues for the past month. The Opinion prediction market, GMGN perpetual futures DEX, and PancakeSwap are the biggest fee generators on the chain. Op BNB Chain also completed its hard fork, coming into force on January 7.

The fork’s key change was PR #305, decreasing block time from 500 to 250 milliseconds. All nodes are upgraded to propagate the new blocks. Op BNB Chain is one of the main Layer 2 networks, working to scale the overall ecosystem. BNB Chain remains one of the most active networks, retaining relatively low transaction fees.

Despite the leadership of Ethereum and Solana in terms of liquidity and trading value, BNB Chain leads in market share based on transactions and general on-chain activity. The Binance on-chain ecosystem accounts for up to 40% of overall traffic in early 2026. The increased demand was one of the main drivers for the network upgrades. BNB Chain and BNB Smart Chain carry a growing ecosystem of decentralized swaps, DeFi, wrapped tokens, and other apps.

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Users were duped into accepting a phishing smart contract in BNB Chain by hackers

A front-end interface exploit is used in a phishing attack

The hackers obtained control of the ZEROBASE web interface without hacking the blockchain itself. The users were redirected to a counterfeit interface and asked to give their consent to USDT spending permissions. As soon as it was approved, the money was drained. One of the victims lost 123,597 USDT. Blockchain researchers Lookonchain affirmed that there is an unauthorized activity that was observed by several users at around 2:30 PM UTC on Friday. The destructive contract in this attack was 0x0dd28fd7d343401e46c1af33031b27aed2152396.

Front-end hacks deal with the user interface in comparison to traditional smart contract exploits. Upon approval of the wallet, Hackers will insert a malicious program to siphon funds after transactions are made. According to security firms, such attacks are difficult for non-technical users to notice. Lookonchain also encouraged users affected to go to their wallet settings and delete suspicious authorizations with websites such as revoke. cash.

Binance and ZEROBASE react to the incident

ZEROBASE admitted the X-compromise at the front end, and to users who contacted the malicious contract, it would automatically block their wallets to prevent any further deposits and withdrawals until approvals were canceled. The platform has put in place measures that would guard against additional losses.

Binance Wallet blocked the phishing site and labeled the related contracts. Affected users also received alerts within 30 minutes to go and revoke any unauthorized approvals. Binance stated that it would keep an eye on the situation and act to secure the users.

Expansive crypto security issues raised

The ZEROBASE hack is after the heightened attention to the security of crypto platforms following the late November attack on the Upbit exchange. The value of digital assets stolen by hackers was 44.5 billion won, or approximately $33 million, and transferred to over a thousand wallets. The South Korean government asked Binance to freeze stolen funds, but it only froze 17% of the requested funds as a result of a delay in verifying the funds.

In another incident, blockchain security system CertiK detected suspicious Tornado Cash deposits, which are attributed to a big emergency withdrawal of 0G Labs. About 520,000 0G tokens worth $516,000 were withdrawn with a privileged functionality. Such events support the fact that front-end and smart contract security should be highly considered in the crypto industry.

Binance and ZEROBase are working hard to reduce risks, and users are encouraged to be cautious when dealing with wallets or staking sites.

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