TLDR Crypto 2026-06-01

Just launched: US traders can now trade perpetual futures on Kalshi - the first company in America to ever offer them, fully regulated by the CFTC.

Perps are the world's fastest-growing asset class, with $90 trillion in offshore volume last year alone.

Until now, they've been completely off-limits to American traders.

That changes today.

No expiry. No rolling. Just clean, leveraged exposure to crypto prices - onshore, safe, and legal.

BTC is live. ETH, SOL, XRP, and more are coming.

Claim $10 free when you trade $10.

Start here→ Kalshi.com/r/tldr

Gravity Bridge, an Ethereum-to-Cosmos cross-chain bridge, was drained of ~$5.4 million, including $4.3M in USDC, 274 ETH, and $434K in USDT, in what researchers suspect was a signing key compromise rather than a smart contract exploit. The attacker routed stolen funds through ChangeNow and Binance while still holding roughly 2,100 ETH. The Gravity team has since confirmed the incident, asked validators to halt their orchestrators, and suspended the bridge pending investigation. The attack follows a pattern of bridge incidents this year where key management failures rather than audited contract code have been the entry point.

The SEC has charged Texas resident Nathan Fuller with raising $12.3 million from roughly 150 investors through Privvy Investments by promising AI-powered trading bots capable of generating 40% to 100%+ returns in weeks (these were bots that did not exist). Fuller allegedly diverted $6.2 million for personal use, used $5.5 million for Ponzi-style payments to earlier investors, and put only 3% of funds toward actual crypto trading. The case follows a separate bankruptcy proceeding in which Fuller already admitted to operating Privvy as a Ponzi scheme and fabricating documentation. The SEC is now seeking permanent injunctions, disgorgement, and civil penalties.

The CFTC approved Kalshi to list BTCPERP on its registered exchange and issued a no-action letter allowing Coinbase Financial Markets to give US clients access to perpetual futures and options through Coinbase Bermuda, establishing the first domestically regulated crypto perps in the United States. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig characterized perpetuals as a foundational price discovery tool, while Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour described the approval as the firm's transition from prediction market operator to derivatives exchange. Neither action constitutes formal rulemaking, leaving the regulatory framework subject to revision and creating uncertainty for market participants building around these approvals. Recent perp market flash crashes have produced $1.5 million in liquidations, a data point that contextualizes the leverage risks the CFTC's onshore framework is designed to contain.

Paxos Securities Settlement Company (PSSC) received full SEC registration as a central securities depository (CSD), becoming the first blockchain firm authorized to clear and settle US equities on-chain alongside legacy institutions like the DTCC. PSSC can now settle eligible securities same-day or near-instantaneously, compared to the T+1 standard adopted in 2024, freeing locked capital for institutional participants during settlement windows. The CSD status clears the path for Paxos' institutional RWA tokenization strategy, which already powers white-label settlement infrastructure for PayPal and Mastercard. The registration follows seven years of SEC engagement, beginning with no-action relief in 2019 and a live pilot in February 2020 with Bank of America, Credit Suisse, and Societe Generale.

The CFTC issued an advisory on May 29 that distinguishes 24/7 trading suitability by asset class, citing blockchain networks, stablecoins, and decentralized infrastructure as enabling factors for continuous crypto market operation, while warning that expanded hours in agricultural derivatives could generate reduced liquidity, widened bid/ask spreads, and increased manipulation risk. The regulatory distinction draws a formal line between digital asset markets and commodity sectors, particularly agricultural derivatives that depend on regional customer bases and specialized hedging practices.

The current noise around the Ethereum Foundation and ETH's price is obscuring the fact that Ethereum already dominates the institutional metrics that matter, like owning a majority of global stablecoin settlement and the most tokenized real-world assets of any chain, as well as being the default venue for high-value DeFi. Ethereum's decentralization is a feature institutions require. ETH critics focused on price are missing that the TAM is the global financial system.

A US federal court temporary restraining order directed Circle to blacklist Zama's cUSDC Ethereum contract on May 29, freezing $12.6 million in pooled USDC tied to a civil lawsuit alleging that Overnight Finance's treasury was misappropriated. The problem is that Zama's privacy wrapper holds commingled user funds, so the freeze locked out every depositor in the contract, not just the wallet connected to the disputed transfer. Zama has paused its cUSDC, cUSDT, and cWETH wrappers while engaging US counsel. It says it will isolate the flagged deposit to restore access for unaffected users. A full court hearing is scheduled for June 1.

Blockchain's demonstrated utility in payments, financial markets, and real-world assets diverges from the speculative use cases that drew most participants to the space, though Ethereum, Monad, Polygon, Solana, and Base are all directing roadmap efforts toward bringing more assets onchain. Speculative apps targeting crypto-natives, built around asymmetric upside and intellectual-gambling mechanics, proliferate but fail to retain users over time, contributing to a wave of shutdowns and a recurring pattern where departing users label winding projects as "slow rugs." A toxic Crypto Twitter culture around these collapses is deterring builders from launching experiments, a dynamic reflected in crypto developer activity charts that are declining despite a broad rise in overall developer activity driven by AI.

Senate committees are now merging their respective versions of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act after the Senate Banking Committee advanced its draft earlier this month.

BlackRock increased selling pressure in its crypto spot ETFs, with more than $1.21 billion in combined Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) fund outflows over the past week.

CME Group announced that its cryptocurrency futures and options products are now available 24/7.

Early team members credit Base's growth from an empty testnet to the fastest-growing L2 with $10B+ TVL to a "professional sports team" culture.