Crypto Vesting

Bancor, the creator of a smart contract-based automated market maker, is suing Uniswap for patent infringement, alleging the decentralized finance exchange has used its technology without permission and profited significantly from it.

According to the May 20 announcement of the lawsuit, Bancor designed the technology in 2016 and patented it in January 2017. The technology underpins the “constant product automated market maker,” which involves using mathematics to add or withdraw resources from a liquidity pool. The application subsequently led to two issued patents.

Bancor alleges that Uniswap used the invention to create its protocol, launched in November 2018. The two organizations are considered competitors in the sector of decentralized finance (DeFi).

“When an organization continuously uses our invention without our authorization and does so as a means of competing with us, we must take action,” said Mark Richardson, project lead at Bancor.

At the time of publication, Uniswap had not publicly responded to the

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Key takeaways:

An end-of-month Bitcoin price close above $102,400 would set the highest monthly close ever, proving the bull market continues at a rapid pace.

Over $3 billion in Bitcoin short positions are vulnerable above $107,000, creating a “liquidation magnet” that could send BTC price to new highs.

Bitcoin (BTC) is 11 days from potentially setting its highest monthly candle close in history. After achieving a record weekly close of $106,407 on May 18, BTC could secure a new monthly high by closing above $102,400 this month.

Bitcoin 1-month chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

With respect to its current market trend, Bitcoin is inches away from a ‘price discovery’ period, as noted by crypto trader Jelle.

Price discovery in this context refers to the process where buyers and sellers interact at an undefined or non-traded range to determine the market price of an asset.

A break above Bitcoin’s all-time high of $110,000 would initiate a price

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Five years ago, Brian Armstrong wanted employees of his cryptocurrency exchange to refrain from expressing political views at work. Now, the Coinbase CEO seems to be open to involvement with Republican figures, including members of US President Donald Trump’s inner circle.

In a May 13 X post, Armstrong said members of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, spearheaded by Elon Musk, though not set up as an actual department, would be welcome to implement cost-cutting changes at Coinbase after leaving the US government.

Armstrong offered to set up an accelerated onboarding process with the exchange, responding to an interview in which at least one DOGE staffer felt ostracized from Harvard University, where he had been enrolled.

“If you are looking for your next mission after serving your country, consider helping create a more efficient financial system for the world at Coinbase,” Armstrong said.

Since assuming a government

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Artificial intelligence platform Validation Cloud has launched a new large language model on the Hedera network, potentially giving decentralized finance users the ability to reach blockchain data in a more accessible way.

The Mavrik-1 AI engine has been deployed on Hedera, with several other planned integrations expected during a public rollout later this year, Validation Cloud’s team told Cointelegraph. 

The AI engine is designed to allow users to interact with DeFi protocols and access blockchain data through natural language queries without needing technical expertise or knowledge. 

Mavrik-1 uses live onchain data trained for DeFi, stablecoins and other blockchain applications. 

Hedera DeFi metrics, including total value locked (TVL), decentralized exchange volume and stablecoin activity. Source: DefiLlama

“Despite DeFi accounting for over 50% of all onchain activity, accessing and interpreting that data remains a major hurdle for most users and institutions,” Validation Cloud told Cointelegraph, asserting that existing blockchain data tools like Dune, Flipside

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US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Paul Atkins appeared before lawmakers in one of his first hearings since becoming chair of the financial regulator, addressing questions about his plans for the cryptocurrency industry.

In a May 20 hearing discussing oversight of the SEC, Atkins reiterated his pledge to make regulating digital assets a “key priority” while chair. In response to questions from North Carolina Representative Chuck Edwards, the SEC chair did not directly answer how much of the regulator’s funds were used to support the crypto task force headed by Commissioner Hester Peirce, and said its findings were “still under development.”

“We should be having something here in the next few months with proposed steps forward,” said Atkins in response to the task force’s first report. 

The SEC chair’s appearance at the oversight hearing was one of his first since being sworn into office in April. Nominated

Read More at https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-chair-paul-atkins-report-crypto-months?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound

Argentine President Javier Milei has dissolved a task force established to investigate the fallout from LIBRA, the scandalous cryptocurrency project the head of state promoted on his social media channel before it crashed to zero. 

The Investigative Task Force (ITU) was dissolved via a May 19 decree signed by Milei and Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona, government documents revealed. 

“The Research Task Unit is dissolved” after completing its mandate, the translated version of the decree read.

The task force is being dissolved despite pressure from opposition groups, which are seeking to activate an investigative commission as soon as May 20, local media outlet Clarin reported. 

A screenshot of Milei’s tweet endorsing LIBRA. Source: TRM Labs

Government officials established the UTI on Feb. 19, days after Milei promoted LIBRA on his official X account.

His endorsement briefly sent LIBRA soaring from practically worthless to $5 a token and a nearly

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Opinion by: Hatu Sheikh, founder of Coin Terminal

Although blockchains and DApps are critical, crypto industry stakeholders often prioritize applications based on adoption principles and revenue distribution. DApps won’t function without their underlying chains. The markets must uphold blockchains for long-term value generation.

The value perspective is wrong 

Blockchains and DApps should work collaboratively to coordinate their functions for better usability. Instead, analysts create a binary between chains and DApps based on Web2’s structural frameworks.

In “Fat Protocols,” Joel Monegro argued that value within the internet stack comprises “thin” protocols and “fat” applications. In other words, investing in the underlying protocol technologies like TCP/IP, HTTP, and SMTP gives lower returns than applications like Google and Facebook.

Monegro further stated that the value is reversed in the “blockchain application stack.” The underlying protocol layer accumulates more value than the application layer, leading to “fat” protocols and “thin” applications. He later<a data-ct-non-breakable="null"

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US Senate Democrats are getting flak after they helped move stablecoin legislation ahead for discussion on the Senate floor.

On May 19, 16 Democratic senators broke from the party line to pass a motion to invoke cloture, which will now set the bill up for debate on the Senate floor. Some of the same Democrats had held up the bill in early May when they withdrew support, citing corruption concerns over President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency dealings.

The bill’s opponents hailed lawmakers’ refusal to support it but were soon taken aback when the senators reversed their position. The lightly amended legislation contained no provisions regarding World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture.

Some activists have said that the Democrats supporting the bill should be ousted in the upcoming Democratic primaries in 2026, reflecting a growing rift in the Democratic Party.

The Senate voted 66-32 to move the bill ahead. Source: Stand With CryptoDemocratic lawmakers’

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Robinhood has submitted a 42-page proposal to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), calling for a national framework to regulate tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The brokerage firm is seeking to modernize financial infrastructure by making tokenized assets legally equivalent to their traditional counterparts and enabling compliant onchain settlement, Forbes reported on May 20.

In the proposal, Robinhood also reveals plans for creating the Real World Asset Exchange (RRE), a trading platform offering offchain trade matching and on-chain settlement for efficiency and transparency.

Robinhood is advocating for uniform federal standards to replace the patchwork of state-level securities regulations that currently apply. The platform would also integrate Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) tools through partners like Jumio and Chainalysis to meet global compliance expectations.

Related: Central banks testing smart contract toolkit under BIS Project Pine

Robinhood asks for token-asset equivalence

A key feature of the proposal is the

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Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced the launch of regulated derivatives trading on its platform under the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).

According to a May 20 announcement, Kraken’s perpetual and fixed maturity crypto futures contracts will be available for trading by retail and institutional customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). The announcement follows the exchange acquiring an MiFID license in early February through the acquisition of a Cypriot investment firm, approved by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission.

Kraken’s head of exchange, Shannon Kurtas, said, “Europe is one of the fastest-growing regions for digital asset trading and investment, with some of the most sophisticated and demanding clients and institutions.”

He added, “Clients and partners increasingly seek comprehensive offerings within a regulated framework.”

Source: Kraken Pro

Kraken had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for comment by publication.

Release the Kraken

Kurtas said that following the deployment of the new derivatives products, “they [users]

Read More at https://cointelegraph.com/news/kraken-launches-regulated-crypto-derivatives-europe?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound