Arbitrum Foundation, the body behind the Arbitrum network, an Ethereum layer-2 rollup, has decided to dedicate 215 ARB tokens, or $225 million, for gaming innovation on the network. Arbitrum’s optimistic rollup ecosystem is taking Ethereum’s scalability to new heights, allowing developers to launch highly efficient dApps.
Gaming applications are one of those, witnessing tremendous deployments and usage on the layer 2. The move to foster innovation monetarily will solidify Arbitrum’s place as the home for FOCGs (Fully On Chain Games), and the newly instituted Gaming Catalyst Program (GCP) will lead the initiative.
The allocation of the resources toward gaming development, to be utilized over two years, was introduced through a proposal in March, witnessing onchain approval this past week.

Telegram launched the ‘Stars’ token, allowing users to avail digital goods and services from the social platform’s numerous mini apps. Stars is an in-app asset that ensures users can pay for services effortlessly through the app.
Mini-app developers can exchange the Stars for Toncoin (TON) – the native asset of the TON chain, a blockchain network developed and powered by Telegram. They can exchange the tokens on Fragment, a platform on which Telegram users often buy and sell usernames.
Pavel Durov, Telegram’s CEO, mentioned in a post, “With Telegram Stars, mini apps can now accept payments for digital services using the simplest payment method possible – in-app purchases on Android and iOS”. He added, “Mini app developers can withdraw their Stars via Fragment using TON. They can also use

Donald Trump has been using the crypto industry as a talking point this election season, speaking favorably for the industry and pointing out the gaps in legislation surrounding the asset class. In a recent fundraiser held in San Fransisco, former President US and presidential candidate Trump stated that “he would be the crypto president,” according to Reuters.
Trump raised around $12 million in the fundraiser hosted by well-known tech VCs Chamath Palihapitiya and David Sacks. While San Fransisco is mostly liberal, many tech and crypto VCs and startup founders are coming out in support of Trump for his pro-crypto stance.
Moreover, the Democrats are making it much harder for the crypto ecosystem to flourish – another reason why VCs and founders in this space are taking a liking to Trump’s

As the crypto community awaited BTC to push past its all-time high (ATH) of $73,738, with it inching closer to $72,000, the asset’s price quickly dropped to around $68,500 during the weekend. It now fluctuates over $69,000. The price drop has wiped off most of the gains BTC witnessed the past week, cooling off the momentum it was gaining to set a new ATH.
BTC’s reductions come after a massive selloff that saw over $450 million in liquidations as the US government issued its employment report stating the addition of 272,000 jobs. This surprising development caused selloff action, increasing interest rates and the dollar value. Interest rate cuts were expected instead.
With BTC’s price dropping, other cryptos also lost their gains. BTC lost about 2.5%, ETH was down 4%, and SOL saw reductions

Bitcoin miners are reporting dropping revenues across the board due to the halving event that occurred in April. Now that it has been over a month since Bitcoin halving, miners are expectedly receiving lesser rewards from the Bitcoin network, compared to what they earned over the previous four years.
Halving on the Bitcoin network happens once every four years or after every 210,000 blocks, cutting the block rewards miners receive for mining blocks by half. Four halvings have occurred so far – the block rewards after the latest halving reduced to 3.125 BTC from 6.25 BTC. The halving mechanism lets BTC remain deflationary and witness robust price growth alongside other supporting factors.
Consequently, Cipher Mining, a mining firm, observed a 43.9% decline in the BTC it earned in May

The massively popular yet frequently controversy-stirring social media influencer Andrew Tate burnt $11 million of the Top G token – a project he started some months ago. That amounted to 587 million Top G tokens being sent to the Solana Incinerator, removing those tokens from circulation forever.
Tate’s actions nullified 58% of the memecoin from circulation. Only 37% of Top G tokens remain for users to interact with. The immediate cut in the token’s supply caused its price to rise by 130%, taking Top G’s market cap to over $65 million.
The tokens Tate burnt were sent to him by Top G holders, mostly comprising his fans. After the burn, he took to X to let them and the crypto community know, “GUESS HOW MUCH MONEY I’VE MADE TODAY? ZERO.” In the same post, he also said, “IVE MADE OVER 100M

Binance Executive Tigran Gambaryan has been held captive in a Nigerian prison since February. A group of over 100 ex-US prosecutors are demanding the government to step up to free him.
Gambaryan, Binance’s Compliance Head, was arrested in Nigeria along with his colleague Nadeem Anjanwalla after their meeting with government officials went awry. Anjanwalla managed to escape prison and flee the country, but Gambaryan remains arrested.
Nigerian officials detained both executives on false pretexts of Binance indulging in money laundering in their jurisdiction. While no proof exists, this action is perceived as an extortion attempt. Contacts from the Nigerian government allegedly demanded a bribe of $150 million in crypto to settle the money laundering charges against Binance when Gambaryan

Marathon Digital, the largest Bitcoin mining outfit, sold 63% of the 616 bitcoins mined in May, amounting to 390 bitcoins. Its balance sheets revealed $290.4 million worth of cash and cash equivalents by the end of the month.
Marathon’s 616 bitcoins generated was a massive difference compared to other mining companies, as CleanSpark followed it with 417 bitcoins and Riot Platforms with 215 bitcoins. CleanSpark only sold 2.43 bitcoins and Riot none.
The Bitcoin halving is pushing miners toward making their processes more efficient and allowing them to win more blocks, which will compensate for the losses they endure due to the halving. Bitcoin’s halving occurs every four years (approximately) or every 210,000 blocks as block rewards are reduced by half – thus, halving. The last one

In a surprising turn of events on May 21, the SEC requested exchanges like NASDAQ, NYSE, and CBOE to fine-tune their application filings for ETH ETFs. Now, Gary Gensler’s comments state that final approvals may be very close.
With BTC ETFs approved a little over five months earlier, the crypto industry rejoiced when the SEC asked for ETH ETF filings and approved it on May 23. This first step in greenlighting the ETFs required exchanges to submit their 19b-4 filings to the agency.
The next step is where we’re at, with the SEC having to approve the S1 filings submitted by the ETF issuers before the products can trade on exchanges. This process can take anywhere between a few weeks and months as it requires a lot of back-and-forth between the regulator and the institutions about financial

Kraken insiders anonymously spoke to Bloomberg, revealing that the leading crypto exchange plans to go public next year through an initial public offering (IPO). It is looking to raise $100 million from investors in pre-IPO investment rounds and is also on the hunt for a ‘marquee’ company on its board for assistance with the IPO.
The exchange has planned for an IPO in previous years. The offering has failed to transpire due to bad market conditions, regulatory tussles, or both. It has been so since 2021 – Kraken teased the idea of going public that year, with Jesse Powell, Kraken’s Co-Founder and then CEO, saying it could happen in 2022. However, he stepped down from his position, and the IPO never occurred.
While rumors of its IPO emerged again in late 2023, market conditions prevented

Bitcoin’s price is still fluctuating around the $71,000 mark, and it is unable to break through its all-time high (ATH) of $73,738 set a couple of months ago. It rose to the current level a few days ago, before which it exchanged hands at less than $70,000. The price action has been slow despite a nineteen-day streak of growing BTC ETF inflows. Onlookers are wondering why bitcoin is not going past its recently set ATH despite raging ETF interest.

Spot BTC ETFs in the US and elsewhere currently account for over 5% of the bitcoin in supply, registering over $15 billion in inflows. Still, bitcoin prices are not increasing because of other factors. The ETF mania represents trends only in the US and a few other countries, which are too few to get bitcoin to rally on their own. ETFs must be

In a report released by Bybit on June 4, memecoins have become highly likeable assets for institutions on its platform, reflecting the same elsewhere. Beyond the attractive characters that retail users get behind, meme coins represent the ability to multiply wealth quickly, especially during bull runs. Institutions are all for it.
According to the report, institutional interactions with memecoins through spot holdings were up by 226% in March, taking their holdings to a whopping $204 million. April saw a further rise as the total memecoin holdings shot up to $297 million. Most institutions then followed the trend of liquidating their holdings for profits as the memecoin markets underwent corrections.
If anything, this depicts the risk-taking behavior that institutions are now normalizing

A new bill made its way to the Senate that could foster the grounds for unfair treatment of open-source, decentralized protocols. The Intelligence Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2025 was passed by the Senate State Committee and was approved unanimously.
Section 423 of this bill concerns crypto and decentralized protocols as it uses language to cover assets and dApps extensively, providing the impetus to sanction them if they interact with illicit wallets and funds. The bill uses the term “foreign digital asset transaction facilitator,” while discussing placing sanctions on these entities serving users in the US if they do not block illicit fund flows.
The bill will probably pass and become law next year, but how much of it will be implemented as law is a question. Lawmakers can

Binance has reintegrated Visa and Mastercard into its platform, according to its post on X. This move will also include SEPA payments for EU customers who want to use bank transfers to acquire crypto on the exchange platform.
Binance stopped its Visa-related services in December and was dropped by Mastercard in multiple countries in September. Its Visa integration previously allowed customers to spend their crypto holdings on Binance as they would fiat in brick-and-mortar and online stores as well as buy crypto on the platform.
These partnerships ended a little after Binance’s regulatory struggles began with multiple US agencies, namely the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) and the CFTC (Commodities Futures Trading Commission). The former sued Binance for misusing the funds trusted

Robinhood, the stock trading platform, has agreed to acquire Bitstamp, a massive UK-based crypto exchange. The deal is set to close next year for a whopping $200 million. It will elevate Robinhood’s crypto arm to new markets, taking its presence outside the US and allowing it to service customers in the UK, Europe, and many other jurisdictions where the exchange holds licenses.
Bitstamp is one of the most used exchanges in Europe, and its acquisition will help Robinhood strategically grow in market share in the crypto exchange sector. With this deal, Robinhood Crypto will pose serious competition to exchange leaders like Binance, Coinbase, and OKX.
Johann Kerbart, General Manager of Robinhood Crypto, stated, “Through this strategic combination, we are better positioned to expand our

Paxos Trust Company, the issuing entity behind famous stablecoins PayPal USD (PYUSD), Pax Dollar (PUSD), Pax Gold (PAXG), and the now defunct Binance USD (BUSD), has introduced its new stablecoin – the USD Lift (USDL). The stablecoin will be distributed by Paxos’ UAE-based affiliate, Paxos International.
USDL is a yield-generating stablecoin that allows users to accrue interest as they hold the asset, thus working as a “savings product than a checking account product,” said Charles Cascarilla, CEO of Paxos. The stablecoin and the yield-generating mechanism have received approval in the Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) free zone by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA).
The stablecoin will also be offered in other regions, with a specialized focus on Argentina, thanks to the

BNB, Binance Chain’s native asset, has registered a new all-time high (ATH) of about $712 to prove its place as a top-five cryptocurrency. Many tokens deployed on its chain also saw a massive spike in activity, with Floki and PancakeSwap’s CAKE gaining 15% and 25%, respectively.
The BNB ecosystem has since witnessed a rise in TVL by over $2.4 million as of Wednesday, showing increased user interest in its DeFi ecosystem. The largest chunk of the inflows was channeled into PancakeSwap’s DEX, as users took their value to the numerous pools on the application. Lending application Venus trailed behind in value inflows.
As user activity on the BNB Chain increased, the native token’s price rallied impressively, crossing $700 and going slightly above the $710 mark to record its new ATH. BNB has

In an innovative scheme, cybercriminals have attacked a prominent newsletter distribution platform that caters to several crypto platforms, including exchanges and crypto analytics platforms. CoinGecko’s Co-Founder and COO, Bobby Ong, confirmed that there was indeed a breach within an undisclosed, third-party newsletter distributor’s platform.
He said, “We at CoinGecko may be potentially affected and are actively working with our vendor to investigate further to determine the extent of this breach. We have seen phishing CoinGecko emails being sent from other client accounts. There is no CoinGecko token being planned so don’t be duped by the phishing emails.”
Cybercriminals are reportedly using this newsletter platform to launch phishing attacks by sending corrupt links to those subscribed

BTC ETFs observed the largest single-day inflows since March today, marking the second highest inflows into the US-approved products since they launched in January this year. An estimated $880 million flowed into the ETFs, with Fidelity Investment’s FBTC ETF alone registering $378 million in inflows.
Simultaneously, BTC’s price surged past the $71,000 mark for the first time in about two weeks and fluctuated over $71,500. While the asset’s price has set records this year, the past two months were slow, and its price moved significantly below $70,000. Now, it is rising over that threshold as bullish forces take full effect again.

The excitement is spilling into physically backed, SEC-regulated ETFs. BlackRock’s BTC ETF inflows amounted to over $274 million, following closely behind

Avail, a project bringing a data availability layer network to the growing modular blockchain ecosystem, has secured $43 million through Series A funding from Cyber Fund. The project will compete with other big names in the DA niche like Celestia.
Founded by Polygon co-founder Anurag Arjun, Avail looks to address the scalability issues associated with present-day blockchain builds. The project will ensure newly developed layer 2 networks move away from monolithic builds and utilize its data availability network instead of relying on Ethereum, which is already congested.
Switching to bespoke data availability networks like Avail can help reduce gas fees tremendously and scale transactions beyond existing limits, pushing blockchain networks toward Web2-like efficiency. Avail is addressing