Author: WebDesk

A new academic study has found that Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin prediction contracts have created incentives for sophisticated traders to manipulate spot prices and profit at the expense of ordinary participants. Summary Stanford researchers link Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin markets to settlement-price manipulation. The study estimates about $1.28 million shifted from retail traders to sophisticated participants. Researchers say longer settlement windows and improved pricing methods could reduce manipulation risk. According to researchers from Stanford University and Singapore Management University, the structure of Polymarket’s short-duration Bitcoin markets encourages traders to influence the cryptocurrency’s spot price shortly before contracts settle. Their paper concluded that…

Senate Democrats have intensified scrutiny of Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche during his confirmation hearing, accusing him of weakening crypto enforcement while President Donald Trump’s digital asset businesses have expanded. Summary Dick Durbin accused Todd Blanche of dismantling DOJ crypto enforcement to benefit Trump’s crypto businesses. Senate Democrats linked Blanche’s nomination to demands for stricter ethics rules in crypto legislation. Blanche defended the DOJ’s new approach while saying he would review the Binance pardon process if confirmed. According to proceedings from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Senator Dick Durbin used his opening remarks to argue that Blanche…

Rebeca Moen Jul 15, 2026 21:16 xAI has open-sourced Grok Build, its AI coding agent and TUI, making the tool fully accessible on GitHub for developers to explore and extend. xAI, Elon Musk’s AI venture, has open-sourced Grok Build, its terminal-native AI coding agent and command-line interface (CLI). As of July 15, developers can access the full source code on GitHub. The move aims to foster transparency and enable developers to customize and extend the tool for their own workflows. First launched in beta in May 2026, Grok Build was designed for professional…

Bitcoin has underperformed compared to other “risk-on” assets this year — and if history’s anything to go by, its price could dip as low as $38,000 by October.  That’s according to a new report by NYDIG, which reveals that the asset’s current slump is down to supply mechanics rather than risk sentiment.  Bitcoin’s price has in the past moved with tech stocks but 2026 has been different: AI-related equities have soared while crypto markets have slumped. Bitcoin was recently priced at $64,809, down nearly 30% year-to-date and close to 50% less than its October all-time high of $126,080.  “Bitcoin’s 2025–2026…

Something changed on X this week. For the first time in years, your timeline actually shows people you know. The X algorithm update rolled out on July 13, 2026, and it quietly fixes the platform’s biggest problem. In this post, we break down what changed, why it matters for airdrop hunters, and how you can benefit today. Moreover, we have a spicy theory about what the old algorithm did to crypto. Stick around for that one.What Changed in the X Algorithm UpdateX’s head of product, Nikita Bier, announced the change on Monday. In short, the algorithm now boosts posts and…

A tournament is not one betting environment. It is three, and they arrive in sequence.The group stage floods a bettor with fixtures and long-dated futures. The knockouts strip both away and replace them with elimination risk. The Final collapses everything into a single settlement event on one afternoon.A web3 sportsbook behaves differently at each of those points, and the thing worth understanding is not what on-chain betting is, but what changes about it as a tournament runs down to one match.With Spain through to Sunday’s Final and one semi-final still to play, the 2026 competition has now passed through all…

President Donald Trump plans to meet with a group of senators at the White House on Thursday afternoon to address the last major obstacle to the crypto market structure bill, according to people familiar with the plans that spoke to Politico and lawmakers involved in the talks. The sticking point is the ethics section of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which would restrict senior government officials from holding personal business interests in the crypto sector. Democrats have made such limits a condition of their support, in large part to address Trump’s own ties to the industry.  Negotiators have not…

A new study argued that Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin contract became a machine for wealth transfer. It moved money from retail bettors to a small band of manipulators, and it made Bitcoin’s spot price worse in the process. The paper, “Settlement Manipulation in Prediction Markets” by David Dai, Ruizhe Jia, and Shihao Yu of Stanford and Singapore Management University, studied a product that did not exist before February 12, 2026.  On that date Polymarket launched a binary contract that paid $1 if Bitcoin closed a five-minute window above where it opened, and $0 otherwise. A fresh contract opened every five minutes…

The ONDO price gained nearly 5% after Ondo announced a major milestone in tokenized securities, but the bigger story may be where the project now sits within traditional finance. The rally also pushed the token back to its 50-day EMA after rebounding from a key ascending trendline, putting traders on alert for a possible breakout.Price is reacting, but the next move depends on whether buyers can build enough momentum to clear overhead resistance.Ondo Joins DTCC Tokenization InitiativeOndo revealed that it has launched the first tokenized stock representations based on DTC tokenized entitlements to DTC-held securities generated through the DTCC Tokenization…

Jessie A Ellis Jul 15, 2026 17:14 Celestia Labs acquires Sovereign Labs to provide full-stack blockchain solutions, leveraging Sovereign SDK for high-performance custom chains. Celestia Labs has announced its acquisition of Sovereign Labs, a move aimed at establishing itself as a full-stack blockchain development partner. The deal will integrate Sovereign Labs’ highly-regarded Sovereign SDK, a framework for high-performance, application-specific blockchains, directly into Celestia’s modular blockchain infrastructure. This acquisition marks a pivotal shift in Celestia’s strategy. Previously focused on its Layer 1 modular blockchain, the company will now offer end-to-end custom blockchain solutions, meeting…