The CLARITY crypto market structure bill could see a markup in the US Senate Banking Committee as early as next week, according to Kara Calvert, the vice president of US policy at crypto exchange Coinbase.

“My prediction is that we have a markup next week,” Calvert told the audience at the Consensus 2026 crypto industry conference in Miami, Florida.

She said that the bill needs at least 60 votes to pass in the Senate and that the CLARITY bill needs bipartisan support to become law. She said:

“That means you need Democrats. You need a bipartisan bill, and we have all been working really hard to make sure that bipartisanship holds. I think the big question is, how do these votes shape up over the next few days?”

Kara Calvert, pictured on the left, provides an update on the CLARITY market structure bill. Source: Consensus 2026

A HarrisX survey on Thursday revealed that there is strong, broad-based and consistent demand for clear federal rules. A 70% majority of voters say the US should already have passed clear cryptocurrency legislation, and 62% say it is important that the US set the global rules for digital finance.

The CLARITY bill stalled in January after Coinbase withdrew its support for the legislation, citing several concerns, including a lack of legal protections for open source software developers, a prohibition on stablecoin yield, and decentralized finance (DeFi) regulations. 

Related: US senator says crypto market structure vote may happen by August

Coherent tax policy remains a barrier to institutional adoption

A lack of coherent tax policies is the main “barrier” to institutional crypto adoption, Calvert said, adding that tax reform is a bigger issue for institutions than market structure legislation.

Many of these institutions just want to buy and hold cryptocurrencies or trade digital assets, but are burdened by tax compliance and reporting requirements, she said.

A HarrisX poll shows there is broad bipartisan support for passage of the CLARITY Act. Source: HarrisX

Tax reporting requirements under the current regulations mean the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) forces crypto exchanges to document every crypto transaction using 1099-DA forms, she added.

“We’re sending out millions of 1099-DA’s for things like $1 transactions — that makes zero sense,” Calvert said.

She added that she “hopes” tax reform legislation can advance through Congress in 2026, citing several crypto tax proposals submitted by US lawmakers, including the Digital Asset PARITY Act, introduced by Representatives Max Miller and Steven Horsford in March.

“I think that we will see action in the Senate. I think we will see legislation, probably in the next month or two, in the House,” she said.

Magazine: Will the CLARITY Act be good — or bad — for DeFi?

Update (May 7 at 9:47 PM UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from Binance.

The US Department of the Treasury reportedly demanded that Binance follow a monitoring program put in place by a 2023 deal between authorities and the cryptocurrency exchange, following reports that the company facilitated $1 billion to entities tied to Iran.

According to a Thursday report by The Information, the Treasury Department “privately demanded” that Binance be in compliance with a monitoring program to which it had agreed after reaching a deal with US authorities in 2023. The deal, which included a $4.3 billion settlement with Treasury and the US Department of Justice, required Binance to comply with a three-year monitoring program overseen by government officials. 

The reported letter from Treasury followed reports that Binance fired individuals responsible for telling the exchange’s executives that $1 billion flowed through the platform to entities tied to Iran. A group of senators followed, urging Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to report on Binance’s adherence to the 2023 settlement.

“Binance is committed to cooperating with the independent monitor and our ongoing collaboration with relevant agencies,” a spokesperson for the exchange told Cointelegraph in response to the report. The spokesperson said:

“We welcome constructive feedback from the Treasury and view this oversight as an important part of continuously strengthening our compliance and anti-money laundering controls. We are providing the monitor with full cooperation and transparency.”

Binance’s ties to the Trump administration have come under scrutiny since a United Arab Emirates-based entity invested $2 billion in the crypto exchange using the USD1 stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, the company co-founded by US President Donald Trump and his sons. Trump also pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao in October 2025.

Related: US authorities freeze $344M in crypto linked to Iran

Zhao pleaded guilty to one felony charge related to failure to maintain an anti-money laundering regime at Binance as part of the 2023 settlement.

Changpeng Zhao speaking at Consensus on Thursday. Source: Cointelegraph

Zhao rules out leading another crypto company

The Information’s report coincided with Zhao’s appearance at the Consensus conference in Miami on Thursday.

The former CEO said he had been “trying to avoid [the] US” but floated the idea of revitalizing Binance.US to give users access to global liquidity. He also dismissed the idea of being in a leadership role at a crypto company again, having resigned as Binance CEO in November 2023.

“I don’t think I’ve got the stamina to run another startup, to lead another company,” said Zhao. “I’m a one-trick pony. I’m okay with that level. I’m done.”

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026

Key takeaways:

• Half of the $6 billion in Bitcoin options open interest is tied to long-shot strategies used for hedging and neutral price strategies.
• The 9% put (sell) options premium hints that professional traders are worried about a potential Bitcoin price drop.

Bitcoin (BTC) bulls have high hopes for the year-end options expiry on Dec. 25, which features $6 billion at stake. The 33% price gain since the $60,130 yearly low on Feb. 6 have played a major role in bringing back bullish expectations. However, the huge amount of call (buy) options targeting $115,000 and higher for Dec. 25 raises questions about whether bulls are overconfident.

December Bitcoin call (buy) options open interest at Deribit, BTC. Source: Deribit

Deribit exchange holds a 92% market share in December’s Bitcoin options open interest at $5.5 billion. However, the actual value at expiry will be much lower. Many of these instruments were placed on unlikely outcomes as a hedge or for neutral strategies that do not require large price moves to remain profitable.

Bitcoin call options dominate, but both sides have unrealistic bets

Put (sell) options are underrepresented by 56% on Deribit compared to call options. Crypto traders are known for being bullish, so the put-to-call ratio is usually skewed. Still, the $1.85 billion in open interest in call options targeting $115,000 and higher is significant. This setup makes it worth comparing how optimistic call options are versus the puts.

December Bitcoin put (sell) options open interest at Deribit, BTC. Source: Deribit

The high volume of put options targeting $55,000 and lower is also notable, totaling $1 billion in open interest. This means the percentage of bets considered improbable is similar for both sides, sitting at roughly 50% of the open interest in each segment. If bulls are seen as overly optimistic, then the bears appear equally extreme in their pessimism.

December Bitcoin options pricing at Deribit on May 7. Source: Deribit

Beyond serving as a counterbalance in strategies with different expiry dates, a call option at $120,000 offers cheap exposure to extreme upside events. Based on Deribit prices on May 7, a buyer pays $2,202 to secure unlimited upside exposure to the equivalent of one full Bitcoin at a price of $120,000 or higher on Dec. 25.

The options skew metric provides a clearer view of professional traders’ comfort levels regarding both upside and downside price risks.

Related: Bitcoin holds $81K amid flat derivatives markets–Is rally sustainable?

Bitcoin 6-month options delta skew (put-call) at Deribit: Source: Laevitas

Put options are trading at a 9% premium relative to equivalent calls, signaling moderate fear of downside price movements in Bitcoin. Under neutral conditions, the skew indicator should range between -6% and +6%. According to derivatives metrics, investor optimism was not substantially impacted by the rally to $80,000.

Ultimately, the $1.85 billion in December call options should not be interpreted as a sign of excessive bullish confidence.

Jack Dorsey’s payments firm Block rose 7.9% in after-hours trading as its Q1 earnings surpassed analyst estimates, despite posting its first loss in three years.

Block came out with quarterly earnings of 85 cents per share, beating the Zacks consensus estimate of 68 cents per share. Investors responded positively, driving Block shares to $75.70 after hours, Google Finance data shows.

“This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +25.68%,” said Zacks Equity Research on Thursday. “Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates two times.”

Expanding Bitcoin’s use into the payments space has been a key area of focus for Dorsey, who previously argued that widespread payment adoption is needed to fulfill Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. In late April, Block noted that over 800,000 US-based merchants have enabled Bitcoin transactions for everyday purchases.

Block reports first quarterly loss in three years 

The earnings beat came despite Block reporting its first quarterly loss since 2023, driven by a 23.8% drop in the price of Bitcoin over the three-month period.

Q1 net loss was $309 million, which included a $172.8 million Bitcoin remeasurement loss on the 8,883 Bitcoin it held as of March 31. 

Bitcoin revenue from Cash App and other Block products fell to $1.8 billion from $2.33 billion a year ago.

Block attributed the fall to “Bitcoin trading dynamics” and a “strategic decision to reduce the fee” charged on certain Bitcoin transactions on Cash App.

Block’s gross profit rises 27% in Q1

Block’s Q1 gross profit — net sales minus cost of goods sold — reached $2.9 billion, up 27% from a year earlier. 

Bitcoin payments in Cash App contributed $63 million to Block’s gross profit, while Square had no meaningful impact on Block’s Bitcoin business.

Avory & Co. founder and chief investment officer Sean Emory said “Block had a strong quarter,” having “beat and raised” its guidance.

Source: Jevgenijs Kazanins 

The quarter also included a restructuring overhaul in late February, when Dorsey announced about 4,000 staff cuts, representing roughly 40% of the company’s workforce, as part of a plan to rely more on AI in search of greater operational efficiency. Block’s operational expenses rose 57.2% year-on-year to $3.08 billion in Q1.

Cash App’s quarter-over-quarter change in gross profit. Source: Block

Block expands Bitcoin offerings

In late April, Block launched a proof-of-reserves for its corporate Bitcoin treasury and for users to confirm Bitcoin balances on Cash App and Square as part of a push to increase transparency with its customer base. 

Related: Bitcoin exchange reserves fall to two-year low after $8B exodus 

In the same announcement, Block unveiled a Bitkey hardware wallet with a touchscreen to verify transactions and a new feature on Cash App allowing certain users to automatically convert payments into Bitcoin. 

It also started offering 5% Bitcoin cash back rewards for Square merchants and raised customer withdrawal limits fivefold to $10,000 per day and $25,000 per week, extending Dorsey’s push to broaden Bitcoin’s role in everyday payments. 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

Coinbase shares slid Thursday after the US crypto exchange reported a steep first-quarter loss while revenue missed Wall Street expectations.

Coinbase reported a net loss of $394.1 million in Q1, its second consecutive quarterly loss after reporting a $667 million loss in Q4 2025. It swung from a $65.6 million profit a year earlier. 

“Macro conditions were genuinely tough,” Coinbase chief financial officer Alesia Haas told investors on an earnings call. “Total crypto market cap and total crypto trading volume were both down more than 20% quarter-over-quarter.”

Coinbase’s earnings come as other crypto companies have also struggled to turn a profit in the first months of 2026 as a crypto market slump pushed some traders to other investments.

Meanwhile, Coinbase’s Q1 revenue was $1.41 billion, missing analyst estimates of $1.5 billion. Transaction revenue slumped 40%, while subscription and services revenue — representing its business outside trading — fell 13.5% from a year earlier. 

It reported a loss of $1.49 per share, compared to analysts’ expectations of 36 cents per share, which saw Coinbase dropping by 4.7% after hours on Thursday to under $184.

Coinbase shares fell in regular and after-hours trading on Thursday amid the company’s first-quarter earnings. Source: Google Finance

Coinbase’s stock has fallen more than 14.5% this year, prompting the exchange to pursue new business lines such as prediction markets and cost-cutting measures, including laying off 14% of its workforce, or about 700 employees, on Monday.

Despite the company’s earnings, CEO Brian Armstrong struck an optimistic tone on the earnings call, telling investors that “the world economy is moving on-chain, and Coinbase was built to capitalize on this transition.”

He added that over the past year, Coinbase has aimed to transition from “a primarily spot-focused crypto platform into a place where you can now trade any asset class.”

“We’re in kind of this interim period where spot crypto assets were down a bit, other asset classes were up. As we diversify, these things will get balanced out, where we’ll just be in a more upward channel over time,” Armstrong added.

Related: Block Inc rises 8% as Q1 gives ‘earnings surprise’ despite Bitcoin dip

Coinbase rival Robinhood Markets also missed estimates for the first quarter last month as its crypto revenue and trading volumes nearly halved from a year earlier.

Bernstein said in March that the decline in crypto stocks presented a more attractive entry point for investors seeking exposure to the current hot theme of tokenization and maintained a bullish rating on Coinbase and Robinhood.

It argued that the companies offered investors exposure to a broader shift toward tokenized finance, including stablecoins and prediction markets, which it expected to gain traction in the coming years.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026

Crypto risk management firm Chaos Labs said its Chaos Oracle Network was not compromised after a weekend attack attempt that it said may have involved a state-backed actor.

Chaos Labs founder Omer Goldberg said in an X post Thursday that the company detected the incident over the weekend and immediately moved into “full lockdown.”“The surface area was strictly contained to operational wallets we use for routine onchain operations. At no point was the Chaos Oracle Network breached or compromised.”

“Chaos Oracles run in a fully isolated environment with nodes distributed globally, protected by layered security and cryptographic controls,” Goldberg said.

“The authorities and cyber professionals working with us have characterized the activity as consistent with nation-state attacks,” he added. “The investigation continues, and we will share more as it allows.”

State-backed hacker groups, particularly those from North Korea, have been seen as a persistent threat to the crypto space.

North Korea-affiliated actors have been accused of stealing at least $578 million across several major incidents in April and have been linked to many of the industry’s largest hacks. North Korea recently rejected claims linking it to global cybercrime, calling the allegations unfounded.

Goldberg said Chaos Labs rotated all keys after the incident and has not detected further suspicious activity.

Source: Omer Goldberg

Recent industry exploits prompted “highest severity” response

The April Kelp DAO hack has been one of the year’s largest security incidents, causing broader ecosystem contagion and impacting the interconnected crypto lending market.

Drift Protocol, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, and at least a dozen other crypto entities were hacked in the same month. 

Goldberg said against the backdrop of recent exploits, Chaos Labs triggered its “highest-severity incident response” after detecting the attempted hack.

“We allocate a substantial share of our operating budget to cyber defense, alerting, and detection,” he added.

Several crypto firms shift to Chainlink

Borrowing platform Tydro said it is migrating to the Chainlink oracle platform following the attack on Chaos Labs, adding to the list of crypto firms that have switched providers in recent weeks.

Related: Chaos Labs taps out as Aave’s risk provider, decision ‘not made in haste’

DeFi protocol Kelp DAO is migrating its restaking token rsETH to the Chainlink oracle platform following the April exploit. It continues to blame the attack on LayerZero’s cross-chain infrastructure, which LayerZero has disputed. 

Decentralized finance platform Solv Protocol has also flagged plans to migrate its cross-chain infrastructure from LayerZero to Chainlink in “light of recent industry events.”

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

Aptos Foundation and Aptos Labs have committed $50 million to Aptos development, with a particular focus on AI agent infrastructure and research, including support for two products it shipped last year to meet rising demand for onchain AI agent activity. 

Those products include Decibel, an AI-powered onchain order book and perpetuals exchange that launched on the Aptos mainnet in February, and Shelby, a decentralized storage protocol that seeks to support the workloads of AI agents, the Aptos Foundation said on Thursday.

“Autonomous agents are already transacting onchain at frequencies no human can match, routing to whatever venue is fastest, most consistent, and least gameable,” it said.

Aptos joins a growing number of crypto protocols seeking opportunities in supporting the agentic AI economy. Aptos said there is a need to build infrastructure that offers sub-second finality and systems that “run 24/7 with no human to escalate to.”

AI agents can act as personal assistants for people, both at home and in the workplace, completing everyday tasks on their behalf, whether it be booking a flight, making a shopping purchase or executing a high-level trade onchain.

The Aptos ecosystem’s “full stack” plan for markets and machines. Aptos Network

Last month, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong predicted there will be “more AI agents transacting online than humans very soon,” echoing comments from Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire in January that “literally billions of AI agents” will be transacting onchain in three to five years.

The World Economic Forum is expecting a boom too, having predicted in January that AI agents could become a $236 billion market by 2034, a 43-fold rise from its $5.4 billion market size in 2024.

AI agents use blue-chip stablecoins to transact

On Wednesday, Amazon Web Services said it integrated Coinbase’s x402 payments protocol into Amazon Bedrock AgentCore to allow AI agents to make USDC (USDC) payments and access services through AWS-managed payment controls. 

A week earlier, crypto wallet startup Oobit launched a Visa-supported virtual card for AI agents to make online purchases in USDt (USDT) on behalf of businesses. 

The foundation said the Aptos (APT) token would play a central role in the ecosystem’s AI agent economy by being burned in transactions, required to access advanced AI agent features, and staked to improve performance. 

Related: How AI agents can reshape arbitrage in prediction markets 

The foundation said the $50 million would also be used to develop other aspects of the “Aptos stack,” which also includes integrations with neobanks, institutional platforms and wallet providers.

Aptos said it also plans to work on building encrypted mempools and offer confidential perps trading, among other things.

Aptos rolled out privacy-focused coin last month

Meanwhile, Aptos launched a privacy-focused coin — Confidential APT — on Aptos mainnet on April 24 as part of an effort to fix a long-standing trade-off between protecting user privacy and preserving transparency for compliance. 

Aptos Labs founding engineer Sherry Xiao, told Cointelegraph that Confidential APT could help businesses hide the salaries of employees who are paid onchain, as well as conceal treasury movements, settlement flows and trading strategies that competitors could otherwise see. 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026 

US prosecutors said they have secured eight sentences in the last five months against people acting as US-based proxies for North Korea-based IT workers, shedding new light on how they have been able to infiltrate US companies. 

Two men have been sentenced this month alone. The Justice Department said Wednesday that separate courts sentenced Nashville resident Matthew Issac Knoot and New York resident Erick Ntekereze Prince for helping North Koreans work remotely for US companies.

The US perpetrators, known as “laptop farmers,” acted as recipients for laptops that US companies would send to new employees. They installed remote desktop software on the devices, allowing North Korean IT workers to use them remotely while appearing to work from the US.

North Korea’s remote worker scheme, which generates revenue for the government, has aggressively targeted technical roles at crypto companies in an effort to gain access to company assets or understand their infrastructure to steal or exploit them.

Source: FBI Cyber Division

Prosecutors said Knoot, who was sentenced on May 1, and Prince, sentenced on Wednesday, each received 18 months in prison. 

Prince was ordered to forfeit $89,000, the amount the North Korean workers paid him for the scheme, while Knoot was ordered to pay $15,100 in restitution to the companies and to forfeit an additional $15,100, the amount he earned from the scheme.

Together, the Justice Department said the pair generated $1.2 million in revenue for North Korea, and the scheme affected nearly 70 US companies.

Related: North Korea tied to heists worth $578M in April after Kelp DAO exploit

Last month, New Jersey residents Kejia Wang and Zhenxing Wang were given nine years in prison and seven years, eight months in prison, respectively, for hosting laptop farms for North Korea.

Prosecutors in that case said the scheme lasted multiple years, used the stolen identities of 80 people in the US and made over $5 million for the North Korean government.

According to a report by CrowdStrike in August, the number of companies that hired North Korean workers over the previous 12 months jumped 220%, with workers infiltrating more than 320 companies over that period.

The report noted that North Korean workers were heavily using artificial intelligence to automate and optimize the process of applying for and working in remote jobs.

The US charged four North Koreans in June last year, accusing them of stealing more than $900,000 in crypto after using fake identities to gain remote employment at an Atlanta-based blockchain research and development company and a Serbian crypto company.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) has spiked by more than 70% over the past week as crypto traders have been paying closer attention to privacy-focused projects.

Zcash traded at about $346 on Friday, May 1, before hitting a seven-day peak of $593.86 on Wednesday. It has since settled at around $570 as of Friday, according to CoinGecko.

Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at crypto exchange Swyftx, told Cointelegraph that traders have begun paying closer attention to privacy projects “amid broader concerns about the impact of AI, quantum computing and financial surveillance on crypto.”

He added that ZEC was also boosted after Tushar Jain, the co-founder of the investment firm Multicoin Capital, said on Wednesday that it had “built a significant position” in ZEC since February.

Zcash is one of the more prominent privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, trailed by its significant rival Monero (XMR), and Jain said it is an attractive investment as “institutions will increasingly seek private assets to protect themselves” from what he claimed was a “political trend to seize private wealth.”

Several crypto firms have also recently released new privacy features. The Ethereum scaling solution Polygon launched private stablecoin payments on Sunday, while Aptos Labs’ privacy feature Confidential APT, which conceals token balances and transfer amounts, went live on the mainnet in April.

The market intelligence platform Santiment said in an X post on Wednesday that Zcash was “emphatically rebounding,” as fear of missing out and social media mentions of Zcash spiked along with its price.

Santiment pointed to a lack of government trust as a possible catalyst for the surge in interest from retail traders. 

Source: Santiment

“The crowd is increasingly viewing privacy-focused assets as a hedge against growing surveillance concerns, tighter exchange regulations and expanding AI-driven data tracking across financial platforms,” Santiment said.

Related: Dash Evolution chain integrates Zcash Orchard privacy pool

“At the same time, lower market caps across many privacy coins have traders eyeing them as high-upside momentum plays during this mild altcoin rally crypto has seen so far in May,” it added.

Zcash rally could be short-lived

Privacy was a significant investment theme for crypto in 2025, with privacy-focused tokens surging last year despite a broader downturn in the rest of the market.  

Zcash nearly crossed $700 in November, its highest price since 2018, while fellow privacy coin Monero reached a new all-time high of $797.73 in January.

However, neither held on to the gains, and Swyftx’s Hundal said that the recent rally could also be short-lived.

“Zcash’s move has some hallmarks of a narrative rotation into privacy coins,” Hundal said. “I’d be careful calling it a clean fundamental repricing just yet. We need more time to see how durable investor interest is.” 

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs — Mid-2026