6 min read · 12 sources

A single $5,500 trade size accounted for 48-58% of all ETH perpetual volume on Kalshi across four separate days, per an anonymous researcher.

Kalshi Accused of Faking Crypto Perps Volume

A crypto researcher published a two-part thread alleging Kalshi is faking a significant portion of its crypto perpetual volume. The thread claims a single $5,500 ETH trade size accounted for 48-58% of all ETH perpetual volume on four separate days. An anonymous source in the thread claims the exchange is running three separate cloud backups ahead of potential deletion of evidence.

The accusation lands at a delicate time for Kalshi, which has been pushing into crypto derivatives as part of its expansion beyond event contracts. If the volume is real, it’s a modest but legitimate market. If it’s fake, it means the exchange has been manufacturing liquidity to attract traders and listing partners. Either way, the researcher is urging people to save the evidence before it disappears.

Polymarket CEO Pushed Growth Over Compliance, Then Came a $10M Fraud Attempt

Polymarket’s CEO Shayne Coplan reportedly told staff to prioritize growth and address regulatory fines later. Leadership dropped a same-source withdrawal rule meant to curb money laundering, despite employee warnings. The Wall Street Journal reported the exchange faced a $10 million fraud attempt, with US CEO Justin Hertzberg leaving in April after flagging the issues.

The same-source rule existed to prevent exactly what the attackers did: moving funds between accounts to obscure origin and launder proceeds. Dropping it to reduce friction made the platform more vulnerable. At one point, Polymarket was rejecting over 80% of deposits as fraudulent, which suggests the problem wasn’t subtle. Engineers running financial infrastructure should read this as a case study in what happens when growth metrics override compliance controls - the fraud teams knew, and leadership overruled them.

Staking Rewards as Venture Capital, Governed by Futarchy

A new proposal on Ethresear.ch suggests treating staking rewards as venture capital governed by futarchy. Vault shareholders forecast specific, measurable project milestones before capital is committed, and share redistribution flows to protocol-native builders who surface deal flow. The idea is that builders inside the ecosystem have better information about which projects will succeed than outside investors.

It’s an interesting governance experiment, but the design questions are unresolved. How do you prevent milestone gaming when the forecasters are also the beneficiaries? What happens when the futarchy market disagrees with the vault’s actual performance? The post doesn’t answer these, but it’s worth reading for anyone building on staking derivatives or governance infrastructure.

Coinbase Opens IPO Allocations to US Customers

Coinbase is opening IPO allocations to US customers through Coinbase Capital Markets, with Apex handling execution, clearing, and custody. This is a securities offering, distinct from the pre-IPO perpetual futures on companies like SpaceX that Coinbase launched for non-US users in June, which only provide synthetic price exposure rather than ownership.

US customers can also transfer existing stock portfolios onto the platform to trade major stocks, indexes, and ETFs. This follows Coinbase’s earlier SEC filing this month seeking approval to list equity perpetuals. For retail investors who have never had access to IPO allocations outside of a prime brokerage account, this is a significant widening of access - and a new revenue stream for Coinbase that doesn’t depend on crypto trading volume.

Hyperliquid's HYPE Hits All-Time High on New Lending Feature

HYPE reached an all-time high of $90.92 on Friday after Hyperliquid launched manual borrowing and lending. The feature uses the same HyperCore infrastructure as the portfolio-margin system, with every borrowed asset coming from a supplier rather than platform-level margin accounting. Co-founder Jeff Yan said the protocol reported $269 million in total borrowed assets across its markets.

The launch came two days after Payward, the parent company of Kraken, made an undisclosed move that appears related to Hyperliquid’s ecosystem. The lending feature is notable because it separates supplier capital from the exchange’s own balance sheet, which means lenders aren’t exposed to the platform’s trading losses. That’s a meaningful architectural choice for anyone who has watched centralized lenders blow up in past cycles.

SEC's Tokenized Stock Exemption Is Narrower Than the Market Thinks

The market is overreading the SEC’s Innovation Exemption. It only covers two models: issuer-native tokenization, where a transfer agent treats the token as the security itself, and third-party custodial tokenization, where a token carries the same rights as the underlying stock, including dividends and voting. Synthetic exposure - notes, derivatives, or trackers tracking stocks like AAPL - does not qualify.

This means equity perps like HYPE or LIT don’t qualify, and while Ondo’s structure has a legitimate connection via custodial tokenization, it uses an SPV rather than an Article 8 security entitlement with full shareholder rights, so it doesn’t yet fit the exemption. Infrastructure more directly aligned with the framework includes transfer agents and tokenization platforms that can prove beneficial ownership. If you built a tokenized stock product assuming the exemption covers you, read the fine print again.

Vitalik Buterin Defends Intellectual Honesty

Vitalik Buterin published a defense of intellectual honesty as part of his value system, criticizing those who hold effective altruism beliefs but distance themselves from the label for reputational reasons. He argues that reasoning frameworks that can justify any conclusion provide no explanatory power, drawing a parallel to scientific failures where arguments were stretched to justify outcomes widely judged as wrong.

It’s a short read, and it’s mostly about epistemic standards rather than technology. But for a founder who has been through the FTX collapse and watched the industry rationalize bad behavior, it’s a pointed reminder that the culture you tolerate is the culture you get.

Before Bitcoin, There Was GP: RuneScape's Gold Piece Gets Tokenized

$GP, a Solana memecoin launched September 8 on StonkFun, positions Old School RuneScape’s in-game currency as the original digital money predating Bitcoin. The 1 billion fixed-supply token distributes a 3% transfer tax to holders in GLDx, Backed’s tokenized SPDR Gold ETF, rather than native SOL, with zero team allocation and burned LP. In its first eight days, 73,414 payouts were sent to holders.

It’s a memecoin, so the fundamentals are a joke by design. But the gold-dividend mechanism is an interesting take on memecoin sustainability - instead of the usual “buy and pray” loop, holders earn real gold exposure. Don’t expect it to survive a bear market, but it’s the most creative tokenomics design to come out of the current memecoin cycle.

Fake AI Bot Tutorials Tricked 224 Victims into Deploying Their Own Drainers

Between February and August, a social engineering campaign used fake AI bot tutorials to trick 224 victims into deploying their own wallet drainers. TRM Labs traced 274.60 ETH to six operator addresses, with victims signing and funding malicious contracts themselves. Engineers should care about the social engineering vector, as it bypasses traditional exploit mitigations by making victims the attackers’ agents.

Avici Card Review: Cheap On-Ramping, No Standout Perks

Tristyn Pawson rated Avici 6.0/10 after moving $374.45 from Wise to USDC for just $1 in fees, calling it the cheapest on-ramp he’s used. But there’s no cashback, a 1% FX fee despite claims of “no interchange fee,” and paid-entry-only lounge access. Cheap, but nothing to write home about.

Apple and Google Hire for Stablecoin-Related Roles

Apple and Google are both hiring for stablecoin-related roles. Neither company has disclosed plans to issue its own stablecoin or launch a specific service. Still, the job listings suggest both tech giants are at least exploring the payments infrastructure angle.

X Sues UK Duo Over Alleged $277K Crypto Account Payout Fraud

X filed a London lawsuit against UK residents Vivek Kumar Sen and Zamyang Sherpa, alleging they ran nine crypto-focused accounts in concert to fake engagement and inflate payouts from its Creator Revenue Sharing program. The lawsuit claims posts appeared just 11 seconds apart, which is a dead giveaway of automated coordination.