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5 May 2026, 16:12

Congress brings in new blockchain expert for $BTC policy

🟢 AIP adds a new specialist as $BTC policy enters Congress. Jacob Smagula joins Rep. Continue Reading: Congress brings in new blockchain expert for $BTC policy The post Congress brings in new blockchain expert for $BTC policy appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .

5 May 2026, 15:46

Drift unveils recovery plan after $295M DPRK-linked exploit, introduces user claim tokens

Drift Protocol has outlined a recovery plan following its $295M exploit, proposing recovery tokens and gradual payouts backed by revenue and external funding.

5 May 2026, 15:00

Ondo Gains Institutional Backing Through DTCC Working Group Selection

Ondo is gaining significant institutional traction after being selected to participate in a key working group led by DTCC. This move places Ondo in direct collaboration with established financial institutions and infrastructure leaders, working to define how traditional assets can be brought on-chain at scale. What Ondo’s DTCC Role Means For The Broader Crypto Market In a recent post on X, Ondo Finance has revealed that the firm has been selected to join an industry working group led by Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a major initiative aimed at advancing tokenization across the United States capital markets. DTCC currently custodies over $114 trillion in assets and has processed an estimated $3.7 quadrillion in transactions annually. Related Reading: Ondo Finance Brings Tokenized Stocks, ETFs To BNB Chain With New Expansion The initiative focuses on building a tokenization service designed to bring the core of the US capital market infrastructure on-chain, with Ondo among the selected group of firms contributing to its design. With this initiative, Ondo is positioned to work alongside major financial institutions such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Franklin Templeton, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citadel Securities, NYSE Group, Circle, Fireblocks, Robinhood, and more. Furthermore, the DTCC President and CEO, Frank La Salla, emphasized the significance of this transition, noting that tokenization has the potential to transform how markets operate, unlocking new levels of liquidity, transparency, and efficiency for investors. With over 50 years of experience, the DTCC has been at the center of US capital markets. Its decision to build a tokenization service and to bring Ondo to the table alongside the world’s leading financial institutions reflects how far tokenization has come. As the largest tokenizer of stocks, ETFs, and US Treasuries, Ondo is well-positioned to help shape the next phase of financial innovation, one that aims to keep US markets competitive in an increasingly digital and global economy. Institutional Adoption Accelerates Beyond Experimentation In another major move, Franklin Templeton, a $1.7 trillion asset manager, has made a decisive move into blockchain by choosing Ondo Finance as its gateway to the next generation of investors. An analyst known as 2xnmore on X highlighted that instead of building its own infrastructure or relying on traditional financial intermediaries, the firm has opted to leverage Ondo’s existing on-chain rails. Related Reading: Bitget and Bitget Wallet Support Trading of Over 100 Tokenized Assets via Ondo Finance Through the Ondo global markets, five ETFs are now live and tradeable 24/7 directly from crypto wallets. This removes many of the traditional barriers associated with investing, such as brokerage accounts, geographic limitations outside the US, and reliance on intermediaries, offering a more open approach. Ondo currently controls an estimated 70% of the tokenized equity market, while targeting the much larger $30 trillion global ETF market. Also, this massive gap between Ondo’s current footprint and its potential addressable market underscores the scale of the opportunity ahead. Meanwhile, the broader message is clear. Wall Street is no longer approaching crypto as an experiment. Instead, institutions are approaching blockchain as a more efficient infrastructure layer, and Ondo built the rails first. Featured image from YouTube, chart from Tradingview.com

5 May 2026, 14:51

GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin

BitcoinWorld GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin Miami, FL, USA GoBTC is a protocol that lets consumers make native and instant payments on Bitcoin’s base layer. GoMining launches its own mining pool to prioritize GoBTC transaction confirmation, targeting a 12-hour final on-chain settlement by the end of 2026. The launch marks a strategic expansion for GoMining, a platform with 5 million users. GoBTC extends this ecosystem into everyday payments. GoMining today launches GoBTC , a Bitcoin payment protocol that delivers on what the 2008 whitepaper promised: peer-to-peer electronic payments. GoBTC enables free and instant Bitcoin payments on the core Bitcoin layer. This makes it practical to use Bitcoin at the point of sale for everyday purchases. Payments are free for end-users and merchants pay a small acquiring fee that undercuts traditional card processing. GoBTC is designed as an open infrastructure. GoMining operates the reference implementation, but any wallet provider — from Ledger to Trust Wallet to MetaMask — can integrate the protocol to offer instant Bitcoin payments to their users. Why this matters Bitcoin is the dominant cryptocurrency with a market cap above $1.5 trillion. Over 150 public companies hold BTC on their balance sheets. Spot Bitcoin ETFs, which didn’t exist two years ago, now manage roughly $100 billion in assets across a dozen funds. The U.S. government holds approximately 328,000 BTC. But Bitcoin still can’t process a retail transaction quickly and reliably. The Lightning Network, introduced in 2018 to solve this problem, took seven years to reach $1 billion in monthly volume and its average transaction of $223 mostly reflects exchange-to-exchange flows, not someone paying for groceries. In the US, about 22% of adults own Bitcoin, yet there are only 2,300 U.S. businesses that accept Bitcoin directly, and the gap between how many people own Bitcoin and how many places accept it is widening. “The first line of the Bitcoin whitepaper describes a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin was designed to be money, not just an asset. That promise is still unfulfilled, and we intend to deliver on it,” said Mark Zalan, CEO of GoMining. “We already serve millions of users, and run data centers on three continents. All of this provides us a unique position to enable native Bitcoin payments with GoBTC.” Mining-powered confirmation GoBTC enables free and instant payments in Bitcoin, using GoMining’s own mining infrastructure to confirm the transactions. It uses a 2-of-3 multi-signature architecture shared between the user, GoMining, and a regulated third-party custodian. GoMining serves 5 million users globally. The company has created a dedicated mining pool for processing GoBTC transactions, aiming for a 12-hour on-chain settlement by the end of 2026. Where most payment companies depend on third-party pools for confirmation, GoMining mines the blocks itself. The pool also serves GoMining’s “digital miners” — users who own tokenized hashrate through GoMining’s app. A portion of GoBTC transaction fees flows back to these miners as additional BTC yield: consumers pay with BTC, merchants earn BTC, miners earn a share of payment fees, and GoMining’s pool processes the transactions. Any wallet provider, whether hardware, software, or custodial, can connect to the GoBTC network and enable instant Bitcoin payments for their users. Bitcoin payments for Merchants For merchants, GoBTC is a Bitcoin-native acquiring network that undercuts every major card processor on cost. Its acquiring fee of 0.2% is substantially lower than traditional card processing, which range from 1.5% to 3.5% in the US. On a $100 sale, the merchant keeps $99.80. GoMining distributes the entire fee back into the ecosystem: half goes to the miners who confirm transactions, and half goes to the wallet provider that initiated the payment. GoMining retains nothing on third-party transactions to incentivize wallet integrations and accelerate adoption. Merchants can receive BTC directly to their own wallet, or use GoMining’s custodial merchant solution, which offers yield on their BTC balance — including during the settlement window — and an off-ramp to fiat. GoBTC will ship with a dedicated PoS terminal, a web merchant dashboard, a developer SDK, and plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce in the coming months. The launch coincides with GoMining’s major expansion in the United States. The company is building combined data centers for Bitcoin mining and AI workloads, with a target of securing 1 GW of compute capacity in 2026. GoBTC launches today at Consensus Miami 2026 (May 5–7, Miami Beach Convention Center). About GoMining GoMining is an all-in-one Bitcoin ecosystem that makes it simple and secure to mine, earn, and use Bitcoin every day. GoMining serves 5 million users and ranks among the top-10 Bitcoin miners by hashrate globally, with data centers in the U.S. and internationally. The company makes Bitcoin accessible through tokenized hashrate, daily BTC rewards, and an expanding suite of payment and earning products. For more information, please visit https://gomining.com/ This post GoMining Launches GoBTC to Bring Native Instant Payments to Bitcoin first appeared on BitcoinWorld .

5 May 2026, 14:45

Tydro pauses all markets over oracle issues weeks after aiding Aave's exploit recovery

Tydro, the Aave-powered lending protocol on Ink with $247 million in deposits, halted all markets on May 4 after detecting problems with a third-party oracle provider. The shutdown comes barely two weeks after Tydro contributed to coordinated relief efforts for Aave following the $290 million KelpDAO exploit that affected the protocol. Tydro posted on X that it was “temporarily pausing all markets out of an abundance of caution following reports of issues with a third-party oracle,” adding that user funds remained safe. However, it did not provide a timeline for the restoration. How did Tydro move from rescuer to rescued? On April 23, Tydro and the Ink Foundation announced they were joining Aave and other ecosystem participants in a “coordinated DeFi relief effort” to help parties affected by the KelpDAO rsETH exploit and “support an orderly resolution for lenders and mitigate bad debt,” according to Tydro’s post at the time. That exploit, which saw around $290 million drained through uncollateralized rsETH tokens minted via a KelpDAO bridge vulnerability on April 18. The incident triggered over $15.1 billion in outflows from Aave over three and a half days. Aave saw its deposits fall from $48.5 billion to $30.7 billion as users fled to competing platforms such as Spark. Tydro, which describes itself as “a non-custodial lending protocol for onchain capital markets, powered by Aave and built on Ink,” now faces headaches of its own, even though it did not confirm if it was exploited or not. Currently, Tydro holds over $206.7 million in active loans and generated over $943,000 in fees over the past 30 days, per DeFiLlama data . Tydro’s markets remain paused after an oracle issue. Source: DeFiLlama. Has Aave recovered from the April exploit? Aave itself is yet to fully recover from the April exploit fallout. On the same day Tydro went dark, Aave LLC filed an emergency motion to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO on May 1 that “attempts to seize approximately $71 million in ETH belonging to victims of the April 18 exploit,” according to the protocol’s post on X. The plaintiffs who filed the restraining order claim the thief is linked to North Korea and the funds seized thereby already belong to North Korea, against whom they already have grievances. Aave disputes this position, stating, “A thief does not gain lawful ownership of stolen property simply by taking it, and the law is clear on this.” It wrote, “Those assets were recovered to be returned to users victimized in the April 18, 2026 exploit. Freezing them harms the very people this recovery effort is designed to protect.” Tydro users, on the other hand, are still in the dark on how long markets will remain frozen and whether the oracle issue has exposed any positions to liquidation risk. For now, all they have to go on is that the protocol said it is “actively investigating.” The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them .

5 May 2026, 14:44

Space and Time launches Virtual Vaults for institutional lending

Space and Time, a data blockchain focused on securing on-chain finance, has introduced Virtual Vaults, a platform designed to support institutional lending in digital asset markets. The launch aims to address long-standing challenges around transparency and verification of collateral, particularly as institutions explore deeper participation in crypto finance. The new system enables lenders and borrowers to create customized vaults aligned with specific lending agreements. These vaults provide continuously updated, cryptographically verified data on borrower collateral, even when assets are spread across centralized exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Real-time visibility replaces static reporting Institutional borrowers often distribute collateral across multiple venues, with positions shifting frequently as trades are executed. Traditional verification methods, such as quarterly audits or point-in-time attestations, struggle to keep pace with these changes. Virtual Vaults seek to replace such static snapshots with real-time data. The platform allows lenders to monitor collateral dynamically, both before capital is deployed and throughout the duration of a loan. This continuous visibility is designed to reduce information gaps and improve risk management. Each vault is tailored to the terms of a lending agreement, including which venues are tracked, which assets qualify as collateral, and what thresholds trigger alerts. Instead of relying on generalized solvency attestations, lenders can query data structured specifically around their covenants. Designed for institutional requirements According to Nate Holiday, co-founder of Space and Time and CEO of MakeInfinite Labs, the platform reflects a broader effort to bring verifiable data into financial decision-making. "We built Space and Time so both institutions and onchain protocols could verify the data they act on, and Virtual Vaults are the clearest expression of that yet. Institutional lenders need to see exactly what collateral backs a loan, exactly when they need to see it. Virtual Vaults make that possible onchain for the first time,” Holiday said. The company positions Virtual Vaults as an infrastructure that bridges traditional financial requirements with the operational realities of digital asset markets, where assets are often fragmented across multiple platforms. Regulatory momentum supports adoption The timing of the launch coincides with evolving regulatory frameworks in key markets. In the United States, progress on stablecoin legislation is shaping clearer rules for digital asset activity, while Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework is being implemented. These developments are widely seen as laying the groundwork for increased institutional participation in on-chain finance. By offering verifiable, continuously updated data, Virtual Vaults aim to align with these emerging compliance expectations. Space and Time is backed by M12, the venture arm of Microsoft. The company focuses on connecting real-world data to blockchain systems, supporting use cases such as tokenized assets, stablecoins, and institutional markets. MakeInfinite Labs, which contributed to the development of Space and Time, has raised $50 million from M12 and other investors to build infrastructure for data-driven applications in the digital economy. Virtual Vaults are now available, marking Space and Time’s latest step in expanding tools for institutional engagement in on-chain finance. The post Space and Time launches Virtual Vaults for institutional lending appeared first on Invezz