hodler

13 May 2026, 06:30

XRP tops bitcoin, ether volumes on major South Korean exchanges

XRP/KRW was the most traded pair on Upbit and second on Bithumb, a familiar Korean market signal that has often preceded sharper moves in the token.

13 May 2026, 06:30

MEXC Commits to 1,000 BTC Purchase as Guardian Fund Targets $500M Expansion

Crypto exchange MEXC plans to increase its Guardian Fund to $500 million over the next two years while adding 1,000 bitcoin to its reserves. The move is aimed at strengthening user protection and reinforcing confidence amid continued market expansion. BTC and USDT to Serve as Dual Reserve System for Market Stability Crypto exchange MEXC is

13 May 2026, 06:05

Ethereum Foundation and Major Wallets Launch “Clear Signing” Standard to End Blind Transaction Approvals

The last few years have shown that the biggest vulnerability in crypto wallets today is blind signing. This is the practice of approving raw hex strings without knowing what they actually do. However, on Tuesday, the Ethereum Foundation officially announced that this standard is going to be phased out and replaced with clear signing alongside some of the leading wallets and hardware infrastructure that actually run Ethereum for most users. This includes names like Ledger, Trezor, MetaMask, WalletConnect, Fireblocks and Cyfrin. In practice, this means users will be able to see a plain, human readable summary of what a signature authorizes. 0/ Clear signing is now live. An open standard to end blind signing, making human-readable transactions default. This effort brings a major UX and Security upgrade to transaction signing on Ethereum. pic.twitter.com/nIGRCBQh6G — Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) May 12, 2026 The reason this is happening is simple and it comes down to the recent high profile hacks that have taken place over the past two years. The $1.5 billion Bybit hack, which remains the largest hack in crypto till date, happened in part because signers approved a transaction they could not actually read. Similarly, in July 2024, the WazirX hack that saw around $235 million stolen from the Indian crypto exchange’s multi-sig wallet played out in pretty much the same way. According to the Ethereum Foundation, blind signing has been a structural flaw in the ecosystem for years and has fed into billions of dollars in cumulative losses across hacks, phishing scams and approval exploits. What Clear Signing Actually Does Authorizations and signatures currently have a specific flaw. Users interacting with smart contracts are able to view accurate data but this is usually a string of low-level data that is pretty much unreadable to anyone without a developer or technical background. Clear signing basically flips that script. Wallets that support the new standard will pull up a descriptor file that converts a contract’s function into readable text while providing a summary of it to the user before signing anything. The technical foundation comes from two existing improvement proposals. ERC-7730, which Ledger first proposed back in 2024, defines an open format for describing transactions in human-readable JSON. ERC-8176 then adds an attestation layer on top, allowing independent auditors to cryptographically vouch that a descriptor matches what the contract is actually going to do. The descriptors themselves live off-chain in a neutral registry at clearsigning.org, which means existing contracts can adopt the standard without needing any redeployment. A Coalition That Touches Where Users Actually Live This is not a single-wallet rollout. The contributor list reads like every piece of infrastructure that touches Ethereum users today, with Ledger and Trezor on hardware, MetaMask and WalletConnect on software, Fireblocks on the institutional custody side, Cyfrin on audits and Sourcify and Argot supporting tooling. Ledger originally built clear signing as an internal security feature back in 2021, formalized it as ERC-7730 in 2024, and earlier this year handed over governance to the Foundation specifically to make the standard credibly neutral and not tied to any one company. Why The Timing Lines Up With Institutional Money The timing here is also not really a coincidence. The Foundation’s Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, which is now stewarding the Clear Signing registry, was set up specifically to prepare Ethereum for the kind of institutional-scale value that is now sitting directly on-chain. Fireblocks being part of the rollout matters in particular, as it is the custody provider that most traditional finance firms actually use when they start touching crypto rails. Blind signing was always a tolerable level of risk for retail users moving small amounts. For an asset manager moving real size, however, it is essentially a non-starter, as you cannot really put a compliance signoff behind a transaction that your operations team isn’t able to read in the first place. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free .

13 May 2026, 06:00

Former Crypto CEO Apologizes To Investors As $328M Fraud Claims Surface

A Florida man accused of running a nearly three-year crypto investment scheme is speaking out — and saying sorry. Christopher Delgado , former CEO of Goliath Ventures, sat down for a televised interview this week to apologize to the people who lost money under his watch. Confined To A Luxury Estate Delgado is currently out on bail, but he is not a free man. He is confined to his home — an 11,000 square foot estate in Florida — and fitted with an ankle monitor. That estate, according to US prosecutors, was bought with investor funds. Three other Florida properties, bringing the combined real estate total to $14.5 million, were also allegedly purchased using money from investors. Prosecutors with the Orlando US Attorney’s Office charged Delgado with fraud and money laundering on February 20 over an alleged $328 million crypto investment Ponzi scheme. He faces up to 30 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts. In the interview, which aired on ABC-affiliated station WFTV, Delgado said he wanted to explain what happened and make clear how sorry he was. “They put their trust in me, and I failed them ,” he said. Who Were The Crypto Investors? The people who lost money were not wealthy speculators. Reports indicate the investor pool included nurses, teachers, firefighters, and retirees — people who handed over their savings based on promises of steady monthly returns from cryptocurrency liquidity pools. One investor lost roughly $720,000. That person was told returns were guaranteed and that the money could be pulled out at any time. According to federal prosecutors, Goliath Ventures operated as a Ponzi scheme from January 2023 through January 2026. Company funds were used not only on real estate but also on lavish company events, Christmas parties, and upscale travel. When asked how Goliath handled investor money, Delgado acknowledged the company was paying people what he called an astronomical amount. By the time of his arrest, Delgado said only $160,000 remained in Goliath’s bank account. JPMorgan Pulled Into Legal Fight The case has spilled beyond Delgado himself. In March, a group of investors filed a proposed class action lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, claiming the bank played a role in moving funds tied to the alleged scheme. Based on reports, the lawsuit claims $253 million was deposited into a JPMorgan account between January 2023 and June 2025, with about $123 million of that later transferred to Goliath wallets at Coinbase. Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

13 May 2026, 05:30

Base x402 protocol adds batched settlement to enable sub-fraction-of-a-cent AI payments

Base creator Jesse Pollak announced on May 13 that the x402 payment protocol now supports batched settlement, in an X post. x402 now supports batched settlement this unlocks many many tiny tiny payments ( https://t.co/V6Kjz9jqHQ — jesse.base.eth (@jessepollak) May 13, 2026 The update bundles many transactions together before settling them on-chain, spreading the blockchain fee across multiple payments. Per-transaction settlement on Base already costs fractions of a cent, but batching makes sub-fraction-of-a-cent pricing economically rational for high-frequency AI workloads. As Cryptopolitan reported last week, Amazon Web Services launched AgentCore Payments using x402, with USDC settling in roughly 200 milliseconds on Base. Batched settlement layers on top of that infrastructure. Why batched settlement matters for AI workloads AI services need to charge fractions of a cent per request, query, or inference call. Credit card processing fees and per-transaction blockchain costs both make ultra-small payments uneconomical at scale. x402 processed over 169 million payments in its first year per AWS, with roughly $48 million in payment volume and 95% flowing through Base. Pollak’s vision is software paying software: an AI agent pays tiny amounts for APIs, compute, data feeds, or image generation without human involvement. The Coinbase x402 Bazaar MCP server is the directory layer agents use to discover paid services. AWS, Cloudflare, and others have integrated it into developer tooling. How x402 turns HTTP requests into payment rails The x402 protocol repurposes the long-dormant HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code. A server responds to a paid endpoint request with HTTP 402 plus machine-readable payment instructions (price, token, chain, recipient wallet). The client signs a payment authorization, retries the request, and the payment settles on-chain. No accounts, API keys, or subscriptions required. Coinbase developed x402 and now co-governs the protocol with Cloudflare under the x402 Foundation. The protocol supports stablecoin payments on Base, Ethereum, and Solana, with SDKs for TypeScript, Python, Go, and Java. The reference implementation is on Coinbase’s GitHub . The competitive landscape closing in around x402 Stripe and Tempo launched the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) on March 18, 2026, alongside Tempo’s mainnet. MPP aggregates payments within an agent session and settles in bulk, similar in principle to x402’s new batched settlement but flowing into Stripe’s existing PaymentIntents API. Per WorkOS analysis , MPP gives merchants Stripe-grade fraud detection, tax handling, and reporting without the crypto compliance burden. Circle’s Nanopayments launched in March 2026 as an x402-compatible backend for sub-cent transfers using Gateway’s gas-free balance transfer mechanism. Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has pursued cheap off-chain payments for years. Solana keeps base-layer fees low natively. Polygon and other Ethereum scaling projects have experimented with AI micropayment systems. What x402 still has on the field is HTTP-native design. Instead of a separate payment app, payment authorization lives inside standard web requests. Whether that wins the agent-native market depends on developer adoption. Crypto projects have promised practical micropayments for years without breakthrough traction. AI infrastructure may finally provide the demand. If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter .

13 May 2026, 05:00

50,000 Bitcoin Left Miners’ Hands In Two Weeks: Is Demand Strong Enough To Handle More?

Bitcoin is holding above $80,000 after weeks of bullish price action that has carried it significantly above the lows that defined the worst of the February and March correction. The recovery has been sustained and the price is constructive — but an Arab Chain report has identified a shift in miner behavior that adds a specific supply-side dimension to the current setup that the price chart alone does not reveal. Since the beginning of May, miner inflows to Binance have reached approximately 50,000 BTC — a figure that reflects a clear and meaningful acceleration in miner activity over a compressed timeframe. The timing is not coincidental. Bitcoin trading near relatively high levels above $80,000 has created the conditions that miners have been waiting for: a price recovery significant enough to make profit realization attractive after months of compressed margins and elevated operational costs. The behavior is recognizable and historically documented. When Bitcoin recovers meaningfully from correction lows, miners who accumulated during the downturn or maintained production through compressed profitability tend to increase their exchange deposits as the price rises toward levels where selling makes financial sense. The current 50,000 BTC in May inflows is the on-chain evidence that this dynamic is now active. What the Arab Chain report examines is not whether miners are selling — the inflow data confirms they are moving coins toward that possibility — but whether the demand currently supporting Bitcoin above $80,000 is deep enough to absorb what arrives. 50,000 BTC From Miners. Bitcoin Is Absorbing It. The Question Is How Much Longer The Arab Chain report places the inflow surge in the context that gives it its full weight. Daily miner deposits to Binance have repeatedly exceeded 7,000 to 8,000 BTC at peak moments during the current period — a pace of exchange-directed supply that historically creates meaningful overhead pressure, particularly when it coincides with slowing upward momentum or a consolidation phase rather than a continuation of the advance. The constructive reading is visible in the price itself. Bitcoin holding above $80,000 throughout the inflow period reflects a demand structure capable of absorbing significant miner supply without breaking. That absorption is not passive — it represents active buying meeting the coins that miners are moving toward the sell side, and the price holding is the evidence that the buying has been sufficient. The risk the report identifies is duration and accompaniment. A sustained period of elevated miner inflows at this pace does not become a problem if demand grows alongside it. It becomes a problem if buying volume weakens or broader exchange selling activity increases while miners continue depositing at the current rate. That combination — persistent supply meeting diminishing demand — is the specific scenario that creates the kind of volatility Bitcoin has managed to avoid so far. The market is currently at the point where the distinction between temporary profit-taking and the beginning of a broader distribution phase is not yet visible in the price. The Arab Chain analysis identifies that determination as the most important forward question the coming sessions will begin to answer. Bitcoin Tests Resistance While Buyers Defend Key Demand Zones Bitcoin is trading around $80,700 after a strong recovery from the February capitulation low near $60,000. The chart shows a market that has transitioned from panic-driven selling into a structured recovery phase, with buyers consistently defending higher lows over the last two months. The most important technical feature on the chart is the reclaim of the $72,000–$74,000 region highlighted in yellow. That zone acted as major support during the early stages of the correction before breaking down in February. Bitcoin has now recovered above it and continues using it as support, confirming that previous resistance has flipped into an important demand area. A second highlighted support region near $64,000–$66,000 marks the base where buyers aggressively absorbed selling pressure during the worst phase of the decline. The sharp rejection from that area established the structural bottom of the current recovery trend. Momentum remains constructive while Bitcoin holds above the rising 50-day moving average and continues printing higher highs and higher lows. However, price is now approaching the declining 200-day moving average near the $82,000 region — the same area that rejected previous rally attempts earlier in the year. Volume has normalized significantly compared to the February panic, suggesting the market is stabilizing. A confirmed breakout above the current resistance zone would likely shift focus toward the $90,000–$92,000 area next. Featured image from ChatGPT, chart from TradingView.com