Trading platform Abra purchased Valkyrie’s crypto trusts: Report

US Democrat lawmakers have launched a multi-angle attack on President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures with two bills and a subcommittee inquiry aimed at cutting his ability to profit from the initiatives.   The Modern Emoluments and Malfeasance Enforcement Act, or the MEME Act, aims to prevent federal officials from using their position to profit from memecoins, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy said in a May 6 statement. If passed, the MEME Act prohibits the president, vice president, members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, their spouses and children from issuing, sponsoring, or promoting a security, future, commodity, or digital asset, according to the bill’s description. Today I’m introducing a bill – the MEME Act – to ban a President or Member of Congress from issuing a meme coin. The Trump Coin is the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the White House. @RepLiccardo and I are determined to put an end to this corruption – for good. pic.twitter.com/nQL9ZfIYYV— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) May 6, 2025Violators could face civil penalties of up to $250,000 and be required to fork over any profits to the US Treasury. Criminal penalties could also apply, including fines and up to five years behind bars. US Representative Sam Liccardo, another Democrat, introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives. However, Trump’s party, the Republicans, controls both chambers, and the legislation will need Republican support. Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), said in a May 6 statement that the committee is opening a preliminary inquiry into the Official Trump (TRUMP) token, Trump-backed platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), and other associated business ventures. As part of the inquiry, the PSI sent letters to the company behind the Trump coin, Fight Fight Fight, and WLFI, asking for records and communications between the companies and the Trump organization. With his cryptocurrency schemes, Trump is putting a for sale sign in front of the White House. That’s why, as Ranking Member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I’m launching an inquiry into this brazen corruption whose scope & scale is staggering. pic.twitter.com/3SiaCrthN8— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) May 6, 2025At the same time, Blumenthal says the subcommittee is asking for answers about what steps the firms have taken to address possible conflicts of interest.Main points of interest flagged by the PSI include fees the president is making on the TRUMP token and the nearly 50% spike in value from $9.40 to $13.65 after the TRUMP coin website announced on April 23 that the top 220 holders of the token would be invited to a gala dinner at the White House. Soon after launch on Jan. 18, the Trump coin hit its all-time high of $73.43, according to CoinGecko. However, it has since lost 85% of its value and is trading for $11.13. More than half of TRUMP holders in profitRoughly two million wallets have bought TRUMP, with an extra 54,000 adding the token to their stash after the dinner announcement, according to data shared with Cointelegraph from blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. Around 764,000 of these, most with small holdings, lost money on the coin, while the 58 investors in the token have made profits of over $10 million each, totaling an estimated $1.1 billion. At the same time, Chainalysis says the memecoin creator has made $320 million so far, with an extra $1.3 million coming in since the White House dinner announcement. Related: Dem lawmakers object to hearing, citing ‘Trump’s crypto corruption’Meanwhile, a trucking logistics firm announced plans on April 30 to build a TRUMP coin treasury through a $20 million convertible note issuance. Javier Selgas, CEO of Freight Technologies, said the tokens are an “excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.”The firm also acquired $5.2 million of the Fetch.ai network’s utility token FET on April 1. Magazine: Mystery celeb memecoin scam factory, HK firm dumps Bitcoin: Asia Express

Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet. Source: CointelegraphBitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s deskThe SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.Related: Ethereum’s era of crypto dominance is over — LONGITUDE panelThrough Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.Source: Justin BonsThe Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.Magazine: 12 minutes of nail-biting tension when Ethereum’s Pectra fork goes live

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is seeking permission from the court to drop an appeal against prediction market Kalshi. The move could allow the platform to offer political event contracts to users without contest.In a May 5 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lawyers for the CFTC filed an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal, suggesting an agreement with Kalshi. The motion, subject to approval by the court, could end the CFTC’s appeal against a federal court ruling that the financial regulator could not bar Kalshi from listing political event contracts, i.e., bets on elections.Motion to dismiss appeal filed by the CFTC on May 5. Source: CourtlistenerKalshi stipulated in a joint filing that the company would “bear its own costs, court fees and attorney fees incurred” if the court granted the CFTC’s motion to dismiss. The platform said that “election markets are here to stay” in a May 6 X post following the filing.The betting platform initially filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023 in response to the regulator ordering Kalshi to stop offering political event contracts. The company won in the lower court, prompting the appeal by the CFTC in September 2024. Motion to drop the appeal after the change in administration?The case was handled mainly before the US election and the appointment of acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham under President Donald Trump. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, nominated by former President Joe Biden, reportedly echoed Kalshi’s sentiment in February, claiming that election prediction markets were “here to stay.”Related: Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native usersLaunched in 2021, Kalshi became popular among many crypto users in part due to bets related to the 2024 US election. Though the CFTC argued in its appeal that betting on the elections could result in “spectacular manipulation” of markets and harm to the public interest, the regulator under Pham and Trump appeared to have reversed its position with the motion to dismiss. Magazine: Pokémon on Sui rumors, Polymarket bets on Filipino Pope: Asia Express