Weekly: Polymarket launch in the US, Upbit hack, DOGE shutdown and AI taxes

Bitcoin and the market

Bitcoin has recovered after a deep correction and climbed back above 91 thousand dollars. The main support factor is expectations of a Fed rate cut. At the same time, spot Bitcoin ETFs are seeing significant outflows: investors are pulling out billions, open interest in futures is declining, and volatility is rising. Large players are partially taking profits, while mid-size investors, on the contrary, are accumulating. The market looks closer to a redistribution phase than to capitulation.

China is once again among the top three miners thanks to cheap energy, but its official policy toward crypto remains strict. In the United States, the state of Texas has become the first to invest directly in Bitcoin via an ETF, with plans to continue buying BTC directly in the future.

Ethereum and altcoins

Ethereum is holding near the 3,000-dollar level, but spot ETFs on it have been showing outflows for several weeks. In contrast, products linked to Solana are seeing capital inflows. Grayscale is preparing a spot ETF on Zcash, and the Dogecoin fund launched with moderate volumes.

On the Ethereum network, the gas limit per block has been raised to the highest level in recent years, giving more room for transactions and smart contracts. The largest corporate holder of ETH continues to buy coins despite an unrealized loss. Vitalik Buterin has publicly supported two private decentralized messengers by funding them with ether.

Regulation and taxes

In Ukraine, the Ministry of Finance and the State Tax Service have explicitly reminded everyone that profits from cryptocurrencies are already taxed at a rate of 18% personal income tax and 5% military levy. Traders must declare capital gains on their own – this is an important signal ahead of the adoption of a full-fledged law on virtual assets.

Globally, regulators are tightening the rules: Japan is preparing a requirement for exchanges to form reserves to compensate clients; Australia is introducing licensing for custodians and tokenized-asset platforms; Spain is discussing raising crypto-income taxation to the level of standard personal income tax; Switzerland is preparing to implement a global standard for the exchange of data on cryptoassets; Turkmenistan is legalizing the activities of miners and exchanges through a separate law.

Exchanges, Web3 and major players

Polymarket has obtained approval from the U.S. regulator and is entering the American market as a licensed prediction platform. This is an important step toward legalizing prediction markets within traditional finance.

South Korean exchange Upbit has suffered a hot-wallet hack worth tens of millions of dollars and has promised to reimburse client losses from its own reserves. The incident again highlighted the risks of storing assets on centralized platforms.

A new civil lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. against the former head of one of the largest exchanges over alleged use of its infrastructure for transactions linked to terrorism. This reinforces a broader trend: legal and compliance risks for large centralized players are growing.

Tether has increased its gold reserves to the level of small nation-states, but received the lowest rating from a major rating agency, which raises questions among some institutional investors.

At the political level, attention has been drawn to the story of the U.S. government’s DOGE department: media reported on its liquidation, but the team of the structure denied this, explaining the situation by internal staffing changes.

AI and Big Tech

OpenAI has found itself at the center of a high-profile lawsuit over the tragedy involving a teenager who used ChatGPT. The company claims that the service’s rules were violated and that the model did not give direct instructions, but the case has already become part of a broader debate on AI safety.

In the U.S., the national Genesis Mission platform is being launched to accelerate scientific research with the help of artificial intelligence. Anthropic is presenting its new flagship model, Claude Opus 4.5, with a stronger focus on coding, agents and resistance to manipulation. Bill Gates is publicly supporting the idea of a tax on robots and AI, while major players like Alphabet and Meta are expanding cooperation around AI chips amid record market valuations.

What else happened this week:

VanEck has voiced doubts about Bitcoin’s long-term cryptographic resilience. Monad is launching its mainnet. A pilot program of crypto payments to city residents is starting in New York. Paxos is acquiring wallet developer Fordefi. Securitize is becoming a fully regulated player in the digital securities space in the U.S. and EU. A number of projects and protocols (Balancer, Kalshi and others) are facing claims, exploits and regulatory pressure and are working on their response.

Kursoff’s take

The market is currently in a redistribution phase rather than in panic: large players are reducing risk, mid-size investors are taking advantage of the correction, and the fundamental story for BTC and ETH remains intact. For Ukrainian traders, the key signal of the week is that taxes and compliance are already here and now, not just theory. Globally, Web3 is rapidly moving into the framework of traditional finance, and the crypto + AI bundle is becoming one of the main drivers of the next cycle.