🔮 Prediction markets under pressure: Kalshi loses in Ohio

Prediction market platform Kalshi has lost its court battle against the state of Ohio, despite the fact that the CFTC had previously classified the company’s products as swaps, not sports betting. The court saw it differently.

The judge ruled that Kalshi failed to prove its sports event contracts fall under the CFTC’s “exclusive jurisdiction.”

The opinion and order said:

“Even if this Court were to find that sports-event contracts are swaps subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction, Kalshi has not shown that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) would necessarily preempt Ohio’s sports gambling laws.”

In other words, federal derivatives regulation doesn’t override a state’s authority to regulate gambling.

Kalshi has already announced it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal. The timeline for the next stage of the legal battle has not yet been disclosed.

😎 This case is quickly becoming a major precedent for prediction markets in the United States. At stake is a fundamental question: should these contracts be treated as financial instruments or as gambling products?

🇪🇺 MiCA is reshaping Europe’s crypto market

The new MiCA rules, now officially in force across the EU, are gradually changing the structure of the region’s crypto industry. Stricter regulatory and operational requirements are already starting to impact the market and could reduce the number of lightly regulated platforms.

And we’re already seeing movement.

Crypto wealth manager Swissborg has secured MiCA approval and is preparing to move its European operations to France, with plans to expand further into Germany, Italy, and Spain.

And at the same time, the opposite trend is playing out. Just a month ago, crypto exchange Gemini announced it would scale back part of its business in the EU.

🖼️ MiCA is quietly redrawing the lines. Companies that are ready to operate in a fully regulated environment gain access to European infrastructure, while less transparent business models start moving out of the region.

🏦 Wall Street is preparing to move the stock market onto blockchain

The largest U.S. stock exchanges are stepping deeper into crypto infrastructure as they position themselves for the growth of tokenized equities.

Chart: Tokenized assets market forecast (BCG/Ripple)

NASDAQ is working with Kraken to build a blockchain platform for asset trading. ICE, the parent company of the NYSE, has taken a stake in crypto exchange OKX. The biggest players in traditional finance are no longer standing on the sidelines. They are moving directly into the infrastructure layer.

Blockchain, in this case, means the ability to trade assets globally and around the clock, without being limited by traditional exchange hours.

For now, the tokenized equities market is still relatively small, around 1 billion dollars. But the volume of assets that could eventually migrate to blockchain is estimated at 126 trillion dollars.

If this transition starts unfolding at scale, it will go far beyond a niche crypto segment. It would reshape the infrastructure of global stock markets.

😎 Oil and silver outperform crypto on Hyperliquid

Pic: Hyperliquid's perpetual rankings. (Hyperliquid)

Over the past 24 hours, oil and silver have surpassed all cryptocurrencies on Hyperliquid by trading volume, except for $BTC and $ETH.

The reason is returns and volatility, which are now comparable to the crypto market. Over the past month, Brent is up 45%, while $BTC has gained just 0.59%.

😎 Nasdaq’s tokenization plans could lead to market fragmentation

Canadian investment bank TD Securities highlights a key risk of tokenizing securities: the emergence of two markets for the same asset.

After tokenization, stocks could trade in parallel — on traditional exchanges and on blockchain infrastructure. These markets would have different liquidity, volumes, and participants. Add varying time zones and trading hours, and over time this could lead to price discrepancies for the same asset.

🤔 Bottom line: instead of a single price, the market may end up with multiple versions of value — creating new risks and potentially unpredictable consequences for the entire system.

😠 Quantum computers could wipe out Bitcoin and Ethereum within the next two years

A recent Google study suggests that breaking elliptic curve cryptography, the foundation of Bitcoin and Ethereum, may require a quantum computer with around 500,000 qubits. That’s significantly lower than previous estimates.

If that level of power becomes available, a theoretical attack on the Bitcoin network could take just minutes 😬

And given the current pace of technological progress, such capabilities could emerge as early as 2027-2028.

Scenarios like this may help explain the pressure on BTC’s market capitalization. Markets don’t like uncertainty. And they certainly don’t like questions around the security of an asset just a few years out.

🎙Earlier this week, our CPO Sergei Novikov hosted an AMA in X Space together with EarnPark🎙

We talked about what determines a token’s fate after TGE. Why tokenomics is once again becoming a key factor and why the market has grown far less tolerant of weak models.

As Sergei put it:

“Today, a token is no longer just about launch, marketing, or fundraising. The question is much tougher: will there be demand after TGE? A model simply doesn’t hold without supply discipline, real utility, and a clear value capture mechanism.”

Using $PARK as a case study, we looked at what’s already working and where extra caution is needed. The advantage is clear: the token is built around an existing product, not launched into a vacuum. But early sell pressure doesn’t disappear, and only real demand can absorb it 🖼️

Our main takeaway:

Good tokenomics isn’t about making a token look attractive at launch. It’s about making it economically meaningful after.

The recording is live🤯

Go grab the insights!

😎8Blocks × EasyMM: a strategic partnership 😎

We’re starting a partnership with EasyMM, a market-making team that works with liquidity and market dynamics.

This collaboration strengthens us exactly where things get tough — after launch. The market is full of teams that already released a token, but couldn’t hold the price. And in that moment, structure alone isn’t enough.

EasyMM knows how to bring traders’ attention back and rebuild market activity. We make sure the token has a real economic role behind that activity.

Put simply, attention needs to be earned. Meaning needs to be secured. You can boost visibility or rebuild the model. But the real impact happens when you do both together.

⭕️Why does a token drop after TGE? Because for someone, it’s not a launch…

It’s a cash-out.

While the community celebrates the listing, early investors finally gain access to the open market. Some of them use TGE as their exit point, even below the public price, because their entry was significantly lower.

A first day price drop is rarely emotional, it’s simple math. Unlocks and a sale structure that was set long before listing day.

In our new article, we break down:
🫥how selling pressure forms on TGE day
🫥why a “strong launch” doesn’t protect the price
🫥and how to structure rounds so TGE doesn’t turn into a day of mass selling

What really happens after TGE? Read it on our blog 🤓


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🔬Google Research just updated its take on quantum risk 🔬

Their latest estimate is pretty direct. The cryptography we rely on today could be breakable within the next one to two years. If that’s true, Bitcoin and a lot of the current crypto stack wouldn’t be immune. No one in the market is brushing this off. Developers are already working on quantum resistant alternatives.

🛡 And this isn’t new territory either. Quantum Resistant Ledger launched back in 2018, so the groundwork has been there for a while.

The idea is simple. You can wrap existing assets in a quantum secure layer. You stake your $BTC and receive a protected version in return.

If Bitcoin’s base layer were ever compromised, your coins would stay inside that secure environment until you choose to move them.

That’s the part we respect about crypto. A risk shows up, builders get straight to work 🤓

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Google Research say Bitcoin could be hacked by quantum computers within the next 1-2 years. Meanwhile, Eric Trump says $BTC could hit $1M in the coming years 🤨

🔁 In 2025, 28 major crypto projects added buybacks to their tokenomics.

More than $2B was spent on buybacks over the year. That’s roughly $166M per month. Same mechanism, but very different outcomes.

Some tokens gained stability or even strong growth. $HYPE climbed 324%. Others didn’t. $PUMP dropped 68% over the same period.

Buybacks alone don’t make a token successful. Tokenomics has to work as a whole. Not as a one-off fix ☝️

🔥 PumpFun just burned roughly $370M worth of $PUMP🔥

That’s 36% of the max supply.

The market reacted instantly. The token jumped 11%🔼

Over the past year, the team has been actively adjusting the tokenomics. Buybacks, creator rewards, and now a large-scale burn. But despite all these moves, there’s still no clear long-term shift 🤷‍♂️

Since December 2025, $PUMP has been trading around $0.0019. And from its TGE price, the token is still down 66%.

😎Crypto is getting selective. And that changes the rules😎

Our Product Lead, Sergey Novikov, recently joined an AMA session ahead of Consensus in Miami. What started as a pre-event discussion turned into a focused conversation about where this market is heading.

And what became clear in that discussion is that the market is maturing. Not in volume, but in standards.

Altcoins are under pressure, speculation is cooling. And the easy narratives aren’t working the way they used to. But underneath that, the structure is stronger than in previous cycles.

What’s gaining traction right now:

🫥RWA
🫥Stablecoins
🫥Prediction markets
🫥Agentic payments

The market isn’t debating whether crypto works anymore. The focus has shifted to something more practical – how to implement it at an institutional level, inside real systems, with real accountability.

And that raises the bar for everyone.

🎤 Watch the full recording here.

The market no longer believes in empty launches 🖼️

There’s one idea we’ve been standing behind since the early days of 8Blocks, and we heard it echoed again during the AMA.

Launching a token today isn’t enough. What's far harder and far more important is making sure that token is tied to a real product, backed by a clear business model, and designed for long-term growth.

That's exactly what we do: helping teams with token design, product-token alignment, and fundraising readiness.

🤔Let us highlight one key takeaway from the session, one we fully agree with:

"When the hype disappears, the tourists leave. And what stays are real builders, real believers, and teams that want to solve problems."

The current state of the market shows that winners aren't the loudest ones. They're the ones with a real product, real users, real traction, and a strong community.

It's time for all of us to accept that this is now the new baseline.