Mashinsky Moves to Vacate 12-Year Sentence as CFTC Greenlights 24/7 Crypto Perps and Wintermute Bridges Polymarket-Kalshi

Crypto News

Former Celsius chief executive Alex Mashinsky has filed a motion in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to vacate his 144-month sentence handed down by Judge John Koeltl in May 2025. Acting pro se after his legal team withdrew, Mashinsky cites ineffective counsel and invokes the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine, arguing that tainted evidence shaped his conviction on commodities and securities fraud. In supporting documents, he points the finger at former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried, alleging a deliberate campaign to destroy Celsius and manipulate CEL token markets. The filing reopens one of the most consequential bear market collapse cases of the prior cycle.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a landmark advisory on Friday clarifying that round-the-clock trading suits digital asset venues but may be unworkable for legacy commodities markets. The guidance arrived the same day the agency approved native crypto platforms to offer perpetual futures contracts, signaling a structural divide between blockchain-native infrastructure and traditional clearing operations. Regulators warned that 24/7 schedules for agricultural and other regional products could thin liquidity, widen bid-ask spreads, and create windows for market abuse during off-peak hours. Chairman Mike Selig has prioritized embracing distributed-ledger settlement and stablecoin collateral, urging platforms to communicate expansion plans and build compliance measures designed for continuous markets.

ExxonMobil senior vice president Neil Chapman warned investors that global oil inventories sit only weeks away from critically depleted levels, projecting Brent crude could spike to $150 or $160 per barrel as physical buyers compete for scarce cargoes. The International Energy Agency reported observed stockpiles fell roughly 246 million barrels across March and April, with cumulative supply losses tied to Strait of Hormuz disruptions potentially exceeding one billion barrels by month-end. Tehran's chokepoint closure has cut approximately one-fifth of world oil flows, and Strategic Petroleum Reserve drawdowns have only masked the underlying tightness. Energy-driven inflation pressure could complicate macro positioning across risk assets including Bitcoin.

Wintermute, one of the largest crypto market makers with over $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume, confirmed it is providing two-sided liquidity across leading prediction-market venues including Polymarket and Kalshi. The arrangement creates a mechanical link between the two giants of the event-contract sector, with capital dynamically flowing between platforms to tighten spreads and absorb larger trades. Head of OTC Trading Jake Ostrovskis described prediction-market liquidity as "early-stage" but rising fast, noting that sustained depth is needed for these venues to function as reliable real-time probability signals. Event-contract trading has now surpassed $60 billion in 2026, blurring the line between forecasting tools and broader derivatives venues.

Dell Technologies shares trade at $317.05 after a 138% rally fueled by President Trump's May 8 endorsement urging investors to "go out and buy a Dell," a Pentagon contract, and a record Q1 FY27 earnings beat. Revenue printed at $43.8 billion against a $34.81 billion consensus, with adjusted earnings per share of $4.86 versus $2.88 expected — a 214% year-over-year jump. AI-Optimized Servers revenue surged 757% to $16.1 billion, and management lifted full-year FY27 AI server guidance to $60 billion from $50 billion. The blistering rally highlights how thoroughly AI infrastructure spending is reshaping equity flows and competing with altcoin rotations for risk capital.

CertiK co-founder and chief executive Ronghui Gu warned that the mass deployment of autonomous AI agents across consumer applications and enterprise networks is accumulating catastrophic security debt. Once a user grants an agent read access to local files, credentials, or financial accounts, that agent becomes the ultimate inside threat — easily manipulated, hijacked, or scammed. CertiK's deep-dive report uncovered hundreds of critical advisories and unpatched CVEs across rapidly growing agent infrastructure, exposing wallets and private keys held outside a cold wallet. With Coinbase, Cardano and Binance leadership predicting AI agents will soon outnumber humans in on-chain transactions, Gu urged strict isolation, sandboxing, and rigorous tool-scanning before any agent touches sensitive systems.

Brookings fellow Aaron Klein cautioned that the pending Clarity Act risks producing the appearance of regulation without meaningful oversight, arguing the CFTC was never built for the expanded mandate Congress is now contemplating. Klein said personnel departures and structural changes have weakened the agency's capacity, and granting new digital-asset powers without commensurate funding, staffing and expertise could repeat Dodd-Frank era fragmentation. He floated eventual SEC-CFTC consolidation as a longer-term fix, though he doubts Congress will act. The warning highlights mounting tension over how the United States will police crypto markets as legislative momentum builds.

Today's stories cluster around a single arc: institutional and regulatory infrastructure scrambling to catch up with crypto-native market structure. The CFTC's perpetuals approval and 24/7 advisory, Wintermute's prediction-market bridge, and Klein's Clarity Act warning all describe a system being rewired around continuous, on-chain settlement faster than oversight can adapt. Mashinsky's filing is a reminder of the last cycle's unresolved fraud cases, while CertiK's alarm and Dell's AI windfall show how the next risk frontier — autonomous agents transacting on DeFi rails — is already arriving. Oil tightness adds the macro overlay that will frame how risk assets digest each of these shifts.