Crypto whale "7 Siblings', known for buying selloffs during market downturns, has resurfaced. About an hour ago, the wallet borrowed 10 million USDT from Spark and purchased 5,589 ETH at an average price of $1,789.

Drift Protocol said in a June 3, 2026 recovery update that an independent forensic review by cybersecurity firm Mandiant has attributed the earlier attack to UNC6862, a North Korean threat actor. Drift noted the group's methods align closely with patterns seen in historically state-sponsored North Korean cyber operations. As part of its rebuild, Drift has named Noah Prince, former engineering lead at the Helium protocol, as Protocol Lead. Prince will oversee codebase hardening and the redesign of the platform's security architecture. Drift also hired former Gauntlet team members to audit the clearing engine, refine funding rates and market parameters, strengthen clearing mechanisms, and set up continuous risk monitoring. The project said it plans to relaunch with a "security-first" focus and aims to reestablish itself as Solana's largest USDT perpetual futures exchange. With backing from strategic partners including Tether, Drift will create a dedicated recovery fund financed by platform revenues to compensate users for losses. The team said additional details on the recovery mechanism and timeline will be released over time.

Mastercard is expanding on-chain settlement across its global payment network by adding support for regulated stablecoins including RLUSD, USDC and PayPal USD (PYUSD), giving selected partners new ways to settle transactions using tokenized dollars. The company said issuers and acquirers will be able to settle in stablecoins such as USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG, USDP and SoFiUSD. Mastercard is also rolling out additional settlement windows, including intraday settlement as well as processing on weekends and holidays, aimed at improving liquidity management and reducing delays when traditional banking rails are closed. Mastercard emphasized the new options are designed to complement, not replace, existing settlement processes, while keeping the same security, fraud controls and dispute-management capabilities used across its network. Stablecoin settlement will be available across multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum and XRPL. Mastercard said the capabilities could be particularly useful for cross-border payments, treasury operations and payouts, especially for businesses operating across time zones. Early participants are expected to include ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei, spanning the U.S. and Latin America. Executives at some of these firms cited growing demand for payment systems that can operate beyond standard banking hours. Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard's Executive Vice President for Blockchain and Digital Assets, said faster access to liquidity can be especially impactful in settlement. Mastercard noted that broader expansion to additional jurisdictions, partners and regulated stablecoins will depend on local regulatory requirements.

Drift Protocol said its top priority is to relaunch the platform and restore revenue generation to speed up recovery of user funds, according to Huoxing Finance. Once operations resume, Drift expects the venue to become Solana's largest USDT-settled perpetual futures trading platform, with related revenue earmarked for a dedicated user compensation pool. Drift said the restart effort has made significant progress, with strategic support from Tether and other partners. To bolster security, the protocol has appointed Noah Prince, former engineering lead at Helium, as Protocol Lead to oversee protocol reconstruction and upgrades to its security framework. Ex-Gauntlet team members have also joined the initiative, providing support across risk management and treasury design. Their work includes audits of the liquidation engine, funding-rate optimization, market-parameter adjustments, and ongoing risk monitoring. Drift added that it has retained cybersecurity firm Mandiant to conduct an independent forensic investigation. The probe attributed the attack to the North Korea-linked hacking group UNC6862, which has been tied to multiple cyberattack campaigns. Drift said security will remain the primary focus throughout the relaunch, and details on the user compensation mechanism and timeline will be disclosed in due course.

Mastercard said on June 3 it is upgrading its global settlement infrastructure to enable on-chain settlement with regulated stablecoins, allowing card transactions to settle around the clock—including weekends and holidays—for the first time in the network's history. Under the new model, issuers and acquirers can choose to clear card-based transactions using regulated stablecoins on public blockchains or continue to use traditional fiat settlement rails. Both pathways will operate in parallel, meaning consumers will not need to change how they pay. The initial rollout supports six regulated stablecoins: Circle's USDC, PayPal's PYUSD, Paxos-issued USDG and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFi's SoFiUSD. Settlement will be available across eight networks: Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, the XRP Ledger, Canton, and Tempo. Early partners include ARQ (formerly DolarApp), CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank, and payment processor Nuvei. The first phase will focus on the United States and Latin America, with broader expansion planned through 2026. Mastercard framed the change as a back-end settlement upgrade rather than a new consumer product: cardholders should see no difference at checkout, while clearing and finalization between merchants, banks, and processors can now run continuously. By enabling on-chain settlement, the company aims to reduce delays tied to banking hours, weekends, and public holidays. Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard's EVP for Blockchain and Digital Assets, said the move expands liquidity management options for an "always-on" digital economy. Ripple SVP Jack McDonald called it a milestone signaling blockchain's readiness for critical payments infrastructure. For crypto markets, the announcement goes beyond a limited pilot: the world's second-largest card network is introducing live, network-level support for six regulated stablecoins across eight blockchains, a notable institutional endorsement for the stablecoin ecosystem. (Original cover image by Grok; BTCUSD chart from TradingView.)

June 4 (BlockBeats) — Drift Protocol said its immediate focus is relaunching the platform and restoring revenue-generating functions to speed up the recovery of user funds. Following the restart, Drift expects to become Solana's largest USDT-denominated perpetual futures DEX, with related revenue allocated to a dedicated user compensation pool. Drift said it has made substantial progress toward the relaunch with strategic support from Tether and other partners. To bolster security, the project appointed Noah Prince, former Head of Engineering at Helium, as Protocol Lead to oversee protocol refactoring and security-system upgrades. The relaunch effort is also being supported by former Gauntlet team members, who will assist with risk management and treasury design. Their work includes reviewing the liquidation engine, optimizing funding rates, adjusting market parameters, and maintaining ongoing risk monitoring. Drift also hired cybersecurity firm Mandiant to conduct an independent forensic investigation into the incident. The investigation concluded the attack was attributable to UNC6862, a North Korea-linked hacking group associated with multiple cyberattack campaigns. Drift said security remains the top priority during the restart process, and that details on user compensation and timelines will be provided in future updates.

By Vicky Ge Huang, The Wall Street Journal Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News On a Saturday in February, hedge-fund commodities trader Vala Zeinali saw an alert that President Trump had announced airstrikes on Iran. He went straight to Hyperliquid. The decentralized crypto trading platform runs around the clock, every day of the year. Since the start of 2026, it has increasingly become a go-to venue for Wall Street day traders looking to manage risk when U.S. markets are shut. Over weekends, traders can open or close positions ahead of Monday's open, seeking to lock in gains or limit losses. Zeinali said he had bought a four-figure position in crude-oil derivatives earlier in 2026, expecting the risk of a Middle East flare-up. After the airstrike news was confirmed and crude prices jumped, he closed the trade on Hyperliquid for a 243% gain. "I was especially relieved," he said, noting that geopolitics-driven oil spikes often fade before U.S. equities reopen on Monday. "Fortunately, I was able to exit in time and secured most of my positions." Hyperliquid is drawing a widening mix of traditional finance and crypto traders. Products span Bitcoin, the S&P 500, crude oil, and even contracts tied to high-profile private companies such as SpaceX. The platform's core activity centers on perpetual contracts—no-expiry derivatives that trade 24/7 and can magnify both gains and losses through high leverage. At a public event, founder Jeff Yan said Hyperliquid's long-term ambition is to support a full suite of financial services. Yan, a former quantitative trader at high-frequency firm Hudson River Trading, launched Hyperliquid three years ago. He has cited the collapse of FTX as motivation to build a high-performance crypto trading system where users keep custody of their assets. "Self-custody is not just an abstract academic concept—it's a user necessity," Yan said in an interview, adding that the FTX episode underscored the importance of controlling one's own assets. The company behind Hyperliquid employs 11 people. Blockworks Research estimates the platform and its associated blockchain generated roughly $800 million in combined revenue last year. The chain's native token, HYPE, is up more than 100% since launching in late 2024 and now carries a market capitalization of about $16 billion. Hyperliquid's surge highlights the fast-moving convergence between traditional finance and crypto. Perpetuals linked to U.S. stocks and commodities are increasingly capturing Wall Street attention. Benchmark general partner Eric Vishria recently posted a photo on X showing a banker tracking the perpetual futures price tied to AI chipmaker Cerebras. Earlier this year, S&P Dow Jones Indices licensed Trade [XYZ] to launch an S&P 500 perpetual contract on Hyperliquid—now among the platform's most actively traded products. Speculation tied to private-company IPO narratives is also building: Hyperdash data shows SpaceX perpetuals have reached $280 million in trading volume on Hyperliquid. U.S.-based users still cannot access the platform in a compliant way, though that could change. Last Friday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission introduced a new framework that would allow licensed domestic platforms to offer perpetual contracts. The agency also approved Kalshi's launch of a Bitcoin perpetual product, enabling Coinbase U.S. users to access global perpetual offerings through an affiliated entity. Leverage cuts both ways. On October 10 last year, after Trump unexpectedly announced a 100% tariff on Chinese goods, markets sold off sharply. Liquidations exceeded $19 billion across the broader market, with Hyperliquid accounting for $10 billion. Yan argued actual industry losses were far higher than $19 billion, saying Hyperliquid stands out because its liquidation figures are fully transparent and its systems continued operating under extreme conditions, while multiple rival venues suffered outages. Regulators and policy groups are warning about the risks. Benjamin Schiffrin, head of securities policy at Better Markets, said perpetuals are "structurally complex" and difficult even for experienced professionals to fully understand, adding that retail risk disclosures are "severely inadequate" and can create significant hidden dangers. Despite restrictions, traders in the U.S. and other blocked jurisdictions still access Hyperliquid via VPNs, attracted in part by the lack of identity checks compared with traditional brokers' stringent KYC requirements. Hyperliquid's user agreement bans U.S. participation and explicitly prohibits using VPNs to circumvent geographic limits. Users also cite the platform's clean interface, breadth of markets, and strong community as key retention drivers. Geneva-based trader Pascal Lin joined in late 2023 and quickly became a heavy user. He said he was struck by how directly users can share product feedback with Yan and the team on Discord. "It feels incredibly immersive, as if I'm building the product myself," said Lin, who also runs the proprietary trading desk at ARES Capital Management and mainly trades HYPE and crude-oil perpetuals. Lin said he previously benefited from the crude rally as prices climbed from $67 a barrel to nearly $100. He has since set up real-time alerts on his Apple Watch and says he does not recommend ordinary traders copy his level of intensity. "I wake up anytime during the night, open the app, and instantly check the HYPE price with one tap." Much of Hyperliquid's traffic is powered by its distinctive community culture. On X, users often end posts with the word "Hyperliquid" regardless of topic, and many use the green-jacketed smiling cat mascot, Hypurr, as a profile image. Beyond memes, third-party developers keep building auxiliary tools such as dashboards and analytics. Lawrence Wu, co-founder of Hyperdash, said the scale of the community reflects an attempt to revive crypto's original ideal: an elite-driven, permissionless system. "It's very idealistic," he said. Yan said Hyperliquid aims to integrate a broad set of financial resources. Next on the roadmap are prediction markets and options. The platform's first contracts tracking Bitcoin prices, launched in early May, have already generated millions of dollars in trading volume.

Cardano's ADA extended its decline on Wednesday, slipping to about $0.20, its lowest level in more than five years, according to CoinDesk. Weakness across bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies added to the pressure on the Cardano ecosystem. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said market conditions continue to worsen and warned that more companies and applications built on Cardano could shut down this year. His remarks followed an announcement from on-chain analytics platform TapTools that it is closing. TapTools said on X that it is ceasing operations because the ongoing costs of development, maintenance and support have become too high, making it difficult to responsibly commit to further investment in the current environment. The firm has operated in the Cardano ecosystem for four years, focusing on on-chain data and analytics. Its closure is being viewed as another sign that the market downturn is squeezing small and mid-sized crypto infrastructure projects. ADA has remained under sustained pressure. Reported data show the token is down about 6% over the past 24 hours and roughly 70% over the past year. It is more than 93% below its all-time high of $3.09 reached in March 2021. Hoskinson said he expected early in the year that prolonged market stress would trigger a wave of failures across the ecosystem. He framed the problem as broader than any single team, arguing that macroeconomic conditions are pushing developers and builders out of the market. He also pointed to intensifying disagreements over how community funds should be used. Hoskinson said he has repeatedly proposed supporting projects through acquisitions, commercialization and the Cardano Foundation's ADA treasury, but those ideas have faced resistance. He cited a recent community vote against holding the annual Cardano Summit as evidence of limited appetite to keep allocating funds for ecosystem expansion. If that dynamic does not change, Hoskinson said more DeFi applications on Cardano could disappear, followed by consolidation. He added that technology and ideology are not the core issue, saying the worsening economic reality is what is driving teams to leave.

Citi has singled out Chainlink in a new research report projecting the tokenisation sector could expand to $8.2 trillion by 2030. The report points to Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), describing it as a de facto "standard" for financial connectivity and interoperability. The mention underscores growing attention from traditional finance institutions to Chainlink's role in enabling cross-chain infrastructure.