Prominent hardware wallet maker Ledger has delayed its plan to go public in the US market due to unfavorable market conditions, which may weaken investor appetite for crypto listings.

The development was reported Wednesday by CoinDesk, based on sources familiar with the issue.

Ledger, which has sold more than seven million devices and secured over $100 billion in client assets, had been eyeing a US IPO that could value the company at more than $4 billion, the Financial Times reported in January. That would have doubled the $1.5 billion valuation it reached in a 2023 funding round.

According to reports, the Paris-based crypto hardware firm had engaged with Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, and Barclays on the potential IPO.

The company never actually filed a draft S-1 with the SEC. Sources said Ledger may instead pursue a private capital raise.

CEO Pascal Gauthier said in an interview that New York has become the global hub for crypto capital, stating that “money is in New York today for crypto.”

While the IPO is on hold, Ledger continues to build its US operations, including hiring John Andrews as Chief Financial Officer in March and establishing a New York office for its institutional business.

Market conditions behind the decision

Bitcoin fell from around $100,000 in late 2025 to roughly $75,000 by mid-April 2026, a 25% decline, while Ethereum was hovering near $2,340 as of May.

The downturn in prices came alongside weakening market activity, with spot trading volumes dropping by 19% between February and March alone. At the same time, venture capital inflows into crypto contracted sharply, plunging 74% from March to April.

Against this backdrop of deteriorating market conditions, Kraken also paused its multibillion-dollar IPO plans earlier this year, despite having confidentially filed with the SEC in late 2025.

BitGo, the crypto custody firm, went through with its January 2026 listing. BitGo priced its IPO at $18 per share, raised about $213M, and saw a debut-day pop of more than 20%. By May, BitGo shares were trading around $11.78, roughly 36% below the IPO price.

Where Ledger stands now

Founded in 2014, Ledger has grown into an infrastructure provider for both the person stashing a few thousand dollars in Bitcoin and the institution managing billions.

The company posted record revenue in 2025 amid rising demand from security-focused crypto investors and has sold over 7 million devices globally. Founded in 2014, it was valued at $1.5 billion in its 2023 funding round, backed by investors including True Global Ventures and 10T Holdings.

The IPO plans come as a wave of crypto firms go public in the US, including BitGo’s recent listing and earlier IPOs from Circle, Gemini, and Bullish following President Donald Trump’s return to office.

JPMorgan Chase’s prime brokerage business just posted all-time high client balances, a clear signal that institutional traders are leaning into the current market chaos rather than running from it.

The record, confirmed on May 12, caps a stretch where the bank’s broader markets division has been printing money. JPMorgan’s market business revenue hit $11.6 billion in the first quarter of 2026, a 20% jump compared to the same period last year.

What prime brokerage actually means (and why it matters)

Prime brokerage is essentially the concierge service Wall Street banks offer to hedge funds and large institutional investors. Think of it as a one-stop shop: securities lending, trade execution, leverage, custody, and cash management all bundled together. When prime brokerage balances rise, it means more money is flowing through these accounts, either because clients are trading more, borrowing more, or both.

The volatility driving this activity has several roots. US corporate earnings season brought the usual mix of beats and misses, creating dislocations across equity markets. Commodities have been whipsawing as well. And geopolitical risk, particularly tensions surrounding Iran, has added another layer of uncertainty that traders have been positioning around.

The numbers behind the surge

After geopolitical tensions around the Iran conflict began to subside, many clients reduced their hedging positions, freeing up capital to make more directional bets. That redeployment of capital drove a surge in trading activity across both equities and commodities.

JPMorgan’s stock currently trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.38x. The bank also carries a GF Score of 83 out of 100, a composite metric that suggests strong potential for long-term returns based on growth, profitability, and financial strength factors.

One data point worth flagging: insiders have sold $102.6 million in JPMorgan shares over the last three months.

What this means for investors

For crypto-native investors, the absence of any digital asset component in this particular surge is notable. JPMorgan’s record prime brokerage activity appears entirely driven by traditional equities and commodities trading.

Surge in Operating Costs

Digital infrastructure company Marathon Holdings attributed a decline in revenue in the first quarter of 2026 to a decrease in the U.S. dollar value of bitcoin during the period. According to a letter to shareholders released May 11, revenue in the quarter reached $174.6 million, a $39.3 million decline from the $213.9 million recorded in the first quarter of 2025.

The letter revealed that an 18% decrease in the average price of bitcoin accounted for $33.1 million of the decline, while $2.5 million was attributed to a reduction in bitcoin production. The remaining $3.7 million was attributed to a drop in other revenue. The losses occurred despite a 33% increase in the hashrate, which rose from 54.3 EH/s in the first quarter of 2025 to 72.2 EH/s.

Reduced revenue, coupled with a surge in operating costs, led Marathon to register a $1.3 billion net loss during the quarter. During the same period last year, the firm recorded a net loss of $533.4 million, or $1.55 per diluted share, meaning overheads increased by $729 million in the first three months of 2026.

“The $729.0 million increase in net loss was primarily driven by a $520.4 million increase in operating loss, largely due to unfavorable bitcoin mark-to-market adjustments of ($1.0 billion) and restructuring costs of $45.9 million during the quarter,” the letter stated.

Marathon’s latest loss-making quarter comes at a pivotal moment for the company as it seeks to reposition itself beyond cryptocurrency mining and into the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure market. The shift reflects a broader trend among Bitcoin miners facing tighter margins, higher operating costs, and increasing uncertainty in the post-halving environment.

Meanwhile, besides directing more resources toward AI-supporting data centers, Marathon used its bitcoin holdings to fund the retirement of 30% of its outstanding convertible debt at a discount. The move reportedly reduced leverage, lowered potential future dilution, and improved Marathon’s “ability to allocate capital toward higher-return strategic opportunities.”

“During the quarter, we sold approximately $1.5 billion of bitcoin. These funds were used to repurchase, at a discount, over $1 billion of the face value of our 2030 and 2031 notes, and reduce our line of credit by $200 million,” the letter explained.

Additionally, Marathon refinanced $150 million of its line of credit at a 7% interest rate, down from the 10.5% it previously paid.

Despite diversifying from bitcoin mining, Marathon said reducing its debt by monetizing bitcoin reflects its confidence in the cryptocurrency as an important reserve asset. Consequently, at the end of the quarter, Marathon held 35,303 bitcoin, including 9,995 bitcoin loaned or pledged as collateral. During the first quarter of 2026, it mined 2,247 BTC, bringing the value of its bitcoin holdings to approximately $2.4 billion based on a spot price of $68,222 per bitcoin.

Elliptic to Advance AI Compliance Following $120M Series D

The infusion of capital brings Elliptic’s total valuation to $670 million. This milestone comes at a time when the lines between decentralized finance and legacy banking continue to blur. Elliptic now screens a larger portion of the global onchain economy than any other private sector provider in the industry.

The New York-based company intends to use the funds to accelerate its delivery of enterprise-grade analytics for banks, fintechs, and government agencies. With stablecoins processing a staggering $33 trillion in transactions during 2025, the demand for real-time risk management has reached a fever pitch.

On Tuesday, Elliptic detailed that it has spent over a decade building a proprietary dataset that spans more than 65 blockchains. This data foundation allows the firm to offer AI-native compliance tools that automate the triage of suspicious activities. By resolving alerts in minutes rather than hours, the platform reduces the overhead costs for global exchanges.

The participation of Nasdaq and Deutsche Bank suggests that institutional-grade infrastructure is no longer optional for the broader market. These entities oversee trillions in daily activity and require robust frameworks to manage the inherent risks of distributed ledger technology.

“As digital assets become more embedded in the global financial system, institutions need trusted infrastructure to manage compliance and risk at scale,” stated Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures.

The British Business Bank’s involvement highlights the UK government’s interest in fostering technology scale-ups through the British Growth Partnership. This initiative aims to unlock long-term value for pension funds by supporting high-growth sectors like blockchain analytics.

Currently, two-thirds of global crypto volume moves through exchanges that utilize Elliptic’s compliance backbone, the company claims. The platform now supports over 700 customers across 30 different countries, screening more than 1 billion transactions every week, according to the firm’s stats.

As tokenized assets move from the periphery to the core of financial innovation, real-time monitoring is becoming an operational necessity. Elliptic’s platform is designed to catch risks before they crystallize, allowing human investigators to focus on high-priority cases.

“The sustainable growth of digital assets depends on strong, institutional-grade risk and compliance foundations,” noted Sabih Behzad, Global Head of Digital Assets & Currencies Transformation at Deutsche Bank.

The Series D also saw continued support from previous backers, including AlbionVC, Evolution Equity Partners, and JPMorgan. This suggests a consensus among early and late-stage investors regarding Elliptic’s dominance in the field.

CEO Simone Maini believes the financial system is being fundamentally rebuilt onchain. She noted that the company was built for this specific moment where scale and sophistication are paramount for the world’s largest financial players.

As the industry moves forward, the focus remains on scaling compliance without a linear increase in costs. With $120 million in fresh capital, Elliptic is positioned to remain at the center of the ongoing transition to a digital, onchain economy. Chainalysis is a primary competitor of Elliptic in the blockchain surveillance and digital asset compliance sector.

DIU names Concordium official AI partner for 2026 IIHF event.
Concordium launches blockchain fan ID pilot with Danish hockey.
Partnership fee settled fully in Concordium CCD tokens.

Danmarks Ishockey Union (DIU), the governing body for ice hockey in Denmark, has named Concordium as the Official AI Partner of the Danish National Ice Hockey Team in a partnership centered on blockchain-based digital identity and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The collaboration will officially launch during the 2026 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Switzerland and will include multiple technology-focused initiatives aimed at enhancing fan engagement through AI-powered systems and on-chain identity verification.

Concordium, which describes itself as a regulatory-grade AI infrastructure platform powered by blockchain technology, said the partnership will serve as a real-world demonstration of how verified digital identities and AI agents can operate at scale in consumer-facing environments.

Verified fan program to debut at IIHF Championship

The partnership between DIU and Concordium will initially focus on two core initiatives built on Concordium’s infrastructure.

The first is a Verified Fan Programme designed to pilot a privacy-preserving fan experience using zero-knowledge proof technology.

The system is intended to allow users to verify identity-related credentials while limiting exposure of personal information.

The second initiative is an Agentic Commerce pilot, which aims to demonstrate how verified AI agents can operate autonomously while interacting with fans and digital commerce systems.

The project builds on Concordium’s previous work involving the x402 agentic payments protocol, which is focused on enabling secure and verifiable machine-driven transactions.

“Agents transacting at scale need a verified identity they can carry and settlement rails they can trust,” said Varun Kabra, Chief Growth Officer at Concordium.

“The infrastructure for that already exists. What it has lacked is legibility, a place where mainstream audiences can see it working. We are very excited to partner with the Danish Ice Hockey team to build together a solution where AI can deliver a much superior fan experience.”

DIU said the partnership was structured around long-term technology collaboration rather than traditional sponsorship branding alone.

“We approached this the way we approach every serious collaboration, starting with what we could build together, not what would go on the jersey,” said Michael Dupont, CEO of Danmarks Ishockey Union. “Concordium is a Swiss-built and regulatory-grade AI infrastructure. The programmes planned over the course of the partnership are the kind of work that fits how Danish hockey wants to be seen.”

Partnership settled entirely in CCD tokens

As part of the agreement, Concordium branding will appear on the Danish national team’s helmets and jerseys, alongside category exclusivity across digital assets during the term of the partnership.

The organizations also said the full partnership fee was settled entirely in CCD, Concordium’s native blockchain token.

According to the announcement, the agreement represents the first national-team partnership fully paid and locked in a native protocol token.

The transaction was settled on-chain at signing, while a 12-month lock-up period was enforced directly at the protocol level.

DIU will maintain full self-custody of the digital assets under the arrangement.

Global tournament exposure supports partnership visibility

The partnership launches ahead of the 2026 IIHF World Championship, where Denmark’s national team is expected to receive broad international television exposure.

Games involving the Danish team are broadcast across Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States through networks including Viaplay, ZDF, ARD, TSN, and ESPN.

According to the organizations, the 2025 IIHF World Championship generated a cumulative live television audience of 215 million viewers and 25.6 billion event impressions across 155 territories.

DIU noted that Denmark has become an established host nation for international hockey tournaments, hosting four IIHF World Championships within eight years, including the men’s tournaments in 2018 and 2025, and women’s tournaments in 2022 and 2026.

Decentralized finance mobile “superapp” Legend has announced it is winding down after about two years of operation, adding to a string of crypto apps deciding to shut down this year. 

Legend was a DeFi aggregator that aimed to bring DeFi to its users rather than forcing them to sign into multiple different wallets or applications to use their crypto. 

“We believed the right interface could put DeFi’s most powerful primitives in front of mainstream users.” Legend co-founder Jayson Hobby said on Tuesday. 

However, despite the product finding an audience, it didn’t “grow to the scale the company needed to be sustainable long-term,” said Hobby. “Closing is the right call for our team and our investors.”

Over 20 DeFi, NFT and GameFi protocols have announced they are shutting down this year, including ZeroLend, which said in February that it planned to shut down after three years of operations, citing an unsustainable business model.

Closure notice on the Legend website. Source: Legend.xyz

Solana DeFi aggregator Step Finance said it was closing down in February after a $40 million treasury wallet breach in January, and DeFi derivatives protocol Polynomial also ceased operations in February. 

Balancer Labs, the team behind the DeFi protocol Balancer, shuttered in March after mounting financial pressure following a $116 million hack in November.

Meanwhile, Seamless Protocol, a DeFi lending protocol on Base, said it was winding down in April, blaming volatile market conditions.

Users don’t care whether product is onchain or not

Legend is a non-custodial, mobile-first DeFi aggregator launched around late 2024 by former Compound Finance executives, including CEO Hobby. It is used for earning, trading, borrowing and swapping assets like stablecoins and Ether via integrations with other DeFi protocols such as Aave, Compound and Uniswap. 

It aimed to bring DeFi to its users rather than forcing them to sign into multiple different wallets or applications to use their crypto. 

It announced its first funding round, raising $15 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase Ventures, in February 2025. 

Related: Kelp DAO eyes unpausing withdrawals after attackers’ rsETH on Arbitrum is burned

However, Hobby said that mainstream users don’t care if a product is onchain or not. “They want outcomes,” he said. “Better yield, faster payments, more control over their money.”

“The product that wins isn’t the one that explains crypto better, it’s the one that hides it completely. The benefits are felt, not explained.”

Legend has not disclosed active user counts or total value locked figures, as it operates as an aggregator, but the TVL for the broader DeFi ecosystem has tanked 50% since October in the wider crypto bear market. 

The Legend app will keep running normally for the next 60 days and will go offline on July 12, said Hobby.

Magazine: DeFi’s billion-dollar secret: The insiders responsible for hacks 

SEC and CFTC Advance Crypto Policy Alignment Efforts

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael S. Selig said on May 12 that the agency is working with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on regulatory oversight, rulemaking, and enforcement alignment across increasingly connected financial markets. Speaking at the FINRA 2026 Annual Conference in Washington, Selig also highlighted participation in the SEC’s Project Crypto and work on a crypto asset taxonomy aimed at improving regulatory clarity.

As securities and derivatives activity increasingly intersect, regulators face pressure to reduce gaps between their rulebooks. Selig noted the CFTC and SEC have taken several steps toward more unified oversight where their jurisdictions meet. Those efforts include a memorandum of understanding, a joint harmonization initiative, and expected joint requests for comment tied to portfolio margining and swap data reporting.

Regulators are also working to better align CFTC swap reporting requirements with SEC Regulation SBSR, the framework governing security-based swap reporting. Much of the coordination effort spans broader securities and derivatives oversight, although crypto policy initiatives featured prominently in the discussion. Selig detailed:

“In recent months, we’ve entered into a memorandum of understanding, launched a joint harmonization initiative, joined the SEC’s Project Crypto, and advanced a common-sense crypto asset taxonomy to deliver clarity to our nation’s builders and innovators.”

Broader coordination between the agencies also extends to enforcement activity. Selig stated that parallel actions and information sharing have reduced the risk of duplicative or inconsistent outcomes tied to the same underlying conduct. Staff collaboration between the agencies, he added, can streamline compliance efforts and improve regulatory effectiveness across overlapping jurisdictions.

FINRA and NFA Face Growing Cross-Market Oversight Demands

Self-regulatory organizations also need closer alignment as market activity cuts across securities and commodity derivatives, Selig explained. FINRA and the National Futures Association (NFA) increasingly operate in overlapping territory, leaving firms subject to both regulatory structures in ways older frameworks did not always anticipate.

Coordinated examinations, stronger recordkeeping alignment, and shared surveillance practices could help regulators and market participants manage those overlapping obligations more efficiently. Selig framed the effort as cooperation rather than consolidation. He noted that alignment should preserve each organization’s specialization while improving consistency where coordination adds value. Selig described the opportunity, stating:

“We have a real opportunity here for greater collaboration. Not to merge identities or flatten important differences, but to align the organizations in ways that help regulators and market participants.”

Legal and compliance teams could benefit from clearer coordination across agencies and self-regulatory organizations, Selig said. He added that more consistent oversight standards may help firms reduce interpretive risk, lower compliance costs, and allocate resources more effectively in fast-moving financial markets.

Hyperliquid ETF Debut Puts THYP in Focus

Asset management firm 21shares announced on May 12 the launch of the 21shares Hyperliquid ETF (Nasdaq: THYP), offering U.S. investors spot exposure to HYPE and integrated staking rewards. The issuer also introduced the 21shares 2x Long HYPE ETF (Nasdaq: TXXH) on the same day as a leveraged companion product.

First-day trading details posted on X by 21shares US showed THYP recorded $1.8 million in trading volume and about $1.2 million in net inflows. The post also listed a 0.3% management fee and described THYP as having the lowest management fee for a Hyperliquid ETF as of May 12. THYP trades on Nasdaq with the ISIN US90137V1089 and a May 4 inception date. TXXH was introduced alongside THYP and carries a separate 1.89% management fee, with an April 30 inception date.

The company stated:

“The funds are the first U.S. ETFs designed to provide investors with exposure to HYPE, the native token of Hyperliquid, a next-generation decentralized exchange ( DEX) that has emerged as a significant liquidity hub for 24/7 on-chain trading infrastructure.”

Distribution schedules released for THYP show expected quarterly staking reward payments beginning June 30. Additional payable dates are listed for Sept. 30 and Dec. 30. THYP is structured as a 33-Act spot exchange-traded product and does not carry the same investor protections as registered funds. TXXH operates as a 40-Act exchange-traded fund with additional oversight requirements.

Staking Rewards and Risk Disclosures Define THYP

Product materials said THYP may stake part of its holdings to generate rewards. That structure introduces risks tied to lock-up periods, unbonding periods and possible slashing penalties if a validator fails to perform or engages in misconduct. Staking rewards are paid to the trust and are not guaranteed. THYP shares trade at market prices instead of net asset value and are not individually redeemable directly with the fund.

Hyperliquid processes roughly $8 billion in daily volume and commands more than 50% of decentralized exchange perpetual open interest, based on data cited by 21shares. The issuer also cited more than $56 million in monthly trading fees and said more than 95% goes toward daily open-market HYPE buybacks. More than 76% of tokens are allocated to the community, while team tokens are locked until 2028.

Andres Valencia, EVP, Investment Management at 21shares, said:

“Having pioneered the first Hyperliquid exchange-traded product in Europe, we have seen the protocol evolve into a de facto global liquidity hub for decentralized derivatives.”

Social media platform X has launched its smart cashtag feature on iPhones in the US and Canada, letting users view stock and cryptocurrency data directly from the app as part of Elon Musk’s plan to shift X into a financial platform.

The new feature allows users to select a specific asset or smart contract address when posting a ticker. Tapping a tag displays live price charts and related posts.

Canadian users will be able to trade stocks and crypto through a deal between X and Wealthsimple, an online brokerage. The trading feature has not yet rolled out in the United States.

“Cashtags are just the first step in our commitment to be the best destination for the finance and crypto community,” said X’s head of product Nikita Bier, in a post on Tuesday.

The development is part of X’s “everything app” push, which Musk has previously said will include messaging, social networking, peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce.

It’s part of a wider trend among digital platforms to consolidate diverse services into a single cohesive experience. Crypto exchange Coinbase announced its intent to build a “super app” last July.

The announcement comes less than a day after Bier hinted on Tuesday that the platform could launch a crypto-related product, prompting speculation about what it could be.

Musk previously said that X Money, a peer-to-peer payments feature with yield-bearing accounts and a cashback debit card, would launch in April.

has always been the best source of financial news for traders and investors. Billions of dollars are allocated every day based on what people read on Timeline.

Today we’re launching our new Cashtags feature in the US and Canada on iPhone, bringing real-time financial data to… pic.twitter.com/c8s7X9gHTO— Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) April 14, 2026

Canadians trading on X sets stage for rollout

The integration with Wealthsimple to allow direct trading on the app sheds some insight into how it could work in other regions.

“Users in Canada will see a button on cashtags so they can trade seamlessly from X. This is just a small preview of what’s to come,” said Bier.

Bier also indicated that a rollout for web and Android devices, along with a global release of these features, is planned for the near future.

Related: X mulls new rules for first-time crypto posts amid tortoise scam

Bringing the WeChat Pay model to Web3

Tat Thang, a partner at prediction platform Polymarket, suggested X is trying to build a Web3 equivalent of WeChat Pay, which is embedded within the Chinese app WeChat and allows users to make mobile payments and transfer money between contacts.

Source: Tat Thang

Thang argued that crypto transaction fees could be the key revenue driver for Musk’s ambitions for his “everything app”, since revenue and subscription fees can fluctuate, and person-to-person fiat transfers carry zero margin.

He also cited X’s hiring of Bier, a Solana advisor and Benji Taylor, former head of design at Base, along with a recent purge of crypto bots as indicators of X ramping up its financial ambitions because you can’t “drop a native wallet or trading terminal onto a timeline filled with drainer links.”

“It was a mandatory compliance sweep. You have to scrub the platform clean before you deploy consumer financial products,” Thang added.

Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?

Anthropic warned investors that unauthorized sales of its stock are void, pushing back against a surge of funds, SPVs, tokenized securities, and pre IPO products claiming to offer exposure to one of the world’s most sought after private AI companies.

The Claude maker said any sale or transfer of its preferred or common stock, or any interest tied to that stock, must be approved by its board. Without that approval, the transaction is invalid, the buyer will not be recognized as a stockholder, and no stockholder rights will be granted, according to Anthropic’s support page.

The warning directly targets a fast-growing market for synthetic exposure to private AI companies. Anthropic said it does not allow SPVs to acquire its shares and warned that products using direct sales, forward contracts, tokenized securities, or similar structures may either be fraudulent or have no value because they attempt to bypass the company’s transfer restrictions.

That message lands as crypto native markets are increasingly turning private company access into a tradable product. PreStocks has offered tokenized exposure to pre IPO companies including Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, Kalshi, and Polymarket, giving traders a way to speculate on private market valuations before any public listing.

PreStocks describes its Anthropic tokenized stock as a synthetic asset that provides price exposure to Anthropic before a potential IPO, not official stock or a direct equity claim. The company says the token tracks implied market valuation and does not provide voting rights, dividends, or legal ownership in Anthropic.

The pricing has become detached from traditional private market rounds. PreStocks’ market is pricing Anthropic’s valuation at around $1.25 trillion, while Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO market priced Anthropic at $1,100, implying a $1.1 trillion valuation.

The timing is sensitive as investor demand for Anthropic grows ahead of a potential public listing. Reuters reported in December that the company hired Wilson Sonsini to prepare for a possible IPO as early as 2026, though Anthropic said it has not decided whether or when to go public. It was also reportedly negotiating a funding round that could value it above $300 billion, after a recent $183 billion valuation.

Anthropic also named several firms it said are not authorized to buy or sell its shares, including Open Door Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama, Lionheart Ventures, Hiive for new offerings, Forge for new offerings, Sydecar, and Upmarket. Any sale or transfer offered by those firms will not be recognized on Anthropic’s books, the company said.