Morning Minute: Soldier Arrested for $400K Polymarket Insider Bet on Maduro Raid

Morning Minute is simply a regular newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The investigation and opinions expressed are his ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of Decrypt. And check retired our new regular quality show covering each of the apical stories successful 5 minutes oregon less, downloadable connected Apple Pod oregon Spotify.

GM!

Today’s apical news:

• Crypto majors are somewhat greenish contempt lipid grinding higher; BTC astatine $78.3k
• BTC ETFs proceed greenish streak with different $223M successful nett inflows
• Soldier arrested for making $400k connected Polymarket wrong trading Maduro raid
• Tether executes its biggest frost ever impacting $344M USDT connected Tron
• MegaETH confirms TGE for April 30th; MEGA -15%

🚩Soldier Arrested for $400K Polymarket Insider Bet connected Maduro Raid

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that Army Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, has been arrested and charged with utilizing classified subject accusation to nett connected Polymarket.

Van Dyke participated successful Operation Absolute Resolve, the January 3 raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and placed 13 bets connected the level betwixt December 26 and January 2 utilizing a VPN to disguise his location.

He wagered astir $33,000 crossed contracts tied to whether Maduro would beryllium removed, whether US forces would invade Venezuela, and related outcomes. When the cognition succeeded, helium walked distant with implicit $409,000 successful winnings and instantly moved astir of the proceeds to a overseas crypto wallet earlier depositing the remainder into a recently created brokerage account.

The DOJ charged Van Dyke with unlawful usage of confidential authorities information, theft of authorities information, commodities fraud, ligament fraud, and making an unlawful monetary transaction. The CFTC filed a parallel civilian ailment the aforesaid day. Polymarket said it identified the relationship independently, referred the substance to the DOJ, and cooperated afloat with the investigation.

Trump, asked astir the apprehension Thursday, said: “The full world, unfortunately, has go somewhat of a casino... I was ne'er overmuch successful favour of it. I don’t similar it conceptually.”

Unfortunately, Trump is astir apt right…

🥶 Tether Freezes $344M successful USDT - Its Largest Enforcement Action Ever

Tether announced Thursday that it froze $344 cardinal successful USDT crossed 2 wallets connected the Tron blockchain pursuing requests from US instrumentality enforcement. One wallet held $212.9 million, the different $131.3 million.

The frost was coordinated with OFAC and aggregate US agencies aft the addresses were flagged for suspected sanctions evasion and transgression web activity. Tether moved to restrict the assets earlier the funds could beryllium transferred further. The institution did not place the wallet owners oregon specify the quality of the underlying transgression activity.

The enactment is the largest azygous enforcement frost successful Tether’s history. To date, Tether has worked with much than 340 instrumentality enforcement agencies crossed 65 countries and has frozen a full of $4.4 cardinal successful assets, including $2.1 cardinal tied to US agencies. CEO Paolo Ardoino: “USDT is not a harmless haven for illicit activity. When credible links to sanctioned entities oregon transgression networks are identified, we enactment instantly and decisively. Recent events person shown what happens erstwhile platforms neglect to determination quickly.”

That past enactment is simply a nonstop notation to Circle. During the $285 cardinal Drift Protocol exploit earlier this month, $230 cardinal successful USDC moved done Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol during US concern hours. Circle declined to frost the funds, citing the lack of a ceremonial instrumentality enforcement petition oregon OFAC designation astatine the time. Tether, by contrast, contributed $127.5 cardinal toward Drift’s betterment plan. Tether is surely doing its portion to abstracted itself from Circle…

⚖️ SBF Drops New Trial Bid, Says He Won’t Get a Fair Hearing

Sam Bankman-Fried filed a letter withdrawing his Rule 33 question for a caller trial.

The withdrawal was without prejudice, meaning helium tin refile erstwhile his pending Second Circuit entreaty is resolved.

His reason, stated straight to Judge Lewis Kaplan: “I bash not judge I volition get a just proceeding connected this taxable successful beforehand of you.”

The question itself had been filed successful February by his mother, lawyer Barbara Fried, connected his behalf, which prompted Judge Kaplan to bid clarification connected who really wrote it. SBF confirmed successful Thursday’s missive that helium conceived the arguments, drafted aggregate versions, and did astir of the ineligible probe himself portion incarcerated, with his parents making editorial suggestions and a New York lawyer providing constricted input.

His Second Circuit entreaty arguing the proceedings was “fundamentally unfair” remains active, arsenic does his petition for reassignment distant from Kaplan, whom helium has accused of “extreme bias.” He is presently serving a 25-year condemnation for 7 counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to FTX’s 2022 collapse.

🤖 Meta Is Cutting 8,000 Jobs to Pay for Its AI Spending Spree

Meta announced Thursday it volition laic disconnected astir 8,000 employees, astir 10% of its full workforce, effectual May 20.

An interior memo stated the reason: “We’re doing this arsenic portion of our continued effort to tally the institution much efficiently and to let america to offset the different investments we’re making.”

Those different investments are AI. Meta spent $72 cardinal connected superior expenditures successful 2025 and projects that fig to ascent to betwixt $115 and $135 cardinal successful 2026, driven chiefly by its Meta Superintelligence Labs and information halfway buildout.

Middle absorption and non-engineering roles are expected to instrumentality the biggest hit. Meta besides closed 6,000 unfastened positions that volition nary longer beryllium filled.

This follows Zuckerberg’s remark connected the January net telephone that 2026 would beryllium “the twelvemonth that AI starts to dramatically alteration the mode that we work,” and it’s intelligibly starting to person its impact.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

• Crypto majors are somewhat green; BTC +1% astatine $78.3k; ETH +1 astatine $2,330; SOL +1% astatine $86; HYPE adjacent astatine $41.10
• Stable (+14%), ZEC (+12%) and ALGO (+6%) led apical movers
• Oil +3% astatine $97; Gold -0.4% astatine $4,680
• Stock futures are mixed with the Dow reddish but Nasdaq +1% premarket contempt lipid jumping each week
• Wisconsin sued 5 prediction markets (Kalshi, Coinbase, Polymarket, Robinhood and Cryptocom) alleging that they run arsenic unlicensed gambling vs fiscal platforms
• Pavel Durov (Telegram founder) announced that TON volition chopped its transaction fees by 6x, and soon astir transactions volition person nary fees astatine all

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

• The Bitcoin ETFs saw $223M successful nett inflows on Thursday; the ETH ETFs saw $76M successful inflows

Meme Coin Tracker

• Meme leaders were green connected the day; DOGE +3%, SHIB +2%, PEPE +3%, TRUMP +1%, BONK +2%, PENGU +4%, SPX +5%, FARTCOIN +3%
• CR7 (+38x to $15M), Eloncoin (+105x), Zerebro (+30%) and Buttcoin (+20%) led notable movers
• AIB (America Is Back) soared 70,000% to $5M connected ETH

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

• The KelpDAO ETH shorfall is down to 89.5k ETH after initially being 163.2 ETH
• MegaETH launched a countdown timer for its TGE, teeing up April 30th arsenic the time (MEGA -15%)

🚚 What is happening successful NFTs?

• NFT leaders were mostly flat; Punks +1% astatine 29ETH, BAYC +1% astatine 8.74 ETH, Pudgy -1.5% astatine 4.62 ETH; Hypurr’s -3% astatine 375 HYPE
• Good Vibes Club (+9%) and Azuki (+16%) led notable movers
• A Skulls of Luci sold for $375k along with the accompanying Mask (2nd large merchantability this week)