Minnesota Judge Blocks First State Ban on Prediction Markets Like Kalshi and Polymarket

A federal judge on Monday blocked a Minnesota state law that would ban prediction markets days before it was set to go into effect, siding with a federal financial regulator and two companies that had sued to stop it.

In May, Minnesota became the first state to pass a law making it a felony for most prediction markets to locally operate and advertise. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal agency that oversees prediction markets, and the markets Kalshi and Polymarket sued, arguing that the platforms can be regulated only at the federal level.

On Monday, Judge Kate M. Menendez of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota granted a preliminary injunction to halt the law from going into effect on Saturday, finding that the companies faced a threat of irreparable harm. The law will remain on hold until a final ruling is made in the case.

by NYT

Not everything is securities fraud

I suppose my greatest influence as a columnist is:

1. Modern securities class action lawyers have become increasingly creative and enthusiastic about suing US public companies for securities fraud whenever they do something bad. The rough idea is that the company probably did not disclose to shareholders that it was doing the bad thing, so shareholders were tricked into buying the stock; when the bad thing came out, the stock dropped and the shareholders lost money.
2. I frequently point out that this phenomenon is weird, and I gave it a name: “Everything is securities fraud.”
3. The name is sarcastic, though. My point is not that every bad thing that a public company does is actually securities fraud; my point is that (1) every bad thing that a public company does can result in a lawsuit for securities fraud and (2) that’s kind of bad.
4. Now, when judges reject some outlandish everything-is-securities-fraud lawsuit, they have a tendency to cite me, saying something like “Matt Levine says that everything is securities fraud but not so fast buddy.”

Is this the sort of impact on the US legal system that I dreamed of having as a young law student? Honestly yes it’s perfect. (Imagine if I was a lawyer!)

Anyway Abbott Laboratories is a US public company, it makes baby formula, it recalled some formula in 2022 over contamination concerns, the stock went down, blah blah blah, here’s a judicial opinion from Friday dismissing the lawsuit:

"One could be forgiven for thinking that everything is securities fraud. Read frequently Matt Levine, Money Stuff, Bloomberg (2026). But it isn’t. The Supreme Court made that point decades ago." [...]

The key points here are (1) not everything is securities fraud and (2) “read frequently Matt Levine” is now federal law.

by Matt Levine – Bloomberg Opinion

U.S. Senate puts off crypto Clarity Act for now as it focuses limited bandwidth elsewhere

The U.S. Senate has shelved the crypto Digital Asset Market Clarity Act for the moment as it proceeds with different bills on Russian sanctions and federal nominations, further setting aside the industry's central policy effort and reducing its available runway in a crowded Senate agenda.

Majority Leader John Thune started pursuing a package of nominees on Monday and expected to shift to a Russia sanctions bill Tuesday night, at which point he's set to start its cloture process. The arcane Senate procedure to manage bill debates involves a number of steps and waiting periods before legislation typically get to a final vote, and the chamber's procedures generally limit it to one disputed bill at a time. That means it's unlikely the body can move on the Clarity Act before the other matters get sorted or expire, which could take days.

by CoinDesk

World’s Biggest Crypto Exchange Has Made It Harder to Fight Crime, Police Say

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has quietly changed how it cooperates with law enforcement in many countries around the world, frustrating investigators who say the company has made it harder to find scammers and combat money laundering.

The new policy is a big shift for Binance. The company had tried to clean up its act after years of legal problems, working directly with investigators to freeze suspicious accounts and share information about customers making fishy transactions.

But in April of last year, Binance enacted a policy requiring law enforcement officials to route certain requests to foreign government agencies, a time-consuming process governed by international treaties. That rule, along with an exodus of a group of senior compliance employees, has stymied some investigations in Europe and raised concerns in the United States, The New York Times found.

by NYT

Crypto Traders Are Chasing Their Next Memecoin Bet: AI Stocks

Two years ago, Rahul Patel couldn’t sleep.

The crypto founder who trades his own money spent his nights rotating through internet jokes with billion-dollar market caps — Moo Deng, Labubu Coin, Skibidi Toilet — trying to sell before the crowd did. Hold a trade overnight and you could wake to find the party had moved on.

Now the memecoin boom is well and truly over, and he sleeps just fine. From his home in Tampa Bay, Patel, 36, oversees a portfolio that looks nothing like it did at the height of the frenzy. The tokens named after viral animals and social-media gags have given way to bets on the chipmakers at the center of the AI boom.

by Bloomberg