Kevin Warsh sworn in as Fed chair, as traders forecast rate hikes in 2026
Kevin Warsh was sworn in on Friday as the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, but investors and traders still forecast no interest rate cuts for the rest of 2026.
Speaking at the ceremony, US President Donald Trump said that Warsh will remain “independent” of the Executive Branch regarding interest rate policy, and claimed that employment numbers are at record levels.
“Thankfully, unlike some of his predecessors, Kevin understands that when the economy is booming, that’s a good thing,” Trump said. He added:
“We do have some debt we would like to take care of, and the way you do that is through growth. We are going to grow our way out of it so fast.”
Bitcoin ‘Pizza Day’ was 16 years ago, here’s how much that BTC is worth today
The Bitcoin community celebrated the 16th anniversary of “Pizza Day” on Friday, marking the first recorded commercial Bitcoin transaction, in which real-world goods were purchased with Bitcoin.
In May 2010, software developer Laszlo Hanyecz published an online post offering 10,000 BTC, which was valued at about $41 at the time, in exchange for two Papa John’s pizzas.
At current market prices, the BTC is worth more than $767 million, and at the all-time high of about $126,000 reached in October 2025, the 10,000 BTC was valued at more than $1.2 billion. Nischal Shetty, the founder of crypto exchange WazirX, said:
“Bitcoin Pizza Day is one of the most important moments in crypto history because it transformed Bitcoin from an internet experiment into a real economic network. It was actually the first proof that a decentralized digital asset could facilitate real-world commerce.”
NYSE owner ICE to launch oil-linked futures with OKX
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is working with crypto exchange OKX to launch trading of oil-linked perpetual futures.
OKX said Friday it plans to introduce perpetual futures based on ICE’s Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude benchmarks, two of the world’s most widely used oil price indicators, according to a release shared with Cointelegraph.
“These new OKX perpetual contracts, based on ICE’s deep, liquid, transparent, and global oil markets, allow OKX’s customer base […] to access energy benchmark products,” said Trabue Bland, ICE’s senior vice president of futures exchanges.
An OKX spokesperson told Cointelegraph the contracts represent the exchange’s first product collaboration with ICE and will settle against ICE’s Brent and WTI benchmark prices, which are widely used across traditional energy markets.
THORChain exploit tied to malicious node and GG20 flaw
THORChain said a malicious node operator exploited a vulnerability in its GG20 threshold signature system to drain about $10.7 million from one of the protocol’s vaults.
The GG20 threshold signature scheme is used to secure THORChain vaults by splitting key control across multiple node operators, meaning no single node normally holds the full private key.
The vulnerability allowed the malicious node operator to reconstruct a full private key for one vault, through “progressive key material leakage,” the protocol said in a post-mortem report released on Wednesday.
THORChain said its automatic solvency checks triggered within minutes and halted signing and trading across multiple chains without human intervention. Node operators subsequently coordinated via Discord for a full network halt within two hours after and deployed a patch to fix the vulnerability.
Polymarket seeks Japan entry despite gambling law hurdles: Report
Polymarket, a global prediction market platform, is reportedly seeking entry into Japan amid growing regulatory scrutiny of the sector worldwide.
The company has appointed Mike Eidlin, head of Japan at crypto firm Jupiter, to lead its local efforts and is preparing to lobby for authorization of prediction markets in the country, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Polymarket is targeting government approval in Japan by 2030, viewing the market as a major untapped opportunity.
The plans come as prediction markets, including Polymarket and rival Kalshi, face increased regulatory pressure globally, with countries such as India among the latest to move against the platforms.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $76,909, Ether (ETH) at $2,111 and XRP (XRP) at $1.38. The total market cap is at $2.56 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Kite (KITE) at 16.43%, Humanity (H) at 13.83%, and Stable (STABLE) at 10.84%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Internet Computer (ICP) at 24.99%, Terra Classic (LUNC) at 24.54% and Jupiter…
cointelegraph-magazine.com