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Kalshi Will Win Battle with Nevada: Crypto Attorney

The American legal tradition of federalism, balancing state authority with federal control, is being tested by a new frontier: online prediction markets.
At the center of everything is Donald Trump Jr., advised Kalshi. Nevada and New Jersey have issued cease-and-desist orders against Kalshi over the prediction market’s sports contracts, claiming they violate state gambling laws.
But Kalshi has hit back, arguing that what it offers isn’t gambling and that it’s regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Commodities Exchange Act as it is a prediction market, not a gambling venue – an argument that crypto attorney Aaron Brogan says should be an easy win in court.
«I think clearly Kalshi is going to win these cases,» Brogan said in an interview with CoinDesk. «If you look at the language of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), it says that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over any contracts that fall within its regulatory purview, which derivative contracts and event contracts clearly do.»
Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket operate as neutral intermediaries, matching orders just like any other exchange under CFTC purview. There’s no sportsbook with a prediction market; the operator of the market doesn’t bet against its users.
For prediction market operators, sports has been a significant growth area. Data from Polymarket Analytics shows the category has surpassed the 2024 election for volume.
«[Kalshi is] not taking a side of the bet as the market in that case, which fundamentally changes the incentives involved and makes the product different in a holistic way,” Brogan explained.
Kalshi has self-certified these event contracts with the CFTC, a process allowing federally regulated derivatives exchanges to list new products by attesting their compliance with regulatory requirements without needing explicit pre-approval from the agency.
For its part, the CFTC seems to be receptive to the argument that the outcomes of sports games are commodities, with President Donald Trump’s pick to run the commission, Brian Quintenz, arguing in 2021 that they can serve a legitimate economic purpose as hedging instruments, distinct from pure betting activities, and thus should not automatically be prohibited under the CEA.
Brogan recognizes the reasoning behind Nevada’s concerns, given the state’s historical reliance on gambling revenues.
However, he points out that Nevada’s actions against Kalshi could inadvertently raise serious questions about the legitimacy of Nevada’s own gambling markets.
By categorizing Kalshi’s federally regulated event contracts as gambling, Nevada regulators have unintentionally highlighted that their own state-approved gambling operations, such as sports betting markets and other event-based wagering, might themselves technically qualify as derivative contracts.
“In that case, federal preemption could theoretically crowd out state authority to oversee those gambling markets at all,” said Brogan.
A victory for Kalshi, said Brogan, could transform American sports betting culture entirely if it’s done through prediction markets instead of traditional gambling companies.
Brogan notes that if Kalshi prevails, states could respond politically or legally, possibly lobbying Congress or filing an Administrative Procedure Act claim against the CFTC, although he doubts such challenges would succeed.
Ultimately, Kalshi’s litigation against state regulators presents a landmark federalism dilemma: Can states retain traditional authority over gambling regulation, or will federal regulatory frameworks dominate in the digital age?
«This is incredibly complicated,» Brogan concluded, «and we’re right on the cusp of litigation that could definitively define who will predominate. It’s complex, but it’s going to be really important.»
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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

Canary Capital is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Tron’s native token, TRX, according to a filing.
The hedge fund submitted a Form S-1 for the Canary Staked TRX ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. As the name suggests, the fund — if approved — would stake portions of its holdings.
This would be done through third-party providers, with BitGo acting as custodian for the assets. The fund would track TRX’s spot price using CoinDesk Indices calculations.
A proposed ticker as well as the management fee for the product have not been shared yet.
Issuers had initially filed applications for spot ethereum (ETH) ETFs with the staking feature included but removed them in an amended filing later in order to receive approval from the SEC on their proposals.
While the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler was strictly against staking, issuers have grown more hopeful that they will be able to add the feature to their spot ether funds, among others, with the appointment of crypto-friendly Chair Paul Atkins.
A decision on a February request from Grayscale to allow staking in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) was postponed by the regulator just a few days ago.
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Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

Just four months ahead of their criminal sentencing for operating a $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of HashFlare were seemingly mistakenly ordered to self-deport by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — an instruction that directly contradicted a court order for the men to remain in Washington state until they are sentenced in August.
In a joint letter to the court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin told District Judge Robert Lasnik of the Western District of Washington that both men had received “disturbing communications” from DHS ordering them to leave the country immediately.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.
Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the U.S. of their own volition — they were extradited from their native Estonia at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their HashFlare scheme. Though they initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, in February they both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on bond since last July.
“Although there is nothing Ivan and Sergei would want more than to immediately go home, they understood that they are also under Court order to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and lead counsel for Potenko, wrote in the pair’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
In his letter, Bini said DHS’s emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin «significant anxiety.”
“We and our clients have all seen recent news. Immigration authorities make mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they should not be deported,” Bini wrote.
Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, the DOJ filed its own letter with the court saying that prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and secured a year-long deferral to the self-deportation order.
“This should provide ample time for the sentencing to take place,” the prosecution’s letter said.
DHS did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Potapenko and Turogin are slated to be sentenced on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to time served, meaning no additional time in prison, and to be sent home to Estonia “immediately.”
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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: EigenLayer, Kraken, Coinbase, AWS

Following last week’s tariff-caused drama, this was a relatively quiet week in crypto. Bitcoin remained stable around $84k. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks about 80% of the market, was up about 4% in the last seven days — i.e. nothing historic.
Still, plenty happened. On Tuesday, much of crypto went offline because of a tech issue at AWS, showing how the decentralized economy isn’t always that decentralized. Shaurya Malwa reported the news early. Bitcoin and other major cryptos slipped on bad news for Nvidia, Omkar Godbole reported.
Mantra, a project focused on real world assets, lost 90% of its value. Explanations varied (the company said it was due to “force liquidations” exchanges).
Meanwhile, EigenLayer, a restaking leader, rolled out a “slashing” feature meant to address security concerns (Sam Kessler reported). OKX, a major exchange, announced plans to set up in California following a $500 million settlement with the SEC over claims it operated previously in the U.S. without a money transmitter license. Cheyenne Ligon had that story.
In less good news, Kraken laid off “hundreds” of staff ahead of an expected IPO. And Coinbase became embroiled in a “front running controversy” linked to a curiously named token on its Base L2. Privacy advocates reacted with alarm to rumors that Binance was about to delist Zcash following a long decline in the value of privacy coins.
In D.C. news, Jesse Hamilton reported on a new wave of crypto lobbyists flooding the capital. Some asked if there are now too many trade groups and whether they really all could be effective.
Friends With Benefits, a buzzy social club for creative technologists, launched a new program to build Web3 products for music, film, publishing and other fun activities. (I wrote that one.)
Of course, there was plenty happening in the economy and markets (Trump’s disgust for Fed chair Powell fed into the unease). But, in crypto, it was pretty much business as usual. Fortunes won, fortunes lost, fortunes deferred.
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