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Mark Carney Could Easily Win Canadian Elections, Myriad Markets Says

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In early January, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down, all polls pointed to political upheaval in Canada should an election be called.

Now, it looks to be an unprecedented fourth term for the Liberal Party, led by former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney, with a contract on Myriad Markets, a new prediction market, giving Carney a 74% chance of taking office.

Back in January, a poll tracker from CBC projected that the Conservative Party, led by Pierre Poilievre, could have made history winning up to 244 of the 338 seats in Canada’s Parliament.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals may have been relegated to third place, an astonishing fall for a party whose leader entered Ottawa as one of Canada’s most liked. At the time, Quebec’s Bloc Quebecois – a federal party that solely exists to advance Quebec’s interests on the national stage – assumed the role of official opposition.

But much has changed since then.

January 6 was the day that Trudeau announced his resignation and polls reflected the last days of what one columnist for the National Post described as a «legacy of chaos and disaster.»

This is continuing coverage of the Canadian election as part of an exclusive arrangement between myriad markets and Consensus by CoinDesk. Consensus 2025 will take place in Toronto May 14-16.

The Conservative party had already been in campaign mode weeks before Trudeau’s resignation, latching on to inflation and Canada’s declining post-Covid affordability and were rewarded with it handsomely in the polls.

Voters weren’t impressed with the Liberal’s proposals on carbon taxes and Trudeau’s plans for housing affordability were seen as not scratching the surface of the problem.

On January 7, there was no Trudeau. Without a foil, Poilievre was suddenly less effective and likeable. While the Conservatives have a whole library of policies, the headline was about Trudeau. There was no other ballot box question. Polls showed that the Conservative’s lead was beginning to slip.

Then Donald Trump entered the fray.

A trade war with Canada’s largest trading partner – something unfathomable a year ago – became a reality.

Carney won the race to replace Trudeau as Liberal leader – temporarily becoming the country’s prime minister. With Carney at the helm, the Liberals leaped into a significant lead nationally.

Carney, a former central banker, outpaced Poilievre in favorability ratings, reflecting widespread public sentiment that an experienced central banker was more trustworthy to handle pressing economic challenges than a lifelong partisan operative.

Carney’s significant experience on Bay Street, Wall Street, and in central banks ticked a lot of the right boxes for the electorate, putting him on track, as Myriad Markets’ election contract shows, to be elected as Canada’s twenty-fourth prime minister.

The Canadian election contract is one of the 30-odd markets currently on the platform, which cover a variety of topics from crypto prices, to the launch date of Grand Theft Auto VI.

Myriad Markets is a brainchild of the Decrypt and Rug Radio team, which launched it last year as part of a “interconnected media ecosystem” that integrates on-chain prediction markets alongside written and video content.

Crypto not on the Ballot

The Trump campaign doubled-down on crypto in the election as a way to get swing voters to the ballot box.

As Conservative party leader, Poilievre said in late 2022 that he wanted to make Canada the «Blockchain capital of the world». Disclosures show he holds shares in the Purpose Bitcoin ETF.

A 2022 survey from the Ontario Securities Commission showed that 13% of Canadians owned crypto assets, of which most were male and under 45.

One might wonder, then, why crypto isn’t a bigger issue in this election. It could be that part of the reason why is corporations are not allowed to fund political operations as they do in the United States; around $120 million – or about half of all corporate money donated – in the last election came from crypto companies.

Poilievre likely believes crypto is not worth dwelling on amid broader economic uncertainty and cross-border tensions that are top-of-mind for voters.

Crypto industry groups are waiting until after the election to press their case, seeing it as tone-deaf to push on crypto issues right now.

Whoever wins, they will have to work closely with Canada’s provinces, which control securities regulation. This is likely why crypto has only gotten moderate attention in Parliament in Ottawa. Any sort of development would likely come from the Provinces.

Crypto regulation in Canada is a featured topic at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, which takes place from May 14-16.

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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

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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

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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

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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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