OlympusDAO has been hit hard by the recent market selloff and is quickly approaching its all-time low of $163 set over the summer.
OlympusDAO Enters Freefall Investors are fleeing OlympusDAO.
The decentralized reserve currency protocol is down over 87% from its all-time high achieved in April last year amid a selloff across the market. OlympusDAO’s downward trajectory has accelerated over the last week, shedding 43.5% of its value. The OHM token is down 24.9% in the last 24 hours, currently trading at $183. It’s about 12% away from its all-time low of $163 set during the May 2021 market crash.
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OHM/USD chart. Source: CoinGecko OlympusDAO was the first crypto project to utilize a circular tokenomic structure to draw in liquidity. Thanks to OlympusDAO’s clever tokenomic mechanism, investors can earn outsized yields for bonding assets and staking the OHM token. This so-called liquidity “flywheel” has proven effective while the market impulse is bullish and has inspired many fork projects such as Wonderland Money. The OlympusDAO frenzy hit a peak in late 2021 as various digital assets soared to new highs, and by November it had hit a $4 billion market cap.
However, as the May crash and more recent price action have shown, OlympusDAO appears to suffer more than other projects when the market declines. OlympusDAO’s design has attracted criticism from many crypto enthusiasts who liken the project to a Ponzi scheme. This is because Olympus and other such projects need new money to enter the protocol to prop up the incentives for existing investors.
Other protocols that use a similar tokenomic structure to OlympusDAO have also been hit hard. Wonderland has also experienced similar losses, trading down 34.6% over the past week. On Ethereum, the OlympusDAO-backed fork Redacted Cartel is also bleeding despite almost tripling in value since its launch mid-December. The protocol’s BTRFLY token dropped approximately 34% during the recent dip, but has since partially recovered.
Since the start of the year, the crypto market has been hard hit after a weak end to 2021. Bitcoin briefly dipped below $40,000 Monday and is down 10% on the week but appears to have found support at current levels. Ethereum has fared worse, seeing a weekly decline of 17%. The second-biggest crypto asset also appears to have stabilized after testing support at $3,000. The latest dip follows the Federal Reserve’s Jan. 5 confirmation that it would hike interest rates, which also shook crypto and stocks.
However, while most crypto assets are following Bitcoin and Ethereum’s downward trajectory, there are some exceptions. NEAR Protocol, a sharded Layer 1 network, has bounced back from temporary weakness, gaining 17% in the past 24 hours. Elsewhere, the privacy-focused Oasis Protocol has also shown strength, rising 16.5% in the same period. Whether these assets will continue to decouple from the wider market remains to be seen.
Disclosure: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned ETH, NEAR, and several other cryptocurrencies.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Timothy Craig. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Shark tank star and billionaire Mark Cuban is revealing his crypto portfolio, which includes several non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and altcoins built on Ethereum (ETH).
According to ETH search engine EtherScan, Cuban’s top altcoin holdings include data exchange platform Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), cross-chain smart contract protocol Rarible (RARI), the governance token of the Olympus DAO (gOHM), and music streaming blockchain Audius (AUDIO).
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The business magnate has also made a portion of his crypto wallet public and is showing off his NFT collection on the social crypto collectible platform Lazy.
Cuban’s collection includes NFTs built on ETH-competitors Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC), as well as ETH itself.
In a recent interview with comedian Jon Stewart, Cuban reveals that 80% of his most-recent non-Shark Tank investments have been into crypto assets as he believes newer generations are very likely to incorporate cryptocurrencies into their business models.
“The investments I’m making now are not in traditional businesses, 80% of the investments I make not in Shark Tank are in and around cryptocurrencies.”
Cuban then tells Stewart that he’s less of a speculative investor and believes decentralized cryptocurrencies will have legitimate use cases in the business world moving forward.
“Put aside all the speculation you read about with Bitcoin and Dogecoin, all that. Set that aside, that’s just the gamesmanship that’s played with stocks and everything.
A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) basically says that there is no central organization. It’s all decentralized and trustless. What we mean by trustless is there’s not a management group or board of directors or a CEO making decisions…
And so everybody who owns a token in that application then has an equal, not always equal, but typically equal vote to set the direction of the hull, of the network. That is changing decision-making and that is where I look to invest.”
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Olympus is the first on-chain acceleration platform. Olympus will transition into a DAO. The DFINITY Foundation (DFINITY), a Swiss not-for-profit research and development organization and major contributor to the Internet Computer Blockchain (ICP), today announced the launch of the Olympus Acceleration Platform, web3’s first decentralized, on-chain global acceleration platform. Olympus supports the development and adoption of web3 technology across multiple ecosystems. The acceleration platform is a first of its kind platform and will be used by teams around the world to organize and launch their own accelerator programs.
Initial operations of Olympus will be funded by a $15M grant from DFINITY and the ICP Asia Alliance, which aims to cultivate a dynamic Web3 and AI ecosystem in Asia. There will be new allocation of funds in future with the launch of proposed EU, MENA, Africa and America alliances, cementing ICP’s global reach.
By the end of 2024 the platform will transition into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). To ensure platform sustainability and independence from grants, future cohorts will be funded by a native token generation event (TGE), followed by fundraising from the community.This will also ensure all stakeholders benefit from the success of the platform as token holders.
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Designed for a new cycle of web3 product launches, Olympus provides a consolidated platform for open and sustainable project acceleration by providing access to grants, crowdfunding, VC investments, and referrals all in one place and on-chain. The platform operates as an ecosystem pipeline, channeling and curating the best projects from 40+ countries around the world. Projects can apply to join a distributed network of startup accelerators, raise funds, access talent, and interact across communities and ecosystems, while investors on the platform can increase their visibility and gain early access to fully transparent, globally vetted deals.
The Olympus Acceleration platform promotes decentralization, innovation and entrepreneurship, we’re all looking forward to witnessing the growth of the next generation of projects on the Internet Computer and other ecosystems through Olympus. By creating a web3-based global platform for everyone, we’re able to bring together top talent, projects, investors, and mentors to create a credible and trustless marketplace offering equal opportunity and access to all qualified projects. Traditional accelerator programs are permissioned and operate as silos, many are also not sustainable and rely on grants. Olympus is a new model, that’s why I am especially excited to get involved as a mentor and share my experience with the next generation of founders.
Dominic Williams, Founder and Chief Scientist of the DFINITY Foundation, commented. Unlike existing accelerator programs which are siloed and require permission to interact, Olympus uses an Open Stake model where projects, mentors, and investors can interact freely, enabling permissionless ecosystem inclusivity and unlimited integrations. Utilizing multi-chain infrastructure, projects can also unlock capital and users at scale through early crowdfunding. Olympus will also enable on-chain verification of key project growth metrics, with further verification provided by the platform’s trustless perpetual rating loop enabling community members, investors, mentors, and users to rate projects and provide testimonials. Such multi-chain infrastructure and on-chain verification are uniquely powered by the technologies of Internet Computer Protocol.
The launch of the platform is anchored by a number of partners and supporters, including Web3Labs, a blockchain incubation accelerator and investment firm based in Hong Kong committed to discovering, investing in, and nurturing the best projects and innovative teams in web3. DFINITY and Web3Labs recently announced a strategic partnership to foster and promote blockchain innovation across Asia with Web3Labs joining the ICP Asia Alliance founded last year. The first batch of multiple web3 startup accelerator programs is expected to be operated by ICP Hubs as well as partners like Web3Labs through the platform.
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Also joining the platform are venture capital investors who will become Mentors in the accelerator cohorts and gain access to deal flows. These investors have also led investment at VC funds including Fenbushi Capital, Fundamental Labs, Softbank Vision Fund, NewTribe Capital, Cypher Capital, Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Summer Ventures, L2IV, Dext Force Ventures, Leadblock Partners, viaBTC Capital, Cipholio Ventures, Chiron Group, 3X Capital, Plutus.VC, and others.
Founders and developers wishing to participate in Olympus can submit their projects to the platform here.
The DFINITY Foundation is a not-for-profit organization of leading cryptographers, computer scientists and experts in distributed computing. The DFINITY Foundation boasts the largest R&D operations in the blockchain industry with many employees coming from IBM Research and Google. The DFINITY Foundation employees have published papers 1600+ and 250+ patents. The Foundation is headquartered in Zurich, with a research center also in San Francisco. With a mission to shift cloud computing into a fully decentralized state, the Foundation leveraged its experience to create the Internet Computer and currently operates as a major contributor to the network.
[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, singapore, July 4th, 2024]
Piggycel, a IoT-based blockchain RWA project, has secured investment from the global mainnet Internet Computer (ICP) and joined the ICP Olympus accelerator program.
Piggycell is a blockchain RWA platform that users can expereince IoT based Charge To Earn (C2E) while charing their bateries. It is a decentralized platform linked to the No. 1 power bank sharing service in Korea, Piggycell, which has over 3 million users.
The ICP Olympus program, announced in April 2024, is an accelerator program for the global 24th ranked (on Coinmarketcap data as of June 23, 2024) L1 mainnet operated by the DFINITY Foundation in Switzerland. It is a program that supports promising projects to grow into high-quality large projects in the ICP ecosystem by participating as investors and mentors, including Fenbushi Capital, Softbank Vision Fund, and Cypher Capital.
Jake Park, CEO of ICP HUB Korea, said, “Through this investment in Piggycell and approval for participation in ICP Olympus, we will fully support the Piggycell project to grow into a global top project and showcase the technology and stability of ICP through Piggycell.”
The Piggycell C2E platform is planning its closed beta test (CBT) and officially launch this year.
About Piggycell
The Piggycell project is a pioneering initiative aimed at driving real-world applications and mass adoption of blockchain technology. By creating a digital twin of the assets from the already successful Web2 project Piggycell in a virtual world through blockchain, it seeks to imbue existing assets with new functionalities and philosophies, thereby generating higher value and achieving true blockchain innovation.
About the author
Chainwire is a specialized crypto newswire service providing high-impact distribution for the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry.
FTX customer Nikolas Gierczyk accuses Olympus Peak of underpaying him after buying his FTX bankruptcy claim worth $1.59 million, alleging the hedge fund owes him much more in additional recovery.
According to a Bloomberg report on Oct. 11, Californian Nikolas Gierczyk is suing hedge fund Olympus Peak for not honoring his right to additional recovery.
He claims that the hedge fund owes him much more than $1 million from their deal, as creditors stand to gain around 129% to 146% from the FTX bankruptcy payout plan.
Gierczyk stated that he and Olympus Peak settled on a purchase agreement when the hedge fund bought the bankruptcy claim at a “substantial 42% discount,” as he was promised any excess distribution from the bankruptcy.
“However, Olympus Peak made clear that they would not be fulfilling their end of the bargain,” Gierczyk’s lawyers wrote in a complaint filed to the federal court in Manhattan on Oct. 10.
Olympus Peak is a hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut. It has not responded to Bloomberg’s request for comment at the time of writing.
On Oct. 7, a Delaware bankruptcy judge approved FTX’s reorganization plan nearly two years after the crypto exchange’s collapse in November 2022.
According to a statement, the crypto exchange company claims it has amassed between $14.7 billion and $16.5 billion worth in property distribution. An amount that surpasses FTX’s previous estimation of what it owes creditors, which is around $11.2 billion.
“Looking ahead, we are poised to return 100% of bankruptcy claim amounts plus interest for non-governmental creditors through what will be the largest and most complex bankruptcy estate asset distribution in history,” said John Ray, who took over as FTX CEO after the company filed for bankruptcy.
According to the plan approved by Delaware bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, 98% of FTX’s creditors will gain 118% of their claim as of November 2022, when the exchange filed for bankruptcy protection. This large payout is made possible due to the bullish nature of the crypto market in the past two years.
OORT’s decentralized AI Layer1 blockchain, Olympus Protocol, has officially integrated Circle-issued stablecoin, USDC. By doing so, Olympus bridges DeAI with real-world utility.
Olympus Protocol becomes the first decentralized AI-based ecosystem to integrate the USDC (USDC) stablecoin, opening the door for real-world use cases and establishing a practical and functional infrastructure with ample liquidity and financial stability for evolving DeAI projects.
By integrating USDC into the Olympus ecosystem, businesses will be able to process AI-driven transactions securely and efficiently using the Circle-issued stablecoin. Moreover, AI companies that use the Olympus Protocol for storage and compute power can make USDC transactions. Thus, developers can use USDC to pay for decentralized cloud computing services via Olympus.
While there have been other Layer 1 chains before Olympus which have USDC integrated into their ecosystems, Olympus Protocol’s specialization in the DeAI sector offers unique access to the emerging AI sector that is making its way through the decentralized crypto space.
Since 2024, many traders have started relying on AI Agents in trading as more AI-based technology has made innovative strides in the decentralized finance spaces. At press time, AI tokens have accumulated a market cap of more than $22 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Through USDC, Developers will be able to unlock a stable and liquid infrastructure for projects in multiple sectors, including DeFi, Enterprise AI, Data Monetization, AI-powered Identity and Reputation Systems, and more.
This is because Olympus Protocol’s environment offers a myriad of projects and dApps with unique functionalities for AI development. These projects encompass data collection and labeling, data storage, and computing. By merging the stability of USDC with DeAI, Olympus Protocol gears up to drive exponential growth and cutting-edge advancements in the sector.
Not only that, the USDC stablecoin could also facilitate AI-powered trading, lending, and staking projects built on Olympus.
Powered by the Olympus Protocol, OORT offers trustless infrastructure built on AI for enterprises and individuals. Some of their products include OORT Storage, OORT DataHub (for B2C and B2B), as well as the upcoming OORT Compute.
Previously, OORT raised $10 million from several major investors including Taisu Venture, Red Beard Venture, Sanctor Capital, and has received grants from Microsoft and Google.
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This article is not intended as financial advice. Educational purposes only.
AUTHOR
Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.
Foreword In an exclusive interview session, we sat with Daniel Bara, the Director of the Olympus Association. The discussion covered different aspects related to Olympus’ treasury-backed design; like its automated crisis-response mechanisms and how $OHM is navigating the recent market correction with comparatively lower drawdowns.
While talking to blockchainreporter.net, Daniel Bara explained the structural differences between Olympus and conventional crypto blue chips. He highlighted the protocol’s on-chain reserves, countercyclical tools like the Yield Repurchase Facility and Cooler Loans, and most significantly the role of premium compression in absorbing volatility without triggering panic selling.
Interview Section How is the treasury-backed design of Olympus primarily distinct from conventional crypto “blue chips” in the case of a market crash? Most crypto assets, including what people call blue chips, have no structural floor. Since the correction began on January 27, Bitcoin has fallen 25 percent and Ethereum has fallen 35 percent. Some crypto assets address this with pegs, but a peg is a target maintained by mechanisms, and we have seen targets break under stress. A floor is different: liquid reserves that exist regardless of market conditions.
Olympus made a deliberate design choice to back every OHM token with liquid reserves in the treasury, currently around $11.55 per token. Over that same period, OHM’s price fell 18 percent, but the reserves behind each token barely moved. The price changed because market sentiment changed. The value underneath barely did. That creates a fundamentally different risk profile than any asset where the price is the only measure of value.
As Olympus emphasizes automation to prevent human bias, could you specify its role in particular scenarios of human failure? The standard response during a crash is real-time human judgment. Protocols call emergency governance votes, adjust parameters on the fly, pause systems, or rely on multisig holders to make real-time decisions under pressure. That’s human bias in action, not because the people are bad at their jobs, but because fear spreads faster than conviction and the decisions get made when judgment is at its worst.
Olympus was built to remove that dependency. During the January correction, with billions being liquidated across DeFi, the protocol required zero manual interventions. No emergency proposals, no parameter changes, no team overrides.
The Yield Repurchase Facility kept buying automatically and actually tripled its rate because lower prices meant each dollar of yield purchased more OHM. Cooler Loans kept honoring every position without a single liquidation. The system didn’t need someone to make the right call under pressure, because the right behavior was already encoded into how it works.
When $OHM plunged half as much as $ETH during the downtrend, which mechanism backed that resilience, Cooler Loans, YRF, or premium compression? OHM declined 18% against Ethereum’s 35% over the correction, so roughly half the drawdown. All three mechanisms contributed to the resilience, and the important thing is that they work as layers, not as alternatives. Cooler Loans broke the cascade that normally amplifies crashes. Most DeFi lending is pro-cyclical: prices fall, collateral ratios break, liquidations trigger forced selling, and the drawdown deepens.
Cooler has no price-based liquidation triggers, so there was no forced selling into weakness, which is the single most important thing during a correction. The Yield Repurchase Facility provided countercyclical buying pressure, tripling its buyback rate as prices fell, because the treasury yield purchases more OHM at lower prices. And premium compression acted as the shock absorber, allowing the market to reprice confidence without touching the underlying value.
During the sharpest week of the selloff, the backing moved just 0.3 percent while the price moved over 15 percent, meaning nearly all of the drawdown was the market adjusting its premium, not the intrinsic value eroding. Additionally, Convertible Deposits created additional countercyclical demand, with new capital flowing into the treasury at six times normal volume as participants locked in lower conversion prices. Each mechanism has a different job, and they all ran simultaneously without any coordination needed.
Can you elaborate on how premium compression effectively absorbed up to 98% of the total downside effect without leading to any panic selling? OHM’s market price reflects two things: the reserve value underneath each token, and the premium the market assigns for what the protocol is building on top of those reserves. On January 28, OHM was trading at $20.89 against reserves of $11.63, a premium of roughly 80 percent. By February 3, the price had fallen to $17.70, but the reserves had only moved to $11.59. The reserves declined by four cents.
The price declined by $3.19. That means 98 percent of the price decline was the premium compressing from roughly 80 percent to 53 percent, not the reserves themselves losing value. The reason this didn’t trigger panic is that holders could see exactly what was happening. The treasury is transparent and on-chain, and the mechanisms were still running.
Cooler Loans meant anyone who wanted liquidity could access it without selling at market prices. There was no information gap, no uncertainty about whether the floor was real, and no forced selling to accelerate the decline. When holders can see that the intrinsic value is intact and they have options, the psychology shifts from panic to patience
Question 05. With Cooler Loans having seen zero liquidations throughout a major crash, how crucial was the role of the backing-based LTV mechanism in preventing any cascading failures? It was central to everything. The standard DeFi lending loop works like this: market price falls, the oracle updates, the collateral ratio breaks a threshold, and the liquidation engine triggers a forced sale. That forced sale pushes the price down further, which triggers more liquidations, and the cascade feeds on itself. This is how billions in leveraged positions unwound across DeFi during the October crash and January downturn.
Cooler Loans was specifically designed to break that loop. The loan terms are based on backing value, not market price, and since the backing barely moved during the downturn, borrowers’ positions remained healthy throughout. Without price-based liquidation triggers or external oracle dependencies, there are no margin calls.
Borrowers accept fixed terms and give up some upside optionality in exchange for certainty, and that certainty is what prevented the cascade. Across more than $121 million in loans outstanding, zero liquidations is the direct result of designing around backing value rather than market price.
Do you believe in the ultimate supremacy of autonomous treasury mechanisms over DAO governance? Not supremacy. They do fundamentally different things, and the crash demonstrated exactly why you want both. Autonomous mechanisms handle execution: the YRF buying OHM, Cooler Loans maintaining positions, RBS managing liquidity depth (when active). These need to run continuously, without the distortion that comes from making decisions under duress.
No governance vote can move fast enough to respond to a market crash, and even if it could, the decisions would be colored by fear. That’s where automation is essential. But governance handles evolution, deciding what parameters the mechanisms should operate with, what new products to develop, and how the treasury should be deployed over time. The DAO sets the rules; the mechanisms enforce them without discretion.
The January downturn was a clean demonstration. The mechanisms ran exactly as designed with zero human intervention, while governance stayed focused on longer-horizon decisions without being pulled into crisis management. You want your monetary policy automated and your strategic direction governed. Trying to do both with the same process is how systems fail under stress.
While increasing Convertible Deposits indicate participation of ‘smart money,’ how is it significant for $OHM? Convertible Deposits let users deposit stablecoins and lock in a future conversion price for OHM. During peak volatility last week, new deposits flowed in at nearly six times normal volume. As prices fell, the auction mechanism automatically adjusted strike prices downward, from $22.99 to $19.71, a 14 percent reduction from pre-event levels. Some depositors looped their positions, borrowing against existing deposits to acquire additional strikes at the lower prices.
This kind of countercyclical conviction has shown up at institutional scale as well, with an eight-figure institutional allocation entering during the October correction. What this does structurally for OHM is create demand when the broader market is selling.
Deposits add capital to the treasury and establish buying pressure at lower prices, which strengthens the backing over time. When the people who understand the system best are deploying capital into it during drawdowns, that tells you something about the underlying economics, not just sentiment.
Moving forward, is Olympus endeavoring to provide a volatility-resistant DeFi base layer or something resembling a decentralized reserve asset? Both, and they reinforce each other. The reserve asset function comes from the treasury-backed design, the programmatic monetary policy, and the stability mechanisms that held up during the crash. Those properties are what make OHM useful as a foundation for other things to be built on. Cooler Loans is lending infrastructure built on top of that reserve value. Convertible Deposits are a capital formation mechanism.
Protocol Owned Liquidity means the protocol controls its own liquidity rather than depending on external providers who leave during downturns. The base layer works because the reserve asset is sound, and the reserve asset becomes more valuable as more infrastructure is built on top of it.
The more OHM is used as a base layer, the more demand it generates, the larger the treasury grows, and the stronger the backing becomes. A reserve asset that nobody builds on is a curiosity. A base layer without sound reserve properties doesn’t survive its first real test. Olympus has been stress-tested through multiple major corrections now, with every mechanism performing as designed, and that track record is what makes both functions credible.
If we sum up the whole conversation, Bara framed Olympus as an organized system designed to withstand stress without relying on emergency governance or reactive decision-making. Olympus is set to position $OHM as both a volatility-resistant DeFi base layer and a decentralized reserve asset.
And to transform this idea into reality, Olympus platform is merging automated monetary mechanisms, DAO-led strategic evolution, and treasury-backed reserves. The recent downturn, he argued, served as a live stress test, with each mechanism functioning as designed and reinforcing the protocol’s long-term structural thesis.
PANews reported on April 30th that, according to The Block, Gemini's Olympus has obtained a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) license from the US CFTC. This license allows Gemini to provide proprietary clearing, settlement, risk management, and escrow services for its Titan platform's prediction markets, futures, options, and perpetual contracts, reducing reliance on third-party clearing and lowering costs. Gemini obtained a Designated Contract Market (DCM) license last year and is working towards a "full CFTC license stack" including DCM, DCO, and potentially a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM). Currently, only a handful of crypto companies hold both DCM and DCO licenses; competitors Kraken and Coinbase primarily expand their licenses through acquisitions of already licensed institutions.
Gemini’s Olympus unit won CFTC clearing license enabling in-house derivatives infrastructure for futures, options, perpetuals, and prediction markets.
Summary
License enables in-house clearing for futures, options, perpetual contracts and prediction markets Gemini received Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) license from CFTC on April 30, 2026 Approval follows December 2025 Designated Contract Market (DCM) license for Gemini Titan subsidiary Gemini announced April 30 that its affiliate Gemini Olympus received a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, positioning the exchange as one of few crypto-native platforms with complete regulatory infrastructure to operate derivatives clearing in the United States. The license allows Olympus to act as a clearinghouse for regulated derivatives trading, including prediction markets.
“Today marks a major milestone in Gemini’s marketplace expansion,” said Cameron Winklevoss, Gemini’s President. “In addition to our crypto spot marketplace, Gemini now has a full-stack, end-to-end marketplace for predictions as well as futures, options, and more.”
Regulatory Roadmap Complete The DCO approval follows the CFTC‘s December 2025 designation of Gemini Titan as a Designated Contract Market, which enabled the launch of its predictions marketplace the same month. Gemini Titan will explore expanding its derivatives offering for U.S. customers to include crypto futures, options, and perpetual contracts.
According to The Block, Gemini is pursuing a futures commission merchant (FCM) license from the CFTC and working to obtain all derivatives-related licenses from the regulator. The company said it now has end-to-end trading infrastructure spanning spot crypto, prediction markets, futures and options.
Winklevoss described the DCO license as “a major building block for our super app, where users will be able to fulfill their existing and future financial needs all in one place”.
Gemini’s affiliate Gemini Olympus secured a CFTC Derivatives Clearing Organization license, giving the exchange full in-house control over clearing and settlement as it builds toward prediction markets and crypto perpetuals.
Posted May 1, 2026 at 5:59 am EST.
Gemini’s affiliate Gemini Olympus, LLC received a Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on April 29, the company announced Thursday. Gemini shares (GEMI) jumped roughly 8% on the news.
The license allows Olympus to act as a central counterparty for regulated derivatives — managing clearing, settlement, margining, and collateral in-house rather than routing trades through outside firms like QC Clearing LLC, which Gemini had previously relied on. Cameron Winklevoss called it “a major milestone in our marketplace expansion” and a building block for Gemini’s financial services super app.
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The DCO approval follows the December 2025 Designated Contract Market (DCM) license granted to affiliate Gemini Titan, which enabled the launch of Gemini’s prediction marketplace. With both licenses in place, Gemini now controls the full trade lifecycle — from listing to settlement — inside a single regulated structure. The company said Gemini Titan will explore expanding into crypto futures, options, and perpetual contracts for U.S. customers. A futures commission merchant (FCM) license is the remaining piece of the full CFTC stack, and The Block reported that Gemini is actively pursuing it.
The approval puts Gemini in a small group of crypto-native firms holding both a DCM and a DCO. Bitnomial holds the same combination, and Kraken’s parent company Payward agreed earlier this month to acquire it — the first firm to hold the full CFTC stack, including an FCM.
The timing matters. As Unchained reported this week, Polymarket is seeking CFTC approval to reopen its main exchange to U.S. traders. Hyperliquid is testing HIP-4, a zero-fee prediction market product. And Kalshi is expanding into perpetual futures under the name Timeless. The prediction market sector saw trading volume surge more than 300% in 2025 to $63.5 billion.
Gemini has been pivoting hard toward the U.S. to compete in that market.
Earlier this year, it announced “Gemini 2.0,” exiting the UK, EU, and Australia and cutting roughly 25% of international staff. The company went public via Nasdaq IPO in September 2025, with shares popping 14% on debut before falling roughly 90% from that high, weighed down by nearly $600 million in 2025 losses and investor scrutiny over its transition away from spot crypto. Thursday’s approval was one of the first meaningful catalysts since the IPO.
A court in Illinois sided with the United States Commodity Futures Trade Commission (CFTC) and recognized two altcoins – Olympus (OHM) and KlimaDAO (KLIMA) as commodities.
Illinois Northern District Court Judge supported the CFTC in the case against Oregon resident Sam Ikurti and his company, Jafia, LLC. The CFTC deemed the company a Ponzi-like scheme.
Judge Imposed a $120 Million Fine on Crypto Ponzi SchemeIn 2022, CFTC accused Ikurti and his colleague Ravishankar Avadanam of fraud and non-compliance with registration requirements. The case against Avadanam was dismissed in 2023 as part of an agreement with the regulator.
The Commission claimed that they organized the Ponzi scheme, which attracted about $ 44 million from at least 170 investors through the company’s website called Jafia LLC and YouTube videos.
Read more: 15 Most Common Crypto Scams To Look Out For
Ikurti and Avadanama developed Jafia LLC, which claimed to bring customers up to 15% returns per annum. However, scammers spent all investor funds on the purchase of altcoins OHM and KLIMA.
Judge Mary Rowland agreed with the CFTC that Jafia, LLC, and its founders were involved in fraud. The defendants are now required to pay more than $120 million in compensation to all victims of the scheme. Specifically, this included $83.7 million in restitution and $36.9 million in disgorgement.
However, the most important point in the case was the court’s recognition of OHM and KLIMA as commodities.
“The order finds not only are Bitcoin and Ethereum commodities within the CFTC’s jurisdiction, but also “OHM and Klima, two non-Bitcoin virtual currencies … qualify as commodities,” CFTC said.
Due to this development, the price of OHM has increased by 0.71% in the past 24 hours despite the broader market downturn. Meanwhile, the price of KLIMA has also increased modestly by 0.47%.
Olympus (OHM) Price Performance. Source: BeInCryptoDetermining whether crypto assets are securities or commodities is a subject of lively debate. CFTC Representatives consider most cryptocurrency commodities, while the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) believes that all of them are more likely to relate to securities.
Read more: Who Is Gary Gensler? Everything To Know About the SEC Chairman
Representatives of the crypto industry believe that it is precisely because of disputes between the CFTC and SEC in the United States that cannot create a regulatory framework for the crypto market.
Another one of the cryptocurrency cases in the USA is over. The court issued a commodity decision for two cryptos.
Accordingly, Judge Mary Rowland of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found the CFTC right and ordered that an Oregonian named Sam Ikkurty and his company Jafia pay more than $120 million in compensation to the victims in a “Ponzi”-like fraud case.
In the lawsuit, the CFTC alleged that Sam Ikkurty and his company were not registered and committed fraud, and that Sam Ikkurty and his company, which promised investors an 18% annual return, raised approximately $44 million from at least 170 investors through his website and YouTube.
Judge Rowland also ruled that the cryptocurrencies Olympus (OHM) and KlimaDAO (KLIMA) are commodities.
CTFC said the following in its announcement:
“The verdict found that Ikkurty and other defendants violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations, including fraud and failure to register.
The decision not only states that Bitcoin and Ethereum commodities are within the jurisdiction of the CFTC, but also that OHM and KLIMA, two virtual currencies other than BTC and ETH, also qualify as commodities, and that these virtual currencies are in the same general class as Bitcoin and are traded in regulated futures. states that it has been done.”
Evaluating the decision, experts say that the judge's characterization of the altcoins named OHM and KLIMA as commodities does not resolve the ongoing debate in the USA about which assets are securities and which are commodities and the general uncertainties in the cryptocurrency sector.
Because in the USA, cryptocurrencies that have the status of securities fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC, and cryptocurrencies that have the status of commodities fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC. However, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam argues that most cryptocurrencies are commodities, while SEC Chairman Gary Gensler argues that most cryptocurrencies are securities.
“I don't think this decision is a big deal because the SEC may recognize both cryptocurrencies (OHM and KLIMA) as securities in the future,” said attorney James Brady, partner at law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. said.
*This is not investment advice.
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A US court has ruled that two lesser-known cryptocurrencies, Olympus OHM, and KlimaDAO KLIMA, are commodities like Bitcoin. This decision emerged from a civil lawsuit filed by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against Sam Ikkurty and his companies.
Also Read: Coinbase rides high on precedent in Binance-SEC ruling
According to a July 3 CFTC statement, Judge Mary Rowland of the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois stated that the defendants violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations by not registering their company and misappropriating investors’ funds.
Judge Rowland found that Ikkurty misrepresented his fund’s performance and did not disclose that it had decreased by 98.99% over a few months. Additionally, he operated a Ponzi-like scheme by raising funds for products supposedly backed by digital assets related to carbon offsets. Instead of obtaining the promised collateral, the defendants transferred most of the funds to earlier investors to cover losses.
Consequently, the Judge ordered Ikkurty to pay over $120 million—$83.7 million in restitution and $36.9 million in disgorgement—for operating the Ponzi-like scheme. Meanwhile, Judge Rowland’s view that OHM and KLIMA were commodities was a crucial part of the ruling that drew the crypto community’s attention.
CFTC stated:
“The order finds not only are Bitcoin and Ethereum commodities within the CFTC’s jurisdiction, but also ‘OHM and Klima, two non-Bitcoin virtual currencies … qualify as commodities,’ noting those virtual currencies fall into the same general class as Bitcoin, on which there is regulated futures trading.”
KLIMA is the governance token of KlimaDAO, a decentralized organization aiming to solve climate-finance coordination problems. OHM is the governance token of OlympusDAO, which seeks to create a community-owned decentralized reserve currency. Notably, both digital assets have lost 99% of their value during the past years.
CFTC and SEC’s long-standing battle over crypto Judge Rowland’s decision highlights the regulatory uncertainty in the crypto industry, especially for altcoins. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), led by Gary Gensler, insists that most cryptocurrencies, except Bitcoin, are securities and fall under its jurisdiction. This stance has led to legal actions against major crypto firms, including Coinbase, and the classification of altcoins like Solana as securities.
Also Read: Can altcoins gain ground as Bitcoin dominance weakens?
The CFTC, however, argues that most cryptocurrencies are commodities and under its authority. The regulator has also filed numerous legal actions against crypto firms like KuCoin, labeling some digital assets as commodities.
Market observers noted that these cases reflect the ongoing conflict between the SEC and CFTC about their roles in cryptocurrency oversight. Notably, most crypto stakeholders, including billionaire investor Mark Cuban, believe the CFTC is better equipped to oversee the emerging industry than its sister regulatory agency, which has adopted a stringent stance towards the sector.
Holyheld, a leading Swiss crypto payments startup, announced today that it has secured funding to accelerate BRRR protocol with investment from Toyota Ventures, TempleDAO, Tomahawk VC, Prismatic Capital, Zee Prime Capital, Polygon, Kosmos Ventures and Moonlanding Ventures, as well as from angel investors from leading projects including Lido, Olympus, Dinero, Paragon, Superfluid, vfat, Inverse Finance, Daedalus, DCV, Generative Ventures and Vamient. In an effort to fill the critical infrastructure necessary for users to transact globally with merchants instantly, Holyheld’s BRRR protocol aims to connect public blockchain networks, traditional payment and card networks to create a global layer of real-time payments.
Anton Mozgovoy, CEO of Holyheld, said,
“This opportunity consolidates our lead in the market, and fuels our drive to redefine how real-time clearing of payments should work.
“With our technology of global stablecoin orchestration, we’re well-positioned to transform how users and businesses conduct business today with payments of tomorrow.”
BRRR’s protocol is used to power Holyheld’s app, a leader in the European market in the segment of Web 3.0 payments apps, which offers a cash account with a debit card available to residents of 30 European countries.
Users of the Holyheld app can connect any self-custody wallet and use their cryptocurrency for daily purchases.
This enables traditional consumer behaviors, like swiping or tapping a credit card or mobile device for payment, while users maintain self-custody of their funds.
Dr. Anton Zagorodnikov, co-founder and CTO of Holyheld, added,
“This funding is an essential step as we work towards our vision of enabling crypto customers and fintechs to build new payment settlement and reconciliation solutions using crypto.”
The new funding will allow Holyheld to continue expanding the protocol to more clients and payment networks globally.
Holyheld has integrated over 100 leading crypto protocols across 15 blockchain networks.
The company’s BRRR has also orchestrated over $100 million in volume since its launch in April of 2023.
Chris Abshire, principal at Toyota Ventures, said,
“Holyheld turns any self-custody wallet into a personal IBAN and a debit card, which enables users to have a frictionless digital wallet experience.
“We are excited to work with Holyheld’s team as they build the leading on-chain clearing house.”
To learn more about Holyheld, users can visit here or here.
About Holyheld Founded in 2022, Holyheld is committed to enabling crypto customers and fintech to build new payment settlement and reconciliation solutions using stablecoins.
With offices in Zug, Switzerland, and Vilnius, Lithuania, the company’s first product is a Web 3.0 debit card that allows users to make traditional payments with digital assets.
Holyheld’s BRRR (Blockchain Reconciliation and Remittance Record) protocol enables consumers who are invested in blockchain-related assets to have significant purchasing power in the real world.
To learn more about Holyheld, users can visit here or here.
