The S-Curve

Explainer

Living explainers, regenerated as the facts change.


Nvidia opens spy probe as AI's first espionage conviction falls

Nvidia's board is investigating a reported foreign intelligence effort aimed at Jensen Huang, while courts keep convicting insiders for theft but rarely for espionage.

Binance France to close accounts Dec. 31, with fees from Nov. 29

An email to Binance France customers sets a year-end closure and a monthly fee from 29 November. EU regulators told unlicensed exchanges to give customers such a cut-off.

Gnosis Pay breach email lists card number, CVV and linked wallets

One customer's notice from the crypto card firm lists his card details, home address and every linked wallet. On a public ledger, the wallet addresses are the part that cannot be reissued.

Half of Anchorage's USDGO stablecoin sits at MEXC

MEXC wallets hold about $579 million of USDGO, a dollar token issued by a US bank. Treasury's new order binds that bank, but the coins reached MEXC through wallets listed as OSL's.

Treasury cuts off MEXC, citing $16.7 billion in illicit flows

FinCEN's order bars US financial institutions from moving funds to or from MEXC Global. It cites $16.7 billion in likely illicit activity and rests on a Russia law, not an Iran one.

Bitcoin tracked the Nasdaq as chips had their worst day since 2020

Thursday was the chip index's second-worst day since 1994, yet the median S&P 500 stock lost 2.27%. Outside tech, winners fell about as much as losers, and bitcoin moved with the Nasdaq.

How Arbitrum's council moved coins it held no key for

Arbitrum's 12-member Security Council briefly rewrote a core contract to move Binance-hack funds from an address it did not control. The power is in the constitution.

How a fake job interview reached Binance's signing service

Binance's own findings trace the 29 October theft from a fake recruiter to an internal signing service and fifty EIP-7702 authorizations. Here is the chain, and what is still inferred.

Arkansas and Utah test who regulates Kalshi's sports bets

Arkansas sued Kalshi on 4 November and Utah has both a lawsuit and criminal charges. Underneath all of it is one question: do federal derivatives rules or state gambling law apply?

Trump-linked companies are moving bitcoin. What the filings show

Trump Media moved 4,259 bitcoin to an address labeled as Crypto.com's, and American Bitcoin booked a $126 million profit. Neither number says what it first seems to.

How issuers got a veto over OKX and ICE's tokenized stocks

The SEC's September exemption lets any listed company block third-party tokens of its stock from a venue. 62 have told OKXICE no. Here is how the rule, the clock and the percentages work.

The Arkéa theft left a trail in Kraken's euro market

Crédit Mutuel Arkéa says attackers used its own account to send money to other banks. Public trades on Kraken show euros turning into USDC minutes before it was withdrawn.

Most Hyperliquid altcoin spikes slip within days; few fully reverse

A year of daily closes on 104 Hyperliquid perps: six in ten big altcoin spikes were lower three days later, yet the typical spike still kept much of its gain, and some kept climbing.

Blast's exit window has closed. About $30 million is still on two L2s

Blast's withdrawal interface closed Oct. 26 and Abstract shuts Dec. 15. Most of the money left early; about $30.1 million was still on the two chains on Nov. 3.