Top crypto stories of week 19, 2026
Mon 4 to Sun 10 May 2026
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 4 to Sun 10 May 2026, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 16 comments in total. Most-shared sources: x.com, firefly.social, farcaster.xyz.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Department of War releases UFO files (war.gov)
The Department of War has released the sixth tranche of records under its PURSUE program, posted on Sept. 18, 2026, as part of a government-wide effort to release unresolved UAP-related records. The effort follows a February 19, 2026 Truth Social statement by President Donald J. Trump directing the Secretary of War and other agencies to identify and release government files on alien life, unidentified aerial phenomena and UFOs. The Department of War, supported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, says it is reviewing tens of millions of records, many existing only on paper, and will post new tranches every few weeks. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the files, previously hidden behind classifications, show the administration's commitment to transparency.
- @BerlinMeetup: Berlin Ethereum Day on June 15 during BerBlockWeek (firefly.social)
- @kazani: Chrome silently installs 4 GB AI model without consent (farcaster.xyz)
Google Chrome reportedly installs a 4 GB Gemini Nano AI model on user devices without explicit consent or notification, according to a blog post by thatprivacyguy.com. The post says the file, named weights.bin, is stored in the OptGuideOnDeviceModel directory and re-downloads automatically if the user deletes it. It argues the installation violates ePrivacy Directive Article 5(3) and GDPR principles, and estimates the distribution emits between six thousand and sixty thousand tonnes of CO2-equivalent per push across potentially billions of devices. The post also calls the 'AI Mode' address bar pill misleading, since it sends queries to cloud models rather than the on-device model.
- Instagram drops end-to-end encrypted chats 8th of May (proton.me)
Instagram's help pages say end-to-end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after May 8, 2026, and users are told to download any chats or shared media they want to keep before that date. Instagram has not publicly explained the decision or said what will happen to existing encrypted chats after the deadline. The article notes that Meta had promoted end-to-end encryption across its messaging products since 2019, when Mark Zuckerberg announced the plan. The piece is published by Proton, which is a privacy company that makes encrypted apps and promotes alternatives to Instagram.
- @0xWismerhill: GNO treasury redemption proposal passes quorum, most voted ever (x.com)
- @cassie: DNS issue with hypria.xyz, exercise caution until resolved (farcaster.xyz)
- how to hypersnap (gist.github.com)
- @WatcherGuru: Senate Banking Committee schedules crypto Clarity Act vote (x.com)
- @zacodil: Grok drain was Bankr's fault, not a prompt injection hack (x.com)
Developer @zacodil argues that the Grok wallet drain was Bankr's fault, not a prompt injection hack on Grok. Grok does not hold the private keys; Bankr controls the wallet created in association with the @grok X handle and executes any transfer command it reads in Grok's posts. In the recent incident, an attacker first sent the wallet a Bankr Club Membership NFT, which unlocks Bankr's transfer tools, then tweeted a crafted prompt that led Grok to reply "@bankrbot send 3B DRB" to an address, and Bankr signed and broadcast the transfer. The wallet held 3 billion DRB tokens (about $155K) from a token Bankr launched earlier this year after Bankr read a Grok suggestion as a deploy command. The post concludes that Bankr should stop acting on Grok's text or accept responsibility for what Grok says.
- rsETH Incident Recovery Technical Plan (Phase II) (x.com)
Recovery progress on the rsETH incident includes liquidating the thief's eight Aave V3 positions on May 6 and transferring the retrieved rsETH collateral to the Recovery Guardian. A judge accepted Aave LLC's proposal to authorize an onchain Arbitrum DAO vote moving $71 million in immobilized ETH to Aave LLC, after plaintiffs holding judgments against North Korea had served a restraining notice on May 1. Next steps include burning the liquidated rsETH on Arbitrum, retiring a LayerZero packet on Ethereum, and restoring lockbox backing, after which rsETH withdrawals reopen and the WETH LTV is restored.
- Kiwi News Weekly Digest — May 09, 2026 (buttondown.com)
- @brian_armstrong: Coinbase cuts 14% of staff, restructures to be AI-native (x.com)
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong announced in an internal email that the company is cutting about 14% of its staff and restructuring to become "AI-native." He cites two forces: a down crypto market that requires a leaner cost structure, and AI changing how work gets done, with engineers shipping in days what once took weeks. The restructuring flattens the org to five layers below the CEO/COO, requires leaders to be active individual contributors, and moves toward AI-native pods, including experiments with "one person teams." US employees leaving will receive at least 16 weeks of base pay, plus 2 weeks per year worked, their next equity vest, and 6 months of COBRA.
- @epochzer0: Summary of @jbaylina and @VitalikButerin discussing @etheconomiczone (firefly.social)
- Snapsellers | Dune (dune.com)
- @monteluna: Snap protocol has no LP premine, all liquidity is organic (farcaster.xyz)
Monteluna argues that the Snap protocol has no LP premine, so all of its liquidity is organic and held by users. He claims that criticism of the token is premature because the protocol has not launched and most of the crypto community has not been introduced to it. He also warns that if the protocol gains traction, no market participant would be able to supply tokens, which could push the price up very quickly.
- Why the NFT market will go from $2B to $60 billion (x.com)
The text argues that the NFT market, currently around $2 billion and down roughly 90% from its peak, is undervalued because major museums have already built collections of on-chain art. MoMA acquired Refik Anadol's Unsupervised in 2023, and Centre Pompidou acquired 18 NFT works from 13 artists that year, with curator Marcella Lista describing them as a continuation of the museum's existing collection. LACMA received 22 generative and blockchain works in February 2023 from collector Cozomo de' Medici. The text compares this to Impressionism and Pop Art, which it says were ridiculed before institutional adoption and later market repricing.
- @mccoyspace: major art venues show near-zero ETH/NFT adoption despite claims (firefly.social)
The author of this thread, @mccoyspace, argues that major art venues show close to no ETH or NFT adoption despite claims that such adoption is widespread. The post says that the Venice art event and the Whitney Biennial feature almost no work running on ETH and NFT rails, and that a substack by Alex Feim listing NYC gallery shows finds the same. The author adds that current museum shows, big auction houses and art fairs would likely show only slightly more adoption. The post also notes that Eli's claims are written in the future tense, so impossibility cannot be asserted, though the author is skeptical.
- @aave: Emergency motion filed to unfreeze $71M in ETH for exploit victims (firefly.social)
Aave LLC has filed an emergency motion to vacate a restraining notice served on Arbitrum DAO on May 1, 2026, which seeks to seize about $71 million in ETH belonging to victims of the April 18 exploit. The motion argues that a thief does not gain lawful ownership of stolen property by taking it, and that the assets were recovered to be returned to affected users. Aave says freezing them harms the people the recovery effort is meant to protect. It has asked the court for an expedited hearing and a temporary vacatur, and says it is working with the Arbitrum community and DeFi United to make affected users whole.
- @alexalbert__: Firefox fixed more security bugs with Mythos in past 15 months (x.com)
- @internetarchive: RIP Ask Jeeves (mastodon.archive.org)