U.S. CFTC Acting Chairman: Enforcement Division Restructured, Refocused on Combating Fraud

May 22 — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled, per Bloomberg, that prediction market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket cannot block enforcement lawsuits brought by Nevada and Washington from proceeding in state courts. The appellate court rejected the platforms’ request to pause the state-level litigation, finding Kalshi and Polymarket failed to prove defending themselves in state court would cause "irreparable harm" and didn’t meet the high standard for showing a strong likelihood of success on their claim that federal courts should take jurisdiction over the disputes.

May 22: Polymarket’s VP of Engineering Josh Stevens announced that with support from ZachXBT, BitcoinVN, and ChangeNOW, the team has frozen $164,000 of funds stolen in the recent Polymarket private key leak. That amount accounts for around 28.6% of the total $573,200 transferred in the incident. The company confirmed the breach did not affect its UMA smart contracts, user fund security, or ongoing platform operations. Investigators traced the hack to a compromised private key—used for internal replenishment settings for roughly six years—that caused a steady flow of funds to unauthorized addresses. Relevant teams are still working to track down the remaining stolen funds.

May 22: Federal Reserve Governor Waller said, "We can shrink the Fed’s balance sheet by $300 to $500 billion." (FXStreet)

On May 22, after the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) proposed a roughly $2.71 billion fine (equivalent to around 18.5 billion yuan) against Futu Holdings over its cross-border business activities, the market is focused on the firm’s profit performance and financial ability to absorb such costs. Futu Holdings’ 2025 annual report reveals the company posted total revenue of HK$22.847 billion, up 68.1% year-over-year (YoY). Non-GAAP net profit reached HK$11.645 billion (about $1.49 billion), a 101.9% increase from the previous year. In terms of profit scale, the proposed fine accounts for roughly 18% of Futu’s 2025 Non-GAAP net profit. Market analysts believe that given its current profit level, Futu has sufficient capacity to bear the fine. However, stricter regulation of cross-border business may continue to impact the future business models of the broader industry. Previously, the CSRC stated that certain Futu entities based in mainland China and Hong Kong conducted sec

May 22 (Jinse) – Up Fintech, formerly known as Tiger Securities, announced on Wednesday that several of its subsidiaries received a notice from the Beijing Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) on May 22, 2026. The regulatory bureau has launched an investigation into the units over suspected illegal activities in securities, fund, and futures operations. Investigations found the subsidiaries conducted unlicensed cross-border securities business and illegal fund and futures activities within mainland China. Per the probe results, the Beijing CSRC imposed total administrative penalties of approximately 308.1 million RMB and seized around 103.1 million RMB in illegal gains. Wu Tianhua, the company’s director, CEO, and actual controller, also received a warning and a 1.25 million RMB fine. As of the end of 2025, retail client assets in mainland China made up roughly 10% of the firm’s total consolidated client assets, according to its financial statements

May 22. Market pricing signals that traders have fully priced in a 25 basis point interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve by the end of 2026. On the policy front, Federal Reserve Governor Waller stated that the Fed should not signal further rate cuts and should hold steady for the time being.