Today, in crypto, the price of Cronos tokens jumped 40% after Trump Media and Technology Group announced the launch of a joint $6.4 billion Cronos treasury. The US has appealed the sentence of HashFlare’s co-founders. Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. has joined the board of prediction platform Polymarket,
Crypto.com’s Cronos jumps 40% on Trump Media Group CRO Strategy news
Cronos, the native cryptocurrency of the Crypto.com-backed Cronos Chain, surged to multi-year highs following news of the Trump Media Group CRO Strategy launch.
On Tuesday, Trump Media and Technology Group announced the launch of a joint $6.4 billion Cronos treasury with Crypto.com and Yorkville Acquisition.
Cronos (CRO) surged 25% to $0.20 within hours after the announcement, following which Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek took to X on Wednesday to report that the crypto asset had surged 40% following the Trump Media Group CRO Strategy announcement.
US appeals time served sentences for HashFlare co-founders
On Tuesday, US prosecutors appealed the sentences given to the co-founders of HashFlare, telling a Seattle federal court that the government was appealing the sentences handed down earlier this month to Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin to the Ninth Circuit.
Earlier this month, a federal court gave the pair time served after spending 16 months in custody in their native Estonia after their arrest in October 2022, before they were extradited to the US in May 2024, where they pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The government had argued that the pair should get 10 years in prison, saying that the HashFlare scheme caused serious harm to victims and was the most significant fraud the court had ever tried. Potapenko and Turõgin argued for time served.
Prosecutors said that HashFlare’s sales totaled over $577 million, and the co-founders posted fake dashboards that falsely reported the firm’s mining capacity and the returns investors were making, which in reality paid existing members with funds from newer members.
Potapenko and Turõgin argued the company’s customers ultimately received crypto worth far more than their initial investments, primarily from the increase in crypto market prices since the scheme closed.
Trump Jr. joins Polymarket board as prediction market eyes US comeback
Prediction market Polymarket has added Donald Trump Jr. to its advisory board after receiving a strategic investment from 1789 Capital, which describes itself as a politically aligned vehicle backing companies it sees advancing “American exceptionalism.”
The companies did not reveal financial terms, but Axios estimated the investment at “double-digit millions of dollars."
Trump Jr. became a partner in the fund in 2024. In a Tuesday statement, he said that "Polymarket cuts through media spin and so-called 'expert' opinion by letting people bet on what they actually believe will happen in the world."
The investment follows Polymarket's efforts to a regulated return to the US market, after being forced to block users under a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) action.
In 2022, the CFTC fined the company $1.4 million for operating an unregistered swaps platform and ordered it to block American users. To re-establish a legal foothold, it acquired CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange QCEX for $112 million in July 2025, coinciding with the closure of CFTC and Department of Justice investigations into the platform.