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Wes Streeting has acknowledged people have been “upset and hurt” by Labour’s initial reaction to the Israel-Hamas war.

The shadow health secretary told the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge that people wanted his party to be “louder and clearer” about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.

Politics Live: Starmer accused of ‘shying away’ from crisis in Gaza

There have been tensions in the Labour Party after leader Sir Keir Starmer appeared to suggest in an LBC interview that Israel had the right to cut off water and power to the besieged Gaza Strip following the deadly attack by Hamas on 7 October.

Although the Labour leader has sought to clarify his remarks, there is still anger in the Muslim community.

Asked if voters could be turned away from Labour, Mr Streeting said: “No, I think people have been upset and hurt and wanted us to be louder and clearer on the humanitarian crisis.”

He went on to say Sir Keir “doesn’t think it’s ok cut off power and water” and he misspoke in the interview.

“It was never Keir’s intention to give the impression that we support those measures,” he said.

“In interviews you have a sustained line of questioning – he was answering a previous question and not that one.”

In the interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Sir Keir was asked what a “proportionate” response would look like to the surprise Hamas attacks, which killed at least 1,400 people.

Starmer is under the spotlight over his party’s stance on Gaza

Taking to the dispatch box at PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer could have been mistaken for a man having a good week.

In high spirits, galvanised by a double by-election win last Thursday, he leapt to his feet and quizzed the prime minister on mortgages and no-fault evictions.

What he failed to address was the story overshadowing all else and threatening Labour Party unity.

The Israel-Hamas War has seen Sir Keir in the spotlight. Anger over an interview on LBC (where he suggested Israel had a right to cut off supplies to Gaza, a position later clarified) has led to councillor resignations and calls for a repositioning from the party leadership on a ceasefire.

On Wednesday, Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner sought to ease tensions in the parliamentary party by meeting Muslim MPs.

The meeting was described as “constructive”.

One shadow cabinet minister told me that reports of dissent were “exaggerated” but there is genuine concern among some MPs I have spoken to that the party is losing Muslim voters.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting admitted that people have been “upset and hurt” by the LBC interview and “wanted us to be louder and clearer on the humanitarian crisis”.
He said Sir Keir had been misinterpreted.

The Labour leader certainly has a delicate path to tread in the coming weeks.

He has fought hard to move his party on from the past and present a united front – unity though can unravel very quickly.

He said that responsibility “lies with Hamas” and that Israel “has the right to defend herself”.

The presenter interjected, asking: “A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power, cutting off water?”

The Labour leader responded: “I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation.”

The comments, which he has since rowed back on, prompted resignations among Labour councillors and angered the party’s MPs, even those on the frontbenches as shadow ministers.

Sir Keir sought to cool tensions by visiting a mosque on Sunday and holding a meeting with Muslim MPs today.

Read More:
A third of Gaza hospitals shut due to lack of fuel
How Gaza went from desperately poor to even poorer

But while sources described the meeting as “constructive”, Sir Keir did not back calls for a ceasefire, instead saying Labour supports “humanitarian pauses”.

This position was repeated by Mr Streeting, who said UK politicians need to prioritise supporting Israel in getting hostages back from Gaza “and making sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again”.

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‘All Hamas militants are doomed’ says Netanyahu

However, he said there is a “responsibility” to minimise the loss of civilian life and get humanitarian aid in to Gaza.

“That is why US secretary of state Antony Blinken, our allies in France and our government are right to call for a humanitarian pause to allow the safe flow of aid through,” he said.

Asked what the difference was between a “humanitarian pause” and a “ceasefire”, he said: “This is the difficulty with the concept of a ceasefire.

“We’re dealing with a terrorist organisation in Hamas.”

Asked if Israel has committed war crimes, as some MPs have suggested, Mr Streeting added: “I’m not qualified to make that judgement.”

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DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions

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DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions

DeFi security and compliance must be improved to attract institutions

Opinion by: Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch

Institutional players have been closely watching decentralized finance’s growth. Creating secure and compliant DeFi platforms is the only solution to build trust and attract more institutions.

Clear waters attract big ships

Over the past four years, institutional DeFi adoption has gone from 10% of hedge funds to 47%, and is projected to rise to 65% in 2025. Goldman Sachs is reaching their arms to DeFi for bond issuance and yield farming. 

Early adopters are already positioning themselves in onchain finance, including Visa, which has processed over $1 billion in crypto transactions since 2021 and is now testing cross-border payments. In the next two years, institutional adoption will speed up. A compliant regulatory framework that maintains DeFi’s core benefits is necessary for institutional adoption to engage confidently. 

DeFi’s institutional trilemma

It is no secret that many DeFi security exploits happen every year. The recent Bybit hack reported a $1.4 billion loss. The breach occurred through a transfer process that was vulnerable to attack. Attacks like these raise concerns about multisignature wallets and blind signing. This happens when users approve transactions without full details, rendering blind signing a significant risk. This case calls for stronger security measures and improvements in user experience.

The threats of theft due to vulnerabilities in smart contracts or mistakes by validators make institutional investors hesitate when depositing large amounts of money into institutional staking pools. Institutions are also at risk of noncompliance due to a lack of clear regulatory frameworks, creating hesitation to enter the space. 

The user interface in DeFi is often designed for users with technical expertise. Institutional investors require user-friendly experiences that make DeFi staking possible without relying on third-party intermediaries.

Build it right, and they will come

Institutional interest in bringing traditional assets onchain is enormous, with the tokenized asset market estimated to reach $16 trillion by 2030. To confidently participate in DeFi, institutions need verifiable counterparties that are compliant with regulatory requirements. The entry of traditional institutional players into DeFi has led some privacy advocates to point out that it can counter the essence of decentralization, which forms the bedrock of the ecosystem.

Recent: Securitize to bring BUIDL tokenized fund to DeFi with RedStone price feeds

Institutions must be able to trust DeFi platforms to maintain compliance standards while providing a safe and seamless user interface. A balanced approach is key. DeFi’s permissionless nature can be achieved while maintaining compliance through identity profiles, allowing secure transactions. Similarly, transaction screening tools facilitate real-time monitoring and risk assessment. 

Blockchain analytics tools help institutions to maintain compliance with Anti-Money Laundering regulations and prevent interaction with blacklisted wallets. Integrating these tools can help detect and prevent illicit activity, making DeFi safer for institutional engagement.

Intent-based architecture can improve security

The relationship between intent-based architecture and security is evident; the very design is built to reduce risks, creating a more reliable user experience. This protects the user against MEV exploits, a common issue of automated bots scanning for large profitable trades that can be exploited. Intent-based architecture also helps implement compliance frameworks. For instance, restricting order submissions to clean wallets and allowing resolvers to settle only the acceptable orders.

It’s well understood that in traditional DeFi transactions, users rely often on intermediaries like liquidity providers to execute trades or manage funds. This leads to counterparty risk, unauthorized execution and settlement failure. The intent-based architecture supports a trustless settlement that ensures users commit only when all conditions are met, reducing risk and removing blind trust from the picture.

DeFi platforms must simplify interactions and UX for institutional investors. This system bridges the gap between. Through executing offchain while ensuring security, the intent-based architecture makes DeFi safer and more efficient. However, one of the challenges to this includes integrating offchain order matching while maintaining onchain transparency.

Late adopters of DeFi will struggle to keep up

For the early adopters of DeFi, there is a competitive advantage in liquidity access and yield advantages, whereas late adopters will face more regulatory scrutiny and entry barriers. By 2026, the institutional players that have failed to adopt DeFi may struggle to keep up. This is seen in the examples of early adopters like JPMorgan and Citi’s early tokenization projects. TradFi leaders like them are already gearing up for onchain finance.

The way forward

Regulatory bodies, supervisory agencies and policy leaders must provide clear, standardized guidelines to facilitate broader institutional participation. Uniform protocols underpinning wider institutional involvement are underway. DeFi platforms must be prepared beforehand to provide all the necessary pillars of compliance and security to institutional players who want to embrace mainstream adoption. Executing this shall require combined efforts from regulators, developers and institutions.

Opinion by: Sergej Kunz, co-founder of 1inch.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

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Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

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Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Prediction marketplace Kalshi has started taking Bitcoin (BTC) deposits in a bid to onboard more crypto-native users.

The company that lets users bet on events ranging from election outcomes to Rotten Tomatoes film ratings has seen a strong uptake among crypto traders, Kalshi told Cointelegraph on April 9. For instance, event contracts for betting on Bitcoin’s hour-by-hour price changes have seen $143 million in trading volume to date, a spokesperson said.

Kalshi is a derivatives exchange regulated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). As of April 9, it listed some 50 crypto-related event contracts, including markets for betting on coins’ 2025 highs and lows, as well as on headlines such as US President Donald Trump’s proposed National Bitcoin Reserve. 

Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Kalshi has doubled down on crypto event contract markets. Source: Kalshi

The platform started accepting crypto payments in October when it enabled stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) deposits. 

Kalshi relies on ZeroHash — a crypto payments infrastructure provider — for off-ramping BTC and USDC and converting the deposits to US dollars. The exchange accepts BTC deposits only from the Bitcoin network.

 

Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Most Kalshi traders no longer expect core tokens to earn positive returns this year. Source: Kalshi

Related: Kalshi traders place the odds of US recession in 2025 at over 61%

More accurate than polls

Launched in 2021, Kalshi rose to prominence ahead of the US’s November elections

It became a top venue for trading on 2024 political events after winning a lawsuit against the CFTC, which tried to block Kalshi from listing contracts tied to elections. 

The regulator argued that political prediction markets threaten the integrity of elections, but industry analysts say they often capture public sentiment more accurately than polls

For instance, prediction markets, including Kalshi, accurately predicted Trump’s presidential election win even as polls indicated a tossup.

“Event contract markets are a valuable public good for which there is no evidence of significant manipulation or widespread use for any nefarious purposes that the Commission alleges,” Harry Crane, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, said in an August comment letter filed with the CFTC.

As of April 9, Kalshi traders peg the odds of the US entering a recession at 68%, according to its website.

In March, Kalshi partnered with Robinhood to bring prediction markets to the popular online brokerage platform. Robinhood’s stock rose some 8% on the news

Kalshi competes with Polymarket, a Web3-based prediction platform. Polymarket processed more than $3 billion in trading volumes tied to the US presidential election despite being off-limits for US traders.

Magazine: Bitcoin heading to $70K soon? Crypto baller funds SpaceX flight: Hodler’s Digest, March 30 – April 5

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No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

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No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

United States securities laws are not flexible enough to account for digital assets, as evidenced by the parade of crypto-native companies that have tried and failed to get into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) good graces, Rodrigo Seira, special counsel to Cooley LLP, told a House Committee hearing on April 9.

The hearing, titled American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets Aligning the U.S. Securities Laws for the Digital Age, featured Seira, WilmerHale partner Tiffany J. Smith, Polygon chief legal officer Jake Werrett and Alexandra Thorn, a senior director at the Center for American Progress.

“It is clear that the current securities regulatory framework is not a viable option to regulate crypto. It fails to achieve its stated policy goals,” Seira said in his opening remarks. “[T]he idea that crypto projects can come in and register with the SEC is demonstrably false.”

No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

Cooley LLP special counsel Rodrigo Seira addresses the committee on April 9. Source: House Committee on Financial Services

Seira acknowledged that crypto promoters who raise capital for a new enterprise should be subject to federal securities laws. 

“In practice, however, virtually no crypto projects have successfully registered their tokens under federal securities laws and lived to tell the tale,” he said, adding: 

Projects that tried to comply with [the] SEC’s current regulatory requirements expended significant resources and effort only to fail or survive in a state of regulatory uncertainty. Moreover, registration is not a simple one-time process. Registering a token in the same manner as a stock triggers an obligation to operate as a publicly reporting company […].”

Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?

Righting the ship

In introducing the witnesses, Representative Bryan Steil, who heads the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, acknowledged regulatory roadblocks, which he said were put in place by the previous administration. 

No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

Congressman Bryan Steil addresses the hearing on April 9. Source: House Committee on Financial Services

Under President Donald Trump, lawmakers are attempting to right the ship by passing sensible legislation, said Steil.

One of the first steps occurred last week when the House Financial Services Committee advanced the STABLE Act, which is designed to regulate payment stablecoins tied to the US dollar and other fiat currencies. 

No crypto project has registered with the SEC and ‘lived to tell the tale’ — House committee hearing

Source: Financial Services GOP

A month earlier, the Senate Banking Committee advanced the GENIUS Act, which aims to regulate stablecoin issuers by establishing reserve requirements and requiring full compliance with Anti-Money Laundering laws.

The next step is “advancing the second half of this agenda: comprehensive digital asset market structure legislation,” said Steil.

Representative Ro Khanna told a digital asset conference last month that a market structure bill will cross the finish line this year.

The purpose of such legislation is to establish a clear regulatory framework for digital assets, including their legal categories and the enforcement jurisdiction of agencies such as the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Magazine: Unstablecoins: Depegging, bank runs and other risks loom

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