The European Securities and Markets Authority warned that as links between crypto markets and traditional finance expand, shocks in one area could increasingly spread across the broader financial system. In its second Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities report for 2026, ESMA said the growing connections between a more fragile crypto market and the wider financial system require closer monitoring. It highlighted tokenised stocks, decentralised finance hacks and prediction markets as key risk factors.

A Robinhood co-founder\'s cryptocurrency wallet recovery phrase was exposed during a livestream, triggering a surge and subsequent plunge in the \'$1\' memecoin. The attacker gained access to a wallet holding about $1.5 million and bought large amounts of the token, prompting thousands of investors to copy the trades. The token’s market value jumped about 28-fold and was later classified by Bitget as a pump-and-dump case.