Polymarket fires CMO over fake-trades scandal

Polymarket fires its CMO over a fake trade scandal and a senator goes after Tether's new U.S. boss. This is CoinDesk Daily. Want trusted crypto research? Check out The Stack, Grayscale's blog. Visit grayscale.com slash the stack. Unlock deeper insight into digital asset vault risk. The new vault risk assessment from S&P Global Ratings helps bring institutional-grade transparency to on-chain investing. Visit spglobal.com slash ratings. Polymarket has fired its chief marketing officer, Matthew Medaver, who's also a close friend of CEO Shane Copland since high school. The move follows an internal probe into a reported scheme built on fake trades. According to the New York Post, the company is now finalizing a separation agreement. Copland reportedly threatened to fire members of the legal team pursuing the termination before accepting the split. The board concluded Medaver was getting in the way of Polymarket's effort to shed its scrappy startup image as it eyes a possible IPO. Senator Richard Blumenthal is demanding answers about payments Tether made to a consulting firm owned by Beau Hines, the former White House crypto advisor who now runs Tether's U.S. arm. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nexum received large payments for consulting work while Hines was still advising President Trump on crypto policy. Blumenthal called the arrangement's terms highly unusual and flagged alarming ethical and legal concerns. And Ethereum developers have called off the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Holešky test network. This comes after security researchers flagged a problem that can make failed transactions permanent. Developers want to study how the change interacts with contracts already live on mainnet. No replacement date has been set, and there's no sign existing contracts are being exploited. Get more updates on CoinDesk.com. Want trusted crypto research? Check out The Stack, Grayscale's blog. Visit grayscale.com slash the stack. Unlock deeper insight into digital asset vault risk. The new vault risk assessment from S&P Global Ratings helps bring institutional-grade transparency to on-chain investing. Visit spglobal.com slash ratings.