Cryptodigest June 22: Polymarket on lies, Secret Network hack for $4.7 million, and Japanese pension fund enters crypto
The cryptocurrency market started the day on June 22 in a sideways trend. Bitcoin (BTC) is fluctuating near the $63,889 mark, showing minimal volatility over the past 24 hours. The trading range was from $63,221 to $64,712. Ethereum (ETH) is also inactive, trading at $1,731. Among the top 10 assets by market capitalization, Solana stands out, showing a weekly gain of 3.49%, while Dogecoin became an outsider with a drop of 6.64% over seven days.
Polymarket Caught Fabricating Bets
The prediction market platform Polymarket has found itself at the center of a scandal. An investigation revealed that the company paid dozens of bloggers to film fake bets and winnings on copies of its own website. Out of 1,105 verified videos, none of the shown bets totaling about $1.9 million were real. In one video, a student demonstrated a "win" of $100,000, although in reality, this bet was lost by over 50 users. For the filming, Polymarket created fake websites, including those with similar address spellings. Bloggers were paid $2,000-3,000 per month on the condition that they not disclose the collaboration. Notably, Polymarket has been banned for users from the US since 2022, but the campaign was specifically aimed at Americans. This is the second scandal in a month: earlier, it was reported that the marketing director paid for unlabeled advertising through a personal PayPal account. The company has promised to audit its promotional content. In my opinion, such actions undermine trust in the prediction market industry and call into question the transparency of the entire platform.
Secret Network Bridge Hack: $4.67 Million Lost
The Secret Network bridge was attacked through an infinite minting vulnerability. The attacker used a smart contract that did not verify the source of incoming transfers and created unbacked wrapped tokens — saUSDT, saUSDC, saWETH, saWBTC, and others. The attack occurred on June 10 but was only discovered a week later when a transaction failed due to insufficient funds in a depleted account. The stolen assets were converted to ether and distributed across approximately 30 wallets, then withdrawn to exchanges. This hack is one of the largest in a series of June attacks, the number of which has exceeded 22. The incident once again raises the issue of the security of cross-chain bridges — critical DeFi infrastructure that remains a vulnerable target for hackers.
Japanese Pension Fund Enters Cryptocurrency
A major Japanese corporate pension fund, serving about 1,200 small and medium-sized enterprises, plans to allocate approximately 1% of its assets to purchase cryptocurrency in the 2026 fiscal year. The National Corporate Pension Fund from Okayama, with assets of about 21.3 billion yen ($130 million), will invest in a passive fund managed by a large hedge fund that holds several crypto assets. The move is presented as part of a diversification strategy: currently, 80% of the fund's assets are denominated in yen, and 15% in dollars. This is a landmark event, demonstrating the growing interest of institutional investors from Asia in digital assets. If the trend continues, we could see a wave of similar decisions from other conservative funds in the region.
My analysis: The market remains in a consolidation phase, but fundamental news — from scandals with Polymarket to institutional adoption in Japan — indicates that the crypto industry continues to mature. Investors should closely monitor the security of DeFi protocols and regulatory risks, but the long-term trend toward legitimization remains unchanged.