Cryptodigest June 22: Polymarket in the Dock, Secret Network Hack for $4.7 Million, and Japanese Pension Fund Enters Crypto
The digital asset market started the day in a sideways trend. Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $63,889 as of 07:30 Moscow time, with a 24-hour low of $63,221 and a high of $64,712. Ethereum (ETH) is also showing sideways movement, sitting at $1,731.
Among the top 10 by market cap, Tron posted the best daily performance (+0.51%), while Solana leads the weekly gains (+3.49%). Hyperliquid shows the worst 24-hour performance (-5.97%), and Dogecoin is the weakest over seven days (-6.64%). In the top 100, SKYAI stands out (+9.15% daily) along with Aerodrome Finance (+34.93% weekly).
Polymarket Accused of Betting Manipulation
Major prediction market platform Polymarket is at the center of a scandal. An investigation revealed that the company paid bloggers to film fake bets and winnings on counterfeit copies of its website. Out of 1,105 reviewed videos, none of the demonstrated bets totaling approximately $1.9 million were real. In one video, a student showed a "win" of $100,000, while in reality, that bet was lost by over 50 users.
For filming, Polymarket created fake websites, including those with similar domain names. Bloggers were paid $2,000-3,000 per month and asked not to disclose the partnership. The company targeted Americans, even though Polymarket has been banned from working with U.S. users since 2022. This is the second marketing scandal for the platform in a month—previously, it was reported that the marketing director paid for unlabeled ads through personal PayPal. Polymarket has promised to audit its promotional content.
Secret Network Hack: $4.67 Million Stolen
The Secret Network bridge suffered a $4.67 million attack via an infinite minting vulnerability. The attacker exploited a smart contract that did not verify the source of incoming transfers, creating unbacked wrapped tokens—saUSDT, saUSDC, saWETH, saWBTC, and others.
The attack occurred on June 10 but was only discovered a week later, following a transaction failure due to insufficient funds in a drained account. The stolen assets were converted to ether, distributed across approximately 30 wallets, and then moved to exchanges. This hack is one of the largest in a series of June attacks, which have exceeded 22 incidents.
Japanese Pension Fund to Allocate 1% to Crypto
The National Corporate Pension Fund from Okayama, with assets of about 21.3 billion yen ($130 million), plans to allocate roughly 1% of its funds to purchase cryptocurrency in the 2026 fiscal year. According to Nikkei, the fund will invest in a passive fund managed by a major 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 in yen, and 15% in dollars.
Expert Comment: The Japanese pension fund's decision is a significant signal for institutional investors. Even a modest 1% of $130 million may seem negligible, but this step opens the door for other conservative funds that previously avoided cryptocurrencies due to regulatory risks and volatility. If the trend gains momentum, we will see an inflow of billions of dollars into digital assets from traditional pension systems.