Market on pause, Polymarket under fire, Secret Network hacked for $4.7 million: digest for June 22
The morning of June 22 finds the crypto market in a sideways movement: Bitcoin is stuck in a narrow range, while the main news comes from the security and institutional adoption sectors. Polymarket is accused of faking bets for marketing purposes, Secret Network lost $4.7 million due to a smart contract vulnerability, and a Japanese pension fund is preparing to enter crypto. Let's break down the key events.
Market: The Calm Before the Storm?
As of 07:30 Moscow time, Bitcoin is trading at $63,889, with a 24-hour low of $63,221 and a high of $64,712. Ethereum is also showing sideways movement, holding around the $1,731 mark. The market is clearly waiting — volumes are low, volatility is compressed.
In the top 10 by market cap, Tron (+0.51%) is the daily gain leader, while Solana (+3.49%) looks best over the week. The worst daily result is from Hyperliquid (-5.97%), and over the week, Dogecoin (-6.64%).
In the top 100, the situation is more contrasting: SKYAI gained +9.15% in a day, Aerodrome Finance rose +34.93% over the week. The laggards are Humanity (-10.51% in 24 hours) and Audiera (-68.18% over the week).
Polymarket: Marketing on Fake Bets
The prediction market platform Polymarket has found itself at the center of a scandal. It turned out that the company paid dozens of bloggers to film fake bets and winnings on counterfeit copies of its website.
Of the 1,105 reviewed videos, none of the shown bets totaling about $1.9 million were real. In one video, a student demonstrated a "win" of $100,000 on a bet that was actually lost by more than 50 users. For the filming, Polymarket created fake websites — including some with similar domain names.
Bloggers were paid $2,000–3,000 per month and asked not to disclose the collaboration. Notably, the campaign was aimed at Americans, even though Polymarket has been banned from working with users from the U.S. since 2022. This is already the second scandal in a month: earlier, it was reported that the marketing director paid for undisclosed advertising through a personal PayPal account. Polymarket has promised to audit its promotional content.
Secret Network: $4.67 Million Hack
The Secret Network bridge was attacked 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 — after a transaction failed due to insufficient funds in a depleted account. The stolen assets were converted to Ether, distributed across approximately 30 wallets, and then withdrawn to exchanges. This hack is one of the largest in a series of June attacks, the number of which has exceeded 22.
Japanese Pension Fund Enters Crypto
The National Corporate Pension Fund from Okayama, with assets of about 21.3 billion yen ($130 million), plans to allocate approximately 1% of its funds to purchase cryptocurrency in the 2026 fiscal year. The fund will invest in a passive fund managed by a major hedge fund that holds several crypto assets.
This step is presented as part of a diversification strategy: currently, 80% of the fund's assets are in yen, and 15% in dollars. This is a significant signal — institutional adoption in Japan is gaining momentum.
My comment: The market is in a consolidation phase, and news from the security sector (hacks, scandals) is currently outweighing the positive from institutional adoption. However, the decision by the Japanese pension fund is not just news but a trend. If such steps become widespread, we could see a fundamentally new influx of liquidity in the medium term.