Zerohash Eyes $1.5B+ Valuation, Warren Targets OCC Charters, CFTC Sues Minnesota Over Prediction Market Ban

Crypto News Crypto infrastructure provider Zerohash is pursuing a fresh funding round at a valuation exceeding $1.5 billion, after Mastercard scrapped earlier plans to take a strategic stake. The payments giant walked away from the Chicago-based firm following its $1.8 billion acquisition of UK stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK in March. Founded in 2017, Zerohash provides APIs and embeddable tools that let banks and fintechs deliver crypto, stablecoin and tokenization products, serving more than five million users across 190 countries. Its client roster includes Morgan Stanley, Interactive Brokers, Stripe, BlackRock's BUIDL fund, Franklin Templeton and DraftKings, signaling deepening institutional appetite for regulated on-chain rails. Senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Office of the Comptroller of the Currency chief Jonathan Gould of violating the National Bank Act by approving at least nine national trust charters for cryptocurrency firms. In a Monday letter, the Massachusetts Democrat demanded full application files for companies cleared since December 2025, including Coinbase, Ripple, Stripe, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Assets, Protego Holdings, Paxos and Crypto.com's parent. Warren argued the approvals enable regulatory arbitrage, calling the firms "effectively crypto banks" seeking to bypass standard safeguards. She also sought communications between the OCC and the Trump White House regarding the controversial World Liberty Financial application. Bitcoin miner Hut 8 has committed $16 million to expand water infrastructure in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, supporting development of its River Bend AI data center campus. The investment funds a new water well, roughly eight miles of water main and broader system upgrades, with assets to be transferred to the parish at no taxpayer cost upon completion in the second half of 2026. Phase 1 of River Bend represents a multibillion-dollar capital outlay expected to support 1,000 construction jobs at peak. Hut 8 shares have surged about 93% year-to-date as investors reprice the firm's AI blockchain-adjacent power leasing business. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Department of Justice sued Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz and several state officials on Tuesday over a newly enacted omnibus bill that bans prediction markets statewide. Filed less than 24 hours after Walz signed SF 4760 into law, the complaint describes the measure as the first outright prohibition of prediction markets in the United States. Regulators argue Minnesota is unlawfully encroaching on the CFTC's exclusive jurisdiction over federally regulated swaps. The statute, due to take effect August 1, also exposes exchanges, payment processors, media partners and sports leagues including MLB and the NHL to potential criminal liability. The Zerohash round arrives against a backdrop of accelerating consolidation across digital asset infrastructure. Kraken's parent Payward has agreed to acquire derivatives platform Bitnomial, while Bullish announced a $4.2 billion deal for Equiniti aimed at fusing transfer-agency services with tokenization rails. Zerohash itself reached unicorn status in September 2025 after a $104 million Series D-2 round led by Interactive Brokers, with Morgan Stanley, Apollo and SoFi joining. Analysts expect dealmaking to intensify as exchanges, custodians and fintechs compete for custody, settlement and stablecoin capabilities amid a deepening institutional rotation into on-chain finance. The Warren letter lands as Payward separately seeks a national trust charter, filed May 8, which would allow it to provide fiduciary custody for digital assets through a Payward National Trust Company. Trust charters permit fiduciary and custodial services without deposit-taking or commercial lending, sidestepping much of the regulatory perimeter that constrains traditional banks. Warren, ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, previously pushed amendments to the CLARITY Act market-structure bill in committee markup, while urging Gould to delay World Liberty Financial's January application. The standoff underscores deepening Washington divisions over how to integrate DeFi-adjacent firms into the federal banking system. The dominant thread running through these stories is jurisdictional contest. Capital is flowing toward firms like Zerohash and Hut 8 that bridge crypto with traditional finance and AI compute, while regulators and lawmakers wrestle over who gets to write the rulebook. Warren's challenge to the OCC, the CFTC's preemption suit against Minnesota and the broader M&A wave reflect a market maturing faster than its legal scaffolding. The era of unilateral state-level bans is colliding with federal frameworks for Bitcoin, custody and event contracts, even as institutional infrastructure capital signals long-term conviction in regulated on-chain rails and tokenized markets.