Georgia’s GELT, Polymarket Ban, Whale Awakens

Welcome to our Crypto news in 10, a daily podcast bringing you the latest news about crypto in under 10 minutes.

It’s Monday, May 25... here’s what’s moving crypto today.

A nation is getting ready to put its currency on-chain... Tether and the Government of Georgia say they’ll launch GELT, a stablecoin for the Georgian lari.

We’re also watching Indonesia block access to Polymarket after a political betting market stirred controversy.

In the U.S., a New York lawsuit claims ownership over 39,069 long-dormant Bitcoin wallets — including Satoshi-era addresses.

On markets, a Satoshi-era whale just shifted 2,650 BTC — over two hundred million dollars — to market makers FalconX and Cumberland.

And to cap it off, new data shows Hyperliquid’s HYPE funds pulling in fresh money as the exchange expands beyond pure crypto derivatives into pre-IPO and prediction contracts.

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Let’s start in Tbilisi. Tether is teaming up with the Government of Georgia to launch GELT — a lari-denominated stablecoin. They frame it as putting Georgia’s national currency on digital asset rails, under the country’s dedicated digital asset framework.

Timing and technical specifics aren’t set yet... but the project has explicit government backing — putting GELT alongside Tether’s other fiat-linked tokens beyond USDT. Fresh reporting also notes that Georgia has outlined rules for stablecoin issuance.

If it goes live, GELT would be one of the clearest state-supported, national-currency stablecoin efforts to date — useful for local settlements, cross-border remittances, and potentially for treasury experiments with tokenized lari liquidity. That’s per a Tether press release and Cointelegraph on May 25.

From launches to lockouts... Indonesia has blocked access to Polymarket after it hosted wagers on whether President Prabowo Subianto would leave office early. The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs called the platform online gambling disguised as a prediction market and reiterated a zero-tolerance stance on gambling online.

One of the markets let users bet on whether the president would exit before dates like May 31, or December 31, 2026. Trading volume was modest — tens of thousands of dollars — but regulators said the principle, not the size, drove the action. It’s the latest sign that prediction markets are colliding with local gambling laws, even as some jurisdictions consider more permissive regimes. Reported by Cointelegraph, May 25.

Staying with the law, New York just saw an eyebrow-raising filing. Plaintiffs are asking a court to declare them the legal owners of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses they say are abandoned property.

The 901-page complaint lists Satoshi-era wallets — including the well-known 12c6D address — and even the Mt. Gox 1Feex wallet. The suit argues that New York’s lost-property rules should apply, but legal and technical experts note that even a favorable ruling wouldn’t grant spendable control — Bitcoin doesn’t have a mechanism to reassign balances without the private keys.

Unless coins move through a regulated intermediary that can be compelled, any court order might be more symbolic than practical. Still, it spotlights the growing pile of long-dormant BTC — an estimated stash of millions of coins that hasn’t budged in five to ten years — and the novel legal theories forming around it. Via Cointelegraph, May 25.

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Over to markets, where an old-school whale just surfaced. On-chain trackers flagged a Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallet transferring 2,650 BTC — roughly 200 to 205 million dollars at current prices — to FalconX and Cumberland, two of crypto’s biggest liquidity providers.

These early-miner addresses tend to move only on rare occasions... and when they do, the market pays attention, because flows to market makers can signal intent to sell, lend, or otherwise deploy liquidity. The move comes as overall spot and ETF flows have chopped around, with price hovering in the high seventy-thousand dollar range. It’s a reminder that distribution from early cohorts — even in small drips relative to total supply — can shape near-term market microstructure. Reported by The Block and Crypto.news, May 25.

And finally, a theme that’s been building for weeks — Hyperliquid’s momentum. CoinDesk reports that funds tied to HYPE, the token powering the Hyperliquid exchange, have attracted fresh inflows, even as some bitcoin and ether ETFs have seen outflows in recent sessions.

A separate note, cited by FalconX, describes Hyperliquid as an emerging challenger to traditional exchanges and prediction markets, pointing to the platform’s expansion beyond perpetuals into pre-IPO markets, outcome contracts, and 24/7 asset trading. That broader product canvas — plus mechanisms like an assistance fund that repurchases and retires HYPE using fee revenue — has drawn institutional attention. Whether that translates into durable market share is the question... but for now, real money is testing the waters. Source: CoinDesk, May 25.

Quick recap before we wrap. Tether and Georgia plan GELT — a lari-backed stablecoin with government support. Indonesia blocks Polymarket on gambling grounds after a political market appears. In New York, a novel lawsuit claims 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets — but private keys still rule. A Satoshi-era whale moves 2,650 BTC to FalconX and Cumberland, stirring liquidity chatter. And Hyperliquid’s HYPE funds keep pulling in cash as the exchange pushes into round-the-clock markets beyond crypto.

That’s your crypto news in ten.

Thanks for listening and see you tommorow!