Hey there, PoI readers! 💫

It's your favorite frozen treat of the tech world, Mochi, welcoming you to the First edition of Proof of Intel from April. Today, we've got a packed lineup: a $54M crypto heist that somehow ended with Pokémon cards, stablecoins sneaking their way onto your Visa and Mastercard, JPMorgan's blockchain going full corporate beast mode, and a startup that decided Earth simply wasn't big enough for their data centers. So grab your favorite beverage, get comfortable, and let's dive into the news that's shaping tech and web3 — one block at a time!

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INTEL BRIEF

🟧 A Maryland man has been indicted for allegedly hacking Uranium Finance twice in April 2021, stealing over $54 million in crypto — and reportedly spending some of it on Pokémon cards and ancient Roman coins.

🟧 Nium has launched a platform enabling businesses to issue stablecoin-funded cards on Visa and Mastercard networks, converting digital dollar balances to fiat seamlessly at the point of sale.

🟧 Mitsubishi Corporation is adopting JPMorgan's Kinexys blockchain network for global corporate payments, as the platform pushes toward $10 billion in daily transaction volume.

🟧 Starcloud has raised $170 million in a Series A round, valuing the space compute startup at $1.1 billion as it races to build GPU-powered data centers in orbit.

A Maryland Man Allegedly Hacked $54 Million From a Crypto Exchange and Spent It on Pokémon Cards

Okay, so if you're going to allegedly steal $54 million from a DeFi protocol, at least have interesting taste in how you spend it — and Jonathan Spalletta, a Maryland resident, apparently did just that.

The US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has unsealed an indictment against Spalletta, accusing him of carrying out two separate hacks against Uranium Finance in April 2021. He surrendered to authorities on Monday, so no dramatic chase scene, unfortunately.

Uranium Finance was a BNB Chain fork of Uniswap — an automated market maker that launched during the 2021 bull market hype. It had a rough go from the start. Just days after launching, on April 8, 2021, a bad actor allegedly exploited a smart contract to withdraw far more crypto rewards than authorized, netting $1.4 million. A private deal was struck and most of the funds came back — minus $386,000, which is apparently the "finder's fee" nobody agreed to.

Then, on April 28, things got dramatically worse. A second exploit targeted an error in Uranium's smart contract governing withdrawal limits, draining $53.3 million across 26 liquidity pools — including Bitcoin, Ether, and the platform's native "U92" tokens. The exchange shut down shortly after and victims were left with, well, nothing but grief.

Now here's the chef's kiss part — prosecutors allege Spalletta used the stolen funds to buy Pokémon cards, antique Roman coins, and a piece of fabric from the Wright brothers' original airplane. Authorities seized these items from his residence, along with $31 million in cryptocurrency recovered in February of last year.

Spalletta now faces one count of computer fraud (up to 10 years) and one count of money laundering (up to 20 years) — a potential 30 years in prison for a shopping spree that history will never let anyone forget.

US Attorney Jay Clayton didn't mince words: "Stealing from a crypto exchange is stealing — the claim that 'crypto is different' does not change that."

Uranium Finance joins a grim 2021 statistic — a year in which bad actors are estimated to have stolen over $2.6 billion through hacks and exploits across the industry.

Jonathan Spalletta has been indicted for allegedly hacking Uranium Finance twice in April 2021, stealing $54M+ in crypto

Stolen funds were allegedly blown on Pokémon cards, Roman coins, and Wright Brothers memorabilia — all seized by authorities

He faces up to 30 years in prison across charges of computer fraud and money laundering

Nium Just Made It Possible for Businesses to Put Stablecoin Balances on Visa and Mastercard Cards

Imagine paying for your morning coffee with stablecoins while the cashier has absolutely no idea. That future is getting closer — and Nium just turned up the heat.

The global payments infrastructure provider has launched a platform that lets businesses issue stablecoin-funded cards through both Visa and Mastercard. The system converts stablecoin balances into fiat currency right at the point of sale, while handling settlement, compliance and card network integration all through a single integration layer. Less tech headache, more crypto spending.

The big sell? Nium believes it can shrink the time needed to launch stablecoin card programs from months down to days. For any business tired of watching blockchain payment dreams die in a compliance backlog, that's a pretty compelling pitch.

And the timing couldn't be more interesting. Consultancy Bain & Company recently noted that stablecoins are having a "headline moment" as US legislators attempt to clarify the regulatory landscape — though the proposed CLARITY Act remains stuck in Congress as crypto firms and traditional banks brawl over stablecoin rewards. Classic.

Meanwhile, the stablecoin market isn't waiting around. It currently exceeds $315 billion in market capitalization, with Tether's USDT alone commanding roughly $184 billion — about 58% of the entire market, per DefiLlama data.

The broader stablecoin payments ecosystem is also moving fast. Visa expanded its stablecoin support to four tokens across four blockchains, enabling conversion into 25+ fiat currencies. Mastercard recently agreed to acquire stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK in a deal valued at up to $1.8 billion, bridging fiat rails with onchain transactions.

And not to be left out, PayPal — which launched its PYUSD stablecoin back in August 2023 — recently introduced PYUSDx, a developer platform for issuing dollar-pegged tokens within apps and digital ecosystems.

Stablecoins are no longer just a crypto-native curiosity. They're quietly embedding themselves into the payment infrastructure most people use every day — whether they know it or not.

Nium launched a platform letting businesses issue stablecoin-funded cards on Visa and Mastercard, converting crypto to fiat at point of sale

The system consolidates compliance, conversion and settlement into one layer, cutting launch time from months to days

Stablecoin payment momentum is growing across Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal as the market cap surpasses $315 billion

Mitsubishi Is Using JPMorgan's Blockchain to Move Money Across Its Global Operations

Jamie Dimon has never exactly been crypto's biggest cheerleader — but while he's busy side-eyeing Bitcoin, JPMorgan's blockchain network is quietly becoming the backbone of global corporate finance. No big deal.

Mitsubishi Corporation, one of Japan's largest trading and industrial conglomerates — a company that produced over 883,000 vehicles last year alone — has announced plans to use JPMorgan's Kinexys network for moving funds across its sprawling global operations. The network enables near-instant fund transfers, 24/7 operation, and reduces reliance on traditional banking rails. Basically, it's everything TradFi wished it was, running on blockchain.

Kinexys is no small experiment at this point. The platform currently processes an average of $7 billion in daily transactions, with JPMorgan eyeing a scale-up to $10 billion daily. Since launching in 2020, it has processed a cumulative $3 trillion in total volume — numbers that make even the skeptics pause.

Mitsubishi isn't the only heavyweight coming aboard. Qatar National Bank (QNB) announced its adoption of Kinexys back in September, with QNB executive Kamel Moris noting the platform can "guarantee payments as fast as two minutes." Two minutes for a corporate cross-border payment. Let that sink in.

But Kinexys isn't stopping at payments. JPMorgan is developing Kinexys Fund Flow, a tokenization platform targeting asset classes like private credit and real estate, expected to roll out this year. The bank is joining a growing institutional crowd — BlackRock has launched tokenized funds, Franklin Templeton runs a blockchain-based money market fund, and Siemens has issued digital bonds on blockchain rails.

Meanwhile, even Nasdaq and the NYSE are reportedly moving to incorporate tokenization into alternative trading systems. Traditional finance isn't just watching blockchain anymore — it's building on top of it.

Mitsubishi Corporation is adopting JPMorgan's Kinexys blockchain network for global corporate payments

Kinexys processes $7B daily and has hit $3T in cumulative volume since 2020, targeting $10B/day

JPMorgan is expanding into tokenization via Kinexys Fund Flow, joining BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Siemens, Nasdaq and NYSE in the institutional blockchain push

Starcloud Just Raised $170 Million to Build the World's First Competitive Data Centers in Space

In Starcloud agrees — and they just raised $170 million to prove that the future of computing is, quite literally, up there.

The Series A round, led by Benchmark and EQT Ventures, closed just 17 months after Starcloud's Y Combinator demo day, catapulting the company to a $1.1 billion valuation — making it one of the fastest startups ever to reach unicorn status. Total funding now sits at $200 million.

So what exactly is Starcloud building? The company launched its first satellite carrying an Nvidia H100 GPU in November 2025 — and reportedly used it to train an AI model in orbit, claimed to be a first. Later this year, Starcloud 2 heads up with multiple GPUs including an Nvidia Blackwell chip, an AWS server blade, and — sure, why not — a bitcoin mining computer. Space mining. We're here.

The longer-term vision is Starcloud 3, a 200-kilowatt, three-ton spacecraft designed to launch aboard SpaceX's Starship, fitting neatly into the rocket's "PEZ dispenser" satellite deployment system. CEO Philip Johnston believes this could be the first orbital data center cost-competitive with Earth-based alternatives — at roughly $0.05 per kWh — assuming commercial launch costs land around $500 per kilogram.

The catch? Starship isn't flying commercially yet. Johnston estimates access opens around 2028–2029, meaning full cost competitiveness could slip into the 2030s. Until then, the company plans to keep launching smaller versions on Falcon 9.

There are real technical mountains to climb too — efficient power generation, cooling blazing-hot chips in a vacuum, and synchronizing hundreds of GPUs across spacecraft using laser links. Starcloud 2 will reportedly carry the largest deployable radiator ever flown on a private satellite, which is both impressive and a reminder of how wild this engineering challenge really is.

Competition is heating up as well. Aetherflux, Google's Project Suncatcher, and Aethero are all in the race. Oh, and SpaceX itself has asked the US government for permission to operate a million satellites for distributed space compute. Johnston believes there's room to coexist — noting SpaceX is likely building primarily for Grok and Tesla workloads, not third-party cloud infrastructure.

Space data centers: wild idea, real money, and a very long runway — pun fully intended.

Starcloud raised $170M at a $1.1B valuation to build GPU-powered orbital data centers, with total funding hitting $200M

The company already launched an Nvidia H100 into orbit, trained an AI model in space, and is planning Starcloud 2 and 3 with increasingly powerful hardware

Full cost competitiveness depends on Starship's commercial launch cadence, which isn't expected until 2028–2029 at the earliest

And that's a wrap, my wonderful PoI readers! I hope today's edition left you feeling informed, entertained, and maybe just a little bit mind-blown — because honestly, space data centers and Pokémon card hackers in the same newsletter is a day well spent. Remember to stay curious, stay sharp, and never stop asking the hard questions. Until next time, this is Mochi, signing off with a virtual high-five!

P.S. Don't forget to share your thoughts, questions, and favorite crypto puns with us. very voice matters in the PoI community! 📣❤️ Share the newsletter

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