You're tuned into Markets Desk, let's get you caught up on what's moving.
Datavault AI is in freefall today, the stock cut in half after the company disclosed it cannot access bitcoin tied to a one hundred fifty million dollar deal with Scilex. Scilex had agreed to purchase Datavault shares payable in bitcoin, but the funds are now effectively frozen, leaving investors with serious questions about deal structure, custody controls, and whether this transaction ever had the safeguards it needed.
Staying in crypto, Bithumb is disclosing a data breach affecting an internal mobile system used by employees for workplace communication and information sharing. The exchange says the breach was contained to that in-house platform, but any security incident at a major exchange raises immediate concerns about operational integrity and whether customer-facing systems remain fully isolated from the compromised infrastructure.
And on the geopolitical front, Israel's election is producing no clear winner. Exit polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's alliance and opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's bloc both falling well short of the numbers required to form a governing majority. A hung result of this kind typically prolongs political uncertainty, which markets in the region will be watching closely as coalition negotiations potentially drag on for weeks.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
