Decentral Block Post

Ethereum’s latest network upgrade, Pectra, introduced powerful new features aimed at improving scalability and smart account functionality — but it also opened a dangerous new attack vector that could allow hackers to drain funds from user wallets using only an offchain signature.

Under the Pectra upgrade, which went live on May 7 at epoch 364032, attackers can exploit a new transaction type to take control of externally owned accounts (EOAs) without requiring the user to sign an onchain transaction.

Arda Usman, a Solidity smart contract auditor, confirmed to Cointelegraph that “it becomes possible for an attacker to drain an EOA’s funds using only an offchain signed message (no direct onchain transaction signed by the user).”

At the center of the risk is EIP-7702, a core component of the Pectra upgrade. The Ethereum Improvement Proposal introduces the SetCode transaction (type 0x04), which enables users to delegate control of their wallet to another contract simply by signing a message.

If an attacker obtains this signature — say, via a phishing site — they can overwrite the wallet’s code with a small proxy that forwards calls to their malicious contract.

Crypto services platform Nexo shared its plans to reenter the United States market on Monday, marking the eighth major crypto firm to announce such plans since US President Donald Trump took office at the start of the year.

Firms like Circle, Binance and OKX are banking on favorable regulatory clarity in 2025 to herald their US expansion. Bills like the STABLE Act and the GENIUS Act are advancing in Congress, which, if implemented, will lay the groundwork for swift success.

Trump and his family are actively involved in some of these planned expansions. Nexo’s recent announcement was backed by Donald Trump Jr., who said, “We see the opportunity for the financial sector and want to ensure we bring that back to the US.”

Amid concerns of conflicts of interest and blatant token shilling by the Trump family, it remains to be seen whether these upcoming regulations will adequately protect everyday investors. Regardless, these are the eight firms that have banked on big bucks in the US this year.

Binance.US resumes USD services; CZ seeks clemency 

Binance.US officially reinstated USD deposit and withdrawal services less than a month into Trump’s presidency. 

Worldcoin’s latest hardware, the Orb Mini, aimed at enabling portable human verification, has been met with ridicule across Crypto Twitter.

Launched with the slogan “It goes where you go,” the device has instead triggered dystopian comparisons and widespread mockery for its unsettling implications and unclear use case.

“The thing about humans is they can tell when a human is in front of them,” Alicia Katz from decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Euler Finance wrote on X.

“When something is slightly off, they can experience the uncanny valley, an uncomfortable feeling similar to when your date tries to scan your eyeball,” she added.

Another user quipped, “Is this so you can register your friends?” likening the device to a sci-fi prop rather than a serious identity solution.

Hackers drained over $2.15 million from Mobius Token ($MBU) smart contracts on the BNB Chain in a targeted exploit detected early May 11, according to security firm Cyvers Alerts.

The attacker deployed the contract from address 0xb32a53... at 07:31:38 UTC and initiated the exploit at 07:33:56 UTC, draining funds from the victim wallet 0xb5252f...

Cyvers confirmed to Cointelegraph that the attacker used contract 0x631adf... to execute a series of malicious transactions. The smart contract drained 28.5 million MBU tokens and converted them into stablecoins, resulting in a net loss of $2,152,219.99 for the victim.

In total, the attacker stole 28.5 million MBU tokens and converted them to $2.15 million worth of USDT.

Cyvers labeled the exploit as “critical” and noted the attacker’s use of suspicious contract code and abnormal transaction patterns.

Altcoin markets are flashing early signs of a breakout, with several analysts calling for a potential surge over the next few months.

Crypto commentator Mister Crypto predicts the next 3 to 6 months could be “life-changing,” suggesting daily gains of up to 40% may soon become the norm.

In a May 11 post on X, he pointed to a chart from BlockchainCenter.net that shows whether the crypto market favors Bitcoin (BTC) or altcoins.

When the index is below 25, it’s considered “Bitcoin Season,” meaning Bitcoin is outperforming most altcoins. When it’s above 75, it’s “Altcoin Season,” meaning altcoins are doing better than Bitcoin.

Currently, the chart shows a breakout from a downward trend just below the 29 mark, suggesting a possible shift away from Bitcoin dominance. This breakout hints that altcoins may start gaining momentum, potentially entering a period where they outperform Bitcoin.

Coinbase reportedly considered adopting a Bitcoin investment playbook like Michael Saylor’s Strategy on multiple occasions, but decided against it each time out of fear that it would kill the firm’s crypto exchange, Bloomberg reported.

“There were definitely moments over the last 12 years where we thought, man, should we put 80% of our balance sheet into crypto — into Bitcoin specifically,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong told Bloomberg in a May 9 video call.

Armstrong said the Bitcoin (BTC) strategy could have risked the company’s cash position and potentially killed the crypto exchange. “We made a conscious choice about risk,” he added.

Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas, who also attended the video call, added that the firm didn’t want to be seen as directly competing against its customers over which cryptocurrencies would outperform. 

“Rest assured, we are not stopping there,” Haas said, as Coinbase reported purchasing another $153 million worth of crypto assets in its first quarter results statement on May 8, which was primarily concentrated in Bitcoin.

UFC fighter turned Irish political candidate Conor McGregor has endorsed the idea of building a Bitcoin reserve in his country to give more “power back to the people.”

“Crypto in it's origin was founded to give power back to the people. An Irish Bitcoin strategic reserve will give power to the people’s money,” McGregor wrote to X on May 9.

The former UFC champion said he would discuss his plans in more detail in an upcoming X spaces, prompting responses from some of the Bitcoin industry’s most prominent leaders.

Source: Conor McGregor

“We need the greatest minds for this BTC Reserve. Message me and lets chat on my space,” McGregor said in response to Bitcoiner and host of The Pomp Podcast, Anthony Pompliano.

One of US President Donald Trump’s crypto advisors, David Bailey, also reached out, to which McGregor responded: “David message me, let’s discuss your ideas!” 

The government of El Salvador continues stacking Bitcoin (BTC) for its national crypto reserve, despite an ongoing deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stipulating that the Central American country stop using public funds to purchase Bitcoin as one of the conditions for a loan agreement.

According to data from the El Salvador Bitcoin Office, the country acquired an additional seven BTC in the last seven days, bringing its total holdings to 6,173 BTC, valued at over $637 million.

El Salvador's Bitcoin Office has continued its steady pace of Bitcoin acquisitions months after the IMF agreement was signed and shows no sign of halting its Bitcoin purchases.

The Central American country is one of the only nations actively purchasing Bitcoin in open market operations, and its national Bitcoin treasury strategy will serve as a blueprint for other countries also considering Bitcoin strategic reserves, according to crypto industry executives.

El Salvador’s Bitcoin holdings and acquisitions since March 13. Source: El Salvador Bitcoin Office

Related: El Salvador works with Nvidia to develop sovereign AI infrastructure

Investors of Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision (BSV) — a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which itself is a hard fork of the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol, are attempting to revive a 2019 lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance for delisting the altcoin, which the litigants claim stunted the price of BSV.  

According to Law360, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that a July 2024 decision from the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal dismissing the "loss of chance" claim made against Binance for delisting the token, should be reconsidered. The litigants demanded $9 billion in damages, in the original case.

The investors continue to claim that Binance's 2019 delisting of BSV and similar major exchange delistings are the primary drivers of BSV's long-term price decline and its failure to attract the investor attention enjoyed by Bitcoin.

BSV has been in a long-term price decline and has failed to capture investor attention. Source: TradingView

If the coalition of BSV investors manages to push through their legal argument and win in court, they could seek up to 10 billion British pounds (GBP), or roughly $13 billion, in damages from the exchange.

The price of BSV surged by approximately 15% following the news and is currently trading at around $42. However, the altcoin remains in a long-term downtrend and has failed to capture the vast majority of the economic or computing power from the Bitcoin network.

Strategy, a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury company, is accumulating Bitcoin at a faster rate than total miner output, giving the supply-capped asset a -2.33% annual deflation rate, according to CryptoQuant CEO and market analyst Ki Young Ju.

"Their 555,000 BTC is illiquid with no plans to sell," the analyst wrote in a May 10 X post. "Strategy's holdings alone mean a -2.23% annual deflation rate — likely higher with other stable institutional holders," Ju continued.

Michael Saylor, the co-founder of Strategy, is an outspoken Bitcoin advocate who evangelizes the scarce digital currency to potential investors and has inspired many other companies to adopt a Bitcoin treasury plan.

The total BTC supply is shrinking due to Strategy accumulating Bitcoin. Source: Ki Young Ju

Additionally, Strategy acts as a bridge between Bitcoin and traditional financial (TradFi) markets by funneling funds from TradFi investors into Bitcoin through selling corporate debt and equity, which the company uses to finance more BTC purchases. According to Michael Saylor, over 13,000 institutions hold Strategy stock directly in their portfolios.

Bitcoin investors continue to watch the company and its effect on Bitcoin market dynamics. Strategy leads the charge toward institutional adoption of Bitcoin, further restricting the supply of available coins and raising BTC prices, while dampening volatility.

Opinion by: Kevin Rusher, founder of RAAC

It’s a volatile world out there. This year, we’ve seen stocks take a wild ride as gold has pumped and crypto has been caught somewhere in the middle. Investors have dumped risk assets and scrambled for safe havens. Gold is leading the charge.

While gold is safe, it is not very hard-working. Unlike cash and treasuries, the yellow metal does not generate income. Now, more than ever, investors need to be able to earn yield on gold — particularly in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.

The only way to make money from gold is to buy low and sell high. Most investors don’t tend to buy gold like this. That’s for good reason — over the long term, gold’s performance is typically consistent, if not without a few peaks and troughs here and there, as we have recently seen.

For example, after the 2008 financial crisis, the price of gold soared 148% but stagnated for nearly a decade before the COVID-19 pandemic triggered another rally, and it's likely we will see gold hold, if not fall from it's new record high once markets revive. While it remains an excellent hedge, gold’s long-term track record is not a growth story.

After 4chan was hacked on April 14 and vast troves of user and moderator data were leaked online, the controversial website quickly went down, and many believed it would never recover. However, less than two weeks later, the imageboard was back online, defiant as ever.

“4chan is back,” an official blog post proclaimed. “No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.”

The imageboard has left its mark on the world in many consequential ways, birthing countless memes and conspiracy theories, serving as a platform for political movements ranging from the alt-right to Anonymous, and acting as a dumping ground for leaks and hacks of all sorts. 

Crypto is no exception, with 4chan also a historically influential gathering place to share altcoin alpha, coordinate campaigns to pump tokens, share price prophesies and more.

With the imageboard back from the dead, here are just a few of the ways it has influenced the crypto space during its storied history.

On April 29, UK Finance Minister Rachel Reeves unveiled plans for a “comprehensive regulatory regime” aimed at making the country a global leader in digital assets.

Under the proposed rules, crypto exchanges, dealers, and agents will be regulated similarly to traditional financial firms, with requirements for transparency, consumer protection, and operational resilience, the UK Treasury said in a statement released following Reeves’ remarks.

Per the statement, the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Order 2025 introduces six new regulated activities, including crypto trading, custody, and staking.

Rather than opting for a light-touch regime similar to the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), the UK is applying the full weight of securities regulation to crypto, according to UK-based law firm Wiggin. That includes capital requirements, governance standards, market abuse rules, and disclosure obligations.

“The UK’s draft crypto regulations represent a meaningful step toward embracing a rules-based digital asset economy,” Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle, told Cointelegraph.

Hong Kong-based fintech firm RedotPay has reportedly launched its cryptocurrency-enabled payment cards in South Korea, positioning itself as a potential disruptor in a market dominated by traditional credit card firms and mobile payment services.

The company’s crypto debit cards — both physical and virtual — are now accepted at all Korean merchants that support Visa, according to a May 9 report by The Korea Economic Daily.

The move marks RedotPay’s latest step in global expansion, following its earlier partnership with Visa and BIN sponsor StraitsX in February 2025 to enhance cross-border crypto payment capabilities.

RedotPay, founded in 2023, has rapidly scaled since the soft launch of its crypto card program in late 2024. It now serves more than 4 million users worldwide.

In South Korea, users can receive a virtual card for $10 or a physical card for $100, with minimal verification requirements, including name, address, and ID.

Robert Kiyosaki, businessman and best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, is once again sounding the alarm on the dangers of centralized monetary policy, urging his followers to abandon what he calls “fake money” and adopt alternatives like Bitcoin, gold, and silver.

In a May 10 post on X, Kiyosaki backed a hardline stance against central banking systems, particularly the Federal Reserve, while quoting former US Congressman Ron Paul.

Ron Paul, a longtime critic of the Fed and author of End the Fed, described interest rate setting by central banks as “price fixing,” equating it to socialist and Marxist economic control.

Paul warned that such mechanisms erode personal wealth and undermine economic freedom — a sentiment that aligns closely with Kiyosaki’s long-held concerns.

“Fake money leads to dishonest money, dishonest statistics, dishonest accounting, dishonest balance sheets, dishonest compensation, dishonest relations, dishonest leaders, and corruption in everyday life,” Kiyosaki wrote.

BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) capped off the trading week with another day of inflows, pulling in $356.2 million on May 9. The fund has now extended its inflow streak to 19 consecutive days — its longest run of inflows so far this year.

IBIT’s inflow streak has been ongoing since April 14, and has coincided with a volatile Bitcoin (BTC) market, with the asset trading between $83,152 and $103,000 over the period.

However, market sentiment has been increasing after the asset reclaimed and held above the $90,000 price on April 23 before reclaiming the $100,000 price on May 8 for the first time since Feb. 1.

Bitcoin ETFs ticking along as Bitcoin price spikes

Over the past trading week alone, IBIT posted $1.03 billion in inflows, according to Farside data.

Prior to the current 19-day streak, IBIT’s longest inflow streak in 2025 was a nine-day stretch surrounding US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, spanning from Jan. 15 to Jan. 28.

Sovereign Wealth Funds are already gaining exposure to Bitcoin, but significant allocations won’t happen until the United States establishes clearer regulations for the digital assets industry, says SkyBridge founder Anthony Scaramucci.

“I think they are buying it, I think they are buying it on the margin,” Scaramucci, former White House director of communications during US President Donald Trump’s first term, said on Anthony Pompliano’s podcast on May 8.

Legislation will lead to “large blocks of buying”

“I don’t think it is going to be a gigantic groundswell of buying until we greenlight legislation in the United States,” he added. Scaramucci previously said in a February interview with the Financial Times that he expects the US government to propose crypto legislation in November.

SWFs are government-owned investment funds that manage national savings, often built from surplus revenues like oil profits or trade gains. Norway has the largest SWF in the world, with approximately $1.73 trillion in assets under management, followed by China with $1.33 trillion, according to data from Visual Capitalist.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) market cap is approximately $2.05 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor says Bitcoin hasn’t reached $150,000 yet because holders without a long-term outlook have been selling off while a new cohort of investors are beginning to enter the market.

“I think we’re going through a rotation right now,” Saylor said on the Coin Stories podcast with Natalie Brunell on May 9.

The lack of “10-year investor mindset” led to Bitcoin sell-off

Saylor said “lots of non-economically interested parties are rotating out of the asset.” However, at the same time, “a new cohort of investors are entering.”

“A lot of Bitcoin, for whatever reason, was left in the hands of the governments and the hands of lawyers, and in the hands of bankruptcy trustees,” he added.

Strategy’s Michael Saylor spoke to Natalie Brunell on the Coin Stories podcast. Source: Natalie Brunell

Saylor said that many of these trustees do not have a “10-year investors mindset,” and as Bitcoin’s (BTC) price began to rally, they took advantage and “thought this is a good exit point to get liquidity.”

Key takeaways:

ETH price rallied by 22% on May 8, but demand for spot ETH ETFs and derivatives remains muted. 

President Trump’s reversal on certain altcoins aligns with ETH’s renewed outlook. 

Ether (ETH) posted an impressive 29% gain between May 8 and May 9, likely marking the end of a 10-week bear market that bottomed out at $1,385 on April 9. This sharp move triggered the liquidation of over $400 million in short (sell) ETH futures positions, suggesting that whales and market makers were caught off guard.

Despite the surge, traders have maintained a neutral stance in ETH derivatives. Whether this apparent lack of conviction reflects a genuine trend reversal or merely precedes another test of the $2,000 level remains to be seen.

The newly launched DOOD token from Ethereum-based NFT project Doodles has seen a steep drop in market capitalization following its May 9 airdrop on the Solana network.

According to data from DEX Screener, DOOD’s market cap fell from over $100 million shortly after launch to around $60 million at the time of writing.

Overall, the much-anticipated airdrop was “[d]efinitely underwhelming,” a crypto commentator said in a May 9 X post. 

DOOD token performance on May 9. Source: DexScreener

Related: Doodles NFT sales surge 97% ahead of DOOD token airdrop

Falling NFT values

Joining the trend, NFTs in Doodle’s flagship collection sharply dropped in value on May 9.

Key Takeaways:

Solana's 15% surge and potential close above the 50-week EMA signal strong bullish momentum, which previously led to a 515% rally in 2024.

The $120 million in liquidity bridged to Solana reflects growing network confidence.

Solana (SOL) price gained 18% this week, signaling rising bullish momentum. The altcoin is approaching a pivotal point, with a potential close above the 50-week exponential moving average (EMA), a level that has historically catalyzed significant rallies.

In March, SOL dipped below the 50-week EMA and briefly dropped under $100 on April 7. Since then, Solana has staged a strong recovery, reclaiming key EMA levels (100W and 200W), with the 50-week EMA (blue line) now in focus.

Wall Street giant BlackRock met with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Crypto Task Force to discuss staking within crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) and tokenization of securities. The discussion could advance institutional interest in the crypto industry.

According to a May 9 memo published by the task force, BlackRock sought to “[d]iscuss perspectives on treatment of staking, including considerations for facilitating ETPs with staking capabilities.” The company has previously said that Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds, while successful, are less perfect without staking.

Other crypto ETF issuers share that view. On Feb. 15, the New York Stock Exchange proposed a rule change to introduce staking services for Grayscale’s spot Ether ETFs. In April, the SEC delayed a decision on whether to approve or disapprove the rule change. BlackRock and Grayscale are behind the largest Ether ETFs by market capitalization, according to Sosovalue.

Ethereum ETFs as of May 8. Source: Sosovalue

Many blockchains rely on proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms that allow users to lock their native coins for yield. A potential SEC approval of staking for Ether ETFs could lead to future requests among altcoins, including Solana (SOL) ETFs.

Tokenization on the agenda

BlackRock also discussed “tokenization of securities under federal securities regulatory framework.” Securities are traditional financial instruments where the investor expects monetary gain, such as bonds and stocks. Tokenizing securities has many benefits, including faster settlement times, lower costs than with traditional finance infrastructure, and 24-hour markets.

US Vice President JD Vance will speak at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas, roughly a year after then-presidential candidate Donald Trump spoke at the same event.

According to a May 9 notice from the event’s organizers, Vance will address conference attendees in person on May 28, making him the first sitting US vice president to speak at a digital asset conference.

Trump provided a pre-recorded video of himself from the White House to the organizers of the Digital Asset Summit in March — his first appearance at a crypto event since taking office in January — and spoke in person at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville while campaigning.

Though Vance is a Bitcoin (BTC) holder — he holds $250,000 to $500,001 worth of the cryptocurrency, according to a financial disclosure filed in August 2024 — it’s unclear whether the vice president intends to make a substantive policy statement at the event. Cointelegraph reached out to Vance’s office for comment but had not received a response at time of publication.

Related: Resurfaced clip shows Trump’s VP pick slamming Gensler’s approach to crypto

Key points:

Bitcoin holding $100,000 as a level of support would confirm the current trend change.

Ether leads among altcoins, and DeFi tokens could follow.

Bitcoin (BTC) broke above the psychologically critical $100,000 level on May 8, and the bulls are trying to hold on to the level on May 9. In an X post, CoinGlass said that Bitcoin’s rally resulted in $837.80 million in short liquidations in a 24-hour period, the largest since 2021.

Bitcoin’s rally also lifted several major altcoins, which soared above their respective overhead resistance levels. The altcoin rally was led by Ether (ETH), which surged roughly 22% on May 8, triggering a $328 million liquidation of Ether short positions.

Mining firm TeraWulf reported a net loss of approximately $61.4 million in its earnings for the first quarter of 2025, further deteriorating from the same period last year.

Revenue fell to $34.4 million from $42.4 million in the same period of 2024, according to the company's earnings report, published May 9. Cost of revenue rose sharply to $24.5 million, up from $14.4 million a year earlier.

As a result, TeraWulf's cost of revenue accounted for 71.4% of total income from operations in Q1 2025, more than double the 34% recorded in the prior-year quarter. In Q1 2024, the company posted a net loss of $9.6 million.

TeraWulf’s profit and loss statement for Q1 2025. Source: TeraWulf

TeraWulf attributed the decreased revenue to Bitcoin's (BTC) post-halving economics that reduced the block subsidy from 6.25 BTC per block mined to 3.125 BTC per block mined, rising network difficulty, and severe weather in the upstate New York area that is home to a TeraWulf mining facility.

The company is not alone in posting losses for the quarter, as the already competitive mining industry faces reduced block rewards and the macroeconomic uncertainty of geopolitical trade tensions that have created turmoil for financial markets and businesses alike.

Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade doesn’t pose a threat to decentralization, according to Mallesh Pai, senior research director at blockchain software firm Consensys, describing the update as a cleanup of the behind-the-scenes “busy work” currently handled by validators.

During a May 9 Cointelegraph X Space, Pai said a validator’s chances of proposing a block or earning rewards remain tied to how much ETH they hold, adding that larger validators don’t gain any new advantages under the upgrade:

“Rewards continue to be proportional to the amount of ETH you have. […] it's not the case that if you're a big validator, you somehow have any more advantages than you did before.”

Pectra is Ethereum’s most extensive network upgrade since the Merge took place in September 2022. Pectra allows validators to stake as much as 2,048 ETH, up from the previous limit of 32 ETH. The new standard has raised community concerns about the risks of centralization on the network.

According to Pai, the Pectra upgrade has taken “a bunch of busy work that the network was doing behind the scenes and removed it.”

Pai noted that while there are about a million technical validators on Ethereum, many aren’t truly distinct — large validators often operate numerous virtual keys from a single physical machine. With the Pectra upgrade, those keys can now be consolidated — something he says they are already seeing.

A group of Democratic senators has reportedly sent a letter to leadership at the US Department of Justice and the Treasury Department expressing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s ties to cryptocurrency exchange Binance and potential conflicts of interest in regulating the industry.

According to a May 9 Bloomberg report, Democratic senators asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to report on the steps Binance had taken as part of its November 2023 plea agreement with US authorities, amid reports that Trump and his family had deepened connections with the exchange.

That settlement saw Binance pay more than $4 billion as part of a deal with the Justice Department, Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and had then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao step down.

However, since Trump won the presidency in 2024, many lawmakers have accused the president of corruption from profiting off crypto while being in a position to influence laws and regulations over the industry.

Trump has launched his own memecoin — which earns the project millions of dollars in transaction fees — and offered the top tokenholders the opportunity to attend an exclusive dinner in Washington, DC. His family-backed crypto venture World Liberty Financial also recently announced that an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm, MGX, would settle a $2 billion investment in Binance using the platform’s USD1 stablecoin.

A group of Democratic senators has reportedly sent a letter to leadership at the US Department of Justice and the Treasury Department expressing concerns about US President Donald Trump’s ties to cryptocurrency exchange Binance and potential conflicts of interest in regulating the industry.

According to a May 9 Bloomberg report, Democratic senators asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to report on the steps Binance had taken as part of its November 2023 plea agreement with US authorities, amid reports that Trump and his family had deepened connections with the exchange.

That settlement saw Binance pay more than $4 billion as part of a deal with the Justice Department, Treasury, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and had then-CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao step down.

However, since Trump won the presidency in 2024, many lawmakers have accused the president of corruption from profiting off crypto while being in a position to influence laws and regulations over the industry.

Trump has launched his own memecoin — which earns the project millions of dollars in transaction fees — and offered the top tokenholders the opportunity to attend an exclusive dinner in Washington, DC.

Law enforcement detained the wrong person for a 2022 scam that pilfered more than $1 million worth of Bored Ape non-fungible tokens (NFTs), cybersecurity researcher ZachXBT said. 

In a May 9 X post, ZachXBT said he identified the wallet behind the scam and linked it to an X account that has since been deleted. 

But in 2023, law enforcement detained Sam Curry, a former Yuga Labs security researcher, at an airport as a suspect in the incident, ZachXBT said. Yuga Labs is the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. 

“It’s unfortunate to see how a security researcher was detained when stronger leads on a threat actor potentially responsible exist,” ZachXBT said.

The attacker stole 14 Bored Ape NFTs in 2022. Source: ZachXBT

Related: Crypto sleuth ZachXBT says he unmasked 50x Hyperliquid whale

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin’s price closely tracks global liquidity growth, with liquidity explaining up to 90% of its price movements, according to Raoul Pal.

In the long term, global liquidity continues to expand, driven by the increasing debt levels in many countries.

On a shorter timeframe, global liquidity follows a cyclical pattern, with Michael Howell projecting the current cycle to peak by mid-2026.

Bitcoin (BTC) price is notoriously sensitive to global liquidity. Some analysts go as far as calling their correlation near-perfect, with a lag of about three months. This relationship is fueling the current bullish narrative as BTC price soars back above $100,000, but how long can this trend last?