Decentral Block Post

Zach Witkoff, one of the co-founders of the Donald Trump family-backed crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has rebuffed efforts by US lawmakers to investigate the president’s potential conflicts of interest.

In a May 15 letter to Senator Richard Blumenthal, lawyers for World Liberty Financial claimed a call to investigate the crypto platform was based on “fundamentally flawed premises and inaccuracies.” Witkoff did not specifically address any allegations, claiming that WLFI was “too busy building” for oversight.

“The Company rejects the false choice between innovation and oversight,” said the letter. “What it opposes is the misuses of regulatory authority and uncertainty to suppress lawful innovation.”

May 15 letter to Sen. Blumenthal. Source: Zach Witkoff

Blumenthal, the ranking member of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was one of many Democrats calling for investigations and legislative changes in response to Trump’s ties to WLFI, as well as his TRUMP memecoin and its dinner scheduled for the top tokenholders on May 22.

The GENIUS Act, a bill to recognize stablecoins as payment instruments currently being considered in Congress, may be a bellwether for how lawmakers intend to handle the president’s potential conflicts of interest.

A federal judge sentenced Eric Council Jr., who participated in posting a fake announcement on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account saying it would approve spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, to 14 months in prison.

Following a May 16 hearing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department announced that Council would serve 14 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.

“Schemes of this nature threaten the health and integrity of our market system,” said Jeanine Pirro, interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia. “SIM swap schemes threaten the financial security of average citizens, financial institutions, and government agencies.”

Council was part of a group that compromised the X account of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through a SIM swap attack in January 2024. Prosecutors had requested that the judge impose a two-year sentence, while Council’s lawyers asked for one year and one day. Court filings showed he earned roughly $50,000 through SIM swap attacks like the one that compromised the SEC’s X account — funds likely subject to forfeiture.

Related: Coinbase faces $400M bill after insider phishing attack

Christy Goldsmith Romero of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will step down on May 31, leaving three seats open at the financial regulator.

In a May 16 announcement, Romero said her last day at the agency would be on May 31, ahead of her reported initial plans to leave if the Senate confirmed former commissioner Brian Quintenz as the new chair. Her departure will come a day after Commissioner Summer Mersinger is expected to step down to join the crypto advocacy organization the Blockchain Association as CEO.

“It has been a tremendous honor to conclude my 23 years of federal service at an agency with such an important mission to ensure that financial markets perform their critical role in the US and global economies,” said Romero.

Romero and Mersinger’s upcoming departures would leave the CFTC with only two Senate-confirmed members: acting chair Caroline Pham and Commissioner Kristin Johnson, each taking one Republican and Democratic seat, respectively. However, Pham also announced that she planned to leave after Quintenz’s confirmation. The shakeup in leadership potentially gives President Donald Trump the opportunity to pick three more commissioners after the Senate addresses Quintenz’s nomination.

Related: Former CFTC lawyer says agency should take lead on memecoin regulations

Shares of Basel Medical Group are down around 15% after the healthcare company announced plans to buy $1 billion in Bitcoin for its corporate treasury. 

On May 16, Singapore-based Basel said it was “in advanced discussions with a consortium of institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals […] to acquire a US$1 billion BTC through an innovative share-swap arrangement.

The company said the benefits of its planned purchase include creating “one of the strongest balance sheets among Asia-focused healthcare providers” and providing “unmatched financial flexibility for mergers and acquisitions.”

It also said the Bitcoin (BTC) treasury would help Basel “[e]stablish “a diversified asset base to weather market volatility.”

But the company’s shareholders weren’t sold. Basel’s stock, BMGL, has dropped around 15% on the announcement, according to data from Google Finance.

Key points:

A Bitcoin price close above $105,000 could accelerate momentum and trigger a rally to $130,000.

Ether continues to gain strength, which is being mirrored by many altcoins.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been consolidating between $100,718 and $105,819 for the past few days, indicating a balance between supply and demand. A positive sign is that the price has held above the psychologically crucial $100,000 level, signaling that the bulls are hanging on to their positions as they anticipate another leg higher.

Market intelligence firm Santiment highlighted in a post on X that the failure to rise above $105,000 has caused impatience among retail traders, which “historically is a bullish sign for prices.”

Shares of AI cloud computing company CoreWeave (CRWV) surged on May 16 after chip giant Nvidia revealed a large ownership stake, signaling growing corporate and institutional interest in the newly public company.

CRWV stock climbed as much as 26.3% in New York trading, pushing its market capitalization above $38 billion. Trading volumes were more than double the daily average, according to Yahoo Finance data.

The stock was last seen trading around $81, up 23% on the day.

CRWV has climbed to $81 a share on May 16. Source: Yahoo Finance

CoreWeave’s rally was sparked by regulatory filings from Nvidia showing that the company owned $900 million of CRWV stock at the end of the first quarter. The value of the holdings has more than doubled since March 31, assuming Nvidia hasn’t sold any shares since then.

As CNBC reported, Nvidia’s ownership stake at the time of CoreWeave’s initial public offering (IPO) was 17.9 million shares.

News broke on May 15 that Coinbase was the target of a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data for social engineering scams.

While less than 1% of Coinbase’s active monthly users were reportedly affected, the expected remediation and reimbursement expenses range from $180 million to $400 million, as the exchange pledged to repay all phishing attack victims.

Despite the attack on the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, investor sentiment remains optimistic, with the Fear & Greed Index remaining firmly in the “Greed” zone above 69, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Fear & Greed Index, 30-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Adding to investor optimism, Coinbase saw over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin withdrawn on May 9, marking the highest net outflow recorded in 2025 so far, triggering analyst predictions of a supply-shock driven Bitcoin rally.

Coinbase faces $400 million bill after insider phishing attack

Coinbase was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data, the company said on May 15.

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at Bitwise, predicts Bitcoin (BTC) will reach $200,000 by the end of 2025 due to a supply shock from heightened institutional demand.

In an interview with Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025 in Toronto, the executive said that Bitwise's Bitcoin price prediction model is driven exclusively by supply and demand metrics. Hougan laid out the specific figures driving the forecast:

"We know that miners will produce 165,000 BTC this year. Already, publicly traded companies have bought more than that. ETFs are at $6 billion in inflows. We think governments are going to be buying. We see this sort of structural difference between demand and supply."

"I think eventually that will exhaust sellers at the $100,000 level where we have been stuck, and I think the next stopping point above that is $200,000," the executive said. Bitwise is one of the issuers of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US markets, with nearly $4 billion in assets under management through its Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) as of May 14.

Eleanor Terrett, Ben Gagnon, Matt Hougan and Tom Lee at Consensus 2025. Source: Cointelegraph

This institutional demand has also bolstered the market with liquidity, likely making the four-year Bitcoin halving cycle, with significant drawdowns of up to 90% in between cycles, a "vestige of the past," Hougan said.

Related: "The world is trying to hoard Bitcoin right now" — Eric Trump

The stalling of key stablecoin legislation in the United States Senate was a minor setback, and the bill will pass in the coming weeks, said Cody Carbone, CEO of Digital Chamber, a Washington, DC,-based blockchain trade association and advocacy group.

Speaking to Cointelegraph at Consensus 2025, Carbone argued it is in the best interests of the US to pass comprehensive stablecoin regulations to protect US dollar hegemony in global markets, which has bipartisan appeal and support. Carbone said:

"These things never move as quickly as we want them to move, but it's stablecoin legislation. This Congress has already moved more expeditiously than we ever could have imagined. So, yes, it's a bump in the road, but I think very, very shortly, we will have another vote."

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation in U.S. Stablecoins of 2025, or GENIUS Act, is seen as a critical piece of legislation. Failing to pass comprehensive regulatory reform before the midterm elections in 2026 could mean a reversal in the positive regulatory environment and a downturn in the crypto markets.

"Negotiations have continued, and so I am still very optimistic,” Carbone said. “This bill is going to pass the Senate in the next few weeks.”

The GENIUS Act of 2025. Source: US Senate

Related: What are the next steps for the US stablecoin bill?

Key points:

Bitcoin refuses to budge from a narrow range as traders consider the likely breakout direction.

Price discovery is keenly awaited, but downside predictions include levels further toward $90,000.

BTC/USD has delivered highly patterned moves since its rebound began in April.

Bitcoin (BTC) kept traders guessing at the May 16 Wall Street open as consolidation sparked both bullish and bearish forecasts.

Opinion by: Megan Knab, CEO, Franklin Payroll

There are few historical examples of such a massive about-face for an industry, from banks debanking crypto businesses to now embracing stablecoins. If you talk to most crypto startup founders or companies with crypto on the balance sheet, they will all have war stories about finding, applying for and maintaining bank accounts. 

Over the past three years, over half of debanking complaints have been lodged against four American banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citibank. Now, as the policies that discriminated against the crypto industry, like “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” and the recision of controversial accounting rule SAB 121, have been repealed, a new openness to blockchain technology from the finance sector is possible. 

It is imperative that the banking industry stop shunning crypto and start — at least understanding it — to stay competitive. How stablecoins are deployed will separate the banking winners and losers. 

From debanking to stablecoins 

Of course, stablecoins are not a new concept. For years, large institutions like JPMorgan and Santander have experimented with stablecoins and blockchains. Those experiments were around small functions like internal treasury reconciliation and interbank settlement. Much of this was also on private blockchains created by those banks. Implementing digital dollars on private chains, however, misses out on the core innovation of stablecoins.

The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation — better known as MiCA — is now in its critical implementation phase. Designed to unify crypto regulation across all 27 EU member states, MiCA promises clarity, consumer protection and long-term market stability. But as implementation begins, cracks are already showing.

In this week’s episode of Byte-Sized Insight, we explore the key provisions of MiCA now in force, particularly around stablecoins, and why some of the largest players in the market are refusing to comply.

As of January 2025, crypto asset service providers (CASPs) began acquiring licenses to operate legally within the EU. A transitional or “grandfathering” period allows existing firms up to 18 months, depending on the member state, to comply. Still, with deadlines approaching, firms are being forced to act quickly.

Stablecoins at bay

One of MiCA’s earliest and most controversial provisions involves stablecoins. Under the law, no stablecoin can be offered to EU users unless the issuer is authorized in the EU and publishes a regulator-approved white paper.

Strict rules around asset reserves, governance, conflict of interest and marketing are also part of the package. Issuers are even banned from offering interest on tokens, removing a common incentive for adoption.

As cryptocurrency gains in popularity and price, some criminals are taking to violent measures to steal funds from high-profile crypto holders.

Jameson Lopp’s GitHub repository, which logs such incidents, has recorded 22 “$5 wrench” attacks on crypto holders in 2025 alone. The moniker comes from the crude and violent methods perpetrators use to compel crypto holders to hand over their bags. 

In many cases, local law enforcement can intervene before anyone is harmed and funds are lost. But there is a growing trend of increasingly violent and successful attacks, some of which have resulted in permanent harm and even death.

The most recent incident in Paris, France compelled the French Ministry of the Interior to hold a meeting to address the rising trend. Here are just seven of the most high-profile attacks this year.

Ledger founder and wife kidnapped, freed

The founder of crypto wallet Ledger, David Balland, and his wife, Amandine Balland, were kidnapped from their home on Jan. 21. The couple was put in a car, then separated and held at different locations. 

Ripple’s legal chief said a US court’s rejection of a proposed XRP settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) does not pose a threat to Ripple’s win.

Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected a joint Ripple-SEC motion seeking an indicative ruling on their proposed settlement, according to a filing on May 15.

Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, said the rejection does not reverse the company’s victory in the case. The company announced the end of the lawsuit on March 19.

Source: Stuart Alderoty

Alderoty stressed that the latest court decision does not change the fact that XRP (XRP) is not a security, adding that the rejection is related to “procedural concerns with the dismissal of Ripple’s cross-appeal.”

Why did the court refuse to grant the ruling?

According to the court document, Torres denied the motion as “procedurally improper” since the SEC and Ripple failed to file the correct procedural motion to support the proposed settlement.

Shares of luxury watchmaker Top Win surged more than 60% in premarket trading after the company said it would adopt a Bitcoin accumulation strategy and had changed its name to AsiaStrategy.

In a May 16 announcement, AsiaStrategy said it is partnering with Sora Ventures to adopt a Bitcoin (BTC) treasury strategy. Sora previously partnered with Metaplanet in 2024 to create Japan’s first corporate Bitcoin treasury.

The stock market took immediate notice of the announcement. Top Win stock closed the trading day at $7.50 on May 15, but traded at $12.12 in premarket at the time of writing — a jump of over 60%.

Top Win share price. Source: Google Finance

AsiaStrategy’s luxury watchmaking business will continue alongside its Bitcoin accumulation strategy, rather than a full pivot.

Related: Jim Chanos takes opposing bets on Bitcoin and Strategy

Why did Fantom reinvent itself as Sonic?

Fantom was one of the pioneers of the directed acyclic graph (DAG) design for distributed ledgers. It featured fast finality and transaction fees of a fraction of a cent. However, Fantom relied on the Ethereum-derived account storage model and the EVM, which led to bloated storage and slow execution times.

To address these bottlenecks and implement numerous other updates, the team behind Fantom rolled out Sonic, a fully independent new blockchain network. A new report by HTX  explores Sonic's technological background, its new tokenomics model and the innovations it brings to DeFi.  

Download a full version of the report for free here

Sonic’s technical architecture

Sonic runs on the proprietary SonicVM execution engine, which dynamically translates EVM bytecode into a faster internal format for speedier execution. It also optimizes heavy computations to prevent repeated work and pre-analyzes contract code to cache valid jump destinations. The SonicVM is fully compatible with the EVM, meaning that Fantom smart contracts can run seamlessly on the new blockchain.

To address the issue of hefty onchain data storage and slow node synchronization, Sonic uses a new database design called SonicDB. SonicDB separates the blockchain state into two databases. It uses the LiveDB for fast access to the current state and execution, and the ArchiveDB for storing full historical data. This separation allows consensus nodes to cut data storage requirements by up to 90% and thus significantly reduces hardware requirements and synchronization time.

Ethereum Merge architect Justin Drake told Cointelegraph that he believes it would be cheaper to launch a 51% attack on Bitcoin than on Ethereum.

Drake said it would be “much cheaper to 51% attack Bitcoin” and that it would cost “on the order of $10 billion.”

Drake led work on Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) implementation and was a principal architect in the Merge (the full PoS transition event). His remarks echo a May 14 X post by Grant Hummer, the co-founder of Ethereum-focused marketing and product company Etherealize.

In the post, Hummer said that Bitcoin “is completely screwed because of its security budget.”

Hummer claimed it would cost $8 billion to run a successful 51% attack, and he expects a successful attack to be “virtually certain” when the cost slips to $2 billion. A 51% attack occurs when a single entity or group controls over 50% of a blockchain network’s mining or staking power, gaining power over the network. Hummer added:

Key takeaways:

XRP price is forming a bullish V-shaped recovery pattern targeting $3.40.

A 53% surge in open interest to $5.06 billion signals bullish sentiment.

XRP (XRP) price shows positive signs as a bullish technical pattern emerges on its weekly chart, coinciding with increasing open interest.

Increasing OI backs XRP upside

XRP price is down 2% over the last 24 hours to trade above $2.40 on May 16, but has gained 13% over the past two weeks as the broader cryptocurrency market recovered and XRP open interest (OI) surged.

A fake Eric Trump-themed memecoin launched on Solana’s memecoin launchpad Pump.fun, rose more than 6,200% in the past 24 hours, raising red flags among blockchain analysts who warned of a potential rug pull.

A newly-created Eric Trump (ERICTRUMP) memecoin with the token address “jv7d” surpassed $140 million in market capitalization within a day since its launch on May 16, CoinMarketCap data shows.

ERICTRUMP/USD, all-time chart. Source: CoinMarketCap 

The memecoin’s distribution raises significant red flags that point to a rug pull “in the making,” warned blockchain data platform Bubblemaps in a May 16 X post.

Source: Bubblemaps

A rug pull typically refers to the sudden removal of liquidity or mass sell-off by token insiders, often resulting in a steep price collapse that leaves retail holders with worthless tokens.

Looking at Bubblemaps’ token clusters for the 250 largest holders, the majority of these tokens are held across 10 token clusters, founded by 10 main crypto addresses.

Key takeaways:

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway earned $250 million from its complete exit from crypto-friendly Nubank.

The decision to divest didn’t appear to be performance-based; Nu Holdings posted record profits in 2024 and Q1 2025.

Buffett’s exit aligns with Berkshire’s broader financial sector pullback and growing cash reserve strategy.

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor long known for his skepticism toward cryptocurrencies, has fully exited his position in one of Latin America’s most crypto-friendly banks, Nubank, before his departure from Berkshire Hathaway.