On-chain detective ZachXBT has shared details of the massive crypto Ponzi scheme that took over $150 million from unsuspecting victims before collapsing last week. Related Reading: Bitcoin Targets $86,000 After Key EMA Reclaim: Is The Next Rally Here? The Mechanics Behind The $150M Crypto Ponzi In a series of X posts, ZachXBT unveiled the details of a Ponzi scheme that had been operating under the DSJ Exchange (DSJEX), a fake trading platform, and BG Wealth Sharing, a fraudulent investment scheme, since 2025. The scam involved a fake CEO named Stephen Beard, a self-proclaimed professor who represented the platform to the public. According to the Tuesday thread, DSJEX and BG Wealth advertised daily returns of 1.3%–2.6%, with referral commissions and rank-based bonuses. In addition, Beard pushed recruitment and fake trading signals through a group on Hong Kong messaging app BonChat. The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) recently explained that investors used these trading signals on the DSJ exchange and were led to believe that the crypto investments were generating returns. BG Wealth and DSJ claimed to be licensed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but the DFI found that neither of the forms filed by these companies indicated that they were registered with the SEC. Thirteen regulators across five continents had issued public fraud warnings about the firms, including the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Philippines’ SEC, and Washington’s DFI. On April 23, US law enforcement seized one of BG Wealth’s domains as part of a joint operation conducted by Operation Level Up and the Scam Center Strike Force. However, the scam continued to operate for roughly another week. Last Saturday, Beard posted a video affirming that DSJEX would soon go public and demanded a 12% “tax” on account balances as a prerequisite for the regulatory process. But the scammers had already disabled withdrawals by this point. Tether, Exchanges Freeze $41.5M After the US authorities’ involvement, the malicious actors laundered over $92 million in crypto assets across chains. ZachXBT noted that the scammers regularly rotated between domains and hot wallets to evade law enforcement. Between April 27 and May 3, the crypto funds were laundered through token swaps, bridging via Bridgers, Butter Network, and USDT0, wrapping and unwrapping USDD, and consolidation of transactions across hundreds of addresses. The crypto sleuth traced the millions in outflows through a timing analysis, located Solana/Tron deposits to Binance, and found matching Tron withdrawals. Then, he provided details to the relevant parties, including Tether, the Binance security team, OKX, and US law enforcement. As a result, Tether froze $38.4 million on May 4, while another $3.1 million was frozen at various crypto services and exchanges, bringing the total to $41.5 million. Related Reading: Why is Crypto Up Today? Bitcoin Price Faces ‘Real Test’ At This Key Level Despite the significant recovery, the on-chain detective noted that the scam’s $150 million assessment is “likely significantly higher since the scheme has been operating since 2025, with thousands of victim exchange withdrawals identified.” Ultimately, he advised victims of DSJEX and BG Wealth’s scheme to file a police report in their jurisdiction to aid global investigations and potential restitution from laundered proceeds. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
LayerZero is facing heavy criticism for its response to the recent $290 million KelpDAO exploit after the omnichain interoperability protocol blamed Kelp’s 1-of-1 verifier configuration for the incident. Related Reading: Bitcoin’s Decentralization Narrative Under Fire After Epstein Files Claims LayerZero Blames KelpDAO For $290M Exploit Over the weekend, liquid restaking protocol KelpDAO was the victim of an attack that drained over $290 million in rsETH from the project after malicious actors exploited a weakness in the protocol’s LayerZero-powered bridge. Two days later, LayerZero addressed the incident, which became the largest DeFi hack of 2026, just weeks after Drift Protocol’s $285 million exploit shocked the industry. LayerZero attributed the “highly sophisticated attack” to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, claiming that it was a crypto infrastructure attack rather than a protocol exploit, and affirming that “there is zero contagion to any other cross-chain assets or applications.” They explained that the protocol is built on a “foundation of modular, application-configurable security,” using Decentralized Verifier Networks (DVNs), independent entities responsible for verifying the integrity of cross-chain messages. The malicious actors allegedly poisoned downstream RPC infrastructure by “compromising a quorum of the RPCs the LayerZero Labs DVN relied upon to verify transactions.” Per the post, the attackers swapped binaries for a custom payload to forge messages and used DDoS attacks to force failover to the poisoned nodes, triggering the DVN into confirming fake transactions. Based on this, LayerZero placed responsibility on KelpDAO for using a 1-of-1 verifier configuration instead of the multi-DVN recommendations: “This incident was isolated entirely to KelpDAO’s rsETH configuration as a direct consequence of their single-DVN setup.” Crypto Community Criticizes ‘Lack Of Accountability’ The crypto community reacted to the post-mortem, sharing its concerns about LayerZero’s response and criticizing the protocol for placing all responsibility only on Kelp’s security setup. “Imagine building a bridge and vehicles pays to cross, the bridge collapsed and you said it’s their fault for crossing the bridge. A classic clownery act from Bunch of clowns with zero accountability,” X user Saint wrote. Others questioned why LayerZero included a “1-of-1” configuration if the purpose of a DVN is customizable/modular security. “If the system allows this option, it’s not the fault of the customer who chose it—it’s a fundamental design flaw by the system that permitted it,” user Ditto wrote. “At the end of the day, the fact remains that the DVN RPC was compromised. DVN is a LayerZero product, and they are the ones who sold it to these teams,” he continued. Similarly, Chainlink community manager Zach Rynes accused the protocol of deflecting responsibility for the compromise of their own DVN node. He also criticized them for “throwing KelpDAO under the bus” for trusting LayerZero Labs’ setup that they “willingly support and only blocked after getting hacked, all while claiming everything worked as designed.” Meanwhile, Yearn Finance core team developer Artem K noted on X that the attack was described as a compromise of an RPC node and RPC poisoning, but that their own infrastructure is what was compromised. “Given it doesn’t say how the breach has occurred, I wouldn’t rush re-enabling the bridges,” he added. Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Fix? Analyst The Smart Ape also claims that LayerZero made the wrong diagnosis and offered the wrong solution. Notably, the protocol’s post-mortem suggested migrating all applications with 1-of-1 DVN configurations to multi-DVN setups to prevent similar attacks. However, the analyst pointed out that multi-verifiers won’t stop the next multi-million-dollar attack, asserting that they could fail as all DVNs read chain states from the same handful of RPC providers, which are mostly clustered on AWS or GCP. If five “independent” DVNs read from the same three RPC providers, an attacker who poisons those three RPCs will poison all five verifiers simultaneously. “If all your verifiers get fooled in the same way at the same time, the math collapses back to 1-of-1. Five clones are not five witnesses,” he added. Related Reading: Remember Arbitrum? This Analyst Just Predicted That A 7,400% Rally Is Coming To solve this, the analyst suggested that every verifier runs its own full node on different client software, hosted on different cloud providers, maintained by different ops teams, peered with different subsets of the Ethereum network. “The fix isn’t multi-anything. The fix is that verifiers should attest to their own substrate, not just to chain state. until you can audit a DVN’s upstream topology, which RPC providers, which client software, which clouds, which regions, ‘M-of-N secured’ is marketing copy for a property that hasn’t actually been built. Lazarus didn’t break cryptography on April 18. They broke three servers,” he concluded. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Crypto exchange-traded products (ETPs) have extended their negative streak to a fourth consecutive week after US market weakness pushed global funds to over $170 million in weekly outflows. Related Reading: Bitcoin Should Be Flying—Instead, Quantum Risk Keeps It Grounded: Analyst Crypto Funds Outflows Extend Amid US Weakness According to the latest CoinShares data, crypto-based investment products recorded their fourth week of outflows amid the negative market sentiment of the past month. In a Monday report, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, shared that global crypto funds closed the week with negative net flows totaling $173 million, bringing cumulative four-week outflows to $3.47 billion. Notably, crypto ETPs recorded over $1.7 billion in outflows each of the last two weeks of January as the market sentiment shifted, marking the largest negative net flows since November 2025. Over the past two weeks, investment products have seen outflows of $187m and $173m, respectively. The latest figures suggest that the strong selling pressure has slowed, although it has not yet reversed despite improved market sentiment. “The week began on a more positive note, with inflows of US$575m, followed by outflows of US$853m, likely driven by further price weakness. Sentiment improved slightly on Friday following weaker-than-expected CPI data, with inflows of US$105m,” he detailed. Meanwhile, ETPs’ trading activity also dropped notably, with volumes falling to $27 billion from a record $63 billion recorded the previous week. Butterfill noted that the funds also saw a sharp regional divergence in sentiment between the US and the rest of the world. Per the report, the US saw $403 million in outflows last week, while all other regions recorded $230 million in inflows. Germany, Canada, and Switzerland registered the strongest performance, with inflows worth $114.8 million, $46.3 million, and $36.8 million, respectively. Altcoins See Selective Resilience As the report noted, the two leading cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), saw the worst performance among major assets. The flagship crypto had the weakest sentiment, recording $133 million in negative net flows, fueled by BlackRock IBIT’s $235 million in outflows. However, short Bitcoin investment products also recorded outflows, totaling $15.4 million over the past two weeks, “a pattern often seen near market lows,” Butterfill added. Related Reading: Bitcoin At $8,000? Michael Saylor Says Strategy Still Won’t Break Ethereum suffered $85.1 million in outflows, led by BlackRock ETHA’s $112.7 million, while Hyperliquid saw $1 million in outflows. On the flip side, some altcoin-based investment products saw positive sentiment, continuing to attract fresh inflows last week. Crypto funds based on XRP led the charge with $33.4 million in inflows, adding to the previous week’s $63.1 million positive flows. Solana ETPs followed second with $31 million inflows, a notable increase from the $8.2 million recorded the week prior, signaling confidence in these assets despite the broader trend. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
While some consider the altcoins season may never come, others believe the altcoin market has changed, suggesting that a different version of the highly anticipated rally is in its early stages. Related Reading: Ethereum Targets April 2025 Lows As Price Drops Below $2,000 – What’s Next For ETH? ‘Inverted Altcoin Season’ Just Begun On Friday, the market recovered 15% from its multi-year lows, with most cryptocurrencies bouncing in the short-term timeframe. Amid the recent crash, investors’ sentiment has sunk to its lowest levels since 2022, with many expressing concerns about the future performance of altcoins. Market observer Ali Martinez discussed how the long-awaited altcoin season might have started, but not in the way most investors expected. In an X post, the analyst highlighted that after Bitcoin bottomed in November 2022, a nearly three-year bull run began, which carried the flagship crypto to its October all-time high (ATH). “During that entire period, many traders kept waiting for a traditional altcoin season: the familiar phase where Bitcoin rises and capital rotates broadly into altcoins, lifting nearly everything together,” he noted. However, unlike a traditional alt season, the market didn’t see altcoins rally all at once this cycle. Instead, many altcoins have been simultaneously breaking down structurally, with “channels that held for years (…) failing, support levels (…) giving way, and downside expansions (…) accelerating.” To him, “we are witnessing what I would call an inverted altcoin season.” Martinez noted the performance of cryptocurrencies like Filecoin (FIL), Polkadot (DOT), Avalanche (AVAX), and Cardano (ADA), which have either completed or started the breakdown from their macro channel supports. He considers this to be where new opportunities emerge: For traders willing to shift their bias, this environment has created meaningful opportunities — especially on the short side. (…) What’s important is that this pattern isn’t finished playing out. As a result, the analyst affirmed that the new inverted altcoin season is in its early stages, concluding that this cycle, it “didn’t arrive as a broad rally. It arrived as a selective unwind.” No More Broader Altcoins Rally? During a Thursday panel at the Ondo Summit 2026, Bitget’s CEO Gracy Chen discussed what crypto will look like in 2030. The executive predicted that the Real-World Asset (RWA) sector will grow significantly in the next four years, with “everything tokenized.” However, she also shared the “controversial opinion” that the highly anticipated alt season “may never come” and that altcoins could never rally all at once again, which would be “a little bit tricky” for crypto businesses, she added. Others have previously discussed market changes and whether the “old cycles” for Bitcoin and altcoins still hold. Last year, analyst Altcoin Sherpa asserted that the crypto market is in a “hyper-accelerated regime.” He explained that the earlier cycles consisted of euphoric, corrective, and accumulation phases before the start of a recovery phase. Meanwhile, the market now experiences short-term uptrends followed by mid-term downtrends under the new regime. “We have 1-3 months of pump followed by 2-6 months of downtrend and rinse repeat,” he wrote. “There is no more euphoria where things go berserk for an entire year. Just 1-3 months and then down.” Related Reading: Solana Eyes Deeper Correction As Bearish Pattern Confirmation Targets $40 Based on the new system, he advised traders not to expect 2021-like market conditions for most altcoins or a traditional Alt season. Instead, Altcoin Sherpa suggested that investors should capitalize on shorter rallies while being aware of their limited duration. Nonetheless, he noted that, unlike previous cycles, altcoins will also recover faster and won’t take over a year to bottom and accumulate before a fresh leg up begins. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Pi Squared has announced the launch of its Devnet 2.0 to bring “internet-speed payments” to Web3 and advance its goal of 1 million transactions per second (TPS) by 2026. Related Reading: Bitcoin Eyes ‘Moment Of Truth’ As Price Retests $100,000 Support – Is The Rally Over? Pi Squared Unveils New Upgrade On Wednesday, Pi Squared, a project behind an infinitely scalable network for internet-speed payments, announced the launch of Devnet 2.0, a major upgrade to its Web3 verifiable settlement protocol. Notably, Pi Squared is building FastSet, an infinitely scalable, decentralized payments network designed to deliver “uncapped throughput, internet speed finality, and real-time verifiability.” The network settles transactions in parallel, which allows it to process more transactions per second than blockchains that rely on total ordering. In a September blog post, the project noted that TPS has been a key metric to evaluate the capacity, scalability, and efficiency of a credit card payment system. This metric was later adopted for the data transaction rate of cryptocurrencies, but “TPS may be discouraging to use as a metric in Web3 since there is so much heterogeneity and inconsistency around.” Pi Squared explained that, in the protocol, “TPS refers to the number of claims per second that can be effectively settled. Transactions are a typical example of claims, but FastSet is more than just settling transactions. Any verifiable statement can be settled on FastSet.” According to the official statement, the Web3 verifiable settlement protocol currently reaches 150,000 transactions per second with sub-100ms finality. Additionally, it targets 1 million TPS by mainnet in 2026, aiming to deliver “instant and trustless payments at a global scale.” Grigore Roșu, founder and CEO of Pi Squared, affirmed that “the future of payments demands more than what blockchains can deliver.” Therefore, “with theoretically uncapped TPS, sub-100ms finality, and verifiability by design, Pi Squared is ready to power global payments and financial systems at scale.” A New ‘Playground’ For Web3 Developers Per the statement, Devnet 2.0’s launch advances the Pi Squared goal to build “a future where payments and all forms of transactions happen instantly, verifiably, and with negligible fees.” It detailed that the Devnet 2.0 is a “fully accessible playground for developers to experience FastSet in action, providing a richer ecosystem, new apps, improved infrastructure, and comprehensive developer docs designed to make building on FastSet seamless.” Within the next week, two Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications, Omniset and OmniSwap, are set to debut on the Devnet 2.0, seeking to “redefine cross-chain asset movement.” The first one acts as a universal liquidity and settlement layer, connecting fragmented liquidity across blockchains into a single verifiable layer, rather than relying on traditional bridges. As a result, users will reportedly be able to “deposit tokens on any chain, mint and use the tokens unrestricted on FastSet, and withdraw them on any other chain, seamlessly, securely, and instantly.” Related Reading: Solana (SOL) Loses Key Support Amid 8% Drop, Risks Major Correction To This Level Meanwhile, the second DeFi application is built on top of OmniSet. It will aggregate decentralized exchanges (DEXs) across networks, discover the best available swap rates, and execute trades using verifiable proofs, to make cross-chain swaps “trustless and lightning fast.” Roșu concluded that the launch of Devnet 2.0 “represents the latest milestone in our mission to deliver on one of the biggest promises of Web3, enabling p2p payments to move as fast as the internet.” Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
As the stablecoin sector sees global momentum grow, white label event management infrastructure provider Rhuna has raised $2 million in seed funding to expand stablecoin payments in the entertainment industry. Related Reading: BNB Chain Memecoin Season? 70% Of Investors In Profit As Four.Meme Surpasses Pump.Fun Rhuna Raises $2 Million In Seed Round On Thursday, Romania-based infrastructure platform Rhuna announced the completion of a $2 million seed round, led by Aptos Labs, to continue providing on-chain payments, access, identity, and rewards infrastructure for the entertainment industry. The seed round saw the participation of Acc Ventures, X Ventures, NewTribe Capital, Keyrock, CoinarketCap Labs, FunFair, Lémanique, and other investors. Notably, Rhuna provides event organizers with a single, programmable layer for wallet-native checkout and POS, ticketing, access control, and real-time stablecoin settlement, acting as a “universal entertainment pass” at different events, powered by stablecoin settlement and on-chain identity. “Organizers can use Rhuna to issue tickets, verify access, run loyalty, accept wallet-native payments, and settle value through a secure, composable layer that feels familiar to users and verifies on-chain,” the platform explained. According to the statement, the new funding aims to strengthen Rhuna’s payments and settlement rails, expand organizer tooling and integration, and accelerate the launch of the platform’s consumer app, designed to “bring discovery, access, and wallet-native checkout into one seamless experience.” Aptos Labs co-founder and CEO, Avery Ching, affirmed that Rhuna is “bridging the gap between digital innovation and real-world experiences.” “We’re proud to support Rhuna in making on-chain payments, access, and rewards seamless and accessible for millions of users across the global entertainment economy,” he added. A Bridge For Stablecoin Payments Rhuna has already supported over 2 million users across its pilot deployments, bridging fiat payments and stablecoin settlement, and reportedly processing over $90 million in volume. Moreover, the platform’s infrastructure has powered over 165 events and major festivals, including UNTOLD, Neversea, and Kapital. The platform highlighted that more than 450,000 attendees of UNTOLD, one of the world’s top music festivals, held in Romania, used Rhuna-powered payments and access systems across the festival grounds. Sveatoslav Vizitiu, Rhuna’s co-founder and CEO, considers that “Entertainment runs on transactions and trust,” affirming that the platform aims to make every step, from the venue gate to the ride home, “verifiable, programmable, and portable so that operators run smarter businesses and fans actually own their experience.” Related Reading: Ethereum 23% Rally Pushes BitMine’s ETH Treasury Holdings To $13.4 Billion The announcement added that the platform has also expanded across continents to power Dubai’s first mega festival, UNTOLD Dubai, which will take place in early November, and to “further validate its scalability across global entertainment ecosystems.” Vizitiu stated that the platform is entering a new phase with the expansion. “With global events like UNTOLD Dubai, we’re bringing more of the entertainment experience on-chain,” he continued, “from Buy Now, Pay Later and our upcoming consumer app, where users can create their own events, to innovative tools for organizers covering payments, mobility, ticketing, and more.” Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
On Monday, the total crypto market capitalization (TOTAL) reached an all-time high (ATH) of $4.03 trillion, driven by significant gains in leading cryptocurrencies Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), reflecting renewed optimism in the crypto space fueled by favorable regulatory developments from the US. Pro-Crypto Regulations Fuel Market Optimism Ethereum notably broke through the $4,000 barrier for the first time in almost nine months, closing the gap to its all-time high of $4,878, now just 13% away. This upward momentum has been attributed to growing interest in cryptocurrencies, bolstered by pro-crypto regulatory measures that have enhanced market sentiment. Related Reading: BlackRock Addresses Burning XRP ETF Question: Is A Filing Coming Or Not? Notably, the US has spearheaded a new wave of pro-crypto regulations, sparking a surge in investment in the digital asset market with the passage and signing of the first crypto bill, the GENIUS Act. This new legislation aims to create a more favorable regulatory framework for stablecoins, which are dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies. Ethereum plays a key role in the stablecoin market, as a large portion of stablecoin activity occurs on its blockchain. In contrast, Bitcoin approached its current record high of $123,000 earlier in the day but ultimately fell short of the critical $120,000 mark, which is seen as essential for entering a new price discovery phase. Despite this, the overall market sentiment remains buoyant, particularly in light of recent executive orders from President Donald Trump aimed at fostering a more favorable environment for digital assets. Ethereum Could Hit $8,000 On Thursday, Trump issued directives calling for a reevaluation of federal guidance on integrating cryptocurrencies into employer-sponsored retirement plans like 401(k)s. Analysts view this shift as a potential boom for the crypto industry, especially considering that 401(k) assets totaled $8.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2025, according to the Investment Company Institute. As such, Ethereum has outperformed many of its peers among the top ten cryptocurrencies, posting gains of just over 13% in the past week. The only token to surpass this growth has been Cronos (CRO), which saw an 18% rally during the same period. Related Reading: AI Models Predict Ethereum Cycle Top At $15,000: Analyst Crypto analyst Doctor Profit has weighed in on Ethereum’s performance, suggesting that breaking the $4,000 barrier signals a massive breakout from an ascending triangle pattern on the monthly chart. This pattern is considered bullish, indicating that Ethereum could continue its upward trajectory in the coming months. In a recent analysis shared on X (formerly Twitter), Doctor Profit projected that Ethereum might reach new heights, potentially hitting $8,000. If this forecast holds true, it would represent an impressive 88% increase from ETH’s current trading price of $4,250 as of late Monday. Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com
Coinbase’s Layer-2 (L2) Network, Base, has faced intense backlash over rug-pull allegations after it promoted an unofficial memecoin that crashed by over 90%, sparking a debate about the future of memecoins and on-chain content. Related Reading: Aptos (APT) To Continue Moving In ‘No Man’s Land’ – Can It Reclaim $5? The Rise And Fall Of Base’s Unofficial Memecoin On Wednesday, Base’s official X account posted an image with the text “Base is for everyone.” Moments later, they shared a link to the on-chain social protocol Zora and the caption “Coined it,” sparking a speculative frenzy among investors. The protocol allows users to make social media posts into tradable tokens, automatically minting them. After Base’s post was turned into a token, the crypto community quickly skyrocketed its market capitalization to $17 million. However, online reports showed that the memecoin collapsed by around 92% after the top holders, who owned 47% of the supply, sold the memecoin just over an hour after launching. Some community members noted that the token was “HORRIFICALLY sniped,” while on-chain data analytics platform Lookonchain highlighted that “3 wallets bought a large amount of ‘Base is for everyone’ before Base posted and sold them, making a profit of ~$666K.” As a result, the community criticized the network’s team for the memecoin, calling the incident a rug pull and asking them to “stop launching worthless tokens that will all inevitably go to 0. You are diluting your brand and the value of real base assets.” Zora data shows Base has earned around $81,000 from the memecoin, which has recovered from the initial sell-off with a peak market capitalization of $26 million before retracing to the $9 million-$10 million range. Base’s Public Experiment Base responded to the backlash, clarifying they will never sell their holdings, but they weren’t an official network token either. The team explained that they posted on Zora because they believe everyone should bring content on-chain and use the tools that make it possible. Memes. Moments. Culture. If we want the future to be onchain, we have to be willing to experiment in public. That’s what we’re doing. To be clear, Base will never sell these tokens, and these are not official network tokens for Base, Coinbase, or any other related product. The content we share is creative, and we’re going to keep bringing culture onchain. The public on-chain experimentation opened a debate about memecoin culture and on-chain content, with Base’s creator, Jesse Pollak, weighing in. In a series of X posts, Pollak explained that “not all coins are the same,” outlining the differences between these two types of tokens. Is On-Chain Content The Future For Creators? According to his posts, a contentcoin is one piece of content with singular value and no expectations. Additionally, multiple of them can be created by the same person, with “big ones” potentially turning into memes. On the contrary, a memecoin is an “aggregation of content,” with aggregated value and high expectations, where the creator “should” only create one. He also noted that big ones turn into projects. Related Reading: Is The Storm Over For Ethereum? Analyst Says ‘Face-Melting’ Rally Comes Next Pollack considers that “someone has to normalize putting all of our content onchain. and i’m not afraid for it to be us. why? because in the wake of the chaos, we’ll normalize the behavior and create a better future for creators.” Nonetheless, many users remain skeptical, with community members also criticizing Base’s post announcing investors can mint a deleted scene of the “Vitalik: An Ethereum Story” documentary, where the project’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, shows what’s in his backpack. “Through ‘the financialization of everything’ we come to learn that most things are worthless,” the user stated. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
The CEO of K-pop giant Cube Entertainment is under fire after being accused of participating in a crypto investment scam. He is suspected of allegedly using the entertainment company to inflate the price of the alleged scam token and now risks legal action. Related Reading: Oklahoma Senator Introduces Bitcoin Freedom Act To Allow BTC Payments […]
Recent reports revealed that South Korea is set to ease its restrictions on institutional crypto investment. Secretary-General of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced the watchdog’s plan to review its restrictions amid the ongoing changes in South Korea’s regulatory approach. Related Reading: UK Authorities To Seize $4.3 Million In Bitcoin From Fugitive Crime Boss […]
On Thursday, the South Korea Stock Exchange chairman, Jeong Eun-bo, revealed their plan to “explore” the approval of crypto-based exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to continue with its “value-up program” and face the ongoing market challenges. Related Reading: Indonesia Rushes To Finalize Crypto Oversight Transfer Ahead of Jan. 12 Deadline – Report Korea Exchange To Explore Crypto […]
With the new year approaching, some analysts forecasted a “very bullish” 2025 for Altcoins. The sector is expected to explode soon and kickstart the long-awaited “Altseason” after retesting a key support level. Related Reading: Ethereum Stays Within Symmetrical Pattern – Analyst Sets ETH Target Altcoins Retest Key Support Level Amid the recent market’s performance, many Altcoins have struggled to record significant gains. However, several market watchers forecasted the start of the altcoin will come as soon as January 2025. Fueled by the post-US election pump, the total crypto market capitalization, excluding Bitcoin and Ethereum, broke out on a three-year downtrend in mid-November, surpassing its yearly high of $788 billion. During this month’s rally, the sector surged to $1.1 trillion, its highest market cap since 2021. Since then, Altcoins has struggled over the last two weeks, dropping nearly 26% as Bitcoin lost the $100,000 mark but remains above a key level despite the recent performance. Crypto Jelle pointed out that the sector broke out and retested its “major trendline while destroying all leverage in the process.” The analyst highlighted that funding was “completely reset,” sentiment has been at its lowest, and the chart seems promising, adding he is “Very bullish for 2025.” He also noted that Altcoins’ price action is “very similar” to Bitcoin’s first major pullback of 2021. Per the chart, the flagship crypto had a “strong rally, pullback, lower high, and chopping below the first low” before breaking out to new highs. Based on this performance, Altcoins’ pullback is seemingly over, they “should start pushing back up soon if this keeps playing out the same.” Similarly, Michaël van de Poppe stated, “The correction is almost over, and the time for up only is on the horizon for Altcoins and Bitcoin. Expecting a lot to come.” Altseason To Follow 2021’s Playbook? Titan of Crypto asserted that Altcoins are set to explode soon, suggesting that “the grand finale is around the corner.” Per the analyst’s chart, Altcoins have been in a two-year cup and handle pattern, breaking out of the pattern’s upper line during the recent market highs. According to the pattern, Altcoins, excluding ETH, could see a 200% to a market capitalization of $1.4 trillion, surpassing 2021’s high of $1.13 trillion. The analyst also pointed out that, ahead of its 2021 rally, the sector saw a similar performance. In 2020, Altcoins broke out in November and saw a significant 30% drop in early December, followed by a four-week recovery. Then, they recorded a 143% surge in January 2021, which led to other three-monthly green candles before the first major retrace. Related Reading: Top Crypto Assets For Q1 2025: Grayscale Reveals The Best Altcoins Similarly, they’ve experienced a 26% drop this December, currently being on the third week out of the expected four-week recovery period. To the analyst, “Early January could mark the start of an ‘up only’ season.” Lastly, Titan of Crypto added that, during the last two cycles, Altcoins’ initial rally lasted between 140 and 175 days, suggesting that this cycle’s rally could hit a new high around April or May. If it were to follow the past cycles’ performance, it could see a first pump around Q2 2025 before peaking in Q4. Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
Amid the market’s bullish run, Taiwanese financial authorities vowed to review tax regulations to tackle the country’s crypto tax evasion issue. However, local reports noted the regulators might face difficulties implementing an effective digital assets-related tax framework. Related Reading: Elon Musk, RFK Jr. Support Pro-Bitcoin Howard Lutnick For Treasury Secretary Taiwanese Authorities To Review Tax […]
Upbit, the leading crypto exchange in South Korea, is being investigated by the country’s financial authorities over an alleged violation of Know-Your-Client (KYC) procedures. The probe comes amid the exchange’s license renewal process and a potential investigation for “anti-monopoly breaches.” Related Reading: Is The SEC Prepared For Trump’s Crypto Promises? Commissioner Peirce Weighs In Crypto […]
The crypto market has seen a massive rally following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections. For the past week, the sector’s expectations for the newly elected pro-industry administration have grown as a clearer regulatory framework seems within reach. However, some believe the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) still needs to do more to […]
Tron’s founder, Justin Sun, took X to congratulate the newly elected 47th president of the United States, Donald Trump. The pro-industry Republican candidate’s victory has ignited speculation about the sector’s new era, including the future anti-crypto regulators like Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Gary Gensler. Related Reading: Spot Bitcoin ETFs Record Second Largest Single-Day […]
Amazon is set to launch 1KIN Lab’s new Web3 gaming subscription on its platform. The new service, developed by the company behind GR1D Network, aims to enhance users’ experience with exclusive content and early access opportunities within its GR1D TERMINAL platform and GR1D ecosystem. Related Reading: 7 Days Left: Pro-XRP Lawyer Predicts Likelihood Of SEC […]
Ruja Ignatova disappeared seven years ago after a warrant from US authorities was issued to arrest her. The self-proclaimed “Crypto Queen” was responsible for OneCoin’s Ponzi scheme that took $4.5 billion from investors. Now, a BBC investigation suspects that the missing crypto scammer could have been murdered by a Bulgarian drug lord years ago. Related […]