DL News

What comes next?

That’s the question traders are asking since Bitcoin’s price jumped back above $110,000 after US President Donald Trump extended his deadline before hitting the European Union with hefty tariffs.

The overwhelming answer from market watchers? Up.

Punters on the crypto betting platform Polymarket have poured money into a bullish bet that the top cryptocurrency will hit $115,000 before the end of May.

Similarly, on options platform Deribit almost half of the calls at the May 30 expiration date are on trades that only pay out if Bitcoin trades above $110,000. Traders are even more bullish, with $170,000 being the most popular call for the December 26 expiration.

Here’s what nine experts say will drive the price.

Arthur Hayes, Maelstrom

Bitcoin will hit $1 million before 2028, according to Arthur Hayes

Maelstrom’s chief investment officer argued in his latest blog post that a combination of Trump’s economic policies and rising global instability will drive investors away from US government debt.

Investors who exit what’s been deemed the safest securities in the world for decades will have to put their dosh somewhere else.

Hayes’ bet? That they’ll plough into Bitcoin.

Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered

Bitcoin is thundering towards a $120,000 price before July, Geoffrey Kendrick said as the cryptocurrency hit its $111,814 record on May 22.

Having already made the prediction in April, Standard Chartered’s top crypto analyst said the market continues to flash bullish signals.

For instance, investors have pulled $3.6 billion from gold exchange-traded funds and added $7.5 billion into Bitcoin ETFs since April 22.

Bitcoin ETFs now hold $128 billion of the digital asset, just under 6% of the total supply, according to Dune Analytics.

Additionally, private players like Strategy and government proxies stocking up on Bitcoin will push the price to $200,000 by the end of 2025 and to $500,000 by the end of 2028, Kendrick said.

Bernstein

Three analysts from Bernstein, the equity research and brokerage firm, say institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies will drive Bitcoin to $200,000 before 2026.

“We expect Wall Street to replace Satoshi as the top Bitcoin wallet,” wrote Gautam Chhugani, Bernstein’s managing director of global digital assets, and two other analysts in May.

They referred to Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious founder who holds almost $121 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.

Noelle Acheson, Crypto is Macro Now

Is Bitcoin a safe haven asset? Yes and no, argued crypto analyst Noelle Acheson in her “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter on May 21.

Her argument was that Bitcoin has adopted a Schrödingeresque quality where investors simultaneously view it as a risk-on asset like tech stocks, and as a safe haven asset like gold.

If it behaves like tech stocks, investors bet that the US government will eventually intervene if capital markets continue to wobble.

On the other hand, if investors view it as a safe haven asset, then they’ll pour into it as geopolitical fragmentation and rising inflation keep shaking markets.

Win, win, in other words, according to the Madrid-based analyst.

Jay Jacobs, BlackRock

BlackRock’s US head of equity ETFs, Jay Jacobs, is one of the people arguing that Bitcoin is increasingly behaving like a safe haven asset.

In April, he argued that Bitcoin is increasingly decoupling from tech stocks, which has incentivised investors to inject money into the asset.

Utkarsh Ahuja, Moon Pursuit Capital

Bitcoin may hit $120,000 before the first week of June, Utkarsh Ahuja, managing partner at Moon Pursuit Capital, a hedge fund and venture capital firm, told DL News on May 16.

He said Trump’s policies will weaken the dollar and force the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, which tends to incentivise investors to bet on Bitcoin.

Other tailwinds include Trump’s pro-crypto policies, which have seen him plug crypto allies into key policy roles with the aim of easing regulatory pressure on the industry.

“We’re going gangbusters,” Ahuja said.

Reece Hobson, eToro

Reece Hobson, crypto analyst at eToro Australia, said he expects Bitcoin’s recent record high to be just the start of another rally.

On May 22, Hobson said the optimism could drive the price as high as $174,000.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ News Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].

Crypto deposited in Hyperliquid‘s three-month-old blockchain is skyrocketing, largely driven by an influx of decentralised finance protocols and participants.

Hyperliquid‘s token hit an all-time high of $37 on Friday, driving the total value of crypto deposited in the blockchain to new highs.

The Hyperliquid blockchain launched in February, amassing total deposits of over $1.3 billion since. The blockchain is Ethereum-compatible, which allows for easy integration with Ethereum-based protocols and smart contracts.

While mainly known for featuring the eponymous top onchain perpetual futures exchange, Hyperliquid is starting to make waves within DeFi, with speculators and builders flowing in, attempting to catch the trend.

Within the past week, the value of crypto deposited in the Hyperliquid blockchain grew by over 25%, largely driven by an influx of DeFi participants looking for exposure to a new and rapidly growing blockchain.

This growth spilled into the blockchain’s various DeFi protocols, sending metrics to new highs across the board.

Morpho, a lending protocol deployed on 18 different blockchains, saw the largest weekly growth on Hyperliquid, up 400% in TVL to a total of over $90 million. Morpho launched on the blockchain in April.

Upshift, an institutional yield platform deployed on five different chains, also launched on Hyperliquid in April, and the value of crypto deposited there has grown by over 200% to $43 million within the month of May.

This highlights the importance of Ethereum-compatibility, making it simple for already established projects to deploy on Hyperliquid. Morpho and Upshift’s success could help attract other protocols looking to expand their on-chain offerings.

Along with these, protocols found exclusively on Hyperliquid are also receiving huge inflows.

Valantis, a decentralised exchange and liquid staking protocol, nearly doubled the value of its crypto deposits in a day, going from a total of $23 million on Thursday to over $43 million on Friday. In the past month, the value of crypto deposited on Valantis grew over 1,100%.

Lending protocols have been of particular interest to Hyperliquid users. Aside from Hyperliquid‘s decentralised exchange, HyperLend is the largest protocol, bringing in a total of over $280 million, a monthly increase of almost 300%.

As Hyperliquid continues to attract developers and DeFi enthusiasts, it signals a shift from being simply an onchain perpetual futures exchange to a fully built out blockchain with a thriving DeFi community and infrastructure.

“Hyperliquid will eventually be the credibly neutral infrastructure that houses all of finance.” said Jeff Yan, a co-founder of Hyperliquid, in February shortly after the launch of the Hyperliquid blockchain.

Bitcoin’s price is back at all-time highs — and Wall Street can’t get enough.

On Thursday, just as Bitcoin soared to $111,807, BlackRock’s IBIT exchange-traded fund made it to the top of the ETF list.

The fund raked in $877 million.

That’s more than any other ETF in the market, said Bloomberg ETF expert, Eric Balchunas. It’s also the first time BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund has taken the number one spot for flows in a single day.

Trading volume on Thursday toppled $5.2 billion, the second most in its history.

“Classic feeding frenzy,” Balchunas said on X on Wednesday. “IBIT’s Pac-Man spree is now up to about $8 billion in five weeks,” while over its lifetime the fund has hoovered up $45 billion.

On Friday, Bitcoin slumped to $109,300 amid a new tariff threat from US President Donald Trump, this time against the European Union.

Despite the drop, Bitcoin’s new record is a magnet for investors.

The frenzy comes off the back of a fundamental shift in how Bitcoin is being perceived by institutions. The top crypto is now being embraced as both a high-growth bet and a safe-haven hedge, a dual narrative that has helped it “decouple” from tech stocks.

What’s more, euphoria is feeding euphoria, and with Donald Trump plugging crypto allies into key regulatory slots, investors are hopeful that the sky is clear for even higher prices.

‘Dual narrative’

There’s two stories working in Bitcoin’s favour right now.

Investors are accumulating Bitcoin as if it were a tech stock, wagering that the government will loosen monetary conditions if the economy continues to tremble. Meanwhile, rising prices and global uncertainty are pushing traders to treat it like digital gold.

“It’s this dual narrative nature that gives Bitcoin a higher floor,” wrote Noelle Acheson in her newsletter “Crypto is Macro Now.”

“It diversifies the investor base and enhances the asset’s appeal when compared to either ‘just’ risk assets or ‘just’ gold.”

How high

When Bitcoin goes into price discovery mode, it’s tough to time the top.

Some have made predictions, nevertheless.

Bernstein analysts upped their prediction $200,000 from $150,000 by the end of 2025, while Utkarsh Ahuja, managing partner at Moon Pursuit Capital previously told DL News that it could hit $120,000 by the first week of June.

Maelstrom founder Arthur Hayes is convinced that Bitcoin will overtake $1 million by the end of Trump’s second administration in 2028.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].

When Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong disclosed last week that a group of hackers bribed overseas Coinbase support contractors to access customer information — including home addresses, selfies, and bank details — customers were aghast.

Many thought that the attack, which may cost it $400 million, was the extent of the trouble.

Now a legal filing shows that almost 70,000 users had their data compromised in December and the breach wasn’t discovered until May 11.

“Coinbase doesn’t seem to be terribly concerned with protecting their customers,” Molly White, a crypto researcher and critic, told DL News.

“In fact, Coinbase has made changes that seem to only make things worse.”

Big slip up

Big companies get hacked all the time. But Coinbase isn’t just another big company.

As the top crypto exchange in the US, Coinbase is an industry stalwart leading the campaign to win mainstream adoption of Bitcoin and its ilk. Its lobbyists are urging Washington lawmakers to pass new laws beneficial to digital assets.

For many new investors, Coinbase is the gateway — the app they download when they buy their first Bitcoin or Ether.

It’s the place where they link their bank accounts, upload their IDs, and assume their money and personal information are safe.

Warnings for months

But whistleblowers and cybersecurity experts have been calling out Coinbase’s security issues for some time.

In October 2024, pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZackXBT exposed a scam against an elderly man who was targeted by Indian call scammers posing as Coinbase customer support.

ZackXBT said he had found over $5 million stolen by the same group, while later shining a light on at least three different scams that got away with upwards of $150 million.

It’s more than likely multiples of that number, he added.

“Every investigator under the sun has been feeding your teams evidence of these insane thefts and insiders for over six months,” cybersecurity expert Taylor Monahan, the lead security researcher at MetaMask, said on X.

Sophisticated attacks

What Monahan and others such as the Crypto Forensics Investigators have been flagging is a wave of highly sophisticated phishing attacks targeted against Coinbase customers.

This is when a scammer pretends to be someone trustworthy — such as a Coinbase customer support agent — to gain access to your account or trick you into sending them money.

The breach revived another potential attack vector in Coinbase’s security protocol — offshore customer service agents that might be paid low enough wages that would incentivise them to sell access to customer information.

Coinbase said it will improve safety guards including detection of insider threats, while CEO Brian Armstrong released a video in which he vowed to reimburse customers who were “socially engineered” by rogue employees to hand over key information.

https://t.co/evpIBMFvRW pic.twitter.com/f6UPdkL5R0

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) May 15, 2025

The company is also working with the US Department of Justice.

“We have notified and are working with the DOJ and other US and international law enforcement agencies and welcome law enforcement’s pursuit of criminal charges against these bad actors,” Paul Grewal, legal chief at Coinbase, said in a statement shared with DL News.

‘Very disappointed’

While hacks and exploits have become commonplace in many precincts of the crypto universe, this one is notable as it happened at one of the most visible companies in crypto.

“Very disappointed in Coinbase right now,” said Michael Arrington, the founder of Arrington Capital, a crypto VC firm, on X. “Using the cheapest option for customer service has its price. And Coinbase’s customers will bear that cost.”

If Coinbase knew about the leak for months, and had received warnings from cybersecurity experts, why didn’t the company act?

“That’s the million dollar question,” White told DL News. “I don’t know if they just don’t want to spend money on cybersecurity and customer support, or what.”

Inflection point

The episode is striking just as Coinbase has reached a pivotal stage in its development.

With a market capitalisation of $67 billion, the Delaware-based company’s shares have increased a modest 15% in the last 12 months even as Bitcoin has soared 59%.

In the first quarter, Coinbase took a hit as crypto swooned amid President Donald Trump’s tariff war — the company’s revenues slumped 10%, to $2 billion, compared with the same period last year.

And its net income fell 94%, to $66 million.

Yet the company is making moves to diversify its top line.

Earlier this month, Coinbase said it will acquire Deribit, a leading crypto options exchange, for $2.9 billion.

The deal, the biggest in Coinbase’s 13-year history, is designed to bolster the exchange’s business with institutional investors.

Just one day before it revealed the heist, Coinbase had been added to the benchmark S&P 500 Index, the first crypto-company to do so.

Now that it’s joining the big leagues, some users are demanding the company make moves in haste.

“Coinbase needs to urgently make changes as more and more users are being scammed for tens of millions every month,” said ZackXBT.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him [email protected].

Altcoins, cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin, are suddenly top of mind.

After Bitcoin broke a record high on Thursday, investors are now focusing on the rest of the crypto market.

But investors looking to cash out on their holdings still need to hold out a little longer.

“It’s been a pretty anaemic cycle,” Ravi Kasa, Arrington Capital’s newly appointed CIO, told DL News. “We’re still pretty early days, outside of Bitcoin.”

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market, is still a whopping 45% from its record of $4,878, according to CoinGecko. Likewise, Solana is down 36% from its all-time high set in January.

That also means Arrington Capital, which boasts a portfolio of over 100 cryptocurrency projects, won’t be liquidating any positions — yet.

“They can run a lot more,” Colton Conley, a new partner at the venture firm, told DL News, referring to the company’s portfolio companies. “We really want to see a big move in altcoins before we even consider taking chips off the table.”

Ravi Kasa, Arrington Capital’s newly appointed chief investment officer, highlights two key events that will kick off the next rally in the market.

The Federal Reserve needs to cut interest rates again. If that doesn’t happen, the central bank needs to buy government bonds to inject more cash into the market, otherwise called quantitative easing.

“It’s tough for altcoins to work relative to Bitcoin when the Fed is not in an easing bias,” he said.

Kasa, who previously worked as a managing director at Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Capital Management, pointed to the rallies in September when the central bank began cutting rates, pushing the broader crypto market higher.

The CIO also highlighted new crypto regulations winding their way through the US House and Senate.

Senators advanced landmark stablecoin legislation on Monday, which would provide clear rules for issuers of dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies, and is now moving for a final vote.

If it becomes law, some crypto executives say the niche will enjoy a 10-fold rise.

Likewise, a slew of funds and asset managers have filed droves of various spot altcoin exchange-traded funds under a more reconciliatory Securities and Exchange Commission.

“The regulatory change is far more impactful for altcoins than it is for Bitcoin,” said Kasa.

“Bitcoin had the clearest regulatory picture going into the election, whereas a lot of this other stuff did not.”

Liam Kelly is a Berlin-based reporter for DL News. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].

A version of this article appeared in our The Roundup newsletter on May 23. Sign up here.

Hi! Eric here.

Wall Street’s crypto landgrab just got turbocharged.

If you missed it, that’s understandable.

It’s been a firehose of a week. Bitcoin hit a new record. US President Donald Trump hosted crypto bigwigs at his memecoin dinner. New laws are taking shape in Washington.

But quietly in the background, finance firms are ramping up their plans to tokenise finance.

US banking giants — including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — are in talks to launch their own stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal reported.

And Kraken and the Solana Foundation separately announced plans to roll out tokenised equities, which has been high on the likes of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s wishlist for years.

Robinhood’s CEO Vlad Tenev revealed similar plans earlier in May after he argued for the introduction of blockchain-based stock trading in opinion pieces, interviews, and podcasts.

Why is everyone so interested in tokenisation?

To Adam Levi, co-founder of Backed, which has partnered with both Solana and Kraken in their tokenisation efforts, the answer is simple: because the old plumbing is crumbling.

“The traditional infrastructure is very bad,” he told me, saying it’s slow, cumbersome, and expensive.

“It’s really 80s technology.”

Tokenised equities is a way for institutions to lure new customers with better services that don’t rely on the opening hours of stock exchanges.

Those in middle of this push are looking at a massive windfall.

Ripple and Boston Consulting Group estimate that tokenised assets will grow to a $19 trillion business over the next eight years, up from roughly $600 billion today.

“It is going to accelerate it massively,” Levi said. “Very soon, crypto and TradFi will become one — and that’s a good thing.”

Not everyone is happy.

Caroline Crenshaw, the sole Democrat commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission, issued a stark warning.

She said that the agency’s efforts to roll back its policing of crypto policing is tantamount to “a game of regulatory Jenga.”

The SEC has eased off its enforcement actions against the industry as Trump cosies up to the industry.

The enforcement withdrawal, Crenshaw said, felt “all too similar to those who have lived through 2008.”

But akin to Cassandra in Greek mythology, her warnings are likely to go unheeded as the Wall Street crypto stampede gains speed.

Trump fêtes Justin Sun and other top memecoin holders as protesters decry ‘crypto corruption club’

Trump rewarded more than 200 buyers of his personal memecoin with a gala dinner while protesters decried it as the “Mount Everest of corruption.” Aleks Gilbert reports.

Hyperliquid trader bet $1bn on Bitcoin price to go higher — at least by next week

A trader who goes by James Wynn has caught the public eye after making bets worth $1 billion that Bitcoin will reach new heights. Zachary Rampone reports.

Javier Milei shuts down Libra memecoin investigation — but it’s not over yet

Argentina’s President Javier Milei pulled the plug on the investigation into his own crypto scandal. Yes, really.

Post of the Week

Bitcoin reached another high this week. Will that stop maxis from hodling? Well, maybe not.

Somethings never change...
by u/Odd-Radio-8500 in CryptoCurrency

Cryptocurrency markets dropped 4.3%, losing over $100 billion, after US President Donald Trump proposed stiff 50% tariffs on the European Union.

After hitting a record high on Thursday, Bitcoin dropped nearly 3% as investors are back on high alert over any whiff of a new trade war.

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency on the market, shed 4% in the last 24 hours to trade at $2,553.

Other popular cryptocurrencies, such as XRP, Dogecoin, Cardano, and TRX, have all plummeted by 4%.

The President criticised the EU over its trade barriers and corporate penalties, among other features of the European economy, and recommended a 50% tariff on the entire bloc beginning on June 1.

The two economies have been engaged in weeks-long negotiations over tariff compromises.

On April 2, Trump placed sweeping import taxes on more than 50 countries, including Europe.

He has since arrived at a handful of different compromises, including with the UK and a truce with China.

According to his Truth Social missive, conversations with European leaders aren’t moving along quite as smoothly.

“The European Union, which was formed for the primary purpose of taking advantage of the United States on trade, has been very difficult to deal with,” he wrote.

Trump’s surprise announcement levelled major European stock indices, with the German DAX and French CAC dropping 2% on Friday.

Liam Kelly is a Berlin-based reporter for DL News. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].

It’s been a chastening week for crypto short sellers.

As the crypto market ripped higher, one trader’s bet against Hype, the native token of Hyperliquid, an onchain derivatives exchange, turned into a massive $23.5 million loss, marking one of the single biggest liquidation losses this year.

Onchain data from HyperDash, a platform that tracks trades on Hyperliquid, shows the trader began building the position on April 29. The trader borrowed five times his capital to short $30 million worth of Hype.

Short selling involves borrowing tokens to sell higher and buy back lower and, pocketing the difference for a profit.

But when leverage is involved, even though it amplifies the trader’s position size by giving them more money to trade, it exposes them to outsized losses if the market moves even slightly in the wrong direction.

By borrowing funds at a five-to-one ratio of the trading capital, a 1% price movement in the wrong direction means a 5% loss on the trader’s position.

Unfortunately for this Hype short trader, the token didn’t just move, it galloped.

Hype surged 90% since they opened the position, which forced them to close the trade on Friday, with $23.5 million evaporated.

This kind of wipeout has been common this month as crypto prices have made sudden moves. Earlier in the month, Bitcoin’s move above $100,000 wiped out $873 million in short positions within a day.

The crypto market caught fire this week, as Bitcoin sprinted to a new all-time high above $111,000. Shorts worth $766 million have been liquidated amid the market adding more than $170 billion to its total value.

Meanwhile, traders with more optimistic bets are sitting on huge profits.

This week, a trader who goes by James Wynn, popular for audacious memecoin trades, borrowed an amount that was 40 times the posted trading capital to enter a long position worth $1 billion on Bitcoin.

Wynn has also opened a $60 million long position on Ethereum.

But for Hype short sellers, the pain is already at maximum levels. The token’s price has tripled since April 9 and set a new all-time high of $36 on Friday.

Hyperliquid is the biggest onchain perpetuals exchange with a market value of $11 billion. Its nearest rivals, dYdX and Arkham, aren’t worth up to $1 billion combined.

Crypto market movers

Bitcoin is down 2.6% over the past 24 hours and is at $108,516.

Ethereum is down 4.1% over the same period to about $2,545.

What we’re reading

Trump fêtes Justin Sun and other top memecoin holders as protesters decry ‘crypto corruption club’ ― DL News

Animoca Could Be Crypto’s Next U.S. Public Offering. Is It a Strong GameFi Bet? ― Unchained

Dumb strategy → insane returns — Milk Road

SafeMoon CEO Found Guilty in U.S. Crypto Fraud Trial ― Unchained

A16z leads investments as crypto startups raise $214m in one week ― DL News

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at [email protected].

In a week when Bitcoin hit an all-time high, venture capitalists invested $214 million in six projects, according to data from DefiLlama.

In addition, Theta Capital Management closed a $175 million fund for blockchain investments.

PitchBook projects that crypto projects to raise $18 billion this year, almost double the annual average in 2023 and 2024.

And that comes on top of the ample dry powder in VC crypto funds.

Andreessen Horowitz’ crypto arm raised a whopping $4.5 billion in its fourth fund in 2022, taking its total to $7.6 billion, and much of that capital has yet to be invested.

This week’s rounds catapult the total raised in 2025 to just under $7.7 billion, an 87% jump over 2024, according to data from DefiLlama.

And the Trump administration’s support for the industry, coupled with expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, are driving momentum.

Here are the top three biggest raises this week.

Worldcoin, $135 million

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s eyeball-scanning crypto venture bagged $135 million this week.

Worldcoin secured the capital by selling WLD tokens to its earlier backers a16z crypto and Bain Capital Crypto, the startup said.

The company said it raised the money to meet growing demand for its World IDs and to support its expansion across the US and beyond.

Slash, $41 million

Challenger bank Slash announced a $41 million Series B round this week. Goodwater Capital led the raise.

The startup provides banking services to companies, such as marketing agencies and crypto firms.

Slash enables crypto-native businesses to swap between fiat currency and crypto holdings, as well as manage all their various crypto holdings, Fortune reported.

Catena Labs, $18 million

A16z crypto also led Catena Labs’ $18 million seed round this week.

Sam Neville, the co-founder of stablecoin giant Circle, is the co-founder behind Catena Labs, a startup aiming to build an artificial intelligence-native bank where AI agents do all the trades.

AI agents refer to computer programmes that hoover up data and perform tasks, such as potentially trading crypto.

The startup will integrate, but not be defined by stablecoins, Neville told Fortune.

You’re reading the latest installment of The Weekly Raise, our column covering fundraising deals across the crypto and DeFi spaces, powered byDefiLlama.

Eric Johansson is DL News’ News Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].

Crypto may never be the same.

With protestors outside and around 220 of his top memecoin holders inside, Donald Trump on Thursday hosted one of the most extraordinary events in the history of the presidency.

And Justin Sun, the billionaire founder of the Tron blockchain and the top buyer with $40 million of $TRUMP, was in the centre of it all.

“I really appreciate, like, everything the Trump Administration has done to our industry,” Sun, clad in a tuxedo, can be seen telling the audience in a video shared on X.

“Basically, like, 100 days ago, they are going after crypto people everywhere.”

Trump salad

Dining on filet mignon, halibut and a “Trump organic field green salad‚” the president’s guests included Lamar Odom, a former NBA player turned memecoin creator, and Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu.

Vincent Liu, the chief investment officer at Kronos Research, a high frequency trading firm in crypto founded in Taiwan, also attended according to The New York Times.

So, too, did SuKyung Na, the chief operating officer at Hyperithm, a digital asset management company based in Tokyo and Seoul, the newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, protesters gathered outside the Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia and chanted “shame” and waved palcards, including one that read “Stop Trump’s crypto corruption,” according to videos shared online.

“This is the crypto corruption club,” shouted Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon. “This is like the Mount Everest of corruption.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday there was nothing wrong with the dinner.

“It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” she said. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”

‘We would much rather that he passes common sense legislation and leave it at that.'

Nic Carter

While presidents have frequently courted corporate leaders and wealthy campaign donors, they have rarely, if ever, hosted events with the apparent goal of self-enrichment.

Trump’s memecoin, which has a market value of $2.8 billion, is controlled by two entities with close ties to the Trump family — CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight. They own 80% of the president’s memecoin, according to its website.

The groups benefit from any increase in the token’s value.

But they also profit from trading activity and have raked in an estimated $320 million from trading fees, according to blockchain forensics firm Chainalysis.

This is why even leading crypto voices are dismayed by Trump’s memecoin, as well as other ventures such as World Liberty Financial, a purported DeFi project that recently issued a stablecoin.

“It’s distasteful and an unnecessary distraction,” Nic Carter, a Trump supporter and partner at the crypto investment firm Castle Island Ventures, told ABC News.

Carter said the president is “hugging us to death” with his private crypto businesses.

“We would much rather that he passes common sense legislation and leave it at that.”

Brazen promotion

The president, who has hocked everything from condominiums to steaks to gold crypto sneakers, has never shied away from brazen promotion.

And on Thursday night, he welcomed his memecoin holders with the tacit promise that under his leadership the industry would get everything it wanted from Washington.

“There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto,” Trump told his guests, according to The New York Times. “And we’re honoured to be working on helping everybody here.”

Yet critics say the memecoin is a pay-to-play scheme that enables firms to essentially buy favour from the White House.

At least two Chinese firms at risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq have announced plans to buy hundreds of millions of dollars in $TRUMP, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

And Freight Technologies, a Houston-based logistics firm, told DL News it was buying up to $20 million worth of the memecoins to “draw attention” to its struggling business.

Golf club stories

The Trump memecoin’s primary purpose appears to be pretty straightforward — making money for the president and his partners.

When the dinner was announced in April, it certainly delivered as $TRUMP skyrocketed 60% in value.

On Thursday evening, the president appeared to be enjoying himself as he regaled his fellow crypto entrepreneurs with stories of his golf club.

“I had this, I guess, probably about 20 years. I bought it from a group of people that – they didn’t know the [Potomac] river was there, practically,” Trump said in a brief video from the event shared with DL News.

“The trees were so thick you couldn’t see the river. I was able to get the trees and take them down, which a lot of environmentalists don’t love.”

But if the president was hoping the event would pump $TRUMP, he was probably disappointed.

The token skidded 1.7% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

With reporting by Liam Kelly.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent.

A trader who goes by James Wynn has caught the public eye after making bets worth $1 billion that Bitcoin will reach new heights.

The prominent crypto trader, known for making audacious memecoin bets, has spent the past week putting money into a bullish Bitcoin trade.

While he hasn’t hinted at when he’ll close the positions, Wynn seems to be betting on Bitcoin to climb even higher than the $110,000 record reached on Thursday.

“Bitcoin is dying to breakout higher. My target remains the same of 115-118k by the end of next week. However, could easily happen within a matter of hours even.

I do think once bitcoin will top around 118k-122k and we’ll see a cool off and some sideways movement and then this is where things get really interesting.” Wynn said on X on Thursday.

Wynn’s bets and comments echo those of other market watchers who project the top cryptocurrency to trade higher in the immediate future. Polymarket punters put the chances of Bitcoin hitting $115,000 in May at 64%.

Similarly, Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick predicts Bitcoin will reach $120,000 before the end of July.

Pepe trade

Wynn’s trades have a history of making a splash.

In 2023, he gathered a following by predicting that the Pepe memecoin would achieve a $4.2 billion market value, a gamble he claims saw him make eight figures in profits. By December 2024, Pepe peaked at a market value of over 11 billion.

While it’s difficult to determine the exact amount of money he made from the trade, a wallet that goes by jwynn.eth sent $7 million worth of Pepe to Binance in May 2024.

Wynn opened his Bitcoin bet on Hyperliquid, the decentralised exchange that lets its users trade perpetual futures, which is a type of crypto derivative.

Wynn has $20 million at stake in a highly leveraged Bitcoin trade that has allowed him to borrow money to make a bet that is 40 times bigger than the money he has put into the trade.

If Bitcoin’s price falls below $100,850, then Wynn’s position is at risk of being liquidated. He’s said that he’s willing to put more money into the trade to avoid being liquidated.

The position was worth over $1 billion on May 21, but Wynn has closed a portion of his position, which has pushed the position down to just over $800 million.

“People see the trades and think it’s some high-level stupid gambling kind of thing, and yes it is,” Wynn said on May 21. “But it is backed by my own thesis, which in turn, is a calculated risk.”

Wynn didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Sui blockchain is reeling from a major exploit that affected one of its biggest protocols.

On Thursday, Cetus, the largest decentralised exchange aggregator on Sui, suffered a security breach that resulted in a theft of $220 million. The attacker exploited flaws in the protocol’s smart contracts to drain funds.

While Cetus said it acted promptly to stave off the attack and paused its smart contracts to prevent further losses, the incident caused the value of several Sui-based tokens to plummet, including Lofi, which crashed 76%, and Hippo, which slumped 81%.

How they did it

The attacker managed to pull off the exploit by taking advantage of flaws in Cetus’ smart contracts. They sent spoof tokens to Cetus that didn’t have any market value.

Vulnerabilities in Cetus smart contracts allowed the attacker to trick the protocol into behaving like the tokens were valuable. The attacker used these worthless tokens to skew price data on Cetus and drain the protocol’s liquidity pools.

“Imagine going to a toy exchange, you bring fake toys that look valuable but are actually worthless, then you trade them for real toys and run,” Manan Vora, director at Liminal, a crypto custody company, posted on LinkedIn in reaction to the incident.

“That’s basically what just happened on Sui.”

Since liquidity pools are critical cryptocurrency reserves on exchanges that allow traders to swap tokens, and Cetus is the biggest DEX on Sui, the attack caused several tokens on the network to crash.

USDC stablecoin on Sui depegged to zero following the attack.

The attack also significantly impacted Sui’s DeFi ecosystem, with the total assets held by investors in the network plummeting by over $330 million on Thursday.

Cetus’ total assets held on the protocol also suffered a massive 84% drop on Thursday to $38 million.

Cetus reaction

The Cetus team reported that thanks to its recovery efforts, it froze $160 million of the syphoned funds and is working to return it to the protocol.

Cetus stated on X, “We are working with the Sui Foundation and other ecosystem members right now on next-step solutions with the goal of recovering the remaining stolen funds.”

The Sui Foundation added, “A large number of validators identified the addresses with the stolen funds and are ignoring transactions on those addresses until further notice.”

Validators are the backbone of blockchains like Sui as they verify transactions and enforce the protocol’s rules. By ignoring transactions associated with the hack, the validators are effectively enacting a consensus-based censorship akin to the freezing of bank accounts in traditional finance.

Still, the attacker managed to extract more than $60 million from the exploit. Onchain data shows the funds have been transferred to the Ethereum blockchain and swapped for USDC stablecoin. The attacker’s wallet still has more than $37 million worth of assets.

Cetus’ security breach is the biggest DeFi hack in 2025, a year that has also set the record for the single largest crypto hack of $1.4 billion from the Bybit crypto exchange.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him at [email protected].

No sooner did Bitcoin hit an all-time high on Wednesday than Polymarket bettors set their sights on an even loftier price target of $115,000 in the nine days remaining this month.

Bitcoin has a 64% chance of reaching that target, which is a stunning leap from the 14% chance last week.

What changed?

Well, Bitcoin, after hovering around the $108,000 peak, finally blew past the price mark on Wednesday.

‘What we are seeing is Bitcoin accumulation in preparation for increased market stress.’

Noelle Acheson

That’s an almost 50% recovery for Bitcoin from its dip to $74,500 in early April. Arthur Hayes, the crypto influencer and angel investor, called that low earlier this year.

Whatever happens, investors will rejoice in Bitcoin’s performance this week.

“Bitcoin reaching $110,000 is a significant milestone,” Reece Hobson, crypto analyst at eToro Australia, said on Thursday.

Hobson said multiple catalysts drove Bitcoin’s jump, including global liquidity growth and massive inflows from exchange-traded funds.

Institutional investors have poured almost $3 billion into spot Bitcoin ETFs in May.

Market analysts say investors are betting on Bitcoin as a risk asset like technology stocks and a haven like gold, a dual narrative nature that Noelle Acheson says gives the asset a “higher floor.”

Accumulation spree

Bitcoin whales have also been on an accumulation spree in the last two months. Market data shows investors have snapped up $122 billion worth of Bitcoin, which has supercharged a massive capital influx into the market.

“What we are probably seeing now is Bitcoin accumulation in preparation for increased market stress – from both risk asset investors, and longer-term, safe-haven investors,” said Acheson.

With the market already hitting record highs, the question now is twofold: how high can it go, and does the rally have legs?

“There’s a chance that we will see Bitcoin at $150,000 this year,” Mateusz Kara, CEO of Ari10, a crypto payment company, told DL News.

Kara said Bitcoin’s rise will be due to the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates after the dust kicked up by US President Donald Trump’s tariff wars settles.

Even before this week’s rally, market watchers had optimistic price projections for Bitcoin. Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick predicts Bitcoin will reach $120,000 by the end of this quarter.

For Hobson, Bitcoin can go as high as $155,000 if the “bullish momentum persists,” but that would depend on strong volume and market conditions.

Broader picture

On Monday, CEX.IO analyst Illia Otychenko pointed to thinning volumes in both and derivatives market ― declines of 29% and 36%, respectively, in the past month ― as an indication that any price rally would lack sufficient depth to be sustainable.

“The broader picture shows a market torn between momentum-driven optimism and some underlying structural weaknesses,” Otychenko said.

“This combination of bullish signals and warning signs suggests that the coming weeks may be defined less by gradual continuation and more by sharp, decisive moves.”

Crypto market movers

Bitcoin is up 4.2% over the past 24 hours to trade at $110,767.

Ethereum is up 5.8% over the same period to about $2,668.

What we’re reading

How Bitcoin’s ‘dual narratives’ are pushing the price to records ― DL News

Coinbase and Ripple are in a fight! — Milk Road

How the Senate Stablecoin Bill Enriches Corporations at the Expense of Consumers ― Unchained

Bitcoin hits all-time highs!— Milk Road

Will XRP follow Bitcoin with a record price? Here’s where traders put its chances ― DL News

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him [email protected].

Volatility Shares will debut its XRP futures ETF on the Nasdaq today, the first ever such product.

The exchange-traded fund, part of the Volatility Shares Trust, will indirectly invest in the Ripple-linked token’s futures via its Cayman Islands subsidiary, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 21.

The company said it plans for the ETF, with the ticker $XRPI, to invest at least 80% of the value of its net assets in XRP-linked instruments.

Volatility Shares also plans to launch a 2x XRP futures ETF that promises twice the daily price appreciation of XRP through double the leveraged exposure to XRP futures.

The so-called 1x fund is a market first, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas said on X.

Vermont-based investment firm Teucrium already launched a turbocharged 2x XRP product back in April.

That double leveraged ETF has assets under management of $120 million and trades $35 million per day, Balchunas said.

That’s a “good signal that there will be demand for this one,” he said in reference to VolatilityShares’ new ETF.

The SEC greenlighted spot ETFs for Bitcoin and Ethereum in 2024, and the scramble for crypto’s third-place ETF slot has been intense ever since.

XRP backers have reasons for optimism. On May 19, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched XRP Futures and Micro XRP Futures, marking the first time the derivatives giant has offered contracts linked to XRP.

These allow traders to speculate on XRP’s price without holding the token itself — a key difference from spot ETFs, which are backed directly by the underlying asset and seen as the holy grail for mainstream adoption.

“Interest in XRP has steadily increased,” CME’s head of crypto products, Giovanni Vicioso said in a statement announcing the offerings, adding that market participants are increasingly looking to “regulated derivatives products across a wider range of tokens.”

Franklin Templeton, 21Shares, and Bitwise are among issuers vying to launch spot XRP ETFs.

Moreover, the SEC’s new chair Paul Atkins is seen as a clear break from former chair Gary Gensler, who was openly antagonistic against the crypto industry. Under Gensler’s stewardship the agency blocked several altcoin ETF applications.

Atkins is a long-term supporter of digital assets and is expected to be more liberal in his approach to crypto.

Polymarket punters put the chances of a spot XRP ETF being approved this year at 83%.

“I simply don’t see this SEC not approving spot XRP ETF,” Nate Geraci, president of the ETF Store, said in April.

Trista Kelley is DL News’ Editor in Chief. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].

Bitcoin’s two identities — as both a risk asset and a safe haven — are colliding at exactly the right time.

On one hand, investors are picking up Bitcoin like they would tech stocks, betting that the government will eventually intervene if capital markets continue to wobble. On the other, geopolitical fragmentation and rising inflation are nudging some to treat it like digital gold.

“It’s this dual narrative nature that gives Bitcoin a higher floor,” wrote Noelle Acheson in her newsletter “Crypto is Macro Now.”

“It diversifies the investor base and enhances the asset’s appeal when compared to either ‘just’ risk assets or ‘just’ gold.”

Right now, both stories are working in Bitcoin’s favor.

Bitcoin trades at $109,003.

Some, like Maelstrom founder Arthur Hayes, say it could go as high as $1 million by 2028. In the interim, Bernstein analysts upped their price prediction to $200,000 by year’s end. The firm had previously put a price target of $150,000.

Inflection point

Bitcoin finds itself at an inflection point in its short, 16-year existence.

It’s a shift playing out in real time.

Indeed, Bitcoin — and gold — became the assets to hold amid the ongoing trade war between the US and China. That’s why more investors are adding it to their portfolios, in the search for new ways to spread out risk and increase returns, said Jay Jacobs, head of US equity ETFs at BlackRock.

But even as tensions between US and China have cooled off some, the larger economic disputes between the two are still very real. And they could flare up again at any time.

That’s also driving investors to the top crypto.

“What we are probably seeing now is Bitcoin accumulation in preparation for increased market stress – from both risk asset investors, and longer-term, safe-haven investors,” said Acheson.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at [email protected].

XRP’s price is unlikely to break its $3.40 record — at least not this year.

That’s according to Polymarket punters who give the Ripple-linked cryptocurrency a 44% chance of breaking its 2017 all time high before 2026. In fact, the probability of XRP hitting an all-time high has plunged from 66% earlier in May.

Traders paint a similar picture on options trading platform Deribit, where only 20% of the calls for the rest of the year are for trades that pay out if XRP breaks its record.

The news comes as Bitcoin smashed its January record on Wednesday and surged to $109,000. Usually, XRP and other altcoins also surge when the top cryptocurrency’s price does.

And while XRP has climbed 2.6% over the past 24 hours to trade at $2.40, it is still down 6.3% over the past seven days.

By comparison, Ethereum and Solana are down 0.9% and 2.8% respectively over the same period.

Ripple’s founders developed XRP and the firm uses the cryptocurrency to facilitate cross-border payments.

What’s driving XRP’s price?

It’s unclear what factor has triggered the diminishing optimism.

One factor could be a setback in Ripple’s four-year-long legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

On May 15, District Judge Analisa Torres rejected Ripple and the SEC’s request to dissolve a court injunction and slash Ripple’s penalty.

The fall in XRP’s chances of breaking a new record in 2025 coincided with the news.

Even so, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, brushed off the setback, calling it a hiccup.

“Nothing in today’s order changes Ripple’s wins,” he wrote on X on May 15. “This is about procedural concerns with the dismissal of Ripple’s cross-appeal.”

In the days leading up to the legal setback, Geoffrey Kendrick, digital assets research chief at UK bank Standard Chartered, predicted that XRP could double its price to $5.50 in 2025. He also said he expects it to reach $8.00 in 2026, while surging above $10 in 2027, and rise to $12.25 in 2029.

Eric Johansson is DL News’s News Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].

They thought they were buying cryptocurrencies backed by real world assets such as real estate.

They thought they were getting the inside track on unicorns, which are ultra-valuable startups.

Instead, more than 5,000 investors who put up a total of $100 million were basically left empty handed, officials said.

In one of the biggest cases involving crypto and real world assets, the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday accused a company called Unicoin and three top executives of running a “multi-pronged fraudulent scheme.”

Pre-IPO stakes

The New York-based firm, which called itself the unicorn of crypto, sold certificates to investors that were supposed to convey rights to digital assets backed by billions of dollars in property and equity stakes in pre-IPO companies, the SEC said in its complaint.

“The real estate assets were worth a mere fraction of what the company claimed, and the majority of the company’s sales of rights certificates were illusory,” Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.

Moreover, Unicoin and its management — Chairman Alex Konanykhin, former President Silvina Moschini, and ex-Chief Investment Officer Alex Dominguez — allegedly said the offerings were “SEC registered” or “US registered” when they were not.

Unicoin and the executives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rights certificates

The SEC also said the company and its officers violated securities laws by not registering its offerings.

The allegation is notable because under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler the agency pursued a raft of enforcement actions against Coinbase, Binance, Ripple and other crypto ventures for similar charges.

By deeming many cryptocurrencies to be the same as stocks, bonds, investment contracts or other securities, the SEC tried to apply existing law to digital assets.

The industry pushed back and argued cryptocurrencies were not securities but rather a new class of asset. After the Trump administration pledged to end the crackdown, the SEC dropped or paused virtually all its complaints.

In a twist, Unicoin itself pitched its offering as a security, the SEC said in its complaint.

It sold “Unicoin Rights Certificates” that purportedly allowed buyers to reserve UniCoins, which are, in the words of the company, “securities tokens being developed for future issuance.”

Ad blitz

Unicoin touted its products by advertising on the sides of New York buses, taxis, and on social media and TV programmes.

Founded in 2015 under another name, Unicoin was originally set up as a software-as-a-service company.

By 2022, Unicoin had morphed into a crypto firm and pitched itself as a “real company” that is audited and regulated.

The venture also claimed that its product was a “value-backed superior alternative to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” the SEC said.

Bitcoin, which investors can buy easily and cheaply through regulated exchange-traded funds, has soared 55% in the last 12 months, according to CoinGecko data.

On Wednesday, it hit another all-time high.

$37,500 penalty

In its enforcement action, the SEC is asking a court to permanently block Unicoin from continuing its allegedly fraudulent business, to order the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and impose civil penalties on Unicoin and the three executives.

Without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations, Richard Devlin, the firm’s general counsel, has consented to the agency’s judgment in the case and has been ordered to pay a $37,500 civil penalty.

Edward Robinsonis the story editor forDL News. Contact the author [email protected].

Bitcoin is roughly $1,000 away from setting a new record high as President Donald Trump’s trade war cools.

On Wednesday, Bitcoin blew past $107,000, trading roughly one per cent from its previous high.

The last time the asset, which has a $2.1 trillion market valye, traded near this altitude was in just before the pro-crypto president took office in January.

The surge should cap an especially stormy period for Bitcoin. After Trump hit dozens of nations, including Canada and Mexico, with steep tariffs in April, Bitcoin sank to $76,300.

In the last few weeks the cryptocurrency reversed course and rebounded, according to CoinGecko.

The upshot of this white knuckle ride: crypto investors now have to watch Trump’s every move.

Trump’s tumultuous ride

In addition to his trade war, the president threatened to fire Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, and is seeking a massive tax cut that would decrease government revenue by $4.5 trillion and put further pressure on the dollar.

Indeed, last week Moody’s downgraded the US’s triple-A credit rating, and yields on Treasuries spiked in a sign investors are concerned about the fiscal health of the world’s biggest economy.

Yet some macro uncertainty has eased as Trump has retreated on his aggressive tariff policy, including a truce with China.

Other developments also spurred a rebound in Bitcoin in other cryptocurrencies.

Landmark legislation

The US Senate is moving swiftly to pass landmark legislation for issuers and managers of stablecoins. Other bills in the House of Representatives on stablecoins and market structure are also getting hearings.

Investors are also betting on at least one rate cut from the Fed by September, which tends to spur bullishness or risk-on assets like crypto and stocks.

$200,000 in play?

Institutional investors are also increasingly buying digital assets as expectations mount for new exchange-traded funds pegged to Solana and XRP.

“While this cycle has certainly seen speculative hype around meme coins and celebrity tokens, drawing in retail traders, Bitcoin’s steady ascent has been driven by corporate, institutional, and even government adoption,” Ben Caselin, the chief marketing officer of crypto exchange VALR, told DL News.

Caselin joined Bernstein analysts in predicting that Bitcoin could hit $200,000 by the end of the year.

Ten global asset managers now collectively hold $60 billion worth of Bitcoin via exchange-traded funds, said Bernstein analysts.

That’s a five-fold increase from September 2022.

“We expect Wall Street to replace Satoshi as the top Bitcoin wallet,” they added, referring to Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s mysterious founder who holds over $115 billion worth of the cryptocurrency.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin-based DeFi correspondent. Have a tip? Get in touch [email protected].

Wall Street is inching closer to massive stablecoin adoption.

That’s according to Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer, who argued that the potential approval of the Genius Act this week will trigger a 10-fold spike in the stablecoin market.

A majority of Senators voted on Monday to advance the Genius Act to a final vote.

Hougan’s argument? The provisions of the bill — such as issuer registration with federal banking regulators, anti-money laundering restrictions, and regular audits — will incentivise the likes of JPMorgan, Visa, and Bank of America to tap into stablecoins.

“I expect this will be a $2.5 trillion market in no time,” Hougan wrote in a Tuesday note.

In April, Citigroup analysts predicted that the stablecoin market is on course to reach $3.7 trillion in value in five years — that’s almost $300 billion more than the value of the cryptocurrency market.

Hougan’s comments come as the total stablecoin market reached a record value of $244 billion this week, according to DefiLlama.

TradFi’s crypto embrace

The importance of the prediction shouldn’t be underestimated.

Fast-moving fintechs like Robinhood, PayPal, Stripe have tapped into stablecoins, adding those services to their existing crypto offerings.

Banks have been more hesitant. By their nature, they take a cautious approach to new technology, especially ones that have a reputation for being a favourite tool of criminals.

But things are changing. US President Donald Trump touts pro-crypto sentiments — alongside the marketing of his own memecoin — and his administration’s new stable of regulators have halted lawsuits against the industry while relaxing rules regulating it.

That’s had an impact. Financial institutions like Bank of America have flagged openness to accepting stablecoin payments.

But Hougan said stablecoin adoption is a gateway drug to the big payoff — tokenised stocks, bonds and other financial assets.

Bitwise’s CIO predicted that the passing of the Genius Act, if it happens, will lead to over $100 trillion of financial assets moving onchain.

He’s not alone in that vision. BlackRock and Robinhood executives have also championed tokenised assets as a key milestone for the industry.

Crypto market movers

Bitcoin is up 1.2% over the past 24 hours to trade at $106,456.

Ethereum is up 0.5% to trade at $2,542.

What we’re reading

Javier Milei shuts down Libra memecoin investigation — but it’s not over yet ― DL News

Stablecoin Bill Passes Key Hurdle: Dems Join GOP To Deliver a Crypto Win ― Unchained

Theta Capital Secures $175 Million for Crypto Fund Investments — Bloomberg

This is a wake-up call (not a crisis) — Milk Road

Latest Solana trend Internet Capital Markets fuels $2.8bn token trade ― DL News

Eric Johansson is DL News’ News Editor. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].

New York City Mayor Eric Adams wants you to pay your taxes in crypto.

The mayor said Tuesday he would create a “digital assets advisory council” that will help the city attract investment and jobs in fintech and integrate blockchain technology into city services.

Adams insisted the announcement wasn’t about “chasing memes or trends.” Instead, it was about “making crypto and blockchain part of the New York City landscape.”

“Bringing blockchain security capabilities to the city means that birth certificates and death records could remain private, but accessible to New Yorkers and their next of kins,” he told a group of financiers, crypto developers, and reporters assembled at the mayor’s official residence Tuesday.

Adams didn’t specify what sort of technology would allow that, but zero knowledge proofs are frequently cited as a tool that would enable private activity on otherwise public blockchains, while allowing users to reveal select information at the request of regulators or law enforcement.

“We are exploring whether certain city services, the city taxes, could be paid via cryptocurrency,” he added.

The city will announce the chair of the council in a few weeks, along with “key policy recommendations [that] will help ensure that we use this technology the right way,” Adams said.

Adams is one of several mayors in the United States who has cast himself as a crypto champion. Before taking office, he pledged to take his first three paychecks in crypto. When federal regulations prevented him from doing so, he used the money from his first paycheck to purchase Bitcoin and Ether.

“When I did it, they all laughed at me. The reporters mocked me,” he said.

“And I keep telling them over and over again, ‘Who’s laughing now?’ My investment has paid off.”

Adams’ tenure has been controversial. In 2024, prosecutors charged Adams with accepting bribes from Turkish officials in exchange for greasing the approval of a new Turkish consular building in the city. Adams denied the charge and said the allegations were politically motivated.

He faced a fresh round of scrutiny early this year when several prosecutors in the Southern District of New York resigned, citing pressure from officials in the Trump administration to drop the charges.

In her resignation letter, interim US Attorney Danielle Sassoon — the lead prosecutor in the government’s case against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — suggested administration officials had used the charges as leverage to extract from Adams cooperation in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

On Tuesday, it was clear Adams saw crypto entrepreneurs as fellow victims in political persecution.

“You were harassed, you were demonized, you were treated as though you were the enemy instead of the believers,” he said, an apparent reference to regulators’ crackdown on crypto companies in the wake of FTX’s 2022 collapse.

“But you withstood. Your resiliency is admirable, and it will all pay off, because everyone is going to come around and understand these are different days and different times.”

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at [email protected].