📣📣 MARKET MOVING NEWS! (16/04/25)
1️⃣ Semler Scientific Reports $42M Paper Loss On Bitcoin, Floats $500M Stock Sale 💸
In a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), healthcare technology firm Semler Scientific reported unrealised losses of approximately $41.8 million on its BTC holdings over Q1 2025. Semler declared holdings of 3,182 BTC valued at around $263.5 million as of March 31. Semler also reported that it had reached an agreement in principle with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $29.75 million to resolve allegations of federal anti-fraud law violations related to its QuantaFlo product marketing. In a separate April 15 SEC filing, Semler outlined plans to raise up to $500 million through a new securities offering that could boost its Bitcoin holdings. The securities up for sale may include Semler's debt securities, common stocks, units and warrants.
2️⃣ OKX to Expand to the U.S., Establish Regional Headquarters in California ✨
Seychelles-based crypto exchange OKX has officially confirmed its expansion to the U.S. market. The firm established its regional headquarters in San Jose, California, and named Roshan Robert as its U.S. CEO. The expansion comes two months after an OKX subsidiary agreed to pay $500 million to regulators to settle charges that it had operated in the U.S. without a money transmitting license.
Commenting on the expansion, Roshan Robert stated,
American customers now have access to our high-performance platform, and we will be rolling out new features throughout the year as part of our vision to build a crypto Super App. As part of this expansion, existing OKCoin customers will be seamlessly migrated to the OKX platform. This migration brings customers a significantly enhanced experience — with access to deeper liquidity, lower fees, and advanced trading tools.
3️⃣ Mantra CEO Plans To Burn Team’s Tokens In Bid To Win Community Trust 🔥
Mantra CEO John Mullin is reportedly planning to burn the entire team’s Mantra (OM) token allocation in an attempt to win back the trust of the community. For context, this follows the sudden price collapse of OM on April 13. Notably, the team’s token allocations is 300 million OM – this is roughly 17% the token’s nearly 1.78 billion total supply. These tokens, which are currently worth around $236 million, are currently locked and were scheduled to be released in stages between April 2027 and October 2029. The proposed plan has received mix response from the community. While some see it as a positive move, others see the token burn as a potential blow to the team’s long-term commitment to building the real-world asset tokenisation platform.
4️⃣ ZKSync Admin Wallet Compromised, $5M Stolen 🔓
Ethereum layer-2 blockchain ZKsync was reportedly compromised on Tuesday with the hacker taking off with $5 million worth of ZK tokens. The project stated that the stolen funds were the "remaining unclaimed tokens from the ZKsync airdrop." The hacker reportedly gained access to the tokens after compromising a ZKsync admin account to mint the tokens. ZKsync stated that the attack was an isolated incident, with no user funds affected.
5️⃣ Ethereum Gaming Project CyberKongz Says SEC Has Ended Investigation ‼️
CyberKongz, a popular Ethereum NFT and gaming project, has announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ended its investigation into the project. For context, the SEC’s investigation revolved around the project’s BANANA token and its Genesis Kongz contract migration in 2021.
Commenting on the development, the project stated,
After years of litigation, unjust allegations, crippling legal fees, and the biggest hurdle we could possibly encounter—we are free. This is an extremely proud moment for CyberKongz. We are a small, passionate, and creative Web3 team that elected to fight this battle for the betterment of Web3.
6️⃣ Ethena Labs Exits German Market Following Agreement With BaFin 👀
Synthetic stablecoin issuer Ethena Labs is reportedly winding down its operations in Germany. The decision comes three weeks after BaFin, Germany's finance regulator, identified "serious deficiencies" in Ethena's USDe token and said that the company was offering securities in Germany without approval. According to the announcement, Ethena Labs reached an agreement to cease all operations with BaFin. It also stated that it “will no longer be pursuing MiCAR authorization in Germany.” It added that all previous “whitelisted mint and redeem” users will be onboarded to Ethena BVI, the protocol's entity in the British Virgin Islands.
