加密城市 Crypto City

Editor's note: The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) released the latest version of the Bitcoin Mining Sustainability Report, providing a crucial new data point: currently, 52.4% of the Bitcoin network's computing power comes from 'zero-emission' energy. In the last report, this proportion was only 37%. In other words, the 'green transition' of Bitcoin mining in terms of energy structure has progressed far beyond many people's expectations.

Today, the Bitcoin network has:

More than half of its computing power comes from zero-carbon energy.

Carbon intensity lower than most industries.

Equipment recycling rate exceeds 86%.

Dai Shan, a partner at Waterdrop Capital, admitted in a recent Space that all four projects he has invested in recently have been listed on Binance, yet none have issued tokens to investors as per the original investment agreement. Although the contract clearly states the token issuance terms, the agreements can be arbitrarily modified after the project is listed, and investors can hardly take any effective countermeasures.

It indicates that the modification of the agreement is not the project party's willingness, but rather a long-standing unspoken rule of Binance, so there is no blame on the project party, as they are also at a disadvantage in front of Binance. The current strategy is very clear: to persuade and help truly quality project parties not to issue tokens, but to go directly for listing in a relatively clean, regulated market to reflect their value.

According to an article published by Vitalik, people believe that 'China is a country that values closure and control, while American technology is generally more inclined towards open-source than Chinese technology,' but it now seems they were completely wrong. It is difficult to change a culture's way of treating existing things, as well as the way of treating things with already solidified attitudes. The appeal of the crypto space is that it provides an independent technological and cultural foundation to do new things without the excessive burden of existing status quo bias.

This article will bring forth Vitalik's proposed 'Cultural and Political Tree Ring Model' and its profound analysis of the current global landscape of artificial intelligence and technology regulation.

Currently, the cryptocurrency craze is at an all-time high, and opportunities are everywhere. But behind the potentially life-changing wealth opportunities, if you are not careful, you may lose everything overnight. I’m not saying this from textbooks; I’m summarizing from my personal mistakes.

As many newcomers flood into the cryptocurrency market—many of whom have never invested before—these lessons become particularly important. Today, we will discuss the five most serious mistakes beginners often make (and how to avoid them). If you read to the end, I will also share why these lessons are particularly important in the current situation controlled by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Key Summary

The trend of corporate investment in Bitcoin is expanding: After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the Bitcoin spot ETF, corporate investment strategies have gradually heated up. This trend is not limited to Western markets and is extending to Asia.

Why companies choose Bitcoin: Bitcoin has shown great appeal in diversifying asset allocation, improving capital management efficiency, and enhancing corporate value.

Participation and development prospects in the Asian market: Investments by Asian companies in Bitcoin are still in their early stages, but successful cases like Metaplanet indicate that the market has significant growth potential. However, regulatory uncertainty and lack of institutional support remain major obstacles.

We may not yet realize that the investment methods in our hands are about to become obsolete. Why? Because the high thresholds of traditional financial markets are limiting our investment potential. However, BlackRock is launching a financial revolution, and the core of this revolution is asset tokenization.

Do you feel that assets are difficult to flow freely, investment channels are limited, and constrained by the high thresholds and opacity of the traditional financial system? The asset tokenization that BlackRock focuses on can help solve these problems, providing you with unprecedented investment freedom through technological innovation.

As we enter the second quarter of 2025, the crypto market is undergoing significant adjustments. In the context of increasing overall economic uncertainty, investor sentiment has shifted to a defensive stance, with funds flocking towards high market cap assets like Bitcoin. While the altcoin market faces pressure, the core infrastructure continues to strengthen, on-chain fundamentals remain robust, and institutional interest remains stable through ETF channels and platform development.

This report is jointly produced by Coinbase and Glassnode, focusing on market structure, position trends, and key indicators in a complex and rapidly evolving environment. Here are the highlights of the report:

Cryptocurrency genius hacker's dual crimes exposed, sentenced first for child pornography charges.

Avraham 'Avi' Eisenberg, who successfully attacked the decentralized finance platform Mango Markets in 2022 and stole approximately $100 million in cryptocurrency, was sentenced to 52 months (4 years and 4 months) in prison on May 1 at the federal court in the Southern District of New York. Shockingly, this sentence is not related to his cryptocurrency fraud case but rather due to his possession of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). According to court reports, a large amount of child pornography was found on Eisenberg's electronic devices after law enforcement arrested him, which he downloaded between 2017 and 2022.

Holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds approaching $120 billion, with quarterly profits exceeding $1 billion.

The world's largest stablecoin issuer Tether recently announced its financial report for the first quarter of 2025, showing that its holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds have approached $120 billion, with quarterly operational profits exceeding $1 billion.

According to a report verified by the global accounting firm BDO, Tether currently directly holds approximately $98.5 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and also indirectly holds over $23 billion in related assets through money market funds and reverse repurchase agreements. This makes Tether a significant holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, although its scale is still smaller than that of major countries like Japan, it has demonstrated its important position in the global financial market.

The $10 billion acquisition proposal is met with skepticism, as Circle insists on an independent development path.

An astonishing acquisition drama is quietly unfolding among the giants of the cryptocurrency market. According to Bloomberg, blockchain payment company Ripple recently made an acquisition offer to stablecoin issuer Circle of up to $4 billion to $5 billion, but this staggering proposal was firmly rejected by Circle on the grounds that 'the offer is too low.'

This acquisition attempt comes less than 30 days after Circle applied for an IPO in the United States, showcasing Ripple's eagerness to secure a foothold in the stablecoin market. As the issuer of the $USDC stablecoin, Circle currently has a market capitalization of $61.7 billion and holds a significant position in the stablecoin market, giving Circle enough confidence to reject this deal.

Visa Teams Up with Baanx to Launch the $USDC Payment Card, Ushering in a New Era of Stablecoin Spending

On April 30, 2025, Visa announced a partnership with fintech company Baanx to launch a payment card based on the $USDC stablecoin, symbolizing a significant breakthrough for global payment giants in the cryptocurrency industry. This innovative payment card will allow users to spend their $USDC stablecoins directly for daily purchases without needing to convert cryptocurrency into fiat currency in advance. According to Visa's announcement, cardholders can use this card at over 80 million merchants worldwide that accept Visa, achieving a seamless payment experience.

The public blockchain project Movement, supported by Trump’s team World Liberty Financial, was originally highly regarded but unexpectedly became embroiled in a scandal involving token dumping, book profit manipulation, and dual contracts. According to internal documents and contracts obtained by CoinDesk, this case involves a series of complex stakeholders and opaque operations, even leading to a crash in $MOVE token value the day after its listing and being banned by Binance exchange.

Behind the Secret Contract: Who Allowed Rentech to Control the $MOVE Supply?

According to internal investigation documents, Movement signed an agreement authorizing an intermediary named Rentech to take about 5% of the total supply of $MOVE tokens, allowing Rentech to dump up to 66 million tokens the day after the $MOVE token was listed, causing a rapid price crash. What is even more surprising is that Movement was initially told that Rentech was a subsidiary of market maker Web3Port, but this was not the case. This misunderstanding has led Movement's senior management to now suspect they unknowingly signed an agreement with price manipulation incentives.

OpenAI founder Altman leads the World project to officially enter the U.S. market

World, a digital identity identification and cryptocurrency project co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (formerly known as Worldcoin), recently announced the official launch of services in the United States, planning to deploy its iconic eye-scanning device "Orb" in six major cities. This move symbolizes the project's entry into the world's largest cryptocurrency market after undergoing regulatory scrutiny in multiple countries. The World project aims to establish a global digital identity system based on biometric technology and connect the cryptocurrency ecosystem through its native token $WLD.

Eric Trump, the second son of former President Donald Trump and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, stated that if bankers do not embrace blockchain technology, they may face extinction within "10 years."

Eric Trump stated in an interview with (CNBC) on Wednesday: "The modern financial system is already fragmented, inefficient, and costly." He added:

Anything that operates on the blockchain can do better than existing financial institutions. Take the international banking communication and payment system SWIFT as an example; it's simply a disaster.

Taiwan's largest physical cryptocurrency trading operator (Bitshine Technology) has been reported to be cooperating with a fraud group for money laundering, with the amount involved reaching hundreds of millions, shocking the blockchain community and the Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee. The Financial Supervisory Commission promptly launched the largest-scale virtual asset service provider (VASP) financial inspection action in history, aiming to complete inspections on all 12 VASP operators that have not yet been inspected by the end of this year, and to comprehensively strengthen anti-money laundering and anti-fraud regulations.

Bitshine Technology is suspected of becoming a 'money laundering channel' for a fraud group, with police tracking funds amounting to hundreds of millions.

According to preliminary investigations by the police, Bitshine Technology is suspected of colluding with a fraud group, collecting cash from victims and then converting it into virtual currency to assist in money laundering. It is reported that the fraud group will require victims to purchase specified virtual currencies at Bitshine stores, which is suspected to have been prearranged. The estimated amount involved exceeds hundreds of millions, and the case has drawn significant attention from the Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee.

Bitcoin hits a two-month high, with gold correction becoming a boost

Bitcoin's price broke $97,000 on May 1, reaching a new high in nearly two months. Market analysts believe that this surge is closely related to the correction in gold prices and expectations that the Federal Reserve may lower interest rates early. After gold briefly broke the historical high of $3,500 per ounce on April 21, it has recently fallen back to around $3,200, a decline of nearly 10%. In contrast, Bitcoin has risen about 10%, climbing from $87,000 in mid-April to the current level of $97,000.

ICO raises 100 million euros, nearly half goes to Vanuatu bank controlled by founder

The founder of crypto fintech company Bankera has been accused of misappropriating funds raised from its 2018 initial coin offering (ICO) to purchase luxury properties around the world, according to an investigative report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on April 28.

Citing leaked company records and bank statements, OCCRP said nearly half of the €100 million ($114 million) raised by Bankera in its ICO was transferred to a bank in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, which was purchased by project founders Vytautas Karalevičius, Justas Dobiliauskas and Mantas Mockevičius.

American sports goods giant Nike is facing a $5 million class action lawsuit due to the closure of its NFT brand RTFKT.

According to a lawsuit filed on April 25, a group of investors who purchased Nike-themed NFTs accused Nike of orchestrating a 'rug pull' and illegally selling unregistered securities. The plaintiffs stated in the documents:

Nike leveraged its brand recognition and marketing capabilities to aggressively promote and sell unregistered securities issued by RTFKT.

Investors pointed out that these Nike NFTs were originally capable of being freely traded in the secondary market. However, with RTFKT announcing its shutdown, the value of the NFTs plummeted. The lawsuit emphasizes:

The founder of Binance emphasized the close relationship between freedom of speech and cryptocurrency.

At the TOKEN2049 conference held in Singapore, Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) presented a series of thought-provoking viewpoints, particularly emphasizing the close relationship between freedom of speech and financial freedom.

'To have financial freedom, you first need freedom of speech,' CZ said during a conversation with Real Vision founder Raoul Pal, 'If you cannot freely talk about certain things, then you cannot possess them.'

He further explained that the core value of cryptocurrency lies in providing a way for value exchange that is free from censorship, and this freedom is built on the foundation of freedom of speech.

The year 2024 is a milestone year for the Web3 industry. The market capitalization of crypto and the adoption of industry infrastructure have both reached unprecedented heights. At the same time, the crime industry has begun to utilize crypto infrastructure more to optimize their operations or create new paradigms of crime. This report statistically reveals the scale of major types of crypto crimes and clarifies the impact of compliance facilities on the scale of criminal activities, calling for the industry and government to pay attention to the harm caused by crypto crimes.

Due to space constraints, this article only presents part of the conclusions and data from the report. You are welcome to visit the Bitrace official website to download the full version.