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Here's a quick preview of today’s content: 

Coinbase turns the table on hacker that asked for $20M ransom payment, crypto M&A activity continues to boom, ‘Mr. Wonderful’ is all in on clear crypto regulations ASAP, Frank DeGods has a rough day after resigning, Consensus 2025 finishes with bullish sentiment, tons of new VC activity, and so much more below.

🎉 Happy Friday! Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

• XRP led losses among major cryptocurrencies, falling over -4% as the market stalled after last week’s rally

• The crypto market's total capitalization dropped -2% to $3.3T, with Ethereum and Solana near key technical levels

• Bitcoin remains above $104,000, facing resistance at $105,000, with analysts predicting a potential correction

  • “Bitcoin has been smoothly forming a top for the past seven days,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst at FxPro. “This kind of setup typically signals a correction is due, especially when paired with slippage in equities and profit-taking in gold”

Headline Roundup
^{_{The major headlines driving crypto markets}}

There are 2 Coinbase headlines back to back on purpose – it’s safe to say it was NOT a good day at Coinbae HQ …

• Coinbase was hacked and the criminals demanded $20M in ransom or the data of a ‘small subset’ of user would be leaked – Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong video faced the situation head on with his response here here

• Coinbase is being accused by SEC of inflating user numbers ahead of 2021 IPO (TB)

• Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary states that the crypto industry needs more regulation as soon as possible – see his full statements here

• U.S. prosecutors will only be moving forward with some of charges against Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm (TB)

• FTX will start handing out $5B to its creditors beginning May 30 (DT)

• Eric Trump tells the Consensus 2025 attendees that the ‘world is trying to hoard bitcoin’ (CT)

• Warren Buffett previously told eToro CEO solely focusing on crypto would be a mistake (TB)

• MoonPay and MasterCard establish partnership to unlock stablecoin payments at 150M businesses globally (MP)

• Wisconsin Investment Board liquidates its 6M+ shares of IBIT ETF for its state retirees (CT)

• SEC filings show Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Fund holds a $408M position in Blackrock’s spot bitcoin ETF (WG)

• Ark Invest sells $7.9M of its own bitcoin ETF to scoop $9.4M of freshly listed eToro shares (TB)

• Chinese clothing manufacturing giant Addentix Group reveals interest in $800M investment into digital assets such as BTC and TRUMP (TB)

• Saudi Arabia Central Bank gets its first exposure to bitcoin through purchasing 25,656 shares of Saylor’s Strategy (DF)

• Bybit onboards a new leader for Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, Patricio Mesri (CD)

• Bitdeer brings in $70.1M in Q1 ‘25, a 41% drop year-over-year (CT)

• Bitcoin ATM operator Bitcoin Depot sees shares rise 22% with profitable first quarter of $12.2M (DT)

• Public UK firm Coinsilium Group raises £1.25M to adopt bitcoin treasury strategy (BM)

• Tether mints 1 billion USDT, bringing the total circulation on TRON Network to 151B (DF)

• Ethereum stablecoin volume nears $1T mark as industry giants are jumping in (TB)

• Barstool CEO Dave Portnoy says memecoins are 'gambling'(CD)

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Venture Capital

• Pi Network to invest $100M into startups with new ecosystem fund (CT)

• AI and Blockchain early stage fund A100x plans for a $50M Fund II (PB)

• Europe’s first Bitcoin Treasury company The Blockchain Group announces €12.1M raise from Adam Back (BM)

• Blockchange leads $6.2M round for Solana ticketing platform XP (BW)

• XSY closes $5M pre-Series A round led by Borderless Capital and Protagonist ahead of digital synthetic dollar launch (TB)

• N1 raises $2M in less than a minute in Public Sale from Comfy Capital, Echo, Native Crypto, and other community investors (N1)

• Animoca Brands becomes the latest strategic investor to join UXLink’s cap table (AC)

• Haun Ventures announces strategic investment into programmable money startup Squads (HV)

Launches

• Ledger launches stablecoin yields, up to 9.9%, in the Ledger Live application (LR)

Regulation

• Starting in 2026 crypto exchanges operating in the UK must share user data with HMRC (CS)

• Bullish is working with Gibraltar’s Financial Services Committee for regulatory clearance around settling crypto derivatives (BM)

Cybersecurity

• DeGods founder ‘Frank DeGods’ has 16 NFTs stolen and sold as he exits the firm (DT)

• Coinbase makes public statement on customer data breach with $20M bounty against hacker (CB)

• A delay in freezing funds with Tether has led to $78M lost since 2017 (DT)

• Sonic Labs gains court approval to liquidate Multichain Foundation after 2023 $210M hack (TB)

Extra Reads

• The digital asset portfolio manager for VanEck went on a podcast to discuss the firms crpto strategy – see the insightful interview here

Chart of the Day

Bitcoin mining difficulty continued to climb in 2025 as hashprice drops to record lows

Upcoming Events

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Hear from the founders of Uniswap, Infinex, LayerZero, and more. 3 days. 1 mission: ship real things.

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