Top news this week
Hyperbitcoinization Is Coming, Says Bitcoin OG As Wholecoiners Hit 1 Million
Bitcoin has crossed a significant threshold this month — there are more than 1 million addresses that contain at least 1 BTC. Glassnode's data shows an increasing pattern regarding the number of so-called "wholecoiners" of Bitcoin. If the trend continues, Bitcoin's price hike could soon make buying it not just a luxury, but potentially unaffordable, according to Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin firm Blockstream. This hyperbitcoinization refers to the time when Bitcoin's benefits for financial transactions will eventually lead to the replacement of established financial institutions with a public-driven system, with Bitcoin becoming the world's default value system.
FTX Pursues $244M Recovery From 'Bigly Inflated' Embed Acquisition Deal
FTX Leadership is seeking to recover more than $240 million of experts and executives who profited from FTX's "grossly inflated" acquisition of equity clearing platform Embed in September. According to court documents, Embed's own CTO Laurence Beal was shocked that FTX would pay so much for the company after a brief meeting with its then-CEO Michael Giles. Beal described FTX's due diligence process with a cowboy emoji. The lawyers accused FTX members of disproportionate payments to Embed shareholders, including $55 million paid to its chief executive.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will Accept Bitcoin Campaign Donations
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He will be the first presidential candidate in the history of the United States. to accept campaign donations in Bitcoin, he announced during his first appearance as a presidential candidate at the Bitcoin 2023 conference. He praised the cryptocurrency as a "symbol of democracy and freedom" during the event. Having attended the Bitcoin event, RFK Jr. is not only addressing voters, but is also a potential source of millions of dollars in donations. The Democratic nominee is current President Joe Biden.
Voyager bankruptcy plan approved, clients can recover 35.7% of claims initially
Voyager's bankruptcy plan was approved on May 17 and its clients can now they expect to initially receive 35.72% of their claims, either in crypto through the Voyager app or in cash, after 30 days. According to Voyager, it had $1.33 billion in recovery assets as of May 8, of which $629.8 million was available for initial recovery, in claims of $1.8 billion. If FTX/Alameda Research's preferential recovery claim is unsuccessful, creditors' initial recovery could increase. For that claim, Voyager is withholding $445 million. Voyager can also recover funds from the failing crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.
Coin Cafe Ordered to Pay $4.3 Million in Fees That "Deleted" Investors' Bitcoin Accounts
Coin Cafe Cryptocurrency Trading Platform was ordered to pay $4.3 million to its users after allegedly charging “exorbitant and undisclosed fees” for storing Bitcoin on the platform, causing some accounts to be completely depleted of their funds. One New York investor incurred fees of more than $10,000 in a single month, while another investor received fees of $51,000 over a 13-month span, the New York State Attorney General's office said.
Winners and losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) I sat down $26,889Ether (ETH) in $1,813 and XRP in $0.46. Total market capitalization is $1.13 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers for the week are Render Token (RNDR) with 29%, Conflux (CFX) with 20.52% and SingularityNET (AGIX) with 19.94%.
The top three altcoin losers for the week are Pepe (PEPE) at -11.58%, Klaytn (KLAY) at -5.75%, and Bitcoin SV (BSV) at 5.38%.
For more information on cryptocurrency prices, be sure to read Cointelegraph Market Analysis.
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most memorable quotes
"What makes ordinals interesting in Bitcoin, unlike any other platform, is that they are based on the most secure blockchain in the world."
david tzuprofessor at Stanford University
"We are seeing another wave of interest in Bitcoin, driven largely by business and institutional adoption."
Alex LeishmanCEO of Rio
"You create a [virtual] world where you see new experiences, new content, new ideas, and the sum of that is always more positive than negative.”
sebastien borgetco-founder of The Sandbox
"If the public is investing money and anticipating gains based on the efforts of others, in a common enterprise, that's a security."
Gary GenslerChairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
"For it [BRC-20] to really have the level of integrity that Bitcoin offers, there needs to be a hard fork that allows you to verify and validate these things and have the integrity of Bitcoin.”
Eli Ben Sassonco-founder of StarkWare
“Whether it is Bitcoin or digital currency, no one has been able to articulate what problem it is actually solving. […] I can send $5 to anyone in this room right now using Venmo. […] So what can a central bank digital currency do that Venmo can't?
neel kashkaripresident of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
prediction of the week
Bitcoin price risk? US debt deal will trigger $1 trillion liquidity crunch, analyst warns
Bitcoin Contemplates Potential Losses Looking ahead to the third quarter of 2023, as US lawmakers are likely to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
Raising the debt ceiling means the US Treasury could issue new bonds to raise cash to meet its previous obligations, draining liquidity from riskier assets like Bitcoin. Such macroeconomic hurdles could prevent Bitcoin from recapturing its yearly highs of more than $30,000 in the coming months, pseudonymous independent market analyst Income Sharks said.
“Most likely we're going to be 20k to 30k and even have a peak season,” the analyst noted, adding that “no new money is coming in; everything is spinning. […] Unless we get a new narrative or stocks find a way to recover, the US election in 2024 seems more likely to be the next big catalyst."
FUD of the week
SEC Warns Filecoin 'Meets Definition of a Security' - Grayscale
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked Grayscale Investments to withdraw its application for a Filecoin trust, noting that its underlying asset, Filecoin (FIL), can be viewed as a security. Grayscale initially filed a Form 10 application with the regulator to launch an updated Filecoin Trust product in April. This week, he received a letter from the SEC warning that FIL “meets the definition of security” under federal law and asked the firm to withdraw its application.
'Reliable' marketplace sold fake Trezor wallets stealing cryptocurrency — Kaspersky
Kaspersky cybersecurity company has reported a problem with fake hardware wallets posing as the major wallet firm Trezor. According to the Kaspersky team, the attackers managed to access users' crypto assets by replacing the internal firmware. The fake Trezor wallet allowed scammers to steal Bitcoin via a substituted microcontroller, allowing attackers to take control of user private keys. The fake wallet provided a standard set of wallet features, which resembled a genuine Trezor Model T wallet.
'Inferno Drainer' scam as a service has stolen $5.9 million since March
A new scam as a service called “Inferno Drainer” has allegedly stolen nearly $6 million of unsuspecting cryptocurrency users, according to scam detection firm Web3 Scam Sniffer. Inferno Drainer advertises that it provides a ready-made code to scammers, allowing them to steal cryptocurrency in exchange for a 20% reduction of the scammer's cryptocurrency "loot". The identified address was associated with more than 689 phishing websites created since March 27 and had drained millions of victims across various networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Polygon, and BNB Chain.
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