Week in review: Hyperliquid’s contentious move, SEC drops suits, and data leaks at Gemini and Binance

A trading halt amid suspicious activity called Hyperliquid’s decentralisation into question, the SEC withdrew claims against several crypto firms, user data from the Gemini and Binance exchanges surfaced online, and other highlights of the week.

A “bull trap” and hopes for a fresh ATH

Bitcoin opened the week at $86,000. As worries about potential U.S. import tariffs faded on 24 March, the price reached a local high above $88,500.

Santiment analysts concluded that many in the community expect the crypto market’s rise to continue.

? In a solid start to crypto’s week, Bitcoin reached as high as $88.5K for the first time in 17 days. Ethereum also jumped above $2,100 for the first time in 14 days. Comments across social media are becoming quite positive, indicating many expect this rally to continue. pic.twitter.com/3w3ZCs512n

— Santiment (@santimentfeed) March 24, 2025

“Crypto’s week started strongly: bitcoin rose to $88,500 for the first time in 17 days, and Ethereum crossed $2,100 — for the first time in 14 days. Positive sentiment is building on social networks; many expect the rally to continue,” the experts wrote.

CryptoQuant warned that the rebound is laced with high leverage.

“Open interest (OI) has reached record levels above $32bn as bitcoin climbed to $87,500. But here’s the catch: high OI + a fast price rise = risk of liquidation cascades!” the researchers stressed.

Bloomberg experts warned that the recovery to a two‑week high risks being short‑lived — a lack of upward momentum, thin volumes and macro jitters create the conditions for a “bull trap”.

Funding rates in perpetual bitcoin futures reflect investor mood. In bull phases the metric is positive, but even after the bounce above $87,000, readings remain negative — a sign traders are reluctant to pay a premium to open longs.

Another sign of wavering confidence is the cost of borrowing stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. On the lending platform Aave, rates have slipped to roughly 4%.

Strahinja Savic, head of data and analytics at FRNT Financial, said this points to a declining appetite for leverage and other credit‑dependent strategies.

For the uptrend to continue, bitcoin needs to clear the 20‑week exponential moving average (EMA), currently near $88,682, Cointelegraph analysts noted.

For example, after breaking above this EMA in October 2023, the price rose by 170% — from $27,000 to $73,000 by March 2024.

Similarly, in September 2024 quotes gained 77% — from $60,000 to $108,000 by December.

In an interview, an analyst under the pseudonym Decode underscored the importance of the EMA, calling it “the most important threshold for bitcoin right now”.

Meanwhile, Material Indicators co‑founder Keith Alan stressed that bitcoin needs to reclaim the year’s opening level around $93,300 to confirm a push toward record highs.

Real Vision’s chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts said bitcoin will set a new all-time high “sooner than many expect”.

“The market is likely underestimating how quickly bitcoin can rise, potentially reaching new all‑time highs by the end of the second quarter,” the expert said.

He added that his forecast does not hinge on President Donald Trump’s tariff policy or on fears of a possible U.S. recession, citing a softer dollar and stimulus from the People’s Bank of China.

In his view, under a conservative scenario bitcoin would reach $102,000 over the next 90 days. In a favourable case it would climb to $146,000, with an average estimate of $123,000.

At the time of writing the leading cryptocurrency trades at $82,950 — roughly 6.4% below the weekly high. The Fear and Greed Index stands at 32 — “fear”.

Ethereum opened the week at $2,000. On 24 March it tracked bitcoin higher to a local peak near $2,090.

By 27 March, the price had slipped back to $2,000 before plunging to $1,900 the next day, with declines continuing into the weekend.

At the time of writing Ethereum changes hands at $1,819 — 13% below the seven‑day peak.

All top‑10 assets by market capitalisation fell over the week.

The steepest losses came in XRP (-10.7%), ETH (-9.2%) and SOL (-5.4%).

Hyperliquid’s decentralisation under scrutiny

On 26 March, the Hyperliquid venue suspended trading in perpetuals on the JELLYJELLY token due to “suspicious market activity”.

An unknown user opened two longs of $2.15m and $1.9m, hedged with a $4.1m short.

A ~400% pump in JELLYJELLY triggered the short’s liquidation. Owing to its size, the order was automatically transferred to the Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) treasury under a built‑in mechanism designed to minimise market impact.

The manipulator continued to withdraw collateral from the longs, with about $11m in unrealised profit.

The remainder of the user’s funds on the platform stands at roughly $900,000. According to Arkham, even if the user manages to withdraw these assets, the loss would be around $4,000.

Users harmed by the attacker’s actions will be compensated from the Hyper Foundation treasury.

The platform’s response sparked a debate over how decentralised Hyperliquid really is.

“The way Hyperliquid handled the incident was immature, unethical, and unprofessional, resulted in user losses, and raised serious doubts about principled commitment. Despite positioning itself as a cutting‑edge DEX with an innovative approach, it operates more like an offshore CEX without KYC/AML, enabling flows of illicit funds and bad actors,” commented Bitget CEO Gracy Chen.

She said forced position closures set a dangerous precedent, and that Hyperliquid’s product design contains critical flaws — commingled storage and a lack of limits — that expose users to systemic risk.

“Hyperliquid could become a second FTX,” Chen concluded.

The Hyperliquid token (HYPE) fell from $16.3 to $13.5 after the incident, and then slid to $12.4.

The SEC kept dropping suits

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ended several more legal clashes with crypto firms, pressing on with a shift toward a more industry‑friendly stance.

On 26 March, the agency closed its case against blockchain‑game developer Immutable. The firm had received a Wells notice in October 2024. The regulator’s claims targeted the company, its CEO and the IMX ecosystem fund.

The Commission also dropped lawsuits against Kraken, ConsenSys and Cumberland, filing termination papers on 27 March.

Kraken was targeted in November 2023, accused of offering unregistered securities in the form of digital tokens on its platform.

In June 2024 the SEC sued ConsenSys, alleging that since October 2020 the firm “has acted as an unregistered securities broker”, and since January 2023 sold such instruments via MetaMask Staking.

The trading firm Cumberland DRW came under fire in October 2024 over alleged unregistered trading of assets the SEC deemed securities.

The cases were dismissed “with prejudice”, making refiling impossible.

The SEC said the move reflects a review of its overall approach to crypto regulation. The closures do not reflect the cases’ merits, the statement added.

What to discuss with friends?

• Peter Schiff has accumulated about $4,760 in his own bitcoin reserve.
• Binance suspended an employee over insider trading.
• Media: a whale manipulated Polymarket markets.
• Justin Sun made it onto the cover of Forbes. TRX trading volume topped $500m.

Terraform Labs and FTX set out compensation plans

Terraform Labs (TFL), the company behind the collapsed Terra ecosystem, will open a portal to accept compensation claims from affected users on 31 March.

Terraform Labs Creditors: The Crypto Loss Claims Portal is scheduled to open for submission of Crypto Loss Claims on March 31, 2025. Creditors may file Eligible Crypto Loss Claims at https://t.co/7YQvfQr76x. The deadline to file is April 30, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. (prevailing Eastern…

— Terra ? Powered by LUNA ? (@terra_money) March 28, 2025

Claims can be filed until 30 April. The resource is overseen by TFL’s liquidators from consulting firm Kroll.

The company emphasised the importance of complete and highly accurate data, as well as identity verification.

Claims involving devalued assets with an aggregate market value below $100 will not be accepted. The same applies to tokens issued under the Terra 2.0 initiative.

Liquidators of the bankrupt exchange FTX will begin paying claims of $50,000 and above from 30 May.

According to FTX attorney Andrew Dietderich, funds for distributions will come from $11.4bn accumulated since the bankruptcy.

The distribution “will take time”. The lawyer said the company has received “27 quadrillion” loss claims, many of which require additional checks, and “billions” are outright false.

Clients awaiting payments are accruing an additional 9% per annum on amounts due. According to Bloomberg, the interest rate on FTX accounts is lower, so the firm is keen to resolve compensation as quickly as possible.

In February 2025 the exchange allocated $1.2bn to compensate users with assets up to $50,000.

Also on ForkLog:

• Media: Donald Trump pardoned BitMEX co‑founders.
• Ripple abandoned its appeal against the SEC.
• USDC’s market capitalisation surpassed $60bn for the first time.
• Media revealed investments in crypto firms by a potential SEC chair.

Data of Gemini and Binance users leaked online

Attackers gained access to the personal data of Gemini and Binance clients. Part of the information has already been put up for sale on the dark web.

On 27 March, a dark‑web user under the handle AKM69 made the last recorded sale.

“The database reportedly offered for sale includes 100,000 records, each containing full names, email addresses, phone numbers and location data of people from the U.S., as well as Singapore and the U.K.,” Dark Web Informer specialists noted.

The attacker described the “lot” as part of “a broader campaign to sell consumer data for crypto‑related marketing and fraud”.

A day earlier, on 26 March, Dark Web Informer reported that a user under the nickname kiki88888 was offering to sell Binance customer logins and passwords. The compromised dataset contained 132,744 rows.

Specialists clarified that the leak was not tied to vulnerabilities at the trading platforms:

“Some of you really need to stop clicking random buttons.”

Binance representatives denied a direct link to the incident. They said the hackers selling the personal information obtained access via malware on infected client devices.

What else to read?

In our new piece, we explored whether BTCFi could become the next fuel for bitcoin’s growth.

Together with Vladimir Menaskop, we examined decentralised identification (DID) and on‑chain reputation in Web3.

In our regular digest, we compiled the week’s key developments in cybersecurity.