Tether will allocate up to 15% of profits to buying Bitcoin; Lido Finance deployed the protocol’s version 2 after a successful community vote; the community criticized Ledger after the announcement of an option to recover seed phrases in the Nano X, and other events from the past week.
Bitcoin prices failed to hold above $27,000
Since May 15, bitcoin traded in a range from $27,663 to $26,361. By week’s end, the leading cryptocurrency had not managed to hold above $27,000. At the time of writing, the asset was trading near $26,870.
Most digital assets in the top 10 by market cap finished the week in the red. XRP was the exception, rising almost 7% on the back of Ripple’s progress against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Total market capitalization stands at ~$1.17 trillion. The Bitcoin dominance index rose to 44.6%.
Lido opens Ethereum withdrawals with version 2 activation
On May 15, the Lido Finance deployed the protocol’s version 2 after a successful community vote.
The update enables withdrawals from Ethereum staking by burning stETH at a 1:1 ratio. It also launched a staking router designed to diversify the validator set and foster further decentralisation.
Against the backdrop of the version-2 launch, Celsius Network transferred 428 015 stETH. Its actions may be part of a strategy to unlock liquidity not previously accessible.
Tether to allocate up to 15% of profits to buying Bitcoin
The stablecoin issuer USDT — Tether — announced regular investments in Bitcoin since May 2023. For the initiative aimed at diversification and strengthening the reserve portfolio amid macroeconomic instability, the company will allocate 15% of profits.
Meanwhile, the co-emitter of USDC directed $8.7 billion into overnight repos as a “hedge” against a US default. Bloomberg Intelligence senior strategist Mike McGlone believes that stock and digital markets would crash if the country actually defaults.
XRP reacted to the court ruling in the SEC v Ripple case; CBDC platform and Metaco acquisition
The XRP token rose on news that the judge denied the SEC’s motion to seal documents related to Hinman’s 2018 testimony.
Meanwhile, the former director of the SEC’s corporate finance division said that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities for various reasons.
“Unedited emails of Hinman will soon become public — stay tuned as lawyers work out the mechanism to make this happen,” wrote Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple.
This week Ripple and Swiss-based crypto custodian Metaco agreed to acquire the latter. The deal is worth $250m.
On May 18 the firm also announced the launch of CBDC Platform — a comprehensive solution for central banks, governments and financial institutions for issuing national digital currency and stablecoins.
A frenzy around BRC-20 tokens pushed Bitcoin miners’ revenues higher. The trend picked up Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin, as well as OKX and MicroStrategy
Daily miner fee income per block, for the fifth time in history, exceeded the block reward (6.25 BTC). Glassnode analysts explained that the upsurge is driven by growing popularity of BTC-20 tokens.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) developers released an update to CashTokens enabling on-chain asset creation — fungible and non-fungible tokens, as well as DeFi applications.
The trend extended to Dogecoin. On May 15, transaction volume in the meme‑coin’s blockchain reached a record 628,209, surpassing Bitcoin and Litecoin. Community conjecture suggests this is linked to activity around DRC-20 tokens, which allow creating new digital assets atop the blockchain.
Another theory points to activity by large DOGE holders after Elon Musk’s announcement of stepping down as Twitter’s CEO.
OKX said that in the next two weeks it will gradually roll out features allowing users to issue and trade Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens via the OKX Wallet, which supports the Lightning Network.
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor stated that the company not only knows about Ordinals but is also interested in using the protocol to develop applications.
Ledger announced seed phrase recovery option in Nano X, provoking community backlash
The hardware wallet maker Ledger presented a tool enabling users to back up their seed phrase to recover access to the Nano X. The option is user-triggered, but in the event of recovery the user must verify. The seed phrase is split into three fragments and stored by a third party.
The community greeted the news with criticism, accusing the company of betraying decentralisation ideals. Users began publishing videos showing devices being destroyed, and CTO Charles Guillemet had to defend himself.
What to discuss with friends?
- Glassnode: the number of Bitcoin addresses with 1 BTC and more has surpassed one million. At the same time, activity has fallen to 2021 levels.
- The US Secret Service called blockchain “an excellent opportunity” to track money.
- Justin Sun accused Huobi’s founder’s brother of selling “free” HT.
- Lookonchain: BlackRock earned more than $2m on PEPE trades.
Bitcoin mining difficulty hits another record. Miners unveil new gear
As a result of another difficulty adjustment, Bitcoin mining difficulty increased by 3.22%. The metric reached 49.55 T, and the average hash rate rose above 350 EH/s.
MicroBT, the miner maker, unveiled the market’s most powerful Bitcoin miner — the WhatsMiner M53S++, delivering 320 TH/s at 22 J/TH. It was accompanied by the M50S++ and M56S++ with air and immersion cooling.
Canaan also unveiled the Avalon Made A1366I miner for Bitcoin with immersion cooling (165 TH/s at 30 J/TH).
Bitmain started taking orders for the KS3 device to mine Kaspa (KAS).
Worldcoin funding talk: Altman could invest in Worldcoin
The Financial Times reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in talks to invest about $100m in Worldcoin.
The project’s main product is the World ID protocol, based on zero‑knowledge proofs. It allows verification using biometric data while preserving anonymity.
Meanwhile, reports indicate that Chinese users lacking access to Worldcoin are obtaining biometrics from third parties in Africa to claim signup bonuses. The project intends to strengthen verification tools.
Suit over Embed acquisition before FTX collapse
The insolvent FTX team filed a lawsuit against former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives over the $250m Embed purchase.
Lawyers claim that at the time of completion in September 2022 the top management knew the exchange and Alameda Research were insolvent.
SEC sees securities in Filecoin; lowers LBRY penalties to $111,614
SEC staff believe that Filecoin (FIL) meets the definition of a security. Grayscale Investments cited a comment from the agency in response to a registration filing.
The Commission also asked the court to reduce LBRY’s civil penalty, noting that the project cannot pay the originally requested $22m due to lack of funds and its near‑ceased operations.
WazirX says Binance controls WRX token
Binance received all proceeds (about $2m) from selling WRX during the IEO and controls the wallets for the entirety of the asset’s issuance, WazirX said. The platform added that it did not receive any tokens during distribution.
According to WazirX, Binance manages in total 580.78 million locked and unlocked WRX. Of those, four transfers moved 116.8 million tokens to its treasury; the price fell after each operation.
Additionally, Binance allegedly controls WRX issuance and is responsible for quarterly burns, the last of which occurred in March 2022.
Unknown actors gained control of Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash governance
On May 20, unknown actors took control of the Tornado Cash governance mechanism. Paradigm analyst samczsun said attackers began withdrawing TORN from the protocol’s smart contracts.
Hackers gained the ability to revoke blocked tokens, move assets to the controlling smart contract, and halt the router. The analyst noted that attackers cannot withdraw funds from individual pools. However, they began draining the locked votes.
Also on ForkLog:
- Analysts pointed to a weakening correlation between Bitcoin and Ethereum.
- Users lost more than $15m on a fake HitBTC site.
- Ethereum developers proposed a MEV-burn mechanism.
- Head of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said that DEXs should be regulated.
What else to read?
Stablecoins account for a large share of exchange turnover; they play a key role in the fast‑growing DeFi space. In a new feature we explore whether decentralised stablecoins like crvUSD, GHO and DAI have a future.
In our traditional digests we cover the week’s main events in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.
The DeFi sector continues to draw heightened attention from crypto investors. ForkLog has compiled a digest of the week’s notable DeFi developments.