Once a go-to swapper for hackers and drainers, eXch was shut down by German police in April — but continued activity suggests the story isn’t over. Without Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, eXch wasn’t your typical crypto exchange. It acted more like an instant swapper, allowing bad actors and cybercriminals to fly under the radar…
Read more
South Korea kicked off 2025 with political chaos, regulatory heat and a crypto market finally brought to heel — or at least forced to grow up. The nation closed 2024 in disarray following then-President Yoon Suk Yeol’s botched martial law stunt in December. In the aftermath, authorities spent the first quarter drawing lines in the…
Read more
The right market maker can be a launchpad for a cryptocurrency project, opening the door to major exchanges and providing valuable liquidity to ensure a token is tradeable — but when the wrong incentives are baked into the deal, that market maker can become a wrecking ball. One of the most popular and misunderstood offerings…
Read more
Over the past decade, issuance of Tether’s USDt (USDT) has consistently mirrored Bitcoin (BTC) price cycles, with mints often clustering around bull runs and burns following corrections. Data from Whale Alert shows the relation between USDT issuance and Bitcoin price movements by plotting Tether’s net minting and burning alongside the price of Bitcoin from 2015…
Read more
Since US President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Bitcoin (BTC) has swung from a record high of $109,000 to below $78,000 as major tariff announcements from the US and retaliatory moves from trade partners shaved off chunks of cryptocurrency market value and rattled global markets. “The back-and-forth on tariffs, with Trump sometimes tough and…
Read more
XRP and Solana led all altcoin-based exchange-traded product (ETP) inflows during the week ending March 21, with $6.71 million and $6.44 million respectively, according to digital asset investment firm CoinShares. Other altcoin inflows were comparatively modest, with Polygon (MATIC) logging $400,000 and Chainlink (LINK) adding $200,000. Sentiment toward altcoins remained mixed overall, as Ether (ETH)…
Read more
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the US snapped a five-week net outflow streak in the trading week ending March 21. Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs clocked a net inflow of $744.4 million — the biggest tally in eight weeks — extending their daily inflow streak to six consecutive days, according to data from SoSoValue. US-based spot…
Read more
The memecoin frenzy on Pump.fun is hitting a wall, with the platform’s “graduation rate” sinking below 1% for a fourth straight week. “Graduation rate” is the memecoin launchpad’s term for tokens that make it through the incubation phase and become fully tradable on a Solana decentralized exchange (DEX). To graduate, a token must meet specific…
Read more
THORChain has been called a money laundering protocol — a label no decentralized finance (DeFi) project wants unless it’s prepared to have regulators breathing down its neck. Its supporters have fended off the criticism by championing decentralization, while its critics point to recent activities that showed some of the protocol’s centralized tendencies. After exploiting Bybit…
Read more
The total value of cryptocurrencies locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols has lost all its gains since Donald Trump was elected the US President in November 2024. Since the US election, DeFi TVL rose to as high as $138 billion on Dec. 17 but has retracted to $92.6 billion by March 10, as noted…
Read more