The United States Justice Department’s crypto enforcement team is cracking down on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) hackers and exploiters, amid a four-year rise in illicit crypto activity. In a Financial Times report published on May 15, Eun Young Choi, director of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) national cryptocurrency enforcement team (NCET), stated that the department…
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Crypto Twitter was briefly set ablaze on May 14 with a suggestion that the world’s first real-world purchase made by Bitcoin may have been for a JPEG, not pizza. In a tweet from independent developer Udi Wertheimer, the Bitcoin advocate shared a screenshot showing what could have been the first-ever purchase using Bitcoin — even…
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The number of Bitcoin (BTC) wallet addresses holding one whole BTC or more has surpassed the one million mark. The one million wholecoiner milestone was reached on May 13, according to data from Glassnode. Number of Bitcoin wallets holding more than 1 Bitcoin since inception. Source: Glassnode. As the price of Bitcoin fell more than…
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The United States securities regulator is seeking to revise its $22 million punishment against decentralized content platform LBRY, acknowledging it is unlikely to be able to cough up the funds to be able to pay it. In a May 12 filing in a New Hampshire District Court, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought an…
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Bitcoin (BTC) sought to recover $27,000 into the May 14 weekly close as volatility picked up out of hours. BTC/USD 1-hour candle chart (Bitstamp). Source: TradingView BTC price gains over 7% in two days Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD spiking to $27,200 on Bitstamp. Its highest in several days, the performance…
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The S&P 500 Index (SPX) closed the week with a nominal loss of 0.29% but Bitcoin (BTC) is on target to finish the week with a deeper cut of more than 5%. The weakness in Bitcoin pulled several altcoins lower, indicating weakening sentiment. A silver lining is Bitcoin’s solid bounce on May 12. Several analysts…
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Bitcoin (BTC) has rallied nearly 60% to around $27,000 in 2023 amid anticipations that the Federal Reserve would pause its quantitative tightening amid the U.S. banking crisis. Still, BTC price has failed to move beyond $30,000 decisively. Buying exhaustion at this key psychological level led to a price correction toward $25,000 over the past week. Interestingly, the…
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The United States government faces a “significant risk” of no longer being able to meet all of its financial obligations as early as June, as per a recent report. According to a May 12 report published by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the risk of the U.S. government defaulting on its debt in the…
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Crypto mining firm Riot Platforms – formerly Riot Blockchain – is seeking to recover “more than $26 million” in alleged unpaid fees from Texas-based Bitcoin (BTC) miner Rhodian enterprises, according to its Q1 2023 report. Published on May 10, Riot’s Q1 2023 financial report stated that Whinstone – a wholly owned subsidiary of Riot – has filed…
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Top Stories This Week Coinbase calls Pepe a ‘hate symbol,’ prompting calls to boycott the exchange An email sent out to Coinbase customers describing the Pepe the Frog meme as a “hate symbol” co-opted by alt-right groups has drawn significant ire from the PEPE memecoin community this week. Two hours after the email was sent,…
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