Binance CEO Richard Teng has advocated for the release of Tigran Gambaryan, head of the crypto exchange’s Financial Crime Compliance team, who has been detained by the Nigerian government for over 70 days.
Gambaryan reportedly flew to the country in February for talks on collaborative policy meetings, only to be detained later. This move by the Nigerian authorities has set a dangerous new precedent for all companies worldwide, Teng said in his statement.
Arrest of Executives Sets Dangerous Precedent
In the latest blog post, the Binance CEO said Gambaryan didn’t travel to Nigeria to make decisions or negotiate. He was there solely as an expert in financial crime, contributing to policy discussions and capacity building. Teng said the arrests were made despite Nigerian

A proposal to list and trade shares of prominent asset manager Grayscale’s Ether futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) has been withdrawn, as per a new document filed on Tuesday.
The filing by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that the application for the Grayscale Ethereum Futures Trust ETF, filed by NYSE Arca, Inc. in September last year, was withdrawn on May 3.
Previously, the agency had delayed consideration of Grayscale’s ether futures ETF, with the most recent postponement occurring in March.
However, the SEC had approved a batch of ether futures ETFs in October 2023, including those from ProShares, VanEck, and Bitwise.
Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart was the first to point out the development. Initially, Seyffart believed that Grayscale had

Layer 2 networks have witnessed massive activity this year, even as their native tokens slumped amidst intense volatility across the broader market. These solutions have witnessed relatively steady activity since the beginning of the year.
However, the latest analysis by IntoTheBlock revealed that Base continues to be the primary attraction for new capital.
Investors Flock to Base
Over the course of this week, net ETH deposits into the Base have exceeded 6,500 ETH, marking a significant increase, according to the data shared by ITB. On the other hand, its rival Arbitrum saw just half of this figure. Optimism lagged even further behind with only a fifth of the deposits Base received.
Such a trend suggests that despite the growing interest in Layer 2 scaling solutions,

During the ongoing cycle, BTC and ETH have witnessed a growing divergence in their respective performances.
According to Glassnode’s findings, this can be attributed to a general trend of weaker capital rotation, particularly in comparison to previous cycles and all-time high breakthroughs.
Ethereum Receives Weak Capital Flows
Leading up to bitcoin’s peak established on March 14, Glassnode observed a surge in speculative activity. As per its latest on-chain weekly report, capital accumulation was seen among the short-term holders of BTC, with approximately $240 billion in wealth held in coins moved within the last six months, nearing peak levels.
The same cannot be said for Ethereum, which has failed to replicate this trend so far. The leading altcoin hasn’t even surpassed

The stablecoin sector is not a stranger to controversies, but a recent study questions whether these assets are being widely used as claimed.
According to the report, a new metric developed by American multinational payment giant Visa indicates that over 90% of stablecoin transactions aren’t made by genuine users, suggesting that these cryptocurrencies are far from being widely adopted for payments.
Only 10% of Stablecoin Transactions Organic
Visa, along with Allium Labs, has created a dashboard to filter out transactions initiated by bots and large-scale traders, focusing only on those made by real people. Out of $2.2 trillion in total transactions in April, only $149 billion were from “organic payments activity,” according to Visa.
That essentially means that less than

A wallet that laid dormant for 10.3 years has suddenly sprung to life, transferring all 687.33 bitcoins, worth almost $44 million, on May 6, according to Lookonchain’s latest findings.
The wallet in question had received the 687.33 BTC, valued at $630,000 at that time, on January 12, 2014, when bitcoin’s price was $917 and, interestingly, a time when Satoshi Nakamoto was still on the scene.
Satoshi-Era Bitcoin Wallet Comes Alive
The movement of funds from such decade-old dormant wallets often triggers a curiosity within the crypto community.
The wallet divided its holdings, sending 625.43 BTC to an address beginning with bc1qky and the remaining 61.9 BTC to bc1qdc, as identified by the on-chain tracking platform. This activity, especially from the Satoshi era, invites

Blockchain analytics company Elliptic said that its researchers have made progress in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to detect money laundering in Bitcoin.
A recent paper detailing this research was co-authored with researchers from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. Elliptic revealed a successful identification of illicit proceeds deposited at a cryptocurrency exchange, new patterns of money laundering transactions, and previously unidentified illegal wallets upon utilizing a deep learning model.
The firm said that findings are already being used to improve its products.
Exposing Hidden Money Laundering Patterns
The underlying data has been released to the public. With more than 200 million transactions, this dataset will allow the community to create new AI methods for

The leading blockchain security firm, CertiK, released its latest report revealing a significant downturn in losses from crypto-related hacks and scams as April concludes.
Noting a notable decrease, CertiK stated April saw approximately $25.7 million lost to exploits, hacks, and scams. This figure marks a decline of 141% from the previous month’s losses, demonstrating a trend towards increased security within the cryptocurrency industry.
Specifically, CertiK’s breakdown of the losses indicates that roughly $4.3 million was lost to exit scams, $129,000 to flash loans, and $21 million to exploits, based on confirmed incidents.
This reduction in losses is a promising sign for the cryptocurrency industry, especially considering the significant losses reported in previous

While meme coins have seen a massive resurgence this year, this has raised concerns for certain industry players.
Chris Dixon – a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) – has expressed concern over the US regulatory system, questioning why meme coins were allowed to thrive while cryptocurrency companies and blockchain tokens with useful applications “get stuck in regulatory purgatory” due to potential classification as securities.
Trapped in “Regulatory Purgatory”
While delving into the resurgence of meme coins and the regulatory challenges they present in the crypto industry, Dixon raised concerns about excessive speculation and questioned why the market repeatedly favors them over more productive blockchain innovations.
In his latest article, Dixon described meme

Bitcoin’s recent market correction that dragged the world’s largest cryptocurrency near the low of $56,500 turned out to be a good opportunity for high-profile investors.
Data shared by CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju revealed that whales have accumulated a whopping 47,000 BTC – worth more than $2.8 billion in current price – over the past 24 hours alone. This shopping spree signals the beginning of “a new era” for the primary cryptocurrency, according to the exec.
Bitcoin whales increasing their holdings may indicate growing confidence in the cryptocurrency’s future trajectory among institutional investors or high-net-worth entities.
The CryptoQuant founder also revealed that the whale wallets in question are mostly custodial ones, including ETFs, but clarified that the

Experts now suggest that bitcoin may have reached a local bottom and will gradually recover over the coming months.
BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes, for one, noted that the leading cryptocurrency might see a surge in value if, as he predicts, liquidity increases in the economy next week due to Janet Yellen’s policies.
Bitcoin May Have Hit a Local Bottom
In his latest blog post, Hayes said bitcoin’s latest slump has “played out” as he anticipated, attributing it to various factors such as the US tax season, uncertainty surrounding the Fed’s actions, the halving “sell the news” event, and a slowdown in the growth of assets under management (AUM) for the spot ETFs in the US. The BitMEX founder sees these “coalesced” events as a necessary cleansing for the market.
He even implied

Dormant tokens in the XRP Ledger have begun to stir, setting the stage for May’s market activity.
New data suggest the blockchain is seeing another “huge blast” in dormant XRP movement, alongside increasing open interest (AI).
Surge in Old XRP Coin Movement
According to Santiment’s Token Age Consumed metric, there has been a significant surge in the movement of old XRP coins on the ledger, similar to the spike observed just before the market downturn on April 13th, during which the cryptocurrency plummeted by 16%.
However, in this particular case, there’s a compelling argument suggesting that this movement is tied to potential “buy the dip” interest from influential stakeholders, the crypto-analytic platform said in its latest findings.
“This time around, however, there is

Aave Labs, the team behind the DeFi lending platform Aave, has proposed a slew of major upgrades and expansions two years after introducing its V3.
The suggested improvements include Aave V4, Aave Network, a Cross-Chain Liquidity Layer, non-EVM L1 deployments, and a fresh visual identity.
Aave V4
According to the latest blog post, Aave V4 will be built with a brand-new architecture featuring an efficient and modular design while aiming to minimize disruptions to third-party integrators.
The most important architectural change of the latest iteration is the proposed introduction of a Unified Liquidity Layer, which expands on the Portals concept introduced in Aave V3. This layer enables a fully agnostic, independent, and abstracted infrastructure for liquidity provisioning.

Binance founder and former CEO – Changpeng Zhao a.k.a CZ – received a four-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to violating US anti-money laundering laws at the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
In the first tweet following the sentencing, CZ revealed his intention to remain a passive investor and holder in the crypto industry while simultaneously highlighting the importance of compliance in the industry.
CZ Reacts
In his final tweet before beginning his four-month prison sentence, CZ expressed gratitude to his supporters, acknowledging the letters, messages, and various forms of encouragement he received.
He even went on to emphasize the importance of their support in keeping him resilient during this period.
“I will do my time, conclude this phase, and

While Bitcoin has been recognized as a commodity, the same cannot be said for Ethereum’s status, which has been more ambiguous due to its initial coin offering (ICO) in 2014.
However, a new report suggests that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and its chairman, Gary Gensler, seem to have believed that Ethereum is an unregistered security for a long period of time.
SEC and Gensler’s Beliefs Exposed
According to the latest FOX report, court documents filed by Consensys on April 29 stated that the SEC and Gensler seem to have believed for at least a year that Ether was an unregistered security and has been trading in violation of current federal regulations.
The latest development follows Consensys filing an unredacted complaint against the agency in a Texas

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have caused a major stir in the cryptocurrency industry, unlike anything seen before. Following the US and Hong Kong, Australia is now gearing up for a series of launches of Bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The ASX has received applications from at least two organizations, and there’s another one in the pipeline
Australia Braces for Bitcoin ETF
ASX Ltd., which manages about 80% of the country’s equity trading, is expected to approve the first spot Bitcoin ETFs for the main board before the end of 2024, according to a recent report by Bloomberg.
These applications follow the success of US Bitcoin ETFs, which have gathered $53 billion this year. Despite outflows from Grayscale, BlackRock Inc. and Fidelity Investments’ offerings have topped the charts.
Funds

SlowMist, in collaboration with imToken, has uncovered a new breed of cryptocurrency scam that targets users in physical offline transactions, utilizing USDT as the mode of payment.
This fraudulent scheme operates by tampering with Ethereum node Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) to defraud unsuspecting victims.
Scammer’s Strategy
Initially, the scammer persuades the target to download the legitimate imToken wallet and fosters trust by transferring 1 USDT and a small amount of ETH as bait.
Subsequently, the scammer instructs the user to redirect their ETH RPC URL to a node controlled by the former, particularly using the modified node. Through this manipulation, the bad actor then falsifies the user’s USDT balance to make it seem as though funds have been deposited.
However,

In yet another milestone for the Bitcoin network, its daily transactions peaked at 927,000, surpassing the previous record of 724,000 set in December 2023, according to findings by Intotheblock.
The launch of Runes sparked a rapid increase, demonstrating growing interest and utility in cryptocurrencies, setting a new all-time high in Bitcoin’s transaction activity.
Runes, a new token standard on the Bitcoin blockchain, has dominated transactions since its launch following the halving on April 20, accounting for over two-thirds of all Bitcoin transactions. With more than 2.38 million transactions processed, Runes make up 68% of the total.
Bitcoin hit a new all-time high in daily transactions!
Following the launch of Runes, The number of Bitcoin transactions has increased

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have been a major catalyst in driving BTC to establish an all-time high months before its fourth halving. According to a new report by Ecoinometrics, Bitcoin cannot grow further without those products.
These funds appear to have “stopped accumulating coins” (in aggregate) for more than a month, which can be a cause of concern for the leading asset’s future price trajectory.
Bitcoin’s Growth Hinges on ETFs
From January to mid-March, spot Bitcoin ETFs managed to accumulate 200,000 BTC, despite significant outflows from Grayscale. This accumulation coincided with bitcoin’s price surge from $40,000 to $75,000.
However, the inflow of BTC into ETFs stopped, leading to a halt in price movement.
The report stated,

“If you’re wondering why bitcoin is stuck in the

Pantera Capital is seeking to secure $1 billion for its new fund, ‘The Panter Fund V. ‘ It is designed to provide investors with exposure to a wide range of blockchain-based assets.
A new report by Bloomberg revealed that the new fund is expected to launch in April 2025.
Pantera Fund V
The Pantera Fund V has been designed to be an all-encompassing product, differing from the digital asset investment manager’s previous funds with more specific investment focuses such as the Liquid Token Fund, Early Stage Token Fund, Bitcoin Fund, and Venture Funds. Qualified investors must allocate a minimum of $1 million, with the first close scheduled for April 1, 2025.
Limited partners are expected to contribute a minimum of $25 million to participate in the fund.
Its website states,

The predictions for the US economy continue to be gloomy.
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki bluntly stated that the American economy is in a depression. He defined depression as an economy experiencing subpar growth – even though it is technically growing, it’s below its potential.
To support his claim, Kiyosaki pointed out that in Q4 2023, the economy grew by 3.4%, but in Q1 2024, it only increased by 1.6%, less than half of the previous quarter’s growth.
American Economy Growing Below Potential
In his tweet, Kiyosaki even warned against believing fake news and encouraged seeking facts, preparation, and taking care as the ongoing downward trend indicates there won’t be a “soft landing.”

Q: Is the American economy inDEPRESSION?A: YesDefinition of a depression: an

São Paulo-based Nubank announced the launch of a new feature that allows withdrawals and deposits of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.
With this latest move, customers will now be able to send and receive Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana using the Nubank app. The withdrawal and deposit options are now available, allowing users to check the functionality on the app’s main crypto screen.
Nubank Adds Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Features to App
The launch includes an initial selection of three cryptocurrencies, but Nubank plans to add support for more in the near future.
According to the report by Livecoins, users are advised to consider some important points before completing a transaction. For one, withdrawals may be subject to variable fees depending on the chosen network, and

While bitcoin’s performance over the last couple of years has been nothing short of spectacular, the latest analysis suggests that the world’s largest cryptocurrency has failed to attract safe-haven flows.
This was evident in the case of an increased demand for such assets following the escalating conflict in the Middle East, according to Kaiko.
Bitcoin Struggles to Capture Safe-Haven Status
While gold and the US dollar have rallied, bitcoin’s value dropped by 6% in April. One potential reason for this could be the Bitcoin halving, which typically leads to short-term volatility.
However, BTC’s performance after major market events, such as the US banking crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, indicates other factors at play. During these two events, bitcoin saw a notable

Bitcoin halving concerns triggered the 11th consecutive week of outflows from the blockchain equities.
According to data compiled by CoinShares, blockchain equities experienced $9 million in withdrawals as investors worried about halving the impact on mining companies because it can affect their profitability and, subsequently, the value of their investments in those firms.
The latest halving saw the mining reward slash to 3.125 BTC. If mining becomes less profitable as a result, it can lead to reduced revenue and potential financial struggles for mining operations, which in turn could affect the value of stocks in those companies.
Interest Wanes in Digital Asset Investments
Digital assets investment products recorded outflows for the second week in a row, totaling $206

Animoca Brands reported $558 million in digital assets on its balance sheet, as per its latest unaudited financial disclosures.
Since December 2023, the company has acquired an additional $266 million in digital assets through various recent investments and token launches.
According to the official announcement released earlier this week, the Hong Kong-based Web3 giant disclosed a cash and stablecoin balance of $291 million.
Off the balance sheet, Animoca Brands’ Web3 subsidiaries hold token reserves totaling around $1.8 billion, consisting of approximately $1.3 billion in highly liquid tokens and $542 million in such with lower liquidity.
It’s worth noting that the latest figures do not include the value of Animoca Brands’ approximately 400 minority investments in Web3

Prominent global agencies have flagged a newly-emerged ransomware group named Akira, estimated to be just a year old, for its widespread cyber intrusions, breaching over 250 organizations globally and raking in nearly $42 million in ransom payments.
Investigations led by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have revealed that Akira has been actively targeting businesses and critical infrastructure across North America, Europe, and Australia since March 2023. Initially focused on Windows systems, Akira’s threat landscape expanded with the discovery of its Linux variant by the FBI.
Akira Ransomware Crisis
In response to this escalating threat, the FBI, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), and

Hong Kong authorities have arrested over 70 individuals linked to the HK$1.6 billion JPEX cryptocurrency scandal that shook the city-state.
According to the latest report by SCMP, approximately HK$230 million – worth around $29.37 million – in assets has been frozen, as disclosed by Police Commissioner Raymond Siu Chak-yee.
Hong Kong Authorities Crack Down on JPEX
In an update provided to the legislative body, Siu also revealed that the number of arrests in connection to the case has risen to 72, with around HK$228 million under the freeze.
The lawmakers were also informed that the police have received 2,636 reports concerning the case, and the amount stands at approximately HK$1.6 billion. Notably, among the previously detained individuals were social media influencers,

Riding in the coattails of a broader market resurgence, the NFT trading space witnessed in 2024 Q1, with volumes across the top 10 marketplaces soaring to $4.7 billion.
According to CoinGecko’s latest report, Blur maintained its stronghold as the leading NFT marketplace during this period. During the first quarter of 2024, Blur recorded $1.5 billion in volume while at the same time, capturing a 27.6% market share, up from the previous quarter.
Closely following behind is Magic Eden, which has emerged as a major competitor, surpassing Blur in March. The growth is primarily driven by its Diamond reward program as well as the launch of its royalty-enforced Ethereum marketplace with Yuga Labs, which raked in over $0.76 billion in trading volume.
Magic Eden’s trading volume

Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan remained entangled in a legal battle with Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with his bail application hearing being postponed yet again.
The Federal High Court in Abuja adjourned his case after the EFCC’s lawyer requested more time to respond to new issues Gambaryan’s defense team raised.
Gambaryan’s Appeal Adjourned
According to a local news report by Nairametrics, the presiding judge, Justice Emeka Nwite, consented to postpone the proceedings at the request of the EFCC’s lawyer, E. Iheanacho.
During the court session, Iheanacho explained that he needed more time to address new points Gambaryan’s defense team raised while citing a new affidavit from the exec’s defense. He said,
“Our right to a fair hearing should

The cryptocurrency market endured massive volatility this week. Amidst geopolitical instability, this price action triggered billions in liquidation and left many wondering if Bitcoin could be used as a hedge against chaos. However, certain cohorts of Bitcoin holders remained unfazed.
This is evident by the fact that Bitcoin appears to be entering an accumulation phase as withdrawals from exchanges surged to levels not seen since January 2023.
Bitcoin Investors Prepare for Surge
The ongoing accumulation of BTC suggested a significant uptick in investor activity, coinciding with a recent cooldown in the market following a 10% price drop last week. The emergence of such a trend also points to the possibility of price hikes in the near future.
With the highly anticipated