On Sunday, a transfer of approximately 3,520 BTC ($330.7 million) took place, which on-chain analyst ZachXBT identified as a theft.

ZachXBT reported that the transfer was made from a potential victim's wallet to the address "bc1qcry...vz55g." Shortly after, the stolen funds were laundered through exchanges and converted into Monero (XMR) to conceal the activity. This caused a 50% surge in XMR's price due to the size of the swaps and low liquidity on platforms.

Strategy acquired 15,355 BTC for ~$1.42 billion at ~$92,737 per Bitcoin. The company owns 553,555 BTC, purchased for ~$37.90 billion.

Tether minted another 1 billion USDT on the TRON blockchain.

The Ethereum Fusaka upgrade is scheduled for Q3-Q4 2025.

Ethereum developers plan to test a fourfold increase in the gas limit during the Fusaka hard fork.

The DeFi protocol Loopscale on Solana was exploited for ~$5.8 million (~12% of the protocol's TVL) and has temporarily suspended operations.

According to Standard Chartered, the total supply of stablecoins could grow nearly tenfold by the end of 2028, reaching $2 trillion compared to the current $230 billion.

▫️ The growth will be driven by the adoption of the U.S. GENIUS Act, a stablecoin-focused bill passed by the Senate Banking Committee last month and set to take effect this summer.

▫️ Analysts state that this level of growth will boost demand for U.S. Treasury bonds from stablecoin issuers by $1.6 trillion over the next four years.

▫️ Based on this model, stablecoin issuers will collectively hold approximately $1.75 trillion in Treasury bonds by 2028, compared to ~$150 billion today.

▫️ The increase in stablecoin reserves will heighten demand for U.S. dollars. It may also maintain the dollar's position as the leading currency, despite trade tensions posing risks to its status, according to Standard Chartered analysts.

The new SEC Chairman Paul Atkins criticized the previous approach to cryptocurrency regulation under the Biden administration:

"Unfortunately, innovation has been stifled over the past few years due to market and regulatory uncertainty, which, regrettably, the SEC contributed to."

Atkins stated that creating a clear regulatory framework for digital assets will be a top priority for the SEC, and he expects "tremendous benefits" from digital assets.

🔺 The U.S. Federal Reserve has rescinded a directive that required banks to notify the regulator or obtain approval before engaging in operations with cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.

Any cryptocurrency-related activities will now be overseen as part of the Fed's standard supervisory process.

"Banks can now freely support Bitcoin," commented Michael Saylor.

🪙 The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group) plans to launch XRP futures trading on May 19.

XRP will become the fourth cryptocurrency, following BTC, ETH, and SOL, with futures traded on CME.

Two types of contracts will be available: a standard contract for 50,000 XRP and a micro-contract for 2,500 XRP.

The Japanese company Metaplanet bought another 145 BTC, its total balance grew to 5000 BTC