Crypto industry donors have contributed $94m to federal political committees since 2023, surpassing the previous election cycle's $83m.

Key donors include:

⚫️Jeffrey Yass: American billionaire businessman
⚫️Group Marc Andreessen: Venture Capitalist
⚫️Ben Horowitz: General partner of Andreessen Horowitz
⚫️Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss: Gemini Founders
⚫️Brian Armstrong: Coinbase CEO

Hong Kong users can now set up personal e-CNY wallets for cross-border payments to Mainland China using their mobile numbers, allowing top-ups via 17 retail banks.

JP Morgan analysts reportedly estimated BTC production costs at $45k currently and $42k medium-term, predicting limited price growth due to low inflows into US and HK spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Arkham has studied over 100 celebrities with more than 1m followers on X and highlighted their crypto holdings.

Top 6 by X followers with their crypto holdings in $:
1. Justin Bieber (singer): $450k
2. Donald Trump (politician): $6.9m
3. Neymar Jr. (footballer): $55k
4. Jimmy Fallon (comedian): $11k
5. Kevin Hart (actor): $40k
6. MrBeast (YouYuber): $478k

A whale mistakenly transferred and lost 1,155 BTC ($71m) due to a fatal copy-paste error.

1. Hacker closely monitored the whale’s activity on the blockchain and obtained an address similar to the one generated by the whale.

2. Hacker then transferred 0 ETH to the whale’s wallet address to create a transaction history containing the phishing address.

3. In the transaction history, the whale found an address with the same numbers before and after as their target address and mistakenly copied and pasted the phishing address.

Active users of South Korea’s registered exchanges increased by 390,000 to 6.45m (about 10% of the population) by the end of 2023.

Other key findings by the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KOFIU) include:

⚫99% of investors were identified as "individuals"
⚫About 60% of investors were in their 30s-40s
⚫Daily average trading volume increased by 24%, reaching 3.6tr won ($2.6bn)
⚫Total crypto holdings by exchanges surged by 53%, reaching 43.6tr won ($32.4bn)

El Salvador reportedly mined nearly 474 BTC using geothermal energy since 2021, increasing its total holdings to 5,750 BTC, valued at $354m.

President Bukele's administration uses 1.5 MW of power from the Tecapa volcano for mining operations.

The Wisconsin State Investment Board disclosed that it bought $99m worth of BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF.

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an order banning MineOne Partners Limited, a Chinese-controlled cryptocurrency mining company, from owning property near an Air Force base in Wyoming, citing national security risks.

CFTC charged Falcon Labs, a crypto prime brokerage firm, with $1.8m for illegally allowing U.S. customers to access digital asset derivatives trading platforms.

iFinex, the parent of Bitfinex, has partnered with El Salvador to develop cryptocurrency regulations and launch a $6.25m hotel securitization project at the international airport.

The Philippine Central Bank has approved PHPC, a peso-pegged stablecoin by Coins.ph, designed to speed up and reduce the cost of remittances.

Turkey reportedly plans to introduce new crypto regulations to Parliament within a week, aiming to align with international standards.

The legislation will enforce strict licensing and operation of cryptocurrency platforms and improve financial compliance.

Summary of the day of 09 and May

🇺🇸 The Biden administration wants to veto a bill that would allow regulated financial companies to hold cryptocurrencies.

🌪 A user has transferred the crypto from Tornado Cash to a BlackRock wallet, the funds are marked with metadata such as "Tornado Cash Recipient".

2️⃣ Ethereum reduced its fees, but lost its deflationary criterion after the update.

🧬 Mastercard, in collaboration with CITI and JPMorgan banks, is testing a blockchain system for payments.

📉 The total volume of spot and derivatives markets fell by 43.8% in April to $6,580 billion after a record in March ($9,120 billion).

💎 Pantera Capital announced that it had invested a record amount in TON.

📊 Deutsche Bank analysts highlighted the risks for stablecoins, Tether responded with criticism.

⚖️ Former FTX director Sam Bankman-Fried is negotiating rice in prison and has lost 11 kg.

🇮🇳 Binance and KuCoin will resume their activities in India after paying fines.

🙃 The scammer who took 1,155 WBTC ($68 million) from a user returned 11,460 ETH ($34,700,000).

🚀 Jack Dorsey believes that bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 and beyond.

Apple is reportedly nearing an agreement with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT into the iPhone's next operating system, iOS 18, as part of its strategy to enhance AI capabilities across its devices.

The US DOJ appointed Forensic Risk Alliance (FRA) to serve as the outside monitor over Binance.

Binance must undergo a three-year monitorship as part of its plea deal with the DOJ related to illicit financial activity. 

In a recent interview, SBF shared he is housed with over a dozen murderers but maintains his innocence and plans to appeal this fall.

He humorously noted that rice has become the prison's makeshift currency, offering arbitrage opportunities.

Binance and KuCoin have been registered with India's Financial Intelligence Unit.

This is the first time offshore crypto related entities have been approved by India’s anti-money laundering unit.

Binance and KuCoin were among more than 9 offshore entities banned by India, including Huobi, Kraken, Gate.io, Bittrex, Bitstamp, MEXC Global and Bitfinex.

The EU is reportedly considering integrating crypto assets into its €12tr UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) investment market, a move that could potentially mainstream crypto investments in Europe.

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, shared an article stating that the technology behind Signal, an allegedly secure messaging app, was partly funded by the US government through a $3m grant.

Despite claiming transparency, Signal doesn't offer reproducible builds for iOS, unlike Telegram, which ensures privacy by using open-source code verified on GitHub.

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, stated that the same encryption is implemented in WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Messages and even Skype.