Another eventful week in the crypto market, with several — some good, some bad — news that shaped the way investors behaved throughout the week.
We started off on Monday with reports that the country of Vietnam moved forward with a bill to regulate crypto assets as its own thing. Meanwhile, Microstrategy continued to accumulate Bitcoin, marking the largest $BTC purchase in the last 30 days.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT dropped a bombshell investigation linking the team behind WhiteRock to the infamous Zkasino rug pull. According to his report, there are overlapping wallet addresses, aliases, and even email accounts connecting the two projects, raising serious concerns that WhiteRock may be a front to launder the $33 million siphoned from Zkasino’s 2024 presale.
Meanwhile, OKX made headlines by launching fully regulated crypto exchanges in Germany and Poland, marking a major step in its European expansion.
Over in the U.S., the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, marking a major step toward federal crypto licensing rules. Now the proposal will move to Congress as America moves one step closer to stablecoin regulations.
Wednesday
We started off the day with reports out of Russia, where prosecutors in the Krasnodar region are investigating a massive illegal crypto mining farm uncovered in the town of Nazarovo.
At this stage in the week, we started feeling the effects of the Israel–Iran conflict. On Wednesday, the crypto market erased $135 billion off its capitalization, signaling a warning sign of a potential economic uncertainty-induced bear market. In fact, the conflict officially spilled into the crypto sector as a pro-Israel group claimed ownership of a major hack involving the Iranian exchange Nobitex.
Amidst all this chaos, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced that interest rates would remain at the 4.25% – 4.50% range, signaling economic uncertainty and a cautious stance in the face of rising inflation risks.
Thursday
On Thursday, Ohio passed a new bill that could quietly change how crypto fits into everyday spending. The legislation would exempt crypto purchases under $200 from capital gains taxes and bar local governments from tacking on extra fees.
Meanwhile, France’s financial regulator, the AMF, introduced tighter rules on asset manager staffing and oversight following inspections at five firms managing over €500 million in assets.
Also Thursday, the CSA launched a consultation on ETF regulation following a study of 933 funds worth $355 billion. The review flagged issues around liquidity, NAV accuracy, and market structure, especially during stress events.
Friday
The last business day of the week started off with the crypto exchange Coinbase securing a major milestone to expand its business into Europe. Coinbase can now legally operate across all 27 EU member states after successfully securing its MiCA license.
A controversy surrounding popular social media platform TikTok was also put to rest on this date, as the app officially denied any involvement in purchasing $TRUMP tokens.
CoinMarketCap, one of the most popular crypto platforms on the web, suffered a major security breach. Users reported phishing pop-ups prompting them to “Verify Wallet” upon visiting the site, an exploit now confirmed as a front-end compromise.
Finally, President Trump went all out on Fed Chair Jerome Powell, after the Fed decided yet again not to lower rates. On top of calling Powell “dumb”, “too slow”, and a “numbskull”, Trump also tippied-toed around the possibility of firing him—despite legal limits that prevent presidents from removing the Fed Chair without cause.
By the way, trading on BloFin just got a whole lot more interesting. Yes, you read that right: hit the right volume and you could walk away with a MacBook, Apple Vision Pro, or even a $9,400 Rolex.
