🐸 Trader loses $500,000 on PEPE coin

Markets

Meme Coin Trading Volume Surges to Two-Year High, Signals Caution for Bitcoin Bulls (3 minute read)
Last week, meme coin trading volume surged to $2.3 billion, led by frog-themed pepecoin (PEPE), which reached a market cap of $1.82 billion. This six-fold increase in trading volume sparked speculation in other low-cap tokens such as DINO, WSB, CHAD, and 4TOKEN. Historically, such speculative activity in non-serious cryptocurrencies has signaled major market peaks or bearish reversals in bitcoin.

Pepe memecoin's 38% slide leaves whale nursing $500,000 paper loss (2 minute read)
PEPE coin experienced a second consecutive day of decline on Sunday, resulting in at least one investor facing paper losses of $500,000. Pepe's price peaked at $0.00000420 on Friday, which may be connected to the 4:20 meme associated with cannabis culture. Data firm Lookonchain revealed that a "whale" investor purchased 962.3 billion PEPE at an average price of $0.000003122, and at the current price, this trade suffers a $500,000 loss. Meme coins, which combine recognizable internet memes with financial speculation, have a long history in the crypto world despite their lack of utility. Early adopters can profit significantly, but those who invest near the peak may face substantial losses.

Tech

Binance Calls Bitcoin Withdrawal Pause 'a Learning Opportunity' (4 minute read)
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange in terms of trading volume, has resumed Bitcoin withdrawals after a temporary halt due to "congestion issues." Although transactions are now successfully sent to users' wallets, there may still be delays in transaction verifications. In the past 24 hours, Binance had twice paused Bitcoin withdrawals, sparking widespread speculation about the exchange's health on social media. To address the issue, the exchange adjusted its miner fees.

Bitcoin’s unexpected chain fork results in double spending of 10 BTC (2 minute read)
Fork Monitor, a platform for monitoring chain forks, reported an unexpected chain fork in the Bitcoin network at block height 788,686, leading to the double spending of nearly 10 bitcoins (BTC). Chinese blockchain reporter Colin Wu drew attention to the event, referencing Fork Monitor's data. He emphasized that the chain fork created two versions of the Bitcoin blockchain, causing some nodes on the network to see one version while others observed a different one.

Misc

Liechtenstein Plans to Accept Bitcoin for Payments to State, Prime Minister Says (2 minute read)
Liechtenstein plans to introduce Bitcoin as a payment option for government services, according to German news outlet Handelsblatt. Prime Minister Daniel Risch stated that any crypto received would likely be immediately exchanged for Swiss francs, the country's national currency. Liechtenstein, though not an EU member, is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), where the EU's forthcoming Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation could potentially apply, attracting crypto firms seeking regulatory clarity. Risch, also the finance minister, suggested that although crypto's volatility currently makes it unsuitable for the country's multi-billion dollar annual savings, this may change in the future.

Defending against SEC to cost Ripple $200M, CEO Brad Garlinghouse says (3 minute read)
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed that the company has spent $200 million defending itself against the lawsuit filed by the United States Securities Exchange Commission. Speaking at the Dubai Fintech Summit on May 8, Garlinghouse compared the stalled regulatory progress in the U.S. to advancements made by the United Arab Emirates virtual asset regulatory authority and the European Union's recent Markets in Crypto-Assets (MICA) bill. He noted that by the time the case concludes, Ripple will have incurred $200 million in legal fees, fighting a lawsuit that lacked clear reasoning from the outset. Garlinghouse also expressed concern to SEC chair Gary Gensler about the U.S. lagging behind as Ripple expands its operations to the United Arab Emirates.

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