Organized by ChainCatcher
Important information:
- FTX’s former law firm and audit firm agree to pay $66 million to settle fraud allegations.
- StablR stablecoin lost its peg after an attack, with the attacker profiting approximately $2.8 million.
- The Ethereum Foundation has faced frequent criticism, but researchers defend its mission as building the protocol, not pumping ETH.
- Several CFTC officials who questioned market regulation predictions have been suspended and forced to resign.
- The U.S. Congress is once again proposing the Bitcoin Reserve Act, with Republicans aiming to accumulate 5% of global Bitcoin.
- Michael Saylor: This week, we bought bonds, not Bitcoin.
What important events occurred in the past 24 hours?
ChainCatcher report: U.S. Republican lawmakers are accelerating efforts to advance the new ARMA Act legislation, aiming to secure its signing while Republicans still control both chambers of Congress. The bill proposes the creation of a national Bitcoin reserve and plans to hold approximately 5% of the global Bitcoin circulating supply over the long term.
According to market reports, within the Republican Party, there is an effort to elevate the strategic Bitcoin reserve to the level of national financial and geopolitical competition, arguing that the United States should seize a leading position in the global digital assets ecosystem. If the bill is ultimately passed, the U.S. government could become one of the largest holders of Bitcoin worldwide, further reinforcing the narrative of BTC as “digital gold” and a sovereign reserve asset.
ChainCatcher report: Michael Saylor posted, "This week we bought bonds, not Bitcoin. ₿itVac is charging."
ChainCatcher report, according to CoinDesk, researchers in the fields of post-quantum cryptography and blockchain security say that AI is accelerating the development of quantum computing and forcing the crypto industry to reevaluate the reliability of existing security systems.
Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden noted that researchers are already using machine learning to optimize quantum error correction—one of the biggest engineering bottlenecks in quantum computing. Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol and former Google AI researcher, warned that the "harvest now, decrypt later" strategy poses a real threat: attackers are currently collecting encrypted traffic to decrypt it once quantum computers become mature, "and this is likely already happening."
Since most blockchain networks rely on the same elliptic curve cryptography used by the internet, once quantum computers become powerful enough, they could theoretically derive private keys from public keys, compromising wallets and systems. Researchers note that the combination of AI and quantum computing is fueling an ongoing security arms race, where protection can no longer be static infrastructure but must continuously evolve and upgrade. Currently, multiple blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR, are actively advancing post-quantum cryptography migration solutions.
FTX’s former law firm and audit firm agree to pay $66 million to settle fraud allegations.
ChainCatcher report, according to The Block, FTX’s former primary external law firm, Fenwick & West, has agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims alleging it assisted in facilitating Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraudulent activities. Additionally, the auditing firm Prager Metis has agreed to pay $11.75 million, and former Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem, a former FTX promoter, will pay $420,000, bringing the total to approximately $66 million.
This settlement marks the second round of resolutions in the FTX class action lawsuit, with related documents filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Miami. Fenwick denies any wrongdoing and states it had no knowledge of FTX’s fraudulent activities. Notably, the firm still faces another $525 million civil lawsuit in Washington, D.C., which is not covered by this settlement.
FTX collapsed in November 2022, and Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing approximately $8 billion in customer funds and is currently appealing. Over $5 billion has been returned to creditors from the FTX bankruptcy estate.
ChainCatcher reports that "on-chain detective" ZachXBT disclosed on his personal channel that two contracts associated with European stablecoin issuer StablR appear to have been compromised, with potential losses exceeding $3 million (EURR and USDR). The attacker’s funds originated via the CCTP platform on Noble. Additionally, ZachXBT has revealed seven attacker addresses currently linked to this security incident.
ChainCatcher report: The stablecoin issuer StablR has been subjected to a sustained attack, causing its euro-backed stablecoin EURR and dollar-backed stablecoin USDR to depeg. Blockchain security firm Blockaid stated that the attacker allegedly gained control of one of the private keys in the minting multisig account and, under the 1/3-signature requirement mechanism, replaced other administrators, minting an additional 8.35 million USDR and 4.5 million EURR.
Subsequently, the attacker exchanged approximately $10.4 million worth of tokens for about 1,115 ETH on a DEX, realizing a net profit of approximately $2.8 million. As a result of the incident, EURR dropped to around $0.88, and USDR fell to around $0.70. Blockaid noted that this incident was not caused by a smart contract vulnerability, but rather by failures in key management and governance mechanisms.
ChainCatcher report: Bankr developer @0xDeployer posted that they are planning to launch the Bankr Fund, which will invest real capital into top-tier Bankr ecosystem projects, with hopes to make the first investment within the coming weeks.
Recently, several high-quality AI projects in the Base ecosystem have launched their tokens via the Bankr platform. Projects such as LFI and GITLAWB have quickly gained market recognition, with market caps exceeding $20 million.
Russia expands mining regulations, requiring ASIC miners to report network addresses
ChainCatcher report, according to Bits Media, the Russian government has expanded the scope of information that miners and mining infrastructure operators must submit to tax authorities. Under the new rules, the national registry of miners and operators must include network address data for equipment used in cryptocurrency mining (ASIC miners). The Russian Ministry of Finance stated that this measure aims to streamline regulation and investigation of violations related to digital asset transactions. Additionally, grid operators will be able to more accurately monitor infrastructure load in regions with concentrated mining activity.
According to the law, government agencies, courts, the Central Bank of Russia, and grid operators may access information in the miner registry. The Federal Tax Service is responsible for maintaining the registry of miners and mining infrastructure operators. Under current law, miners and infrastructure operators (such as mining pools) must submit and regularly update the following information: for mining equipment, details including manufacturer, model, serial number, algorithm, hash rate, power consumption, and operating mode; for mining activities, the quantity and type of mined cryptocurrency, the mining pool, and links to online statistics.
ChainCatcher report, according to South Korean media Seoul Economic, a nationwide petition calling for the elimination of cryptocurrency taxes has been added to the National Assembly’s agenda for discussion. The petition titled “Eliminate Virtual Asset Taxes,” posted on the National Assembly’s e-petition platform, garnered over 50,000 signatures in just eight days, meeting the threshold for referral to a standing committee for review.
The petition will be referred to the Finance and Economy Committee, which oversees the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Tax Service, for review, after which a decision will be made on whether to submit it for plenary consideration. The petitioners argue that “since the financial investment income tax on stocks has been abolished and tax incentive policies have been implemented, it is unreasonable to impose a separate tax solely on virtual currencies,” and add that “the current system requires a comprehensive review, not just minor amendments.”
ChainCatcher report, according to Cointelegraph, the Ethereum Foundation has recently faced community criticism for selling ETH, unstaking, and limited public communication. However, blockchain researcher and investor William Mougayar published a post defending it, stating that the public has long misunderstood the foundation’s role: ETH, the Ethereum network, and the Ethereum Foundation itself are three distinct entities—ETH is an asset, Ethereum is a shared computing infrastructure, and the foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the protocol, one of whose goals is even to “make the founders gradually irrelevant.” The Ethereum Foundation is currently following a “subtraction strategy,” strengthening the network by advancing protocol upgrades, funding foundational research, and reducing its own centralized influence.
ChainCatcher report, according to Cointelegraph, a Sunday investigation by The New York Times revealed that several senior CFTC officials who had raised regulatory concerns about Polymarket, Crypto.com, and Gemini-linked companies were subsequently suspended, subjected to internal investigations, and forced to resign. All three companies have been accused of having business ties to the Trump family.
Reports indicate that then-CFTC Acting Chair Caroline Pham and her senior advisor intervened to assist the aforementioned company in obtaining the necessary approvals. By the end of 2025, five officials who had raised concerns or enforced cryptocurrency regulations were placed on administrative leave and subjected to internal investigations, without being informed of the reasons. After leaving her position, Pham joined MoonPay, a crypto company with ties to Polymarket, while her senior advisor, Brigitte Weyls, became General Counsel at Gemini Titan—the very company whose application she had helped approve.
At the enforcement level, the CFTC has dropped at least five cryptocurrency investigations, with the number of enforcement actions plummeting from over 80 during the Biden administration to just two during Trump’s term. In response, a White House spokesperson denied any conflict of interest, stating, "President Trump will only act in the best interests of the American public."
ChainCatcher report: Keyrock’s latest report shows that crypto rails are increasingly becoming the default payment layer for AI agents. Over the past year, AI agents have completed more than 176 million transactions via blockchain, with a settlement value exceeding $73 million.
As AI agents begin autonomously purchasing data, cloud computing power, API services, and AI inference resources, traditional banking payment systems are struggling to accommodate high-frequency, ultra-low-value transactions. Currently, about 76% of agent payments are under 30 cents, while some on-chain stablecoin transfer costs are仅为 a fraction of a cent. Coinbase, Stripe, Google, and Visa have all begun deploying infrastructure for machine-to-machine payments. Among them, Coinbase’s x402 protocol enables AI agents to directly pay for on-chain analytics and cloud services using USDC.
Data shows that 98.6% of AI Agent payments are currently settled in USDC. The report suggests this further solidifies Circle’s pivotal role in the crypto payments space, but also indicates growing industry reliance on a single stablecoin issuer.
Meme Popular Rankings
According to market data from the meme token tracking and analytics platform GMGN, as of May 25 at 09:00,
The top five most popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD
Over the past 24 hours, the top five trending Solana tokens were: TROLL, neet, WORLDCUP, HANTA, Buttcoin
The top five most popular tokens on Base over the past 24 hours are: TOSHI, KEYCAT, BRETT, CLANKER, LUNA
What are some great articles to read from the past 24 hours?
a16z: 7 graphics to understand how tokenization is transforming the nature of assets
Tokenized assets, often referred to as "real-world assets (RWA)," are transforming how assets are structured, how they move, and how financial systems are built.
Last month, the tokenized assets market size surpassed $30 billion and is now stabilized around $34 billion (excluding stablecoins), a scale comparable to that of a regional bank or a top-tier university endowment. While still tiny relative to the global financial system, it is large enough to make a real impact.
Keep in mind that just two years ago, the tokenized assets market was worth less than $3 billion, but since then, the landscape has transformed dramatically: the U.S. GENIUS Act provided a clearer regulatory framework for stablecoins, institutional-grade on-chain infrastructure has matured, and a wave of financial institutions began deploying blockchain technology around the same time—driving the tokenized assets market to grow tenfold in under two years.
Decoding Hyperliquid's Success Through the Five-Layer Financial Stack
Building institutional-grade financial infrastructure often follows a predictable path. You cannot start with the most expressive product and then work backward.
You must start with the settlement layer, proving it can operate reliably under stress, before unlocking all features that depend on it.
The New York Stock Exchange did not add derivatives before having a well-functioning stock market. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange did not launch options before introducing futures.
This order is not arbitrary. The sequence of the base layer determines the possibilities of the upper structure.
Hyperliquid understands this well.