The Block
Quick Take GameStop-themed memecoins GME and Roaring Kitty spiked 10% and 42%, respectively, in the past 24 hours. In the same period, GameStop’s stock fell around 20% to $22.22 per share. The firm posted net sale losses in first-quarter preliminary results on Friday.
May spot bitcoin ETF inflows have already made up for April’s negative outflows, notes senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.The last two months exhibit why traders shouldn’t get “emotional” over inflows and outflows; it’s a “part of ETF life,” he adds.
Quick Take Daren Li, 41, was arrested on April 12 at Atlanta’s airport, and Yicheng Zhang, 38, was arrested on Thursday in Los Angeles for their alleged involvement, the Justice Department said in a statement on Friday. “The fraud scheme involved more than $73 million laundered through U.S. financial institutions to bank accounts in The Bahamas, and converted to the virtual asset USDT, or Tether,” the DOJ said.
Quick Take Zksync said Friday in an X post that it would soon roll out its v24 upgrade, as it aims to further decentralize its protocol this summer. The announcement fueled rumors that an airdrop from the Layer 2 solution could come as early as June.
Quick Take Thomas John Sfraga, also known as “TJ Stone,” allegedly promised investors up to 60% returns in three months for a fake cryptocurrency digital wallet. Sfraga instead pocketed the funds or used the proceeds to pay prior victims. Sfraga also purportedly engaged in fraudulent behavior around crypto staking, claiming it was an “ironclad situation” with “no risk.” He also claimed to own Vandelay Contracting Corp.
The macro environment remains a key driver for crypto performance, evidenced by the rebound in bitcoin prices after April’s softer CPI print, a Coinbase report said.
Coinbase analyst David Han said the market may be “underestimating” the timing and odds of a potential spot Ethereum ETF approval.The mismatch leaves room for “surprises to the upside,” with no major sources of supply-side overhangs, he added.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov appeared to endorse the viral web3 clicker game Notcoin following its token launch on the TON blockchain yesterday. Notcoin is an “amazing success story,” reaching “almost $700 million in market capitalization,” Durov wrote in his Telegram channel.
Synthetix’s decentralized stablecoin, sUSD, fell below its $1 peg — reaching as low as $0.92 due to increased selling on decentralized exchanges. The price later recovered slightly to $0.96. Chaos Labs identified that the de-pegging was triggered by a major liquidity provider withdrawing from the sBTC/wBTC liquidity pool on the Curve.
Bitcoin is holding above the $66,000 mark, despite a downturn in Asian and European stocks, and U.S. stock futures.
