Hackers: A portion of the ether stolen from hacked New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia has been moved and deposited to a different crypto exchange, according to an analysis. Crypto Anti-Money Laundering startup Coinfirm tweeted about their findings on May 20. According to Coinfirm, 30,790 (over $7.778 million) of the stolen ether has been reportedly moved to a new address, and 10 ETH (over $2,500) moved to the hot wallet of another crypto exchange. A Twitter account dedicated to reporting on large transactions to and from cryptocurrency exchanges, Whale Alert, claims that 500 of the stolen ether (over $125,000) has today been moved to EtherDelta, and another 1,000 ETH to an unknown wallet (over $250,000).
Bullish Key Players: Finder.com put together a panel of 10 fintech experts to discuss just how high the price of cryptocurrencies might climb and whether or not average folks should be investing their hard-earned money in digital assets. Half of the panelists say that now is the time for regular people to buy bitcoin. And 4 of the panelists think Bitcoin will exceed its all-time high price of around USD$20,000 during this bull run. While the overall sentiment is that the crypto market will continue to climb in the short term, the experts warn of what could come afterward. Half of the panelists think this bull run will be followed a crash similar to the one the cryptocurrency market suffered in December of 2017.
Banks & Institutions: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has decided once again to kick the can on its decision about a bitcoin ETF. In a ruling published today, the securities watchdog revealed that an answer on the VanEck/SolidX Bitcoin ETF as proposed by the Cboe would be postponed for another 90 days, pushing the deadline back to August 19. The crypto community wasn’t shocked by the announcement, but the bitcoin price has retreated modestly from Sunday’s fresh 2019 highs. Despite the pullback in the bitcoin price, the cryptocurrency market has several major catalysts this year that will continue to fuel the bull market.
Adoption: Square, the $32.7 billion mobile payment company founded by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, is one step closer to launching its long-awaited crypto project. The company claimed last night that bitcoin mass adoption is “inevitable” and it is close to making its first hire. In March 2019, Square CEO Jack Dorsey announced his company would hire three or four developers and a designer to work on the open-source Bitcoin ecosystem. Many Bitcoin developers are volunteers, but Dorsey wants to fund the growth of Bitcoin directly through Square Crypto.
