News
Web3 developer platform Alchemy has acquired HeyMint, a California-based non-fungible token (NFT) launchpad, in a move designed to enhance the company’s smart wallet infrastructure.
The undisclosed funding deal will see HeyMint’s infrastructure embedded within Alchemy as it seeks to simplify user onboarding for Web3 applications, the company disclosed on May 23. HeyMint’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Flor Ronsmans De Vry, joins Alchemy as part of the deal.
While not a household name in crypto, HeyMint attracted more than 1 million users over its first two years of operations. It was the launchpad behind $38 million in NFT sales and supported the Web3 efforts of major brands, including The Sandbox, Universal Music Group and Ubisoft.
In 2023, HeyMint facilitated NFT sales for the Partnership for Central America, a private sector coalition that included Mastercard.
The HeyMint acquisition is Alchemy’s second funding deal this month. The company recently acquired Dexter Lab, a real-time data infrastructure provider for Solana, for an undisclosed amount.
Related: VC Roundup: 8-figure funding deals suggest crypto bull market far from over
Crypto mergers, acquisitions are heating up
2025 is shaping up to be a more active year for crypto mergers and acquisitions (M&As), especially in the United States, where regulatory clarity and a pro-industry administration are encouraging dealmaking.
There has been a flurry of high-profile deals in recent weeks, including Robinhood’s acquisition of Canadian digital asset operator WonderFi for $179 million and Coinbase’s $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said his crypto exchange is eyeing more M&A opportunities.
One of the biggest acquisitions was completed in April when Ripple purchased prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25 billion — a deal the payments company said would expand its horizons within institutional finance.
Beyond M&As, crypto venture capital funding has also been on the rise. PitchBook data revealed that, while the number of deals declined last quarter, the value of investments more than doubled compared to a year earlier.
Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story
Key points:
Bitcoin joins risk assets in a knee-jerk reaction to the latest instalment of the US trade war, this time focused on the EU.
BTC price action dives up to 4% before recovering with $110,000 now a resistance level.
Traders demand that price holds higher levels going forward to protect bullish momentum.
Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility into the May 23 Wall Street open as news headlines liquidated longs.
Bitcoin trips as Trump says EU talks “going nowhere”
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting lows of $107,367 on Bitstamp before rebounding.
This marked daily losses of up to 4% as markets reacted to comments from US President Donald Trump over tariffs on the European Union.
“Our discussions with them are going nowhere!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
“Therefore, I am recommending a straight 50% Tariff on the European Union, starting on June 1, 2025.”
US stocks reacted immediately at the open, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index down 1% and 1.2%, respectively, at the time of writing.
Reflecting on the latest developments, crypto market participants were unsurprised, given the existing precedent for tariff-related volatility.
“Nice aggregate flush of long leverage & de-risk selling from spot,” popular trader Skew summarized in a post on X.
“All driven by headlines once again.”
Data from monitoring resource CoinGlass put 4-hour liquidations at nearly $350 million, with the 24-hour tally at over $500 million.
“There's the break from the compression with a push from Trump. Markets worldwide obviously not liking the news,” fellow trader Daan Crypto Trades continued.
“Will have to see where this settles today and how BTC ends up performing relative to equities now the trade uncertainty is back.”
Commenting on the macro outlook, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter suggested that the Trump administration was caught between a rock and a hard place.
“We have now learned: Too much tariff pressure causes the basis trade to unwind. Too little tariff pressure causes inflation expectations to rise,” it wrote in part of an X response.
“Now, President Trump must find a middle ground to maintain tariffs but also suppress treasury yields WITHOUT Fed cuts.”
Kobeissi referred to the Federal Reserve’s unwillingness to hasted interest rate cuts despite declining inflation — a key ingredient in further risk-asset upside.
Related: Bitcoin buyer dominance at $111K suggests 'another wave' of gains
Elsewhere, traders eyed key BTC price levels to preserve going forward as the market sought a rebound.
“We need to hold the green zone,” trader Crypto Caesar argued alongside a chart showing an area of interest immediately below $110,000.
Another trader, Poseidon, acknowledged the comparative lack of resistance above spot price, keeping the door open to easy upside.
Don’t forget: above here, it’s nothing but thin air. No resistance in sight.$BTC pic.twitter.com/ugQEGQIcpD
— Poseidon (@CryptoPoseidonn) May 23, 2025
“Front ran $110K tag,” Skew continued alongside a chart of order book liquidity concentrations.
“Important level from here for the market to auction above (key for continuation).”
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
Opinion by: Grigore Roșu, founder and chief executive officer of Pi Squared
For some, the audacity of questioning the primacy of blockchain in Web3 is borderline heretical. The idea that decentralization and progress could exist without blockchains seems absurd to those who built careers around Bitcoin, Ethereum, and their descendants. Given blockchain's well-documented scaling limits, however, there is an argument to be made that Web3 doesn't actually need blockchains to thrive. Instead, it requires payment systems and verifiable settlement systems that are super fast. Blockchains are just one way to achieve that, not the only way.
While blockchain solved the double-spending problem, it introduced its own architectural burden: the rigid fixation on total ordering, dictating that every transaction must wait its turn in a global queue, processed through a monolithic consensus mechanism. Initially, this made sense in the context of payments, where security and simplicity were paramount. Still, in the context of Web3, where complex applications require speed, flexibility, and scale, this same mechanism has become a constraint. It imposes a kind of serialized tyranny, throttling throughput and locking developers into a narrow lane of design options.
The undeniable influence of FastPay
Mobile remittance app FastPay proved that double-spending can be avoided differently without a total order. This inspired systems like Linera, which use independent local orderings while maintaining global verifiability, proving that a different, more scalable future is possible and already underway. FastPay also inspired the likes of POD and Sui's single-owner objects protocol. If FastPay had been invented before Bitcoin, blockchain might never have captured the cultural or technical imagination in the way that it did.
Recent: Beijing to invest in blockchain, integrate into infrastructure
Some will no doubt argue that total ordering is essential for financial integrity or that without blockchains, decentralization itself unravels. These concerns, however, mistake a particular implementation of trustlessness for trustlessness itself. What truly underpins decentralized systems is the verifiability of a transaction, not the precise order in which it happened relative to every other global transaction.
Blockchain's growing pains are still on display
While Ethereum's Dencun upgrade sought to improve transaction throughput through "blobs," the core architecture remains tied to total ordering. Even with Solana's introduction of the Lattice system, the network continues to suffer outages caused by bugs and excessive load. Additionally, the explosion of L2s is more a workaround than a solution, offloading transactions from mainnets only to reintroduce them later in delayed batches, resulting in an endless cycle of what is essentially congestion management.
The rise of flexible payment and settlement protocols
Like in legacy tech circles, the “evolve or die” mantra certainly applies to investors and builders anchored to traditional blockchain architectures. Moving forward, protocols prioritizing flexible, verifiable payment systems and settlement over rigid total ordering will unlock far greater throughput and better user experiences. As decentralized applications evolve and autonomous agents driven by AI begin interacting with blockchains, the cost of sequencing everything in order will become a competitive liability.
There have already been signs of this tectonic shift taking place, with the growing adoption of modular blockchain frameworks like Celestia underscoring a broader recognition that classical blockchains are too inflexible. Data availability layers, execution shards and offchain verification mechanisms are all attempts to decouple blockchain's trusted validation from its limiting sequencing model. While these efforts may not break entirely from the past, they point unmistakably toward a future of more adaptable infrastructure.
A new role for blockchain
This doesn't mean blockchain will disappear, but it must evolve. Looking ahead, its most enduring role may be as a universal verifier, less a master ledger and more of a decentralized notary within a broader, more agile stack. While this is a necessary evolution, unfortunately, it's hard to see how that shift will be smooth, as too much capital, ideology and career risk is tied up in the legacy narrative.
Many venture funds, DeFi protocols, and "Ethereum killers" are financially and reputationally invested in keeping the blockchain central. But history has little mercy for technological incumbents that cling to yesterday's model. Just as the internet outgrew its early walled gardens, Web3 is poised to move beyond the rigidity of block-based sequencing. The fruits from the next wave of infrastructure will belong to those who understand and capitalize on this inflection point.
Opinion by: Grigore Roșu, founder and chief executive officer of Pi Squared.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
The top 220 holders of US President Donald Trump’s memecoin met yesterday at the president’s golf course in Virginia for an exclusive dinner and purported meet-and-greet.
Attendees spent a grand total of $148 million for an “ultra-exclusive VIP reception with the president,” which crypto industry advocates and critics alike saw as a potential opportunity to discuss crypto policy with the president.
The crowd contained a number of foreign crypto executives and influencers who otherwise would not have access to the US president, raising questions around corruption and foreign influence.
Concerns were further augmented when White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to release a list of attendees, stating that the event was a private affair outside of Trump’s presidential duties.
However, some attendees spoke to the press or took to social media to talk about the dinner. Here are just a few:
Justin Sun
Tron founder Justin Sun was the largest TRUMP tokenholder at the gala, which was reportedly enough to earn him a special watch, presented in a special ceremony.
Sun’s presence at the event was particularly controversial. Last year, he faced a lawsuit brought by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over the alleged “orchestration of the unregistered offer and sale, manipulative trading, and unlawful touting of crypto asset securities.”
The SEC asked for a reprieve in late February, just over a month since Trump’s inauguration and the subsequent 180 in federal agencies’ approach toward regulating crypto.
Outside the crypto dinner, Sun posted on May 21 that he would be spending a week in Washington, DC to have “meaningful conversations that will help shape the next chapter of blockchain’s future” in the United States.
Kain Warwick
Kain Warwick, founder of crypto exchange operator iFinex, told The New York Times on May 12 that he was attending the event after stocking up on enough TRUMP to break the top 25 investors on the leaderboard.
Warwick said he wanted to have a shot at meeting the president, or someone on his team, to talk crypto — specifically decentralized finance (DeFi), which is getting less attention in the current crop of crypto bills circulating the US Congress.
“If you assume Trump and 10 people within the Trump team are there, now you’ve got a one in 15 shot of having a conversation with one of them,” he said.
Vincent Liu
Vincent Liu, chief investment officer of crypto trading, VC and market-making firm Kronos Research, attended the event, posting pictures of the menu and Trump’s brief speech.
Liu wrote, “Simply by holding the Trump token, individuals have an unprecedented opportunity to meet the President of the United States.”
He had previously told Cointelegraph, “The decision to acquire the [TRUMP] token was not political. It was based on identifying early momentum, cultural relevance and potential market catalysts.”
Related: US lawmaker introduces anti-corruption bill ahead of Trump's dinner
His firm stated that “alpha” — i.e., exclusive or difficult-to-obtain information that could move markets — was “on the menu.”
Lamar Odom
Also in attendance was two-time National Basketball Association champion Lamar Odom. While many other crypto entrepreneurs in the audience were focused on policy, Odom used news of his attendance to plug his own memecoin, ODOM.
Odom launched his memecoin less than a week before the dinner on May 14. The anti-addiction-themed memecoin (Odom had a public battle with substance addiction) is issued on the Solana blockchain.
The coin itself had a 20% “Trump Dinner Program” staking scheme, where TRUMP holders could stake their coins with Odom’s project, ostensibly to enable him to attend the dinner event, and receive ODOM airdrops in return. Odom himself will hold 5% of all ODOM.
Sangrok Oh
CEO of Seoul- and Tokyo-based cryptocurrency management firm Hyperithm, Sangrok Oh was the 13th-largest TRUMP holder with a wallet containing over $3 million worth of the token, according to the Straits Times.
Oh told The New York Times that he had arrived with a batch of red “Make Crypto Great Again” hats to give away at the dinner and expected to speak directly with the president. “It’s kind of a fund-raiser [...] And he’ll always be good to his sponsors.”
Oh has been critical of the slow regulatory progress for crypto in the countries where his company operates.
Anonymous attendees
In addition to crypto execs and sports stars, the event also noted a few anonymous or pseudonymous crypto traders and entrepreneurs in attendance.
Among them was “Ice,” co-founder of the Singaporean crypto company MemeCore. Their company’s chief business development officer, Cherry Hsu, told Sherwood News that Trump’s rise “represents the power of memes to influence culture, perception, and movements — principles that align with MemeCore’s vision of a decentralized, community-driven future.”
“Ogle,” a cybersecurity adviser to Trump’s own World Liberty Financial crypto enterprise, as well as the pseudonymous co-founder of blockchain ecosystem Glue, also attended. Ogle said they were going out of curiosity, more than anything, and did not endorse Trump personally. “I’m hoping it’ll be fun — and hoping they’ll serve McDonald’s.”
Another anonymous attendee was “Cryptoo Bear,” a crypto trader and occasional news reporter who posts primarily in Japanese. Cryptoo Bear made no political statements about the event, mainly posting about the swag and the food. They did say they were promised a photo op with the president, but it didn’t pan out.
Dinner “guests” across the picket line
Outside the country club, US senators and former staffers attended the event as part of a protest.
Bloomberg reported that protestors shouted “Shame!” and “I hope you choke on your dinner!” at attendees. Critics of the event widely consider it to be a glaring example of corruption in Washington and within the Trump administration.
Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, joined the protest. “The spirit of the Constitution was that no one elected would be selling influence to anyone,” he said, “because it’s to be government by and for the people.”
Ken Papaj, a former Treasury Department official, said, “Every time there’s a transaction, he gets a transaction fee? Just unconscionable what he’s doing.”
The dinner comes at a pivotal time for the crypto industry in the US, where the industry is pushing hard for Congress to pass friendly regulations. Trump’s ties may complicate matters, however, as lawmakers have introduced anti-corruption bills targeting crypto and politicians.
Senate Democrats are also taking aim at the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act, introducing a slew of amendments addressing Trump’s crypto businesses.
Magazine: AI cures blindness, ‘good’ propaganda bots, OpenAI doomsday bunker: AI Eye
Key takeaways:
Ethereum is forming a bull flag on the daily chart, with a potential breakout to $4,000.
If Ethereum’s network activity and total value locked continue to grow, ETH price may see further gains.
Ether’s price printed a “bull flag” on the daily chart, a technical chart formation associated with strong upward momentum. Could a strengthening technical setup and increasing transaction fees signal the continuation of ETH’s rally toward $4,000?
Ethereum transaction fees rising is bullish
Marketwide recovery, fueled by Bitcoin’s rise to new all-time highs and improving macroeconomic conditions, saw Ether’s (ETH) price rise by nearly 56% to an eight-week high of $2,734 on May 23, from a low of $1,750 on May 6.
This strength in price is reflected in onchain activity, with Ethereum’s daily transaction count rising by 37% over the last 30 days. These levels were last seen in January 2024, when the hype around the approval of US-based spot Bitcoin ETFs pushed ETH price above $4,000 for the first time since December 2021.
Ethereum's daily average transaction fees also skyrocketed, reaching a 90-day high of 0.0005 ETH ($1.33) on May 22.
High transaction count and fees suggest that more users are interacting with the network, whether for DeFi, NFTs, or other DApps. It suggests high network activity, often correlating with increased interest and market confidence.
Related: Ethereum holders back in profit as ETH price enters 'crucial area' for $3K breakout
Historically, Ether’s price has surged during high-usage periods. For example, during the 2021 DeFi boom, fees spiked to as high as 0.015 ETH due to high demand.
As such, high utilization periods with high fees indicate growth in network activity or bullish sentiment, as more ETH is needed for gas, pushing its price upward.
Increasing TVL supports ETH price bulls
The increase in Ethereum’s network activity is also evident when analyzing the total value locked (TVL) on the network’s smart contracts.
Ethereum’s TVL has risen to $65.3 billion on May 23 from $45.26 billion on April 22, an increase of over 44% in almost 30 days.
Positive signs include a 51% increase in deposits on Pendle, a tokenization protocol, and 48% growth on Ether.fi and EingenLayer.
Ethereum remains the undisputed leader by TVL, with a market dominance of 54%. In comparison, Solana’s dominance stands at 8%, and BNB Chain commands only 5% dominance in TVL among layer-1 chains.
In addition, US-listed spot Ether ETFs saw a total of $249 million in net inflows between May 13 and May 22, adding to demand-side tailwinds.
Ether’s bull flag hints at $4,000
ETH price has formed a bull fag chart pattern on the daily chart, as shown below.
A bull flag pattern is a bullish setup that forms after the price consolidates inside a down-sloping range following a sharp price rise.
The flag resolved after the price broke above the upper trendline at $2,550 and could now rise by as much as the previous uptrend’s height. This puts the upper target for ETH price just below $4,000, up 56% from the current price.
Crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe said that the ETH price needs to hold the $2,400 support to increase the chances of moving toward $3,500 and beyond.
As Cointelegraph reported, Ether’s uptrend is likely to continue toward $3,600 in May if key support levels hold.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a civil forfeiture complaint to seize more than $24 million in cryptocurrency from Rustam Rafailevich Gallyamov, a Russian national accused of developing the Qakbot malware.
According to a May 22 announcement, the DOJ unsealed charges against the 48-year-old Moscovite with a federal indictment. Gallyamov is allegedly the malware developer behind the Qakbot botnet.
“Today’s announcement of the Justice Department’s latest actions to counter the Qakbot malware scheme sends a clear message to the cybercrime community,” said Matthew Galeotti, head of the DOJ’s criminal division.
Galeotti highlighted that the DOJ is “determined to hold cybercriminals accountable.” He added that the department will “use every legal tool” to “identify you, charge you, forfeit your ill-gotten gains, and disrupt your criminal activity.”
Related: Microsoft takes legal action against infostealer Lumma
Over $24 million forfeited
US Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California explained that “the criminal charges and forfeiture case announced today are part of an ongoing effort” to “identify, disrupt, and hold accountable cybercriminals.” He added:
“The forfeiture action against more than $24 million in virtual assets also demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to seizing ill-gotten assets from criminals in order to ultimately compensate victims.”
Assistant Director in Charge Akil Davis of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office said that Qakbot was crippled by the agency and its partners in 2023. Still, Gallyamov allegedly continued deploying alternative methods to offer his malware to potential partners.
Related: Chinese printer maker spread Bitcoin stealing malware — Report
Qakbot used in global ransomware attacks
Gallyamov allegedly operated the Qakbot malware as far back as 2008. In 2019, he allegedly used it to infect thousands of victim computers to establish a so-called botnet.
Access to computers that were part of the botnet was sold to others who infected them with ransomware, including Prolock, Dopplepaymer, Egregor, REvil, Conti, Name Locker, Black Bast and Cactus. In 2023, a US-led international operation disrupted the Qakbot botnet and malware.
At the time, over 170 Bitcoin (BTC) and over $4 million in USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC) stablecoins were seized from Gallyamov. According to the indictment, he and his collaborators continued the activity after it was disrupted, adopting new techniques, including directly deploying Black Basta and Cactus ransomware.
Magazine: Report on Crypto Exchange Hacks
Understanding the Curve Finance DNS hijacking
On May 12, 2025, at 20:55 UTC, hackers hijacked the “.fi” domain name system (DNS) of Curve Finance after managing to access the registrar. They began sending its users to a malicious website, attempting to drain their wallets. This was the second attack on Curve Finance’s infrastructure in a week.
Users were directed to a website that was a non-functional decoy, designed only to trick users into providing wallet signatures. The hack hadn’t breached the protocol’s smart contracts and was limited to the DNS layer.
The DNS is a critical component of the internet that functions like a phonebook. It allows you to use simple, memorable domain names (such as facebook.com) instead of complex numerical IP addresses (like 192.168.1.1) for websites. DNS converts these user-friendly domain names into the IP addresses computers require to connect.
This is not the first time Curve Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has suffered such an attack. Back in August 2022, Curve Finance faced an attack with similar tactics. The attackers had cloned the Curve Finance website and interfered with its DNS settings to send users to a duplicate version of the website. Users who tried using the platform ended up losing their money to the attackers. The project was using the same registrar, “iwantmyname,” at the time of the previous attack.
How attackers execute DNS hijacking in crypto
When a user types a web address, their device queries a DNS server to retrieve the corresponding IP address and connect to the correct website. In DNS hijacking, fraudsters interfere with this process by altering how DNS queries are resolved, rerouting users to malicious sites without their knowledge.
Fraudsters execute DNS hijacking in several ways. Attackers might exploit vulnerabilities in DNS servers, compromise routers, or gain access to domain registrar accounts. The objective is to change the DNS records so that a user trying to visit a legitimate site is redirected to a fake, lookalike page containing wallet-draining code.
Types of DNS hijacking include:
- Local DNS hijack: Malware on a user’s device changes DNS settings, redirecting traffic locally.
- Router hijack: Attackers compromise home or office routers to alter DNS for all connected devices.
- Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts DNS queries between user and server, altering responses on the fly.
- Registrar-level hijack: Attackers gain access to a domain registrar account and modify official DNS records, affecting all users globally.
Did you know? During the Curve Finance DNS attack in 2023, users accessing the real domain unknowingly signed malicious transactions. The back end was untouched, but millions were lost through a spoofed front end.
How DNS hijacking worked in the case of Curve Finance
When attackers compromise a website with DNS hijacking, they can reroute traffic to a malicious website without the user’s knowledge.
There are several ways DNS hijacking can occur. Attackers might infect a user’s device with malware that alters local DNS settings, or they may gain control of a router and change its DNS configuration. They may also target DNS servers or domain registrars themselves. In such cases, they modify the DNS records at the source, affecting all users trying to access the site.
In the case of Curve Finance, the attackers infiltrated the systems of the domain registrar “iwantmyname” and altered the DNS delegation of the “curve.fi” domain to redirect traffic to their own DNS server.
A domain registrar is a company authorized to manage the reservation and registration of internet domain names. It allows individuals or organizations to claim ownership of a domain and link it to web services like hosting and email.
The precise method of the breach is still under investigation. By May 22, 2025, no evidence of unauthorized access or compromised credentials was found.
Did you know? DNS hijacking attacks often succeed by compromising domain registrar accounts through phishing or poor security. Many Web3 projects still host domains with centralized providers like GoDaddy or Namecheap.
How Curve Finance responded to the hack
While the registrar was slow to respond, the Curve team took measures to deal with the situation. It successfully redirected the “.fi” domain to neutral nameservers, thus taking the website offline while efforts to regain control continued.
To ensure safe access to the frontend and secure fund management, the Curve team quickly launched a secure alternative at “curve.finance,” now serving as the official Curve Finance interface temporarily.
Upon discovering the exploit at 21:20 UTC, the following actions were taken:
- Users were immediately notified through official channels
- Requested the takedown of the compromised domain
- Initiated mitigation and domain recovery processes
- Collaborated with security partners and the registrar to coordinate a response.
Compromise of the domain notwithstanding, the Curve protocol and its smart contracts remained secure and fully operational. During the disruption of the front end, Curve processed over $400 million in onchain volume. No user data was at risk, as Curve’s front end does not store any user information.
Throughout the compromise, the Curve team was always available through its Discord server, where users could raise issues with them.
After implementing immediate damage control measures, the Curve team is now taking additional steps to prepare for the future.
- Assessing and enhancing registrar-level security, incorporating stronger protections and exploring alternative registrars
- Investigating decentralized front-end options to eliminate dependence on susceptible web infrastructure
- Partnering with the broader DeFi and Ethereum Name Service (ENS) communities to advocate for native browser support for “.eth” domains.
Did you know? Unlike smart contract exploits, DNS hijacks leave no trace onchain initially, making it hard for users to realize they have been tricked until funds are gone. It is a stealthy form of crypto theft.
How crypto projects can deal with DNS hijacking vulnerability
The Curve Finance attack is concerning because it bypassed the decentralized security mechanisms at the protocol level. Curve’s backend, meaning its smart contracts and onchain logic, remained unharmed, yet users lost funds because they were deceived at the interface level. This incident underscores a significant vulnerability in DeFi.
While the backend may be decentralized and trustless, the front end still depends on centralized Web2 infrastructure like DNS, hosting and domain registrars. Attackers can exploit these centralized choke points to undermine trust and steal funds.
The Curve attack serves as a wake-up call for the crypto industry to explore decentralized web infrastructure, such as InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and Ethereum Name Service (ENS), to reduce reliance on vulnerable centralized services.
To address the gap between decentralized backends and centralized frontends, crypto projects must adopt a multi-layered approach.
Here are various ways crypto projects can deal with this gap:
- Minimize reliance on traditional DNS: They can minimize reliance on traditional DNS by integrating decentralized alternatives of DNS like the ENS or Handshake, which reduce the risk of registrar-level hijacks.
- Use decentralized file storage systems: Hosting frontends on decentralized file storage systems such as IPFS or Arweave adds another layer of protection.
- Implement domain name system security extensions (DNSSEC): Teams should implement DNSSEC to verify the integrity of DNS records and prevent unauthorized changes.
- Secure registrar accounts: Registrar accounts must be secured with strong authentication methods, including multifactor authentication (MFA) and domain locking.
- Train users: Educating users to verify site authenticity, such as bookmarking URLs or checking ENS records, can reduce phishing success rates.
Bridging the trust gap between decentralized protocols and centralized interfaces is essential for maintaining security and user confidence in DeFi platforms.
The bounty offer to recover stolen funds from Sui-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Cetus closely resembles a successful strategy used by a Solana project three years ago.
It turns out that Cetus shares the same development team as Crema Finance, a Solana-based DeFi project that suffered a $9-million hack in 2022 but recovered most of the funds by negotiating with its hacker. Now, Cetus is relying on the same strategy.
Cetus is asking the hacker to return all but $6 million, or 2,324 Ether (ETH), of the stolen funds in exchange for a promise not to pursue legal action. The protocol lost $223 million to an exploit on May 22.
The size of the bounty has sparked backlash from users, with many calling for a formal compensation plan instead. Several community members argue that even if funds are recovered, most of the damage has already been done — especially to holders of the CETUS token, which plummeted in value following the incident.
Meanwhile, Sui validators are also under fire for their role in freezing the funds. The move is aimed at aiding recovery, yet critics say it exposes centralization risks in the network.
Sui’s Cetus devs have a phantom exchange on Solana
A similar negotiation strategy used by the Cetus team on Sui was successfully employed years ago to recover funds for Crema. The Solana project hasn’t posted on its X account since March 2023, and its trading platform now sees negligible volume, but it still didn’t end well for the hacker.
Crema suffered an approximately $9-million hack in 2022. Much like the Cetus case, the Crema hacker was offered a deal to return the funds while keeping $1.6 million in exchange for not reporting the attack to law enforcement.
The hacker is believed to have been caught and sent to prison. In April 2024, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York sentenced Shakeeb Ahmed to three years in prison for hacking two separate cryptocurrency exchanges. One was identified as Nirvana Finance, while the other was not named.
Related: Which senators invest in crypto? 11 lawmakers have blockchain-related investments
The details of the unnamed exchange’s case match Crema’s hack, including the exact date of the exploit and the terms of the agreement.
Norbert Bodziony, founder of Nightly App, claims the Cetus team was behind Crema Finance.
Bodziony declined to disclose how he learned of the relationship to Cointelegraph but added that the connection is “commonly known” in Sui’s developer circles.
Cointelegraph reached out to Cetus to confirm the connection between the two projects, but the team had not responded by publication.
Cointelegraph has separately learned that both projects are founded by Henry Du.
Save Cetus; centralize Sui
Sui’s validators have collectively blocked transactions from the hacker’s addresses, effectively freezing $162 million of the stolen funds on Sui. Around $63 million had already been bridged to Ethereum before these controls were implemented.
Although the coordinated effort has been effective in preventing the funds from being laundered, the cryptocurrency community has criticized Sui for being too centralized.
“SUI’s validators are colluding to CENSOR the hacker’s TXs right now! Does that make SUI centralized? The short answer is YES; what matters more is why? The ‘founders’ own the majority of supply & there are only 114 validators!” Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital, wrote on X.
As Bons pointed out, Sui has just 114 validators — far fewer than its more established smart contract peers. Ethereum has over 1 million validators, while Solana has 1,157.
Meanwhile, members of the Sui community defended the move, arguing that this is how real-world decentralized chains should function.
“Decentralization isn’t about standing by while people get hurt, it’s about the power to act together, without needing permission,” said one member of the Sui community.
Related: WLFI’s DeFi credentials under fire after Sui partnership
Following the hack, Sui developers committed code for a proposed function that would have allowed specific transactions to bypass all signing and safety checks by adding them to a whitelist.
While the function could have been used to help recover stolen funds, it also raised concerns about centralized control and the erosion of decentralization. The code was ultimately not merged and is not live on the network.
Sui and Cetus backlash contrasts recent hacks
The Cetus exploit has spotlighted the persistent security challenges in DeFi while raising deeper questions around who holds the reins in supposedly decentralized networks like Sui.
The team’s $6-million offer to the hacker mirrors the playbook it used with Crema — but this time, the crypto community isn’t as forgiving. With CETUS tanking, trust fractured and validators freezing funds, critics are asking whether Sui’s decentralization is more appearance than reality.
The debate over decentralization isn’t unique to Sui. When Bybit lost $1.4 billion in a February hack linked to North Korean state actors, security experts and users urged platforms like THORChain and eXch to block the funds.
In that case, THORChain received some backlash for not stepping in, which is the exact opposite of what Sui is being criticized for now.
As of now, the hacker hasn’t accepted Cetus’ offer. Two Ethereum wallets tied to the exploiter still hold over $60 million in ETH, with no movement at the time of writing. The Sui addresses remain paralyzed.
Magazine: TradFi is building Ethereum L2s to tokenize trillions in RWAs: Inside story
In this week’s episode of Byte-Sized Insight, on Decentralize with Cointelegraph, we break down a pivotal moment for US crypto legislation.
In a 66–32 procedural vote on May 19, the US Senate advanced the GENIUS Act, a landmark bill aimed at establishing a comprehensive regulatory framework for stablecoins. Meanwhile, across the Capitol, Representative Tom Emmer reintroduced the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, backed by bipartisan support.
Breaking down GENIUS
The GENIUS Act — short for “Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act” — seeks to answer foundational questions around stablecoin issuance and oversight.
“It defines this idea of a payment stablecoin,” explained Rashan Colbert, director of US policy at the Crypto Council for Innovation, in this week’s interview. Colbert emphasized that the bill doesn’t stop at definitions.
“It outlines in a robust way just who’s allowed to do this and what they need to look like.”
By this, he’s referring to guidelines on who can be permitted issuers like bank subsidiaries, credit unions and approved non-bank entities.
Related: Interest groups, lawmakers to protest Trump’s memecoin dinner
This bipartisan momentum seen backing the GENIUS Act is both exciting and significant.
“There has been latent support within Congress, including within the Democratic caucus,” Colbert said. “They just haven’t had the opportunity to take meaningful votes.”
Blockchain dev protection
On the House side, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, co-sponsored by Representatives Emmer and Ritchie Torres, aims to give legal clarity to developers and service providers who don’t custody customer funds.
“It clarifies that they are not money transmitters,” said Colbert. “That’s the clarity these builders and entrepreneurs need to continue operating successfully.”
With crypto adoption on the rise — particularly among minority communities — Colbert said the pressure is on. “Something like one in five Americans hold crypto. That number is even larger in the Black, Latino and Asian-American communities,” he noted.
Looking ahead, the push toward broader market structure reform will be more complex. Colbert’s advice? Get involved. “It really is, at the end of the day, the people making their voices heard,” he said. “Crypto is a big deal — and Capitol Hill is finally starting to listen.”
Listen to the full episode of Byte-Sized Insight for the complete interview on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!
Magazine: Legal Panel: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight
Today in crypto, Changpeng Zhao has responded forcefully to The Wall Street Journal’s latest report linking the former Binance CEO’s crypto dealings with the Trump-back decentralized finance platform World Liberty Financial, United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Summer Mersinger said crypto perpetual futures could soon come to the US, and lawmakers plan to amend the GENIUS Act to bar sitting presidents from profiting off stablecoins.
CZ refutes claims in latest WSJ article on Trump-linked crypto dealings
Binance co-founder and former CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has pushed back against a report in The Wall Street Journal, calling it a “hit piece” filled with inaccuracies and negative assumptions.
In an X post, Zhao criticized the publication’s portrayal of his alleged involvement with World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance project backed by a business entity affiliated with US President Donald Trump. Trump’s sons — Eric and Donald Jr. —are involved in the management of the company.
Zhao said the WSJ article portrayed him as acting as a “fixer” for the WLF team and its co-founder Zach Witkoff during foreign trips.
The article suggested Zhao facilitated introductions and meetings for WLF leaders during foreign trips, including a visit to Pakistan that reportedly resulted in a memorandum of understanding with a local official.
“I am not a fixer for anyone,” Zhao said, firmly denying that he connected Pakistani official “Mr. Saqib” with WLF or organized any engagements abroad. “They had known each other way back, whereas I only met with Mr. Saqib for the first time in Pakistan.”
Crypto perp futures coming “very soon” to US: CFTC’s Mersinger
Outgoing Commodities and Futures Trading Commission Commissioner Summer Mersinger said on May 22 that the regulator could greenlight crypto perpetual futures contracts “very soon.”
“We’re seeing some applications, and I believe we’ll see some of those products trading live very soon,” she told Bloomberg TV, adding it would be “great to get that trading back onshore in the United States.”
Crypto perpetual futures are derivative contracts that allow traders to speculate, often with high leverage, on the price of a cryptocurrency without actually owning it and can be held indefinitely.
Mersinger, who will leave the CFTC at the end of May to join the crypto lobby group the Blockchain Association as CEO, said having crypto derivatives trading and regulated in the US would be a “really good thing for these markets and would be really beneficial to the industry broadly.”
Senators plan to amend GENIUS Act to address Trump family's stablecoin
Though a majority of members of the US Senate voted to advance a bill to regulate payment stablecoins on May 20, high-ranking Democrats are planning to propose an amendment to the legislation to address President Donald Trump’s connections to the cryptocurrency industry.
According to a May 22 Axios report, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley will file an amendment to the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins Act, or GENIUS Act, to block a US president from profiting from stablecoins. The proposed amendment would come after 18 Democrats sided with Republicans in the Senate in voting to advance the bill on May 20 after it failed a procedural vote on May 8.
“Passing the GENIUS Act without our anti-corruption amendment stamps a Congressional seal of approval on Trump selling access and influence to the highest bidder,” Merkley said in a May 22 X post.
Trump and his three sons are involved in the crypto platform World Liberty Financial (WLFI), which launched its USD1 stablecoin in March. Critics have pointed out that the president could continue to personally benefit from legislation that helps recognize stablecoins like USD1 as financial instruments in the US.