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The Trump Effect on Cryptocurrency Prices: When is the Best Time to Buy the Dip?
Original Title: Bitcoin Has Declined 20%. How Soon Could the BTC Price Revive?
Original Author: Steven Ehrlich
Original Translation: Bitpush News
In 2025, the Trump administration delivered a series of "gifts" to the cryptocurrency industry.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) paused enforcement actions and investigations against major cryptocurrency exchanges and companies (such as Coinbase, Gemini, Uniswap, OpenSea, ConsenSys, etc.). The White House issued an executive order aimed at boosting the U.S.'s leadership in the digital asset industry and expressed intentions to establish a Bitcoin reserve.
However, these measures were not enough to prevent the recent decline in Bitcoin's price and the overall negative sentiment in the crypto industry. As of the time of writing, the current Bitcoin price is $84,000, having fallen 18% since Donald Trump took office, nearly 23% from its all-time high, and the cryptocurrency's total market capitalization has dropped by 21%.
Kavita Gupta, Founder and General Partner of Delta Blockchain Fund, stated, "It feels like all the positive news in the cryptocurrency space has happened, and the industry's progress seems to be merely a product of a momentary enthusiasm by high-level political figures, lacking proper processes and due diligence... the situation could change at any moment, with sustainability in question."
Currently, three major forces driving the market down may further push it lower before stabilizing and beginning to recover. In fact, the crypto industry may not see sustained bullish momentum again until 2026.
Internal "Backlash"
There are many explanations for the recent decline, with the first being the behavior of cryptocurrency participants themselves.
For example, the industry found itself in an unfavorable position due to multiple meme coin dramas, such as $MELANIA and later $LIBRA, the latter even involving Argentina's President, Javier Milei, in a scandal. Now, the issuance and trading activity of meme coins in the entire industry are on the decline, raising doubts about their long-term sustainability. For instance, the peak number of new tokens issued in a day reached 66,471 on January 24, just six days after $TRUMP was launched. By February 27, the latest date for which full data is available, this number had dropped to 27,741, a 58% decrease.
GSR Research Director Brian Rudick, when discussing this data, stated: "Meme coins were once thought to be the fairest, most efficient form of speculation in the cryptocurrency space, but $LIBRA has shown that this is not the case. Now you see on-chain transaction volumes plummeting, [even though] meme coins are at the forefront, dragging down the entire cryptocurrency space."
Furthermore, the $1.5 billion hack of Bybit by North Korean hackers (the largest theft in cryptocurrency history) has once again raised questions about the safety of investing in cryptocurrency. Gupta pointed out: "These hacking incidents have led the outside world to believe that even after 10 years of development, this industry has not truly matured."
External Headwinds
All this negative sentiment within the industry is being amplified by investors' broader risk aversion.
Typically, a new government’s inauguration boosts consumer confidence, and business leaders initially welcomed Trump's election because of his pro-business mindset. However, multiple new data points show that consumer confidence is waning, possibly due to Trump's threats to impose 25% tariffs on trade partners like Canada, Mexico, and the EU.
The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index February report recorded its third consecutive monthly decline, hitting its lowest level since August 2021.
The University of Michigan's Consumer Sentiment Survey also shows a significant drop in consumer confidence. The report stated: "Consumer sentiment continued its decline from earlier in the month, dropping almost 10% from January. This decline is widespread across age, income, and wealth groups."
The report also mentioned: "Expectations for inflation in the next year have risen from 3.3% to 4.3%, the highest level since November 2023, and have seen abnormally large increases for two consecutive months. The current reading is well above the pre-pandemic range of 2.3%-3.0% for the past two years."
Rudick noted: "According to the latest data from the CME Fedwatch tool, the market expects two rate cuts this year. However, if these expectations are completely overshadowed by tariff issues, the traditional market's decline could surpass that of cryptocurrency."
How Low Could Bitcoin Go?
It's difficult to predict with certainty how far Bitcoin could drop from here.
Interactive Brokers Chief Strategist Steve Sosnick stated that even among commodities, Bitcoin is unique. "You know the supply and demand situations of crude oil, coffee, or cocoa. Bitcoin does not have a similar intrinsic demand. Its existence is purely for speculation or investment purposes."
However, Sosnick pointed out several technical charts that can give investors some insight into price levels to watch.
One of these charts is Bitcoin's 200-day simple moving average. At the current price, the asset is nearing its first test of this key indicator since a clear breakout in mid-October of last year. If this scenario occurs and the asset falls below $80,000, Sosnick believes the next threshold will be the "60,000 USDT high/70,000 USDT low range."
Despite investor sentiment being negative, according to the S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX), the market has not reached a state of full-blown panic yet, with the VIX index still within a normal range over the past 12 months. Sosnick said, "The VIX has not reached extremely high levels, which suggests we may not be out of the woods yet, as rebounds often halt when the VIX spikes."
For Bitcoin, this means it may still see a decline as investors have not reached extreme levels of fear. For example, when the Bank of Japan raised interest rates and unwound yen carry trades, the VIX spiked in August; currently, the VIX is well below those levels.
Waiting for the Wind: 2026?
Given all these negative forces impacting Bitcoin's price, the cryptocurrency industry may need to wait until 2026 for Bitcoin and the entire industry to regain significant forward momentum. When asked about what types of internal or external factors could play a role in this process, the answer is twofold: strategic Bitcoin reserves or legislation definitively setting rules for the industry.
While the cryptocurrency community has been eager to build strategic Bitcoin reserves, the White House's executive order is looking to evaluate something different: a federal reserve, where the government would opt to hold Bitcoin acquired through enforcement actions rather than strategic reserves, where the government would purchase new Bitcoin. (However, many states are evaluating their own strategic reserves, though few have made meaningful progress.)
Rudick believes something akin to Bitcoin reserves could be beneficial for the industry, but it is far from guaranteed: "[Reserves have] always struck me as a low likelihood, but I do think Bitcoin easily hits $500,000. Even if we don't obtain it in the form of strategic Bitcoin reserves, I do believe the U.S. could create a sovereign wealth fund and accumulate Bitcoin."
But for Rudick, a more sustainable path of growth is enacting market structure legislation to allow regulated companies to legitimately enter the space, though he believes the industry will have to wait until next year to see meaningful progress: "[Legislation] might not happen until 2026. But in my view, [this is] so crucial because it's what institutional mass adoption needs."
As evidence, he pointed to a recent statement by Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, who said that if the industry's rules become clearer, his bank, which has been cautious about cryptocurrency, would consider launching a stablecoin. (At least one source close to Washington negotiations believes stablecoin legislation may not even be signed until 2025.)
But before that, the industry needs to stay steady to weather these adverse factors. After all, this sharp swing in investor sentiment is a big part of the risk of investing in cryptocurrency.
Sosnick summed up the current market situation in one sentence: "Market rises usually feel like taking the stairs, but when it falls, it's like taking the elevator. This time Bitcoin took the elevator to the top floor, and now it's taking the elevator back down to the basement. It's a highly volatile asset. If volatility works in your favor, that's great—everyone is happy to accept and enjoy it, but when volatility moves in the opposite direction, that's just too bad."
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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating
On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.
On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.
Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.
Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.
Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.
According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.
This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.
Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.
In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.
According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.
However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.
The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.
On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.
With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.
In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.
Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.
Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.
In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.
Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.
Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.
Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.
In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.
Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.
Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.
Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.
Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.
Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.
With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.
However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.
In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.
The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.
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1.Binance Alpha Launches HIPPO, BLUE, and Other Tokens
2.Believe Ecosystem Tokens See General Rise, LAUNCHCOIN Surges Over 250% in 24 Hours
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4.Current Bitcoin Rally Possibly Driven by Institutions, Retail Traders Yet to Join
5.Binance Wallet's New TGE Privasea AI Participation Requires a 198 Point Threshold, with a Point Consumption of 15
Source: Overheard on CT (tg: @overheardonct), Kaito
PUMP: Today's discussions about PUMP focus on its new creator revenue-sharing model: the platform will allocate 50% of PumpSwap revenue to token creators, sparking varied reactions from users. Some criticize the move as insufficient or even misleading, while others view it as a positive step the platform is taking to reward creators. Meanwhile, PUMP faces market pressure from emerging competitors like LetsBONKfun and Raydium, which are rapidly gaining market share. Users also express concerns about PUMP's sustainability and potential regulatory risks in the U.S., with discussions extending to the platform's impact on the entire memecoin ecosystem.
COINBASE: Today, Coinbase became the first crypto company to join the S&P 500 Index, replacing Discover Financial Services, sparking widespread industry attention. The entire crypto community views this milestone as a significant development, signaling that crypto assets are further integrating into the mainstream financial system. The news has sparked lively discussions on Twitter, with many users pointing out that this may attract more institutional investors to enter the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency markets.
XRP: XRP became the focal point of today's crypto discussion, with its significant market movements and strategic advances drawing attention. XRP has surpassed USDT to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, sparking market excitement and discussions about its future potential. The surge in market capitalization and price is believed to be related to increasing institutional interest, deepening strategic partnerships, and its role in the crypto ecosystem. Additionally, XRP's integration into multiple financial systems and its potential as a macro asset class are also seen as key factors driving the current market sentiment.
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Ika Receives Strategic Investment from Sui Foundation, Total Funding Exceeds $21 Million
Switzerland Zug, April 28, 2025, Chainwire
The world's fastest parallel MPC network, Ika, is set to launch on the Sui blockchain, announces a strategic investment from the Sui Foundation. Previously, Ika successfully completed a record-breaking 1.4 million SUI NFT art event on Sui. Ika is the world's first sub-second MPC network, capable of achieving zero-trust interoperability among hundreds of signing nodes, unprecedented in scale and rock-solid security.
Ika's core values of performance, speed, and high decentralization align perfectly with Sui. With its upcoming launch on the Sui blockchain, Ika will bring its unparalleled MPC technology into the Sui ecosystem, providing Sui Move smart contract developers with secure cross-Web3 interoperability. This further solidifies Sui's position as the preferred solution in cross-chain DeFi, decentralized custody, chain abstraction, AI-agent defense, native Bitcoin programmability, leveraging the first truly scalable and secure MPC signature scheme.
Ika addresses key bottlenecks of existing MPC networks and delivers unparalleled performance through innovative 2PC-MPC encryption scheme and Sui's Mysticeti consensus protocol:
1. Record Throughput: Ika's transaction processing capability is up to 10,000 times higher than current MPC networks, supporting unprecedented transaction volumes.
2. Ultra-Low Latency: While traditional network signatures may experience delays of 30 seconds or more, Ika can generate signatures in sub-seconds, supporting cross-chain real-time applications.
3. Tremendous Scalability: Ika breaks the conventional limit of 4-8 nodes, and the 2PC-MPC can scale to hundreds or even thousands of signers, enhancing decentralization without sacrificing performance.
4. Zero-Trust Security: Ika's architecture ensures that even in the most extreme scenarios, user assets remain secure, setting a new standard for decentralized security.
Ika's ultra-fast MPC network supports various applications on the Sui blockchain, and several Sui developers have utilized Ika to build tech, including:
· DeFi Interoperability: Ika's sub-second speed and scalability enable instant secure operations within the Web3 ecosystem, bringing liquidity from chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum into Sui. Sui developers Full Sail and Rhei have announced upcoming tech launches based on Ika.
· Decentralized Custody: Ika provides a secure, decentralized custody solution for digital assets on Sui, delivering unparalleled security for both institutional and individual users. Sui developers Aeon and Human Tech have announced the integration of Ika into their technology.
· Chain Abstraction: Ika helps Sui developers abstract away multi-chain complexity for users, combining with Sui's zkLogin feature to deliver a seamless user experience. Sui developers Covault and Lucky Kat have announced the integration of Ika into their technology.
· Programmable Bitcoin: Ika unlocks new possibilities for native BTC on Sui, enabling programmable and secure DeFi and custody. Sui developers Native and Nativerse have announced the upcoming launch of Ika-based technology.
· AI Agent Protection: Ika enhances AI applications on Sui by providing secure MPC protection, ensuring AI agents do not possess unrestricted power and safeguarding user asset security. Sui developers Atoma and Ekko have announced the upcoming launch of Ika-based technology.
The strategic investment in Ika by the Sui Foundation underscores Sui's commitment to driving cutting-edge technology for high performance and decentralization. This amplifies the technical synergy within the Sui ecosystem, propelling Sui and Ika to the forefront of the Web3 revolution, jointly advancing the future of secure, scalable, decentralized infrastructure.
Ika has raised over $21 million in funding, with a peak private valuation of $6 billion FDV, backed by support from Sui Foundation, DCG, Big Brain Holdings, Blockchange, Node Capital, Amplify Partners, Liquid2 Ventures, FalconX, Tykhe Block Ventures, Lightshift, Token Bay Capital, Collider, Zero Knowledge Ventures, NoLimit Holdings, Rubik Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Insignius Capital, Impatient Ventures, Cerulean Ventures, Earl Grey Capital, HDI Ventures, Flowdesk, TPC Ventures, Purechain Capital, Solr DAO, Heroic Ventures, Naval Ravikant, NotVCs, G-20 Group, Artifact Capital, DSRV, Encapsulate, and many other key players in the Web3 space.
Ika also demonstrated the strong support of Sui users by launching the "MF Squid Market" NFT art event, which became the largest and most successful NFT event in Sui's history, raising over 1.4 million SUI and establishing an active grassroots community.
The IKA token is set to native launch on the Sui blockchain, unlocking new decentralized security features and utilities. As the native token of the Ika MPC Network, IKA will play a key role in its ultra-fast, scalable infrastructure, used for paying MPC signature services, enabling seamless transactions within the Web3 ecosystem. Leveraging Sui's unparalleled speed and performance, Ika enhances the security and scalability of the entire ecosystem, introducing the most promising MPC technology in blockchain to the fastest-growing L1 of Web3.
Ika is the world's fastest parallel MPC network, offering sub-second latency, unprecedented scale and decentralization, and zero-trust security. As the preferred choice for interoperability, decentralized custody, and chain abstraction, Ika will fundamentally transform digital asset security and multi-chain DeFi.
Sui is the first Layer 1 blockchain and smart contract platform designed from the ground up to provide fast, private, secure, and inclusive digital assets. Built on the Move programming language, its object-centric model supports parallel execution, sub-second finality, and rich on-chain assets. Through horizontally scalable processing and storage capacity, Sui supports widespread applications at low cost with unparalleled speed. Sui represents a significant advancement in blockchain technology, offering creators and developers a platform to build exceptional user experiences.
Contact:
Ika PR
pr@ika.xyz (mailto:pr@ika.xyz)
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$COIN Joins S&P 500, but Coinbase Isn't Celebrating
On May 13, S&P Dow Jones Indices announced that Coinbase would officially replace Discover Financial Services in the S&P 500 on May 19. While other companies like Block and MicroStrategy, closely tied to Bitcoin, were already part of the S&P 500, Coinbase became the first cryptocurrency exchange whose primary business is in the index. This also signifies that cryptocurrency is gradually moving from the fringes to the mainstream in the U.S.
On the day of the announcement, Coinbase's stock price surged by 23%, surpassing the $250 mark. However, just 3 days later, Coinbase was hit by two consecutive events: a hack where employees were bribed to steal customer data and a demand for a $20 million ransom, and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into the authenticity of its claim of having over 100 million "verified users" in its securities filings and marketing materials. These two events acted as mini-bombs, and at the time of writing, Coinbase's stock had already dropped by over 7.3%.
Coincidentally, Discover Financial Services, being replaced by Coinbase, can also be considered the "Coinbase" of the previous payment era. Discover is a U.S.-based digital banking and payment services company headquartered in Illinois, founded in 1960. Its payment network, Discover Network, is the fourth largest payment network apart from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
In April, after the approval of the acquisition of Discover by the sixth-largest U.S. bank, Capital One, this well-established digital banking company of over 60 years smoothly handed over its S&P 500 "seat" to this emerging cryptocurrency "bank." This unexpected coincidence also portrayed the handover between the new and old eras in Coinbase's entry into the S&P 500, resembling a relay race scene. However, this relay baton also brought Coinbase's accumulated "external troubles and internal strife" to a tipping point.
Over the past decade, cryptocurrency exchanges have been the most stable "profit machines." They play a role in providing liquidity to the entire industry and rely on trading fees to sustain their operations. However, with the comprehensive rollout of ETF products in the U.S. market, this profit model is facing unprecedented challenges. As the leader in the "American stack," with over 80% of its business coming from the U.S., Coinbase is most affected by this.
Starting from the approval of Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs, traditional financial capital has significantly onboarded users and funds that originally belonged to exchanges in a more cost-effective, compliant, and transparent manner. The transaction fee revenue of cryptocurrency exchanges has started to decline, and this trend may further intensify in the coming months.
According to Coinbase's 2024 Q4 financial report, the platform's total trading revenue was $417 million, a 45% year-on-year decrease. The contribution of BTC and ETH's trading revenue dropped from 65% in the same period last year to less than 50%.
This decline is not a result of a decrease in market enthusiasm. In fact, since the approval of the Bitcoin ETF in January 2024, the inflow of BTC into the U.S. market has continued to reach new highs, with asset management giants like BlackRock and Fidelity rapidly expanding their management scale. Data shows that BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) alone has surpassed $17 billion in assets under management. As of mid-May 2025, the cumulative net inflow of 11 major institutional Bitcoin spot ETFs on the market has exceeded $41.5 billion, with a total net asset value of $1214.69 billion, accounting for approximately 5.91% of the total Bitcoin market capitalization.
Institutional investors and some retail investors are shifting towards ETF products, partly due to compliance and tax considerations. On one hand, ETFs have much lower trading costs compared to cryptocurrency exchanges. While Coinbase's spot trading fee rate varies annually in a tiered manner but averages around 1.49%, for example, the management fee for IBIT ETF is only 0.25%, and the majority of ETF institution fees fluctuate around 0.15% to 0.25%.
In other words, the more rational users are, the more likely they are to move from exchanges to ETF products, especially for investors aiming for long-term holdings.
According to multiple sources, several institutions, including VanEck and Grayscale, have submitted applications to the SEC for a Solana (SOL) ETF, with some institutions also planning to submit an XRP ETF proposal. Once approved, this may trigger a new round of fund migration. According to a report submitted by Coinbase to the SEC, as of April, the platform's trading revenue from XRP and Solana accounted for 18% and 10%, nearly one-third of the platform's fee revenue.
However, the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs passed in 2024 also reduced the fees for these two tokens on Coinbase from 30% and 15% to 26% and 10%, respectively. If the SOL and XRP ETFs are approved, it will further undermine the core fee revenue of exchanges like Coinbase.
The expansion of ETF products is gradually weakening the financial intermediary status of cryptocurrency exchanges. From their original roles as matchmakers and clearers to now gradually becoming mere "on-ramps and off-ramps" for funds, exchanges are seeing their marginal value squeezed by ETFs.
On May 12, 2025, SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins gave a keynote speech at the Tokenization and Cryptocurrency Working Group roundtable. The theme of his speech revolved around "It is a new day at the SEC," where he indicated that the SEC would not approach enforcement and regulation the same way as before but would instead pave the way for cryptocurrency assets in the U.S. market.
With signs of cryptocurrency compliance such as the SEC's "NEW DAY" declaration, an increasing number of traditional brokerages are attempting to enter the cryptocurrency industry. One of the most representative cases is the well-known U.S. brokerage Robinhood, which began expanding its crypto business in 2018. By the time of its IPO in 2021, Robinhood's crypto business revenue accounted for over 50% of the company, with a significant boost from the Dogecoin "moonshot" promoted by Musk.
In Q1 2025 earnings report, Robinhood showcased strong growth, especially in revenue from cryptocurrency and options trading. Fueled by Trump's Memecoin, cryptocurrency-related revenue reached $250 million, nearly doubling year-over-year. Consequently, Robinhood Gold subscription users reached 3.5 million, a 90% increase from the previous year, with the rapid growth of Robinhood Gold providing the company with a stable source of income.
Meanwhile, RobinHood is actively pursuing acquisitions in the cryptocurrency space. In 2024, it announced a $2 billion acquisition of the long-standing European cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp. Additionally, Canada's largest cryptocurrency CEX, WonderFi, which recently went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange, also announced its integration with RobinHood Crypto. After obtaining virtual asset licenses in the UK, Canada, Singapore, and other markets, RobinHood has taken a proactive approach in the compliant cryptocurrency trading market.
Furthermore, an increasing number of brokerage firms are exploring the same path. Futu Securities, Tiger Brokers, and others are also dipping their toes into cryptocurrency trading, with some having applied for or obtained the VA license from the Hong Kong SFC. Although their user bases are currently small, traditional brokerages have a natural advantage in user trust, regulatory licenses, and low fee structures. This could pose a threat to native cryptocurrency platforms in the future.
In April 2025, security researchers discovered that some Coinbase user data was leaked on the dark web. While the platform initially responded by attributing it to a "technical misinformation," it still raised concerns among users regarding its security and privacy protection. Just two days before Dow Jones Indexes announced Coinbase's addition to the S&P 500 Index, on May 11, 2025, Coinbase received an email from an unknown threat actor claiming to have obtained customer account information and internal documents, demanding a $20 million ransom to keep the data private. Subsequent investigations confirmed the data breach.
Cybercriminals obtained the data by bribing overseas customer service agents and support staff, mainly in "non-U.S. regions such as India." These agents abused their access to Coinbase's internal customer support system and stole customer data. As early as February this year, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed on X platform that between December 2024 and January 2025, Coinbase users lost over $65 million to social engineering scams, with the actual amount potentially higher.
Among the victims was a well-known figure, 67-year-old Ed Suman, an established artist in the art world for nearly two decades, having been involved in the creation of artworks such as Jeff Koons' "Balloon Dog" sculpture. Earlier this year, he fell victim to an impersonation scam involving fake Coinbase customer support, resulting in a loss of over $2 million in cryptocurrency. ZachXBT critiqued Coinbase for its inadequate handling of such scams, noting that other major exchanges have not faced similar issues and recommending Coinbase to enhance its security measures.
Amidst a series of ongoing social engineering incidents, although there has not been any impact on user assets at the technical level so far, it has raised concerns among many retail and institutional investors. Especially institutions holding massive assets on Coinbase. Just considering the U.S. BTC ETF institutions, as of mid-May 2025, they collectively hold nearly 840,000 BTC, and 75% of these are custodied by Coinbase. If we price BTC at $100,000, this amount reaches a staggering $63 billion, which is equivalent to the nominal GDP of two Iceland in the year 2024.
In addition, Coinbase Custody also serves over 300 institutional clients, including hedge funds, family offices, pension funds, and endowments. As of the Q1 2025 financial report, Coinbase's total assets under management (including institutional and retail clients) reached $404 billion. The specific amount of institutional custodied assets was not explicitly disclosed in the latest report, but it should still be over 50% based on the Q4 2024 report.
Once this security barrier is breached, not only could the rate of user attrition far exceed expectations, but more importantly, institutional trust in it would undermine the foundation of its business. Therefore, after a hacking event, Coinbase's stock price plummeted significantly.
Facing a decline in spot trading fee revenue, Coinbase is also accelerating its transformation, attempting to find growth opportunities in derivatives and emerging assets. Coinbase acquired a stake in the options platform Deribit at the end of 2024 and announced the official launch of perpetual contract products in 2025. This acquisition fills in Coinbase's gap in options trading and its relatively small global market share.
Deribit has a strong presence in non-U.S. markets, especially in Asia and Europe. The acquisition has enabled Coinbase to gain a dominant position in bitcoin and ethereum options trading on Deribit, accounting for approximately 80% of the global options trading volume, with daily trading volume remaining above $2 billion.
Meanwhile, 80-90% of Deribit's customer base consists of institutional investors, with their professionalism and liquidity in the Bitcoin and Ethereum options market highly favored by institutions. Coinbase's compliance advantage, coupled with its already robust institutional ecosystem, makes it even more suitable. By using institutions as an entry point, it can face the squeeze from giants like Binance and OKX in the derivatives market.
Facing a similar dilemma is Kraken, which is attempting to replicate Binance Futures' model in non-U.S. markets. Since the derivatives market relies more on professional users, fee rates are relatively higher and stickiness is stronger, making it a significant source of revenue for exchanges. In the first half of 2025, Kraken completed the acquisition of TradeStation Crypto and a futures exchange, aiming to build a complete derivatives trading ecosystem to hedge the risk of declining spot transaction fee income.
With the surge of Memecoin in 2024, Binance, OKX, and various CEX platforms began massively listing small-market-cap, highly volatile tokens to activate active trading users. Due to the wealth effect and trading activity of Memecoins, Coinbase was also forced to join the battle, successively listing popular tokens from the Solana ecosystem such as BOOK OF MEME and Dogwifhat. Although these coins are controversial, they are frequently traded, with fee rates several times higher than mainstream coins, serving as a "blood-boosting" method for spot trading.
However, due to its status as a publicly traded company, this practice is a riskier endeavor for Coinbase. Even in the current crypto-friendly environment, the SEC is still investigating whether tokens like SOL, ADA, and SAND constitute securities.
In addition to the forced transformation strategies carried out by the aforementioned CEXs, they are also starting to lay out RWAs and the most talked-about stablecoin payment fields, such as the PYUSD launched through a collaboration between Coinbase and Paypal, Coinbase's support for the Euro stablecoin EURC by Circle that complies with EU MiCA regulatory requirements, or the USD1 launched through a collaboration between Binance and WIFL. In the increasingly crowded trading field, many CEXs have shifted their focus from just the trading market to the application field.
The golden age of transaction fees has quietly ended, and the second half of the crypto exchange platform game has silently begun.
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Key Market Intelligence on May 14th, how much did you miss out on?
1.Binance Alpha Launches HIPPO, BLUE, and Other Tokens
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4.Current Bitcoin Rally Possibly Driven by Institutions, Retail Traders Yet to Join
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Source: Overheard on CT (tg: @overheardonct), Kaito
PUMP: Today's discussions about PUMP focus on its new creator revenue-sharing model: the platform will allocate 50% of PumpSwap revenue to token creators, sparking varied reactions from users. Some criticize the move as insufficient or even misleading, while others view it as a positive step the platform is taking to reward creators. Meanwhile, PUMP faces market pressure from emerging competitors like LetsBONKfun and Raydium, which are rapidly gaining market share. Users also express concerns about PUMP's sustainability and potential regulatory risks in the U.S., with discussions extending to the platform's impact on the entire memecoin ecosystem.
COINBASE: Today, Coinbase became the first crypto company to join the S&P 500 Index, replacing Discover Financial Services, sparking widespread industry attention. The entire crypto community views this milestone as a significant development, signaling that crypto assets are further integrating into the mainstream financial system. The news has sparked lively discussions on Twitter, with many users pointing out that this may attract more institutional investors to enter the Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency markets.
XRP: XRP became the focal point of today's crypto discussion, with its significant market movements and strategic advances drawing attention. XRP has surpassed USDT to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, sparking market excitement and discussions about its future potential. The surge in market capitalization and price is believed to be related to increasing institutional interest, deepening strategic partnerships, and its role in the crypto ecosystem. Additionally, XRP's integration into multiple financial systems and its potential as a macro asset class are also seen as key factors driving the current market sentiment.
DYDX: Today's discussions about DYDX mainly focused on the dYdX Yapper Leaderboard launched by KaitoAI. The leaderboard aims to identify the most active community participants, with a total of $150,000 in rewards to be distributed over the first three seasons. This initiative has sparked broad community participation, with many users discussing the potential rewards and the incentive effect on the DYDX ecosystem. Meanwhile, progress on the ethDYDX to dYdX native chain migration and historical airdrop events have also been topics of discussion.
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