Despite a relative lull in the global crypto market, Bitcoin (BTC) surged above $67,000 this week. In contrast, memecoins dominated the charts in the last few days, with Floki, Pepe, Bonk, Shiba Inu, and others leading the way.
Notably, PEPE hit a new all-time high shortly after GameStop stock trader Keith Gill posted to his Roaring Kitty X account for the first time in three years. 
Although this week was relatively quiet, we have compiled six top stories you might have missed but will find intriguing. Let's take a closer look at some of these stories that you wouldn't want to miss.
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TOP CRYPTO NEWS RECAP (May 12–May 18, 2024)
●      Tornado Cash Developer Sentenced for Money Laundering
●      Institutional Investors Pour Billions into Bitcoin ETFs
●      Meme Coin Frenzy: Over 1 Million New Tokens Launched Since April
●      Circle Moves Legal Base to the United States Ahead of IPO
●      DTCC and Chainlink Successfully Pilot Fund Data Tokenization
●      Senate Votes to Overturn SEC Crypto Rule; Biden Threatens Veto
Tornado Cash Developer Sentenced for Money Laundering
Alexey Pertsev, developer of Tornado Cash, was sentenced to five years and four months in prison by Dutch judges for laundering $1.2 billion in illicit assets. Despite Tornado Cash being a noncustodial protocol, Pertsev was held accountable for not preventing money laundering. This case raises concerns for open-source developers about potential liability for code misuse. Pertsev's legal team has 14 days to appeal the ruling.
Institutional Investors Pour Billions into Bitcoin ETFs
Over 600 firms disclosed $3.5 billion in spot Bitcoin ETF investments in recent SEC filings. Millennium Management leads the investments with $1.9 billion, followed by Schonfeld Strategic Advisors with $479 million. Other major investors include Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo. Despite a recent decline in inflows, institutional investment in Bitcoin ETFs remains substantial, reflecting strong interest and confidence in the cryptocurrency market.
Meme Coin Frenzy: Over 1 Million New Tokens Launched Since April
Since April 1, over one million new crypto tokens have been created, with 372,642 on Ethereum and 643,227 on Solana. A significant portion, especially on Solana, consists of meme coins. Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain Base saw 88% of Ethereum's new tokens. This surge, driven by low costs and meme coin popularity, has led to concerns over scams and the proliferation of low-value tokens.
Circle Moves Legal Base to the United States Ahead of IPO
Circle, the company behind USD Coin, is relocating its legal base from Ireland to the U.S. to align with stricter U.S. cryptocurrency regulations and prepare for an upcoming IPO. This strategic move aims to boost investor confidence despite higher compliance costs. By adhering to U.S. regulatory standards, Circle seeks to enhance transparency and adoption, positioning itself competitively in the stablecoin market.
DTCC and Chainlink Successfully Pilot Fund Data Tokenization
The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and blockchain oracle Chainlink completed a pilot program with major U.S. banks, including JPMorgan and BNY Mellon, to tokenize traditional finance fund data. The Smart NAV Pilot utilized Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol to bring net asset value (NAV) data on-chain, enhancing automated data management and enabling various on-chain use cases. This initiative supports future financial industry innovations and broader API solutions for price data.
Senate Votes to Overturn SEC Crypto Rule; Biden Threatens Veto
The U.S. Senate passed a resolution, 60-38, to nullify the SEC’s Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 121, which requires banks to keep customers’ digital assets on their balance sheets. Critics argue this stifles innovation. President Biden intends to veto the resolution to protect investors and the financial system. If vetoed, Congress needs a two-thirds majority to override. This marks a significant bipartisan move on crypto legislation.
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Circle, the stablecoin issuer, has finally gained access to its $3.3 billion funds held with the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). This news has come as a great relief to the company, which had been struggling to retrieve its cash reserves from the failed lender.

Circle CEO and co-founder, Jeremy Allaire, confirmed the news on March 13, stating that the company has been “able to access” its funds from SVB. Speaking with Bloomberg Markets on March 14, Allaire further added that he believed “very close to everything was able to clear” from the failed lender.

This is good news for Circle, as it had been facing liquidity concerns since news broke that its cash reserves were stuck on SVB. The situation led to USDC, the stablecoin issued by Circle, briefly de-pegging, causing widespread panic in the crypto market.

However, the stablecoin’s dollar peg has since recovered, and the market seems to have stabilized following the news of Circle’s successful retrieval of its funds. Nevertheless, the situation has led to mass redemptions of USDC, resulting in a nearly 10% drop in the stablecoin’s market cap since March 11, according to TradingView.

Meanwhile, USDC’s peer stablecoin Tether (USDT) has recorded a slight increase in its market cap since March 11, climbing by over 1% to $73.03 billion.

The collapse of SVB has raised concerns about the stability of the crypto market and the role of banks in supporting digital assets. As Circle’s experience demonstrates, the collapse of a banking institution can have a significant impact on the crypto market and its participants.

The news of Circle’s successful retrieval of its funds from SVB may provide some reassurance to the market, but it also highlights the need for greater regulation and transparency in the crypto industry. As the industry continues to grow, it is essential that companies and institutions operating within it are held to the same standards as traditional financial institutions.

Record-breaking USDC burn and $4.5 billion in conversion requests since March 10th

In recent days, there has been a significant increase in requests to convert USDC back to cash, with a net value of over $4.5 billion. According to blockchain data, Circle, the second largest issuer of stablecoin in the cryptocurrency market with USDC, has recorded a massive withdrawal of funds over the past few days, following serious depegging caused by bank collapses in the United States.

From the time the Silicon Valley Bank was seized and closed by the US government on Friday, March 10, to the early morning of Tuesday, March 15, on-chain data shows that more than 6.2 billion USDC was sent back to Circle by its holders with requests for conversion to cash. During the same period, the new issuance of USDC was $1.66 billion, resulting in a net withdrawal of over $4.5 billion.

The market cap of USDC has dropped from $43.5 billion before the depegging to $38.2 billion at the time of writing, equivalent to $5.3 billion. It is noteworthy that a USDC burn transaction worth up to $723 million was recorded on the morning of March 15, making it the largest USDC burn transaction in history. The second-largest transaction, with a value of $656 million, was also executed on March 14.

#USDC #USDCSTABLECOIN #Circle

This article was republished from azcoinnews.com

Circle, a #stablecoin issuer, revealed that it has mostly fulfilled all of the outstanding redemption requests for its stablecoin Dollar Coin (USDC).

Circle said that it has redeemed $3.8 billion USDC and issued $800 million USDC between the morning of March 13 and the close of business on March 15 in an operational update.

Update: As of close of U.S. banking operations Wednesday, March 15, we have cleared substantially all of the backlog of minting and redemption requests for USDC. Get the details: https://t.co/5WEAgPps0E

— Circle (@circle) March 16, 2023

After reporting last week that it held stablecoin reserves worth $3.3 billion in the now-defunct #SiliconValley Bank, which caused USDC to lose its dollar peg, Circle experienced a bank run.

In a blog post, Circle stated that the recent events had an effect on USDC's liquidity operations. It also stated that it has been working to restart services with alternative banking partners, notably payment and #USDC redemption services.

A new banking partner was employed by #Circle on March 14 for wire transfers inside the United States, and on March 15 for transfers outside to and from 19 other countries.

It stated that by March 16, further capabilities were anticipated to be online.

The scheme aims to profit from the post-depeg recovery of USDC.

On March 16, a phishing attempt that erroneously promised access to a fresh #USDC #DeFi trading platform appeared on social media.

Emergence Of Fake USDC Trading Platform

The fake trading platform can be found at http-circledefi-dot-center, while the fake blog article promoting the swap platform can be found at http-circle-dot-blog.

The bogus platform, which claims to be affiliated with TRON DAO, claims to enable users to exchange Circle's USDC stablecoin for Tether's #USDT #stablecoin and has a UI that looks similar to Raydium, a legitimate DeFi platform.

How much money has been transferred to the fraudulent service is unknown.

The phishing site was mostly promoted on Reddit. Although it was shared on /r/USDC and about 20 other subreddits, it did not make it to /r/cryptocurrency.

It's interesting to note that the fraudster first tried to get traction on /r/Buttcoin, where they garnered a lot of comments. The con artist may have believed that the subreddit's disbelief in cryptocurrencies would cause commenters to ignore the intricacies of the fraud.

An official from #Circle acknowledged to CryptoSlate that the aforementioned websites are bogus but would not specify what steps will be taken. A previous tweet from the corporation has also been pinned, warning users to watch out for "scammers and fraudsters with phony accounts."

The USDC Stablecoin From Circle Is Still Strong

The DeFi product was not mentioned in Circle's most recent update, which was posted on March 15 and can be seen at www.circle.com/blog.

The hoax appears to be an effort to profit on USDC's comeback after losing parity with the US dollar. Once Silicon Valley Bank closed, USDC depegged, and on March 11 it hit a low of $0.88 before rising to $1.00 on March 13.

By announcing that it was reducing backlogs and establishing new financial relationships during that recovery, Circle attempted to improve USDC.

The phony releases aimed to present the DeFi Swap as one of Circle's efforts to improve its product and made reference to those favorable achievements.