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CEX trading volumes fell to 4-year lows even before Binance, Coinbase suits

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Monthly trading volumes on centralized exchanges continued to fall in May as regulators tighten their grip on the industry.

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Coinbase faces another data breach lawsuit claiming stock drop damages

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Coinbase and two executives have been hit with another proposed class-action lawsuit over the crypto exchange’s stock price drop after disclosing a user data breach earlier this month and for allegedly failing to disclose a violation of an agreement with a UK regulator.

Coinbase investor Brady Nessler said in a May 22 lawsuit filed in a Pennsylvania federal court that the data breach and the alleged broken agreement with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority resulted in a “precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s common shares,” causing stockholders to suffer “significant losses and damages.”

Coinbase said on May 15 that its damages bill could run up to $400 million after it was hit with a $20 million extortion attempt four days earlier, with several of its customer support agents bribed to access internal systems and steal a limited amount of user account data.

Nessler claimed Coinbase (COIN) shares dropped by 7.2% to close at $244 on May 15 as a result of the disclosure. However, the stock did stage a comeback, spiking 9% and hitting $266 by the closing bell on May 16, according to Google Finance. 

Coinbase stock closed down over 3% on May 23 at $263, falling another $1.62 after the bell. COIN is up nearly 6% so far this year.

Coinbase is down from the May 23 trading session. Source: Google Finance

Nessler’s complaint is seemingly the first to argue damages caused by Coinbase’s stock drop following its breach disclosure in a series of recent class-action lawsuits over the incident.

The crypto exchange was hit with at least six lawsuits in the days after disclosing the data breach, all accusing it of mishandling the incident and failing to protect their data. 

UK agreement breach hurt stock, suit says

The FCA fined Coinbase’s UK arm $4.5 million in July 2024 for breaching a 2020 voluntary agreement preventing the exchange from onboarding customers considered high risk by the regulator.

The FCA said Coinbase onboarded 13,416 customers that the regulator considered high-risk and offered them crypto services.

Related: Coinbase presses to axe rule banning SEC staff from holding crypto

Nessler said in the suit that the fine saw Coinbase’s stock fall by over 5%, closing at $231.52 on July 25, 2024.

Nessler also claimed that Coinbase didn’t disclose it had breached this agreement when the exchange first listed its shares on the Nasdaq in April 2021, and as a result, “the market price of the Company’s securities had been artificially,” inflated. 

Nessler claims had she known about the agreement violation, she would not have purchased the stock at the “artificially inflated prices.”

Coinbase did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The class suit was filed on behalf of anyone who bought Coinbase stock between April 14, 2021, and May 14, 2025, and is asking for damages and a jury trial. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and chief financial officer Alesia Haas are also named as defendants.

Another lawsuit filed in Illinois on May 13, alleges Coinbase failed to notify users in writing of the collection, storage, or sharing of their biometric data and the purpose and retention schedule for their data.

Magazine: Bitcoin bears eye $69K, CZ denies WLF ‘fixer’ rumors: Hodler’s Digest, May 18 – 24

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Adam Back leads $2.2M raise for Swedish health firm’s Bitcoin buys

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Blockstream CEO Adam Back has led a 21 million Swedish krona ($2.2 million) funding round in the Swedish health tech company H100 Group AB, which last week said it would start buying Bitcoin.

H100 said on May 25 that the funds, secured through 0% interest convertible loans, will be used to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) in line with its Bitcoin-buying pivot announced on May 22.

Back, a longtime Bitcoin cypherpunk, contributed around $1.4 million, while the remaining $800,000 came from investment firms Morten Klein, Alundo Invest AS, Race Venture Scandinavia AB and Crafoord Capital Partners.

The raise would allow H100 to buy around 20.18 Bitcoin at current market prices, which would add to the 4.39 Bitcoin that it purchased on May 22 and bring its total stash to roughly 24.57 Bitcoin.

Source: H100

H100 said the convertible loans bear no interest and will mature on June 15, 2028. The loan may be converted into shares at any time at a conversion rate of 1.3 Swedish krona (11 US cents) per share.

If H100’s share price maintains a volume-weighted average price of more than 33% above the conversion price for a cumulative total of 60 trading days, H100 has the right to mandate a conversion of the loan into equity.

A full conversion would result in the issuance of roughly 16,153,900 new shares, corresponding to a dilution of approximately 12%.

H100 shares bounced on Bitcoin buy

Shares in H100 jumped 37% on the firm’s May 22 announcement and rose another 5.33% the following day to 1.29 SEK (14 US cents), Bloomberg data shows.

Related: Cardone Capital launches 10X Miami River Bitcoin Fund

H100 sells health tools for individuals who don’t want to rely on the “reactive health system,” the company’s CEO, Sander Andersen, said in a May 22 X post.

Andersen believes “the values of individual sovereignty highly present in the Bitcoin community aligns well with, and will appeal to, the customers and communities we are building the H100 platform for.”

According to H100, the move makes it the first public company in Sweden to adopt a Bitcoin treasury policy and one of the first in Europe.

The number of companies buying Bitcoin as a treasury asset is on the rise, with 112 public firms now holding the cryptocurrency, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET data.

Ten of those corporate Bitcoin holding companies are based in Europe, making H100 one of the first in the region to adopt the trend.

Magazine: Danger signs for Bitcoin as retail abandons it to institutions: Sky Wee

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Blockchain security firm releases Cetus hack post-mortem report

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Blockchain security firm Dedaub released a post-mortem report on the Cetus decentralized exchange hack, identifying the root cause of the attack as an exploit of the liquidity parameters used by the Cetus automated market maker (AMM), which went undetected by a code “overflow” check.

According to the report, the hackers exploited a flaw in the most significant bits (MSB) check, allowing them to manipulate the values for the liquidity parameters by orders of magnitude and establish relatively large positions with a keystroke. The Dedaub security researchers wrote:

“This allowed them to add massive liquidity positions with just one unit of token input, subsequently draining pools collectively containing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tokens.”

The incident and the post-mortem update reflect the unfortunate trend of cybersecurity exploits and hacks impacting crypto and the Web3 industry.  

Executives in the industry have continually warned that industry firms must establish safeguards and protect users before regulators clamp down and impose safeguards on the industry.

The flawed MSB check. Source: Dedaub

Related: Twice lucky? Cetus’ recovery plan on Sui mirrors a Solana blueprint

The Cetus decentralized exchange hacked, triggering $223 million in losses

On May 22, the Cetus exchange was hacked, causing $223 million in user losses within a 24-hour period.

Cetus and the Sui Foundation also announced that Sui network validators froze a majority of the stolen assets.

$163 million of the $223 million was frozen by validators and ecosystem partners on the same day as the hack, according to the Cetus team.

Response draws criticisms and allegations of centralization

The decision to freeze the stolen funds drew mixed reactions from the crypto community, with decentralization advocates criticizing the validators for stepping in and controlling the chain.

“Sui validators are actively censoring transactions across the blockchain,” one user wrote on X, echoing many other posts.

Source: Sui

“This completely undermines the principles of decentralization and transforms the network into nothing more than a centralized, permissioned database,” the post continued.

“It’s interesting how many Web3 projects backed by VCs lean heavily on centralization, despite borrowing Bitcoin’s ethos,” Steve Bowyer wrote in a May 23 X post.

Magazine: Fake Rabby Wallet scam linked to Dubai crypto CEO and many more victims

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