News broke on May 15 that Coinbase was the target of a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data for social engineering scams.

While less than 1% of Coinbase’s active monthly users were reportedly affected, the expected remediation and reimbursement expenses range from $180 million to $400 million, as the exchange pledged to repay all phishing attack victims.

Despite the attack on the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, investor sentiment remains optimistic, with the Fear & Greed Index remaining firmly in the “Greed” zone above 69, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Fear & Greed Index, 30-day chart. Source: CoinMarketCap

Adding to investor optimism, Coinbase saw over $1 billion worth of Bitcoin withdrawn on May 9, marking the highest net outflow recorded in 2025 so far, triggering analyst predictions of a supply-shock driven Bitcoin rally.

Coinbase faces $400 million bill after insider phishing attack

Coinbase was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited overseas support agents to leak user data, the company said on May 15.

Coinbase said a group of external actors bribed and coordinated with several customer support contractors to access internal systems and steal limited user account data.

“These insiders abused their access to customer support systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers,” Coinbase said, adding that no passwords, private keys, funds or Coinbase Prime accounts were affected.

Less than 1% of Coinbase’s monthly transacting users’ data was affected by the attack, the company said.

Source: Coinbase

After stealing the data, the attackers attempted to extort $20 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from Coinbase in exchange for not disclosing the breach. Coinbase refused the demand.

Instead, the company offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the scheme.

Continue reading

$1 billion Bitcoin exits Coinbase in a day as analysts warn of supply shock

Institutional demand for Bitcoin is growing, as Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, recorded its highest daily outflows of Bitcoin in 2025 on May 9.

On May 9, Coinbase saw 9,739 Bitcoin, worth more than $1 billion, withdrawn from the exchange, the highest net outflow recorded in 2025, according to Bitwise head of European research André Dragosch.

“Institutional appetite for Bitcoin is accelerating,” Dragosch added in a May 13 X post.

Source: André Dragosch

The outflow occurred as Bitcoin traded above $103,600 and just days after the White House announced a 90-day reduction in reciprocal tariffs between the US and China, easing market concerns and lifting broader investor sentiment.

Joint statement on US-China meeting in Geneva. Source: The White House

The 90-day suspension of additional tariffs removed the risk of “sudden re-escalation,” which may help Bitcoin, altcoins and the wider stock market rally due to improved risk appetite, Nansen’s principal research analyst, Aurelie Barthere, told Cointelegraph.

Continue reading

DeFi lender Aave reaches $40 billion in value locked onchain

Aave, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has reached a new record of funds onchain, according to data from DefiLlama.

In an X post, Aave said it topped $40.3 billion in total value locked (TVL) on May 12. Onchain data reveals that Aave v3, the latest version of the protocol, has about $40 billion in TVL.

Aave is a DeFi lending protocol that lets users borrow cryptocurrency by depositing other types of cryptocurrency as collateral. Meanwhile, lenders earn yield from borrowers. 

“With these milestones, Aave is proving its dominance in the Lending Space,” DeFi analyst Jonaso said in a May 12 X post. TVL represents the total value of cryptocurrency deposited into a protocol’s smart contracts. 

Aave v3’s TVL over time. Source: DefiLlama

Continue reading

SEC delays Solana ETF as decisions for Polkadot, XRP loom

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pushed back its decision on a proposed spot Solana exchange-traded fund (ETF), with the cryptocurrency industry now looking to the deadlines for the Polkadot and XRP-based ETFs in June.

The SEC delayed its decision on listing Grayscale’s spot Solana (SOL) Trust ETF on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to October 2025, according to a May 13 filing by the securities regulator.

Delay on Grayscale’s Solana ETF. Source: SEC

The decision came the week after the SEC delayed its ruling on Canary Capital’s Litecoin (LTC) ETF, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart wrote in a May 5 X post.

Source: James Seyffart

Spot ETFs are key drivers of liquidity and institutional adoption for digital assets. For Bitcoin, the US spot Bitcoin ETFs accounted for an estimated 75% of new investment after launching, which helped BTC recapture the $50,000 mark in February 2024, a month after the ETFs debuted for trading.

While a Solana ETF may generate only a fraction of the inflows of Bitcoin ETFs, it could increase Solana’s institutional adoption in the long term by offering investors a “regulated investment vehicle” that may still attract billions of dollars in capital, Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget Research, told Cointelegraph.

Continue reading

Starknet hits “Stage 1” decentralization, tops ZK-rollups for value locked

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform Starknet has reached a decentralization milestone laid out by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and is now the largest zero-knowledge rollup-based network by total value locked.

Starknet said in a news release shared with Cointelegraph that it has hit “Stage 1” decentralization, according to a framework Buterin laid out in 2022, which means the network operates with limited oversight or “training wheels.”

Starknet added that the framework was the “gold standard onchain tool for analyzing Ethereum scaling solutions,” and said it achieved the milestone through changes such as creating a security council and censorship-avoidance mechanisms. 

While the system still allows intervention from a security council, it has implemented a fully functional validity proof system governed by smart contracts.

Starknet is now the only layer-2 ZK-rollup network to have reached Stage 1 and has grown to be the largest ZK-rollup blockchain with a total value locked of $629 million, just ahead of ZKsync’s $610 million, according to L2beat. 

Starknet is the fifth-largest layer-2 network by value locked, with the top four all Optimistic rollup-based, having reached Stage 1 decentralization using fraud proofs. 

Continue reading

DeFi market overview

According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.

Solana-based memecoin Dogwifhat (WIF) rose over 43% as the week’s biggest gainer, followed by decentralized exchange Raydium’s (RAY) token, up nearly 19% over the past week.

Total value locked in DeFi. Source: DefiLlama

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

Shares of AI cloud computing company CoreWeave (CRWV) surged on May 16 after chip giant Nvidia revealed a large ownership stake, signaling growing corporate and institutional interest in the newly public company.

CRWV stock climbed as much as 26.3% in New York trading, pushing its market capitalization above $38 billion. Trading volumes were more than double the daily average, according to Yahoo Finance data.

The stock was last seen trading around $81, up 23% on the day.

CRWV has climbed to $81 a share on May 16. Source: Yahoo Finance

CoreWeave’s rally was sparked by regulatory filings from Nvidia showing that the company owned $900 million of CRWV stock at the end of the first quarter. The value of the holdings has more than doubled since March 31, assuming Nvidia hasn’t sold any shares since then.

As CNBC reported, Nvidia’s ownership stake at the time of CoreWeave’s initial public offering (IPO) was 17.9 million shares.

CoreWeave’s stock has gained more than 100% from its IPO price of $40 in late March. It has vastly outperformed the Nasdaq Composite Index and broader US stock market over that period.

The Nvidia revelations overshadowed CoreWeave’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report, which showed a 420% surge in revenue but also a 487% spike in operating expenses. The company’s net loss widened by 143% compared to a year earlier. Its stock declined shortly after the financials were released on May 14.

CoreWeave’s fiscal first quarter earnings results. Source: CoreWeave

CoreWeave’s complicated history with crypto

CoreWeave’s origin story began in 2017 as an Ethereum mining operation called Atlantic Crypto. The company began transitioning away from digital assets the following year after the onset of the bear market.

By 2019, it had rebranded to CoreWeave and began leveraging its GPU infrastructure to provide cloud computing services. The company then rode out the AI boom and its unique relationship with Nvidia to secure a massive IPO launch. 

CoreWeave has landed other major investors, with Cointelegraph reporting in March that OpenAI reached an $11.9 billion deal with the company to supply AI infrastructure for the ChatGPT developer’s massive data needs. 

CoreWeave is operating in a much broader cloud computing industry, which is forecast to become a $2 trillion behemoth by 2030 as AI applications gain mainstream adoption, according to Goldman Sachs. 

Cloud computing’s total addressable market by 2030. Source: Goldman Sachs

Another estimate by Fortune Business Insights suggests that the global cloud AI market alone could approach $600 billion by 2032, marking a compound annual growth rate of 28.5%.

Magazine: Creating ‘good’ AGI that won’t kill us all — Crypto’s Artificial Superintelligence Alliance

Key points:

A Bitcoin price close above $105,000 could accelerate momentum and trigger a rally to $130,000.

Ether continues to gain strength, which is being mirrored by many altcoins.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been consolidating between $100,718 and $105,819 for the past few days, indicating a balance between supply and demand. A positive sign is that the price has held above the psychologically crucial $100,000 level, signaling that the bulls are hanging on to their positions as they anticipate another leg higher.

Market intelligence firm Santiment highlighted in a post on X that the failure to rise above $105,000 has caused impatience among retail traders, which “historically is a bullish sign for prices.”

Crypto market data daily view. Source: Coin360

However, repeated failure to push the price to the all-time high of $109,588 could tempt short-term buyers to book profits. That puts the $100,000 support at risk of a breakdown. If that happens, Bitcoin could be in for a deeper pullback.

Could buyers drive the price to a new all-time high, pulling select altcoins higher? Let’s analyze the charts of the top 10 cryptocurrencies to find out.

Bitcoin price prediction

Bitcoin bulls are struggling to propel the price above the $105,000 overhead resistance, but a positive sign is that the $100,000 support has held.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The upsloping 20-day exponential moving average ($99,416) and the relative strength index (RSI) in the overbought zone signal that bulls remain in control. If the price closes above $105,000, the BTC/USDT pair is likely to break above the $109,588 resistance. If that happens, the pair could surge to $130,000.

Time is running out for the bears. If they want to make a comeback, they will have to swiftly yank the price below the 20-day EMA. If they do that, the pair could plunge to the 50-day simple moving average ($90,628).

Ether price prediction

Ether’s (ETH) pullback is finding support at the breakout level of $2,550, signaling that every minor dip is being purchased.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

If the price turns up from the current level and breaks above $2,750, the ETH/USDT pair could resume its up move. There is resistance at $2,860, but it is likely to be crossed. The pair could then climb to $3,000.

The $2,400 level is the crucial support to watch out for on the downside. A break below it could sink the pair to the 20-day EMA ($2,225). If the price rebounds off the 20-day EMA, the bulls will again try to resume the up move.

XRP price prediction

XRP (XRP) has reached the resistance line after turning down from the overhead resistance of $2.65 on May 14.

XRP/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

If the price dips below the resistance line, it suggests that the bullish momentum has weakened. That increases the likelihood of a range-bound action between $2.65 and $2 for a few days.

Conversely, a solid bounce off the resistance line signals that the bulls are attempting to flip the level into support. Sellers may pose a solid challenge at $2.65, but if the bulls prevail, the XRP/USDT pair could reach $3.

BNB price prediction

Buyers have successfully defended the $644 level in BNB (BNB), but the failure to start a strong rebound suggests that the bears have kept up the pressure.

BNB/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The zone between $644 and the 20-day EMA ($631) is expected to attract buyers. If the price turns up from the support zone, the bulls will strive to kick the price to the overhead resistance at $693.

On the contrary, a break and close below the 20-day EMA signals that the higher levels are attracting solid selling by the bears. The BNB/USDT pair could then plummet to the 50-day SMA ($604).

Solana price prediction

Solana (SOL) is facing stiff resistance at $180, but a positive sign is that the bulls have not ceded much ground to the bears.

SOL/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The upsloping 20-day EMA ($161) and the RSI in the positive zone indicate the path of least resistance is to the upside. If buyers propel the price above $185, the SOL/USDT pair could resume its uptrend and travel to $210.

The 20-day EMA is the critical support to watch out for on the downside. A break and close below the 20-day EMA suggests that the bulls are rushing to the exit. The pair could then decline to the 50-day SMA ($140).

Dogecoin price prediction

Dogecoin (DOGE) is attempting to bounce off the breakout level of $0.21, signaling demand at lower levels.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The upsloping 20-day EMA ($0.20) and the RSI in the positive territory suggest that buyers are in command. A break and close above $0.26 indicates the resumption of the up move. The DOGE/USDT pair could then rally to $0.31.

Sellers will have to tug the price below the 20-day EMA to invalidate the bullish view. The pair could then tumble to the 50-day SMA ($0.17), suggesting a possible range formation in the near term. 

Cardano price prediction

Cardano (ADA) turned down from $0.86 on May 12 and dropped to the neckline of the inverted head-and-shoulders pattern. 

ADA/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A strong rebound off the neckline suggests a positive sentiment where the bulls are buying on dips. The bulls will then attempt to shove the price above the $0.86 resistance. If they do that, the ADA/USDT pair could surge to $1.01.

Contrarily, a break and close below the neckline suggests that the bears have overpowered the bulls. The pair could descend to the 50-day SMA ($0.68) and later to the solid support at $0.60.

Related: Bitcoin breakout odds climb as all-time highs meet $90K dip warning

Sui price prediction

Sui (SUI) pulled back to the 20-day EMA ($3.62) on May 15, but the long tail on the candlestick shows solid buying at lower levels.

SUI/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Both moving averages are sloping up, and the RSI is in the positive territory, indicating that bulls have the upper hand. The buyers will try to resume the up move by pushing the price above the $4.25 resistance. If they can pull it off, the SUI/USDT pair could soar to $5. Sellers are expected to pose a strong challenge in the $5 to $5.37 zone.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price turns down and breaks below the 20-day EMA, it suggests that the bulls are booking profits. That may pull the pair down to $3.12.

Chainlink price prediction

Chainlink (LINK) has turned down from the resistance line of the descending channel pattern, implying that the bears are selling on rallies.

LINK/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

A minor positive is that the bulls have successfully defended the 20-day EMA ($15.56). Buyers will again attempt to thrust the price above the resistance line. If they succeed, the LINK/USDT pair could rally to $19.80 and then to $21.30.

This positive view will be invalidated in the near term if the price plummets below the neckline. The pair may then drop to the 50-day SMA ($14), which is a crucial support to watch out for. A break and close below the 50-day SMA suggests the pair may remain inside the channel for some more time.

Avalanche price prediction

Avalanche (AVAX) took support at the 20-day EMA ($22.78) on May 15, indicating buying on dips.

AVAX/USDT daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The 20-day EMA continues to slope up, and the RSI is in the positive territory, signaling an advantage to buyers. The bulls will have to drive the AVAX/USDT pair above $26.84 to open the doors for a rally to $31.73 and subsequently to $36.

Sellers are likely to have other plans. They will try to pull the price below the 20-day EMA. If they manage to do that, it shows that the markets have rejected the breakout. The pair may slump to the 50-day SMA ($20.57).

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.