Three teenagers have been accused of kidnapping a man at gunpoint after he was returning from a crypto event in Las Vegas, before driving him an hour outside of the city and robbing him of $4 million in crypto and non-fungible tokens.

According to police, the incident occurred last November. The victim had finished hosting a crypto-related event in downtown Las Vegas, and when he returned home, the suspects forced him into a vehicle and drove him to a remote desert area an hour away from the city. 

There, they forced him to hand over passwords to his accounts, according to a May 10 report from Las Vegas local news outlet 8 News Now. 

The man was allegedly told to comply with the teens’ demands if he wanted to “live to see another day,” and because they also “had his dad and would kill him,” according to the report. 

It’s also alleged that a fourth person may have been communicating with the three young men through a phone call during the incident, which the victim could hear through a speakerphone.

After having his accounts drained of $4 million in crypto and NFTs, the victim reportedly walked five miles back through the desert to reach a gas station where he could call a friend for help. 

Two 16-year-olds from Florida are facing charges including robbery, kidnapping, and extortion in connection with the incident. A third teen allegedly involved in the plot has left the country, prosecutors say.

One of the young men is behind bars with bail set at $4 million, while the other has been released under house arrest with electronic monitoring. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June, with both teens set to be tried as adults. 

Digital asset lawyer Sasha Hodder said in a May 10 X post that this case illustrates how “Crypto theft is evolving. It’s not just social engineering or SIM swaps anymore.”

Source: Sasha Hodder

Uptick in thieves targeting crypto industry offline

Crypto industry participants are increasingly becoming targets for kidnappings and extortion. In a recent May 3 case, the father of a crypto entrepreneur was freed by police in Paris, France, after being held for several days in connection with a 7 million euro ($7.8 million) kidnapping plot.

In February, a UK crypto broker reportedly jumped 30 feet from a balcony to escape kidnappers who were threatening to torture and kill him if he didn’t hand over 30,000 euros ($30,917) of crypto.

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Meanwhile, Jameson Lopp, a cypherpunk and co-founder of self-custodial firm Casa, has created a list on GitHub recording dozens of offline crypto robberies all over the world. 

The first dates back to 2014, when someone allegedly tried to extort computer scientist and cryptographer Hal Finney of 1,000 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $400,000 at the time. 

There have been 21 incidents of in-person crypto-related robbery so far this year, according to Lopp’s list. In 2024, there were 28 incidents, while there were 17 in 2023 and 32 in 2021. 

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Crypto users could be looking for a more sustainable yield this cycle, as total value locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) lending continues to hit new highs while decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have lagged in comparison.

DeFi lending protocols are currently the leading DeFi vertical in TVL at $53.6 billion, representing 43% of the $124.6 billion locked across all DeFi protocols. The figure also surpasses liquid staking.

Multichain lending protocol Aave currently holds $25 billion of locked value, accounting for nearly half of the DeFi lending market.

Change in crypto lending protocol TVL since 2019. Source: DeFiLlama

In stark contrast, DEXs, which once held nearly double the TVL of their closest competitor, have dropped from $85.3 billion in November 2021 to $21.5 billion today.

Explaining the rise in DeFi lending and fall in DEX TVL, the founder of crypto fund Apollo Capital, Henrik Andersson, told Cointelegraph that lending is arguably the “only sustainable way to produce yield” in DeFi, as DEX liquidity pooling has largely become unprofitable due to impermanent loss.

He also argued that the industry-leading DEX Uniswap v3’s more “capital efficient” design, relative to Uniswap v2, may have contributed to the DEX TVL fall, as liquidity providers can now earn more rewards with less upfront capital.

Andersson also pointed out that the rise of intent-based swaps — a relatively new crosschain trading mechanism — may have further reduced the DEX TVL, as market makers typically source liquidity from centralized exchanges to facilitate these swaps.

DeFi lending protocols like Aave and Compound Finance enable crypto users to lend assets to earn interest or borrow against collateral. Smart contracts manage deposits, loans and interest rates to ensure trustless transactions.

DeFi users who supply Ether (ETH) and Tether (USDT) on Aave, for example, currently earn an annual percentage yield of 1.86% and 3.17%, respectively.

Providing stablecoins and Ether to DEX pools such as Uniswap’s can offer higher rewards; however, as Andersson pointed out, they’re far less sustainable, fluctuating by the day.

DeFi now dominates CeFi in crypto lending market 

DeFi-based crypto lending accounted for around 65% of the total market by the end of 2024 and has increased or maintained its market share against centralized lenders every quarter since Q4 2022, an April report from crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital showed.

The fall started occurring around the time several centralized crypto lenders such as Genesis, Celsius Network, BlockFi and Voyager fell bankrupt, causing TVL to fall massively.

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Their collective downfall led to an estimated 78% collapse in the size of the crypto lending market from the 2022 peak to the bear market trough, Galaxy noted.

Change in market share between centralized and decentralized crypto lending protocols between Q3 2018 and Q4 2024. Source: Galaxy Digital

However, it was DeFi lending protocols that led the resurgence in crypto lending activity, Galaxy noted, pointing to a near 960% increase in DeFi open borrows between Q4 2022 and Q4 2024.

Galaxy said the strong recovery of the DeFi lending market is a testament to the design and risk management practices adopted by DeFi lending protocols while showcasing the benefits of algorithmic, overcollateralized and supply-and-demand-driven borrowing models.

Galaxy expects increased institutional participation and clearer regulations to drive the next wave of crypto lending adoption.

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Decentralized exchange Uniswap has hit a whopping $3 trillion in aggregate all-time volume, the first decentralized exchange to hit the number. 

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams noted the achievement in an X post on May 12, which included a screenshot of a Dune Analytics dashboard counting down to the milestone. 

Uniswap also has a current daily volume of $3.3 billion, according to Dune. DeFillama meanwhile shows Uniswap is the leading DEX with a 23% market share in daily volumes, which it reports as slightly lower at $3 billion over the past 24 hours. 

The second-largest DEX in volume is PancakeSwap, with $2.7 billion and a 21% DEX market share. 

Uniswap has a current total value locked of just under $5 billion. However, this figure is around half of its 2021 all-time high, as overall DeFi total value locked (TVL) is about half of what it was in late 2021.

DeFillama reports a DeFi TVL of $124 billion, while DappRadar reports $132 billion, with more than half of this total on Ethereum. 

Uniswap reaches total trade volume milestone. Source: Hayden Adams

Related: Decentralized exchanges gain ground despite $6M Hyperliquid exploit

The DEX’s native token, Uniswap (UNI), has not mirrored the platform’s performance and remains down more than 84% from its peak price of $45 four years ago in May 2021.

UNI had lost 3.4% on the day and was trading at just over $7 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko. 

Uniswap smart wallet coming 

Adams also announced on May 12 that Uniswap was “rolling out our own 7702 wallet and supporting other 7702 wallets … with the goal being one-click swapping for all users.” 

EIP-7702 is an Ethereum Improvement Proposal led by Vitalik Buterin that went live with the Pectra upgrade on May 7.

It enhances Ethereum accounts to withstand potential threats from quantum computing and allows externally owned accounts to temporarily function as smart contracts during transactions.

Trust Wallet has already launched a smart account-compatible upgrade for its users, and Uniswap is set to follow. 

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