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Stacks Asia expands Bitcoin initiatives with Abu Dhabi partnership

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The Stacks Asia DLT Foundation has become the first Bitcoin-based organization to establish an official presence in the Middle East, aiming to promote institutional Bitcoin adoption through expanded educational initiatives.

Stacks Asia has partnered with the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) — one of the world’s fastest-growing financial centers — in a move that could boost the adoption of its Bitcoin (BTC) layer-2 (L2) solution in the Middle East and Asia.

The new partnership will play a “pivotal role” in shaping the future of Bitcoin’s “programmability and adoption” in these regions through educational programs and support for Bitcoin builders, according to an April 28 announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Through the collaboration, Stacks and the ADGM aim to make it easier for institutions and investors to participate in the growing Bitcoin economy and help set “new standards for regulatory clarity and technical growth” for the rising global Bitcoin capital, according to Kyle Ellicott, executive director at Stacks Asia DLT Foundation.

Stacks Asia DLT partners with ADGM. Source: Stacks Asia DLT Foundation

Related: Crypto options desk QCP Capital wins Abu Dhabi license: Report

“Stacks and ADGM are a powerful combination for accelerating Bitcoin adoption across the Middle East and Asia,” Ellicott told Cointelegraph, adding:

“ADGM has established itself as a world-class global financial hub at the heart of the United Arab Emirates, known as the ‘Capitol of Capital,’ where capital and innovation are brought together to shape the future financial landscape.”

“We’ll be working to enable the launch of educational programs, regional developer communities, and create opportunities for the real-world adoption of Bitcoin-powered applications,” he said.

Starting in May, the foundation will host a series of live and virtual events to “empower institutions” with the knowledge to integrate Bitcoin into their operations and learn about the “opportunity of productive Bitcoin capital,” Ellicott added.

Related: Nomura crypto arm Laser Digital bags Abu Dhabi license

Stacks Foundation pushing for a “progressive” regulatory environment worldwide

As the leading Bitcoin scalability solution, Stacks is also pushing for progressive global regulations that will cement Bitcoin’s role in the future of the financial landscape.

“We’re not just focused locally — our team is engaged in global conversations, advocating for frameworks that balance decentralization, security, innovation, and compliance surrounding the unlocking of Bitcoin capital,” Ellicott said.

A key part of the strategy involves knowledge sharing with local regulatory bodies to build understanding among government officials about Bitcoin’s characteristics and potential economic impact.

The foundation is also developing the Bitcoin Capital Activation Framework, described as a comprehensive policy blueprint to help regulators enable Bitcoin utility in their jurisdictions.

The Stacks Foundation will also launch the Bitcoin Policy Bridge in May, a working group uniting regulators from all key jurisdictions across the Middle East and Asia.

In February, ADGM signed a memorandum of understanding with the Solana Foundation to advance the development of distributed ledger technology.

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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.

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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.

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Cardone Capital launches 10X Miami River Bitcoin Fund

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Cardone Capital, a real estate investment firm with over $5 billion in assets under management, launched the 10X Miami River Bitcoin Fund, a dual-asset fund consisting of a 346-unit multifamily commercial property located on the Miami River in Miami, Florida, and $15 million of Bitcoin (BTC).

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Cardone Capital founder and CEO Grant Cardone said the Miami River Bitcoin Fund, which is the firm’s fourth blended investment vehicle mixing BTC and commercial multifamily real estate, will convert a portion of its monthly cash flows to BTC.

Cardone told Cointelegraph the impetus to start the fund followed a suggestion from his brother. The CEO said:

“My brother said to me, you should look at if you would have converted all your cash flow from real estate to Bitcoin and what that would have done over the last 12 years. Well, it would have taken $160 million and turned it into around $3 billion.”

“So, when I saw that, I said I am going to create a fund where we buy real estate, add bitcoin, and then use the cash flow from the real estate purchase to buy more Bitcoin,” the CEO continued.

Projected growth of the real estate fund with BTC vs traditional real estate returns. Source: Cardone Capital

The CEO also told Cointelegraph that the long-term goal of Cardone Capital is to accumulate $1 billion of real estate and $200 million in BTC, which will be held as a treasury asset, across the hybrid funds.

The funds’ unique approach of blending income-producing hard assets and Bitcoin as a store of value could disrupt the market for real estate investment trusts (REITs), market-traded funds giving investors access to baskets of income-producing properties, and other traditional commercial real estate investment vehicles.

Related: US real estate asset manager launches $100M tokenized fund with institutional backing

Onboarding users to Bitcoin by abstracting away the technical barrier to entry

The CEO added that he wants to onboard investors and tenants alike to Bitcoin and expose them to the digital asset, without them necessarily having to acquire the technical knowledge to understand how Bitcoin works.

A rewards program, paid in Satoshis, to long-term tenants, who pay on time and exhibit good renter behavior, is one idea the real estate investment firm is mulling, Cardone told Cointelegraph.

Grant Cardone, founder and CEO of Cardone Capital. Source: Cardone Capital

One of the goals of the hybrid real estate BTC funds is to drive the adoption of Bitcoin and provide investors, who would otherwise avoid Bitcoin due to having to overcome the technical barrier to entry, with exposure to the digital asset, the CEO said.

“We are onboarding people into a real estate vehicle that they understand and buying Bitcoin for them,” the CEO added.

Cardone also told Cointelegraph that he is working with other financial firms to create a hybrid Bitcoin mortgage product giving clients the ability to borrow against their combined Bitcoin holdings and equity held in a real estate investment.

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