Musk’s alleged price manipulation, the Satoshi AI chatbot and more: Hodler’s Digest, May 28 – June 3

Top Stories This Week

Dogecoin investors accuse Elon Musk of insider trading in amended class-action lawsuit

A group of Dogecoin investors has requested leave to amend a class-action lawsuit against tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, alleging he is responsible for insider trading of DOGE and asserting the token is a security under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. According to the complaint, Musk profited off DOGE trading at the expense of other investors by causing the price of the token to spike through actions including changing Twitter’s logo to the Dogecoin logo. As one of the world’s richest people, the Twitter CEO has made frequent statements about Dogecoin to his millions of followers since 2019, often causing the price of the token to surge.

Satoshi Nak-AI-moto: Bitcoin’s creator has become an AI chatbot

Satoshi Nakamoto may have effectively disappeared over 12 years ago, but two artificial intelligence dabblers are seeking to revive the ability to chat with the famed Bitcoin creator. The model, essentially, is OpenAI’s ChatGPT trained on a limited data set, including Nakamoto’s public emails and forum posts, as well as other Bitcoin sources. In testing, the chatbot generates responses that are typically uncertain of the future of fiat currencies and hopeful about Bitcoin. Its goal is to show that AI tools could potentially be used in education, one of the creators said.

Buying a bank won’t solve crypto’s debanking issue — Binance CEO

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao has considered acquiring a bank amid the ongoing debanking of crypto firms across the globe. However, according to CZ, regulatory complexity and capital requirements make it unwise for Binance. “The reality is much more complex than the concept,” said the crypto executive. Binance has recently lost its fiat on-ramp and off-ramp partner in Australia — after difficulties finding a bank partner in the United States earlier this year. The company has been seeking a new payment provider in the country. 

Crypto.com has been granted a major payment institution license for digital payment token (DPT) services in Singapore. With the license, the crypto exchange is now authorized to offer its DPT services to customers in the country. The latest announcement adds to Crypto.com’s track record of securing regulatory licenses. The exchange has also been granted registration and/or licenses in France, the United Kingdom, Dubai, South Korea, Australia, Italy, Greece and Cyprus..

Web3 developer Magic raises $52M in funding led by PayPal Ventures

Wallet-as-a-service provider Magic raised $52 million in a strategic funding round led by PayPal Ventures. The funding round also saw participation from venture firms Cherubic, Synchrony, KX, Northzone and Volt Capital, bringing Magic’s total funds raised to over $80 million. Magic’s software is currently used by brands in retail, music, fashion and gaming, including Mattel, Macy’s, Xsolla and Immutable. Founded in 2020, Magic has generated over 20 million unique wallets to date. 

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $27,160, Ether (ETH) at $1,903 and XRP at $0.52. The total market cap is at $1.15 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Injective (INJ) at 22.67%, Quant (QNT) at 18.60% XDC Network (XDC) at 15.92%. 

Most Memorable Quotations

“The bear phase is finished. […] I think we’ll see new highs probably in the second half of 2024, 2025. […] We’ll probably hit up to 6-to-8 trillion [in market capitalization].”

Dan Tapiero, founder of 10T Holdings and 1RoundTable Partners

“Are the creators of the AI responsible for creating the tool that’s used to infringe copyright, or is it the people who are actually using that to infringe on copyright?”

Andrew Petale, trademarks attorney at Y Intellectual Property

“The debt ceiling deal once again highlights Bitcoin’s utility because it’s essentially a break away from the traditional financial system.”

Josh Gilbert, market analyst at eToro

“Even though Ethereum doesn’t have the biggest market cap compared to Bitcoin, I think Ethereum is the front-runner in terms of driving worldwide adoption.”

Roger Ver, early Bitcoin investor and Bitcoin Cash advocate

“Crypto, like the internet before it, has the potential to modernize finance and numerous other sectors, […] by offering a faster, cheaper, more private, and accessible platform.”

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase

“By combining the power of cryptography with the power of a decentralized crypto network like Bitcoin, we can bring cost and consequence into cyberspace.”

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin wicks down to $26.5K, but trader eyes chance for ‘bullish surprise’

On Bitstamp, the BTC/USD pair reached a low of $26,519 this week, showing little signs of a trend change as a stalemate between bulls and bears continued to produce little volatility.

Analyzing the current setup, pseudonymous trader Crypto Ed considered the potential for upside topping out at $27,500. “I do think we go down, but as long as we do not break that $26,000, there is a chance for a bullish surprise,” he said.

To break the current impasse, Crypto Ed continued, Bitcoin would nonetheless need to tackle the area above $27,600. “Now I think we bounce back toward $27,500 — resistance of the previous range high — and from there I will be looking for, possibly, shorts toward $25,000,” he said.

FUD of the Week 

Missing ‘Bitcoin Millionaire’ and ONFO coin co-creator found dead

The co-founder of crypto project ONFO coin has been found dead from an apparent gunshot wound about a week after he went missing. John Forsyth, a crypto advocate and emergency room doctor, was reported missing by relatives after not showing up to his shift in a hospital in Missouri. The ONFO coin project allows users to earn coins by referring others to the platform, a term it calls “network mining.” Forsyth joins a list of crypto advocates and founders that have died under mysterious circumstances.

Jimbos Protocol offers $800K bounty to the public after hacker ignores deal

DeFi platform Jimbos Protocol has offered 10% of the exploited funds to the general public after giving the hacker several days to respond to the deal. The Arbitrum-based DeFi app was exploited on May 28 through a lack of slippage control on liquidity conversions, allowing the exploiter to seize assets worth about $7.5 million. The team behind the exploited protocol attempted to negotiate with the hacker offering a “fast $800k payday” in exchange for the return of 90% of the funds. Now, the protocol has extended the bounty offer to the general public.

Multichain team cannot locate CEO, halts service for affected chains

Cross-chain protocol Multichain revealed that its team has been unable to contact its CEO, Zhaojun, fueling rumors that the protocol’s leadership may have been arrested in China amid ongoing technical issues. The protocol has experienced technical problems over the past week, with transactions delayed across multiple cross-chain bridges. After failing to contact the CEO and lacking permission to address the issue, the team suspended services for over 10 chains on May 31, including KeKchain, Public Mint, DynoChain, Redlight Chain, Dexit, Ekta, High Performance Blockchain, Onus, Omax, Findora and Planq.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Bitcoin is on a collision course with ‘Net Zero’ promises

Every year countries are pressured to ramp up their climate change commitments at the COP conference — and Bitcoin mining is an easy target.

Mad scientist’s NFTs degrade when they’re traded: 0xDEAFBEEF, NFT Creator

Self-proclaimed tinkerer 0xDEAFBEEF has hit it big with audiovisual NFTs that slowly degrade in quality every time they’re traded.

AI Eye: 25K traders bet on ChatGPT’s stock picks, AI sucks at dice throws, and more

Decentralized ledger technology is arguably everything that AI is not: transparent, traceable, trustworthy and tamper-free. Could it offset the opaqueness of AI’s black-box solutions?