Bitcoin held steady around $78,000, Kevin Warsh took over as Fed Chair, hackers stole $10 million from THORChain, and other events from the past week.

Rising Inflation

Bitcoin managed to maintain key levels despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop over the past week.

Monday started positively with a rise to $82,000, but the asset couldn't hold these levels for long. On Tuesday, the coin tested a local maximum again before entering a correction.

By Wednesday, May 13, the leading cryptocurrency plummeted to $78,000, primarily due to weak inflation data from the U.S. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by 3.8% year-over-year, with a monthly increase of 0.6% in April.

In this context, CryptoQuant contributor Amr Taha noted a reduction in open interest on major crypto exchanges by nearly $1.25 billion.

The analyst believes the elevated CPI forced investors to close positions, avoid opening new ones, and reduce leverage.

The U.S. also released the Core Producer Price Index (Core PPI), which, like inflation, exceeded forecasts at 5.2% compared to the expected 4.3%.

Overall, a combination of factors contributed to the decline in Bitcoin's price, from an influx of coins onto exchanges to macroeconomic data.

Additionally, several analysts pointed out an increase in the average unrealized profit of Bitcoin traders, which rose to levels not seen since March 2022—up to 17%.

On Thursday, Bitcoin made another attempt to break above $82,000 but was unsuccessful. By the end of the week, the coin consolidated around $78,000, which is considered a support zone.

Over the past week, Bitcoin lost about 3%. Meanwhile, Ethereum's price dropped by 6%, trading below $2,200.

Almost all top-10 altcoins fell into the "red zone," with only DOGE (+0.5%) and TRX (+1.3%) showing slight gains.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs ended a six-week inflow streak, losing $1 billion.

Ethereum-based funds saw $255 million withdrawn.

The cryptocurrency fear and greed index dropped to 27, down from 47 the previous week.

The total market capitalization is around $2.69 trillion, with Bitcoin's dominance at 58.3% and Ethereum's at 9.8%.

New Fed Chair

On May 15, Bitcoin supporter Kevin Warsh succeeded Jerome Powell as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed). The Senate confirmed the new head of the regulator.

However, the decision was not unanimous, with 54 senators voting in favor and 45 against.

Warsh will serve a four-year term as Chair and was also appointed to the Fed's Board of Governors for 14 years.

The official previously served on the regulator's board from 2006 to 2011 and held senior positions at Morgan Stanley.

Warsh is known for his favorable stance on cryptocurrencies, having referred to Bitcoin as an "important asset" that helps authorities assess the economy's state. Financial reports indicate that Warsh has invested in crypto projects such as dYdX, Lighter, Polychain Capital, and Dapper Labs. He also owns tokens of Solana and Optimism.

The primary focus of the Chair will be interest rate policy. As a Trump appointee, Warsh is expected to adopt a more lenient approach to monetary policy, following previous disputes between the president and the former Fed chair on this topic.

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THORChain Attack

On May 15, the cross-chain protocol THORChain suffered a hacking attack, with damages exceeding $10 million.

According to PeckShield, the attacker stole 36.75 BTC and approximately $7 million in EVM tokens across Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Base networks.

The on-chain detective ZachXBT was the first to notice the suspicious outflow of funds. Later, the THORChain team confirmed the hack.

As a result of the attack, developers had to suspend the protocol's operations, freezing trading functions, liquidity pool operations, and other "sensitive" actions.

The attacker reportedly exploited a vulnerability in the GG20 TSS threshold signature scheme, which leaked confidential information about the keys of multi-signature wallet participants. Over time, the hacker accumulated enough data to reconstruct the private key and execute unauthorized outgoing transactions.

THORChain assured that user funds were not affected. The team continues to work on a comprehensive recovery and network restart plan.

Project representatives also warned about fake pages allegedly offering users compensation for damages.

In the wake of the hack, the native token RUNE dropped from $0.6 to $0.4, but has since recovered to $0.45.

In January 2025, the protocol froze its lending platform ThorFi amid rumors of insolvency, ultimately resolving a $200 million debt issue through the issuance of new tokens and restructuring.

In September, hackers hacked the personal wallet of the THORChain founder, with North Korean groups reportedly involved in the $1.2 million attack.

THORChain is often exploited by criminals for laundering funds after attacks, as cross-chain transactions are harder to trace.

No Blind Transactions

The Ethereum Foundation, along with wallet developers and cybersecurity firms, launched the Clear Signing project—a protective mechanism against attacks via blind transaction signing.

This initiative aims to standardize operation descriptions on the blockchain, making them understandable for users.

As part of Clear Signing, several updates were introduced:

  • ERC-7730: an open standard for transaction description format proposed by Ledger in 2024;
  • public registry: a platform at clearsigning.org where developers can post smart contract descriptions;
  • verification system: independent experts will verify and confirm the accuracy of data in the registry.

When confirming transactions, wallets display technical data in the form of a hash code. Fraudsters exploit interface inconveniences to hide malicious contracts.

ERC-7730 introduces a "what you see is what you sign" format, allowing applications to provide clear and structured descriptions of actions on the blockchain.

A special descriptor registry has been created for the project's implementation. The Ethereum Foundation will act as a neutral operator of this infrastructure, while independent experts will verify the accuracy of descriptions through an accreditation system.

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  • Solana and Ethereum matched in trading volumes on DEX.

Ban on Secondary AI Shares

The two largest AI startups—Anthropic and OpenAI—banned secondary trading of their shares.

Anthropic's new policy states that any sale or transfer of securities without board approval is invalid: the buyer will not be recognized as a shareholder and will not receive any rights.

A similar statement was issued by its competitor: without written consent, the transfer of securities is invalid and has no economic value.

Both companies also listed the same trading avenues: direct sales, special purpose acquisition structures, tokenized equity stakes, and forward contracts.

Anthropic published a list of specific blocked structures: Open Door Partners, Unicorns Exchange, Pachamama, Lionheart Ventures, Sydecar, Upmarket, Forge Global, and Hiive. The last two are the most well-known platforms for secondary trading of private company shares, with Forge Global's startup valuation reaching $1 trillion.

The market reaction was swift. Following the announcements, Anthropic and OpenAI tokens on the blockchain platform PreStocks fell from $1,400 to $873 and from $2,000 to $1,080, respectively.

By the weekend, the prices of tokenized securities had slightly recovered.

The actions of the AI projects may pose challenges for some crypto platforms that launched investment products providing access to shares of private firms. These often take the form of perpetual futures—derivative instruments that track the value of private companies on secondary markets but do not confer ownership rights to the actual assets.

Further Reading

Explore how Palantir built infrastructure for modern warfare and the ideology it promotes.

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