Author: Coin Telegraph

Key points:Ether price rose 3% to $2,550 on May 18, triggering $22 million in short ETH liquidations.A bull flag on the chart suggests a $3,700 target, with analysts predicting Bitcoin’s price to go as high as $5,000 in May.Ether’s (ETH) price was up on May 18, rising more than 2.5% over the last 24 hours to trade at $2,536. This recovery reinforces the optimism among traders that ETH price could hit $3,000 in May, citing strong technicals.Ether wipes out $7.5 million shorts in an hourData from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Bitsamp shows that ETH rose by more than 4.5% to…

Key points:Bitcoin is convincing traders that an upside breakout is around the corner, with all-time highs in sight.One target demands $116,000 next week, moving BTC/USD firmly out of its narrow range.A quick dip before continuing higher is among the options for BTC price action into the new week.Bitcoin (BTC) reduced volatility to a minimum into the May 18 weekly close as traders bet on a fresh breakout.BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingViewBTC price brews classic breakout signalData from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed the area around $103,000 acting as a BTC price magnet throughout the weekend.Now barely fluctuating up or…

Economist and author of The Bitcoin Standard, Saifedean Ammous, has weighed in on the ongoing debate over spam inscriptions on the Bitcoin network, suggesting he would “throw in a few sats” to fund a full-time developer focused on making Bitcoin spamming more difficult and expensive.Ammous made the remarks in response to a thread initiated by the pseudonymous developer GrassFedBitcoin, who called for Bitcoin Core to merge pull request #28408, which would enable node operators to filter inscriptions more easily.According to GrassFedBitcoin, the lack of inscription filtering tools contributes to unnecessary blockchain bloat and undermines Bitcoin (BTC)’s role as a monetary protocol.“No…

Retired artist Ed Suman lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency earlier this year after falling victim to a scam involving someone posing as a Coinbase support representative.Suman, 67, spent nearly two decades as a fabricator in the art world, helping build high-profile works such as Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sculptures, according to a May 17 report by Bloomberg.After retiring, he turned to cryptocurrency investing, eventually accumulating 17.5 Bitcoin (BTC) and 225 Ether (ETH) — a portfolio that comprised most of his retirement savings.He stored the funds in a Trezor Model One, a hardware wallet commonly used by crypto holders to…

United Kingdom crypto companies will need to collect and report data from every customer trade and transfer beginning Jan. 1, 2026 as part of a broader effort to improve crypto tax reporting, the UK government said.Everything from the user’s full name, home address and tax identification number will need to be collected and reported for every transaction, including the cryptocurrency used and the amount moved, the UK Revenue and Customs department said in a May 14 statement.Details of companies, trusts and charities transacting on crypto platforms will also need to be reported.Failure to comply or inaccurate reporting may incur penalties…

Hong Kong police arrested 12 people involved in a cross-border money laundering scheme that relied on crypto and over 500 stooge bank accounts to launder HK$118 million ($15 million), local news outlets reported.The syndicate was dismantled on May 15, resulting in the arrest of nine men and three women in mainland China and Hong Kong. The suspects allegedly recruited others to open bank accounts to receive proceeds from fraud cases, which were then converted into crypto at crypto exchange shops to launder the illicit funds, Hong Kong Commercial Daily reported on May 17.The criminal organization rented a residential unit in…

Public internet infrastructure is the critical speed and performance constraint on high-throughput blockchain networks, according to Austin Federa, co-founder and CEO of DoubleZero, a project developing high-speed fiber optic communication rails for blockchains.”The downside of the public internet is it was never built for high-performance systems. It was always built for this sort of relationship of one big server talking to one little server,” Federa told Cointelegraph in an interview at Consensus 2025. The executive explained:”We have validators all around the world. Rotating leader schedules all the time. And then they switch from having to be massive consumers of data…

Moody’s credit rating agency downgraded the credit rating of the United States government from Aaa to Aa1, citing the rising national debt as the primary driver behind the reduction in creditworthiness.According to the May 16 announcement from the rating agency, US lawmakers have failed to stem annual deficits or reduce spending over the years, leading to a growing national debt. The rating agency wrote:”We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from the current fiscal proposals under consideration. Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises while government revenue…

Michael James, the head of institutional business development at Douro Labs — the company that developed the Pyth high-speed blockchain oracle network — told Cointelegraph that oracle networks like Pyth are disrupting the $50 billion financial data industry that provides critical price information to exchanges, brokerages, trading firms, and other institutional entities.In an interview at Consensus 2025, the executive said that Pyth Network’s data pull model sets it apart from traditional pricing oracles, allowing customers to pay for data on demand, reducing costs for institutions reliant on real-time market data.Differences between pull and push models in oracle systems. Source: Pyth…

South Africa’s Garden Route, famed for its lush forests, expansive beaches and charming towns, has become a testbed for Bitcoin adoption.From Mossel Bay to Witsand and Plettenberg Bay to Knysna, Bitcoin has become popular among shop owners and travelers alike for a multitude of reasons.“We’re seeing the early signs of a parallel, permissionless economy emerging across an entire region,” James Caw, founder of SimplB — a local crypto asset provider — told Cointelegraph, “where small businesses benefit from faster, lower-cost digital payments and where people have more options to earn, send and receive sound money securely.”For tourists, the benefits are…