Ethereum&#8217;s surge post-upgrade highlights its growing institutional appeal and potential to challenge traditional market giants in valuation. The post Ethereum price almost doubles post-Pectra upgrade, nears Eric Trump promo high appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Ethereum price almost doubles post-Pectra upgrade, nears Eric Trump promo high

Data shows the Dogecoin Futures Open Interest has continued to rise, a sign 
that the price pullback hasn&#8217;t discouraged speculative activity. Dogecoin 
Futures Open Interest Is Up Almost 64% Over Past Week In a new post on X, the 
analytics firm Glassnode has talked about the latest trend in the Futures Open 
Interest of Dogecoin. The &#8220;Futures Open Interest&#8221; here refers to a metric that 
keeps track of the total amount of futures positions related to DOGE that are 
currently open on all centralized derivatives exchanges. When the value of 
this metric goes up, it means the investors are opening up more positions on 
the market. The total leverage present in the sector usually goes up when new 
positions appear, so this kind of trend can lead to more volatility for the 
asset&#8217;s price. Related Reading: Bitcoin Sharks &amp; Whales Continue To 
Accumulate: Stage Set For New All-Time High? On the other hand, the indicator 
observing a decline suggests the holders are either closing up positions of 
their own volition or getting liquidated by their platform. Usually, the 
cryptocurrency becomes more stable following such a trend. Now, here is a 
chart that shows the trend in the Dogecoin Futures Open Interest over the last 
few months: As displayed in the above graph, the Dogecoin Futures Open 
Interest has witnessed a huge increase recently, a sign that investors have 
put up a large number of bets related to the memecoin. Over the past week, the 
metric&#8217;s value has gone from $989 million to $1.62 billion, which implies 
growth of almost 64%. Initially, this strong uplift in speculative activity 
coincided with DOGE&#8217;s sharp recovery rally. Investors usually find rallies to 
be exciting, so they tend to open up more positions on the futures market 
during them. Interestingly, though, despite the fact that the Dogecoin rally 
has gone cool most recently and the price has even registered some pullback, 
the Futures Open Interest has only continued to move up. &#8220;This decoupling 
suggests persistent speculative positioning, even as price momentum fades &#8211; a 
setup worth monitoring,&#8221; notes the analytics firm. Related Reading: Bitcoin 
Near ATH, But Still No Extreme Greed: Green Sign For Bull Run? DOGE isn&#8217;t the 
only asset that has enjoyed a boost in speculative activity recently. As 
Glassnode has pointed out in another X post, XRP has also seen its Futures 
Open Interest shoot up. During the same window as Dogecoin&#8217;s Open Interest 
increase, XRP has observed the indicator go up by 41.6%, from $2.4 billion to 
$3.4 billion. &#8220;This sharp increase in leverage coincides with a price rally 
from $2.14 to $2.48, suggesting elevated speculative activity and growing 
directional conviction,&#8221; says the analytics firm. DOGE Price At the time of 
writing, Dogecoin is trading around $0.236, up more than 42% over the past 
week. Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com

Dogecoin Open Interest Up Despite Price Pullback, Data Shows

Twenty One Capital has added another 4,812 Bitcoin to its treasury after a 
fresh purchase by major backer Tether ahead of a planned Special Purpose 
Acquisition Company merger. On May 9, Tether acquired the BTC at an average 
price of…

Tether adds 4,812 Bitcoin into Twenty One Capital’s treasury ahead of public listing

Two former executives of the bankrupt crypto lending service Cred have pleaded 
guilty to wire fraud connected to the company&#8217;s collapse.
Former Cred CEO Daniel Schatt and chief financial officer Joseph Podulka 
admitted to wire fraud as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, according to a 
May 13 text filing in a California District Court.
District Judge William Alsup accepted the plea deals and set a sentencing 
hearing for Aug. 26. Wire fraud can carry up to 20 years in prison and 
$250,000 in fines for individuals and $500,00 for businesses.
_After accepting the defendant&#8217;s guilty plea, Judge William Alsup set a 
sentencing hearing for August. Source:__PACER_
Law360 reported that as part of the plea agreement, Schatt and Podulka 
admitted to selectively presenting positive &#8220;information [while] failing to 
disclose negative news&#8221; as part of a plan to &#8220;induce customers to lend their 
US currency and digital currencies to Cred.&#8221;
Federal prosecutors have reportedly submitted a possible sentence range of up 
to 72 months for Schatt and up to 62 months for Podulka. Schatt and Podulka 
were facing 13 charges of wire fraud and money laundering.
## Cred customer losses over $150 million
When Cred collapsed and filed for bankruptcy, its customers suffered losses of 
up to $150 million, but the US Department of Justice said in May 2024 that the 
assets had since climbed to a market value exceeding $783 million.
In the plea agreement, the defendants agreed that their actions led to losses 
of between $65 million and $150 million for users.
Former Cred chief commercial officer James Alexander was also hit with wire 
fraud and money laundering charges.
Prosecutors alleged that the Cred executives misled customers about Cred&#8217;s 
lending and investment practices and didn&#8217;t disclose that its loan book relied 
heavily on a Chinese firm called MoKredit Inc. that made unsecured microloans 
to Chinese gamers.
Cred also allegedly claimed to only engage in collateralized lending, and all 
its crypto investments were hedged, which prosecutors say was false.
After the price of Bitcoin (BTC) dropped by 40% on March 11, 2020, Cred could 
not meet its margin calls and neared insolvency, and the three executives 
sought out new customers while downplaying the risks, prosecutors claimed.
When Cred declared bankruptcy in November 2020, numerous users turned to 
social media to voice concerns and ask if their funds were safe.
_**Related:**__**Uphold exchange denies owing millions to failed crypto lender 
Cred**_
Other crypto founders have also faced legal consequences this year. Alex 
Mashinsky, the founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto lending platform 
Celsius, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud on May 8.
Meanwhile, Wolf Capital co-founder and head trader Travis Ford pleaded guilty 
on Jan. 10 to wire fraud conspiracy charges for his role in raising over $9 
million from investors with false promises of high returns.
_**Magazine:**__**ChatGPT a &#8216;schizophrenia-seeking missile,&#8217; AI scientists 
prep for 50% deaths: AI Eye**_

Former execs of crypto lender Cred cop to wire fraud

Bitget Wallet has unveiled a new in-app marketplace called &#8216;Shop With Crypto,&#8217; 
which enables users to make crypto payments directly for more than 300 
merchants connected to the app. According to a press release sent to 
crypto.news, the service offers…

Bitget Wallet launches new crypto in-app marketplace with access to over 300 brands

Yakovenko stated that this meta-blockchain could improve the state of data 
availability in the digital space, opening the possibility of posting data 
wherever and whenever it is cheaper in any of the available chains part of 
this structure. Solana Co-Founder Calls for the Creation of a Meta-Blockchain 
With Data Availability in Mind Blockchain as a […]