Crypto lender Nexo said it is reentering the U.S., marking a comeback two years after regulatory friction forced its exit.

«America is back and so is Nexo,» Co-founder Antoni Trenchev said at a press event Sunday in Bulgaria with Donald Trump Jr., crediting what he described as a more favorable environment for innovation under the Trump presidency.

«Thanks to the vision and leadership of President Donald J. Trump, his administration, and his family, the United States is once again a place where innovation is championed, not stifled. A place where pioneers are celebrated,» Trenchev said, according to a press release.

Now managing $11 billion in assets, Nexo said it will offer its full suite of services to U.S. retail and institutional clients, including high-yield savings products, asset-backed credit lines, and advanced trading solutions.

Nexo withdrew from the U.S. in late 2022 after what it called a «dead end» in negotiations with state and federal regulators over its Earn Interest Product, as well as the market turmoil following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and a wider crackdown on crypto lenders, CoinDesk reported at the time.

The company said in 2022 it could no longer operate in an «impossible environment» following multiple enforcement actions, including from California and New York.

On-chain researcher ZachXBT may have determined why privacy coin Monero (XMR) surged as much as 40% early Monday: Someone probably got hacked.

ZachXBT reported that 3,520 bitcoin (BTC) ($330.7 million) was drained from an address and then swapped for XMR.

Market data shows a spike in volatility coming from an excess in buy orders for the XMR-BTC order book.

Market observers initially had a hard time determining what caused the major spike as metrics such as active wallets and network activity hadn’t risen accordingly.

Liquidity for XMR has been limited during the past few months as major exchanges delisted the privacy token in a bid to fight dark net markets. The lack of liquidity would have made any sizeable buy a catalyst for outsized pricing gains. CoinGecko data shows that the order depth for XMR is significantly smaller than for tokens of similar market cap.

XMR is trading for over $300 according to CoinDesk markets data.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to positive territory for the year for the first time in almost two months, approaching $95,000 and erasing a drop of as much as 18%.

Its current performance, up less 1.5% since Dec. 31, places it between gold, which has gained 24% and the Nasdaq 100, which is down over 7%. As a result, the narrative positioning bitcoin as either a leveraged tech stock or digital gold is leaning slightly toward the digital gold narrative. But only just.

Analyzing bitcoin’s correlation coefficients over a 30-day moving average, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization now shows a strong correlation of 0.70 with gold and a weaker 0.53 correlation with the Nasdaq 100. This suggests bitcoin is aligning more closely with gold’s behavior than with tech equities. Correlation values can run between 1, a strong positive correlation, and -1, a strong negative correlation.

Last week, the bitcoin price rose 10%, its strongest performance since the week ended Nov. 17 during price run following President Donald Trump’s election victory.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariffs continue to feed economic uncertainty. U.S. levies on Chinese goods were raised to 145% earlier this month, leading to a significant drop in cargo shipment demand, according to Bloomberg. As noted in the report, major retailers like Walmart are warning that empty shelves and higher prices could return, reminiscent of the COVID era.