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The Protocol: Self-spreading Malware Found in Privacy Crypto Dero

Published

2 дня ago

28 мая, 2025

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Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, the Ethereum protocol reporter on CoinDesk’s Tech team.

In this issue:

The Solana Network Is Now Live on MetaMask
Privacy Crypto Dero Targeted With New Self-Spreading Malware
FIFA Teams Up With Avalanche to Build Its Own Blockchain, Expanding Web3 Ambition
Square Pilots Real-Time Bitcoin Payments in Vegas, Plans Full Availability to Customers in 2026

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Network News

SOLANA NOW ON METAMASK: MetaMask announced on Tuesday that its Solana integration was live, meaning that users can now transact on the second-largest smart-contract platform and interact with Solana-based applications through the wallet. The integration is currently only on desktop, but is slated to launch on the MetaMask mobile app in the coming weeks, the company said. MetaMask is the Ethereum network’s most popular browser wallet, with over 100 million annual users. — Tom Carreras Read more.

SELF-SPREADING MALWARE FOUND IN PRIVACY CRYPTO DERO: A newly discovered Linux malware campaign is compromising unsecured Docker infrastructure worldwide, turning exposed servers into part of a decentralized cryptojacking network that mines the privacy coin Dero. According to a report by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, the attack begins by exploiting publicly exposed Docker APIs. In software terms, a docker is a set of applications or platform tools that delivers software in small packages called containers. Once access is gained, the malware spawns malicious containers. It infects already-running ones, siphoning system resources to mine Dero and scan for additional targets without requiring a central command server. As of early May, over 520 Docker APIs were publicly exposed over port 2375 worldwide — each one a potential target. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

FIFA TAPS AVALANCHE FOR OWN BLOCKCHAIN: FIFA, football’s global governing body, plans to use Avalanche’s network to power its own dedicated layer-1 blockchain. The FIFA Blockchain is an Avalanche L1, a customizable blockchain that uses Avalanche’s technology (previously known as a subnet). The news comes as the Avalanche network recently went through its major Avalanche9000 upgrade, aimed at attracting new developers and encouraging them to create customized L1s. Thursday’s announcement is not FIFA’s first foray into the world of blockchain and crypto. In 2022, the football body released a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the Algorand blockchain ahead of the Qatar World Cup. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.

SQUARE PILOTS BITCOIN PAYMENTS: Jack Dorsey’s Square took bitcoin payments a step further at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas this week. For three days, the company is piloting a program where attendees can make purchases with their bitcoin by scanning a barcode. Payments are then settled in near real-time via the Lighting Network while Square handles real-time exchange rate calculations and confirmation notifications, according to a press release. Square hopes to make the feature available to a broader audience later this year and to all customers by 2026, pending regulatory approval. — Helene Braun Read more.

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In Other News

Bitcoin’s upward trend continued to show signs of weakness early Wednesday, even as Wall Street tech stocks surged overnight in anticipation of upbeat earnings from AI giant Nvidia (NVDA). The leading cryptocurrency by market value traded near $108,900 at press time, teasing a downside break of a trendline characterizing the uptrend from early April lows, according to data source Coingecko. Bullish trendlines indicate areas of strong demand, thus a move below one is generally seen as a sign of a potential reversal and a possible start of a downward move. — Omkar Godbole Read more.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally initiated a review of the WisdomTree XRP Trust, a proposed spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would provide investors with exposure to XRP. Filed by the Cboe BZX Exchange, the application marks the first formal SEC review of a U.S.-based spot XRP ETF. If approved, it would be the first spot XRP ETF in the U.S. — a milestone that could open the door for similar products across other crypto assets. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.

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Regulatory and Policy

The U.S. Senate appears closer to passing its landmark stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act, following a battle that Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), the bill’s main legislative champion, called incredibly hard-fought. “It has been extremely difficult,” Lummis said during a fireside chat with Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas on Tuesday. “I had no idea how hard this was going to be.” Last week, the Senate voted to advance the bill, easily clearing the 60-vote threshold required to kick the bill to its last discussion phase before the final vote to pass it out of the body entirely. An earlier attempt failed on a bipartisan basis after Senate Democrats, led by long-time crypto sceptic Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), as well as several Republicans, including Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Kentucky’s Rand Paul, voted against cloture. — Cheyenne Ligon Read more.
A man suspected of helping kidnap and torture an Italian cryptocurrency investor in a Manhattan townhouse has surrendered to New York City police. William Duplessie turned himself in Tuesday after what officials described as days of negotiations with authorities, the New York Times reports. He is the third suspect in an alleged plot to extract the keys to a bitcoin wallet belonging to Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, a crypto fund associate who said he was held captive and abused for nearly three weeks. — Francisco Rodrigues Read more.

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Calendar

May 27-29: Bitcoin 2025, Las Vegas
May 27-29: ETHPrague, Prague
June 8-22: Berlin Blockchain Week, Berlin
June 24-26: Permissionless, Brooklyn
June 30-July 3: EthCC, Cannes
July 16-18: Web3 Summit, Berlin
Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires
Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong
May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami

Uncategorized

Trump’s Memecoin Dinner Questioned by Top Democrat on House Judiciary Committee

Published

6 часов ago

30 мая, 2025

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A senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, Jamie Raskin, joined his name to lawmakers seeking answers about President Donald Trump’s recent dinner for top investors in his memecoin, sending questions directly to Trump.

Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has been a vocal critic of the president and becomes the latest of many from his party to probe details about the event, which they’ve called out as evidence of White House corruption. Because Raskin is in the minority party, his demands are unlikely to lead to further congressional action unless they regain the House or Senate in next year’s elections.

«I write today to demand that you release the names of all the attendees at this dinner and provide information about the source of the money they each used to buy $TRUMP coins, so that we can prevent illegal foreign government emoluments from being pocketed without congressional consent,» Raskin wrote this week to the president, joining many counterparts in the Senate in seeking the information, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.

«We deserve to know who is paying for access to our president, and what steps you took to ensure that the funds you receive are legitimate and legal, rather than the proceeds from foreign states or monarchs or illegal activities,» Rasking said, specifically highlighting Tron founder Justin Sun, a guest who was a major early investor in Trump’s family crypto operations.

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FTX Repayments May Have Positive Market Impact: Coinbase

Published

8 часов ago

30 мая, 2025

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The FTX Recovery Trust will begin distributing over $5 billion in cash and stablecoins to creditors starting on Friday, with funds expected to land in accounts within the next three business days via BitGo and Kraken.

And there’s a chance this wave of repayments will help lift the crypto market, analysts at Coinbase wrote in a report on Friday.

It’s the second major round of repayments following the exchange’s collapse. The first, which began on Feb. 18, returned roughly $7 billion to creditors with claims under $50,000. That did little to lift broader crypto markets at the time, which remained under pressure from macro headwinds.

This latest wave of distributions comes as investor sentiment has shifted, the analysts said. Payments will arrive in stablecoins, offering recipients immediate on-chain liquidity, instead of cash and crypto. That could influence whether the funds are reinvested.

There’s also a broader sense of optimism in crypto markets, thanks in part to a rally in major assets and increased political clarity around regulation. Institutional players, in particular, may feel more comfortable acting on incoming funds, especially as Congress moves closer to passing legislation that would define the roles of U.S. regulators overseeing digital assets.

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Judge Declines to Order DOJ to Review Records in Roman Storm Case

Published

9 часов ago

30 мая, 2025

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The federal judge overseeing Roman Storm’s prosecution declined to order the Department of Justice to review its records for any materials it might have missed that would help the Tornado Cash developer at the end of a 30-minute hearing Friday morning, though she told the government it should not have any disclosure issues.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla also ruled that there were no Brady violation concerns with the Department of Justice’s conversations with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) about whether mixers needed to register as money transmitters — the conversation that prosecutors pursuing Samourai Wallet developers had with FinCEN officials, but not the prosecutors on Storm’s case — one of the DOJ representatives said in the phone conference on Friday.

If the judge had found that prosecutors had withheld information, it could affect the case moving forward.

«I’m not going to require a further review based on the representations made that there’s no additional material of this type, and based on my views that I don’t believe the material was exculpatory,» she said.

«There’s a difference between ‘this is something I’d like to know’ and ‘this is a Brady violation,'» the judge said, referring to a Supreme Court precedent that requires prosecutors to share any and all information that might help a defendant with the defendant’s team.

Storm’s defense attorneys argued during the hearing that they needed to know when the prosecutors in their case learned about the FinCEN conversation.

«They do plan to say they’re charging a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter,» said defense attorney Brian Klein. «My question is who are they supposed to be licensed with? … this is all in the same issue. They’ve only dropped one subpart … but they’re still going to say they’re charging an unlicensed money business.»

Thane Rehn, a prosecutor who worked on the DOJ case against Sam Bankman-Fried, said that his team wouldn’t argue that Tornado Cash needed to secure a license.

«The word ‘license’ doesn’t apply here and the jury won’t be instructed on licensing issues … what we intend to prove at trial is the defendant knew they were transmitting funds derived from criminals,» he said.

The judge did at multiple points ask the prosecutors if they planned to change any other theories or charges in the weeks leading up to the trial, saying doing so might be unfair to the defense. The trial is supposed to kick off in less than two months.