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U.Today has prepared a summary of the top three news stories over the past weekend.
Ripple CEO reacts to SEC's surprising decision
The SEC's recent much friendlier approach toward crypto has shaken the industry; as announced by Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal on X, the agency has officially dropped the case against the leading U.S. exchange. The development scored many reactions from major figures in the crypto space, including Brad Garlinghouse, CEO at Ripple, the company still involved in the legal battle with the SEC. In his X post, Garlinghouse wrote: "Suffice it to say (as I know there are lots of impatient people, including me!), this SEC has demonstrated a clear interest in moving on quickly (!) from the failed regulation by enforcement policies of the last Administration." At the moment, many expect the Ripple case to be withdrawn as well; previously, the prediction with this outcome was made by former SEC official John Reed Stark.
Alex Dovbnya13,046,414 SHIB in minutes: What's happening?
@shibburn, the X account tracking the burn transactions of Shiba Inu tokens, reported a notably large transaction that took place on Friday, Feb. 21. According to the account's data, the transaction involved 13,046,414 SHIB, which were moved to a dead end wallet in mere minutes. The move is part of the SHIB community's strategy aimed at reducing the total supply of Shiba Inu, which will potentially increase the asset's value over time. During that day, a total of 13,822,329 SHIB was burned, representing a 60.52% drop in burn rate. Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market experienced a downturn, influenced by a major $1.5 billion heist on the Bybit exchange, resulting in a significant decrease in SHIB's price. At press time, SHIB is changing hands at $0.00001442, down 7.06% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap.
Bybit's Ethereum (ETH) reserves recovering
Bybit's Ethereum reserves are recovering after a major $1.4 billion hack that reduced its holdings to just 63,807 ETH. According to on-chain data, the exchange's reserves have since recovered to nearly 160,000 ETH. Ben Zhou, CEO at Bybit, noted that as a result of the incident, the platform has lost about 70% of its holdings. The hack was executed by manipulating the signing interface and altering smart contract logic; according to vast on-chain evidence, the responsibility for the incident lies at the feet of North Korea's Lazarus Group. Despite the turmoil, the price of ETH has managed to recover to $2,804 after dipping to $2,614 during the hack; however, not for long - the asset is currently trading at $2,650, down 4.95% over the past 24 hours, per CoinMarketCap. Meanwhile, in an effort to stabilize the asset, Bybit has reportedly purchased 71,755 ETH tokens for around $197 million.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov