The good news for encryption investors arrived shortly after 8am. On Friday: Coinbase, the largest encryption market in the United States, had reached an agreement with US regulators to reject a trial that had been hanging for years in the industry.
But within a few hours, the encryption market went down to a new crisis. At 10:51 AM, bybit, another top -notch encryption exchange, said it had been disturbed – with industry analysts assessing the loss of nearly $ 1.5 billion, the largest theft in encryption history.
The prices of Bitcoin, ether and other significant cryptocurrencies have been immersed. Even the price of the coinbase stock was reduced by 8 % by the end of the day.
This contrast with the separated screen was an up -to -date depiction of the encryption situation in 2025. Even when President Trump embraces the industry, the wild west of the financial world remains prone to scams, thefts and sudden disasters.
A series of political changes in Washington are ready to encourage millions of investors for the first time to encrypt, despite the continued industry struggles in the police and to prevent criminal activity. Hack was a reminder that, for all its growing influence on politics, Crypto remains an international free for everyone-a chaotic market in which even the most experienced investors sometimes suffer extreme losses.
“These guys whose whole business is encryption, they are smart for these issues, lost just $ 1.5 billion,” said Corey Frayer, who worked in the Crypture Crypture Policy during the Biden administration. “So how are we waiting for regular Americans who just want their debit card to work to use the products safely?”
The news about Coinbase and Bybit came at the end of a cylinder-coaster a few days in the cryptographic world. The proliferation of new imitated – digital coins based on an internet joke or a celebrity mascot, without practical function – has widely caused fraudulent fraud.
Last week, a memecoin promoted by Argentinean president Javier Milei suddenly fell into value, starting with a political crisis there and costs more than $ 250 million.
Recently, Crypto executives have expressed concern about the spread of these high -risk cryptocurrency, reducing that they could overturn some of the progress made by industry with legislators. Shortly before his inauguration, Mr Trump put his own memecoin for sale – took place in value before he crushed. More than 800,000 encryption accounts lost money.
“Memecoins are not just a casino – it’s worse,” writes Haseeb Qureshi, an encryption investor, wrote in the social media this week. “It’s a casino where every slot machine has a different owner. Everyone tries to cut you off as long as they can before you go to the next.”
According to Biden’s administration, federal regulators overseered a broad repression in encryption, submitting lawsuits against many of the industry’s largest companies.
At the top of this list was Coinbase, a $ 60 billion company released in 2021. Two years ago, the sec sued Coinbase, claiming that the digital coins sold on its platform were titles, as well as stocks and stocks. Bonds negotiated on Wall Street. Regulators claimed that Coinbase should be registered with the sec and follow strict rules for protecting investors from financial damage.
But the government’s attitude towards Crypto was transformed when Mr Trump took office. The president has his own encryption operation, World Liberty Financial, giving him a personal share of the industry’s success. And he has appointed an ally encryption ally, the Paul Atkins title lawyer, to lead the sec, which has quickly reduced her efforts.
In a regulatory deposit on Friday morning, Coinbase announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to reduce its lawsuit without imposing any financial penalty. (The agreement requires approval by the organization’s commissioners, a process that is expected to be a wording.)
In the festive positions of social media, industry executives declared the end of a “siege against encryption” by the federal government.
Euphoria didn’t last long. Bybit, based in Dubai and processing tens of billions of dollars in daily transactions, revealed that thieves had violated his system, stealing huge quantities of ether.
Crypto has a long history of destructive hacks, but bybit theft has set the previous record when thieves stole $ 611 million in cryptocurrencies from a platform called Polynetwork in 2021.
Even outside the cryptographic world, there is little precedent for a theft so large. “It may even be the largest single theft of all time,” said Tom Robinson, co -founder of Elliptic, a encryption company.
In the social media, BYBIT’s chief executive Ben Zhou assured customers that the company was still soluble. “Even if this hack loss is not recovered. All customers’ assets are 1 to 1 supported,” he wrote. “We can cover the loss.”
In a live stream on Friday, Mr Zhou, who stumbles Red Bull, said the “affected amount” was 401,000 ether or about $ 1.1 billion. Crypto Forensics experts estimate that the total of $ 1.5 billion, based on the analysis of public transactions files.
Bybit does not offer customers in the United States, according to its website. Company representatives did not respond immediately to comment request.
A encryption team, Arkham Intelligence, said the North Korean hackers were behind the breach of Bybit. The attacks of the North Korean teams have been infecting industry for years.
The price of Bitcoin sank from about $ 100,000 early Friday to just over $ 95,000 that night, a 5 %reduction. Other cryptocurrencies fell even more.
And one day of celebration for Coinbase ended with a dip on the Stock Exchange: since the market was closed on Friday, its shares were negotiating at their lowest price since November.
