It’s Friday again, which means it’s time to round up the top headlines from the crypto world. Get comfortable – this digest has something that’s sure to surprise you.
Top Gainers of the Week
- Pepe is back on top, surging by 54.33% and reaching a price of $0.00001349.
- Pudgy Penguins continues to lead for the second week in a row, gaining 44.57% and hitting $0.01515.
- Ethereum followed Bitcoin’s upward trend, jumping 32.37% and reclaiming the $2413.99 level it had lost two months ago.
Top Losers of the Week
- Raydium dropped by 4.28% and is now priced at $2.80.
- Optimism slipped by 2.38% this week, landing at $0.7249.
- Walrus also fell, losing 2.31% and reaching $0.6163.
Michael Saylor Explains Why Microsoft Should Buy Bitcoin
The executive chairman and co-founder of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, spoke at Strategy World 2025 with a speech devoted to Bitcoin. The conference on AI and BI was organized by the MicroStrategy company.
Saylor was convinced that Microsoft should stop buying back shares and start investing in digital capital, Bitcoin.
“If the cost of capital is the S&P 500 at 14%, Microsoft is outperforming by 4%. Bitcoin is outperforming by 48%,” Saylor emphasized. “Bonds, by the way, are down 5% – underperforming by 19%.”
He argued that if Microsoft positions itself as dominant in digital infrastructure, it should be powered by digital capital.
“You’ve got to find something that’s not exposed to competitors, countries, corporations, creditors, currencies, or cultures,” he said. “And that’s Bitcoin.”
You can see his whole talk here.
Binance Founder CZ predicted Bitcoin price to become $500K–$1M this cycle
In the interview with Farokh Sarmad on Rug Radio published on May 5, Changpeng Zhao talked about the crypto market and the overall economic situation.
Here is my full interview with @cz_binance!
— Farokh (Perma/Bull) (@farokh) May 5, 2025
Had the chance to sit with the founder of @Binance last week to talk about the state of crypto, the future, Donald Trump, prison and more.
Timestamps:
07:00 - What did you learn from your time in the memecoin trenches?
10:02 - What… pic.twitter.com/6c1lMog2qq
He connected Bitcoin’s impressive price boom with the rise of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which are “bringing the traditional institution money into crypto,” and emphasized that “most of the money in the US is institutional money.”
Zhao also highlighted that governments are increasingly buying Bitcoin as well, which “is really good for the price action.”
The U.S. “has pivoted 180 degrees under a pro-crypto president,” since the election of President Donald Trump.
He added: “They’re smart enough to recognise that buying Bitcoin is a great move, and now other countries will have to follow.”
Regarding retail investors, CZ said they “had 15 years to buy.” Consequently, “if they’re late now, that was their choice.”
Crypto holdings represent nearly 40% of the Trump family's net worth
The group State Democracy Defenders Action estimated in a new report that the president's crypto holdings now represent nearly 40% of his net worth, or approximately $2.9 billion.
In October 2024, then-candidate Donald Trump set up his own DeFi exchange, World Liberty Financial. Its website offered to buy WSL tokens.
The entire Trump family owns a 60% stake in the company. According to the company's public reports, they also hold 22.5 billion of the $WLF tokens, which takes an additional 75% in net revenue from future token purchases.
Today’s the day! @WorldLibertyFi token sale is live. Get your $WLFI tokens now. Purchase $WLFI here: https://t.co/jg1tOaHHBy pic.twitter.com/j8ewxa13wp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2024
In light of recent developments, five Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Chris Van Hollen, have addressed a letter to U.S. financial regulators: "President Trump's involvement in this venture, as he strips financial regulators of their independence…presents an extraordinary conflict of interest that could create unprecedented risks to our financial system."
And of course, you remember the issue of $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins. The value of the first one increased 18.1% in early March after the president issued an executive order promoting a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.
A few weeks later, on March 23, he posted "I Love $TRUMP – SO COOL!! The Greatest of them all!!!!" on Truth Social, which led to an increase in the price of the meme coin from $10.93 to $12.24. For now, this post is deleted.
"The bottom line is it appears like he's profiting off of his public office," said Virginia Canter, State Democracy Defenders chief counsel for ethics and anticorruption.
North Korean spy exposed in fake job interview
Crypto spy “Motoki” was a part of a cluster of threat actors called "bestselection18" attempting to score freelancing gigs in the cryptocurrency industry. He posed as a Japanese developer.
The investigation was led by Heiner Garcia, a cyber threat intelligence expert at Telefónica and a blockchain security researcher. In February, he invited Cointelegraph to participate in a dummy job interview he had set up with a suspected Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) operative.
The interview was in English. “Okay, so let me introduce myself. So, I am an experienced engineer in blockchain and AI with a focus on developing innovation and impactful products,” Motoki said during the interview, his eyes scanning from left to right as if reading a script.
During the call, apparently to show an example of his work, he shared his screen and revealed he was working with [bestselection18] in a private repo.
They asked Motoki to introduce himself in Japanese. The screenlight reflecting off his face suggested he was frantically searching through tabs and windows to find a script to help him answer.
There was a long, tense silence. “Jiko shōkai o onegaishimasu,” Cointelegraph repeated the request, this time in Japanese. Motoki frowned, threw off his headset, and left the interview.
Afterward, Garcia still tried to prolong the farce. He asked the fake developer for help getting a job and offered to buy Garcia and give Motoki remote access to it. That's how Garcia learned another scheme that scammers use.
Later, Garcia published all the investigation results on the open-source investigative platform Ketman. In a while, Motoki deleted all the messages.
Why are North Korea developers applying for crypto jobs considered a threat?
A United Nations Security Council report estimates that North Korean IT workers generate up to $600 million annually for the regime. These spies are able to funnel consistent wages back to North Korea. The UN believes those funds help finance its weapons program, which, as of January 2024, is thought to include more than 50 nuclear warheads.
HODL Team
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