Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Copyright Registrations Do Not Recognize Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto Although self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, filed United States copyright registrations for the bitcoin white paper and the bitcoin (BTC) source code, that does not mean that the U.S. Copyright Office recognized Wright as Nakamoto. A spokesperson for Wright had …

Fraudsters have been adding fake cryptocurrency wallets to the Google Play store in an attempt to cash in on rising bitcoin (BTC) prices, ESET antivirus researchers claimed on May 23. One malicious app imitated the hardware wallet Trezor — and the investigation found that the software had ties to another fake app that has the potential to scam unsuspecting users out of money. While the app’s page on Google Play looked legitimate, the researchers said the software itself contains no Trezor branding at all, with a generic login screen phishing for credentials. According to ESET, more than 1,000 users had …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and its affiliated stablecoin issuer Tether have been granted its stay of demands for which they applied yesterday May 21, according to a blog post published on May 22. Per the post, Justice Joel M. Cohen of the New York Supreme Court (NYSC) ruled to grant the companies their motion for an immediate stay of the document demands. The court thus only requires the parties to produce documents and information related to whether there is personal jurisdiction over the companies in New York, while staying the document order in all other regards. In yesterday’s motion, law firms …

Cryptocurrency research firm Diar indicates that the market capitalization for USD stablecoins has hit all-time highs and exceeded $4 billion, according to its latest weekly report published on May 21. Stablecoins tied to the greenback have broken through to a market cap of almost $4.3 billion, according to Diar’s data. The report also reveals a surge in USD stablecoin trading volumes, with Circle and Coinbase-backed USD Coin (USDC) posting a 130% uptick in volume between April and May, so far this month hitting $3.6 billion (as compared with $1.6 billion in April). As Diar notes, USDC’s trading volume increase since …

Bitfinex and Tether lawyers are moving to dismiss their ongoing case versus the New York Attorney General (NYAG), according to court filings on May 21. Law firms representing the two companies argue that the New York Supreme Court (NYSC) does not have jurisdiction over the alleged misconduct being considered. The lawyers argue that the NYSC has neither personal nor subject matter jurisdiction and that the NYSC cannot be appealed to, because Bitfinex and Tether are neither operated out of New York nor harmed investors in that state. As per the motion: “The Office of the New York Attorney General (“OAG”) …

Stablecoin issuer Tether said that it had invested some of its reserves in bitcoin (BTC), according to a court filing obtained by tech-focused media outlet the Block on May 21. Per the document dated May 16, David Miller, an attorney for Tether’s associated firm Bitfinex, said that Tether invested “a small amount” of Tether’s reserves into bitcoin, specifying that “prior to the April 24th order … Tether actually did invest in instruments beyond cash and cash equivalents, including bitcoin, they bought bitcoin.” Miller further said that Tether made “other investments, including purchasing other assets.” In response to Miller’s statement, New …

Friday, May 17 — after a week of deep green and bullish price performance, crypto markets today are seeing a major correction, with bitcoin (BTC) dropping below the $7,350 mark, as Coin360 data shows. Market visualization courtesy of Coin360 Bitcoin has taken a steep price hit, dropping 8% on the day to trade at $7,346 to press time. The top coin had brushed $8,300 yesterday, May 16 — a bullish price point not seen since August 2018. Despite today’s major correction, bitcoin retains a strong gain of 16.61% on the week. Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap Largest altcoin by …

Blockchain data provider TokenAnalyst estimates that capital outflows from major crypto exchanges have exceeded inflows by ~$622 million over the past five days, Bloomberg reported on May 15. London-based TokenAnalyst has reportedly based its figure on an analysis of withdrawals and capital inflows on multiple crypto trading platforms — including Bitfinex, BitMEX, Binance and Kraken. While bitcoin (BTC) continues to rally and hit multi-month highs, Bloomberg’s report also makes the claim that its strong price performance may in part be inflated by recent capital flight from investors unsettled by the spate of controversies affecting crypto exchange Bitfinex and affiliated USD …

Lawyers for parent firm iFinex Inc., Bitfinex, USD stablecoin issuer Tether and affiliated entities have submitted a letter to Justice Joel M. Cohen on May 13 asking for more leniency in the use of cash restrictions imposed by last month’s injunction. On April 24, the office of the Office of the New York Attorney General (NY OAG) had accused Bitfinex of losing $850 million of funds needed for user redemptions, and subsequently using capital from affiliated firm Tether to secretly cover the shortfall. Last week, Cohen had noted that the scope of the OAG court order was too broad, and …

The CTO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex appeared to confirm the entity had raised $1 billion in fresh investment in new social media comments on May 13. Following rumors that began with a major shareholder in the platform announcing $1 billion confirmed in hard and soft commitments, CTO Paolo Ardoino took to Twitter on Monday to report that Bitfinex’s private token sale, which ended May 11, had sold out. The sale, which involves new in-house LEO tokens via a so-called initial exchange offering (IEO), comes as Bitfinex grapples with a funding gap of $850 million and an associated legal indictment. “Private …

Crypto exchange Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong has reportedly revealed that the exchange has sealed $1 billion in both hard and soft commitments for its initial native exchange token offering. The news was reported by crypto news outlet Coindesk on May 9. As previously reported, plans to issue a native Bitfinex exchange token first surfaced in late April, with later details revealed by Dong and a subsequent ostensibly official marketing paper allegedly from iFinex, the company behind both Bitfinex and associated stablecoin issuer Tether (USDT). A white paper published by Bitfinex on May 8 confirmed that the exchange intends to issue …

Joseph Lubin, founder of blockchain tech company ConsenSys, expressed his pessimism regarding the recent situation with cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex, Bloomberg reported on May 9. Speaking at the Fluidity Summit conference, Lubin said that “it seems like a really big mess that probably won’t get better. Tether is somewhat important to our ecosystem because it’s used by different institutions to effect more fluid trading.” Lubin noted however, that the turmoil surrounding Tether and Bitfinex could drive growth in other stablecoins: “There are other price-stable tokens out there — many others — and I think they’re going to gain traction because …