WuBlockchain Weekly: Sui DEX Hacked, $162M Frozen After Theft, Bitcoin Hits All-Time High of $110K, Hong Kong and US Introduce Stablecoin Bills, etc

May 23, 2025

1. Bitcoin Breaks Through $110,000, 7-Day Gain Reaches 7.17% link

Bitcoin has broken through the $110,000 mark, reaching an all — time high. As of press time, the quote is $111,313, with a 7 — day increase of 7.17%.

2. US Senate Passes Procedural Motion, GENIUS Stablecoin Bill Enters Formal Deliberation link

According to the disclosure of cryptocurrency journalist Eleanor Terrett, the US Senate has voted to pass the “cloture motion” for the “GENIUS Act” to enter formal consideration. At least 15 Democratic — party senators changed their positions and voted in favor, including Cortez Masto, Adam Schiff, Mark Warner, and others. Although Minority Leader Schumer voted against it, the motion still passed smoothly. The bill will now enter the comprehensive consideration process.

According to Eleanor Terrett, the GENIUS stable — coin bill finally passed the cloture motion on the GENIUS stable — coin bill with a vote of 66 to 32. This marks the official launch of the bill’s consideration process, but the bill itself has not yet been passed.

David Sacks, the US “crypto — czar”, said in an interview with CNBC that if the GENIUS Act stable — coin bill is passed, it will create a demand of trillions of dollars for US Treasury bonds. He expects that after the bill provides a legal framework, the stable — coin market will rapidly expand from the current unregulated $200 billion to a scale of trillions of dollars. Tether already holds nearly $120 billion in US Treasury bonds, surpassing Germany to become the 19th — largest holder.

3. Johnny Ng: Hong Kong Legislative Council Passes Stablecoin Bill at Third Reading, Applications for Compliance Issuance to Open by Year-End link

Hong Kong Legislative Councillor Johnny Ng Ka-chun tweeted that the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has today passed the Stablecoin Bill on its third reading. It is expected that before the end of this year, institutions can apply to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to become licensed stablecoin issuers, with stablecoins required to use legal tender as their underlying assets.

Ng noted that the passage of this legislation marks the starting point for building Web3 infrastructure. He added that efforts should be made to further promote the application of stablecoins in areas such as physical retail and cross-border trade. He also suggested considering the release of stablecoin interest to enhance market attractiveness.

Councillor Ng proposed that assets including offshore RMB could be explored as potential underlying assets, and that interest earned from investments could be directly distributed to stablecoin holders in the future to increase their returns.

4. SEC Chair Responds to Justin Sun Case and Trump Memecoin Controversy link

The US House Appropriations Committee questioned SEC Chairman Paul Atkins about his crypto — regulatory stance on May 20th. Congressman Glenn Ivey was concerned about the SEC’s suspension of the fraud lawsuit against Justin Sun, as well as Sun’s connection with the Trump — related memecoin. Sun had said that he would attend a dinner hosted by Trump for memecoin holders, and Ivey called this matter “disturbing” and urged the SEC to conduct an investigation. Atkins responded that the case was still ongoing, and re — affirmed that memecoins are not considered securities. He also said that crypto — regulation would be promoted by formulating rules in the future.

5. Robinhood Submits Proposal to SEC, Proposing Federal Regulatory Framework for Real-World Asset Tokenization link

Robinhood has submitted a 42 — page proposal to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), suggesting the establishment of a federal — level regulatory framework to support the issuance and trading of real — world asset (RWA) tokens. The proposal advocates treating tokens as legal assets equivalent to the underlying assets, and plans to achieve off — chain matching and on — chain settlement through the “Real — World Asset Exchange (RRE)” platform. Currently, the SEC has not responded to this proposal.

6. Texas House of Representatives Passes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill (SB 21) at Second Reading link

The Texas House of Representatives has passed the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill (SB 21) in the second — reading procedure. The bill allows the state to establish the “Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve”, a special fund, with the aim of enabling the state government to invest in cryptocurrencies, which will be managed by the state comptroller. The bill is now awaiting the governor’s approval to become law.

7. Strategy Increases Bitcoin Holdings by 7,390 Coins May 12–18 link

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) purchased an additional 7,390 bitcoins between May 12 and 18 at an average price of $103,498, with a total expenditure of approximately $764.9 million. As of May 18, Strategy’s total bitcoin holdings increased to 576,230, with a cumulative purchase amount of approximately $40.18 billion and an average holding cost of $69,726.

Additionally, a supplementary prospectus filed by Strategy on May 22, 2025, shows the company plans to issue up to $2.1 billion of 10.00% Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock (code: STRF) through an “At-The-Market” (ATM) offering. The filing reveals that this issuance represents a further offering of the existing 850,000 shares of perpetual preferred stock, aimed at raising funds through equity and debt financing to continue executing its bitcoin strategy.

8. Circle IPO Uncertain, Potential Acquisition by Coinbase or Ripple link

Circle filed an IPO application in April 2025 with a target valuation of $5 billion. However, according to sources familiar with the matter at banks and private equity firms, Circle is in talks with Coinbase and Ripple about potential acquisition deals. Ripple previously proposed a buyout offer of $4 billion to $5 billion, intending to pay with XRP and cash, but the offer was rejected. Earlier, when asked about acquiring Circle, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong stated that there are no announcements to make currently, but any future transaction would depend on the decisions of both parties.

9. Vitalik Proposes Ethereum Local Node-Friendly Scaling Plan link

Vitalik Buterin suggests that Ethereum L1 scaling should take into account the run — ability of personal nodes. In the short — term, EIP — 4444 should be promoted, enabling nodes to store only about 36 — day historical data, a distributed historical storage system should be built, and the Gas mechanism should be adjusted to increase the storage cost and reduce the execution cost. The medium — term goal is to achieve stateless verification to further reduce the storage demand. In the long — term, “partially stateless nodes” should be introduced, and nodes only maintain part of the state data configured by users, ensuring that users can still access important states locally, and safeguarding privacy and censorship — resistance in the context of the increase in the L1 Gas limit.

10. Sui DEX CETUS Hacked, Most Tokens Plunge Over 75% link

Early on Thursday, Cetus, a DEX on SUI, was hacked. Hackers drained the token liquidity from various pools in Cetus and exchanged it for SUI, causing most of the token prices to plummet. Subsequently, the hackers carried out cross — chain operations and exchanged the stolen assets for ETH. Up to now, the funds stolen by the Cetus hackers are distributed among four addresses on the Sui and Ethereum blockchains, with the value of the stolen assets being approximately $224 million. Cetus Protocol released an emergency announcement in response to the hacking incident, and suspended smart contracts to ensure security. The team is investigating and will soon release a further statement.

On the same day, the Sui official stated that $160 million of the funds had been frozen and could be recovered, and would be returned to Cetus LPs. Cetus and Sui developers are working hard to recover the remaining $60 million. The Sui network itself was not affected by this vulnerability attack. The Cetus protocol has fixed the vulnerability, resumed trading, and been relaunched.

The Sui official said that Cetus has cooperated with other DeFi protocols, the Sui Foundation, and Sui validators. A large number of validators have identified the addresses of the stolen funds and will temporarily ignore the transactions on these addresses until further notice. The Cetus team is exploring ways to recover the funds and return them to the community. The Sui Foundation and the entire ecosystem are committed to supporting Cetus.

@0x_Todd and @tmel0211 analyzed that SUI used the Deny List function to blacklist the hacker addresses still on the Sui chain, and nodes will not execute relevant transactions for the blacklisted addresses. Although the Sui official protected users by freezing hacker assets, it actually challenged the so — called decentralization of public chains. Sui has chosen a specific balance point between user protection and decentralization. The key issue of centralization and decentralization lies in the lack of a transparent governance mechanism and clear boundary standards.

Fundraising

World has announced the completion of a $135 million financing round to fund its expansion in the United States and globally. link
True Markets, a cryptocurrency trading app in the Solana ecosystem, has announced the closure of an $11 million Series A financing round. link
Cryptocurrency startup Catena Labs has completed an $18 million seed round of financing. link
Fintech startup Slash has secured $41 million in a Series B funding round. link
Bitcoin liquid staking protocol Rover has announced the completion of a $4.1 million seed round. link
Web3 game developer Voya Games has raised $5 million in financing. link
OpenFX has announced the completion of a $23 million financing round, led by Accel. link
Bitcoin project Roxom Global has announced raising $17.9 million in funding. link

Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.

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