6/20/24: The Kraken Is Under Attack 🐙💸🤨

Top News

  1. Kraken treasury exploited for $3M due to deposit bug

  2. Stablecoin issuers are now the 18th largest holder of US debt

  3. Roger Stone says Trump and son are not involved in $DJT

Specs’ Breakdown

1. Kraken treasury exploited for $3M due to deposit bug

⌐◪-◪ → Kraken was exploited for over $3M due to a bug that allowed fake deposits and withdrawals without payment.

Before Kraken received a bug bounty alert from Certik, three accounts had exploited the bug.

Kraken’s Chief Security Officer said one account belonged to the bug reporter, who only took $4 to verify the bug.

No big deal, right? Well…

The other two accounts withdrew $3M and appear to be coworkers of the bug reporter at Certik. They waited five days to disclose the vulnerability and now allegedly refuse to return the funds until Kraken reveals the exploit size.

Kraken is accusing Certik of extortion, while Certik claims Kraken threatened them.

2. Stablecoin issuers are now the 18th largest holder of US debt

⌐◪-◪ → Stablecoin issuers are now the world's 18th biggest holders of U.S. debt according to data from Tagus Capital.

For context, this puts them ahead of surplus nations like Germany and South Korea — pretty insane. Zooming in:

  • Tether ($USDT) holds $91B in U.S. Treasuries

  • Circle ($USDC) holds $29B in short-dated U.S. debt

Stablecoins are one of crypto’s fastest-growing segments, transfers have increased 16x over the last 4 years with $1.68T volume in April.

Furthermore, stablecoins are one of the only crypto bills that are close to passing Congress and becoming law.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire thinks stablecoins could account for 10% of global economic money over the next 10 years.

3. Roger Stone says Trump and son are not involved in $DJT

⌐◪-◪ → The $DJT memecoins saga continues and it’s hard to know who or what to believe at this point. Three key events transpired since yesterday’s newsletter:

  1. ZachXBT won the Akrham Intelligence’s $150k bounty for unveiling Martin Shkreli as one of $DJTs creators

  2. Martin Shkreli went on 𝕏-Spaces and shared countless details surrounding his and Barron’s creation of $DJT

  3. Roger Stone tweeted that Trump and Barron are not involved in any way with $DJTh, fully contradicting everything above

While I want to believe “official” sources (Roger Stone) the level of detail Martin provided on 𝕏-Spaces is pretty compelling.

  • his involvement with Barron and his friend Bo Loudon

  • who holds the keys, and the script they used to generate it

  • how Barron and DJT Jr. were racing to launch a memecoin

  • how he feels like a “father-figure” to Barron

  • how he thinks Barron could become President one day

Martin even gave out his Instagram password to two different parties so that they could verify all the DM’s between him and Barron Trump — still waiting on the results here…

Anyway, I’m not sure what to believe, but this seems plausible theory. If you are bored today, listen to the 𝕏-Spaces recording.

Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

🏦 Wall Street & VC

  • MicroStrategy buys another 11,931 Bitcoin worth $786M)

  • Hashdex waives fees for Europe fund until $1B net asset value

  • Marathon's L2 Anduro enables easy creation of multiple sidechains

  • Bondex raises over $10M for web3 LinkedIn alternative

  • Particle Network raises $15M token round for modular blockchain

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

🌎 Rest of the World

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

🤑 Meme Coins

  • $DOGE prices fall as traders bet against token

  • $BONK to be listed on Bitstamp ‘soon’

  • $TURBO flips $MOG to become ETH’s 3rd largest memecoin

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