Crypto: 13th May 2025

• Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky was sentenced to 12 years in prison for securities and commodities fraud, misleading customers, and inflating the platform's token, resulting in billions in losses.

• Crypto-related abductions have surged in Europe, including severed fingers and ransom demands, highlighting a dangerous trend linked to perceived cryptocurrency wealth.

• Stripe unveiled an AI foundation model for payments, enhanced fraud detection with a partnership with Nvidia, and launched stablecoin-backed cards and services for optimizing payment providers.

• German authorities shut down the eXch crypto mixer, seizing over $38 million in assets connected to the Bybit hack.

• The GENIUS Act, aimed at regulating stablecoins, failed a key Senate vote as several Democrats defected, citing concerns over Trump's crypto ventures.

• Coinbase announced the acquisition of Deribit for $2.9 billion, enhancing its position in the crypto derivatives market with a combination of cash and stock.

• Q1 2025 saw $7.8B in game investments and M&A, with significant growth driven by AI and blockchain investments across the gaming industry.

Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade – Key Changes & Metrics Impacted (coinmetrics.io, 2025-05-06). Ethereum's Pectra upgrade on May 7, 2025, introduces EIPs enhancing staking, scalability, and UX, including EIP-7623 for calldata costs and EIP-7002 for validator control enhancements

Taiko DAO is Live on Mainnet! (taiko.mirror.xyz, 2025-05-07). Taiko DAO is now live on mainnet, initiating decentralized governance through a gradual rollout, with a full transfer of protocol ownership expected by June 2025. Engage through the DAO website and community channels

Trend-Anomaly Analysis: Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade (datageeek.com, 2025-05-07). Ethereum's Pectra upgrade may drive a 40% price increase, as shown through trend-anomaly analysis using R packages like tidyverse, tidyquant, and timetk

The Risks OF HODL-ing (blog.dshr.org, 2025-05-08). The 2025 Crypto Crime Report reveals a shift from Bitcoin to stablecoins among criminals, with stablecoins making up 63% of illicit transactions due to their speed, liquidity, and regulatory advantages

Founder of Zerebro token fakes his death, promotes new "legacy" coin (web3isgoinggreat.com, 2025-05-10). Jeffy Yu, founder of Zerebro token, faked his death to launch $LLJEEFFY, a 'legacoin'. Speculations arose after a purported suicide video and a confession letter about harassment, as his wallets cashed out $1.3 million

A Full List of BitCoin Addresses from the Recent Lockbit Compromise (ddanchev.blogspot.com, 2025-05-08). A detailed enumeration of Bitcoin addresses linked to the Lockbit ransomware attack, analyzing the structures involved and discussing the implications for ransomware tracking and digital forensics

Directionally Right But Still Wrong. (paragraph.com, 2025-05-12). Exploring play theory, user experience in crypto, and the evolution of use cases, RM discusses how traditional views may overshadow innovations and deeper understandings about distribution and functionality in the crypto ecosystem

Defining the Rules of the Road for Digital Assets (paragraph.com, 2025-05-07). Industry leaders discussed the vital role of blockchain and digital assets in driving U.S. innovation, proposing regulatory clarity to facilitate business development and economic growth within the cryptocurrency sector

EVM Security – Insights from Zer0Con 2025 (fuzzinglabs.com, 2025-05-09). Zer0Con 2025 revealed key EVM vulnerabilities, highlighting fuzzing tools like differential and coverage-guided fuzzing that detect issues in Ethereum implementations, increasing security and resilience against attacks within the blockchain ecosystem

Blockchain Data Analytics: A Scoping Literature Review and Directions for Future Research (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-07). Blockchain technology has led to increased data analytics needs for insights in business intelligence, fraud detection, and financial analysis, yet holistic applications remain underexplored, highlighting significant research gaps and future directions

Empirical Analysis of Transaction Conflicts in Ethereum and Solana for Parallel Execution (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-08). This study quantifies transaction parallelism and conflict patterns in Ethereum and Solana, revealing over 50% block independence in Ethereum versus longer conflict chains in Solana, impacting execution dynamics

SolPhishHunter: Towards Detecting and Understanding Phishing on Solana (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-07). SolPhishHunter detects and analyzes 8,058 instances of Solana phishing, revealing nearly $1.1 million in losses, and introduces SolPhishDataset, the first academic dataset on Solana phishing-related transactions

Enhancing Blockchain Cross Chain Interoperability: A Comprehensive Survey (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-08). This survey analyzes blockchain interoperability, detailing methods like Atomic Swaps, Sidechains, and Light Clients. It explores research-industry convergence and highlights challenges and future trajectories in achieving a cohesive multi-chain ecosystem

Airdrop Games (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-06). A game-theoretic model for airdrop games addresses challenges in selecting participants and token allocation, guiding designers to influence system value through participation and identifying equilibria to promote desirable outcomes

Loss-Versus-Rebalancing under Deterministic and Generalized block-times (arxiv:q-fin, 2025-05-08). Derived a closed-form approximation for loss-versus-rebalancing (LVR) under constant block time using random walk theory, demonstrating minimal LVR attained only with constant block intervals for Automated Market Makers (AMMs)

Pool Formation in Oceanic Games: Shapley Value and Proportional Sharing (arxiv:cs, 2025-05-07). This study analyzes pool formation in Proof of Stake blockchains using the Shapley value and proportional sharing, highlighting advantages against Sybil attacks and decentralization through an oceanic game model analysis