Weekly Wrap: Bitcoin’s $250K Prediction, Coinbase Cyber Attack, Ripple-SEC and More

Let’s dive into The CryptoTimes’ Weekly Wrap, bringing you top stories of the week from crypto industry. 

Top Stories This Week

1. Analyst Predicts Bitcoin Could Hit $250K by 2025 End

In a recent interview , crypto analyst and the host of The Wolf of All Streets podcast, Scott Melker has predicted that Bitcoin could hit $250,000 by the end of 2025. He believes that this flabbergasting Bitcoin run could be driven by macro tailwinds like U.S. inflation cooling to 2.3% (below the expected 2.4%) and private credit expansion. 

Although Bitcoin’s rally past $105K earlier this week reflected a strong accumulation and led to market sentiment turning bullish, the U.S. PPI data and debt ceiling talks could severely impact market liquidity. 

2. Coinbase Faces $180M-$400M Cyber Attack Fallout

Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, disclosed a major cyberattack where hackers bribed overseas support agents to access customer data. The breach—potentially costing $180M to $140M—affected a small user subset, exposed their names, addresses, and emails. Luckily, it did not reveal any credentials which could have worsened the situation. The exchange has currently offered a $20M reward for attacker information.

Ahead of Coinbase’s SP 500 inclusion, this breach has raised serious security concerns, which could dent investor trust in centralized crypto platforms.

3. SEC-Ripple Settlement Stalls: Judge Rejects Motion

On May 15, the U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres denied a joint SEC-Ripple motion for an indicative ruling to dissolve an August 2024 injunction. The motion also included reducing Ripple’s $125 million penalty to $50 million, citing procedural errors. The decision has delayed an escrow release of $75 million in XRP, with its price dropping over 12% from the weekly high. 

While the move doesn’t imply Ripple’s legal wins—including XRP’s non-security status, it has left Ripple community speechless amid ongoing market uncertainty and 11 pending XRP ETF applications. 

4. Trump’s Crypto Ventures Spark Conflict-of-Interest Concerns

The Trump-family backed DeFi project, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has faced scrutiny from Senator Richard Blumenthal over potential conflicts. Beside this, Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin dinner plan for top holders has raised pay-to-play concerns. Moreover, Trump’s Tether ties are also buzzing the market. 

5. Binance Alpha Dominates Swap Market

Binance Wallet’s swap market share soared to staggering 93% from 3.4% in January, largely fueled by its Binance Alpha token launchpad. This has raised the argument that its 0.05% developer fee enables rug pulls while undermining decentralized exchange principles.

In addition, Binance’s edge over OKX and MetaMask fuels centralization fears, as community-driven airdrops lose ground to centralized platforms.

News You May Have Missed

• MoonPay-Mastercard Pushes Stablecoin Payments : MoonPay and Mastercard partnered to enable stablecoin transactions, advancing crypto for mainstream payments.

• Monero Surpasses DAI, PEPE in Market Cap: Privacy coin Monero (XMR) overtook PEPE and DAI, reaching a $6.43B market cap and ranking 23rd, with its price surging over 54% in the past 30 days. 

Weekly Gainers Losers

What’s for Next Week?

• Token Unlocks to Watch: Pyth Network (PYTH) and Polyhedra Network (ZKJ).