Linera Launches Babbage Testnet

On May 20, blockchain analytics platform LookOnChain’s monitoring shows that Evaded (@ICanPlug) opened 10x leveraged long positions on 36,875 ZEC (worth approximately $21.59 million) and 287,618 HYPE (valued at roughly $13.89 million) yesterday, with current unrealized gains of around $2.1 million.

May 20 (via Hunan Daily) — Police in Baojing County, Hunan Province, China, have recovered 100,000 yuan from a cryptocurrency scam and returned the full amount to the victim, Mr. Liu, more than three months after the fraud occurred. The scam was reported at around 8 p.m. on February 9 by Liu, a victim from another province. Liu said he lost the equivalent of $13,800 when he tried to buy USDT, a stablecoin cryptocurrency, online. Local officers quickly assembled a specialized investigation team to probe the case, working through the night to gather leads. They identified the suspect as Shi, who had no steady income and was ineligible to engage in cryptocurrency trading. To trick people out of money, Shi posted screenshots of others’ crypto trading profits online to pose as an experienced, profitable trader. Liu fell for the ruse and sent Shi 100,000 yuan to buy USDT, but Shi never delivered the cryptocurrency. Instead, he used part of the funds for gambling and other extravagant spend

As of May 20th, margin loan balances (a key measure of leverage) in South Korea’s stock market have surged to roughly 35 trillion Korean won—an all-time high, per data from the Korea Financial Investment Association cited by Barchart—signaling extremely aggressive positioning among local traders. South Korea’s stock market has seen major volatility lately, driven by negotiations and a strike between Samsung Electronics and its union over employee benefits. High leverage levels plus a large share of retail investor participation have further amplified the market turbulence in recent sessions.

8Qef2u, the largest $ASTEROID holder on Solana, bought 10.04M $VIRL ($17.7K). This wallet already holds 25.03M $ASTEROID ($301.6K) and bought $VIRL after the official @solana account followed @virlfun.

May 20th — Last week, the highly anticipated CLARITY Act officially cleared review by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, taking a concrete step toward implementation. Earlier this week, Patrick Witt, a key digital asset advisor to Trump, dropped a major announcement that the "U.S. Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Plan" is expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks. Additional news includes the SEC potentially introducing an "Innovation Exemption" for tokenized stocks, paired with today’s signing of a crypto-friendly executive order by Trump. The Trump administration has recently been doubling down on its support for cryptocurrency. BlockBeats analysts argue Trump’s primary motivation likely stems from pressure over the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. Historically, the president’s party tends to lose ground in midterms; current forecasts signal Democrats may retake the House, with Republicans only holding onto the Senate. As such, Trump is scrambling to win over young, tech-savvy, and liber

May 20th update from SlowMist: Several high-profile npm packages—including AntV and Echarts-for-react—and the Python SDK durabletask have fallen victim to the Mini Shai-Hulud supply chain attack. SlowMist’s recommended mitigation steps: - Immediately rotate all your public GitHub, npm, PyPI, and cloud credentials. - Replace affected npm/PyPI packages with verified secure versions, or lock in your dependency versions to avoid further risks. - Isolate any systems that may have been breached, and investigate for cases of credential theft or lateral movement. - Apply security patches to your CI/CD pipeline and review any intrusions into artifacts post-breach. Additional best practices to follow: - Enable real-time monitoring and alerts for suspicious token or key activity. - Roll out stricter dependency review policies and regular supply chain risk checks. - Train teams to verify a package’s authenticity before installing it. - Monitor the dark web and underground markets for any leaks o