The good news for Cryptocurrency’s investors arrived shortly after 8am on Friday: Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency market in the United States, had reached an agreement with US regulators to dismiss a lawsuit that had depended on the industry for years in turn.
But within hours, the cryptocurrency market descended into a new crisis. At 10:51 in the morning, Bybit, another main exchange of cryptos, said he was hacked – with industry analysts who value the loss of nearly $ 1.5 billion, the largest theft in the history of cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin, ether and other major Cryptocurrency prices were plunged. Even Coinbase’s share price had dropped 8 percent by the end of the day.
This contrast with the divided screen was an indicative illustration of the state of cryptocurrencies in 2025. Even when President Trump embraces the industry, he remains the wild west of the financial world, prone to deceit, theft and sudden market melting.
A series of policies in Washington are ready to encourage millions of investors to be fooled in cryptocurrency for the first time, despite the continued fighting of the industry in the police and prevent criminal activity. Hack was a reminder that, for all its growing influence on politics, cryptocurrency remains something of a free international for all-chaotic market in which even the most experienced investors sometimes suffer extreme losses.
“These boys, whose whole business is crying, being awake on these issues, simply lost $ 1.5 billion,” said Corey Frayer, who worked on cryptocurrency policy at the Biden Administration Insurance and Exchange Commission. “So how do we expect regular Americans who just want their debit card to work to use the products for sure?”
News about Coinbase and Bybit came to the end of an arrow a few days in the cryptocurrency world. An spread of new memes – digital coins based on an internet joke or a famous mascot, with no practical function – has sparked widespread complaints about fraud.
Last week, a Memein, promoted by Argentine President Javier Milei, suddenly lowered, setting a political crisis there and costing investors more than $ 250 million.
Recently, cryptocurrencies have expressed concern about spreading these high -risk cryptocurrency, worrying that they could undo some of the advances that industry has made with lawmakers. Shortly before his inauguration, Mr. Trump put his dumb on sale – was shot in value before falling. More than 800,000 cryptocurrencies lost money.
“Memeins are not just a casino – they’re worse,” wrote Haseeb Qureshi, an investor of cryptocurrencies on social media this week. “They are a casino where each Slot car has a different owner, each trying to rip you as much as possible before switching to another.”
According to the Biden administration, federal regulators overseen a wide shock of cryptocurrencies, raising lawsuits against many of the largest industry companies.
At the top of that list was Coinbase, a $ 60 billion company that was released in 2021. Two years ago, Sec to Coinbase, arguing that digital coins sold on its platform were securities, just like shares and Bonds traded on Wall Street. Regulators argued that Coinbase should register with the SEC and follow strict rules to protect investors from financial damage.
But the government’s behavior towards cryptocurrencies turned when Mr. Trump took office. The president has his cryptocurrency business, World Liberty Financial, giving him a personal action in the success of the industry. And he has appointed an ally of the Crypto industry, the Paul Atkins securities lawyer, to lead the SEC, which has quickly reduced its implementation efforts.
In a regulatory appearance on Friday morning, Coinbase announced that the SEC had agreed to leave its lawsuit without imposing any financial sentences. (The agreement requires approval by agency commissioners, a process that is expected to be a formality.)
In festive social media posts, industry leaders announced the end of a “cryptocurrency siege” by the federal government.
The euphoria did not last long. Bybit, who is based on Dubai and the processes of tens of billions of dollars in daily transactions, discovered that the thieves had violated his system, stealing large quantities of ether.
Crypto has a long history to damage Hacks, but the robbery from Bybit scored the previous record when thieves stole $ 611 million in Cryptocurrency from a platform called Polynetwork in 2021.
Even outside the Cryptos world, there is little precedent for such a large theft. “It may be the biggest the only theft of all time,” said Tom Robinson, a co -founder of Elliptic, a crypto analysis firm.
On social media, Byb’s chief executive, Ben Zhou, assured the clients that the company was still solvent. “Even if this loss of revenge has not been recovered, all customer assets are 1 to 1 supported,” he wrote. “We can cover the loss.”
In a Livestream on Friday, Mr. Zhou, who was shaking Red Bull, said the “affected amount” was 401,000 ether, or about $ 1.1 billion. Forensic experts valued the total closer to $ 1.5 billion, based on the analysis of public transactions records.
Bybit does not provide customer services in the United States, according to its website. Company representatives did not immediately respond to a comment request.
A cryptos research group, Arkham Intelligence, said North Korean hackers were after Byb’s violation. Attacks by North Korean groups have plagued the industry for years.
Bitcoin’s pricing immersed from about $ 100,000 on Friday early to just over $ 95,000 that evening, a 5 percent drop. Other cryptocurrency fell even further.
And a day for Coinbase’s celebration ended with a drop of stock market: by the time the market closed on Friday, its shares were trading at their lowest price since November.