Bitcoin Breaks $105,000 After U.S.-China Tariff Deal

Plus, 🛠️ Lido reacts to oracle breach, 🐍 Ledger’s Discord hacked, 💸 DeFi looping hits Apollo credit fund, 🏛️ New stablecoin bill could favor Tether.

Author

Juan Aranovich
May 12, 2025

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Now, let’s get into today’s edition:

  • 🤑 Bitcoin surges on tariff pause

  • 🔒 Lido scrambles to patch ETH oracle leak

  • 🧑‍💻 Ledger’s Discord hijacked by scammers

  • 🔄 Apollo credit fund gets risky DeFi looping

  • 🏦 New bill could make Tether legit

By Tikta, Steve Ehrlich and Jason Brett

Bitcoin climbed above $105,000 for the first time since January amid renewed optimism on global markets, particularly surrounding weekend trade talks between the United States and China. 

The original digital asset was trading at around $105,700 as of 3:15 am ET on Monday, with daily trading volume surging to $46.6 billion.

The rally began after U.S. President Donald Trump described recent meetings with Chinese officials in Switzerland as "good" and "constructive," and BTC powered higher after both countries agreed to slash tariffs significantly.

The U.S. said it would cut tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%, down from the 145% it had previously imposed, for a period of 90 days. Meanwhile, China said it would reduce its tariffs on U.S. imports to 10%, down from 125%, for the same period of time.

Standard Chartered's head of digital asset research, Geoffrey Kendrick, recently apologized for a previous $120,000 target, calling it "too low," and now expects Bitcoin to reach an all-time high of around $120,000 in Q2, with potential for $200,000 by year-end.

Today at 4.30 p.m. ET, the Bits + Bips crew will go live to delve into what the tariff de-escalation between the U.S. and China means. 

Lido DAO, the entity that governs the Lido liquid staking protocol, initiated an emergency vote on Sunday to rotate a compromised oracle key after detecting unauthorized access and the draining of 1.46 ETH from a wallet managed by validator operator Chorus One. 

The breach, discovered on Saturday, was limited to a hot wallet used for oracle voting and did not affect users’ funds or the broader protocol.  

The incident was traced to a likely leak of a hot wallet private key associated with Chorus One’s oracle address. The wallet was created in 2021 and was not secured to the same standards as newer infrastructure.

Lido DAO launched the emergency on-chain vote to rotate the affected oracle key across three contracts — the Accounting Oracle, Validators Exit Bus Oracle, and CS Fee Oracle.

The vote, started immediately after the breach was confirmed, will run for 72 hours with a subsequent 48-hour objection window. The replacement key has already been generated and secured using enhanced protocols.

“Full post-mortem will be published after the investigation is concluded,” a Lido DAO operations member said on the governance forum. 

Ledger Restores Control of Discord After Moderator Account Hack

Hardware wallet firm Ledger’s official Discord server was compromised after a hacker gained access to a moderator’s account late on Saturday. 

The attacker used privileged access to deploy a bot that posted phishing links, urging users to enter their seed phrases on a fraudulent website, with the scam message falsely claiming the existence of a new vulnerability in Ledger’s system and pressuring users to verify their recovery phrases urgently.

Ledger’s security team acted quickly to contain the breach, according to team member Quintin Boatwright, who said the incident was isolated and that additional security measures had since been implemented on the Discord server.

The incident is part of a broader pattern of scams targeting Ledger users, including recent physical mail phishing attempts that referenced data from Ledger’s 2020 data breach.

Private credit, a $1.5 trillion market expected to double in size by 2028, has become one of the fastest-growing corners of finance, and now, it’s getting the DeFi treatment.

Tokenization platform Securitize and risk management firm Gauntlet have partnered to let investors use tokenized shares of Apollo’s Diversified Credit Fund as collateral in DeFi loops, unlocking leverage on top of an already complex and illiquid asset class.

But with limitless leverage, questionable liquidity, and hidden risks, could this be DeFi’s next disaster in the making?

Tether in the Clear? Yes, Under This New Republican-Led Senate Stablecoin Bill

For almost a decade, Tether, the world’s biggest stablecoin issuer, has dodged allegations of incomplete reserves and rumors because it operated in the shadows outside of regulation.

Now U.S. Senate Republicans (and maybe Democrats) appear poised to remove that stigma by pulling Tether into federal jurisdiction.

On Thursday, the Senate failed to push through a vote to try to begin formal debate on a newly revised version of the stablecoin bill.

With new definitions, compliance delays, and protections for DeFi, is the bill a gift to Tether or a regulatory trap in disguise?

  • 🪙 Coinbase revealed on Friday that it had internally debated going all-in with 80% of its balance sheet on Bitcoin, like Strategy, but had ultimately rejected the idea as too risky, choosing instead to accumulate a more modest $1.3 billion crypto portfolio led by Bitcoin.

  • 🇺🇸 U.S. Senate Democrats pressed the Treasury and Justice Department for answers on Binance’s compliance and its financial ties to the Trump family, after reports revealed a Trump-affiliated token had been used to settle a $2 billion investment by Abu Dhabi’s MGX into Binance.

  • ⚖️ U.S. prosecutors in the Samourai Wallet case have argued that their delayed disclosure of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s informal comments did not violate due process, insisting that their money-laundering charges remain the core of the prosecution.

  • 💸 Bitcoin SV investors returned to court seeking to reinstate a $13.3 billion “loss of chance” claim against Binance, arguing that BSV’s 2019 delisting permanently limited its market potential despite earlier rulings allowing most of the case to proceed.

  • 🧬 BlackRock’s latest Bitcoin ETF filing expanded its warnings on quantum computing risks on Friday, highlighting growing concerns that future breakthroughs could undermine Bitcoin’s cryptography within the next five to seven years.

  • 🚨 Hackers exploited Mobius Token’s smart contracts on BNB Chain in a two-minute attack detected on Sunday that drained 28.5 million MBU tokens worth $2.15 million, converting them to USDT while their wallet remained active.

  • 🇯🇵 Tokyo-based Metaplanet increased its bitcoin holdings to 6,796 BTC, surpassing El Salvador’s stash, after purchasing 1,241 bitcoin for $129 million at an average price of $101,843 per coin.

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