U.S. Lawmakers Revive Bitcoin Reserve Push; StablR Stablecoins Hit by $2.8M Exploit

Editor's note (compiled by ChainCatcher): Fenwick & West and Prager Metis agree to pay about $66 million to settle FTX-related fraud allegations. European stablecoin issuer StablR suffered an attack that pushed EURR and USDR off their pegs, with the attacker netting roughly $2.8 million. Researchers argue the Ethereum Foundation's job is to strengthen the protocol, not support ETH's price. A New York Times report says several CFTC officials who raised concerns about crypto market approvals were later sidelined. U.S. Republicans are again promoting a Bitcoin reserve bill targeting 5% of global BTC supply. Top developments in the past 24 hours 1) U.S. Congress revives the Bitcoin Reserve Act; Republicans eye 5% of global BTC ChainCatcher reports U.S. Republican lawmakers are accelerating efforts to advance new ARMA Act legislation while the party still controls both chambers. The proposal would establish a national Bitcoin reserve and, over the long term, accumulate roughly 5% of the global Bitcoin circulating supply. Backers frame the initiative as a financial and geopolitical strategy, arguing the U.S. should secure a leadership position in the digital-asset ecosystem. If enacted, the U.S. government could become one of the world's largest Bitcoin holders, reinforcing BTC's positioning as "digital gold" and a sovereign reserve asset. 2) Michael Saylor: "This week, we bought bonds, not Bitcoin" ChainCatcher reports Michael Saylor wrote: "This week we bought bonds, not Bitcoin. ₿itVac is charging." 3) Researchers warn AI is speeding up quantum computing risks, forcing crypto security upgrades According to CoinDesk, specialists in post-quantum cryptography and blockchain security say AI is accelerating quantum computing progress and pushing the crypto industry to reassess existing security assumptions. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden said machine learning is already being used to optimize quantum error correction, a key engineering bottleneck. NEAR Protocol cofounder and former Google AI researcher Illia Polosukhin warned of a "harvest now, decrypt later" threat: attackers can collect encrypted traffic today and decrypt it once quantum machines mature, adding that this may already be occurring. Because many blockchains rely on the same elliptic-curve cryptography used across the internet, sufficiently capable quantum computers could theoretically derive private keys from public keys, putting wallets and broader systems at risk. Researchers describe an emerging security arms race in which defenses can't remain static and must be continuously upgraded. Ecosystems including Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR are working on post-quantum migration paths. 4) FTX-related settlements: Fenwick & West, Prager Metis, and Udonis Haslem to pay about $66 million According to The Block, FTX's former primary external law firm Fenwick & West agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims alleging it helped facilitate Sam Bankman-Fried's fraudulent conduct. Audit firm Prager Metis agreed to pay $11.75 million, and former Miami Heat player and FTX promoter Udonis Haslem will pay $420,000, bringing the total to about $66 million. This is described as the second round of resolutions in the FTX class action, with documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Miami. Fenwick denies wrongdoing and says it had no knowledge of any fraud. The firm still faces a separate $525 million civil suit in Washington, D.C., not covered by the settlement. FTX collapsed in November 2022. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing roughly $8 billion in customer funds and is appealing. More than $5 billion has been returned to creditors from the FTX bankruptcy estate. 5) ZachXBT: StablR contracts appear compromised; potential losses above $3 million Onchain investigator ZachXBT said two contracts tied to European stablecoin issuer StablR appear to have been compromised, with potential losses exceeding $3 million involving EURR and USDR. He said the attacker's funds originated via the CCTP platform on Noble and published seven addresses linked to the incident. 6) StablR depegs after attack; attacker nets about $2.8 million ChainCatcher reports StablR suffered a sustained attack that caused its euro-backed stablecoin EURR and dollar-backed stablecoin USDR to depeg. Security firm Blockaid said the attacker likely gained control of a private key belonging to the minting multisig and, under a 1/3 signature requirement, replaced other administrators before minting an additional 8.35 million USDR and 4.5 million EURR. The attacker then swapped about $10.4 million in tokens for roughly 1,115 ETH on a DEX, producing an estimated net profit of about $2.8 million. After the event, EURR fell to around $0.88 and USDR to around $0.70. Blockaid said the issue stemmed from key management and governance failures rather than a smart-contract vulnerability. 7) Bankr developer plans "Bankr Fund" for ecosystem investments Bankr developer @0xDeployer said a Bankr Fund is being planned to deploy real capital into top-tier Bankr ecosystem projects, with a first investment targeted in the coming weeks. Several Base ecosystem AI projects have launched tokens through Bankr. LFI and GITLAWB were cited as examples that quickly reached market capitalizations above $20 million. 8) Russia tightens mining oversight, requiring ASIC miners to report network address data According to Bits Media, Russia expanded the data miners and mining infrastructure operators must submit to tax authorities. New rules require the national registry to include network address information for cryptocurrency mining equipment, including ASIC miners. The Finance Ministry said the measure aims to improve regulation and investigations of digital-asset transaction violations, while also helping grid operators better monitor infrastructure load in regions with concentrated mining. Under the law, government agencies, courts, the Central Bank of Russia, and grid operators can access the registry. The Federal Tax Service will maintain it. Required disclosures include equipment details (manufacturer, model, serial number, algorithm, hash rate, power consumption, operating mode) and mining activity data (type and amount mined, mining pool, and links to online statistics), with regular updates. 9) South Korea: petition to scrap crypto taxes reaches 50,000 signatures, heads to National Assembly review According to Seoul Economic, a nationwide petition titled "Eliminate Virtual Asset Taxes" surpassed 50,000 signatures in eight days, meeting the threshold for referral to a standing committee. It will go to the Finance and Economy Committee, which oversees the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Tax Service, for review and a decision on whether to forward it to a plenary session. Petitioners argue it is unreasonable to impose a standalone tax on virtual currencies after the financial investment income tax on stocks was abolished and incentives were introduced, calling for a broader overhaul rather than incremental adjustments. 10) Ethereum Foundation criticism persists, but researchers say its mandate is protocol building, not "pumping" ETH According to Cointelegraph, the Ethereum Foundation has been criticized for selling ETH, unstaking, and limited public communication. Researcher and investor William Mougayar defended the foundation, arguing the public often conflates three separate entities: ETH as an asset, Ethereum as shared computing infrastructure, and the foundation as a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the protocol. He described the foundation's approach as a "subtraction strategy"—strengthening the network through protocol upgrades and foundational research while reducing centralized influence, with one stated aim being to "make the founders gradually irrelevant." 11) Report: CFTC officials who raised concerns about crypto approvals were suspended and pushed out According to Cointelegraph, a New York Times investigation published Sunday said several senior CFTC officials who questioned regulatory moves involving Polymarket, Crypto.com, and Gemini-linked companies were later suspended, put under internal investigation, and forced to resign. The report says the companies were accused of business ties to the Trump family. It also alleges that then-acting CFTC Chair Caroline Pham and a senior advisor intervened to help the companies secure approvals. By the end of 2025, five officials who raised concerns or enforced crypto regulations were reportedly placed on administrative leave and investigated without being told why. After leaving her role, Pham joined MoonPay, described as having ties to Polymarket. Her senior advisor Brigitte Weyls became general counsel at Gemini Titan, a firm whose application she reportedly helped approve. The CFTC has also dropped at least five crypto investigations, with enforcement actions falling from more than 80 during the Biden administration to two under Trump. A White House spokesperson denied any conflict of interest, saying: "President Trump will only act in the best interests of the American public." 12) Report: crypto rails are becoming AI agents' default payment layer; 98.6% settled in USDC ChainCatcher cites a new Keyrock report showing AI agents increasingly use blockchain rails for payments. Over the past year, AI agents executed more than 176 million onchain transactions with settlement value above $73 million. As agents autonomously buy data, cloud compute, API services, and inference resources, traditional banking rails struggle with high-frequency, ultra-low-value payments. About 76% of agent payments are under $0.30, while some onchain stablecoin transfer costs are a fraction of a cent. Coinbase, Stripe, Google, and Visa are deploying machine-to-machine payment infrastructure. Coinbase's x402 protocol allows AI agents to pay directly for onchain analytics and cloud services using USDC. The data shows 98.6% of AI agent payments are currently settled in USDC, reinforcing Circle's role in crypto payments while increasing reliance on a single stablecoin issuer. Meme popularity rankings (GMGN, as of May 25, 09:00) Top 5 trending ETH tokens in the past 24 hours: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD Top 5 trending Solana tokens in the past 24 hours: TROLL, neet, WORLDCUP, HANTA, Buttcoin Top 5 trending Base tokens in the past 24 hours: TOSHI, KEYCAT, BRETT, CLANKER, LUNA Reading list (past 24 hours) - a16z: 7 charts explaining how tokenization is reshaping assets Tokenized assets, often labeled real-world assets (RWA), are changing how assets are structured, transferred, and integrated into financial systems. The tokenized asset market surpassed $30 billion last month and is holding around $34 billion (excluding stablecoins), comparable to a regional bank or a top-tier university endowment. Two years ago it was under $3 billion; growth has been driven by clearer regulation such as the U.S. GENIUS Act, maturing institutional-grade onchain infrastructure, and broader deployment of blockchain by financial institutions. - Decoding Hyperliquid's success through the five-layer financial stack Building institutional-grade financial infrastructure typically starts at the settlement layer, proving resilience under stress before expanding features upstream. The piece argues this sequencing is fundamental, drawing analogies to the NYSE and CME, and positioning Hyperliquid as following that logic.