Seth Wilks and Raj Mukherjee, two key cryptocurrency policy leaders at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), have resigned after accepting government-offered “DOGE Deferred Exit Deals.” Both joined the IRS in 2024 from the crypto industry, playing vital roles in shaping the agency’s crypto tax policies and developing the new 1099-DA tax form. Their departure marks a shift in leadership as the IRS continues to refine its approach to cryptocurrency taxation.
Japanese firm Metaplanet saw its stock price surge to three-month highs on Monday after announcing its latest Bitcoin (BTC) acquisition. The company added 1,004 BTC to its treasury, marking its third significant purchase this month.
A week earlier, it had acquired 1,241 BTC, surpassing El Salvador’s reserves. Previously, on May 7, Metaplanet made a comparatively smaller purchase of 555 BTC.
“From July 1, 2024, to September 30, 2024, the Company’s BTC Yield was 41.7%. From October 1, 2024, to December 31, 2024, the Company’s BTC Yield was 309.8%. From January 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025, the company achieved a BTC Yield of 95.6%. Quarter to Date, from April 1, 2025, to May 19, 2025, the Company’s BTC Yield is 47.8%,” the statement read.
The company now holds a total of 7,800 Bitcoin, with an aggregate investment of 105.38 billion yen, or roughly $712.5 million. The average historical purchase price across its Bitcoin holdings stands at 13.5 million yen per BTC, approximately $91,343 per coin.
Meanwhile, following the news, Metaplanet stock, 3350.T, appreciated by 12.6%, according to Yahoo Finance data. At press time, its trading price was 702 yen ($4.8), marking highs last seen on February 13.
Over the past month alone, 3350.T’s value has increased by 101.7%, greatly benefiting from Bitcoin’s latest rally. In fact, since adopting a Bitcoin reserve strategy, the stock prices have increased over 15-fold.
The firm’s financial performance further supports this upward trajectory. In its Q1 FY2025 earnings report, Metaplanet disclosed revenues of $6 million, with 88% derived from Bitcoin options trading.
This highlighted the important role BTC plays in its financial success. As the firm continues integrating Bitcoin into its economic strategy, it is setting a new benchmark for corporate crypto adoption in the region.
The role of stablecoins is expanding beyond the crypto market and attracting attention from traditional financial institutions. Meanwhile, new regulations from Europe and the US could make stablecoins more useful in the real world.
However, these regulations also pose challenges for stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle. Currently, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC dominate the stablecoin market capitalization, but many experts believe this could change in the future.
Expert Questions the Sustainability of Tether and Circle’s Business Model Under New Regulations
A recent PitchBook report revealed that the top 10 stablecoins have a total market capitalization of approximately $220 billion—up from less than $120 billion two years ago. Tether alone accounts for about 65% of this total, while USDC holds another 25%.
Market Capitalization of Top 10 Stablecoins.Source: PitchBook
The report also highlighted that fiat-backed stablecoins are the most common, making up around 95% of the total supply. However, Robert Le, a senior analyst at PitchBook, warned that such a high concentration carries risks.
“Another major risk is centralization, in which a single entity such as Tether or Circle controls the minting and burning of tokens, raising concerns about decision-making and conflict of interest. An issuer might halt redemptions or freeze funds under regulator pressure, hurting legitimate holders,” PitchBook Analyst Robert Le commented.
Legal risks are also becoming more evident as US regulators draft specific rules for stablecoins. Several bills, including FIT21, GENIUS, and STABLE, are currently under discussion.
The US is expected to introduce stablecoin-specific legislation next year. This would legalize stablecoins but impose stricter requirements on issuers, such as higher reserve standards, mandatory audits, and increased transparency. Meanwhile, the EU’s MiCA regulations require stablecoins to meet banking-like standards. In response, Tether has opted out of the European market to avoid MiCA compliance.
Traditional Finance Firms Plan to Enter the Stablecoin Market
A report from Ark Invest stated that in 2024, the total annual transaction volume of stablecoins reached $15.6 trillion—equivalent to 119% of Visa’s volume and 200% of Mastercard’s. Despite this, the number of stablecoin transactions remains relatively low at 110 million per month, only 0.41% of Visa’s and 0.72% of Mastercard’s.
This suggests that the average stablecoin transaction value is significantly higher than those of Visa and Mastercard.
Meanwhile, investment giants such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity are offering tokenized money market funds. These funds function similarly to stablecoins and could directly compete with USDC and USDT.
“We further expect that every major financial platform or fintech app will seek to launch its own stablecoin, hoping to lock users into seamless payment ecosystems. However, we believe only a handful of trusted issuers—those with regulatory greenlights, recognized brands, and proven technological reliability—will ultimately capture the majority of market share.” – PitchBook predicted.
Decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch experienced a critical breach of its smart contracts last week. However, following negotiations with the hacker, the exchange successfully recovered most of the $5 million stolen.
Despite the recovery, the attack highlights the ongoing security challenges within the DeFi ecosystem.
1inch Recovers Most of Its Stolen Funds
1inch experienced this particular breach on March 5. Investigators attributed it to a vulnerability in an outdated version of the platform’s smart contract. After discussions and a generous bug bounty, the attacker returned the funds.
“After negotiations with the hacker, most of the $5 million stolen from 1inch has been returned, with the hacker keeping a portion as a bug bounty,” WuBlockchain reported, citing Decurity’s postmortem report.
1inch explained in the March 7 blog that the breach was caused by a flaw in the Fusion v1 resolver smart contract, an obsolete platform component. The team detected the incident at approximately 6 PM UTC on March 5.
Attackers exploited outdated logic within Fusion v1 to execute unintended transactions.
Notably, no end users were directly affected, as the attack targeted a third-party market maker, TrustedVolumes. Upon discovering the breach, 1inch swiftly redeployed its resolver contracts as a precautionary security measure, preventing further exploits.
According to Decurity’s postmortem report, the hacker initiated an on-chain message following the attack. They requested a bug bounty in exchange for returning the stolen funds.
TrustedVolumes, the affected market maker, entered negotiations with the attacker, leading to a successful resolution.
This resolution marks a rare instance in which a DeFi exploit resulted in the voluntary return of stolen assets. It reflects the growing trend of ethical hacking and white hat negotiations in the DeFi industry.
Also, it highlights the persistent risks DeFi protocols encounter. The latest hack is another reminder of the necessity for continuous monitoring and rapid response mechanisms to safeguard users and assets.
Despite the recovery, the 1INCH price has only gone up by a modest 1.12% since Sunday’s session opened and was trading for $0.23 as of this writing.
This incident highlights the importance of continuous smart contract audits and proactive vulnerability detection. It also indicates the need for stronger validation mechanisms to prevent similar incidents in the future.
