Q2 altcoin rally incoming? Mantra mulls staff token burn: Hodler's Digest, April 13 – 19

Mantra CEO plans to burn staff’s tokens in bid to win group belief

Mantra CEO John Mullin stated he’s planning to burn all of his staff’s tokens as a way to win again the belief of the community’s group following the sudden collapse of the Mantra (OM) token on April 13.

“I’m planning to burn all of my staff tokens and once we flip it across the group and traders can resolve if I’ve earned it again,” Mullin posted to X on April 16.

Mantra put aside 300 million OM, 16.88% of the token’s practically 1.78 billion whole provide, for its staff and core contributors. They’re at present locked and have been scheduled to be launched in levels between April 2027 and October 2029, in accordance with an April 8 weblog put up.

Oregon targets Coinbase after SEC drops its federal lawsuit

Oregon Lawyer Basic Dan Rayfield is planning a lawsuit towards crypto trade Coinbase, alleging the corporate is promoting unregistered securities to residents of the US state, after america Securities and Alternate Fee’s (SEC) dropped its federal case towards the trade. 

In accordance with Coinbase’s chief authorized officer, Paul Grewal, the lawsuit is a precise “copycat case” of SEC’s 2023 lawsuit towards the trade, which the federal company agreed to drop in February. Grewal added:

“In case you suppose I’m leaping to conclusions, the legal professional basic’s workplace made it clear to us that they’re actually selecting up the place the Gary Gensler SEC left off — significantly. That is precisely the alternative of what Individuals ought to be centered on proper now.”

TRUMP tokenholders face 90% decline from peak as unlock begins

TRUMP tokenholders face steep losses as the primary vesting unlock goes stay on April 18, releasing 40 million tokens, value roughly $309 million, into circulation at a 90% low cost from its peak. 

The unlocked tokens account for 20% of the present circulating provide and will introduce contemporary volatility as a beforehand illiquid portion of the provision hits the market. In accordance with CoinGecko, the TRUMP token worth has fluctuated between $7.46 and $7.83 previously 24 hours. 

April 18 marks the primary unlock occasion for the TRUMP token, with regular, smaller unlocks following from that date.

Crypto rug pulls have slowed, however are actually extra devastating: DappRadar

There was a 66% year-on-year lower within the variety of crypto rug pulls this yr in comparison with 2024, however latest information exhibits the scale of every rug pull has been rising. 

Rug pulls have dropped in frequency year-over-year, with early 2024 recording 21 separate incidents, in comparison with solely seven thus far in 2025, in accordance with an April 16 report from blockchain analytics platform DappRadar.

Nevertheless, for the reason that starting of 2025, the Web3 ecosystem has misplaced practically $6 billion to rug pulls, in accordance with DappRadar’s report. Nevertheless, the report attributes 92% of that to Mantra’s OM token collapse, which the founders have strongly denied was a rug pull.

As compared, throughout the identical interval in early 2024, three months into the yr, whole losses from rug pulls hit $90 million.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s newest California jail as soon as housed Al Capone

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried has moved from a transit facility to a California jail that when housed notorious gangster Al Capone.

In accordance with the Federal Bureau of Prisons web site, officers moved Bankman-Fried from the Federal Switch Middle in Oklahoma Metropolis briefly to the Federal Correctional Establishment in Victorville earlier than transferring him to a facility in Terminal Island in Los Angeles, California. 

The federal establishment was as soon as house to criminals like former Theranos chief working officer Ramesh Balwani and Capone, who was convicted of tax evasion in 1931.

OpenAI is constructing ‘X-like social community’ to rival Elon Musk — Report

Massive language mannequin developer OpenAI is reportedly engaged on a brand new social media community, placing the corporate on a collision course with Elon Musk’s X and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms.

Citing nameless sources, The Verge reported on April 15 that OpenAI is growing an “X-like social community” that mixes ChatGPT’s picture technology instruments and a social feed, presumably to permit customers to share their AI-generated photos with a broader viewers. 

It’s unclear whether or not OpenAI will spin out a brand new social media platform or roll the options into ChatGPT, the sources stated.

Winners and Losers

On the finish of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $84,513, Ether (ETH) at $1,592 and XRP at $2.07. The full market cap is at $2.63 trillion, in accordance with CoinMarketCap.

Among the many largest 100 cryptocurrencies, the highest three altcoin gainers of the week are Raydium (RAY) at 21.17%, Helium (HNT) at 17.43% and Core (CORE) at 13.14%.

The highest three altcoin losers of the week are Mantra (OM) at 89.93%, Motion (MOVE) at 28.58% and AB (AB) at 20.31%. For more information on crypto costs, ensure that to learn Cointelegraph’s market evaluation.

Most Memorable Quotations

“Powell’s termination can not come quick sufficient.”

Donald Trump, US President

“The ETFs and Saylor have been shopping for up all ‘dumps’ from the vacationers, FTX refugees, GBTC discounters, authorized unlocks, govt confiscations and Lord is aware of who else.”

Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg

“I used to be utilizing Bitcoin to make a bunch of these investments, and you’d suppose, should you invested in Coinbase you’d have achieved rather well. Had I simply held the Bitcoin, I truly would have achieved higher than making these investments.”

Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Forex Group

“I’m planning to burn all of my staff tokens and once we flip it across the group and traders can resolve if I’ve earned it again.”

JP Mullin, co-founder and CEO of Mantra

“When the sentiment lastly resets, it’s prone to occur fairly rapidly and we stay constructive for the second half of 2025.“

Coinbase researchers

“Now we have truly acquired fairly a lot of approaches by just a few governments and sovereign wealth funds on the institution of their very own crypto reserves.”

Richard Teng, CEO of Binance

Prediction of The Week

Altcoins might rally in Q2 2025 due to improved laws: Sygnum

Altcoins may even see a resurgence within the second quarter of 2025 as laws for digital property proceed to enhance, in accordance with Swiss financial institution Sygnum.

In its Q2 2025 funding outlook, Sygnum stated the house has seen “drastically improved” laws for crypto use circumstances, creating the foundations for a robust alt-sector rally for the second quarter. Nevertheless, it added that “not one of the constructive developments have been priced in.” 

In April, Bitcoin dominance reached a four-year excessive, signaling that crypto traders are rotating their funds into an asset perceived to be comparatively safer. 

FUD of The Week

Hacker mints $5M in ZK tokens after compromising ZKsync admin account

A hacker compromised a ZKsync admin account on April 15, minting $5 million value of unclaimed airdrop tokens, in accordance with a press release from the official ZKsync X account. The assault was described as remoted, with no consumer funds affected.

Following an investigation, ZKsync detailed the incident on April 15, disclosing that the compromised account had administrative management over three airdrop distribution contracts. The attacker exploited a perform known as sweepUnclaimed() to mint 111 million unclaimed ZK tokens, rising the whole token provide by 0.45%. As of the most recent replace, the attacker nonetheless held management of a lot of the stolen funds.

Solely 11% of El Salvador’s registered Bitcoin companies operational

Solely 20 of the 181 Bitcoin service suppliers registered with El Salvador’s central financial institution are operational, with the remainder failing to fulfill the nation’s necessities underneath its Bitcoin Legislation. 

Native media outlet El Mundo cited information from the Central Reserve Financial institution of El Salvador, exhibiting that 11% of the service suppliers are operational. In accordance with the central financial institution’s database, the remainder of the suppliers are categorised as non-operational. 

The info confirmed that at the very least 22 non-operational suppliers have failed to fulfill a lot of the nation’s Bitcoin Legislation necessities, which mandate that suppliers implement stringent supervision of their monetary programs. 

ENS founder warns of Google spoof that tips customers with a faux subpoena

The founder and lead developer of Ethereum Title Service has warned his X followers of an “extraordinarily subtle” phishing assault that may impersonate Google and trick customers into giving out login credentials. 

The phishing assault exploits Google’s infrastructure to ship a faux alert to customers informing them that their Google information is being shared with legislation enforcement resulting from a subpoena, ENS’ Nick Johnson stated in an April 16 put up to X. 

“It passes the DKIM signature examine, and GMail shows it with none warnings – it even places it in the identical dialog as different, respectable safety alerts,” he stated. 

High Journal Tales of The Week

Your AI ‘digital twin’ can take conferences and luxury your family members

It appears like science fiction, however a spread of latest tasks will replicate your character and mind immediately as an autonomous AI agent.

Uni college students crypto ‘grooming’ scandal, 67K scammed by faux girls: Asia Specific

Crypto’s largest names fend off rumors of grooming degen gamblers on Chinese language faculties; 9 scammers sentenced for tricking 67,000 Indian males into believing they have been wealthy Indian girls, and extra.

Crypto ‘extra taboo than OnlyFans,’ says Violetta Zironi, who bought tune for 1 BTC

Meet an artist promoting her songs for Bitcoin and Ethereum, at the same time as most music followers shun music possession in favor of streaming.

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Cointelegraph Journal writers and reporters contributed to this text.