hodler

5 Jun 2026, 07:00

Bitcoin Demand Falls At Fastest Pace Since LUNA Collapse: Data

On-chain data shows the total demand for Bitcoin has significantly contracted over the past month, hitting a pace comparable to the LUNA collapse. Bitcoin Spot & Futures Demand Has Shrunken Recently As pointed out by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno in an X post , Bitcoin demand has been contracting at a sharp rate recently. “Demand” here refers to the combined amount of Bitcoin flowing into spot and futures markets. Below is the chart shared by Moreno that shows the 30-day change in this demand over the last few years. As displayed in the graph, the total demand for Bitcoin rose alongside the price surge that occurred over the course of April and the first half of May. Interestingly, as the color coding of the curve suggests, this increase was due to demand flowing into derivatives markets; spot demand actually contracted during the rally. In the past, upward moves in the price have generally only been sustainable when demand has simultaneously risen in the spot and futures markets. From the chart, it’s apparent that both the bull rallies in 2024 and the run in 2025 involved this green setup. Since the recent recovery surge was only fueled by speculative activity, it may not be surprising that it couldn’t last, and a sharp reversal has followed for the market. The shift of winds in the Bitcoin sector has not only involved the total demand flipping into the negative, but it has also led to a turnaround in direction for speculative activity that has aligned it with the spot market’s trend of contraction. Currently, the 30-day change in the total demand is sitting at a negative value of 501,000 BTC, which is the lowest that the metric has hit since May 2022. “Bitcoin demand is contracting at a pace comparable to the post-Terra/Luna collapse period,” noted the analyst. The Terra/LUNA collapse was a violent event that occurred during the 2022 bear market. During the event, UST, an algorithmic stablecoin, lost its $1 peg and caused the Terra ecosystem to destabilize into a death spiral, ultimately triggering a crash in the wider sector. Back then, the contraction in spot and futures demand reached the -559,000 BTC mark. The current value of the indicator is still not there, but if the market continues in this trajectory, it’s possible that demand could flow out of the market at a similar rate. It only remains to be seen, though, how the Bitcoin sector will develop in the near future. BTC Price Following the price crash, Bitcoin has dropped to the $63,200 level, the lowest that the asset has been since February.

27 May 2026, 13:38

Former Hodlnaut CEO faces 6 fraud charges after $189.7M UST crash

🚨 Former Hodlnaut CEO is charged with six counts of fraud over the $189.7 million loss in $UST. Zhu Juntao allegedly misled users and staff during the 2022 TerraUSD crash. 🌐 Critical data: Over 30,000 users worldwide were caught as withdrawals were frozen and the platform shut down. Continue Reading: Former Hodlnaut CEO faces 6 fraud charges after $189.7M UST crash The post Former Hodlnaut CEO faces 6 fraud charges after $189.7M UST crash appeared first on COINTURK NEWS .

26 May 2026, 15:56

Ex-Hodlnaut CEO faces 20 years in prison over Terra fallout

The government of Singapore has indicted the former CEO of the popular crypto exchange, Hodlnaut, on six charges of fraud. This is due to false representation resulting from the company’s collapse during the market volatility of 2022. The UST collapse in early May 2022 led to losses across the crypto sector. Hodlnaut was not left out. The company invested $317 million from its user accounts in the Anchor Protocol on Terra without disclosing these details to customers, and when UST went down, they suffered losses of $189.7 million. Hodlnaut’s collapse and the CEO’s hand in it Hodlnaut was founded in April 2019 as an online platform that enabled people globally to deposit their Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins holdings in return for interest payments. Simon Lee and Zhu Juntao served as the co-founders of Hodlnaut. In this regard, Zhu Juntao, a 36-year-old Singaporean, studied at Singapore Management University and had experience working at Credit Suisse. Under his management, Hodlnaut grew into a company handling over 30,000 clients, yielding up to 10% annual percentage yield (APY), and managing investments worth approximately $750 million. After Terra’s collapse, Hodlnaut suspended customer withdrawal requests in June 2022 and eventually entered judicial management. When the platform was shut down in August 2022, the company had an estimated $281 million owed to its users, while its assets totaled $88 million, resulting in a deficit of roughly $193 million. As a simple yield generator in the emerging world of decentralized finance, Hodlnaut attracted investors who wanted to earn from crypto without the complicated processes involved in transactions. Mismanaged PR and false promises to customers The prosecution claims that Zhu Juntao instructed his employees to make false promises during and after the UST’s collapse. From May until July 2022, Zhu allegedly incited his employee named Goh Chang Teck, to make false promises in the official Hodlnaut Telegram chat group. In one such case, made before May 25, 2022, he allegedly made a false promise that there was no direct involvement of the company in LUNA or UST and that none of the company’s funds were invested in these assets. Zhu is also claimed to have instructed Megan Lois Lau Shi May, an employee, to send an email to approximately 30 users in 2022. The email stated that Hodlnaut had not incurred any losses as a firm, even though users trading UST on the platform had suffered those losses. Furthermore, Zhu himself posted three times in June 2022 on his personal X account (formerly Twitter). Some of these included: “Hodlnaut as a firm did not take any losses on UST, users who held/bought UST on our platform did,” “Missed this but had no price exposure to $UST or incurred any losses from the debacle,” and others. Charges lay in wait, court appearances, and maximum prison penalties Zhu appeared in court on May 26, 2026, when he was officially charged with committing six counts of fraud by false representation under Section 424A(1)(a) read with Section 424A(3) of the Penal Code 1871. There were three additional counts under Section 109 related to abetment. He pleaded not guilty and contested all the accusations. A pre-trial hearing was set for June 2026. If found guilty of any of the counts, Zhu is liable to serve up to 20 years in prison, pay a fine, or both. The Singapore police have used the case to issue general warnings to the public about investing in digital assets, given their extreme volatility and other factors. Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free .

26 May 2026, 11:39

Why did someone just burn 107 BTC forever?

The burn address on the Bitcoin network just destroyed 107 BTC forever. The address received five transactions, causing analysts to seek the reason behind destroying the coins. On-chain analysts intercepted a curious Bitcoin transaction . In a series of transfers, an unknown user deposited a total of 107 BTC to the most widely known Bitcoin burn address. Cypher researcher and BTC Blockstream founder Adam Back suggested the burn address is now a potential quantum computing bounty. accidental quantum bounty? — Adam Back (@adam3us) May 26, 2026 The burn address has already received a total of 807 BTC, sent over the years for various reasons. Usually, the address receives small amounts of BTC as a way to create on-chain records. The burn recalls a case in early 2025 when a user burned 500 ETH to send a permanent message on the blockchain. Why is BTC being destroyed? The destruction of 107 BTC slightly increased the amount of coins beyond reach. In this case, the transfer was deliberate. The only thing that united the burn transactions from five different wallets was a timelock. The transactions were automated with a locktime parameter, waiting for block 950,958 . The sender overpaid two times the usual transaction fee to make sure the transfers would be automated and included in the block. The transaction happened just as BTC recovered above $77,500. The leading coin was not showing signs of capitulation, as most whales held onto their reserves. Some of the transfers came from Stacks.co , which used the BTC burns to secure its own chain. The address has been around since 2015, and was known to Bitcointalk forum members. The burn address was especially created so that its public key is all zeroes. The calculation to go from the public to the private key would be intractable, even extremely difficult for hypothetical quantum computing . The address was of interest in the early days of BTC. In general, BTC has a holding ethos, but no known practice of burning coins to diminish the supply. BTC burned by old whale wallet The transactions to the burn address originated from a wallet that started accumulating BTC in 2014. The wallet’s balance peaked at $2.5M at the end of 2025. The entire balance was then sent to the burn address on May 25. Another connected address was also first created before 2015 . The other wallet engaged in the burn received coins from Poloniex and Bitfinex, a usual step for early BTC adopters. The last address used sent some of the BTC to Kraken for trading a year ago. The usage of several addresses and the synchronized transaction to the burn destination suggests a single entity may have decided to destroy 107 BTC. On-chain researchers had no answer for the transfers, which looked deliberate. Each of the involved addresses sent the full BTC balance, previously held for years. The transfers looked like a form of capitulation, which did not even sell the BTC for profit. The burn looks like a previous move by a whale that bought 27 BTC and sent them to one of the inactive addresses of Satoshi Nakamoto. The smartest crypto minds already read our newsletter. Want in? Join them .