Movement Labs Implodes, Suspensions, Secret Profits, and BlackRock’s Quiet Shift🌀👀
A top Layer 2 project faces chaos, Tether flexes billion-dollar profits, and BlackRock quietly moves deeper into digital assets. Are privacy coins next? Dive in before the next headline hits.
OG(m) OG(m) readers,
What’s cookin’, fam?
Brace yourselves, as regulators are circling, giants are shifting, and one project just caught fire. 👀
Let’s dig🔥
📢 OG Shots:
Quick bites of OG news to get your week going.
KuCoin to re-enter South Korea after securing key markets
EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027
BlackRock files to create digital shares tracking one of its money market funds
Tether posts $1B in Q1 operating profit, $5.6 billion excess in reserves
Movement Labs Co-founder Suspended Amid Market Maker Controversy 🧊
Yo, Movement Labs is totally getting roasted after its co-founder, Rushi Manche, got suspended for a sus market maker deal that wrecked the MOVE token. So, there's this whole drama with Web3Port, right? They supposedly just yeeted 66 million MOVE tokens, like 5% of the whole stash right after it dropped, raking in a cool $38 million. Wild. This total market dump got everyone shook, and Binance was like, “Nah,” and kicked the market maker to the curb for being sus. To sort out the chaos, Movement Labs hit up Groom Lake, a private intel squad, for a third-party deep dive. 👀
The drama didn't end there, fam. So, Coinbase totally dropped the MOVE token, saying it didn’t hit the listing standards, and now the Movement Network Foundation is doing a full-on review of what went down. So, like, Manche's vibe is totally unclear right now. He's saying he's still in the game, but his ghosting on Slack and that whole temporary leave thing? Major red flags, fam. The project is like, totally saying everything's chill, but the community is still side-eyeing it. 🧩
This whole mess just adds to the already long list of sketchy market manipulation stuff happening in the crypto scene. From Jump Trading's sus pump-and-dump of the DIO token to CLS Global's sketchy volume moves, this space is totally filled with red flags. Movement Labs' vibe totally shows that we gotta keep it real and do our homework when picking market makers. As the crypto scene levels up, projects gotta keep it real with ethical collabs to keep the trust and vibes strong.🕵️♂️
Startup Spotlight 🔦
On this week’s startup spotlight, we present to you:
Initia is a Layer 1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, designed to host a network of interoperable, application-specific Layer 2 rollups. It integrates MoveVM, making it the first Move smart contract platform compatible with Cosmos IBC. Initia also supports EVM and WasmVM, enabling seamless cross-chain communication. Developers can launch custom L2s without managing validator sets, leveraging features like native stablecoins, just-in-time gas, and gas-free transactions.
Crypto Market Analysis For The Week 📊
Yo, fam! The crypto scene was straight fire. Bitcoin surged to around $97K, fueled by whispers of Morgan Stanley eyeing spot crypto trading and Strategy's $21B BTC buy-up plans. Standard Chartered even hinted at a $120K target, with some bulls dreaming of $200K by year-end. Meanwhile, XRP's ETF approval odds hit 85%, pushing it to $2.18, and Ethereum held steady near $1,828. Tether flexed with a $1B Q1 profit and $5.6B in reserves, while BlackRock quietly filed for digital shares tied to its money market fund. Buckle up, bros, this bull run's just getting started. 🐂🔥
Funding Frenzy💰
Startups that have successfully secured funding recently. Check ‘em out!
WineFi, a blockchain-based wine investment platform, has secured $3.2 million in pre-seed funding led by Foundation Capital and Fin Capital. The startup is introducing "WineFi," a protocol that tokenizes investment-grade wines and offers DeFi-native features like real-world asset-backed tokens, liquidity, and yield strategies.
Camp Network has raised $30 million from investors including 1kx, Electric Capital, a16z's CSX, and Blockchain Capital. The project is building a decentralized "social layer" that combines AI agents with blockchain to facilitate community-led experiences and content creation.
Miden, a privacy-focused blockchain project, has successfully raised $25 million in a seed funding round led by a16z. The platform aims to enhance user privacy and scalability by leveraging zero-knowledge proofs and other advanced cryptographic techniques.
Sam Altman’s Orb-Powered Crypto Vision Goes Live👁️🗨️
Yo, Sam Altman's Worldcoin, now just vibing as "World," has officially landed in the U.S., dropping its next-level eye-scanning tech in six major cities: Atlanta, Austin, LA, Miami, Nashville, and SF. Lit! The Orb, this dope shiny silver ball, checks your eye to whip up a World ID, showing you’re totally human in this AI-filled vibe. So, like, when you sign up, you score some WLD tokens, 16 for the newbies and up to 150 if you’re an early bird! The World App is your go-to crypto wallet, messaging spot, and mini-app vibe, with collabs from major players like Stripe, Match Group, and Razer. And yo, a Visa debit card is coming through, so you can flex your WLD like a real crypto boss. 🚀
Altman's got this dope vision to drop a global identity layer that keeps humans and bots in their own lanes, especially with AI leveling up. World IDs are about to be the GOAT for everything from online voting to swiping on dating apps. Match Group is already vibing with it. But fr, it’s not all vibes; privacy peeps in Spain, Portugal, and South Korea are lowkey worried about that biometric data scoop. So, like, the World is saying the Orb doesn’t keep your iris pic and that it does all the processing on your device and then just deletes it, ya know? Even with all that, like, 26 million peeps have joined worldwide, and 12 million are legit verified through those Orb scans. 🧠
The U.S. drop is happening in a chill crypto vibe, but New York is totally ghosting on the launch. At the San Francisco launch party, Altman and co-founder Alex Blania were totally vibing about how World is gonna be key in a future where Universal Basic Income (UBI) gets dropped through verified digital identities. The event was lit with jams from Anderson .Paak and had mad vibes, but some peeps were lowkey worried about privacy and data security. So, WLD tokens had a little glow-up at first, but now they’ve kinda flopped, showing that the market's feeling a bit sus about things. Whether World is gonna be the GOAT of digital identity or just ghost into the crypto void is still up in the air, but it's totally a vibe to keep an eye on. 👀
People to know 👥
With every promising project comes a promising leader! The person to know for this week is:
Sumit Gupta co-founder and CEO of CoinDCX, has been instrumental in shaping India’s crypto landscape. An IIT Bombay alum, Gupta co-launched CoinDCX in 2018, growing it into India’s largest crypto exchange with over 15 million users. His leadership steered the company to unicorn status and expanded its global footprint with the acquisition of BitOasis in MENA. A key voice in India’s Web3 policy space, Gupta also co-founded the Bharat Web3 Association and holds leadership roles in IAMAI’s crypto council.
XRP traders expect record highs as ETF approval odds reach 85%📈
XRP is totally vibing again, with ETF approval chances hitting 85% after some major drama at the SEC. This hype train has traders vibing about possible price goals. XRP is chillin' at about $2.20 right now, and analysts are totally vibing with the idea of a breakout from that falling wedge pattern. If XRP breaks past that $2.40 resistance, we might be vibing towards $3.74 soon! The RSI is chillin' above the midline, so the bulls are still vibin' and have space to flex. 📊
Analysts are dropping some wild price targets, no cap. Dark Defender thinks XRP could totally moon to $5.85 if it keeps holding those key support vibes. Egrag Crypto is totally vibing, calling for a medium-term target between $8 and $13. These predictions are all about that Elliott Wave vibe and Fibonacci extensions, kinda like XRP's epic glow-up in 2017. The possible green light for an XRP ETF might just be the vibe we need, pulling in some major institutional cash and sending those prices to the moon. 💸
The whole crypto scene is vibing with some serious strength right now. Yo, on-chain vibes are showing a wild 680% spike in active XRP addresses this past week, which means peeps are totally vibing with it! Yo, whale vibes are totally popping off! Big investors just snagged around 1 billion XRP tokens in the last day. Wild, right? This spike in network vibes usually comes before some major price moves. With ETF vibes rising and the market looking lit, XRP might be ready to pop off big time. 🐋
NFT Drops ☔️
Here are some NFTs to look out for this week:
Bokeh Rain by TomAlberi is a generative art project launching on May 3, 2025. Each of the 1,000 editions, priced at 0.015 ETH, features unique variations in raindrop patterns and color palettes, offering collectors a serene, immersive experience.
Arrows As Art is a generative NFT project by JaiK, minted on the Base network via Foundation. The artwork explores the visual and symbolic potential of arrows, transforming them into dynamic, abstract compositions. Collectors can mint this NFT to own a unique representation of directional forms reimagined as art.
Inverted Pails is a generative art collection by Kjetil Golid, known for his algorithmic and data-driven designs. This series explores intricate patterns and structures, offering a fresh perspective on generative aesthetics. The drop is scheduled for May 3, 2025.
Tech Talk Episodes of the Week 🎙️
Want to know which podcast episodes are trending for the week? We gotcha!
GM Farcaster - Episode 237 - Farcaster launches its largest Public Goods Funding Round
Crypto Altruists Podcast - Episode 201 - Web3 Localism for Global Climate Action: From Decentralized Cleanups to Regenerative Local Economies
Events🗓️
Check out some ‘must attend’ events happening in the ecosystem!
Virtual
Meeting the Moment: The Road Ahead for the Responsible Tech Movement is happening May 8
IRL
AI x Biology Workshop 2025 is happening May 9-10 in Berkeley.
FIL Dev Summit 6 is happening May 12-13 in Toronto, Ontario.
All Tech Is Human x Consulate General of Finland New York will host a curated gathering on strengthening multistakeholder collaboration in Responsible AI on May 21st in New York City, New York.
Stablecon is happening May 29 in New York City, New York.
We’re thrilled to announce our official partnership with Consensus Toronto 2025, the longest running event for blockchain, crypto, and Web3 innovation! As a community partner, we’re bringing you an exclusive 20% discount on tickets – use our special code ‘OGCLUBDAO20’ to join us in Toronto this May.
Stay in touch with us on Twitter @OGclubDAO and join our Telegram channel for the most recent developments. We value your input, so please contact us at community@ogclubdao.com. ✅