Binance.US, the American arm of global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, is selling Bitcoin at a premium of $700 more than the cryptocurrency's market price on May 9. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is being traded at $28,393 on Binance.US, which is 2% higher than the current market price of $27,722 according to data from CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap. Binance.US' Bitcoin premium comes after Binance faced major withdrawal issues on May 7 due to unusual mempool congestion, which led the exchange to consider adding the Lightning Network to speed up BTC transactions.

The author of a book on the FTX collapse is finding it difficult to concentrate on research due to the constant presence of CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Despite trying to gather information on Alameda Research-backed companies, the author is overwhelmed by Bankman-Fried's voice and media appearances. Bankman-Fried's use of Twitter Spaces has become a popular way for him to communicate, but the author struggles to separate the noise from the actual story. The author questions whether making wealth from cryptocurrency to help others is harmful and reflects on the appeal of SBF's story, but also considers the possibility that SBF may not have been the hero people hoped for. Perhaps we don't need a hero to save the world.

South Korean National Assembly member Kim Nam-kuk allegedly sold over $4 million worth of cryptocurrency before the country implemented the Financial Action Task Force's 'Travel Rule'. The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit is investigating Kim for trading approximately $4.5 million in crypto assets before the Travel Rule was enforced in March 2022.

The recent surge in meme coins has undoubtedly created a frenzy in the cryptocurrency market.

India's Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, has stated that the country is not against blockchain technology, but currencies must be monitored by the government or the central bank. The Reserve Bank of India has launched pilot trials for retail and wholesale central bank digital currencies, with the digital rupee aiming to improve cross-border and bulk payments to minimize losses on arbitrage. India is seeking a global consensus in regulating crypto assets and is also introducing cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence topics in certain school curriculums from the next academic year. Last year, the country imposed a 30% flat tax on crypto income and a 1% tax deducted at source on crypto trades above 10,000 Indian rupees. India currently holds the presidency of the Group of 20 and has listed cryptocurrency and its regulation as one of the agendas for discussion.

China's Supreme Court has released guidelines regarding cryptocurrency-related disputes, stating that settling a debt using a small amount of digital assets would be considered legal if both parties agree, according to Wu Blockchain. The court recognized that cryptocurrencies have network virtual properties but emphasized that this approach would only be permitted if there were no other valid reasons against it.

An on-chain investigation of the PEPE contract code has revealed that the meme-inspired token is deflationary in nature, with an in-built burn functionality that can reduce its circulating supply. The investigation also found that the contract code prohibits the minting of more tokens, making PEPE a deflationary asset.

The police have blocked the infrastructure of the network, which was located on servers in the United States, European countries, and Ukraine, and seized the domain names.

Kazakhstan’s coffers have received 3.07 billion tenge (almost $6.9 million) in tax payments from entities involved in the minting of digital currencies in 2022.

A newly-created token named after the ‘Pepe the Frog’ meme has recently taken the meme-coin crown, hitting a market cap of half a billion dollars within two weeks of launch.