🖖 Lend long and prosper

So Coinbase disclosed that hackers were able to steal customer data. 

According to the US crypto exchange, the hackers bribed employees or contractors outside the US to steal the data, then demanded a $20 million ransom. Coinbase said that the bad actors managed to get hold of the info for “less than 1% of Coinbase monthly transacting users.”

Coinbase said no, thanks, when the hackers asked for the multi-million dollar ransom. Instead, they’ve established a $20 million reward fund for folks who can hand over information about the hackers.

A blog post says that, while the hackers didn’t get access to anyone’s private keys or penetrate hot or cold wallets, they were able to obtain private info like addresses, partial bank account and social security numbers, and some account data. Obviously not ideal, but the compromised data could’ve been worse. 

As crypto heats up, so do the bad actors. Stay safe.

Meanwhile:

• Bitcoin dropped below $102,000, a 1.4% decline in the past 24 hours. 

• ETH tagged near $2,500, a 3% decline, while Solana sits at $171, shedding 5% in the same time period.

• The global market cap of crypto sits at $3.3 trillion, a 1.3% decrease over the past day per Blockworks Research.

💸 A look at “ledning”

We touched on the lending sector a few weeks ago, but I want to plug back in. 

I caught up with Ledn’s Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, who told me that last quarter, Ledn did $304 million worth of bitcoin-backed loan originations. 

“That's three times the originations we did at the peak of the market in 2021,” he added. And “multiples” of what Ledn saw in 2024. 

“The demand for borrowing dollars and keeping the bitcoin is growing [at the fastest pace since]  it's ever grown since we started this business in 2018,” Di Bartolomeo said. 

Di Bartolomeo told me that the bulk of their customer base is retail, though they do have some institutional clients. 

Demand has increasingly grown amongst individuals who’re sitting on millions of bitcoin — enough to retire — but still want to utilize that bitcoin to have access to the traditional banking system for things like mortgages. 

This cycle, Di Bartolomeo says, the bad seeds have been weeded out — and people like former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky are now serving time for the crimes committed last cycle. However, he cautioned that folks should still be careful when it comes to lenders. 

“I would say it's the demand is exploding,” he said, but urged caution and diligence for folks looking to access lending markets. It’s not worth a sweetheart rate if the company doesn’t pass a vibe test.

Zooming out, Ledn isn’t the only one to see success so far this cycle. In a different sphere of the lending sector, Maple Finance is also seeing success with its institutional lending. 

A Blockworks Research note this week said that “SYRUP offers an asymmetrical investment case in lending, driven by compelling valuation metrics relative to peers, solid growth avenues via the successful Syrup pools and the strategic istBTC initiative, a resilient team, and a completed vesting schedule removing early supply overhang.”

Maple and Ledn have very different target audiences, so I’m cautious to avoid any sort of comparisons, but I think they each offer a unique vantage point into the overall health of the lending sector. 

The institutional lending bull case Blockworks Research sees as $250 million in loans outstanding by the fourth quarter, while the base case is $200 million by the same time period. 

I wrote a few weeks ago that we’re starting to see a resurgence in the custodial lending market, and that certainly is playing out when looking at the numbers so far. It’s also interesting to gauge how different players in the space are faring — or finding success. 

Not to mention that nowadays there are more options in the lending market than in previous cycles. Take, for example, noncustodial choices for bitcoin-backed loans with a DeFi tilt, which include tBTC, iBTC, LBTC. 

The key, for me anyway, is to ensure that there aren’t historical repeats. If this market is going to be successful, it’s going to need to stay away from the shams of the past.

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• Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley says that the Department of Homeland Security is not investigating the company. 

• Never say never: MetaMask’s Dan Finlay said that a token’s not off the table. 

• Mastercard and MoonPay unveiled a new partnership to let users pay and be paid with stablecoins.

So Wintermute is making a US debut. The trading firm is establishing a US headquarters in New York City. 

And it also plans to weigh in on the ever-evolving regulatory landscape by hiring Ron Hammond from the Blockchain Association. 

This move would have been a shock a year ago, but now it just makes sense. We’ve talked so much about the friendlier environment in the US and what it means for various players in the crypto space. Obviously, one of the biggest trading firms and OTC desks in crypto is going to want to ensure it has access to the discussions about the evolution of the crypto market. 

“As the U.S. policy towards digital assets and blockchain innovation has become friendlier, we were determined to act fast and establish roots in the financial capital of the world, New York City,” Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said. 

I think this move from Wintermute shows that established crypto companies have no choice but to ensure they have some exposure to the US markets — and conversations around regulation. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more and more of these announcements in the next few months. We’ve already seen a few, such as OKX establishing its OKX US headquarters in California. 

The US market is open for business for some crypto companies, and they’re going to want to gain access to it.