A $200 million hack hit Gala Games and sent shockwaves through the crypto market. However, a swift response from GALA has seen most of the funds recovered, frozen or burned.
Last week saw the anniversary of Laszlo Hanyecz's 10,000 Bitcoin pizza purchase in 2010, highlighting Bitcoin's growth with the pizzas now worth a staggering $700 million.
The SEC approved spot Ethereum ETFs, marking a massive step towards global crypto adoption.
Kabosu, the Shiba Inu dog behind the iconic memecoin's logo passed away last week, leaving a lasting legacy.
The previous week was one of the most eventful ones in the crypto market this year, considering the long-awaited spot Ethereum ETF approvals from the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Last week, we had one of the most brutal hacks of the year on Gala Games, in which the attacker made away with a staggering $200 million worth of tokens—before returning the stash.
We also had the Bitcoin Pizza Day, celebrating the historic sale of two large Papa John's pizzas for an insane 10,000 Bitcoins in 2010.
Here are all of the strangest and most interesting stories from all over the crypto market last week.
Last week, a massive $200 million hack brought Gala Games to its knees.
Within mere hours, the price of $GALA dipped severely, and the entire community was thrown into chaos.
Per details from Gala Games, the attacker of said protocol found a way to take advantage of a smart contract's minting function on the Gala Games protocol, which allowed them to mint a jaw-dropping 5 billion GALA tokens, worth $200 million at the time.
The hack on Gala games
Right after this, the attacker then sold around 600 million GALA (or about 8% of the stolen crypto) for nearly 6,000 ETH on Uniswap—right before the remaining 4.4 billion tokens were frozen.
This 500 million sale explains why the price of $GALA crashed so terribly.
Gala Games' CEO, Eric Schiermeyer, took to Twitter about two hours after, acknowledging the breach and reassuring investors that no funds were lost.
Soon, the FBI got involved, causing the attacker to return approximately $22 million of the ETH they sold.
$22 million returned
So far, the situation is now under control, with more than 95% of the stolen funds either frozen, burned or returned.
On 22 May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz a computer programmer did something with Bitcoin that would go down in history, for as long as Bitcoin exists.
He bought two large Papa John’s pizzas—for 10,000 bitcoins!
Fourteen years ago, Hanyecz wrote on a Bitcoin forum:
"I'll pay 10,000 bitcoins for a couple of pizzas… like maybe 2 large ones so I have some leftover for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later."
Eventually, someone took him up on his offer, bringing him two large Pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin (worth $41 at the time).
Pizza for Bitcoins
At the time, Hanyecz spent such a large amount of Bitcoin on the pizzas out of mere curiosity—as a way to test the new (relatively worthless) cryptocurrency that was barely a year old at the time.
Hanyecz’s Bitcoin purchase is regarded as one of the first known instances of Bitcoin being used in an everyday purchase
Fast forward to today, those 10,000 Bitcoins are now worth a staggering $700 million, in an incredible testament to Bitcoin's growth in the last 15 years of its existence.
Today, we have Bitcoin ETFs and greater institutional investment in Bitcoin than ever before.
Out of curiosity, what might the next 15 years bring for Bitcoin?
The crypto community finally got its wish fulfilled last week, with the approval of 8 spot Ethereum ETFs from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
This comes after about five long and painful months since the approval of the spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.
Approved spot Ethereum ETFs
In detail, on 23 May 2024 (Thursday), the SEC finally put a green light on the 19b-4 filings from asset managers like VanEck, Fidelity, Blackrock, Grayscale and several others, allowing them to offer and list ETFs for trading.
Right before this announcement, Ethereum surged by around 30% to a high of around $3,800.
However, at the time of writing, the cryptocurrency is stalling at around this price level and has not made any significant moves to the upside (or downside).
Overall, this is one of the major steps towards global crypto adoption from individuals, institutions and even world governments.
In slightly more sombre news, last week saw the exit of a crypto icon.
In Japan, Kabosu, the Shiba Inu dog behind the iconic Dogecoin logo quietly passed away, after 18 long years, leaving a legacy that might endure for a long time.
Kabosu was adopted in 2008 from an animal shelter by a kindergarten teacher named Atsuko Sato.
Rest in peace, Doge
In 2010, the iconic Dogecoin picture was taken and posted on Sato’s blog, which eventually captured the hearts of internet users at the time.
Before long, this iconic picture was chosen as the logo of the “king of memecoins”, which currently has a market cap of 24 billion, and is leading the next largest by more than $10 billion.
“世界一幸せな
犬だったと思います。
そして私は
世界一幸せな
飼い主でした”
“Kabosu was the happiest dog in the world,
And, I, the happiest person in the world, was her owner (Google translated)”
- Atsuko Sato
Kabosu reportedly passed away in her sleep on Friday, 24 May, as reported by Sato in a poem on her blog.
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