The rate of the first cryptocurrency at the moment rose to the mark $105,700.

Bitcoin's sharp price movement followed the US administration's announcement that it had reached a 90-day "truce" in its trade war with China. The parties agreed to mutually reduce duties for this period: the United States reduced them from 145% to 30%, and the PRC from 125% to 10%. 

JUST IN: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces a US-China deal for a 90-day tariff cut on goods from both nations https://t.co/VvWOXWJS2x pic.twitter.com/K3BGElwzZ4

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) May 12, 2025

20 Democratic U.S. senators have introduced a bill that would ban the president, vice president, members of Congress, and their families from issuing or promoting cryptocurrencies. 

The initiative, "Stop Cryptocurrency Corruption Act 2025," would also affect executive branch employees, including Elon Musk, who is the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The document was a response to the controversy surrounding stablecoin regulation. Some Democrats refused to support the GENIUS Act, accusing Republicans of ignoring measures against money laundering.  

The purpose of the innovation is to prevent conflicts of interest. For example, US President Donald Trump previously released the meme coin TRUMP and then offered its large holders a VIP meeting at the White House. 

The law imposes fines and criminal penalties on violators, including a ban on commercial activity for a year after leaving public office.  

Meanwhile, Trump's status as "chief crypto lawyer" at World Liberty Financial (WLF), a company linked to his family, remains in question. Democrats have also expressed concern over Binance's $2 billion deal with Binance using a USD1 stablecoin issued by WLFI.

Chinese tech giant Alibaba has announced a breakthrough in lowering the cost of training search-oriented AI models, as reported by SCMP. 

The researchers presented a new approach called ZeroSearch. It supposedly improves the search capabilities of neural networks by 88% using simulations and without interacting with real systems like Google. 

The method avoids the high costs often associated with routing queries through commercial tools. Already trained on extensive knowledge bases, the models generate "quality content" in response to queries. 

ZeroSearch is claimed to turn a reference model into a search engine that can train other AI systems to answer queries. The technology reduces reliance on expensive external search infrastructure. 

For example, sending 64,000 queries to Google via API costs $586.7. Generating answers for training using an AI model with 14 billion parameters costs $70.8. The innovation can expand search capabilities, the researchers noted.

The team behind TRUMP — a Donald Trump-related meme-coin has announced the end of the contest for token holders. They will have to pass a background check to confirm participation.

The First $TRUMP Competition is officially over! Details and what's next for $TRUMP Below:

If you were in the top 220 on the leaderboard, check the email you signed up with for details on the Dinner with President Trump as soon as possible. There will be background checks that…

— TrumpMeme (@GetTrumpMemes) May 12, 2025

The dinner will be held at Trump Golf Club in Washington, D.C., on May 22. Holders who maintain their position in the rankings and do not sell tokens will additionally receive a limited edition NFT Trump Diamond Hand on Solana.

"A very rare specimen," the project representatives emphasized.

According to Reuters, bidders spent $148 million to buy TRUMP. According to Chainalysis, 58 wallets made more than $10 million, while 764,000 investors were left with a loss, writes CNBC.  

Dubai's Department of Finance (DOF) announced a partnership with crypto exchange Crypto.com to accept digital assets as payment for government services. 

The agreement was signed at the Dubai FinTech Summit as part of the UAE's strategy to transition to cashless payments: by 2026, 90% of transactions in the country should be digital.  

Users will be able to pay for services through Crypto.com's crypto wallet. The platform will automatically convert digital assets into dirhams, which will flow into DOF accounts. Authorities expect the initiative to add up to Dh8 billion ($2.1 billion) to the local economy annually and reinforce Dubai's status as a fintech hub.

"This is the world's first project of this scale that brings together digital assets and the public sector," said Mohammed Al Hakim, head of Crypto.com's UAE division, Mohammed Al Hakim.

Former US Congressman Patrick McHenry said that former SEC head Gary Gensler has shown a more balanced attitude towards cryptocurrencies in private conversations than in public speeches. He revealed this on the Crypto In America podcast.

🚨SCOOP: @PatrickMcHenry reveals that former SEC chief Gary Gensler was not as anti-crypto in private as he was in public.

“I think it had more to do with Senate politics, and confirmation politics.”

Full episode with the former Chair of @FinancialCmte out tomorrow AM! pic.twitter.com/BHw7pRlRKG

— Crypto In America (@CryptoAmerica_) May 14, 2025

"Has he endorsed cryptocurrencies privately as much as he has criticized publicly?” 

“No," McHenry responded to the anchor's question.

He said Gensler has recognized the potential of digital assets and blockchain technology in private meetings, something he previously devoted research to at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Sei Labs General Counsel Gerald Gallagher recalled that the former SEC chief was involved in developing the concept of airdrops – a direction that remained a "forgotten page" of his academic career.

After his appointment as Commission chairman, however, Gensler's position hardened dramatically, McHenry noted.

"I naively assumed he wouldn't push the industry so aggressively. It was disappointing."

According to him, discussions of the regulatory framework with Gensler often turned into a contradictory dialogue: the official first agreed with the arguments, then denied what he had previously said. 

McHenry linked the former SEC chief's tactics to "Senate politics and lobbying" rather than a real position.  

On January 20, 2025, Gensler departed as chairman of the agency and returned to MIT, with Paul Atkins stepping in as the new SEC chairman.

During Gensler's tenure, the SEC initiated more than 100 lawsuits against cryptocurrency companies. The tough regulatory line provoked conflict with the industry. 

In December 2024, Coinbase terminated contracts with law firms where ex-SEC employees worked.

We've let all the law firms we work with know, that if they hire anyone who committed these bad deeds in the (soon to be) prior administration, we will no longer be a client of theirs.

Senior partners at these law firms seem unaware of the crypto industry's position on this.… https://t.co/k8R6NtfTV1 pic.twitter.com/RT0k408i9f

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) December 3, 2024

The Ethereum Foundation organization has unveiled the Trillion Dollar Security project, describing it as an ecosystem-wide effort to improve Ethereum security with the goal of moving the entire world to blockchain.

0. Announcing the Trillion Dollar Security (1TS) initiative: an ecosystem-wide effort to upgrade Ethereum’s security to help bring the world onchain.

— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) May 14, 2025

The goal of the "trillion-dollar security" initiative is to achieve the following conditions:

The implementation of Trillion Dollar Security involves three main components:

From the Ethereum Foundation, the project will be led by Fredrik Svantes and Josh Stark as co-chairs.

In addition, the three managers of Trillion Dollar Security will be: