BTC nears golden cross, as Moody's downgrade validates bond markets' concerns about the sustainability of the U.S. fiscal debt.

Today in crypto, retired artist Ed Suman lost over $2 million in crypto after falling victim to a Coinbase impersonation scam, Moody’s degrades US credit rating, and Bitcoin’s next explosive move could send the asset to $250,000 by the end of 2025, according to analyst Scott Melker.Retired artist loses $2M in crypto to Coinbase impersonatorRetired artist Ed Suman lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency earlier this year after falling victim to a scam involving someone posing as a Coinbase support representative.Suman, 67, spent nearly two decades as a fabricator in the art world, helping build high-profile works such as Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog sculptures, according to a May 17 report by Bloomberg.After retiring, he turned to cryptocurrency investing, eventually accumulating 17.5 Bitcoin and 225 Ether — a portfolio that comprised most of his retirement savings.He stored the funds in a Trezor Model One, a hardware wallet commonly used by crypto holders to avoid the risks of exchange hacks. But in March, Suman received a text message appearing to be from Coinbase, warning him of unauthorized account access.After responding, he got a phone call from a man identifying himself as a Coinbase security staffer named Brett Miller. The caller appeared knowledgeable, correctly stating that Suman’s funds were stored in a hardware wallet.He then convinced Suman that his wallet could still be vulnerable and walked him through a “security procedure” that involved entering his seed phrase into a website mimicking Coinbase’s interface.Nine days later, a second caller claiming to be from Coinbase repeated the process. By the end of that call, all of Suman’s crypto holdings were gone.Crypto scammers impersonate Coinbase support. Source: NanoBaiterMoody's rating agency degrades US credit ratingMoody's, one of the major credit ratings agencies, downgraded the US government's creditworthiness from Aaa to Aa1 on May 16, citing increased deficits and a mounting national debt.According to the announcement, the agency forecasts higher US government debt, fueled by increasing interest expense on the debt, and a lack of cost-cutting measures curtailing government spending. The report noted:"Over the next decade, we expect larger deficits as entitlement spending rises while government revenue remains broadly flat. In turn, persistent, large fiscal deficits will drive the government's debt and interest burden higher.""The US' fiscal performance is likely to deteriorate relative to its own past and compared to other highly-rated sovereigns," the newly revised credit outlook predicted.The United States national debt is more than $36 trillion and growing. Source: US Debt ClockBitcoin to $250K in 2025 ‘totally possible’ — crypto analyst Scott MelkerBitcoin’s next explosive move could send the asset to $250,000 by the end of 2025, according to Scott Melker, a crypto analyst and host of The Wolf of All Streets podcast.Speaking in a recent interview, Melker cited growing institutional interest and diminishing volatility as key factors that could drive the next leg up.“250K this year, totally possible,” Melker said, adding that Bitcoin’s volatility has declined significantly in recent years.“It used to be about three times as volatile as the S&P. Now it’s less than two times.” He pointed to increased involvement from pension funds and ETF issuers as evidence of a more mature, stable market.The shift, he argued, reflects a broader trend of institutional adoption. “The more institutional money, the more Wall Street money, the more long-term holders get involved, the less volatility there’s going to be,” Melker explained.

Key points:Bitcoin is convincing traders that an upside breakout is around the corner, with all-time highs in sight.One target demands $116,000 next week, moving BTC/USD firmly out of its narrow range.A quick dip before continuing higher is among the options for BTC price action into the new week.Bitcoin (BTC) reduced volatility to a minimum into the May 18 weekly close as traders bet on a fresh breakout.BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingViewBTC price brews classic breakout signalData from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed the area around $103,000 acting as a BTC price magnet throughout the weekend.Now barely fluctuating up or down, BTC/USD was primed for a liquidity grab, with $105,000 and $103,000 both targets, data from monitoring resource CoinGlass confirmed.BTC liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlassCommenting on the current market structure, traders remained broadly bullish, anticipating a rematch with all-time highs and the return of price discovery.“Next early week Bitcoin target: $116,000,” popular trader Alan summarized in his latest short-term prediction on X.An accompanying chart underscored the lack of volatility characterizing BTC/USD over the past week.“$BTC is brewing within this converging triangle with decreasing volume, which is a common indicator of potential for a Breakout,” Alan added.BTC/USD 4-hour chart. Source: Trader Tardigrade/XFellow trader Mikybull Crypto described the market structure as an “intraday diamond pattern breakout.”$BTC INTRADAY DIAMOND PATTERN BREAKOUT pic.twitter.com/gMGMub7nTt— Mikybull 🐂Crypto (@MikybullCrypto) May 18, 2025“With the recent run up we've seen a consistent Coinbase spot premium. This is good and show there's solid demand,” trader Daan Crypto Trades continued, referring to promising US buyer support fueling Bitcoin’s return to six figures.Qualms over outstanding resistanceMore conservative perspectives were confined to a temporary pullback before the upside resumed.Related: Bitcoin hitting $220K ‘reasonable’ in 2025, says gold-based forecast“Slow week and Bitcoin hasn't been able to break resistance so far, which still makes me think that this scenario might be possibly in play,” trader CrypNuevo suggested.BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: CrypNuevo/XDaan Crypto Trades added that against stocks, Bitcoin had yet to beat out final resistance.$BTC Has failed to push higher relative to stocks.The recent relative weakness has come after the US has made a "Deal" with China.This does show that BTC has turned into this asset which gets interesting for investors when outflows and uncertainty happens elsewhere.So while… https://t.co/hShAZxGM21 pic.twitter.com/UEPZNGWjff— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) May 17, 2025As Cointelegraph reported, longer-term concerns include a full retrace of the relief bounce, which rescued BTC/USD from multimonth lows near $75,000 in April.A sweep of levels closer to $90,000 is also on the radar.This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Economist and author of The Bitcoin Standard, Saifedean Ammous, has weighed in on the ongoing debate over spam inscriptions on the Bitcoin network, suggesting he would “throw in a few sats” to fund a full-time developer focused on making Bitcoin spamming more difficult and expensive.Ammous made the remarks in response to a thread initiated by the pseudonymous developer GrassFedBitcoin, who called for Bitcoin Core to merge pull request #28408, which would enable node operators to filter inscriptions more easily.According to GrassFedBitcoin, the lack of inscription filtering tools contributes to unnecessary blockchain bloat and undermines Bitcoin (BTC)’s role as a monetary protocol.“No one running a node wants to relay inscriptions,” he wrote, arguing that the OP_RETURN limit increases were justified in the past under false assumptions. He pushed for a configurable, default policy discouraging the use of Bitcoin for storing JPEGs rather than monetary data.Blockstream CEO Adam Back challenged the proposal, describing inscription filtering as an “arms race.” He noted that spam data embedded in Bitcoin transactions can be endlessly modified using code structures, requiring constant updates to filtering tools.Source: Adam BackRelated: Bitcoin Ordinals vs. Ethereum NFTs: A comparative overviewAmmous compares Bitcoin spam to emailAmmous compared the Bitcoin spam issue to email spam — another arms race society continues to fight without abandoning the system.“It’s not easy, but it’s worth trying to help bankrupt the spammers faster,” Ammous said. He argued that fighting spam is not censorship, noting that node operators already reject invalid transactions.“So a node runner looking to remove retards' spam is no less valid than retards' spam,” he added.The debate drew commentary from other users. One participant suggested Core developers treat spam-coding employees at certain startups as “unwilling QA engineers” and simply unstandardize every trick they deploy.Ammous took it further, proposing to “deprecate” the work of developers building spam tools and even hiring outside coders to overwhelm their systems.Source: Saifedean AmmousThe conversation reflects ongoing tensions in the Bitcoin community over the network’s intended use. With inscriptions continuing to congest the network, calls for technical countermeasures — and pointed critiques of those defending spam — are growing louder.In a Feb. 4 report, Mempool Research said the adoption of inscriptions could drive the Bitcoin network’s average block size as high as 4 megabytes (MB) per block, far higher than current averages.Bitcoin’s average block size — the amount of data in each block posted to the network’s public ledger — is currently around 1.5 MB.Magazine: Arthur Hayes $1M Bitcoin tip, altcoins’ powerful rally’ looms: Hodler’s Digest, May 11 – 17

Institutional buyers step in after sharp sell-off, establishing strong support at critical levels.