South Korea’s Virtual Asset Taxation Faces Resistance: Government Insists on Implementation in January Next Year, While Opposition Parties Push to Repeal the Bill
On May 8th, according to ZDNet, the South Korean government plans to tax virtual assets starting in January next year, but faces opposition from the opposition party, increasing policy uncertainty.
Moon Kyung-ho, head of the Income Tax Division of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, formally stated for the first time at a National Assembly discussion that the government will tax virtual assets from January 1 next year as originally planned, emphasizing that “taxes must be levied on income.” According to the current tax law amendment, a 22% tax rate applies to the portion of income from the transfer or lending of virtual assets that exceeds 2.50 million South Korean won.
However, the opposition People Power Party argues that it is unfair to only tax virtual assets while abolishing the financial investment income tax, and is promoting a bill to abolish the virtual asset income tax. The bill has been submitted to the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee and will be discussed in the Tax Subcommittee.
[PANews]
ALEX: CEX asset recovery work has been completed and a governance proposal will be submitted within two weeks.
Bitcoin DeFi project ALEX tweeted that its centralized exchange recovery work has been fully completed, legal efforts have been fully resolved, and no further recovery is expected; of the recovered assets, approximately 1.60 million STX are still stored in the TGP treasury and have not been claimed, and eligible users can view the link for details on how to claim them; the attacker’s wallet has no transaction activity at this time; the ALEX Lab Foundation will submit a governance proposal in the next two weeks to discuss subsequent handling plans.
Previously, on June 6, 2025, an attacker exploited a verification logic vulnerability in the ALEX Protocol self-service token listing function, causing a loss of approximately $8.37 million.
[Foresight News]
Coinbase exchange outage exceeds 2 hours
Coinbase exchange has been down for over 2 hours, and its status page redirects users to the AWS status page.
[Odaily]
Ethereum spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $104 million yesterday, with none of the ten ETFs recording a net inflow.
According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (Eastern Time, May 7th), the total net outflow of Ethereum spot ETFs was $104.00 million.
The Ethereum spot ETF with the largest single-day net outflow yesterday was Fidelity ETF FETH, with a single-day net outflow of $62.26 million. Currently, the total historical net inflow of FETH has reached $2.26 billion.
The second largest was Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net outflow of $26.31 million, and the current total historical net inflow of ETHA reached $9,160.00.
As of press time, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $13.59 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (market value as a percentage of the total market value of Ethereum) reached 4.94%, with a cumulative historical net inflow of $12.08 billion.
[Odaily]
Bitget Launches Contract VIP “Millionaire Club” Phase 5 Campaign
Bitget has launched the 5th edition of its Contract VIP “Million-Club” campaign. The snapshot rules for this campaign are “cumulative achievement within a natural month + end-of-month status verification.” Based on users’ account data as of May 31, Bitget will award Golden Gift Boxes according to either their total contract trading volume or their average daily net asset increase from May 1 to May 31. Rewards include Fu Shou Jewelry gold bars, Chow Tai Fook pure-gold ornaments, and Lao Miao Gold bracelets.
Previously, Bitget announced an upgrade to its Contract VIP service system and introduced the “Million-Club” program, under which eligible users receive premium physical gift boxes—customized by the platform—on a monthly basis. This program runs from January to June 2026; prior editions have distributed gifts such as Moutai liquor, Hermès items, and Apple flagship gift boxes. Specific benefits are subject to the official announcement for each month; for more details, please visit the official Bitget platform.
[Foresight News]
Trump: Trump Stock Market Hits New High Again
U.S. President Donald Trump posted a picture late at night local time with the content: “Trump’s stock market hits new highs again! The S&P 500 has broken through 7,300.00 points.”
[Odaily]
The GnosisDAO community has released a proposal to “allow GNO holders to redeem their proportional share of the treasury.”
The GnosisDAO community has proposed a plan titled “Allowing GNO holders to redeem their proportional share of the treasury,” which currently faces a 64.81% opposition rate.
The proposal includes enabling any GNO holder to exchange their tokens for a proportionally allocated share of the GnosisDAO treasury. Participation is entirely voluntary. Non-participants will retain their GNO and continue to enjoy the full economic benefits arising from the DAO’s ongoing operations.
Liquid and semi-liquid treasury assets will be distributed at net asset value (NAV). Illiquid off-chain investments and corporate value, however, will be handled via synthetic gLTD-CLAIM tokens, which entitle participants to a fixed percentage share of future dividends from the aforementioned asset pool—once the capital deployed by the DAO post-redemption reaches the principal recovery threshold. Redeemed GNO tokens will be burned, thereby permanently reducing the effective circulating supply.
[Foresight News]
Layoffs Accelerate in May 2026 as Firms Restructure Around AI
More layoffs swept across industries in early May 2026 as a fresh wave of firms announced job cuts. Many of the cuts share a common driver, as companies are rebuilding around artificial intelligence (AI).
Cloudflare announced Thursday it would cut more than 1,100 jobs globally, about 20% of its 5,156-person workforce, as reported at the end of 2025. The firm revealed that internal AI usage increased by more than 600% in three months.
On the same day, payments firm BILL said it would slash headcount by up to 30%. In addition, Upwork CEO Hayden Brown informed employees that the company would cut roughly a quarter of its workforce. Media reports also revealed that Ticketmaster has reportedly cut 8% of its global workforce, or roughly 350 employees across 25 countries.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that fintech firm PayPal plans to eliminate about 20% of its 23,800-person workforce over the next two to three years. That equals roughly 4,760 jobs.
In the crypto sector, Coinbase announced Tuesday it would cut about 14% of staff, or roughly 700 employees. CEO Brian Armstrong framed the decision as a structural shift toward smaller, AI-augmented teams.
Notably, the cuts come as research finds little evidence of broad AI-driven job disruption at the moment, though economists still expect shifts ahead.
Coinbase AWS data center experienced excessively high temperatures, causing a platform service outage; trading will resume shortly.
Coinbase experienced a service interruption due to rising temperatures at the AWS US-EAST-1 data center; trading will resume first in “cancel-only” mode.
Full trading restoration is imminent.
[Odaily]
Secured Finance joins the Tokenized Japanese Government Bond (JGB) On-Chain Repo Working Group to jointly advance on-chain repo for tokenized JGBs.
Decentralized lending protocol Secured Finance has joined Progmat’s “Tokenized Japanese Government Bond (JGB) On-Chain Repo Working Group” as a lending-related participant. The working group will focus on researching on-chain management of tokenized JGB rights, and how to support on-chain repo transactions for Japanese institutional investors using tokenized JGBs, stablecoin cash legs, and lending protocol infrastructure.
The working group will examine legal, accounting, tax, operational, and technical issues related to tokenized Japanese Government Bonds and on-chain repo transactions. The group is scheduled to launch in May 2026 and aims to publish its report in October 2026.
[Foresight News]
Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net outflow of $277 million yesterday, marking the first net outflow after five consecutive days of net inflows.
According to SoSoValue data, yesterday (Eastern Time, May 7th), the total net outflow of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $277.00 million.
The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net inflow yesterday was Morgan Stanley ETF MSBT, with a single-day net inflow of $7.35 million. Currently, MSBT’s total historical net inflow has reached $188.00 million. The second was Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF BTC, with a single-day net inflow of $5.67 million, and the current total historical net inflow of BTC reached $2.29 billion.
The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net outflow yesterday was Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a single-day net outflow of $129.00 million, and the current total historical net inflow of FBTC reached $112.32 billion.
As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $106.77 billion, the ETF net asset ratio (market value as a percentage of the total market value of Bitcoin) reached 6.67%, and the cumulative historical net inflow has reached $594.86 billion.
[Odaily]
Chaos Labs: Oracle network remains secure after suspected “nation-state level” wallet attack
On May 8, according to Cointelegraph, Chaos Labs—a crypto risk management and infrastructure provider—stated that its oracle network suffered a suspected “state-sponsored” cyberattack over the past weekend but was not breached.
Omer Goldberg, founder of Chaos Labs, stated on X that the attack was strictly confined to the operational wallet used for routine on-chain activities; the oracle network itself was never compromised. The oracles operate in a fully isolated environment, with nodes distributed globally and protected by multiple layers of security and encryption.
Following the attempted attack, Chaos Labs has rotated all keys and has detected no further suspicious activity.
[PANews]
Coinbase: Overheating AWS data center caused platform service disruption, trading will resume soon.
May 8th news, Coinbase stated that Coinbase experienced a service disruption due to excessive temperatures at the AWS US-EAST-1 data center.
The platform will resume trading soon, and all markets will first enter “cancel-only” mode.
[Cointelegraph]
Metalpha’s associated wallet deposited 8,771 ETH to Binance, approximately $19.99 million.
On May 8, according to Lookonchain monitoring, a whale continues to sell ETH; another wallet associated with Metalpha deposited 8,771 ETH (US$19.99 million) to Binance 20 minutes ago.
[PANews]
Coinbase Hit by Outage as AWS Issues Disrupt Trading
Coinbase revealed that some users are facing “degraded performance” on Thursday. The disruption follows an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in Northern Virginia overheating. The exchange flagged the issue around 6 p.m. Pacific time.
Coinbase told customers their funds remained safe and pointed them to the AWS health dashboard for updates. In a separate update, Coinbase pinpointed the disruption to a specific Availability Zone, use1-az4 in the AWS US-EAST-1 region, where temperatures had spiked. The exchange said it would re-enable trading shortly.
AWS said rising temperatures at a data centre in Northern Virginia disrupted some services. It stated that teams are continuing efforts to restore temperatures to normal levels in the Availability Zone (use1-az4) in the US-EAST-1 Region.
In a latest update, the cloud platform said it is seeing early signs of recovery, with additional cooling capacity allowing the team to recover some impacted racks. AWS added that it was working to recover the additional racks “in a controlled and safe manner.”
[BeInCrypto]
South Korean National Assembly Passes Amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act, Incorporating Cross-Border Transfers of Crypto Assets into the Foreign Exchange Management System
The South Korean National Assembly plenary session has passed an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. The amendment introduces a new definition for “cross-border virtual asset transfer business,” requiring exchanges, custodian institutions, and others engaged in overseas virtual asset transfer services to register with the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
At the same time, the amendment also restructures the specialized foreign exchange business system and significantly strengthens penalties for violations, including up to one year of imprisonment or fines of up to 100 million KRW.
[Foresight News]
Anthropic is considering raising tens of billions of dollars this summer, with a valuation that could approach a trillion dollars and surpass OpenAI.
On May 8, according to a report by Jinshi citing the UK’s Financial Times, Anthropic is considering raising several billion dollars this summer to fund a large-scale expansion of its computing capabilities—a move that would propel its valuation to nearly $1 trillion, surpassing its competitor OpenAI.
Five sources familiar with the matter revealed that the developer of Claude was valued at $380 billion as of February this year. With its revenue continuing to grow, it has attracted interest from investors including Dragoneer, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
These sources expect Anthropic’s annualized revenue—calculated by extrapolating recent weeks’ data to a full year—to soon exceed $45 billion, a fivefold increase from $9 billion at the end of last year.
[PANews]
Today’s Market Pulse
The crypto market faces headwinds as both Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs experience significant outflows, while regulatory uncertainty in South Korea and infrastructure issues at major exchanges create volatility. Simultaneously, institutional adoption continues through traditional finance integration efforts.
Key Themes
ETF Profit-Taking & Market Sentiment
Significant outflows from both Bitcoin ($277M) and Ethereum ($104M) spot ETFs suggest profit-taking after recent gains, with Fidelity’s funds experiencing the largest withdrawals. This technical pressure may test support levels, but historical inflows remain substantial, indicating sustained institutional interest. Near-term, we may see consolidation as the market digests these flows.
Regulatory Crossroads in South Korea
South Korea’s virtual asset taxation faces political opposition despite government implementation plans, while new regulations cross-border transfers. This creates policy uncertainty that could impact Korean crypto markets and exchanges. The outcome of the tax debate will serve as a bellwether for other jurisdictions considering similar frameworks.
Infrastructure Challenges & Resilience
Coinbase’s prolonged outage due to AWS data center issues highlights the fragility of centralized infrastructure. While funds remained secure, the incident underscores operational risks for major exchanges. Meanwhile, security protocols at projects like Chaos Labs proved effective against sophisticated attacks, demonstrating the growing maturity of crypto security frameworks.
AI Transformation & Market Restructuring
The broader tech sector’s pivot to AI is accelerating, with significant layoffs at Coinbase and other firms restructuring around AI capabilities. This structural shift may drive efficiency but also creates short-term volatility. The crypto sector’s integration with AI technologies could present new opportunities for innovation and disruption.
RichSilo Verdict
Smart money should watch for follow-through on ETF outflows, which could indicate changing institutional sentiment, while monitoring South Korea’s regulatory trajectory for potential market impact. The convergence of AI and crypto represents a compelling long-term narrative, though short-term volatility may persist. On-chain developments like tokenized government bonds signal continued institutional interest, potentially offsetting some macro headwinds. The most immediate catalyst will be how exchanges address infrastructure vulnerabilities to prevent similar outages.
