Crypto News on May 2: Bad Weekend for Bitcoin, Smartphone Seed Phrase Alert, Solana Chaos

Warren Buffett ‘Wouldn’t Buy All the Bitcoin in the World for $25’

Warren Buffett has announced that he wouldn’t buy all the Bitcoins in the world for $25. At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting, the billionaire warned the world’s largest cryptocurrency doesn’t produce anything tangible. To laughter from the crowd in Nebraska, the 91-year-old added: “What would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you, one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything.” Charlie Munger, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway went one further — describing Bitcoin as “stupid” and “evil.”

Bitcoin Recovers After Weekend Plunge to $37,500

Bitcoin has rebounded after falling off a cliff in the run-up to the monthly close. Saturday night saw the world’s biggest cryptocurrency hit lows of $37,585, CoinMarketCap data shows. According to Coinglass, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency fell by 17.3% last month — its worst April performance since 2013. There’s growing nervousness as the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee gathers for a key meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. Economists are expected to raise the base interest rate by half a percentage point — and an increase of this size hasn’t been seen in 22 years. BTC is flat over a seven-day timeframe, but many altcoins are nursing double-digit losses.

Solana Suffers Huge Outage as Bots Overwhelm Network

Solana suffered a seven-hour outage over the weekend — the embattled blockchain’s seventh blackout so far this year. The Proof-of-Stake network was overwhelmed by a record-breaking four million transactions per second. This affected the production of new blocks, and it’s believed bots using the NFT minting program Candy Machine were to blame. Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko was accused of being “MIA” — missing in action — after falling silent while the crisis unfolded. SOL plunged by more than 10% in a matter of hours on Saturday night as the chaos unfolded — hitting lows of $82.91. Repeated outages have put Solana’s reputation as an “Ethereum killer” into doubt, with some traders warning the blackouts mean this network is too unreliable.

Bitcoin and Ether Donations Dropped by Wikipedia After Backlash

The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it will no longer accept crypto donations. Wikipedia’s parent company had first started accepting Bitcoin all the way back in 2014 — as well as Ether and Bitcoin Cash in later years. But in a new statement, the organization said it was pulling the plug after receiving feedback from volunteers and donors… and closing its BitPay account. It follows a three-month discussion within the Wikimedia Foundation’s community, which included a poll that asked whether support for crypto donations should be withdrawn. Although just 326 people took part, 71% voted yes — indicating there was “strong support” to ditch crypto altogether. Data suggests that, over the whole of 2021, just 0.08% of the foundation’s revenues actually came from crypto donations — and in any case, the digital assets it received were immediately converted into cash.

How Your Phone Could Guess Your Seed Phrase — and Put Your Crypto at Risk

Your smartphone may be your worst enemy when it comes to securing encryption, and one user on Reddit claims his Android device managed to guess his private key – which could work to the advantage of criminals. Seed phrases consist of 24 random words — and they need to be repeated in order for users to access their digital assets. As u/Divinux explained: “Predictive typing remembers your used words and will suggest the second word as soon as you type the first one, especially if it’s a word you don’t commonly use.” An important tip for staying safe includes clearing the predictive text cache – preventing the smartphone from remembering unique words.

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