The price of bitcoin dropped a little over 12% this Saturday in a 15-minute period, causing well over $200 million worth of liquidations on derivatives trading platform BitMEX. During the Crash, Coinbase went offline.

Google has deleted 22 extensions from the Chrome web store impersonating popular cryptocurrency wallets in a bid to get users to give up their private keys or mnemonic phrases.

Croatia’s financial regulator, Hanfa, has approved the country’s first bitcoin investment fund, the Passive Digital Asset fund.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Bitcoin’s Price Tanks 12% in 15 minutes, causing $226 Million of Liquidations
• Google Deleted 22 Extensions Impersonating Crypto Wallets
• Croatia’s Financial Supervisor Approved Bitcoin Investment Fund

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $8,668.94 (-1.74%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $4.62 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $187.41 (-1.86%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $1.17 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 2,819.08 (-15.16%).

Bitcoin’s Price Tanked 12% in 15 minutes, causing $226 Million of Liquidations

This Saturday, May 10, the price of Bitcoin tanked from $9,540 to $8,400 in a 15-minute period, posting a total loss of over 12% in such a short period. On Coinbase the crash was slightly less severe with BTC dropping slightly less over the same period. The cryptocurrency exchange, however, went down during the market crash.

After the crash, some technical analysts claimed that they wanted to wait to see what would happen to the price of BTC, while mentions of the flagship cryptocurrency across social media surged during that period.

On derivative trading platform BitMEX, liquidations of BTC perpetual swap contract reached $226 million. The plunge brought Bitcoin’s month-long rally to a halt, and occurred less than a week ahead of the halving, which will cut block rewards to 6.25 BTC per block.

Two of Bitcoin’s harshest critics, Professor Nouriel Roubini and gold bug Peter Schiff pointed to the crash to further bash BTC on Twitter, with Roubini claiming bitcoin is a “total scam,” and Schiff saying that those looking to make a profit using the halving may not make a profit.

Google Deleted 22 Extensions Impersonating Crypto Wallets

Google has removed 22 extensions from the Chrome Web store that were impersonating popular cryptocurrency wallets like Ledger and MetaMask, about a month after removing nearly 50 fake extensions.

According to Naked Security, a cybersecurity-focused website maintained by Sophos, Google took down 22 malicious extensions identified by security research Harry Denley, who works at MyCrypto. Per the researcher, these extensions were falsely claiming to be affiliated with MyEtherWallet, Trezor, Ledger, Electrum, and MetaMask.

Those behind the extensions created user experiences exactly identical to those of the original services to trick users into giving up their private keys and mnemonic phrases on the extensions, so they could later access their wallets.

Croatia’s Financial Supervisor Approved Bitcoin Investment Fund

Croatia’s financial supervisor Hanfa has approved a bitcoin investment fund last week, clearing the way for the first regulated, cryptocurrency alternative asset fund in the country. Hanfa backed Griffon Asset Management’s plan to establish and manage the Passive Digital Asset fund, and also approved the state-owned bank HPB to serve as the depository.

The passive fund invests exclusively in bitcoin. The initial investment period closes once total asset hit 1,000,000 HRK (around $143,000), or 15 working days after the ruling. Investors can make an initial investment in either cash or in bitcoin. To calculate daily asset value, three different blockchain explorer will be used.

Hanfa’s ruling reads:

“Also, access to and disposal of crypto assets requires multiple key signatures that are physically stored in separate secure locations, and the transfer of assets cannot take place without the approval of both the Company and the Depository with their keys.”

The Passive Digital Asset fund carries a 2.5% management fee, with Griffon taking 3.5% from investors that exit in less than a year and 2.5% from investors who exit before two. Exit fees are dropped after that, and there is no performance fee.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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