PLUS: Strategy, Coinbase, ATMs

May 1, 2025

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day 

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Welcome to The Node! This is Ben Schiller to take you through the latest crypto news. 

 

Here are the top stories from CoinDesk's reporters today:
Strategy Raising Another $21B to Buy Bitcoin, Posts Large Q1 Loss on BTC Price Decline
Movement Token Slumps 14% as Coinbase Suspends Trading
U.S. Congressman Pitches Crypto ATMs for Federal Government Buildings
21Shares Files for SUI ETF, Token Surges

Consensus Opinion: From Dorm Rooms and Dropouts 
Crypto’s biggest companies aren’t  planned in boardrooms. They’re being built in dorm rooms, group chats, and hackathons by founders who don’t wait for permission, says Antonio Gomes, President of the Blockchain Education Network.
👇

 

Strategy Posts Large Q1 Loss

James Van Straten and Helene Braun report: 

  • Strategy reported a first quarter loss of $4.2 billion or $16.49 per share thanks to a decline in the price of bitcoin.
  • The company announced a new $21 billion at-the-market common stock equity offering.
  • The company owned 528,185 BTC at quarter's end, a number that's since risen to 553,555.
 

Coinbase Delists Movement Token 

Sam Kessler reports:

  • Coinbase said it would suspend trading of Movement's MOVE token on May 15, citing "recent reviews."

  • The move comes days after CoinDesk reported on Movement's internal investigation into market-making deals that experts say incentivized price manipulation of the token.
  • The token fell more than 13% on the trading suspension news, while the broader market gauge CoinDesk 20 Index rose 4.4%.
  • Movement Labs is currently investigating how a market maker may have gained access to a significant number of its tokens, which were then dumped on retail investors, causing its price to tank. 
 

Gooden Pitches BTC ATMs for Fed Buildings

Jesse Hamilton reports

  • While Congress is trying to work out how the U.S. can regulate crypto, one lawmaker from Texas is asking the feds to consider putting digital assets ATMs in their own buildings to start embracing the technology and meeting the spirit of President Donald Trump's advocacy.
  • Texas Republican Lance Gooden sent a letter to the head of the General Services Administration asking that the proposal be studied.
  • "Expanding accessibility to crypto ATMs within federal buildings aligns with President Trump’s vision of positioning the United States as a global leader in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology," he said.
 

21Shares Files SUI ETF, Boosting Price

Oliver Knight reports:

  • Swiss asset manager 21Shares has filed for a SUI exchange-traded fund with the SEC.
  • SUI's price rose by 10.9% in the past 24 hours following the ETF filing.
  • The Sui Foundation announced a partnership with Fireblocks to improve institutional infrastructure.
 

Opinion: Innovation Comes From Dorms

This article is by Antonio Gomes, President of the Blockchain Education Network. Erick Pinos, former president of BEN, will speak at Consensus 2025 on May 16 in a panel titled “The Talent Pipeline: How to Find a Job in Crypto.”

 

Before Ethereum had a market cap, it was just an idea in a college dropout’s head.

Crypto’s biggest companies aren’t being planned in boardrooms. They’re being built in dorm rooms, group chats, and hackathons by founders who don’t wait for permission (many of them don’t finish college at all). This is not a coincidence. It’s a repeat of a pattern we’ve seen before: bold ideas, early action, and zero regard for institutional timelines.

 

In 2014, a group of students launched the Blockchain Education Network (BEN) to connect students exploring bitcoin and blockchain across college campuses. Within a year, BEN had grown to over 160 chapters in more than 35 countries.

What started as grassroots education quickly became a launchpad for builders.


BEN became a catalyst for its core members and for a global cohort of students who saw crypto as a blank canvas. Some dropped out. Others stayed in. Nearly all started building before the rest of the world caught on. Projects fostered by that ecosystem have gone on to collectively reach over $20 billion in peak valuations, including IOTA, Optimism, Bitso, Augur, Wanchain, Notional and Roll.

 

That same spirit of early action led me and Erick Pinos, former president of MIT’s Bitcoin Club, to co-found Dropout Capital, backing young, technical founders who move before the world notices.

 

Some of crypto’s most influential founders started the same way:

• Vitalik Buterin dropped out of the University of Waterloo to launch Ethereum (peaked at $500 billion+)

• Charles Hoskinson left the University of Colorado before founding Cardano (peaked at $70 billion)

• Jed McCaleb, co-founder of Ripple and Stellar, dropped out of UC Berkeley (Ripple peaked at $130 billion)

• Jesse Powell left Cal State to build Kraken (valued at $10 billion)

• Shayne Coplan dropped out of NYU in his first semester to start Polymarket (estimated at $1 billion)

• Joey Krug left Pomona to co-found Augur (peaked at $1 billion)

• Jeremy Gardner, who co-founded Augur with Krug, dropped out of the University of Michigan (peaked at $1 billion)

• Jinglan Wang left Wellesley to build Eximchain and later helped lead Optimism (peaked at $11 billion+)

• Noah Tweedale, co-founder of Pump.fun, never enrolled (estimated at $1 billion+)

At Dropout Capital, we’ve backed early-stage companies including:

• Vana, founded at MIT, building a decentralized data marketplace

• SatLayer, started by MIT alumni and former VCs, creating Bitcoin-native compute for AI

• Tenderize, launched by students at Marquette University, building a liquid staking marketplace

• Algebra.Finance, founded by a Ph.D. in Computer Science with a background in mobile operating systems, rethinking on-chain prediction infrastructure


The future of crypto isn’t being theorized at conferences or slow-walked through corporate committees.

It’s being built by people who move early, take risks, and start building before the world even realizes what’s happening. And, if history is any guide, the companies that matter most won’t be the ones that waited.

 

The Industry’s Brightest Minds. One Unmissable Event.
 
Dealmaking. Networking. Big moves. Consensus 2025 is where the industry’s top players connect, innovate, and build what’s next.

 

Don’t miss out. Save 15% with code NODE15.

 

Links, Links, Links

 

Crypto industry to hold big fundraiser for Trump PAC – Axios

Sam Altman’s Eye-Scanning Crypto Project Launches in the U.S. – WSJ

The Crypto President – "Daily" podcast, NYT

 

Anyone Willing 

 

 

 
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