Cryptocurrency
Web3 Wonka: Bitcoin Investor Hides $2 Million in 5 Treasure Chests

A Web3 enthusiast might say those very words about a blockchain smart contract.
Jon Collins-Black, a lifelong fan of fantasy novels and games, has used a portion of his early Bitcoin investments, worth some $2 million at the average BTC price today, to fill five treasure chests hidden throughout the United States.
Millionaire Bitcoin investor hides crypto prizes on the map
The early Bitcoin-era cryptocurrency investor went to auctions to create the unique collection of loot. Moreover, he says the treasure boxes contain rare Pokémon cards, historical shipwreck artifacts, sports memorabilia, and gold and precious metals.
“I was like a kid in a candy store,” he said.
Collins-Black said he was inspired in part by the treasure hunt launched by US Air Force veteran and eccentric art collector Forrest Fenn. Like Collins-Black, the larger-than-life figure self-published a book to promote the treasure hunt in 2010, “The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir.”
That hunt was for a single trove and it contained gold nuggets, rare metal coins, and valuable jewelry and gemstones.
How does hunting for Fenn’s treasure compare to Bitcoin mining/or buying BTC for a risk-reward profile?
Any of the lucky treasure hunters who successfully find one of the treasure boxes may come up in the money profit-wise. That is—if they don’t overspend the value of the loot they find in order to locate it.
Think of it like the SETI formula for the probability of finding intelligent life on other planets.
Doing The Math
His book has been available now in hardcover on Amazon since Nov. 2024 for $47.44. But it’s the time and energy spent hunting for the Collins-Black treasure that will really cost bounty hunters.
It wasn’t until 2020 that a treasure hunter managed to solve the hunt and find the Forrest Fenn treasure. During the ten years since Fenn launched it, there were many unsuccessful attempts to find the gold and other prizes. From 2016 to 2020, five people even died in weird accidents while reportedly searching for the Fenn treasure.
A treasure hunt of this nature is a lot of fun for the blockchain sector because the way it works is much like the Bitcoin core protocol that secures money on the network and manages transaction orders.
In order to harness the cost of electricity to the publicly verifiable state of an entire decentralized ledger of accounts, Bitcoin requires BTC mining computers to guess a random number by checking guesses through the SHA-256 hashing algorithm.
Like the treasure hunters, only one will find the correct number and win the Bitcoin reward. But when it does, the miner can use that reward to defray the costs of electricity and usually find a profit left over to keep.
Assuming electricity costs of $0.05 per kWh, at the current mining hash rate of $390 terahashes per second—running $8.66 of electricity through a Bitcoin miner will produce an average mining revenue of $22.48, according to CoinWarz data accessed on Tuesday, Dec. 3. That’s a 59% marginal return on investment for each unit of electricity applied.
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Cryptocurrency
Important Shiba Inu Indicator Drops to a 3-Month Low: How Will SHIB’s Price React?

TL;DR
Shibarium’s recent slowdown has sparked concerns over Shiba Inu’s network engagement and price outlook.
However, a negative exchange netflow and a low RSI hint at potential recovery signs.
Brace for Impact?
The number of daily transactions processed on Shiba Inu’s layer-2 blockchain solution, Shibarium, has been in decline over the past few weeks.
On June 1, the figure shrank to just 65,411, marking the lowest point observed in nearly three months. Additionally, the number of active accounts and new contracts has also headed south.
The aforementioned data indicate stalled activity on the network, suggesting reduced user engagement, which may have a negative influence on the price.
Some members of the Shiba Inu team, as well as other industry participants, believe the future development of Shibarium is vital for the meme coin’s price performance. One of those is the Bitcoin advocate Jeremie Davinci, who recently said:
“I like Shiba Inu, as you know, and I think it will do relatively well in this cycle, but it may not go as high as you expect. I think Shiba Inu has a lot of utility now that they have Shibarium, and basically, it’s a chain that you can actually run all kinds of applications.
However, nobody is using it, and there are no applications for using your tokens on Shibarium yet. If they get that solved, Shiba Inu will go to the moon.”
Another factor signaling bad news for SHIB’s valuation is the project’s burning mechanism. Over the past seven days, the team and community have destroyed approximately 111 million tokens, representing a 15% decline compared to the rate witnessed the week before. Furthermore, only 1.57 million SHIB were burned in the past 24 hours, meaning a nearly 90% decrease on a daily scale.
The program’s ultimate goal is to reduce the overall supply of the meme coin and potentially increase its value through scarcity. According to Shibburn, the amount of tokens burned from the initial supply since adopting the program is over 410.7 trillion, leaving 584.4 trillion in circulation.
Some Bullish Signs
Although the aforementioned signs imply a bearish future for Shiba Inu, other factors paint a more positive picture.
For instance, SHIB’s exchange netflow has been predominantly negative over the past week, indicating that the coin’s supply on centralized platforms is decreasing. This suggests that investors may have shifted toward self-custody methods, a move that reduces immediate selling pressure.
Shiba Inu’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) is also worth mentioning. The momentum oscillator is currently hovering slightly above the bullish zone of 30. Ratios below that level typically indicate that the meme coin may be oversold and poised for a rally. On the contrary, anything above 70 may be taken as a warning signal.
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Cryptocurrency
Ripple Price at Pivotal Juncture: Dump Below $2 or Surge to $4.5 Next for XRP?

TL;DR
- Ripple’s cross-border token has struggled in the past week, alongside most of the market, and has dropped below a crucial support line, which has now turned into resistance.
- Analysts outlined a couple of different scenarios for the asset, which envision a price drop below $2 or a surge to $4.5.
Is XRP Actually Heading for New ATH?
The fourth-largest cryptocurrency surged in mid-May as the rest of the market recovered from the Trump-induced crash in early April. However, it couldn’t rise any higher than $2.6, where it was halted on a couple of occasions, while BTC managed to break through and chart a new all-time high of almost $112,000. Ethereum also outperformed XRP on a monthly scale, as the latter’s price seems stuck.
Moreover, the asset fell below $2.3 in the past few days, a level that many analysts highlighted as a crucial support, now turned into a key resistance. Cryptowzrd noted that XRP closed indecisively the week, but pointed out the $2.21 resistance as the first obstacle in the asset’s long road to recovery. However, if it manages to reclaim it, this could form an inverse head-and-shoulders, which could result in offering a “long opportunity.”
CW believes XRP’s turn “has come,” and suggested that the asset is expected to break through the current small convergence. If this pattern plays out, XRP’s next price target can be $4.5, which would mean a massive surge past the January 2018 all-time high of around $3.4.
$XRP‘s turn has come.
It briefly broken the upper line of the convergence in the short-term correction, but the price recovered rapidly.
And the uptrend that signals the end of the retest is imminent. This time, it is expected to break through that small convergence.
The… pic.twitter.com/hVIpU4xueP
— CW (@CW8900) May 31, 2025
The Bearish Scenario
While the aforementioned scenarios provide a more optimistic outlook for XRP’s future price movements, Brett wasn’t so bullish. The analyst told their over 90,000 followers on X that Ripple’s token is currently at a “critical breakdown point.”
It has dropped below key EMAs and is currently testing the 200 EMA. If it fails to remain above it, XRP could be on its way to the $2 support or even lower. They urged the bulls to “step in now,” or there will be more pain ahead for XRP.
$XRP is at a critical breakdown point!
Price has slipped below key EMAs and is now testing the 200 EMA.
Failure to hold here could drag XRP toward $2.00 or lower.
Bulls must step in NOW — or we head further down.
#XRP #Ripple #Crypto pic.twitter.com/6ygu7ZlAVI— Brett (@Brett_Crypto_X) June 1, 2025
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Cryptocurrency
USDT0 Introduces XAUt0, Modernizing Access to Gold with True Digital Ownership

[PRESS RELEASE – Road Town, British Virgin Islands, June 2nd, 2025]
Today, USDT0, the unified liquidity network for Tether’s US dollar pegged stablecoin (USDt), announces the launch of XAUt0, the omnichain evolution of Tether Gold (XAUt), built to bring the largest gold-backed digital token to the world’s leading blockchains. XAUt0 is the omnichain deployment of Tether Gold, allowing users to own a physically backed, inflation-resistant asset while tapping into the full composability and financial innovation of digital assets.
Today, there are many ways to get started with gold, from metal ETFs to tokenized price trackers. However, most of these options only provide indirect price exposure to gold prices, and don’t offer true ownership rights or the ability to freely use or move holdings. Launched in 2020, Tether Gold (XAUt) was one of the earliest and most groundbreaking projects to bring real-world assets on-chain at scale. By combining the reliability of physical gold bullion with the transparency and accessibility of blockchain technology, XAUt was an early innovation that offered the best of both worlds: a timeless hedge against inflation, delivered with the flexibility and freedom that modern finance demands.
Now with XAUt0, XAUt can be leveraged across leading blockchains and easily plugged into lending, liquidity pools, FX arbitrage, and more. By combining the direct, physical gold ownership of Tether Gold with the frictionless, omnichain liquidity layer pioneered by USDT0, XAUt0 creates a globally accessible, infinitely programmable form of gold that retains the reliability and timelessness of the original asset. With the price of gold reaching all-time highs, the launch of XAUt0 enables the world’s most enduring store of value to become as seamless and accessible as the networks that increasingly define global capital flows.
XAUt0 is the omnichain deployment of Tether Gold (XAUt), built on LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard. XAUt0 allows users to seamlessly and securely move their XAUt between chains. Each XAUt token represents ownership of one fine troy ounce of gold on a specific gold bullion bar meeting the quality assurance requirements of “London Good Delivery” set by the London Bullion Market Association, securely stored in a Swiss vault. All XAUt and therefore XAUt0 holders have an ownership interest in a specific physical gold bar, rather than indirect exposure to gold prices.
In collaboration with the TON Foundation and The Open Platform (the largest venture builder in TON & Telegram), the first deployment of XAUt0 will take place on The Open Network (TON), bringing tokenized gold to hundreds of millions of users within the Telegram ecosystem.
“The initial rollout of XAUt0 on TON reflects our shared vision of making digital assets seamlessly accessible to people around the world, unlocking new economic opportunities for those who need them most,” said Andrew Rogozov, CEO and Founder of The Open Platform. “Starting today, Tether Gold will be instantly available to users of Wallet in Telegram, and in Q3, we will launch a major promotional campaign to engage users of TON Ecosystem.”
While Bitcoin is metaphorically considered “digital gold” due to its trustless scarcity model, XAUt0 introduces real “digital gold” that is both physically backed and built for seamless omnichain use. Inheriting the core strengths of XAUt, XAUt0 offers powerful advantages over directly holding physical gold, including:
- 24/7 Access: While traditional gold markets close for weekends and holidays, XAUt0 holders can buy, sell, lend, or use their digital gold at any time, from anywhere.
- Secure Digital Storage: XAUt0 holders enjoy the economic security of gold with the self-custody of digital wallets, without the costs and hassle of physical custody.
- Infinite Divisibility: XAUt0 can be bought and sold in fractional increments, opening up new possibilities for everything from collateral provision to portfolio diversification.
- Physical Redemption Options: XAUt0 holders can exchange their XAUt0 for XAUt, which can be redeemed for physical gold, delivered to a Swiss address.
“XAUt is already setting a new standard for tokenized gold—each token represents direct ownership of physical gold securely stored in Switzerland,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “At Tether, we’re excited to witness the launch of XAUt0, which aims to revolutionize gold in the digital era.”
“At USDT0, our mission has always been to unify liquidity and make digital assets truly borderless across blockchain ecosystems,” said Lorenzo R., Co-Founder of USDT0 and Everdawn Labs, a leading software development firm in the Tether ecosystem. “With the launch of XAUt0, we’re applying that same mission to gold, one of humanity’s oldest and most enduring stores of value. By unlocking seamless omnichain access to physically backed gold, XAUt0 brings a timeless asset into the decentralized ecosystem.”
For more information, users can visit gold.usdt0.to or follow USDT0 on Twitter @USDT0_to.
About USDT0
USDT0, the unified liquidity network for USDT, simplifies cross-chain movement without fragmented pools or complex bridges. As the unified gateway for USDT interoperability and expansion, USDT0 simplifies cross-chain liquidity, enhances accessibility, and unlocks new use cases for Tether holders, businesses, and DeFi platforms. With a focus on efficiency and scalability, USDT0 is redefining how USDT operates across networks. For more information, users can visit USDT0.to or follow on Twitter @USDT0_to.
About Everdawn Labs
Everdawn Labs is a premier software development consultancy, specializing in crafting bespoke software solutions that drive innovation, efficiency, and growth in the digital asset ecosystem. Everdawn Labs manages and operates USDT0, the unified liquidity network for Tether (USDT), XAUt0, the omnichain deployment of Tether Gold (XAUt), and contributes to the development of Alloy by Tether, a USD-denominated Tethered Asset backed by gold. For more information, users can visit everdawn.to/.
About The Open Platform (TOP)
The Open Platform (TOP) is a VC and venture builder for early-stage projects on TON Blockchain. TOP provides a powerful toolkit of funding, expertise, and technology resources, streamlining access to critical tools like wallets, developer resources, SDKs, APIs, and marketplaces. With this support, TOP enables developers to build scalable Web3 products ready for widespread adoption.
For more information, users can visit: top.co.
About TON Foundation
The Open Network Foundation (TON Foundation) is a non-profit organization supported by community contributors to further TON’s objectives. Founded in Switzerland in 2023, TON Foundation brings together a diverse range of expertise to support protocol development, help shape the platform, and facilitate ecosystem growth. While an advocate of TON’s mission, the foundation does not exercise any authority over TON. TON operates on open-source software, welcomes input and contributions from all individuals, and remains independent of central control. To learn more, users can visit https://ton.foundation.
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