Coinbase, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, was hit by a $20 million extortion attempt after cybercriminals recruited "multiple contractors or employees working in support roles outside the United States to collect information from internal Coinbase systems to which they had access", and to leak user data, the company said according toCoinTelegraph.
According to a May 15 blog post and an 8K filing with the SEC, Coinbase said a group of external actors bribed and coordinated with several customer support contractors to access internal systems and steal limited user account data.
“These insiders abused their access to customer support systems to steal the account data for a small subset of customers,” Coinbase said. In an email to clients, the exchange said that the leaked information "did not include your password, seed phrase, private keys, or any other information that would allow someone to directly access your account or your funds and Coinbase Prime was untouched"; but the hack could have included information like:
Personal identifiers (e.g., name, date of birth, masked social security numbers (last 4 digits), masked bank account numbers and some bank account identifiers, address, phone number, email address)
Images of Government identification information (e.g., driver’s license number, passport number, national identity card number)
Account information (e.g., transaction history, balance, transfers, date you opened your account)
Less than 1% of Coinbase’s monthly transacting users’ data was affected by the attack, the company said.
After stealing the data, the attackers attempted to extort $20 million worth of Bitcoin from Coinbase in exchange for not disclosing the breach. Coinbase refused the demand. Instead, the company offered a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the scheme.
In 2024, Coinbase was the most impersonated cryptocurrency brand by scammers.
Coinbase said it will reimburse users who were tricked into sending cryptocurrency to phishing scammers, with expected remediation and reimbursement expenses ranging from $180 million to $400 million.
The crypto exchange disclosed the estimate in an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on May 15, noting the expenses relate to “voluntary customer reimbursements” and other remediation efforts.
The attackers have been approaching the exchange’s overseas customer support agents for months, aiming to “bribe” them in exchange for customer information, said Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong in a May 15 X post.
The exchange said that following the attack it would strengthen its internal data management processes and relocate some of its customer support operations to avoid similar incidents.
Social engineering schemes are a growing concern for Coinbase users. Blockchain security analyst ZachXBT estimated that users lost around $45 million to phishing schemes in the week leading up to May 7.
The blockchain security analyst previously claimed that social engineering scams cost Coinbase users over $300 million annually, Cointelegraph reported on Feb. 4.
Update(10:30ET): With President Trump and his envoy having arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the last leg of the president's Gulf tour, new details of behind the scenes US-Iran negotiations have come to light on Thursday.
In a huge first, the Trump White House has sent Iran a written proposal toward forging a new nuclear deal. White House envoy Steve Witkoff has led several rounds of talks, and Axios has revealed that the communication was issued to Tehran last Sunday.
"Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took the proposal back to Tehran for consultations with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials," writes Axios.
It was the Iranian side which initiated the swap of written proposals first, as the talks which have been on since April went from 'indirect' to more 'direct':
During the third round of talks in late April, Araghchi gave Witkoff an updated document with Iranian ideas for a nuclear deal. This time, Witkoff took the document.
A U.S. team of experts studied it and sent the Iranians a list of questions and requests for clarification. The Iranians replied and added questions of their own, two sources said.
Meanwhile, Witkoff and his team prepared a U.S. proposal laying out the Trump administration's parameters for an Iranian civilian nuclear program and requirements for monitoring and verification, the sources said.
It appears that thus far both sides have received the other's written proposals positively, and that's what was driving President Trump's "olive branch" comments on Tuesday. He had stressed while speaking in Saudi Arabia that "this is not an offer that will last forever. The time is right now for them to choose."
President Trump followed up on Thursday by saying from Qatar, "We're in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace," according to AFP.
He said, "We're getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this... there (are) two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don't want to do it the second."
Trump's comments followed an NBC News interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top political, military and nuclear adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said Tehran is prepared to sign a nuclear deal—provided key conditions are met—in exchange for the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions.
NBC News pointed out that Shamkhani's comments "appear to be the clearest public statement yet on Iran's expectations and willingness to reach a deal from the supreme leader's inner circle."
And the fact that written proposals have already been exchanged is yet further confirmation of this positive trend towards peace. Trump has emphasized that Iran can never have a nuclear bomb, but Tehran itself has long said it's not pursuing a nuke, and that its program is only for peaceful domestic energy purposes.
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Brent crude prices fell on Thursday as geopolitical risk premiums eased following President Trump's comments during his Gulf tour, where he signaled that the U.S. is nearing a nuclear deal with Iran. Unlike earlier headlines on AI, defense, and aviation deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Trump's comments suggested a potential breakthrough in U.S.-Iran nuclear talks.
"We're in very serious negotiations with Iran for long-term peace," Trump told reporters in a press pool that AFP News first reported.
Speaking in Doha, Qatar, during his Middle East trip, the president said, "We're getting close to maybe doing a deal without having to do this... there (are) two steps to doing this, there is a very, very nice step and there is the violent step, but I don't want to do it the second way."
An Iranian source told Reuters that negotiations with Trump administration officials still needed to bridge some gaps before a final deal could be reached.
Trump's comments followed an NBC News interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top political, military and nuclear adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said Tehran is prepared to sign a nuclear deal—provided key conditions are met—in exchange for the lifting of U.S. economic sanctions.
NBC News pointed out that Shamkhani's comments "appear to be the clearest public statement yet on Iran's expectations and willingness to reach a deal from the supreme leader's inner circle."
Trump has offered "an olive branch" to Tehran after a multi-month maximum-pressure campaign, including economic sanctions and deploying long-range stealth bombers to America's "unsinkable aircraft carrier" - located in the Indian Ocean - ready to be deployed at a moment's notice.
However, last week, ahead of Trump's Gulf tour, we spotted at least one of these stealth bombers returning to the U.S. We suggested this may have been an act of goodwill ahead of talks by the U.S. or possibly just a routine flight.
On Thursday, Brent crude futures fell 3% to $60 a barrel on expectations that a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal would ease sanctions and increase crude oil on international markets.
"The overnight development of a possible nuclear deal is the sole reason for the morning's weakness. If an agreement is reached, Iran agrees to halt enriching weapon grade uranium and the deal is effectively enforced, which is hard to believe, then the Persian Gulf country's crude oil exports can rise by as much as 1 [million barrels per day]," PVM analyst Tamas Varga told CNBC in an emailed statement.
"It sounds price negative, but its impact will possibly be mitigated by OPEC+ rolling back on its plan to release barrels back to the market faster than originally planned," he added.
Goldman trader Rich Privorotsky commented on the development:
Staying with geopolitics there are some rather positive stories emanating out of Iran. "Iran is ready to sign a nuclear deal with certain conditions with President Donald Trump in exchange for lifting economic sanctions, a top adviser to Iran's supreme leader told NBC News on Wednesday." Unclear if the U.S. will agree to the terms but they seem fairly broad: "He said Iran would commit to never making nuclear weapons, getting rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium which can be weaponized, agree to only enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for civilian use, and allow international inspectors to supervise the process, in exchange for the immediate lifting of all economic sanctions on Iran." (NBC news) If confirmed I think oil could eventually end up heading back to the recent lows and I would continue to express any cyclical concerns in this space.
Here's the latest commentary from UBS traders:
Oil Equity Resilience Amid Oil Price Drop Oil prices are down, mainly because of a potential deal with Iran. That could mean up to 500kb/d increased supply coming to market very quickly. Oil equities, however, are already underweight for generalists and specialists have already de-grossed, following the OPEC+ surprises so far this year - hence oil equities are proving to be relatively resilient even though the oil price is down.
If Trump secures a nuclear deal with Tehran, it would cap off a week of landmark agreements with Gulf nations—collectively worth trillions—and add to an already bullish news cycle for the president. Also, this would mean continued easing of geopolitical risk premiums in the region, in other words, lower energy prices for Trump to pursue his 'America First' agenda.
Apple is turbocharging its "friend-shoring" strategy by shifting more iPhone production from China to India—a move that could soon result in American consumers purchasing iPhones made in India. However, during President Trump's Gulf tour, he expressed new concern over the supply chain shift (at least for the first time publicly), urging Apple CEO Tim Cook to re-shore some of that iPhone production to the United States.
"I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday," Trump told reporters in Qatar on Thursday, on his latest leg of his Middle East tour. The president said his problem centers around Indian factories producing a "majority" of iPhones for the U.S.
Trump criticized Cook's plan: "I said to him,' My friend, I treated you very well. You're coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you're building all over India.' I don't want you building in India."
As a result of their meeting, Trump said Apple will be "upping their production in the United States."
Earlier in the week, in the first leg of his tour, Trump praised Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, saying: "Tim Cook isn't here, but you are."
Trump's comments follow a recent Financial Times report indicating that Apple's friend-shoring strategy could result in as many as 60 million iPhones being produced in India by 2026—or the amount required to satisfy the U.S. market.
Apple does not produce smartphones in North America but has pledged to invest $500 billion in the U.S. market over the next four years.
Wall Street analysts have estimated that U.S. iPhone production would take years and cost tens of billions of dollars.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently spoke with Cook about ramping up iPhone production in the U.S. Cook told Lutnick that "robotic arms" would be needed for production lines.
Lutnick said, "He's going to build it here," adding, "And Americans are going to be the technicians who drive those factories. They're not going to be the ones screwing it in."
Wedbush Securities recently estimated that a fully American-made iPhone could cost as much as $3,500, compared to the current average price of around $1,000. There are reports the next model could see the first price hike since the 2017 debut of the iPhone X.
Next lineup of iPhone...
Tarun Pathak, research director at tech analytics firm Counterpoint, said Trump's comments are a "familiar tactic from the president. He wants to push Apple to localize more and build a supply chain in the U.S., which is not going to happen overnight," adding, "Making in the US will also be much more expensive than assembling iPhones in India."
Update(1105ET): "We don’t yet know the official level of Russians, but from what we see,it looks phony," Zelensky told reporters in Ankara. So despite the Ukrainian leader earlier declaring "I am here" upon landing in Turkey, he is not in fact at the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul.
This 'I am here' yet not actually 'there' charade generated some contradictory headlines earlier on Thursday. Zelensky continues his performative gestures aimed at impressing one man: Trump. He even explained that he is sending Defense Minister Rustem Umerov to head the Ukrainian delegation for the Istanbul meeting, now likely underway, out of respect for Trump and the peace process he initiated.
The Kremlin side meanwhile says it's ready to make compromises:
The head of the Russian delegation in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, told Russian state media RIA that Moscow was “ready for discussions.”
“We are ready for discussions, for resuming the Istanbul negotiations; we are prepared for possible compromises and their discussion,” Medinsky said, referring to the last known direct talks between Russia and Ukraine that took place in Istanbul in the spring of 2022.
But apparently not on the table is the only thing which could actually end this tragic war - territorial concessions:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv will never recognize parts of Ukraine that are currently occupied as parts of Russia, as he confirmed peace talks are set to go ahead.
“In all discussions – and I emphasize this – and this is my unwavering position – we do not legally recognize any of our temporarily occupied territories as Russian. This is the Ukrainian land,” Zelensky told journalists.
Still, the fact the two sides are even at the same table in Istanbul is a huge development and start.
And again, everything Zelensky is doing appears designed to signal Trump - in order to keep America as Kiev's top weapons backer. "Despite the relatively low level of the Russian delegation, out of respect for President Trump, out of respect for the high level of the Turkish delegation and for President Erdogan, we still want to try to take at least the first steps towards a ceasefire, so I have decided to send our delegation to Istanbul now," Zelensky said further.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin's investment envoy and close aide, Kirill Dmitriev, has praised US President Donald Trump for putting together Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, the first such direct dialogue between the warring countries since early 2022.
Trump and his team have "made the impossible possible" by bringing Moscow and Kiev to the table. Dmitriev further wrote on X that the Istanbul meeting is happening "against all odds/fierce resistance" and that if "not derailed last-minute, this could be a historic step to peace."
Dmitriev also specifically named Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio - the latter two who are present in Istanbul - as major contributors to the mediation effort. The Kremlin had spent the opening years of the conflict blasting the Biden administration for constantly stoking the war and thwarting dialogue, taking Washington-Moscow relations to new historic lows.
As we noted earlier, Ukraine's President Zelensky is actually in Turkey, where he's set to meet with President Erdogan - but separately in the capital of Ankara, and has boasted that "I am here" and that Putin is not. Zelensky has even called the Russian delegation, largely composed of junior officials, "phony".
President Trump meanwhile, while attending meetings in Qatar, was asked by a reporter why the American leader is not himself present in Turkey for the talks:
"Why would he go if I’m not going?"
"I wasn’t planning to go and I didn’t think he would if I didn’t."
"But we have people there. Marco's doing a fantastic job, Marco's there..."
It remains that Putin has little reason or incentive to go, with war analysts widely recognizing that he remains in the driver's seat militarily, and with Ukrainian forces against the ropes.
Zelensky has until now offered no major concessions, and issues like permanent control over Crimea and the four eastern territories remain sticking points for Moscow. Thus there are unlikely to be any major breakthroughs in Istanbul, but the fact that the two sides are even at the table is a big accomplishment.
Ukraine will enter the Istanbul talks in a weaker position that it held in 2022.
Western support for Ukraine financially and economically is not as sound as it was then. No big ticket economic aid and assistance has been made available since the G7 agreement of a $50 billion package of loans, in June 2024. While European states scratched together new economic aid to Ukraine in April, this cannot make up for the reduction in US support.
In territorial terms, Russia withdrew from Kyiv as a concession to the first Istanbul talks and lost ground in Kharkiv and in Kherson in late 2022. However, Russia has gone on steadily to gain further territory in the Donbas since the end of 2023. So while both sides have scores on the board, Russia now maintains the military upper hand on the battlefield and that seems unlikely to change. These two factors in particular were behind President Trump’s February assertion that Ukraine has no cards to play.
What has stayed the same?
NATO membership is still off the table
The verified documents shared by the New York Times last June confirmed that Ukraine’s neutrality and non-membership of NATO was the central issue agreed upon in 2022. Ukraine was ready to become a “permanently neutral state” that would never join NATO or allow foreign forces to be based on its soil.
There seems no route for Ukraine to resile from that given its currently weakened negotiating position and President Trump’s stated view that NATO membership for Ukraine is not practical. Although Germany’s new foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul recently repeated the line that Ukraine’s path to NATO is irreversible, most have agreed, privately and publicly, that Ukraine’s path to NATO is a fraught if not impossible one.
Right now, just having the talks is a huge breakthrough
The Istanbul talks would not be happening had the Trump administration not pushed for it so hard. We don’t need to rehash the “did they or didn’t they” debate around why Ukraine abandoned the Istanbul agreement in April 2022. What is clear, is that Ukraine became entrenched, not only in not negotiating with Russia, but in excluding Russia from all discussions on peace in Ukraine from then onward.
Having agreed in principle for Ukraine to accept neutral status Zelensky was pushing his own ten point peace plan. This included, among other things, Russia withdrawing its troops to the pre-2014 border, i.e. giving up Crimea and the Donbass and creating a Euro-Atlantic Security Architecture, by which he meant Ukraine joining NATO. Peace summits were organized in various countries that explicitly excluded Russia, culminating in the Switzerland event on June 15, 2024.
At this event, President Zelensky was dug in deeper on resisting any engagement with Russia until a full withdrawal of its troops from Ukraine, which was a completely unrealistic proposal. “Russia can start negotiations with us even tomorrow without waiting for anything – if they leave our legal territories,” he said.
Even after President Trump was elected, European leaders clung to the line that “only Ukraine can decide what peace means.”’ I see no circumstances in which a Kamala Harris presidency would have cajoled President Zelensky to enter into negotiations. Tomorrow’s talks wouldn’t be happening unless the Trump administration broke a whole load of Ukrainian and European eggshells to get to this point.
Even though he was wrongly derided at the time by mainstream media, Steve Witkoff correctly pointed out in his March interview with Tucker Carlson that the territorial issues in Ukraine will be most intractable. Russia’s decision in October 2022 to formally annex the four oblasts of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk changed the calculus. However, Russia does not have full territorial control of any of those oblasts, which are cut through the middle by a hotly contested front line.
Resolving the line of control when the war ends is, by some margin, the most problematic challenge. This will be a hugely sensitive topic, and European allies will shoot down any major concessions to Russia, as they did when the idea surfaced that the U.S.might de jure recognise Russia’s occupation of Crimea.
The most obvious settlement is a de facto recognition of occupation, a Cyprus-style scenario, that does not stand in the way of Ukraine’s future membership of the European Union. Even that will require detailed agreement on issues around demilitarization of the line of control and enforcing any ceasefire.
Sanctions are probably tricky, but also tractable
As I have said before, there is enormous scope to a plan that allows for the immediate lifting of the bulk of zero-impact measures, phasing out the remainder at points agreed to by both sides. The toughest issue remains the $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, mostly held in Belgium. Russia has shown a willingness to concede this funding to support reconstruction in Ukraine, including those parts that Russia occupies.
But there is texture here. Freeing up those funds for reconstruction would immediately remove the source of interest payments that are meeting Ukraine’s obligations on its $50 billion in debt to the G7, agreed to in June 2024. But the more general policy question arises, how much of the freed up funding would be spent in Ukraine itself and how much in Russian-occupied Ukraine, where most of the war damage has occurred? The U.S. must keep the pressure on to ensure the talks stay on track.
A U.S. presence in Istanbul will be vital, to prevent, in particular, Ukraine from bailing on the talks. That’s why sending Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg makes sense. The former is trusted by the Russian side while the latter has built relationships in Ukraine. Their presence serves to keep the process moving forward until a deal can be pushed over the line and the fighting can stop.
Bear in mind that the 2022 talks ran for a month and a half and the circumstances have materially changed as I have indicated above. While there has been speculation that President Trump might drop into Istanbul, I am not sure that this is necessary if President Putin doesn’t himself attend. Knowing the Russians, I assess that Putin will want his own “‘meeting moment” with the U.S. President on terms that the Russian side can better choreograph. Indeed, that may be a prize for Russia’s engagement in the process, given its desire for a more comprehensive reset of relations with the U.S.
UnitedHealth Group shares plunged in early U.S. cash trading after The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday evening that the Department of Justice is conducting an ongoing criminal investigation into the company's Medicare practices.
We have not been notified by the Department of Justice of the supposed criminal investigation reported, without official attribution, in the Wall Street Journal today.
The WSJ's reporting is deeply irresponsible, as even it admits that the "exact nature of the potential criminal allegations is unclear."
We stand by the integrity of our Medicare Advantage program.
Shares of UnitedHealth are down 17% on the session. Since mid-April, shares have crashed 58% on a series of negative news, including earlier this week:
Shares are so far down 32% on the week, the worst weekly performance since the first week of August 1998.
This is comical: Bloomberg data shows that 82.8% of analysts covering UnitedHealth Group still rate the stock a "Buy," with an average 12-month price target of $438. The current price is $254.
Such swift and steep drawdowns have speculators wondering whether a bottom is near—a tough call, but definitely one to keep a close eye on.
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And the hits just keep on coming...
UNH shares are plunging after hours (down 6% and back below $300 for the first time since September 2020) following a report from The Wall Street Journal that, according to people familiar with the matter, the DOJ is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud related to its Medicare Advantage business.
While the exact nature of the potential criminal allegations against UnitedHealth is unclear, the people said the federal investigation is focusing on the company’s Medicare Advantage business practices.
The Justice Department’s criminal healthcare fraud unit focuses on crimes such as kickbacks that trigger higher Medicare and Medicare payments.
UnitedHealth’s latest annual securities filing says the company “has been involved or is currently involved in various governmental investigations, audits and reviews,” and flags involved agencies including the Justice Department.
It doesn’t specifically mention the criminal, civil, and antitrust probes the Journal has reported.
The probe adds to a list of government inquiries into the company, including investigations of potential antitrust violations and a civil investigation of its Medicare billing practices, including at its doctors offices.
All of this comes as the Trump administration and Congress look to cut federal health spending, a key source of UnitedHealth’s success.
