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South Korean Actor Hwang Jung-eum Faces Backlash for Embezzling $3 Million to Buy Crypto

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In brief

  • South Korean actor Hwang Jung-eum admitted in court to embezzling $3.1M (₩4.34B) from her agency to invest in crypto.
  • SBS Plus channel removed her segments from the final episode of Because I’m Single following backlash.
  • Advertisers like Daesang Wellife Nucare have pulled her campaign content after the scandal broke.

South Korean actor Hwang Jung-eum has been edited out of the final episode of SBS Plus’s reality show ‘Because I’m Single,’ following her courtroom admission that she embezzled $3.1 million (₩4.34 billion) from her own company to invest in crypto.

“Hwang Jung-eum’s VCR segments will not appear in today’s final episode, which airs at 8:30 p.m.,” the production team said Tuesday as per local media reports. “Her comments as an MC will also be minimized.” 

The decision comes after Hwang testified last Thursday at the Jeju District Court, admitting to misappropriating approximately $3 million (₩4.2 billion) from a family-run agency she fully owns and using the funds to buy crypto.

Prosecutors indicted her under Korea’s Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.

“I sincerely apologize for causing concern over this shameful matter,” Hwang said in a statement released through her new agency, Y.One Entertainment. “I made the investment in hopes of growing the company, but it was a hasty and immature decision.”

The scandal has quickly derailed her public image. Daesang Wellife Nucare, a health drink brand, pulled down newly launched promotional content featuring the actor just days after its release. 

Ad posters and videos were scrubbed from the brand’s official social media, and a related online event was abruptly canceled. The company cited “changes in internal schedules” as the reason.

Hwang’s former agency, where the embezzlement took place, was a one-person operation that managed only her. 

Her legal team argued that the misused funds originated from her personal entertainment income and were temporarily held in her name because corporations are restricted from holding crypto directly.

“Since the agency’s profits ultimately stem from the defendant’s own work, they can be seen as rightfully belonging to her,” her attorney said in court.

Hwang has since sold crypto assets to repay part of the amount and plans to liquidate real estate holdings to cover the rest. A second hearing is scheduled for August.

The scandal coincides with a turbulent period in Hwang’s personal life, including an ongoing divorce. Her role on Because I’m Single marked her return to television last October.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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GRASS crypto dips over 9%, but analysts believe it could be poised for a breakout
NFT Gaming

GRASS crypto dips over 9%, but analysts believe it could be poised for a breakout

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Grass, the decentralized web crawling and AI infrastructure token, has seen its price drop over 9% today, trading at $1.96. 

Despite this pullback, analysts are suggesting that the token may be primed for a breakout, given its strong technical indicators and growing network activity.

Grass (GRASS) aims to democratize access to internet-scale data by creating a decentralized network of over 3 million active nodes. 

Users contribute unused bandwidth to help scrape and index the web, building an open, user-owned knowledge graph. 

This data is then made available for AI training and other applications, challenging the dominance of tech giants in web crawling and data aggregation.

GRASS crypto’s technical analysis suggests a breakout  

The project has achieved significant milestones, including the recent Sion upgrade, which enhanced its ability to process multimodal web data—text, images, and 4K video—at scale.

The upgrade introduced advanced scraping algorithms, horizontal compute scaling, and increased the network’s data handling capacity to over 1 petabyte per day 

Technical analysis indicates that GRASS may be entering a consolidation phase before a potential breakout, according to past surges in GRASS’s price. 

Despite the recent dip, the project’s fundamentals remain strong. The network has scraped over 109.7 million IP addresses and indexed 4.47 billion URLs since its inception, according to past crypto.news reporting. 

Moreover, the community’s commitment is evident, with 30% of claimed tokens being staked, reflecting a long-term belief in the project’s vision.



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Krisztian Sandor
NFT Gaming

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Rebounds to $105K After Moody’s Downgrade; Crypto ETF Issuer Sees 35% Upside

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Cryptocurrencies regained footing on Monday after a rocky start to the trading session, mirroring a broader recovery in risk assets as traders digested Moody’s downgrade of U.S. government bonds.

Bitcoin

notched a strong rebound after slipping to as low as $102,000 early in the U.S. session, following its record weekly close at $106,600 overnight. The largest cryptocurrency by market cap climbed back to $105,000 in afternoon trading, up 0.4% over 24 hours. Ether rose 1.2%, reclaiming the $2,500 level.

DeFi lending platform Aave

outperformed most large-cap altcoins, while the majority of the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index members still remained in the red despite advancing from their daily lows. Solana , Avalanche and Polkadot were down 2%-3%.

The bounce extended to U.S. stocks, too, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq erasing their morning decline.

The early pullback in crypto and stocks came after Moody’s late Friday downgraded the U.S. credit rating from its AAA status. The move rattled bond markets, pushing 30-year Treasury yields above 5% and the 10-year note to over 4.5%.

Still, some analysts downplayed the downgrade’s long-term impact on asset prices.

“What does [the downgrade] mean for markets? Longer-term – really nothing,” said Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of wealth management firm Lumida Wealth. He added that in the short term there might be some selling pressure centered on U.S. Treasuries due to large institutional investors rebalancing, as some of them are mandated to hold assets only in AAA-rated securities.

“Moody’s is the last of the three major rating agencies to downgrade U.S. debt. This was the opposite of a surprise – it was a long time coming,” Callie Cox, chief market strategist at Ritholtz Wealth Management, said in an X post. “That’s why stock investors don’t seem to care.”

Bitcoin targets $138K this year

While BTC hovers just below its January record prices, digital asset ETF issuer 21Shares sees more upside for this year.

“Bitcoin is on the verge of a breakout,” research strategist Matt Mena wrote in a Monday report. He argued that BTC’s current rally is driven not by retail mania, but by a confluence of structural forces, including institutional inflows, a historic supply crunch and improving macro conditions that suggests a more durable and mature path to fresh all-time highs.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have consistently absorbed more BTC than is mined daily, tightening supply while major institutions, corporations such as Strategy and newcomer Twenty One Capital accumulate and even states explore creating strategic reserves.

These factors combined could lift BTC to $138,500 this year, Mena forecasted, translating to a roughly 35% rally for the largest crypto.



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'Crypto markets have been languishing in SEC limbo'
Crypto Trends

‘Crypto markets have been languishing in SEC limbo’

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In one of his first speeches since becoming chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April, Paul Atkins addressed some of the regulatory concerns around the cryptocurrency industry.

In prepared remarks for a May 19 speech, Atkins said it was a “new day” for the crypto industry under the current leadership of the SEC. He suggested that the financial regulator would be more open to “adapt to and accommodate new developments” while still abiding by its statutes.

“The crypto markets have been languishing in SEC limbo for years,” said Atkins, adding:

“While I have directed Commission staff across our policy Divisions to begin drafting rule proposals related to crypto, the staff continue to ‘clear the brush’ through staff-level statements.”

Even before Atkins stepped into the role of SEC chair, the commission’s actions under Donald Trump suggested that it would radically depart from the direction of former chair Gary Gensler. In 2025, the SEC has dropped several investigations and enforcement actions against crypto companies and issued guidance on memecoins and security tokens.

Related: CFTC commissioner to leave agency on May 31

“As I begin my tenure as Chairman, I can tell you that we are getting back to our roots of promoting, rather than stifling, innovation,” said Atkins. “The markets innovate, and the SEC should not be in the business of telling them to stand still.”

Looking to Congress for market structure

Atkins’ remarks came as US lawmakers considered draft legislation to establish a regulatory structure for crypto markets. The proposed bill, moving through the House of Representatives, could clarify the roles the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have in overseeing and regulating digital assets.

Until the legislation passes Congress and is signed into law, the SEC’s rules and guidelines over crypto could face pushback from affected parties.

The SEC chair has given opening remarks and overseen the commission’s roundtable events, discussing regulatory issues surrounding digital assets and blockchain. The next event, scheduled for June 9, will cover decentralized finance.

Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered 



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