Multichain Bridges Exploited for Nearly $130M Across Fantom, Moonriver and Dogechain

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Bitcoin prices briefly spiked to $138,000 on crypto exchange Binance.US earlier today before immediately reverting to normal levels. The sudden price wick was likely due to low liquidity for bitcoin against tether on the exchange, according to market depth data. The move was unlikely to have been caused by a trader wanting to pay a nearly 450% premium for bitcoin, which currently exchanges hands for just over $29,000 in European morning hours on Wednesday. Market depth data shows a $400,000 bitcoin buy on this trading pair can increase prices by 2%, compared to a minimum of $842,000 for the same impact on a bitcoin/USD trade pair. Binance.US's market depth has dropped 76% compared to May, suggesting market makers and traders have fled from the exchange. The bizarre wick is a reminder of the volatility and unpredictability of cryptocurrency markets.Despite recent price declines, long-term bitcoin holders are continuing to add to their holdings, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Trend Indicator (BTI). The indicator shows that the asset is in the middle of a significant uptrend, with a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion. The increase in long-term holders' 30-day change in bitcoin supply has been trending higher since March 31, indicating bullish sentiment and a lack of selling pressure. The uptick is occurring as bitcoin prices have flattened over the same period, suggesting that holders view the recent pause in price movement as an opportunity to acquire more. Year-to-date, bitcoin prices are up 68%. Additionally, the Network Value to Transaction (NVT) ratio is 6% higher than its year-to-date average of 53.7, indicating that the asset is trading at a slight premium. The CoinDesk Bitcoin Trend Indicator is implying that price may move higher, with a significant uptrend signal in place. Traders with a short-time horizon may note that the uptrend signal flashed on April 28, following a decline into neutral territory. However, a year-to-date time horizon shows that the first uptrend signal of 2023 occurred on Jan. 13, with BTC prices increasing 40% since that date.Solana-based decentralized exchange Raydium is proposing the creation of a bug bounty program worth 10 million RAY tokens (about $2.3 million) to squash bugs affecting the protocol's core smart contracts. The program would target Raydium's Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker smart contracts and would be managed through bug bounty platform Immunefi. The proposal is part of a broader effort to boost community participation in protocol governance. Raydium's liquidity pools held over $37 million in total value locked, with its native token RAY worth 23 cents Thursday, according to CoinGecko. The proposal is part of a wider effort to boost community engagement on Solana, which is not as strong as on other blockchain platforms. The program would reward white hat hackers as much as $505,000 or as little as $5,000 in RAY tokens depending on the severity of the detected bug.Curve founder Michael Egorov has floated a new liquidity pool on his stablecoin-focused decentralized exchange to address concerns around a possible bad debt situation and alleviate bearish sentiment in CRV tokens. The new pool, crvUSD/fFRAX, is dedicated to FraxLend's CRV/FRAX liquidity pool, from which Egorov has borrowed 15.8 million FRAX stablecoin by locking 59 million CRV as collateral. The pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%. The move is seen as an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. Analysts say the new pool could provide more time for Egorov to repay his loan and alleviate concerns around the potential liquidation of his CRV-backed loan of 63.2 million tether (USDT) from leading and borrowing marketplace Aave. The FRAX loan has been of particular concern due to the high interest rates that can double every 12 hours, subject to the pool's utilization rate holding at 100%. The introduction of the new pool has reduced the utilization rate, bringing down the APY and providing Egorov with more time to repay the loan. The move has been welcomed by the DeFi community, with pseudonymous DeFi researcher Ignas saying that the new pool is attracting capital to the critical FRAX/CRV lending pool on Fraxlend and reducing the borrowing APY. Delphi Digital also tweeted that the new pool is an attempt to incentivize liquidity towards the lending market in order to lower utilization rates and decrease the risk of Egorov's debt spiraling out of control. So far, the pool has attracted over $5 million in liquidity and brought down the utilization rate in FraxLend's FRAX/CRV pool to 54.78%.

DWF Labs, a market maker and investment firm, has invested $16 million in Web3 company RACA to help the latter continue its goal of becoming an expansive Web3 gaming ecosystem. RACA, which was founded in 2021, has evolved from managing the NFT collection of Elon Musk's mom to a Steam-like blockchain gaming ecosystem. The funding will help RACA expand its offerings, which already include a R3 game infrastructure, a SimCity-esque sandbox game, a social party game, a cross-game DID wallet, and a NFT marketplace. DWF Labs has emerged as one of the most active investors during the crypto bear market, with recent investments including a $20 million fundraise for derivatives trading platform Synthetix and a $40 million raise for AI-focused crypto protocol Fetch.ai. The RACA token was about flat over the past 24 hours at $0.0001946 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap.Despite efforts by Solana developers to discourage spammy transactions, a majority of the network's compute is still being wasted on failed trades, according to an analysis by crypto infrastructure company Jito Labs. In one recent epoch, arbitrage transactions took up 60% of overall compute space, with 98% of attempts failing. The result is wasted blockspace and capital burnt on losing trades. The issue is attributed to Solana's infrastructure, which prioritizes the first submitted transaction, creating an incentive for arbitrage bots to submit multiple duplicate transactions. Recent changes to Solana's backend, including the introduction of priority fees and local fee markets, have not effectively addressed the issue. MEV (maximal extractable value) opportunities remain, and spam transactions will persist as long as they do. Jito Foundation is building a specialty client for the Solana network that optimizes for MEV.Conic Finance, a new tool for capturing yields from the prominent stablecoin swapping service Curve, has attracted over $60 million in deposits just over a week after launch. The platform offers unlocked yield rewards to users by diversifying exposure across the Curve ecosystem while increasing rewards. Each omnipool allocates liquidity of a single asset into different Curve pools, boosting CRV rewards earnings and providing up to 21% annualized yields on USDC, DAI, and FRAX. Holders can lock their CNC tokens for vlCNC to participate in Conic governance and directly control how liquidity is allocated across Curve pools. The high yields offered by Conic could generate value for its own CNC token, making it an attractive option for traders looking to earn yields without locking up their tokens for long time periods. Curve uses smart contracts to offer an efficient way to exchange stablecoins while maintaining low fees and low slippage, and depositors on Curve earn annual yields of up to 4% from one of the many pools on the platform. veCRV allows users to participate in platform governance, earn higher rewards and fees, and receive airdrops, but it effectively locks up liquidity, creating opportunity costs for users. Protocols like Conic offer a solution to this issue, allowing users to gain exposure to the Curve ecosystem without locking up their tokens for long time periods.Pepecoin, one of the biggest meme coins of 2023, has been plagued by internal conflicts and 'bad actors' on the team, according to a recent tweet from a developer. The team member claimed that millions of dollars worth of PEPE tokens were stolen from the project's multisig wallet and sold on crypto exchanges, causing a nearly 20% slide in the token's value. The developer also stated that the project will be fully decentralized in the months ahead and that they plan to burn the remaining tokens from the multisig wallet. The incident has raised concerns about the limited liquidity and the concentration of tokens in the hands of a few investors, known as 'whales', who hold up to 25% of the currently circulating supply. Analysts have repeatedly warned about the risks of such a centralized ownership structure and the potential for a 'high-stakes game of music chairs'.

Crypto traders are using the Stargate bridge in the hope of being eligible for a rumored LayerZero airdrop. Volume on the Stargate cross-chain bridge has surged by 30% in the past 24 hours, with investors attempting to meet the criteria for the airdrop. The protocol recently surpassed $1 billion in monthly volume for the first time, and the STG token has jumped by 95% in the past 24 hours. Although LayerZero hasn't announced a token, the protocol's code mentions a native token, leading to speculation of an upcoming airdrop. A number of high-profile airdrops in the past 12 months have yielded significant returns for minimal effort, and airdrop hunters are hopping on Stargate governance proposals in the hope of receiving a larger allocation of LayerZero's rumored token. More than 6.4 million STG tokens were staked for a recent proposal on whether to make decentralized exchange Velodrome an STG hub on the Optimism blockchain. LayerZero didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.A bug in a token issued by decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Yearn Finance was exploited this morning, leading to millions of dollars in losses. The exploit occurred on Aave version 1, and the losses could total over $11 million, with the stolen assets being spread over U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins dai (DAI), tether (USDT), USD coin (USDC), Binance USD (BUSD), and tru USD (TUSD).nnAccording to security firm PeckShield, the exploit was caused by a misconfigured yUSDT token, which allowed the attacker to mint over 1.2 quadrillion yUSDT using a $10,000 initial deposit. This was then used to trick the Yearn Finance protocol into cashing out millions in stablecoins. nnAave developers have clarified that the protocol was not directly impacted and that the exploit was mainly due to the misconfigured yUSDT token. The current size of v1 is $18 million, and the current size of the Aave safety module is $382.50M. Version 2 and version 3 of Aave were not impacted at writing time. nnThe exploit is the latest in a series of high-profile hacks and exploits in the cryptocurrency space, with over $67 million in crypto lost to hacks and exploits in February alone, according to a report by Immunefi. nnThe incident highlights the risks associated with decentralized finance and the importance of proper security measures to protect against exploits and hacks. It also underscores the need for ongoing monitoring and updates to ensure the security of DeFi protocols and their users.The much-awaited Aptos rival, Sui, launched its mainnet on Wednesday with hundreds of millions in VC funding. The blockchain, founded by ex-Meta Platforms employees, boasts fast transaction speeds and a growing ecosystem of projects. However, the network faces challenges in decentralization and token distribution. The token trades at $1.33, with a market capitalization of $687 million, according to CoinGecko. The network has over 200 projects in its directory and is expected to increase as it gains traction. Sui developers promised fast transaction speeds, which gradually increased as the network gained its footing on launchday. Speeds averaged around four transactions per second minutes after the launch, but increased to 18tps six hours later. Aptos, by comparison, is pushing out at speeds of 9tps. However, the network faces challenges in decentralization, with most nodes concentrated in Germany and the US. The distribution of token holders remains unclear. Sui's success in securing VC funding pre-launch has invited comparisons to Aptos, another relatively young blockchain with a large VC backing. Both blockchains were designed by teams from Diem, Meta's failed stablecoin project, and are undergirded by Move, a Rust-based programming language developed at Meta. Tokenomics tussle Critics have blasted Sui for its tokenomics in recent weeks. In April, Sui disappointed some community members by announcing it would forgo an airdrop. Instead, SUI, the platform's native token for governance and gas, became available for 3 cents per token in an early sale on three exchanges. There was a later token sale for 10 cents per token capped at 10,000 tokens per person. Binance added support for SUI to BNB and TUSD holders through its bootstrapping portal, Launchpad, earlier this week. Users in the US were not eligible for the early sale program. UPDATE: Provides information about transactions per second on Sui six hours after the mainnet's launch.Two major Ethereum network upgrades expected to occur simultaneously on April 12 will allow investors to withdraw their ether staked on the Ethereum blockchain. Analysts from traditional banks remain mixed on the market impact of ether (ETH) after the much-awaited Shanghai upgrade later Wednesday. An on-chain report from Glassnode estimates at least $300 million worth of selling pressure. The estimate was made based on a 50% withdrawal credential update, segmentation of depositors, and assumptions regarding investor conviction and profitability. Bulls may have little reason to fear as the selling pressure is likely to be absorbed quickly and have a smaller overall impact on ether prices. Even in the extreme case where the maximum amount of rewards and stake are withdrawn and sold, the sell-side volume still falls within the range of the average weekly exchange inflow volume. If you add potential additional selling from staked ether balances that belong to troubled entities, then the selling pressure may be larger in the coming weeks. Glassnode noted as many as 1,229 validators have already signed a voluntary exit message to signal their wish to unstake tokens after the Shapella upgrade. Banks such as JPMorgan (JPM) say ether will likely face some selling pressure from the upgrade as more than one million ether staking rewards become instantly available this week. The bank expects ether to underperform bitcoin (BTC) over the next few weeks.A white hat hacker who targeted decentralized-finance (DeFi) platform Tender.fi has returned $1.6 million that was stolen on Tuesday, receiving a 62.15 ether (ETH) bug bounty worth $850,000 instead. The attack occurred after Tender.fi upgraded its price feed to relay data from a Chainlink pricing oracle as opposed to a time-weighted average price (TWAP). Tender.fi's code, which was audited by PeckShield, contained an error and returned a number with too many zeros behind it, allowing the attacker to deposit one GMX token, worth around $70, effectively tricking the system into allowing infinite borrows. The hacker left an on-chain message, 'It looks like your oracle was misconfigured. Contact me to sort this out.' Tender.fi reached out and agreed to pay the white hat hacker the bug bounty. The protocol plans to deploy a new rewritten oracle contract before unpausing borrowing and has vowed to repay any unpaid debt left behind by the hacker. The TND token, which plunged by 34% on Tuesday, was recently trading at $1.87 and has increased by 2.4% in the past 24-hours against its ethereum pair but remains down by 7.6% against its U.S. dollar pair following a crypto market rout.

The Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, set to take place late Wednesday, will allow validators to unstake and withdraw the ether (ETH) they've pledged to run the network. However, according to data from Nansen, very little ETH is poised to be withdrawn, with nearly 4,000 validators having already unstaked 141,499 ETH, representing less than 1% of Ethereum's total validators and staked ETH. Crypto exchange Huobi is waiting to remove almost 40,000 ETH, making it the largest entity in the withdrawal queue. Validators cannot withdraw at once; there's a daily limit, with eight validators able to exit per epoch, or about 1,800 per day. The Ethereum upgrade will complete the transition to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, allowing stakers to withdraw their staked ETH as well as the rewards they've accrued. According to Fundstrat Global Advisors' Walter Teng, there are several possibilities for unstaking, including restaking with liquid staking derivatives, selling tokens, using tokens to lever up, or holding tokens to sell later. Teng's hunch is that restaking will be the dominant option. Edited by Nick Baker.Some scammers are trying to defraud unsuspecting users by issuing fake PayPal USD (PYUSD) tokens on various blockchains, capitalizing on PayPal's recently launched dollar-pegged stablecoin. Over 66 fake tokens have propped up on networks such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, and others as of Asian noon hours on Tuesday, according to DEXTools data. The majority of these have been floated on Ethereum, where the original PYUSD exists. The scammers are issuing these tokens, naming them 'PYUSD,' adding liquidity with ether or another token, and offering them to users on decentralized exchanges. This is possible as anyone can call a smart contract and issue tokens on Ethereum (or other blockchains) for a few cents, and the presence of decentralized exchanges means tokens can instantly be issued, supplied with liquidity, and traded soon after. Most of the supply of these tokens are likely purchased by their creators after issuance, giving the illusion of a trendy token while being a honeypot in reality. The hustle may yield a few thousand dollars in a few hours for such developers, making it a profitable, albeit wholly unethical, venture. However, some developers may pull all liquidity from the fake tokens hours after issuance, causing prices to drop 100% and leaving speculators holding digital dust. It's important for users to be cautious and not fall for these scams, as they can result in financial losses and damage to one's reputation.Decentralized crypto exchange Trader Joe is set to launch an upgraded version of its Liquidity Book, which will make it more efficient for depositors to add tokens to its liquidity pools. The upgrade, scheduled for release next week, will also introduce 'auto-pools' that will automatically manage depositors' active positions in high-yield liquidity pools to mitigate risk. Additionally, a new rewards program will be introduced to distribute tokens to participants in Trader Joe's concentrated liquidity. Trader Joe has $131.78 million in total value locked and has done over $520 million in trading volume since March 26, according to DefiLlama. The price of JOE was trading at 60 cents at press time. nnThe upgrade is intended to improve the on-chain trading experience and make it easier for depositors to contribute to Trader Joe's liquidity pools. The exchange currently has three implementations on Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and Avalanche, with the largest being on Avalanche. nnThe news comes as a report by Kaiko Data found that crypto liquidity is heavily concentrated on a handful of exchanges, with Uniswap and SushiSwap accounting for the majority of liquidity. However, Trader Joe's upgrade is aimed at improving the liquidity experience for depositors and mitigating risk through the use of auto-pools. nnThe Fed's next sharp pivot could come from a liquidity crunch, according to an economist, as the central bank's balance sheet shrinks and liquidity dries up. Bitcoin holds steady above $17,000, while Celsius is 'deeply insolvent,' according to the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. nnOverall, Trader Joe's upgrade is a positive development for the decentralized exchange space and could attract more depositors and traders to the platform. The introduction of auto-pools and a new rewards program could also help to mitigate risk and improve the overall liquidity experience for users.The Algorand Foundation, along with several other major creditors, has indicated a preference for liquidation over restructuring for troubled Singaporean crypto lender Hodlnaut. According to a court filing, the creditors have claims worth $228 million Singaporean dollars (US$170 million). The Algorand Foundation declared $35 million in exposure to Hodlnaut in September. The decision to oppose restructuring comes as Hodlnaut's judicial managers have stated that there is no 'white knight investor' for the lender, leading to an absence of fresh capital. Creditors initially indicated a preference for liquidation in January, with the Algorand Foundation stating that liquidation would 'maximize the company's remaining assets available for distribution.' The Algorand token (ALGO) is currently trading at 18 cents, having dropped by 3.34% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.DeFi is rapidly emerging as the biggest loser in the ongoing cryptocurrency bear market. The total amount of capital locked on DeFi protocols dropped to its lowest point since February 2021 on Thursday as traders pull liquidity to secure higher yields that come with less risk. When DeFi burst onto the scene in 2020, many believed that the ability to borrow and lend without an intermediary was groundbreaking and that DeFi firms were about to dislodge traditional finance (TradFi) counterparts. However, DeFi's 'future of finance' narrative was soon knocked over as the wider crypto market succumbed to a bearish cycle in 2022. Interest rates continued to spike across the globe as central banks scrambled for a way to fight inflation, leading to increased yields across money market funds and mortgage funds, leaving the DeFi sector without any incentives for new capital. TradFi competition Now, Vanguard's money market fund is offering clients a yield of 5.28%, while the returns for staking Ethereum on Lido stand at just 3.3%, leaving a minimal risk to reward ratio compared to traditional finance products. This caused DeFi's fragile liquidity to run for the exits, with total value locked (TVL) across all protocols dropping from $163.5 billion in April 2022 to today's figure of $36 billion. There has been a few emerging narratives like liquid staking, tokenization of real world assets (RWAs), on-chain derivatives, and new blockchains, but none of these have been able to capture the level of appetite last seen in the summer of 2020. In that summer, it was not uncommon to see DeFi yields soar to between 18% and 35%. This yield, of course, came with a risk as hackers honed in on the sector with a series of complex exploits to part investors with their money. DeFi hacks proliferated in 2022 and 2023, with a report earlier this month describing how $212.5 million had recently been stolen in a three-week period. In 2023, there have been 297 crypto hacks, resulting in a loss of $1.89 billion, according to Money Monger's crypto heist report.The metaverse market is bouncing back ahead of Apple's release as trading volume on related tokens spikes to $905 million. Cryptocurrency's virtual reality (VR) sector has surged by more than 7.9% over the past 24 hours according to CryptoSlate data, as investors anticipate Apple's (AAPL) big VR headset reveal on Monday. Hailed as Apple's first major product release in a decade, the tech giant's share price has risen by 7.4% in the past two weeks, a trend that has been matched by virtual reality and metaverse crypto tokens today. UnmuteALTAVA CMO on Bridging Fashion and Technology00:54Why Prada Is at the Forefront of Digital Fashion and Metaverse16:36What Will The Metaverse Look Like in the Future?01:22The Sandbox Wants to Make India Its Largest Market Within the Next Two Years11:34Saudi Arabia's NEOM Is Working to Build the 'City of the Future' With Blockchain, Web3: Yat SiuDecentraland (MANA) is considered the largest VR-related token with a market cap just shy of $1 billion, and is up by 5.4% over the past 24 hours despite the wider crypto market shedding 1.5% of its value over the same time period, according to CoinGecko. Five-dimensional metaverse project Wilder World (WILD) is the sector's top gainer for the day, soaring by 18.8% over the past 24 hours to cap a 119% gain over the past 30 days. Goldman Sachs noted in a research report last year Apple is one of two companies leading the way in virtual and augmented reality. The tech giant is expected to mass release a mixed reality headset in Q4 of this year, according to a recent Morgan Stanley investor note. The wider metaverse sector has suffered during the crypto winter, with several assets falling more than 80% from their all-time highs. However, the recent bounce indicates that the tide may be shifting. A total of $905 million in trading volume has been exercised on metaverse tokens over the past 24 hours, with the group's overall market cap rising to $8.65 billion, according to CoinGecko. Edited by Nelson Wang.Arkham Intelligence, an on-chain data provider, has launched a bounty marketplace called the Arkham Intel Exchange, which will allow users to buy and sell on-chain cryptocurrency data. The marketplace will feature a native token, ARKM, that is designed to 'deanonymize the blockchain.' The token will be issued on the Binance Launchpad with 50 million tokens up for sale, which equates to 5% of the total supply. Each user will be able to buy $15,000 worth of ARKM tokens in the sale, which runs from July 11 to July 17. The new platform uses a bounty mechanism that lets users post 'bounties' for sought-after data, and blockchain researchers and sleuths can then source and provide information in return for the pledged bounty. However, concerns have been raised by several privacy advocates on Twitter about the potential risks of deanonymization. Arkham has raised over $10 million from two rounds of equity financing, with the latest round at $150 million, and 5% of the token supply is allocated to the token sale. The company also plans to distribute ARKM tokens to early adopters of the data intelligence dashboard through an airdrop on July 18. Edited by Parikshit Mishra.Ethereum scaling blockchain Arbitrum has distributed over $120 million worth of its arb (ARB) tokens to projects built on the network, with some projects selling their allocation immediately, while others plan to use it to strengthen their development and user engagement. The airdrop, which was based on network activity and number of wallets, was sent to over 131 decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), with NFT marketplace TreasureDAO and gaming-focused TridentDAO receiving the largest allocations. Some projects, like Vesta Finance, plan to use their airdrop to bolster their development, while others, like PlutusDAO, will use their allocation in multiple ways to make their project stronger. The airdrop has spurred both excitement and criticism from the community, with some projects selling their tokens immediately, while others are holding onto their allocation in anticipation of future growth.The foundation behind layer 2 blockchain Optimism has sold 116 million OP tokens ($157 million) to seven separate buyers, according to an announcement on the Optimism governance website. The token sale was described as a 'private' and 'planned' event with the tokens originating from an unallocated portion of the OP Token treasury. Optimism's treasury remains at around $1.25 billion, all of which is made up of its own token, DefiLlama data shows. The seven buyers will be allowed to delegate the tokens to third parties in order to participate in blockchain governance. The foundation also issued its third community airdrop earlier this week, with over 31,000 users receiving a share of 19.4 million tokens. Circulating supply, however, remains relatively low compared to the total supply with a further 570 million tokens being allocated to future airdrops. OP's circulating supply is 18.59% of its total supply, according to CoinMarketCap. OP is currently trading at $1.35 having lost 2.19% of its value over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.

Crypto Users Bridge Millions to zkSync Blockchain in Hopes of Token Airdrop

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Bored Ape Yacht Club Floor Price Slides to Five-Month Low as Prominent Investor Dumps Holdings

Liquidity across bitcoin trading pairs has slumped and failed to recover since the collapse of FTX in November. The apparent exit or reduction in trading by Jane Street and Jump Crypto, two influential cryptocurrency market makers, has the potential to disrupt the fragile flow of liquidity across the industry. Jane Street and Jump are paring back crypto trading in the U.S., amid the regulatory clampdown that spawned out of FTX's collapse. Jump's crypto division will continue to expand globally while Jane Street will scale back on its growth plans. The news is not necessarily surprising given recent developments, but what's concerning is that liquidity has still not recovered from Alameda's collapse, and a slowdown with two of the biggest surviving market makers could weigh on liquidity even further. Market depth, a metric used to measure liquidity on exchanges, slumped by more than 50% following the collapse of FTX and has failed to recover despite a rise in crypto prices. Crypto-native market makers, unlike traditional firms such as Jane Street and Jump, aren't put off by the duo's exodus as the issue is constrained to the U.S. market. An absence of liquidity causes an increase in volatility, which has the potential to create a credit risk that could spread to all sectors of finance.

The much-awaited Aptos rival, Sui, launched its mainnet on Wednesday with hundreds of millions in VC funding. The blockchain, founded by ex-Meta Platforms employees, boasts fast transaction speeds and a growing ecosystem of projects. However, the network faces challenges in decentralization and token distribution. The token trades at $1.33, with a market capitalization of $687 million, according to CoinGecko. The network has over 200 projects in its directory and is expected to increase as it gains traction. Sui developers promised fast transaction speeds, which gradually increased as the network gained its footing on launchday. Speeds averaged around four transactions per second minutes after the launch, but increased to 18tps six hours later. Aptos, by comparison, is pushing out at speeds of 9tps. However, the network faces challenges in decentralization, with most nodes concentrated in Germany and the US. The distribution of token holders remains unclear. Sui's success in securing VC funding pre-launch has invited comparisons to Aptos, another relatively young blockchain with a large VC backing. Both blockchains were designed by teams from Diem, Meta's failed stablecoin project, and are undergirded by Move, a Rust-based programming language developed at Meta. Tokenomics tussle Critics have blasted Sui for its tokenomics in recent weeks. In April, Sui disappointed some community members by announcing it would forgo an airdrop. Instead, SUI, the platform's native token for governance and gas, became available for 3 cents per token in an early sale on three exchanges. There was a later token sale for 10 cents per token capped at 10,000 tokens per person. Binance added support for SUI to BNB and TUSD holders through its bootstrapping portal, Launchpad, earlier this week. Users in the US were not eligible for the early sale program. UPDATE: Provides information about transactions per second on Sui six hours after the mainnet's launch.Crypto investors looking to earn yields on their ether (ETH) holdings have to wait nearly a month before they can be set up as network validators on Ethereum. Data from two sources show waiting times for staking ether lingers at 640 hours, or about 26 days. Exiting the network, on the other hand, takes just 0.013 hours, or less than a minute. As of May, nearly 50,000 validators are waiting in a 'queue' to be able to enter the network, data shows. The demand for validators to enter the network and earn the nearly 5% annual yield is likely stemming from large ether holders who do not want to cash out and instead just want to earn some passive income on their holdings. Some market watchers say these upcoming validators could be a mix of both new market entrants as well as stakers who previously unstaked ether from the network to test if the process works seamlessly and are now entering again. Shapella, a portmanteau of Shanghai and Capella, two major Ethereum network upgrades that occurred simultaneously on April 12, gave investors the ability to withdraw their staked ether at will for the first time. As such, staking deposits have surged in the past few weeks. More than 200,000 ether were deposited to the network last week, marking the first time deposits had outpaced withdrawals since Shapella went live last month. These additions have brought the number of ether locked for staking purposes to over 19 million tokens – about 15% of the total circulating supply.

Crypto exchange aggregator 1inch is considering a governance shakeup that would reduce the voting power of insiders, including core contributors, investors, and other token holders. The proposed changes would treat v1inch tokens, a derivative token redeemable for 1inch, exactly like the protocol's staked tokens (st1inch) for voting purposes, granting greater sway to the broader community of token holders. The move aims to weaken the voting power of insiders who have received their full allotment of v1inch tokens, while v1inch tokens that remain locked up for two years or longer would retain 100% of their voting weight. The proposal has not yet gone to a vote. 1inch's governance token was trading at 56 cents at press time Friday, having slid just under 2% in the past 24 hours.Arbitrum-based asset management protocol FactorDAO has released its much-awaited staking service, days after ending a token sale on the decentralized exchange Camelot. The move comes as the project faces rumors on Crypto Twitter alleging that part of its code was 'copied' from other crypto projects. nnFactorDAO's pseudonymous founder Kurapika has hit back on the claims, telling CoinDesk that the allegations were started by an anonymous Crypto Twitter user referring to minor documentation mistakes accidentally left in Factor's technical documents. The project's code is brand-new, and the team is not sure what 'copied code' means in an open-source environment. nnDespite the tremors, Factor has focused on releasing its staking and vaults services for users in the past week. Staking refers to locking up one's tokens to participate and help maintain the security of that network's blockchain in turn for rewards. Factor will take a percentage of the deposit, withdrawal, transaction, vault management, and performance fees and redistributes 50% to FCTR stakers, and 50% to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). nnFCTR stakers will, therefore, earn yields on staking their tokens as liquidity to the platform while the platform will use the increased liquidity to offer even more products to potential users. Users who lock tokens for up to four years will receive the highest yields, the highest percentage of governance rights, and a higher amount of vested factor (veFCTR) – a token issued to users who lock their FCTR on the staking platform. nnFCTR sees volatile trading last week, with the token launch on Camelot prompting several Arbitrum users to criticize the initial high market capitalization and overall issuance mechanism. Factor ended up raising $7.5 million from 4,000 unique wallets, but the final pool of money raised was equally distributed with the total number of issued tokens to determine the initial price of FCTR in the open market. However, these tokens were almost immediately dumped on the open market on Sunday, falling to as low as 44 cents, DEXTools data shows. Buying pressure after the initial dump saw tokens regain the pre-sale price of 75 cents on Monday morning, but have since seen a gradual sell-off to just over 58 cents at writing time on Tuesday. nnUPDATE (Feb.28, 12:11 UTC): Adds comments from Factor founder and clarifies the rumors.

Pepecoin Team Member Claims 'Bad Actors' Stole $15M in PEPE

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GMX, the most popular decentralized exchange on the Arbitrum layer 2 network, has launched version 2 of its trading platform, offering liquidity pools for riskier assets at lower fees. The new version expands the list of tradable assets to include alternative currencies such as dogecoin (DOGE) and offers annualized yields of up to 47%.nnThe initial model of GMX version 2 went live Thursday, attracting over $1.2 million for its liquidity pools in a muted launch. The platform allows users to trade spot and perpetual futures through an on-chain interface at low fees, with part of its recent popularity attributed to the rise of the Ethereum-based Arbitrum. nnThe new version of GMX will exist alongside the current platform, offering traders a service for betting on price movements of major tokens using leverage. Liquidity on V2 is provided through individual GMX Market, or GM, pools, with liquidity providers rewarded with a cut of fees earned from services such as leverage trading, borrowing, and swaps. nnInitial GM pools include solana (SOL), xrp (XRP), litecoin (LTC), dogecoin, and arbitrum (ARB) on the Arbitrum network, alongside SOL, XRP, LTC, and DOGE on the Avalanche network. A GM pool comprises long tokens, which back positions betting on higher prices, a short token, which bets on lower prices, and an index pool token. nnAs of Friday, GM pools for DOGE are paying out as much as 45% annualized, while the solana pool is paying 47%. The rates are subject to change. nnThe introduction of V2 could help GMX's prospects among traders in an increasingly competitive market. Ultimately, attractive rewards and increased revenues could drive value to GMX's namesake governance tokens (GMX). nnGMX locks up over $447 million on Arbitrum and $74 million on the Avalanche network, data from DefiLlama shows. The platform has traded over $117 billion worth of tokens and generated $184 million in fees for its Arbitrum users alone, data shows.

ZkSync-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Merlin plans to compensate users impacted in a nearly $2 million rug pull with blockchain audit firm CertiK. A representative for CertiK told CoinDesk that the company is actively investigating the recent Merlin DEX exit scam, where rogue developers are suspected of causing the loss of around $2 million in user funds. Working closely with the remaining Merlin team, CertiK will initiate a compensation plan to cover the lost funds for affected users. Initial investigations indicate that the rogue developers are based in Europe, and CertiK will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to track them down if direct negotiation is unsuccessful. The rogue developer is urged to return 80% of the stolen funds and accept a 20% white-hat bounty. Merlin was seemingly exploited for over $1.8 million on Wednesday morning during a public sale of its mage (MAGE) tokens. The attack occurred despite Merlin touting an audit conducted by blockchain security firm CertiK. Further analysis by firms and analysts alleged the attack was conducted by a rogue developer who held private keys to Merlin's smart contracts - allowing them to withdraw all liquidity from the protocol.Hector Network's community is debating whether to adopt a more centralized structure, HIP 40, which would include a management board, directors, and supervisors. The proposal is met with skepticism from some HEC token holders who fear it would dilute their influence over the DAO. The lawyer behind the proposal, Dali, argues that a professional organization with expertise in specific areas is needed for the DAO to succeed. However, some critics view the plan as antithetical to the decentralized, democratic principles of DAOs. The debate highlights the challenges DAOs face in balancing decentralization with the need for professionalism and expertise to compete with centralized corporations.

The Fantom Foundation, the team behind the Fantom blockchain, has removed $2.4 million in liquidity from a trading pool for the native token of Multichain, causing concerns over the cross-chain bridging protocol's stability. According to Etherscan, the foundation removed nearly 450,000 MULTI and 1,363 ETH from a liquidity pool on decentralized exchange SushiSwap. The move comes as users of Multichain report delays in withdrawing their crypto assets from the protocol, which helps them move assets between the Fantom and Ethereum ecosystems. The Fantom Foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The liquidity removal has corresponded with a plummet in MULTI's trading price, which has fallen over 28.5% in the past 24 hours to $5.04. Other top holders of Multichain's governance token have been sending it to exchanges, including one whale with 494,200 tokens worth $2.75 million and digital asset firm Hashkey Capital, whose position was worth $221,000 at the time. The major on-chain moves have raised concerns over the stability of the Multichain protocol and the Fantom blockchain as a whole. The Fantom Foundation has not yet commented on the situation.Bitcoin prices briefly spiked to $138,000 on crypto exchange Binance.US earlier today before immediately reverting to normal levels. The sudden price wick was likely due to low liquidity for bitcoin against tether on the exchange, according to market depth data. The move was unlikely to have been caused by a trader wanting to pay a nearly 450% premium for bitcoin, which currently exchanges hands for just over $29,000 in European morning hours on Wednesday. Market depth data shows a $400,000 bitcoin buy on this trading pair can increase prices by 2%, compared to a minimum of $842,000 for the same impact on a bitcoin/USD trade pair. Binance.US's market depth has dropped 76% compared to May, suggesting market makers and traders have fled from the exchange. The bizarre wick is a reminder of the volatility and unpredictability of cryptocurrency markets.

DeFi Market Sees Resurgence as Volume Hits Highest Point Since March

Rocket Pool, a decentralized Ethereum-based staking service, experienced the largest daily redemption of its rocketpool ether (rETH) token this week, with one trader redeeming $12.3 million worth of the token before sending it to Binance. rETH is an ERC-20 token that traders receive in exchange for depositing ether (ETH) into Rocket Pool's staking protocol. Instead of requiring a 32 ether deposit to become a validator, Rocket Pool allows traders to stake in fractions. The trader reportedly sent the ether to Binance after redeeming staked ether on Rocket Pool. Rocket Pool currently has $1.88 billion in total value locked (TVL), making it the second largest liquid staking protocol after Lido, according to DefiLlama. Traders stake ether on Rocket Pool to receive a yield, which is currently at 3.64% APR for regular staking and 8.62% for staking 8 ether. Redemptions occur when a trader is looking to either free up liquidity or secure a better yield elsewhere. Binance's ether staking portal currently offers around 4.07% APR. Rocket Pool's native token (RPL) has endured a slight correction this month, falling by more than 25% from $38.51 to $30 since the turn of the month.

Conic Finance, a new tool for capturing yields from the prominent stablecoin swapping service Curve, has attracted over $60 million in deposits just over a week after launch. The platform offers unlocked yield rewards to users by diversifying exposure across the Curve ecosystem while increasing rewards. Each omnipool allocates liquidity of a single asset into different Curve pools, boosting CRV rewards earnings and providing up to 21% annualized yields on USDC, DAI, and FRAX. Holders can lock their CNC tokens for vlCNC to participate in Conic governance and directly control how liquidity is allocated across Curve pools. The high yields offered by Conic could generate value for its own CNC token, making it an attractive option for traders looking to earn yields without locking up their tokens for long time periods. Curve uses smart contracts to offer an efficient way to exchange stablecoins while maintaining low fees and low slippage, and depositors on Curve earn annual yields of up to 4% from one of the many pools on the platform. veCRV allows users to participate in platform governance, earn higher rewards and fees, and receive airdrops, but it effectively locks up liquidity, creating opportunity costs for users. Protocols like Conic offer a solution to this issue, allowing users to gain exposure to the Curve ecosystem without locking up their tokens for long time periods.Arkham Intelligence, an on-chain data provider, has launched a bounty marketplace called the Arkham Intel Exchange, which will allow users to buy and sell on-chain cryptocurrency data. The marketplace will feature a native token, ARKM, that is designed to 'deanonymize the blockchain.' The token will be issued on the Binance Launchpad with 50 million tokens up for sale, which equates to 5% of the total supply. Each user will be able to buy $15,000 worth of ARKM tokens in the sale, which runs from July 11 to July 17. The new platform uses a bounty mechanism that lets users post 'bounties' for sought-after data, and blockchain researchers and sleuths can then source and provide information in return for the pledged bounty. However, concerns have been raised by several privacy advocates on Twitter about the potential risks of deanonymization. Arkham has raised over $10 million from two rounds of equity financing, with the latest round at $150 million, and 5% of the token supply is allocated to the token sale. The company also plans to distribute ARKM tokens to early adopters of the data intelligence dashboard through an airdrop on July 18. Edited by Parikshit Mishra.

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Layer 1 blockchain protocol Avalanche is picking up steam, reaching a six-month high in daily active addresses earlier this week. According to blockchain data firm Artemis.xyz, Avalanche's daily active addresses hit nearly 80,000 on April 12. Its daily active user base grew 85% in the past 90 days, making it one of the fastest-growing protocols, ahead of BNB Chain, Tron, Ethereum, Aptos, and Bitcoin. Only four protocols grew faster, per Artemis: StarkNet, Arbitrum, Stacks, and Canto. The high-water mark coincided with Avalanche's April 12 partnership with a bevy of financial institutions that will contribute to its network infrastructure, signaling traditional finance companies' increased interest in the Avalanche ecosystem. The price of Avalanche's native token AVAX stands at $18.53 at press time, down 1.34% in the past 24 hours, per CoinDesk data. Avalanche is the seventh-largest blockchain by total value locked, which currently sits at $878.7 million, according to crypto stats website DefiLlama. Edited by Danny Nelson.Ethereum scaling blockchain zkSync Era has attracted over $245 million in around three weeks after launch, as investors search for the next big bets to place on newer projects building on upstart networks. Data from L2Beat, which tracks activity on layer 2 networks built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, shows over 70,000 ether (ETH), $81 million in USD coin (USDC) stablecoin, and $8 million in mute (MUTE) tokens have been locked on zkSync since March 22, when the network first launched. zkSync Era has seen an uptick in token value flowing to the network. DefiLlama data shows on-chain exchange Syncswap leads in total value locked (TVL) among Era-based services, with over $64 million. It is followed by Velocore at $25 million and Mute at $15 million. Users can earn up to 80% in annualized rewards by providing liquidity or executing trades on these platforms – which may be driving capital to Era leading to value accrual for tokens such as mute, issued by the Mute DEX. On-chain derivatives trading has not caught up among Era users so far, data suggests. Era-based Onchain Trade, a derivatives decentralized exchange (DEX), holds just over $2 million in TVL and has seen zero volumes for futures in the past 24 hours. Spot trading on the DEX, however, has racked up $600,000 in volume. Meanwhile, some meme coins fashioned after the Shiba Inu dog breed – on which popular tokens dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) are based – are seeing cycles of brisk price surges followed by a dump, DEXTools data shows. More than 7 million transactions have been conducted on the network since launch, and the network can process 3.5 transactions per second. ZkSync is named after the so-called ZK-rollups, which are a type of blockchain scaling system based on cryptography known as zero-knowledge proofs. These features are seen as a key advance in speeding up blockchain transactions and reducing the cost of network activity. Edited by Oliver Knight.

DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Demands $2M Refund From Euler Hack Claimants

AllianceBlock, a blockchain-agnostic platform designed to link traditional (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi), has signed a deal to add business data from Crunchbase to its ecosystem. The deal is Crunchbase's first foray into the crypto market. The firm's data, which includes funding rounds as well as information on earnings, will initially be available to AllianceBlock’s Data Tunnel users. The tunnel is a tool that lets users publish, share and consume data in a variety of formats. nnThe agreement follows AllianceBlock's recent deal with investment firm ABO Digital to offer institutional and retail investors a series of tokenized investment products. nnThe AllianceBlock token (ALBT) plunged by 51% last month after Bonq, a decentralized borrowing protocol, was struck with an exploit worth around $5 million. AllianceBlock responded by suspending trading of the token, taking a snapshot before issuing a new token to replace the legacy ALBT. nnAllianceBlock have since then resolved the issue and introduced a new token Nexera (NXRA), which has about $46 million of market-cap, according to CoinGecko data. nn'The buying and selling of data is a multibillion-dollar growth industry that shows no signs of slowing down,' said Rachid Ajaja, CEO and co-founder of AllianceBlock. 'However, until now, decentralized and centralized data providers and users have operated in siloes, unable to interact.'The EOS Foundation will grant funds to EOS-based applications, among other steps, as the platform gears for a “new life.”nA blockchain that raised $4 billion in its initial coin offering (ICO) with little to show in its early years is aiming for crypto glory once again – years after almost being written off by skeptics.nEOS, whose native eos (EOS) tokens once reached a market capitalization of $14 billion at a lifetime peak, is gearing up for a complete resurgence in network activity and growth with extensive support planned for application developers.nThat is thanks to the efforts of EOS Network Foundation, whose CEO, Yves La Rose, is leading plans for a consensus mechanism upgrade, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) system and an overall renewed growth strategy, per crypto research firm Messari.nThe EVM mainnet is slated for April 14 release, with updates and improvements planned in the weeks and months to follow.n“Combining the performance of EOS with the familiarity of Ethereum, Solidity developers are in for a treat,” Rose tweeted last week. “At 800+ swaps per second, $EOS EVM will be BY FAR the fastest EVM, benchmarked 3x faster than Solana + BNB and 25x faster than Avax.”nEVMs refer to the environment in which all Ethereum accounts and smart contracts live, serving as a virtual computer utilized by developers for creating decentralized applications (dapps). When deployed on other blockchains, EVMs can allow developers to build dapps and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications similar to how they would on Ethereum.nEVMs are a large part of EOS’ future plans.n“Many of the developers who have left EOS have done so not because they want to, but because Ethereum, for all its deficiencies, is where the action is,” the foundation said in a January post.n“EVM compatibility is essential to the potential of EOS, not just technically but also from a business perspective. Ultimately, it is essential that we welcome more Solidity developers and users to EOS, and an EVM on EOS is an excellent bridge to do just that,” it added at the time.nA grants program will fund developers working on such applications, starting from $10,000 to over $50,000 based on criterias such as the size and scope of the initiative.nGrants can be provided to builders of wholly new products, or to fund maintenance and upgrades of existing tools.nEOS tokens and ecosystem to benefitnNetwork upgrades, grant programs and interoperability with other blockchains could ultimately bolster eos token prices and the $125 million in total locked value (TVL) on EOS-based DeFi applications.nThe tokens trade just over $1.20 in Asian morning hours on Monday, down 10 cents from Friday. Price-chart analysis suggests resistance at $1.80 if the tokens jump in the coming weeks, with another major resistance at $2.90.nAs such, TVL has already increased $50 million since the start of this year in the leadup to April’s EVM launch. Applications such as EOS REX and Vigor, both lending protocols, have added more than 8% in lock value in the past week alone.nPer Messari, the network is averaging 1.3 million daily transactions and 38,000 daily active addresses on a year-to-date basis and averaging 1,785 new addresses per day.

The foundation behind layer 2 blockchain Optimism has sold 116 million OP tokens ($157 million) to seven separate buyers, according to an announcement on the Optimism governance website. The token sale was described as a 'private' and 'planned' event with the tokens originating from an unallocated portion of the OP Token treasury. Optimism's treasury remains at around $1.25 billion, all of which is made up of its own token, DefiLlama data shows. The seven buyers will be allowed to delegate the tokens to third parties in order to participate in blockchain governance. The foundation also issued its third community airdrop earlier this week, with over 31,000 users receiving a share of 19.4 million tokens. Circulating supply, however, remains relatively low compared to the total supply with a further 570 million tokens being allocated to future airdrops. OP's circulating supply is 18.59% of its total supply, according to CoinMarketCap. OP is currently trading at $1.35 having lost 2.19% of its value over the past 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data.BNB Chain, a popular blockchain network, is set to undergo a significant upgrade on June 11 at 21:30 UTC. The upgrade, dubbed 'Luban,' will incorporate three distinct enhancements aimed at improving the network's speed and security. nnThe Luban hard fork will introduce several new features, including the 'Fast Finality' mechanism, which ensures that once a block is finalized, it cannot be reversed. This reduces the risk of chain reorganizations by malicious actors. Additionally, the upgrade will introduce 'Cross Chain Relayer Management,' which aims to mitigate potential security issues in the BSC Bridge. Finally, the 'CometBFT Light Block Validation' system will be implemented to verify specific blocks from other CometBFT-compatible blockchains and enable data transfer between them. nnThe upgrade is expected to attract investors and users to the BNB Chain ecosystem, as it will provide developers with even better features and tools to build on the network. The bnb token (BNB) will also benefit from the upgrade, as it will contribute to the value proposition for the token in the future. nnThe Luban hard fork is a significant milestone for the BNB Chain, and it demonstrates the network's commitment to improving its speed and security. The upgrade is expected to be a major boost for the blockchain ecosystem and will help to drive the adoption of the bnb token. nnIn conclusion, the Luban upgrade is a significant development for the BNB Chain, and it is expected to have a positive impact on the network's speed, security, and adoption. The upgrade will provide developers with new features and tools to build on the network, and it will contribute to the value proposition for the bnb token. The BNB Chain is set to become an even more robust and secure blockchain ecosystem with the implementation of the Luban hard fork.

Community members are vying for a new model to bolster revenue and sustain a peg to the U.S. dollar for Terra Classic, the original network created by Terraform Labs. The proposed model relies on token buybacks, unidirectional swaps, staking, and an 'algorithmic peg divergence fee' to address the issues with the original design. The fees retained by the protocol would be used to buy back USTC and maintain the peg, and a USTC staking tool is proposed to drive capital to the token and increase its price appreciation. The community believes that a fully-decentralized token is necessary to create a decentralized economy, and hopes to bring the project back to its glory days despite its previous implosion. Edited by Stephen Alpher.

Crypto investors looking to earn yields on their ether (ETH) holdings have to wait nearly a month before they can be set up as network validators on Ethereum. Data from two sources show waiting times for staking ether lingers at 640 hours, or about 26 days. Exiting the network, on the other hand, takes just 0.013 hours, or less than a minute. As of May, nearly 50,000 validators are waiting in a 'queue' to be able to enter the network, data shows. The demand for validators to enter the network and earn the nearly 5% annual yield is likely stemming from large ether holders who do not want to cash out and instead just want to earn some passive income on their holdings. Some market watchers say these upcoming validators could be a mix of both new market entrants as well as stakers who previously unstaked ether from the network to test if the process works seamlessly and are now entering again. Shapella, a portmanteau of Shanghai and Capella, two major Ethereum network upgrades that occurred simultaneously on April 12, gave investors the ability to withdraw their staked ether at will for the first time. As such, staking deposits have surged in the past few weeks. More than 200,000 ether were deposited to the network last week, marking the first time deposits had outpaced withdrawals since Shapella went live last month. These additions have brought the number of ether locked for staking purposes to over 19 million tokens – about 15% of the total circulating supply.An unidentified attacker has taken over the DAO of Tornado Cash, a privacy-focused crypto mixer, with a malicious proposal that granted them fake votes. The attacker has withdrawn 10,000 votes as TORN tokens and sold them, causing a 40% slump in token prices. The attack does not impact the actual Tornado Cash protocol, but the community is working on proposals to revert the changes made to the code. Some have suggested creating a new contract and airdropping new tokens to holders. The attack highlights the potential vulnerabilities of DAOs and the need for robust security measures to prevent such incidents.

- John Doe