DL News

A South Korean court has jailed a man for two years for spraying rotten food waste and human excrement on a victim’s house — in exchange for just $541 worth of crypto.

The man, aged 20, also scattered defamatory leaflets alleging the victim was a recently released sex offender, South Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo reported.

“The defendant acted on the instructions of a so-called revenge agency,” prosecutors told the court. “He broke into the apartment complex of a victim he had never met, vandalised the front door with red spray paint, and left leaflets containing obscene content and false allegations of criminality for [the victim’s neighbours to see].”

Police have made a series of arrests relating to Telegram-based revenge agencies, which offer to murder, maim, or publicly shame people on behalf of anonymous, USDT-paying “customers.”

But these criminal networks continue to operate, with masterminds commissioning an increasingly macabre array of vengeance-fuelled attacks.

Defamatory leaflets

Prosecutors explained that the man broke into the complex in Dongtan New Town, Gyeonggi Province, on February 22.

Once inside the building, he also vandalised the front door of the victim’s 15th-floor apartment with red spray paint.

“The leaflets had been designed to make it seem as if the victim was a person who had committed a sex crime and just been released from prison,” prosecutors said.

Under South Korean law, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family must send paper notifications to residents when a convicted sex offender takes up residence in a new area.

These leaflets typically include the offender’s full name, a photograph, their address, and details of their crimes.

The man was tried at Suwon District Court, which withheld his name for legal reasons, South Korean broadcaster YTN reported.

The court heard that the man was a convicted youth offender who had previously received a suspended sentence for another offense.

The man told the court he had acted on behalf of a Telegram-based group calling itself the “Grudge Resolution Office.” This group had offered to pay him in crypto upon completion, the man said.

The victim was not named, and police have yet to determine who paid the “Grudge Resolution Office” to commission the crime.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

World Liberty Financial, a company backed by Donald Trump, defrauded its backers and now faces “collapse and potential insolvency,” crypto mogul Justin Sun alleged in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.

But he’s still a fan of the president.

“Mr. Sun has long been (and remains) an ardent supporter of President Trump and the Trump family,” the lawsuit reads.

“But as Mr. Sun unfortunately has learned, World Liberty’s operators, including Chase Herro, see the project as a golden opportunity to leverage the Trump brand to profit through fraud.”

The lawsuit is the culmination of a months-long feud between the company and one of its biggest supporters.

Sun purchased 3 billion WLFI tokens in 2024 and 2025 for a combined $45 million, a vote of confidence that gave the struggling company new life. Still, World Liberty Financial executives wanted more, the lawsuit alleges.

World Liberty Financial executives quietly gave themselves the ability to freeze, transfer, and destroy the company’s tokens — power they threatened to use against Sun, according to the lawsuit.

“In the months preceding World Liberty’s power grab, its principals had been trying to pressure Mr. Sun to increase his investment in the company’s products,” the lawsuit said.

‘A desperate attempt’

The lawsuit comes amid mounting scrutiny over World Liberty Financial’s plan to unlock billions of tokens and a series of controversial transactions that prompted accusations of self-dealing.

It also provides another attack line for the president’s political opponents, who have used the Trump family’s crypto dealings to criticise the White House. The White House has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

But it's a bold move from an entrepreneur who has also faced allegations of wrongdoing — allegations that company founders hinted at when they responded on Wednesday.

“Justin Sun’s recent lawsuit against [World Liberty Financial] is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct,” Zach Witkoff, World Liberty Financial co-founder and CEO, said on X.

“His claims are entirely meritless, and World Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly.”

"The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall,” Eric Trump, the president’s son and a World Liberty co-founder, said on X. “We are incredibly proud of the [World Liberty Financial] team.”

Sun famously purchased Maurizio Cattelan’s artwork The Comedian in 2024 and then filmed himself eating it.

A World Liberty Financial spokesperson pointed to those statements when contacted by DL News.

Trump family company DT Marks DEFI LLC once held a 75% stake in World Liberty Financial. Today, the World Liberty Financial website states DT Marks holds a 38% stake in the company.

DT Marks and certain members of the Trump family received 22.5 billion WLFI tokens, and DT Marks gets 75% of the proceeds from the sale of WLFI tokens.

The investment  

Sun said he purchased WLFI tokens because of the company’s association with Trump and its promise to promote decentralised finance.

“No one’s ever going to tell you that your account is shut down,” the company said at the time, according to the lawsuit. "No one’s ever going to tell you who and why and what money you can send.”

The tokens were initially locked and marketed as a means of participating in the project’s development. Tokenholders were told they could vote on proposals to upgrade company technology, for example.

“Despite the boilerplate disclaimers, the reality was that users would not spend significant sums of money — World Liberty initially aimed to raise $300 million — to acquire digital assets that had no economic upside,” the lawsuit reads.

Still, the tokens were a dud. World Liberty Financial sold just $22 million in tokens in its first month, falling well short of its stated goal.

“That all changed when Mr. Sun came onto the scene,” the lawsuit reads.

He purchased 2 billion WLFI tokens in November 2024 for $30 million and was promptly named a company adviser, a title that came with an additional 1 billion tokens, according to the lawsuit. He purchased another billion in January 2025 for $15 million, bringing his total investment to $45 million.

After that, World Liberty Financial “took off,” according to the lawsuit, eventually raising $550 million.

Those purchases were subject to a “Token Purchase Agreement” that stated World Liberty “would have no centralised authority over $WLFI tokens,” the lawsuit alleged.

The company would break that promise in less than a year, according to Sun.

Lackluster stablecoin

In March 2025, World Liberty Financial said it would issue a stablecoin, USD1. But it faced “underwhelming retail demand,” according to the lawsuit.

Between April and July 2025, World Liberty leaders tried to convince Sun to mint 200 million USD1 tokens, according to the lawsuit. That would have meant handing World Liberty Financial $200 million, money it could invest in US Treasury bonds or other low-risk assets.

Company executives also asked Sun to invest in World Liberty’s holding company, according to the lawsuit.

“Mr. Sun’s polite and noncommittal responses at these social events were treated by World Liberty as binding commitments,” the lawsuit reads. By July, however, its executives realised he wouldn’t invest.

That month, tokenholders voted to unlock 20% of their tokens. As the September 1 unlock date approached, however, the company quietly upgraded the token’s smart contract, giving itself the power to block transfers, according to the lawsuit.

“Through a subsequent investigation, [Sun] learned that World Liberty had placed addresses holding $WLFI tokens into at least 19 categories subject to varying restrictions” the lawsuit reads. Sun’s was the only address in a category that included a total freeze.

Sun complained publicly that his tokens had been frozen. Without naming Sun, World Liberty Financial said in a statement that it had frozen tokens in 272 wallets, including one that it had flagged for “misappropriation of other holders’ funds.”

Witkoff appeared to confirm on Wednesday that the company had been referring to Sun.

“He engaged in misconduct that required World Liberty to take action to protect itself and its users,” Witkoff said in his statement. “World Liberty will continue to take all necessary steps to protect its community.”

In his lawsuit, Sun called the notion “false and defamatory.”

Extortion

On September 24, World Liberty Financial co-founder Chase Herro ratcheted up the pressure and demanded that Sun announce he was destroying all of his tokens, according to the lawsuit.

If Sun resisted, Herro said he would ask tokenholders to approve the destruction of those tokens — “a vote that would likely be approved, Mr. Herro claimed, given that, at the time, the World Liberty leadership team controlled a meaningful percentage of the outstanding $WLFI tokens in circulation, and would thus be able to effectively control the outcome of any such vote,” the lawsuit reads.

Herro also suggested there were issues with know-your-customer documents Sun had to submit when he first purchased the tokens, according to the lawsuit.

“Herro repeatedly threatened to report Mr. Sun to US criminal authorities over these unspecified KYC issues — which Mr. Herro and World Liberty have refused to explain in anything other than the broadest terms despite repeated requests from Plaintiffs for additional information,” the lawsuit reads.

Sun and World Liberty Financial leadership privately negotiated a potential end to their dispute, but those talks fell apart in February, according to the lawsuit.

Sun has accused the company of fraud, breach of contract, theft, and unjust enrichment, and he asked the court to bar the company from freezing or destroying his tokens.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

Memecoins have rallied nearly 20% in the past month to a market value of $34 billion, CoinMarketCap data shows.

But market experts warn that fireworks may be premature as memecoins remain down about 75% from their December 2024 peak of almost $140 billion.

“The rise in the memecoin sector appears driven by a mix of improving risk sentiment, rising onchain speculation, and sharp gains in a handful of outsized tokens,” Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO, told DL News.

But the rally may “overstate the sector’s health”, he warned, citing the fact that much of the category’s growth has come from a few fast-rising assets that distort the real picture.

The surge comes as the overall crypto market has swelled by nearly $300 billion, a 15% rise, in April, lifting sentiment across digital assets.

What are memecoins?

Memecoins are joke tokens that trade purely on speculation and have no intrinsic value. They’re usually based on celebrities, online jokes, and odd news items, such as Peanut, the squirrel, that became a MAGA symbol ahead of the 2024 US election.

Dogecoin, the top memecoin by market value and trading volume, is down 87% from its 2021 high. Most tokens categorised as memecoins by CoinMarketCap are down over the past week.

Memecoins in the top 10 by market value posting double-digit gains this week include MemeCore, Pudgy Penguins, and SPX6900.

Memecoin bonanza interrupted

The slight recovery remains a far cry from the memecoin bonanza that erupted in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

In the months following his election win, memecoins rallied as a flurry of new tokens were launched. The US president and his wife both launched memecoins, as did the pastor who delivered a passionate benediction at Trump’s inauguration as America’s 47th president.

However, after a string of scandals in early 2025, the memecoin market lost momentum. Despite a few flurries of activity over the past year, the overall value of the memecoin market has continued to slide.

Markets cautious

If macroeconomic sentiment and decentralised trading activity remain supportive, memecoins could keep relative strength, Otychenko said.

“But if gains stay concentrated or speculative appetite fades, parts of the sector could face sharp reversals,” he said.

His cautious sentiment is shared by Charles Chong, vice president of strategy at BlockSpaceForce, who told DL News that the spike reflects a tired pattern rather than fresh conviction.

“What you're seeing isn't bullish community energy,” he said. “It's a dead market full of sidelined gamblers desperate for the next game of musical chairs.”

“The problem is, each time the game is played, the music stops faster.”

Recovery signs?

While experts’ sentiment remains muted, there are some seeds of optimism.

In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission, joined by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, issued an interpretation laying out a five-part token taxonomy: digital commodities, collectibles, tools, stablecoins and securities. Memecoins fall under collectibles.

That framework provides clearer lines between digital assets used for access, fundraising or pure speculation. It also signals that regulators are building the tools to handle blurred boundaries in the market.

At the same time, new exchange-traded fund filings are bringing memecoins closer to Wall Street.

Earlier in April, Canary Capital — known for its blockbuster XRP ETF launch back in November — filed with the SEC for a Pepe memecoin ETF.

The frog-themed token is more obscure than Bitcoin or Ethereum, yet it has drawn interest from both retail and institutional investors.

Institutional investors may use a Pepe ETF to capture volatility rather than hold it long term, Laurens Fraussen, research analyst at Kaiko, told DL News earlier in April.

Since its 2023 launch, Pepe has delivered repeated large price swings and often trades in step with the broader market, but with higher volatility, according to CoinGecko.

Carlos Guzman, research analyst at GSR, told DL News earlier in April that speculative investors remain the more natural buyers for memecoin ETFs. Yet ETFs broaden access by allowing exposure through regular brokerage accounts, expanding the potential audience.

“The more natural buyer is a speculative investor who wants memecoin exposure through a regular brokerage account,” Guzman said.

Memecoins such as Dogecoin already have multiple spot ETFs from issuers including 21Shares, REX-Osprey, Grayscale and Bitwise. Canary has also filed for ETFs tied to TRUMP and Mog Coin.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

Bitcoin traders see the top cryptocurrency hitting $80,000 soon, but aggressive hedging activity shows they’re still not ready to go all-in.

On Friday, options representing some $8.6 billion worth of Bitcoin are set to expire. Options are derivative contracts that give the buyer the right to buy or sell the underlying asset, in this case, Bitcoin.

When a large number of options contracts are set to expire it can often move the price of the underlying asset as traders must settle any outstanding balances.

Options positioning going into Friday's expiration suggests that traders aren’t fully convinced by the current range break of $75,000, Nathan Batchelor, a Bitcoin trader and managing partner at crypto trading data platform Biyond, told DL News.

Although options traders are positioned to profit from a potential move higher, they’re also hedging their positions “aggressively,” Batchelor said.

“If Bitcoin holds around the $77,000 to $78,000 area going into Friday I would not be surprised to see an attempt towards $80,000, given that a large amount of options calls are stacked in this area,” he said.

Calls are bullish options bets that pay out when the price of the underlying asset increases. Puts, on the other hand, are bearish bets that pay out when an asset’s price drops.

The crypto market has had a rough start to the year. Bitcoin began 2026 trading at around $88,000. Yet Federal Reserve policy hesitation, and broader macroeconomic fears have weighed on it since.

The US and Israel’s war on Iran, and its impact on global energy markets, have added to the uncertainty.

Now, traders are waiting to see if Bitcoin can get out of its funk and revisit its yearly high.

Path of least resistance

Other traders are also watching for Bitcoin to move up to $80,000.

Antoine Lours, head of options trading at crypto market maker Keyrock, told DL News that the market makers who provide liquidity in the Bitcoin options market are most exposed to options betting on Bitcoin trading around $80,000.

With Bitcoin currently trading in the high-70s, the path of least resistance is for the price to remain anchored near $80,000, rather than drifting lower toward “max pain,” Lours said.

The term max pain comes from maximum pain theory, which posits that the price of an underlying asset will gravitate to the price where the largest number of options contracts will expire worthless.

Lours said he has also noticed traders’ hesitancy towards a sustained Bitcoin rally.

He noted that the slightly higher-than-normal number of Bitcoin call options, and higher prices for soon-to-expire options bets, show that traders are slightly bullish in the near-term.

Yet among Bitcoin options expiring in May, June and December, there is more demand for puts, which Lours says shows traders aren’t confident in a sustained rally.

June is already shaping up a big month for Bitcoin traders. Options representing some $8.2 billion worth of Bitcoin are set to expire then, a figure which will likely increase as the expiry gets closer.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.

The $100,000 level is the “next magnet” for Bitcoin investors if the top crypto continues its price rally, according to Luca Köymen, investment strategist at Sygnum Bank.

He told DL News that two changes in the US could cement the rally: the potential signing of the Clarity Act and new leadership at the Federal Reserve.

“The structural story is where we see the bigger signal,” he said. “Clearer bank access, no CBDC competition, and a chair who treats crypto as embedded rather than exotic is a bigger deal than a quarter or two of marginally more hawkish tone.”

US President Donald Trump has banned the creation of a central bank digital currency in the US through an executive order.

Köymen’s view lands as Bitcoin has rallied about 10% over the past two weeks to trade near $78,000. It remains roughly 38% below its October peak, even as the S&P 500 pushed to a new all-time high in April.

Fed regime change 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is set to complete his term on May 15.

Trump has nominated Kevin Warsh, who is seen as a crypto bull, to replace Powell. Warsh being confirmed would mark a turning point for Bitcoin, Köymen said.

“He’s the most crypto-literate chair in Fed history,” Köymen said. “He understands the technology and has publicly called Bitcoin a disciplining force on bad policy.”

In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, Warsh described himself as an “independent actor” and signalled a focus on balance-sheet reduction, stricter inflation measurement and data-driven policy.

Warsh’s near-term stance marginally reduces the probability of immediate rate cuts. Yet Fed Funds futures have not meaningfully repriced since his hearing. Over the medium term, Köymen sees the framework as supportive for risk assets.

But caveats remain. Warsh’s confirmation faces political hurdles, including a hold from Republican Senator Thom Tillis. The politician from North Carolina has raised concerns over market stability if Warsh gets his way.

Polymarket punters don’t like his chances, though. Following the Senate’s Tuesday grilling of Warsh, the prediction market bettors put the chances of Warsh being confirmed by May 15 at 28%, down from 92% in March.

And even if confirmed, Warsh requires consensus with 11 other Fed governors members to meaningfully shift policy direction.

Still, Köymen views the potential regime change as a structural win.

“Over the medium to long term, we view the Warsh appointment as a net positive for Bitcoin and broader crypto assets,” he said.

Potential governance changes at the Fed, alongside adjustments to the Supplementary Leverage Ratio, point toward improving financial conditions, according to Köymen.

Clarity Act

The Clarity Act, the most consequential US crypto market structure bill to date, would also prove a boon to Bitcoin if it was signed into law, Köymen said.

Yet, the window for it getting the piece of legislation finalised is closing fast.

On Monday, Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn warned that the bill has roughly 50–50 odds of passage this year, with the Senate juggling Iran debates, Department of Homeland Security funding and a crowded nomination schedule.

“If the markup slips past mid-May, the probability of enactment in 2026 will drop sharply,” Thorn warned.

Polymarket punters give the Clarity Act a 46% chance of being passed in 2026, down from 82% in February.

For Köymen, passage before the midterms would cement regulatory certainty for US crypto markets.

“Passage of the Clarity Act before the midterms would finally provide the market structure framework US crypto markets need.”

Crypto market movers 

Bitcoin is trading sideways over the past 24 hours at $78,049.

Ethereum is down 1.9% over the past hours at $2,344.

What we’re reading 

UK government bets on stablecoins and tokenisation to drive fintech growth — DL News

Everyone is frothing about Bitcoin treasury company Strategy’s STRC bond. Should they be? — DL News

Bitcoin Climbs to 11-Week High Over $78,400 After Trump Extends the US-Iran Ceasefire — Unchained

A new way to ride the AI boom onchain — Milk Road

Crypto’s biggest selling point is responsible for $8.5bn in losses. But it can be made safe — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.

Stablecoins and tokenisation will be at the forefront of how Brits make payments as the UK government overhauls regulation, a top official said this week.

The British government in a Tuesday statement announced a new range of measures to “help the UK remain at the cutting edge” with fintech — including by regulating stablecoins.

The measures would modernise payment services regulation by creating a single framework covering both traditional and tokenised payments, the Treasury said. The measures would also explore how regulation should adapt to AI agents making payments on behalf of consumers and businesses.

Stablecoins are not widely used in the UK currently, but the country's Financial Conduct Authority is drawing up a regulatory framework for cryptoassets — including stablecoins — that will come into force in October 2027.

“Fintech is a true British success story, and we are backing the industry to maintain its competitive edge and go even further and faster in driving growth,” Lucy Rigby, economic secretary to the Treasury, said.

The Treasury also said it had appointed Chris Woolard CBE as the government’s new wholesale digital markets champion to lead the government’s work to deliver “a more efficient and competitive financial sector by building a tokenised wholesale financial markets system.”

Woolard, currently a partner at Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young, was previously a board member and interim chief executive at the FCA. He also worked as a civil servant and served briefly as a regulator at the Bank of England, according to his LinkedIn profile and a BoE profile page.

Stablecoin push 

The Treasury added that it was also bringing forward legislation to slash “administrative burdens” for companies wanting to issue stablecoins in a bid to cement the UK as “a world-leading destination for digital assets while maintaining safeguards” but did not provide additional details when contacted by DL News.

Stablecoins are largely issued by US companies, and dollar-backed tokens reign supreme. Pound sterling-backed stablecoins are a tiny market — worth just $30 million, according to DefiLlama data. Tether, the biggest stablecoin issuer, debuted a pound-backed token, but it never gained traction.

The Bank of England has called for international standards for the assets.

Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy and operations at stablecoin issuer Circle, warned in an op-ed this month that the UK was falling behind the US and EU with regulating the tokens.

Following the US and EU?

US lawmakers now are rushing to regulate the space. The Clarity Act, which would classify most tokens as securities or digital commodities, could see a vote in May, according to Punchbowl News.

The EU also has an extensive regulatory framework for crypto and tokenised assets, the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, which analysts have said will help drive adoption of the tokens.

The UK says it’s following suit. Woolard’s appointment will help “drive tokenisation in our markets” in order to help the “next digital big bang” for the UK, Rigby said.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

Investors can’t get enough of Strategy’s STRC preferred equity. And why wouldn’t they — the stock pays an 11.5% dividend backed entirely by Bitcoin holdings while allowing the company to stockpile even more of the cryptocurrency.

But as yield-hungry investors plough in, analysts are warning of some pretty critical risks.

“I expect the market to soon wake up to the fact that backing preferred equity with a highly speculative asset like Bitcoin is an extremely risky game, especially if the bear market continues,” Dom Kwok, former Goldman Sachs analyst and co-founder at EasyApp, told DL News. “I am not bullish on STRC.”

STRC is a security that sits between bonds and common stock in the capital structure. Think of it as a high-yield savings account backed by Bitcoin. You get 11.5% annual returns paid out regularly, which is far higher than most bonds. If the company goes belly-up, you’re first in line to get paid after creditors but before regular shareholders.

But there’s a big risk: the company can suspend dividend payments at any time, or adjust the rate of payments at will.

Last week, Strategy gobbled up around 34,164 Bitcoin worth around $2.5 billion. Roughly 85% of the funds to make that purchase came from STRC.

'Yield-starved'

STRC’s popularity stems from the simple fact that investors are desperate for yield.

“Public market investors are yield-starved and the juicy 11.5% yields are extremely attractive, resulting in high demand,” Kwok said. “This is a temporary phenomenon.”

But yield isn’t the only reason to be interested in STRC, said Satish Patel, investment analyst at CoinShares.

“Tax treatment helps,” Patel told DL News. STRC dividends are classified as return of capital, meaning they’re not treated as ordinary income. That’s enormously attractive especially to high-bracket investors who would otherwise pay some pretty high taxes on bond coupons, he said.

Patel also argued that STRC’s volatility has declined recently, making it behave “more like a stable, high-yield income instrument anchored around par, rather than a volatile proxy for Bitcoin.”

Add in Strategy’s $2.25 billion cash reserves and its overcollateralisation on its Bitcoin holdings, and investors are flocking, said Patel.

Suspension risk

So what’s the problem?

“Strategy can turn off dividends at any time,” said Kwok. “Ultimately, it’s a risky game.”

If STRC dips below $100 — it has traded at $93 in the past three months — Strategy will be forced to stop issuing shares, and the entire thesis collapses.

“Much like Strategy itself, STRC is highly (perhaps too) dependent on bitcoin doing well,” said Kwok.

Patel acknowledges that the suspension risk is real, but “economically self-limiting.”

“If the board ever suspended dividends, the entire capital-raising flywheel would collapse, STRC drops below par, the ATM issuance window closes, no new BTC purchases, and the whole thesis dies,” he said. “Strategy therefore has an overwhelming incentive to keep paying, provided it has the runway to do so.”

To be sure, STRC’s structure is innovative.

It’s a security that pays dividends ad infinitum, resets its price regularly, is backed entirely by Bitcoin, and treats payouts as tax-advantaged returns of capital instead of taxable income.

This “simply doesn’t exist elsewhere,” said Patel.

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

Self-custody, the ability to personally control your own cryptocurrency without the need for governments or banks, is arguably the most valuable innovation of blockchain technology.

Yet it is also the biggest single cause of the thefts that increasingly plague the industry.

Compromises of the password-like private keys that control access to crypto wallets account for an eye-watering $8.5 billion in stolen onchain assets. That’s almost half of all hacks that have taken place over the past 10 years, according to DefiLlama data.

It’s a sobering statistic, and one that throws into question not just the idea of self-custody, but the $2.7 trillion industry built around it.

Yet despite its pitfalls, self-custody can be done safely, David Schwed, chief operating officer at SVRN and a cybersecurity expert who led development for BNY Mellon’s digital asset offerings, told DL News.

The problem, Schwed said, is that most crypto projects operate on shoestring budgets, are incentivised to build quickly, and don’t want to get slowed down by what they see as excessive security measures.

Projects need to hire seasoned chief information security officers and empower them to bring in teams of experts to build out proper security systems.

“If you do that, absolutely you can build self-custody,” Schwed said.

Crisis of confidence

The crypto industry has been shaken to its core in recent weeks after North Korean hackers stole a combined $579 million from two major decentralised finance projects, Drift and Kelp DAO.

The hacks triggered a crisis of confidence in DeFi. Industry insiders have started to question if the trade-offs inherent in decentralised technology are worth the trouble.

Yet the two attacks weren’t ultimately down to novel bugs or vulnerabilities in underlying code, as many before them were. Instead, the hackers exploited weak points in the security of the projects or other systems they relied on.

For Drift, hackers broke into the project’s internal systems by getting contributors to download malware following a months-long social engineering campaign.

At Kelp DAO, attackers compromised infrastructure providers in LayerZero’s decentralised verifier network, which the project relied on to know who to release funds to.

Competitive business

There are several reasons why security isn’t at the front of such developers’ minds, Schwed said. Investors in early-stage crypto projects often pressure developers to build out their product, get it to market, and work to gain traction as fast as possible, he said.

Crypto is a competitive business. Projects that make it to market first are often able to solidify their positions and bat away competition. Aave, the biggest DeFi lending protocol, was originally founded in 2017 as ETHLend. Uniswap, the biggest decentralised exchange, was among the first to launch back in 2018.

Then there are the costs. Bringing in a proper security team involves hiring a chief information security officer and at least three to five people at minimum, and that’s going to eat into the budgets of even the most well-funded projects, Schwed said.

The culture within scrappy crypto startups is also an issue.

A competent chief information security officer will want to put in so many controls and roadblocks that developers will feel like they’re not going to be able to build quickly enough, Schwed said. Often, the choice is made to simply not hire one, or bring in someone who is less experienced or takes a more lax approach to security.

“I look at their LinkedIn profile, and right before this they were an individual contributor engineer at a company, and now they’re head of security?” Schwed said, describing those people who he has seen leading security at some crypto projects.

“You don't have that experience to be that leader, to really force certain procedural safeguards,” he said.

Tim Craig is DL News’ Edinburgh-based DeFi Correspondent. Reach out with tips at tim@dlnews.com.

Armed thieves have stolen a cold wallet containing $800,000 worth of crypto from a family they held at gunpoint, say prosecutors.

Their target was reportedly a Finistère-based crypto industry professional who was not even in the house at the time. The thieves, officials said, appeared to know exactly what they were looking for.

“The children’s father, who works in the cryptocurrency sector, was not present at the time of the incident,” said Matthieu Thomas, Rennes’ deputy public prosecutor, Brittany, France-based media outlet Le Télégramme reported.

Almost 50 cases of attempted crypto-related robbery, kidnapping, and abduction have been reported in France since the start of the year. Earlier this week, a shot was fired as a crypto owner disarmed a handgun-toting assailant who broke into his house disguised as a delivery driver.

Three-hour nightmare

Police investigating the Finistère case said neighbours alerted authorities after hearing suspicious noises coming from the house.

Inside, they discovered the family — the crypto professional’s wife, their two children, and the children’s grandparents — tied up.

Police said the assailants were two hooded men, armed with handguns. The family explained that the duo burst into their house at 9 am on April 20.

The house is located in a small estate comprising around 30 homes, in the usually quiet commune of Ploudalmézeau in Brittany, northwestern France.

Officers said the family’s ordeal lasted for around three hours and that the assailants only left after they had located the digital wallet and obtained its private keys.

Police said they are yet to make arrests in connection with the case. Officers said the Rennes gendarmerie is conducting a full investigation.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

A team leader in a special judicial police unit of the South Korean customs service extorted bribes from drug traffickers to fund his private crypto investments, say prosecutors.

The unnamed officer, a 49-year-old man, is accused of taking $98,000 in bribes from at least five individuals. These allegedly include a suspected cocaine smuggler, the spouse of a leading academic, and a black market clothing smuggler, South Korean media outlet NoCut News reported.

“If you give me cash, I will use the money to simply close the case, rather than report you to the prosecution service,” the officer reportedly told one suspected customs violator.

South Korean courts are dealing with a rise in cases involving public officials who abuse their power to raise funds for crypto investments.

In January, a court found a lawyer who deals with police forces guilty of embezzling money from serving police officers to pay for private crypto purchases.

Professor’s spouse threatened

Prosecutors say they are reviewing a slew of other cases handled by the customs officer during his tenure as team leader.

Investigators have also questioned the officer’s colleagues, all of whom have denied knowledge of the accused’s alleged crimes.

In a case involving a university professor’s spouse, the suspect allegedly used the academic’s reputation as leverage.

“[The suspect] exploited the financial status and social standing of the suspect and their family member to brazenly demand bribes in exchange for quashing the case,” a prosecution spokesperson told NoCut News.

The spokesperson said the investigation had also allowed the prosecution to identify and indict several of the alleged bribe-givers on drug trafficking and smuggling charges.

“Drug smuggling is a serious crime, subject to arrest,” the officer reportedly told one suspected criminal. “But if you pay me, I will make sure you are not arrested.”

Prosecutors did not reveal the nature of the suspect’s alleged crypto purchases or disclose whether they had seized any coins as part of their investigation.

In South Korea, special judicial police officers work with prosecutors to investigate tax evasion cases, environmental offenses, and customs violations.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

Justin Sun said on Wednesday morning that he was suing leadership at the Trump-linked crypto project World Liberty Financial.

The billionaire creator of the Tron network said World Liberty Financial had, among other accusations, unjustly frozen his WLFI tokens, the project's native voting token.

“They wrongfully froze all of my tokens, stripped me of my right to vote on governance proposals, and have threatened to permanently destroy my tokens by ‘burning’ them — all without any proper justification,” Sun said, referring to the project’s leadership.

World Liberty Financial was launched in 2024 and co-founded by various members of US President Donald Trump’s family, namely his three sons, as well as the sons of billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, who serves as the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East.

President Trump is a co-founder emeritus of the project, according to marketing materials.

Sun bought some $75 million worth of the project’s WLFI token in late 2024 and early 2025. Shortly after, the US Securities and Exchange Commission paused an investigation into Sun over alleged securities violations.

In March 2026, the SEC settled the case after he agreed to pay a $10 million penalty. He denied any liability.

The relationship between Sun and World Liberty Financial’s leadership has soured considerably since.

Brewing feud

Sun’s latest claims come less than a week after the project’s leadership threatened legal action against the Chinese crypto entrepreneur over “baseless allegations” about the project's operations.

On April 12, the Tron founder alleged that the WLFI team implemented a secret backdoor to control user assets, freeze tokens, and treated “the crypto community as a personal ATM.”

Sun had his tokens frozen in September after he sent $9 million WLFI tokens to the HTX crypto exchange, which he owns.

Neither World Liberty Financial nor Sun responded to DL News’ request for comment.

The project’s token is down nearly 76% from its all-time high set in October 2025. The project's market cap now sits at roughly $2.5 billion.

Liam Kelly is DL News’ Berlin correspondent. Contact him at liam@dlnews.com.

Bitcoin traders are targeting a price of $80,000 as they hunt for clues on the path of US interest rates ahead of April’s Federal Reserve meeting.

Several tailwinds are lining up behind the world’s largest cryptocurrency, Max Kahn, CEO of investment firm Digital Wealth Partners, told DL News. Those include macroeconomic momentum and steady institutional demand, he said.

Khan flagged $80,000 as a key level to watch “where resistance or profit-taking could occur” before the Fed’s Open Market Committee on April 29.

Kahn’s take comes as investors scrutinise every detail of US senators' Tuesday grilling of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve for when current Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends.

Lawmakers pressed Kevin Warsh, who is seen as a crypto bull, on politics, rates and the central bank’s future direction.

Fed chair Jerome Powell’s term ends on May 15. He has regularly clashed with President Donald Trump over interest rates.

The regime change at the US central bank is the single most important catalyst for risk assets like Bitcoin, which depends on the central bank’s liquidity plans, analysts told DL News last week. Lower rates are usually bullish for risk-on assets like cryptocurrencies.

“Risk assets are positioned for performance into year-end, and Bitcoin as a reserve-adjacent trade fits cleanly into that setup,” Jonathan Yark, head of quant trading at Acheron Trading, said in a note shared with DL News.

What did Warsh say?

On Tuesday, the Senate Banking Committee subjected Warsh to a comprehensive interrogation on how he would lead the Fed.

The 56-year-old former Fed governor never said whether he agrees with Trump’s view that interest rates are too high. No senator directly asked him if rates should be slashed within a certain timeframe.

Lawmakers did press him on whether Trump had asked him to promise lower rates. Warsh said that never happened.

“The president never asked me to predetermine, commit, fix, decide on any interest rate decision,” he said, adding that he would not agree to such a request.

Even so, lawmakers cast doubt over whether Warsh would maintain the central bank’s independence from political interference.

“[Trump] does not want an independent Fed, and in fact he has said, and I quote, ‘anybody that disagrees with me will never be Fed chairman,’” Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, told Warsh on Tuesday.

“And he's made clear that you are his sock puppet, saying last week that interest rates will drop ‘When Kevin gets in.’”

Trump has repeatedly clashed with Powell over the Fed chair’s unwillingness to slash interest rates due to the fragile macroeconomic conditions caused by the president’s chaotic foreign policies.

Most Fed chairs leave the central bank after their term is up. Powell hasn’t said whether he plans to do so when his term as chair ends.

During his hearing, Warsh stressed that he wants serious changes at the Fed. He said he’d look at trimming the central bank’s balance sheet and improving how inflation is measured. He also signalled he may review how often the Fed holds policy meetings and how it communicates with the public. The Fed currently meets eight times a year, though the law requires only four.

For Bitcoin investors, the hearing offered no clear promise of rate cuts in 2026.

Institutions muscle into crypto

Warsh’s potential nomination isn’t the only factor determining the price of Bitcoin.

While the extended ceasefire in the Middle East may alleviate some fears over the price’s volatility, another bullish sign is the fact that institutional investors seem to be piling into crypto.

Investors have poured in nearly $2 billion into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds so far in April, DefiLlama data shows.

Institutional buy-in combined with big Bitcoin investors easing off their sell-off, which triggered the market collapse in October, is likely to send the price up to $80,000 around early May, James Butterfill, CoinShares’ head of research, told DL News in March.

Crypto market movers 

Bitcoin is up 2.2% over the past 24 hours, trading at $77,984.

Ethereum is up 2.8% over the past hours at $2,386.

What we’re reading 

Bitcoin surges to $76,000 despite tension rising over Iran negotiations — DL News

Why privacy tech is immune to quantum threat coming for Bitcoin, says Coinbase — DL News

Arbitrum Security Council Freezes $71 Million in ETH Tied to Kelp DAO Exploit — Unchained

The most important DEX nobody talks about — Milk Road

Crypto’s last shot? This risks sinking the Clarity Act before midterms, warns Galaxy analyst — DL News

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com

Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve, insisted he was no “sock puppet” amid a grilling from senators on Tuesday.

“Monetary policy makers must act in the nation's interest,” Warsh said at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking Committee. “I'm committed to ensuring that the conduct of monetary policy remains strictly independent.”

Trump has led an unprecedented effort to influence Federal Reserve policy, repeatedly calling on its board of governors to lower interest rates and berating the outgoing chair, Jerome Powell. Attorneys at the Department of Justice have even opened a criminal investigation into Powell over false statements he allegedly made about cost overruns at the Fed’s Washington, DC headquarters.

Powell has said the probe is politically motivated, an attempt to frighten him into backing lower interest rates. Trump has said he did not order prosecutors to open the investigation.

Still, the row has cast a pall over Warsh’s nomination.

“[Trump] does not want an independent Fed, and in fact he has said, and I quote, ‘anybody that disagrees with me will never be Fed chairman,’” Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, said Tuesday.

“And he's made clear that you are his sock puppet, saying last week that interest rates will drop ‘When Kevin gets in.’”

Trump’s crusade to oust Powell has even sparked a rare Republican defection.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, has said he would not support Warsh’s nomination until prosecutors drop the Powell investigation. He doubled down on Tuesday.

“You have extraordinary credentials. They're impeccable,” Tillis told Warsh. “Let's get rid of this investigation so I can support your confirmation.”

Presidential pressure 

Senators from both parties pressed Warsh on his commitment to the Fed’s independence.

Their questions weren’t just motivated by Trump’s desire for a more pliable Fed chair, but by Warsh’s own statements over the past year calling for lower interest rates. Some senators said they wanted to know whether Trump had influenced Warsh’s stated opinion on the matter.

“The President never asked me to predetermine, commit, fix, decide on any interest rate decision in any of our discussions, nor would I ever agree to do so,” Warsh said.

He also reiterated his desire to begin a “policy regime change much more focused on interest rates” than on quantitative easing.

Since the Great Recession, the Fed has purchased trillions of dollars of US Treasury bills, flooding the economy with cash. That policy, known as quantitative easing, stimulated the economy, but it has also fuelled inflation, according to its critics.

Warsh has said he wants to dramatically reduce the Fed’s balance sheet, but assured senators that any reduction would be done carefully.

“That kind of regime change would have to be deliberate, well orchestrated, well choreographed, and well described, so that unnecessary upset are not done to financial markets,” he said.

Crypto investments 

Warsh’s financial disclosures show the nominee has an investment portfolio worth more than $130 million. That portfolio features over two dozen investments in crypto ventures, including DeFi lender Compound, derivatives trading platforms dYdX and Lighter, and four blockchains: Solana, Optimism, Blast, and Zero Gravity.

But it also includes investments in funds that invest in other businesses. During the hearing, Warren asked whether those funds have stakes in companies “affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies that have facilitated money laundering, Chinese-controlled companies, or financing vehicles established by Jeffrey Epstein.”

Warsh said only that he had struck a deal with the Office of Government Ethics and would divest from all his investments before taking office.

CBDCs 

In less contentious exchanges, Warsh was also asked to share his opinion on several topics, including crypto and artificial intelligence.

Outgoing Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming and one of the crypto industry’s top champions in Congress, asked whether crypto “should be incorporated into our financial industry.”

“Digital assets already part of the fabric of our financial services industry in the United States, yes,” he replied.

Warsh also reaffirmed his opposition to central bank digital currencies. The nominee said he would not consider issuing a central bank digital currency so long as the decision was “within the power of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.”

Warsh is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011, and his nomination was viewed positively by many in the crypto industry.

Businessman and Bitcoin evangelist Michael Saylor, for example, predicted Warsh would be “the first pro-Bitcoin chairman of the Federal Reserve” if confirmed.

Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

Law enforcement is struggling to keep up with cybercriminals who increasingly use artificial intelligence to con people with more convincing crypto scams, experts say.

At a joint hearing by the Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection on Tuesday, witnesses told lawmakers that there has been a surge in cyber attacks because of AI.

“It’s easier to lie with AI, it’s easier to make convincing emails with malicious links, it’s easier to make these deep fakes,” Cynthia Kaiser, senior vice president at the Halcyon Ransomware Research Center, told lawmakers at the hearing.

Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, said that there has been a 500% increase in AI-enabled scam activity over the past year.

Security experts last month told DL News that cybercriminals were increasingly using AI to search for bugs in decentralised finance protocols and then take advantage of errors auditors may have missed.

Economic violence at industrial scale

Criminals using AI are making it harder for people to recognise online scams, the experts said.

Criminals  are using new technology to quickly scan data and learn a victim’s financial details, making a scam all the more convincing, according to Megan Stifel, chief strategy officer at the Institute for Security and Technology.

“They’re using that analysis capability to essentially have a response to every blockade that the victim tries to assert, making it harder for the victims to not make the payment,” she said.

Criminals were making a killing selling AI software to help scammers impersonate others in order to trick victims into making fraudulent investments, Jacqueline Burns Koven, Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis, told DL News in February.

‘Threat is daunting’ 

There’s a “world of people who couldn’t do attacks yesterday but can today,” Kaiser said.

She added that security teams were going to be exhausted if they didn’t use the same technology as attackers.

Redbord concurred, and added that while the “threat is daunting,” US authorities were working to adopt the same advanced tools as criminals to combat the scams.

“Bad actors are always early adopters of transformative technology,” he said. “We need to move as fast as those bad actors, and the tools exist today.”

Changing laws?

Kaiser, who previously worked at the FBI, suggested changing laws in order to better combat the surge in cybercrime.

“First, the Departments of State, Justice and Treasury could formally evaluate whether terrorism designation authorities under existing law apply to ransomware actors knowingly and repeatedly targeting hospitals,” she said.

“I’m not asking for a designation today — what I’m saying is that we need honest legal analysis towards that, looking at the existing law and determining if departments believe it meets those thresholds.”

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.

The spectre of quantum computing is coming to a crypto network near you.

Ripple, the company that created XRP, is racing ahead to make its XRP Ledger quantum-proof by 2028, acknowledging that the threat quantum computers pose to crypto networks has hastily moved “from theoretical to credible.”

On Tuesday, the company put out a statement saying it’s testing quantum-resistant technology alongside its existing systems, while working with partners to accelerate development.

“Recent research from Google Quantum AI is bringing renewed attention to what quantum computing could mean for the crypto industry,” Ripple wrote. “The findings show that the cryptography most blockchains rely on today can be broken by sufficiently advanced quantum computers.”

Ripple now joins the two top crypto networks — Bitcoin and Ethereum — in attempting to stave off quantum computers, a still-theoretical yet fast-advancing technology that has the potential to break blockchains en masse.

Indeed, the issue has become a stormy one for crypto enthusiasts, developers, and investors. Today there aren’t any quantum computers able to break crypto networks, although researchers point to a strategy called “harvest now, decrypt later,” wherein hackers can collect public data from blockchains today and wait for quantum computers to mature enough to crack it.

Researchers at Chaincode Labs said that up to 50% of all Bitcoin is at risk of a future quantum computer. Many Wall Street bigwigs have said that developers maintaining Bitcoin need to take the threat more seriously.

Four-phase plan

Ripple's roadmap consists of four phases.

The company has already begun testing quantum-resistant security methods recommended by NIST, the global standards body for cybersecurity. By late 2026, it plans to run those methods alongside existing security on test networks. And finally, full transition is targeted for 2028.

What if quantum computers break current security before that date? Ripple will roll out an emergency plan in which XRP would stop accepting old-style signatures and force users to move funds to quantum-safe accounts.

Looming threat

Watching another crypto company roll out a quantum-resistant roadmap means one thing: the threat is real, daunting, and imminent.

In fact, developers supervising some of the largest crypto networks have already taken steps to address the issue.

In March, the Ethereum Foundation published its own four-pronged plan to protect the $278 billion network, targeting 2029 for completion. Even though researchers inside the foundation don’t think quantum computing will be “cryptographically relevant” for another eight to 12 years, they said they're erring on the side of caution.

So are Bitcoin developers. A proposal dubbed BIP-360 already exists to address quantum risks before they materialise. Another one, tagged BIP-361, proposes to freeze coins that are exposed and haven’t been moved in over a decade. That would include the 1.1 million Bitcoin stack that has been attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto.

Ripple's inclusion to the quantum-computing fearful begs the question: how many other networks are preparing? And how many are just waiting to see if the threat materialises before acting?

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

A version of this story appeared in The Decentralised newsletter on April 21. Sign up here.

The crypto mood is grim.

At $293 million stolen, this weekend’s Kelp DAO-LayerZero exploit is the 10th largest in the DefiLlama database. Last year’s Bybit heist was nearly five times larger.

And yet it has triggered a crisis of confidence that might surpass the gloom of 2022, when people were genuinely afraid that crypto might not survive a series of multibillion-dollar bankruptcies that dragged Bitcoin to $16,000.

So, what could be worse than death? Why is the mood so foul? After all, Bitcoin has gone up over the past week.

Across X, the industry watercooler, crypto developers and investors are posting with the stunned tone of people who think they’ve spotted a lie — that the tradeoffs inherent in decentralised technology aren’t worth the trouble, and, in any case, the technology isn’t all that decentralised when push comes to shove.

Crypto investor Jon Wu summed it up this way (punctuation added for legibility): “Man, I know DeFi is not fully over, but it feels over. And not in the normal bear market kind of apathy-and-zero-vol-dead-chart kind of way — in the, ‘I don’t know, maybe atomic composability of arbitrary financial instruments secured by one-of-ones was a mistake’ kind of way.”

The Solana Foundation’s Seraphim Czecker put it more succinctly: “Feels like DeFi’s Lehman moment,” he wrote, in a nod to Lehman Brothers, a major US investment bank that collapsed in 2008, setting off the financial crisis that led to the Great Recession.

Now, DeFi developers need to improve the technology’s risk profile, wrote investor Simon Dedic, who called security “one of the most underfunded and least exciting verticals to work in.”

“The risk-reward ratio of DeFi simply isn't attractive enough anymore,” he wrote. “DeFi was actually supposed to eliminate the risk of a middleman and make finance more secure by letting you take control of your own assets. But it feels like we've achieved the exact opposite.”

The hack impacted Kelp DAO, of course, but it also led to the accumulation of bad debt on Aave. So many users have fled Aave — deposits have fallen nearly 40% over the past seven days — that it has lost the title of “largest DeFi protocol,” ceding it to Lido.

The hacker or hackers made off with more than 116,000 rsETH and almost took another 40,000 worth $92 million. But they were blocked by Kelp DAO, which paused relevant smart contracts in the nick of time.

The hacker swapped the stolen crypto on decentralised exchanges and borrowed against it on lending protocols, like Aave, using Ethereum and Arbitrum.

Kelp DAO wasn’t the only organisation that took action. Aave froze rsETH reserves. And, in a near-unprecedented move, Arbitrum’s 12-member security council froze about 31,000 Ether worth $72 million sitting on the blockchain.

Griff Green, a member of the security council, said he and his colleagues did not make the decision lightly.

Arbitrum founder Steven Goldfeder called it “one of the most complex decisions ever made in Arbitrum governance history.”

“This process was extremely distributed and coordinated by independent actors,” he wrote. “In a world where security councils exist, Arbitrum’s is a masterclass.”

Security researcher Taylor Monahan celebrated the move.

But crypto attorney Gabriel Shapiro noted that freezing funds to reverse a hack calls into question the entire concept of DeFi, which was meant to enable peer-to-peer finance, to remove middlemen with the power to censor transactions, good or bad.

Arbitrum’s decision opens up a whole new can of worms, according to Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov.

“Many will probably re-evaluate whether using Arbitrum is safe after this,” he wrote. “Also if they can freeze anyone — hard to argue that some TradFi regulations are not applicable to the chain itself. It is not neutral infrastructure.”

He suggested an industry powwow to come up with best practices for securing DeFi protocols.

A pseudonymous Yuga Labs employee who, aptly in this moment, goes by “Quit,” said the solution is simpler than freezes and security convocations. The solution is to stop being a degen, seeking exotic, layered, yield bearing assets.

“Confidence in DeFi is at an all time low right now,” Quit wrote. “We need to go back to basics. No reason somebody looking to deposit ETH to borrow USDC should be vulnerable to contagion from a bridge for liquid restaked rsKxyzstETH.”

Top DeFi stories of the week

This week in DeFi governance

VOTE: Morpho votes to authorise incentives on Tempo


PROPOSAL: Aave DAO debates pausing tokens to address Kelp DAO hack


PROPOSAL: Lido DAO debates proposal to increase transparency and consistency in node operator assessment


Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.

The rapid expansion of stablecoins, specifically those pegged to the US dollar, poses a massive risk to central bank sovereignty.

Pablo Hernández de Cos, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, voiced concerns about stablecoins, among other issues, during a speech at the Bank of Japan on Monday.

The former governor of the Bank of Spain added that emerging markets and developing economies are particularly vulnerable to the effects of “dollarisation.”

As citizens in these countries begin adopting dollar-pegged tokens at a large enough scale, it removes a local central bank’s monetary sovereignty to manage an economy.

The Nigerian central bank, which oversees a country that is adopting stablecoins at a rapid pace, has no influence over the Federal Reserve's policy in the US.

That’s a problem, says Cos.

“[Forex] stablecoins could further challenge monetary transmission and monetary sovereignty if transactions, prices and wages begin to be set increasingly in foreign currencies,” Cos said.

To be sure, the reasons for stablecoin adoption in emerging markets are the same as those that drove the adoption of the US dollar historically. As a relatively stable world reserve currency, the dollar has long attracted citizens in countries mired in double-digit inflation.

Stablecoin boom?

Over the last two years, the total market value of stablecoins denominated in all currencies has increased by more than 100% to over $320 billion, according to data from DefiLlama.

The vast majority of that — indeed, 99.6% — is denominated in dollars.

New legislation in the US under President Donald Trump, along with a red-hot bull market last year, have been key catalysts for this growth.

In July, Trump signed into law the Genius Act, the country’s first piece of legislation to define how stablecoins can be issued and who is eligible.

Much of that growth stalled as Bitcoin tumbled as low as $62,000 from a high of $126,000.

Stablecoins added over $100 billion from January 2025 to October 2025; this year, fiat tokens have attracted less than $12 billion.

Still, Cos, who monetary experts suggest should become the next chair of the European Central Bank in 2027, stablecoins still demand the attention of financiers.

“Ultimately, money is far more than a technology,” he said. “It is an institutional achievement that prospers with trust in domestic and international cooperation.”

As such, Cos suggested that stablecoins pose three new challenges for central banks.

Dollarisation risk

As anyone with an internet-connected device can access dollar-pegged stablecoins, these assets could become more popular in countries where traditional access to dollars is restricted, said Cos.

Second, as people sell local currencies for digital dollars, this can create a premium on digital dollars while exacerbating the local currency's devaluation.

Finally, Cos joins a growing chorus of regulators and authorities pointing out how much easier it can be to evade capital controls when using stablecoins. This could potentially make capital flows more volatile.

“I also want to emphasise the critical importance of international cooperation,” Cos concluded.

“Without it, divergent regulatory frameworks for stablecoins across jurisdictions could lead to severe market fragmentation or enable harmful regulatory arbitrage.”

Iran has opened fire on at least one ship who thought it had paid the fee to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in Bitcoin. In reality, it had actually fallen victim to scammers pretending to represent Iranian government officials.

The incident occurred on April 18 and was part of a broader crime wave where ships awaiting passage through the vital trading lane have received fake messages promising safety — in exchange for cryptocurrency, reported Reuters 

On Monday, shipowners were warned by Greek maritime risk management firm MARISKS that unknown actors, allegedly claiming to be Iranian authorities, had sent some oil tankers messages demanding toll fees in Bitcoin or Tether.

“Those specific messages are a scam,” said MARISKS.

The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment from DL News.

The situation is damning, especially as the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US enters its seventh week.

Bitcoin payments

In early April, Iran announced it would begin collecting a $1-per-barrel toll for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for the world’s oil trade, and that toll would be payable in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin enthusiasts quickly hailed Iran’s new toll system as proof that crypto had arrived as a tool for international commerce — and a neutral settlement layer that could bypass US dollar dominance.

Other analysts were sceptical. Sam Lyman of the Bitcoin Policy Institute wrote in an April 15 report that collecting tolls in Bitcoin is “virtually impossible” with current technology.

Now scammers are exploiting that same narrative, using Iran’s actual Bitcoin toll announcement to trick desperate shipping companies into paying fraudulent fees.

Attacked by Iran

On April 18, Iran briefly opened the Strait of Hormuz subject to checks.

Ships tried to pass, but at least two vessels — including a tanker — reported that Iranian boats fired shots at them, forcing the vessels to turn around,

At least one vessel that tried to exit the Strait on April 18, and was hit by Iranian gunfire, was a victim of the fraud, said MARISKS.

It’s not clear yet which companies have been targeted.

Reuters reported that the fake messages instruct shipping companies to provide documents for assessment by “Iranian Security Services,” then pay cryptocurrency fees for their vessels to “transit the Strait unimpeded at the pre-agreed time.”

Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.

Controversy is brewing in the South Korean crypto community after exchanges delayed submitting data on benefits policies and offered big-spending traders exclusive rewards.

The regulatory Financial Supervisory Service told the country’s five permit-holding crypto exchanges to submit the data by April 15, South Korean newspaper Seoul Shinmun reported. However, Bithumb and Upbit, the nation’s two biggest trading platforms, sent their reports on April 17.

The FSS has asked the firms to provide reasons for the delays.

“It all sounds very disorderly,” Kim, a Seoul-based crypto trader and a customer of both Korbit and Upbit, told DL News.

Kim asked DL News to withhold his given name to protect his anonymity.

The FSS issued its request in the wake of a Bithumb’s “fat finger” mishap, whereby an employee who intended to send $400 to users accidentally selected Bitcoin instead of Korean won as a unit — and sent out $40 billion worth of Bitcoin.

High spenders rewarded

The data shows that the five exchanges offered millions of dollars’ worth of benefits to a select group of high-spending customers.

Unnamed crypto industry officials told Seoul Shinmun the data shows evidence of “inconsistent standards.”

The FSS had asked the exchanges to send the data in accordance with protocols established by the Digital Asset Exchange Association. The association is the South Korean crypto exchange sector’s self-regulatory body.

But the companies do not appear to have coordinated their responses to the regulator.

Coinone, Korbit, and GOPAX disclosed data on benefits from the past five fiscal years. But Bithumb’s disclosure only reflected data from February and March. Upbit, meanwhile, only disclosed data on the benefits it offered to three VIP customers.

DAXA did not immediately respond to a DL News request for comment.

“It’s all disappointing, and it really isn’t a good look for exchanges that supposedly work together as part of a self-regulating body,” Kim told DL News.

Coinone’s report shows it offered commission fee discounts worth a combined $79 million over the past five years. Korbit and GOPAX handed out discounts worth $6.7 million and $2.6 million, respectively, in the same period.

Upbit, meanwhile, offered the aforementioned three VIP traders an eye-watering $4.5 million worth of discounts.

Gap in costs

The data shows exchanges use VIP tiers that offer their biggest-spending customers lower commission fees.

“If exchanges offer the majority of their benefits to users with high trading volumes, the fee burden for ordinary investors will likely remain quite high,” an unnamed crypto industry professional told Seoul Shinmun. “Ultimately, this creates a structure whereby traders on the same market experience a gap in transaction costs.”

“If there has been confusion about how [DAXA’s disclosure protocols] should work, it is important for [its members] to refine these standards,” Hwang Seok-jin, a professor at  Dongguk University’s Graduate School of International Information Security, told Seoul Shinmun.

The development comes weeks after Bithumb postponed plans to float on the New York Stock Exchange. Bithumb originally planned to go public before the end of June this year, but now says the initial public offering will not go ahead until 2027 at the earliest.

Upbit is also facing a regulatory delay ahead of its proposed merger with the e-pay arm of the tech giant Naver.

Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com.

Crypto privacy protocols are immune to the threat of quantum attacks on Bitcoin and other digital assets, researchers have found.

Zero-knowledge proof systems, including networks such as Aleo and Aztec, and mixers such as Railgun and PrivacyPools, rely on information-theoretic systems which are secure even against infinitely powerful attackers because of how information is structured and shared, not because of encryption.

That makes them mathematically immune to quantum attacks, according to a Coinbase-led study co-authored with researchers from Stanford and the Ethereum Foundation, and shared with DL News.

Their findings come amid growing concern over rapid advances in computing hardware that are expected to impact cryptographic systems.

That threat has been heard at the top of Wall Street. In January, finance leaders, including UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti, Jefferies’ head of equity strategy Christopher Wood, and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, all sounded the alarm on Bitcoin’s vulnerability.

In March, Google shook the crypto world with a report warning that new quantum computers could crack the encryption that protects Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies in as little as nine minutes.

“We firmly believe that a large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computer will eventually be built, and that blockchains need to prepare for this eventuality,” the study said.

At the same time, the report makes clear that the threat is not imminent and that preparation — not panic — is the correct response.

It is a recommendation shared by brokerage firm Bernstein, which described quantum computing earlier in April as “neither existential, nor novel, and also not limited to crypto.”

Who’s most vulnerable?

The most exposed assets are those secured by elliptic-curve signatures, in which the public key is already visible onchain, the researchers found.

Bitcoin is a prime example, the Coinbase researchers say. Roughly 6.9 million coins are held in addresses whose public keys have been revealed. About 1.7 million of those are old pay-to-public-key outputs, including early “Satoshi-era” coins.

Once a sufficiently powerful quantum computer exists, those keys could be harvested and broken. The largest whale addresses — some holding more than 1,000 Bitcoin — would be the first logical targets.

The report suggests these addresses function as the canary in a coal mine. If they move unexpectedly, markets will know something seismic has happened.

Research from Chaincode Labs suggests that between 20% and 50% of all Bitcoin — some $900 billion worth — could be vulnerable in such a scenario.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin contributors are advancing proposals such as BIP360 to address signature vulnerabilities before they materialise.

The Ethereum Foundation has published its own four-part roadmap to upgrade its $260 billion network by the same date.

Lance Datskoluo is DL News’ Europe-based markets correspondent. Got a tip? Email him at lance@dlnews.com.