Decentralized exchange KiloEX has confirmed it has suspended usage of its platform and is tracing stolen funds after suffering a $7.5 million exploit. 

The exploit has been contained, with use of the platform suspended and an investigation underway, the KiloEX team said in an April 14 statement to X.

“The team has immediately suspended platform usage and is working with security partners to trace the flow of funds,” KiloEX said. 

“We are analyzing the attack vector and affected assets. We are collaborating with ecosystem partners to trace and recover funds where possible.” 

A bounty program and a full report on how the exploit occurred is also in the works, according to KiloEX. 

In an update, the KiloEX team said it was collaborating with BNB Chain, Manta Network, and cybersecurity firms Seal-911, SlowMist and Sherlock in an effort spanning “multiple ecosystems.” 

“Our investigation has confirmed that the stolen assets are currently being routed through zkBridge and Meson,” KiloEX said. 

“We are urgently attempting to engage with both protocols to halt ongoing transactions and prevent additional losses.” 

KiloEX attacker exploited price oracle issue, say analysts 

Cybersecurity firm PeckShield said in an April 14 post to X the exploiter looted $7.5 million in total, $3.3 million Base, $3.1m opBNB and $1m BSC. 

The firm has speculated the exploit is likely a “price oracle issue,” where the information used by a smart contract to determine the price of an asset is manipulated or inaccurate, leading to the exploit. 

“Our initial analysis on one transaction exploit indicates a price oracle issue,” PeckShield said. 

“The hacker exploits it to create a new position with initial given ETH/USD price of 100 and then immediately close the position with inflated ETH/USD price of 10000, netting the $3.12m profit in one single transaction.” 

Chaofan Shou, co-founder of blockchain analytics firm Fuzzland, also weighed in, speculating the exploit was likely due to a price oracle issue.

“Anyone can change the Kilo’s price oracle. They did verify that the caller shall be a trusted forwarder, though, but didn’t verify the forwarded caller,” Shou said. 

Shou added it was a “very simple vulnerability” when a user asked about the complexity of the exploit. 

The news has sent the KiloEX’s native token, Kilo, plunging over 27% to trade at $0.03596, according to CoinGecko. It’s still down over 78% from its all-time high of $0.1648, which it hit on March 27.

Related: Mantra CEO says OM token recovery ‘primary concern’ but in early stages

KiloEx was established in 2023 and is backed by Binance Labs, which is a lead investor and strategic partner. 

This exploit comes just days after the exchange announced a partnership with Dubai-based Web3 venture capitalist firm DWF Labs on April 13, which promised to expand KiloEx's market presence and accelerate growth. 

On March 25, DWF Labs launched a $250 million Liquid Fund to accelerate the growth of mid- and large-cap blockchain projects and drive real-world adoption of Web3 technologies.

Magazine: Bitcoin eyes $100K by June, Shaq to settle NFT lawsuit, and more: Hodler’s Digest, April 6–12

Stablecoin issuer Tether has announced it intends to deploy its existing and future Bitcoin hashrate to OCEAN’s Bitcoin mining pool in an effort to strengthen the network’s decentralization.

“Deploying hashrate to OCEAN aligns with both our mining investments and our broader mission to fortify Bitcoin against centralizing forces,” Tether’s CEO Paolo Ardoino said in an April 15 statement.

While Bitcoin hashrate is decentralized, the block-building process conducted by mining pools is mostly centralized by a few dominant actors — most notably Foundry USA, AntPool and ViaBTC.

The OCEAN protocol attempts to decentralize this process by empowering miners to build their own block templates using their open-source DATUM protocol, reducing dependency on centralized intermediaries and enhancing censorship resistance, Tether said.

Tether’s deployment would leverage OCEAN’s DATUM software across all of its mining operations worldwide, including in rural areas in Africa. 

“By enabling on-site generation of unique block templates and aggregating thousands of rig connections with low-latency performance, DATUM ensures global competitiveness while promoting geographic and operational diversity,” Tether said.

Related: Inside the Trump-backed Bitcoin mining mega-deal with Hut 8

Tether currently deploys Bitcoin hashrate at sites in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador, where the $144 billion stablecoin issuer is also headquartered.

Those initiatives emerged around the time Tether announced it would invest $500 million into Bitcoin mining in late 2023.

OCEAN was created by Bitcoin core developer Luke Dashjr in 2023 and has been backed by the likes of Block CEO Jack Dorsey. OCEAN also relocated its headquarters to El Salvador in May 2024.

Dashjr sparked controversy in December 2023 when he slammed Bitcoin Ordinals users for clogging the network with “spam.” However, he refuted claims that OCEAN censored the non-fungible token-like transactions.

OCEAN still has a lot of market share to capture

The OCEAN protocol currently mines between 0.2% to 1% of Bitcoin blocks, according to mempool.space data.

It has mined nine blocks over the last week, including two in a row at 892342 and 892343 on April 14.

However, OCEAN’s output remains a fraction of that seen by Foundry USA, AntPool and ViaBTC, which have mined 331, 199 and 161 Bitcoin blocks, respectively, over the same timeframe — accounting for over 66% of all blocks.

The Tether partnership would likely provide a much-needed boost to OCEAN’s hashrate, which has amounted to 18.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) over the last 24 hours.

By comparison, Foundry USA’s hashrate over the same timeframe has exceeded 298 EH/s, leveraging hashrate from the likes of Bitcoin mining firms Hut 8, Bitdeer and Bitfarms.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

US President Donald Trump hosted El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele at the White House on April 14, with talks centered on trade and immigration, excluding Bitcoin from the public agenda.

Pressing issues of migration and bilateral security cooperation set the tone of Bukele's first official meeting at the White House during Trump's second term. 

According to a livestream shared by Bukele’s office on X, Trump raised the possibility of transferring US citizens convicted of crimes to prisons in El Salvador, urging Bukele to expand the country’s prison system to house more prisoners. “I said homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You gotta build about five more places.” 

Since taking office, the Trump administration has deported hundreds of alleged foreign criminal individuals to El Salvador under a $6 million deal between the countries.

Trump also addressed the ongoing trade war unleashed by his administration on April 2, suggesting a potential temporary exemption for automakers aimed at easing the transition of their supply chains.

“I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with it,” Trump told reporters present at the meeting, adding that the US auto industry “need[s] a little bit of time” to relocate production to the country. 

The meeting did not touch on digital assets and Bitcoin (BTC) policy — a flagship initiative of both presidents’ administrations. 

El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, pioneering the Bitcoin strategic reserve approach later followed by Trump.

The US president positioned himself as a pro-crypto candidate during the 2024 election. On March 6, Trump signed an executive order to create a Bitcoin strategic reserve and digital asset stockpile in the United States.

The US holds nearly 198,000 BTC, valued at over $17 billion as of March. The reserve is primarily formed of Bitcoin seized in criminal and civil cases, including significant amounts from the Silk Road and Bitfinex hack cases.

Related: How much Bitcoin does the US hold, and where did it come from?

El Salvador's BTC plans face IMF opposition

El Salvador signed off in December a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which included commitments to unwind Bitcoin-related initiatives and reduce public sector involvement with digital assets.

While the Salvadoran Congress amended its Bitcoin laws in January to comply with the deal, the government has continued its daily purchases of BTC. The country’s National Bitcoin Office’s tracker shows it currently holds 6,147.18 BTC, worth about $520.7 million at this writing. 

Related: Tether will relocate HQ to El Salvador after securing license

Escalating trade wars are rattling cryptocurrency markets — but they are also creating new use cases for blockchain networks, Truebit executives told Cointelegraph. 

On April 2, President Donald Trump announced plans to charge sweeping tariffs on US imports, prompting other nations to threaten retaliatory measures. Trump later paused the tariff rollout for certain countries — but the possibility of a global trade war still looms, especially after Trump reiterated his commitment to taxing Chinese goods.

If high tariffs materialize, blockchain technology can play an important role in ensuring governments apply them fairly, according to the executives. Blockchain can “really help you prove provenance [...] proving the chain of custody,” Federico Kattan, Truebit’s chief technology officer, told Cointelegraph. 

For example, a company might “assemble or do some packaging in a low-tariff country and then import into the US at 10% instead of 58%... [but] blockchain can help establish where the product actually came from,” Kattan said.

Blockchain networks can enhance supply chain transparency by recording every transaction on an immutable public ledger, greatly limiting the scope for fraud across trillions of dollars worth of imported goods.

Trump’s proposed tariffs would impact $2.4 trillion worth of imports, according to a report by the Tax Foundation. Retaliatory measures by other countries could add to that figure.

Truebit is a blockchain network specializing in helping users add trustless verification to a wide variety of applications.

It is already in talks with software vendors servicing the US government and has been working on a European Union-funded project exploring Web3’s potential role in global supply chains, the executives said.

"We’re not yet talking directly to governments, but to the software vendors trying to interface with them — because that’s where we want to be,” Jason Teutsch, Truebit’s CEO, said.

Related: Trade tensions to speed institutional crypto adoption — Execs

Truebit was launched in 2017 and launched its TRU token in 2021. The token has a fully diluted market capitalization of $20 million, according to CoinGecko.

Trade war risks

However, several other crypto executives cautioned that tariffs pose serious risks to blockchain networks’ integrity and accessibility to users.

Worsening trade wars threaten to disrupt networks’ physical infrastructure, fragment regulatory regimes, and censor users, they said.

“Aggressive tariffs and retaliatory trade policies could create obstacles for node operators, validators, and other core participants in blockchain networks,” Nicholas Roberts-Huntley, CEO of Concrete & Glow Finance, told Cointelegraph.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

Korea Selatan memperluaskan larangan pada firma aset digital & rsquo ; Permohonan yang melayani warganya. Pada 11 April, Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Kewangan Negara & rsquo (fsc ) mengumumkan Antara bursa yang terjejas ialah Kucoin dan Mexc. Laporan itu juga menyatakan bahawa institusi analisis maklumat kewangan (fiu ) akan terus mempromosikan penyekatan aplikasi dan tapak internet pengendali tersebut untuk mencegah pencucian wang dan kerosakan pengguna. href u003d "https: //cointelegraph.com/news/google-play-blocks --17-unregistered-crypto-exchanges-south-korea " rel u003d "null " target u003d "null " text 26 . Kucoin dan Mexc juga disasarkan semasa menyekat aplikasi Google Play. FSC menerbitkan senarai 22 platform yang tidak berdaftar yang beroperasi di negara ini, dengan 17 daripadanya sudah disekat pada googles

Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed the $84,500 level on April 14, and the recovery appears partially fueled by the announcement of partial import tariff relief by US President Donald Trump. However, traders’ optimism faded on April 13 when it became apparent that the relaxation was temporary and that tariffs on the electronics supply chain could be revisited.

Uncertainty surrounding the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China impacted Bitcoin markets, causing traders to lose some of their regained confidence. This explains why Bitcoin’s price failed to break above $86,000 and why BTC derivatives showed limited short-term potential, potentially setting the tone for the next few days.

The premium on Bitcoin monthly futures contracts peaked at 6.5% on April 11 but has since dropped to 5%, which is near a neutral to bearish threshold. Sellers typically require a 5% to 10% annualized premium for longer settlement periods, so anything below this range indicates reduced interest from leveraged buyers.

Bitcoin sentiment dims as stock market ties dent bullish momentum

Traders’ brief excitement can be linked to President Trump’s April 13 announcement that tariffs on imported semiconductors would be reviewed during the week. This suggests that exemptions for smartphones and computers are not final, according to Yahoo Finance. Trump reportedly said: “We want to make our chips and semiconductors and other things in our country.”

Bitcoin traders experienced emotional swings during this period of fluctuating expectations. The performance of broader markets, particularly large technology companies reliant on global trade, appears to have influenced Bitcoin sentiment. The strong intraday correlation between Bitcoin and stock markets has dampened bullish enthusiasm, leaving open questions about whether this effect is limited to BTC futures.

To determine whether Bitcoin traders’ sentiment is merely mirroring trends in the S&P 500, it is helpful to examine the BTC options markets. If professional traders anticipate a significant price drop, the 25% delta skew indicator will rise above 6%, as put (sell) options become more expensive than call (buy) options.

On April 13, the Bitcoin options delta skew briefly dipped below 0%, signaling mild optimism. However, this momentum did not hold on April 14, reinforcing data from Bitcoin futures that show no significant bullish sentiment despite prices recovering from the $74,440 lows.

Weak spot Bitcoin ETF inflows also behind traders’ limited optimism

Another way to gauge market sentiment is by analyzing stablecoin demand in China. Strong retail interest in cryptocurrencies usually pushes stablecoins to trade at a premium of 2% or more above the official US dollar rate. In contrast, a premium below 0.5% often indicates fear as traders move away from crypto markets.

Related: Crypto markets ‘relatively orderly’ despite Trump tariff chaos: NYDIG

Between April 6 and April 11, Tether (USDT) in China traded at a 1.2% premium, reflecting moderate enthusiasm. However, this trend reversed, with the premium now at just 0.5%, suggesting that the earlier excitement has dissipated. Hence, traders remain cautious and show little confidence in Bitcoin surpassing $90,000 in the near term.

The announcement of Strategy’s $286 million Bitcoin acquisition at $82,618 failed to boost sentiment, as investors suspect that the recent temporary decoupling from stock market trends was largely driven by this purchase. Similarly, Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) saw $277 million in outflows between April 9 and April 11, further weakening any potential improvement in trader confidence.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Spot Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are set to launch in Canada on April 16, according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas. 

In an X post on April 14, the analyst shared a private client note from TD Bank, a Canadian financial institution, claiming the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) greenlighted asset managers Purpose, Evolve, CI and 3iQ to issue ETFs holding Solana (SOL).

The OSC did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Canada does not have a federal securities agency, with its territories and provinces applying their own securities laws. Toronto’s securities exchange is regulated by Ontario’s OSC.

The ETFs are permitted to stake a portion of the SOL holdings for added yield, Balchunas said, adding that the upcoming listings are “our first look at the alt coin race.” 

Related: SEC approves options on spot Ether ETFs

Waiting on US approval

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has acknowledged dozens of applications to list ETFs holding alternative cryptocurrencies, or “altcoins,” but so far has only approved funds holding spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) for trading. 

Staking is still off limits for US crypto ETFs. Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said Ether ETFs could be greenlighted to start staking as soon as May, but the process may take months longer. 

However, investors’ demand for altcoin ETFs may be weaker than for funds holding core cryptocurrencies, Katalin Tischhauser, crypto bank Sygnum’s research head, told Cointelegraph in August.

“[T]here is all this frothy excitement in the market about these ETFs coming, and no one can point to where substantial demand is going to come from,” Tischhauser told Cointelegraph. 

In March, asset manager Volatility Shares launched the first ETFs to track Solana’s performance using financial derivatives. 

Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ) has seen a lukewarm reception, attracting only around $5 million in net assets as of April 14, according to its website. 

“FWIW, the 2 solana ETFs in US (which track futures so not a perfect guinea pig) haven't done much. Very little in aum. The 2x XRP already has more aum than both the solana ETFs and it came out after,” Balchunas said. 

Balchunas added that he “[w]ouldn't read a ton into it” as a predictor for spot SOL ETFs. 

Magazine: Bitcoin eyes $100K by June, Shaq to settle NFT lawsuit, and more: Hodler’s Digest, April 6–12