The U.S. military acknowledges running Bitcoin nodes. Circle initiates a proposal on Aave.

Bitcoin

Balancer hacker exchanges 1,100 ETH for BTC

On April 24, according to Lookonchain monitoring, the Balancer attacker has become active again after a 5-month period of dormancy. Previously, it stole nearly $120 million in funds. It is currently laundering money by converting ETH to BTC through THORChain. Within the past hour, the attacker has transferred 1,100 ETH (about $2.55 million) and is converting it into BTC.

Metaplanet issues 8 billion yen zero-coupon bonds to increase Bitcoin holdings

On April 24, according to market news, Japan’s Bitcoin treasury company MetaPlanet issued 8 billion yen (about $53 million) zero-coupon ordinary bonds. 100% of the funds raised will be used to increase Bitcoin holdings, continuing the aggressive “Japanese MicroStrategy” strategy of buying more coins.

Santiment: Bitcoin market sentiment shifts from extreme pessimism to extreme FOMO, with room for further upside

On April 24, Santiment posted on X that Bitcoin market sentiment has sharply shifted from Monday’s extreme pessimism to Thursday’s extreme FOMO mode.
As Bitcoin was pressured and pulled back from the $80,000 level and bearish market fear—FUD—spread through the market, this appeared to be a free-fall sell signal. But that was precisely an obvious buy signal; today, the coin price rebounded quickly and moved above $78.7k.
Now the coin price is testing the $80,000 level again, and the market’s FOMO-driven chase-rally sentiment is heating up significantly—this is a clear warning signal.
The market still has room to move higher. Once this key resistance level is effectively broken, it will attract many new traders to enter and bring back old capital. However, the most ideal scenario is for the breakout to occur after market optimism cools slightly.

U.S. military admits it is running a Bitcoin node

On April 23, U.S. Indo-Pacific Commander General Samuel Paparo admitted during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee that the U.S. military is running a Bitcoin node—not for mining, but to monitor the network and conduct a series of operational tests to ensure the security of networks that use the Bitcoin protocol. Paparo said the U.S. military is using Bitcoin nodes to protect network security. The U.S. military’s interest in Bitcoin is that it serves as a cryptographic tool, blockchain, and reusable proof-of-work mechanism, which can act as an auxiliary means to secure network security and project power. He also said that Bitcoin has a direct impact on national security and supports any initiatives that help maintain the U.S. dollar’s global dominance.

CryptoQuant CEO: Bitcoin is often closer to the bottom when it looks the least attractive

On April 23, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju shared his latest view: Bitcoin is often closer to the bottom when it appears the least attractive. This contrarian judgment closely aligns with historical cycle bottom characteristics.

Ethereum

Ethereum Foundation to sell 10,000 ETH to BitMine

On April 24, the Ethereum Foundation announced that it has finalized an over-the-counter (OTC) sale of 10,000 ETH to BitMine, Ethereum’s first treasury company. The average price is $2,387 per ETH.

DeFi United coordinated by Aave receives a rescue of 43.5k ETH

On April 24, on-chain analyst Yu Yan monitored that Aave coordinated the creation of “DeFi United” to recover rsETH rescue. It has obtained 30,000 ETH in loans (from Mantle) and 13,500 ETH in donations (from Aave founders, Etherfi, Lido, etc.), which has covered 43.5k ETH worth of rsETH (the total rsETH loss is 68.9k ETH). This has indeed had a relatively clear effect on restoring confidence in Aave: in the past few hours, funds on Aave have not continued flowing out. The total deposits on Aave are now $28.6 billion, down $17.2 billion from before the rsETH incident. If funds do not continue to flow out, the rsETH incident has caused a 37% loss of funds from Aave.

Tether mints 1 billion USDT on the Ethereum network

On April 21, according to Onchainlens monitoring, Tether minted 1 billion USDT on the Ethereum network. In addition, over the past two days, Tether has cumulatively minted 2 billion USDT on the Ethereum network.

Other Projects

Morgan Stanley launches a stablecoin reserve investment portfolio

On April 24, according to market news, Morgan Stanley has officially launched Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio (a stablecoin reserve investment portfolio). It is a government money market fund designed specifically for stablecoin issuers, to meet the compliance requirements for stablecoin reserves under the U.S. “GENIUS Act.”

Sooth Labs plans to raise about $50 million to develop event prediction AI models

On April 23, the AI lab Sooth Labs, founded by former Meta employees, is raising about $50 million, led by Felicis Ventures, with a post-money valuation of about $335 million. The company plans to develop AI models to predict the probabilities of specific geopolitical events and market events for enterprises. Sooth Labs has also received support from Yann LeCun and Google’s Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, with Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth serving as an advisor.

Fu Peng: Traditional financial institutions will accelerate into the crypto market; stablecoin payments and Bitcoin financialization will open a new chapter

On April 23, Fu Peng, Chief Economist of Xinhuo Group, delivered a speech at the 2026 Hong Kong Institutional Digital Wealth Management Summit. He said that the integration of traditional financial institutions with the crypto asset market will herald the arrival of a new era for the market, and that the participants who truly can make their future possible are those who complete their transformation rapidly at crucial turning points.
Taking the synchronous rise of Cold War-era 70s–80s, the oil crisis, and computers and semiconductor technologies as examples, Fu Peng pointed out that technological progress and turmoil in the world’s order often move in parallel, with risks and opportunities always going hand in hand. He believes that AI and data computing power have now been widely recognized as the core productive forces of the next era, meaning the “first half” of the crypto industry has basically ended and the industry is in a critical stage of reconfiguration and rebirth.
Looking ahead, Fu Peng expects stablecoins to take on payment functions, while Bitcoin will evolve into a core asset with both value storage and financially “financialized” trading attributes, as a brand-new chapter is about to begin.

Circle proposes to Aave governance to raise the maximum USDC deposit interest rate to 48.2%

On April 23, Circle Chief Economist Gordon Liao submitted a proposal at the Aave governance forum, suggesting an emergency adjustment to the USDC interest rate parameters in the Aave V3 Ethereum main pool, to address the extremely high condition where the pool’s utilization rate has remained at 99.87% for four consecutive days following the KelpDAO attack.
Liao said that Aave’s current interest rate mechanism is unable to effectively “clear” the market. The pool currently has a supply size of $1.89 billion and a borrowing size of $1.89 billion as well, with available liquidity of less than $3 million. The borrow interest rate has stayed at the upper limit (about 14%) after the inflection point, and over the past 24 hours, the pool’s size has shrunk by about $60 million because repayment funds were used, one by one, to meet queued withdrawal needs.
Therefore, the Slope2 parameter in the USDC deposit rate curve should be increased immediately from about 10% to 40% via the Risk Steward mechanism, and within 5 to 7 days, governance should confirm further raising the target to 50% through a governance vote. Meanwhile, during the transition phase, Optimal Utilization will be reduced from 92% to 87%, and after final confirmation, it will be reduced to 85%. According to Liao’s proposal, under the new parameter settings, when utilization reaches 100%, the maximum USDC deposit interest rate will increase from about 12.6% to 48.2%.

Digital bank Revolut IPO valuation could reach as high as $200 billion

Citing information disclosed by anonymous investor sources, the Financial Times reports that UK digital bank Revolut plans to seek a valuation of $150 billion to $200 billion in its future IPO, a major increase from its prior $75 billion valuation. Revolut’s CEO ONik Storonsky also revealed that Revolut is preparing for another round of secondary share sales in the second half of 2026, with a valuation that may exceed $100 billion.

Post-Kelp security incident statistics: nearly half of LayerZero OApps still use 1-of-1 DVN configuration

After the KelpDAO attack incident, Dune analyzed and counted the DVN security configurations of all active LayerZero OApps over the past 90 days. The results show that among approximately 2,665 independent contracts, about 47% adopt the lowest security level 1-of-1 DVN configuration, 45% use 2-of-2, and about 5% use 3-of-3 or higher configurations.
The analysis points out that KelpDAO’s rsETH also belongs to the 1-of-1 configuration category, highlighting the widespread lack of sufficient security redundancy design in cross-chain applications.