DeFi Insurer Nexus Mutual Demands $2M Refund From Euler Hack Claimants_dog ate chocolate coins foil

New zkSync-based decentralized exchange Merlin was exploited for over $1.8 million during a public sale of its mage (MAGE) tokens. The attack occurred despite Merlin touting an audit conducted by blockchain security firm CertiK. On-chain data reveals that $1.82 million in total had been stolen, with the funds being bridged back to the Ethereum network before being converted to ether. The project garnered hype among Crypto Twitter users for its attractive yield offered on deposits. Merlin developers did not issue any statement regarding the funds drain on Wednesday at press time. CertiK's Twitter response to the loss of funds included plans for compensation, but the company has since deleted the tweet. The exploit was not a complex or sophisticated one, as blockchain data suggested that an entity with control of the liquidity pool was able to drain the funds easily. The total amount raised during the public sale will determine the final price of tokens for all users, developers said Tuesday. Arkham Intelligence provided on-chain data that revealed the funds were bridged back to the Ethereum network before being converted to ether.Ether (ETH) jumped to a nine-month high on Wednesday, with open interest in ether futures reaching $5.6 billion, as investors anticipate the upcoming 'Shapella' upgrade, which will allow for the withdrawal of staked ether. The development is expected to make staking more accessible to retail investors, who have been relying on liquid staking platforms to capture yields from staking ether on Ethereum nodes. Liquid staking tokens, such as LDO and RPL, have surged ahead of the upgrade, with the LSD sector jumping 6% on average. The broader crypto market capitalization rose by a relatively lesser 3%. The article highlights the growing interest in decentralized staking products and the potential for future growth in the sector.GMX, the most popular decentralized exchange on the Arbitrum layer 2 network, has launched version 2 of its trading platform, offering liquidity pools for riskier assets at lower fees. The new version expands the list of tradable assets to include alternative currencies such as dogecoin (DOGE) and offers annualized yields of up to 47%.nnThe initial model of GMX version 2 went live Thursday, attracting over $1.2 million for its liquidity pools in a muted launch. The platform allows users to trade spot and perpetual futures through an on-chain interface at low fees, with part of its recent popularity attributed to the rise of the Ethereum-based Arbitrum. nnThe new version of GMX will exist alongside the current platform, offering traders a service for betting on price movements of major tokens using leverage. Liquidity on V2 is provided through individual GMX Market, or GM, pools, with liquidity providers rewarded with a cut of fees earned from services such as leverage trading, borrowing, and swaps. nnInitial GM pools include solana (SOL), xrp (XRP), litecoin (LTC), dogecoin, and arbitrum (ARB) on the Arbitrum network, alongside SOL, XRP, LTC, and DOGE on the Avalanche network. A GM pool comprises long tokens, which back positions betting on higher prices, a short token, which bets on lower prices, and an index pool token. nnAs of Friday, GM pools for DOGE are paying out as much as 45% annualized, while the solana pool is paying 47%. The rates are subject to change. nnThe introduction of V2 could help GMX's prospects among traders in an increasingly competitive market. Ultimately, attractive rewards and increased revenues could drive value to GMX's namesake governance tokens (GMX). nnGMX locks up over $447 million on Arbitrum and $74 million on the Avalanche network, data from DefiLlama shows. The platform has traded over $117 billion worth of tokens and generated $184 million in fees for its Arbitrum users alone, data shows.

Crypto Twitter has a new obsession: Pepe the Frog meme coins. The token, which launched just three days ago, has already raked in $30 million in trading volumes and reached a market capitalization of $33 million. The token has gained over 21,000% in the past three days, with hopes of turning a profit pinning the token's popularity. The token has quickly gained popularity, with over 10,000 individual holders on Tuesday, according to data from blockchain tracker Etherscan. The tokens have a circulating supply of 420 trillion, a reference to '4/20,' another popular cannabis culture slang. The tokens have no connection to the actual Pepe the Frog meme or Matt Furie, the meme's original creator. Crypto Twitter has a history of jumping on memecoins, with tokens such as dogecoin and shiba inu gaining tens of billions in market capitalization in the previous bull market. However, most of these do not last beyond a few weeks. Professional investors have previously told CoinDesk that meme coins and their narratives will always remain a part of the crypto ecosystem. 'Meme trading is a risky way to try to seek excessive return, but when it pans out, the upside can be very huge. So even in a bear market, some of the meme coins will have large up-swing, even if it's just short term,' said James Wo, founder at crypto fund DFG. The premise doesn't matter: if there's money to be made peddling trendy topics, expect a market for it somewhere in niche 's**tcoin' circles.Bitcoin prices briefly spiked to $138,000 on crypto exchange Binance.US earlier today before immediately reverting to normal levels. The sudden price wick was likely due to low liquidity for bitcoin against tether on the exchange, according to market depth data. The move was unlikely to have been caused by a trader wanting to pay a nearly 450% premium for bitcoin, which currently exchanges hands for just over $29,000 in European morning hours on Wednesday. Market depth data shows a $400,000 bitcoin buy on this trading pair can increase prices by 2%, compared to a minimum of $842,000 for the same impact on a bitcoin/USD trade pair. Binance.US's market depth has dropped 76% compared to May, suggesting market makers and traders have fled from the exchange. The bizarre wick is a reminder of the volatility and unpredictability of cryptocurrency markets.Coco, a new crypto casino inspired by the Milady NFT project, has made a cracking debut on the Ethereum blockchain. According to etherscan data, the platform's native token (COCO) has surged to 8 cents, giving it a market capitalization of $8.8 million. The casino has already hit $36 million in transaction volume in the first 12 hours after its release. nnThe platform features a slot machine focused on popular memecoins pepe (PEPE) and dogecoin (DOGE), as well as three traditional casino table games in blackjack, baccarat, and casino hold'em. Coco brands itself as 'provably fair,' using the SHA256 algorithm to ensure that each game is tamper-proof. nnThe success of Coco has also had an impact on other crypto casinos, with Rollbit's native token (RLB) rising to 7 cents from 2 cents. The stable market this month has led to increased traction for crypto casinos like Rollbit and Coco. nnHowever, VanEck CEO Gabor Gurbacs does not think that Bitcoin ETFs will be approved by the SEC in May. He believes that the 'dominant narrative' driving Bitcoin's 2024 rally is not the ETFs, but rather the increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies and the growth of decentralized finance. nnMeanwhile, the supply of inactive Bitcoin for a year has dropped to an 18-month low, according to Glassnode. This could be a sign that the current Bitcoin rally may continue after the halving. nnIn other news, Eisenberg's $110 million fraud trial has opened, and the Foundation for the Study of Innovative Technologies (FSI) has called for consistency in stablecoin regulation. nnAs the wider crypto market continues to stagnate with a lack of volatility, crypto traders are frequently turning their attention to on-chain betting platforms like last week's phenomenon; hamster racing. The success of Coco and Rollbit suggests that crypto casinos may be the next big thing in the cryptocurrency space.

Trading volume for Blur has increased by 1,240% in the past 24-hours after it was listed on Upbit. The magnitude of the rally represents a shift in sentiment from three weeks ago when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) went on the offensive against altcoins that it labelled securities. With Bitcoin trading comfortably above $30,000, traders are beginning to flock to lower liquidity trading pairs. Arbitrum, meanwhile, has surged by 33.2% in the past 12-days as activity on the layer 2 blockchain continues to mount. Total value locked (TVL) on Arbitrum-based platforms like GMX and Radiant has increased by 12.5% and 9.3% in the past seven days, according to DefiLlama. Open interest, which is a metric that assesses the amount of open derivatives positions on a specific asset, is resting at a yearly high on bitcoin cash (BCH) markets, suggesting that investors are backing the recent rally with leverage.Chainlink's LINK token has seen a significant surge in value this week, with wealthy investors swapping ether for link following the release of the company's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP). On-chain data shows that some whales have added upward of $6 million to their link holdings, lifting prices as much as 6%. The increased demand has helped extend weekly gains to over 25%. CCIP is designed to help build cross-chain applications and services, and is now available to all developers across five testnets. Prices of other oracle protocols, such as Band Protocol and Uma, have also risen in the past 24 hours. Oracles are blockchain-based services that fetch data from outside a blockchain, and Chainlink's CCIP is a significant development in the space. The article is well-written and provides a clear overview of the current state of the market and the impact of Chainlink's release.Aerodrome, a product by Velodrome in collaboration with Base developers, has attracted over $150 million from users just a day after going live on Base. The platform hopes to act as a 'business development protocol' for the Base ecosystem, supporting projects as they launch, onboarding new projects and tokens, and generating liquidity for the ecosystem. Aerodrome rewards its AERO tokens to platform users who provide liquidity, conduct swaps, or participate in governance. The platform's creators hope to emulate the apparent success of Velodrome, one of Optimism network's most used platforms which holds over $288 million in locked value. The approach seems to be working so far, with Velodrome generating platform revenues of over $3 million in the past month. Aerodrome's features create a flywheel of liquidity, as users are attracted to rewards, purchase more AERO, and keep the platform running by continually voting on which project's tokens to support, add, and further reward. The platform's locked veAERO are represented as NFTs, which can then be traded on different NFT marketplaces. Users can use the veAERO tokens to take part in platform governance and help set the reward levels of trading pools offered on the platform. In return, these voters receive 100% of all fees and bribes received by the specific pools that they voted for.

Investors are flocking to meme coins like Pepecoin (PEPE) and other newly issued tokens in the hopes of replicating the success of the controversial cryptocurrency. However, the trend has the potential to disrupt the huge rallies bitcoin and ether have seen this year. Despite the shocking magnitude of PEPE's rise, finding the next big meme coin is next to impossible, with every winner surrounded by the ashes of many failures. On-chain data makes it easy to track whale activity, and several newly issued meme tokens have surpassed PEPE in trading volume over the past weekend. The meme coin trend has essentially created a black hole that sucks liquidity out of the market, potentially impediment for other cryptocurrencies like bitcoin (BTC) or ether (ETH).Conic Finance, a new tool for capturing yields from the prominent stablecoin swapping service Curve, has attracted over $60 million in deposits just over a week after launch. The platform offers unlocked yield rewards to users by diversifying exposure across the Curve ecosystem while increasing rewards. Each omnipool allocates liquidity of a single asset into different Curve pools, boosting CRV rewards earnings and providing up to 21% annualized yields on USDC, DAI, and FRAX. Holders can lock their CNC tokens for vlCNC to participate in Conic governance and directly control how liquidity is allocated across Curve pools. The high yields offered by Conic could generate value for its own CNC token, making it an attractive option for traders looking to earn yields without locking up their tokens for long time periods. Curve uses smart contracts to offer an efficient way to exchange stablecoins while maintaining low fees and low slippage, and depositors on Curve earn annual yields of up to 4% from one of the many pools on the platform. veCRV allows users to participate in platform governance, earn higher rewards and fees, and receive airdrops, but it effectively locks up liquidity, creating opportunity costs for users. Protocols like Conic offer a solution to this issue, allowing users to gain exposure to the Curve ecosystem without locking up their tokens for long time periods.A new report by on-chain analytics firm Santiment suggests that pepecoin (PEPE) may face challenges in its rise to the top of meme coins due to the absence of retail investors. Despite its stellar rise to a $1.5 billion market cap in a few weeks, pepecoin's trading volume of $2 billion is significantly lower than that of shiba inu (SHIB) and dogecoin (DOGE) during their peak. The report notes that retail participation in the market for PEPE is far less than what DOGE and SHIB experienced in previous years, which could result in dwindling volumes for meme coin projects among retail traders. However, PEPE's social volume within the crypto media is on par with DOGE and SHIB during their peak periods. Some pepecoin holders remain bullish on the token's potential, citing its popularity among influential Crypto Twitter users and the general populace. Despite the challenges, the report suggests that PEPE has untapped potential for growth when overall market conditions are better.

Meme coins have outperformed the broader crypto markets in recent days, but some say profit-taking could reverse the rally. Tokens fashioned after the Shiba Inu dog breed may see imminent selling ahead after days of outperforming the broader crypto market. On Monday, Twitter, a social-media company owned by billionaire and crypto proponent Elon Musk, replaced its popular blue bird logo with that of Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu mascot. Dogecoin (DOGE) prices surged almost immediately – with its futures markets setting a record – as some bet on the increased use of dogecoin on Twitter's platform. That rise caused several other Shiba Inu-themed meme coins to jump multifold, with the sector rising 14% on average. Tokens with larger market caps such as shiba inu (SHIB) rose up to 10%, while smaller-cap coins such as floki (FLOKI), kishu inu (KISHU) and baby dogecoin (BABYDOGE) surged as much as 25%. Meme coins on newer blockchains had their moment, as well. Some dog-themed tokens, such as zkDoge and zkShib on the zkSync blockchain, which went live in March, registered gains of as much as 100%. However, some traders warn that such moves don't indicate a broader trend. 'We do not believe that it is indicative of a long-term bull run. Quite the opposite', Guilhem Chaumont, CEO of crypto trading firm Flowdesk, said in a Telegram message. 'There is a regular pattern of crypto market uptrends with first, bitcoin going through a bull run, then major altcoins pumping, and finally, tokens with small market caps.' Since bitcoin has been experiencing a relatively stable upward trend, meme coins’ rise would indicate the third phase, the end of the cycle. But there is no need to over-interpret such momentary price changes. The sentiment for meme coins is not a new one, and this means there is a high potential that the growth will fade off as usual in a few days, Bonnie Cheung, head of strategy at crypto developer Sending Labs, said. However, there could still be long-term growth for these tokens if fundamental features strengthen in the coming months. Shiba Inu, for instance, is gaining additional traction through the launch of Shibarium, its layer-2 protocol built on the Ethereum blockchain. Dogecoin’s recognition by Twitter and the payment world is also growing, and these trends can help record more sustained growth over the long term. A testnet for Shiba Inu’s upcoming Shibarium platform has seen brisk adoption. Elsewhere, projects like Floki are actively developing games and decentralized-finance tools to cut free from the 'meme coin' tag – at least as far as developer efforts go. Meanwhile, some opine that Twitter’s move could pave the way for mainstream crypto adoption. 'Musk’s supportive tweets and the recent decision to add the Dogecoin logo to Twitter help keep both DOGE and SHIB in the public conversation', Kadan Stadelmann, the chief technology officer of blockchain network Komodo, said in an email to CoinDesk. 'Regardless of whether or not one supports meme coins, it's impossible to deny that Musk is driving mainstream adoption of crypto and creating media attention that wouldn't otherwise exist. This is certainly a net positive for the crypto space as a whole.'Ethereum scaling blockchain zkSync Era has attracted over $245 million in around three weeks after launch, as investors search for the next big bets to place on newer projects building on upstart networks. Data from L2Beat, which tracks activity on layer 2 networks built on top of the Ethereum blockchain, shows over 70,000 ether (ETH), $81 million in USD coin (USDC) stablecoin, and $8 million in mute (MUTE) tokens have been locked on zkSync since March 22, when the network first launched. zkSync Era has seen an uptick in token value flowing to the network. DefiLlama data shows on-chain exchange Syncswap leads in total value locked (TVL) among Era-based services, with over $64 million. It is followed by Velocore at $25 million and Mute at $15 million. Users can earn up to 80% in annualized rewards by providing liquidity or executing trades on these platforms – which may be driving capital to Era leading to value accrual for tokens such as mute, issued by the Mute DEX. On-chain derivatives trading has not caught up among Era users so far, data suggests. Era-based Onchain Trade, a derivatives decentralized exchange (DEX), holds just over $2 million in TVL and has seen zero volumes for futures in the past 24 hours. Spot trading on the DEX, however, has racked up $600,000 in volume. Meanwhile, some meme coins fashioned after the Shiba Inu dog breed – on which popular tokens dogecoin (DOGE) and shiba inu (SHIB) are based – are seeing cycles of brisk price surges followed by a dump, DEXTools data shows. More than 7 million transactions have been conducted on the network since launch, and the network can process 3.5 transactions per second. ZkSync is named after the so-called ZK-rollups, which are a type of blockchain scaling system based on cryptography known as zero-knowledge proofs. These features are seen as a key advance in speeding up blockchain transactions and reducing the cost of network activity. Edited by Oliver Knight.Crypto traders are turning to over-the-counter (OTC) markets to source elusive liquidity following a regulatory crackdown that has resulted in a substantial decrease in market depth on centralized exchanges. OTC demand has been steadily on the rise since the collapse of FTX in November, with subsequent spikes being attributed to the collapse of several crypto lenders last year and more recently the SEC's decision to sue Binance. Market depth is a metric that measures liquidity by assessing how much capital would be required to move an asset in either direction, typically measured at a spread of 2%. Last month, Jane Street and Jump, two prominent market makers, announced that they were at very least reducing their trading activity, compounding the liquidity woes that had been felt since FTX's collapse. As a result, the OTC market, which allows traders to conduct large transactions without needing to go to an exchange, looks to be becoming more prevalent. We've been receiving a lot more [OTC] demand, spreads are tight due to daily recurring flow we have on both sides from payment providers, brokers and algorithmic traders. This trend is eerily reminiscent of the time after Mt Gox, the largest crypto exchange at the time, got hacked and subsequently ceased operations in 2014. Despite the largest exchange falling, the demand for digital assets continued, with peer-to-peer markets on exchanges like LocalBitcoins emerging as the champions of the 2014 bear market. But as crypto continued to thrust itself into the world of traditional finance, the stature of firms getting involved in the industry began to notably increase. By 2020, counterparties would no longer be an arbitrage trader on LocalBitcoins, and publicly-listed companies like MicroStrategy dealt directly with Nasdaq-listed exchange Coinbase. This week the world's largest asset manager, BlackRock, filed for a spot bitcoin ETF as it attempts to create a secure investment vehicle for funds and trading firms to gain crypto exposure. But until that is approved by the increasingly combative SEC, traders will have to turn back to OTC deals.