Crypto

SEC chair Paul Atkins is under fire from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who says he “may have been deliberately trying” to mislead Congress about the agency’s enforcement activity. US Senator Elizabeth Warren has accused Paul Atkins, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, of possibly lying to Congress about the agency’s enforcement numbers. Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, said in a letter to Atkins dated Wednesday that the SEC’s enforcement data for fiscal year 2025, released on April 7, raised “significant concerns” about his answers at a Feb. 12 congressional hearing. “At the hearing, I specifically asked you to comment on publicly available data highlighting a decline in SEC enforcement activity,” Warren said. “In response, you demurred, stating that you were ‘not sure what data’ I was looking at.” Read more

The attack caused a "cross-protocol contagion" that has impacted at least nine crypto protocols, blockchain security firm Cyvers said. Kelp, a liquid restaking protocol, was the victim of a cyber attack on Saturday, causing the platform to pause smart contracts for its restaking token (rsETH), as it “investigates” the attack amid reports of hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. “Earlier today, we identified suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH. We have paused rsETH contracts across mainnet and several Layer-2s,” the Kelp platform said in an X post. The attacker exploited the rsETH adapter bridge contract, the software code that manages Kelp’s rsETH token, and drained the platform of about $293 million in funds, according to blockchain security firm Cyvers. Read more

Washington isn't trying to solve every crypto policy fight at once, but it appears to be carving out a workable path for one specific category of digital asset: the regulated, dollar-pegged stablecoin. The GENIUS Act established the first federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, and a bipartisan House tax discussion draft now proposes friendlier tax […] The post Congress on verge of making regulated dollar stablecoins act almost like digital cash appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Hackers drained Grinex wallets and moved funds through SunSwap into TRX before consolidating assets into a single TRON address.

An attacker drained 116,500 rsETH, roughly 18% of circulating supply, from Kelp's LayerZero-powered bridge on Saturday, triggering emergency freezes across Aave, SparkLend, Fluid and Upshift.

SOL’s steady recovery alongside the wider crypto market has traders debating whether $100 could be the next stop for the altcoin. Key takeaways: Solana maintains its market dominance in DEX volume and TVL despite SOL’s underperformance versus its peers. Easing sell pressure from volatile geopolitics and a resurgence in memecoin activity could catalyze a SOL price rally to $100. Read more

Strategy aim to reduce volatility, enable consistent bitcoin buying, and create the only bi-monthly paying preferred shares in the market.

Alcoa is in advanced negotiations to sell its dormant Massena East smelter in upstate New York to Bitcoin mining firm NYDIG.

The average block time at publication is about 9.8 minutes, falling slightly short of the 10-minute block target, according to CoinWarz. The Bitcoin (BTC) mining difficulty, the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the BTC blockchain, fell on Saturday, amid public mining companies selling record amounts of BTC to cover operating expenses. The Bitcoin mining difficulty fell to about 135.5 T, a modest decrease of about 1.1% over the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinWarz. Mining difficulty is also projected to increase in the next adjustment period. CoinWarz said: Bitcoin miners have faced mounting challenges over the past year, as reduced block rewards, rising energy prices, a crypto bear market and geopolitical shocks create economic headwinds for miners.  Read more

Zac Prince, head of Galaxy’s retail platform, said he struggles to see prediction markets in diversified portfolios for long-term investors.

For most of its life, crypto lived outside the financial system. If you wanted to move dollars in or out of an exchange, that money still had to pass through a regular bank somewhere along the way. Most people assumed it would stay that way until Washington finally decided how to regulate it. But that […] The post Crypto to enter the US banking system through a backdoor, not through regulation appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Alongside the milestone, stablecoin issuance also expanded, pushing the total supply on Ethereum to about $180 billion during the quarter.

AI companies raised $242 billion (80% of global venture funding) in early 2026, with Gartner projecting total AI spending will reach $2.52 trillion this year.

The Iranian government chose Bitcoin as a payment method for oil tolls due to its confiscation-resistant properties, but only dollar stablecoins have been used so far. Iran’s government naming Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment method for oil ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz highlights its role as a neutral, strategic asset, according to Sam Lyman, head of research at digital asset advocacy organization Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI).  The government selected BTC as one of the payment methods for the tolls because of its censorship-resistant qualities, Lyman told Cointelegraph. He said:  Iran is accepting oil tolls in Chinese yuan, US dollar-pegged stablecoins and BTC. However, there is “no onchain evidence” of a BTC toll payment so far, Lyman said, adding that the “majority” of Iran’s crypto transactions are denominated in US dollar stablecoins. Read more

Kevin Warsh is set to become the first Federal Reserve chair with disclosed crypto holdings, and the first whose policy instincts could still squeeze the sector harder than his predecessors. Most Americans don't follow Fed personnel drama closely, but they feel its aftershocks every month through mortgage rates, savings yields, and the temperature of equity […] The post Why Kevin Warsh should become Bitcoin’s most impactful Fed chair yet appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Meanwhile, the underlying asset surged to a multi-week peak of its own before it was rejected at $1.50.

Nearly 90% of RAVE's supply was concentrated in just three wallets, and millions of tokens were transferred to exchanges before the price surge.

Shell argues the network is fixable and proposes a different framing to the recent quantum debate.

The PI token is close to dropping out of the top 50 alts by market cap after the latest rejection.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their largest single-day capital inflow since January on April 17, as the reopening of a critical Middle Eastern shipping route sparked a broader market rotation into risk assets. According to SoSoValue data, the 12 products drew approximately $664 million in fresh capital on April 17. The surge was […] The post US Bitcoin ETFs pull in $664M in largest daily inflow since January, because Iran reopened Hormuz for a few hours appeared first on CryptoSlate.