Law and Order

The Department of Justice ended its criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, removing a key obstacle that had blocked Senate action on Kevin Warsh's nomination as the next central bank leader. The DOJ probe centered on alleged cost overruns during a $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed's Washington headquarters. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis, who serves on the Senate Banking Committee, had vowed to block any confirmation vote until investigators closed th...

Law and Order

Benjamin Pasternak, founder of the Solana-based token launchpad Believe, was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of second-degree strangulation and two counts of third-degree assault with intent to cause physical injury over a March 31 incident. Pasternak has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to return to court June 11, per court records in the New York State Unified Court System. The arrest comes as Pasternak faces civil allegations, as well. A class action lawsuit filed March 23 in...

Markets

Crypto investment products posted their strongest weekly inflows since January, adding $1.4 billion as Bitcoin broke out of a two-month trading range amid ceasefire optimism and cooling inflation data. Digital asset funds saw their third consecutive week of positive flows, with total assets under management reaching $155 billion, according to a CoinShares report published Monday. The weekly inflow represents 0.91% of total AuM, the highest intensity year-to-date. Digital asset investment produc...

Business

Vercel’s CEO said a “highly sophisticated,” potentially AI-assisted hacking group was behind a recent security incident that exposed some customer credentials following a breach of internal systems. “We believe the attacking group to be highly sophisticated and, I strongly suspect, significantly accelerated by AI,” CEO Guillermo Rauch tweeted, adding that the attackers “moved with surprising velocity and in-depth understanding of Vercel.” Here's my update to the broader community about the ongo...

Business

For Galaxy’s retail investment platform, enabling customers to bet on the news isn’t a priority, according to Zac Prince, head of GalaxyOne. Rather, the service that debuted in October is being built in a way that’s intended to reward investors’ patience, he told Decrypt. Within the context of Galaxy’s broader business, Prince said the financial services and investment management firm is already in a good place as far as prediction markets are concerned, providing institutional clients with inte...

Markets

The prominent Ripple-linked cryptocurrency XRP is now live for use on Solana, letting individual users and institutions alike gain access to the token on the layer-1 blockchain via a wrapped token issued by Hex Trust.  The initiative, first announced in December, will open up the utility of XRP beyond the XRP Ledger, expanding its use in market-making and decentralized finance (DeFi) to Solana.  More than 834,000 XRP, or around $1.2 million worth of the token, has already been wrapped and activa...

Law and Order

USDC issuer Circle has been hit with a class action lawsuit from Drift Protocol investors who lost money during the April 1 exploit that saw $285 million drained from the the Solana DeFi platform. The suit, filed on April 14, accuses Circle Internet Financial of failing to freeze stolen funds during the exploit. Drift Protocol's $285 Million Exploit on Solana Raises Questions Over DeFi Security The lawsuit centers on an eight-hour window during which attackers moved $232 million in USDC from Sol...

DeFi

Drift Protocol said Thursday that it is aligning itself with Tether as the stablecoin issuer supports recovery efforts linked to an exploit that cost users $285 million in crypto earlier this month. In an announcement, the decentralized exchange said it is set to receive $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from other partners, under a framework that includes a revenue-linked credit facility, an ecosystem grant, and loans to market makers. As part of the arrangement, Drift Protocol plans t...

Markets

President Donald Trump is set to host another in-person event for his meme coin holders later this month at Mar-a-Lago, but in perhaps a sign of times, the price to attend is considerably lower than it was last year. The team behind President Trump’s Solana-based token, which trades as TRUMP, finalized the list of attendees on Tuesday, with the guest list based on a leaderboard tied to token holdings and other factors. Last time around, a select group of attendees attained “VIP” status by each...

Law and Order

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve disclosed a vast fortune Tuesday worth well over $100 million, which includes numerous investments in the crypto sector and other emerging tech startups. Kevin Warsh, a former Fed governor with deep Wall Street ties, was required to disclose his personal finances as part of his Senate confirmation process. His filing reveals a significant net worth. Warsh has $100 million parked in a single investment fund, for instance—one of dozens...

Markets

The Solana meme coin inspired by viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng (MOODENG) is up 6.5% in the last 24 hours amid news that a man that intruded on the animal’s enclosure has been fined for the act.  The man, who was reportedly fined $300 for unlawfully entering the area, was found guilty by a local Thai court after being arrested in March.  In a video shared following the arrest, a male can be seen hopping a fence at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo when no staff were around Moo Deng’s quarters. He holds what...

Markets

Solana decentralized exchange Stabble has urged users to pull liquidity from the platform, leading to a 62% drop in its total value locked (TVL) Tuesday after the firm learned its former chief technology officer was flagged as an alleged North Korean hacker.  The protocol, which was recently taken over by a new team, began the day with around $1.75 million in TVL, according to data from DeFiLlama. After publicly sounding the alarm to a potential emergency, that value is down to less than $663,0...

Technology

Nearly a week after a prominent Solana-based decentralized exchange was hit with a $285 million hack that’s been linked to North Korean hackers, the Solana Foundation has revealed plans to help secure the network’s largest DeFi protocols. The Solana Foundation and Asymmetric Research launched STRIDE, a tiered security program that provides 24/7 threat monitoring for DeFi protocols with over $10 million in total value locked (TVL). For protocols with over $100 million TVL, the Foundation will of...

Law and Order

Argentine President Javier Milei's ties to the collapsed LIBRA meme coin may run deeper than he has acknowledged, with newly surfaced phone logs showing seven calls between Milei and a key figure behind the token on the night of its launch. Milei promoted the Solana-based token on X in February 2025, sending its market cap above $4 billion before it crashed over 90% within hours as insiders drained roughly $87 million in liquidity. The collapse cost investors an estimated $250 million and trigg...

Markets

Crypto’s leading altcoins have fallen far from all-time highs notched last year, but their recent resilience indicates that downward pressure could be abating, according to Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl. In a blog post published on Thursday, Pandl wrote that the crypto asset manager “can’t be sure that crypto markets have bottomed.” In an interview with Decrypt on Monday, however, he expressed positive sentiment toward the performance of altcoins amid geopolitical turmoil. “Altcoins are...

Opinion

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our new daily news show covering all of the top stories in 5 minutes or less, downloadable on Apple Pod or Spotify. GM! Today’s top news: Crypto majors jump on speculation of ceasefire; BTC +4% at $69,500 Drift requests talks with NK hackers after $280M exploit Schwab is bringing crypto spot trading to its $12T platform Coin...

DeFi

Solana-based decentralized exchange Drift Protocol said on Sunday the attack that drained roughly $285 million from the platform was a structured six-month intelligence operation by a North Korean state-affiliated threat group. The attackers used fabricated professional identities, in-person conference meetings, and malicious developer tools to compromise contributors before executing the drain, the protocol said in a detailed incident update. https://t.co/qYBMCup9i6 — Drift (@DriftProtocol) Ap...

DeFi

Finding the group or individuals that stole $285 million worth of crypto from Drift earlier this week may be a tough task in the real world, but the team behind the Solana-based decentralized exchange knew exactly where to find its attackers on-chain. On Friday, Drift said in a post on X that it had sent messages on Ethereum’s network to four wallets holding massive amounts of stolen crypto, which several security experts have begun linking to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: “We are r...

DeFi

When millions of dollars in crypto are swiped from a decentralized finance protocol, tough questions often follow—and Drift Protocol’s $285 million exploit on Wednesday is no different. The Solana-based project has been thrust into the spotlight as researchers and experts pore over its design, raising questions about whether certain design features or procedures could’ve prevented someone from pulling off one of the most lucrative DeFi attacks in the recent past. In a post on X, Drift said a mal...

Markets

An April Fool’s day joke concerning the death of a nearly 200-year-old tortoise named Jonathan caused a stir on the internet Wednesday. The hoax, perpetrated by an individual claiming to be the veterinarian that cared for the tortoise, posted about the purported demise of the world’s oldest living land mammal on Wednesday. After being picked up by multiple news outlets and ultimately debunked, the individual later confirmed it was an April Fool’s Day joke, mocking the publications and users who...