News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News Aave provided an update on the rsETH incident via the X platform, stating that the WETH reserve on the Ethereum Core V3 market has been unfrozen. Users can now supply WETH again, although its Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio remains set at 0.Meanwhile, the WETH reserves on the Ethereum Prime, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle, and Linea networks are still frozen. Aave stated that the relevant service providers will continue to advance subsequent handling and will provide synchronized updates on the progress.
Aave risk service provider LlamaRisk has released an incident report: On April 18, 2026, the attacker exploited a vulnerability in Kelp’s LayerZero V2 Unichain-to-Ethereum rsETH routing (a 1-of-1 DVN configuration flaw), forged inbound packets, and illicitly released 116,500 rsETH from the Ethereum-side adapter. Of these, 89,567 rsETH were deposited as collateral into multiple Aave V3 markets—including Ethereum Core and Arbitrum—enabling the borrowing of approximately 82,650 WETH (valued at ~$191 million) and 821 wstETH. Currently, only 40,373 rsETH remain in the adapter, while the total claimable rsETH on the remote chain stands at 152,577—creating a substantial shortfall. Depending on the loss allocation methodology, Aave faces two potential bad-debt scenarios: - Scenario 1 (global pro-rata allocation): Estimated bad debt of ~$123.7 million, with Ethereum Core bearing the greatest pressure; - Scenario 2 (loss confined to L2s): Estimated bad debt of ~$230.1 million, with Mantle facing a WETH reserve shortfall of up to 71.45% and Arbitrum facing a 26.67% shortfall. Following the incident, Aave Protocol Guardians and Risk Administrators immediately froze rsETH/wrsETH reserves across all 11 affected markets.
According to NADA NEWS, JPYC, the issuer and operator of the Japanese yen-pegged stablecoin JPYC, announced that it has raised an additional $17.62 million in the second closing of its Series B funding round. Combined with the first closing, the total funds raised are expected to reach approximately $28.93 million. Participating investors include NCB Venture Capital, Metaplanet, Kitao Bank, and Yokohama Capital, among others. The newly raised capital will be primarily used for system and application development, hiring talent for business expansion, stablecoin issuance and redemption, trading, payments, management-related operations, and new strategic investments. JPYC stated that, as of April 15, its cumulative issuance has exceeded approximately $13.21 million. The stablecoin is currently supported on Avalanche, Ethereum, and Polygon, and the company is considering adding support for Kaia and Arc.
According to The Asian Banker, OCBC Bank Singapore and its asset management arm Lion Global Investors have announced plans to issue the physical gold fund token GOLDX Token on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. OCBC Bank will support the design of the token issuance architecture, while Lion Global Investors will provide the underlying fund’s investment framework and governance structure.
According to an official announcement, Coinbase has launched its crypto-backed lending service in the UK, enabling users to borrow USDC in under one minute using BTC, ETH, and cbETH as collateral. The service is powered by Morpho, an open-source lending protocol built on Base. Coinbase stated that this product first launched in the U.S. in January 2025. As of April 14, 2026, loans facilitated via Coinbase’s integration with Morpho have exceeded $2.17 billion in USDC. Users can monitor their loan health, historical annualized interest rates, and liquidation alerts directly within the Coinbase app. Interest rates are dynamically adjusted based on market conditions.
According to monetsupply.eth, Spark’s Strategy Lead, in a post on X, Spark has long maintained a relatively high borrowing interest rate cap for its SparkLend ETH market. Although this policy caused many users to migrate to Aave—resulting in substantial loss of business and revenue—the current market liquidity crisis has validated the prudence of this strategy. Presently, Aave is experiencing severe liquidity shortages across multiple chains—including Ethereum Mainnet, Arbitrum, Polygon Plasma, Mantle, and Base—with ETH borrowing utilization reaching 100%. This has prevented depositors from withdrawing funds and hindered normal liquidation of ETH collateral. He warns that if the current liquidity crunch persists, a 15–20% drop in ETH’s price could expose Aave to widespread bad debt—compounded by the potential impact of the rsETH vulnerability incident.
Odaily News Vitalik Buterin stated at the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival that Ethereum's ultimate goal is to build a digital infrastructure where users do not need to trust any intermediaries, possessing "self-sovereignty." It will support various decentralized applications ranging from finance and social to identity verification, serving as a trust anchor for off-chain applications (such as private voting, prediction markets, decentralized social networks).
Odaily News: A LayerZero cross-chain bridge related to Kelp DAO was hacked on Saturday, resulting in 116,500 rsETH worth $291 million flowing to a new wallet. The hacker used the illicitly obtained rsETH as collateral to borrow on Aave, causing the utilization rate of Aave's core lending pool to reach 100% and triggering a liquidity crunch. According to monitoring by 0xngmi, as of early Sunday, the net withdrawal amount from Aave had reached $6.2 billion. Kelp DAO has suspended the rsETH contracts on the Ethereum mainnet and several L2 networks. Affected by this, the price of the Aave token fell 16% to $90.13, and the price of Ethereum dropped 2% to $2,300. Currently, Justin Sun has posted on platform X attempting to negotiate with the hacker.
Odaily News, Spark's strategy lead monetsupply.eth posted on X, stating that as the stablecoin market begins to face a liquidity shortage, the situation is entering a more dangerous phase, in my opinion. Approximately 16.5% of the ETH market is backed by rsETH. If losses on rsETH-backed loans are shared across the mainnet and external chains, they could face a 10% to 15% cut in emode, with the remaining 2% to 3% cut left for ETH suppliers to flatten the umbrella structure. ETH suppliers naturally tend to exit as soon as possible to avoid this risk, so utilization is locked at 100%, and the borrowing rate is insufficient to incentivize the repayment of unrelated LST loops (wstETH, weETH) to release liquidity. Since ETH cannot be withdrawn, users who borrowed stablecoins like USDT using ETH as collateral cannot close their positions even when stablecoin borrowing rates rise, which cuts off the typical incentive mechanisms that maintain market health. Currently, there are two unhealthy incentives causing market utilization to be locked at 100%:1) ETH holders cannot close positions to maintain a healthy LTV, and liquidators cannot atomically withdraw or sell collateral. A drop in the ETHUSD price could lead to bad debt.2) Users supplying USDT, in order to exit their holdings, tend to maximize borrowing of other stablecoins. This position is currently generating positive yield (temporarily), so the exit cost is low; if conditions worsen, they can recover at least 75% of the position's value.The bottom line is that for these pooled/restaking lending markets to function properly, liquidity must be maintained at all costs. The recent weakening of the slope2 for Aave's maximum borrowing rate is having a negative impact and significantly increasing the risk of cascading market failure.
Vitalik Buterin and Aya Miyaguchi, Executive Director of the Ethereum Foundation, have confirmed their attendance at the opening event of the Hong Kong Ethereum Community Center on April 21, where they will deliver keynote speeches. This center—the first physical community space in Asia supported by the Ethereum Foundation—is operated by SNZ and ETHTAO and located in West Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is positioned as a strategic hub connecting the Ethereum ecosystems of East and West. The event agenda also features multiple keynote speeches and panel discussions across domains including zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, privacy, AI, and on-chain payments. Industry participants include Joseph Chalom, CEO of Sharplink; Yat Siu, Co-Founder of Animoca Brands; and Niki, Vice President of Chainlink APAC.
Odaily News: The Ethereum Community Hub, supported by the Ethereum Foundation, has announced it will be held in Hong Kong at 1:30 PM on April 21st. ETH HK HUB is Asia's first offline Ethereum community Hub, supported by the Ethereum Foundation and jointly operated by SNZ and ETHTAO, aiming to build a collaborative hub connecting Asia with the global Ethereum ecosystem. The event will cover areas including: ZK, privacy computing, AI × blockchain, stablecoins and payments, on-chain liquidity, and more.Participating institutions and projects include Sharplink, Brevis, Primus, HashKey Chain, Chainlink Labs, Lido Finance, Galaxy Digital, SignalPlus, Morpho, Animoca Brands, EVG, Zand Bank, Pay Protocol, and others. Guests include Vitalik Buterin, Aya Miyaguchi, and more.
Monetsupply.eth, Strategy Lead of Spark Protocol, posted on X stating that in January this year, low-utilization assets such as rsETH were delisted, and the scope of acceptable collateral and protocol functionalities has been continuously tightened. At the time, this move triggered strong backlash from users employing “ETH circular leverage” strategies. Additionally, Spark has long imposed relatively high maximum interest rate caps on its ETH lending market. Over the past year, Spark has ceded part of its business and revenue to Aave—whose ETH borrowing rates at one point dropped to 10% or lower. However, amid the current market crisis, this strategy has proven more prudent: SparkLend still maintains ample ETH withdrawal liquidity, whereas Aave is experiencing liquidity strain—or even “locking”—across Ethereum mainnet and multiple Layer-2 chains including Arbitrum and Base. Monetsupply.eth further warned that, since ETH serves as the core collateral asset, when market utilization reaches 100%, liquidations of collateral will fail to execute normally. Liquidity exhaustion not only degrades depositors’ experience but may also pose systemic risk. Given Aave’s current liquidity shortage, a 15–20% drop in ETH’s price could trigger significant bad debt accumulation—exacerbated by potential fallout from the rsETH incident.
Odaily News: Sonic Labs co-founder and Flying Tulip founder Andre Cronje posted on platform X, stating that his team is continuing to investigate the L0/rsETH incident. Preliminary reports indicate that approximately $200 million worth of rsETH was stolen, possibly due to a private key leak or configuration error. The related assets were subsequently deposited into Aave as collateral to borrow ETH (due to insufficient rsETH liquidity).Andre Cronje pointed out that the affected positions are technically still overcollateralized. However, if bad debt occurs, Aave's token mechanism and Safety Module will serve as the first line of defense to absorb the risk. Nevertheless, Aave has no mechanism to subsidize user losses, as doing so could trigger a bank run. Currently, Aave holds approximately $7 billion in ETH with an outstanding borrowing amount of around $100 million, so the overall impact of this incident is limited. Furthermore, prioritizing user liquidity, Flying Tulip has withdrawn all its ETH from Aave to its fund management wrapper contract. This action was taken because Aave's available liquidity had fallen below its set minimum threshold.
Odaily News The Ethereum restaking protocol Kelp has officially confirmed suspicious cross-chain activity involving rsETH. It has currently paused the rsETH contracts on the mainnet and multiple L2s and launched an investigation into the attack. It is also collaborating with LayerZero, Unichain, as well as audit firms and security experts to conduct a root cause analysis (RCA). A post-mortem report will be released subsequently.
According to GlobeNewswire, Intchains Group, an Ethereum treasury company listed on Nasdaq, has announced the latest progress on its Ethereum staking initiatives and strategic transformation. As of April 16, 2026, the company has staked a cumulative total of 8,040 ETH—1,000 ETH deployed on the FalconX platform and 7,040 ETH deployed on its proprietary Goldshell Stake platform. Its current multi-platform staking strategy helps enhance returns and diversify risk. The company also announced an accelerated transition toward an AI-powered operational model, focusing on introducing automation and intelligent tools across chip and product development, marketing and sales, and overall operations to improve efficiency and decision-making capabilities.
According to an official announcement, Mint Blockchain officially ceased operations on April 17, 2026, and urged users to withdraw four assets from Mint Chain to the Ethereum mainnet: ETH, WBTC, USDC, and USDT. The announcement states that the asset withdrawal deadline is October 20, 2026, and users may complete the process via the official withdrawal channel. Assets not withdrawn by the deadline will no longer be processable.
According to The Defiant, the NFT marketplace Foundation has permanently shut down following the failed sale to digital art display company BlackDove. Its platform infrastructure has been taken offline, and there are currently no plans to relaunch it. Foundation’s founder, Kayvon Tehranian, stated that the company had originally hoped to extend its operations through the sale, but the deal fell through—and the team concluded there was no need to continue seeking a buyer. Foundation previously facilitated approximately $230 million in primary sales. The report notes that BlackDove, after conducting comprehensive due diligence following operational handover, decided instead to build its own proprietary marketplace. Foundation also announced it will continue providing a fixed one-year service for media and metadata hosted on IPFS; users must manually cancel their listings and withdraw their NFT assets.
According to Cointelegraph, stablecoin issuer Circle faces a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for failing to freeze stolen funds during the Drift Protocol hack on April 1. Plaintiffs allege that attackers transferred approximately $230 million worth of USDC from Solana to Ethereum via Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) within hours—and that Circle failed to intervene. The lawsuit accuses Circle of aiding and abetting conversion and of negligence. Cryptocurrency analytics firm Elliptic previously suspected the attack may be linked to North Korea–backed hackers; the stolen funds were subsequently converted into ETH and laundered through Tornado Cash.
According to Decrypt, Rick Wurster, President and CEO of Charles Schwab, stated that the company may offer prediction market services in the future—but will focus on financial-event-related contracts, such as those tied to inflation, while avoiding themes like pop culture, politics, and sports. Earlier reports indicated that Charles Schwab plans to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum trading services within the coming weeks, with a flat transaction fee of 0.75% per trade. The company also intends to gradually expand its cryptocurrency business, including enabling digital asset deposits and withdrawals, and broadening the range of supported tokens.
Josh Stark, a key researcher and project manager at the Ethereum Foundation, announced that after five years of service, he has decided to depart and complete his transition—this decision was made in early March, and his work at the Ethereum Foundation will conclude by the end of April. Stark stated he currently has no concrete plans for the future and intends first to take an extended break and spend time with family and friends. He expressed deep honor in having worked on Ethereum at the Ethereum Foundation and extended gratitude to numerous leadership team members and community partners for their long-term collaboration. Stark also noted that the Ethereum ecosystem has repeatedly achieved goals once widely deemed “impossible,” including network launch, the real-world deployment of decentralized finance (DeFi), and the successful transition to proof-of-stake (PoS). Earlier this week, Trent Van Epps, another Ethereum Foundation contributor, also resigned.