Crypto

Security researcher Taylor Monahan listed at least 40 decentralized finance platforms she claims have been infiltrated by North Korean IT workers at some stage of their lives. North Korean IT workers have been embedding themselves in crypto companies and decentralized finance projects for at least seven years, according to a cybersecurity analyst. “Lots of DPRK IT workers built the protocols you know and love, all the way back to DeFi summer,” said MetaMask developer and security researcher Taylor Monahan on Sunday.  Monahan claimed that over 40 DeFi platforms, some being well-known names, have had North Korean IT workers working on their protocols. Read more

Rising volume and steady support near $1.30 suggest buyers are active, though XRP remains tied to broader crypto sentiment.

A report that the U.S. and Iran are discussing a 45-day ceasefire lifted risk assets across the board on Monday, with short liquidations outpacing longs nearly 3-to-1 in the past 12 hours.

All eyes are on the Middle East situation this week, following another deadline shift, while a raft of US inflation data could rattle markets.  

Bitchat launched in July last year and has been used during protests in Madagascar, Uganda, Nepal, Indonesia and Iran as authorities attempted to restrict usage of the internet. Bitchat, a decentralized peer-to-peer messaging app developed by Block CEO Jack Dorsey, has been removed from Apple’s App Store in China for allegedly violating its internet service regulations.  In an X post on Sunday, Dorsey shared a screenshot from Apple’s app review team informing him that Bitchat had been removed from the App Store in February and that the TestFlight beta version would no longer be available in China at the request of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). “Bitchat pulled from the China App Store,” he said. Read more

Bloomberg's Mike McGlone has reiterated his forecast that Bitcoin could plunge to $10,000, this time anchoring his outlook to a clear line in the sand: $75,000.

Michael Saylor posted "back to work" on X on Sunday, signaling a potential Bitcoin purchase after the firm paused buying last week. Michael Saylor has hinted his Bitcoin treasury firm is back on track with its weekly Bitcoin purchases after taking a rare week off at the end of March. In an X post on Sunday, Saylor shared a screenshot from StrategyTracker with the caption  "Back to Work.” He often posts the chart ahead of purchase announcements. The firm took a week off from buying BTC at the end of March, breaking its weekly buying streak for the first time this year. The firm's last purchase was reported on March 23, buying about $77 million worth of BTC at $74,326 per coin. Read more

US President Donald Trump threatened Iran could be "living in Hell" if it doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz, though he also told reporters that a deal with Iran is getting close. Crypto markets bounced 2.5% as US President Donald Trump sent mixed signals over a potential deal with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, including reports of a possible ceasefire that could permanently end the war.  In an expletive-laden post on the Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump threatened that Iran would be “living in Hell” if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened. However, he also acknowledged in a Fox News interview that Iran is “negotiating now” and expressed optimism about a “good chance” of a deal within 24 hours. Read more

The Rwanda central bank's warning came after Bybit added the Rwandan franc to its list of assets that its peer-to-peer platform can use to trade for crypto. The National Bank of Rwanda (NBR) has warned the public that crypto payments and trades using the local currency remain illegal in the country after Bybit added support for the Rwandan franc for its peer-to-peer platform on Friday.  “Crypto-assets are NOT authorized for payments, FRW conversion, or P2P trading involving FRW under the current framework,” the central bank posted to X on Sunday, urging citizens to avoid crypto due to “serious financial risks and no recourse in case of loss.” The central bank’s comments were in response to an X post from Bybit on Friday, stating that the Rwandan franc (FRW) can be used to buy and sell crypto through its Bybit P2P service. Read more

The $280 million Drift Protocol attack was likely carried out by threat actors aligned with North Korea state-affiliated hackers. The hack of the Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Drift Protocol could have been prevented if standard operational security procedures were followed by the Drift team, and may constitute “civil negligence,” according to attorney Ariel Givner. “In plain terms, civil negligence means they failed their basic duty to protect the money they were managing,” Givner said in response to the post-mortem update provided by the Drift team and how it handled Wednesday’s $280 million exploit. The Drift team failed to follow “basic” security procedures, including keeping signing keys on separate, “air-gapped” systems that are never used for developer work, and conducting due diligence on blockchain developers met through industry conferences. Read more

New findings by CoinMarketCap indicate that derivatives markets are now the primary driver of trading volume across leading crypto exchanges.

Most simplifies the complex process of quantum computing as "it can be 0 and 1 at the same time." That is not an explanation for why it threatens Bitcoin. This is.

The President of the United States continues to give contradictory signals of escalating the war and winding it down within a few weeks. The odds of the United States invading Iran this year surged to 63% on the Polymarket prediction platform on Sunday, following comments made by US President Donald Trump on social media. The odds of an invasion before 2027 are still down from the high of 68% on March 29, which occurred due to a US troop buildup and comments from the Trump administration that the US was considering capturing Kharg Island, a major Iranian oil shipping station. The Polymarket trading volume for a potential US invasion of Iran was about $3.74 million at the time of publication. Read more

Prediction markets face rising regulatory pressure, with congressional Democrats proposing legislation to ban contracts tied to elections, war and government actions.

Meanwhile, the underlying asset has dipped by 3% weekly and continues to struggle at the $1.30 support.

Wall Street spent the first quarter of 2026 systematically narrowing DeFi's claim to the future of finance. In January, ICE announced NYSE was building a tokenized securities platform with 24/7 operations, instant settlement, dollar-based order sizing, and stablecoin funding, with BNY and Citi providing tokenized deposits for clearinghouse funding outside normal banking hours. In February, […] The post As Wall Street moves on-chain, DeFi faces a $330 billion trust test it can’t dodge appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Demand for either currency strengthens both in a reinforcing relationship, contrary to popular sentiment, Sam Lyman told Cointelegraph. US dollar-pegged stablecoins and Bitcoin (BTC) share a “symbiotic” relationship, mutually benefitting from rising adoption, according to Sam Lyman, head of research at Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), a Washington DC-based digital asset advocacy organization. “Bitcoin is beneficial to the US system because the largest Bitcoin trading pair is BTC/USD,” or Tether’s USDt (USDT) stablecoin, which is backed by cash deposits and short-term US government debt, Lyman told Cointelegraph. He added: He said Bitcoin and dollar-pegged stablecoins share a similar relationship to the dollar and oil. Under the petrodollar system, which began in the early 1970s, international oil sales are priced in dollars, driving more demand for the currency. Read more

Algorand has emerged as an early standout in the crypto market’s latest quantum security debate after a recent Google Quantum AI paper highlighted the blockchain as a live example of post-quantum cryptography being deployed on a network. The attention came as the paper sharpened concerns around Bitcoin and Ethereum, two networks whose size, age, and […] The post Algorand just jumped 50% after Google flags quantum risk for Bitcoin and Ethereum appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's correlation with global central bank easing has turned strongly negative since 2024, suggesting BTC now leads rather than lags monetary policy signals.

The POTUS also used some weird language that was detected as meme-style image of a fabricated post by Grok.