Category: Reviews

Everything to Know About Solana Foundation’s New STRIDE

The Solana Foundation launched a structured ecosystem security initiative on Monday, partnering with blockchain security firm Asymmetric Research to introduce STRIDE – Solana Trust, Resilience and Infrastructure for DeFi Enterprises – a tiered evaluation and monitoring program open to all Solana-based protocols, alongside a coalition incident response network that formalizes coordinated threat containment across the ecosystem. The announcement, published in a Foundation blog post, arrives less than two weeks after a $270 million exploit against Drift Protocol exposed the depth of administrative and operational security gaps that conventional smart contract…

Libra Crypto Probe Renews Questions About Milei Scam Involvement

Argentine President Javier Milei spoke on the phone with an entrepreneur linked to the Libra crypto token at least seven times on the night he promoted the cryptocurrency on X, according to call logs obtained by Argentine prosecutors and reviewed by The New York Times – new documentary evidence that directly challenges Milei’s repeated public assertion that he had no connection whatsoever with the project whose subsequent collapse cost investors an estimated $251 million. The call logs, which prosecutors investigating the Libra crypto token’s collapse secured as part of an…

Polygon Crypto Activates Giugliano Hardfork: What to Know?

Polygon crypto activated its Giugliano hardfork on mainnet at block 85,268,500 on April 8, targeting a measurable reduction in transaction finality by allowing block producers to announce blocks earlier in the confirmation cycle. The Polygon Foundation confirmed the upgrade in a post on X, citing a demonstrated 2-second reduction in finality time during testing on the Amoy testnet last month. For a network that has spent much of the past year managing stability incidents rather than shipping performance improvements, Giugliano represents a deliberate shift back toward throughput and developer experience…

Standard Chartered Bank Predicts $500K Bitcoin as Price Climbs

Standard Chartered has put a $500,000 Bitcoin price target on the table for 2030, and the market nudged higher in response – BTC climbing roughly 100 basis points to $67,500 as the forecast circulated. The number alone is striking; what’s more telling is that it comes from a bank with a $70 billion balance sheet, not a crypto-native research shop, and that it was delivered without a formal published note to anchor it. Standard Chartered’s $500K Call: The Institutional Logic Behind the Target Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s Global Head of…

Drift Says $270M Crypto Hack Was a Six-Month North Korean Intelligence Operation

Drift Crypto Protocol has attributed a $270 million exploit executed on April 1, 2026 to a six-month intelligence operation conducted by UNC4736 – a North Korean state-affiliated threat group also tracked as Citrine Sleet or AppleJeus – in a detailed incident update published by the team on Sunday, making it the largest native Solana decentralized application exploit on record. Attackers posed as a quantitative trading firm, deposited more than $1 million of their own capital into an Ecosystem Vault, held working sessions with contributors across multiple countries, and waited nearly…

Charles Schwab Adds Bitcoin and Ethereum Crypto Trading to Brokerage Platform

Charles Schwab is rolling out direct Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto trading to its brokerage client base, a platform that encompasses 38.9 million active accounts and $12.22 trillion in client assets – in a phased launch beginning in the second quarter of 2026. The offering, branded Schwab Crypto and operated through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, SSB, marks a structural departure from the firm’s prior crypto exposure model, which routed clients through ETFs, futures, and crypto-adjacent equities. The significance is not merely product expansion. It is a test of whether direct digital…

Circle CirBTC Unveils New Token Designed to Expand Bitcoin Role in DeFi

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, has unveiled cirBTC, a new Bitcoin-backed token designed to bring the world’s largest digital asset into decentralized finance applications – including lending, borrowing, and liquidity protocols – by addressing the trust deficit that has constrained competing wrapped Bitcoin products. The token is set to launch on Ethereum and Circle’s own Arc blockchain, with additional chain integrations expected in the coming months. The announcement marks Circle’s most direct entry into Bitcoin infrastructure to date, extending a product portfolio that previously centered on dollar-denominated stablecoins…

Stablecoin Crypto Supply Reaches $315B in Q1 as USDC Gains and USDT Declines

Total stablecoin supply rose approximately $8 billion to a record $315 billion in the first quarter of 2026, even as broader crypto markets contracted, according to data published by CEX.IO – with Circle’s USDC expanding its market share while Tether’s USDT posted its first quarterly supply decline since Q2 2022. The divergence between the two dominant issuers marked one of the more structurally significant shifts in the stablecoin sector in recent years, coinciding with stablecoins capturing 75% of total crypto trading volume, the highest proportion on record. We suspect the…

Former FTX Crypto Engineer Nishad Singh Fined $3.7M by CFTC, Avoids Prison

Nishad Singh, the former Director of Engineering at FTX crypto and FTX US, has been ordered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to pay $3.7 million in disgorgement under a supplemental consent order finalized on April 1, 2026 – resolving the agency’s civil enforcement action stemming from his role in the $8 billion-plus customer fund misappropriation that precipitated FTX’s November 2022 collapse. Singh, who pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges and cooperated extensively with the Department of Justice (DOJ), avoided a custodial sentence at his criminal proceeding, and the…

XRP Price Drifts Lower, Downside Pressure Starts to Accelerate

Aayush Jindal, a luminary in the world of financial markets, whose expertise spans over 15 illustrious years in the realms of Forex and cryptocurrency trading. Renowned for his unparalleled proficiency in providing technical analysis, Aayush is a trusted advisor and senior market expert to investors worldwide, guiding them through the intricate landscapes of modern finance with his keen insights and astute chart analysis. From a young age, Aayush exhibited a natural aptitude for deciphering complex systems and unraveling patterns. Fueled by an insatiable curiosity for understanding market dynamics, he embarked…