Connect with us
DAPA Banner

Crypto World

Liquity accused of ‘market manipulation’ after Circle acquisition April Fools’

Published

on

Liquity accused of 'market manipulation' after Circle acquisition April Fools'

A crypto April Fool’s bit from protocol firm Liquity, which claimed it was being bought by stablecoin giant Circle, has led to allegations of “market manipulation” after it pumped the price of its in-house token.

Liquity announced on April 1 that it was acquired by Circle in a deal that would allow Circle to offer users “a non-freezable stablecoin and directly distribute yield under the Clarity Act.”

The joke pokes fun at Circle’s ability to freeze tokens and the fact that the Clarity Act, in its current form, seeks to ban yield on stablecoins. 

Read more: ‘Bad actor’ Circle slammed for letting stolen $3M USDC sit unfrozen

Its freezing powers were ridiculed by the crypto investigator ZachXBT last week, who claimed Circle wrongly froze 16 wallets as part of a civil lawsuit. 

Despite the buyout announcement being a joke on Liquity’s part, it still boosted its $LQTY token by 5%.

Advertisement

The price, however, pulled back in just a few minutes, and is now down 6% from its April 1 peak. 

Crypto users on X weren’t too impressed with the joke, describing it as an “April Fool’s pump and dump.” 

The spike happened seconds after Liquity’s Circle announcement was made.

Read more: WIF fundraiser says Vegas Sphere refunds will start on April Fools

Some said it was an ultra-thin line between a joke and “market manipulation,” while others described the day as an opportunity to “do crime and it’s totally legal!”

Others were more forgiving. DeFi researcher Ignas said that crypto users were losing their minds over a “mere” 5% pump.

Advertisement

They added, “Good taste joke, IMHO. And good project.”

Other users warned not to base your trading on headlines, as on a day like April Fools’, most of them are “facetious.” 

Read more: ‘Bad actor’ Circle slammed for letting stolen $3M USDC sit unfrozen

In response to the April Fools’ post, Liquity made it clear that it was just a joke, while also promoting its own stablecoin BOLD. 

Additionally, Circle clarified to Protos that the announcement was false, and said “Circle has not acquired Liquity.”

Advertisement

The theme of crypto April Fools’ is phony acquisitions

There were at least two more fake crypto acquisitions announcements today. Crypto wallet firm Frontrun Pro announced that it had been acquired by AI giant Anthropic as part of a $141 million deal. 

Crypto copy trading account PolyGun also announced that it had been acquired by Anthropic, this time in a transaction worth $69 million. 

Dogecoin also did its own corporate April Fools’ joke, announcing that it would restructure the firm into “DogeCoin Financial Solutions LLC™.”

Barking mad.

Read more: Memescope traders have been left with a case of Monday blues

As part of this, it said it would drop its Shiba Inu logo for something navy blue, stop saying words like “wow,” “much,” and “very,” and rebrand its “Doge army” as “Stakeholders.”

Some users thought it would be funny to pretend that memecoin launcher Pump Fun is finally dropping an airdrop in the form of “Pump Fun rewards.”

The platform announced an airdrop would be coming “soon” 266 days ago. 

Advertisement

Others joked that Bored Ape Yacht Club had replaced the images of all of its NFTs with photos of actual monkeys and chimps. 

Certainly no monkey business here.

Read more: BAYC goes full ‘laser eyes’ and allegedly blinds ApeFest attendees

A bitcoiner called Didi Taihuttu claimed, while wearing his Bitcoin hat and strutting around a luxury villa, that he would be switching back to traditional banks after crypto had become too volatile. 

All these examples demonstrate that trading headlines on a day like today is risky business, and that firms with financial assets to their names should be careful about just what kind of April Fools’ they run.

Advertisement

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on XBluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Crypto World

Galaxy Digital’s (GLXY) testnet suffers hack but no client funds or information were compromised

Published

on

Galaxy Digital's (GLXY) testnet suffers hack but no client funds or information were compromised

Galaxy Digital (GLXY), the digital asset financial services firm founded by Mike Novogratz, said it recently contained a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to an isolated development workspace, according to a statement from a company spokesperson.

“An immaterial amount of company funds used for testing within the isolated development workspace was impacted,” the spokesperson said in emailed comments. The loss was less than $10,000, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The firm emphasized that the affected environment was used solely for research and development and was not connected to its core infrastructure, production systems, trading platforms or client accounts.

Galaxy said it detected the intrusion and moved quickly to contain it, secure the compromised workspace and implement additional precautionary measures across its on-chain infrastructure.

Advertisement

“No client funds or client account information were accessed or at risk at any point based on our review to date,” Galaxy said, adding that all platforms and services remain fully operational and secure for clients.

Hacks and exploits remain a persistent risk in the crypto industry, where the combination of open-source code, large pools of onchain liquidity and uneven security practices creates an attractive target for attackers.

Billions of dollars are lost to smart contract exploits, phishing schemes and infrastructure breaches, with industry estimates often exceeding $1–2 billion annually in recent years.

Even when incidents are contained, and client assets are not impacted, breaches can erode trust, trigger heightened regulatory scrutiny and underscore the operational risks facing firms operating in largely irreversible, always-on financial systems.

Advertisement

Galaxy is a diversified financial services and investment firm focused on the digital asset and blockchain sector, providing institutional clients with trading, asset management, lending, advisory and custody services.

The firm operates across several core business lines, including global markets, asset management and digital infrastructure, while also running businesses in areas like crypto mining, staking and data center operations.

Positioned as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto, Galaxy offers institutional-grade access to digital assets and related technologies, alongside investments in blockchain ventures and emerging areas such as AI-powered infrastructure.

The company said it is continuing to review the incident and will provide updates as appropriate.

Advertisement

Read more: Bitcoin’s quantum threat is real, but far from an existential crisis, Galaxy says

Source link

Continue Reading

Crypto World

What Does it Mean for Bitcoin?

Published

on

What Does it Mean for Bitcoin?

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, revealed on CNBC this week that his firm purchased approximately $17 billion in US Treasury bills at the latest auction. Is a stock market crash coming and what does it mean for Bitcoin (BTC)?

Key takeaways:

  • Berkshire held $373 billion in cash or cash equivalents as of 2025’s close, more than double the levels in 2023.

  • The firm’s rising cash reserves typically precede major stock market crashes, a bad sign for Bitcoin.

Buffett still sees better value in cash than in stocks

Buffett’s message is straightforward: Berkshire does not see the recent equity pullback as a sufficiently attractive buying opportunity.

Advertisement

For context, the S&P 500 has fallen about 5.75% since reaching a record high in January.

S&P 500 weekly performance chart. Source: TradingView

Buffett said stocks are not “substantially” cheaper after the decline and described the sell-off as “nothing” compared with earlier downturns in which markets fell more than 50%.

That helps explain Berkshire’s latest Treasury-bill purchase. The company ended 2025 with about $373 billion in cash and equivalents, up from a record $334.2 billion a year earlier and more than double its level at the end of 2023.

Buffett, who famously called Bitcoin “rat poison,” typically gets into cash before major stock crashes, historical data shows.

In 1998, for instance, Buffett began trimming Berkshire’s stock exposure and raising cash, pushing the company’s cash and cash-equivalents holdings to $13.1 billion, or about 23% of total assets.

Advertisement
Berkshire’s cash and cash-equivalents holdings chart. Source: GuruFocus.COM

By mid-2000, that figure had climbed to nearly $15 billion, or roughly 25% of assets, before Berkshire started deploying capital into bargains as the Dot-com bubble burst.

Bitcoin’s positive correlation with stocks may hurt prices

Bitcoin has traded more like a stock than a traditional safe haven for much of the post-2020 period, often moving in the same direction as US equities, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

As of Wednesday, the 20-week rolling correlation coefficient between the two markets was positive at 0.47.

Nasdaq Composite and BTC/USD’s 20-week correlation coefficient chart. Source: TradingView

If Buffett’s risk-off strategy is correct, then Bitcoin should see another crash alongside stocks. Fresh quantum-security concerns, war-driven inflation risks, and nearly 50% US recession odds are putting pressure on the BTC price.

Berkshire’s portfolio decisions have also leaned away from crypto-adjacent finance.

In the first quarter of 2025, the firm fully exited Nu Holdings, a crypto-friendly fintech company, after building its position in 2021 and 2022. It secured about $250 million in profits from these investments.

Advertisement

Multiple analysts predict BTC’s price to drop to as low as $30,000 in 2026.