Key Takeaways

• Settlement currency: Bitcoin, paid directly from user’s Bitbank exchange account
• Cashback rate: 0.5% in cryptocurrency on all card spending
• Card type: Credit card, not prepaid or debit
• Geographic scope: Japan, regulated under FSA licensing framework
• Exchange background: Bitbank FSA-licensed since 2017, operating since 2014

The recovery effort for rsETH, stalled by the April Kelp bridge incident that released 116,500 rsETH (roughly $293 million at the time) without a corresponding burn on Unichain, is moving into a formal technical phase. The DeFi United coalition, linked to Aave, published a plan to restore rsETH backing by converting committed ETH into rsETH in staged tranches and depositing the tokens into the bridge’s lockbox. This approach aims to resume normal bridge operations once the backing is fully restored. LayerZero and Kelp have also implemented additional security measures ahead of a full return to service, according to Aave.

Parallel to the backing restoration, DeFi United outlined steps to unwind attacker-linked positions across Aave and Compound to reclaim collateral and repair market distortions caused by the exploit. The coalition notes that seven addresses associated with the attacker still hold active rsETH-backed positions on Aave and Compound, representing about 107,000 rsETH of the original 116,500 rsETH released.

The broader context for rsETH recovery continues to unfold as the ecosystem coordinates funding, governance, and technical execution. Earlier coverage highlighted a broader pledge of ETH to restore rsETH backing, and the current plan builds on that momentum with a concrete, vote-dependent process.

The proposed sequence would temporarily adjust the rsETH oracle price to enable controlled liquidations, transfer recovered collateral to a DeFi United multisig, restore the oracle, redeem the rsETH for ETH, and use the resulting funds to clear deficits across affected markets. The recovery plan thus transitions from pledges and public commitments to a coordinated technical process that relies on governance approvals, temporary oracle changes, and execution across several DeFi protocols. While designed to restore rsETH backing, the plan remains contingent on DAO votes, finalized agreements, and the attacker not disrupting the liquidation steps.

Source: Aave

Ethereum backers join the recovery effort

The technical plan follows earlier moves to secure funding and governance support for rsETH restoration. On Monday, Consensys and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin joined DeFi United with a commitment of up to 30,000 ETH to back the recovery, while Sharplink, a publicly traded Ethereum treasury company, joined in an advisory role to help structure the plan.

As part of the broader push, Aave Labs had asked the Arbitrum DAO to release 30,765 ETH that had been frozen by the Arbitrum Security Council following the exploit and redirect those funds to DeFi United. The goal is to accelerate the restoration of rsETH backing and stabilize affected markets.

Earlier coverage noted that crypto protocols pledged about 43,000 ETH to the rsETH relief effort, underscoring the ecosystem-wide appetite to address the aftermath of the breach.

As of the latest update, DeFi United’s website shows roughly $302.26 million in total raised or committed toward the rsETH recovery, equivalent to about 132,706.903 ETH. Some commitments remain subject to DAO votes and final execution, reflecting the governance-intensive nature of the plan.

DeFi United secured over $300 million in commitments. Source: DeFi United

The initiative sits at the intersection of cross-chain security, governance, and rapid liquidity management. By moving toward a structured, multi-step restoration rather than relying solely on pledges, the effort aims to reduce the risk of a prolonged imbalance between rsETH and its backing assets while preserving user trust in the affected protocols.

What this means for users and markets

For rsETH holders and the broader DeFi ecosystem, the plan represents a carefully staged attempt to restore collateral behind a pegged asset that saw a rapid distribution of backings during the breach. If successful, the process could set a precedent for how multi-chain bridges and restaking ecosystems manage post-incident recoveries without triggering abrupt slippage or cascading liquidations. The reliance on governance votes underscores the ongoing tension between rapid response and community consent in DeFi crisis management.

Investors and traders will want to watch the timeline for governance approvals, the pace of ETH-to-rsETH conversions, and the execution across Aave, Compound, and the implicated bridge components. The involvement of high-profile supporters—Consensys, Joe Lubin, and Sharplink—adds credibility to the plan, but the execution still hinges on attacker behavior and the stability of oracle adjustments during liquidations.

Next milestones to monitor

Key milestones include finalization of the governance process to authorize the tranche-based ETH-to-rsETH conversions, the operational deployment of the restored backing into the lockbox, and the restoration of oracle feeds to normal levels after backing is re-established. The plan also requires the attacker’s positions to be reliably unwound without triggering further market impairment, an outcome that hinges on coordinated liquidations and cross-protocol cooperation.

Additionally, continued updates on the Arbitrum DAO’s actions and any further commitments from ecosystem participants will shape the speed and reliability of the restoration. The evolving liquidity landscape as new funds are deployed and balances are reset will inform how quickly rsETH markets can regain normal functioning and reduce systemic risk across the DeFi stack involved in the recovery.

Readers should stay attentive to governance votes and official statements from DeFi United, Aave, and partner protocols as the plan progresses. The rsETH restoration is a multi-faceted effort that requires precise coordination across several entities, and the outcome will influence how similar crisis-response playbooks are interpreted in future cross-chain incidents.

Paul Sztorc is not trying to move Satoshi Nakamoto’s bitcoin.

That is the narrow fact getting lost in the backlash around eCash, a proposed Bitcoin fork scheduled for August at block height 964,000. The new chain would copy Bitcoin’s history up to that point, giving BTC holders an equivalent balance on the forked network. Hold 4.19 BTC, get 4.19 eCash.

This would follow the standard fork playbook. Bitcoin Cash did it in 2017, and Bitcoin SV followed later. Both copied Bitcoin’s ledger, changed the rules and in the hopes that the market will care.

eCash is different because of what it plans to do with Satoshi’s copied coins.

The roughly 1.1 million BTC attributed to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto sits in dormant addresses often linked to the Patoshi pattern, an early mining fingerprint widely believed to trace back to Satoshi though never conclusively proven.

On a normal one-to-one fork, those addresses would receive roughly 1.1 million eCash. Sztorc’s plan would allocate 600,000 eCash to those addresses and redirect the remaining 500,000 eCash to investors who fund the project before launch.

Sztorc, CEO of LayerTwo Labs, pushed back on the theft framing in a Monday X post.

“We do not take any of Satoshi’s BTC,” he wrote. “BTC balances are untouched by eCash. To move BTC, you always need BTC software and the BTC private key. We lack both.”

But Satoshi’s untouched holdings function as Bitcoin’s foundational guarantee, the proof that even the network’s creator never moved his coins because the rules apply to everyone equally. Selling claims on a forked-chain version of those holdings to fund a new project is the part that reads as theft, even when no theft is technically occurring.

That turns the dispute into a property-rights fight, even if the property exists only on a new chain.

“Bitcoin was created to preserve and protect inviolable property rights for everybody on earth,” Beau Turner, CEO of mining firm Abundant Mines, said in an email to CoinDesk. “Any proposal that seeks to evolve or improve it by violating the property rights of the creator of that network is such a serious ethical misstep that it’s hard to believe it would even be considered.”

The timing makes the fight sharper. Bitcoiners have already spent recent weeks arguing over proposals to freeze or restrict old quantum-vulnerable coins, including addresses believed to belong to Satoshi. Those debates put dormant balances, immutability and social intervention back at the center of Bitcoin culture.

That is why the eCash fight is landing in a market already primed to treat any intervention around Satoshi-linked coins as radioactive. Vijay Selvam, author of Principles of Bitcoin, argued that even proposals framed as protective measures risk damaging Bitcoin’s core monetary promise if they create a precedent for treating dormant coins differently.

“Freezing Satoshi’s coins under any circumstances sets a precedent that irreparably damages Bitcoin’s monetary properties,” Selvam wrote on X. “With such a precedent, how can Bitcoiners ever feel confident that their money is safe into the distant future without feeling the need to constantly monitor the news to see if miners are going to rug them?”

Selvam compared the issue to gold’s durability, arguing that bitcoin should offer similar confidence across generations. “If you set a rug-pull precedent for Bitcoin, you’d forever kill its claim to being durable and immutable digital gold,” he wrote. “You’d destroy confidence in its timeless integrity.”

Why propose eCash?

Sztorc has previously spent years pushing Drivechains, a proposal that would let developers add sidechains to Bitcoin through proposals BIP300 and BIP301. The Bitcoin Core community has not agreed to adopted it, and the eCash fork now functions as both an exit plan and pressure tactic.

He has said he would call it off if Bitcoin activates those proposals before August. There is no sign that will happen.

This is why people care even if eCash never becomes economically relevant. Bitcoin forks mostly fail in market terms, but they still test Bitcoin’s social assumptions.

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV copied the ledger and kept trading, but neither came close to displacing BTC. eCash may end the same way. The difference is that its launch forces a cleaner question than block size ever did: can a fork claim Bitcoin’s moral inheritance while rewriting the most famous untouched balance on the copied chain?

The movement in Meta Platforms shares is being driven by two competing narratives. On one hand, advertising revenue is benefiting from AI-based tools: the Advantage+ platform continues to support strong advertiser demand, and the analyst consensus for Q1 2026 revenue stands at around $55.5 billion—near the upper end of the company’s guidance range of $53.5–56.5 billion. On the other hand, investors remain cautious about planned capital expenditure of $115–135 billion for 2026, which is weighing on free cash flow. The company’s earnings release is scheduled for 29 April after the market close.

Technical Overview

On the 4-hour chart, price action from late January to the end of March showed clear signs of a downtrend, with the stock falling roughly 30% from $744 to $521. The rebound from this low was sharp and symmetrical, forming a clear V-shaped recovery. The return of buyers was accompanied by a notable spike in vertical volume on 8 April, after which the price moved firmly into the market profile range of $610–683.

Within this zone, momentum has slowed. The Point of Control (POC) is concentrated around $668–673. The price is currently trading between this high-volume area and the upper boundary of the profile at $683, where trading activity has been most concentrated over the period. Above current levels, the next key resistance is at $692 — the April high. Support at $594 aligns with a gap formed during the strong upward move on elevated volume. The RSI with moving averages shows readings of 62, 63, and 60. The oscillator sits between two upward-sloping moving averages, indicating that bullish momentum persists, although price action is clearly slowing near the upper edge of the volume range.

Summary

The chart structure reflects a transition from a deep correction to a recovery phase that has now encountered a dense volume barrier. Price behaviour within the $668–683 range will largely depend on the upcoming earnings release and whether the company can meet analysts’ expectations amid rising capital expenditure.

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Pi Network price rallied over 15% in the past week, outperforming a largely flat crypto market as a wave of network upgrades and event-driven catalysts boosted demand for the token.

According to data from crypto.news, Pi Network (PI) climbed from a weekly low near $0.166 to around $0.189 at press time on April 28, pushing its market cap close to $2 billion and ranking it among the top 50 crypto assets.

The latest move comes as the network successfully rolled out its mandatory Protocol 22.1 mainnet upgrade on Monday. The upgrade is aimed at improving scalability and transaction throughput, a key requirement as the ecosystem prepares to support more complex decentralized applications.

Investor sentiment has also strengthened ahead of the upcoming Protocol 23 upgrade, scheduled for May 11. This next phase is expected to introduce full smart contract functionality, marking a major shift for Pi from a simple peer-to-peer transfer system to a programmable Web3 platform.

At the same time, the project’s visibility has increased following confirmation that it will participate as an official sponsor at Consensus 2026 in Miami, set to take place between May 5 and May 7. The scheduled appearances of co-founders Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan have helped renew retail interest, particularly across social media platforms.

Supply-side dynamics have further supported the rally. On-chain data shows a decline in token unlocks toward the end of April, reducing immediate selling pressure and allowing fresh demand from the upgrade narrative to have a stronger impact on price action.

Pi Network price analysis

On the daily chart, Pi Network price is attempting to reclaim the $0.19–$0.20 resistance zone after spending most of April consolidating near the $0.16–$0.18 range. The recent breakout attempt follows a period of compression, suggesting that volatility is beginning to expand again.

The chart also shows that PI price has flipped back above the Supertrend indicator, which has now turned green. This shift typically signals a short-term trend reversal in favor of buyers and indicates that bullish momentum is building.

Momentum indicators are also starting to align with the price action. The MACD has moved into positive territory, with the signal lines crossing upward and histogram bars turning green, pointing to strengthening upside momentum after weeks of muted activity.

From a pattern perspective, traders are closely watching the formation of a potential double-bottom structure with a neckline around the $0.190 level. A sustained close above this resistance could confirm the breakout and open the door for a move toward $0.2045, with a further extension toward $0.22 if momentum continues into the Protocol 23 launch window.

However, caution remains warranted. Pi Network has previously shown a tendency to follow a “buy the news, sell the event” pattern around major announcements. If the price fails to hold above $0.19, it could slip back toward the $0.17 support zone, with a deeper pullback potentially retesting the $0.165 level.

For now, the short-term bias remains tilted to the upside as long as the token holds above its recent support and the positive news flow continues through early May.

Developers behind a new wallet product say they have found a way to tackle quantum computing risks using a smart contract layer that runs alongside Bitcoin without requiring any change to the network itself.

Postquant Labs unveiled Quip Network’s post-quantum bitcoin BTC$75,723.58 wallet Tuesday, the company told CoinDesk in an email. The product runs on Arch Network, a system that lets developers build smart contracts anchored directly to Bitcoin rather than on a separate chain or through wrapped tokens.

Quip uses that infrastructure to add a post-quantum signature scheme called WOTS+, short for Winternitz One-Time Signature, on top of Bitcoin’s existing security. WOTS+ is a tested cryptographic technique that does not rely on the elliptic curve math a quantum computer could break.

By using a “Layer 2” — shorthand for a separate network built on top of Bitcoin that processes transactions and settles back to the main chain—developers can add features without changing Bitcoin’s base layer.

“The Bitcoin community has delayed a fix for years, despite Satoshi himself discussing the quantum problem,” Postquant Labs CEO Colton Dillion said in a statement to CoinDesk. “Developers say any protocol upgrade could take 5 to 10 years, but with Quip’s approach, we provide similar protection immediately.”

Bitcoin’s quantum readiness

The launch arrives in the middle of an active fight over how Bitcoin should respond to quantum risk.

Prominent developer Jameson Lopp and five others proposed BIP-361 two weeks ago, which would phase out quantum-vulnerable addresses on a fixed five-year timeline and freeze coins that fail to migrate, including the roughly 1.1 million bitcoin attributed to pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Paul Sztorc’s controversial eCash hard fork would copy Bitcoin’s chain and ship seven sidechains including a quantum-resistant one, funded partly by reassigning Satoshi-pattern coins on the new ledger to investors.

Both proposals have drawn pushback from the community.

Quip’s pitch is that neither approach is necessary. The setup requires no soft fork, no consensus change, no community vote. A soft fork is a Bitcoin upgrade that tightens existing rules so older software still works, but it still needs broad miner and node support to activate. Bitcoin’s last major soft fork was Taproot in 2021. The next one, if it happens, could take years.

Technical trade-offs

The three approaches actually disagree on something specific. Lopp’s argument is that Layer 2 protection like Quip’s is insufficient because Bitcoin mainnet public keys still leak the moment a user broadcasts a transaction, giving a future quantum attacker a target.

There are a few caveats, however. The wallet app launches next week rather than today. A third-party audit is underway but not complete. Quip’s quantum-resistant accounts already exist on Ethereum and Solana, but the Bitcoin deployment is new and Arch Network is still relatively early infrastructure.

Postquant Labs CTO Dr. Richard Carback, a long-time collaborator with eCash inventor Dr. David Chaum who now advises the project, said the approach narrows the window for a quantum attack to as little as two blocks, roughly 20 minutes.

(David Chaum’s eCash is the original digital cash protocol from 1983, the academic foundation for ‘blind’ signatures and privacy-preserving electronic money. It predates Bitcoin by 25 years and has nothing to do with Bitcoin or the eCash proposal by Sztorc.)

Sztorc’s argument is that incremental patches are exactly why Bitcoin needs a clean fork with quantum resistance built in from the start. The Layer 2 approach, which now includes Quip and Blockstream’s hash-based signature work on the Liquid Network, argues both other positions overreact to a threat that better infrastructure can handle without changing Bitcoin itself.

Which approach wins depends partly on how fast quantum computers actually arrive. The Bitcoin holders most worried about quantum risk have historically been the same group most resistant to wrapped or smart-contract-anchored products.

Ether (ETH) analysts have mapped out key ETH price levels to watch over the next few weeks, with a focus on the $2,000 psychological level.

Key takeaways:

• Dropping below the 200-day simple moving average at $2,220 could confirm more downside for Ether.
• ETH faces stiff resistance at $2,400, a level that must be reclaimed by the bulls.

Ether price stuck between two key levels

Data from TradingView showed the ETH/USD pair trading below $2,300, down 5% over the last two days and erasing all gains made over the weekend. 

This meant that the price remained wedged between the 100-day exponential moving average at $2,350 and the 100-day simple moving average (SMA) at $2,220, as shown in the chart below.

This suggested that Ether could consolidate within these trend lines for a few more days before a decisive move.

Telegram trading resource Technical Crypto Analyst said that after losing the support trendline at $2,300, “we can probably expect Ethereum to drop, and it might even hit the lower support level in the next few days,” adding: 

“A solid breakdown with good volume would confirm this.”

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The analyst was referring to two immediate support zones: the $2,200 area, where the 50-day and 100-day SMAs converge, and the psychological level at $2,000.

“ETH has dropped below the $2,300 level,” said fellow analyst Ted Pillows in a Tuesday post on X, adding:

“The next crucial support zone is $2,200 which could be a level for a short-term bounceback.”

A key buy zone to watch below that is the $1,800-$1,750 area, which aligns with the multi-year low reached on Feb. 6.

In a recent post on X, trader Daan Crypto Trades said that the key levels to watch were $2,100 as support and the resistance at $2,800, which ETH price has “respected” well over the past few years.

ETH/USD daily chart. Source: X/Daan Crypto Trades

As Cointelegraph reported, a daily close below the moving averages around $2,200 would bring the next line of defense at $2,000 into focus.

Ethereum price must reclaim $2,400 to continue recovery

As Cointelegraph also reported, Ether’s bullish case hinges on flipping the resistance at $2,400 into support, where the realized price currently is.

“This is a very important psychological factor,” CryptoQuant analyst CW8900 said in a recent X post, adding:

“Breaking through that line signifies that whales are transitioning to a profitable position.”

ETH realized price. Source: CryptoQuant

With whales back in a profitable position, it would “provide grounds for their buying power to become stronger,” the analyst added.

Related: Ethereum’s EEZ could pull other blockchains into its orbit

Meanwhile, Ether’s liquidation map reveals that a break above $2,400 would trigger over $1.94 billion in short liquidations across all exchanges.

ETH exchange liquidation map. Source: CoinGlass

This means a significant amount of bearish bets risk liquidation on a move higher, opening the way to a sharper upward cascade if the recovery resumes.

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Galaxy Digital (GLXY) narrowed its first-quarter loss as a shift in business mix and tighter financial management outweighed a decline in cryptocurrency prices.

The company lost $216 million, or 49 cents a share, less than the 59 cents estimated by analysts. Revenue dropped to $10.2 billion from $12.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

The company is increasingly focusing on the growing demand for data centers, and this month delivered its first data hall at the Helios campus in Texas to CoreWeave (CRWV), marking the start of revenue under a long-term lease tied to artificial intelligence workloads.

“Adjusted gross profit remained broadly stable, reflecting a shift in the business mix as recurring fee revenue and transaction income continue to scale and provide greater resilience in softer market conditions,” the company said in a statement. “Disciplined expense management during the quarter helped narrow the adjusted EBITDA loss, underscoring a focus on operating efficiency in more challenging environments.”

The Helios facility is set to deliver 133 megawatts of computing power by the end of the second quarter. The company also secured approval for an additional 830 megawatts of power at the site, bringing total capacity to more than 1.6 gigawatts.

GLXY shares fell for a second day, and were recently 0.84% lower at $24.84.

Stablecoin monthly transfer volume fell by nearly 20% over the past 30 days, even as the market’s total supply and holder count continued to rise. 

According to data from RWA.xyz, 30-day stablecoin transfer volume dropped 19.18% to $8.31 trillion as of April 28, while stablecoin market capitalization rose 2.06% to $305.29 billion over the same period. The number of stablecoin holders also increased by 2.32% to 246.94 million, while monthly active addresses edged up 0.26% to 51.28 million.

The divergence suggests that stablecoin growth is not translating evenly into onchain activity. While more capital appears to be sitting in dollar-denominated crypto assets, fewer dollars are being moved across blockchains compared with 30 days earlier. 

The 30-day net flows were led by Tether’s USDT, which added $3.6 billion, followed by Circle’s USDC with $2 billion and MakerDAO’s DAI with $1.2 billion. Ethena’s USDe saw the largest net outflow at $1.1 billion, while Paxos’ PYUSD recorded $509 million in net outflows. 

30-day stablecoin net flows as of April 28, 2026. Source: RWA.xyz

Stablecoin momentum cools after stronger network activity

The decline in broader stablecoin transfer volume comes after stronger stablecoin activity was flagged on some of the major blockchain networks for stablecoins. 

In its Q2 Signals Report, asset manager Fidelity cited Coin Metrics data showing that Ethereum’s stablecoin transfer values had recently exceeded historical averages, with transfer value over the past 12 months surpassing $18 trillion.

Aggregate stablecoin transfer volume. Source: Fidelity

Fidelity said the trend suggested network utility persisted even as crypto prices remained under pressure. The company said the increase may signal that stablecoins are being used for payments, settlement and onchain access to the dollar, regardless of broader market sentiment. 

Related: Stablecoin inflows rebound to $1.7B as Washington battles over yield rules

Solana showed a similar, though smaller, trend. Citing Coin Metrics data, Fidelity showed that Solana consistently processed over $5 billion in stablecoin volume, while its 30-day average transfer volume increased from $6.7 billion to $7.2 billion as of March 31. 

Fidelity said the data suggest that Solana may be moving toward more mainstream financial activity after being closely associated with memecoin trading. 

Magazine: AI-driven hacks could kill DeFi — unless projects act now

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