Securitize has appointed former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Brett Redfearn as president and a member of its board, adding regulatory experience as the firm prepares to go public this year.

Redfearn, who previously led the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets, will work with Securitize’s leadership team to scale its offerings across issuance, trading and fund administration, the company announced in a press release. The company focuses on turning traditional financial assets, such as funds or private credit, into blockchain-based tokens that can be traded more easily.

His appointment comes at a time when tokenization is gaining traction among large financial firms. Banks and asset managers are testing ways to move assets onto blockchain rails in an effort to speed up settlement and widen access to investors.

Securitize is positioning itself as a regulated bridge between those institutions and digital asset infrastructure. The hire adds weight to Securitize’s leadership as it prepares for a proposed public listing through a business combination with Cantor Equity Partners II. It also reflects a broader trend of firms bringing in former regulators to navigate a complex policy environment.

“Brett has been instrumental in how modern markets are structured and regulated,” Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo said in a statement. “He is deeply familiar with our business, leadership team, and long-term vision.”

Redfearn brings experience from both traditional finance and crypto. Before joining Securitize, he founded Panorama Financial Markets Advisory, advising exchanges and asset managers. He also served as head of capital markets at Coinbase (COIN), where he worked on expanding institutional participation in digital assets. Prior to joining the SEC, Redfearn was at JP Morgan for over a dozen years.

World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture co-founded by the Trump family, has executed a series of transactions through decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol Dolomite that raises questions about insider access, circular token economics, and concentrated risk to other depositors.

Onchain records analyzed by CoinDesk, sourced from Etherscan, Arkham and publicly accessible wallet data, show the sequence began on Feb. 8, when WLFI’s treasury deposited 14 million USD1, its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, into Dolomite as collateral and borrowed 11.4 million USDC against it.

Minutes later, 11.45 million USDC moved to a Coinbase Prime deposit address, per Arkham. Two days later, 12.5 million USD1 was sent from the treasury to a separate Coinbase Prime deposit address. Coinbase Prime is typically used for converting crypto to fiat or for institutional OTC trading.

That 12.5 million USD1 was not borrowed from Dolomite. It moved directly from WLFI’s treasury wallet to the exchange, meaning the venture sent its own stablecoin straight to a fiat off-ramp.

But the WLFI token entered the picture twelve days later. On Feb. 20, the treasury deposited 890 million WLFI into Dolomite and borrowed 20 million USD1 against it.

On March 24, another 1.1 billion WLFI followed. In total, 1.99 billion WLFI tokens now sit as collateral inside Dolomite, and the treasury has received roughly 31.4 million in stablecoins from the protocol across both episodes.

The choice of protocol is not incidental, however.

Dolomite co-founder Corey Caplan is an advisor to World Liberty Financial. WLFI now sits at the top of Dolomite’s supplied-assets list with $458.9 million in supply liquidity, roughly 55% of the protocol’s entire $835.7 million total.

The structural concern sits in Dolomite’s USD1 pool. USD1, which now has $4.6 billion in circulation, ranks second on the protocol with $180 million supplied against $167.5 million borrowed, a utilization ratio of about 93%.

The USD1 supply rate sits at 16.24% and the borrow rate at 9.18%, figures that reflect concentrated borrowing activity rather than broad organic demand.

At that utilization, ordinary depositors who lent USD1 to the pool expecting to withdraw at will cannot all do so at once. Their funds are effectively locked until the large borrower repays.

The collateral backing the WLFI-denominated borrow is a separate problem.

WLFI trades with limited market depth relative to the size of the position. If the token moves sharply lower and Dolomite’s liquidation mechanism triggers, the forced sale would crash the price before the collateral could be unwound, leaving the protocol holding bad debt that would fall on the same retail depositors who currently cannot exit.

Activity escalated in April through a different route. On April 2, the WLFI treasury sent 2 billion WLFI to a Gnosis Safe proxy wallet at address 0x44a681DD. Five days later, it sent another 1 billion.

Neither transfer went directly to Dolomite, and onchain data does not yet show where those tokens are headed. The three billion additional tokens are worth roughly $266 million at WLFI’s current price of $0.0888.

World Liberty Financial did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

Yuga Labs has settled its NFT counterfeiting lawsuit against artist Ryder Ripps and business partner Jeremy Cahen. The parties have filed proposed orders to permanently block Ripps and Cahen from using Yuga’s imagery and trademarks, according to Reuters, citing court documents.

The settlement concludes the legal dispute over alleged unauthorized use of Yuga’s intellectual property, namely involving its Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection. Terms of the settlement have not been disclosed beyond the trademark and imagery restrictions outlined in the proposed court orders.

Sources: Reuters

This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.

What appeared to be a down day in crypto markets has turned positive after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he told his cabinet to start negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible. This came after NBC News reported that President Trump had requested Netanyahu scale back bombing in Lebanon as it threatened Monday’s announced ceasefire.

Bitcoin quickly rose about 3% as the news hit, now trading at $72,300, up 2% over the past 24 hours. U.S. stocks also reversed modest early losses, with the Nasdaq now ahead 0.65%. Having surged to nearly $103 per barrel earlier in the day, WTI crude oil quickly pulled back to $98.60.

Bitcoin is notably outperforming other crypto majors, with ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) all higher by less than 1%.

Continued divergence with software stocks

Firmly linked at the hip in recent months, bitcoin and software stocks continued to diverge on Thursday. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF (IGV) fell 4%, approaching a key support level around $76, a level it has tested and rebounded from multiple times.

Over the past month, bitcoin is up 9%, while IGV is down 12%.

On a 20-day moving average basis, the correlation coefficient between Bitcoin and IGV has dropped to a relatively low 0.34, reinforcing the recent divergence in their price movements.

This month’s $285 million exploit on Drift, a decentralized exchange (DEX), was the largest crypto hack in over a year, when exchange Bybit lost $1.4 billion. North Korean state-backed hackers were named as prime suspects in both attacks.

This past autumn, attackers posed as a quantitative trading firm and approached Drift’s protocol team in person at a major crypto conference, said Drift in an X post Sunday.

“It is now understood that this appears to be a targeted approach, where individuals from this group continued to deliberately seek out and engage specific Drift contributors, in person, at multiple major industry conferences in multiple countries over the following six months,” said the DEX.

Until now, North Korean cyber spies have targeted crypto firms online, through virtual calls and remote work. An in-person approach at a conference would not typically raise suspicion, but the Drift exploit should be enough for attendees to review connections made at recent events.

North Korea expands crypto playbook beyond hacks

Blockchain forensics firm TRM Labs described the incident as the largest DeFi hack of 2026 (so far) and the second-largest exploit in Solana’s history, just behind the $326 million Wormhole bridge hack in 2022.

The initial contact dates back about six months, but the exploit itself traces to mid-March, according to TRM. The attacker began by moving funds from Tornado Cash and deploying the CarbonVote Token (CVT), while using social engineering to persuade multisig signers to approve transactions that granted elevated permissions.

They then manufactured credibility for CVT by minting a large supply and inflating trading activity to simulate real demand. Drift’s oracles picked up the signal and treated the token as a legitimate asset.

When the pre-approved transactions were executed on April 1, CVT was accepted as collateral, withdrawal limits were increased and funds were withdrawn in real assets, including USDC.

Related: North Korean spy slips up, reveals ties in fake job interview

According to TRM, the speed and aggressiveness of the subsequent laundering exceeded that seen in the Bybit hack.

North Korea is widely believed to be using large-scale crypto thefts such as the Drift and Bybit attacks alongside longer-term tactics, including placing operatives in remote roles at tech and crypto firms to generate steady income. The United Nations Security Council has said such funds are used to support the country’s weapons program.

Security researcher Taylor Monahan said infiltration of DeFi protocols dates back to “DeFi summer,” adding that around 40 protocols have had contact with suspected DPRK operatives.

North Korean state media reported Thursday that the country tested an electromagnetic weapon and a short-range ballistic missile, known as the Hwasong-11, fitted with cluster munition warheads.

Infiltration network fuels steady crypto revenue

A separate investigation revealed how a network of North Korea-linked IT workers generated millions through prolonged infiltration.

Data obtained from an anonymous source shared by ZachXBT showed the network posing as developers and embedding themselves across crypto and tech firms, generating roughly $1 million a month and more than $3.5 million since November.

The group secured jobs using falsified identities, routed payments through a shared system, then converted funds to fiat and sent them to Chinese bank accounts via platforms such as Payoneer.

Related: Are you a freelancer? North Korean spies may be using you

The operation relied on basic infrastructure, including a shared website with a common password and internal leaderboards tracking earnings. 

The agents applied for roles in plain sight using VPNs and fabricated documents, pointing to a longer-term strategy of embedding operatives to extract steady revenue.

Defenses evolve as infiltration tactics spread

Cointelegraph encountered a similar scheme in a 2025 investigation led by Heiner García, who spent months in contact with a suspected operative.

Cointelegraph later took part in García’s dummy interview with a suspect who went by “Motoki,” who claimed to be Japanese. The suspect rage quit the call after failing to introduce himself in his supposed native dialect.

The investigation found operatives bypassed geographic restrictions by using remote access to devices physically located in countries such as the US. Instead of VPNs, they operated those machines directly, making their activity appear local.

By now, tech headhunters have realized that the person at the other end of a virtual job interview may indeed be a North Korean cyber spy. A viral defence strategy is to ask suspects to insult Kim Jong Un. So far, the tactic has been effective.

However, as Drift was approached in person and García’s findings showed operatives finding creative methods to bypass geographic restrictions, North Korean actors have continued to adapt to the cat-and-mouse dynamic.

Requesting interviewees to call North Korea’s supreme leader a “fat pig” is an effective strategy for the time being, but security researchers warn that this won’t work forever.

Magazine: Phantom Bitcoin checks, China tracks tax on blockchain: Asia Express