An Aave vote opening May 15 would transfer 30,765 ETH to Aave LLC as part of the Kelp exploit recovery.

Aave and other affected parties launched a binding Arbitrum Improvement Proposal on May 12, opening a governance vote on May 15 that would move 30,765 ETH worth approximately $71 million from Arbitrum’s Security Council wallet to an Aave LLC-controlled address. The vote is the final procedural step needed to unblock the Kelp DAO recovery effort.

A Manhattan federal judge modified a prior freeze on May 9, permitting the transfer to proceed through onchain governance. Judge Margaret Garnett’s order also shields voters and other participants from personal liability under the existing restraining notice.

However, the terrorism creditors’ legal claim on the funds survives the transfer, meaning Aave LLC cannot freely deploy the ETH if the court ultimately sides with the plaintiffs.

What the $71 million is and how it was frozen

The 30,765 ETH was intercepted by Arbitrum’s Security Council on April 21 after being linked to the April 18 exploit of Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge.

Attackers used unbacked rsETH tokens as collateral on Aave v3 to borrow an estimated $230 million in wrapped ETH, generating over $190 million in bad debt and disrupting lending markets across DeFi.

The case became legally complex when Gerstein Harrow LLP, representing families holding $877 million in unpaid terrorism judgments against North Korea, argued the ETH constitutes DPRK property because blockchain analytics firms attributed the Kelp exploit to the Lazarus Group. No court has established that as a legal finding.

Aave founder Stani Kulechov pushed back directly. “These funds belong to the affected users they were stolen from, full stop,” he said. Aave had filed an emergency motion in New York on May 4 seeking to vacate the restraining notice entirely, arguing that a thief does not acquire lawful title to stolen property simply by moving it on-chain.

Recovery progress and what comes next

The broader DeFi United recovery initiative has now raised more than $314 million in ETH commitments from protocols including Mantle, EtherFi, Lido DAO, Ethena, LayerZero, and Compound. The $71 million transfer is one of the last remaining pieces needed to close the backing gap for rsETH.

Voting on the binding AIP opened May 15 and is expected to require roughly eight days before the ETH can move from Arbitrum to Ethereum through the standard L2-to-L1 withdrawal delay. The court dispute with terrorism creditors remains unresolved. If the court sides with the plaintiffs, Aave could ultimately be compelled to surrender the recovered ETH even after the transfer completes.

CertiK says North Korea-linked hackers stole about 60% of the value lost to crypto hacks in 2025, with proceeds used to help fund the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, highlighting the country’s growing reliance on digital assets to generate hard currency.

The findings, shared with Cointelegraph on Tuesday, come from a new Skynet report that attributes roughly $2.06 billion of an estimated $3.4 billion in 2025 crypto security losses to groups tied to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, across 79 of 656 incidents documented that year.

Between 2016 and early 2026, DPRK-linked actors stole an estimated $6.75 billion in cryptocurrency across 263 documented incidents, the report says, citing findings by independent onchain researcher Taylor Monahan.

CertiK’s analysis concludes that North Korea has “industrialized” crypto theft into a core state revenue mechanism, with open-source estimates showing how these operations represent a substantial share of the regime’s external income, as digital asset theft becomes a sustained revenue stream for the country.

Total DPRK crypto theft over the years. Source: CertiK/Skynet

The report also identifies a shift from opportunistic hot wallet compromises to fewer, higher-value operations that target the largest pools of capital.

In 2025, DPRK-linked groups were behind about 60% of the value stolen but only around 12% of total incidents, highlighting what CertiK describes as a focus on “precision and scale.”

Related: Phishing, deepfakes, supply chain attacks to fuel 2026’s biggest crypto hacks: CertiK

The single largest incident, the Bybit exploit in February 2025, resulted in about $1.5 billion in losses and is attributed in the report to the TraderTraitor cluster via a supply chain compromise of a third-party signing provider.

In that case, CertiK’s onchain analysis found that about 86% of the stolen Ether was converted into Bitcoin within one month of the hack, using mixing services, cross-chain bridges, decentralized exchanges and over-the-counter brokers.

North Korea’s crypto hacks shift from phishing to physical

CertiK’s Skynet study also details a progression in tactics, showing that social engineering remains the dominant initial attack vector, including fake job offers, investor impersonation and malicious code repositories.

DPRK evolution playbook. Source: CertiK/Skynet

The report attributes the Ronin Bridge exploit in 2022 to a spearphishing campaign involving a fake LinkedIn recruiter and a malware-laden PDF, while Bybit is cited as an example of a supply chain compromise, where attackers manipulated a user interface to route funds to a malicious address without changing the apparent content of transactions.

Related: Web3 hacks cost $482M in Q1 as phishing drove majority of losses: Hacken

The most recent evolution, described by CertiK as “physical infiltration,” is illustrated with the April 2026 Drift Protocol incident, in which about $285 million was drained from a Solana-based platform after a six-month operation involving conference attendance, relationship-building and governance manipulation.

Jonathan Riss, blockchain intelligence analyst at CertiK, told Cointelegraph that DPRK-linked operations now blend intelligence tradecraft with technical exploits, warning that North Korean information technology workers and intermediaries can obtain trusted roles inside Western crypto and fintech firms under false identities.

CertiK’s report, citing United Nations monitors and United States intelligence assessments, notes that revenue from these crypto thefts is confirmed to support North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, elevating the issue from a cybersecurity concern to one of international security, according to those cited assessments.

Asia Express: North Korea denies crypto hacks, Upbit’s bank tests Ripple

Bermuda is accelerating its plan to become a fully on-chain national economy by migrating select payment and financial-services activities to the Stellar network. The move, announced during the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum, signals the island nation’s intent to test digital assets within a government-backed framework after formal risk assessments on asset holdings and use cases.

Premier David Burt said the government could accept and invest in digital assets as part of a broader strategy to reduce reliance on costly legacy payments infrastructure. Stellar confirmed Bermuda’s intention to shift certain financial services onto its network in response to high transaction fees and to support the government’s public-sector initiatives at scale. Burt stressed that the intent is to deliver faster, more affordable payments while maintaining responsible governance around digital assets.

The Stellar announcement framed Bermuda’s move as a cornerstone of its plan to become the world’s first fully on-chain economy, leveraging the network’s capacity to handle fast, low-cost transactions across currencies and assets. The collaboration aligns with Bermuda’s ongoing efforts to position itself as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction, an effort that has roots in the Digital Asset Business Act passed in 2018.

At Davos earlier this year, Burt highlighted Bermuda’s partnership with Circle and Coinbase, underscoring a public-private approach to building out the ecosystem. “This is not the government, this is the private sector leading, working in concert with the government of Bermuda to go ahead and support this ecosystem,” Burt said, signaling a broad coalition intent beyond any single state program.

Key takeaways

• Bermuda aims to move selected financial services onto Stellar to reduce transaction costs and test a scalable, on-chain model for public-sector use cases.
• The plan follows a public acknowledgment by Premier David Burt that Bermuda is open to digital assets after risk assessments, signaling a potential policy evolution for asset holdings and investments.
• Stellar’s involvement is paired with Bermuda’s high-profile, Davos-era partnerships with Circle and Coinbase, illustrating a broader, cross-sector approach to crypto adoption and regulation.
• The move comes as Bermuda continues to promote itself as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction post-2018 legislation, with ongoing efforts to support merchant adoption and fintech programming.

Stellar’s role and the path to a fully on-chain economy

Stellar’s core value proposition—low-cost, rapid transactions across fiat and digital assets—positions it as a natural backbone for a government-led digital economy initiative. By migrating certain financial services to the Stellar network, Bermuda aims to address persistent fee pressures and unlock more affordable rails for payments, remittances, and on/off-ramps for digital currencies. The implications extend beyond cost savings: a shift toward on-chain operations could enable more transparent settlement, programmable money for public services, and streamlined compliance workflows.

Stellar’s public-facing message at the time of the announcement emphasized Bermuda’s ambition to operate a fully on-chain economy, with on-chain tools designed to support public sector projects at scale. The collaboration is framed as a pragmatic deployment—one that tests policy levers while leveraging a technology stack already geared toward institutional use cases such as cross-border payments and stablecoin activity for financial institutions, fintechs, and exchanges around the world.

The Bermuda government’s stance on digital assets remains nuanced. While Burt signalled openness to asset exposure after risk assessments, the administration has historically sought a careful, regulated path for crypto activities. The Stellar partnership is presented as a way to modernize payments infrastructure while keeping the state’s involvement deliberate and measured.

Private sector leadership, policy context, and regional momentum

The dialogue in Bermuda reflects a recurring theme in crypto hubs: private-sector leadership coupled with supportive regulatory scaffolding. Burt’s comments emphasize that the ecosystem’s momentum is being driven by private entities working alongside government entities to expand access to digital-financial services. This collaborative model mirrors Bermuda’s broader strategy to attract and cultivate crypto businesses while maintaining clear governance standards.

The policy backdrop includes Bermuda’s earlier steps toward crypto-friendly regulation, including the Digital Asset Business Act, which established a framework for digital-asset activities. The government has signaled a willingness to balance innovation with consumer protections, potentially paving the way for more pilot programs and pilot-token models. In parallel, Bermuda has seen other developments in the crypto ecosystem—such as DerivaDEX launching a Bermuda-licensed derivatives DEX under DAO governance—reflecting a growing appetite for regulated, onshore crypto venues.

Beyond Bermuda, corporate activity in payments and digital assets continues to evolve. For example, Bybit has expanded its merchant-payments footprint into South Africa, enabling users to pay merchants with digital assets—a development that highlights how crypto-enabled payments are moving from pilot programs to real-world merchant adoption in multiple regions. The broader regional context suggests that Bermuda’s approach could influence adjacent markets seeking to balance innovation with regulatory credibility.

What to watch next

As Bermuda advances its on-chain plan, observers should monitor how the Stellar implementation scales in practice, what type of financial services are prioritized for migration, and how the regulatory framework evolves to accommodate asset classes and custody, taxation, and consumer protections. The success—or challenges—of this pilot will inform whether other smaller economies pursue similar models and how Stellar and allied partners adapt to real-world constraints, including interoperability with traditional banking rails and multi-jurisdictional compliance. Investors and builders alike will want to watch for announcements detailing pilot milestones, any asset-acceptance criteria, and further public-private initiatives that widen merchant and user adoption across the archipelago.

As Bermuda paves the way for an on-chain economy, the central question remains: will the practical benefits—lower costs, faster settlement, and scalable public services—translate into measurable economic growth and wider financial inclusion? The coming months should reveal whether the island’s experimental approach can crystallize into a durable blueprint for other jurisdictions seeking similar digital-economy ambitions.

The government of Bermuda announced that it will begin moving payment and financial-services activities to the Stellar network as part of its plans to be a “fully on-chain national economy.”

Speaking at the Bermuda Digital Finance Forum on Tuesday, Premier David Burt said that the island nation’s government, after risk assessments, could accept and invest in digital assets. In addition, Stellar announced that Bermuda would move certain financial services onto its network in response to high transaction fees.

“The lack of mobile money applications and reliance on legacy payments infrastructure has left Bermudians paying high payment processing fees and hindered additional economic growth opportunities,” said Burt. “The use of digital dollars can change that, and the Stellar network’s capacity to support public sector initiatives are what make it possible to deliver this responsibly and at the scale Bermuda requires.”

Source: Stellar

Stellar is primarily classified as a Layer 1 blockchain. It is designed to facilitate fast and low-cost transactions across various currencies and assets. It powers cross-border payments, fiat on and off ramps, and stablecoin issuance for financial institutions, fintechs, and exchanges around the world.

Burt announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January that the government had partnered with Circle and Coinbase. The island nation has been attempting to establish itself as a jurisdiction friendly to crypto companies since passing its Digital Asset Business Act in 2018.

Related: DerivaDEX debuts Bermuda-licensed derivatives DEX

“This is not the government, this is the private sector leading, working in concert with the government of Bermuda to go ahead and support this ecosystem,” said Burt.

David Burt speaking at Bermuda Digital Finance Forum on Tuesday. Source: SALT

Adoption of digital assets among merchants

With a gross domestic product of about $9 billion as of 2024, Bermuda remains one of the smaller economies globally, turning to implementing policies favorable to digital asset companies.

Some companies have likewise followed in expanding adoption through payments and merchants in other countries. Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit announced in April that it had expanded its services to South Africa by allowing users to pay merchants with digital assets.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

MARA Holdings sold $1.5 billion in bitcoin in Q1 2026, dropping to the fourth largest public BTC holder.

MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) sold 20,880 bitcoin during Q1 2026 at an average price of $70,137 per coin, generating approximately $1.5 billion in proceeds. The company used $1.1 billion of that near quarter-end to repurchase convertible notes and improve its liquidity position as it repositions away from pure bitcoin mining.

As a result, MARA dropped from the second to the fourth largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, ending March with 35,303 BTC worth approximately $2.4 billion. First-quarter revenue fell 18% year over year to $174.6 million, and the company posted a $1.26 billion net loss, largely driven by a 22% decline in bitcoin’s price during the quarter.

How MARA is repositioning itself

In its Form 10-Q filing, MARA now describes itself as “a digital infrastructure company built to convert energy into high-value compute workloads,” placing AI and high-performance computing alongside bitcoin mining rather than treating it as a secondary focus.

Management said up to 90% of its non-hosted mining capacity could ultimately be redirected to AI and critical IT workloads, and confirmed the company has no current plans to purchase additional bitcoin mining hardware.

The Starwood Capital joint venture, announced in Q4 2025, is progressing toward active development, with MARA contributing power-rich sites and Starwood leading design, tenant sourcing, and construction. The structure allows MARA to preserve mining operations on available capacity while scaling AI infrastructure selectively.

After quarter-end, MARA also agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy and Power, a 505-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant in Ohio, in a $1.5 billion transaction. The campus sits on 1,600 contiguous acres and could support more than one gigawatt of total AI and computing capacity over time.

Context: mining-to-AI pivot across the sector

MARA’s shift reflects a broader trend among publicly traded miners. Core Scientific is converting its Pecos, Texas, site into a 1.5-gigawatt AI data center campus, while IREN completed a $3.4 billion deal with Nvidia in May. Public miners have collectively signed more than $70 billion in AI infrastructure contracts since late 2024.

Fred Thiel, MARA’s chairman and CEO, has framed the pivot as an extension of the company’s core competency. “Bitcoin mining is not a legacy business we are moving away from.

It is the operational foundation on which we are building,” he said. MARA also acquired a controlling interest in French AI and HPC data center operator Exaion for $174.5 million during the quarter.

TLDR:

• The CLARITY Act passed the House with 78 Democratic votes but remains stalled in the U.S. Senate after ten months.
• Binance clears nearly 40% of global spot crypto volume while Coinbase, the top U.S. exchange, handles only 6%.
• Senators Gallego and Torres are pushing crypto legislation to serve working-class Black and Latino constituents.
• Tokenization on public blockchains could extend American financial products to billions of people who lack U.S. brokerage access.

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The CLARITY Act remains stuck in the U.S. Senate despite strong bipartisan support in the House. Mike Novogratz, founder of Galaxy Digital, is urging Democrats to act on crypto regulation.

He argues that inaction is pushing American crypto activity offshore. With 55 million Americans owning crypto, the stakes for U.S. financial leadership are high.

The longer the Senate delays, the more ground the U.S. cedes to rival financial hubs like Singapore, Dubai, and London.

Senate Inaction Drives Crypto Activity Offshore

The CLARITY Act passed the House last July with backing from 78 Democrats. However, the bill has not advanced in the Senate, leaving American crypto companies without clear legal footing. Novogratz points to this regulatory vacuum as a key driver of offshore activity.

Binance, which holds no formal headquarters but operates under an Abu Dhabi license, now clears nearly 40% of global spot crypto volume.

Meanwhile, Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based exchange, handles roughly 6%. The gap between these numbers tells the story clearly.

The U.S. poured $2.4 trillion into crypto markets in a single year — nearly four times the next country. Yet without domestic rules, that capital flows through foreign platforms.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand crossed party lines in 2022 to introduce a bipartisan crypto framework. Writing on X, Novogratz noted that “the Senate’s job now is to finish it.”

Novogratz frames the delay not as a policy disagreement but as a posture problem. A vocal segment of the Democratic caucus views crypto legislation as a corporate giveaway. That view, he says, is producing the opposite of its intended effect — an unregulated offshore market.

Democratic Lawmakers and Tokenization Could Redefine U.S. Financial Power

Senator Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s first Latino senator, took up crypto policy directly because his constituents were asking about it. Many of them are working-class, Hispanic, or Black Americans with a growing interest in digital assets.

In a statement referenced by Novogratz, Gallego made his position clear: “If your constituents are showing interest in this, then you should show interest in it too.”

Representative Ritchie Torres, who grew up in public housing in the Bronx, represents one of the poorest congressional districts in America.

He has publicly argued that blockchain technology can “liberate the lowest income communities from the high fees of the traditional financial system.” Both lawmakers are actively legislating while much of the caucus remains on the sidelines.

Beyond domestic regulation, Novogratz sees a larger opportunity in tokenization. Public blockchains could allow American equities, Treasury bonds, and investment funds to reach billions of people globally who will never open a U.S. brokerage account. The CLARITY Act could make that possible.

Passing the bill, Novogratz argues, is not just a financial decision — it is a projection of American economic power. Countries like Singapore and the UAE are already moving.

Novogratz put it plainly: “Pass the CLARITY Act. Show up. This is how Democrats win. This is how America wins.” The U.S. has the capital markets, the demand, and the legal infrastructure to lead. What it needs now is legislative follow-through.

CryptoQuant signal has flipped Bitcoin into early bull territory for the first time since March 2023, analysts say.

CryptoQuant’s Bull-Bear Market Cycle Indicator entered bullish territory on May 12 for the first time since March 2023, signaling what analysts describe as a potential transition away from bear-market behavior. The indicator is built on CryptoQuant’s Profit and Loss Index, which aggregates the MVRV ratio, NUPL, and a comparison of Long-Term Holder and Short-Term Holder SOPR ratios.

CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno wrote on X that the shift “often suggests that the worst phase of the correction has already passed and that market structure is beginning to recover.” Bitcoin was trading above $80,000 when the indicator flipped, having rebounded roughly 35% from February’s $60,000 lows.

Why analysts are not calling a confirmed bull market yet

The last confirmed green reading came in March 2023 and held continuously until August 2024, covering a period during which Bitcoin climbed from roughly $20,000 to an all-time high above $73,000. The March 2022 signal is the critical exception: the indicator briefly turned green that month before Bitcoin extended its downtrend well into 2023.

Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, described the indicator as a regime-shift tool rather than a predictive crystal ball. “Historically, it has been most useful for identifying when bitcoin stops behaving like a bear-market asset,” he said. Sustained demand, liquidity, and price acceptance at higher levels are still required before the signal can be treated as validated.

Moreno flagged several secondary metrics showing exhaustion in the current setup. Bitcoin must decisively break the $82,000 resistance level, which has rejected multiple rally attempts, before the signal can be considered confirmed by price action.

What supporting data shows and what Hayes sees

Supporting the regime-shift thesis, April ETF inflows into spot Bitcoin products reached $2.44 billion, the strongest single-month institutional accumulation since October 2025. Glassnode’s RHODL ratio currently sits at 4.5, the third-highest reading in Bitcoin’s history, with the only comparable prior readings occurring at the 2015 and 2022 cycle bottoms.

Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom, argued separately that Bitcoin already found its cycle bottom at $60,000 earlier in 2026 and identified $90,000 as the threshold at which any rally would turn explosive toward the prior all-time high of $126,000. Bitget Wallet analyst Lacie Zhang said Bitcoin is “positioned for a potential breakout toward $85,000 to $90,000,” citing strong institutional support and continued ETF inflows.