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Monument Bank to tokenize 250 million pounds of retail deposits in UK first

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Monument Bank to tokenize 250 million pounds of retail deposits in UK first

Monument Bank said it plans to tokenise up to 250 million pounds ($335 million) of retail customer deposits on the Midnight network in what it described as the first such move by a U.K.-regulated bank on a public blockchain.

The London-based challenger bank said the deposits will remain interest-bearing, fully backed by Monument and redeemable one-for-one in pounds sterling. They will also remain covered by the U.K.’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

The move marks is a step in the push to bring tokenized financial products into regulated banking. While banks in the U.K. and elsewhere have explored tokenized deposits, most work to date has focused on institutional use or closed networks.

Monument is pitching this effort at retail customers, starting with clients with investable assets between 50,000 pounds and 5 million pounds, the so-called mass-affluent, according to asset manager St. James’s Place.

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Monument, which says it has more than 100,000 customers and about 7 billion pounds in deposits, said the first phase will mirror savings balances on Midnight’s privacy-focused blockchain.

Later phases are meant to add tokenized investment products such as private market and commodity funds, followed by lending against those holdings inside the Monument app.

Midnight Foundation, which was developed by Shielded Technologies, a company linked to Cardano creator Input Output, is providing the blockchain infrastructure.

Monument said the system is designed so transaction data remains visible only to the bank and its customers, while operating within existing U.K. banking protections and compliance rules.

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The announcement also points to a wider play. Monument said affiliate Monument Technology plans to offer tokenized deposit functionality through its Banking-as-a-Service platform. That could allow other institutions to adopt the same model.

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Ethereum Price Prediction: ETH Memecoins Heating Up, Wojak 300% After 100,000% Asteroid Run

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ETH memecoin sector is producing new millionaires. Ethereum price prediction is getting bullish! Here's why.

ETH memecoin season is flashing early signals. Ethereum is dropping under at $2,300 amid cautious consolidation, but beneath the surface, the ETH memecoin sector is producing new millionaires. Ethereum price prediction is getting bullish!

A single trader converted $2,500 into nearly $500,000 in hours via the Elon Musk-linked ASTEROID token on Ethereum, a 100,000% return on entry. Wojak, another ETH-native memecoin, has since posted a 300% follow-through move, suggesting capital is rotating rapidly through the ecosystem’s speculative tier. Social feeds lit up. The pattern is familiar to anyone who survived 2021.

Discover: The best pre-launch token sales

Ethereum Price Prediction: $2,600 On The Horizon

ETH sits at under $2,300, pinned inside a symmetrical triangle pattern with resistance clustered between $2,200 and $2,400. The RSI reads neutral, with volatility running at 5.21%, and 17 of the past 30 days closing green. Ethereum is coiling.

Moving averages confirm the tension. The 50-Day SMA sits at $2,210, providing near-term support below the current price. The 200-Day SMA at $2,645 looms well overhead as a macro ceiling. Price is sandwiched, structurally constructive, but requires a catalyst to resolve direction.

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ETH memecoin sector is producing new millionaires. Ethereum price prediction is getting bullish! Here's why.
ETH USD, TradingView

Short-term forecast models offer cautious optimism: CoinCheckup projects $2,750 within 30 days, with incremental step targets of $2,340.by April 20 and $2,600 by April 24. The Fear & Greed Index is getting better at 27 after hovering under 20 for more than a month. This zone usually precedes recoveries more often than collapses.

If ETH can break the triangle upward trend through $2,400, it could finally trigger a run toward $3,000 and align with community targets, especially with memecoins in its chain gaining traction.

Discover: The best crypto to diversify your portfolio with

LiquidChain Targets Early Mover Upside as Ethereum Tests Key Levels

For us who just watched a $2,500 ASTEROID position become $500,000, the opportunity from the same coin is just gone. But the memecoin spike demonstrates where asymmetric returns actually live in this cycle: early infrastructure and early-stage assets, not late-entry rotations into established large-caps.

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Although holding memecoins is not easy, we know people can fumble big money if patience runs out.

LiquidChain ($LIQUID) is a Layer 3 memecoin infrastructure project built around a single, genuinely useful proposition: fusing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into one execution environment. Developers deploy once and access all three ecosystems. It requires no bridging, no fragmented liquidity pools, no redundant deployments.

The architecture centers on a Unified Liquidity Layer, Single-Step Execution, and Verifiable Settlement.

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The presale is live at $0.01451 per $LIQUID, with almost $700K raised to date. Staking is available for presale participants with a huge 1500% APY bonus.

Research LiquidChain and review the full presale terms here.

The post Ethereum Price Prediction: ETH Memecoins Heating Up, Wojak 300% After 100,000% Asteroid Run appeared first on Cryptonews.

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MicroStrategy Makes Biggest Bitcoin Buy Since 2024, Will It Move BTC Price?

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MicroStrategy Makes Biggest Bitcoin Buy Since 2024, Will It Move BTC Price?

MicroStrategy has made its largest Bitcoin purchase in over a year, adding 34,164 BTC for $2.54 billion at an average price of $74,395.

The move lifts its total holdings to 815,061 BTC, extending its lead as the largest corporate Bitcoin holder.

Executive Chairman Michael Saylor signaled the buy a day earlier with his usual chart post on X. Markets read it as another accumulation signal—and they were right.

MicroStrategy is Buying Near Breakout Levels

The timing stands out. Bitcoin has been trading close to Strategy’s average cost basis of roughly $75,500, placing the firm near breakeven.

Strategy has a pattern of stepping in around key levels rather than waiting for deep pullbacks. This latest purchase is also a step up in size. The company bought roughly $1 billion worth of BTC the week prior and $330 million the week before that.

The acceleration suggests growing conviction at current price levels.

Recent analysis from Coinbase shows that large, consistent buyers like Strategy reduce the liquid supply of Bitcoin. Coins move off the market and into long-term holdings, tightening available float.

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That effect becomes more important when Bitcoin is already near a technical breakout level. At those points, even incremental buying can help push price higher, triggering momentum traders and systematic funds.

Strategy’s latest purchase absorbed more than 34,000 BTC in a single week. For context, miners produce roughly 450 BTC per day, meaning the company bought the equivalent of over two months of new supply in one move.

Bitcoin Supply Squeeze, With Limits

Still, the impact is not guaranteed.

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Coinbase notes that the price effect of large buyers can be muted if the market already expects the purchases, or if flows from ETFs, derivatives, or macro conditions outweigh them.

In other words, Strategy’s buying tightens supply in the background. It matters most when market conditions are already leaning bullish.

Strategy continues to fund its purchases through its capital programs, including its STRC preferred stock. The company still has significant capacity to raise funds, giving it room to keep accumulating.

With over 815,000 BTC now on its balance sheet, Strategy is steadily moving toward its long-term goal of 1 million BTC.

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The post MicroStrategy Makes Biggest Bitcoin Buy Since 2024, Will It Move BTC Price? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Kelp DAO hits back at LayerZero for trying to shift the blame after a massive exploit

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Kelp DAO hits back at LayerZero for trying to shift the blame after a massive exploit

The popular Spiderman meme showing three identical superheroes pointing fingers at each other is having its crypto moment today.

Kelp DAO is set to push back on LayerZero’s post-mortem of Sunday’s $290 million exploit, which essentially blames Kelp, a L2 source familiar with the matter told CoinDesk. Kelp plans to dispute the cross-chain messaging firm’s claim that it ignored repeated warnings to move away from a single-verifier setup. CoinDesk has reviewed and verified the memo Kelp plans to publish.

Kelp is a liquid restaking protocol that takes user-deposited ether, routes it through a yield-generating system called EigenLayer, and issues a receipt token, rsETH, in exchange.

LayerZero is the cross-chain messaging infrastructure that moves rsETH between blockchains, using entities called DVNs (decentralized verifier networks) to verify whether a cross-chain transfer is valid.

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On Saturday, attackers drained 116,500 rsETH, worth about $290 million, from Kelp’s LayerZero-powered bridge by poisoning the servers that LayerZero’s verifier relied on to check transactions.

Kelp, the source said, is planning on saying the DVN that was compromised via what it calls a “sophisticated state-sponsored attack” was LayerZero’s own infrastructure, not a third-party verifier.

Attackers compromised two of LayerZero’s own servers that check whether cross-chain transactions are legitimate, then flooded the backup servers with junk traffic to force LayerZero’s verifier onto the compromised ones.

All of that infrastructure was built and run by LayerZero, not Kelp, the source claimed.

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The source contested LayerZero’s framing of the “1/1 configuration” as a fringe choice made against guidance. LayerZero’s post-mortem said KelpDAO chose a 1-of-1 DVN setup despite expressing recommendations to configure multi-DVN redundancy.

A “1/1 configuration” means only a single validator must sign off on a cross-chain message for the bridge to act on it, leaving the system with no second check to catch a compromised or forged instruction. A multi-validator configuration (such as 2/3, 3/5, etc.) ensures there is no single point of failure that can approve a forged message on its own.

They added that, through a direct communications channel with LayerZero, which has been open since July 2024, they produced no specific recommendation for Kelp to change the rsETH DVN configuration.

LayerZero’s own quickstart guide and default GitHub configuration point to a 1/1 DVN setup, the source told CoinDesk, adding 40% of protocols on LayerZero are currently using the same configuration.

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The configuration Kelp ran also appears in LayerZero’s own V2 OApp Quickstart, where the sample layerzero.config.ts wires every pathway with one required DVN and no optional DVNs. That’s the same 1/1 structure.

Kelp’s core restaking contracts were not touched, and the exploit was isolated to the bridge layer, they added. Its emergency pause, 46 minutes after the drain, blocked two follow-up attempts that would have released an additional ~$200 million in rsETH.

CoinDesk reached out to LayerZero for comment on the story and didn’t hear back by the time of publication.

‘Deflecting responsibility’

Security researchers are also not buying LayerZero’s isolated framing, which pinned the blame on Kelp.

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Kelp is a liquid restaking protocol. Its core competency is staking infrastructure, EigenLayer integration, and liquid staking token management. When integrating with LayerZero, Kelp relied on LayerZero’s documentation, their defaults, and their team’s guidance to make configuration decisions, the source claimed.

Yearn Finance core team developer Artem K, who is popularly known as @banteg on X, posted a technical review of LayerZero’s public deployment code and said that the reference setup ships with single-source verification defaults across every major chain, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism.

That deployment also leaves a public endpoint exposed that leaks the list of configured servers to anyone who queries it.

Banteg flagged in his analysis that he can’t prove which configuration Kelp used, but noted that LayerZero usually asks new operators to use its default setup, which its post-mortem criticized.

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Chainlink community manager Zach Rynes put it bluntly on X, alleging that LayerZero was “deflecting responsibility” for its own compromised infrastructure and accused the company of throwing Kelp under the bus for trusting a setup LayerZero itself supported.

As such, LayerZero has said it will no longer sign messages for any application running a single-verifier setup, forcing a protocol-wide migration.

Read more: ‘DeFi is dead’: crypto community scrambles after this year’s biggest hack exposes contagion risk

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Strategy boosts BTC stash to 800k with $2.5B for 34,164 BTC

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Crypto Breaking News

Strategy, Michael Saylor’s flagship vehicle and the largest public holder of Bitcoin, has surpassed 800,000 BTC in total holdings after its latest purchases. The company disclosed in an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it bought 34,164 BTC for $2.54 billion between April 13 and 19, at an average price of $74,395 per coin.

The new purchase lifts Strategy’s total BTC under custody to 815,061 coins, purchased for $61.56 billion. The firm had about 780,897 BTC after a $1 billion buy just a week earlier. By coin count, the April tranche ranks as Strategy’s third-largest BTC acquisition, behind 55,500 BTC and 51,780 BTC purchases made in November 2024.

Key takeaways

  • New BTC haul: 34,164 BTC acquired for $2.54 billion (April 13–19), at an average price of $74,395 per coin.
  • Funding mix: Stretch (STRC), the perpetual preferred security, supplied about $2.18 billion (roughly 85.7% of the total proceeds); Class A common stock contributed about $366 million.
  • Record-pace activity via STRC ATM: The STRC at-the-market program delivered two consecutive days of heavy buying, with estimated BTC purchases rising to around 17,204 BTC across 11.9 million and 14.4 million shares sold, according to STRC Live—about a 518% surge versus the four-week average.
  • Cost basis and scale: The purchase price sits slightly below Strategy’s overall average cost basis, reinforcing the company’s long-standing commitment to accumulating BTC.
  • Future dividend signal: Strategy CEO Phong Le has signaled potential semi-monthly dividends for STRC, a unique feature among preferreds, a move the company says could be attractive.

Strategy expands its BTC stake with a mid-April buy

The363,164-BTC addition cements Strategy’s position as the world’s most prominent publicly traded Bitcoin holder. The deal, documented in an 8-K filing, shows the bulk of the purchase was executed through financing channels tied to STRC, the company’s perpetual preferred security. With the new BTC, Strategy’s total holdings stand at 815,061 BTC, a stake amassed for $61.56 billion to date.

For context, Strategy had been holding about 780,897 BTC after a $1 billion purchase a week prior, underscoring a rapid acceleration in accumulation over a short window. The new acquisition sits just below Strategy’s average cost of around $75,527 per BTC, illustrating a cautious approach to price levels over the course of the company’s investment program.

In a regulatory filing, Strategy confirmed the April purchases and reiterated that the company prioritizes a diversified approach to funding its Bitcoin stack, balancing debt-like instruments with equity capital. The size and cadence of the buys highlight how a very large corporate treasury can shape a single-asset narrative, particularly as BTC remains a focal point for corporate treasuries seeking to optimize risk/return over time.

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STRC fuels the deal, underscoring the instrument’s role in Strategy’s strategy

The funding structure behind the latest BTC accumulation shows STRC playing a central role. The SEC filing indicates STRC generated $2.18 billion in proceeds from the sale of shares, accounting for roughly 85.7% of the total funding for the new purchase. By contrast, net proceeds from the sale of Class A common stock accounted for about $366 million.

Strategy’s leadership has repeatedly highlighted STRC as a key financing vehicle. Last week, co-founder and executive leadership signaled the potential for STRC to pay semi-monthly dividends, a rarity among preferred securities. In remarks cited by the filing, Strategy CEO Phong Le said, “If we were to move forward with paying STRC semi-monthly, we would be in category one, the only preferred in the world that pays semi-monthly dividends. We think this is unique and attractive.”

ATM program momentum and what it signals

The week’s activity also reflected STRC’s at-the-market program’s capacity to drive large, rapid purchases. STRC Live reported a new daily record on April 13 of about 7,741 BTC tied to the sale of 11.9 million STRC shares, generating more than $1 billion in trading volume. The following day, the program set another record with an estimated 9,364 BTC tied to the sale of 14.4 million shares. Combined, the two days accounted for roughly 17,204 BTC, marking a 518% increase versus the four-week average.

These figures illustrate how a perpetual preferred instrument can work in tandem with a strategic corporate treasury plan to widen exposure to Bitcoin quickly, leveraging market liquidity to scale holdings without committing to large, single-block equity raises.

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Market implications and what investors should watch next

Strategy’s latest round of accumulation reinforces the company’s longstanding thesis: Bitcoin remains a core long-term asset, with corporate treasuries willing to deploy significant capital through diversified financing structures. For investors in Strategy and BTC, the coordination between STRC-based funding and large-scale purchases signals a sustained appetite for exposure to Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset rather than a speculative position.

Key questions moving forward include how STRC dividends will evolve, whether subsequent purchases will follow the same financing pattern, and how regulators might view semi-monthly dividend structures tied to a crypto-asset strategy. Market participants will want to monitor further SEC disclosures and STRC Live updates for new guidance on payout schedules and any shifts in the ATM program’s cadence.

As Strategy continues to expand its BTC stash, eyes will remain on the company’s next steps and the potential ripple effects on corporate treasury behavior, Bitcoin price discovery, and the broader crypto market’s adoption by public-market players.

Readers should watch for additional updates from Strategy and STRC in the coming weeks, including any new 8-K filings or official statements on dividend structure and future ATM activity.

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Risk & affiliate notice: Crypto assets are volatile and capital is at risk. This article may contain affiliate links. Read full disclosure

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Saylor’s Strategy Boosts Bitcoin Holdings Past 815,000 BTC

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Saylor’s Strategy Boosts Bitcoin Holdings Past 815,000 BTC

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, has blasted past 800,000 BTC in total holdings after announcing its latest purchases.

Strategy acquired 34,164 Bitcoin (BTC) for $2.54 billion between April 13 and 19, according to an 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The buy ranks as Strategy’s third-largest Bitcoin acquisition on record by coin count, behind purchases of 55,500 BTC and 51,780 BTC in November 2024.

Holding around 780,897 BTC after a $1 billion purchase just a week ago, the company now holds 815,061 BTC, purchased for $61.56 billion.

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Source: SEC

The new acquisition was made at an average price of $74,395 per coin, slightly below the company’s average acquisition price of $75,527.

Saylor had teased the purchase on Sunday, signaling another large Bitcoin acquisition ahead of the announcement. The company also disclosed on Friday plans to pay Stretch (STRC) dividends twice monthly. STRC is the company’s perpetual preferred security.

“If we were to move forward with paying STRC semi-monthly, we would be in category one, the only preferred in the world that pays semi-monthly dividends. We think this is unique and attractive,” Strategy CEO Phong Le said.

Related: Bitmine ramps up Ether buys, pushes holdings toward 5% of total supply

Strategy’s STRC funds more than 85% of the purchase

Similar to a few recent acquisitions, the majority of Strategy’s latest purchase has been funded through STRC.

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According to the filing, STRC generated $2.18 billion, or about 85.7% of total proceeds, while sales of Class A common stock (MSTR) contributed $366 million.

Source: SEC

Last week marked several new records for STRC, including the company’s largest single-day buying spree through its at-the-market, or ATM, program.

On April 13, STRC set a new estimated daily record of about 7,741 BTC, based on the sale of 11.9 million shares through its at-the-market, or ATM, program, generating more than $1 billion in trading volume, according to STRC Live.

The stock set another record the following day, with an estimated 9,364 BTC tied to 14.4 million shares sold through its at-the-market, or ATM, program. The two days combined brought an estimated 17,204 BTC, marking a 518% surge versus the four-week average.

Magazine: Will the CLARITY Act be good — or bad — for DeFi?

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