The “DeFi United” industry recovery effort spearheaded by Kelp and Aave Labs has filled 73,700 ETH of the 163,200 ETH hole from the April 18 exploit, and confirmed public commitments from ecosystem partners now total 43,500 ETH.

That leaves a remaining shortfall of approximately 89,500 ETH. Of the amount already recovered, 40,300 rsETH (roughly 43,000 ETH) was clawed back directly by Kelp after it paused its bridge contracts 46 minutes into the attack, with an additional 30,700 ETH frozen by the Arbitrum Security Council on April 21.

The initiative has since expanded its roster of participants to include EtherFi, Ethena, Lido, Golem, Ink Foundation, Tydro, Mantle, Frax Finance and LayerZero.

Confirmed public pledges of 43,500 ETH come from Mantle, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, EtherFi, Lido and Golem. Kulechov has personally committed 5,000 ETH, EtherFi has proposed a 5,000 ETH relief contribution, Golem Foundation and Golem Factory have pledged a combined 1,000 ETH, and Lido Labs Foundation has earmarked up to 2,500 stETH via a governance proposal.

The Mantle pledge anchors the latest wave of support. In its MIP-34 proposal published Thursday, Mantle’s Core Contributor Team proposed a loan of up to 30,000 ETH from the Mantle Treasury to Aave DAO, structured with a Lido staking APR plus 1% premium interest rate, a maturity of up to 36 months, and collateral including 5% of Aave revenue and at least $11 million in AAVE tokens held in a Mantle-controlled multisig. The loan is earmarked solely for resolving rsETH bad debt on Aave V3.

Crypto exchange Bybit, a core Mantle backer since the network’s launch, publicly endorsed the proposal on Thursday. “Bybit, as the biggest holder and supporter of Mantle, will vote YES for this proposal,” Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou wrote on X. “When we got hacked the industry got together and helped us. It is the only right thing that we do the same to unit[e] together and walk out from difficult times.”

Smaller contributions have also come in from Aave’s current and former contributor community. Aave builder Emilio Frangella committed 500 ETH, BGD Labs pledged 250 ETH, and BGD Labs co-founder Ernesto Boado personally donated 100 ETH.

Aave’s own April 20 incident report modeled between $123.7 million and $230.1 million in potential bad debt depending on how Kelp allocates losses across rsETH holders. Aave’s risk team paused rsETH reserves across Ethereum Core, Arbitrum, Base, Mantle and Linea earlier this week, and partially unfroze WETH supply on Ethereum Core V3 after a joint-protocol escape hatch was built within 24 hours of the exploit.

“rsETH holders come first, and that’s been our priority since day 1,” Kelp said in its update. “We will continue sharing updates as further commitments are confirmed.”

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

TLDR

• XRP added about $900 million in tokenized real-world assets within 24 hours.
• The total RWA value on the XRP Ledger reached $3.53 billion after the surge.
• Justoken’s JMWH product increased from $861 million to $1.763 billion on-chain.
• JMWH now accounts for nearly half of the total RWA value on XRPL.
• RWA.xyz data reflected the sudden rise in value on its public dashboard.

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XRP recorded a sharp rise in tokenized real-world assets within 24 hours. The network added about $900 million in value, pushing total RWA holdings to $3.53 billion. Data from RWA.xyz shows that the increase came from an existing product on the XRP Ledger.

XRP Sees Rapid Growth in Tokenized Assets on XRPL

RWA.xyz reported that XRP Ledger held $2.616 billion in tokenized assets as of April 22. That figure included $491 million in stablecoins and showed steady growth since January. However, the total climbed to $3.53 billion within a day, reflecting a 35% increase.

The data shows that Justoken’s JMWH product drove the entire rise. JMWH increased from $861 million to $1.763 billion on-chain during the same period. As a result, JMWH now accounts for nearly 49.9% of total RWA value on XRPL.

RWA.xyz confirmed the updated figures on its public dashboard. The platform tracks represented and distributed real-world assets across major blockchain networks. The sudden jump marked one of the largest single-day changes recorded for XRP’s RWA ecosystem.

Justoken’s JMWH Product Drives XRP Ledger Expansion

Justoken, based in Buenos Aires, developed the JMWH digital energy token. Each JMWH token represents one real megawatt-hour of electricity backed by energy providers. The company deployed the product exclusively on the XRP Ledger.

The recent increase appears linked to a new deployment or value update. However, Justoken’s official platform still lists JMWH at about $860 million. The company has not yet confirmed the higher $1.763 billion valuation reflected on RWA.xyz.

Following the update, XRPL moved higher in global RWA rankings. The ledger now ranks third by represented real-world assets with about $2.5 billion recorded. XRP’s market share rose 71.78% over 30 days to 0.71%.

When including both represented and distributed assets, XRP ranks fifth globally. The network now hosts $3 billion in total RWA, excluding stablecoins. This marks a 60.33% rise over the past 30 days.

JMWH currently represents about 70% of the represented value on XRPL. The product remains the largest single tokenized asset hosted on the network. RWA.xyz continues to display the updated figures at press time.

Justoken has not issued a public statement regarding the change. Its website still reflects the earlier $860 million value. The discrepancy remains unresolved as of the latest available data.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said Friday it has signed agreements with three European standards bodies to reuse existing open payment standards for digital euro transactions, as it seeks to reduce integration costs for banks, merchants and payment service providers. 

According to the ECB, the agreements with the European Card Payment Cooperation, Nexo standards and the Berlin Group will allow the ECB to use standards covering contactless tap-to-pay payments, merchant-to-payment-provider connections and alias-based payments, such as transactions using a mobile phone number.

The ECB said using existing open standards would minimize adoption costs for the market and help create a uniform digital euro user experience across the euro area. However, the standards agreements remain a cost-mitigation step, not confirmation that the digital euro will be cheap to implement.

An earlier ECB analysis reported by Reuters estimated that the digital euro could cost European Union banks between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros over four years.

The agreements show that the ECB is trying to reduce one technical barrier to digital euro adoption. However, the move does not directly resolve the broader cost question facing banks that may still need to spend billions of euros preparing systems, staff and compliance processes for a possible launch.

The standards to be included. Source: ECB

ECB prepares technical layer ahead of pilot

The ECB said the agreements are intended to encourage early coordination among payment service providers, standardization bodies and other market participants before a possible digital euro launch.

The central bank said Europe currently lacks a universally available open standard supported across payment terminals and remains heavily dependent on proprietary standards owned by international card schemes and global digital wallets.

Related: ECB backs tokenized EU capital markets with strict guardrails

The standards push follows earlier signals that the ECB wants the digital euro’s technical framework clarified so banks and merchants can begin preparing their systems. On March 25, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the central bank expected to announce key technical standards by the summer.

The ECB is also separately recruiting payment service providers for a 12-month digital euro pilot expected to start in the second half of 2027. On Feb. 18, the ECB said the pilot will involve a limited number of payment service providers, merchants and Eurosystem staff, with PSPs playing a central role in digital euro distribution.

Magazine: Ripple joins Singapore sandbox, Bhutan’s big Bitcoin selloff: Asia Express

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Key Takeaways

• Product launch: Bitget’s IPO Prime platform offers tokenized exposure to private companies ahead of public listings.
• First listing: preSPAX, a derivative token tracking SpaceX’s economic performance, issued via Republic on Solana.
• Token structure: preSPAX is a derivative – not equity – designed to mirror financial outcomes tied to SpaceX’s post-IPO valuation.
• Mechanics: Users commit stablecoins into a pool and receive tokens proportional to total demand; tokens trade on a spot market immediately after distribution.
• Chain: Solana, increasingly positioned as a settlement layer for tokenized real-world assets.
• Watch item: Whether the SEC or equivalent regulators classify preSPAX-style instruments as unregistered securities will determine how fast IPO Prime can scale globally.

Decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter is rolling out Multi-Asset Margin today, enabling traders to post non-USDC assets as collateral for perps trading.

The feature debuts with ETH as the first supported collateral asset, according to Lighter’s documentation. Users deposit a supported asset into their margin balance, and its value, discounted by a loan-to-value haircut, counts toward the account’s margin balance and can be used to open perpetual positions. The upgrade is limited to perpetual futures at launch, with USDC spot trading collateralized by non-USDC assets slated to follow.

Lighter is rolling out the feature with conservative per-user and global supply caps as it onboards additional assets over time, per the docs. Access is restricted to accounts with Unified Trading Accounts enabled, which the team rolled out in February and described at the time as the first phase of a push to allow arbitrary tokens to be used as collateral on the platform.

The documentation highlights two potential use cases. The first is a delta-neutral basis trade, where a user deposits ETH as margin, shorts ETH perps against it, and earns funding. The second is leveraged spot, where deposited ETH is used as margin to buy more spot ETH.

Account risk is tracked through a single unified health check covering both perp positions and spot collateral.

The upgrade arrives as Lighter has lost ground in the perp DEX race since its token launch. The platform currently ranks fourth by 24-hour perp volume at roughly $1.35 billion, per DefiLlama, behind Hyperliquid, Aster, and EdgeX, after leading the market in November and December.

The platform’s LIT token has underperformed since its Dec. 29 debut as airdrop farmers rotated to pre-token competitors, and currently trades at a roughly $930 million valuation.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.

Zondacrypto’s crisis intensified as Polish prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into alleged fraud and investor losses, with CEO Przemysław Kral reportedly fleeing to Israel. According to the Polish outlet Onet, Kral has been in Israel for about a week and holds Israeli citizenship, a detail that could complicate any potential extradition. The probe was opened last Friday and centers on customer complaints and possible losses tied to the platform. According to Onet.

Cointelegraph confirmed that Kral’s email address previously used to communicate with him has become unavailable, and last week he acknowledged that Zondacrypto’s cold wallet holding 4,500 BTC was inaccessible. Prosecutors have identified hundreds of potential victims and losses of at least 350 million Polish zloty (roughly $97 million), notes from Poland cited by prosecutor spokesperson Michał Binkiewicz. Notes from Poland reported the figure.

The mounting controversy has also put pressure on Zondacrypto’s governance. This week, resignations were reported from BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian entity that operates the exchange. Former supervisory board member Georgi Džaniašvili said the board learned about the scale of the crisis through media reports rather than through internal channels, highlighting “material inconsistencies” between public statements and information available to the board.

Key takeaways

• Polish prosecutors opened a fraud investigation into Zondacrypto last Friday, with losses identified at a minimum of 350 million PLN and hundreds of potential victims, per prosecutor statements cited by Notes from Poland.
• CEO Przemysław Kral reportedly relocated to Israel, where he holds citizenship, a detail that could complicate extradition proceedings; Onet notes he has been in Israel for about a week.
• Resignations from the supervisory board of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the Estonian operator of Zondacrypto, point to governance strains and concerns about transparency, as described by former board member Georgi Džaniašvili.
• Although registered in Estonia, Zondacrypto maintains a sizable Polish user base, fueling broader regulatory and political scrutiny within the EU’s evolving MiCA framework.

Why Poland and the MiCA context matter for Zondacrypto

The case centers not only on missing access to a substantial cold-storage wallet but also on the jurisdictional complexity of a company registered in Estonia with a large Polish market. Zondacrypto traces its roots to Katowice, where it was founded in 2014 as BitBay. The public narrative from CEO Kral in recent days includes a claim that the company’s founder, Sylwester Suszek, who disappeared in 2022, was responsible for the lack of access to the cold wallet. The backdrop to this crisis has become a flashpoint in Polish politics. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has drawn connections between Zondacrypto’s origins and Russian capital and influence, arguing that up to 30,000 users may have been affected and noting Poland’s delay in implementing a robust investor-protection framework aligned with the EU’s MiCA regime. gov.pl quoted Tusk on the matter.

The broader regulatory setting underscores a central question for the EU: should crypto oversight be centralized at the EU level under MiCA, or primarily implemented at the national level? The debate is intensified by cases like Zondacrypto, which expose gaps in investor protection and cross-border enforcement. While MiCA aims to harmonize standards, enforcement and timely action remain points of contention among member states as EU regulators push for stronger, more consistent oversight of smaller crypto platforms.

What happens next for investors and the market

With investigators probing potential fraud and a missing founder, the path to restitution for affected users remains uncertain. Authorities will likely pursue asset tracing, potential fund recovery, and accountability for executives and board members, all while grappling with cross-border jurisdictional questions. The political dimension—spotlighting national responses to MiCA and centralized oversight—could influence future regulatory posture across Central and Eastern Europe. As the investigation unfolds, readers should monitor updates from Polish authorities and EU regulators for signs of policy shifts that could affect both consumer protections and the operating risk profile of cross-border crypto platforms.

Investors and users should watch for new disclosures about the custody of the 4,500 BTC, developments in extradition or international cooperation, and any formal steps taken by regulators to clarify investor protections for Polish users and the wider EU market.