Mitsui & Co. Digital Commodities (MDC), a subsidiary of Japanese trading giant Mitsui & Co., Ltd., its tokenized gold, silver, and platinum asset, Zipangcoin (ZPG), on Optimism’s Ethereum Layer 2, OP Mainnet, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.

ZPG has been issued under Japan’s regulatory framework since 2022 and currently runs on Miyabi, a proprietary private blockchain developed by longtime crypto exchange bitFlyer.

The OP Mainnet deployment marks the first time the asset will be issued in a public blockchain ecosystem. Per the release, Japanese CEX GMO Coin will list ZPG on April 20.

MDC’s parent, Mitsui & Co., is a Fortune Global 500 conglomerate with a market cap of over $94 billion, and Berkshire Hathaway as its largest shareholder, the release notes.

MDC also stated in the release that the choice of OP Mainnet follows deliberate due diligence, highlighting that OP Stack chains processed over 6 billion transactions in 2025 — 29x growth in two years.

According to DefiLlama, OP Mainnet currently has a total value locked in DeFi of over $393 million, making it the 17th largest chain in DeFi by TVL. The chain’s stablecoin market cap is approaching $579 million, and $30-day DEX volume is over $623 million.

Sho Miichi, MDC’s representative director & president, was quoted in the release saying: “We are pleased to partner with Optimism to bring a high-quality, commodity-linked digital asset from Japan to investors worldwide.”

Kyle Jenke, chief business officer at OP Labs, described Japan’s regulatory clarity as “one of the most compelling markets for on-chain finance,” adding:

“Zipangcoin is a commodity-backed cryptoasset issued by Mitsui & Co. Digital Commodities and will be the first cryptoasset issued by a Japanese company to launch on OP Mainnet.”

The ZPG launch on Optimism fits into a broader wave of institutional-grade assets moving on-chain.

On-chain tokenized RWAs tripled to roughly $18.6 billion over the course of 2025, with analysts projecting the market could reach $2 trillion by 2030.

Earlier this year, ether.fi migrated its crypto neobank — with $5.7 billion in TVL and around 50,000 active cards — from Scroll to OP Mainnet to access enterprise-grade payment infrastructure.

Tokenized precious metals trading has surged in recent months across both centralized and decentralized platforms. Earlier this week, decentralized perpetual exchange GMX launched 24/7 gold and silver markets on L2 Arbitrum, recording more than $10 million in trades on the first day.

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

Key Takeaways

• Charles Hoskinson, founder of Cardano, claims Bitcoin’s BIP-361 quantum protection measure is misleadingly classified as a soft fork when it actually demands a hard fork.
• The BIP-361 framework suggests locking quantum-susceptible Bitcoin wallets and mandating users transition to quantum-resistant addresses.
• BIP-361’s zero-knowledge proof recovery mechanism fails to assist holders of approximately 1.7 million Bitcoin generated before 2013 seed phrase protocols were standardized.
• Roughly 1.1 million of these coins are attributed to Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto and would face permanent lockdown if the measure is implemented.
• Data reveals that by March 1, 2026, over 34% of circulating Bitcoin features exposed public keys susceptible to quantum computing threats.

Cardano’s creator Charles Hoskinson has openly challenged Bitcoin’s planned quantum computing countermeasure, claiming it carries a misleading technical classification and offers no safeguard for the network’s earliest holdings.

The measure under scrutiny is BIP-361, jointly developed by Bitcoin core developer Jameson Lopp alongside other contributors. The proposal seeks to eliminate Bitcoin addresses exposed to quantum computer vulnerabilities by locking those holdings and requiring users to transfer to more secure addresses.

During a livestream broadcast this week, Hoskinson referenced statistics indicating that by March 1, 2026, more than 34% of circulating Bitcoin will have public keys exposed on the blockchain. This represents approximately 8 million Bitcoin vulnerable to attack from advanced quantum computing systems.

BIP-361 incorporates a zero-knowledge proof recovery framework designed to enable holders with standard wallet seed phrases to verify ownership and retrieve frozen assets following migration.

However, Hoskinson contends this recovery mechanism fails for roughly 1.7 million Bitcoin stored in wallets created before the BIP-39 seed phrase protocol gained widespread adoption around 2013.

These legacy wallets utilized an alternative key generation approach from Bitcoin’s original client software. They depended on local key pools instead of recoverable seed phrases. Without seed phrase access, constructing the zero-knowledge proof necessary for coin retrieval becomes impossible.

“1.7 million coins can’t do that. It’s not possible. 1.1 million of which belong to Satoshi,” Hoskinson stated.

The Hard Fork Controversy

Beyond recovery limitations, Hoskinson contested BIP-361’s classification. He argued the proposal presents itself as a soft fork while functionally demanding a hard fork due to its invalidation of existing signature schemes that remain actively deployed.

“To actually do this, you need a hard fork,” Hoskinson explained. Bitcoin has never implemented a hard fork, and its development community has traditionally resisted such changes.

Lopp, one of the proposal’s co-authors, admitted on X this week that he personally dislikes the plan and characterized it as “a rough idea for a contingency plan” instead of a finalized specification.

Lopp has maintained that freezing inactive coins—which he calculates at 5.6 million Bitcoin—would be more favorable than allowing future quantum attackers to recover and liquidate them in markets.

Governance Structure and Institutional Influence

Hoskinson additionally contended that Bitcoin’s absence of formal on-chain governance infrastructure leaves it without clear procedures for resolving such critical decisions. He cited Cardano, Polkadot, and Tezos as blockchain networks equipped with structured governance frameworks capable of addressing similar matters through community-driven voting mechanisms.

He predicted that major institutional stakeholders, including asset management firms that have accumulated substantial Bitcoin positions in recent years, will ultimately force Bitcoin developers to implement changes despite potential community opposition.

Should BIP-361 be adopted in its present formulation, the approximately 1.7 million pre-2013 coins would become irreversibly frozen without any recovery mechanism available.

Here is something worth noting about bitcoin BTC$75,090.18. Beneath all the noise from daily price swings, X posts and macro headlines, there is a remarkably simple indicator that has quietly called every major market bottom since 2015. Not once, but every single time.

To the dismay of bulls, it hasn’t fired yet, suggesting the broader bear market may not be over, and the recent bounce to $75,000 from $65,000 could be a temporary recovery.

The indicator

It involves two lines on the price chart. That’s it, no complex formula, analysis of blockchain data needed.

These two lines represent bitcoin’s average price over the past 50 and 100 weeks. They act as simple moving averages, showing near-term and long-term trends in bitcoin’s price.

Most of the time, the 50-week average is above the 100-week line. That’s the natural state for markets that trend upward over time, as is the case with bitcoin.

But occasionally, during periods of peak fear, when selling is relentless, and sentiment has collapsed, the 50-week average falls below the 100-week average. This crossover is known as a bear market signal.

It has occurred three times in bitcoin’s history. Each time, it has coincided with the end of a bear market, marking major price bottoms that have not been revisited since.

In other words, it’s been a contrary indicator, ironically marking bottoms rather than deeper downturns.

Three times, three bottoms

Look at the vertical lines on the chart going back to 2015. These mark the three bearish crossovers – April 2015, February 2019, and September 2022. Each one occurred near the bottoming phase, not precisely at the lowest point, but within the same range.

In 2015, BTC was written off as a failed experiment. Then the crossover happened. BTC subsequently rallied from $200 to nearly $20,000 by the end of 2017. A similar pattern played out after the early 2019 crossover.

The 2022 crypto winter, characterized by several bankruptcies and scams, shattered investor confidence. The downtrend, however, ran out of steam after the crossover happened in September. BTC bottomed out in the final months and later chalked out a rally to $126,000 by October 20205.

Each of these bull runs delivered returns far exceeding those of equities and other major asset classes.

What is it saying now?

As of April 17, the crossover has not happened.

Bitcoin has declined sharply from its October record high of over $126,000 to around $75,000, briefly reaching $60,000 in early February. As a result, the two averages are moving closer together, but the 50-week average still holds above the 100-week average.

The takeaway: If history is any guide, the broader bear market may still be intact and could worsen before finding a bottom. It also means that the recent bounce toward $75,000 is likely a temporary recovery rather than the start of a full-fledged bull market.

That said, historical patterns are just that – patterns – and they do not guarantee future outcomes. If U.S. equities, already at record highs, continue to advance, institutional demand for Bitcoin ETFs could strengthen, potentially supporting a price rally.

Ethereum, the world’s largest smart contract blockchain, just printed its busiest quarter ever, and the token’s price hasn’t budged.

The network processed 200.4 million transactions on its base layer in Q1 2026, marking the first time it has crossed that threshold in a single quarter, according to Artemis data. Quarterly transaction count bottomed near 90 million in 2023, then spent most of 2024 grinding sideways between 100 million and 120 million.

The Ethereum smart contract blockchain is a decentralized system that can automatically execute agreements without the need for a bank, lawyer, or middleman. Transactions on Ethereum are records of actions, such as sending native token ether (ETH), interacting with smart contracts, or transferring tokens, that are securely processed and imprinted on the blockchain.

Layer 2s and stablecoins lead the boom

The recovery in Ethereum’s on-chain activity began in mid-2025, with each successive quarter seeing higher activity than the last. This led to Q1 2026, when activity jumped 43% from Q4 2025’s 145 million, marking a clear U-shaped growth from the 2023 bottom.

Still, Ethereum’s native token ether is down over 50% from its August 2025 high of nearly $5,000. It traded around $2,328 as of Friday morning. This divergence may present an opportunity for traders looking to capitalize on fundamental growth and statistics.

Most of the traffic lives on Layer 2s, which are separate networks built on top of Ethereum that process transactions cheaply and then batch them down to the main chain for final settlement. Think of Layer 2s as extra packs attached to your bike, letting you carry more than you could on your own.

Base and Arbitrum are the two largest, where users interact with them for lower fees, and the activity shows up on Ethereum’s base layer as settlement and bridging.

Stablecoins, or tokenized versions of fiat currencies, are also being used heavily on Ethereum. According to Token Terminal, the total supply of stablecoins on Ethereum has reached a record $180 billion, according to Token Terminal, accounting for about 60% of the global stablecoin market.

Both trends push transaction counts higher on L1 through settlement and bridging activity, even when end users never directly touch the base layer.

The risk flagged by some analysts is that L2 activity masks base-layer fee pressure.

Ethereum earns less per transaction after the Dencun upgrade significantly reduced data costs for L2s, meaning more activity does not cleanly translate into more burn or more holder value.

The broader read is that Ethereum’s usage has completed the kind of multi-year recovery that typically precedes price movement rather than trails it.

Whether this quarter marks an inflection or the top of a local cycle depends on whether the 200 million figure holds in Q2, and whether the growth continues to be driven by genuine onboarding rather than bot activity, which has increasingly dominated stablecoin transaction volume on-chain.

Key Takeaways

• On April 15, the S&P 500 reached 7,022.95, breaking its January 28 record, while the Nasdaq achieved an unprecedented high of 24,016
• Tom Lee contends the US market is absorbing elevated oil prices more effectively than global counterparts, despite crude exceeding $100/barrel following Hormuz Strait disruptions
• Monthly defense expenditures approaching $30 billion are strengthening corporate earnings and providing economic support amid US-Iran tensions
• Historical patterns suggest oil price spikes may produce milder inflation effects than current market fears indicate, according to Lee
• Cash-heavy institutional investors face pressure to enter markets at record levels, generating fresh demand — Lee holds firm on his 7,300 S&P 500 projection

Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq established fresh all-time records this week, recovering from declines associated with escalating US-Iran tensions that have weighed on investor sentiment since late January. The S&P 500 finished trading at 7,022.95 on April 15, eclipsing its prior benchmark from January 28. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq concluded at 24,016, marking its own historic milestone.

Fundstrat’s founder Tom Lee joined CNBC’s Closing Bell to outline his view that current market conditions are fundamentally stronger than those present during earlier 2026 peaks. He presented three distinct rationales supporting this position.

Lee’s opening argument centered on oil prices. Crude prices jumped past the $100 threshold after disruptions to shipping through the Hormuz Strait. While recognizing this challenge, Lee emphasized that American markets are weathering the situation more successfully than international peers.

“The stock market finds itself in superior condition compared to where we stood at the year’s outset,” Lee stated. He highlighted that elevated energy costs are constraining other economies more severely, while US equities have demonstrated resilience in absorbing this pressure.

Crude prices experienced some retreat from peak levels as market participants anticipated potential diplomatic resolution between Washington and Tehran.

Earnings Strength Persists

Lee’s second rationale emphasized corporate financial performance. He observed that company profitability has maintained momentum throughout the conflict period, suggesting the geopolitical situation has actually provided economic stimulus rather than hindrance to American businesses.

Defense sector expenditures play a central role in this dynamic. Lee highlighted that monthly defense outlays currently hover around $30 billion, with scenarios suggesting potential expansion to $60 billion. These funds are circulating directly through the domestic economy.

He drew a contrast with oil-related costs, estimating American consumers collectively shoulder approximately $12 billion monthly in elevated energy expenses — yielding a net economic benefit when compared against defense spending inflows.

Technology sector firms have delivered robust first quarter 2026 earnings, frequently surpassing analyst projections. These results have helped validate current Nasdaq price levels.

Inflation Concerns May Be Overblown

Lee’s third point challenged widespread inflation anxieties. Numerous market observers have cautioned that triple-digit oil prices will cascade into broader consumer price increases. Lee offered a contrary perspective.

“Historical examination of energy price fluctuations reveals that their influence on core inflation metrics proves less pronounced than we initially expected,” he explained. He anticipates the inflationary impact will be more modest than current market pricing suggests.

Institutional Capital Deployment Accelerates

Throughout the recent market correction, substantial institutional capital remained uncommitted as fund managers accumulated cash positions. With equity indices now establishing new records, these investors confront mounting pressure to allocate reserves or risk underperforming their respective benchmarks.

Lee reaffirmed his year-end S&P 500 forecast of 7,300, implying approximately 4% appreciation potential from present levels.

Bitcoin alongside other digital assets have traditionally correlated with technology equities during risk-on market phases, while blockchain analytics reveal increased capital flows into institutional Bitcoin investment vehicles throughout recent weeks.

Sanctioned crypto exchange Grinex halted trading after a suspected state-level cyberattack drained up to $15 million in crypto.

Grinex said Thursday it had suspended operations after losing more than 1 billion Russian rubles, roughly $13.7 million, from 54 wallets in what it described as a highly sophisticated breach. The Kyrgyzstan-registered exchange pointed to signs that the attackers had access to resources typically associated with foreign intelligence agencies.

“Due to the attack, the Grinex exchange has been forced to suspend operations. All available information has been transferred to law enforcement agencies. A criminal complaint has been filed at the location of the infrastructure,” the exchange said.

Details shared by Grinex suggested a coordinated operation rather than a routine exploit. The platform said the digital footprint and execution pointed to “an unprecedented level of resources and technology available only to entities of hostile states.”

The incident adds fresh scrutiny to an exchange already under watch from Western authorities. Grinex has been widely linked to Russia’s sanctioned crypto infrastructure and has been described by blockchain analysts as a continuation of the previously blacklisted Garantex platform.

Earlier findings from Global Ledger indicated that Garantex shifted liquidity and user balances to Grinex following its shutdown in March 2025. On-chain data showed funds moving through one-time-use wallets before landing in Grinex accounts, while some users reported that balances frozen on Garantex later appeared on the new platform. Investigators also pointed to similarities in website design and internal confirmations, suggesting operational overlap between the two entities.

Garantex had been sanctioned by the United States in 2022 for facilitating illicit finance and was later targeted by European Union restrictions. Operations formally ceased in March 2025 after Tether froze nearly $2.5 billion worth of ruble-backed stablecoins tied to the exchange. Authorities in India also arrested co-founder Aleksej Bešciokov shortly after the shutdown.

Multiple platforms may have been exposed

According to TRM Labs, activity tied to the attacker may extend beyond Grinex. The blockchain intelligence firm identified two wallets linked to Kyrgyzstan-based exchange TokenSpot that sent about $5,000 to the same consolidation address used in the Grinex breach.

TokenSpot acknowledged a temporary disruption earlier this week. A notice on its Telegram channel mentioned technical work and a brief outage on April 15, followed by confirmation a day later that full services had resumed.

Further analysis from TRM Labs uncovered at least 16 additional addresses connected to the incident, beyond those disclosed by Grinex. Funds from the attack were funneled into a single address holding around 45.9 million TRON, valued close to $15 million.

Funds routed to avoid freezing risk

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic has traced roughly $15 million in USDt leaving Grinex-linked accounts and moving across the Tron and Ethereum networks. The firm said the attacker converted the stablecoins into other assets soon after the theft.

“This USDT was then converted to another asset, either TRX or ETH. By doing so, the thief avoided the risk of the stolen USDT being frozen by Tether,” Elliptic said.

Past incidents show a pattern of exchanges tied to sanctioned jurisdictions becoming targets for politically motivated or financially driven attacks. Iran-based platform Nobitex lost $81 million in June 2025, with a pro-Israel hacker group claiming responsibility.

Attention now turns to whether Grinex can resume operations and how authorities respond, especially given its alleged role in facilitating sanction evasion and links to previously blacklisted entities.

The Ethereum ecosystem has expanded its security toolkit with a six-month initiative funded through its ETH Rangers program. The Ketman Project, described as a public‑goods security effort, identified a network of North Korean operatives embedded in Web3 companies, pinpointing 100 DPRK IT workers and alerting about 53 projects that could be employing such operatives. The Ethereum Foundation summarized the findings in a recent recap, underscoring the importance of the project for the broader ecosystem.

According to the Ethereum Foundation, the Ketman Project was built during a six‑month period under the ETH Rangers program, which launched in late 2024 to fund individuals performing security work for the ecosystem. One recipient used the stipend to tackle the Ketman initiative, focusing on exposing fake developers and other actors impersonating legitimate crypto engineers.

During the stipend period, Ketman identified 100 DPRK IT workers operating within Web3 organizations and reached out to about 53 projects to alert them to potential DPRK involvement. The Foundation framed the effort as a direct response to a pressing operational security threat facing the Ethereum ecosystem today.

The Ketman Project’s own materials outline the tactics, behaviors, and patterns used by DPRK-linked actors. The project describes several red flags used to spot impersonators and suspicious activity, including the reuse of avatars and profile metadata across multiple GitHub accounts, exposure of unlinked email addresses during screen sharing, and default language settings—such as Russian—that contradict the operators’ claimed nationality.

Beyond identification, Ketman co‑developed an open‑source detection tool to flag suspicious GitHub activity and helped author an industry-standard framework for identifying DPRK IT workers in partnership with the blockchain‑focused nonprofit Security Alliance. The Ketman site provides deeper dives into the operational methods employed by DPRK operatives and how attackers blend into crypto teams.

Key takeaways

• Ethereum Foundation funded the Ketman Project through the ETH Rangers program for six months, revealing a DPRK‑linked presence in Web3 and alerting dozens of projects.
• The effort identified 100 North Korean IT workers and prompted alerts to roughly 53 projects over the course of the program.
• Ketman developed an open‑source detection tool and co-authored an industry‑standard framework for identifying DPRK IT workers with the Security Alliance.
• Red flags highlighted by Ketman include reused avatars across GitHub accounts, exposed emails from screen sharing, and default language settings that conflict with stated nationality.
• The work illustrates a broader push to harden the crypto economy against state‑backed threat actors, leveraging community‑driven intelligence alongside formal governance bodies.

Operational security gains and investor implications

The Ethereum Foundation’s recap frames Ketman as a pragmatic response to a persistent risk: state‑backed actors tied to DPRK have repeatedly targeted the crypto sector, contributing to significant losses over the years. By mapping specific operational patterns and distributing defensive signals to projects, the initiative helps reduce the attack surface for startups and established protocols alike. For investors and builders, the development signals a maturing security culture where threat intel is disseminated more quickly and translated into concrete protections rather than remaining in isolated analysis.

From a risk management perspective, the Ketman project embodies a shift toward proactive defense in public ecosystems. The combination of detection tooling and a formal framework provides participants with repeatable methods to vet contributors and contractors, potentially lowering the likelihood of insider risks or compromised open‑source projects slipping through governance gaps. While it is not a silver bullet, the approach adds a data‑driven layer to ongoing security work in the space where rapid innovation often clashes with evolving threat models.

Context: DPRK actors, Lazarus, and the crypto threat landscape

Threat actors associated with North Korea have long loomed over crypto infrastructure, with high‑profile breaches attributed to groups such as Lazarus. Analysts note that as the market grows, so does the fingerprint of these actors—ranging from social engineering and fake personas to sophisticated supply‑chain compromises. The Ketman Project’s findings fit within this larger pattern of state‑linked crypto threats, reinforcing the case for heightened due diligence, better attribution signals, and more transparent security collaborations among projects and communities.

That context matters for investors and practitioners alike. Enhanced threat intelligence—especially when backed by open‑source tools and cross‑organizational collaboration—can help teams prioritize security spend and adopt stronger onboarding and verification practices. It also raises questions about how to balance openness with security in open ecosystems where contributors span the globe and operate under varying regulatory regimes.

What to watch next

Several questions remain as the Ketman initiative wraps its six‑month window. How widely will the open‑source detection tool be adopted by projects and exchanges? Will the Security Alliance and Ketman publish ongoing, standardized benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of the DPRK‑identification framework? And how will platforms translate these threat signals into concrete changes—such as enhanced contributor vetting, more robust identity checks, or stricter code‑review processes?

The Ethereum Foundation’s involvement signals continued institutional support for security tooling that is broadly usable across the ecosystem. If Ketman’s tools and methodologies gain traction, we could see a shift from ad hoc security reviews to more coordinated, sector‑wide threat intelligence sharing. That development would be a meaningful catalyst for ecosystem resilience, especially as decentralized finance, layer‑2 scaling, and new Web3 use cases proliferate.

In the near term, what remains uncertain is the scalability and sustainability of such programs. Will funding through ETH Rangers translate into a larger, repeatable budget for security research? How will other ecosystems—ranging from alternative smart contract platforms to fiat‑onramp operators—adopt similar threat intelligence frameworks? The coming months will reveal whether Ketman’s approach can be generalized into a standard practice for securing crypto projects against sophisticated, state‑backed adversaries.

Readers should monitor announcements from the Ketman Project and the Security Alliance for updates on the framework, as well as any new threat alerts tied to DPRK‑linked actors. The effort underscores a broader industry trend: security is increasingly a collaborative, community‑driven discipline that complements technical development with actionable intelligence and governance‑level responses.

For those evaluating risk in personal or institutional deployments, this development offers a reminder to emphasize transparency, contributor verification, and proactive security monitoring as core components of any long‑term crypto strategy. The fight against sophisticated threat actors is ongoing, but initiatives like Ketman mark a tangible step toward a safer, more resilient ecosystem.