• Justin Sun says WLFI froze 2.94 billion tokens and removed voting rights.
• Lawsuit filed after failed attempts to resolve the dispute privately.
• WLFI has introduced a Governance proposal that may lock tokens for non-consenting holders.

Justin Sun has filed a lawsuit in a California federal court against World Liberty Financial (WLFI), alleging that the project froze his holdings of 2.94 billion WLFI tokens and stripped him of key investor rights without justification.

The move escalates a growing dispute between one of crypto’s most recognisable entrepreneurs and a project that has positioned itself around decentralised governance and early-stage token distribution.

In his public statement, Sun confirmed that he is seeking legal protection of his rights as a WLFI token holder.

Sun also emphasised that the lawsuit does not change his political stance or his support for the Trump administration’s pro-crypto direction. According to him, the dispute is strictly about investor treatment and token governance, not politics.

Frozen tokens and removed voting rights

At the centre of the case is Sun’s claim that WLFI froze all 2.94 billion of his tokens (540 million of unlocked tokens and 2.4 billion locked tokens). He argues that this action made it impossible for him to transfer, sell, or otherwise use his holdings.

The value of the holdings has dropped from over $107 million at the September 2025, when they were frozen, to around $43–$60 million by April 2026.

Sun also alleges that WLFI removed his governance voting rights tied to those tokens. This means he was unable to participate in key decisions affecting the protocol, including recent governance changes introduced by the project team.

Sun further claims that WLFI went beyond freezing his position and threatened to permanently destroy part of his holdings through token “burning.”

According to his statement, these actions were taken without clear justification and without providing him a fair opportunity to respond.

He also says he attempted to resolve the issue privately with WLFI before taking legal action. However, he claims the project team refused to restore access to his tokens or reinstate his governance rights, leaving him with no option but to proceed to court.

Sun has described his position as straightforward: he wants to be treated the same as other early investors who received WLFI tokens, without special privileges and without restrictions that are not applied equally.

Justin Sun also disagrees with WLFI’s Governance proposal

The legal conflict comes alongside disagreement over a WLFI governance proposal released on April 15.

Sun has openly opposed the proposal, arguing that it introduces conditions that could lock users’ tokens indefinitely if they do not actively accept new terms.

The proposal reportedly includes a requirement for 10% of advisor tokens to be permanently burned. It also introduces a structure for early purchaser tokens involving a two-year cliff followed by a two-year vesting schedule.

Under the same framework, users who do not explicitly accept the new terms could have their tokens locked indefinitely.

Sun has raised concerns that this creates an uneven system where investor rights depend on active consent after the fact. He also pointed out a structural conflict in his own situation.

Because his tokens are currently frozen, he says he cannot vote either in favour of or against the proposal, despite being directly affected by it.

This has added another layer to the dispute, as governance participation is typically considered a core function in token-based systems.

World Liberty Financial (WLFI) position

WLFI has pushed back against Sun’s claims, arguing that token restrictions were applied due to internal concerns related to security and compliance.

The project maintains that its governance mechanisms include administrative controls that can be used to protect the platform and its participants.

The disagreement highlights a broader tension in crypto governance systems, particularly in projects that market themselves as decentralised while still retaining centralised control features such as token freezing or administrative overrides.

Sun’s lawsuit places the focus on whether such controls were properly disclosed and whether they can be applied to large early investors without clear procedural safeguards.

With 2.94 billion tokens at the centre of the dispute, the outcome could influence how governance authority and investor rights are interpreted in similar token-based ecosystems going forward.

Investors in the U.K. can once again hold cryptocurrency exchange-traded notes (ETNs) in a tax-free vehicle after fintech startup Stratiphy received approval to offer them in a special class of individual savings account (ISA), according to a report by the Financial Times on Wednesday.

Stratiphy, a fintech platform that allows users to personalize their investment strategies, is offering both crypto ETNs and Innovative Finance ISAs (IFISAs), the wrapper authorized to invest in them, the FT reported.

ISAs allow users to save up to 20,000 pounds ($27,000) a year without paying income tax or capital gains tax on the returns. The two most common types are cash ISAs, which pay interest, and stocks and shares ISAs, which invest in equities and exchange-traded instruments.

At the end of February, the U.K.’s tax authority, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), classified crypto ETNs as instruments only available in IFISAs from the start of the current tax year on April 6.

This essentially made last year’s decision to lift the ban on retail users accessing crypto ETNs redundant because no mainstream investment platform offered IFISAs. The few that did had no plans to offer crypto products.

The decision drew criticism from some commentators, who said it risked making the U.K. an outlier among markets where exchange-traded products (ETPs) have made crypto investment available to a far broader base of retail investors.

Stratiphy will offer access to three ETNs provided by 21Shares: those covering bitcoin BTC$78,068.51, ether (ETH) and one combining BTC and gold.

The London-based investment platform, which opened for business in August last year, manages 4 million pounds ($5.4 million) for 2,000 retail and corporate clients.

“We see a disproportionate level of interest in these [crypto] products,” CEO Daniel Gold said, according to the newspaper.

“It’s a really interesting way to diversify your portfolio. It’s a new asset class with low correlation to other asset classes.”

Stratiphy did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.

Crypto trading firm GSR has launched its first exchange-traded fund (ETF), entering a fast-growing segment of the digital asset market as investor demand for regulated crypto exposure continues to rise.

The GSR Crypto Core3 ETF, trading under the ticker BESO on Nasdaq, offers exposure to three major cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin BTC$78,750.89, ether (ETH) and solana (SOL). The fund carries a 1% management fee and includes both active portfolio management and the ability to earn staking rewards on eligible assets.

The launch comes as crypto ETFs have gained traction with both retail and institutional investors seeking easier access to digital assets through traditional brokerage accounts. While most U.S.-listed crypto ETFs to date have focused on single assets, particularly bitcoin, some have moved to basket funds, similar to Core3, which bundles multiple tokens into a single product and adjusts allocations on a weekly basis.

GSR said the fund aims to reflect two main themes in crypto markets: bitcoin’s role as a macro asset and the growth of blockchain platforms such as Ethereum and Solana, which support applications like stablecoins and tokenized assets.

“The fund allocates actively across the three assets and rebalances weekly based on research-driven signals designed to pursue additional returns,” GSR said in a press release.

Framework Digital Advisors will serve as the fund’s investment adviser.

The move expands GSR’s business beyond trading and market making into asset management.

The firm has spent more than a decade providing liquidity and over-the-counter trading services in crypto markets and is now looking to package that expertise into investment products.

The ETF also introduces staking rewards, a feature not commonly available in traditional investment vehicles but one that has been added to some existing crypto ETFs, including the largest, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). This feature the fund to generate yield from certain blockchain networks while holding assets.

“GSR has spent over a decade building efficient crypto markets, and with Core3, we are extending that expertise into a product accessible to a broader range of investors,” GSR CEO Xin Song said.

Kelp DAO’s $292 million breach on a Saturday emerged as the year’s largest crypto exploit, drawing attention to cross-chain security gaps and intensifying scrutiny of DPRK-linked cyber operations. Investigators point to LayerZero’s infrastructure as a factor, while researchers and industry players weigh the implications for DeFi security and governance models.

Kelp DAO has stated that the attack stemmed from weaknesses in LayerZero’s cross-chain messaging setup, specifically the use of a single verifier configuration to approve messages across chains. LayerZero, for its part, said preliminary indicators point to TraderTraitor, a subgroup of North Korea’s Lazarus Group, as the actor behind the breach. Independent researchers have traced stolen funds to Lazarus-linked activity, underscoring the persistent risk posed by the DPRK’s cyber operations to decentralized finance and users alike.

Key takeaways

• The Kelp DAO exploit is attributed to LayerZero’s cross-chain messaging framework and a single-verifier configuration, with initial attribution leaning toward TraderTraitor, a Lazarus Group subgroup.
• Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 30,766 ETH tied to the incident, illustrating a governance-driven move to curb losses even as it tests the bounds of decentralization and protocol sovereignty.
• North Korea-linked actors have escalated their DeFi-focused campaigns, with April’s Drift hack adding to a broader pattern that researchers say now totals hundreds of millions of dollars in attributed theft this spring.
• Retail crypto crime remains on the rise, according to the FBI’s IC3 2025 report, with losses and complaints spanning investment scams, fake job schemes, and social-engineering attacks tied to older and newer targets alike.

LayerZero, Kelp DAO and the cross-chain security debate

The Kelp DAO incident centers on how cross-chain messaging ecosystems—designed to move liquidity and data across networks—can become vectors for theft when misconfigurations align with attacker capabilities. Kelp DAO acknowledged that the breach exploited its reliance on LayerZero’s messaging framework, arguing that a single-verifier configuration enabled unauthorized cross-chain messages. LayerZero’s response framed the event as linked to the attacker cluster associated with Lazarus-linked figures, with initial signals pointing toward TraderTraitor, a subgroup identified by security researchers and industry observers.

The event surfaces a broader question: as DeFi protocols lean on sophisticated cross-chain infrastructures to unlock liquidity, how should governance and security balance between open, decentralized designs and the need for rapid, centralized interventions to prevent further harm? The Kelp episode also echoes earlier incidents where attackers leveraged infrastructure-level weaknesses rather than novel smart-contract bugs, highlighting how adversaries may increasingly target the supporting systems that enable cross-chain composability.

Independent researchers have noted that stolen funds from the Kelp breach appear to have mixed with earlier Lazarus-linked exploits, suggesting a pattern where DPRK-linked actors recycle and launder proceeds across wallets and chains. Such findings align with broader concerns that attacker ecosystems are becoming more coordinated and persistent, spanning multiple campaigns rather than isolated incidents.

North Korea’s evolving toolkit and the risk to the broader crypto ecosystem

The Kelp incident follows a string of high-profile DPRK-linked exploits in 2025 that have redirected attention to the group’s cyber espionage and fraud tactics. In April, the Drift protocol hack—an apparent North Korea-linked operation—accounted for roughly $285 million in losses, pushing the month’s attributed total to about $578 million across major incidents. Taken together with other incidents, analysts say these acts represent the most significant wave of DPRK crypto theft since the Bybit breach earlier in the year.

Security researchers and policy monitors have long warned that DPRK-backed actors blend traditional cyber-espionage playbooks with financially motivated operations. A recurring pattern involves recruiters and “IT worker” schemes designed to infiltrate legitimate tech and crypto companies, sometimes by posing as remote workers or contractors. This tactic, researchers note, funds the DPRK’s weapons-development programs, according to United Nations and other authorities cited in industry reporting.

U.S. authorities have responded with sanctions and public guidance. In March 2025, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned individuals and entities tied to North Korean IT worker fraud networks, while the FBI’s IC3 program issued guidance in mid-2025 urging employers to verify applicants’ professional histories and favor in-person verification where possible. Despite such measures, the Drift and Kelp breaches show that North Korean operatives are adapting—sometimes leveraging face-to-face interactions to build trust before initiating sophisticated cross-chain intrusions.

Beyond the headline hacks, smaller-scale incidents illustrate a broader leakage path into the retail space. For instance, Zerion reported DPRK-linked actors employing AI-assisted social engineering to steal modest sums, underscoring how crowding effects from larger hacks filter down to everyday users. The industry’s recurrent challenge remains immediate risk mitigation for users while authorities and firms continue to chase accountability for the perpetrators.

Governance, intervention and the ethics of freezing assets

One of the most consequential aspects of the Kelp episode was the Arbitrum Security Council’s decision to freeze 30,766 ETH implicated in the breach. The move—unprecedented in its explicit override of a blockchain state—has sparked a debate within the ecosystem about when, if ever, governance should intervene to preserve funds or protect users. Ledger’s chief technology officer Charles Guillemet described the outcome as “probably good, but not a comfortable one,” emphasizing that freezing the funds likely prevented further losses even as it exposed a difficult truth: decentralization does not always shield networks from governance actions in a crisis.

The Arbitrum decision, while preserving resources for affected users, illustrates the tension inherent in today’s rollup-based architectures. The governance mechanism exists by design to allow a trusted body to act when necessary, but it also challenges the ideal of credibly neutral infrastructure. In the Kelp case, the root cause was not a post-launch vulnerability in a single contract but a misconfiguration in cross-chain messaging that points to a broader risk: as ecosystems become more interconnected, the line between protocol weakness and systemic risk grows thinner.

Industry observers highlight that the Kelp incident reinforces a clear takeaway: attackers are increasingly probing the spaces between blockchains—bridges, relays, and validators—as much as they probe the individual protocols themselves. For builders, the imperative is not only to patch existing smart contracts but to harden the inter-chain fabric against cross-chain messaging failures, misconfigurations and governance overreach. For investors and users, the message is twofold: proceed with heightened caution around cross-chain liquidity, and demand transparent, timely disclosures when security incidents occur.

As these dynamics unfold, the broader market faces a persistent question: how to balance rapid recovery with principled governance? The Kelp and Drift cases provide a sobering test of whether the industry can coherently align incentives around safety, accountability, and the preservation of value when real-time decisions can alter the fate of funds that are already in motion.

Looking ahead, analysts expect continued attribution efforts and more formal investigations that could clarify whether TraderTraitor and other Lazarus-linked actors are systematically behind a wave of DeFi intrusions. Regulators may also intensify their focus on cross-chain security standards, while projects experiment with enhanced verification, multi-sig controls, and post-incident recovery playbooks to limit losses without compromising the decentralized ethos.

What to watch next: researchers will likely publish deeper analyses on LayerZero usage patterns and verifier configurations, while Arbitrum and LayerZero may roll out mitigations to reduce the likelihood of similar breaches. Stakeholders should monitor updates on governance policies, potential sanctions, and new best practices aimed at guarding users against both technical and social-engineering threats in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.

In the meantime, the fusion of infrastructure risk, state-sponsored threat activity, and governance mechanics offers a stark reminder: as DeFi grows more interconnected, securing the backbone—cross-chain messaging and related governance—will determine how quickly the sector can rebound from each major incident.

Mining firms HIVE Digital (HIVE) and Keel Infrastructure (KEEL) are doubling down on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, which continues the theme of a broader shift across the sector away from bitcoin BTC$78,818.76 mining exclusively.

HIVE raised $115 million through a zero interest convertible note offering, with proceeds earmarked for expanding its global data center footprint and GPU capacity, according to an announcement on Wednesday.

The company has increasingly leaned into Tier III data centers across Canada, Sweden and Paraguay, positioning them for both bitcoin mining, AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. The capital raise, paired with capped call protection to limit dilution, is aimed at accelerating that buildout.

Keel, meanwhile, is funding its transition by shrinking. The company completed the sale of its 70 MW Paraguay site for roughly $13 million, below initial expectations, citing deteriorating bitcoin mining economics. The move finalizes its exit from Latin America and follows its recent rebrand from Bitfarms to Keel Infrastructure.

“This is a clean exit from Latin America,” CEO Ben Gagnon said. “We are focused and committed to building the infrastructure backbone to support the AI economy in North America.”

Gagnon added that the proceeds effectively bring forward “two to three years” of expected cash flow, which will now be redeployed into Keel’s HPC and AI pipeline.

Shares of both companies have risen roughly 7%, following the announcements.

Nashville, TN, USA — April 22, 2026 — BTC Inc., a Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA) company, today announced the addition of Lightning Network payments to its existing BTCPay Server infrastructure, ahead of Bitcoin 2026 (April 27–29, The Venetian, Las Vegas). The expansion brings Lightning to conference ticketing, onsite point-of-sale, and e-commerce, and marks the first time BTC Inc. has been able to deploy Lightning consistently across all of its revenue streams under a single, unified payment stack.

Bitcoin 2026 serves as the first live deployment of the expanded infrastructure.

One Stack, Many Business Models

BTC Inc. operates across a diverse set of revenue streams — live events, media, e-commerce, vendor settlements, and treasury operations, each with distinct payment requirements. Previous Lightning integrations, while promising, proved difficult to scale across this complexity. What worked for one use case often couldn’t be adapted to another, leaving the company without a practical path to consistent Lightning adoption.

BTCPay Server’s open-source, plugin-based architecture changed that. Already running as BTC Inc.’s core payment infrastructure for over a year, it provided the flexibility to address each use case on its own terms — without requiring a separate solution for each one.

“We’ve tried to make Lightning work for us before, and the honest answer is that it was never straightforward,” said Di Lewis, CFO, BTC Inc. “The problem wasn’t Lightning itself, it was that we run a genuinely complex business. Events, ticketing, an online store, payroll, what worked for one never translated cleanly to another. BTCPay Server is the first infrastructure we’ve had that’s flexible enough to fit all of it. Extending Lightning to our conference ticketing was the last piece, and now it runs end-to-end across everything, Lightning stops being a side feature and starts being the foundation.” 

“BTCPay Server has been running our payments for over a year,” said Brandon Green, CEO, BTC Inc. “What we’ve built gives us the foundation to keep expanding, and Lightning is the next layer. Free and open-source software isn’t optional for Bitcoin companies, it’s foundational.”

“BTCPay Server’s guiding principle is self-sovereignty. It is not just a headline, but a reality embedded deep in its technical design. As a result, developers and users are free to extend and use BTCPay Server in ways even we did not foresee, without needing our permission. We are thrilled to see companies like BTC Inc. lead as a prime example of that in practice!” – Nicolas Dorier, Founder, BTCPay Server

Lightning Across the Full Commerce Stack

With the addition of Lightning, BTC Inc.’s BTCPay Server infrastructure now supports instant, low-fee Bitcoin payments across three channels:

• Conference ticketing — Buyers can now complete ticket purchases at tickets.b.tc via on-chain Bitcoin or Lightning, through an integration of BTCPay Server, TicketSocket, and Strike, which provides the Lightning layer.
• Onsite point-of-sale — Lightning is live at food and beverage locations, the official merchandise store, and the bookstore across The Venetian conference floor. Attendees paying in Bitcoin can skip the line.
• E-commerce — The Lightning upgrade extends to BTC Inc.’s online store, creating a consistent payment experience across in-person and digital channels.

Building on an Established Foundation

BTC Inc. first deployed BTCPay Server at Bitcoin Asia 2024 in Hong Kong and has expanded its use at every subsequent conference. The January 2026 case study with BTCPay Server documented the results: over 5,600 in-person Bitcoin transactions, more than $1 million in vendor and staff payouts via the VendorPay plugin, and a Guinness World Record at Bitcoin Conference 2025 Las Vegas — 4,187 Lightning and NFC Bolt Card transactions processed in eight hours.

The addition of Lightning to ticketing and e-commerce extends that same infrastructure into channels where it had not previously operated. This is a significant step toward further retail adoption and support of the circular economy that Bitcoin promotes.

About BTC Inc.

BTC Inc. is the world’s leading Bitcoin media enterprise, operating Bitcoin Magazine, The Bitcoin Conference, and Bitcoin for Corporations. Through its media, events, and educational platforms, BTC Inc. delivers trusted news, research, and experiences that advance Bitcoin adoption among individuals, institutions, and enterprises worldwide.

BTC Inc. is a subsidiary of Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA), a publicly held Bitcoin company that owns and operates a global portfolio of Bitcoin-native enterprises.

Key Takeaways

• NFLX shares declined approximately 13% across five consecutive trading days due to underwhelming Q2 projections
• Wolfe Research maintained its Outperform stance with a $107 target, highlighting robust user engagement metrics
• Reed Hastings, company co-founder, will exit the board of directors in June as his tenure concludes
• Content in languages other than English represented ~68% of platform engagement in 2025, a decline from 70-71% during 2023-2024
• Analyst community maintains Strong Buy consensus: 29 Buy ratings, 8 Hold ratings, with an average target of $114.96

The streaming giant has experienced a turbulent week on Wall Street. Shares of Netflix tumbled approximately 13% throughout five consecutive trading sessions after its Q1 2026 financial results disappointed market participants — primarily due to forward-looking projections rather than current performance.

Netflix, Inc., NFLX

First-quarter revenue and earnings before interest and taxes exceeded Piper Sandler’s projections by roughly 1%. However, the company’s second-quarter outlook triggered concern among investors. Projected revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations by 0.5%, while operating income guidance underperformed consensus estimates by 5%. These misses were sufficient to trigger the selloff.

Additionally, the company announced that Reed Hastings — Netflix co-founder and current board chairman — plans to depart when his current term concludes in June. This announcement coincided with the earnings disclosure, compounding downward pressure on shares.

Wolfe Research Maintains Conviction

Peter Supino, analyst at Wolfe Research, demonstrated confidence in the streaming platform. He reaffirmed his Buy recommendation and maintained a $107 price objective, emphasizing what he characterizes as strong fundamental engagement patterns.

Supino directly confronted investor worries that Netflix is hemorrhaging viewers to competing platforms including YouTube, Meta, and TikTok. His analysis indicates Netflix’s user engagement remains resilient. He characterizes the platform as a “highly differentiated product” whose competitive advantage extends beyond simple viewing duration.

He further highlighted that the typical American Netflix user already dedicates 1.6 hours daily — approximately one-third of their total daily video consumption — to the service. This represents a substantial engagement foundation.

Supino maintains that Netflix possesses pricing power as long as it remains an integral daily routine for users. He projects sustainable mid-single-digit subscriber expansion if connected television households continue growing at 70 to 100 million annually and Netflix maintains approximately 30% penetration within those households.

User Engagement Patterns Under Scrutiny

Content produced in languages other than English comprised 68% of aggregate platform engagement during 2025, representing a decrease from the 70-71% range observed in 2023-2024. This 2-3 percentage point migration translates to approximately 4 to 6 billion viewing hours shifting toward English-language content.

International engagement per user decreased at a high single-digit rate in 2025, contrasted with low single-digit declines domestically. Wolfe attributes a portion of this trend to Netflix’s penetration into markets such as Japan, where typical television consumption runs approximately 50% below U.S. levels.

While this presents a legitimate challenge, Supino characterizes it as a demographic phenomenon rather than a content quality concern. The platform is simply acquiring more users in regions with inherently lower consumption patterns.

Shares currently trade near $92.58. Sporting a PEG ratio of 0.64, InvestingPro identified the stock as undervalued when measured against near-term earnings expansion potential. Trailing twelve-month revenue growth registers at 16.7%.

Several Wall Street firms recalibrated their price objectives following the earnings announcement. Piper Sandler elevated its target from $103 to $115. KeyBanc maintained its $115 forecast. Bernstein reduced expectations from $115 to $110. Guggenheim lowered its target from $130 to $120. TD Cowen kept its $112 projection unchanged. All firms preserved constructive ratings.

The current Wall Street consensus stands at: 29 Buy ratings, 8 Hold ratings, with an average price target of $114.96 — suggesting approximately 24% potential upside from present trading levels.

• Filing: Sun sued World Liberty Financial in California federal court, charging breach of contract, fraud, and conversion over frozen WLFI holdings.
• Token freeze details: WLFI froze 540 million of Sun’s unlocked tokens and 2.4 billion locked tokens – holdings that dropped from over $107 million at the September 2025 freeze to an estimated $43–60 million by April 2026.
• Governance dispute: Sun alleges WLFI excluded him from governance activities and that the blacklist function enabling the freeze was never disclosed to investors.
• Market impact: WLFI fell 15% to a record low after Sun publicly accused the project of embedding an undisclosed backdoor on April 12, 2026.
• Sun’s exposure: Sun invested approximately $75 million directly into WLFI – the project’s largest known outside investor – with total exposure to Trump-affiliated crypto ventures reaching $175 million.
• Key watch item: The California court’s ruling on Sun’s motion for immediate token unfreezing will be the first hard signal on whether the blacklist function survives legal scrutiny.