The crypto world reeled in 2022 as hackers stole $586 million from Binance’s BNB Chain, exploiting a bridge vulnerability. The breach ranked as the third-largest crypto heist, which triggered an eight-hour network freeze, leaving users locked out and questioning the chain’s “decentralised” claims. Here’s how chaos unfolded. How A Flaw in the System led to Bridge Exploit On October 6,…
An Ether investor who had a large position on decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Sky has been liquidated to the tune of more than $100 million as the price of Ether crashed.
The Ether (ETH) whale lost 67,570 ETH worth around $106 million when the asset crashed by around 14% on April 6, liquidating his collateralized debt position on Sky, according to Maker Vaults explorer DeFi Explore, and as observed by Lookonchain.
The Sky lending protocol, which rebranded from Maker in August, is used by DeFi participants to create collateralized debt positions by providing crypto, ETH in this case, to borrow the platform’s stablecoin, DAI (DAI).
The system uses an overcollateralization ratio, typically 150% or higher, meaning that users need to deposit at least $150 worth of ETH to borrow 100 DAI.
The protocol autonomously monitors the value of ETH collateral relative to the borrowed DAI, and if the ETH value falls and the collateral ratio drops below the minimum requirement, the position becomes eligible for liquidation.
This whale’s liquidation occurred when the ratio fell to 144% as the price of ETH plummeted.
ETH whale liquidations. Source: DeFi Explore
Meanwhile, Spot On Chain reported that another whale that supplied 56,995 wrapped ETH, worth around $91 million, to borrow DAI was on the verge of liquidation.
In a liquidation event, Sky seizes the ETH collateral, which is auctioned off to pay back the borrowed DAI plus fees. Any remaining collateral after the debt is paid is returned to the user.
ETH prices have crashed a whopping 14.5% over the past 24 hours, falling to $1,547 at the time of writing as the wider crypto market melts down in reaction to US President Donald Trump’s tariff-induced market sell-off.
The last time ETH traded this low was in October 2023, when crypto was still deep in bear market territory, almost a year after the collapse of the FTX exchange.
ETH remains down 68% from its all-time high in 2021, and further losses are likely to see more DeFi users liquidated unless they can provide more collateral.
Related: Bitcoin price drops below $80K as stocks face 1987 Black Monday rerun
According to CoinGlass, 320,000 traders have been liquidated over the past 24 hours to the tune of almost $1 billion dollars. The majority of liquidations over the past four hours have been ETH positions, it revealed.
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The cryptocurrency market recorded another week of losses spurred by President Donald Trump’s sweeping new tariff measures. However, some unconventional coins bucked the trend with healthy returns.
What happened: EOS, the native token of the open-source blockchain EOS Network, led the market with a 20% rally, extending its monthly gains to almost 30%.
The rally was spurred by the network’s decision to rebrand to Vaulta, a network focusing on Web3 banking and real-world asset tokenization.
A defendant in a New York appeals court has been slammed by a judge for using an artificial intelligence avatar to represent himself in a recent case.
A New York appeals court faced an unusual situation in late March when Jerome Dewald, representing himself in an employment dispute, submitted an AI-generated avatar to present his legal arguments via video, a livestream of the hearing shows.
It’s the latest example of artificial intelligence tools trickling their way into courtrooms.
Within seconds of the video starting, Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels called for it to stop, asking whether the avatar was counsel for the case.
“I generated that,” 74-year-old Dewald responded, adding, “That is not a real person.”
The judge appeared displeased, retorting, “It would have been nice to know that when you made your application,” stating that the defendant had previously appeared before the court and been able to testify verbally in the past.
“I don’t appreciate being misled,” the judge added.
She asked the defendant if he was suffering from an ailment that prevented him from articulating before adding, “You are not going to use this courtroom as a launch for your business,” and then yelling, “Shut that off,” pointing to the video screen.
Appellate Division, First Department Stream. Source: YouTube
Dewald later apologized, explaining he thought the AI avatar would deliver his arguments more eloquently than he could.
Speaking to The Associated Press, Dewald said he applied to the court for permission to play a prerecorded video, then used a San Francisco tech company to create the AI avatar.
He originally tried to generate a digital replica of himself but was prevented by time constraints before the hearing. “The court was really upset about it,” Dewald conceded, adding, “They chewed me up pretty good.”
Related: Meta’s Llama 4 puts US back in lead to ‘win the AI race’ — David Sacks
The incident highlights growing challenges as AI enters the legal world.
In 2023, a New York lawyer was blasted for citing fake cases generated by ChatGPT in a legal brief as part of a lawsuit against a Columbian airline.
In March, Arizona’s Supreme Court began using two AI-generated avatars, similar to the one that Dewald used in New York, to summarize court rulings for the public.
In September, the US Federal Trade Commission took action against companies it claimed misled consumers using AI, including a firm that offered an AI lawyer.
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As Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) continues its downward slide since Eric Trump recommended buying the second-largest cryptocurrency, renowned economist Peter Schiff cautioned against taking investment advice from the Trump family on Sunday.
What Happened: Schiff was reminded by an X user of the famous “It’s a great time to add ETH” remark by Eric Trump, the Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization and President Donald Trump’s second son.
“Yes, it’s best not to take any investment advice from the Trumps,” Schiff stated.
Schiff’s views were countered by another user, JB rocks, who wondered if the cryptocurrency critic would say the same if the Trumps promoted …
On September 25, 2020, KuCoin with millions in digital assets, marking one of history’s largest exchange breaches. Stolen funds included Bitcoin, Ethereum, and stablecoins, shaking investor trust. By morning, CEO Johnny Lyu halted withdrawals, vowing full reimbursement. At the same time, blockchain trackers scrambled to trace the loot. How Hackers Breached KuCoin’s Vaults The attackers exploited KuCoin’s hot wallet private…
The Bitcoin network hashrate has topped 1 Zetahash per second (ZH/s) for the first time in Bitcoin’s 16-year history, according to several blockchain data sources.
Bitcoin’s hashrate crossed the milestone on April 5 at a peak of 1.025 ZH/s, according to mempool.space data, while BTC Frame data said it hit 1.02 ZH/s a day earlier.
Data from Coinwarz says that Bitcoin hashrate soared to as high as 1.1 ZH/s on April 4 at block height 890,915 — however, the same data indicates that Bitcoin first crossed 1 ZH/s on March 24.
Bitcoin’s hashrate has fallen back below 0.95 ZH/s on April 7 since reaching 1 ZH/s. Source: BTC Frame
The differences result from the varying approaches used to calculate hashrate — such as when block times and difficulty adjustments are measured, which Bitcoin nodes and miner pools are used to pull data from and more.
Bitcoin cypherpunk Jameson Lopp also previously pointed out that estimating Bitcoin’s hashrate with one “trailing block” as opposed to five can result in a difference of over 0.04 ZH/s.
“Viewing the raw Hashrate metric can be deceiving due to random variations in block times,” added Blockware Solutions head analyst Mitchell Askew, who pointed out that Bitcoin’s 30-day moving average hashrate is still around 0.845 ZH/s mark in a note to Cointelegraph.
Despite the discrepancies, the feat highlights the massive amount of computational power and increasing decentralization of the Bitcoin network, making it more secure than ever and significantly reducing the likelihood of a 51% attack.
The Bitcoin network’s reported rise to 1 ZH/s — equivalent to 1,000 Exahashes per second — marks a 1,000x increase since late January 2016, when Bitcoin first hit 1 EH/s for the first time.
The second-largest proof-of-work crypto network, Litecoin, currently boasts a hashrate of 2.49 Petahashes per second according to Coinwarz — making it around 40,000 times less computationally powerful than Bitcoin.
Source: Pierre Rochard
Askew noted that the huge rise in hashrate has coincided with more commercial Bitcoin mining firms competing to solve Bitcoin blocks in recent years.
“Miners are doubling down: expanding sites and plugging in more efficient machines,” Askew said, adding that less efficient miners could soon be washed out unless Bitcoin’s (BTC) price rallies again in the coming months.
MARA Holdings is the largest Bitcoin miner with more than 50 EH/s of compute power, while the largest share of hashrate is channeled to Bitcoin mining pools Foundry USA Pool and AntPool, according to the Hashrate Index.
Related: Bitcoin price drops below $80K as stocks face 1987 Black Monday rerun
At least 24 publicly listed Bitcoin companies have machines set up to mine Bitcoin, according to CompaniesMarketCap.com.
Among the other large miners contributing hashrate are Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, Hut 8 Mining and TeraWulf.
The new all-time high in Bitcoin hashrate came in the middle of a sharp market downturn — with Bitcoin (BTC) falling nearly 10% over the last four days to $78,750, while US stocks saw an estimated $6.6 trillion loss on April 3 and 4 — the largest two-day loss ever.
Much of the fall has been attributed to US President Donald Trump’s tariff plans, which many industry analysts say are sparking recession fears.
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The odds of the Federal Reserve implementing an emergency rate cut soared dramatically on the prediction platform Polymarket as stocks and cryptocurrencies tumbled over tariff concerns.
What Happened: Bets in favor of the contract titled “Fed emergency rate cut in 2025?” rose from 20% to 36% over the last 24 hours on the Polygon (CRYPTO: POL)-based platform. As of this writing, the odds had fallen to 28%, but they were still significantly higher than the 16% a week before.
Over $149 million has been wagered on the outcome. The market will resolve to “Yes” if the central bank holds an emergency …