Crypto Snapshot
- Bitcoin traded around $77k–$79k while Ether sat near $2.3k–$2.4k in recent market posts. (x.com) - The social brief mentioned a $300 million KelpDAO hack alongside ETF inflows of about $11.68 billion. (x.com) - Those mixed signals—large inflows with protocol hacks—are shaping volatile retail and institutional sentiment. (x.com)
Bitcoin climbed back above $78,000 this week even as one of 2026’s biggest crypto exploits ripped nearly $290 million from KelpDAO’s rsETH system. (coinmarketcap.com) (layerzero.network) Bitcoin closed at $78,203.10 on April 22 after trading as high as $79,468 that day, according to CoinMarketCap. Ether closed at $2,376.09 on April 22 after touching $2,422.86, keeping both tokens near the price ranges cited in recent market posts. (coinmarketcap.com 1) (coinmarketcap.com 2) U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds kept pulling in money through the move. Farside Investors’ table showed $663.9 million of net inflows on April 17 and another $238.4 million on April 20, with lifetime net inflows at about $58.0 billion. (farside.co.uk) U.S. spot Ether funds also stayed positive. Farside’s data showed $127.4 million of net inflows on April 17, $67.8 million on April 20, and $43.4 million on April 21, with cumulative net inflows at about $12.1 billion. (farside.co.uk) The KelpDAO breach hit a different part of the market: decentralized finance, where users lock tokens into software instead of brokerage accounts. LayerZero said KelpDAO’s rsETH setup was exploited on April 18 for about $290 million and tied the attack to a single-verifier configuration that left one point of failure. (layerzero.network) LayerZero said the affected product was rsETH, a liquid restaking token that acts like a tradable receipt for staked Ether. The company said the exploit was isolated to KelpDAO’s rsETH configuration and did not spread to other LayerZero assets or applications. (layerzero.network) LayerZero said preliminary indicators pointed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, specifically the TraderTraitor unit. The company also said KelpDAO had used a 1-of-1 Decentralized Verifier Network setup, even though LayerZero had recommended a multi-verifier design with redundancy. (layerzero.network) The damage did not stay inside one protocol. CoinDesk reported that Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 30,766 Ether worth about $71 million that was linked to the exploit, while Aave deposits fell sharply in the days after the attack as traders pulled collateral tied to rsETH risk. (coindesk.com) (msn.com) That split screen has defined crypto trading in April: regulated fund products kept attracting cash while decentralized protocols absorbed fresh security shocks. For now, the prices on the screen are rising faster than the trust underneath them. (farside.co.uk 1) (farside.co.uk 2) (layerzero.network)
