News linked to both this project and an event.
The Ethereum Foundation has partnered with Nethermind (an Ethereum infrastructure developer), Chainlink Labs (an on-chain data services provider), Areta.io (a smart contract auditing firm), and several top-tier auditing firms to launch the Trillion Dollar Security Initiative, introducing the Ethereum Security Subsidy Program—a $1 million fund offering security audit subsidies for Ethereum developers. This program aims to reduce the cost of security audits and improve developers’ access to audit services, thereby further strengthening the security of the Ethereum ecosystem. Audit applications will be jointly reviewed by the aforementioned organizations and will support CROPS (Chain-on Resource Optimization Project) and novel use-case projects. While security audits are considered an industry best practice, their high cost has limited adoption; this initiative seeks to encourage broader uptake of audit services across projects.
Odaily News The Ethereum Foundation announced on platform X the launch of the "Ethereum Audit Subsidy Program," collaborating with multiple auditing and infrastructure organizations to provide developers with subsidies for security audit costs, aiming to enhance the overall security of the ecosystem. The program is led by the EF's "Trillion Dollar Security Initiative" and is being advanced in collaboration with partners such as Nethermind, Chainlink Labs, and Areta, which will evaluate and review applicant projects. The Ethereum Foundation stated that while security audits are considered industry best practice, their costs are high. This initiative aims to lower the barrier to development and support the implementation of more innovative use cases and projects within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Aster, a high-performance on-chain trading platform, has announced an enhanced partnership with Binance Wallet, integrating native perpetual contract trading directly into the app. This enables users to trade crypto assets, U.S. equities, ETFs, and commodities seamlessly in one place—anytime, anywhere—while retaining full self-custody of their assets. As part of this upgrade, Aster has launched a USD1-denominated perpetual contract market, supporting BTC, ETH, and SOL trading with USD1 as margin. This new market offers lower fees and WLFI incentives. To celebrate the app integration launch, users who accumulate $1,000 USDT in perpetual contract trading volume on Binance Wallet between April 14, 2026, 20:00 and April 28, 2026, 20:00 (UTC+8) will receive an additional 3 Binance Alpha Points. As a high-performance on-chain trading platform, Aster continues to deepen integrations with top-tier wallets to deliver a secure, ultra-smooth trading experience for users worldwide—truly enabling the migration of derivatives trading from centralized platforms to wallet-native entry points.
According to an official announcement, Tether launched its self-custodial digital wallet, tether.wallet, on April 14, directly opening its global financial infrastructure to end users. The wallet supports digital assets including USD₮, USA₮, XAU₮, and Bitcoin, and operates across blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Polygon, Plasma, and Arbitrum. Users can transfer funds using simple, human-readable identifiers—eliminating the need for traditional long addresses or additional network tokens—and pay transaction fees directly in the asset being transferred. tether.wallet employs local signing, with private keys and recovery phrases held exclusively by the user, emphasizing openness, neutrality, and user sovereignty. Tether stated that this product aims to simplify the use of digital assets and enhance financial inclusion, with plans to support additional blockchain networks in the future.
According to The Block, Visa, Stripe, and Zodia Custody—a digital asset custody firm backed by Standard Chartered Bank—have become the first validators on the Tempo payment blockchain. Tempo is an Ethereum-compatible Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for high-throughput payments and stablecoin settlement, primarily targeting large institutions. Validators are responsible for verifying, ordering, and finalizing on-chain transactions, and are typically mature organizations with global operational capabilities. Tempo was incubated by Stripe and Paradigm, launched its private testnet in September 2025, and closed a $500 million Series A funding round in October at a valuation of approximately $5 billion. Recently, Tempo introduced its “Agent Payments” protocol—executed by AI agents—and has attracted infrastructure integrations including RedStone.
According to the official announcement, Bitget PoolX will soon launch the NIGHT project, with a total airdrop of 9,000,000 NIGHT tokens. This campaign features two BTC staking pools and two ETH staking pools, each allocated 4,500,000 NIGHT tokens for the airdrop. Each asset offers both standard and dynamic staking pools; the dynamic pool’s tiered staking limit is unlocked based on the user’s trading volume over the past 15 days, and corresponding staking quotas are allocated accordingly. The staking window opens from April 14 at 19:00 to April 19 at 19:00 (UTC+8). Users with positive net BTC and ETH deposits during the campaign period will receive 5% BTC and 8% ETH yield-boost vouchers upon PoolX completion. Additionally, users who meet the net deposit requirement and participate in PoolX for the first time will receive 10% BTC and 15% ETH yield-boost vouchers. Net deposit calculations conclude at 19:00 on April 18 (UTC+8). For more details, please refer to the official Bitget platform.
According to Ondo Finance’s official blog, Ondo Finance recently submitted a “no-action” request to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking confirmation from the SEC that it will not take enforcement action against Ondo’s model for recording and managing certain security interests in tokenized form on the Ethereum mainnet. The request concerns its Ondo Global Markets (OGM) product, which currently offers non-U.S. investors tokenized notes providing exposure to U.S. equities and ETFs. Under this model, the underlying securities remain within the existing legal, custodial, and recordkeeping frameworks; official books and records remain unchanged. Only in limited circumstances are the relevant security interests mapped onto the Ethereum mainnet in tokenized form, held by custodian BitGo to support recordkeeping and operational processes.
Polkadot’s official response to the security vulnerability discovered in Hyperbridge’s Ethereum gateway contract: Hyperbridge services have been temporarily suspended to investigate the issue. This vulnerability affects only DOT tokens bridged to Ethereum via Hyperbridge and does not impact DOT tokens within the Polkadot ecosystem or DOT transferred via other cross-chain bridges. The Polkadot mainnet, parachains, and native DOT remain secure and unaffected.
Garrett Jin, agent of “1011 Insider Whale,” published an analysis stating that the U.S. government announced a full naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, effective 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on April 13, prohibiting all vessels from entering or departing Iranian ports. This measure aims to cut off Iran’s oil revenue derived from this energy hub and reverse its current economic advantage in the ongoing conflict. Over the past six weeks, Iran has levied steep fees on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz and restricted energy exports for certain countries, triggering significant volatility in both cryptocurrency markets and global oil prices. The U.S. action is expected to impact market risk pricing for major crypto assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. The analysis notes that although the U.S. holds the initiative, Iran may continue exporting oil by escalating the conflict, relying on Chinese support, and utilizing decentralized gray markets—meaning war risks and market volatility will persist.
According to Cointelegraph, researchers from the University of California recently revealed security risks in certain third-party AI large language model (LLM) routers that could lead to the theft of cryptocurrency assets. The study found that LLM routers—acting as API intermediaries—can read plaintext information; some routers were discovered injecting malicious code and stealing credentials. The research team tested 28 paid and 400 free routers, identifying nine routers that actively injected malicious code, two that deployed trigger-avoidance mechanisms, and 17 that accessed Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials. One router even transferred ETH using the researchers’ Ethereum private key. The study notes that malicious behavior by routers is difficult to detect, and the “YOLO mode” present in some AI agent frameworks—which automatically executes commands—further increases security risks. Researchers recommend that developers avoid transmitting private keys or mnemonic phrases through AI agents and urge AI companies to implement cryptographic signing of responses to enhance security.
Decentralized GPU cloud computing infrastructure platform Aethir confirmed that its Ethereum-related bridge contract was attacked. The team promptly disconnected the affected contract and, in collaboration with major exchanges, blacklisted the hacker’s wallet, limiting losses to under $90,000. Earlier, blockchain security firm PeckShield estimated losses at $400,000. The attacker exploited Aethir’s cross-chain smart contract, AethirOFTAdapter, to transfer stolen funds from BNB Chain to Tron. Aethir stated that its Ethereum mainnet ATH token supply remains unaffected. It plans to release a detailed compensation plan and incident analysis next week and will collaborate with exchanges including Binance, Upbit, and Bithumb to freeze funds. Web3 security platform ZeroShadow is assisting with the investigation. In 2025, Aethir achieved $127.8 million in revenue and deployed over 440,000 GPU containers globally.
According to on-chain analyst Ai Aunt (@ai_9684xtpa), renowned trader “Set 10 Big Goals First” (@Jason60704294) has updated his latest positions: his BTC short position has not only avoided triggering its stop-loss but has been increased to 2,567.49 BTC, with an average entry price of $71,554.61—currently showing a floating loss of $1.374 million. His ETH short position stands at 38,465.22 ETH, with an average entry price of $2,248.74, currently generating a floating profit of $2.018 million. The net floating profit across both positions is approximately $644,000.
U.S. law firm Gibbs Mura has launched a class-action litigation investigation into the April 1, 2026, hack of Drift Protocol, reviewing potential investor claims against Circle Internet Financial. The attack resulted in the theft of approximately $280–285 million in assets. The attacker subsequently used Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to bridge over $230 million worth of USDC to Ethereum—Circle took no action to freeze the funds throughout the incident. Notably, just nine days prior, Circle had voluntarily frozen 16 business wallets in a separate civil dispute. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic suspects the attack was carried out by a North Korea–backed hacking group. As a result of the breach, Drift Protocol’s total value locked (TVL) plummeted from $550 million to below $250 million, the DRIFT token price dropped more than 40%, and at least 20 DeFi protocols suffered indirect losses.
According to Bitmine’s disclosure, Bitmine Immersion Technologies (NYSE: BMNR) officially upgraded to the NYSE Main Board on April 9, 2026, retaining its ticker symbol. Concurrently, the Board approved expanding the share repurchase authorization from $1 billion to $4 billion, placing it among the top ten announced buyback programs of 2026. As of April 6, the company held approximately 4.803 million ETH—representing 3.98% of Ethereum’s total supply—and had completed over 79% of its “5% Alchemy” target. The company’s total crypto assets, cash, and other assets amounted to approximately $11.4 billion.
Binance has announced the completion of the DAI (DAI) token swap and rebranding to USDS (USDS), and has enabled deposits and withdrawals for the new USDS token. Spot trading pairs BTC/USDS, ETH/USDS, and USDS/USDT will go live on April 9, 2026, at 16:00 (UTC+8).