Here’s What Happened In Crypto Today

Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Today in crypto, decentralized finance protocol Balancer is the target of an ongoing exploit, with more than $116 million in staked Ether tokens transferred to a new wallet, Aster surged 30% after Binance co-founder revealed on X that he had bought around $2.5 million of the token using his personal funds, and Coinbase is nearing a deal to acquire stablecoin startup BVNK.

The decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM) Balancer has been exploited, with more than $116 million worth of digital assets transferred to a newly created wallet.

“We’re aware of a potential exploit impacting Balancer v2 pools. Our engineering and security teams are investigating with high priority,” the Balancer team said in a Monday X post, adding that it will share more updates as information becomes available.

Onchain data initially showed that the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol was exploited for $70.9 million worth of liquid staked Ether (ETH) tokens transferred to a fresh wallet across three transactions, according to Etherscan logs.

The transfers included 6,850 StakeWise Staked ETH (OSETH), 6,590 Wrapped Ether (WETH) and 4,260 Lido wstETH (wSTETH), crypto intelligence platform Nansen said in a Monday X post.

By 8:52 am UTC on Monday, the ongoing exploit has swelled to over $116.6 million in stolen funds, according to blockchain data platform Lookonchain.

The Balancer exploit may stem from smart contract issues that had a “faulty access check allowing the attacker to send a command to withdraw funds,” Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen, told Cointelegraph, adding:

The native token for the decentralized exchange protocol Aster spiked over 30% on Sunday after Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao disclosed that he now holds over $2.5 million in Aster.

CZ shared his wallet holdings in an X post on Sunday, and said he bought “some Aster today, using my own money on Binance.”

Source: CoinTelegraph