Ethereum Reclaims DEX Leadership
In March, Ethereum once again took the lead in total trading volume on decentralized exchanges (DEX), confidently overtaking Solana, the previous favorite of the sector since last fall. Solana's departure from the pedestal is partly due to the fading of the excitement around meme coins, which especially affected the activity on Raydium and Pump.fun. Although back in January, the ecosystem, nicknamed "people's", was seething thanks to the launch of the TRUMP token.
It is significant that in March, Raydium was unable to achieve a single trading day with a volume of over $1 billion. Against this background, Ethereum demonstrated much more stable dynamics. The undisputed driver of volumes was the Uniswap exchange with an impressive turnover of $30 billion. Second place was taken by the rapidly gaining momentum Fluid, which ended the month with a result of $9 billion - clear evidence of the growing competition within the ecosystem.
Crypto Trader Turns $2K PEPE into $43M
An unknown investor has shown impressive returns on the PEPE meme coin, recording a profit exceeding the initial investment by 4,718 times. He purchased 1.5 trillion PEPE for $2,184, after which he sold 1.02 trillion tokens worth $6.66 million. According to Lookonchain, the total profit was $10.3 million.
The maximum valuation of his position occurred on December 9, 2024, when the price of PEPE reached $0.00002825, and the value of the portfolio rose to $43 million. However, the asset has subsequently fallen significantly in price and is trading at $0.00000684. After partially locking in profits, the holder is left with 493 billion PEPE, equivalent to $3.64 million at the current rate.
Tether Buys 8888 BTC
Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, has acquired 8,888 Bitcoin for $734 million. The purchase is in line with the company's strategy of increasing its reserves at the end of each quarter. Taking into account the latest transaction, the total volume of bitcoins on Tether's balance sheet has reached 92,646 BTC. The unrealized gain on these assets is estimated at approximately $3.86 billion. At current market prices, the company's bitcoin portfolio is worth about $7.8 billion. This allows Tether to occupy the sixth position among the largest holders of BTC in a single wallet.
Ethereum Postpones Pectra Update Until May
The activation of the Pectra hard fork in the Ethereum mainnet is scheduled for May 7 — this decision was made during the last call of the project's leading developers. Initially, the update was planned to launch at the end of April, approximately on the 30th, but the dates were adjusted.
Pectra is a major update that includes 11 key proposals for improving the protocol (EIP), which will be implemented simultaneously. The main goal of the upgrade is to increase the convenience and functionality of the network. Among the most significant changes is the integration of smart contract functions into wallets, which will simplify their use, as well as the process of restoring access.
Coinbase and Ledger Users Targeted by Phishing Email
The SilentPush analytics group has identified a phishing campaign called PoisonSeed aimed at stealing cryptocurrency using fake emails containing seed phrases. At the initial stage, the attackers create fake versions of popular email distribution services such as Mailchimp, SendGrid, HubSpot, Mailgun, and Zoho. With their help, they gain access to the corporate email accounts of marketers, through which they then send malicious messages. The main targets of the attacks are Coinbase users and Ledger hardware wallet owners.
The format of the emails imitates official urgent notifications, for example: "Coinbase is switching to storing funds in new wallets." Inside, there is a seed phrase and instructions on how to enter it when creating a supposedly "new wallet" for the safe transfer of assets as part of the update. After entering the data, control over the funds passes into the hands of the attackers.
Karma Strikes: Hacker Loses $5.4M
The hacker who broke into the zkLend protocol claimed that he sent 2930 ETH (~$5.4 million) to the fake Tornado Cash website in response to another offer to return the stolen funds. The attack on the L2 project based on Starknet occurred on February 12 and resulted in the loss of about 3666 ETH ($9.6 million at the exchange rate at that time). The zkLend team immediately offered the hacker a "reward" - 10% of the amount and a waiver of legal prosecution.
The fact of sending coins to the fake service was confirmed by several researchers, including a cybersecurity specialist under the nickname Vladimir S and the administrator of the X-account TornadoCashBot. The latter, however, admitted that the hacker and the owner of the tornadorth[.]cash website are one and the same person: both used the ENS address safe-relayer.eth.
The zkLend developers confirmed that the stolen assets have been actively moving in the last 24 hours. At the same time, according to their data, the phishing site has been operating for at least five years, but they have no direct evidence of its connection with the attack. The addresses involved were added to the list of monitored ones.
