Crypto Investment Products See Record $13.8B Inflows YTD

Global crypto funds have experienced a record year-to-date inflow of $13.8 billion, with a recent weekly addition of $646 million. This surge has propelled 2024’s total above the previous annual high of $10.6 billion recorded in 2021. 

Bitcoin-focused investment products continue to attract significant interest, contributing $663 million to the latest inflows, contrasting with minor outflows from short-bitcoin funds. The U.S. remains a significant contributor, along with Brazil, Hong Kong, and Germany, while Switzerland and Canada have seen outflows. Ether-based funds face a continued downtrend, marking their fourth consecutive week of outflows.

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Frax Finance Launches $250M Liquidity Pool with Ethena Labs 

Frax Finance has allocated $250 million of Ethena Labs’ USDe to establish a new liquidity pool, following a community governance proposal. This move, integral to Frax’s Singularity Roadmap, will facilitate the minting of new FRAX tokens via an Automated Market Operation (AMO), supported by overcollateralized debt.

The initiative aims to forge one of the deepest liquidity pools in the DeFi space and diversify Frax’s yield sources. Concurrently, Ethena Labs, having surpassed $2 billion in total value locked, enhanced USDe by integrating Bitcoin backing, suggesting USDe’s capacity to become a major dollar-backed asset within the DeFi ecosystem.

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dYdX Investigates Chain Halt During Upgrade

The decentralized derivatives exchange dYdX encountered a significant outage due to a chain halt during a scheduled v4.0.0 protocol upgrade, beginning at 6:50 a.m. UTC. This marks the protocol’s first major disruption since the launch of dYdX version 4 on its standalone Cosmos blockchain. Engineers are actively investigating the halt, which occurred shortly after scheduled maintenance was completed.

Network validators are set to reconvene for potential solutions, delaying immediate fixes to prevent validators from being temporarily suspended. Despite this technical hiccup, the incident has not negatively affected dYdX’s token price, which has seen over a 4% increase in the past 24 hours.

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Ads on Etherscan Linked to Large-Scale Phishing Campaign

A significant phishing campaign has been targeting Etherscan users through deceptive advertisements, leading to wallet drainer scams. Identified by X community member McBiblets and further investigated by Web3 anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer, these malicious ads redirect users to phishing sites, posing a threat to cryptocurrency wallets by draining all linked funds. 

The campaign extends beyond Etherscan, appearing on search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and social media. Insufficient ad filtering by aggregators is blamed for the widespread issue. In 2023, phishing scams have already defrauded users of nearly $300 million, underscoring the persistent danger of such cyber attacks.

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Other breaking news

• HashKey’s Crypto Exchange Launches Following Bermuda License Approval
• Binance Exec Pleads Not Guilty in Nigeria Arrest
• Paxos Reports 38% Decline in PayPal Stablecoin Circulation for March
• Ripple CEO Predicts Crypto Market Cap to Double by Year-End
• TON Ecosystem Initiative Offers $5 Million Incentive for Palm Scanning

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