CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.
The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 2157.12, up 3.4% (+71.19) since 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
All 20 assets are trading higher.
Leaders: APT (+5.5%) and ICP (+5.3%).
Laggards: XLM (+0.9%) and CRO (+1.9%).
The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.
Brokeree Solutions, a global provider of technology solutions for multi-asset brokers, has introduced a new interface for its flagship Social Trading product.
The redesigned interface reorganizes information into role-specific views and interactive dashboards, allowing admins, signal providers, and followers to navigate the platform more naturally and interpret activity more quickly. Instead of long, sequential pages, key information is now surfaced through visual elements and contextual navigation that reflect how users interact with Social Trading.
“Usability has always been central to how we build at Brokeree Solutions. With Social Trading platforms maturing, we decided to upgrade its UI to help users experience all its features,” said Andrey Kamyshanov, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Brokeree Solutions. “Over time, systems like Brokeree’s Social Trading accumulate data and operational rules. If the interface doesn’t evolve alongside that complexity, even a powerful product becomes harder to operate. This update is about making an established Social Trading system easier to navigate and manage at scale, without changing how it works or how brokers and traders already rely on it.”
For administrators, the new home view provides an interactive overview of server and copying activity, with visual indicators that link directly to relevant sections of the platform. Copying performance is now easier to interpret through graphical representations that distinguish successful copies, skipped actions, and errors.
Provider and follower portals adopt the same visual language, introducing performance heatmaps that highlight winning and losing trading days, along with clearer views of payments and subscriptions. In the follower profile, the connected trading account is now explicitly displayed, giving subscribers better context around their copied activity.
Alongside the interface update, the platform’s navigation menu now has two new dedicated tabs: Product and System. This approach mirrors the configuration logic already used in Brokeree’s Prop Pulse product, reinforcing consistency across the company’s product ecosystem. Existing settings remain the same in scope, but are grouped into clearly defined categories for client, provider, and follower accounts, replacing long scrolling configuration pages with a more structured experience.
The Social Trading Ratings Module has received a UI update focused on usability. It allows admins to define which parameters traders see and use, limiting displays to five parameters for cleaner presentation while maintaining the ability to manage many more behind the scenes. On the other hand, providers and followers can choose which parameters to display and use for sorting and filtering. Navigation within the module has also been simplified with a new “go-to” pagination feature to allow faster movement between result pages.
“Our user research showed that brokers and traders spend significant time navigating through data to extract insights. The redesign directly addresses this friction point,” said Anton Sokolov, Head of Product at Brokeree Solutions. “Much of the work was about restructuring how information is accessed rather than introducing new features. By reworking navigation and presentation, we reduced friction in accessing key data and actions while keeping existing workflows intact. That balance is important for brokers who operate live environments and can’t afford disruption.”
The new interface is available to all Social Trading users. For more information, contact sales via sales@brokeree.com
The global copy trading market is experiencing rapid expansion, and at the center of this growth is the need for robust, flexible platforms that serve brokers, providers, and followers simultaneously. Brokers use Brokeree’s Social Trading as an infrastructure that supports cross-server signal sharing across MT4, MT5, and cTrader servers. It offers provider and follower account grouping, subscription and risk management, and fee calculation within a single infrastructure. Social Trading can be extended with optional components such as Ratings Module and a mobile app, which lets brokers control how strategies are presented and accessed by end users.
Brokeree Solutions is an international provider of technological solutions for multi-asset brokers worldwide. With 12 years of industry expertise, the company specializes in turnkey solutions development, trading platform servicing, and consultation for retail brokers using MetaTrader 4/5 and other trading platforms. Brokeree Solutions’ extensive product portfolio includes flagship systems like Social Trading, PAMM, Prop Pulse, and Liquidity Bridge, offering comprehensive technologies that address almost any broker’s needs.
Fraudsters are targeting global shipping firms with fake payment demands in Strait of Hormuz transit schemes, seeking fees in Bitcoin and Tether as vessels remain stranded amid conflict in the Gulf.
Greek maritime risk firm MARISKS said unknown actors have sent messages to shipowners claiming to represent Iranian authorities and offering safe passage through the chokepoint in exchange for bitcoin payments.
The firm warned that the communications are fraudulent and not linked to Tehran.
The alerts come as tensions between the United States and Iran disrupt one of the world’s most critical energy corridors. The waterway once carried about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flows. Military activity and shifting restrictions have left hundreds of vessels stalled west of the passage, with about 20,000 seafarers affected.
According to MARISKS, the messages instruct companies to submit vessel documentation for review by “Iranian Security Services,” after which a transit fee would be set in Bitcoin or Tether. The senders claim ships would then receive clearance to pass without interference at a scheduled time.
MARISKS said at least one vessel may have fallen victim to the scheme. The firm linked the case to a ship that attempted to exit the strait and came under fire, though it could not confirm the connection.
Reuters reporters could not verify which companies received the messages.
Earlier this month, Iran reportedly planned to require shipping companies to pay transit tolls in bitcoin for vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, linking the move to one of the world’s most critical energy corridors.
The policy would issue payment requests before transit and require settlement in bitcoin within a short window, designed to bypass traditional financial rails while maintaining control over access during a US–Iran ceasefire period.
Security analysts warn that any such payment request carries legal and financial risk. Even if funds do not reach sanctioned entities, companies could face exposure under sanctions regimes tied to Iran.
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Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Volo has disclosed a security breach that resulted in the loss of approximately $3.5 million in digital assets, marking the latest incident in a series of exploits targeting DeFi platforms.
In a Wednesday post on X, the team said the attack affected select vaults and involved assets including Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Matrixdock Gold XAUm and USDC (USDC). “We detected the attack, immediately notified the Sui Foundation and ecosystem partners to contain the damage, and froze the vaults to prevent any further exposure,” the team wrote.
The protocol added that around $28 million in total value locked across other vaults is safe, with the exploit limited to three isolated vaults and no shared vulnerability identified. It also revealed plans to absorb the losses rather than pass them on to users, though details of any remediation plan have yet to be finalized.
Volo is a liquid staking DeFi platform on the Sui blockchain, allowing users to stake their Sui (SUI) tokens and receive voloSUI (VSUI) in return. DeFi is already on edge, as the exploit comes as another liquid restaking protocol, Kelp, was hacked for approximately $293 million over the weekend, which has had a ripple effect across the broader ecosystem.
Related: Kelp DAO attacker moves $175M in Ether after exploit: Arkham
In two separate updates, Volo said it has frozen or blocked roughly $2 million of the stolen funds so far. In the first update, the protocol said that roughly $500,000 linked to the breach has already been frozen. In a later update, the team claimed it had successfully blocked an attempt by the attacker to bridge 19.6 WBTC, effectively removing those funds from the hacker’s control.
“We are now working with ecosystem partners to determine the best path to return these funds to Volo,” the protocol wrote.
As Cointelegraph reported, more than $17 billion has been stolen in crypto over the past decade, with private key compromises identified as one of the major contributing attack vectors, according to DefiLlama.
Related: ZachXBT asks MemeCore to explain valuation and token supply
Roughly 22.3% of incidents are linked to brute-force key compromises, 18.2% to unknown methods and 10% to phishing attacks on multi-signature wallets. The findings show that many of the biggest losses stem from wallet security and user-side weaknesses rather than protocol bugs.
Magazine: 53 DeFi projects infiltrated, 50M NEO tokens could be ‘given back’: Asia Express
The North Korean state-run Lazarus Group is running a new campaign known as “Mach-O Man” that turns routine business communication into a direct path to credential theft and data loss, security experts warned Wednesday.
The collective, with cumulative loot estimated at $6.7 billion since 2017, is targeting fintech, cryptocurrency and other high-value executives and firms, Natalie Newson, a senior blockchain security researcher at CertiK, told CoinDesk on Wednesday.
In the past two weeks alone, the North Korean hackers have siphoned more than $500 million from the Drift and KelpDAO exploits in what appears to be a sustained campaign. The crypto industry needs to start viewing Lazarus the same way banks view nation-state cyber actors: “as a constant and well-funded threat, not just another news headline,” she said.
“What makes Lazarus especially dangerous right now is their activity level,” Newson said. “KelpDAO, Drift, and now a new macOS malware kit, all within the same month. This isn’t random hacking; it’s a state-directed financial operation running at a scale and speed typical of institutions.”
North Korea has turned crypto theft into a lucrative national industry, and Mach-O Man is just the latest product from that process, she said. While Lazarus created it, other cybercrime groups are also using it.
“It is a modular macOS malware kit created by Lazarus Group’s infamous Chollima division. It uses native Mach-O binaries tailored for Apple environments where crypto and fintech operate,” she said.
Newson said Mach-O Man uses a delivery method known as ClickFix. “It’s important to be clear because a lot of coverage is mixing up two separate things,” she noted. ClickFix is a social engineering technique where the victim is asked to paste a command into their terminal to fix a simulated connection issue.
It works by Lazarus sending executives an “urgent” meeting invite over Telegram for a Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet call, according to Mauro Eldritch, a security expert and founder of threat intelligence firm BCA Ltd.
The link leads to a fake, but convincing, website that instructs them to copy and paste one simple command into their Mac’s terminal to “fix a connection issue.” In doing so, the victims provide immediate access to corporate systems, SaaS platforms and financial resources. By the time they find out they were exploited, it is usually too late.
There are several variations of this attack, security threat researcher Vladimir S. said on X. There are already cases where Lazarus attackers have hijacked decentralized finance (DeFI) projects’ domains with this new malware by replacing their websites with a fake message from Cloudflare, asking them to enter a command to grant access.
“These fake ‘verification steps’ guide victims through keyboard shortcuts that run a harmful command,” said Certik’s Newson. “The page looks real, the instructions seem normal, and the victim initiates the action themselves — which is why traditional security controls often miss it.”
Most victims of this hack will not realize their security has been breached until the damage has been done, at which time, the malware will have already erased itself as well.
“They likely don’t know it yet,” she said. “If they do, they probably can’t identify which variant affected them.”
Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, has yet to pass a domestic enabling act for the EU’s regulations on cryptocurrencies.
The parliament has again failed to override a presidential veto on a key crypto regulation bill. President Karol Nawrocki defended his veto, citing concerns over excessive regulation that could harm small businesses. Opponents state that the lack of framework makes the Polish market vulnerable to fraud and free-for-all for illicit actors. The political path forward is unclear.
Outside the political arena, the reality is that Poland is the only EU member state left to implement the bloc’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. The deadline for the transitionary period ends on July 1.
This already makes it difficult for local firms to stay competitive in Europe. But after July 1, if a solution isn’t forthcoming, it will be impossible. Some are already taking their business elsewhere and moving abroad.
In November 2025, the Sejm passed the Crypto-Asset Market Act, which would update Polish law to comply with MiCA.
Local enterprise groups were not pleased with the result. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a business-focused think tank, outlined a few of the perceived problems with the law.
First was the length. Including draft secondary regulations, the total length was well over 300 pages. The Warsaw Enterprise Institute said that, while other EU member states were satisfied with just a few dozen pages, “the Polish law has several hundred articles and provides for additional regulations.”
It said the act introduces “a ban on marketing activities related to basic cryptocurrencies and the possibility of blocking websites by administrative decision, without the right to appeal to a court.”
“Such solutions are not justified by MiCA and put Polish companies in a worse competitive position compared to entities operating in other EU countries.”.
Of further concern was the role the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) would play under the new regime. Under the law, the KNF would be the sole regulator of the entire crypto market. It would have the power to levy heavy fines as well as maintain and enforce a blacklist of “unreliable” crypto domains that Polish ISPs would have to block.
Not only would the KNF be incredibly powerful, but it is already notoriously slow. According to a payment institution peer review by the European Banking Authority, the KNF’s authorization times were the slowest in Europe. In an October letter, the Warsaw Enterprise Institute claimed that the KNF has only issued two licenses for brokerage houses in the last 10 years. In the same time period, it has only issued one electronic money institution license, while Lithuania has registered over 100.
Related: EU crypto firms turn to legal support as deadline for MiCA compliance nears
On Dec. 1, 2025, Nawrocki vetoed the law, citing bloated regulation. The government failed to override the veto, and then reintroduced the exact same bill. Nawrocki vetoed the bill for a second time in February, and on April 17, the Sejm repeated itself in failing to overrule the veto.
The battle over the crypto bill shows no signs of stopping.
Firstly, for Nawrocki, passing the bill after being reintroduced in the same form would have presented a political problem.
Piech told Cointelegraph, “Once the president had already argued that the bill breached constitutional principles and contained excessive, disproportionate and vague provisions […] signing a near-identical version would have meant contradicting his own stated reasoning.”
“In that sense, the second push looked less like compromise and more like an attempt to pressure the president into a constitutional U-turn.”
Some in the crypto industry hailed the veto as Nawrocki sticking to his pro-crypto, sound regulatory principles.
“The veto is not anti-regulatory, it brings common sense back into the law-making process. […] The industry did not ask for privileges. It asked for proportionality,” said Sławomir Zawadzki, co-CEO of Kanga Exchange.
Different coalitions and groups have attempted to introduce their own versions. According to Piech, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański said that the government started work yesterday on solutions for a new crypto-asset bill.
In December, after the first veto, the Polska 2050 political party announced “an improved draft that is a step forward from the President’s arguments, which, although far-fetched, are perhaps worth considering.”
Nawrocki himself has said he would submit a draft but the speaker in the Sejm has blocked the introduction of presidential proposals.
The Confederation of Liberty and Independence and the Law and Justice have filed versions, while another political coalition, the Center Club, announced it would prepare another draft.
Overall, Poland’s political class is “still deeply split on crypto.”
“This is no longer just a technical argument about implementing MiCA. It has become a broader fight over whether crypto should be brought into a normal legal framework, or treated as a politically suspicious sector that can be overregulated, stigmatised or used as a proxy battlefield after the Zonda Crypto controversy,” he said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, himself a member of the Civic Coalition, has accused local exchange Zonda Crypto of illicit funding and ties to Russian criminal networks. It has undergone a funding crisis, pausing withdrawals, and has reportedly lobbied against the bill.
Related: Zonda exchange says 4.5K BTC wallet inaccessible amid withdrawal crisis
Tusk also claimed that it “sponsors political and social events in Poland and promotes very specific political forces,” including the opposition far-right Law and Justice party, of which Nawrocki is a member.
Zonda Crypto did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
For companies in Poland, passing a new law by the end of the MiCA transitional period on July 1 may be a case of shutting the barn doors after the horses have bolted.
Said Piech, “A new law may still matter institutionally, especially for banks and larger financial institutions that may want to enter crypto once there is a clear legal path. But for all existing Polish crypto firms, it is already very late.”
Some domestic crypto firms are already looking abroad. Crypto exchange Kanga is considering a move to Latvia, “a country whose representatives have openly used conferences in Poland to attract crypto firms, offering a MiCA-friendly regime, faster procedures and relatively low supervisory fees,” per Piech.
Robert Wojciechowski, president of the Polish Chamber of Commerce for Blockchain and New Technologies, said, “Since we founded the chamber, about 70-80 percent of companies have sailed abroad. Now my colleagues say they are talking to the Czech Republic to move their business there.”
The Chancellery of the President has itself raised the alarm, stating that, “Overregulation is a guaranteed way to push companies abroad — to the Czech Republic, Lithuania or Malta — instead of creating conditions for them to operate and pay taxes in Poland.”
Zonda Crypto CEO Przemysław Kral has previously told Cointelegraph, “Although we are a company with Polish roots and the largest player in the crypto industry on the Polish market, we have been operating outside Poland for years.”
“We are confident that we will remain a key player on the market. However, many small Polish crypto companies will lose the opportunity to operate on the market,” he said.
Now it’s a race against the clock, as July 1 draws closer. Piech doesn’t see a “realistic chance” for a bill to pass, and if it doesn’t, “domestic firms without a functioning Polish route are left at a structural disadvantage.”
Magazine: Adam Back says current demand is ‘almost’ enough to send Bitcoin to $1M
Bitcoin has entered the US national security conversation more directly, and more publicly, than before. In Senate testimony highlighted Thursday by the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) and several industry observers, Admiral Samuel Paparo, the four-star commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, described BTC as showing “incredible potential” as a tool with cybersecurity and broader strategic applications.
The exchange came during questioning from Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who framed US-China competition as a monetary contest as well as a military one. Tuberville said the Chinese Communist Party’s main monetary think tank had published research on BTC as a strategic asset last year, and he tied that backdrop to President Donald Trump’s move to establish a strategic reserve. He then asked Paparo how leadership in Bitcoin could affect “leverage, resilience, deterrence” for INDOPACOM against China, and whether such a reserve helps the US compete.
Paparo’s answer was notable less for any market implication than for the language he used to describe BTC itself. Rather than focusing first on price, reserve composition, or financial policy, he approached it as a technical system with military relevance. “Our research into Bitcoin is as a computer science tool,” Paparo said. “It’s the combination of cryptography, a blockchain, and a proof of work. And Bitcoin shows incredible potential as a computer science tool that through the proof of work protocols, actually imposes more cost than just the algorithmic securing of networks and our ability to operate.”
That formulation matters. Paparo did not present BTC merely as a reserve asset or payment rail, but as a system whose architecture may have value in cybersecurity and power projection. He continued: “Bitcoin is a reality, it is a valuable computer science tool as a power projection. And outside of the economic formulation of it, it has got really important computer science applications for cybersecurity.”
Pressed by Tuberville on what Congress should do to help the US lead in “Bitcoin competition,” Paparo stopped short of offering immediate policy prescriptions in open session. But he did make clear that he sees the technology as strategically relevant. “I have to go deeper on that with you for the record,” he said. “But Bitcoin is a reality. It is a peer-to-peer, zero-trust transfer of value. Anything that supports all instruments of national power for the United States of America is to the good.”
The comments were quickly amplified by the BPI, whose executive team has been pushing the national-security case for BTC in Washington. Managing Director Conner Brown called the moment the point at which “Bitcoin was recognized as a strategic tool on the world stage,” while Galaxy lead researcher Alex Thorn underscored Paparo’s stature, noting that INDOPACOM is the largest geographic combatant command in the US military.
BREAKING: ADM Paparo, 4-star Admiral and Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, just testified before the Senate that “Bitcoin shows incredible potential” as a tool for U.S. national security. Watch the full exchange: pic.twitter.com/BnhOTEbJEM
— Bitcoin Policy Institute (@bitcoinpolicy) April 21, 2026
Thorn also pointed to an April 17 post from BPI executive director Grant McCarty, who said he had met with Tuberville and praised the senator’s understanding of “the strategic opportunity Bitcoin presents to advance US interests.”
The broader intellectual backdrop is difficult to ignore. Jason Lowery, the former US Space Force official and author of Softwar: A Novel Theory on Power Projection and the National Strategic Significance of Bitcoin, has argued that the proof-of-work system should be understood through a defense and deterrence lens, not just an economic one.
Lowery was appointed Special Assistant to the Commander at INDOPACOM in August 2025, though there’s no evidence which directly shows his role in Paparo’s testimony or the command’s current research. Via X, he just commented “Alea iacta est. 🇺🇸⚡️🦌”.
At press time, BTC traded at $77,926.
Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
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Two former Royal Mint executives have secured over £500,000 in equity funding to support the roll-out of Goldwise, a Wales-based fintech touting a mobile app for savers and investors to buy, manage and sell fractional physical gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
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The investment includes £250,000 from the Wales Angel Co-Fund, managed by Angels Invest Wales, alongside £255,000 from a syndicate of business angels.
Launched by Gareth Tucker, former head of direct-to-consumer at The Royal Mint, and Jatin Patel, former head of wealth management at The Royal Mint, Goldwise has built a precious metals trading platform to allow savers and investors to trade fractional amounts of allocated, vaulted physical precious metals including gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
The platform covers customer onboarding, institutional pricing & execution, payments, allocation & custody and recordkeeping that connects directly to the global precious metals ecosystem. The technology enables fractional trading of LBMA-approved bullion, from as little as £5, with 24/7 access, set conditional orders and real-time portfolio tracking.
Alongside the retail Goldwise app, the firm has also launched GoldwiseConnect, a precious-metals-as-a-service infrastructure that enables wealth platforms and financial institutions to embed physical precious metals tradinginto their own services without needing to build complex trading and custody infrastructure.
Gareth Tucker says: “Investing in most asset classes has become simple, digital and accessible – but physical precious metals have been left behind. Customers still face outdated buying experiences, marked-up pricing and limited trading functionality. Goldwise was built to change that, making precious metals investing easy, secure and efficient for all.”
He says the funding is being used to support the UK market launch of the platform and underpin its next phase of growth, focusing on product rollout, customer acquisition and performance over the next 12 to 15 months ahead of a further planned round of funding designed to scale the business into Europe and globally.
The crypto market is on the brink of a major breakout with bitcoin trading at $78,000, the level it failed to breach on Friday and a price it has not topped since January.
A break above this level would trigger upside momentum to $80,000 as $180 million worth of futures positions are due to be liquidated between $77,000 and $78,000, according to CoinGlass’ liquidation heatmap.
However, there is also a $71 million long position that will be liquidated if the price fails to gain and descends back below $77,300, creating a defensive trading environment on both sides.
The market is higher after U.S. President Donald Trump extended the ceasefire in Iran, saying that country’s government was “seriously fractured.”
Nasdaq 100 futures and S&P 500 futures rose by 0.77% and 0.6%, respectively, since midnight UTC following the announcement, suggesting improving broader market sentiment.
Optimism’s first privacy offering by core developer Sunnyside uses ZK and TEE hybrid technology to enable confidential computing for enterprises on the OP Stack.
Privacy Boost, a privacy offering built by Sunnyside—an Optimism core developer—launched on OP Mainnet on Tuesday, April 21. The product is a drop-in SDK enabling confidential computing for Sunnyside’s customers on any OP Stack chain. The hybrid architecture combines zero-knowledge proofs and trusted execution environments (TEE), with sub-500ms proof generation and compliance-compatible design.
Privacy Boost targets enterprise demand for onchain transaction privacy without exposing customer data. The protocol’s high-throughput design is expected to expand to additional blockchains beyond Optimism. The launch addresses institutional adoption barriers on Ethereum and Layer 2 networks where regulatory and operational requirements demand confidential data handling.
Sources: Optimism | Decrypt
This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.
