Crypto Market Holds Steady Amid Hacks and ETF Inflows

The cryptocurrency market remained stable this week, with the total market cap holding steady at $2.54 trillion. Ethereum (ETH) saw a slight decrease in price from $3765 to $3692, while Bitcoin (BTC) experienced a modest increase from $68346 to $69474. The market was notably impacted by several high-profile hacks, including a $22 million loss from Project Gala and a $2 million exploit on Solana’s Pump.fun. Additionally, Kronos Research faced a $3.7 million hack, and the Gala Games hacker returned $23 million in ETH, prompting a "buy and burn" strategy. Concerns were raised over a multisig wallet that could potentially drain $121 million from Ethereum L2s, and Bybit’s CEO refuted insolvency rumors.

In the ETF sector, there was a total inflow of $525 million, with the largest inflow of $125 million into the IBIT ETF. The State of Wisconsin reported $164 million investments in spot Bitcoin ETFs, and CoinShares posted record revenue in Q1. Hong Kong’s Bitcoin ETF issuer made bold predictions despite a pessimistic outlook, and investors began buying back into Grayscale’s GBTC. The European Securities and Markets Authority considered including crypto in the €12 trillion UCITS investment market. On exchanges, there was a significant net outflow of $293.67 million, with Binance recording the highest inflow of $128.93 million. Fundraising efforts saw $1.08 billion raised across 169 rounds, with Polymarket raising $74 million. Layer 2 networks saw an increase in TVL from $10.06 billion to $10.49 billion, with Arbitrum leading the growth. Regulatory and legal developments included Matter Labs dropping ZK trademark applications and the US Navy launching blockchain security tech to the private sector.