By Omkar Godbole (All times ET unless otherwise noted)
Programmable blockchain Solana’s SOL token has hit five-week lows after an exploit on one of its largest decentralized perpetual exchanges, Drift, underlined that security risks go beyond smart contracts.
“If you’re building in DeFi, audit the surface of your admin key. Not just the smart contracts,” said Omer Goldberg, founder of Chaos Labs, explaining what went wrong.
Goldberg explained in his X thread that the attacker compromised Drift’s administrator key. This single key gave the attacker god-like control, like giving someone the master password to the entire bank vault, without limits or alarms.
Using this power, the attacker created a fake collateral market for a worthless token called CVT. They maximized the risk parameters so that the system would treat hundreds of millions of this junk token as safe, high-value collateral. In the same transaction, they changed the CVT price oracle to one they fully controlled, artificially pumped its value to sky-high levels, lifted circuit breakers on major assets (removing withdrawal limits) like USDC, eETH, and others, and drained over $250 million worth of tokens.
This also worked because Drift features a single shared liquidity pool that contains everyone’s collateral and trading funds, providing a seamless trading experience. (Imagine putting all your money in a single bank account and losing it all in a signature hack.)
The real problem was not a bug in the code. It was the enormous “footprint” of that management key, or the massive damage a compromised signer could cause by rewriting the entire protocol’s risk rules, assigning oracles, and disabling security guards.
This is not the first time that a compromised privileged key has led to huge losses. Just 10 days earlier, Resolv was drained of $25 million in tokens after attackers compromised a SERVICE_ROLE key.
So the message is clear: protocol security now depends as much on strong governance and key controls as it does on smart contract audits.
Looking at the markets, SOL’s drop of almost 3% to $78.30, the lowest level since late February, is consistent with bitcoin’s weakness. ether (ETH), XRP (XRP) and the broader market, represented by the CoinDesk 20 index.
The culprit, once again, is President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to Iran, which has driven up oil prices. In the short term, these holders could continue to lead movements in both the traditional market and the crypto market. Stay alert!
Read more: For an analysis of current activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today
What to watch
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Crypto
- Macro
- April 2, 8:30 am: US Initial Jobless Claims for the week ending March 28 (formerly 210K)
- Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
symbolic events
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
- Governance votes and calls
- Unlock DAO is voting to transfer 3 ETH to its multi-signature base to exchange for USDC to cover current and future operating expenses. Voting ends April 2.
- Aavegotchi DAO is voting to elect nine multiple signers, maintain a signature threshold of 5 out of 9, and set its quarterly compensation at $1,000 paid in GHST. Voting ends April 2.
- Arbitrum DAO is voting on two proposals to convert its Code of Conduct and Procedures into living documents managed by OpCo and upgrade to ArbOS 60 Elara. Voting ends April 2.
- Unlock
- April 2: Ethena (ENA) will unlock 2.18% of its circulating supply worth $16.05 million.
- Token releases
Conferences
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
Market movements
- BTC is down 2.53% since 4 pm ET on Wednesday to $66,459.24 (24 hours: -3.1%)
- ETH is down 4.66% to $2,043.77 (24 hours: -4.16%)
- CoinDesk 20 is down 3.59% to 1,891.30 (24 hours: -3.81%)
- Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate Up 1bp to 2.77%
- BTC funding rate is 0.0001% (0.0635% annualized) on Binance
- DXY rises 0.51% to 100.16
- Gold futures fall 3.56% to $4,641.60
- Silver futures down 6.47% to $71.15
- The Nikkei 225 closed down 2.38% at 52,463.27
- Hang Seng closed down 0.7% at 25,116.53
- The FTSE is down 0.08% at 10,356.15
- The Euro Stoxx 50 falls 1.61% to 5,640.26
- The DJIA closed Wednesday up 0.48% at 46,565.74
- The S&P 500 closed up 0.72% at 6,575.32
- Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.16% at 21,840.95
- S&P/TSX Composite closed up 0.58% at 32,957.95
- The S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.95% at 3,658.43
- The 10-year US Treasury rate rises 5.1 basis points to 4.372%
- E-mini S&P 500 futures down 1.17% to 6,540.50
- E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures down 1.51% to 23,830.00
- E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average index futures down 0.97% to 46,353.00
Bitcoin Statistics
- BTC dominance: 58.58% (+0.04%)
- Ether-bitcoin ratio: 0.03079 (-2.02%)
- Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 1,016 EH/s
- Hashprice (spot): $31.48
- Total fees: 2.55 BTC / $174,507
- CME Futures Open Interest: 107,610 BTC
- BTC priced in gold: 14.4 oz.
- BTC market capitalization against gold: 4.44%
Technical analysis
- The chart shows daily solana price swings in candlestick format with the Ichimoku cloud, a trend indicator, identified by the shaded area between the green and red lines.
- The token price has crossed below the cloud again, indicating the continuation of the broader decline. The pattern is similar to what we saw in mid-January, after which prices fell sharply.
- The Ichimoku cloud, invented by a Japanese journalist, is widely used to detect trend changes. Crosses above and below the cloud are said to represent bullish and bearish changes in trends.
Crypto Stocks
- Coinbase Global (COIN): closed on Monday at $172.99 (-0.93%), -3.17% to $167.50 in premarket
- Circle Internet (CRCL): closed at $90.74 (-4.89%), -1.59% at $89.30
- Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $17.37 (-5.85%), -2.42% at $16.95
- Bullish (BLSH): closed at $35.07 (-1.85%), -2.79% at $34.09
- MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $8.04 (-1.47%), -2.74% at $7.82
- Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $12.55 (+1.54%), -4.94% to $11.93
- Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $15.30 (+2.27%), -3.66% to $14.74
- CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $8.62 (+1.29%), -3.38% to $8.33
- CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $34.86 (+0.11%)
- Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $6.68 (+2.77%)
Crypto treasury companies
- Strategy (MSTR): closed at $122.78 (-1.62%), -2.09% at $120.21
- Strive (ASST): closed at $10.16 (+1.40%), -3.44% to $9.81
- SharpLink Gaming (SBET): closed at $6.46 (+0.16%), -3.72% to $6.22
- Upexi (UPXI): closed at $0.99 (+0.20%), -5.16% to $0.94
- Lite Strategy (LITS): closed at $1.13 (-2.59%), -5.31% at $1.07
ETF Flows
BTC Spot ETF
- Daily net flow: -$173.7 million
- Accumulated net flows: $55.92 billion
- Total BTC holdings ~1.29 million
ETH Spot ETF
- Daily net flow: -$7.1 million
- Accumulated net flows: 11,580 million dollars
- Total ETH holdings ~5.71 million
Source: Farside Investors
while you were sleeping
Trump Stirs Market and Political Angst with Vague Timetable for Iran (Bloomberg): The $31 trillion U.S. Treasury bond market posted its worst monthly performance since late 2024 in March, and bond investors fear that a war-fueled surge in oil prices will ignite inflation.
‘We’re going to hit them hard’: Markets disappointed, oil rises again after Trump speech (euronews): Oil rose sharply and European stocks fell after Trump said in his first national address since the Iran war began that the United States would continue its attacks on Iran.
Gold, Silver Fall as Investors Doubt Trump Exit Plan (The Wall Street Journal): Gold and silver prices fell into the red, along with industrial metals and stocks. Spot gold prices fell 3% to about $4,670 a troy ounce. Spot silver fell more than 5%.
Bitcoin Treasury Boom Unraveling as Some Companies and Governments Sell Stakes (CoinDesk) – Those Who Rushed to Invest in Bitcoin In the last two years they are heading towards the exit and it is not a good sign for the market.
