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  • 2026’s biggest crypto exploit: Kelp DAO hit for $292 million with wrapped ether stranded across 20 chains

    2026’s biggest crypto exploit: Kelp DAO hit for $292 million with wrapped ether stranded across 20 chains

    A cross-chain bridge holding nearly a fifth of a restaked ether token’s circulating supply just got drained, and the fallout is moving through DeFi faster than Kelp DAO can pause contracts.

    An attacker drained 116,500 rsETH (restaked ether) from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge at 17:35 UTC on Saturday, worth roughly $292 million at current prices and representing about 18% of rsETH’s 630,000 token circulating supply tracked by CoinGecko.

    LayerZero is a cross-chain messaging layer, or the infrastructure that lets different blockchains send verified instructions to each other. Kelp DAO is a liquid restaking protocol, which takes user-deposited $ETH, routes it through EigenLayer to earn additional yield on top of standard Ethereum staking rewards, and issues rsETH as a tradeable receipt.

    The bridge that was drained held the rsETH reserve backing wrapped versions of the token deployed on more than 20 other blockchains.

    The attacker tricked LayerZero’s cross-chain messaging layer into believing a valid instruction had arrived from another network, which triggered Kelp’s bridge to release 116,500 rsETH to an attacker-controlled address.

    Kelp’s emergency pauser multisig froze the protocol’s core contracts 46 minutes after the successful drain, at 18:21 UTC. Two follow-up attempts at 18:26 UTC and 18:28 UTC both reverted, each carrying the same LayerZero packet attempting another 40,000 rsETH drain worth roughly $100 million.

    rsETH is deployed across more than 20 networks including Base, Arbitrum, Linea, Blast, Mantle and Scroll, with LayerZero’s OFT standard handling the cross-chain movement.

    The rsETH held in the bridge was the reserve backing wrapped versions on every layer 2 blockchain, or networks that run atop Ethereum.

    With that reserve drained, holders on non-Ethereum deployments now face the question of whether their tokens have anything underneath them, which creates a feedback loop where panic redemptions on L2s pressure the unaffected Ethereum supply, potentially forcing Kelp to unwind restaking positions to honor withdrawals.

    The contagion list is long and still growing.

    Aave froze rsETH markets on V3 and V4 within hours, with founder Stani Kulechov affirming the exploit was external and Aave’s contracts were not compromised. SparkLend and Fluid froze their rsETH markets.

    AAVE fell about 10% as the market priced potential bad debt.

    Lido Finance paused further deposits into its earnETH product, which carries rsETH exposure, while clarifying that stETH and wstETH are unaffected and the core Lido staking protocol has no involvement in the incident.

    Ethena temporarily paused its LayerZero OFT bridges from Ethereum mainnet as a precaution, saying it has no rsETH exposure and remains more than 101% overcollateralized. The stablecoin issuer said the pause would last roughly six hours while the root cause is identified.

    Kelp, a product under the KernelDAO umbrella, acknowledged the incident in its first public X post at 20:10 UTC, nearly three hours after the drain. The protocol said it was investigating with LayerZero, Unichain, its auditors and outside security specialists. It has not disclosed how the exploit bypassed the bridge’s validation logic.

    Whether rsETH holds peg through the weekend depends on how much of the cross-chain float tries to redeem into $ETH on Ethereum and whether Kelp can recover any portion of the stolen funds before the Tornado Cash trail goes cold.

    The hack lands in an unusually hostile stretch for DeFi. Solana-based perpetuals protocol Drift was drained of about $285 million on April 1 in an attack later linked to North Korea-affiliated actors, and at least a dozen smaller protocols have been exploited in the weeks since, including CoW Swap, Zerion, Rhea Finance and Silo Finance.

    Kelp’s $292 million loss is now the largest DeFi exploit of 2026, overtaking Drift by a few million dollars.

  • Nicole Kidman Details “Harrowing” Experience of Learning Her Mother Died and Training to Be a Death Doula: “It’s Very Important to Me”

    Nicole Kidman Details “Harrowing” Experience of Learning Her Mother Died and Training to Be a Death Doula: “It’s Very Important to Me”

    Nicole Kidman says she’s seen the public response to her training to become a death doula, but she finds the act of supporting people and their families in their final moments together “beautiful” and “very important to me.”

    “I did this talk recently where I said I’m expanding into learning to be a death doula, which seemed to have people confused or intrigued,” the actress and producer told a Philadelphia audience at the Marian Anderson Hall at the Kimmel Center on Saturday as part of HISTORYTalks 2026, a live speaker series produced by The History Channel. 

    After describing wanting to help people and families be present and navigate their final moments together, she described the work of a death doula as “really fascinating. It’s very beautiful, and you have to be a certain personality to be able to do it. But I found out that I’m actually that personality. It’s very important to me. There is always suffering, but if there are people there who can help with that, help those final stages be less painful — if you feel the connection in your heart, then that’s lovely. So that’s what I’m exploring.”

    Kidman shared her thoughts on the practice after discussing the experience of learning that her mother had passed away in September 2024 while the actress was being honored at a film festival. “I’d won best actress at Venice Film Festival. This seems to be such a common theme through my life. I was about to go on stage, and I found out my mother had died. I went right back to the room in Venice, got into bed and was completely devastated,” she recalled. Kidman said she found herself not knowing how to function or move forward as her mother “was so much a part of my existence, so the idea of being there at that particular moment was harrowing.”  

    “I remember getting into a boat in the canal, and literally at night trying to find my way to the airport, and then turning around and going, I can’t even do this. And then went back into the bed, and I was alone. My husband wasn’t there. My children weren’t there. I’d gone to win an award. What should have been a beautiful thing, ended up with that,” she continued. “But there is the contrast of life, and that’s what I always say to people. I say that’s when I know I’m resilient. That’s when I know I can survive pretty much anything.”

    The Scarpetta and Nine Perfect Strangers star and producer noted that in her relationship to life and art, “I don’t think I ever sought peace. I sought exploration of the human condition,” and that she also considers herself not a celebrity but a worker. “I’m a worker bee, I love to be in the world working, and I love to provide work if I can for others, and I love to do the work.”

    Kidman was just one of the speakers during the annual day-long conversation series that explored the connections between politics, comedy, entertainment, sports and American history through the lens of leadership and legacy. The event was hosted as part of a larger, year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America and in conjunction with Comcast NBCUniversal. As such, Kidman also addressed her own historical relationship to the country. 

    “I came here and [have] lived in so many different places, and my work was so transient, so I have seen so much of the United States,” said the actress, who was born in Hawaii, lived in D.C. for several years growing up, has lived in California, and Nashville, where she raised her children with Keith Urban. “I love that I’ve seen it in a very specific way. I’ve seen all elements of it filming in different states, living in California, but also my ex-husband traveled on a tour bus all over America. It’s actually extraordinary because of the people. You meet people. I feel so much a part of this country, not through just birth, but through actually existing here.”

    As part of that larger conversation, Kidman spoke about her journey not just with death or with working and living in America, but with becoming a producer later in her career. During the chat with moderator Hoda Kotb, Kidman recalled moving to Nashville while pregnant, becoming a mother, and wondering if she would officially retire from acting. She pointed to her mother, who encouraged her to not “completely give up” the thing she had been doing since she was 14. Kidman said it prompted her to ask, “Well, what can I do that isn’t as taxing on me so that I can be present for my child? And producing suddenly became a much, much more interesting road.” It would lead her to Rabbit Hole. 

    “I read a review of a play called Rabbit Hole, which was about the loss of a child, and I thought, what a wonderful thing to do having just given birth — this is how strange I am to go and to do a film about the thing I am most terrified of — to go and connect to the people that I now have such deep compassion for and want to understand and want to help,” she told the Philadelphia crowd. No one wanted to give us money. It was a $3.5 million film. We had to beg for every cent. But we got it made. It was scrappy, and it was a passion, and that was the beginning of my producing career.”

    It would also be the first step into a future of centering women in film and TC on- and off-screen. “There’s so many more opportunities. I have two shows right now where primarily it’s women in the director’s seat, the writer’s seat, the showrunner’s seat, and stories about women. That 20 years ago was not the case. So that is enormous change,” she told Kotb. “The percentages are still incredibly low, comparatively. I think we’re still looking at in terms of female directors 14 percent. Maybe it’s 16 percent now. It’s good to say those numbers because I think people think it’s all fine now. No, it’s still such an enormous gap. But I’m making changes [with] women who have the position to go, ‘I can greenlight this, I can get this made, and I want to put a female at the helm. How do I do that?’ I can say that’s what I want, and that’s actually the grassroots change.”

  • ‘Heated Rivalry’ Showrunner Teases ‘Much More Serious’ Season 2 Plot, Including ‘Role Model’ Book Storyline: ‘This Hotel-Room-Adolescent-Sex Stuff Is Largely Gone’

    ‘Heated Rivalry’ Showrunner Teases ‘Much More Serious’ Season 2 Plot, Including ‘Role Model’ Book Storyline: ‘This Hotel-Room-Adolescent-Sex Stuff Is Largely Gone’

    “Heated Rivalry” showrunner Jacob Tierney is in the midst of writing Season 2 of the hockey romance series, which he says will find Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) “in much more serious territory” than the lovers were in the first installment.

    “It’s different. It really is different,” Tierney said during a panel alongside “Heated Rivalry” book author Rachel Reid Saturday at BookCon at the Javits Center in New York. “And the challenge of it is, from an adaptation point of view, is that you’re in much more serious territory. A lot of the initial — there’s still lots of flirting and lots of sex — but this kind of danger, this kind of hotel-room-adolescent-sex stuff is largely gone. And so it presents really new challenges.”

    Tierney brought on Michael Goldbach as co-writer for “Heated Rivalry” Season 2 to assist in the process as the production team hopes to get the new episodes out sooner rather than later amid the immense popularity of the Crave/HBO Max show’s first season. The storyline in Season 2, which is based on Reid’s book “The Long Game” (the sequel to “Heated Rivalry” and part of Reid’s overall “Game Changer” series), is more complex than the plot in the first season of the show, as it finds Shane and Ilya facing the realities of being in a relationship after a slow-burn romance.

    “Part of the reason you start off with ‘Heated Rivalry,’ as far as adapting goes, is because you want to get to ‘The Long Game,’” Tierney said. “Because ‘The Long Game’ is an emotionally sophisticated book that takes this couple seriously. What I’ve always said about this show is there are a lot of books — ‘Game Changer’ is in ‘Heated Rivalry’ and obviously, as I think you guys all know by now — obviously parts of ‘Role Model’ are going to be in [Season 2], to the great surprise of absolutely nobody. But Ilya and Shane are the heartbeat of this series, of my show. It’s always going to be about Ilya and Shane, that is what is the trajectory that runs through it as their world expands.”

    Tierney joked that he refers to Reid’s “The Long Game” book as “Sex Scenes From a Marriage,” noting a big fight between Shane and Ilya is one of his favorite moments from the story.

    “There’s a Bergman-y kind of, what do you do after the rush of danger is gone and now you have to live in a relationship where you still aren’t communicating properly, much as you would like to?” Tierney said. “You can say you love each other, but as adults know, there’s so much more to making a relationship a success.”

    As Tierney confirmed, Reid’s book “Role Model” — which is part of the overall “Game Changer” novel series but follows the relationship of hockey player Troy Barrett and team social media manager Harris Drover rather than Shane and Ilya — will be worked into “Heated Rivalry” Season 2.

    “In ‘Long Game’ you are like, OK, we’re here to ground this in something that feels very real,” Tierney said. “And the same thing with Troy and Harris, right. I think there’s an easy, fascicle way of looking at ‘Role Model’ as it’s very grumpy/sunshine, it’s very apple orchard. It can drift into things that you want. But Troy is a really damaged guy. And Troy is quite damaged on the show. I would say we are digging into that even harder. Because that’s what’s interesting.”

  • Why Michael Saylor’s Strategy decided to make STRC’s dividend bi-monthly

    Why Michael Saylor’s Strategy decided to make STRC’s dividend bi-monthly

    Leading bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR) has proposed shifting the dividend payment schedule on its perpetual preferred equity, Stretch (STRC), from monthly to semi-monthly.

    The amendment, outlined in Strategy’s investor presentation, would keep the 11.5% annualized dividend rate and total annual obligations unchanged (currently $1.2 billion). Holders would receive payouts roughly every two weeks instead of once a month, with the first semi-monthly payment expected on July 15, following the June 8 shareholder vote.

    According to Strategy’s presentation, STRC currently sees an average $0.45 price drawdown after the ex-dividend date (the deadline to own a stock to receive a dividend), with recovery to its $100 par value taking around two weeks. Typically, on the ex-dividend date, the stock price drops by approximately the amount of the dividend payment.

    When STRC trades below its $100 par value, Strategy cannot issue shares through its at-the-market (ATM) program to raise funds for bitcoin purchases. By smoothing the price action, the company aims to keep STRC closer to par, enabling more consistent capital raising.

    Semi-monthly payments are expected to reduce this volatility and time lag.

    Steadier bitcoin buying

    More frequent payouts would also reduce reinvestment lag and spread out the buying pressure more evenly across the month, allowing Strategy to purchase bitcoin at a steadier pace and keep purchases consistent.

    According to the presentation, the shift aligns with the typical twice-monthly U.S. payroll cycle and creates more entry and exit opportunities for shareholders, all aimed at lowering volatility.

    STRC’s historical volatility averaged 13% from August 2025 to March 2026, but dropped to just 2% between March and April 2026, according to Strategy’s data.

    If approved, STRC would become the only semi-monthly dividend-paying preferred in the market, compared with 921 that pay quarterly and 32 that pay monthly, the company said. Nasdaq rules require at least 10 calendar days between dividend declaration and the record date.

    STRC recently fell below $99 following the April 15 ex-dividend date, a drop of more than $1, which is the volatility the company is aiming to reduce.

    Disclosure: The author of this story owns shares in Strategy (MSTR).

    Read more: The one metric investors are overlooking in Michael Saylor’s Strategy

  • From smelters to servers: Alcoa to cash in on crypto’s thirst for energy

    From smelters to servers: Alcoa to cash in on crypto’s thirst for energy

    The largest aluminum producer in the U.S., Alcoa, is close to selling its idle Massena East smelter in upstate New York to bitcoin firm New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), as it offloads dormant assets and taps demand for energy-ready industrial sites.

    The company’s chief executive officer, Bill Oplinger, said the company is in advanced talks and expects the deal to close “in the middle part of this year,” Bloomberg reports.

    The site, located along the St. Lawrence River, has sat idle since 2014 when Alcoa shut it down due to high operating costs and global competition.

    The appeal lies in the site’s power, not the metal itself. Aluminum smelters are built to run around the clock, drawing large amounts of electricity through dedicated substations and transmission lines. When they close, that infrastructure remains.

    For bitcoin miners and data center developers, this can cut years off the time required to secure grid access.

    Massena East also has access to hydropower from the New York Power Authority, a draw for firms seeking low-cost and carbon-free energy.

    The deal reflects a broader shift. Earlier this year, Century Aluminum sold a Kentucky smelter to TeraWulf (WULF), which plans to build a digital infrastructure campus supporting high-performance computing and AI.

  • Judge sides with creators of banned ICE trackers who allege DHS and DOJ violated their First Amendment rights

    A judge has granted the makers of the “ICE Sightings – Chicagoland” Facebook group and the Eyes Up app a preliminary injunction to stop the Trump administration from coercing platforms to take these projects down. Judge Jorge L. Alonso of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found that the plaintiffs, Kassandra Rosado and Kreisau Group, are likely to succeed in their case, which alleges that the government suppressed protected speech under the First Amendment by strong-arming Facebook and Apple into removing ICE monitoring efforts.

    Both Eyes Up and ICE Sightings – Chicagoland use publicly available information to keep tabs on ICE activity. But after pressure from Trump officials, they were removed from Apple’s App Store and Facebook, respectively. Similar apps including ICEBlock and Red Dot were also taken down from the App Store and Google Play. The lawsuit cites social media posts by former US Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem that demanded and took credit for the removal of these apps. In a document filed on Friday, Alonso called these posts “thinly veiled threats.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which is defending the plaintiffs, wrote in a post on X that it is “extremely encouraged by this ruling.” It continued, “Even though it’s not the end of the case, it bodes well for the future of our legal fight to ensure that the First Amendment protects the right to discuss, record, and criticize what law enforcement does in public.”

  • SNK’s Neo Geo console remake works with original cartridges and HDMI

    Not everyone had the money for the original Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System when it released in the ’90s, but there’s still a chance to experience it as an adult with disposable income. SNK and Plaion Replai, who is also behind the all-black remake of the Commodore 64, announced a faithful remake of the high-end retro console, called the Neo Geo AES+.

    To bring the original console into the modern day, the collaborating companies added HDMI compatibility for resolutions up to 1080p and DIP switches on the bottom of the console to allow for language selection, overclocking and switching display modes. Rounding out the upgrades, SNK and Plaion Replai included a permanent way to retain high scores on a memory card and a low-power usage mode. For the purists out there, the Neo Geo AES+ still works on those chunky CRT displays since it has the original AV output.

    Preorders are currently open for two versions of the Neo Geo AES+, including an all-white 35th anniversary edition bundle that includes an Arcade Stick, a limited-edition Metal Slug game cartridge and a memory card, for $349.99. The standard edition in classic black will only come with an arcade stick, but will be available for $249.99. Coinciding with the console release, Replai Plaion will release 10 modernized game cartridges, including Metal Slug, The King of Fighters 2002 and other classics, for $89.99 each. If you think those prices are high, don’t forget the original Neo Geo AES’ release price was $649.99. The Neo Geo AES+ is set to start shipping on November 12.

  • ‘The Numbers Don’t Lie’: Ripple Spotlights XRP Growth as ETFs Eye $4B in First-Year Inflows

    ‘The Numbers Don’t Lie’: Ripple Spotlights XRP Growth as ETFs Eye $4B in First-Year Inflows

    Ripple has highlighted $XRP’s institutional growth since the spot ETFs launch in November last year. The crypto firm noted how the crypto asset has grown through regulatory clarity, which it achieved through the long-running legal battle against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

  • Bitcoin mining difficulty falls, but projected to rise in next adjustment

    The Bitcoin ($BTC) mining difficulty, the relative challenge of adding new blocks to the $BTC blockchain, fell on Saturday, amid public mining companies selling record amounts of $BTC to cover operating expenses.

    The Bitcoin mining difficulty fell to about 135.5 T, a modest decrease of about 1.1% over the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinWarz. Mining difficulty is also projected to increase in the next adjustment period. CoinWarz said:

    “The next Bitcoin difficulty adjustment is estimated to take place on May 01, 2026, 01:24:54 PM UTC, increasing the Bitcoin mining difficulty from 135.59 T to 137.43 T, which will take place in 1,865 blocks, about 12 days, 18 hours, and 41 minutes from now.”

    Bitcoin mining difficulty between 2014 and 2026. Source: CoinWarz

    Bitcoin miners have faced mounting challenges over the past year, as reduced block rewards, rising energy prices, a crypto bear market and geopolitical shocks create economic headwinds for miners.

    Related: Solo Bitcoin miner bags $210K Bitcoin block reward

    Public mining companies sell record amounts of $BTC

    Publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies sold more $BTC in Q1 2026 than all four quarters of 2025 combined, according to TheEnergyMag.

    Mining companies MARA, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific and Bitdeer, sold more than 32,000 $BTC in total during Q1 2026, TheEnergyMag said.

    The combined sales surpassed the 20,000 $BTC sold in Q2 2022, the same quarter as the collapse of the Terra-Luna ecosystem, which plunged crypto into an extended bear market.

    Miners periodically sell their $BTC to cover operating expenses, which are denominated in fiat currency.

    However, as the cost of mining a single $BTC increases past spot market prices, many $BTC mining companies are now treading water.

    Mining companies’ cost of mining a single $BTC. Source: TheEnergyMag

    Up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are unprofitable under current economic conditions, according to asset manager CoinShares’ Q1 2026 mining report.

    “Q4 2025 marked the most challenging quarter for Bitcoin miners since the April 2024 halving,” the CoinShares report said.

    The authors cited the “sharp” $BTC correction in October 2025, which slashed $BTC’s price from a high of about $125,000 to about $86,000 by December 2025, and the rising computational difficulty of adding blocks as headwinds for the mining industry.

    Magazine: 7 reasons why Bitcoin mining is a terrible business idea

  • Crypto Trader Turns $2,500 Into $500K on Skyrocketing Ethereum Meme Coin

    Crypto Trader Turns $2,500 Into $500K on Skyrocketing Ethereum Meme Coin

    In brief

    • A trader on Ethereum turned 1 ETH, or around $2,500 worth, into nearly $500,000 after making a meme coin trade on Thursday.
    • The 19-month old ASTEROID token surged in value after gaining attention via a social media interaction from Elon Musk.
    • ASTEROID is up more than 71,000% in the last 24 hours of trading.

    A meme coin trader turned 1 Ethereum (ETH) or around $2,455 into nearly $500,000 on Thursday after trading the surging Asteroid (ASTEROID) meme coin on the Ethereum network.

    ASTEROID is up more than 71,000% in the last 24 hours, jumping from a market cap below $100,000 to nearly $19 million at the time of writing, according to data from DEXScreener.

    The token, which is based on a Shiba Inu mascot named Asteroid, skyrocketed early on Friday following a social media post from media personality Glenn Beck, which earned a reply from X owner and SpaceX and Tesla founder, Elon Musk. 

    Beck’s post highlighted the story of Liv Perrotto, a teenage girl who he said maintained a list of questions for Musk, but passed away from cancer in January without the chance to get them answered. 

    Her final question would have asked Musk if Asteroid, the Shiba Inu mascot she created to act as the zero-g indicator for SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in 2024, could become the face of SpaceX. 

    “Will answer shortly,” Musk said in reply to Beck’s post around 11:50 p.m. ET on Thursday. That post has now garnered more than 1.3 million views on X. 

    Eight minutes later, an Ethereum address ending with “EF99af” bought 1 ETH worth of ASTEROID tokens, first launched 19 month ago on Ethereum. The buy was good enough for more than 10 billion ASTEROID tokens. 

    As renewed attention bloomed around Perrotto and Asteroid with Musk’s reply, a massive surge in the meme coin ensued, quickly making the trader’s portfolio worth nearly $500,000. 

    At this time, “EF99af” is the top trader on the token according to DEXScreener’s top traders tab, locking in more than $242,000 in profits with sales while maintaining a stash of just around $180,000 worth of ASTEROID tokens. 

    Two other traders, “6E5Eae” and “9dE8db” both purchased less than $10,000 worth of ASTEROID tokens, and have similarly locked in more than $150,000 in gains via sales. 

    The token has generated more than $43 million in 24-hour trading volume, making it the second most-traded meme coin across blockchains in the last 24 hours per DEXScreener. 

    An ASTEROID token on Solana follows closely behind, with more $37 million in volumes over the same period.

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