Ethereum and Solana have both enjoyed healthy gains over the last day.
Ethereum, the second-largest crypto network after Bitcoin, is currently up over 8%. Solana, another smart contract-enabled network, is up a whopping 11%.
These double-digit recoveries come shortly after one of this year’s largest exploits.
Wormhole, a crypto bridge protocol that lets different networks interact with each other, was hacked for $320 million in Wrapped Ethereum on Wednesday.
Wrapped Ethereum is a cryptocurrency that is pegged (and backed) 1:1 to the price of Ethereum and is interoperable with other Wormhole-compatible networks, like Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and more.
The attacker was able to freely mint 120,000 Wrapped Ethereum without needing to stake an equivalent amount of Ethereum.
Though the exploit was primarily related to how Wormhole and Solana were linked (rather than an explicit bug in Solana itself), the SOL token plummeted.
And just to clarify - this was not a "Solana bug" in the same way as "theDAO hack" was not an "Ethereum bug". Both Ethereum (EVM) and Solana are tools and it takes quite some time till people learn how to use those tools safely. And the EVM is simply a few years ahead here.
The nature of the hack also meant that existing WETH on the Solana network (ported over through Wormhole) was essentially unbacked, as the attacker was able to mint the asset without staking the underlying token.
To calm markets and return this backing, Jump Crypto, a crypto trading house based in Chicago, stepped in to fill the deficit.
.@JumpCryptoHQ believes in a multichain future and that @WormholeCrypto is essential infrastructure. That’s why we replaced 120k ETH to make community members whole and support Wormhole now as it continues to develop.
The president of Jump Crypto, Kanav Kariya, said that “Jump put up 120k of its own ETH because we believe in Wormhole and want to support it in this stage of its development. And we're going to come out stronger than ever.”
He added that a detailed incident report from Wormhole would soon be released.
Since then, both Solana and Ethereum have rebounded. SOL is currently back trading just above $105 and ETH is holding about $2,837.
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Bitcoin’s price remains on track to hit half a million dollars before Donald Trump's current term ends after government entities increased their indirect exposure to Bitcoin in the first quarter, according to Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered,
Whether it was South Korea’s National Pension Service, the Swiss National Bank, or U.S. state retirement funds, government entities’ recent holdings of Strategy—which owns around 576,000 Bitcoin—“was very encoura...
The native token of DeFi lending protocol Aave has surged by double-digit gains on the day, rallying alongside a key procedural vote in Congress on the long-anticipated GENIUS Act.
If enacted, the bill would provide long-awaited regulatory clarity for stablecoins—a sector in which Aave is deeply embedded.
Specifically, the act would allow banks and other companies to issue their own stablecoins provided they meet certain requirements, adding to further speculation it could bring about wider inst...
JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon said on Monday that his bank will allow its customers to buy Bitcoin—the latest sign of the bank's increased openness to the asset, despite Dimon's years of criticizing the largest crypto by market value and digital assets more widely.
In remarks during the investment bank's investor day, Dimon said that JP Morgan clients would soon be able to buy BTC, although the bank wouldn't custody it.
"We are going to allow you to buy it," Dimon said at the bank's annual invest...