A group of banks, led by Deutsche Bank from Germany and Standard Chartered from the UK, is exploring the possibility of expanding their cryptocurrency operations into the U.S. This move, reported by The Wall Street Journal, highlights the growing interest among major financial institutions in the U.S. crypto space. While the exact plans are still under consideration, the expansion would mark a significant shift for these global banks into the rapidly evolving digital asset market.
“Ripple can, will, and should act in its own interest,” said David “JoelKatz” Schwartz in response to criticism regarding the firm’s XRP sales.
Ripple Labs is free to sell XRP tokens to raise operational capital, according to comments from the company’s chief technology officer. His remarks have sparked concerns among cryptocurrency investors.
“XRP isn’t a security because Ripple doesn’t actually owe you ‘utility’ or anything else,” Pierre Rochard, vice president of research at Riot Platforms, wrote in a March 5 X post.
“They are free to dump on you and you have no right to do anything about it other than join them in dumping XRP,” Rochard said, cautioning that investors are “not investing in Ripple,” just “getting tokens created out of thin air dumped on you.”
BitMEX made a bold announcement this afternoon, claiming it foiled a major hack attempt from the Lazarus Group. The exchange’s security team analyzed the hackers’ code, revealing some interesting new information.
The malware had surprisingly poor operational security, allowing BitMEX to trace the IP addresses and active hours of several members. Still, the firm acknowledged that it only beat Lazarus’ second-string hackers, not their best.
However, Lazarus’ recent attempt to hack BitMEX was prevented, according to a recent blog post.
A Lazarus hacker attempted to phish a BitMEX employee by sending them a phony request to collaborate on a Web3 NFT marketplace project. This employee alerted security, who played along with the scammer to obtain the malware bait. From there, BitMEX analysts dismantled it, gleaning knowledge of the group’s organization:
“Throughout the last few years, it appears that the group has divided into multiple subgroups that are not necessarily of the same technical sophistication. This can be observed through… bad practices coming from these ‘frontline’ groups that execute social engineering attacks when compared to the more sophisticated post-exploitation techniques,” BitMEX claimed.
Specifically, BitMEX identified a lot of sloppy work in the initial malware. This allowed analysts to find a list of IP addresses from compromised computers; furthermore, they identified test runs.
One Lazarus member based in China left incriminating info in this database, which BitMEX used to get a profile of other members and their working schedules.
BitMEX’s work here can go a long way towards piercing the Lazarus Group’s image of danger and hyper-competence. BitMEX, a long-running derivatives exchange, seems like an unexpected candidate to make these discoveries.
Rather than a famous crypto sleuth, a private firm that’s been out of the news lately managed to crack this code.
Still, it’s important not to overstate the situation. The Lazarus Group sent their B-team to try and breach BitMEX, but much more advanced hackers would’ve exploited a successful breach.
BitMEX exploited the group’s sloppy operational security, but its members remain wholly anonymous. In all likelihood, they’ll have plenty of future successes on softer targets.
According to VanEck’s April 2025 Digital Assets Monthly recap, Bitcoin (BTC) outperformed equities during a turbulent month, offering a glimpse of its potential as a macro hedge.
Yet, the asset’s quick return to correlated behavior suggests Bitcoin is not yet ready to stand fully apart from risk markets.
Bitcoin Outperforms Stocks During April Market Selloff
Bitcoin briefly broke free from traditional markets like stocks and equities. However, its newfound independence may have been short-lived.
“Bitcoin showed signs of decoupling from equities during the week ending April 6,” VanEck Head of Digital Assets Research Matthew Sigel wrote.
This period coincided with US President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariff measures, which triggered a global market selloff. While the S&P 500 and gold slumped, Bitcoin rose from $81,500 to over $84,500, signaling a possible shift in investor perception.
Still, the momentum did not last. As the month progressed, Bitcoin’s price action re-synced with equities. VanEck, using data from Artemis XYZ, noted that the 30-day BTC-S&P 500 correlation fell below 0.25 in early April but bounced back to 0.55 by month’s end.
“Bitcoin has not meaningfully decoupled,” the report emphasized.
Bitcoin and Ethereum correlation with the S&P 500. Source: VanEck research
Bitcoin gained 13% for the month, outshining the NASDAQ’s 1% loss and the S&P 500’s flat performance. Perhaps more intriguingly, Bitcoin’s volatility dropped by 4%, even as equity volatility doubled amid rising geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainty.
Yet while the short-term picture remains muddled, VanEck sees early signs of a structural shift. The report highlights a growing sovereign and institutional interest in Bitcoin as a store-of-value asset with long-term macro hedging potential.
“Structural tailwinds are forming. Bitcoin continues to find support as a sovereign, uncorrelated asset,” wrote Sigel.
The bank argued that Bitcoin’s resilience amid monetary stress reflects its growing role as portfolio ballast against the fragility of fiat-denominated debt markets.
“I think Bitcoin is a hedge against both TradFi and US Treasury risks. The threat to remove US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell falls into Treasury risk—so the hedge is on,” Geoff Kendrick, Head of Digital Asset Research at Standard Chartered, told BeInCrypto.
However, this resilience did not extend to the broader crypto market. According to VanEck, altcoins stumbled as meme coins, speculative DeFi AI tokens, and Layer-1 networks like Ethereum and Sui fell sharply.
The MarketVector Smart Contract Leaders Index dropped 5% in April and is down 34% year-to-date. Solana stood out as a rare winner, gaining 16% thanks to network upgrades and increasing institutional treasury interest.
Sui posted a 45% jump in daily DEX volume and entered the top 10 in smart contract platform revenue. By contrast, Ethereum lagged, declining 3% as its fee revenue share shrank to just 14%, down from 74% two years ago.
The broader trend in altcoins was bearish, and speculative energy continued to fade. Trading volumes in meme coins dropped by 93% between January and March, with the MarketVector Meme Coin Index down 48% year-to-date.
Even so, regarding price and volatility metrics, Bitcoin’s relative strength in April could hint at where the asset is headed. VanEck’s report concludes that while Bitcoin has not yet fully broken from risk asset behavior, the groundwork for long-term decoupling is quietly being laid.
