Decentral Block Post

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined an extensive plan to enhance the privacy of the network he helped create.

In an April 11 roadmap, Buterin argued for incorporating privacy tools into Ether (ETH) wallets and implementing privacy-enhancing norms and features in the Ethereum ecosystem and protocol. He explained that the roadmap in question is a short-term solution that requires limited changes to the base protocol along with supplemental long-term updates.

Buterin recommends adopting privacy-enhancing systems such as Railgun or Privacy Pools by existing wallets, according to the plan. When funds are sent with those wallets, he argues that users should be greeted by an option to “send from shielded balance,” which anonymizes the transaction, and should be “ideally turned on by default.” He wrote:

Related: Privacy Pools launch on Ethereum, with Vitalik demoing the feature

Major changes recommended for DeFi

Buterin further recommended profound changes in how decentralized finance (DeFi) and broader decentralized applications (DApp) are implemented. He argued that those systems should be limited to “one address per application.”

The year 2025 kicked off with a bang and a meme. Just weeks into the New Year, a frenzy of politically fueled memecoins sent Crypto Twitter into overdrive, while lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic turned up the heat on stablecoins, securities laws and tokenized assets, usually with different approaches.

It was a whirlwind first quarter, shaped by Bitcoin’s dominance in the crypto market and a US political climate that put digital assets back in the spotlight. Q1 delivered no shortage of storylines.

Who better to break it all down than the journalists tracking it in real time? In the latest episode of Decentralize with Cointelegraph, editorial team members sit down for an unfiltered newsroom roundtable.

Savannah Fortis, head of podcasts and EU reporter, is joined by Gareth Jenkinson, chief of multimedia; Zoltan Vardai, breaking news reporter on the EU news team; and Vince Quill, US news reporter, to reflect on Q1’s biggest stories and what they signal for the months ahead.

Memecoins, power and perception

As memecoins surged in early 2025, questions regarding their legitimacy and political entanglement intensified. For Cointelegraph’s editorial team, the frenzy wasn’t just a market quirk, it revealed deep tensions among innovation, opportunism and influence.

United States President Donald Trump’s official memecoin is set to unlock $321 million worth of vested tokens on April 18.

Token vesting tracker Tokenomist data shows that 40 million Trump tokens will be released in a cliff unlock, meaning the tokens will be available all at once. With the tokens currently trading at about $8, the unlock represents about $321 million in supply entering the market at once.

Token vesting is a common practice in the crypto space to incentivize long-term holding and prevent early investors or team members from dumping tokens during the start of the project. Instead, projects impose a vesting period that allows individuals or entities to gradually get access to the tokens. 

Trump memecoin down 89% since its peak

While the token’s creators reportedly profited by more than $350 million, retail investors have not fared as well. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that at least 813,000 wallets suffered losses totaling roughly $2 billion following the memecoin’s rapid rise and fall.

Trump’s official token has seen a sharp decrease in value since its peak. On Jan. 19, the token reached an all-time high (ATH) of $73.43. This happened a day before the then-incoming US president was inaugurated. The hype surrounding the token has died down since. Its current value of $8 represents an 89% drop since its ATH. 

Sidechain developer StarkWare and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers claim to have created a workaround for multiple Bitcoin script limitations.

According to a recent research paper, the new design claims to allow the deployment of complex smart contracts on Bitcoin in a more capital-efficient manner. The new system may also be vastly more efficient from a computing standpoint.

ColliderVM is a protocol designed to enable stateful computation on Bitcoin, allowing multi-step processes to be securely executed over multiple transactions. Traditionally, Bitcoin script output is not accessible to other scripts, making complex calculations nearly impossible.

The researchers argue that ColliderVM could allow the use of Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge (STARKs) — a type of zero-knowledge proof — on Bitcoin without requiring consensus-level changes to the network. The architecture would let Bitcoin verify complex offchain computations with minimal onchain data.

ColliderVM targets Bitcoin limitations

Each Bitcoin block can contain up to 4 million OPCodes (commands) across all transactions, and a single Bitcoin script can contain up to 1,000 stack elements (data entries). Furthermore, stateless execution means that each script executes without memory of previous state or intermediate computations from earlier transactions, making complex computations impractical.

A New York lawmaker has introduced legislation that would allow state agencies to accept cryptocurrency payments, signaling growing political momentum for digital asset integration in public services.

Assembly Bill A7788, introduced by Assemblyman Clyde Vanel, seeks to amend state financial law to allow New York state agencies to accept cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.

It would permit state agencies to accept payments in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), according to the bill’s text.

Source: Nysenate.gov

According to the bill, state offices could authorize crypto payments for “fines, civil penalties, rent, rates, taxes, fees, charges, revenue, financial obligations or other amounts,” as well as penalties, special assessments and interest.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $11.6 trillion in assets under management, reported $84 billion in total net inflows in the first quarter of 2025, marking a 3% annualized growth in assets under management.

The firm’s strong performance was led by a record first quarter for iShares exchange-traded funds (ETFs) alongside continued strength in private markets and net inflows, according to BlackRock’s Q1 earnings released on April 11.

Of the $107 billion in net inflows to iShares ETFs, $3 billion, or 2.8% of the total ETF inflows, was directed to digital asset products in Q1, BlackRock said.

BlackRock’s net flow data in Q1 2025 (in billions of US dollars). Source: BlackRock

Alternative investments also played a significant role in Q1, with private market inflows totaling $9.3 billion.

An elderly crypto whale known as “HEX 19” lost nearly $4.5 million in a slow-moving hack that drained his staked HEX (HEX) over multiple years. 

At first, it looked like a HEX whale was cashing out. But it wasn’t long before the community realized he didn’t voluntarily unstake his tokens — he had become a victim of a major exploit.

The cyberattack started in November 2021, touched multiple phishing wallets, and was traced back to an online entity known as “Konpyl,” a threat actor familiar to crypto investigators.

The breach not only shook the token’s price but also exposed a web of fraudulent operations tied to Inferno Drainer and the $1.6-million fake Rabby wallet scam of February 2024.

HEX token price sinks following the HEX19 hack. Source: CoinGecko

A member of Sweden’s parliament proposed adding Bitcoin to the country’s foreign exchange reserves, suggesting increased openness to cryptocurrency adoption in Europe following recent moves by the United States.

Swedish MP Rickard Nordin issued an open letter urging Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson to consider adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as a national reserve asset.

“Sweden has a tradition of a conservative and carefully managed foreign exchange reserve, mainly consisting of foreign currencies and gold,” Nordin wrote in a letter registered on April 8, adding:

“It is also an important way for freedom fighters to handle payments when under the oppression of authoritarian regimes,” he added.

Open letter from MP Rickard Nordin. Source: Riksdagen.se

Key takeaways

Bear raids involve deliberate efforts by whales to drive down crypto prices using short-selling, FUD and large-scale sell-offs to trigger panic and profit from the dip.

These raids create volatility, trigger liquidations and damage retail confidence. However, they can also expose weak or fraudulent projects.

Signs include sudden price drops, high trading volume, absence of news and quick recoveries, indicating price manipulation rather than natural market trends.

Traders can guard against bear raids by using stop-loss orders, diversifying portfolios, monitoring whale activity and trading on reputable, regulated platforms.

Not all market moves are organic in the dynamic world of crypto trading; some are engineered to make quick profits. One such tactic is the bear raid, often driven by powerful market players known as whales. 

A known maximal extractable value (MEV) white hat actor intercepted about $2.6 million in crypto assets stolen from Morpho Labs’ decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol. 

On April 10, Morpho Labs implemented a front-end update on its Morpho Blue application. A day later, a hacker breached an address through a vulnerability caused by the update. Blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that an address lost $2.6 million due to the vulnerability. 

However, the security firm noted that “c0ffeebabe.eth,” a known white hat MEV operator, had front-run the transaction, effectively intercepting the stolen funds.

At the time of writing, the funds had been transferred to a different wallet address. It’s unclear whether the funds have yet been returned to their original owner.

Morpho Labs reverts front-end update

Responding to the incident, Morpho Labs reversed its front-end update. In a post on X on April 11, the team confirmed it had been alerted to the issue and rolled back the changes. The team also said that normal operations had resumed:

Bitcoin (BTC) is exhibiting familiar “bottom” behavior at current prices, according to one of its best-known leading indicators. 

In an X post on April 10, John Bollinger, creator of the Bollinger Bands volatility metric, offered potentially good news to Bitcoin bulls.

Bollinger bands %b metric teases BTC price comeback

Bitcoin may already be establishing a long-term bottom, the latest Bollinger Bands data suggests.

Analyzing weekly timeframes, Bollinger drew attention to one of his proprietary indicators, known as “%b,” which offers further clues about market trend reversals.

The indicator %b measures an asset’s closing price relative to Bollinger Band position, employing standard deviation around a 20-period simple moving average (SMA). 

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and blockchain payments firm Ripple agreed to pause their appeals in the ongoing XRP legal battle, signaling a potential move toward a final settlement.

The SEC and Ripple agreed to put their appeals in “abeyance,” meaning the proceedings are now paused pending an anticipated settlement of the XRP (XRP) case.

“An abeyance would conserve judicial and party resources while the parties continue to pursue a negotiated resolution of this matter,” the parties jointly stated in an April 10 court filing.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse previously announced the end of the XRP case on March 19, and the new filing hints that the SEC is ready to settle once nominated and approved Chair Paul Atkins takes office, according to some community speculation.

The filing cancels Ripple’s April 16 brief deadline

According to Ripple’s defense attorney, James Filan, the new filing supersedes the April 16 deadline for Ripple to respond to the SEC’s brief filed in January. “The settlement is awaiting commission approval. No brief will be filed on April 16,” Filan wrote in an April 10 X post.

Asset managers Osprey Funds and Grayscale Investments agreed to settle a lawsuit over alleged violations of Connecticut law in the advertising and promotion of Grayscale’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). 

According to an April 9 court filing, the parties agreed to settle the two-year-old case and are finalizing documentation and settlement terms. The filing noted that once those steps are completed, Osprey will withdraw its appeal.

“Soon after this appeal was filed, the parties reached a settlement of this case,” the motion stated. “It is expected that all these tasks can be done within 45 days, and it is uncertain whether a shorter extension would suffice.”

Details of the settlement have not been made public. 

Grayscale and Osprey reach settlement

The legal battle between the two firms started on Jan. 30, 2023, when Osprey filed a suit in the Connecticut Superior Court. Osprey claimed it was Grayscale’s only competitor in the over-the-counter Bitcoin (BTC) trust market and that Grayscale had maintained its market share through deceit. 

The Illinois Senate, by a vote of 39 to 17, passed a regulatory bill aimed at curbing cryptocurrency fraud and protecting investors from deceptive practices, including rug pulls and misleading fee structures.

On April 10, the chamber passed Senate Bill 1797 (SB1797), also known as the Digital Assets and Consumer Protection Act, which Senator Mark Walker introduced in February.

The bill gives the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation authority to oversee digital asset business activity within the state.

Under the legislation, any entity engaging in digital asset business with Illinois residents must be registered with the state’s financial regulator. The bill also requires crypto service providers to offer advance full disclosure of user fees and charges.

Bill SB1797. Source: Ilga.gov

US authorities have charged a tech app founder with fraud, alleging that his advertised artificial intelligence-powered e-commerce app actually relied on human workers in the Philippines.

Albert Saniger of Barcelona, Spain, founder and former CEO of the company Nate, was charged with one count of securities fraud and wire fraud, the Justice Department said in an April 9 statement, while the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a parallel civil action.

Court documents said Saniger founded Nate around 2018 and launched an app of the same name in July 2020, marketing it as an AI-powered universal shopping cart that offered users the ability to complete online retail transactions, including filling in shipping details and sizing, without human input.

The Justice Department alleged that, in reality, “Saniger used hundreds of contractors, or ‘purchasing assistants,’ in a call center located in the Philippines to manually complete purchases occurring over the nate app.”

Source: US Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York

It may be too early for Bitcoiners to start getting bullish over the longer-term impacts of a potential recession on Bitcoin’s price, says 10x Research head of research Markus Thielen.

Thielen said in an April 11 markets report that credit spreads continue to widen, indicating that “recessionary concerns may be seeping deeper into the economy.”

“Expecting a bullish impulse is too early,” he said.

Bitcoin may face short-term headwinds

While the long-term effects of a recession could be bullish for Bitcoin (BTC) — due to the monetary easing that typically follows US Federal Reserve rate cuts — Thielen warned that Bitcoin may face headwinds before gaining bullish momentum.

“Normally, Bitcoin first sells off when China devalues or the Fed cuts, as the first cut might not be so impactful and also confirms economic weakness,” Thielen told Cointelegraph. 

Crypto-critical US Senator Elizabeth Warren has led six Senate Democrats in urging the Department of Justice to reverse its decision to terminate its crypto investigations and prosecutions division.

In an April 10 letter to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the Senators said the decision to disband the department’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team was a “grave mistake” that would support “sanctions evasion, drug trafficking, scams, and child sexual exploitation.”

Senators Richard Durbin, Mazie Hirono, Sheldon Whitehouse, Christopher Coons and Richard Blumenthal signed the letter in addition to Warren.

On April 7, Blanche shuttered the DOJ’s crypto enforcement team, saying in a memo that “The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator.”

The senators claim that the decision gave a “free pass to cryptocurrency money launderers” and claimed that crypto mixing services — used to obfuscate blockchain transactions — are “go-to tools for cybercriminals.” 

US Bitcoin mining firms will try to capitalize on the Trump administration’s recent tariff pause by stocking up on mining rigs, but the baseline 10% tariffs will still leave the industry at a disadvantage, industry executives say.

President Donald Trump paused his administration's hefty reciprocal tariffs until July 8, but kept a minimum 10% tariff on most countries bar China, which had its rate hiked to 145%.

Hashlabs CEO Jaran Mellerud told Cointelegraph that while the 10% levy is much lighter than the initial tariffs, US miners are still at a “clear disadvantage” when it comes to purchasing mining machines compared to competitors abroad.

He said the baseline US tariffs aren’t enough “to make mining in the US unprofitable, but it definitely raises capital expenditure and will impact the long-term viability of new investments.”

“We expect to see a short-term spike in machine imports as miners rush to get ahead of potential future tariff hikes,” Mellerud added.

Blockchain gaming for the first quarter of 2025 has been a “mixed bag,” seeing a greater number of deals while the amount invested significantly dipped, says blockchain analytics platform DappRadar.

Web3 gaming projects raised $91 million in Q1 2025, marking a 71% decrease from the fourth quarter of 2024 and a 68% drop compared to the same quarter a year ago, DappRadar said in its April 10 State of Blockchain Gaming report.

DappRadar analyst Sara Gherghelas wrote the figures showed “the growing pressure on early-stage startups and hint that 2025 may prove more challenging than previous years — unless broader market conditions improve.”

Another factor for the drop in investments in blockchain games is investors are increasingly shifting toward real-world assets and artificial intelligence, according to Gherghelas.

Over the same time, the number of blockchain gaming-related deals that closed increased by 35% quarter-over-quarter.