Solana’s Loopscale pauses lending after $5.8M hack
Solana decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Loopscale has temporarily halted its lending markets after suffering an approximately $5.8 million exploit.
On April 26, a hacker siphoned approximately 5.7 million USDC (USDC) and 1200 Solana (SOL) from the lending protocol after taking out a “series of undercollateralized loans”, Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne said in an X post.
The exploit only impacted Loopscale’s USDC and SOL vaults and the losses represent around 12% of Loopscale’s total value locked (TVL), Gooneratne added.
Loopscale is “working to resume repayment functionality as soon as possible to mitigate unforeseen liquidations,” its said in an X post.
“Our team is fully mobilized to investigate, recover funds, and ensure users are protected,” Gooneratne said.
In the first quarter of 2025, hackers stole more than $1.6 billion worth of crypto from exchanges and on-chain smart contracts, blockchain security firm PeckShield said in an April report.
More than 90% of those losses are attributable to a $1.5 billion attack on ByBit, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, by North Korean hacking outfit Lazarus Group.
Related: Crypto hacks top $1.6B in Q1 2025 — PeckShield
Unique DeFi lending model
Launched on April 10 after a six-month closed beta, Loopscale is a DeFi lending protocol designed to enhance capital efficiency by directly matching lenders and borrowers.
It also supports specialized lending markets, such as “structured credit, receivables financing, and undercollateralized lending,” Loopscale said in an April announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
Loopscale’s order book model distinguishes it from DeFi lending peers such as Aave that aggregate cryptocurrency deposits into liquidity pools.
Loopscale’s main USDC and SOL vaults yield APRs exceeding 5% and 10%, respectively. It also supports lending markets for tokens such as JitoSOL and BONK (BONK) and looping strategies for upwards of 40 different token pairs.
The DeFi protocol has approximately $40 million in TVL and has attracted upwards of 7,000 lenders, according to researcher OurNetwork.
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United States President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that most Americans will receive a $2,000 “dividend” from the tariff revenue and criticized the opposition to his sweeping tariff policies.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person, not including high-income people, will be paid to everyone,” Trump said on Truth Social.
The US Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments about the legality of the tariffs, with the overwhelming majority of prediction market traders betting against a court approval.
Kalshi traders place the odds of the Supreme Court approving the policy at just 23%, while Polymarket traders have the odds at 21%. Trump asked:
“The president of the United States is allowed, and fully approved by Congress, to stop all trade with a foreign country, which is far more onerous than a tariff, and license a foreign country, but is not allowed to put a simple tariff on a foreign country, even for purposes of national security?”
Investors and market analysts celebrated the announcement as economic stimulus that will boost cryptocurrency and other asset prices as portions of the stimulus flow into the markets, but also warned of the long-term negative effects of the proposed dividend.
Related: Bitcoin faces ‘insane’ sell wall above $105K as stocks eye tariff ruling
The proposed economic stimulus will boost asset markets, but at a steep cost
Investment analysts at The Kobeissi Letter forecast that about 85% of US adults should receive the $2,000 stimulus checks, based on distribution data from the economic stimulus checks during the COVID era.
While a portion of the stimulus will flow into markets and raise asset prices, Kobeissi Letter warned that the ultimate long-term effect of any economic stimulus will be fiat currency inflation and the loss of purchasing power.
“If you don’t put the $2,000 in assets, it is going to be inflated away or just service some interest on debt and sent to banks,” Bitcoin analyst, author, and advocate Simon Dixon said.
“Stocks and Bitcoin only know to go higher in response to stimulus,” investor and market analyst Anthony Pompliano said in response to Trump’s announcement.
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Italian banks have expressed their support for the European Central Bank’s (ECB) digital euro initiative, but are calling for the implementation costs to be spread out over several years due to the financial burden it places on the sector.
“We’re in favour of the digital euro because it embodies a concept of digital sovereignty,” said Marco Elio Rottigni, General Manager of the Italian Banking Association (ABI), during a press seminar in Florence, Reuters reported on Friday.
“Costs for the project, however, are very high in the context of the capital expenditure banks must sustain. They could be spread over time,” Rottigni added.
The comments come as the central bank digital currency (CBDC) project has met resistance from some French and German banks, who fear the introduction of an ECB-backed retail wallet could drain deposits from commercial lenders.
Related: Digital euro CBDC is ‘symbol of trust in our common destiny’ — ECB head
ECB sets 2029 target for digital euro launch
At its October 29–30 meeting in Florence, the ECB’s Governing Council approved moving the project into its next phase after a two-year preparatory period. A pilot phase is expected to begin in 2027, with a full rollout tentatively scheduled for 2029, pending the adoption of EU legislation in 2026.
European Parliament member Fernando Navarrete, who is leading the parliament’s review of the proposal, recently presented a draft report calling for a scaled-down version of the digital euro to protect private payment systems such as Wero, a joint initiative by 14 European banks, per the report.
Rottigni said Europe should pursue a “twin approach,” combining the ECB’s digital euro with commercial bank-backed digital currencies. “What Europe shouldn’t do is fall behind,” he added.
Related: Malaysia’s central bank sets three-year roadmap to pilot asset tokenization
ECB signs deals with tech firms for digital euro development
Last month, the ECB finalized framework agreements with seven technology providers to support the development of a potential digital euro. The agreements cover fraud and risk management, secure payment data exchange, and software development.
Among the firms involved are fraud-detection specialist Feedzai and security technology company Giesecke+Devrient (G+D).
According to the ECB, the selected firms will also develop features such as “alias lookup,” enabling users to send or receive payments without knowing the recipient’s payment service provider and offline payment capabilities.
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