The U.S. Lockdown Measures Remain in Place, Strait of Hormuz Shipping Grinds to a Halt

On April 23, Lido issued an update on the KelpDAO security incident, noting its Earn series vaults are collaborating with the management team to resolve issues tied to rsETH exposure and lending market liquidity crunches. The core staking protocol remains unaffected, with stETH and wstETH secure and stable. Currently, only the EarnETH vault has ~9% of its total value locked (TVL) exposed to rsETH; deposits and withdrawals are temporarily paused pending a resolution. Roughly $70 million in ETH has been recovered from the prior attack, with ongoing efforts to recoup remaining assets and allocate losses. To ease liquidity pressure, the management team has reduced leverage and optimized position structures, cutting wETH debt exposure significantly. Should losses occur, EarnETH will activate a $3 million "first-loss protection mechanism" (covered by the DAO). For other vaults: - DVV and EarnUSD remain unaffected and operational. - The GGV sub-vault is posting negative returns d

On April 23, Bitcoin climbed above $78,000, per HTX market data, with a 1.1% drop in its 24-hour price.

April 23rd — Prediction markets saw a surge in trading volume amid heightened uncertainty over Trump’s Iran policy and social media posts, per *Fortune*. Dune data shows 4.13 billion Iran war-related trades between April 5 (Sunday) and April 8 (the day after Trump announced a ceasefire), totaling over $1 billion. On April 8, Polymarket recorded more than 100,000 trades on the event “Will Trump likely deploy troops to Iran?” — marking the year’s highest daily volume at the time. Earlier triggers: After Trump posted on Truth Social April 5 demanding Iran “open that damn strait,” trading spiked on Polymarket for the event tracking invasion likelihood. Then, following his April 7 insinuation that “tonight will see the end of an entire civilization,” the “Will there be a ceasefire?” event overtook it as the top-traded topic. Dune dubbed Trump an “unpredictable machine,” noting his “Twitter governance” style drove volume. Bipartisan criticism over alleged insider trading has dogg

On April 23rd, per Iranian outlet Fars News, reports that Iran would accept cryptocurrency to pay Hormuz Strait transit fees are inaccurate. (FXStreet)

April 23: Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn posted that Strategy’s current Bitcoin holdings have exceeded those of IBIT, the world’s largest Bitcoin ETF. Given its ongoing accumulation trend, Strategy is on track to surpass Satoshi Nakamoto within the next two years.

April 23 — Analyst Ali Charts noted in a post that ETH is currently testing a key level—one that’s historically separated bear markets from macro expansion phases. ETH is trading near its Realized Price (roughly $2,340), which reflects the average cost basis for all on-chain investors. Historically, in market recovery phases, the Realized Price has often served as a "sell wall": investors typically aim to break even when prices hit this mark. Once this level is successfully flipped to support, however, ETH usually enters a high-conviction expansion phase.