RaveDAO plunged over 95% amid manipulation allegations, while Aave dropped 24% after a $290M exploit
Bitcoin ETFs recorded $996 million in weekly inflows, pushing total assets to over $101 billion
Zcash fell 5% despite strong on-chain metrics, while Bybit’s fee cuts and Ethereum staking initiatives point to ongoing infrastructure and liquidity expansion
The crypto market witnessed price fluctuations as security issues and exploit-related sell-offs pressured multiple tokens, yet institutional investors maintained their long-term trust in Bitcoin ETFs. The market displayed concurrent risk, recovery, and changing liquidity patterns, from RaveDAO's collapse, Aave's bad debt crisis, to strong ETF inflows, and exchange incentives.
RaveDAO (RAVE) has fallen below $1, erasing over 95% of its recent rally to a high of $26. The sharp decline comes after an investigation by blockchain analyst ZachXBT on the social media platform X on April 18, which alleged signs of price manipulation.
The findings have raised concerns about potential insider schemes that affected multiple tokens listed on centralized exchanges.
He pointed out the concentrated wallet activity controlling the token’s liquidity, creating artificial pumps to trap retail buyers before selling off.
Calling it a textbook “pump-and-dump,” ZachXBT offered a $25,000 bounty for transaction proofs, urging platforms like Binance, Bitget, and Gate.io to launch probes.
Zcash price dropped around 5% to $325 despite recent security updates. The market reacted negatively to security vulnerability news, even though there was no financial loss and the issues were fixed in advance.
The updates fixed node crashes and calculation errors, as most mining pools had already implemented their solutions before the announcement, which maintained network stability from a technical perspective.
The fundamentals of ZEC show strong performance amid 31% of ZEC existing in the shielded pool, while 59% of transactions remain private, and the system achieves a record hash rate above 16 GS/s.
ZEC has key support at $310-$330, if it sustains above this zone, the token could target $430, followed by $450.
Also Read: Ethereum Breakout: Is Altcoin Season About to Begin?
A DeFi exploit that targeted rsETH collateral created over $290 million in bad debt on Aave V3, triggering a liquidity lockout, whale capitulation, and a 24% decline from $118 to $90.
Attackers exploited a bridge vulnerability in KelpDAO to steal approximately 116,500 rsETH tokens, worth around $293 million in 46 minutes. Those tokens were then deposited as collateral on Aave V3, unbacked assets used to borrow hundreds of millions in wrapped ether.
The result was nearly $196 million in bad debt sitting inside the protocol with no collateral behind it. To contain the damage, the Aave Guardian froze the rsETH markets and restricted the ETH pool withdrawals.
HashKey Cloud, the digital asset infrastructure service platform under HashKey Group, announced a partnership with the Ethereum Application Association (EAG) during the "2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival."
The two will launch the EAG Contribution Pool DApp to provide transparent and verifiable staking infrastructure for the EAG community and Ethereum developers.
The solution adopts the 0x02 withdrawal credential model, with a minimum stake of 32 ETH per node and a maximum support of 2048 ETH.
While maintaining autonomous control over their assets, users can direct a portion of their staking rewards to support the development of EAG and the Ethereum native ecosystem.
Bybit has announced further fee discounts for retail and VIP users, building on the February USDC futures fee rate upgrade, and strengthened incentives for market makers to improve USDC market liquidity.
From now until June 30, retail and VIP users can enjoy fee discounts of up to 50%, while USDC market maker weighting is increased to 8 times.
50% Fee Discount for Retail and VIP Users: Eligible users enjoy a 50% discount on Taker fees in USDC spot and contract trading. Spot: Retail users decrease from 0.1% to 0.05%, VIP users as low as 0.0225%.
Contracts: Retail users decrease from 0.055% to 0.0275%, VIP users as low as 0.015%.
Also Read: Bitcoin Price Struggles Below $76K Resistance Level
According to SoSoValue, Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded a net inflow of $996 million last week. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net inflow last week was BlackRock’s ETF IBIT, with a weekly net inflow of $906 million.
Second was Ark & 21 Shares ETF ARKB, with a weekly net inflow of $985.04 million. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest net outflow last week was Fidelity’s ETF FBTC, with a weekly net outflow of $104 million.
The total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs stood at $101.45 billion, with the ETF net asset ratio reaching 6.55%; the cumulative historical net inflow has reached $57.74 billion.
1. Why did RaveDAO crash so sharply?
RAVE dropped over 95% after allegations of price manipulation and insider activity surfaced, triggering panic selling and loss of investor confidence.
2. What caused Aave’s recent decline?
Aave fell 24% due to a $290M exploit involving rsETH collateral, which created nearly $196M in bad debt within the protocol.
3the . Why did Zcash price fall despite security fixes?
ZEC dropped due to negative sentiment around vulnerability headlines, even though no funds were lost and network fundamentals remain strong.
4. What do Bitcoin ETF inflows indicate?
Large inflows of $996M suggest strong institutional confidence and long-term bullish sentiment toward Bitcoin.
5. What is Bybit’s USDC fee discount about?
Bybit is offering up to 50% fee discounts on USDC trading to boost liquidity and attract both retail and institutional traders.
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