Russian crypto exchanges will be permitted to list the largest digital coins, according to new rules approved by the executive power in Moscow.

The regulations bring strict requirements regarding capitalization, trading volume and history that can be met mainly by the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Russians to trade state-approved leading cryptos

Russia is on its way to legalize cryptocurrencies this year but intends to let its citizens touch only the biggest coins on the market today.

That’s according to the latest version of the legislation designed to regulate crypto transactions, which has just received the nod from the Russian government.

The bill “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights” empowers the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) to shortlist the digital assets that will be allowed to circulate in the country, the business news portal RBC unveiled after obtaining a copy.

It introduces a set of criteria that any decentralized or foreign-issued digital currency would have to meet to be approved for trading.

A key condition is that the average market capitalization of such a coin exceeds 5 trillion rubles (more than $60 billion) in the two years prior to its admission to the regulated Russian market.

Then, its average daily trading volume over the same period must be at least 1 trillion rubles (a little over $12 billion at the current exchange rate).

Both indicators will be verified by the monetary authority using data from global platforms licensed in their respective jurisdictions and having an average crypto trading volume of at least 100 billion rubles (around $1.2 million).

Every cryptocurrency offered in Russia must have a proven trading history, including officially published closing prices, spanning at least five years before it’s considered.

The most popular coins, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, meet these criteria, RBC noted in its report, referring to figures compiled by the leading crypto price-tracking website Coinmarketcap.

For example, SOL has been traded since 2020, has a market cap of nearly $50 billion and a daily turnover of approximately $2.8 billion.

Under the government-backed legislation, Russia’s financial intelligence service, Rosfinmonitoring, will be able to blacklist certain cryptocurrencies.

The trading of such assets will be prohibited while companies and individuals won’t be allowed to hold them. Privacy-oriented coins fall in that category.

Russia to fine crypto exchanges and miners breaking the law

The new crypto bill has been approved by the Government Commission on Legislative Activity, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko’s office confirmed to the Russian edition of Forbes.

The legislation is based on the regulatory concept announced by the Bank of Russia in late December. The deadline for its adoption in parliament is July 1, 2026, according to earlier statements by officials in Moscow.

It recognizes cryptocurrencies and stablecoins as “monetary assets” and expands investor access to include not only qualified investors but ordinary Russians as well, although the annual investments of the latter will be capped at less than $4,000.

While the law envisages licensing crypto platforms such as depositories and exchanges, Russia wants to use its existing financial infrastructure to process crypto transactions, including banks, brokers, and traditional stock exchanges, some of which already offer crypto derivatives.

The expanded legal framework now introduces financial penalties for cryptocurrency exchanges violating the regulations for digital asset circulation, which may reach 1 million rubles (over $12,000).

Entities and entrepreneurs involved in mining, which became Russia’s first regulated crypto activity in 2024, will face fines, too, if they mine outside the law. These can be as high as 2.5 million rubles (more than $30,000).

Large-scale Illegal mining may even result in prison sentences of up to five years, according to amendments to the Criminal Code proposed by the Ministry of Justice. These changes were also approved by the Russian government.

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Dogecoin is trading near historic lows, but a technical setup demonstrates that the current price structure is setting up one of the most consequential trades in the memecoin’s history. 

The setup, which is based on a bi-weekly chart by crypto analyst Crypto Patel, points to a pattern that has been quietly forming since 2021, one that, if it resolves as history shows, could deliver returns measured not in percentages but that could create new crypto millionaires.

A Five-Year Pattern Reaching Its Breaking Point

Technical analysis shows that since Dogecoin’s parabolic peak in May 2021, price action has carved out a descending triangle on the bi-weekly chart. This structure is defined by a falling upper trendline pressing down on price from above and a horizontal support base holding firm below. Every rally attempt since that peak has printed a lower high. Every dip has found the same floor.

Although Dogecoin broke above the upper trendline of the descending triangle in late 2024, the rally was eventually rejected just below $0.50. This rejection has been playing out with lower lows, and the Dogecoin price is now back to the horizontal support base of the triangle.

The latest price now puts Dogecoin compressing around $0.095, pinned inside what crypto analyst Crypto Patel identifies as the tightest price compression in Dogecoin’s history. Interestingly, this compression around $0.09 has lasted for almost two months. The longer a pattern like this builds, the more kinetic energy accumulates inside it. A resolution, when it comes, is likely to be violent.

The Targets For Crypto Millionaires: From $0.28 To $2

This is not the first time Dogecoin has gone through a prolonged accumulation phase. The bullish outlook is that the current correction can act as a base for a much larger rally that creates a new wave of crypto millionaires once there’s an upward bounce. Crypto Patel outlined a sequence of upside targets that Dogecoin investors can look forward to for reversals during the predicted expansion phase. 

The first level is around $0.28, which is based on a resistance zone encountered by a Dogecoin price rally in September 2025. Dogecoin is trading at $0.09 at the time of writing. If it is able to break above $0.28, that would place it at a return of over 200% from the current price. A break above $0.28 opens the door to target 2 around $0.50, which is around the December 2024 order block, and it could act as the next major resistance before continuation.

Target 3 is above the current 2021 all-time high of $0.7316 and at the psychologically important $1 price level. The most optimistic projection is a price target of $2, which would represent a gain of over 2,100% from the lower end of the current accumulation zone.

Altcoins are stuck in one of the deepest drawdowns of this cycle, with just 5% of Binance‑listed tokens trading above their 200‑day moving average and spot volumes down roughly 80% from October peaks, even as on‑chain and sentiment indicators quietly…

Prediction markets platform Polymarket has announced that it has updated its market integrity rules across its DeFi platform and its U.S. exchange, which is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The latest rules can be found in the terms of use of its DeFi platform and the rulebook of Polymarket U.S., and extend the requirements that govern insider trading and market manipulation on its platform. 

However, the question on the mind of some is whether the new rules change much in practice.

What exactly has Polymarket prohibited?

The updated rules set out three categories of banned conduct. It states that traders may not act on confidential information if doing so violates a pre-existing duty of trust or confidence owed to another party. 

They may not trade on tips passed from someone who was themselves bound by such a duty. 

And finally, those who are in places of authority that are sufficient enough to influence the outcome of an event, for example, a political candidate betting on their own result, are outrightly barred.

“Markets thrive on clarity,” said Neal Kumar, Polymarket’s chief legal officer. “These rule enhancements make our expectations abundantly clear for every participant across both platforms.”

On Polymarket’s DeFi platform, all transactions run on the Polygon blockchain and are publicly viewable on-chain, providing a layer of built-in transparency. 

Polymarket may ban wallet addresses and refer cases to law enforcement. Sanctions on its U.S. platform can include fines, suspension or termination of an account, and regulatory referral.

What drove Polymarket to act now?

While the updated rules place a higher premium on user protection, Polymarket did not arrive at that juncture without some external pressure engineered by controversial actions that were taken on its platform, and rising debates from regulators who want to curb the excesses of prediction markets.

A notable event that raised eyebrows and prompted regulators to take a closer look at the market occurred in January 2026, following the removal of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from office by U.S. President Donald Trump.

A newly created account on Polymarket had placed a $32,000 wager that Maduro would be removed from power by the end of the month, hours before U.S. forces seized him. That account made more than $430,000 on that bet.

Many analysts said that it had all the signs of a trade done off the back of inside information.

A month later, Israeli authorities charged two people on suspicion of using classified military information to bet on Polymarket ahead of attacks on Iran.

Rival platform Kalshi disclosed its first public enforcement actions around the same period, suspending a video editor for MrBeast who had been trading on non-public information about the streamer’s content. 

Kalshi also fined and banned the account of a California gubernatorial candidate who bet on his own election outcome, while also reporting the incident to the CFTC.

When the U.S. and Israel struck Iran on February 28, blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps identified six accounts that collectively made $1 million by betting on the exact date of the strikes. All these accounts were funded within 24 hours of the attack. 

A Polymarket account with the username Magamyman had around $553,000 on bets tied to the fate of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In total, over $529 million was traded on Polymarket contracts linked to the timing of the Iran strikes.

The events surrounding the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, also exposed the different philosophies of the two leading platforms. Kalshi, which had listed a market on “Khamenei out as Supreme Leader,” refused to pay out on the outcome of his death. “We don’t list markets directly tied to death,” Kalshi’s CEO Tarek Mansour wrote on X. 

The company reimbursed all fees and paid out positions at the last-traded price before Khamenei’s death. 

Polymarket, trading offshore, faced no equivalent constraint.

In response to public officials and those working with them creating, buying, or selling prediction markets as well as curbing the potential for insider actions, Congressman Ritchie Torres put forward the Public Integrity in Financial Prediction Markets Act of 2026 in January. 

The bill, which has attracted more than 40 Democratic co-sponsors, would prohibit anyone with access to material non-public information relevant to a government-related contract, regardless of any formal duty, from trading on prediction markets.

With the hammer looking likely to swing heavily on prediction market operations, it is understandable that the leading platforms will take proactive actions to protect their users and, by extension, themselves.

 How effectively Polymarket enforces its set rules will be assessed in the near future. For now, it is seen as a step in the right direction.

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Resolv Labs, the protocol behind overcollateralized stablecoin USR, suffered an exploit in the early hours of Sunday, March 22. The attack, which specifically targeted USR, saw the attacker depositing about $200,000 in USDC and carting away 80 million freshly minted USR tokens.

The incident caused USR, which is natively backed by Ether (ETH) and meant to maintain a dollar peg, to crash by over 88%. 

By the time Resolv’s engineers were able to react and pause the protocol, the attacker had already converted a significant amount of the USR into hard assets. 

How did $200,000 become $80 million?

Various blockchain security platforms have pointed out that the exploit came from the minting contracts. The said contracts had gone through numerous audits, and no vulnerability was detected. 

However, experts say that it was not the code but the architecture of the USR issuance mechanism itself.

Cyvers, a blockchain security firm, wrote on X, “A flaw in the completeSwap() function allowed minting without proper validation.”

Resolv Labs confirmed the incident in a post on X, writing that the team had paused all protocol functions and was actively working on recovery. 

In a follow-up statement, it sought to reassure users that the collateral pool remained fully solvent and that no underlying assets had been lost; the damage, it said, was isolated to USR issuance mechanics.

Where is the money now and how did it impact USR? 

According to on-chain analyst EmberCN, the attacker’s wallet sold 43.26 million USR for USDC and USDT before using the proceeds to purchase 11,437 ETH, which is approximately $23.8 million.

There’s another 36.74 million USR that the attacker has been dumping continuously, but the decline in the token’s price has sent the value of the remainder reportedly worth around $2 million.

ETH held in a self-custodial wallet is substantially harder to freeze or trace than stablecoins, which can be blacklisted by their issuers. The hacker has, for now, a liquid and largely untraceable position.

The impact of the exploit has been severe for USR, as the stablecoin, which is meant to maintain parity with the dollar, fell to around $0.14. It has tried to mount a comeback with a few setbacks. 

As of the time of writing, USR is trading at around $0.46, which is still a decline of over 53.7% in the past 24 hours. Resolv Labs’ native token, RESOLV, is also down by over 8%, trading at around $0.05.

The incident arrives at an uncomfortable moment for Resolv Labs, which saw USR’s market capitalization crash by over 74% from over $400 million in February 2026 to around $100 million prior to the attack.

 Currently, the market capitalization is around $78.14 million.

Which protocols have been caught in the blast radius?

Members of the DeFi ecosystem who have skin in the game, as it pertains to USR, were quick to assess their exposure and assure their users that there was little to no impact as a result of the exploit. 

Risk management platform Gauntlet, which operates yield vaults that had taken on Resolv-related positions, confirmed that most of its vaults were unaffected. The DeFi platform posted on X, “Most Gauntlet vaults are unaffected.

A few high-yield vaults had limited exposure. We are working to monitor liquidity and will continue to share updates.”

Lido Finance posted on X that Lido Earn user funds were safe and that no action was required. 

Aave’s founder and CEO, Stani Kulechov, stated that they do not have any exposure to Resolv USR. 

He wrote on X, “Resolv is a liquidity provider on Aave, supplying its backing assets to the protocol. These assets remain safe, as the backing itself was unaffected. Resolv will be able to exit gracefully and already started to repay the debt. There are no adverse effects on Aave liquidity providers, and zero impact on the Aave Protocol.”

Resolv Labs stated that it is investigating the exploit and is actively working on recovery. It also left a recommendation to users to stay off its assets until it resolves the issue, writing, “Until further notice, we strongly recommend avoiding trading or interacting with Resolv assets at this time to prevent supporting secondary market activity related to the exploit.”

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A crypto hack never ends when the wallet is drained. The theft lands first, fast and visible, and then a slower collapse starts to work through the rest of the project.

The token keeps sliding, the treasury shrinks with it, hiring plans get cut back, product deadlines move, partners pull away, and the company that was supposed to recover spends months fighting for credibility instead of building.

That’s the picture Immunefi’s new “State of Onchain Security 2026” report paints. Its argument is simple enough for any market, crypto or otherwise: the initial loss is only one part of the damage.

The much bigger problem comes from what the exploit does to a project’s future. Immunefi says the average direct theft in its sample came to about $25 million, while hacked tokens saw a median six-month decline of 61%. In that window, 84% failed to recover to their hack-day price, and teams lost at least three months of progress to recovery work.

But those numbers come with caveats. Token prices fall for many reasons, and hacked projects are often fragile before an exploit hits. Some are illiquid, overvalued, or already losing momentum.

Immunefi acknowledged that it can’t always fully separate hack damage from broader market weakness or project-specific troubles. Even so, the pattern it lays out deserves attention because it shows that hacks don’t behave like isolated thefts anymore, and they now look like long-tail corporate crises.

That’s what gives weight to the report: it shows how often the post-hack period keeps inflicting damage well after the headline fades.

The median hack might have gotten smaller, but the worst ones got more dangerous

Immunefi counted 191 hacks across 2024 and 2025, totaling $4.67 billion and bringing its five-year total to 425 hacks and $11.9 billion in losses.

The yearly count barely moved, with 94 known hacks in 2024 and 97 in 2025, almost identical to 2023. That tells us that the market didn’t do a very good job of becoming safer. Hacks are now just part of everyday life in crypto, while the giant ones go on to define the year.

The main contradiction laid out in the report is in the averages.

The median theft in 2024-2025 was $2.2 million, down from $4.5 million in 2021-2023. On the surface, that might look like progress. However, the average theft still came to roughly $24.5 million, more than 11 times the median. In the earlier period, that gap was 6.8 times. The top five hacks accounted for 62% of all funds stolen, and the top 10 made up 73%.

This is a very dangerous kind of distribution. It makes the market look and feel safe and stable until one giant event rips through it. So, the typical exploit might be smaller than it used to be, but the danger sits in the tail. That’s where a handful of huge failures absorb most of the damage and crash the market in a day.

Just look at Bybit. The exchange’s $1.5 billion exploit became the defining hack of 2025 and, in Immunefi’s accounting, represented 44% of all funds stolen that year.

It’s easy to treat that kind of event as a spectacle. But it reveals a much deeper concentration problem. One failure at one major venue can distort the industry’s annual loss profile and expose how much risk still sits in just a couple of critical chokepoints.

The longer decline is where projects start to break

While the report’s data on theft is certainly interesting, the most eye-opening part is its price damage section.

In Immunefi’s sample of 82 hacked tokens, the initial shock was essentially the same. The median two-day decline was about 10%, roughly in line with the earlier cycle. But the biggest effect was felt later, as the median six-month decline worsened to 61%, up from 53% in the 2021-2023 study.

At the six-month mark, 56.5% of hacked tokens were down more than half, and 14.5% were down more than 90%. Only about 16% traded above their hack-day price six months later.

To understand the full effect of a hack, we need to stop treating token prices as an isolated market feature. For most crypto companies, the token acts as a treasury, financing base, and often a public scorecard. A prolonged drawdown cuts directly into a company’s runway, recruiting power, dealmaking leverage, and internal morale.

The report noted that hacked projects often lose security leadership within weeks and spend at least three months in recovery mode. Even if those timelines vary by project, the consequences are plain to see. A company with a damaged token and a damaged brand has fewer ways to buy time.

Plenty of markets can absorb a theft, or a bad quarter, or even a reputational hit. But crypto often compresses all three into the same event. The exploit drains funds, the token reprices the business in public, and counterparties react before the internal cleanup is finished. That’s a hard environment in which to recover, especially for teams that were never overcapitalized in the first place.

Dependency risk makes it even worse. Immunefi argues that a more interconnected DeFi stack has created longer chains of vulnerability across bridges, stablecoins, liquid staking, restaking, and lending markets.

That point should be handled carefully, especially when the report uses case studies that deserve outside verification. Still, the broader direction is hard to dismiss. Crypto systems are more layered than they were a few years ago, and that means a hack can travel much farther than the protocol where it started.

Centralized venues still sit near the center of the blast zone.

The report says only 20 of the 191 hacks in 2024-2025 involved centralized exchanges, yet those incidents accounted for $2.55 billion, or 54.6% of all stolen funds.

That pushes the issue beyond just smart-contract bugs and back toward custody, key management, and infrastructure concentration. For a market that often sells decentralization as a cure for fragility, some of the largest losses still emerge from places where trust is concentrated.

But it doesn’t mean every hacked project is doomed. The industry has now entered a phase where survival doesn’t depend on whether a team can endure a hack, but whether it can endure the six months that come next.

The theft starts the crisis, but the slower damage decides whether the project still has a future once the market moves on.

The post Why crypto hacks don’t end and continue even when the money is gone appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Altcoin trading activity has continued to weaken across the crypto market, which is another sign of the current investor appetite for altcoins. New data shared by CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost shows spot trading volume on Binance and other major exchanges is now at extreme lows compared to levels seen during the crypto market’s more active phases in February and October 2025.

Altcoin Trading Volumes Drop Across The Board

Analysis of altcoin flows shows how much of the remaining altcoin activity is now flowing through Binance compared to the rest of the crypto market. Data from CryptoQuant shows altcoin spot volumes on Binance have collapsed to $7.7 billion, which is a fraction of the $40 billion to $50 billion trading volumes recorded during last year’s peak activity periods. 

On the other hand, other major exchanges combined account for about $18.8 billion in altcoin trading volume. That puts Binance’s share near 40% of the total market, meaning close to one out of every two dollars traded in altcoins is now passing through the exchange. MEXC ranks second at 7.62%, followed by Bybit at 6.07%, OKX at 6%, and Bitget at 5.61%. HTX, Coinbase, and Upbit each hold between 4.57% and 5.38%, while smaller platforms including Crypto.com, Gate.io, KuCoin, and Kraken account for the remainder.

Altcoin Spot Trading Volume By Exchange. Source: CryptoQuant

Those figures are far below altcoin trading volumes normally observed during more active periods. In October 2025, Binance alone recorded between $40 billion and $50 billion in altcoin trading volume, with other exchanges reaching around $63 billion. The February 2025 peak was even more pronounced, with competing platforms collectively processing approximately $91 billion in altcoin movements. 

The Altcoin Spot Trading Volume chart from January 2025 through March 2026, which is shown below, reveals the decline very well. What were frequent spikes well above the $40 billion mark have given way to a prolonged suppression of activity, with readings largely hugging the baseline since the beginning of 2026.

Altcoins Spot Trading Volume. Source: CryptoQuant

Decline In Interest Could Matter For What Comes Next

The fading interest in altcoins is happening against a context that is hostile to risk-taking. Ongoing geopolitical tensions and a bear market structure have left investors more defensive, and that caution has hit altcoins harder than Bitcoin. Capital inflows are now much more selective; Bitcoin is absorbing attention first, leaving the rest of the market struggling for momentum.

Even so, Darkfost pointed to an idea that long-term investors will likely keep in mind. The volume spikes observed in October and February occurred when the crypto market was forming local tops. These phases are during periods of FOMO, during which well-positioned investors use the surge in demand as exit liquidity. 

On the other hand, periods of extremely low interest are worth watching closely because they often develop when sentiment is most depressed and expectations are at their lowest. These are when the most attractive opportunities tend to emerge.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Despite a costly $43 billion dollar mistake, a looming 6-month suspension and having to pay the highest fine ever for a South Korean VASP, Bithumb’s board members intend to reappoint the current CEO, Lee Jae Won. 

The executive’s reappointment would not have even been a matter for consideration if not for a legal loophole that might not be around forever. 

Under South Korean law, crypto exchanges are not legally classified as financial institutions, giving Bithumb’s board the opportunity to propose the reappointment of the current CEO rather than him being forced to step down. 

Bithum’s CEO could be coming back after $43 billion mistake

Bithumb, South Korea’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, will hold a high-stakes shareholders’ meeting on March 31, 2026, to decide if Lee Jae-won will remain the CEO. 

Just last month, a “fat-finger” error resulted in the accidental distribution of 620,000 Bitcoins. The company managed to recover the vast majority of these funds, but the incident exposed deep structural vulnerabilities. 

Bithumb is also currently facing a six-month partial business suspension, and yet the company’s board of directors has formally proposed the reappointment of current CEO Lee Jae-won.

Under South Korean law, executives at traditional financial institutions are often forced to step down if they receive a reprimand warning from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). However, cryptocurrency exchanges are currently classified as Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) rather than formal financial institutions.

Bithumb is taking advantage of this loophole to keep Lee in his current position. They claim he is needed to navigate the exchange through its most recent regulatory challenges. 

In one recent accident reported by Cryptopolitan, an employee mistakenly entered BTC as the payment unit instead of KRW during a “Random Box” promotion, causing the system to credit users with 2,000 BTC ($132 million) each, instead of 2,000 won ($1.38). 

In total, $43 billion worth of Bitcoin was “created” on the exchange’s internal ledger. The amount was nearly 15 times more than the exchange actually held in its reserves. 

The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has nearly completed its investigation into this “ghost coin” incident. 

Lawmakers, including Rep. Kang Min-guk, have criticized the FSS for failing to detect these system flaws during six previous inspections conducted between 2022 and 2025.

Bithumb also recently received a 36.8 billion won fine from the FIU for failing to uphold anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) standards. The looming six-month partial suspension of operations would restrict new users from transferring assets off the platform. 

CEO stepped down after Upbit mishaps 

In early 2025, the former CEO of Dunamu, Lee Sirgoo, received a reprimand warning for AML and KYC violations, but unlike Bithumb, Dunamu chose to change its leadership. 

Lee Sirgoo stepped down roughly three months after the reprimand and assumed an advisory role to protect the company’s reputation and facilitate its license renewal process. The company received a 35.2 billion won fine. 

Bithumb’s board, along with a new two-year term for Lee Jae-won, is seeking shareholder approval to double its issuance limit for convertible bonds and bonds with warrants to 300 billion won ($225 million). 

The exchange has also proposed appointing Jung Yeon-dae, an adjunct professor at Sogang University and a tax expert, as a new auditor in response to the FSS’s findings of “complacent supervision.”

Bithumb is still under investigation for its order book sharing arrangement with Stellar Exchange, an unregistered operator in South Korea. The exchange could jeopardize its ability to renew its VASP license, and additional sanctions could be imposed.

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