Today in crypto, Elizabeth Warren accused SEC Chair Paul Atkins of possibly misleading Congress, the restaking protocol Kelp was exploited for $293 million and spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded nearly $1 billion in weekly inflows.
Warren claims SEC’s Atkins likely misled Congress
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Commitee, accused Paul Atkins, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, of possibly misleading Congress about the agency’s enforcement activity.
Warren said in a letter to Atkins dated Wednesday that the SEC’s enforcement data for fiscal year 2025, released on April 7, raised “significant concerns” about his answers at a Feb. 12 congressional hearing, where Warren said Atkins told her he was “not sure what data” the Senator was looking at when asked about “a decline in SEC enforcement activity.”
“Now, it is clear that my assertion regarding the SEC’s declining enforcement actions was correct: the data you released last week show that the number of enforcement actions initiated by the SEC was lower than at any point in the last decade,” Warren said.
Warren said the SEC’s enforcement data showed its enforcement activity had dropped to the lowest level in more than 20 years. She added the hearing took place more than four months after the end of the fiscal year, and Atkins’ “deflection and claim to be unsure of the ‘data’ I was examining now appear deeply misleading, potentially designed to cast doubt on the now obvious fact that enforcement activity has declined significantly.”
Kelp exploited for $293 million
Kelp, a liquid restaking protocol, was exploited on Saturday and drained of $293 million in funds, according to blockchain cybersecurity analysts.
The platform’s bridge contract for its rsETH restaking token was exploited, according to blockchain security firm Cyvers. Kelp confirmed that it froze contracts for its rsETH token on its mainnet and several Layer-2 networks.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Aave froze rsETH markets on Aave V3 and V4. At least nine crypto protocols and platforms had exposure to the rsETH token and have taken steps to freeze activity or mitigate the fallout, Cyvers told Cointelegraph.
The incident is the latest in a string of cybersecurity attacks on crypto platforms in April, including the Drift Protocol hack, which drained the platform of $280 million.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs attract nearly $1B in weekly inflows as risk sentiment improves
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded nearly $1 billion in net inflows over the past week, marking their strongest performance in more than three months as market sentiment shifts toward risk assets.
Data from SoSoValue shows that spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $996 muillion in total net inflows last week, the highest weekly intake since early January, when inflows reached about $1.4 billion.
Friday saw $663.9 million in inflows, the strongest single-day performance of the week. Earlier gains included $411.5 million on Tuesday and $186 million on Wednesday, followed by a more modest $26 million on Thursday. The period began with a $291 million outflow on Monday.
Total net assets across spot Bitcoin ETFs climbed above $101 billion by Friday, alongside a sharp increase in trading activity, with daily volumes nearing $4.8 billion.
