Today in crypto, the Balancer DAO has given the hacker behind the exploit until Saturday to return the stolen funds for a bounty. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan is considering converting part of its sovereign wealth and gold reserves into digital assets, and a new Schwab survey shows that 45% of ETF investors plan to buy crypto ETFs.
Balancer makes last appeal to hacker behind $100M+ exploit
The Balancer Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) issued an onchain notice to the wallet holder behind an exploit this week that resulted in more than $100 million in digital assets being stolen.
In a Friday X post, Balancer posted a copy of the message it sent to the individual or group responsible for the incident tied to the platform’s V2 Composable Stable Pools. The decentralized exchange offered them until Saturday to return the funds in exchange for an unspecified bounty, or it would use “technical, onchain, and legal measures” to pursue matters.
“We understand that affected users are awaiting further updates,” Balancer said of the exploit. “We will continue to provide information as the investigation progresses.”
The exploit, which Balancer reported to its users on Monday, resulted in more than $100 million worth of staked Ether (ETH) — including StakeWise Staked ETH (OSETH), Wrapped Ether (WETH) and Lido wstETH (wSTETH) — being moved to a newly created wallet. The hack drew attention to the audits of the exchange’s smart contracts after reports showed four security companies had reviewed them.
Kazakhstan may fuel $1 billion crypto reserve with gold, FX and seized assets
Kazakhstan’s government is reportedly considering converting a portion of the country’s National Fund assets, as well as part of its gold and foreign exchange reserves, to fund a cryptocurrency reserve.
According to The Times of Central Asia, Berik Sholpankulov, deputy chairman of Kazakhstan’s National Bank, announced the initiative during a recent parliamentary session. A Bloomberg Law report Friday suggested the government aims to allocate between $500 million and $1 billion to the effort.
“I think by year end, January next year, we will have it up and running,” Sholpankulov said, according to Bloomberg. Sholpankulov added that the creation of a state-managed crypto asset fund is under discussion among government officials. “We are considering the possibility of using part of the National Fund’s assets and gold and foreign exchange reserves for investment in crypto assets,” he said.
The central bank official said confiscated assets “will be transferred to the state digital asset fund” to be “stored as a strategic reserve of the government.” He also stated that the Ministry of Digital Development has proposed allowing state-owned entities to supply energy to private cryptocurrency mining companies in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Nearly half of ETF investors plan to buy crypto ETFs
Nearly half of exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors are planning to buy a crypto ETF, matching those who said they’d buy a bond ETF, according to a Schwab Asset Management survey released on Thursday.
Schwab found that 52% of the 2,000 individual ETF investors it surveyed were planning to invest in a US equities ETF, while 45% said they were interested in crypto ETFs, tied in second place with those interested in ETFs for US bonds.
“This was also shocking to see crypto tied with bonds for second place in where people plan to invest,” said Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. “Majorly punching above weight given crypto is 1% of total ETF aum [assets under management] while bonds are 17%.”
Around 57% of Millennial respondents indicated they planned to invest in crypto through ETFs, compared to 41% of Gen X respondents and 15% of baby boomers.
Balchunas said the “whole survey was super-optimistic” for ETFs in general, with “basically everyone planning to increase usage,” especially the younger generations.
