TL;DR
- SpaceX mascot confirmed: Elon Musk honors late fan Liv Perrotti by naming “Asteroid Shiba” the official SpaceX mascot, sparking an ETH meme coin surge.
- Ripple’s Japan growth: Tottori Financial institution integrates XRP for cross-border remittances beginning April 20 to resolve labor scarcity cost delays.
- DeFi disaster: Justin Solar negotiates with a KelpDAO exploiter after a $236M Aave borrow triggered a large $5.4B Ethereum withdrawal wave.
- Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin holds regular at $75K. All eyes are on Tuesday’s U.S. Retail Gross sales knowledge to dictate the following transfer towards $80K.
“Okay”: Elon Musk’s reply turns Asteroid Shiba into SpaceX mascot and ignites crypto market
A narrative that introduced collectively area, charity and crypto has reached its conclusion — Elon Musk has formally confirmed the plush canine Asteroid Shiba because the mascot of his area firm, SpaceX.
The occasion, which grew to become the principle headline of the previous 24 hours, traces again to 2022. That yr, 11-year-old Liv Perrotti, who was battling osteosarcoma, created the design of an opulent Shiba Inu in a spacesuit. The toy, named Asteroid Shiba, was despatched into orbit in 2024 in the course of the historic Polaris Daybreak mission as a zero-gravity indicator.
Elon Musk Approves New SpaceX Mascot Asteroid Shiba, XRP Emerges as Bridge in Tottori Financial institution-SBI Remit Deal, TRON Founder Contacts KelpDAO Hacker Amid $6 Billion Ethereum Outflow — Morning Crypto Report
Large $290 Million Hack Hits Ethereum and Arbitrum
After Liv Perrotti’s passing, her mom revealed a listing of eight questions the lady had dreamed of asking the pinnacle of SpaceX. On April 19, 2026, Elon Musk responded to them on his social platform X, briefly confirming Asteroid Shiba’s standing as SpaceX’s mascot.
Musk’s reply triggered an instantaneous response available in the market with a number of cash launched, although none of them is official. Following the information, two important ASTEROID tokens emerged — on Solana and on Ethereum. Regardless of Solana’s reputation for meme cash, the vast majority of capital focused on Ethereum, the place market capitalization surged from $17 million to over $160 million.
On-chain knowledge recorded a transaction that has already develop into a meme: an unknown holder managed 1.8% of all Asteroid tokens for 2 months of quiet. Mockingly, your complete place was offered at a slight loss simply 24 hours earlier than Musk posted his reply. At peak costs, that stake would have been value $3.2 million.
Ripple’s Japanese growth continues: XRP could develop into “bridge” for Tottori Financial institution
On April 20, Japanese fintech large SBI Remit will formally launch a cross-border remittance service in partnership with Tottori Financial institution, in line with an SBI announcement. This marks the twenty sixth regional financial institution built-in into the SBI ecosystem, which makes use of Ripple’s distributed ledger expertise.
For Tottori Financial institution, this isn’t a trend-driven transfer however a matter of survival. Tottori Prefecture faces a report labor scarcity, more and more stuffed by overseas staff. Conventional transfers through SWIFT have develop into too expensive and gradual resulting from strict AML necessities and the transition to ISO 20022.
The partnership permits the financial institution to dump “micro-remittances” from migrant staff onto SBI Remit’s infrastructure. Right here, XRP acts as an elective bridge asset: the place liquidity is ample, the system converts yen into XRP after which into the goal forex equivalent to Philippine peso or Vietnamese dong inside seconds, bypassing correspondent banks.
A broader development is rising the place Japan’s regional banks are successfully outsourcing their worldwide operations to Ripple infrastructure, acknowledging the inefficiency of legacy banking for small funds. For the tip consumer, the transaction seems as a regular switch inside an app. XRP operates behind the scenes, enabling 24 by 7 performance that conventional banking hours can not match.
TRON founder Justin Solar makes an attempt to barter with KelpDAO hacker
The decentralized finance ecosystem has confronted a black swan occasion that uncovered vulnerabilities in restaking methods. The KelpDAO exploit led not solely to direct asset theft but additionally to an unprecedented liquidity disaster in Aave, forcing main market contributors, together with Justin Solar, to urgently defend their capital.
The basis trigger was a misconfiguration in a LayerZero-based bridge. The attacker was capable of deceive the protocol and mint 116,500 unbacked rsETH tokens. These property had no actual collateral, but DeFi threat fashions accepted them as legitimate.
The attacker deposited these tokens into Aave V3 and borrowed actual WETH value about $236 million in opposition to them. Information of dangerous debt triggered a large withdrawal wave. Greater than $5.4 billion was pulled from Aave inside hours.
TRON founder Justin Solar was among the many first to react, withdrawing 65,584 ETH, about $154 million. Solar moved to public negotiations, providing a deal to the attacker, suggesting that such funds can’t be laundered with out attracting regulation enforcement and {that a} collapse of main protocols would render the stolen property unusable.
Wrapped rsETH tokens throughout greater than 20 networks, together with Base, Arbitrum and Linea, quickly misplaced backing. A number of DeFi tasks started disabling LayerZero integrations pending investigation.
The incident demonstrated {that a} single compromised cross-chain route can threaten main protocols like Aave when advanced derivatives equivalent to LRTs are accepted as collateral. RsETH markets are at the moment frozen, and groups are making ready liquidity restoration plans, however belief within the liquid restaking sector has been broken.
Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin at $75K awaits liquidity drivers with main inflation knowledge forward
Bitcoin has stabilized above $75,000, supported by regular weekly ETF inflows totaling $996 million. Regardless of a pullback from the native excessive of $78,000 and uncertainty in vitality markets, the asset stays resilient. The present week lacks main inflation knowledge equivalent to CPI or PCE, leaving the market extremely delicate to secondary U.S. macro indicators.
Key checkpoints:
- Bitcoin trades round $75,500. After failing to interrupt above $78,000, the value is trying to find a brand new base, with native assist shaped at $74,000.
- April 21, Tuesday: U.S. retail gross sales for March. Markets count on weak knowledge. If figures are available in under expectations, it might reinforce expectations of a dovish Federal Reserve and restore threat urge for food in crypto.
- April 22 to 23: labor market and providers sector. Stories on preliminary jobless claims and the S&P Flash U.S. Providers PMI. Any indicators of financial cooling might push BTC again towards the $76,000 to $78,000 vary.
Consensus outlook by analysts together with Bitwise and CoinCodex maintains a reasonably bullish stance, focusing on $76,000 to $80,000 by the tip of the month below steady macro situations. Longer-term projections for 2026 stay within the $120,000 to $189,000 vary.
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