Today in crypto, new filings reveal crypto companies among donors to US President Donald Trump's inauguration. The Ethereum Foundation is entering a new phase as Vitalik Buterin steps back to focus on research, and Bybit CEO Ben Zhou says two-thirds of the funds stolen by Lazarus in February are still traceable. Consensys, Solana, Uniswap CEO donated to Trump's $239M inauguration fund New filings from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that several cryptocurrency firms and their executives made significant contributions to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after the results of the 2024 election. According to FEC filings made public on April 20 by the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams donated more than $245,000, Solana Labs donated $1 million, and software firm Consensys sent $100,000 in January to support the then-president-elect’s inauguration. Many major crypto firms had previously announced their support of Trump through donations to the inaugural fund, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs, Kraken, Ondo Finance, and Robinhood. Altogether, the fund reported more than $239 million in net donations between Nov. 15 and April 20 from companies and individuals. These included $1 million from McDonald’s, $1 million from Meta, $1 million from Apple CEO Tim Cook, $1 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and various contributions from Delta Air Lines, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Nvidia, PayPal, Target, and Coca-Cola. Jan. 9 contribution from Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams to Trump-Vance inauguration fund. Source: FEC Since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and appointed Mark Uyeda as acting chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency has dropped multiple investigations and enforcement actions against crypto firms, including those that donated to the president’s 2024 campaign or inauguration fund. In February, Uniswap reported that the SEC had dropped its probe into the firm, and Consensys founder Joseph Lubin said the agency had agreed to end a separate lawsuit. Ethereum Foundation shifts focus to user experience, layer-1 scaling The Ethereum Foundation, the nonprofit organization developing the Ethereum ecosystem, is shifting its focus to user experience and layer-1 scaling challenges following its March leadership reshuffle. On April 21, the Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak shared an X post detailing how the organization has changed since its change in leadership structure . Stańczak said the change aims to give Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin more time for research and exploration rather than dealing with day-to-day tasks and crisis management. “Each time Vitalik shares insights or communicates a direction, he accelerates major long‑term breakthroughs,” he wrote. Stańczak added that Buterin’s recent posts had advanced promising avenues and helped realign the community around the organization’s core values. On April 20, Buterin proposed a change in the Ethereum Virtual Machine’s (EVM) contract language to improve the efficiency and speed of the blockchain’s execution layer. Stańczak said that while Buterin’s proposals will “always carry weight,” they are supposed to start conversations and encourage progress in different research areas. The executive said the community can either refine or reject the ideas. Bybit CEO: Two-thirds of Lazarus-hacked funds remain traceable Crypto exchange Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou says more than two-thirds of the digital assets stolen from the platform in February by North Korea’s Lazarus Group still remain traceable. In an executive summary on hacked Bybit funds posted on X on April 21, Ben Zhou said that of the total $1.4 billion hacked, 68.6% “remains traceable,” 27.6% has “gone dark,” and 3.8% has been frozen. Around $1.2 billion worth of stolen crypto is still being tracked. Source: Lazarus Bounty The untraceable funds primarily flowed into mixers , then through bridges to peer-to-peer and over-the-counter platforms, he added. Zhou confirmed that 944 Bitcoin ( BTC ) worth around $90 million went through the Wasabi mixer Another 432,748 Ether ( ETH ), around 84% of the total worth roughly $1.21 billion, has been transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin via THORChain. Around two-thirds of that — around $960 million worth of Ether — has been converted into 10,003 BTC across 35,772 wallets, he added. Around $17 million worth of Ether remains on the Ethereum blockchain across 12,490 wallets, Zhou reported.
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