Crypto News Today: $8.3M DeFi Exploit, ETH ETF Inflows, and Political Battles

Posted on by Bruno

Today in crypto, Bitcoin layer-2 Alex Protocol was hacked for $8.3 million, spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded inflows for 15 consecutive days, and US lawmakers remain divided over digital asset legislation, as questions mount about President Donald Trump’s ties to the industry.

Bitcoin DeFi platform Alex Protocol loses $8.3 million to exploit

Alex Protocol, a Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) platform on the Stacks blockchain, suffered an exploit on June 6, resulting in $8.3 million in digital asset losses.  

In an X announcement, Alex Protocol said the breach was caused by a vulnerability in its self-listing verification logic. The attacker used the flaw to drain liquidity from several asset pools. 

The Bitcoin DeFi platform said the attackers siphoned about 8.4 million Stacks (STX tokens, 21.85 Stacks Bitcoin (sBTC), 149,850 in USDC ) (USDC) and USDt (USDT), and 2.8 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). The incident is one of the largest exploits in the Stacks ecosystem to date.

In response to the incident, Alex Lab Foundation, the organization supporting the protocol, pledged to fully reimburse affected users using its treasury reserves. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Alex Protocol through its X account but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Spot Ether ETFs 15-day inflow streak accumulates $837.5 million inflows

US-based spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have just recorded a third consecutive trading week of inflows. If next week follows suit, the current inflow streak alone may surpass $1 billion in total inflows.

On June 6, spot Ether (ETH) ETFs posted $25.3 million inflows for the trading day, extending the streak to 15 consecutive inflow days, according to Farside data. 

The current inflow streak since May 16 has now brought in $837.5 million, roughly 25% of the total $3.32 billion in net inflows since spot Ether ETFs launched in July 2024.

If the pattern continues into the coming week, an additional $162.5 million in inflows would push the streak’s total to $1 billion.

Crypto market structure hearing devolves into partisan claims

Republican lawmakers on the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) pushed back against concerns that US President Donald Trump could personally profit from his exposure to the crypto industry, dismissing the claims as political “theatrics” amid ongoing debate about digital assets legislation.

In a June 6 hearing organized by Democrats, HFSC ranking member Maxine Waters defended that the lawmakers should focus on “information that has not been explored during the committee hearing” on June 4, which dealt with concerns around the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. The debate around the crypto market structure bill, expected to head for a vote on June 10, has been partly shadowed by calls for provisions to stop Trump from potentially using the legislation to his personal benefit.

Representative Bryan Steil, who chairs the digital assets committee, dismissed criticisms as “Trump derangement syndrome,” a term often used to describe negative reactions to the president’s policies. Cointelegraph reached out to a Steil spokesperson for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.

“My Republican colleagues refuse to even acknowledge President Trump’s crypto corruption, which undermines their efforts to pass this bill,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch following Steil’s remarks. “I assume out of fear and backlash from the president.”

It’s unclear whether the Democrats’ efforts will garner enough support among members of their party or Republicans to slow or halt passage of the CLARITY Act. Before Trump’s dinner to reward his memecoin holders on May 22, Waters introduced a separate bill to block the president, vice president, members of Congress and their families from engaging with digital assets.

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