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Fork in the Road

Fork in the Road

Plus: 🏦 Western Union launches a Solana stablecoin next month, with a Stable Card for global consumers | 🔥 Aave's DeFi United recovery effort hits $238 million | 📈 Bitcoin touches a 12-week high on Iran deal hopes

David Okoya
April 27, 2026

Hi! In today’s edition:

⛓ Long-time Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc plans to hard fork Bitcoin into eCash in August, reassigning part of Satoshi's 1.1 million BTC to fund development — the community is calling it theft
🏦 Western Union will launch USDPT, its Solana-based stablecoin, next month, with a Stable Card for consumers planned across dozens of markets later this year
🔥 Aave's DeFi United has raised $238 million to aid recovery from the KelpDAO exploit
📈 Bitcoin hit $79,488 on Monday, a 12-week high, as reports emerged that Iran offered a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

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A Bitcoin Developer Wants to Split the Chain and Reassign Satoshi's Coins

Long-time Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc announced plans to hard fork Bitcoin into a new chain called eCash in August, at block height 964,000, giving existing BTC holders equivalent tokens on the new network at a 1:1 Sztorc plans to fund it by manually reassigning “fewer than half” of the 1.1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto's so-called "patoshi" pattern to investors before the chain launches, a move worth nearly $40 billion at current prices.

Sztorc’s plan has sparked backlash. Bitcoin advocate Peter McCormack called it "theft and disrespectful," and other critics warned the precedent could eventually threaten any holder's coins. Sztorc defended the plan as the only viable way to solve hard fork funding before a launch, and separately published a second version of the proposal that does not touch Satoshi's stack, though the final structure remains undecided.

The new chain would add Drivechains, a sidechain scaling architecture Sztorc has been trying to merge into Bitcoin Core since 2015.

Western Union to Launch Solana Stablecoin Next Month, Stable Card Planned for Global Consumers

Western Union CEO Devin McGranahan said during the company's first-quarter earnings call on April 24 that its Solana-based stablecoin, USDPT (USD Payment Token), is in its final stages of development and will launch next month, initially for agent settlement rather than direct consumer use. Issued by federally chartered crypto bank Anchorage Digital, USDPT will settle payments between Western Union and its agent network, with the company also activating its Digital Asset Network (DAN) this week through its first partner to connect crypto wallets to its retail infrastructure.

A USD Stable Card is planned to roll out across several markets later this year, allowing consumers to hold and spend dollar-denominated value globally. McGranahan said the card is "particularly compelling in inflation-sensitive markets," citing countries where local currency devaluation erodes the value of incoming remittances.

Western Union reported adjusted first-quarter revenue of $983 million, down 1% year-over-year, with its NYSE-listed stock falling 4.6% to $8.90 after the print.

Aave Raises $238 Million and Counting for KelpDAO Exploit Recovery Effort

Aave's DeFi United initiative, as of last check, has raised approximately over $238 million to improve the backing of rsETH following the KelpDAO exploit, according to the effort’s live contribution page.

Mantle and Aave DAO are among the largest contributors, having together committed 55,000 ETH worth roughly $127 million, while Aave founder Stani Kulechov personally contributed 5,000 ETH.

The recovery effort, launched last week under the name DeFi United, aims to restore backing for rsETH after the Lazarus group exploited a KelpDAO bridge infrastructure powered by LayerZero to mint $292 million worth of the liquid restaking token without any backing on April 18. About 116,500 of the tokens had ended up on Aave’s books, creating an estimated $190 million in bad debt.

Separately, Aave, KelpDAO and LayerZero have submitted a proposal on Arbitrum's governance forum asking the network to release the 30,766 ETH frozen by its Security Council from the attacker's address to contribute toward the recovery.

Bitcoin Hits 12-Week High on Iran Deal Optimism

Bitcoin climbed to $79,488 on Monday, its highest level since January 31, after reports from Axios indicated that Iran had offered the U.S. a new proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the conflict through Pakistani mediators. The move pushed BTC up 1.6% in early Asian trading, with Ether gaining 1.7% in tandem as broader risk assets rallied.

Bitcoin has now risen approximately 16% in April, recovering from a low of around $60,000 in February as April net inflows into Bitcoin spot ETFs reached roughly $2.5 billion, the strongest monthly figure since October 2025.

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🏛️ President Trump vowed at a private Mar-a-Lago crypto conference that banks would not be allowed to derail the Clarity Act, the long-stalled crypto market structure bill held up by disputes over stablecoin reward provisions. The event, limited to the top 297 holders of his $TRUMP meme coin, featured Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, Cathie Wood, and boxer Mike Tyson.
🏦 Morgan Stanley Investment Management launched the Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio (MSNXX), a government money market fund designed for payment stablecoin issuers to hold required reserves in compliance with the GENIUS Act. The fund invests in cash, U.S. Treasury instruments maturing in 93 days or less, and overnight repo agreements, and maintains a stable $1.00 net asset value.
🔒 Independent researcher Giancarlo Lelli broke a 15-bit elliptic curve key on publicly accessible quantum hardware using a variant of Shor's algorithm, winning Project Eleven's 1 BTC Q-Day Prize in the largest public demonstration yet of a quantum attack on the cryptography securing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most major blockchains.
🏛️ The U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that Tether's $344 million USDT freeze was part of Operation Economic Fury, a campaign to sever Iran's financial lifelines, with OFAC designating the two Tron wallets as property of Iran's Central Bank with links to the IRGC-Qods Force and Hezbollah.
⚖️ The CFTC sued New York on Friday in its latest action to block states from applying gambling laws to CFTC-registered prediction market platforms, after New York filed lawsuits against Coinbase and Gemini earlier that week.
🏛️ The DOJ dropped its criminal probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday, clearing the path for Trump's Fed chair nominee Kevin Warsh to advance toward a Senate confirmation vote. Sen. Thom Tillis, who had blocked the vote, had made dropping the investigation a condition of his support; Powell's term expires May 15.
⚖️ Tennessee banned crypto ATMs statewide, becoming the second U.S. state after Indiana to impose an outright prohibition, with the law taking effect July 1. Operating or hosting a virtual currency kiosk will be a Class A misdemeanor; the bill passed unanimously, with lawmakers citing surging fraud losses among seniors as the primary driver.
🇧🇷 Brazil blocked access to 28 prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket, with Finance Minister Dario Durigan citing violations of federal betting laws. The National Monetary Council issued a resolution prohibiting derivatives contracts tied to sports, politics, elections, online gaming, and cultural events.
📈 BitMine Immersion Technologies bought 10,000 ETH for $23.87 million directly from the Ethereum Foundation in an over-the-counter deal, the second such sale from the Foundation to the firm chaired by Tom Lee. BitMine now holds 4.97 million ETH worth roughly $11.5 billion, making it the largest public holder of ether.
🔒 Litecoin conducted a 13-block chain reorganization on Saturday to reverse roughly 32 minutes of chain history after attackers exploited a zero-day bug in its MWEB privacy layer, enabling invalid peg-outs to third-party DEXs. GitHub commit history later revealed the consensus vulnerability had been privately patched 37 days before the attack, raising questions about responsible disclosure.

🏦 AWS Marketplace listed Chainlink's Data Feeds, Data Streams, and Proof of Reserve, giving enterprise developers a direct path to connect cloud infrastructure with smart contracts using familiar AWS procurement and billing tools. The integration is aimed at institutions building tokenization, DeFi, and real-time trading systems that require reliable offchain data.
🏦 JPMorgan's global head of ETF product Ciarán Fitzpatrick said tokenization will reshape the entire funds industry, but added that "we're a couple of years away from some good use cases." The bank is already exploring applications through Kinexys, its blockchain business unit.
🌐 South Korean digital bank KBank, which counts Upbit as a partner, signed a strategic partnership with Ripple to test blockchain-based cross-border remittances using stablecoins and Ripple's Palisade digital wallet. The second phase of the proof of concept is now underway, covering corridors to the UAE and Thailand.

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