Weekly Recap: Bitcoin Tests $78,000, Russia Introduces Criminal Penalties for Illegal Crypto Exchange

Bitcoin gained 6% and touched $78,000

Bitcoin posted a strong weekly performance despite a rocky start. On Monday, BTC dropped to $71,000 following the collapse of US-Iran negotiations. By Tuesday night, April 14, the price had recovered above $74,000, with observers attributing the bounce to a wave of short liquidations.

Through midweek, the leading cryptocurrency consolidated between $73,000 and $76,000. The breakthrough came on Friday after Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, propelling BTC to $78,000. The rally proved short-lived — over the weekend, the price retreated to $75,000, erasing the Friday gains. The net weekly gain stood at approximately 6%.

Top-10 altcoins moved in tandem: ETH rose 6%, XRP gained 8%, and BNB added 5%.

Why this matters

Despite the bullish price action, the market is showing signs of stress. A notable divergence has emerged between rising spot prices and bearish futures positioning — a setup that frequently precedes large-scale liquidations. CryptoQuant analysts flagged the risk of profit-taking in bitcoin.

Spot bitcoin ETFs attracted $996 million during the week — the second-largest weekly inflow since the start of the year. Ethereum-based funds received $275 million.

Total crypto market capitalization reached $2.6 trillion. BTC dominance stood at 57.5%, ETH at 10.7%. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index dropped to 27, entering the fear zone for the first time since mid-March.

Massive hacks: Hyperbridge and Kelp lose hundreds of millions

The string of exploits targeting crypto projects continued. On April 13, an attacker gained admin access to Hyperbridge, a cross-chain bridge in the Polkadot ecosystem. The hacker minted 1 billion DOT tokens and immediately sold them in a single transaction for 108.2 ETH (approximately $237,000).

"Attack detected on the Hyperbridge cross-chain bridge" — CertiK Alert, original post

The Polkadot mainnet was unaffected — only the ERC-20 version of the native token running on Ethereum was compromised. The Hyperbridge team later revised the damage estimate upward to $2.5 million, accounting for losses from incentive pools across Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, and Arbitrum. The project pledged to compensate affected users.

"Team is reassessing the damage estimate" — Hyperbridge, original post

On April 17, the Kelp protocol was exploited. The attacker leveraged a vulnerability in its cross-chain bridge, calling the lzReceive function in the EndpointV2 contract and initiating a transfer of 116,500 rsETH to a personal address. The estimated damage is approximately $293 million. Kelp froze most operations following the breach. The incident also impacted Aave, the lending platform through which the attacker liquidated the stolen assets.

"Suspicious activity detected in the Kelp protocol" — Cyvers Alerts, original post

Russia approves criminal penalties for unlicensed crypto exchange

Russia's Government Commission on Legislative Activity approved provisions introducing criminal liability for unauthorized cryptocurrency operations. A new Article 171.7 would be added to the Criminal Code, targeting the unlicensed organization of digital currency circulation without Central Bank registration or licensing.

Base-level penalties include fines up to 300,000 rubles, compulsory labor, or imprisonment for up to four years. Aggravating circumstances — such as operating as part of a group or causing damage on a particularly large scale — raise the maximum sentence to seven years and fines up to 1 million rubles. The threshold for "large-scale" damage is set at 3.5 million rubles, with "particularly large-scale" starting at 13.5 million rubles.

Olga Zakharova, Director of the Legal Department at "PLAN B," clarified that the law does not target individual users making one-off crypto exchanges. The focus is on entities systematically organizing digital currency circulation — exchanges and infrastructure providers facilitating transactions.

Ignat Likhunov, founder of legal agency Cartesius, highlighted the relatively low threshold. According to his estimate, an exchange that buys and resells 40,000–50,000 USDT at a 1% margin already exceeds the 3.5 million ruble bar.

The amendments are part of the "On Digital Currency and Digital Rights" bill, potentially taking effect on July 1, 2026.

SEC issues guidance on crypto wallet regulation

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published a statement clarifying how software interfaces for cryptocurrency transactions are interpreted under broker-dealer rules.

"SEC publishes guidance on crypto wallets" — SEC, original post

The guidance indicates that solutions enabling transactions through self-custodial wallets may, under certain conditions, be exempt from registration. The primary requirement is that such tools must not steer investors toward specific transactions involving crypto assets classified as securities. Commissioner Hester Peirce endorsed the initiative, noting that cryptocurrencies are pushing the SEC to confront its tendency toward increasingly expansive interpretations of securities laws.

OpenAI launches cybersecurity-focused AI model

OpenAI granted limited access to GPT-5.4-Cyber, an AI model designed for vulnerability detection in software. The tool features binary reverse-engineering capabilities, allowing security professionals to analyze compiled software without access to source code.

The release came as a direct response to Anthropic's controversial Mythos model, which discovered thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities in major operating systems and web browsers within just weeks. Anthropic withheld Mythos from public release due to extreme security risks, sparking intense debate across the AI industry.

Access to GPT-5.4-Cyber requires identity verification for individuals and an authorization request through a designated representative for organizations.