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Strategy was responsible for as much as 97.5% of all bitcoin buys from public companies in January

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy accounted for as much as 97.5% of all bitcoin purchases in January made by public companies, “single‑handedly bringing sector‑wide buying back to levels last seen in late summer,” according to a Thursday research report from data analytics firm Bitcoin Treasuries.

Strategy ended last month with 712,647 BTC on its balance sheet, or $47.9 billion, buying 40,150 BTC in January.

MSTR, Strategy’s class A common stock, is trading under the $122 level, while the price of bitcoin sits at the $67,800 mark, both down around 20% since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, asset manager Geode Capital Management boosted its exposure to Strategy and also bought into Trump-backed American Bitcoin, a 13F SEC filing on Monday shows. 

The investment firm, which has over $1 trillion in assets under management, added 175,343 shares of Strategy’s class A common stock since the previous quarter, bringing its total MSTR share count to 3.9 million, worth $477.4 million.

Geode also acquired 1.6 million shares of American Bitcoin, worth $1.8 million, a change from last quarter when the firm didn’t have a stake in the Trump-backed bitcoin treasury firm.

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Solana drops to price not seen since February as Drift exploit rattles sentiment

Solana has historically seen its largest price declines on Thursdays, and today is no exemption as the crypto industry reels from the over $270 million exploit that occurred yesterday on Drift, a trading venue native to the solana blockchain.

The price of solana has decreased 5.5% to around $78, a level not seen since February, data from CoinGecko shows.

Drift was one of the largest protocols on the solana network by total value locked, which now sits at nearly $245 million. The total value locked on solana has shrunk by nearly $1 billion since the incident, per DefiLlama.

Exploit likely involved from social engineering

The attack, which has turned into a wider contagion event, is unsettling for those in the industry. It did not come from a bug in the protocol’s smart contracts or programs. Humans remain the bottleneck, Mert Mumtaz, cofounder and CEO of solana development firm Helius, said in response to the incident.

The exploit involved unauthorized transaction approvals likely facilitated through social engineering. The sophisticated operation “appears to have involved multi-week preparation and staged execution,” the team said on Thursday. 

Omer Goldberg, founder of risk management firm Chaos Labs, added, The DeFi [decentralized finance] ecosystem continues to grow in scale, but not in operational security.

“Protocols now have custody of hundreds of millions in user funds while depending on admin key setups that would be considered unacceptable in TradFi for a fraction of that AUM [assets under management],” Goldberg wrote on X. 

“Most hacks come down to the simple act of one clicking a link they shouldn’t have clicked. These are picking up in pace, be extra cautious clicking any link or file,” continued Helius Mumtaz.

$270M

April 1 is known as a day for funny pranks. However, a popular trading venue on the solana blockchain, Drift, is suffering from an ongoing exploit today, on-chain data shows.

Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack. Deposits and withdrawals have been suspended. We are coordinating with multiple security firms, bridges, and exchanges to contain the incident. This is not an April Fools joke,” the team said on social media at 2:58 p.m. ET.

TheBlock reported the exploit is at least $200 million, while blockchain sleuth Lookonchain estimates the figure is $270 million. It could be even more. At this range, the Wednesday hack is among the largest ever, according to the exploits ranking dashboard from Rekt.

Drifts exploit is concerning for those within the crypto industry. Solana treasury firm DeFi Development Corp. allocates a portion of its balance to on-chain strategies to generate yield, including Drift, though the firm announced it had no exposure to the protocol and was not impacted by an alleged exploit affecting the platform, per its press release.

Drift also provides to qualified users sACRED, a derivative token of a tokenized feeder fund that is linked to Apollo Global Management Inc.s traditional Diversified Credit Fund.

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