Over the weekend of April 18–20, attackers drained roughly 116,500 rsETH — about $290–293 million — from liquid restaking protocol Kelp DAO by exploiting a LayerZero-powered cross‑chain bridge. Security firms and LayerZero pointed to North Korea’s state‑linked Lazarus group (TraderTraitor) after attackers allegedly poisoned RPC nodes used by LayerZero’s decentralized verifier network (DVN), launched a DDoS to force failover to compromised nodes, and fed a forged cross‑chain message that authorised the transfers. Kelp DAO paused rsETH contracts, blacklisted attacker addresses and said it had stopped further drains; LayerZero says Kelp’s single‑DVN setup created a single point of failure, a claim Kelp disputes, saying it followed documented defaults. DeFi platforms moved quickly: Arbitrum’s Security Council froze 30,766 ETH (about $71 million) linked to the exploit and transferred it to a frozen wallet pending governance action; Aave froze rsETH markets. Firms and analysts warn of contagion across lending and liquidity pools and are modelling potential bad‑debt scenarios if backing cannot be restored.

Apple announced on April 20-21, 2026 that longtime chief executive Tim Cook will step down and become executive chairman, with senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus taking over as CEO on Sept. 1, 2026. Cook, who led Apple for 15 years and presided over a rise in market value to roughly $4 trillion, will remain in place through the summer to ensure a smooth handover and to continue engaging with policymakers. Ternus, a 25-year Apple veteran behind products including iPhone, iPad, AirPods, Mac and the Vision Pro headset, is widely seen as a product-focused insider whose promotion signals greater emphasis on hardware and new device form factors. The transition comes as Apple faces pressure to accelerate its artificial intelligence strategy — having relied on partnerships such as Google’s Gemini and integrations with ChatGPT — while also managing supply-chain shifts away from China and regulatory scrutiny in major markets. Investors showed only modest initial reaction to the announcement.

Angelo Martino, a 41-year-old former ransomware negotiator at Chicago-based DigitalMint, pleaded guilty on April 21, 2026, to conspiring with the ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group to extort U.S. companies. Prosecutors say Martino worked on behalf of five victims while secretly passing confidential information — including cyber-insurance policy limits and negotiation strategies — to attackers to inflate ransom demands and secure larger payouts. Martino admitted he took a cut and later joined two co-conspirators, Ryan Clifford Goldberg and Kevin Tyler Martin, in deploying BlackCat between April and November 2023. Authorities have seized roughly $10 million in assets from Martino. Recently unsealed court filings reveal individual ransom payments tied to the incidents that run into the millions, including figures cited for a hospitality firm, a nonprofit and a financial services company. Martino pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct commerce by extortion, faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced in July 2026; his two co-defendants pleaded guilty in late 2025 and face sentencing this month.

Amazon on April 20-21 announced it will invest an initial $5 billion in AI startup Anthropic and may provide up to $20 billion more tied to commercial milestones, expanding prior commitments and bringing potential Amazon funding to roughly $33 billion. In return Anthropic pledged to spend more than $100 billion on Amazon Web Services over the next decade, securing up to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity and access to multiple generations of Amazon’s Trainium AI chips and Graviton processors. Anthropic said it expects roughly 1 GW of Trainium2/3 capacity by year-end and will integrate the full Claude platform more directly into AWS, serving over 100,000 enterprise customers. The deal follows Amazon’s earlier multibillion commitments to other leading AI labs and comes amid Anthropic’s rapid revenue growth (annualised run-rate above $30 billion) and ongoing disputes with parts of the U.S. government over defence use and supply-chain risk designations. The arrangement is structured as a mix of equity, infrastructure commitments and long-term cloud procurement rather than a single cash infusion.

Oppo this week launched the Find X9 Ultra, a photography-first flagship that pairs flagship internals with an unusually elaborate camera system developed with Hasselblad. The 6.82-inch QHD+ 144Hz AMOLED phone runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, packs a 7,050mAh silicon‑carbon battery with 100W wired and 50W wireless charging, and carries IP66/68/69 durability. The rear array includes multiple high-resolution sensors — notably dual 200MP units (main and 3x tele), a 50MP ultra‑wide and a 50MP 10x optical telephoto — plus a spectral/true‑color sensor and Hasselblad Master Mode (which offers RAW and a non‑AI Master setting). Video supports Dolby Vision 4K across lenses and up to 8K30. Oppo will sell the phone in Europe and the UK (priced from £1,449 / ~€1,699) with a May retail start; it will not be offered in the US. Optional accessories include a Hasselblad Explorer camera grip and a 300mm teleconverter.