DEX

On 29 May 2026 at 13:30, Aster DEX disclosed that 67.8% of its total token supply is earmarked for community airdrops and user incentives, topping a set of perp DEX tokens launched over the past year. The comparison places Based at 59.6% and Roll at 54%, while Edge and Lit allocate 35% and 25% respectively to community-focused distribution.

Base has rolled out its Azul upgrade on mainnet, bringing multiproofs and a rebuilt client stack as the Coinbase-incubated Ethereum layer 2 moves toward Stage 2 decentralization. The multiproof design combines TEE and zero-knowledge proofs and can cut withdrawal finality to as little as one day when both agree. The release also shifts the network to new execution and consensus clients, and Base says it has reduced empty blocks by roughly 99% while sustaining bursts of 5,000 TPS.

ICE CEO Jeff Sprecher said he has met several times over the past month with the Hyperliquid team to discuss possible business collaboration, and described the DEX as "bigger than Nasdaq." The remarks follow reported meetings by ICE and CME executives with CFTC officials in Washington raising concerns about Hyperliquid's offshore structure and its 24/7 oil perpetuals, which were said to average more than $1 billion in daily volume.

On May 27, Stake DAO said its Arbitrum deployment was hit by an infinite-mint exploit that inflated vsdCRV supply by 5.4 trillion units, with some reports estimating about $91,000 drained from affected pools. The team disabled the vsdCRV bridge and said Ethereum mainnet backing funds were secured, while the Arbitrum asdCRV Llamalend market will be permanently sunset.

DxSale suffered a $7.3 million drain affecting 1,400 BNBChain LPs after attackers targeted legacy liquidity pools locked in 2021. Investigators say 2,958 BNB ($1.87 million) was funneled to two main wallets and later routed to multiple Binance deposit addresses, while other findings have fueled allegations of insider-level access.

DEX activity has cooled sharply, with DEX volume down to $6.047 billion by 28 May after standing near $22 billion in late January 2026. Despite the broader slowdown, Uniswap ($1.428 billion), PancakeSwap ($805.97 million), and Aerodrome ($798.11 million) remained the top venues at press time. The pullback has coincided with week-on-week drops since the October 2025 crash and a crypto market-cap decline of more than 3% over the last 24 hours.

South Korea's Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office arrested five suspects on May 11, 2026, and indicted them on May 27, 2026, in what it described as the country's first criminal rug-pull case tied to a decentralized exchange. Prosecutors allege the group manipulated CATFI on a Solana-based DEX, draining liquidity and causing 256 investors to lose a combined 900 million won ($600,000) while the organizers made about 400 million won ($260,000).

Stake DAO's vsdCRV on Arbitrum was exploited after a suspected deployer-key compromise, enabling the minting of 5,446,744,073,709 tokens and swaps into about 43.78 ETH. The incident prompted Stake DAO, Curve, and Beefy Finance to pause or warn on affected products, underscoring how automated vaults can conceal dependencies like cross-chain messaging, wrapper accounting, and key control.

ETH slipped below $2,000 over the past 24 hours for the first time since early 2025, trading at $1,972.82 after a 13.4% decline over the past month. The move coincided with $241M in long liquidations and rising derivatives activity, with open interest cited at $12.5B and $32.69B from separate datasets. DeFi metrics also weakened, including Aave loans at $8B (down 14% in a month) and Ethereum-based DeFi holdings at $41.78B versus over $91B in August 2025.

South Korean prosecutors say they have arrested and indicted five people in what they describe as the country’s first criminal case targeting a rug pull conducted on a decentralized exchange. Authorities allege the CATFI token scheme on a Solana-based DEX left 256 investors with about 900 million won (roughly $600,000) in losses, while organizers took around 400 million won in illicit profits.