‘Sell bonds, buy bitcoin,’ proclaimed a popular social media account last week, echoing the sentiments of many crypto advocates who believe that tariff-induced volatility in the U.S. Treasury market – a cornerstone of global finance – has revealed the fragility of the dollar-denominated monetary system. However, institutions are not buying into this narrative.

As of Monday, the 11 U.S.-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs, considered a proxy for institutional activity, were on track to register the second-highest cumulative monthly outflow of over $800 million, according to data source SoSoValue. The funds bled a record $3.56 billion in February and $767 million in March.

Meanwhile, the three-month Treasury bills auctioned Monday drew strong demand from institutions. According to data source CME, the U.S. Treasury sold $80 billion in three-month bills at an interest rate of 4.225%, up from the previous 4.175%. Similarly, it sold $68 billion in six-month bills at a slightly higher-than-previous interest rate of 4.06%.

However, the bid-to-cover ratio, representing the number of bids received relative to the number of bids accepted, for the three-month bills rose to 2.96 from 2.82. In other words, for every three-month bill offered, nearly 3x more bids were received. The ratio for the six-month bills rose marginally to 2.90 from 2.79.

The strong uptake indicates that institutions still view the U.S. debt as a haven. The T-bills are highly liquid and considered low-risk, making them the preferred choice for collateral in the repo (repurchase agreement) market. In a repo transaction, one party sells T-bills or other securities to another, agreeing to repurchase them later, allowing the seller to access short-term funding.

Institutions typically park money in T-bills when the economic outlook is uncertain, calling for flexibility in investments rather than commitment to long-term positions.

President Donald Trump’s full-blown trade war against China and other major trading partners has ratcheted uncertainty to such an extent that there is the possibility of a sudden blackout in corporate earnings guidance on Wall Street. According to Inc , BofA’s 3-month guidance ratio — which tracks the number of companies above versus below consensus guidance — has fallen to 0.4x, its weakest since April 2020 and below its historical average of 0.8x.

Meanwhile, the U.S. recession odds have increased above 50% on betting platforms, with elevated Japanese bond yields further complicating matters for risk assets.

Crypto exchanges Binance and KuCoin temporarily suspended withdrawals amid reported issues with their data center provider Amazon Web Services (AWS).

«We are aware of an issue impacting some services on the #Binance platform due to a temporary network interruption in the AWS data center,» Binance said in an X post.

«Some orders are still successful, but some are failing. If users failed, they may keep retrying.»

Binance opened withdrawals just over five minutes after the issue was first reported. Users are still reportedly facing issues placing trades on both Binance and KuCoin, X posts show.

Crypto wallet Rabby and on-chain analytics tool DeBank reported issues in separate X posts as well, with all services unavailable.

AWS is a cloud computing platform providing services like storage, computing power to all kinds of businesses. An outage may disrupt these services and impact companies relying on AWS for websites, applications, or data storage.

KiloEx, a decentralized exchange (DEX) for trading perpetual futures, was hit by a sophisticated attack earlier Tuesday that left users reeling with losses of around $7 million.

The exploit unfolded across multiple blockchain networks and appeared to stem from a vulnerability in the platform’s price oracle system, per blockchain analysis firm Cyvers.

An attacker, using a wallet funded through Tornado Cash — a tool that obscures transaction trails — executed a series of transactions on the Base, BNB Chain, and Taiko networks to take advantage of a flaw in the platform’s price oracle system, which allowed the attacker to manipulate asset prices.

KiloEx has since confirmed the breach, suspended platform operations, and is now working with partners to trace the stolen funds and blacklist the attacker’s wallet.

Oracles are blockchain-based tools that relay any type of outside data to a blockchain, where smart contracts use that data to make decisions for a financial application. That is, the oracle tells the platform whether ether (ETH) is worth $2,000 or $3,000, ensuring trades happen at fair market prices.

But oracles can be a weak link. In KiloEx’s case, the attacker exploited a price oracle access control vulnerability — essentially, a flaw that let them tamper with data by using flash loans (or temporary liquidity) that tricked the system into believing false prices.

The attacker manipulated the oracle to report an absurdly low price for ETH (say, $100) when opening a leveraged trading position. Leverage allows traders to borrow funds to amplify their bets, so a fake price can create massive distortions.

This made it look like they’d made a huge profit, which they then withdrew from KiloEx’s vault. The attacker repeated this across Base, BNB Chain, and Taiko, exploiting KiloEx’s cross-chain setup to maximize gains before the platform could react.

In one reported transaction, the attacker netted $3.12 million in a single move.

This isn’t the first time a DeFi platform has been hit by oracle manipulation. Similar attacks have targeted platforms like Mango Markets in 2022, where $100 million was stolen, and Cream Finance in 2021, with losses of $130 million.