Ahead of the highly-anticipated Ethereum upgrade known as Shapella, the Ethereum Foundation has doubled the maximum bug bounty reward being offered for identifying vulnerabilities on the network to $500,000.

North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank is set to acquire all deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), according to an announcement from the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation.

The Euler Finance hacker has returned a significant portion of the funds stolen in a flash-loan attack earlier this month. After draining $197 million from the protocol on March 13, the hacker returned over $100 million of it in two installments.

 Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Ethereum Foundation Doubles Bug Bounty Ahead of Key Upgrade
• First Citizens Acquires Silicon Valley Bank
• Euler Hacker Returns Over $100 Million of ETH
• Arbitrum Price Action After the ARB Airdrop

Ethereum Foundation Doubles Bug Bounty Ahead of Key Upgrade

Ahead of the highly-anticipated Ethereum upgrade known as Shapella, the Ethereum Foundation has doubled the maximum bug bounty reward being offered for identifying vulnerabilities on the network to $500,000.

Th upgrade, also referred to as Shanghai-Capella, is set to be released on the Ethereum mainnet on April 12, at block number 6,209,536. The larger bug bounty rewards were described by Fredrik Svantes, a security researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, as part of the last-minute testing efforts.

The upgrade’s key feature is Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895, which will allow for withdrawals of staked Ether on the network, a functionality that wasn’t implemented when the network merged with the Beacon Chain and transitioned to a Proof-of-Stake consensus.

The upgrade will also feature three other improvements aimed at optimizing gas costs for certain activities.

Shapella is coming after multiple phases of public testing on three testnets, including Sepolia, Zhejiang, and Goerli.

First Citizens Acquires Silicon Valley Bank

North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank is set to acquire all deposits and loans of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), according to an announcement from the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation.

The deal will see First Citizens Bank and Trust Company open 17 former Silicon Valley Bank branches on March 27, with all Silicon Valley Bank deposits being transferred to First Citizens Bank.

The acquisition included the “purchase of about $72 billion of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, National Association’s assets at a discount of $16.5 billion,” according to the FDIC. A remaining $90 billion in assets and other holdings will be left with the FDIC for disposition.

The FDIC also received equity appreciation rights in First Citizens BancShares’ common stock, with a potential value of up to $500 million. First Citizens Bank has $167 billion in total assets and $119 billion in deposits as of March 10, making it the 30th largest commercial bank in the United States.

Silicon Valley Bank collapsed earlier this month after it suffered a severe liquidity crisis amid a bank run. The FEC took over the bank and attempted to auction off its assets.

Euler Hacker Returns Over $100 Million of ETH

The Euler Finance hacker has returned a significant portion of the funds stolen in a flash-loan attack earlier this month. After draining $197 million from the protocol on March 13, the hacker returned over $100 million of it in two installments.

In total, the hacker stole $136 million of staked Ether, $34 million of USDC, $19 million of wrapped Bitcoin, and $8.7 million of DAI. In a surprising turn, the hacker returned 58,737 ETH to the lending protocol.

The hacker returned 3,000 ETH back on March 18. Their latest move saw the price of Euler’s token rise significantly.

Arbitrum Price Action After the ARB Airdrop

The first hour of Arbitrum (ARB) trading on different cryptocurrency exchanges saw some dramatic price movements. Spot ARB trading opened on Huobi Global at $0.1828, but quickly rose to $14.86 within 4 minutes.

On Kucoin, it launched at $9.8624, before falling to $1.13 within an hour. CryptoCompare data shows that $975,000 worth of ARB was traded in 15 minutes across these two exchanges, while the price of the token remained above $5.

Arbitrum futures on BitMEX fluctuated between $1.11 and $1.57 to which the spot trading market gravitated.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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