Chill Guy is a viral meme illustration that took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch a Solana-based token. Learn more here.

What started as a simple illustration of a laid-back dog has become a global meme sensation, with the cartoon character known as Chill Guy dominating both social media trends and cryptocurrency markets. Created by artist Phillip Banks in October 2023, the easygoing canine character sparked a viral movement that has attracted major brands worldwide.

This article follows Chill Guy’s transformation from a social media sensation to a cryptocurrency asset. We'll examine its viral beginnings, community growth, market impact and what potential investors can expect from CHILLGUY in the future.

 is a viral meme illustration by artist Phillip Banks, depicting a laid-back dog in casual clothes whose easygoing attitude took social media by storm before a crypto project used the meme to launch Just a Chill Guy as a Solana-based token.

What Does Just a Chill Guy Aim to Achieve?

The CHILLGUY meme coin aims to spread a "Why worry?" philosophy into cryptocurrency markets by embracing the laid-back, stress-free attitude that made the original meme go viral. The project transforms this easygoing vibe into a community-driven token, where being low-key isn't just a catchphrase — it's a shared mindset among holders.

The CHILLGUY community brings this philosophy to life by sharing endless variations of the CHILLGUY meme across social platforms. Through market swings and viral trends, CHILLGUY keeps his iconic pose: hands in pockets, subtle smirk, perpetually relaxed.

Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY) operates as a Solana Program Library (SPL) token on the 

 blockchain, leveraging the network's ultrafast speeds and low costs to ensure smooth trading. The token was created using Pump.fun, a specialized platform that lets users launch Solana-based tokens without any fees, removing traditional barriers to token creation.

CHILLGUY is a community takeover (CTO), meaning it's completely owned and directed by its token holders with no central team in control. This decentralized structure ensures the project stays true to its community-driven nature, its holders collectively guiding its future while embodying the laid-back spirit of the original meme.

The CHILLGUY token launched with a maximum supply of 1 billion tokens, of which 999,965,435 are currently in circulation. This near-complete distribution of tokens to the market supports active trading and community participation.

What makes CHILLGUY's tokenomics particularly notable is its widespread distribution across more than 142,000 unique holders (as of Nov 27, 2024), achieved in just 12 days. This rapid expansion of its holder base demonstrates strong community adoption and aligns with the project's decentralized, community-driven principles.

CHILLGUY has exploded across social media, especially on TikTok, where the meme has amassed hundreds of millions of views. Its laid-back character resonates with users worldwide, inspiring countless creative adaptations.

Major brands worldwide have embraced CHILLGUY in their marketing campaigns. From Sprite Europe to NFL on CBS, the character has resonated across mainstream media, even catching the attention of global figures like El Salvador's president Nayib Bukele.

The “Chill Guy” meme’s influence spans multiple social media platforms, with a growing community of followers: 96.6K on X (

). On the other hand, the meme token itself also has a vast community, with 39.9K on X (

) and an active Telegram channel of over 15,000 members. These numbers reflect the meme's ability to engage audiences across different platforms.

The token's popularity in cryptocurrency markets matches its social media success, with CHILLGUY maintaining a substantial 24-hour trading volume of over $330.03M as of Nov 27, 2024. This high trading activity demonstrates the strong market interest in CHILLGUY beyond its meme status.

Looking to trade Just a Chill Guy tokens? Bybit now offers the CHILLGUY/USDT Spot trading pair and CHILLGUYUSDT Perpetual contract. To get started, you’ll first need to create a Bybit account, then fund it with cryptocurrency and navigate to the 

While CHILLGUY has maintained strong trading volumes and continues gaining mainstream attention through its viral social media presence, investors should carefully weigh its strengths and risk factors before making investment decisions.

With its widespread brand adoption, sustained trading activity and explosive community growth of over 142,000 holders, CHILLGUY demonstrates significant market potential. However, meme coins are inherently volatile. Potential investors should 

 and invest no more than they can afford to lose.

CHILLGUY is the latest viral sensation to harness the power of the attention economy to convert social media momentum into crypto market success. While CHILLGUY has already demonstrated its ability to capture mass appeal, its position as a leading meme token will depend upon how effectively it maintains its cultural relevance and community engagement in this fast-moving market.

Intermediate

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Just a Chill Guy (CHILLGUY): Embracing the Art of Nonchalance

Zircuit (ZRC) combines optimistic and ZK rollups with AI-driven security, offering fast, low-cost Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. 

 network has flourished, mainly due to the ongoing network congestion, high fees and poor scalability of the latter. Many of these platforms use rollup technology, whereby batches of multiple transactions processed off-chain are bundled together and posted in bulk to the underlying Layer 1. Ethereum-linked rollups mainly come in two varieties 

 (ZK). While optimistic rollups boast lower computational overhead, the ZK variety of these networks features a higher degree of security.

Zircuit (ZRC) is a Layer 2 chain that adopts a hybrid approach, combining the elements of optimistic and 

. This lets the platform offer the performance benefits of optimistic technology along with the security of ZK validity proofs. To further enhance overall security, Zircuit uses a unique 

 (AI)–driven system of monitoring for malicious transactions.

 (ZRC) is a hybrid Layer 2 blockchain that combines the features of optimistic and ZK rollups, and uses AI-driven monitoring for potentially harmful transactions. 

 rollup development technology, a popular framework for building optimistic rollup networks. Additionally, it uses zero-knowledge proofs, which lets the platform offer the best of both worlds 

 the performance benefits of optimistic rollups and the security of ZK technology. Zircuit is 

The Zircuit project takes security very seriously, and has introduced a unique system of AI-based protection against malicious transactions at the sequencer node level. The use of ZK proofs and an AI-based protection system make Zircuit one of the most secure platforms in the competitive world of Ethereum Layer 2 chains.

Along with its excellent security benefits, Zircuit also boasts low costs, fast transactions, excellent scalability and 2-second block production intervals. All these features make it an ideal environment for 

 (DApps) in various niches, particularly 

 (DeFi). In fact, the leading protocols within the Zircuit ecosystem are all dedicated to the finance niche, with Zircuit Staking being the largest application by TVL.

With its heavy focus on DeFi, Zircuit aims to become a leading liquidity hub for various token types within the sector, including 

. These assets can be staked through the Zircuit staking program — supported by the platform's Liquidity Hub — to earn staking APRs, airdrop rewards and points based on the Zircuit Point program (covered further in our article).

The platform also operates a secure native bridging solution, 

, to help users transfer assets between its Layer 2 network and Ethereum Layer 1.

The company behind the project, Zircuit Ltd., was founded in 2021 in Canada by Dr. Martin Derka, Jan Gorzny and Angel Xu. Zircuit's testnet was launched in November 2023, but made headlines in April 2024 when the project reported that its 

 (TVL) had soared past $2 billion. While testnet TVLs are more a gauge of future potential for a blockchain than an indicator of its existing worth, the news attracted the attention of industry observers toward the platform. Following its highly publicized testnet success, Zircuit launched the first phase of its mainnet in August 2024. This was followed by the launch of the platform's native token, ZRC, in November 2024.

As a typical rollup, Zircuit uses an off-chain sequencer node to batch and organize Layer 2 transactions for subsequent posting to the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. The batches have ZK validity proofs attached to them to signal to Layer 1 validators that they’re free from fraudulent transactions. Zircuit's architecture also includes prover nodes, whose job is to produce these validity proofs.

However, unlike other rollups using ZK proofs (also known as validity proofs), Zircuit doesn't generate validity proofs for every block of transactions. Instead, some blocks have pre-generated template proofs, while others go through the process of having a dedicated validity proof created for them. After a few blocks featuring validity proofs, there are several more that utilize template proofs. The image below illustrates this approach.

The key reason Zircuit has adopted this form of proof design is that the process of generating ZK proofs is computationally intensive. By using template proofs for some of the blocks in a sequence, Zircuit can reduce the overall computational overhead. However, the project’s team has stated that the template proof model is temporary, and will be phased out in the future. At that stage, the platform will move to generating ZK proofs for each block.

Zircuit features a highly modular design whereby provers — responsible for generating validity proofs on the platform — can easily be plugged into or removed from the network. This modular approach is distinct from the standard ZK rollup design, in which provers are more tightly and less flexibly integrated into the overall architecture.

As noted earlier, Zircuit uses a dedicated sequencer to organize and batch transactions into blocks. The platform also applies AI-driven monitoring at the sequencer level (the Sequencer Level Security, or SLS) to spot and exclude fraudulent transactions before they’re finalized on Layer 2.

When transactions are first posted to Zircuit, they enter the 

 — a temporary area from which the sequencer picks and organizes individual transactions into blocks. The mempool is being monitored at all times, using AI algorithms to identify suspicious transactions. If a transaction in the mempool raises a flag, it's quarantined and assessed for validity before the sequencer can include it in a block. The image below shows how this process works.

One of the distinct features of Zircuit is its hybrid architecture, which combines the properties of optimistic and ZK rollups. At the base level, Zircuit is built using Optimism's Bedrock development framework, a technology popular for optimistic rollup networks. However, the use of ZK proofs — or, to be more precise, a combination of validity proofs and template proofs — ensures that Zircuit enjoys a security level that standard optimistic rollups normally can't match.

The use of AI-based SLS provides robust security to Zircuit, complementing the already highly secure ZK proof system. Very few Layer 2 networks in the industry currently feature anything similar, making the platform a true pioneer of AI use for sequencer-level operations.

Like any rollup based on Optimism Bedrock, Zircuit enjoys EVM compatibility. This allows for smooth interoperability with the underlying Ethereum Layer 1. EVM compatibility also makes it easy for developers familiar with Ethereum’s environment to develop Zircuit-based DApps, or to port existing Ethereum applications to the platform. Developers can take advantage of technologies commonly used for Ethereum (e.g., the Solidity programming language and the Hardhat development framework) to build Zircuit applications and smart contracts.

Zircuit Bridge is a native bridging solution designed to easily transfer tokens between Ethereum and Zircuit. It boasts high security, low transaction fees and fast transfers, and allows users to move a variety of cryptocurrencies between Ethereum and Zircuit, including ETH, 

) and LRTs like Super Symbiotic LRT (weETHs). As of late November 2024, the total number of cryptos supported by the bridge is close to 30.

Zircuit has launched a reward program called Zircuit Points. Users can earn these Points by staking supported assets, and by participating in the Build to Earn initiative (more on this below). Accumulated points will be converted to ZRC tokens in the future. Points also create the opportunity to qualify for token airdrops.

The primary way for most users to earn Zircuit points is via 

. The Zircuit Staking program lets you stake LSTs, LRTs, popular stablecoins, some wrapped tokens and Ether (ETH) to earn points. Using LSTs and LRTs, you can earn yields (along with native Zircuit staking APRs and Points) from the respective staking and restaking platforms that issue these assets.

Zircuit Points earned via staking have different multipliers, depending upon the asset. For example, Ether has a multiplier of 0.5, while LSTs, LRTs and stablecoins have a multiplier of 1. Multipliers for different LST and LRT assets may be subject to change in the future.

Build to Earn is another way to qualify for Zircuit Points. The program allows developers to contribute to the Zircuit ecosystem and earn Points in a number of ways, including:

Launched in November 2024, ZRC is the platform's native cryptocurrency. It's an 

 asset deployed on both Zircuit and Ethereum Layer 1. ZRC is mainly used for reward distributions, and participation in token airdrops for ecosystem DApps. Currently, transaction fees on the network are paid in Ether. It's possible that, in the future, ZRC might be used for some transaction fee payments.

ZRC is also used for rewards under the Gas Rebate program. As users conduct transactions on the platform, they 

. Zircuit’s Gas Rebate program provides rebates to offset some of the incurred fees. The amount of ZRC earned as a rebate is proportional to the amount spent on gas in ETH; the project's documentation states that for each ETH spent on gas, the user earns 125% in ZRC. All kinds of gas fee payments qualify for the rebate, including ordinary asset transfers and transactions involving interaction with Zircuit DApps.

ZRC is a supply-capped token, with a maximum and total supply of 10 billion. The token's supply allocation shares are as follows:

The ZRC token is available on Bybit's Spot market as a swap pair with USDT (

 to grab a share of the 5 million ZRC prize pool. New users who sign up for a Bybit account and complete identity verification can earn ZRC rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 2,000 ZRC, or by depositing 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of ZRC via their first trade with Bybit. 

Meanwhile, existing users can qualify for ZRC rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of ZRC on the Bybit Spot market, with the possibility of earning up to 10,000 ZRC based on trading volume. The 

 event will run through Dec 10, 2024, 8:59AM UTC.

Zircuit is among the pioneering Layer 2 platforms to adopt a hybrid design for a rollup network. Thanks to the platform's architecture, users can take advantage of low transaction costs, fast transfers and great scalability while enjoying the benefits of high security delivered by ZK proofs and AI-driven mempool monitoring. AI-based monitoring for fraudulent transactions is a particularly notable feature of the platform and is undoubtedly among the most advanced technologies employed in the blockchain industry.

User security combined with faster and cheaper transactions for the Ethereum network — all in one package — is now feasible, thanks to Zircuit's innovative technology and unique approach!

Advanced

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What Is Zircuit (ZRC): Where Performance Meets Cutting-Edge Security

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the #Super6Bybit event, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token.

Daily Top Performer — Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

On Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.38% as tech stocks dropped and inflation data reinforced a hawkish Fed outlook. Coindesk Indices, an index measuring broader cryptocurrency market performance was down by 0.40%, with Bitcoin and Ether dropping by 1.86% and 1.79%, respectively in the past 24 hours.

Today's top performer is VIRTUAL, which surged 53.6% following the launch of the $MUSIC token by Agentstarter, featuring AI-driven music video capabilities and community-focused tokenomics.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), founded in 2021, allows users to invest in and co-own AI-driven virtual assets like companions and influencers. Its model fosters community ownership, transforming AI agents into revenue-generating assets across platforms like Roblox and TikTok. The platform attracts contributors from AI and gaming to drive innovation in virtual economies. 

, using AI to create music videos and offering features like animated videos, voice mimicry, and karaoke tracks. The tokenomics allocate 60% for airdrops, 20% for liquidity, and 10% each for the development team and Virtuals Protocol.

Check Out the Latest Prices, Charts, and Data of 

Bybit is celebrating its sixth anniversary with the 

, offering a $1.2 million prize pool and focusing on its bbSOL token. Launched in September 2024, bbSOL is the first exchange-backed Liquid Staking Token on Solana, providing liquidity and staking rewards. The campaign, running from November 28, 2024, to January 6, 2025, invites participants to build, transform, and supercharge their bbSOL through tasks, leaderboards, and community milestones, increasing rewards. The event combines gaming mechanics, community engagement, and opportunities to win prizes while promoting innovation and growth in the crypto space.

Yesterday, there were no flows in BTC Spot ETFs, including GBTC and non-GBTC categories.

. Stake BNB on Lista's portal to get slisBNB, then deposit it into Astherus to earn airdrop points with multipliers (3X for Lista, 1.15X for Astherus). No lockup is required, and slisBNB is the most efficient option.

Beginner

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Bybit Celebrates 6th Anniversary with $1.2M Prize Pool and bbSOL Supercharging Campaign

Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report delves into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, and futures, options and perpetual contracts.

ETH has outperformed, bolstered by SEC Chair Gary Gensler's announcement of his Jan 20, 2025 departure, and suggested by growing open interest in ETH perpetual. This positive momentum extends to several large-cap altcoins previously scrutinized by the SEC, as indicated by bullish funding rates for long positions.

Please check out the report’s highlights.

ETH Open Interest Grows While BTC’s Declines

ETH is outperforming BTC following the announcement of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s departure, as evidenced in perpetual swap markets. BTC open interest has decreased from last week's highs, while ETH contracts have increased. Additionally, ETH trade volumes constitute a larger share of daily trading as compared to much of the past six months, despite an overall dip in trade volumes this week. The gradual decline in BTC open interest, without a surge in trading activity, indicates a strategic repositioning, rather than a wave of liquidations.

BTC Option Curve Inversion Deepens as Price Retreats

The pullback in the spot BTC price from the $100K target has led to a flat ATM volatility term structure, with short-tenor options dropping below 60%. 

This trend continues the correlation between term structure inversion and BTC spot price returns observed since the U.S. election on November 5, 2024

. The decline in front-end volatility aligns with lower realized volatility levels. While demand for short-tenor options has moderated, there hasn't been a notable change in open interest for calls or puts. Instead, their growth has stalled at the week's start.

Sentiment in ETH options markets seems moderately more bullish than in BTC's during the recent decline in momentum from the post-election rally. Call options lead in both trading volumes and open interest. 

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Bybit X Block Scholes Crypto Derivatives Analytics Report (Nov 27, 2024): Signal on ETH Outperformance Against BTC Surfaces on Long-Term Contracts

Bybit Learn

DeFi

Fearful of the Acala DeFi hack and aUSD depegging? Here's how the team is planning to resuming operations after the aUSD crypto-backed stablecoin crashed 99%.

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 DeFi platform known as Acala was depegged by more than 99% because of a hacker. The team behind Acala was forced to place a pause on the hacker's wallet, which caused concerns for many Acala crypto investors about how decentralized the platform actually is. The Acala DeFi hack was among the most notable hacks in the crypto industry during 2022. If you're an Acala crypto user, you’ll want to understand what the Acala DeFi attack entailed, and what it means for the Acala network over the coming months.

Acala is a Polkadot DeFi platform that offers modular financial services, and comes with a liquidity hub that's designed specifically to support Polkadot DeFi. It brings borrowing, lending and stablecoin functionality to the broader Polkadot ecosystem.

. Since the Acala network was the very first DeFi protocol to be launched with Polkadot parachain auctions, it's considered to be the Polkadot DeFi hub. Being 

, developers can easily port over their projects from Ethereum to the Acala network. This means it can potentially become the DeFi hub for practically all cryptocurrencies.

 a governance token known as ACA and a native decentralized stablecoin known as aUSD. The ACA token is also used to pay for any transaction fees. Along with ACA, there are a wide range of additional tokens that are allowed for transaction fee payments on the Acala network.

Founded by the Acala Foundation, Acala is essentially an in-depth collaboration between two development groups with Polkadot DeFi, known as Polkawallet and Laminar. The foundation has strived to develop DeFi markets across different blockchains that were connected by the 

. In order to reach this goal, the Acala network was created as a community-owned and -operated financial layer that uses Polkadot's Substrate framework. While Acala includes financial application features, their main area of focus is improving development capabilities and interoperability initiatives.

Development on the Acala network first began in 2019 when the Web3 Foundation provided Acala with a development grant. Since that time, the Acala network has obtained additional funding from crypto investment firms Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital. These private fundings raised more than $8 million by August 2020, and the Acala network was formally launched on Polkadot in  late 2021.

 (DEX), a liquidity staking protocol and a stablecoin, which makes it a well-rounded crypto project that's part of the Polkadot DeFi initiative. Since the Acala network is fully compatible with EVM, it has a considerable amount of utility for Acala crypto investors.

When using this platform, you'll gain access to DApps, crypto assets and DOT-based derivatives. At the moment, the Acala network is made up of three parts: AcalaSwap, Honzon and Homa.

 is an automated market maker (AMM) that’s based on a standard swap interface, which gives you the ability to trade various crypto assets in liquidity pools. Any liquidity providers can earn fees for placing Acala crypto into the pools. While the Acala DEX uses a very familiar structure, there's no need for it to completely change things up when it comes to decentralized trading.

On the other hand, a new feature that's possible through the Acala network DEX is the ability to natively trade between different cryptocurrencies, across any blockchains that are connected to Polkadot. Note that both Polkadot and Polkadot’s canary network Kusama are already widely adopted. In fact, popular projects announce that they want to join Polkadot via parachains on a regular basis. Therefore, it's believed that the amount of cross-chain liquidity available through the Acala DEX will always hold up.

One notable difference between the Acala network DEX and all other Ethereum-based DEX platforms is that the Acala DEX is much more affordable to use. Polkadot is known as a high-throughput blockchain, which allows for micro–gas fees. These fees can be paid with Acala crypto and a wide range of additional cryptocurrencies.

 is the stablecoin protocol that's used with the Acala crypto network. Acala has taken advantage of its reputation as a cross-chain interoperability network by developing its own aUSD stablecoin, an 

 that’s been 1:1 pegged with USD. However, it's also backed completely by other crypto collateral.

The aUSD stablecoin platform works because of the Honzon protocol, which was created for minting stablecoins whenever these coins are deposited by crypto users as collateral. Upon the launching of this protocol, the aUSD stablecoin platform was able to accept ETH, BTC and DOT as collateral. It's believed that additional currencies will eventually be supported by parachains.

The aUSD stablecoin is easy to understand. Once collateral from Acala crypto (or a wide range of other currencies) is deposited, aUSD is officially minted, after which you can open a collateral debt position. Taking on this position means that you owe money directly to the protocol, which must be repaid along with a certain amount of interest at a later date.

Once you've repaid your collateral debt position, the protocol mentioned previously will burn the same amount of aUSD stablecoin, which reduces the amount of aUSD stablecoin that's currently circulating. This process allows the aUSD stablecoin to maintain its USD peg. If you're considering investing in the aUSD stablecoin, it’s important to know that Honzon comes with enhanced stability and security.

The Polkadot DeFi ecosystem centers on bonding assets. "Bonding" involves a process that's similar to staking. During the bonding process, your tokens are locked with a smart contract for a certain amount of utility. In return for bonding your Acala crypto tokens, you'll receive interest.

Before the development of decentralized finance, it was difficult to find platforms that used staked assets. When these assets did exist, they couldn't be used for liquidity. Now that staked derivative assets have been created, crypto platforms can access staked liquidity.

The Acala network takes this one step further by providing DOT holders with 

. Also referred to as Liquid DOT, LDOT is a type of token that’s used to represent your staked liquidity. Your LDOT can be removed from the Homa protocol before being used as aUSD stablecoin collateral through Honzon.

Acala provides developers, projects and investors that have DOT crowd loans with the ability to compound their entire crypto capital, without needing to place DOT tokens directly on the market. The protocol is designed this way to resolve the illiquidity issues that come with staked DOT tokens.

While Acala doesn't necessarily revolutionize DeFi, it does have some unique aspects that differentiate it from other DeFi hubs. First of all, the Acala crypto network focuses on collaboration through its cross-chain DeFi infrastructure, which makes it beneficial for the entire industry. Investors can take out loans and fully collateralize them with crypto that comes from other blockchains. You can also use the AMM to swap cryptos without needing to wrap them beforehand, which simplifies the entire process.

If you've previously invested in the Polkadot platform, the Acala crypto network has essentially facilitated a Polkadot DeFi platform. The most modern and advanced DeFi features are supported with Acala. If you hold the Acala crypto token, you have the ability to obtain passive returns with it specifically. The returns you obtain are based on the number of tokens you stake. All of your staking rewards are paid with ACA.

Despite Acala’s ample security features, as well as those of the entire Polkadot DeFi platform, an Acala DeFi hack occurred on August 14, 2022, resulting in a large portion of aUSD stablecoin being minted. In turn, aUSD lost around 99% of its value, which is why the Acala DeFi hack is among the most severe crypto attacks to have occurred in years. The exploit experienced by the Acala network was so strong that it caused aUSD’s price to drop to practically zero. Before, it was effectively pegged 1:1 with the U.S. dollar.

The team at Acala quickly determined that the Acala DeFi hack resulted from a misconfiguration of the aUSD/

 liquidity pool, which had gone live just earlier that day. This issue resulted in a minting error with a sizable amount of aUSD. One hacker involved with the Acala DeFi hack was able to mint around $1.28 billion in aUSD, which was swapped for a much smaller amount of the ACA token.

Shortly after the Acala DeFi hack began, Acala placed the parachain into maintenance mode, which paused all swaps. Oracle price feeds and cross-chain transactions were also paused, which resulted in the hacker being effectively stranded with $1.28 billion in aUSD tokens that were no longer worth anything.

A few additional users mimicked the initial hack to mint anywhere from $25,000 to $80 million in aUSD. The total sum of stolen funds is less than $10 million when not taking the aUSD depeg into account. After the Acala DeFi hack, many crypto investors began to raise questions about the Acala network’s viability.

Since the breach of the Acala network in mid-August, the team has managed to recover around 3 billion aUSD to help push the value closer to the 1:1 USD peg. During the second trace, following the Acala DeFi hack, they were able to recover around 1.68 billion aUSD. The first trace allowed for the recovery of 1.29 billion aUSD. Additional trace reports are expected to occur in the weeks to come, which may lessen the severity of the Acala DeFi hack.

While the Acala DeFi hack was severe, the team at Acala was able to quickly freeze all services, which effectively lessened the impact caused by the hack. Around 16 separate users who contributed to aUSD liquidity pools received aUSD that was minted during the Acala DeFi hack. Along with the trace reports, Acala will publish a postmortem. While aUSD was initially valued at around $0.01 after the Acala DeFi hack, it's now valued at around $0.85 because of recent recovery efforts.

As the Acala platform token, ACA has been allocated for rewards, strategic investors, the Acala team, further ecosystem development and a certain amount of reserves. By the end of 2026, more than $800 million of ACA will be distributed. The amount that's distributed to crowd loan participants, strategic partners and the Acala team will grow over time.

ACA is currently priced at $0.235 and has a circulating supply of more than 508 million tokens. The market cap is right around $120 million. Acala aims to soon release a final trace report that goes into more detail about the recent DeFi hack, which can be verified by the community with on-chain data. Proposals will then be formulated by re-collateralizing aUSD. The community will be able to make decisions and formulate service resumption plans.

The Acala DeFi hack was immediately damaging to the value of aUSD. While steps have been taken by the Acala team to remedy this issue, the extent and severity of the hack means that you should take some time to determine if Acala is a good investment for your portfolio.

While the hack has put a pause on the Acala team's road map, the map is still ambitious and may eventually be able to help crypto investors gain confidence in the platform. For instance, Acala eventually wants to enable balance transfers and is working to further invest in ecosystem development over the next few years.

Before investing, consider focusing on what the Acala team says about additional steps they'll take to resolve the issues caused by the Acala DeFi hack. If they correct these problems, you should be able to invest without worrying too much about your crypto portfolio.

If you’d like to invest in ACA, you can do so on Bybit with Spot trading. All that's required for you to get started is for you to 

From there, you'll notice a search box at the top center of the page. Once you type in "ACA," you'll be shown an 

 Spot trading option. Click on it to be taken to the main ACA page. On the right side of the page, you can enter the amount of ACA you'd like to purchase. Make sure that your wallet is connected to Bybit before you begin.

Despite the severity of the Acala DeFi hack, the team at Acala has taken numerous steps to recover the minted aUSD and stem the issues caused by this hack. However, some crypto investors still distrust Acala because of the belief that the platform isn't as decentralized as it had been advertised to be. Whether you choose to invest in the aUSD stablecoin, or decide to take your crypto assets elsewhere, it's clear that the Acala DeFi hack has caused a considerable amount of damage to the platform's reputation, as well as the value of aUSD.

Acala DeFi Hack: Is aUSD Worth Investing in After the Exploit?

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