Bitcoin reclaims $74,000 support amidst DeFi turbulence; ETH and SHIB recover following KelpDAO exploit

Monday’s Asian session opens with markets trying to regain balance.

On a 7-day basis, major assets are still in positive territory, but the weekend was anything but stable. Now that the new week is underway, attention is back on Bitcoin’s resilience, Ethereum’s response to fresh DeFi pressure, and what Shiba Inu’s rebound says about risk appetite across the market.

The global cryptocurrency market cap is moving through a phase of uneasy relief. Late last week, Bitcoin price pushed toward $78,000 before the weekend mood shifted sharply after a security incident in the Ethereum ecosystem rattled sentiment.

As of April 20, 2026, markets are attempting to stabilize, with institutional support on one side and DeFi-driven volatility on the other.

Bitcoin holds its ground above a key level

Bitcoin remains the market’s main anchor, with the BTCUSDT pair trading at $74,583.72 at the time of writing. Even after pulling back from its weekend high near $78,000, the Bitcoin price is still up 5% over the past week.

The weekend decline, which picked up late on Saturday (April 18), reflected a broader risk-off reaction as stress spread beyond smaller tokens and into the wider market. Even so, BTC continues to defend the $74,000 area, which now looks like an important psychological and technical support zone.

What stands out is that Bitcoin did not fully unravel with the rest of the selloff on Saturday. The market is still treating BTC as the strongest asset in the room, especially after the SEC’s Token Taxonomy reclassifying BTC and ETH as digital commodities. This regulatory confirmation helped reinforce institutional confidence.

As Asian trading resumed Monday, the BTC-USDT price chart began to show signs of stabilization, hinting that the first wave of panic selling may already have burned through.

Ethereum absorbs the KelpDAO shock

Ethereum has faced a much rougher 48 hours. The ETH price is currently sitting at $2,284.75, still up 4.08% on the week, but notably below its weekend peak near $2,480.

The main trigger was the KelpDAO security incident. An exploit tied to a cross-chain bridge reportedly led to the theft of around 116,500 rsETH, valued at roughly $292 million. That depegging then spilled into Aave V3, where rsETH had been widely used as collateral.

This is where the Ethereum price came under more direct pressure.

The resulting bad debt on Aave triggered a wave of liquidations, pushing ETH lower as automated selling accelerated the move. Despite that, the wider market appears to view this as a localized DeFi stress event rather than a structural problem with Ethereum itself.

That distinction matters. Ethereum remains tied to a much bigger long-term narrative, especially as the Ethereum Foundation continues advancing its 2026 roadmap and the Glamsterdam upgrade remains on the horizon. For now, the weekend selloff looks more like a sharp ecosystem shock than a deeper loss of confidence in the network.

Shiba Inu reflects the return of speculative risk

Shiba Inu remains a useful read on retail sentiment and liquidity conditions. The Shiba Inu price is currently $0.00000597, leaving SHIB price up 2.93% over the past week, though weekend price action was far from calm.

As liquidity tightened and the Aave freeze hit confidence, SHIB fell harder in percentage terms than the majors, dropping from $0.00000650. That is not especially surprising. High-beta assets usually react first and more aggressively when leverage gets flushed out of the market.

What is notable is the Monday rebound. SHIB’s bounce broadly tracks Ethereum’s recovery, which suggests speculative capital is slowly stepping back in as fears of wider contagion begin to ease.

What to watch next

As the week unfolds, attention will stay fixed on the Aave governance forums, any updates on reopening affected markets, and the final assessment of KelpDAO-related losses.

For Bitcoin, the immediate question is whether the BTC price can continue holding above $74,000 as London and New York come online. If it can, the weekend drop may end up looking like a short-lived disruption rather than a bigger trend shift.

For Ethereum, the focus is slightly different. The ETH price now needs to show it can absorb DeFi-specific stress without dragging the wider market back into another round of disorder.

If that happens, this episode may be remembered less as a turning point and more as a harsh reminder that ecosystem risk can still move fast, even in a stronger 2026 market backdrop.

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