Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Citi and DBS completed a weekend cross-border payment using tokenized deposits on Swift. Bitcoin sidechain Liquid paused operations after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew about $320 million in Bitcoin, while Chilean exchange Orionx began shutting down after an audit uncovered a custody shortfall.

Citi, DBS complete first weekend tokenized cross-border deposit on Swift

Singapore-based financial services group DBS and American financial services giant Citi completed the first weekend tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the US on Saturday.

The two companies executed the transaction using tokenized deposits via the Swift Digital Ledger to bypass the constraints of traditional banking hours, DBS announced on Monday.

The deposit was finalized in minutes, which DBS called a “significant improvement” from the industry norm of as long as two business days for traditional cross-border transfers.

The transaction demonstrates how traditional banks are exploring blockchain rails for more efficient cross-border transactions while aiming to keep deposits inside banking channels. Standard Chartered and HSBC were the first to complete a tokenized cross-border transaction on Swift’s blockchain ledger in August.

In July, Swift, the world’s largest financial messaging network, said that its blockchain-based ledger was ready for initial use and that it was preparing to pilot tokenized cross-border payments with 17 major banks, including Citi and DBS, as well as HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ and Standard Chartered.

Bitcoin sidechain Liquid pauses after purported ‘white hats’ withdraw $320M in BTC

On Sunday, Liquid said that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, while exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.

Blockstream, Liquid’s technology provider, started contacting the actors through signed onchain messages. Subsequent messages show the actors told Blockstream to patch the vulnerability and ensure every node was updated before they would return most of the Bitcoin. 

They also sent encrypted technical details to Blockstream, according to Galaxy Digital research head Alex Thorn. At the time of writing, the funds had not been returned. 

SideSwap said the withdrawal passed through its peg-out service as a customer order using its Peg-out Authorization Key (PAK), but that the key was not compromised. It said the L-BTC used in the transaction originated from a bug in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid, rather than SideSwap’s systems. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Liquid Network and Blockstream for comment.

The withdrawn Bitcoin represented roughly 95% of the wallet’s approximately 4,200 BTC balance before the incident. Liquid said other assets issued on the network, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected. The sidechain remained paused while federation members worked to fix the vulnerability. 

Tether-backed Orionx to shut down after audit flags $7M custody gap

Tether-backed Chilean crypto exchange Orionx is permanently shutting down after a forensic audit found more than $7 million in customer assets had moved to wallets outside its custody.

Orionx said withdrawals are temporarily suspended as it works to return as much of clients’ assets as possible. The exchange has filed a criminal complaint against former executives and co-founders Roberto Zibert and Joaquín Díaz, who have denied wrongdoing.

The alleged transfers occurred between 2018 and 2021, according to local reports. Tether led Orionx’s Series A funding round in June 2025 as part of its expansion into Latin America.