Ex-Ripple Engineer: XRP Protocol Freeze Influenced Ethereum, Google Issues Scam Alert for iPhone Users, Shiba Inu (SHIB) Secures Binance Trading Expansion: Morning Crypto Report

TL;DR

• Ethereum’s secret history: Former Ripple engineer Steven Zeiler reveals how Vitalik Buterin almost built smart contracts on XRP before Ripple’s management pivot led to the birth of Ethereum.
• Google researchers uncover “Coruna,” a sophisticated iPhone exploit stealing seed phrases, while 13,000+ Android devices were found preinfected with the Keenadu malware.
• Binance updates the “Position Snowball” trading bot with support for 24 new contracts, including SHIB, Cardano and SUI, allowing for automated position compounding.
• Bitcoin eyes a breakout toward $74,000, closing its strongest week since late 2025 despite looming volatility from upcoming U.S. employment data.

Ripple’s pivot on XRP may have led Vitalik Buterin to create ETH

An interesting story surfaced today in the XRP community when Steven Zeiler, a former Senior Software Engineer at Ripple and now a developer evangelist at yellow.com, described a key historical moment when the paths of Ripple and the future cofounder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, crossed.

According to Zeiler, in 2013-2014, during the Money 2020 conference in Las Vegas, the Ripple team was discussing the implementation of smart contracts on the Ripple ledger — what is now called the XRP Ledger. Buterin was in close contact with Ripple developers at that time and worked with them on the concept of creating a Trusted Compute Engine. They even visited Google headquarters to discuss code security.

At some point, Ripple management decided to freeze the XRP protocol and focus exclusively on banking technology, payments and settlements. Smart contracts and decentralized applications were pushed into the background. According to Steven, it was exactly at this moment that Buterin decided to launch Ethereum in order to realize the very concept of programmable money that Ripple had abandoned.

In Zeiler’s opinion, Ethereum has won so far because its creators understood that the future belongs to code that executes in a guaranteed and identical way for everyone, eliminating the need to trust people, organizations or politicians.

New Coruna exploit targets iPhone users, warns Google

In parallel news, Google warned users about a new scheme of cryptocurrency theft through iPhone hacking. Security researchers at Google discovered a powerful set of exploit tools called Coruna, which is used on fake crypto websites to hack iPhones and steal seed phrases.

The toolkit contains five exploit chains and 23 iOS vulnerabilities, including previously unknown ones. The malicious code activates when a user visits fake crypto websites, for example, copies of exchanges. After infection, the system scans notes and searches for seed phrases, bank account data and crypto applications.

Developing such a tool may cost millions of dollars, and its origin is currently being actively discussed in the cybersecurity industry.

Interestingly, it became known earlier in February that Android smartphones were being sold already infected with malware designed to steal cryptocurrency. On more than 13,000 devices, a malicious program called Keenadu was discovered. It had been integrated into the firmware at the production stage.

This virus is capable of fully controlling the device, infecting installed applications including crypto wallets, installing APK files and granting them all permissions. It can monitor activity in the browser even in incognito mode.

Binance expands “Position Snowball” strategy to Shiba Inu (SHIB)

Another important piece of news came today from the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. According to an official announcement from the black-and-yellow platform, the capabilities of the trading bot for the Position Snowball strategy have been expanded.

Starting today, the Binance trading bot supports 24 new contracts for this strategy. Among the assets included are popular tokens, such as Shiba Inu (SHIB), as well as Cardano, Polkadot, Near, SUI, TRX, XLM and others.

The goal of the update is to provide users with more flexibility and the possibility of capital growth when the strategy is used successfully. The strategy itself is based on automated futures trading that works on a principle of accumulation. The bot automatically increases the size of a position using realized profit from already opened positions.

According to Binance, it works best on markets with a clear trend in one direction. Profit is reinvested to increase the position if profit exists at all, creating a snowball effect and potentially increasing the final return without the need to add additional personal funds. In other words, a form of recapitalization takes place.

Important: this strategy carries high risk because the use of leverage and constant position growth can lead to rapid liquidation if the market suddenly moves against the user.

Crypto market outlook: Will Friday’s jobs data trigger fuel rally?

At the same time, the attention of the crypto market is turning toward tomorrow’s employment data as the end of the work week approaches. Oil prices are also influencing the situation right now, where a simple principle often works — the more expensive oil becomes, the cheaper cryptocurrencies become, and vice versa.

Looking at the Bitcoin price on TradingView, this relationship is currently having a positive effect. After a successful retest at the level of $71,800, the price of the main cryptocurrency moved higher and is now trading around $72,700.

Whether Bitcoin will manage to break the previous day’s high at $74,000, which represents the upper resistance boundary, remains to be seen.

Friday has traditionally been a highly volatile day. Traditional financial markets close positions ahead of the weekend during periods of strong volatility. Cryptocurrency markets operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which leads to larger volatility compared with traditional counterparts.

At the moment, however, Bitcoin is closing the week with gains of more than 10.5%. This is its most successful week since September 2025 so far.