The earnings reports and Fed decision will test tech giants' growth strategies, impacting investor sentiment and future market valuations.

The post Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon face earnings test amid Fed rate decision appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The draft AI bill highlights the tension between industry self-regulation and government oversight, impacting future AI policy frameworks.

The post Anthropic’s draft AI bill draws fire for setting a high bar on federal action appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The discontinuation of LayerZero support for opBNB may prompt strategic shifts in CAKE liquidity management and influence future tokenomics.

The post PancakeSwap tells CAKE holders on opBNB to bridge out before November 23 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The incident highlights the inherent risks of custodial trading bots, urging users to prioritize security and transparency in crypto platforms.

The post BloomTrading bot users lose nearly $1M as wallets get drained appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The lending freeze on AI data centers may drive consolidation, favoring diversified firms like SpaceX, impacting the AI infrastructure landscape.

The post Elon Musk says lenders have nearly stopped funding AI data center firms appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

NY Seeks $1.37 Billion Judgment Against Operators of NovaTech Crypto Ponzi Scheme

New York Attorney General Letitia James is trying to secure a $1.37 billion judgment against the operators of NovaTech and its predecessor AWS Mining, two successive cryptocurrency investment schemes that allegedly defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide out of more than $1 billion.

Alleged founders Cynthia and Eddy Petion never appeared in court and, according to the AG’s office, fled the country.

“NovaTech and AWS Mining scammed thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers by telling them they were making a safe investment when in reality, they were victims of a pyramid scheme,” James said in a statement. “These scammers targeted immigrant and religious communities with the promise of a better life but instead robbed them of their life savings.”

The schemes, AWS Mining and later NovaTech, relied on promoters who recruited heavily in Haitian and other immigrant communities — through prayer groups, WhatsApp chats, and ads in Haitian Creole.

AWS Mining sold crypto mining contracts promising 15 to 20 percent monthly returns and 200 percent within 15 months. It collapsed in 2019. The Petions then launched NovaTech, marketed as a registered hedge fund broker, promising weekly trading returns of two to four percent — more than 140 percent a year.

Those returns were fabricated, according to prosecutors. Records from B2Broker, which supplied NovaTech’s white-label trading platform, show that of the more than $1 billion investors deposited between 2019 and 2023, only about $26 million was ever actually traded — and NovaTech’s traders lost $18.2 million of that. Returns to earlier investors came from newer deposits, not trading. When NovaTech collapsed in mid-2023, tens of thousands of investors could not withdraw their funds.

The AG is also seeking $134.5 million the Petions allegedly withdrew to their own wallets from the investor account Cynthia Petion solely controlled, plus $4.7 million tied to the earlier AWS Mining scheme. A default judgment entered in August 2025 already bars the couple and their companies from the securities, commodities, and cryptocurrency industries.

Separately, four of the scheme’s top promoters have agreed to pay nearly $6 million in disgorgement to victims and accepted the same industry bans.

This post NY Seeks $1.37 Billion Judgment Against Operators of NovaTech Crypto Ponzi Scheme first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockstream Launches Institutional Consulting Services, Opens Lugano Office

Blockstream has launched a consulting business for financial institutions and opened an office in Lugano, Switzerland, the company shared today. The expansion gives banks, asset managers and other institutions direct access to the firm’s engineering teams and Bitcoin infrastructure, Blockstream said. 

Blockstream Consulting Services will support institutions through the evaluation, design and implementation of Bitcoin-based financial infrastructure. The company said the business will develop solutions for tokenized asset issuance, confidential settlement and related infrastructure, with services spanning technical strategy, system architecture, integration and implementation.

From Lugano, Blockstream plans to serve clients across Switzerland, including Zurich, Geneva and Zug. The company said the office will serve as a hub for its European operations, supporting client relationships, strategic partnerships and collaboration with the region’s financial and technology communities.

“Switzerland is an important market for Blockstream given its longstanding banking tradition and supportive regulatory framework for digital assets,” said Peter Bain, chief marketing officer of the company. “We look to provide regional expertise in markets where we see demand for Bitcoin infrastructure. Our consulting business, combined with our new office in Lugano, will bring tailored Bitcoin solutions to financial institutions across Europe.”

Founded in 2014, Blockstream develops technology and services across Bitcoin custody, settlement, payments, asset issuance and self-custody. Its products include the Liquid Network sidechain, Elements, Simplicity, Core Lightning, the Jade hardware wallet and the Blockstream App. This year, the company launched Simplicity smart contracts on Liquid and added Lightning support to Jade.

Bitcoin adoption by financial institutions

The company said the consulting business draws on that experience, with capabilities in cryptography, protocol engineering, security and financial technology. Multidisciplinary teams will give institutions access to the firm’s technical staff from initial evaluation through deployment.

“The next phase of Bitcoin adoption is its integration into existing financial systems,” said Adam Back, Blockstream’s co-founder and CEO. “Our extensive experience in Bitcoin cryptography, protocol development and engineering gives Blockstream the technical expertise to address the complexities of integrating Bitcoin into traditional financial infrastructure.”

The company framed the move as part of a long-term commitment to Switzerland and a broader strategy of building a presence in key markets to support institutional Bitcoin adoption. 

The country has become a center for digital asset firms, with Zug’s “Crypto Valley” and a regulatory framework that permits banks to hold and trade bitcoin on behalf of clients.

There was no pricing disclosed, headcount for the Lugano office or named clients for the consulting business. The company said the Lugano office is open and that consulting engagements are available to institutions across Europe.

This post Blockstream Launches Institutional Consulting Services, Opens Lugano Office first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Core Ends Long Embargoes for Bugs AI Can Rediscover

Bitcoin Core has changed its security disclosure policy to speed up fixes for vulnerabilities that large language models can find with little effort, ending the months-long embargoes those bugs once received.

Maintainers merged the change to the project’s security policy on Thursday. Chaincode Labs developer Antoine Poinsot, who wrote the proposal, announced it in a message to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List the same day.

“We recently experienced an increase in the number of reports for security vulnerabilities that can be easily (re-)discovered,” Poinsot wrote. “This is largely due to LLMs drastically reducing the bar to find certain classes of issues or identify covert fixes.”

How the policy worked before

Bitcoin Core, the software that runs on most nodes in the Bitcoin network, has graded each reported vulnerability by severity and timed its disclosure to match. Low-severity flaws were made public two weeks after the next major version shipped. 

Medium- and high-severity issues stayed under embargo until two weeks after the last affected release reached end of life, a span that could stretch to a year.

The extended timelines gave node operators, many of whom upgrade at a slow pace, time to move to patched software before details became public. In practice, the approach meant fixes went unreleased for older maintained versions and arrived with the next major release.

Poinsot argued that this tradeoff fails for bugs that are easy to rediscover. “The embargo period achieves little but it delays the availability of a fixed release,” the policy reads.

What changes

During triage, Bitcoin Core can flag a vulnerability as “easily discoverable,” a category the policy defines as issues that can be found “with minimal effort, such as through a simple LLM prompt.” The label is open to flaws found by other means as well.

For those issues, the project will backport a fix to every maintained major version, cut point releases as soon as possible and publish a security advisory with some details at the same time as the fixed software. 

Poinsot acknowledged that such fixes will have less testing time before they reach users.

Vulnerabilities outside that category keep the existing severity-based schedule. Critical bugs, those that could enable coin theft at the protocol level, inflate the supply or cause a permanent chain split, remain outside the standard policy and will be handled case by case.

Developer Antoine Riard pushed for an option to ship a fix without an advisory and withhold details on a case-by-case basis. Poinsot declined, writing that alerting users without details “could create more risk unnecessarily” by prompting a rushed migration among users who would otherwise be unaffected.

A summer of AI-driven reports

The change follows months of heightened pressure on Bitcoin’s open-source projects. In late July, a volunteer group of 16 developers known as the Bitcoin Red Team ran AI models across 390 bitcoin repositories in about a day and logged 4,962 findings, including 85 rated critical.

Within days, a BTCPay Server flaw the group had reported in private was exploited on live merchant servers, draining Lightning nodes.

In August, Core Lightning developers told operators to upgrade or disconnect after AI-generated reports to the project proved accurate.

The Red Team effort followed a Coldcard hardware wallet exploit in which attackers drained 594 BTC in 25 minutes on July 30. Losses across four sweeps approached $114 million.

This post Bitcoin Core Ends Long Embargoes for Bugs AI Can Rediscover first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETFs Lose Over $635M In One Day Following Oil Price Spike 

U.S. investors quickly reversed course on Thursday, cashing out over half a billion dollars from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds as risk-off sentiment surfaced again. 

A total of $635.6 million left the funds on Thursday, data from Farside Investors shows. The redemptions put downward pressure on the price of bitcoin, which dropped under $81,000 at one point. 

The coin has since rebounded and was recently trading for nearly $81,669, down just 1% over a 24-hour period. 

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust saw the biggest outflows, with investors cashing out over $254 million. Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund followed, losing close to $218 million. 

Over $109 million left the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF; Morgan Stanley’s fund and Bitwise’s ETF lost nearly $30 million and over $27 million, respectively. 

But the investment vehicles this week have this week received net positive investment of over $439 million. 

Investors went into “risk-off” mode after flare ups in the Middle East sent the price of oil higher. Brent crude hit its highest price in five months after Yemeni rebel group the Houthis on Thursday attacked Saudi Arabia, sparking concerns over more disruption to energy supplies. 

Bitcoin’s price has been rattled this year since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, halting oil supplies as ships have struggled to pass through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil passes through. 

A higher oil price can hurt the price of bitcoin and other “risk-on” assets because it increases the chances of the U.S. central bank raising interest rates. 

Bitcoin has typically done well in a low interest rate environment because it means the asset has more liquidity to rally. 

Investors on Thursday also sold off tech stocks, which had rallied earlier in the week off the back of SpaceX’s impressive earnings. 

Analysts are saying bitcoin is entering a bull market again. Data last month showed that  the leading cryptocurrency crossed above its 365-day moving average — a typical sign it is out of a bear market — following a strong run in August. 

Bitcoin notched a record of $126,080 in October 2025 but then began to sink later that month after the biggest liquidation event in crypto history saw over $19 billion in bets closed. 

The coin spent the first half of 2026 trading well below that level but picked up again in August and September, having its best quarter in years. 

This post Bitcoin ETFs Lose Over $635M In One Day Following Oil Price Spike  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Franklin Templeton Clears Final Hurdle For ETFs That Turn Stock Dividends Into Bitcoin

Franklin Templeton has taken the last regulatory step before launching two exchange-traded funds that convert stock dividends into bitcoin. 

On October 22, Franklin Templeton filed a Form 8-A with the Securities and Exchange Commission to register shares of the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF for trading on the Nasdaq. A prospectus filed the same day lists an effective date of October 27.

The filings for both funds arrived in June without tickers or fees. Four months later, the details are in.

How the funds work

The Equity fund, ticker FBEQ, tracks the VettaFi US Large-Cap 500 Bitcoin DRIP Index. The index holds the 500 largest U.S. companies by market capitalization, weighted by float-adjusted market cap. 

As of September 30, it held 499 stocks ranging from $10.2 billion to $5.5 trillion in size, with a concentration in information technology.

At inception, the index allocates 95% to those stocks and 5% to bitcoin. Each dividend the companies pay, regular or special, is reinvested into bitcoin at the market open on the day after the ex-date. The bitcoin share of the portfolio grows with each payment.

A traditional dividend reinvestment plan, or DRIP, buys more shares of the company that paid the dividend. Franklin’s version routes that cash into bitcoin. 

For a holder, the dividend stream from the largest companies in America becomes a recurring bitcoin purchase, with no exchange account, no wallet and no custody decisions.

The bitcoin position has limits. At each quarterly rebalance, an allocation above 5% is trimmed to 4.5%. If bitcoin exceeds 20% of the index between rebalances, it is cut back to 4.5% within two business days, and the proceeds return to stocks. The result is a stock fund with a bitcoin sleeve, not a bitcoin fund.

The ETF does not hold bitcoin on-chain. It gains exposure through bitcoin exchange-traded products, including Franklin’s own spot fund, through bitcoin futures and options, or through depositary receipts, in some cases via a Cayman Islands subsidiary.

FBEQ carries a 0.09% expense ratio with no 12b-1 fee. Franklin Advisory Services manages the fund, with Franklin Templeton Institutional as sub-advisor. Dina Ting, Hailey Harris, Joe Diederich and Basit Amin serve as portfolio managers.

The Innovation fund follows the same mechanic on the VettaFi US Innovation 100 Bitcoin DRIP Index, which draws from the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq.

A deeper bet on bitcoin

Franklin Templeton filed for a spot bitcoin ETF in September 2023 and launched it as EZBC in January 2024. In April, the firm acquired 250 Digital and formed Franklin Crypto, an institutional digital asset division. Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson has argued that blockchains threaten Wall Street’s fee structure more than its technology.

The DRIP funds extend that strategy to investors who may never buy bitcoin on their own. A retiree holding an S&P 500-style fund in a brokerage account can, through FBEQ, let dividends from the companies she already owns build a bitcoin position over years.

The prospectus warns that investors can lose money, and that bitcoin’s price swings may affect the fund’s net asset value. Whether that trade-off appeals to the audience Franklin Templeton is targeting will become clear after October 27.

This post Franklin Templeton Clears Final Hurdle For ETFs That Turn Stock Dividends Into Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Covered holders could redeem without a minimum amount, while reserve-market illiquidity could limit daily exits and banking access would still matter.

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Operators post a separate bond, while activation, cap increases and protocol inflows determine how much validator stake arrives later.

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The MDK v0.11 reference agent requires human approval, while site identity and command controls determine who may act.

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Bitquery linked failed exits to depleted backing for Initia balances as the project outlined a patch and ongoing recovery work.

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Prosecutors allege a bank-to-USDT laundering role in a case involving 174 identified US victims; no new repayment figure was announced.

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MemeCore stands at $0.95, around 25 percent above the level of a week ago, according to CoinGecko as of Sunday morning. Over the same window Bitcoin has lost 3.6 percent and Ethereum 5.1 percent. The token, which trades under the ticker M, ranks 47th among crypto assets by market capitalisation and is therefore not a minor name easily overlooked.

What is interesting is less the rise than what carried it. Trading turnover over the past seven days ran between $0.7 million and $3.8 million a day, against a market capitalisation of $2.18 billion. A market of that size normally moves on a multiple of those sums. And on November 1 a tranche of 56.11 million tokens is added, worth around 30 days of turnover.

MemeCore (M) on the week: up 25.8 percent on $1.77 million of daily turnover

The week's figures in detail, taken from the CoinGecko price series: on October 19, M stood at $0.7582; on Sunday morning at $0.9494. Calculated over that series, the gain is 25.2 percent. CoinGecko reports 25.8 percent for its own seven-day window, and the single-coin query gives 28.0 percent. The range of 25 to 28 percent arises because the windows are cut differently; it is not smoothed over here.

The weekly low was $0.7226 on October 20, the high $0.9532 on Sunday. The rise is not evenly spread: between October 22 and 24 the price moved from $0.7468 to $0.9300, and after that it ran sideways. M remains 83.2 percent below its all-time high of $5.64, set on July 2, 2026.

For comparison, the same week seen from a report dated October 19: M stood at $0.7218 then and had lost 23 percent over seven days, at a market capitalisation of $1.65 billion, as TokenPost reported. Within two weeks the token has therefore first fallen sharply and then risen sharply, without much change in the number of holders.

Turnover per dollar of market capitalisation: MemeCore sits at 0.081 percent

To gauge how thin this market is, one figure helps: daily turnover divided by market capitalisation. The value names the share of a crypto asset that actually changes hands in a day. A high value means many buyers and sellers meet. A low value means few orders set the price.

For MemeCore the value is 0.081 percent. Bitcoin comes in at 1.051 percent, Ethereum at 2.668 percent, Solana at 2.865 percent. Measured against its own size, MemeCore's turnover is therefore about a thirteenth of the Bitcoin figure and a thirty-third of the Ethereum figure. Of 21 crypto assets examined from the top 25 excluding stablecoins, only two came in lower, and both are tokens that are barely freely traded.

How the analysis was produced

The basis is CoinGecko market data on the 25 largest crypto assets from October 26, 2026, plus the individual data on MemeCore. The ratio was formed from each asset's turnover and market capitalisation; stablecoins were left out because their turnover follows a different logic. Twenty-one crypto assets plus MemeCore were examined. Cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 26, 2026.

A thin market also shows in the number of trading venues. An earlier count found that 13 exchanges list M, but not one offers a euro pair. Selling from Germany therefore means routing through another currency, and every intermediate step costs spread.

What MemeCore is: a layer-1 blockchain with its own MRC-20 tokens

MemeCore is a standalone layer-1 blockchain, a network with its own settlement and its own validators, rather than an application running on someone else's blockchain. The token M is the means by which the network is paid for and secured. According to the project documentation, validators receive M for producing blocks and, in addition, a share of all MRC-20 tokens created on the network.

MRC-20 is this blockchain's token standard, comparable to what ERC-20 does on Ethereum. Every launch of such a token comes with a Meme Vault, according to the documentation, from which creators, users and holders who contribute to the token's lifespan are rewarded. For investors, that means the value of M depends on its own price and, in addition, on whether tokens are created on this blockchain at all for validators to earn from.

On October 15, MemeCore brought a bridge via LayerZero and Stargate into operation, according to its own announcement. Holders have since been able to move M between MemeCore, BNB Smart Chain and Base. More crossings mean more places where trading can happen, but they create no turnover by themselves, and last week's figures show that clearly.

The tranche on November 1: 56.11 million M meet a thin market

The next dated event falls eleven days after the start of the week. According to TokenPost, 56.11 million M will be released on November 1 at 23:44 Coordinated Universal Time, equivalent to about 2.45 percent of the circulating supply. The calculation can be followed from the circulation data: 56,111,111 tokens out of 2,290,488,989 in circulation give 2.45 percent.

The information on the day rests on a thin set of sources, however. TokenPost names November 1, the CoinMarketCap analysis speaks more generally of early November, and the preceding tranches each fell at the start of a month. Anyone who needs the date for a decision should therefore read it as early November rather than as a fixed calendar day.

What counts in any case is the scale relative to the market. At Sunday's price the tranche is worth around $53.3 million. At daily turnover of $1.77 million, that corresponds to roughly 30 days of trading. Nobody can say whether and how quickly released tokens are sold; many simply stay put. Yet if even a small part of them reaches the market, it meets a thinly populated order book. How releases work technically, and why a cliff acts differently from a monthly instalment, is set out in our explainer on token unlocks and vesting.

Circulating supply and dilution: 22.9 percent of the maximum supply is in circulation

M has a maximum supply of 10 billion tokens. In circulation are 2,290,488,989 units, or 22.9 percent. The total supply created so far stands at 5,429,478,735 tokens. Between what trades today and what can exist in the end lies more than a factor of four.

That gap is the real frame for any view on the price of M. As long as tranches are added monthly, the circulating supply grows, and an unchanged price then means a rising market capitalisation. For holders, that means the share your holding represents of the overall network falls with every release unless you buy more.

Levels above and below: $0.9532 as the weekly high, $0.7226 as the low

As points of observation rather than price targets, three values emerge from the week. Above sits the weekly high at $0.9532, and immediately beyond it the round dollar mark, which M has not seen since the start of October. Below sits the weekly low at $0.7226, with the zone around $0.89 in between, which served as Sunday's daily low.

At turnover of $1.77 million a day, such levels say less about supply and demand than they would in a liquid market. A single larger order can push through them without anything having changed in the project's position. That is no weakness of this one token; it is the property of every thinly traded market.

Buying from Germany: MiCA authorisation and the missing euro pair

Anyone wanting to buy or sell M from Germany runs into two questions. The first is the trading venue's authorisation. Since the transition period of the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets ended, crypto services may be provided in Germany only by firms holding the relevant permission. Whether a provider holds it is stated in the supervisor's registers and usually also in its legal notice. An overview of authorised venues is in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

The second question is the trading pair. Without a euro pair, a purchase runs through a stablecoin or the dollar, and selling back creates the same intermediate step again. Add the spread of both steps together before you build a position, because in a market of this thinness it weighs more heavily than the trading fee itself.

Custody: your own wallet versus an exchange account

If tokens sit in an exchange account, the exchange holds the keys. With a token whose trading is spread over few venues, that carries weight: if a venue halts trading, withdrawal depends on its deadlines. Your own wallet shifts that risk to you, but requires you to keep the recovery words safe. MemeCore is reachable on several networks via the bridges mentioned, so make sure your wallet supports the network your tokens actually sit on.

Leverage and liquidation: thin books shift the execution price

Leveraged positions on a thinly traded token add an effect many underestimate. A liquidation is not executed at the desired price but at whatever the order book offers at that moment. The fewer orders sitting there, the wider the gap between the two. At $1.77 million of daily turnover, that gap can be considerable.

Anyone who still works with leverage should size the position against the token's turnover rather than against their own portfolio. A position amounting to a meaningful share of a day's turnover moves the price against itself on the way out.

Holding period and tax: one year decides the tax liability

For private investors in Germany, crypto assets are subject to the one-year holding period under section 23 of the Income Tax Act: after twelve months of holding, gains on a sale are tax-free, while within the period an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros a year applies. A reform of this rule is under political discussion; nothing has been decided so far.

In practice, with a token like M that swings sharply, that means every swap counts as a sale, including the route through a stablecoin. Anyone moving between networks over a bridge should document the transactions so that it remains traceable later when which holding was acquired.

MemeCore tranche: 30 days of turnover against 56.11 million tokens

The week has brought MemeCore a gain of around 25 percent, and it has shown how narrow the base of that gain is. Three concrete steps follow from it.

1. Settle the venue and the pair. Check whether your provider holds the necessary permission for Germany and which pair M is tradable in there. The overview of authorised crypto exchanges sets out the terms.
2. Decide on custody. Settle before buying whether the holding stays in the exchange account or moves into your own wallet, and whether that wallet supports the right network. The hardware wallet comparison shows the differences.
3. Record your acquisition data. Note the date and value for every purchase and every swap, so that the holding period can be evidenced later. A tax tool or portfolio tracker takes over the bookkeeping.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Crypto airdrops in week 44: Aster opens on October 28, StandX on November 1

Two claim windows open this week, and a third has just shut. Aster releases the fully vested Stage 6 allocation on October 28, 2026; StandX switches on the claim for its DUSD distribution on November 1, 2026. Between them sits October 25: on that day Pharos closed its portal, and no catch-up is provided for.

Three points count now. The Aster window is fixed, with a date and a time. At StandX the checker page is already open, but the claim itself only begins in November. And the Grass payout from Stage 2 is the only entry on this list that remains reachable for months yet.

If you are new to the subject: what an airdrop is, how snapshots work and how to spot dubious offers is covered in our airdrop guide. The state of play in the previous week was still shaped by Meteora and Pharos; both windows have since closed.

The dates at a glance

1. Aster (ASTER): the full allocation can be claimed from October 28

This is the date this week on which something actually opens. Anyone who chose the option for the full vesting allocation in Stage 6 of the Aster programme, which Aster calls “Convergence”, can claim their share from October 28, 2026, 12:00 UTC. The window closes on November 28, 2026, 12:00 UTC. Both points are given by Aster's own allocation page, each with a time and a time zone.

A total of 200 million ASTER is set aside for Stage 6. The programme was structured in two tiers: those who opted for the immediate distribution received 50 percent in the spring and could claim between April 28 and May 28, 2026. Those who waited for the full allocation instead take the second window now. The choice between the two routes had to be made in April and cannot be changed after the fact.

One note on figures in circulation: several round-ups give November 4, 2026 as the starting date. The project's own page names October 28. The project's statement is what counts — anyone going by the later date loses a week of the window. How the window affects the circulating supply is covered in our piece on the Aster claim window.

2. StandX (DUSD): the checker page is open, the claim starts on November 1

This case is unusual, because there is no new token at the end of it. StandX is winding down operations, has cancelled the planned token launch and is distributing the remaining proceeds as DUSD instead. The project's announcement names fixed points for it: the checker page for the allocation has been reachable since October 26, 2026, 00:00 UTC, and the claim runs from November 1, 2026, 00:00 UTC to December 31, 2026, 08:00 UTC. Whatever is not claimed by then lapses.

Claims are made with the same wallet address that was used on StandX, on BNB Chain or on the Solana blockchain. The allocation comes as a one-off amount with no lock-up and no vesting, and is therefore immediately transferable. It is based on pre-deposits, the alpha phase, mainnet trading volume, market making and referrals; all accounts go through a check for Sybil and wash-trading patterns, and the project reserves the right to cut or cancel conspicuous allocations.

Anyone still holding a balance on the platform should keep an eye on the second set of dates: open positions will be closed at the mark price on January 15, 2027, and the redemption and payout of DUSD end on January 31, 2027. The checker page and the claim exist only on the StandX website; any other address offering a DUSD claim is an attempted fraud.

3. Grass (Stage 2): the USDC payout runs until January 22, 2027

This entry has been on the list for weeks, and it stays there because the window is wide open. Grass pays out Stage 2 rewards not in its own token but in USDC. Claims are made solely through the project dashboard at app.grass.io/dashboard. Claiming has been possible since July 22, 2026, and the project's explainer names January 22, 2027 as the deadline — along with a restriction that is easy to miss: the payout ends after six months or as soon as all allocations have been claimed, whichever comes first.

The project gives no time of day for the closing date, only for the start, at 1pm EST. The final day is therefore no buffer to rely on. Eligible are those who supplied bandwidth in epochs 1 to 19 between October 14, 2024 and June 8, 2026. Rewards left unclaimed stay with Grass, according to the project, and are not redistributed.

4. Pharos (PROS): the portal has been closed since October 25

This date has passed. The Pharos user guide lists the claim phase as April 28 to October 25, 2026; the project has announced no extension. Tokens not claimed return to the Pharos Foundation according to the project FAQ, and the airdrop page is being switched off.

The entry stands here because several round-ups still carry October 31 as the deadline. The project does not support that date. Anyone who relied on it now finds a closed portal.

Tax: what to record when the tokens arrive

For taxation it is not the sale that counts but the inflow itself — and it depends on whether anything was given in return for the airdrop. Which details you should secure at the moment of claiming, so that the figures can be evidenced later, is set out in our piece on saving airdrop data immediately. Why even an airdrop that is never sold can draw tax attention is covered in our article on unsold airdrops and the tax liability that arises without a sale. With StandX the point is particularly tangible: DUSD is available immediately, with no lock-up, so the moment of inflow falls on the day of the claim.

Airdrops in week 44: what makes sense now

Of this week's four entries, only one has a hard start date in the coming days: Aster on October 28, 12:00 UTC. StandX is worth a look at the checker page already, even though the claim only opens on November 1. Grass remains the reserve for later, with the caveat that the window can also end early.

We have not included candidates without a date from the project itself. Plume runs an ongoing claim for Season 2 but has published no end date; the deadlines named in round-ups appear nowhere on the project's own channels. At GenLayer its own channels contradict each other: the official account names October 26 as the end of registration, the portal counts down to Sunday, 23:59 UTC, and there is no claim date at all yet. Manta Network appears with a migration step on November 16, without the project having published anything on it. OpenSea, MetaMask, Base, Lighter and Polymarket continue to be traded as likely airdrops — none of these projects has named a snapshot or claim date. “Airdrop confirmed, date open” is not an entry for a deadline list.

Disclosure: some of the providers named in this article work with us through partner programmes. That has no influence on the editorial assessment.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Deadlines and participation terms change; check them with the provider before taking part.)

What is established: Bitcoin slipped to $79,332 overnight into Monday and is quoted at $79,978 on Monday morning. According to hourly data from CoinGecko, the price has not been lower in any hour since September 18. Our assessment follows further down: the round number is the smaller part of the story, Wednesday's rate decision the larger one.

Against the previous day, Bitcoin is down 1.1 percent, and 3.8 percent over seven days. Market capitalisation stands at $1.61 trillion, with turnover of $17.8 billion over the past 24 hours.

Bitcoin in overnight trading: $79,332 on Monday morning

The setback did not come in one piece but in stages. On Sunday evening, according to CoinGecko's hourly data, Bitcoin still stood at $80,403 around 10pm German time. By midnight it was $80,049, around 3am $79,660, around 4am $79,490. After that the price turned higher and worked its way back towards the round number.

The daily low of $79,332 and the daily high of $80,852 lie roughly $1,500 apart. For the start of a week that is a narrow range, and it says something about liquidity: trading in the early hours of Monday runs mainly through Asian venues, while European and American order books fill up only as the day progresses. A large order put through the market at that hour moves the price more than one placed at midday.

One term belongs here, because it appears in every description of an order book: market depth is the quantity of buy and sell orders sitting close to the current price. The thinner it is, the larger the price swing per Bitcoin traded. On Monday morning it is thinner than at European lunchtime.

The $80,000 level since September 19: only two days with prices below it

The round number draws attention precisely because it has held for so long. Our own analysis of CoinGecko hourly data for the period from September 19 to this morning shows that in those five weeks there were exactly two calendar days on which Bitcoin traded below $80,000 at all. The first was October 24, with a single hour and a low of $79,730. The second is today, and here it ran to four hours in a row.

That is the real difference from last week. On Friday the break lasted an hour and looked like a slip; today it has held for half the night. Whether a floor or another leg down comes of it will be decided by European trading on Monday morning, not by the overnight session.

The 50-day line at $81,812: the gap to the average is widening

Bitcoin has been trading below its 50-day average since last Friday, as set out in our article of October 24, 2026 on the 50-day line. The gap is what is new. From CoinGecko daily closing prices, the average of the past 50 days works out at $81,812. Bitcoin is therefore 2.3 percent below it. On Friday morning, by the same calculation, it was around 1.2 percent.

A zone has thus formed above the price against which every recovery will be measured: the $80,000 level as the first hurdle, the 50-day line at just under $82,000 as the second. Below, the overnight low of $79,490 is the next reference point, and beneath it the October 24 low at $79,730, which has already been passed.

The 200-day average lies further away. By our own calculation it stands at $72,989, leaving Bitcoin around 9.6 percent above it. The medium-term uptrend is therefore intact, even though the short-term one has turned. Bitcoin is 7.6 percent away from the 30-day high of $86,490 set on October 5.

Mining difficulty on Thursday: 5 percent more computing effort per block

On Thursday the mining difficulty of the Bitcoin network moves up. We put the expected adjustment at around 5 percent on October 25, 2026 in our Bitcoin forecast on mining difficulty. Difficulty is the dial with which the blockchain ensures, every 2,016 blocks, that a new block takes ten minutes on average, however much computing power is connected.

For the price that is not a trigger; for miners' cost base it is. If difficulty rises by 5 percent, the same block reward costs 5 percent more in electricity and hardware time. Miners with expensive power sell a larger share of their earnings in such phases rather than holding them. It lands in a week in which the price is already under pressure, and it is a reason to read Wednesday and Thursday together.

Fed decision on October 28: the rate announcement comes at 7pm German time

The Federal Reserve meeting calendar lists a two-day meeting on October 27 and 28, 2026 for October. The decision is published on Wednesday, at 7pm German winter time, with the press conference half an hour later. It is the same date we described as the fixed point of the week in our Sunday morning piece.

Why a rate decision reaches the Bitcoin price at all can be said in two sentences. A higher policy rate makes interest-bearing dollar assets more attractive and raises the cost of borrowed money used to build positions in riskier assets. When it falls, the reverse happens. Bitcoin therefore hangs not on the rate itself but on expectations of which way it moves next.

In practice, that means this for the week: between Monday morning and Wednesday evening, the reason a trend would need in order to carry is absent. Prices run tightly in such phases and react strongly to individual large orders. It matches the narrow daily range of last night.

September as the comparable case: eleven days below $80,000

There is a case in our own data set that bears comparison with today. From September 8 to 18, eleven consecutive daily closing prices came in below $80,000, the lowest on September 16 at $75,590. On September 19 Bitcoin closed back above the level at $80,874, and on September 22 at $86,597. From the September 18 close of $76,371 to that point, the move was 13.4 percent in four days. All values come from CoinGecko daily data; the averages and changes are our own calculation.

Two things set that episode apart from today, and both argue against a simple repeat. First, the September setback ran more than 12 percent below the level and was considerably deeper; today's sits a few hundred dollars under it. Second, the recovery then fell in a week with no central bank date. This week has one.

Holding period and loss offsetting: what the tax office sees in a sale at a loss

Here lies the part that matters more today for investors in Germany than any chart level. Selling Bitcoin within one year of purchase triggers a private disposal. A private disposal is a sale from private assets within the statutory one-year period; the gain is taxed at the personal income tax rate, while a loss can be offset only against gains from other private disposals, not against wages and not against investment income from shares.

That remains the framework in force. The draft abolishing the one-year period is stuck in interdepartmental consultation; the federal cabinet did not adopt it on October 14, 2026. Which dates remain open before the turn of the year, and why December 31, 2026 still carries no force of law, is set out in our overview of the status of the holding period reform.

For a setback like today's, a sober calculation follows. A sale at a loss within the one-year period creates a loss that counts against gains in the same year from other crypto or precious metal sales and can be carried forward into the next year. For that the tax office needs the acquisition date, purchase price and sale price for each position. Where the purchase record is missing, an estimate is made, and an estimate rarely falls in your favour. The transaction export from your exchange is usually available as a CSV file in the account area; how crypto tax software turns it into a position-by-position statement is covered in our comparison.

Anyone past the one-year period does not face this question today. For holdings from 2025 and earlier, a price setback in October 2026 changes nothing about the tax position as long as nothing is sold.

Buying below $80,000: the case for and against entering

In favour is the data of the past five weeks: Bitcoin has dipped below the level on only two days in that time, the gap to the 200-day average is still 9.6 percent, and sentiment has not collapsed. The Fear and Greed Index from alternative.me stands at 50 points on Monday morning, in neutral territory; on October 25 it was 54 points according to our article on the index.

Against it is the calendar. Between today and Wednesday evening sits a rate decision, on Thursday the mining difficulty adjustment, and on Friday an options expiry worth $11.1 billion runs out, according to our article of October 24, 2026 on the Fed window. Buying ahead of those dates means buying the outcome without knowing it. And October 24 showed that a break of the level guarantees no bounce: after the single hour below $80,000, the price gave way further into the weekend.

What actually makes the difference when adding to a position is not the entry price to the nearest hundred dollars, but the cost side. On a purchase of 1,000 euros, a 1.5 percent fee is 15 euros; at 0.2 percent it is 2 euros. Add to that the spread, the gap between buying and selling price, which is wider with thin market depth on a Monday morning than at midday. Laying the fee structures of the large providers side by side shows the spread between them more clearly than any price forecast.

From the newsroom's perspective: Fed Wednesday weighs more than the round number

The $80,000 level is a reference point, not a mechanism. That it was undercut for four hours last night is a signal about market depth in overnight trading and about the direction of the past seven days, in which Bitcoin has lost 3.8 percent. The evidence is set out above: two days below the level since September 19, a 2.3 percent gap to the 50-day line, 7.6 percent to the October 5 high.

Wednesday weighs more. A rate decision is an event with a fixed time and a known format, and it reaches Bitcoin through expectations about the dollar rate. Against that reading stands September, which showed how quickly a setback can resolve itself without a central bank impulse. We draw no directional call for the week from it, and we name no price target.

Bitcoin at $79,978: without a Fed signal the push is missing

Three things can be dealt with concretely this week without needing a view on the price:

1. Settle the cost side before the date arrives. Put your provider's fee and spread next to two others. The overview for that is in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Pull your acquisition data together. Download your exchange's transaction export for 2026 and check whether the date, quantity and purchase price are complete for each position. Which tools build a tax statement from it is covered in our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.
3. Separate the date from the amount. If you would rather not bet on a price, put the purchase on a fixed rhythm instead of a single day. The terms for that are in our comparison of Bitcoin savings plans.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The price of Gram stands at $1.25 on Monday morning. That is 7.2 percent below the level of a week ago, and almost all of the move happened on a single day: on October 23 GRAM fell from $1.33 to $1.157 during trading before steadying at $1.22. The obvious explanation is that leveraged positions were force-closed in sequence and dragged the price down with them.

Only half of that is supported by the data. Our own analysis of trading data from the exchange WhiteBIT shows that on exactly that day the spot market carried more turnover than the futures market — even though the reverse was true on six of the nine days examined. Our assessment follows further down; the numbers come first.

What happened to the Gram price on October 23

GRAM opened October 23 at $1.315 and reached $1.33 in early trading. From there it fell without any meaningful bounce to $1.157, the lowest level since early August. At the daily close the price stood at $1.221, 7.2 percent below the previous close. Thirteen percent separated the day's high from the day's low.

Turnover tells the same story in different words. Between October 17 and October 22, GRAM spot pairs changed hands at between $2.1 million and $3.1 million a day. On October 23 the figure was $3.6 million, on October 24 it was $4.1 million. The price did not fall into a thin market, then, but against markedly increased supply.

Conditions have calmed since. GRAM closed at $1.262 on October 24 and at $1.257 on October 25, and since the start of the new week the price has moved in a narrow band between $1.23 and $1.27. Market capitalisation stands at $3.55 billion according to CoinGecko, with 24-hour trading volume of $26.2 million, as of 2am on Monday. GRAM therefore ranks 31st among cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation.

Perpetuals versus spot: where Gram turnover actually sits

A perpetual, or perp, is a futures contract with no expiry date: you trade the price movement of a coin without owning it, and you post only a fraction of the position value as margin. That leverage is exactly what makes it attractive to speculators and dangerous for the price, because a trader who fails to top up the margin has the position closed automatically.

For this article we analysed daily trading data from five GRAM markets on the exchange WhiteBIT: the four spot pairs against USDT, USDC, the euro and WBT, plus the perpetual against USDT. The period covers the nine trading days from October 17 to October 25, 2026. Cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 26, 2026.

The result across the whole period: the perpetual accounted for $32.9 million of turnover, all spot pairs together for $26.1 million. The leveraged market thus traded 26 percent more than the cash market. The perpetual led on six of the nine days, most clearly on October 17 at double the spot turnover.

The spot low sat below the perpetual low

The exceptions to that pattern are October 23 and October 24 — precisely the two days of the sell-off. On October 23, $3.6 million of spot turnover stood against $3.2 million in the perpetual; on October 24 the figures were $4.1 million against $3.5 million. In the week GRAM fell hardest, the usual relationship inverted.

A second measure points the same way. The daily low in the GRAM/USDT spot pair on October 23 was $1.157; the low in the perpetual on the same day was $1.175. The cash market therefore fell roughly 1.5 percent further than the futures market. Had a liquidation cascade driven the move, the opposite would have been expected: forced closures originate in the futures market and pull the spot price down only afterwards.

Both figures come from a single exchange and do not describe the global market. CoinGecko lists Binance as the largest venue for GRAM, with around $6 million in daily turnover. What the numbers show is therefore a slice of the market — though a large one, and one nobody else has assembled this way.

Open interest and funding rate: where leverage stands now

For the days ahead, what happened on October 23 matters less than how much leverage currently sits in the market. Two figures answer that. The first is open interest, the sum of all outstanding futures positions. In the GRAM perpetual it stands at 4.62 million GRAM, or roughly $5.8 million at the current price.

The second is the funding rate. This rate is the balancing payment that flows between buyers and sellers every few hours and keeps the futures price tied to the cash price. When it is positive, buyers pay, which points to a surplus of long positions. For GRAM it stands at 0.005 percent, marginally in positive territory. By way of comparison, the exchange permits values of up to 2 percent in either direction.

Taken together, the two describe a market with no striking imbalance. Long positions outnumber short ones, but the skew is small, and open interest amounts to a tiny fraction of market capitalisation. Traders waiting for a second cascade will find no support for it in these figures.

From Toncoin to Gram: the ticker change and the Telegram wallet

Anyone looking for GRAM in a portfolio and failing to find it may simply be stuck on the old name. The coin was called Toncoin until the summer of 2026 and was renamed Gram after a community vote — back to the name under which Telegram had originally planned the project. The blockchain itself is still called The Open Network, or TON. We set out what the change means for holders in a separate piece on the renaming; no swap was required.

The second strand is the wallet inside Telegram. In early October the messenger opened its wallet to a larger share of its user base, which gave the price a lift at the time. The more important question is what that means for custody of your own coins: a wallet inside an app where a company manages the keys is, legally and practically, a different thing from a wallet whose recovery phrase only you know.

Levels above and below: $1.16 to $1.37

The trading data of the past nine days produce three reference points on the upside. The first sits at $1.28, the high of the past 24 hours. Above it comes the round number of $1.30, last touched on October 22. The weekly high from October 17 stands at $1.373; GRAM is currently 9 percent away from it.

There are three on the downside as well. The October 24 low sits at $1.204, beneath it the round $1.20 level, and only then the weekly low of $1.157 from the sell-off. These points are observations from the chart, not price targets and not a recommendation.

The Fed decision on October 28 is the next date in the diary

The only firmly scheduled event this week comes not from the TON ecosystem but from Washington. The Federal Open Market Committee meets on October 27 and 28 according to the official Federal Reserve meeting calendar; the decision is published on Wednesday. Since the clocks went back last weekend, it falls in the early evening for European readers.

For smaller coins such as GRAM, a date of that kind is above all a volatility risk. Such coins generally move with the broader market, and with a wider swing. Holding a leveraged position through Wednesday therefore means reckoning with a broader range than in the quiet days before it.

Leverage and liquidation: how a cascade forms

Even though the numbers for October 23 argue against a cascade, the mechanism is worth knowing, because it applies to every sharper setback. A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position once the margin posted no longer covers the loss. The exchange then sells the position into the market, whatever the price.

A cascade forms when those sales push the price to the level at which the next group of positions falls due. Each wave generates the next, until either enough buyers step in or no leveraged positions remain. What separates it from an ordinary sell-off is speed: cascades play out in minutes, not hours.

Our assessment: on the available data, the move of October 23 was a sell-off on the cash market and not a cascade. Two measured values support that reading — the higher spot turnover on both down days and the spot low that sat 1.5 percent below the futures low. Against it stands the fact that our survey covers only one exchange, and liquidations may have taken place on venues we cannot see. For holders the distinction still matters a great deal: a cascade is often followed by a rapid bounce, because the selling pressure was technically forced. After a sell-off on the cash market that tailwind is missing, and the price needs fresh demand. The course so far shows exactly that: GRAM has recovered a good half of the day's loss since October 23 and has been flat ever since.

Buying route, custody and the holding period for investors in Germany

Purchases have been governed by the EU's MiCA regulation since the transition period expired last year. Providers targeting retail clients in Germany need authorisation as a crypto service provider, granted either by BaFin or by another European supervisor with passporting into the EU. Which venues hold that authorisation and what they charge is set out in our crypto exchange comparison.

On custody there are two routes to choose between. Leaving GRAM on the exchange means carrying its counterparty risk but no administrative effort. Moving the coins into your own wallet puts responsibility for the recovery phrase on you. For amounts beyond play money, the second route is the safer one.

For tax, the same rules apply to GRAM as to other cryptocurrencies held privately: a sale within one year of purchase is a private disposal, and gains from it are taxable to the extent that, together with other such transactions, they exceed the exemption threshold. After a year has passed, the sale is tax-free. None of that applies to leveraged positions; gains from those fall under the capital gains tax, and losses from derivatives can be offset only to a limited extent. Anyone who has traded with leverage during the current year should go through it with a tax adviser before the year ends.

Gram after the drop: three points for the week ahead

1. Check which form you hold GRAM in. Coins on an exchange, coins in the Telegram wallet and a leveraged position are three different risks. The one-year holding period applies only to the first two. Which devices are suitable for self-custody is shown in our hardware wallet comparison.
2. Set the two levels that count. Above, $1.30 as the first round hurdle; below, $1.20 as the line beneath which the weekly low of $1.157 comes back into reach. Monitoring needs no more than those two values; the tools for it are listed in our overview of crypto analytics platforms.
3. Factor in Wednesday. The Fed decision on October 28 moves smaller coins more than average. Traders working with leverage should check their liquidation price and margin beforehand; providers' terms are set out in our comparison of perp DEXs.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Chainlink is a decentralised oracle network: it hands smart contracts on a blockchain exactly the data they cannot see for themselves. Prices, interest rates, reserve balances, weather data, results from other blockchain networks. The LINK token pays the machines that fetch and certify that data. To understand what Chainlink is in economic terms, the price is the wrong place to start. Begin with the question of what anyone is paying for.

The project publishes the figure that shows it: $36.4 trillion in transaction value has passed through Chainlink oracles by its own count up to the start of October. This article explains what sits behind that, which services exist, what role the token plays and what an investor in Germany needs to know about buying, custody and the tax office.

Chainlink is an oracle network, not a blockchain of its own

An oracle in crypto is a bridge: a facility that carries information from outside a blockchain inside, in a form a smart contract can work with. Chainlink runs no main network of its own that holds balances. The Chainlink software runs on independent nodes, operated by node operators, and serves contracts on other blockchain networks: Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Base and dozens more.

The foundation is a document dated September 4, 2017. Steve Ellis, Cornell professor Ari Juels and Sergey Nazarov set out the problem that everything still hangs on, under the title “ChainLink: A Decentralized Oracle Network”. Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis have counted as the founders of the project ever since, Ari Juels as the academic mind behind it. The network went live on Ethereum in 2019.

In price tables the project appears as Chainlink (LINK): Chainlink is the name of the network, LINK the ticker of the token. The two belong together but do not mean the same thing. The Chainlink network is a layer above blockchain technology with exactly one function: to deliver certified data to the place where a contract needs it.

One point matters for reading the market: Chainlink does not compete with Bitcoin or Ethereum. It competes with other oracle providers. Comparing it to a currency is misleading; comparing it to an infrastructure supplier comes closer.

The oracle problem: a blockchain knows nothing about the outside world

A blockchain is a closed system. Every node has to arrive at the same result, or there is no consensus. That is precisely why a smart contract may not query anything outside itself: two nodes calling the same internet address a second apart might get two different answers, and the blockchain would split. This inability to communicate outwards is not a flaw but the price of verifiability.

The problem becomes practical the moment a contract needs to know something about the world. A lending protocol that has to liquidate a loan when the ether price falls below a threshold needs the price. Crop insurance needs rainfall figures. A tokenised money market fund needs its net asset value. Without a reliable source the contract stays blind.

The obvious fix would be a single data supplier, and that is the most dangerous one of all: whoever controls the only price source of a lending protocol can trigger the liquidations that suit them. Attacks of this kind have cost millions several times over in recent years. The Chainlink model answers with distribution: several independent nodes fetch the same value from several independent data vendors, agree on a common value through an off-chain computation and write only the result to the blockchain.

From data point to contract: the path through an oracle network

An oracle network at Chainlink is a fixed group of nodes that supply one value together. The sequence is always the same. Each node fetches the value from several paid data providers, not from a single exchange. The nodes then exchange their results and form an average from which outliers drop out. That intermediate result is signed and only then written to the target blockchain in a single transaction. The contracts there read nothing but the finished value.

Two things about this matter for investors. First, the actual work happens off the blockchain, which saves fees, because not every individual reading costs a transaction. Second, a node that reports wrong values over time falls out of the average and loses business. The system punishes poor delivery through reputation, not through a court.

Data Feeds and Data Streams: price data for DeFi trading

Data feeds are the oldest product and still the most widely used. A data feed is an oracle network that keeps one particular value permanently up to date, ETH in US dollars for example. The value is rewritten as soon as it has moved by a set margin or a set period has passed. Practically every large lending protocol in DeFi hangs on price data of this kind; it decides when posted collateral is no longer enough.

Data Streams are the fast variant for markets where seconds count. Here the value sits signed off the blockchain and is only pulled in at the moment a contract needs it. Exchanges for perpetual futures use this: traders running leveraged long positions need a price that is not twenty seconds old, or the delay alone creates losses that nobody caused.

The difference in one sentence: the data feed writes continuously, the data stream delivers on request.

Chainlink CCIP: the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol

The Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, CCIP for short, is the second large service. It moves tokens and messages between blockchain networks. A cross-chain transfer does not work by a coin physically travelling: on one side it is locked or taken in, on the other released or newly issued, and an oracle network certifies that the first step really happened.

The second version has been running since September 28, 2026. Chainlink describes it in its announcement of CCIP 2.0 as a standard for institutions: banks and issuers can plug in their own checkpoints, so-called cross-chain verifiers, which have to sign on top of the network’s standard check before a transfer is executed. That lets an in-house check on regulation and sanctions be built into the transfer path. The same announcement names Fidelity International, Sygnum, Taurus, SBI Digital Markets, ANZ, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services among its partners, plus two houses with a German connection in Crypto Finance, part of Deutsche Börse Group, and AllUnity.

Proof of Reserve, Verifiable Random Function and Automation: what the other services do

Besides data and transfers there are four further services that often get overlooked in practice.

Proof of Reserve checks whether a token really is backed. An oracle network reads the balance of the custodian or the reserve address and publishes it onchain. For tokenised gold, backed stablecoins and wrapped coins, that is the answer to the question of whether the backing still holds.

The Verifiable Random Function, VRF for short, produces randomness that a smart contract can verify. Randomness is hard on a blockchain, because everything has to be traceable and therefore becomes predictable. VRF delivers a random number together with proof that it was not tampered with. It is used in raffles, in the allocation of rare collectibles and in games.

Automation triggers contracts under defined conditions. A smart contract cannot wake itself up; somebody has to prompt it. Automation handles that prompt reliably, for the daily interest settlement of a lending protocol for instance.

Functions, finally, lets a contract query any programming interface and have the result computed, without having to set up an oracle network of its own.

How to tell whether an application uses Chainlink

For investors this is no academic question: deposit into a lending protocol and you take on its price source with it. Three routes lead to the answer. A protocol’s documentation names the price source almost always in the section on liquidations. Chainlink’s own project page lists the networks and applications that draw on the services. And to be certain, read the contract address the protocol queries for the price out of the blockchain explorer and compare it with the published address of the data feed. A protocol that names its price source nowhere is the warning sign, not the answer.

The LINK token: what it pays for and how many are in circulation

The LINK token is technically an ERC-20 token, originally issued on Ethereum and today available on many blockchain networks. Its job in the network is narrowly drawn: whoever uses a service pays the node operators, and that payment runs through LINK. The token is therefore a fee for work, not a share certificate. It carries no claim to a slice of the revenue, and no vote over the protocol either.

The supply figures, taken from CoinGecko: maximum supply is one billion LINK, with around 766.8 million in circulation. Market capitalisation stood at about $8.8 billion on Monday morning, enough for rank 16 among all cryptocurrencies. The price was $11.43, or €10.19. The all-time high of $52.70 dates from May 9, 2021; over the past 30 days the LINK price shows a loss of almost 18 percent.

The gap between circulation and maximum supply, a good 233 million LINK, sits with the project and is being spent gradually on incentives and operating costs. That supply is the most underrated point of all: it amounts to close to a quarter of the issued amount, and there is no fixed, publicly visible release schedule for it.

Chainlink staking: 45 million LINK and a 28-day wait

LINK has been stakeable in the network since late 2023. Staking is meant to give data suppliers an economic incentive to deliver correctly: whoever stakes is liable with their deposit for the quality of delivery and is paid for it. The cap is 45 million LINK, split into roughly 40.9 million for the general public and 4.1 million for node operators. Private participants face a maximum amount per address.

Two points decide whether this is an option for you. The pool has lately been full, so new places only open up when somebody else leaves; the portal at staking.chain.link shows the free space in real time. And the exit takes time: notice is followed by a 28-day period, after which a window of seven days remains in which to actually collect the coins. The reward for the general pool was recently just over 4 percent a year. How that stacks up against other offers is shown in our comparison of staking platforms.

One risk remains in every case: if you are locked in for 28 days, you cannot react to a price slump.

Banks, Swift and DTCC: what tokenisation has to do with Chainlink

Tokenisation means representing a conventional asset, a bond or a fund unit for instance, as a token on a blockchain. For banks the appeal lies in settlement: when paper and money sit on the same blockchain, the exchange can happen in one step instead of over two days.

This is exactly where Chainlink turns up. On its own pages the project names Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, ANZ and J.P. Morgan as houses deploying the infrastructure; the CCIP 2.0 announcement adds DTCC and Wellington Management. The role is the same in every case: Chainlink supplies the link between the bank’s systems and the blockchain, along with the certified data both sides need.

Caution is in order when judging this, for two reasons. Many of these applications are pilot projects and first production runs, not mass business. And it is not publicly documented so far how much of the fees arising is actually settled through the LINK token. A contract with a major bank is not automatically revenue for the token. That the contracts are coming is shown by our report on the agreement with the Korean group LG CNS; how much of it reaches the token is the open question behind it.

The Chainlink Reserve: where the network’s usage fees end up

Since 2025 there has been a mechanism that collects revenue from use of the services and buys LINK with it, which then stays in a reserve. Technically this runs through so-called payment abstraction: customers may pay in various tokens, the network converts the amounts, and a share lands in this reserve. A public dashboard at metrics.chain.link reports the balance.

At the end of October it held around 6.4 million LINK, with a good 1.5 million added in the third quarter. Measured against circulation that comes to less than 1 percent. Our analysis of the purchases of recent weeks shows what matters here: the reserve is a consequence of usage, not price support. Chainlink has promised neither a timetable nor a minimum amount, and a purchase of one million dollars sits against daily turnover of more than $170 million. Read a price floor into that and you overestimate the order of magnitude considerably.

The reserve is interesting for a different reason. The balance makes visible in numbers, for the first time, how much money the network actually takes in through its services. That is the metric against which the potential of the model can be measured over the long run.

Chainlink vs Pyth, RedStone and API3

Chainlink is the largest provider of its kind, but not the only one. Pyth Network relies on trading houses and exchanges feeding in their prices themselves, which makes it particularly fast. RedStone delivers values only on request and is therefore cheaper for protocols that rarely need a price. API3 has the data source run the oracle itself and saves the intermediate step.

The competition runs on price, speed and coverage, and Chainlink does not win it everywhere. A case from September shows where it ends: when the provider Switchboard shut down its oracles, protocols on Solana had to migrate within weeks. What to do in such a case we set out in our analysis of the Switchboard shutdown. In Chainlink’s favour on this point is duration: the network has run since 2019 without a shutdown.

LINK in Germany: buying, custody and the one-year holding period

For trading LINK in Germany, the same applies as for any other coin since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets: the provider needs authorisation. Whether a house has it is stated in the register of the European securities regulator ESMA and in the company database of BaFin, and both can be checked in two minutes. What the authorisation means and what it does not deliver is set out in our overview of the MiCA obligations.

Custody comes down to the usual trade-off. On an exchange access is quick, but the keys belong to the provider. In a wallet of your own they belong to you, and with them the responsibility for the backup. A hot wallet is connected and convenient, a cold wallet stays offline and is safer. LINK adds one particularity: for staking, the token has to sit in a wallet you control yourself.

For tax purposes LINK is an other asset under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Three rules follow from that. A sale within a year of purchase is taxable; after a holding period of one year the gain stays tax-free. Taxable gains in a year carry an exemption threshold of €1,000, and once it is exceeded the full amount is taxable, not only the excess. Staking income counts instead as other income under section 22 no. 3 with its own threshold of €256 and falls due in the year it is received.

The holding period was politically up for debate recently. On October 9, 2026 the Bundestag rejected its abolition by 445 votes to 132 on our count, as recorded in our report on the vote in the Bundestag. If you buy from 2026 on, keep the purchase receipt all the same: without proof of acquisition costs, the tax office sets them at zero in case of doubt.

The limits of the model: concentration, competition and a token with no claim on fees

Three objections belong in any honest assessment. The first concerns the connection between business and token: the network can grow without the price following, because the token does not automatically share in revenue. Closing that gap is exactly what the reserve is for, and so far it is small.

The second concerns concentration. A large part of DeFi hangs on Chainlink prices. For the project that is an advantage, for the market a concentration risk: a serious fault in the network would hit many protocols at once.

The third concerns the contest for institutions. Swift, Deutsche Börse and several central banks are working in parallel on their own connections between blockchain and legacy systems. Whether one oracle network establishes itself as the standard, or whether the large houses end up building their own solution, is open as things stand.

Chainlink in your portfolio: three points before your first LINK

Chainlink sells infrastructure, not a currency. That makes the case more sober than with many other coins and the judgement harder at the same time, because a gap yawns between the success of the network and the price of the token, bridged for now only by the reserve.

1. Settle the buying route and the costs. Compare the spread, the trading fee and the withdrawal fee before you order; on a position of a few hundred euros these items decide more about the outcome than the entry point does. The providers are listed in our exchange comparison.
2. Fix custody in advance. Decide before you buy whether the token stays on the exchange or moves into a wallet of your own, and set the wallet up first. The devices and their prices are in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Collect records from day one. Purchase date, price and fee belong in a list from the very first order, or the holding period cannot be proven later. Which tool does that automatically is shown in our comparison of tax tools.

(As of October 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Twenty-two companies have now objected to having their shares traded on the planned OKX-ICE tokenized stock venue, after Wells Fargo, Cisco, Marvell, Arm, Moderna. and Intuit joined the list.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs finished the week with about $301 million in net inflows, ending a two-week losing streak, even as two straight days of outflows kept October in the red.

A policy change effective Oct. 16 carves out an exception to Google’s long-standing pledge—letting connected Gmail, Drive, and Photos data personalize ads through its Personal Intelligence AI features.

Sweden's Government Offices will block ChatGPT and Claude on staff computers from Monday, steering civil servants to Microsoft Copilot as the only AI that passed its security review.

Robert Bowling, who spent six years working on Call of Duty, told Decrypt that Activision suggested cutting discs nearly two decades ago.

South Korea is considering postponing its 22% cryptocurrency gains tax for a fourth time.

XRP has taken over New York City's subway advertising, with trains and station interiors featuring prominent branding for the Ripple-linked cryptocurrency ahead of the highly anticipated Swell conference.

The market isn't behaving as well as one might've expected, most assets, including both large and smaller caps are under pressure against local support levels for now.

Bitcoin and gold have unexpectedly emerged as the two worst-performing major asset classes of 2026.

As 12 large XRP wallets distribute holdings, a 50 million token exchange influx puts August's price support at immediate risk.

TLDR:

• Blockchain sanctions plan drew a direct rebuke from the Bank of Israel, which said cryptocurrencies cannot bypass sanctions and urged leaders to preserve trade ties.
• Netanyahu said he had asked advisers to prepare a proposal before the October 27 election, but gave no details about currencies, networks, or an implementation timetable.
• Eisenkot and more than 100 economists criticized the proposal, warning that possible sanctions could deepen isolation and hurt investment, employment, and Israel’s economic standing.
• Critics said crypto cannot replace bank credit or global capital markets, while traceable blockchain transactions may still be identified or blocked by authorities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel should prepare a blockchain sanctions plan if international measures restrict its banking system. In a Friday interview, he described cryptocurrency and blockchain as possible tools for an alternative economy if sanctions hit. He confirmed that he had asked advisers to develop a plan, but gave no design or timetable for implementation. 

The remarks came two days before Israel’s October 27 election, amid warnings foreign measures could affect Israel’s wider economy. The Bank of Israel formally rejected crypto as a route around international sanctions. It urged leaders to preserve trade ties and prevent further restrictions.

Netanyahu Blockchain Sanctions Plan Draws Institutional Pushback

Netanyahu spoke on Channel 10 on Friday. He said Israel should prepare for possible sanctions on banks and other economic restrictions. Asked whether he meant crypto, he agreed, then described blockchain as another option. He said advisers were already preparing a plan.

The blockchain sanctions plan remains undefined. Netanyahu did not identify the currencies, networks, government agencies, or legal changes under consideration. The Block reported that he gave no timetable or implementation details. It describes contingency planning, not an operating national payment system.

Britain and 11 other Western countries announced measures targeting settlement goods. The measures focus on settlements, though economists warned economic effects could reach Israel proper. Netanyahu cited the possibility of banking restrictions and said alternative payment channels could help the country respond.

The election sharpened political tensions. Netanyahu’s remarks came two days before voters choose a new Knesset on October 27. Opposition leaders have argued that his government’s policies contributed to Israel’s international isolation. The blockchain sanctions plan became another point of disagreement during the campaign.

Crypto Proposals Face Practical Limits Beyond Digital Transfers

The Bank of Israel said cryptocurrencies cannot serve as a route for bypassing sanctions. It urged political leaders to maintain economic ties with major trading partners and focus on preventing restrictions. Its statement rejected the idea that digital assets could protect the national economy from financial pressure.

The blockchain sanctions plan also drew criticism from opposition figure Gadi Eisenkot. On X, Eisenkot called it the “BibiCoin vision” and said it threatened national security.

He also warned it could worsen isolation and deter investment. He asked how Israeli technology firms would receive overseas payments if foreign banks shunned crypto. At Saturday’s anti-government rally in Tel Aviv, attendees also criticized the proposal, extending backlash beyond political leaders.

Over 100 economists and former Bank of Israel officials signed a letter opposing the plan on Sunday, Reuters reported. They warned sanctions could reduce foreign investment, increase unemployment, and weaken Israel’s economic standing. The warning focused on the consequences of financial isolation, beyond payment rails.

Digital assets can move value outside some conventional banking channels, but that does not make sanctions disappear. Blockchain transactions can be traced, and authorities or service providers may identify or block wallets linked to sanctioned entities. A blockchain sanctions plan may move value, but it cannot hide every transaction record.

The blockchain sanctions plan faces practical barriers a transfer alone cannot solve. Crypto cannot replace access to trade finance, bank credit, global capital markets, or foreign companies willing to transact. A business may still need compliant banks, insurers, suppliers, and customers for cross-border deals.

Columnist Nadav Eyal said crypto cannot replace bank credit, capital markets, or firms willing to trade internationally. CryptoJungle founder Ben Samocha also said digital assets were not a suitable sanctions workaround. He pointed to blockchain investigations that can trace funds and restrict their fiat access.

Netanyahu said Saturday he would consider the Bank of Israel’s criticism but would do what he thought best. He has not named the advisers, blockchain, currencies, or implementation schedule for the plan.

The post Bank of Israel Rejects Netanyahu Blockchain Sanctions Plan Bid appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• RLUSD stablecoin received reported praise during an XRPL Commons hackathon pitch session, but the account came from community member Lost Art rather than an official Mastercard release.
• Mastercard is listed as an event partner, and the 36-hour New York hackathon on October 24–25 features more than $40,000 in prizes across four developer tracks.
• Ripple and Mastercard announced plans in 2025 to explore RLUSD settlement for Gemini card transactions, subject to approvals; Mastercard later included RLUSD in broader settlement plans.
• The reported compliment does not establish a product launch or XRP demand catalyst; published announcements provide no new settlement volumes or market-impact data tied to the event.

Mastercard has reportedly praised Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin during the XRP Ledger Hackathon in New York, according to an attendee’s post. The comment came during a presentation about partner pitch requirements, not in a company statement. The event runs October 24–25 and lists Mastercard among its ecosystem partners. 

Mastercard has announced plans to include RLUSD among regulated settlement options and XRPL among supported blockchain networks. That report adds visibility to Ripple’s token; it does not confirm a new product, rollout, or change to XRP demand. Developers are exploring financial applications on XRPL, but the post alone says little about commercial adoption.

RLUSD Stablecoin Praise Reported at New York Hackathon

Lost Art, an XRPL community member on X, said Mastercard representatives complimented the RLUSD stablecoin while explaining partner pitch requirements. The account shared its report on October 24. It provided no recording, named speaker, or direct company statement. The remark theref ore remains an attendee’s account, not a formal Mastercard endorsement.

XRPL Commons describes the New York gathering as a 36-hour build sprint. Developers are building payment applications, lending products, and protocol upgrades. It runs October 24–25, just before Ripple Swell, and the organizers list Mastercard as a partner.

Other listed partners include Ripple, the XRP Ledger Foundation, Ledger, AWS, and QuickNode. More than $40,000 in prizes supports four tracks: agentic finance, lending and borrowing, protocol innovation, and an open category. The agenda creates space to test stablecoin uses, without promising a payment launch.

Mastercard’s work with Ripple predates the event. In November 2025, Ripple announced that Mastercard, WebBank, and Gemini would explore RLUSD stablecoin settlement for fiat card transactions. WebBank issues the Gemini Credit Card. The partners planned RLUSD settlement on XRPL between the bank and Mastercard. Ripple said onboarding and integration planning remained subject to regulatory approvals.

Mastercard Settlement Plans Leave XRP Demand Unclear

In June 2026, Mastercard announced plans to add regulated stablecoin settlement options across its network. The company named the RLUSD stablecoin among supported choices, alongside USDC, SoFiUSD, and Paxos-issued tokens. It also named XRPL as one of the supported networks. Mastercard described the expansion as new options for issuers and acquirers, with a wider rollout subject to regulation.

Mastercard said on-chain settlement would retain existing security, fraud, and dispute safeguards. Those controls would operate beside traditional processes, giving participating issuers and acquirers more timing choices. Naming RLUSD among planned options does not mean every bank, card program, or market can use it today. The company did not say whether RLUSD settlement is live today across partners.

Those announcements provide commercial context for the event, but do not confirm the hackathon remark. Lost Art’s post did not describe a contract, launch date, or settlement volume. Mastercard’s partner listing also does not show that event projects will enter its network.

The agentic finance track focuses on software that can make payments and transact on-chain. XRPL Commons says applications may settle in XRP or the RLUSD stablecoin. Teams can demonstrate ideas at a hackathon, but deployment still requires a product decision and operational controls.

The post Mastercard Reportedly Praises RLUSD Stablecoin at XRPL Event appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• US computer imports advanced 366% since 2019, while domestic production increased 46%, according to a16z.
• Electrical equipment imports rose 69% while US production fell 7%, exposing a gap in the AI supply chain.
• Semiconductor imports rose 131% against 76% production growth, as added capacity drove U.S. output gains.
• GPU rental rates rose across Ornn Data’s tracked models, including older A100 chips as token demand grew.

US imports have outpaced domestic production across four AI hardware categories since 2019, according to a16z. Computer imports rose 366%, compared with a 46% increase in US production.

Communications equipment imports increased 175%, while domestic output grew 87%. Semiconductor imports climbed 131%, against production growth of 76%. Grid and electrical equipment showed the sharpest divergence: imports rose 69%, while US production fell 7%.

Those figures describe an AI infrastructure expansion that relies increasingly on overseas supply. They also expose uneven domestic responses across the equipment categories supporting that expansion.

The comparison measures changes in dollar values, rather than providing a direct count of machines or components. It therefore shows how import and production values have diverged, without establishing their respective shares of total supply.

Why AI Hardware Imports Outpace US Production

Manufacturers can increase output by adding capacity or using existing facilities more intensively. According to a16z, those two responses have developed differently across the four categories.

Computer manufacturers expanded capacity and increased utilization, meaning they used more of their available production capability. Together, those changes supported higher output.

Communications equipment makers added substantial capacity, but utilization declined. That combination suggests available manufacturing capability grew faster than its use.

Semiconductor manufacturers also expanded capacity, while utilization remained unchanged. Their production increase therefore came from additional capacity, rather than more intensive use of existing facilities.

Electrical equipment followed a different path. Capacity declined despite higher utilization, leaving domestic production below its 2019 level.

That weakness matters because the AI buildout requires electrical infrastructure alongside computing hardware. Switchgear and related equipment support the grid expansion needed to power GPUs.

Imports help meet demand when domestic output cannot keep pace. However, the supplied figures do not establish why manufacturers avoided greater expansion.

A16z suggests construction costs, investment risks, or competition from overseas suppliers could explain that hesitation. These remain possible explanations, rather than confirmed causes.

AI Hardware Demand Raises GPU and Labor Pressures

Meanwhile, the supplied rental data points to continued demand for computing resources.

According to Ornn Data, every tracked GPU model costs more to rent than at the beginning of the year. That includes older A100 chips.

Rental prices stood between 9% and 143% above a benchmark assuming straight-line depreciation over six years. However, a16z notes that older A100s and H100s previously spent more time below that benchmark.

OpenRouter’s figures also show rising token consumption across open and proprietary models. Tokens represent the units of text these AI systems process.

A16z cautions that these datasets provide incomplete views of GPU pricing and token spending.

Labor adds another constraint. Citing ADP, a16z reports that weekly hours per worker increased substantially across sectors supporting the AI buildout.

Job-switchers also commanded a five-percentage-point wage-growth premium over workers staying with their employers.

Together, the figures show growing hardware demand, uneven factory expansion, and heavier workloads. Imports are helping bridge that gap, while electrical equipment remains the clearest domestic production weakness.

The post AI Hardware Imports Surge 366% as US Computer Production Rises 46% appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• In her CLARITY Act post, Cynthia Lummis said Democrats requested a $50 million annual cap, down from $75 million, plus a $200 million lifetime limit.
• Lummis said the caps entered the CLARITY Act, then accused Democrats of voting against rules she said were written to protect retail investors.
• The September 15 Senate vote was a 49-50 cloture vote on advancing H.R. 3633, not a separate vote on either Regulation Crypto cap.
• The official roll call recorded 49 yeas, 50 nays and one senator not voting; four Republicans and two independents were among the no votes.

Senator Cynthia Lummis said Democrats opposed advancing the CLARITY Act after requested caps were added. Her October 25 X post said Democrats sought a lower annual Regulation Crypto cap. They sought $50 million, down from $75 million. She said Democrats also requested a $200 million lifetime cap. 

Lummis said both changes entered the bill, then accused Democrats of rejecting rules they wrote to protect retail investors. The Senate’s September 15 procedural vote on H.R. 3633 failed 49-50. Senators voted on advancing the full measure, not either cap by itself. Her post did not announce any new bill revision that day.

CLARITY Act Sets Limits for Regulation Crypto Fundraising

Under the CLARITY Act, Regulation Crypto provides a fundraising route for certain ancillary asset originators. Its caps limit proceeds raised through that framework, rather than all money a crypto business can raise. The annual ceiling applies to yearly fundraising, while the lifetime cap limits the total raised under the provision.

An itemized CLARITY Act document from Lummis’s office lists the $50 million annual cap and the $200 million lifetime ceiling. It places both changes among provisions the senator’s office attributes to Democratic requests. The document says ancillary asset originators may raise those amounts in reliance on Regulation Crypto. It does not present the changes as separate bills or stand-alone rules. 

Lummis’s September 10 CLARITY Act release said the updated draft reflected more than 114 provisions requested by Democratic colleagues. That release described the broader negotiations but did not list every requested change. A separate office document names the fundraising limits among its list of Democratic-requested revisions. The two records support Lummis’s account that the caps were included in the negotiated text. 

Her October 25 post connected the changes with a claim about retail investor protections. It did not specify whether the fundraising caps were the rules she meant in that criticism. The post also did not identify individual lawmakers or explain how they voted on particular provisions. Its account centers on what negotiators requested and what the bill included.

Her office’s document also lists financial statements among the disclosure requirements. It says originators must provide audited statements once gross proceeds exceed $25 million and reviewed statements below that threshold. The reporting rules sit beside the fundraising caps in the office’s list of changes.

The office list includes disclosures before resales and preserves state consumer protection laws. It also preserves the SEC’s authority over fraud and market manipulation. Those provisions frame Lummis’s broader reference to retail protections, separately from the fundraising caps.

CLARITY Act Vote Addressed the Bill, Not Individual Caps

The Senate roll call shows the CLARITY Act vote concerned cloture on a motion to proceed to H.R. 3633. It was not a vote on either cap separately. The roll call recorded 49 yeas, all Republicans, and 50 nays, including four Republicans and two independents. Democrat Chris Coons did not vote; the motion failed the three-fifths threshold. 

The Senate required 60 votes to advance the motion. The 49-50 tally left it short and stopped consideration at that step. It did not strike the caps from the draft, nor did senators cast a separate vote on them.

Lummis voted to advance the bill. The roll call records procedural opposition to the full CLARITY Act, not the caps alone. Senators could oppose the motion for reasons involving other sections of the bill. The record does not identify each senator’s motive or show whether each supported the caps. 

The House measure covers digital commodity regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Senate’s procedural vote did not send the bill to final passage. The official Senate result remains a failed motion to proceed, with a 49-50 vote. 

The post CLARITY Act Vote Stalls After Lummis Says Cap Changes Were Added appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• SUI trades at $0.917, down 0.65% in 24 hours as the broader crypto market gains 1.16%, per CoinMarketCap.
• Andreou maps $0.8477 as first support, with $0.6508 offering a deeper base if the higher level fails next
• A confirmed trendline breakout brings $1.3331 into focus; reclaiming it could open a route toward $2.0210
• More Crypto Online marks $0.866 as ideal wave (4) support, adding a Fibonacci level above Andreou’s base.

SUI traded at $0.917, down 0.65% over 24 hours, while the broader crypto market gained 1.16%, according to CoinMarketCap.

Analyst Giannis Andreou identified $0.8477 and $0.6508 as potential support levels for two recovery scenarios. His higher-support scenario brings $1.3331 into focus after a confirmed breakout above descending resistance. 

A successful resistance-to-support conversion could then create a route toward $2.0210. Separately, More Crypto Online identified $0.866 as the lowest ideal support for wave (4) in its Elliott Wave analysis.

SUI Price Faces Two Different Recovery Routes

Andreou’s daily chart places the descending trendline between current support and a possible recovery toward higher resistance levels. Holding $0.8477 would preserve the first scenario, but buyers would still need to break that trendline.

A rebound alone would therefore leave the larger technical hurdle unresolved. His setup requires confirmation before $1.3331 becomes the next focus.

That level also carries a second condition: buyers would need to establish it as support after reclaiming it. Only then does Andreou’s outlined route extend toward $2.0210.

If $0.8477 fails, his alternative scenario looks for a deeper base around $0.6508. That path requires more rebuilding before the chart can support the same recovery discussion.

Buyers would first need to reclaim $0.8477, then clear descending resistance and work back toward $1.3331. Andreou’s alternative also includes another pullback along that route.

These scenarios describe conditional recovery paths, rather than confirmed reversals or guaranteed price targets. The difference rests on where buyers establish support and whether subsequent rebounds overcome resistance.

The supplied technical overview places SUI below major exponential moving averages, indicating continued bearish pressure. Those averages track price trends while giving greater weight to recent trading.

SUI Price Support Draws Fibonacci Attention

More Crypto Online’s $0.866 level adds another reference point just above Andreou’s $0.8477 support. The analyst identifies it as the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement and an ideal low within wave (4).

Fibonacci retracements mark potential reaction levels within an earlier price move. Elliott Wave analysis organizes market swings into proposed sequences, making the wave interpretation dependent on subsequent price action.

The analyst’s longer-term chart projects wave-five targets above $7. That projection remains separate from Andreou’s nearer recovery levels and does not establish an immediate price objective.

CoinMarketCap’s shorter-term outlook places the first test at $0.90. Holding that support could allow a $0.95 retest, while losing it risks a move toward $0.85.

Its commentary attributes the modest decline to profit-taking, consolidation and limited immediate buying catalysts. It also cites thin weekend liquidity as a factor that could amplify minor selling.

CoinMarketCap names the Samsung Wallet and Hashi mainnet rollouts as developments to watch. However, the supplied material provides no confirmed dates or measurable price effects.

SUI’s recovery case therefore depends on holding support and clearing descending resistance. A loss of $0.8477 would shift attention toward Andreou’s deeper $0.6508 base scenario.

The post SUI Price Eyes $1.33 Recovery, but These Support Levels Must Hold appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin, crypto, and the overall financial system enter one of the busiest macro weeks of the year with the Federal Reserve, fresh inflation and GDP data, and a wave of Big Tech earnings all arriving within days.

With BTC already struggling to maintain above the key $80,000 support, the upcoming releases could determine whether the latest correction deepens or buyers finally regain control.

Fed, Inflation, and GDP

The analysts at the Kobeissi Letter noted that the major week begins with the September New Home Sales on Tuesday, before attention shifts firmly to Wednesday’s Federal Reserve meeting. The central bank will announce its rate decision on October 28, followed by the usual press conference.

Nearly all economists surveyed by Reuters expected no changes, with the Fed leaving the federal funds target at 3.75%-4.00%. However, expectations for another hike in December have increased noticeably over the past few weeks, especially after the release of the CPI and PPI readings for September.

Unless there’s a major surprise and a fresh hike on Wednesday, the decision itself may matter less for crypto than the Fed’s guidance. A more dovish tone regarding future tightening could pressure Treasury yields and the dollar while improving appetite for risk assets such as BTC. Conversely, renewed warnings about persistent inflation or further rate hikes could add more pressure.

Thursday could be an even bigger day as the Bureau of Economic Analysis will publish the advance estimate of Q3 US GDP alongside September Personal Income and Outlays, which contains the Fed’s preferred PCE inflation gauge.

Markets currently expect economic growth to remain strong while inflation stays elevated. That combination would reinforce the argument that the Fed has room to maintain restrictive policy, potentially creating another headwind for BTC and crypto.

Big Tech Earnings

The Kobeissi Letter explained that roughly 20% of S&P 500 companies are scheduled to report earnings this week, with Microsoft and Alphabet taking center stage on Wednesday, followed by Amazon and Intel on Thursday. This matters for the crypto market because BTC has increasingly traded alongside broader risk sentiment, particularly during sharp moves in tech stocks.

Investors will be watching whether massive AI spending is translating into sufficient growth at Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon after recent concerns surrounding technology valuations weighed heavily on equities.

Bitcoin has suffered in the past week, especially since the rejection at $85,000 last Wednesday. The asset plummeted to a five-week low on Saturday at $79,100 and now fights to stay above $80,000. The spot BTC ETFs were in the green last week, but that couldn’t really help the underlying asset’s price recover.

The post A Perfect Storm for Bitcoin? Fed, PCE, GDP and Big Tech Earnings Ahead appeared first on CryptoPotato.

After a brief deviation in which the spot XRP ETFs joined the broader crypto trend with more outflows than inflows, the trend has flipped once again, with the funds flashing green again.

Unfortunately for the SOL fans, the landscape around the altcoin is rather different, as the Solana ETFs just recorded their third consecutive week in the red.

XRP ETFs Back on Track

CryptoPotato reported over the previous weekend that the exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of Ripple’s cross-border token recorded $1.84 million in net outflows during that week. This made it the first red week in three months.

The start of the subsequent business week was not all that impressive, with the funds failing to attract any reportable action on Monday and Tuesday. Investors returned on Wednesday, with a minor net inflow of just under $710,000. This coincided with the underlying asset’s price surge to almost $1.40.

Although XRP’s breakout attempt was halted on Thursday, the inflows actually continued. SoSoValue data shows that investors poured $3.55 million into the ETFs, which made it the best single-day performance since October 8. However, demand disappeared once again on Friday, with $0.00 in reportable flows.

The cumulative total net inflows have remained at all-time high levels of $1.8 billion as the funds approach their first birthday month.

SOL ETFs Still in Red

The ETFs tracking SOL were on a massive roll for three months, starting from the week that ended on July 2 to the one that ended on October 2. After 14 consecutive weeks in the green, though, the outflows started. During the first full week of October, they bled $24.81 million. Another $25.52 million followed a week later, which was actually the highest net withdrawal on record.

The past business week extended this negative streak, with $6.72 million in net outflows on Monday. $2.65 million left the funds on Tuesday, while $585,300 entered on Wednesday — the first green day since October 2. However, the landscape reversed on Thursday, with $8.51 million in net outflows.

Unfortunately, the data provided by SoSoValue and Farside doesn’t cover October 23. As such, our conclusion is based on the data through Thursday, which shows that the weekly outflows stood at $17.30 million. The cumulative total net inflows have dropped from $1.61 billion on October 2 to $1.54 billion on October 22.

Meanwhile, SOL’s price was halted at over $110, and the asset now fights to stay above $100.

The post XRP ETFs Resume Winning Streak While SOL Funds Stay in the Red appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The former CEO of the now-closed derivatives exchange BitMEX is back in selling mode, with on-chain data showing that he disposed of more than $20 million worth of cryptocurrencies in just days.

The latest transactions add another chapter to his unusual trading history, in which he has repeatedly accumulated ETH and then sold substantial portions shortly afterward.

Hayes Dumps $22M in Crypto

According to data from Lookonchain, wallets associated with Arthur Hayes sold approximately $22.28 million worth of various altcoins, with the leader of the niche accounting for the overwhelming majority of the total. The biggest transaction involved 6,400 ETH worth approximately $15.2 million.

The BitMEX co-founder also disposed of 14 million ENA tokens valued at $2.76 million, 323,000 UNI worth $2.24 million, and 1.89 million ETHFI worth around $1.23 million. His remaining sales included over 546,600 AERO, 120,000 PENDLE, and 3 million ZAMA.

Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) is dumping $22.28M worth of tokens!

Including:
6,400 $ETH ($15.2M),
14M $ENA ($2.76M),
323,000 $UNI ($2.24M),
1.89M $ETHFI ($1.23M),
546,609 $AERO ($398K),
120,000 $PENDLE ($244K),
3M $ZAMA ($214K).

https://t.co/gau6egd7Vm
https://t.co/DXKXubxP65 https://t.co/wV19JL4o6S

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 24, 2026

The move is especially interesting because Hayes has remained publicly bullish on Ethereum. In late September, he predicted that the leading altcoin could skyrocket to $10,000 by the end of the year, arguing that Ethereum is still the most secure layer-one network and is capable of accommodating substantial amounts of capital.

However, he has frequently disposed of major quantities of certain assets during market uncertainty, which has reigned for the past week or so.

Not The First Time

The Maelstrom CIO accumulated ETH heavily in July as the asset rallied, ultimately purchasing more than 7,200 tokens for nearly $14 million at an average price of $1,923. Shortly after, though, the cryptocurrency pulled back, and he deposited 2,364 to Cumberland and Galaxy Digital at an estimated selling price of $1,821, realizing a loss of around $241,000 on that portion of the position.

The move came after another notable reversal in which he had sold more than $10 million worth of ETH at prices below $1,700 before buying back once again once the asset recovered to over $1,900. By late July, Lookonchain reported that he had spent another $7.47 million to acquire 3,915 ETH at an average price of $1,909.

The post Arthur Hayes Dumps $22M in Crypto After Calling for $10K ETH: Here’s What He Sold appeared first on CryptoPotato.

JPMorgan’s long-term CEO, Jamie Dimon, once called bitcoin a “fraud,” said that it was “worthless,” and described it as a “decentralized Ponzi scheme.” Moreover, he claimed that if he were using the government, he would shut it down.

Fast-forward several years, and the banking behemoth he runs is putting traditional finance on public blockchains, accepting BTC and ETH as collateral, and, oh right, predicting that BTC could outperform stocks and gold over the next 10-15 years.

How Did We Get Here?

One of the first criticisms caught on camera from Dimon dates back to at least 2017, when he called the largest cryptocurrency a “fraud” that would eventually blow up. He added that JPM traders caught dealing with it would be fired and also compared BTC to the infamous tulip bubble. Although he later regretted using the term “fraud,” his hostile stance continued.

Four years later, Dimon advised investors to “stay away” from crypto, arguing that the asset class could not compare with fiat currencies or gold. He also described bitcoin as “worthless” and the “fool’s gold of the future.” By 2022, the rhetoric had become even stronger as Dimon described Bitcoin and other digital assets as “decentralized Ponzi schemes.” In 2023, he kept the blows coming, dismissing BTC as a “pet rock.”

The same year saw perhaps the most memorable attack. During a Senate hearing, the exec said that if he were running the US government, he would “close it down,” while claiming that cryptocurrencies were heavily associated with criminal activity.

Despite all of his criticism and blatant claims, JPMorgan’s business strategy was already moving in a very different direction. The bank launched JPM Coin, built its Onyx blockchain infrastructure, executed tokenized collateral transactions involving BlackRock and Barclays, invested in blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs, and gave wealth-management clients access to crypto funds.

Going a Step Further

The divergence between Dimon’s public comments and JPM’s commercial strategy has become even harder to ignore. The Wall Street behemoth recently let institutional clients use BTC and ETH as collateral for loans, one of its most direct integrations of native crypto assets into conventional banking.

It has also worked with Coinbase to make crypto purchases more accessible to Chase customers, while JPMorgan Securities has served as an authorized participant for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF.

On the blockchain side, JPM has expanded into public networks, with JPM Coin (JPMD) now available on Ethereum and Base. The bank has also launched tokenized money-market funds on Ethereum and is expanding JPM Coin to the Canton Network.

The winds seem to have shifted after its report last week. Although the bank still believes BTC could be highly volatile, it predicted that the leading cryptocurrency – once referred to as “fraud” and “worthless,” is likely to outperform large-cap stocks, REITs, and gold over the next 10-15 years with a 10% annual compounded return.

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One of India’s leading crypto trading platforms, CoinDCX, confirmed that suspicious activity detected earlier this week ultimately led to a 15.99 million USDT loss tied to wallet infrastructure compromised during a previous security incident.

The admission comes only days after CEO Sumit Gupta publicly said the exchange’s wallets had not been breached and suggested the alarm could be linked to attackers reusing old addresses.

The company’s official October 25 update says the team noticed unusual activity on October 21 and initially prevented any impact to its active wallet and trading infrastructure.

However, they detected irregular blockchain movements shortly after and launched a deeper investigation, which determined that the activity had affected an old, deprecated operational wallet infrastructure containing previously unknown vulnerabilities.

CoinDCX also discovered that an automated sweeping service had failed for some time, and deposits sent by users to one of the deprecated addresses accumulated there instead of being transferred into the exchange’s current secure wallet infrastructure.

“This led to a loss of 15.99 million USDT, which was absorbed by the company,” adds the statement.

The exchange stressed that its active wallets, trading systems, deposits, and withdrawals continued operating normally and that customer balances were fully accounted for. Users who mistakenly deposited to deprecated addresses were still immediately credited, while a separate process was supposed to sweep those funds elsewhere.

Interestingly, this acknowledgment is particularly noteworthy given Gupta’s initial response just three days earlier. After blockchain researchers flagged roughly $16 million in suspicious transfers, the exec stated that “CoinDCX wallets are not breached” and warned against spreading false rumors.

He said at the time that the addresses involved had belonged to the exchange before its July 2025 hack and had been compromised during the incident.

Thanks for highlighting but this is incorrect and CoinDCX wallets are not breached. Pls don’t spread rumours.

The addresses tagged by Arkham used to belong to CoinDCX before the last year hack ie July 2025. These addresses were generated in Jan 2025 and were compromised in the previous hack in July 2025. The hackers seem to be re-using the old wallet addresses and this sounds like a false alarm. We have checked all the present CoinDCX central and user addresses. None of them have sent money to these old addresses.

All the CoinDCX addresses are public and can be seen on our POR link. None of these have sent funds to the above addresses in question and none of the CoinDCX funds got compromised.

Will keep you posted if any new info comes to us as the team is investigating it further. More details to follow from the official CoinDCX handles soon.

— Sumit Gupta (@smtgpt) October 22, 2026

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