The case underscores the challenges of enforcing crypto fraud judgments internationally, highlighting the need for stronger global cooperation.

The post New York AG seeks $1.3 billion from NovaTech founders after default judgment appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Strategy's aggressive Bitcoin accumulation could significantly impact its stock value and market perception, influencing broader crypto investment trends.

The post Strategy acquires 122,578 Bitcoin since July 2025 IPO appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The AI stock sell-off in Asia highlights growing investor caution, potentially impacting future AI investments and economic stability.

The post AI stock sell-off in Asia prompts shift to safer assets like US Treasuries appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

AI stock gains bolster public pensions, highlighting tension between financial benefits and political scrutiny over AI's societal impact.

The post US public pensions gain $138B from AI stocks despite political scrutiny: WSJ appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Iran's drone facility signals potential shifts in regional power dynamics, possibly affecting Houthi strategies and market perceptions.

The post Iran unveils underground drone facility amid regional tensions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

The Sleeper Has Awakened: Pepenardo’s Sleeping Knights Return

Pepenardo has transformed six copies of Bitcoin Magazine’s 2036 Issue into original artworks, drawing directly onto the covers with a Sharpie. The hand-altered editions feature familiar characters from his visual universe, including the Sleeping Knights, previously exhibited at the BMAG Museum in Nashville and Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. Other imagery includes the masked rider of FAKEGENESIS, Dorian Nakamoto, and Pepe the Frog.

Each magazine features the artist’s signature on its illustrated cover and an additional gold-ink signature on an interior spread reproducing his painting THE DREAMER. Each is paired with two original, one-of-one trading cards created for the collaboration.

The project reflects BTC Inc.’s growing interest in art, publishing, and collectibles, building on Pepenardo’s MEMETIKRON exhibition at Bitcoin 2026, where THE DREAMER (RED KNIGHT) and THE DREAMLESS (GREEN KNIGHT) became highlights of the BMAG auction.

The two oil paintings, each measuring 30 × 39.5 inches, depict reclining knights in red and green armor, referencing financial markets and historical portraiture. Both sold for 0.32698802 BTC (approximately $26,500 each), attracting a combined 197 bids. Their imagery now reappears in artist-made trading cards featuring alternate colorways, remixed compositions, and hand-painted Creator Rare editions inspired by traditional textiles.

Amid a booming trading card market, Pepenardo’s work bridges painting and handheld collectibles, where scarcity, provenance, and variation shape value. His relationship with this market began well before the Sleeping Knights.

In 2023, his painting FAKEGENESIS, a reinterpretation of Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps featuring a masked rider on a green horse, sold at the Bitcoin Conference in Miami for 1.625 BTC. Originally created as a Fake Rares card in 2022, the composition became an early landmark for physical Bitcoin art, demonstrating the growing collector interest in artwork emerging from Bitcoin’s meme culture.

FAKEGENESIS later appeared on the back cover of Bitcoin Magazine, with prints available through the publication’s store. Its return as a hand-drawn magazine cover completes an unusual progression from trading card to painting, printed reproduction, and original collectible.

Bitcoin Magazine itself has a collecting history dating to its first issue in May 2012, co-founded by Mihai Alisie and Vitalik Buterin. At a bitcoin event in London in September 2012, seven copies of the inaugural issue were signed by more than 20 early bitcoin figures. One attracted a winning bid of 7 BTC, although the buyer never completed the purchase or collected the magazine.

Early issues have since become sought-after historical artifacts, with graded copies and rare editions attracting collectors. In 2023, Bitcoin Magazine introduced the Genesis Box, a limited edition of 21 collector’s sets containing the publication’s first 22 issues, each housed in protective acrylic cases.

Much like early exhibition catalogs, first-edition books, and concert posters, Bitcoin Magazine has developed value beyond its original publishing purpose. Pepenardo’s customized covers extend that history, turning the publication itself into a one-of-one artwork.

I spoke with Pepenardo about his paintings, trading cards, and evolving relationship with Bitcoin Magazine, and with Mark Mason, Head of Media at Bitcoin Magazine, about the historical significance of the publication and its growing collector market.

BMAG: This collaboration came together quickly after you noticed the blank space on the cover of the Bitcoin Magazine issue featuring your work. What inspired you to turn these magazines into original artworks, and how do you see them fitting alongside your paintings and trading cards?

Pepenardo: I couldn’t help but notice that welcoming blank space on the cover. It seemed like an obvious place for a drawing. Coincidentally, I came into Bitcoin through watching the energy around trading cards on Counterparty, from 2016 all the way to the present. Hal Finney foreshadowed this ethos in his famous 1993 email titled “Crypto trading cards.” Of course he was talking about digital collectibles, but the principle stays the same. Bitcoin’s history has a magnetic pull on collectibles; people want to hold on to a fragment of such an important modern history. When we look back fifty years from now, the content and the artifacts that came out of the movement will help future generations make sense of Bitcoin’s tremendous timeline.

BMAG: The two knights, THE DREAMER and THE DREAMLESS, began as oil paintings exhibited and sold at Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas. They have since appeared in Bitcoin Magazine and now as original trading cards with different variations. How does the meaning of these characters change as they move between painting, publication, and collectible card? What rules guide your remixed versions, and were you surprised by how quickly the cards sold out?

Pepenardo: I was shocked at how quickly they went. I have no words. But it certainly reinforces that what I’m attempting to create and build with my work has some value. Being able to use the trading cards as a way to remix the original works lets me enrich the life of each painting. The mediums are different – oil on canvas for the paintings, various print methods for the trading cards – but the tedious care that goes into executing both is the same.

BMAG: FAKEGENESIS became a defining work in your career, moving from Fake Rares into an original painting that attracted significant attention at Bitcoin 2023 in Miami. Looking back, what do you remember about that moment, and how did it change your practice and the audience for your work?

Pepenardo: FAKEGENESIS will always be the pivotal work that showed me how I should properly approach my art. I knew that even before it sold. It is a painting that embeds the tropes of Bitcoin’s ethos without being too obvious. Art within the context of Bitcoin shouldn’t have to throw a big B at you all the time; it should give you the fiery sensation of standing inside a new history being built. My hope is that it is remembered as a work that represents an entire movement – onwards and upwards.

BMAG: Bitcoin Magazine’s earliest issues have become historical artifacts in their own right, from signed copies of Issue 1 and graded editions to the Genesis Box collection. Even figures like Michael Saylor have signed covers featuring themselves for charity auctions. What gives these publications their enduring collectible value, and how do you see artist-customized covers like Pepenardo’s fitting into that history?

Mark Mason: For over a decade, Bitcoin Magazine has documented the evolution of Bitcoin, from its early technical developments to the people and culture surrounding it. We see each physical issue as a time capsule, capturing a particular moment in Bitcoin’s journey toward hyperbitcoinization.

One of the biggest factors driving their collectible value is that we never reprint past editions. Each issue has a limited print run, creating a finite supply that has made early editions, graded copies, and signed covers increasingly sought after by collectors.

Bitcoin has always existed at the intersection of technology, economics, and culture. Artist-customized covers like Pepenardo’s take that relationship a step further, transforming an already collectible publication into an original artwork. It’s an extension of what Bitcoin Magazine has become: both a record of Bitcoin’s history and an artifact of that history itself.

Pepenardo’s custom magazine covers and trading card sets sold out shortly after launch, with all six one-of-one editions finding collectors. Additional works remain available, including MASTER CUTS OUT THE STONE (after Hemessen), the centerpiece painting from Pepenardo’s MEMETIKRON exhibition, which traveled from the BMAG Museum in Nashville to Bitcoin 2026 in Las Vegas.

Collectors can also explore FAKEGENESIS prints and the Genesis Box, a limited-edition collector’s set preserving the publication’s first 22 issues from 2012–2014.

The Bitcoin Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) organizes international exhibitions, auctions, and artist collaborations exploring Bitcoin and its cultural implications. Explore available works from Curtis William Readel’s exhibition Paper Money, along with additional prints, original artworks, and collectibles.

BMAG returns to Bitcoin Amsterdam, November 4–6, 2026, featuring European artists exploring money, power, and Bitcoin. Read more in The Architecture of Money and The Undercurrent. Use code BA26-BMAG20 for discounted admission.

This post The Sleeper Has Awakened: Pepenardo’s Sleeping Knights Return first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Dennis Koch.

Bitcoin Magazine

Circle Shareholder Sues Trump, Alleging Unconstitutional Profits From $2B UAE Crypto Deals

A shareholder from one of the world’s biggest digital asset companies has sued U.S. President Donald Trump for alleged crypto corruption. 

The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by shareholder and former Circle employee J. Benjamin Greenberg, alleges that a member of the United Arab Emirates ruling family agreed to pay half a billion dollars into the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial business — in direct violation of the Constitution. 

Circle is the fintech company behind the stablecoin, USDC. Regulators in the U.S. are fast pushing ahead with pro-crypto rules despite lawmakers last month blocking landmark digital asset legislation, which President Trump backed. 

A number of lawmakers didn’t back the draft legislation — the Clarity Act — because they said that the Trump family had illicitly cashed in on crypto ventures. 

“The corruption at issue is not subtle, and it is not hidden,” the lawsuit alleges. “Since returning to office,  President Donald J. Trump and his family have built a cryptocurrency business and invited foreign states to route money to him by paying into it. Foreign money has answered.”

The lawsuit goes on to allege that an investment fund created by the government of Abu Dhabi also gave the president $2 billion via World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin product. 

World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance project co-founded by the president and his sons.

President Trump stopped being involved in the project after taking office in 2025. 

Thursday’s lawsuit adds that the president allegedly gave the Emirati leadership access to advanced artificial intelligence chips and pardoned a convicted felon in turn for the crypto investment. It references a February Wall Street Journal article that reported the deal. 

“Although the President has dressed his corrupt arrangements in the language of new technology — tokens and stablecoins, holding companies and reserve yields — that vocabulary must not obscure what this is: the oldest form of public corruption, a public official taking money from a foreign power,” the lawsuit further says. 

It alleges that the president has “corruptly” profited from $2 billion via the deals. 

President Trump, World Liberty, and U.S. Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are named as the defendants in the lawsuit. 

The president campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto industry and received major financial backing from the space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures.

Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. The president in August, ahead of the crypto Clarity Act vote, said that Democrats criticizing his family crypto ventures had made money from stock trading. 

This post Circle Shareholder Sues Trump, Alleging Unconstitutional Profits From $2B UAE Crypto Deals first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockchain Association Presses Congress on Crypto Taxes as Clarity Act Stalls

The Blockchain Association sent a letter to Senate and House leadership on Thursday asking Congress to pass bipartisan digital asset tax legislation, the group’s first broad push on taxes since the Clarity Act failed in the Senate last month.

The letter, signed by Chief Policy Officer Lindsay Fraser and addressed to Majority Leader John Thune, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, argues that the rules governing the 67 million Americans who hold digital assets “were written for a different era.” 

The group paired it with a new site, TaxClarityforAmerica.com, built for constituents to contact their representatives.

The asks will sound familiar to anyone who has followed the tax fight: a de minimis exemption for small transactions, cash treatment for stablecoins, tax on mining and staking rewards at sale instead of receipt, broker reporting limited to firms that hold customer assets, and wash sale rules that close loss harvesting without catching everyday transactions. 

The letter adds a safe harbor for foreign traders on U.S. exchanges, a mark-to-market election, and R&D credit eligibility for blockchain development. What the letter leaves out is an endorsement. Two bills are somewhat in play, and the association named neither.

Where the tax bills stand

The House moved first. One day after the Clarity Act failed in the Senate, the Ways and Means Committee approved the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, a 114-page package from Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO). It exempts network fees under $10 from capital gains reporting, with a carve-out for taxpayers who made more than 5,000 transfers in the prior year, and extends wash sale and constructive sale rules to digital assets. Qualified dollar stablecoins are exempt from the wash sale rule.

The package left out the provision the industry wanted most. Rep. Mike Carey’s Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, H.R. 9175, which would have let miners and stakers defer tax until they sell, was in an early discussion draft and gone from the text the committee released on September 14. Instead the bill classifies validation rewards as ordinary income, taxable on receipt. Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV), who had proposed capping the deferral at five years, voted for the package and said it leaves the question open for further work.

The Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation and Digital Chamber had asked the committee in June to pass that bill without changes. The committee did the opposite.

The Senate has its own version. Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the ADAPT Act on September 30 with Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Bernie Moreno and Tim Scott as cosponsors. It exempts purchases made with GENIUS Act stablecoins from gain or loss, sets the same $10 fee threshold, and applies wash sale rules with grandfathering for existing holdings and exemptions for mining and staking rewards. It sits in committee. 

Lummis’s earlier bill, S. 2207, with a $300 per-transaction de minimis exemption capped at $5,000 a year, has been in the Finance Committee since June 2025.

Neither chamber’s bill contains the exemption for small bitcoin purchases that the industry made a centerpiece at Bitcoin 2026. The House bill’s $10 threshold covers fees, not purchases. The Senate bill’s spending exemption covers stablecoins, not bitcoin. 

The Bitcoin Policy Institute and others have argued that any de minimis rule should cover bitcoin, and Thursday’s letter asks for a “meaningful” exemption without naming a figure.

Awkward timing

Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterms. When members return, they will have a lame-duck session measured in weeks, and crypto taxes compete with government funding and whatever else leadership decides to clear before the 119th Congress ends. 

Lummis, the Senate’s loudest voice on digital asset taxes, retires in January 2027.

The Clarity Act’s collapse shapes all of this. The market structure bill passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, then stalled in the Senate for more than a year while the banking lobby fought the crypto industry over stablecoin yield and Democrats pressed for ethics language aimed at the Trump family’s crypto ventures. 

The cloture vote on September 15 failed 49-50. No Democrat crossed over, and Republicans Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran voted no. Sen. Thom Tillis switched his vote so he could file a motion to reconsider, which keeps the bill alive on paper and little more.

With market structure off the table, the industry has shifted its lobbying to what might move. Tax is the obvious candidate: the House package cleared committee with bipartisan votes, and the wash sale provisions raise revenue, which gives tax writers a reason to attach them to a larger vehicle. Punchbowl News reported Thursday that the association’s refusal to back either bill signals the industry wants more than what Congress has produced.

Regulators keep filling the gap in the meantime. The OCC issued its final GENIUS Act rule on Wednesday, and the SEC and CFTC have been setting market structure policy through rulemaking and enforcement in the absence of a statute.

This post Blockchain Association Presses Congress on Crypto Taxes as Clarity Act Stalls first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

China Moves to Confiscate $5 Billion in Bitcoin From Fraudster Who Fled to UK: Report

Chinese authorities are working to seize nearly 62,000 bitcoins — worth around $5 billion at today’s prices — linked to one of the country’s largest-ever fraud cases.

Prosecutors allege that Qian Zhimin, the alleged controller of Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology, recruited associates to sell fake wealth management products nationwide from 2014 to 2017 without financial regulatory approval, promising guaranteed returns to investors, according to a report last week from Shanghai’s The Paper. 

The scheme raised some RMB 40.3 billion ($2.8 billion). Qian allegedly used investors’ cash to pay off earlier participants — Ponzi-style — while channeling funds into the bitcoin holdings, property, cars, and jewelry. Little of the money went toward legitimate business operations.

In July 2017, as the scheme unraveled, Qian fled to the UK carrying computers holding the bitcoin wallets. British authorities later seized the crypto assets and other property, including roughly 61,900 BTC along with cash, jewelry, and other cryptocurrencies. 

The case took a significant turn recently when the UK High Court ruled that Chinese law — not UK law — applies to ownership disputes over the seized bitcoin. 

The coins have appreciated enormously since 2017, and the applicable law determines whether victims share in those gains. The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service says victims may recover losses through China’s compensation mechanism, but representatives from Fieldfisher law firm, acting for some victims, are considering an appeal. Further hearings will determine whether victims can prove their entitlement to the assets.

Meanwhile, the Second Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin announced it accepted the prosecution’s application on September 28 to confiscate Qian’s illicit assets. 

Victims can register to participate in asset recovery proceedings through a WeChat platform, with a six-month notice period before the formal trial begins.

China has some of the world’s strictest rules in regulating crypto. Its government banned digital asset trading and bitcoin mining back in 2021.

This post China Moves to Confiscate $5 Billion in Bitcoin From Fraudster Who Fled to UK: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Utexo Opens Utexo Mint Early Access for USDT on Bitcoin Ahead of November 28 Launch

Professional operators can now test USDT on Bitcoin and get their integrations ready for November’s public launch.

Utexo has opened Utexo Mint, its dedicated platform for professional operators preparing to support and offer USDT on Bitcoin. The public launch is scheduled for November 28.

The return of USDT creates an opportunity to bring dollar liquidity into the Bitcoin ecosystem, opening new markets for trading and BTC-backed lending. Operators who integrate early can be among the first to offer USDT on Bitcoin, “positioning themselves to capture initial demand and build market share as adoption grows,” according to a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine.

Utexo says existing partners are already preparing for the launch, as it is opening onboarding to exchanges, wallets, market makers, OTC desks, trading firms, and other professional operators interested in supporting USDT on Bitcoin.

Utexo Mint

Utexo Mint is a dedicated platform for verified operators to mint and redeem USDT on Bitcoin.

Within its sandbox environment, operators can test how USDT works on Bitcoin via RGB, including “minting, confidential transfers, and redemption.” The testing period should give operators time to validate their transaction flows and finalize their integrations ahead of the launch.

Utexo said they will also offer tools to manage USDT liquidity across supported networks and convert between fiat and USDT, giving operators greater flexibility in how they source and move funds. While Utxo Mint is not owned or operated by Tether, USDT on Bitcoin is nevertheless backed by USDT via Tether’s USDT0 protocol.

Bringing USDT Back Home to Bitcoin

USDT is returning to Bitcoin, where it first launched in 2014, bringing deep stablecoin liquidity to the ecosystem and expanding what businesses can do on the network. USDT on Bitcoin is launched by Utexo and not by Tether, the company clarified.

USDT on Bitcoin will be “private by design,” said the press release, allowing individuals to hold and transfer funds without publicly exposing their transaction details. Among the various technology differences between its Bitcoin implementation and that on EVM blockchains, RGB’s USDT avoids address reuse, the worst privacy practice and one which may even expose holders to quantum computer risks.

When it comes to compliance, the press release said businesses will be able to protect sensitive commercial activity while maintaining the controls required for regulatory compliance. When asked how privacy and compliance with sanctions and law enforcement can be offered as features at the same time, Utxo told Bitcoin Magazine, “We monitor all source USDT coming in, and check AML score + we monitor the risk on the RGB side too. We have a partnership with Crystal Intelligence for the AML”

The rollout will take place in two phases. The first begins on November 28, when USDT becomes publicly available on the Bitcoin network via RGB. The launch will make it accessible through partner wallets and exchanges, introducing new liquidity for swap providers and lending platforms.

The second phase, planned for Q1 2027, will extend USDT to the Lightning Network for payments, according to Utexo.

This post Utexo Opens Utexo Mint Early Access for USDT on Bitcoin Ahead of November 28 Launch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

The exchange says a failed deposit-sweeping process caused losses it absorbed, while ZachXBT's $15.8 million allegation remains unreconciled.

Read the full story on CryptoSlate

Understand the crypto stories that matter and what to watch next. Get The Catalyst in your inbox

HSP-029 would gradually cut the annual issuance cap by 36%, while tokens bought and held or staked remain in total supply.

Read the full story on CryptoSlate

Understand the crypto stories that matter and what to watch next. Get The Catalyst in your inbox

The Information’s unconfirmed report follows a16z crypto’s $2.2 billion fifth fund announcement on May 5, 2026.

Read the full story on CryptoSlate

Understand the crypto stories that matter and what to watch next. Get The Catalyst in your inbox

Ethereum developers have postponed the Glamsterdam upgrade on a major test network after identifying potential security risks affecting existing smart contracts. The Ethereum Foundation confirmed on Oct. 22 that the upgrade, scheduled for Oct. 26 on the Hoodi testnet, would no longer proceed as planned. Developers agreed to investigate how a proposed change to Ethereum's…

Read the full story on CryptoSlate

Understand the crypto stories that matter and what to watch next. Get The Catalyst in your inbox

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) has recovered from intermittent transaction-processing delays, although developers are still preparing a permanent software correction. On Oct. 22, XRP Ledger Operations confirmed that ledger-closing times had returned to normal after a configuration change recommended to network operators. The disruption coincided with a separate setback for a protocol amendment designed to correct…

Read the full story on CryptoSlate

Understand the crypto stories that matter and what to watch next. Get The Catalyst in your inbox

Bitcoin stands at $81,568 on Friday morning, around 1.5 percent lower than 24 hours earlier. The trigger did not come from the blockchain but from Wall Street: the Nasdaq closed 2.6 percent lower on Thursday after Tesla cut its spending forecast and doubts about the large investments in data centres returned. Overnight the price slipped to $80,989, and derivatives exchanges forcibly closed leveraged long positions worth several hundred million dollars.

On a morning like this, the percentage figure matters less than the question of where your own risk sits. This article places the night in context, explains the mechanism behind the liquidation wave, names the levels of the day with reasons, and shows what an investor in Germany can settle today: on leverage, on the holding period, on the buying route.

Overnight on the markets: Nasdaq down 2.6 percent, Bitcoin at $80,989

The move began on the equity markets. The Nasdaq lost 2.6 percent on Thursday, and Nasdaq 100 futures gave up a further 1.1 percent. The impulse came from Tesla's lowered spending forecast, which the market read as a signal for the entire investment wave in data centres and AI hardware.

Bitcoin followed with a delay. The price had briefly traded above $84,800 on Wednesday, then fell below $82,000 and marked a low of $80,989 in the night into Friday. Individual venues show $80,836 as the daily low; that spread arises because every exchange runs its own order book. On Friday morning the price stands at $81,568, roughly €72,700.

The relationship to the rest of the market is striking. The market capitalisation of all cryptocurrencies fell by a good 4 percent in 24 hours to $2.75 trillion, while Bitcoin itself lost only 1.5 percent. Bitcoin's share of that total now stands at 59.5 percent. How far the altcoins fell over the same period is broken down in our market report on the selloff from Thursday.

$431 million to $455 million in long liquidations in 24 hours

The figures for the forced closures differ from one data provider to the next, and there is a factual reason: each provider covers a different set of exchanges. CoinGlass arrived at around $431 million over 24 hours. A second count puts more than $412 million on closed long positions alone, a third $454.81 million across 102,764 affected accounts. What holds is this: it was a wave in the mid hundreds of millions, and it hit almost exclusively investors positioned for rising prices.

A liquidation is not a decision to sell. The exchange closes a leveraged position automatically as soon as the posted collateral no longer covers the paper loss. The holder of the position is not asked.

How a forced liquidation starts and feeds on itself

The mechanism takes three sentences. A leveraged buyer posts only a fraction of the position value as collateral, known as margin. If the price falls far enough for the paper loss to consume that collateral, the exchange closes the position by itself and sells the underlying coins into the market. That forced sale pushes the price a little further down, to where the next group of positions reaches its threshold.

That is why such waves run in steps. A market quietly losing one percent can lose three percent within minutes once a densely populated liquidation zone is reached. The slide from $82,000 to just under $81,000 last night carried exactly that signature: two quick downward steps with a brief pause between them.

The reverse direction works the same way. On Wednesday it was the sellers' turn, when the price jumped briefly above $84,800 and short positions were forcibly covered. A market with a lot of leverage swings further in both directions than the underlying news justifies. That is the key difference between the derivatives market and the spot market, where you simply own coins.

Bitcoin ETF flows turn: $635.5 million out after three days of inflows

The second point of attack sits next to the chart, in the fund business. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of $635.5 million on Thursday. The largest single item came from BlackRock's IBIT at around $254.05 million, followed by Fidelity's FBTC at $217.46 million. Together the two funds accounted for about three quarters of the day's outflow. Only one provider saw an inflow that day: Morgan Stanley's MSBT, at roughly $2.3 million.

An ETF is an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of an underlying asset; the US spot products hold real Bitcoin in custody for that purpose. When money leaves, the fund has to sell coins. The outflow therefore creates genuine selling pressure in the order book.

From $526.7 million in to $254 million out at IBIT

The number only becomes meaningful over time. On Tuesday we reported $526.7 million in inflows here at a price of $82,708. A further $528 million came in on Wednesday, taking the funds to more than $1 billion collected over three trading days. On Thursday the direction reversed.

The price has barely moved over those three days: $82,708 on Tuesday, $81,568 today, a decline of around 1.4 percent. Over seven days it is half a percent down, over 30 days almost six percent. Fund flows therefore swing considerably more than the price itself. That gives a simple reading aid: a single day of outflows is no sell signal, while a series of outflow days does point to thinner demand.

The Bitcoin levels that matter today: $80,989 below, $82,910 above

Two levels can be justified from the past 24 hours of trading without borrowing anyone else's forecast.

On the downside it is the overnight low at $80,989, or $80,836 at individual venues. That zone held during the night, and the price has run back about $600 from it. If it gives way during the day, the next psychologically occupied level is $80,000, and below that begins the area where the next group of leveraged positions reaches its threshold.

On the upside it is the daily high at $82,910. Only above that does Wednesday's interim high around $84,800 come back within range. Until then the price moves in a band of just under $2,000, about 2.4 percent. The all-time high of $126,080 from October 2025 remains some 35 percent away.

Leverage and liquidation distance: the maths behind a forced close

The most obvious action on such a morning concerns open risk, before any purchase. Work out your distance to liquidation, and do it in dollars. The rule of thumb: at leverage of 10 the threshold sits roughly 10 percent below your entry, at leverage of 20 already at 5 percent, at leverage of 5 at 20 percent. Fees and funding costs shift the threshold further up.

Hold that against last night's range: 2.3 percent lay between $82,910 and $80,989. A position opened at leverage of 20 in the upper part of that band stood at the threshold within a few hours. The 102,764 affected accounts show exactly that. How venues for such products differ on fees and liquidation rules is set out in our comparison of perp DEXs.

Holding period and loss offsetting: the tax case under German law

A price slide has a tax side in Germany that goes unnoticed on quiet days. Gains from the sale of cryptocurrencies count as a private disposal under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. If you hold the coins for longer than a year, the gain stays tax free. If you sell within the year, it is taxed at your personal rate once the sum of all such gains in the calendar year reaches €1,000.

Today the other direction is what counts: losses from sales within the one-year period can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year, and whatever remains can be carried forward. If you close a position at a loss today, document the sale cleanly: date, quantity, acquisition price, sale price, fees. Without those details the tax office will not accept the offset. Where the holding period stands politically is tracked in our overview of the holding period reform. Which tools assign the individual sales automatically is covered in the comparison of crypto tax software.

One detail is often overlooked. The one-year period runs per acquisition, not per wallet. If you bought in tranches over months, each tranche has its own deadline. A sale during a price slide hits the oldest holdings first under the first in, first out principle, that is, the ones closest to being tax free.

Buying under MiCA: which crypto exchanges are licensed in Germany

If you want to use the decline to add, look at the trading venue first. Under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, every provider that targets retail clients in the EU needs authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. It is granted by the supervisor of a member state, in Germany by BaFin, and then applies across Europe.

In practice that means an authorised provider keeps your coins separate from its own assets, publishes its fees in full and answers to a supervisor you can turn to in a dispute. A provider without authorisation offers none of that. Which platforms meet the requirements and what trading there costs is broken down in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

For larger holdings, custody remains the second question. Coins on an exchange belong to you economically but sit in someone else's care. Long-term holders usually move them to their own wallet and secure the recovery words offline in two separate places.

The Fed decision on October 28: the policy rate stands at 3.75 to 4.00 percent

The next date with an effect on the price falls next Wednesday. The open market committee of the US Federal Reserve meets on October 27 and 28, and the decision comes on October 28. The target range for the policy rate currently stands at 3.75 to 4.00 percent. The meeting dates are listed in the Federal Reserve's official calendar.

The link to the Bitcoin price runs through the risk budgets of the large houses. If rates stay high, safe interest income becomes more attractive and assets without a running yield lose weight. If rates fall, that relationship turns around. That is why Bitcoin currently reacts more to the Nasdaq than to news from its own industry: both hang on the same risk budget.

For the coming days that means a wider range of fluctuation around Wednesday evening European time. A larger purchase can be split into tranches instead of putting the whole sum to work before the date.

Bitcoin before the Fed decision: below $80,836 the floor is missing

The position on Friday morning fits in one sentence: Bitcoin is holding up better at $81,568 than the broader market, and the overnight low just under $81,000 is the level on which the day turns. Three steps make sense today.

1. Recalculate open leverage risk. Work out the dollar distance between your entry and your liquidation threshold and hold it against the overnight range of 2.3 percent. If the distance is smaller, either the position is too large or the collateral too small. The fee and liquidation rules of the trading venues are in the comparison of perp DEXs.
2. Sort the tax position per tranche. Draw up a list of your acquisitions with date and quantity and mark when each tranche reaches the one-year mark. A tool from the comparison of crypto tax software handles the first in, first out allocation automatically.
3. Look at the venue before the next purchase. Check the MiCA authorisation, the custody structure and the actual total cost of a purchase. The side-by-side is in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

(As of October 23, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Trading cryptocurrencies carries the risk of total loss.)

Solana is a public blockchain that runs programs, tokens and payments without a bank or a company sitting in between. SOL is the token of that network: you pay the fees with it, and the machines that write the blocks post it as security. Technically Solana belongs to the group of layer-1 blockchains, the networks that settle their transactions themselves rather than building on another network.

The mainnet launched in March 2020. Since then the network has processed 563.3 billion transactions by its own count. On October 23, 2026 one SOL cost $103.72, or €92.40, which puts Solana at rank seven among all cryptocurrencies with a market capitalisation of just over $61 billion. The all-time high of $293.31 dates from January 19, 2025.

What is Solana? A layer-1 blockchain that keeps its own clock

The difference from older networks starts with the clock. In a classic blockchain, the network has to agree on the order in which transactions arrived for every single block. Solana turns that around: a method called Proof of History continuously produces a sequence of computed results in which each result requires the previous one. Because nobody can take a shortcut, that sequence proves time has passed between two points. The order is therefore settled before any vote takes place.

Proof of History is thus neither a vote nor a security mechanism but a verifiable clock. The security itself comes from Proof of Stake: anyone who wants to write or confirm blocks posts SOL as collateral. Anyone who plays foul risks that collateral. Together, the two methods allow blocks to be produced at very short intervals without participants constantly negotiating the order.

Slots, epochs and 432,000 time windows: the rhythm of the network

A slot is the time window in which a given validator may propose a block. Twelve samples taken on October 23, 2026 produced a slot time of 212 milliseconds and throughput of roughly 2,150 transactions per second. The slot time stood at 400 milliseconds for a long time; the halving came through a protocol update this year.

Every 432,000 slots form an epoch. That is the network's settlement unit: staking rewards are credited at the end of an epoch, and only then does deposited or withdrawn collateral take effect. The shorter slots have a side effect here that counts in practice. Epoch 1064 began on October 21, 2026 at 13:36 UTC, epoch 1065 on October 22 at 15:06 UTC. One epoch therefore lasted roughly 25.5 hours instead of the former 48. Anyone unstaking SOL today waits about a day for release rather than two.

Not every slot carries a block. In the current epoch, 1,422 of 163,823 assigned time windows lapsed, by our own count, because the validator in charge delivered nothing. That is 0.87 percent. Gaps like these are normal in operation and cost only the validator in question its share.

Alpenglow replaces TowerBFT: the biggest protocol change since 2020

Solana swapped out its voting mechanism on October 21, 2026. TowerBFT, which had run since launch, gave way to Alpenglow and its Votor component. The switch hung on slot 459,653,000. The block immediately before it carries a timestamp of 13:54 UTC according to our own query; the epoch itself had begun at 13:36. Both times circulated side by side in the coverage, but they describe different things.

In substance, Votor merges two voting rounds into one. If validators agree with 80 percent of the voting weight, one round is enough; at 60 percent it takes two. The method was developed by Anza, the development firm behind the most important Solana client. Voters had approved the change in September 2025 with 98.27 percent, on a turnout of 52 percent of the voting weight. Our report on the activation covers the process in detail.

What matters is what has not happened yet: only Votor shipped, that is the voting part. Rotor, the planned rewrite of block propagation, has no date. The 150 milliseconds often quoted are a target from the design paper, not a measured value. The Solana Foundation itself calls the figure an expectation rather than a fixed quantity.

Finality measured: one to three slots between block and irreversibility

Finality means the point from which a payment is fixed so firmly that it can no longer be reversed. That is the number which counts for an exchange, a merchant or for you when withdrawing. Under TowerBFT the gap ran to roughly 12.8 seconds, which at 400-millisecond slots was about 32 blocks.

We measured the distance ourselves, twelve times in a row on October 23, 2026: between the last block seen and the block finally confirmed there were two slots on average, one at best and three at worst. At 212 milliseconds per slot that comes to a good 400 milliseconds. The figure is an upper bound, because each of the two queries travels its own network path. The target of 150 milliseconds has therefore not been reached, but the value sits an order of magnitude below the old one. In practice that means a transfer a recipient once had to wait a quarter of a minute for now counts as complete in under a second.

The SOL token: fees, collateral and voting weight

SOL serves three purposes. First, you pay transaction fees with it, which for simple transfers run to fractions of a cent. Part of every fee is burned, the rest goes to the validator. Second, SOL acts as collateral in Proof of Stake: validators lock their own tokens and those delegated to them and receive a share of the new issuance in return. Third, voting weight in protocol votes follows exactly that locked amount.

Anyone who only wants to hold SOL does not need to run a validator. Delegation is the usual route: you transfer the voting right to a validator while keeping control of your tokens. Where that is possible and at what cost is shown in our crypto exchange comparison.

No supply cap: issuance falls from eight to 1.5 percent

Unlike Bitcoin, Solana has no fixed upper limit. Total supply stood at 636,273,852 SOL on October 23, 2026, of which 589,653,441 were in circulation; the remaining 7.3 percent are locked or not yet released. Instead of a cap there is a declining issuance schedule: the rate started at eight percent a year, falls by 15 percent annually and converges on a long-run value of 1.5 percent. All three figures stand unchanged in the protocol and can be read directly at Anza.

The rate currently stands at 3.59 percent. That produces new issuance of roughly 22.85 million SOL a year, or around $2.37 billion at the October 23 price. This money is not a loss but the payment for the network's security; it goes in full to the validators and their delegators. For you as a holder it still means that leaving your SOL idle dilutes your share, because the quantity rises every year.

74.1 percent in staking: locked capital and what it buys

On October 23, 2026, 437,024,130 SOL were locked as collateral. That is 74.1 percent of the circulating supply and 68.7 percent of total supply, one of the highest ratios among the large networks. The higher it sits, the more expensive an attack becomes, because an attacker would have to assemble a correspondingly large amount of capital. At the same time that share is unavailable for trading, which can amplify price moves. We track the ratio over time in a separate analysis.

656 validators, blocking minority at 18: how decentralised Solana is

The network counted 656 active validators plus 20 delinquent ones. In the current epoch, 643 of them were assigned time windows. What matters, though, is less the number of machines than the distribution of voting weight. Here is our own count: the largest single validator held 3.92 percent, the ten largest together 24.5 percent. Reaching one third of the voting weight takes just 18 validators; that figure is the Nakamoto coefficient. For half it takes 40.

One third is the critical threshold because from there finality can no longer be reached. How close that sits to reality was shown on August 12, 2026: an outage at the provider TeraSwitch took 90 validators holding 28.83 percent of staked SOL off the network for 33 minutes. Blocks kept coming, but only a good four and a half percentage points were missing to the threshold. The problem was not the number of operators but that many of them sat with the same data centre provider.

The last full outage dates from February 2024

Solana had a poor reputation for stability in its early years. The last complete halt so far came on February 6, 2024 and lasted 4 hours and 46 minutes; the cause was an infinite loop in a program function. The Solana Foundation's post-mortem describes the sequence in detail. Since then the network has produced without a complete interruption, so for roughly two and a half years. That record comes with a caveat: the figure is the Foundation's own, and users notice outages at individual exchanges, wallets or data providers even while the blockchain keeps running.

Robustness is also helped by the fact that there is now more than one validator client. Alongside the established Agave, Firedancer runs as a complete rewrite by Jump Crypto in C and C++ that shares no code with the original. The point is simple: a bug in one program no longer takes down the whole network. How large Firedancer's share of the voting weight is exactly, the available sources put differently; the ranges run from a few to a good twenty percent.

Buying Solana in Germany: trading venues and custody

You can get SOL in Germany at every larger crypto exchange, at some brokers and neobanks, and through savings plans. Since MiCA the same licensing requirement applies across the EU: a provider needs authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider, and supervision in Germany falls to BaFin. Before a first purchase it is worth checking whether your provider actually holds that licence, because without it, it may not serve retail clients here. Which routes exist and what they cost is set out in our overview on buying Solana.

With custody you have two options. If the SOL stay on the exchange you carry its default risk but get by without managing keys yourself. If you move them to a wallet of your own, the responsibility is yours, and losing the recovery words means losing the tokens. Staking is possible either way: more conveniently through the exchange, with a free choice of validator in your own wallet.

Tax on SOL: the one-year holding period and the €1,000 threshold

For private investors in Germany, SOL counts as another asset under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If you sell more than one year after buying, the gain stays tax-free, with no upper limit. If you sell earlier, the gain counts as a private disposal; if all such gains in a year together stay below €1,000, nothing is due. Once that threshold is exceeded, the full amount is taxable at your personal rate, not just the excess.

Staking follows its own calculation. The rewards themselves are other income under section 22 no. 3 of the Income Tax Act, valued at the market price on the day they arrive, with a threshold of €256 a year. Staking does not extend the holding period of your original SOL under current law. A reform is in progress and its status is contested; we track the latest state in our article on the crypto holding period, and the general rules in the crypto tax overview. Because every single staking credit has its own receipt date, clean record-keeping pays off from the start.

Solana: 22.85 million new SOL a year is the price of the speed

Solana buys speed with two things: with continuous new issuance and with a voting weight that reaches one third at 18 operators. Both are verifiable numbers rather than opinions, and both belong in the calculation before you build a position. Three steps are concrete:

1. Check the trading venue: compare which providers hold an EU licence in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Do the staking maths: set the offered yield against new issuance of 3.59 percent before locking tokens; the terms are in the comparison of staking providers.
3. Secure the records: note the purchase date and every staking credit from the start, most easily with one of the crypto tax tools.

Total loss is possible with any cryptocurrency, even with a network of this size.

(As of October 23, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

NEAR Protocol is trading at $4.91 in the early hours of Friday, October 23, 2026. That is 7.57 percent below the level of 24 hours earlier, while Bitcoin lost 3.30 percent and Ether 3.31 percent over the same period. The trigger does not sit inside the NEAR blockchain but on the stock market: technology and chip stocks fell on Wall Street, oil held above $111 a barrel, and money moved out of risky assets. NEAR is marketed as a blockchain for AI applications, which ties it to precisely the trend that turned on Thursday.

NEAR price falls to $4.91 while Bitcoin holds $81,438

The 24-hour range runs from $4.83 to $5.33. At the lower end, NEAR sat roughly 9.4 percent below the daily high. Market capitalisation stands at $6.42 billion, which is rank 19 among all cryptocurrencies. Trading volume over 24 hours came to $695.8 million. The figures are CoinGecko price data from October 23, 2026, 2:56 a.m. CEST.

The comparison with the larger coins shows the pattern of the day. The smaller a coin is, and the more closely it hangs on the AI story, the wider its move to the downside.

What the longer-dated numbers say

Over one month NEAR is still up 11.07 percent despite the slide, and over one year up 126.36 percent. Both put the day in perspective: anyone who bought in October is still in profit. At the same time the price sits 76.0 percent below the all-time high of $20.44 reached on January 16, 2022. Around 1.31 billion NEAR are in circulation, and total supply stands at practically the same figure. No unlock date releasing additional coins into the market is behind this move.

The trigger comes from the stock market

On Thursday, October 22, 2026, Bitcoin opened at $84,024.44 according to Yahoo Finance, 1.3 percent above the previous day's opening price. By 7:15 a.m. New York time it had slipped to $81,809.90. Ether opened at $2,471.35, one percent higher, and then gave way as well. The outlet points to the oil price, which held above $111 a barrel after passing $112 in the morning.

The US stock market fell sharply at the same time. The Yahoo Finance market report from the same day describes a sell-off in the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, driven by falling technology stocks and doubts about the AI trade; Meta shares dropped hard. A high oil price lifts inflation expectations, higher inflation expectations cut hopes of falling interest rates, and fading rate hopes hit assets without a running yield first. Cryptocurrencies belong in that group, and so do technology stocks without earnings.

What a risk-off day means

Risk-off describes a trading day on which investors pull money out of volatile positions across every asset class and shift into bonds, cash or gold. What matters is the simultaneity: no single coin falls on news of its own; the whole field gives way at once. That is exactly what happened on this day. Among the 25 largest cryptocurrencies, not one without a stablecoin peg closed higher.

Why an AI blockchain swings harder in a sell-off

NEAR Protocol is a layer-1 blockchain that spreads its computing load across several parallel sections through sharding. Since 2024 the project has pointed its public positioning at AI applications, from agents that trigger transactions to services that broker computing power. That positioning brings attention when the AI sector runs. It works just as strongly in the other direction.

How the double move builds

The mechanism behind it is no crypto special case but a question of market breadth and order book depth. On any given trading day, billions of dollars in buy and sell orders sit close together around Bitcoin. A wave of selling eats through those layers slowly. NEAR turned over $695.8 million in 24 hours, roughly one hundredth of Bitcoin's volume. The same amount of selling clears more price levels in a thinner order book, and the price falls further.

Then there is the order in which people sell. Anyone cutting risk sells what has risen most and what is backed least by a running yield. NEAR was up 126 percent over one year. That gain is the cushion profit-taking draws on during a risk-off day. The result on October 23: 7.57 against 3.30 percent, a ratio of 2.3 to 1.

NEAR is down 7.0 percent since Wednesday

On October 21, 2026 the opposite story stood in this spot: NEAR rose 6.0 percent to $5.28, more than twice as strongly as Bitcoin. From that level down to today's $4.91 is a fall of 7.0 percent. The ratio to the broad market has stayed the same, only the sign has flipped. That is the point a glance at a single day hides: the sensitivity to the stock market works both ways, and it is not a one-off.

The comparison with October 13 supports this. NEAR fell 11.7 percent in a single day back then, dropping below five dollars before recovering part of the loss. On that day too the push came from outside. Holding NEAR therefore means holding what is in effect a leveraged position on sentiment in the technology sector, without having taken on any leverage.

Long liquidations amplify the move

A wave of forced closures hit the futures market on October 22 alongside the price move. Readings of the CoinGlass data diverge because they were taken at different times: PANews and TechFlow cite roughly $374 million to $376 million over 24 hours, ChainCatcher $429 million, Crypto Times $458 million and FXStreet around $474 million. The range therefore runs from $374 million to $474 million. The sources agree on the direction: Crypto Times puts the share of long positions at 91.2 percent.

A liquidation is not a voluntary decision to sell. Anyone holding a leveraged position puts up only part of the notional value as collateral. If the price falls far enough that this collateral no longer covers the losses, the exchange closes the position itself and sells into the falling market. Those sales push the price down further, bring the next group of positions to their limit and set off a chain of liquidations. In a coin with a thin order book, that chain runs through faster than in Bitcoin.

How to spot a wave like this

Two signals are publicly available and cost nothing. Open interest, the sum of all open futures contracts, drops sharply during a liquidation wave because positions disappear instead of changing hands. And the funding rate, the balancing payment between the long and the short side, turns negative as soon as the short side has the upper hand. The common futures exchanges and data sites show both figures directly on the market page, without any sign-up.

$4.83 and $5.33 are the levels from the past 24 hours

Two values come straight out of this day's trading data and need no model. The daily low sits at $4.83, roughly 1.6 percent below the current price. The daily high sits at $5.33, roughly 8.6 percent above it. Trading over the past 24 hours has played out between those two points.

The five-dollar mark serves as a third point of reference. It is not a technical line but a round number where many orders cluster; NEAR already slipped through it on October 13 and came back afterwards. The price currently sits 1.8 percent below it. Which of these levels holds is for the market to decide, not a forecast; what is documented is only where they lie.

Buying crypto in Germany runs through licensed providers under MiCA

Since the European MiCA regulation applies in full, trading platforms may only offer cryptocurrencies in the EU with authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. For you that changes three things above all: the provider has to show the licence, it has to give you an information sheet on costs and risks before you buy, and it has to keep client funds separate from its own assets. A licence is no guarantee against price losses. It regulates who may trade and which duties apply.

In practical terms: before buying, check whether the provider is authorised in the EU, how high the trading fee and the spread are, and whether NEAR can be traded there against euro at all or only against a stablecoin. The second route costs an extra conversion, because a spread is charged twice.

With leverage, the liquidation level decides the loss

A day down 7.6 percent is a paper loss on an unleveraged position, the kind you can sit through. With leverage it becomes a different calculation. At five times leverage, a price move of 20 percent wipes out the collateral entirely; at ten times, 10 percent is enough. This day's range from $4.83 to $5.33 spans 9.4 percent. A ten-times leveraged position opened at the daily high was therefore mathematically gone at the daily low.

From that comes a check you run before opening a position, not after: divide 100 by your leverage and you have the price move in percent that consumes your collateral in full. If that figure sits below the coin's usual daily range, the position is not built for an ordinary trading day. NEAR showed a 9.4 percent range on this day and an 11.7 percent daily loss on October 13.

The one-year holding period applies to NEAR gains too

In Germany, cryptocurrencies count as other assets for tax purposes. Sales within one year of purchase are a private disposal: the gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate once the sum of all such gains in a year reaches the €1,000 threshold. After a holding period of more than one year, the gain on a sale remains tax-free.

A falling price has a side to it that is easily overlooked. Losses from sales inside the one-year window can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year, and any excess can be carried forward. Anyone who sold at a profit earlier in a year and at a loss later sets the two against each other. That requires records documenting purchase date, purchase price, sale date and sale price per unit. Which units count as sold follows, per wallet, the method you apply consistently.

Staking locks up NEAR and shifts the tax position

NEAR can be delegated to validators and earns a yield that way. The emission rate still stands at 2.5 percent a year, after a vote to cut it to 1.6 percent failed. Two points matter more on a day like this than the yield itself. First, delegated amounts are subject to an unstaking period before the coins are freely available again; anyone wanting to sell into a slide cannot reach the position during that time. Second, staking rewards are taxable in Germany as other income in the year they are received, regardless of whether the underlying coin is in profit or at a loss.

That produces a situation which occasionally catches holders out in a down year: tax falls due on the rewards received, while the price of the reward may have dropped since the day it arrived. Valuation follows the price on the day of receipt. Anyone delegating therefore records that price as they go. Which providers set which periods and fees is set out in the comparison of staking platforms.

With custody, who holds the keys is what counts

If the coins sit on a trading platform, the platform holds the private keys. That is convenient for trading and shifts the counterparty risk onto the provider. In a wallet of your own you hold the keys yourself, but you carry full responsibility for backing up the recovery words. For NEAR there is one additional detail that has become practical in recent weeks: the MyNearWallet wallet is shutting down on October 31, 2026, and holdings there have to be moved before that date. A sell-off day is a poor moment to read a deadline like that for the first time.

Regardless of the price, every cryptocurrency carries the risk of total loss. This asset class swings hard, individual projects can lose their value entirely, and there is no deposit guarantee as there is on a bank account.

NEAR at $4.91: $4.83 is this week's level

The day was a market event, not news out of the NEAR blockchain. Anyone holding the position therefore has less to decide about the project than about the size of their own risk. Three steps follow directly:

1. Measure leverage against the daily range. 100 divided by the leverage gives the move that consumes the collateral. If the result sits below this day's 9.4 percent, the position is too large. The differences in funding rate and liquidation logic are set out in the perp DEX comparison.
2. Check the buying route and the fees before any top-up. What counts is the EU licence, the spread, and whether NEAR trades against euro or only against a stablecoin. The terms are set out in the crypto exchange comparison.
3. Record purchase and sale data for the one-year window. Without a date and a price per unit, neither the one-year holding period can be shown nor a loss offset. Suitable programs are listed in the crypto tax software comparison.

(As of October 23, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

November 5 has been the pencilled-in date for the next Zcash upgrade for weeks. On October 22, 2026, it became possible for the first time to check whether that date holds. The upgrade's deployment document now names a fixed block height, and that height together with the current state of the blockchain produces a window that sits just beside it.

The documented facts: ZIP 259, the document governing the rollout of NU7, lists block 3,543,405 as the mainnet activation height. The Zcash blockchain stood at block 3,527,079 on October 22. Our assessment follows further down: a height in the document does not turn the target date into a commitment from the developers, but it shifts the evidence considerably.

ZIP 259 carries mainnet height 3,543,405 and consensus branch 0x77190AD9

ZIP stands for Zcash Improvement Proposal. It is the format in which the project records its protocol changes, comparable to the BIPs at Bitcoin. Among those documents, ZIP 259 is the organisational one: it governs how and when the upgrade reaches the network. What NU7 changes in substance sits in the other documents.

Two numbers now appear in that document that were not there before. The activation height for the testnet reads 4,465,026, the one for mainnet 3,543,405. Added to that is the consensus branch identifier, 0x77190AD9. That identifier is the value by which a wallet and a node recognise which rule set makes a transaction valid. The document also records that every activation height must be divisible by three, which holds for 3,543,405.

On October 21, cryptoticker.io reported that the same figure was circulating but was entered in no project document, and that six NU7 documents carried the status Draft. That has changed. A count of all eight documents belonging to NU7 returns the status Proposed for every single one as of October 22, 2026: revision 2 of ZIP 207, revision 3 of ZIP 214, plus ZIP 218, ZIP 235, ZIP 237, ZIP 2003, ZIP 2008 and ZIP 259 itself. None sits on Draft any longer. cryptoticker.io compiled this count itself on October 22, 2026; the basis is the eight NU7 documents in the project's public ZIP directory.

Proposed is the stage above Draft and below Final in the project's system. A document at Proposed is fully drafted and intended for implementation, but not yet effective in the network. For holders, that means the contents are settled enough to prepare for.

16,326 blocks to activation: the calculation from October 22

The two numbers turn into a deadline. Between the state of the blockchain on October 22, 2026, and the activation height lie 16,326 blocks. That number is the real clock of the upgrade, because the network knows no calendar date. It counts blocks, and when the 3,543,405th of them appears depends solely on how quickly miners find the remaining ones.

Zcash has so far targeted a gap of 75 seconds between two blocks. Running the 16,326 outstanding blocks against that target value gives 14.17 days. Measured from the afternoon of October 22, the network therefore arrives on November 6, 2026, at around 01:00 UTC, that is, in the night going into Friday.

75.5 seconds per block: the measured pace of the past 24 hours

The target is an aim, not a promise. How quickly blocks actually appear varies with the computing power in the network and with the difficulty adjustment that evens out that variation. In the 24 hours before October 22, 2026, the Zcash network produced 1,145 blocks. That works out at 75.5 seconds per block, half a percent above the target value.

The deviation is small, but its leverage across two weeks is measurable. With the measured pace instead of the target value, activation moves back by a good two hours, to November 6, 2026, at around 03:00 UTC. cryptoticker.io compiled these figures itself as well, on October 22, 2026, on the basis of the block height and the block count of the preceding 24 hours.

Between November 5 and November 6 sits the result of the block calculation

That allows the widely quoted date to be placed. November 5, which appears in news reports and in calendar round-ups, is the estimate that arises when you start from a slightly earlier block height or calculate in a different time zone. The calculation from October 22 leads both variants into the same window: the night of November 5 going into November 6, 2026.

In practical terms the difference between the two days is secondary, the character of the deadline is not. A block height cannot be moved without changing the document. If miners speed up, the date arrives earlier. If you need to get something done before activation, it is safer to plan around the weekend before November 5.

ZIP 259 suspends the three-month recommendation from ZIP 200 for NU7

One part of the document has been overlooked in the coverage so far, even though it is what explains the time window in the first place. ZIP 200, the general rule set for network upgrades at Zcash, contains two safeguards. The first requires the activation height to sit above the end-of-support height of the last software version without support for the upgrade. The second recommends allowing around three months to pass between the first supporting software release and activation.

For NU7, ZIP 259 explicitly suspends both. The document describes the exception as limited to this one upgrade and records that it does not change the planning rules for future upgrades. That exception is precisely why a good two weeks can lie between a recorded height and activation instead of a quarter.

Nodes that are not updated stay online and follow a pre-NU7 consensus branch

The suspension has a consequence that the document names itself. Because the end-of-support height no longer bites, machines running outdated software will not drop off the network at the moment of activation. Those machines keep running and follow the rule set that applied before NU7. The document therefore requires the accompanying communication to warn operators explicitly to update their software ahead of activation.

A node in that state is not a silent outage but a wrong answer. It displays blocks and balances under the old rules while the rest of the network works under the new ones. That affects nobody who holds their ZEC at an exchange or in an ordinary wallet. It affects everyone who runs a machine of their own and relies on what it displays, for instance when taking payment in a shop.

ZIP 235 removes 60 percent of transaction fees from circulation

In substance, NU7 is more than a faster sequence of blocks. ZIP 235 provides that 60 percent of the transaction fees in a block are removed from circulation instead of going entirely to the miners. The remainder stays with the miners. Mechanically that works like a running tightening on the fee side, whose scale rises and falls with the number of transactions.

ZIP 237 brings the Network Sustainability Mechanism, the 21 million cap stays

ZIP 237 introduces a mechanism that holds removed amounts and sums not claimed by miners in a public balance and can spend them again later without altering the halving schedule. On that, ZIP 259 records one sentence that is probably the most important in the whole document for holders: the changes do not raise the cap of 21 million ZEC. Amounts spent out of that balance had previously been taken out of circulation in the same quantity. Around 17.0 million ZEC are currently in circulation.

Shielded action limits cap shielded actions per pool and globally

A threefold higher block frequency means three times as many opportunities to fit shielded transactions in. Because every shielded action costs computing time when it is verified and when a wallet syncs, NU7 brings in upper limits for them, per pool and for the network as a whole. That caps how expensive a block can become for the machines in the network in the worst case. If you sync your wallet regularly, you will notice nothing of it in normal operation.

The target gap between two blocks falls from 75 to 25 seconds with ZIP 218. Around 1,150 blocks a day become around 3,450. A confirmation arrives three times faster, and the same number of confirmations is therefore reached earlier. If you use a fixed number of confirmations as a safety threshold, you should reassess that threshold after the upgrade, because six confirmations cover a third of the previous span of time once the switch is made. A hardware wallet needs no setting for that, a payment stream of your own in a shop does.

ZEC at $1,206: a 10.5 percent loss and a $171 daily range

On the market, October 22 went considerably worse for Zcash than for the rest of the front rank. ZEC trades at $1,206.57, after $1,358.62 at the daily high and $1,187.54 at the daily low. The loss over 24 hours comes to 10.5 percent, the span between high and low to $171. Market capitalisation stands at $20.5 billion, trading turnover over the past 24 hours at $1.18 billion. That puts ZEC in tenth place among the largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation.

Over longer periods the picture looks different. On a weekly view there is a loss of 2.0 percent, over 30 days one of 20.6 percent, over twelve months by contrast a gain of 392.5 percent. The all-time high of $3,191.93, which Zcash reached in October 2016, remains 62.2 percent away.

Zcash falls more than twice as hard as Bitcoin and Ethereum

The day was weak for the market as a whole. Bitcoin lost 4.1 percent, Ethereum 4.5 percent. Zcash, down 10.5 percent, therefore falls around two and a half times as hard as Bitcoin. Among the 25 largest cryptocurrencies, ZEC is the biggest loser on the day; behind it follow Near Protocol, down 8.2 percent, and Cardano, down 7.8 percent.

That an asset gives up more than the market on weak days after an annual gain of almost 400 percent is the usual mechanic: positions that sit far in profit are sold first, and leveraged positions on such assets are closed out on smaller moves. Added to that is a date occupying the entire market. The US Federal Reserve decides on interest rates on October 27 and 28, 2026, and the Federal Reserve meeting calendar lists those two days as a regular meeting. The upgrade and the rate decision thus fall into the same two weeks.

Our assessment: the document changes the evidence, not the date

From the editorial team's point of view, October 22 is progress for NU7 but not a commitment. Three points can be documented in favour: height 3,543,405 now sits in the deployment document and no longer only in a proposal. All eight NU7 documents carry the status Proposed. And the block calculation independently leads into the same window the developers have been naming for weeks.

Against it stands the fact that the project's official upgrade page still carried the sentence on the same day that the activation height for NU7 had not yet been set. As long as the project page and the deployment document diverge, the date remains a derivation from documents and not a public confirmation. If you have to move balances, plan for the earlier of the two dates rather than waiting for an announcement. A total loss remains possible with any cryptocurrency.

Zcash NU7: from block 3,543,405 Sprout balances are lost

The point at which the upgrade touches balances is ZIP 2003. It declares version 4 transactions invalid as soon as NU7 is active. Version 5 and version 6 stay valid, and no new format is added. The ban hits all version 4 transactions, including purely transparent ones and Sapling transactions. What matters is the consequence ZIP 259 names: because transfers out of the Sprout pool can only be represented as a version 4 transaction, balances still sitting in the Sprout pool at activation become unspendable. Sprout is the oldest shielded pool at Zcash and has been superseded for years. The holdings affected are those that have not been moved since. Three steps make sense now:

1. Establish where it is held. If the ZEC sit at an exchange, the exchange handles the format; the venue should hold a MiCA licence for the EU market, which can be checked against the list of authorised providers. An overview sits in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Check your own wallet. If you hold your own coins, look before the weekend of November 1 to see which pool the holding sits in, and move any balance out of Sprout to a current address. Which programmes support the move is shown by the software wallet comparison.
3. Place the tax consequences. In Germany, the one-year holding period for private disposals applies to cryptocurrencies held as private assets. A transfer between your own addresses is not a sale, but it should still be documented so that the acquisition date remains traceable. The programmes from the comparison of crypto tax software help with that.

The two documents on which this article rests are publicly available: the deployment document ZIP 259 with the activation heights, and the NU7 page of the Zcash project, on which the height was still listed as not set on October 22.

(As of October 22, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

An Ethereum layer 2 is a network of its own that executes transactions outside the Ethereum blockchain, bundles them and settles them on Ethereum in batches. It is faster and cheaper than Ethereum itself and hangs on Ethereum for exactly that reason: the security comes from below. Starknet put that dependency to a vote among its token holders last week. The record shows this: the vote ran from October 15 to 22, 2026, 93.52 percent of the voting power cast across 3,236 votes came out in favour of researching an exit from the layer 2 model, and a move is not thereby decided, because that would need a second, binding vote. Our assessment follows further below: two things matter for holders over the coming months, the draft whitepaper in November and the question of which network actually carries their token.

This piece answers three things: what a layer 2 is technically and which designs exist, how much capital the individual networks actually secure today, and what to check in your own position when a network changes its foundation. We compiled the capital figures ourselves, which is why they appear here as a table rather than as an assertion.

Rollup, validium, sidechain: three designs sit behind the term Ethereum layer 2

"Layer 2" is not a protected term but a collective label. Underneath it sit designs with very different security assumptions, and the difference decides how easily you reach your money and whom you trust along the way.

A rollup is a network that executes transactions outside Ethereum, bundles them into batches and publishes the associated data or a cryptographic proof on Ethereum. Because the data sits on Ethereum, anyone can reconstruct the state of the rollup from it.

An optimistic rollup initially takes the bundled transactions to be correct and leaves a challenge window open in which any participant can demonstrate an error. Arbitrum One, Base and OP Mainnet work this way. A ZK rollup instead submits a mathematical validity proof that Ethereum verifies before the state is adopted; a challenge is then unnecessary. Starknet, Linea, Scroll and ZKsync Era belong to this group.

A validium publishes the validity proof on Ethereum but keeps the transaction data outside. That lowers costs and shifts the security assumption: whoever withholds the data can stop you from proving your claim. A sidechain, finally, is an independent blockchain with its own validator set, attached to Ethereum only through a bridge. Polygon PoS, whose POL token many investors still remember from the layer 2 debate of 2021, falls into this category and is explicitly not listed as a rollup by the analytics platform L2Beat today.

How to recognise the design in practice

Three features are enough to place a network. How long a withdrawal back to Ethereum takes: a week points to an optimistic rollup, hours to a ZK rollup, minutes to a sidechain. Where the data sits: a rollup writes it to Ethereum, a validium does not. And who builds the blocks: a rollup with a single sequencer can be halted, while a sidechain with its own validator set has a different attack surface. The classification of each network is publicly documented at L2Beat, together with the maturity stage that indicates how far the network has moved away from central control.

Starknet's vote permits research into an exit, not the exit itself

Starknet is a ZK rollup and works with so-called STARK proofs, a form of proof the company StarkWare has been developing since 2019. From October 15 to 22, 2026, a vote ran through the network's governance portal on whether Starknet should research the path to an independent, quantum-safe layer 1. The options were yes, no and neutral.

The result: 93.52 percent of the voting power across 3,236 votes cast backed the research. StarkWare itself says it abstained and left the decision to the community. Five points matter for context, and they get lost in many short reports.

• The vote is non-binding. It commissions a working group from StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation with technical research and planning. An actual switch would need a separate, binding vote once the results are presented.
• The token stays. No new token is planned; STRK is to remain the network's native token in both scenarios.
• The bridges stay open. The existing connections between Ethereum and Starknet are to remain usable unchanged during the research phase, and nothing changes for users at first.
• A draft whitepaper is announced for November and is to be published for review.
• No date for the switch appears in the proposal. The vote commissions research, with no migration date and no staged plan.

The market took the news in mixed fashion. When the vote opened, STRK gained by double digits. On Thursday the token stood at $0.054, 16.1 percent below the previous day, with a market capitalisation of around $410 million. The wider market gave up 6.6 percent on the same day, Ether 5.5 percent. STRK therefore fell markedly harder than the market it moves in.

Seven days sit between the withdrawal request and the balance on optimistic rollups

Anyone moving from a layer 2 back to Ethereum runs into the challenge window. At the optimistic rollups Arbitrum One, Base and OP Mainnet it lasts around seven days. During that time somebody could demonstrate that the published transaction batch was faulty; only afterwards does the bridge release the balance on Ethereum. The wait is the price of the design: without a challenge window there would be no mechanism to correct a false state.

Our piece of September 14, 2026 on the waiting time for layer 2 withdrawals describes the process in detail, including the cases in which up to ten days add up because the request slips into the next batch. With ZK rollups the challenge window falls away, but you wait for the next proof the network submits to Ethereum. That takes hours rather than minutes, depending on the network.

Fast third-party bridges and their price

Third parties offer fast bridges that pay you out immediately and wait themselves. They charge a fee for it and you carry their default risk: if the provider fails mid-process, your money hangs on its contract rather than on Ethereum. For larger amounts it is worth taking the slow route over the official bridge and planning for the wait.

Post-quantum cryptography is the argument: STARK proofs compute without elliptic curves

The drive behind the proposal is not a quarrel with Ethereum but cryptography. Ethereum accounts sign their transactions today with signatures over an elliptic curve. A sufficiently large quantum computer could derive the private key from a public key; the algorithm needed for that has been known since the nineties, the matching machine does not exist. STARK proofs, by contrast, rest on hash functions, and those are regarded as considerably more resistant to quantum attacks.

Starknet chief Eli Ben-Sasson names 2027 as the target by which his network should be quantum-safe. His argument: as a layer 2, Starknet stays tied to Ethereum's timetable, because settlement happens on Ethereum and therefore also hangs on its signature scheme; as a layer 1 of its own it could take the step earlier. That is his reasoning, not our judgement.

Against it stands what an exit costs. Ethereum is working on quantum-safe signature schemes itself, and the security a rollup inherits from Ethereum today would have to be raised by an independent network under its own steam. Anyone wishing to follow the debate will find the technical arguments in the network's forum; the announced whitepaper is more reliable than any short report.

Base secures $15.2 billion, Starknet $395 million: the weight is unevenly spread

The size of a layer 2 shows in the capital that sits in the network and is secured across its bridges, and barely at all in the token price. We compiled the values at L2Beat on Thursday evening, for all Ethereum rollups with a meaningful balance. The right-hand column shows the change over seven days.

Base and Arbitrum One together secure $25.4 billion. That is 64 times Starknet, and they are two optimistic rollups, the design with the long wait. The technically more elegant group of ZK rollups carries less than a twentieth of that between them. Starknet accounts for just under one percent of the capital L2Beat tracks across all layer 2 networks, around $40 billion.

That distribution explains why the vote is a small story for the market as a whole and possibly a large one for your own position: holders of Base or Arbitrum are not affected by Starknet's path. Holders of STRK, or of a balance sitting on Starknet, have a network in their portfolio whose foundation is up for discussion.

Four of the five layer 2 projects on our 2024 list are no longer tracked by L2Beat

A look into our own back catalogue shows how quickly such lists age. Our overview of the five largest Ethereum layer 2 projects, from September 19, 2024, named Polygon, Loopring, OMG Network, Skale and ZKSwap, ordered by market capitalisation. We checked all five against today's data.

Loopring, OMG Network, Skale and ZKSwap do not appear in the current L2Beat listing at all: four out of five. Polygon is still there, but as Polygon PoS and in the "Other" category, so explicitly not as a rollup; POL stood at $0.0902 on Thursday. The four networks that secure the most capital today, Base, Arbitrum One, OP Mainnet and Starknet, did not feature on the 2024 list. Base was a few months old at the time.

From that follows a lesson that reaches beyond Starknet: a ranking of layer 2 projects is a state, not a property. What holds up is the design, the maturity stage and the secured capital, because all three can be verified. A project name on a two-year-old list says nothing about today.

Starknet's secured capital fell 39.9 percent in a week, the sector 3.4

The most striking value in the table above is Starknet's weekly loss. Judging it needs the comparison, because secured capital is measured in dollars and therefore falls along with the market. Across all layer 2 networks the figure declined by 3.4 percent over seven days, the Ether price by 2.7 percent over the same period. Most of the sector decline is simply the market.

Starknet's 39.9 percent are twelve times that move. Base lost 2.2 percent, Arbitrum One 3.0, Linea 4.0. An order of magnitude like Starknet's is not explained by a price fall; that happens when capital leaves the network. The vote ran in precisely this week. Whether it is the reason cannot be read from these figures; what can be read is the order of magnitude, and for a network of this size it is considerable.

Add to that the token price. STRK lost 16.1 percent on Thursday while the wider market gave up 6.6 percent. The same caveat applies here: one day is not a trend. But capital outflow and price weakness point the same way, and both fall in the week of the vote.

A switch to its own layer 1 shifts the bridge, the settlement and the security assumption

What exactly would change if the rollup became an independent blockchain? Three things, and they hang together.

Settlement. Today Starknet publishes its proofs on Ethereum, and Ethereum thereby decides which state applies. A layer 1 of its own decides that itself, through a validator set of its own.

Security. A rollup inherits Ethereum's security without paying for it. An independent blockchain has to buy it, usually through rewards to validators, financed from issuance or fees. That burden is carried in the end by the token.

The bridge. The official connection between Ethereum and Starknet is today part of the rollup design; your claim on Ethereum follows from the published state. Between two independent blockchains it becomes an ordinary bridge with its own operators and its own assumptions. It is the same difference that already separates a rollup from a sidechain.

Our assessment: the decisive date for holders lies in November, with the draft whitepaper, and not with this week's vote. Three documented points support that. The vote was non-binding and set no date. The token remains STRK in both scenarios, and a swap is not up for discussion. And secured capital of $395 million is small enough that a shift in the security assumption does not move the wider market, yet large enough to count for your own position. Against it stands the fact that a whitepaper is not yet a decision and that the research phase can stretch over quarters; anyone betting on a quick result is likely to wait. None of this is a recommendation to buy or sell, and a total loss is possible at any time with a token of this size.

MiCA decides which exchange may sell you layer 2 tokens in Germany

The smaller layer 2 tokens share a practical problem: they are harder to trade in Germany than Ether. Since the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets, a provider serving clients in Germany needs authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider; BaFin supervises this here, and authorisations granted appear in public registers. What that means for operators we set out in our overview of MiCA obligations for crypto companies.

In practice it means this for you: a token tradable only on exchanges without EU authorisation, or only on decentralised venues, shifts custody and legal recourse onto you. At an authorised exchange you have a counterpart under German supervision; at a decentralised exchange you have your private key and nothing else. Which houses hold an authorisation and which tokens they list is shown in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

Before buying a small layer 2 token, check two things: whether the provider holds an authorisation in the EU, and whether it will take the token back. A trading pair with liquidity in only one direction becomes a problem on the way out. Starknet's weekly figures above are a good occasion to work through this for your own positions.

One year of holding separates tax-free from taxable, layer 2 tokens included

The same rule applies to layer 2 tokens in Germany as to Ether and Bitcoin. Gains from a sale belong to private disposal transactions under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than a year lies between purchase and sale, the gain stays tax-free. Inside the year, the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies; exceed it and the entire gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate.

A swap counts as a sale, and the period runs per purchase

Two points are regularly overlooked. First, a swap counts as a sale: swapping STRK for Ether means selling STRK, even though no euro changes hands. Second, the one-year period runs per purchase, not per token. Five purchases over five months produce five periods, and the tax office expects a traceable allocation. Buying, swapping and bridging across several networks produces a history that is hard to reconstruct after the fact. Download the transaction data from your exchanges regularly, then, rather than waiting until spring.

A note of caution: the tax treatment of individual events in this area is in parts not conclusively settled, and this section does not replace tax advice. For the basic cases of purchase, sale and swap the legal position is clear.

Ethereum layer 2: November brings the whitepaper, not the move

The vote at Starknet has triggered a research phase and nothing else. For your own position that means less haste and more homework: know the design, know the waiting time, check tradability. Three steps make sense now.

1. Sort your holdings. For each layer 2 token in your portfolio, note which network the balance sits on and which design that network uses. Whether you can still sell it at a sensible price at all is shown by a look at the comparison of crypto exchanges, with their trading pairs and fees.
2. Separate custody. A balance you will not need for longer than the challenge window does not belong on an exchange. Which devices support layer 2 networks directly and which only through software in front of them is set out in our comparison of hardware wallets.
3. Document the periods. Record the purchase date, the amount and the value for each purchase so the one-year period stays provable. Which tools bring bridges and swaps across several networks together is shown in our overview of tax and portfolio tools.
4. Mark the date. The draft whitepaper from the working group of StarkWare and the Starknet Foundation is announced for November. It contains what the vote did not: a plan with numbers.

The secured-capital data in this piece comes from the public listing at L2Beat, the prices from Thursday evening.

(As of October 22, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

PHP shipped its fix, attackers launched millions of attempts, and governments say no one has broken in yet. Here's what that means for your passwords, your crypto, and your browsing.

Lionel Messi’s ChatGPT ad has the AI teaching him chess on a board with kings and queens swapped, then suggesting an opening that loses in four moves on that board.

Andreessen Horowitz is renaming its crypto fund a16z Frontier and widening its scope to AI, autonomous machines and biology, saying the line between crypto and everyday tech has blurred.

Meta will hand shareholders a free non-voting share for every share they own in January, giving it a way to raise equity for AI spending without diluting Zuckerberg's 60.6% vote.

The Central Bank of Ireland penalized Coinbase Ireland €3,252,618 for leaning too heavily on its U.S. parent and leaving its safeguarding account underfunded—its second hit to the exchange’s European arm in the last year.

Prominent XRP Ledger validator Vet has debunked a persistent misconception about XRP's role in the network, explaining why growing adoption could eventually benefit the token's price.

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju believes Bitcoin could weather a potential AI bubble collapse, arguing that BTC's failure to participate in the AI stock rally may shield it from a major sell-off.

Volatility has returned to crypto, but sentiment remains depressed: Monero extends its rally, while Stellar, Bitcoin, and Hyperliquid struggle near key support levels.

Wall Street giant JPMorgan has expanded its tokenization push by bringing two money market funds to the Solana blockchain.

Saudi Arabia-backed Gulf International Bank (UK) has disclosed a $3 million stake in Michael Saylor's Strategy, giving the bank indirect exposure to Bitcoin through the world's largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency.

TLDR:

• HSBC RedCoin stablecoin starts a phased rollout on October 23, bringing peer-to-peer transfers and merchant payments to PayMe’s 3.3 million users.
• PayMe users can activate wallets after updating the app, without opening another account or keeping a minimum balance; full access is expected before the weekend.
• HSBC plans to add RedCoin to its Hong Kong mobile banking app by year-end, enabling tokenized money market fund subscriptions starting at HK$100.
• Tokenized gold and third-party funds are planned for a later stage, after HSBC received its Hong Kong stablecoin issuer license in April 2026.

HSBC RedCoin stablecoin is rolling out to more than 3.3 million PayMe users in Hong Kong. The phased consumer launch for PayMe begins Friday, October 23. The HKD-backed stablecoin supports peer-to-peer transfers and merchant payments within PayMe during its first phase. 

HSBC expects full availability before the weekend, the South China Morning Post reports. Customers can activate a wallet after updating the app, without opening another account or meeting a minimum balance. They can select the wallet for transfers through PayMe. The launch gives HSBC a route to introduce a stablecoin through a payment service many local customers already use.

HSBC RedCoin Stablecoin Begins PayMe Payment Rollout

The HSBC RedCoin stablecoin’s first phase centers on routine payments. PayMe users can send RedCoin to other people and pay merchants through the app. HSBC has not announced other payment functions for this launch. Because the rollout is staged, access will not arrive for every user simultaneously. The bank expects the service to reach full availability before the weekend. The 3.3 million figure describes PayMe’s user base, not confirmed wallet activations.

Wallet setup for the HSBC RedCoin stablecoin uses the existing PayMe experience. Customers need only update the app and select the wallet. They do not need another account or a minimum balance. PayMe head Lawrence Li said transfers would be instant through an interface closely aligned with the current app. This keeps activation within a familiar payment service.

The Hong Kong dollar backing ties RedCoin’s denomination to the local currency. That gives it a payment role distinct from crypto assets whose market prices fluctuate. The launch details do not specify its reserve composition, redemption terms, blockchain network, transaction fees or merchant coverage. Those details may shape how users and businesses assess the new service.

HSBC can offer RedCoin through an app its customers already use for payments. That may make the token easier to try than a service requiring a separate crypto platform. That could ease adoption for PayMe users. Use still depends on customers choosing RedCoin and merchants accepting it. The announcement lists the initial functions. It does not say how many PayMe merchants will support RedCoin at launch.

HSBC RedCoin Stablecoin Set for Investment App Expansion

The HSBC RedCoin stablecoin rollout is planned to extend beyond PayMe payments. HSBC plans to integrate the token into its Hong Kong mobile banking app by year-end. The bank says the app will let users subscribe to tokenized money market funds, starting at HK$100. This would add an investment use alongside transfers and merchant payments.

Tokenized gold and funds offered by third parties are also planned for a later stage. HSBC has not provided launch dates or additional access terms for those products. The proposed HK$100 starting amount establishes a minimum entry point for the money market fund feature. Product availability will depend on HSBC’s rollout and the terms it sets for each offering.

HSBC received its stablecoin issuer license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in April 2026. The HSBC RedCoin stablecoin rollout followed that approval. Hong Kong has been seeking to position itself as a hub for digital assets. The license came before the retail launch. RedCoin enters PayMe before HSBC’s planned investment expansion.

The HSBC RedCoin stablecoin’s phased approach links two of HSBC’s services: PayMe and its mobile banking app. PayMe is the first distribution channel; the banking app is intended to carry RedCoin into tokenized funds. The practical test will be whether customers activate wallets, transfer the token and use it for payments. Broader investment access remains a future step, with the initial PayMe rollout beginning October 23.

The post HSBC RedCoin Stablecoin Targets 3.3M PayMe Users in Hong Kong appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The outbound investment rule covers China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba, with AI restrictions and notice requirements for certain technology deals; it remains a proposal, not a final rule.
• Treasury’s draft spans semiconductors, AI, quantum technologies, supercomputing, hypersonics and biotechnology, targeting defined dual-use investments rather than every business in those markets.
• Publicly traded shares are exempt, and transactions below $50,000 avoid the notice requirement; the proposal also allows national-interest exceptions and excludes certain pharmaceutical licensing deals.
• Comments remain open until December 7, while existing outbound investment rules continue until new regulations take effect; companies may need broader screening and compliance checks.

The Treasury Department proposed an outbound investment rule for sensitive technology deals in five countries. It would impose new bans and advance notice requirements. The proposal covers China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba. It identifies six areas: semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, supercomputing, hypersonics and biotechnology. 

Treasury is seeking public comments through December 7. The restrictions would implement a 2025 law that expanded a federal program first established after a 2023 executive order. They do not ban every investment in the named countries. Publicly traded shares and transactions below $50,000 are among the exceptions. Its reach varies by deal.

Outbound Investment Rule Would Cover Five Countries and Six Sectors

The COINS Act became law in December 2025, adding countries and technologies to the earlier China-focused program. Treasury created the Outbound Investment Security Program after President Joe Biden’s 2023 executive order. Existing rules took effect in January 2025 and remain active while Treasury develops regulations under the new law. 

The draft names China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba as countries of concern. Congress also listed Venezuela, but Treasury left it out of this proposed list. The department said Maduro’s government no longer existed after his January capture. Officials said investments connected to some Venezuelan entities may still fall under the statute, without identifying examples. 

Coverage depends on the business and technology involved. The draft targets firms whose dual-use technologies are tied to military programs, surveillance or human-rights abuses. The outbound investment rule requires investors to check portfolio companies, subsidiaries and deal structures before closing. 

The six sectors include semiconductors and microelectronics, AI systems, quantum information technologies, supercomputing, hypersonics and biotechnology. A listed company is not automatically restricted; its activity and the investment must meet the rule’s definitions. That distinction matters for funds with broad regional holdings or mixed civilian and defense businesses.

Reuters quoted a Treasury official saying investment can build business networks and supply-chain links. Those ties extend influence beyond the original capital. They may help firms scale, form partnerships and support military-relevant work in sensitive sectors. 

AI Bans, Stock Exemptions and the Comment Deadline

The draft bans specified U.S. investments in AI systems across the five countries. Under the outbound investment rule, certain deals in other covered sectors would require notice to Treasury before completion. Reporting depends on the technology, transaction and company activity. The process would help Treasury track capital flowing into sensitive firms. 

Treasury says AI’s rapid advance makes powerful systems difficult to classify and assess. It says future models could strengthen military or intelligence work. The proposed ban applies to defined transactions, not all U.S. exposure to AI companies in those countries. 

Exceptions include publicly traded shares and deals below $50,000, which avoid the notice rule. Treasury also allows national-interest exceptions and excludes pharmaceutical licensing deals with China. These carve-outs narrow the scope while leaving private investments in covered firms subject to review. 

The proposal is not final. Treasury will take comments through December 7 before issuing regulations. The outbound investment rule’s new requirements will not take effect until regulations are issued. Companies may need screening procedures to identify ownership, activities and technical capabilities across portfolio firms. 

A former Justice Department lawyer told AP that the framework could require substantial compliance programs. In July, Treasury fined a U.S. company $200,000. Its subsidiary had failed to report a $92,500 investment in a Chinese AI and robotics firm. 

Russia’s inclusion came days after Trump waived sanctions following a diesel deal with Vladimir Putin. The outbound investment rule is a separate policy measure. Still, the timing may draw scrutiny over how Washington weighs security and diplomatic priorities.

The post Outbound Investment Rule Targets Five Countries for Tech Deals appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The Circle shareholder lawsuit alleges that two UAE-linked transactions violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause and benefited Trump through World Liberty Financial.
• The first transaction involved a $500 million agreement for a 49% stake in World Liberty days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration.
• The complaint also challenges a $2 billion Binance investment settled in World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin, alleging it benefited Trump’s crypto interests.
• Greenberg seeks alleged unlawful profits, additional disclosures and unspecified damages; Circle says it did not participate, while World Liberty rejects the claims.

The Circle shareholder lawsuit puts renewed scrutiny on the Trump family’s crypto business. Greenberg says two UAE-linked transactions violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause. J. Benjamin Greenberg, a former Circle employee and shareholder, filed the derivative complaint in federal court in Washington. He argues the deals benefited President Donald Trump and World Liberty Financial while exposing Circle investors to unfair competition. 

The complaint seeks alleged unlawful profits, disclosures about other foreign crypto payments, and unspecified damages. The court has not ruled on the claims. Circle says it had no role in the filing, while World Liberty rejects the allegations as meritless. 

Circle Shareholder Lawsuit Centers on Two UAE-Linked Deals

Greenberg filed the Circle shareholder lawsuit on behalf of Circle, the company behind USDC, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. The suit names Trump, World Liberty, U.S. Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and four affiliated limited liability companies. It casts USD1, World Liberty’s dollar-backed stablecoin, as a direct competitor to USDC. In the Circle shareholder lawsuit, Greenberg says UAE-linked competition diverted business from Circle and harmed its investors. 

Derivative actions let shareholders pursue claims on a company’s behalf, rather than only for themselves. Greenberg’s filing says World Liberty’s stablecoin competition harmed Circle and its investors. Any recovery depends on a court accepting the claims.

The first transaction centers on a $500 million sale of a 49% stake in World Liberty. A vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed to the purchase days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration. Tahnoon is the UAE’s national security adviser. The complaint alleges Trump received financial benefits from the transaction after taking office. It describes the funding as foreign-state money flowing into a business linked to the president. 

The second deal involves a $2 billion investment in Binance by Abu Dhabi’s MGX fund, which Tahnoon chairs. The payment was made using USD1, according to reporting cited in the complaint. 

Greenberg argues the stablecoin transaction helped raise USD1’s profile and value, benefiting Trump’s interests in World Liberty. The Circle shareholder lawsuit frames both deals as alleged foreign benefits tied to Trump’s crypto holdings.

Greenberg Seeks Profit Recovery, Disclosure and Unspecified Damages

The Foreign Emoluments Clause bars federal officeholders from accepting benefits from foreign states without congressional consent. Greenberg asks the court to declare that Trump’s profits violated the restriction. He wants the court to order Trump to return gains it deems unlawful. He also seeks an accounting of foreign crypto-related payments and disclosure of other transactions. The suit requests damages but does not specify an amount. Those requests are allegations and remedies sought, not findings by a court. 

Circle said it did not initiate, direct, authorize, or take part in the case. The company emphasized that Greenberg filed as an individual shareholder. World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman called the claims meritless and said the firm would address them in court. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly described the case as frivolous and denied any conflict of interest. Witkoff’s representative had not responded to requests for comment, according to the report. 

The Circle shareholder lawsuit centers on UAE crypto deals amid scrutiny of Trump-family interests. Trump co-founded World Liberty Financial with his sons before taking office and stopped participating in the project in 2025. 

The lawsuit focuses on alleged financial benefits. It also points to U.S. approval of advanced AI chip exports to the UAE and Trump’s pardon of convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. The filing alleges those actions intersected with the deals. The case is Greenberg v. Trump, 26-cv-03686, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. No judgment or ruling has resolved the claims.

The post Circle Shareholder Lawsuit Targets Trump Over UAE Crypto Deals appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• XRP Ledger now has a record 8.24 million non-empty wallets, extending a climb through price volatility.
• Network growth hit 4,772 new wallets in a single day, the fifth-largest spike recorded since March.
• Santiment names $1.40 as the first level to watch, with $1.50 in view if wallet growth stays near 4K.
• CryptoBusy says XRP needs to hold $1.33 to avoid a drop toward $1.30 and $1.26 as resistance stays in play.

XRP holder count has reached a record 8.24 million non-empty wallets on the XRP Ledger, according to Santiment data. The milestone extends a steady climb that continued through months of price volatility.

Network growth also jumped, with 4,772 new wallets created in a single day. That reading ranks as the fifth-largest daily spike since March.

XRP trades near $1.36 as of writing, and market participants are now watching whether price action will confirm the rise in users.

XRP Holder Count Growth Gains Pace

Santiment Intelligence shared the data in a post on X. The analytics platform said holder growth is still moving higher. The post presents the XRP holder count as a record for the network.

The post also covered new wallet creation. Network growth tracks how many new wallets appear on the ledger each day.

It reached 4,772 wallets in one day, the fifth-largest spike since March. Santiment said fresh participation is accelerating again.

In addition, Santiment said the trend strengthens the bullish case if price continues confirming the rise in users. The firm linked its outlook to both price action and daily wallet creation. Therefore, the report treats price as the confirmation for the user data.

The climb has continued across months of price swings on the XRP Ledger. Price volatility during that stretch did not reverse the trend in wallet growth.

Meanwhile, XRP traded near $1.36 at the time of the report. The XRP holder count has kept rising throughout that period.

Key Price Levels Shape The Short-Term Outlook

Santiment named $1.40 as the first level to watch. The firm tied the next move to a sustained break above that level.

Network growth would also need to stay near or above 4,000 daily wallets. A quick return to $1.50 would then be more than plausible.

On the downside, Santiment pointed to $1.30. If XRP loses that level, and new-wallet creation falls back below roughly 3,000, the adoption signal would look less convincing. That assessment applies to the short term only.

Separately, CryptoBusy posted a 4H chart view of XRP on X. The 4H timeframe tracks price in four-hour candles. The token is testing a major descending resistance trendline after recovering from $1.26 toward $1.40. Price briefly broke above the trendline but met selling pressure. It then pulled back toward $1.34.

According to CryptoBusy, a confirmed breakout above $1.38 to $1.40 could open the door toward $1.45 to $1.50. However, failure to hold $1.33 could push XRP back toward $1.30 and potentially $1.26.

The key is whether XRP can break and hold above resistance. Until then, the broader downtrend remains intact. At the same time, the XRP holder count keeps climbing.

The post XRP Holder Count Hits Record 8.24M as Network Growth Accelerates appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Goldman Sachs estimates 148 tonnes of Chinese gold buying from May to August, against 65 tonnes reported.
• The estimated 83-tonne gap exceeds China’s official four-month additions by 128%, but remains unverified.
• May’s 48-tonne estimate exceeded the 10 tonnes disclosed, while August’s gap narrowed to just five tonnes.
• Global central bank gold buying reached an estimated 79 tonnes in August, against 39 tonnes disclosed.

A widening gap between inferred bullion purchases and official reserve additions has placed China’s gold demand under renewed scrutiny. Goldman Sachs estimates that Chinese buyers acquired 148 tonnes between May and August 2026, compared with 65 tonnes officially disclosed by the People’s Bank of China. That 83-tonne difference equals 128% of the officially reported total.

Market reports on October 19, 2026, highlighted the discrepancy, which The Kobeissi Letter also circulated. It draws attention to trading activity attributed to Chinese demand in London’s over-the-counter (OTC) bullion market, where transactions do not necessarily translate into prompt reserve disclosures.

The comparison does not establish that Beijing secretly acquired 83 tonnes. Goldman’s model estimates purchases using market flows and trade indicators, while the PBoC reports changes in recorded holdings. Those distinct measures can diverge because of methodology and timing.

China’s Gold Buying Gap Hits 128% as Goldman Estimates 148 Tonnes

The monthly breakdown shows the largest discrepancy in May. Goldman estimated 48 tonnes of demand against an official addition of approximately 10 tonnes, creating a 38-tonne gap. June followed with 40 tonnes estimated and 15 tonnes disclosed. July’s figures narrowed to 35 tonnes versus 20 tonnes, before August recorded 25 tonnes against approximately 20 tonnes.

Consequently, the estimated monthly excess fell from 38 tonnes in May to five tonnes in August. Nevertheless, the four-month cumulative difference remained substantial because the strongest divergences occurred earlier in the period.

Source: World Gold Council

The World Gold Council placed China’s official holdings at 2,387 tonnes in August after an increase of 20.2 tonnes. September 2026 brought a further 23 tonnes, extending the central bank’s buying streak to 23 months and raising reserves to 2,410 tonnes.

Goldman Estimates 79 Tonnes in Central Bank Buying Versus 39 Reported

A similar split appears in estimates of worldwide central-bank demand. Goldman placed August purchases at 79 tonnes, approximately 4.6 times the pre-2022 monthly average of 17 tonnes.

The World Gold Council, meanwhile, logged 39 tonnes in publicly reported net additions, underscoring the distinction between inferred market activity and disclosed transactions. The figures reflect different methods of measuring demand, not separate inventories of newly acquired bullion.

In particular, the inferred 148 tonnes cannot be added to the officially reported 65 tonnes without double counting potential overlaps. Reserve diversification provides broader context. In the Council’s 2026 survey, 89% of respondents expected global official holdings to increase over the following year.

Another 74% anticipated a reduction in the US dollar’s share of reserves over five years. Those responses measure survey expectations, not completed purchases. For investors, the documented difference is therefore a measurement gap. It does not independently verify undisclosed sovereign holdings or prove intentional concealment.

The post China’s Hidden Gold Buying? Goldman Sachs Estimates 128% More Than Official Figures appeared first on Blockonomi.

Ethereum core developers have postponed the Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi testnet, which had been set to activate on October 26 at 17:42:48 UTC.

They want more time to study how a gas pricing change known as EIP-8037 behaves with smart contracts already running on the mainnet, and no replacement date has been set.

Developers Pull Hoodi Date to Probe EIP-8037 Interactions

The postponement follows a decision at All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call #248, according to an update announcement that supersedes the earlier Hoodi schedule.

Developers cited the need for “further investigation of interactions of EIP-8037 with mainnet smart contracts.” But the notice does not describe what that investigation has found so far.

EIP-8037 raises the gas cost of creating state, meaning the account and storage data every node has to keep, and meters that cost separately from other changes. The original Hoodi announcement had already told application developers that contracts relying on fixed gas stipends or hardcoded gas limits may need changes.

Pulling the date strips the Amsterdam execution layer and Gloas consensus layer activations from Hoodi’s configuration, along with a schedule that would have raised the network’s gas limit to 200M at the same epoch. But it is a configuration rollback only since Hoodi’s chain history is untouched.

Operators of Hoodi nodes and validators should check both their execution and consensus clients for instructions reflecting the postponement, and any software or custom network configuration still pointing to the old time needs updating.

Per the new update, release tables in the earlier announcement are no proof that those versions carry the change. Lodestar v1.50.1 is the only client release listed so far, and application developers have been advised not to build Hoodi testing plans around October 26.

Mainnet users are unaffected. According to the announcement, “no action is required from Ethereum mainnet users or ETH holders as a result of this update,” and it sets no concrete Glamsterdam mainnet date either.

Sepolia Went First, After Devnet Trouble in September

As CryptoPotato reported earlier on September 11, developers had already faced testing problems before Glamsterdam’s planned October 6 activation on Sepolia.

At that stage, private development networks had encountered bugs, including difficulties finalizing the chain and an issue associated with EIP-8037 that was expected to require updates to every execution-layer client. But Glamsterdam went live on Sepolia that day, and Hoodi was next in line.

Meanwhile, at the market, Ethereum’s native ETH token had dipped slightly in 24 hours, having shed about 1% at the time of writing to trade near $2,400. The loss is more marked across longer timeframes, it being 4% over two weeks and nearly 14% in the last 30 days to help keep the asset over 51% below its all-time high near $5,000.

The post Ethereum Delays Glamsterdam Hoodi Fork as Developers Test EIP-8037 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XAO DAO co-founder Santiago Velez announced that proposal 66 had passed, authorizing the decentralized autonomous organization to deploy 80% of its XRP treasury into Firelight, a DeFi protocol focused on decentralized insurance and yield.

The decision would put a large share of the DAO’s XRP holdings to work in a strategy intended to generate returns for members while contributing capital to protection services for decentralized finance.

XAO DAO Vote Approves XRP Deployment to Firelight

In his announcement, Velez described the proposal as, to his knowledge, the first time a DAO had deployed treasury funds into a multichain DeFi strategy combining decentralized insurance with yield generation.

He thanked co-manager Fabio Marzella, Flare Networks co-founder Hugo Philion, and the Flare team for developing the Flare Smart Accounts technology, as well as Firelight for the opportunity.

The plan connects XRP with Firelight through Flare Smart Accounts, which provide a route for XRP holders to use DeFi applications. In an October 6 post, Flare described Firelight as a way to put XRP behind a protection layer for DeFi with a single XRPL signature.

Firelight posted the same day that anyone deploying XRP through the feature should connect a supported XRPL wallet and choose to mint and deposit FXRP into the Firelight vault, adding: “So bullish on this.”

Meanwhile, XRP itself was changing hands at $1.34 at the time of writing, having barely shifted in 24 hours but dropping nearly 4% of its value in the last seven days and over 11% across one month. It is also more than 44% lower than where it was a year ago, with the current price a 63% dip from its $3.65 all-time high attained in July 2025.

Governance Changes Aim to Broaden Community Participation

The treasury vote follows a wider push to improve how XAO DAO members take part in decisions. In an October 22 update, the organization announced that several proposals had passed in recent weeks and introduced a community forum.

Marzella also outlined updates to the governance app, including proposal management, discussion tools, XRP and RLUSD donation tracking, support for several languages and searchable records.

As CryptoPotato reported in August, XAO DAO was preparing governance changes that included wallet delegation, revised quorum rules and community mini-grants. Delegation would let members assign their voting power to others, while changes to quorum rules were intended to address inactive wallets that could obstruct proposals.

The broader concern was how to turn community participation and funding into lasting activity across the XRP Ledger ecosystem. That question also arose after XRPL infrastructure team Gen3 announced on August 12 that it would wind down its retail products Aigent.run and AxiomProtocol, citing weak demand and rising infrastructure costs.

The post 80% of XAO DAO’s XRP Treasury Set for Firelight Deployment appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Japan’s transport and tourism minister, Tatsunori Ibayashi, told a parliamentary committee on October 21 that the government would consider using stablecoins to refund consumption tax to foreign visitors.

Nothing has been approved, but the remark links yen-backed tokens to a payment problem that begins on November 1, when tourists start paying tax up front.

What Changes for Tourists on November 1

From that date, Japan’s tax-free shopping system switches to a refund model. Visitors will pay the tax at checkout and get it back only after customs confirms the goods are leaving the country.

In a post flagging the minister’s comments, XWIN Japan calls getting that money to travelers quickly and cheaply a major challenge. Yen-backed stablecoins could be one answer, with refunds sent straight to a digital wallet and potentially available around the clock.

In March, JPYC and Japan Tax-Free announced a partnership to explore just this use case. And just hours before the minister spoke, XWIN had published an article arguing that Japan’s next breakthrough could come from connecting public infrastructure with digital payments.

“But this is NOT an approval or official adoption,” the post cautions. Wallet security and identity checks are still open questions, and so are anti-money laundering rules. How overseas visitors would reach the service and convert the money into their own currency is unsettled too.

In XWIN Japan’s view, the story is less about speculative demand for tokens and more about blockchain moving into everyday public service.

“If Japan can make tax refunds safer, faster and cheaper, the same infrastructure could eventually support transport and logistics payments,” the post concluded.

Japan’s Crypto Rulebook and the Stablecoin Race

As CryptoPotato reported, Japan’s lower house passed a bill in June that would regulate cryptocurrencies the way stocks are regulated. Gains now taxed as miscellaneous income at up to 55% could face a rate closer to 20%, and the bill may open the way to spot ETFs. It was expected to take effect next year after an upper house vote.

Abroad, Bloomberg reported in September that the Trump administration is weighing a push to promote dollar stablecoins overseas, partly to support demand for US Treasuries, which issuers hold as reserves. DefiLlama data puts the total stablecoin market at about $301 billion, with roughly $299 billion of it in dollar-pegged tokens, while those backed by the yen amount to just over $156 million, 82% of that consisting of JPYSC.

The post Japan Considers Stablecoin Tax Refunds for Foreign Tourists appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The XRP Ledger’s latest bug fix has been delayed until November after validator support briefly fell below the required threshold, just two days before its planned launch.

The amendment, called fixCleanup3_4_0, needed at least 29 votes from the 35 validators trusted by default to activate.

Upgrade Delayed

Support reached that level on Monday, which kept the upgrade on track for an expected October 23 launch at 09:34 UTC. But that changed on Wednesday. At 12:54 UTC, only 26 validators were voting in favor, according to the XRPL Dashboard. That was enough to reset the entire approval process.

The vote count recovered to 29 by 14:46 UTC, starting a new 14-day countdown. XRPLWin now lists November 4 at 14:46 UTC as the expected activation time. Support has since increased to 31 validators, thereby giving the amendment a little more breathing room than it had during its first attempt.

It is important to note that the XRP Ledger requires support to remain above the threshold at every checkpoint, which takes place roughly every 15 minutes. That support must hold for 14 consecutive days. Even a brief dip can send the process back to the beginning. Neither XRPL Dashboard nor XRPLWin has identified which validators stopped counting toward approval. A validator does not have to actively vote against an amendment to affect the tally. If its server goes offline or restarts at the wrong time, its vote may not count at a checkpoint.

Meanwhile, the amendment in question bundles fixes across several parts of the network, including Single Asset Vaults, the Lending Protocol, automated market makers, the permissioned decentralized exchange, trust lines, NFTs, MPTs, escrow, transaction signing, and permission delegation.

Zooming Out

The XRPL 3.4.0 server release introduces significant code changes, including the LendingProtocolV1_1 amendment. This proposed upgrade adds closed-ended vaults and cash-basis accounting to the upcoming native lending system.

These vaults move through subscription, investment, and redemption phases, while interest is recorded as income only when loan payments arrive. It is currently open for voting, and validator support currently stands at 54.29%.

The post XRP Ledger’s Latest Fix Pushed to November After Voting Setback appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The meme coin sector took a hard hit in the latest market-wide correction, with Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and many others posting daily losses.

MemeCore (M), though, defied the red wave, registering an impressive 25% price increase and reaching a 10-day high. One analyst says the price may soon break above a key psychological barrier, but certain factors suggest a short-term correction is also possible.

M Beats PEPE

Several hours ago, M exceeded $0.95 for the first time since October 12 before retracing to the current $0.91. Its market cap surged past $2 billion, making it the 51st-biggest cryptocurrency and fourth-largest in the meme coin niche. On its way up, M overtook the frog-themed PEPE, which boasts a capitalization of approximately $1.8 billion.

It remains unclear what triggered the revival, as a potential reason could be the announcement from MemeCore’s team. It was revealed on X that Meson Tunnel and Express are no longer available for MemeCore, with M liquidity having moved to LayerZero, which now handles all bridging.

“For USDC.e tokens bridged through Meson services, we’re working with the Meson team to migrate liquidity from the old USDC.e contract to Stargate’s,” the disclosure reads.

According to Crypto With Gopal, M could be on the verge of a further rally as it shows a strong bullish breakout after a prolonged downtrend. He claimed buyers have aggressively stepped in after the price soared past the $0.80 resistance zone.

“Holding above $0.85 could open the door toward $0.96 and potentially $1.00. Momentum is shifting in favor of the bulls, but sustained buying pressure is key to confirming the reversal,” he added.

Remain Cautious

Investors and traders who intend to deal with M may benefit from a potential price surge, but they should be aware that the token is mainly driven by speculation (rather than fundamentals), and as such, it is vulnerable to a serious decline as well.

Earlier this year, the meme coin crashed 76% in a single day, while blockchain investigator ZachXBT openly questioned its valuation and tokenomics.

Meanwhile, M’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) has exploded to 90, suggesting the price has risen too much too quickly and could be due for a short-term correction. The technical analysis tool runs from 0 to 100, where anything below 30 is usually interpreted as a buying opportunity.

The post MemeCore (M) Flips Pepe (PEPE) After Pumping 25% in a Day: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.