The transition to Aero's integrated automation may streamline liquidity management but leaves a temporary gap for users reliant on Autopilot.

The post Mellow winds down Autopilot as Aerodrome prepares for Aero launch appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Micron's revenue surge highlights the critical role of AI-driven demand in reshaping the chip industry, emphasizing dependency on hyperscalers.

The post Micron crosses $50 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The allegations highlight the intense competition and potential ethical dilemmas in the rapidly evolving AI industry, impacting trust and collaboration.

The post Factory CEO accuses former advisor of spying for rival Cognition appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The rise of AI-driven crypto payments could overwhelm tax systems, necessitating new compliance tools and reshaping digital asset markets.

The post AI agents paying in crypto could create thousands of taxable events appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The CFTC's push for federal control over prediction markets could redefine state-federal regulatory boundaries, impacting legal and market dynamics.

The post CFTC sends prediction market rules to the White House for review appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

UK Brings Crypto Under Full FCA Oversight for the First Time

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has opened applications for crypto firms to become authorized, bringing the sector under full regulation for the first time.

In a Wednesday announcement, the watchdog said companies can apply so that the crypto industry has “clarity and legitimacy.”

The UK is in the process of drafting a sweeping new crypto bill. The FCA finalized its regulatory framework for cryptoassets in June, and the regime is due to take effect in October 2027.  

“The UK’s new crypto regime will give consumers greater protections and firms a clear framework to operate in. Firms can now apply for authorisation and start preparing for regulation,” Dominic Cashman, director of authorisation at the FCA, said in a statement. 

The statement added that firms will have to demonstrate that they meet requirements covering consumer protection, customer-asset safeguarding, market integrity and financial resilience.

Britain is pushing ahead with digital asset legislation since last year recognizing bitcoin and other digital assets as property. The reform came from a 2023 recommendation by the Law Commission, which argued that digital assets did not fit neatly into existing legal categories.

Despite the FCA’s announcement, the UK currently is trailing behind Brussels and Washington with digital asset regulation. 

The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has applied to service providers since 30 December 2024. 

And the U.S. under President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for dollar-backed tokens.

Despite lawmakers blocking landmark legislation the Clarity Act last month, U.S. regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission have pushed ahead with rulemaking regardless. 

This post UK Brings Crypto Under Full FCA Oversight for the First Time first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Surges 40% in Its Best Quarter Since Late 2024

Bitcoin is having one of its best quarters ever — another indication that the biggest cryptocurrency is in a bull market. 

As noted by the The Kobeissi Letter this week, the price of bitcoin is now up close to 30% since August 19, when the U.S. Treasury announced it planned to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases.

Over the past quarter, the bitcoin price has surged by 40% — its best quarterly performance since Q4 2024. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at nearly $83,698, unmoved over a 24-hour period but up 6% over a 30-day period. 

The coin has benefited from news that the Treasury would try to lower bond yields — which have soared to highs not seen since the 2000s. 

Bitcoin has done well with lower long-term yields because it reduces the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold, and generally supports risk-on sentiment. 

But despite the Treasury stepping in to try and tame the bond market, yields have continued to stay high. 

Bitcoin investors don’t seem that bothered. The asset is still doing well as the dollar continues to slip. The so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again after total U.S. debt topped $40 trillion for the first time in July.  

The price of Bitcoin had been battered since notching a new all-time high of $126,080 in October, dropping by over 50%. Still, it has experienced the shallowest bear market — so far — in its history. 

CryptoQuant said in a report last week that bitcoin was back in a bull market after crossing above its 365-day moving average — the “definitive technical signal” that has marked the start of Bitcoin’s bull markets in past cycles.

The coin has shrugged off the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and lawmakers blockage of landmark crypto legislation, the Clarity Act. 

This post Bitcoin Surges 40% in Its Best Quarter Since Late 2024 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Is More Than Just an Asset, Says TD Cowen

Investment bank TD Cowen has said that Bitcoin is more than an asset — and will be increasingly used as financial infrastructure to underpin institutional products.

Writing in a Tuesday note, TD Cowen said that after attending a BitcoinTreasuries Conference this week in New York, it noticed institutions were more than interested in just accumulating the leading cryptocurrency. 

The comments come as major banks around the world delve deeper into the technology that underpins Bitcoin, with firms offering — and using — crypto products for customers and to streamline their own services. 

“Bitcoin increasingly appears to be moving beyond its role as an investable asset and toward a broader role as financial infrastructure capable of supporting new capital-markets activity,” the report read. 

“In our view, the most interesting conversations were not necessarily about bitcoin itself, but about the ecosystem being built around it,” the report continued. 

It added that Bitcoin could be used in its next phase by “supporting capital markets infrastructure.” 

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury Strategy has long argued that the leading cryptocurrency will underpin other products in the financial sector. The company, which is the largest corporate holder of bitcoin, currently offers preferred stocks which pay investors dividends. 

TD Cowen said that bitcoin custody was becoming more institutional as “larger pools of capital enter the ecosystem.” 

U.S. and European banks have spoken about or started offering bitcoin custody services in recent years. 

BNY Mellon in 2022 became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services. And this month, German multinational Deutsche Bank said it would debut a bitcoin custody service for European corporate and institutional clients later in 2026. 

“We believe these developments suggest that bitcoin is continuing to evolve from a standalone asset into a broader financial ecosystem capable of supporting increasingly sophisticated institutional participation,” TD Cowen added.

TD Cowen is a division of multinational TD Securities. 

This post Bitcoin Is More Than Just an Asset, Says TD Cowen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s Price Jumps Above $85,000 on Lighter-Than-Expected Inflation Data

Bitcoin’s price rose — albeit slightly — on data Wednesday showing that inflation had risen slower than expected. 

The Fed’s main inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, increased in August by 3.4% on headline and 3% for core — both well below estimates.

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $84,246 after jumping as high as $85,518 at one point Wednesday morning in New York. 

The news means the Federal Reserve is less likely to hike interest rates in October. High inflation is causing the U.S. central bank to take a more hawkish approach to managing monetary policy. 

In his first speech since he became Fed chair, Kevin Warsh in August said the U.S. central bank had “more work to do” to fight inflation. 

Then, in September, the bank raised interest rates. “The plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,” Warsh said at the time. 

Still, bitcoin’s price appeared to shrug off the move and had a good run in the week following the central bank’s move. 

The coin surged as high as $87,158 earlier this month. Some analysts have said that investors are shrugging off the move as they don’t expect the Fed to change policy and start hiking rates successively. 

Bitcoin has rallied since the U.S. Treasury announced plans to more than double the size of its government debt repurchases.

Bitcoin’s price has in the past performed well in a low interest rate environment, along with other “risk-on” assets. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly put pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. 

Last year, Trump threatened to fire ex-Fed Chair Jerome Powell and said he did a “bad job” for not lowering interest rates. 

This post Bitcoin’s Price Jumps Above $85,000 on Lighter-Than-Expected Inflation Data first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Tax on Bitcoin Gains? Dutch Government to Introduce Capital Gains Tax From 2028

Dutch people could soon be paying tax on their bitcoin gains — if they sell. 

The Dutch government on Tuesday announced that it was planning to introduce a capital gains tax starting from 2028. 

If approved, gains on investments would be paid when they are realized, rather than imposing levies on assumed returns or unrealized increases in value, a Tuesday the Dutch cabinet to the House of Representatives read.

“The earning capacity of the Dutch economy calls for a way of taxing wealth that facilitates investment,” the letter read. 

It added that most financial instruments would be taxed from 2028 while remaining assets would transition two years later. The letter wasn’t clear whether digital assets would be taxed in 2028 or from 2030. 

Bitcoin and digital assets in the Netherlands are currently taxed based on an assumed annual yield rather than your actual or realized profits. Tax authority currently assumes assets earned a notional 4% return, regardless of what you actually earned.

Regulations in Europe regarding crypto and taxes are mixed but on the whole stricter than the U.S. 

Since January, the European Union’s DAC8 directive has required crypto exchanges to collect detailed data on their users and transactions and report it to national tax authorities, much like banks already do for ordinary accounts.

But not all countries within the trading bloc are strict: Germany still exempts crypto held for more than a year, and Portugal does the same after 365 days.

This post Tax on Bitcoin Gains? Dutch Government to Introduce Capital Gains Tax From 2028 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Hackers behind Bitget’s $387.5 million breach are turning to Zcash's privacy features to hide the stolen funds as crypto firms increasingly block other escape routes.

About 2,746 ZEC worth roughly $3.9 million was transferred Wednesday into Zcash’s Ironwood shielded pool through three transactions, according to on-chain activity flagged by blockchain investigator ZachXBT. The amount represents about 15% of the 18,917 ZEC stolen from the exchange.

The transfers complicate Bitget’s recovery effort because transactions inside Ironwood can conceal senders, recipients, and amounts, breaking the public transaction trail investigators use to follow stolen assets. Deposits into the pool remain visible, but subsequent movements become considerably harder to link to their origin.

The shift toward Zcash's privacy infrastructure follows attempts by the attackers to move substantially larger sums through cross-chain services, some of which have begun refusing the transactions.

NEAR Intents General Manager Alex Shevchenko said wallets connected to the Bitget theft attempted to process more than $50 million through the protocol. Its SHIELD risk system rejected most of those transactions before execution, while roughly $503,000 was frozen after swaps had begun and about $166,000 successfully passed through.

The rejected assets remained under the attackers’ control, leaving them free to seek alternative routes. The latest Zcash transfers show how that contest is shifting as stolen funds encounter tighter screening across parts of the crypto market.

THORChain volume surges as hackers seek other routes

One alternative has been THORChain, the permissionless cross-chain exchange that has resisted Bitget’s requests to block addresses linked to the theft.

Bitget-linked wallets have repeatedly used the protocol to turn stolen assets into native Bitcoin. Bitquery estimated that about 29,088 ETH, worth roughly $79 million at the time of its analysis, had been sent into THORChain and swapped for Bitcoin through Sept. 29.

As a result, activity on the decentralized exchange has exploded since the breach. THORChain has processed more than $1.5 billion in DEX volume in the days following the incident, compared with roughly $146 million during the week before the attack, according to DeFiLlama data reviewed by CryptoSlate.

The increase has coincided with hacker-linked flows, although total THORChain volume cannot be attributed to the attackers.

THORChain's actions, in contrast to NEAR, highlight a widening divide over how decentralized infrastructure should respond when it identifies stolen assets.

NEAR has argued that permissionless access does not require its liquidity providers to execute known illicit transactions. However, THORChain has maintained that selective censorship would undermine the principles governing its network.

That disagreement has practical consequences for Bitget. Blocking one venue does not freeze assets held in self-custodied wallets. Instead, it forces the attacker to find another source of liquidity, potentially pushing funds toward permissionless exchanges or privacy systems that offer investigators fewer opportunities to intervene.

Bitget absorbs withdrawal rush as operations restart

Meanwhile, Bitget is facing a separate test from its customers as it gradually restores access to funds following the four-day withdrawal freeze.

DeFiLlama data reviewed by CryptoSlate shows more than $700 million has moved out of tracked Bitget wallets since withdrawal channels began reopening, highlighting immediate customer demand to move assets off the exchange. DeFiLlama tracks known exchange wallets, meaning the figure reflects on-chain flows rather than Bitget’s complete internal withdrawal ledger.

Bitcoin accounted for a sizable portion of the initial rush. Bitget said it had processed 9,585 withdrawal requests totaling 4,098 BTC by Sept. 28, hours after reopening Bitcoin withdrawals.

The outflows have continued as the exchange progressively restored other assets. Bitcoin withdrawals reopened Sunday, followed by Ethereum and then USDT across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Solana and Tron. Bitget plans to reopen withdrawals for its remaining cryptocurrencies as well as fiat and peer-to-peer services on Friday.

On Sept. 30, Bitget's Chief Executive Officer Gracy Chen said that the exchange's Protection Fund had also been rebuilt to more than $300 million, restoring a threshold the company had promised to reach after drawing on the fund following the breach.

She said BTC, ETH and USDT withdrawals were already operating and described the business as “gradually back to usual.”

The exchange’s latest proof-of-reserves snapshot provides another measure of its ability to withstand the withdrawals. Bitget reported an overall reserve ratio of 131% across 19 covered assets as of Sept. 29, meaning the assets included in its disclosure exceeded corresponding customer balances by 31%.

Those figures will face a broader stress test when Bitget removes the remaining withdrawal restrictions Friday.

The post Bitget’s hackers turn to Zcash after $50 million laundering route gets blocked appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Kalshi is ending a trader-volume incentive program nearly a year early as scrutiny of activity in its crypto markets intensifies.

The prediction-market operator told the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) that its Volume Incentive Program will terminate no earlier than Oct. 13, according to a Sept. 28 filing. The program had previously been scheduled to run until Oct. 1, 2027, making the change a significant acceleration of its planned end date.

The decision comes as Kalshi faces questions over trading patterns in its perpetual futures markets. The CFTC has reportedly examined activity after researchers identified repetitive trades around fixed dollar amounts, including roughly $5,500 in Ethereum perpetuals.

Kalshi has said it is not under investigation and has rejected allegations of wash trading, attributing the repeated transactions to market makers placing fixed-size quotes that other traders repeatedly hit.

The filing does not link the program's termination to those concerns or explain why Kalshi ended it early. Under its terms, the exchange could terminate the program at its discretion.

Launched to increase activity on Kalshi's central limit order book, the program allowed the exchange to designate eligible markets and establish fixed reward pools. Traders received a share based on their proportion of eligible volume, with event-contract rewards capped at half a cent per contract for each participant. Perpetual futures were also eligible and were exempt from the program's normal 3-cent to 97-cent qualifying price range.

That incentive structure is now giving way to a broader framework that gives Kalshi far more flexibility in how it spends money to attract and retain traders.

Kalshi shifts toward targeted trader rewards

Days before filing to terminate the volume program, Kalshi submitted a new Deposit and Trading Reward Incentive Program to the CFTC. The regulator's docket lists a modified version as received Sept. 25, with the filing setting Sept. 28 as the earliest effective date.

The two programs are not formally described as replacements and can overlap before the older program ends. Still, the new framework changes how Kalshi can deploy incentives.

Rather than distributing a fixed pool according to each trader's share of market volume, Kalshi can offer time-limited promotions tied to deposits, trading activity, or both. Promotions can run from three to 90 days and target groups based on criteria including account age, whether an account is funded, previous trading activity, inactivity, geography, and prior participation in particular contract categories.

Individual promotions can pay up to $2,500 per participant, while total rewards are capped at $5,000 per person over the program's planned two-year life. Kalshi can use percentage matches or fixed-value incentives across categories including crypto, sports, economics, financials, politics, weather and entertainment.

The filing also adds more detail on abusive trading. Transactions under inquiry for potential self-matching, wash trading, prearranged trading or other prohibited practices would be excluded from promotional rewards.

Kalshi said its surveillance staff would apply heightened monitoring to participants receiving incentives and could terminate eligibility or pursue disciplinary action.

That gives Kalshi a more targeted customer-acquisition tool at a time when the economics and quality of trading activity on prediction platforms are receiving increased attention.

Record trading supports a $40 billion pitch

The incentive overhaul comes despite little evidence that Kalshi is struggling to generate headline volume.

The exchange has repeatedly broken trading records during September. Data compiled by DeFiRate shows Kalshi handled a record $3.24 billion on Sept. 27, while weekly volume reached $15.66 billion in the seven days through that date. Its share of tracked prediction-market volume stood near 80%, up substantially from levels seen a year earlier.

That growth is increasingly being reflected in what investors are willing to pay for the company.

Kalshi is in advanced discussions to raise about $1 billion at a valuation of roughly $40 billion, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the talks. Sequoia Capital and Wellington Management are discussing leading the round, with Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group also considering investments.

A deal at that price would almost double the $22 billion valuation Kalshi secured in a $1 billion fundraising round in May. Reuters said the company is also exploring expansion beyond prediction markets into additional asset classes and has held preliminary discussions about a future initial public offering.

That makes the incentive transition consequential beyond the rewards themselves. As Kalshi seeks a valuation closer to established financial-market operators, investors will increasingly have to judge how much of its rapidly rising activity reflects durable customer demand and how much still depends on the economics the exchange creates to stimulate trading.

The post Kalshi’s $40 billion growth story hits tough questions about its trading volume appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Aave’s proposed institutional lending business would put crypto collateral on both sides of the financing chain. Institutions would pledge Bitcoin or Ether for dollar loans, while the organization governing the Aave lending protocol would initially borrow those dollars against a separate pool of its own crypto assets.

Aave Labs’ September 30 clarification identifies an Aave Labs entity as the contractual lender and confirms that the DAO-funded route would pay prevailing Aave V3 stablecoin borrowing rates. That makes the borrower’s ability to meet a margin call only one test of the business. The funding position could face its own collateral pressure or rising interest costs while an institutional loan remains current.

Aave’s governing organization, the DAO, is considering two proposed funding authorizations: a 25 million issuance bucket for GHO, Aave’s stablecoin, and up to $25 million of USDC or USDT borrowing against DAO assets. The scope includes BTC and ETH. The combined $50 million request is capacity for lending against BTC and ETH; actual outstanding loans remain undisclosed.

Aave Labs reports approximately $300 million of indicated demand and describes a $20 million lead BTC facility. The demand pipeline and lead facility are indicative, with actual drawdowns still to be reported.

A decline in crypto prices could weaken both collateral pools, while rising stablecoin borrowing costs could narrow the DAO’s interest spread. The resulting pressure would depend on the assets pledged, each position’s terms and how quickly institutional loan rates can be adjusted.

Two collateral books, two repayment obligations

The September 24 proposal would initially fund lending by pledging DAO-owned WETH and WBTC, with AAVE permitted up to 50% of collateral at each pledge. WETH and WBTC represent wrapped Ether and Bitcoin. The DAO would borrow USDC or USDT on Aave V3 and use that financing for institutional facilities.

Separately, the institutional borrower would place BTC or ETH with a qualified custodian. That collateral would secure the borrower’s loan under a Master Loan Agreement with an Aave Labs entity. A three-party Account Control Agreement would connect the lender, borrower and custodian.

These are different assets pledged for different debts. The DAO’s onchain pledge would be separate from the borrower’s custody account. The proposal says borrower collateral would never be rehypothecated, or pledged onward.

That structure allows an institution to obtain liquidity while retaining its crypto exposure, subject to margin terms. It also leaves the DAO with an onchain debt that has to remain adequately collateralized independently of the institution’s repayment schedule.

The proposed custodian would monitor borrower collateral, issue margin calls and liquidate if those calls were unmet. Legal security interests and title transfer on default are intended to let the lender direct a sale and repayment. The documents describe how enforcement would work; a record of enforcement under these facilities remains to be reported.

Typical initial loan-to-value ratios would be 60% to 75%, according to Aave Labs. A loan-to-value ratio compares the amount borrowed with the collateral’s value. Each facility’s margin trigger, cure period and liquidation terms would determine how far collateral could fall before enforcement.

A broad crypto decline could weaken both books. Falling BTC or ETH would increase pressure on an institution’s custodied collateral, while declines in the DAO’s WBTC, WETH or AAVE could reduce the cushion supporting its stablecoin borrowing.

The proposal explicitly recognizes the risk of AAVE weakening when BTC-backed loans come under stress. Its 50% cap limits AAVE’s share when collateral is pledged. Management of subsequent changes in that share would sit with the Aave Finance Committee, led by TokenLogic, which would also monitor funding-position health.

Onchain funding also has its own collateral requirements. Aave’s borrowing documentation explains that a borrower must maintain sufficient collateral and monitor its health factor, a measure of the position’s protection against liquidation. More collateral or partial repayment can be needed as that protection deteriorates.

For the proposed institutional business, this creates a liquidity question before it necessarily creates a credit loss. An institution might still be paying its loan while the DAO needs to strengthen the collateral securing its funding. Borrower collateral cannot be assumed immediately available to support the separate DAO position; access would depend on the facility’s security and enforcement arrangements.

Whether such pressure would actually arise depends on the initial DAO collateral mix, debt size, health factors and facility margin terms. Those details have not been published in the proposal and clarification. The structure supports a correlated-stress scenario, with the size and timing of any collateral sales dependent on those undisclosed positions and terms.

Floating funding can consume the loan spread

The second test is the cost of carrying the loans. Aave Labs gives indicative borrower pricing of 6% to 8% APR against approximately 4.5% funding costs, implying a 1.5 to 3.5 percentage-point interest spread for the DAO.

The September 30 reply makes clear that 4.5% is an indicative cost that can change. The balance-sheet route would pay the prevailing V3 rate for borrowed USDC or USDT. The GHO-funded route would carry the current rate paid to sGHO savers.

Aave rates depend on pool utilization, which measures how much of supplied liquidity is borrowed, and on governance parameters. Rates adjust as liquidity is borrowed or repaid. A change in inflation expectations or Federal Reserve policy would therefore not mechanically set the DAO’s Aave funding rate.

The institutional loan coupon has a different clock. In its September 30 response, TokenLogic says loan rates are fixed by contract and can remain stale during the notice period, typically 90 days. The described lead facility is evergreen, with either party able to call it or adjust its rate on 90 days’ notice.

An illustrative calculation shows the exposure. Holding a loan coupon at the bottom of the proposed range, 6%, would produce the following spreads:

The table illustrates sensitivity to assumed higher funding costs while holding the borrower’s coupon unchanged. A rise to 6% funding would exhaust the interest spread even if the borrower paid in full. At 7%, the unchanged loan coupon would be below the cost of funds. TokenLogic also notes that custody, operating, execution and credit costs still have to be paid, leaving the interest spread to cover those expenses before any profit.

Shifting toward GHO would change the funding exposure. The initial DAO-funded route would avoid converting GHO into the lending currency or drawing Stability Module inventory. The GHO route would have to convert issued GHO into the dollars borrowers primarily want while managing that conversion’s effect on liquidity and the peg.

The proposal prioritizes matched sGHO inflows, then secondary-market liquidity, with the Stability Module last. That module provides the dollar-stablecoin inventory available for GHO redemptions. The proposal calls for conversions to be routed with TokenLogic, sized and timed to market depth, and deferred if they cannot meet an agreed maximum peg deviation.

Aave Labs reported $59.9 million of Stability Module redemption inventory as of September 24. The figure provides a September 24 liquidity reference; the proposal supplies no updated September 30 inventory. TokenLogic’s new response says inventory is insufficient to support a loan of the proposed size and duration without liquidity management.

TokenLogic also says matched sGHO inflows must last at least as long as borrower drawings. Matching amounts at origination could still leave a funding gap if the money supporting a loan departed before repayment.

Disclosures would show how much pressure the DAO can absorb

The proposal’s published path remains community feedback, followed by Snapshot if sentiment is favorable and an AIP after a positive Snapshot. The current discussion does not disclose a completed approval, deployment transaction or live loan-level reporting.

Each proposed funding authorization would require the GHO Stewards’ two-of-three approval arrangement involving Aave Labs, TokenLogic and LlamaRisk. Aave Labs promises reporting on outstanding balances, collateral composition, LTV distribution, margin events, losses and funding positions. TokenLogic says a future Funding Update will detail the initial DAO collateral selection.

The precise lender entity and custodians remain unnamed. Numerical margin triggers and cure periods are also missing. The legal-party clarification identifies who would contract with a borrower, but leaves the allocation of losses and enforcement proceeds between that entity and the DAO unresolved.

Exit rights matter alongside those disclosures. Proposed term loans would mature within 12 months, while evergreen facilities would generally have notice-based call and repricing rights. Setting GHO facilitator capacity to zero could stop new minting, but would not retire outstanding GHO; removing the facilitator requires its outstanding bucket balance to reach zero.

The resulting test is broader than whether an institution can avoid selling Bitcoin at origination. Aave’s proposed financing could preserve that exposure while introducing a separate need for the DAO to support its own collateral and funding costs. The first funding update and loan-level report would show whether the two books have enough liquidity and contractual flexibility to withstand pressure together.

The post Aave’s $50 million lending plan could lose money without a single default appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin erased a brief rally above $85,000 on Sept. 30, slipping back below $84,000 after fresh US inflation data as government bond yields rebounded and stocks recovered.

The move followed the release of August personal consumption expenditures inflation at 12:30 p.m. UTC. At 3:28 p.m. UTC, Bitcoin traded close to $84,000, leaving the initial jump without a sustained breakout.

Bitcoin was still up 0.56% over 24 hours at that reading. That rolling gain coexisted with the release-time rally's reversal, leaving a modest daily move after a sharp swing.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis release put headline PCE inflation at 0.3% month over month and 3.4% year over year. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% month over month and 3.0% year over year.

The figures gave markets a new inflation reading, but they arrived alongside an annual update to the national economic accounts. BEA said revisions to monthly personal income and outlays estimates began with January 2021, meaning comparisons with earlier releases require care.

In the updated table, July's monthly headline and core inflation readings were both 0.1%, while August's headline and core readings were 0.3% and 0.2%, respectively. Comparing the new report with an older, unrevised July estimate would mix different versions of the data.

Headline inflation also remained above the Federal Reserve's longer-run 2% target, which is measured using annual PCE inflation. The release added information to the policy debate but did not determine the Fed's next decision.

Monthly changes capture the latest increase in consumer prices, while annual rates compare them with the same month a year earlier. Prices were still rising on both measures, despite the market's initial upward move in Bitcoin.

Stocks recover as yields turn back up

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust traded around $766.82, while Brent spot crude rebounded toward $102.20 a barrel.

Gold was quoted through a contract for difference at around $4,163.92 an ounce, below its earlier push above $4,200. The US Dollar Index stood near 101.39 after retreating from a higher level earlier in the session.

The US ten-year yield was around 5.276%, while the UK 30-year government bond yield was near 5.939%, extending the rebound in yields across both government-bond markets. Rising yields correspond to falling bond prices, adding another dimension to the recovery in stocks and oil.

The afternoon readings cover different intraday windows, so they do not isolate each instrument's response to the inflation release. They show stocks and oil recovering while Bitcoin struggled to retain its jump, with gold, the dollar, and bond yields following different paths.

Today's PCE report measures August, while the subsequent manufacturing and employment readings cover September. Those different reference months leave further room for the inflation and growth picture to change.

For Bitcoin, the immediate result was a failed attempt to stay above $85,000. A later price below $84,000 left traders watching whether a renewed recovery could persist beyond the first burst of buying.

The post Bitcoin fails to sustain $85,000 breakout, and bond yield spikes are blamed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

UK crypto firms can now apply for authorization as of Sept. 30, bringing Bitcoin holders closer to a rulebook that will treat coins pledged as qualifying borrowing collateral differently from coins transferred into lending for yield. The distinction could matter when a platform fails: safeguarded assets and a contractual promise to return equivalent coins give customers different starting points for seeking recovery.

The Financial Conduct Authority now allows firms to apply for authorization or vary their permissions through its Connect system. But the safeguards in the rules it finalized June 30 are forthcoming, with the new regime expected to begin Oct. 25, 2027. An application today does not establish authorization or bring those protections into effect.

The central distinction concerns what a platform is allowed to do with customer assets. Under the future rules, covered custody generally requires a safeguarding trust under CASS 17, the crypto custody chapter of the FCA's Client Assets Sourcebook. Retail collateral supporting an in-scope crypto borrowing service must remain safeguarded, with a narrow debt-discharge exception. A qualifying lending service can instead use an exemption from the trust requirement while the lending continues. The collateral protection concerns qualifying cryptoasset borrowing, a defined service; it cannot automatically be extended to every cash loan marketed as Bitcoin-backed.

The different legal basis for asking for coins back matters when assets are missing. Recovery still depends on whether the failed firm has enough assets to return, and the newly regulated crypto activities will remain outside Financial Services Compensation Scheme coverage.

Pledged coins must remain safeguarded

Under the forthcoming framework, the FCA's retail collateral rule requires a firm providing qualifying cryptoasset borrowing to arrange safeguarding for relevant crypto collateral. It can safeguard the assets itself if it has the necessary permission, or arrange for an appropriately authorized custodian to do so if it has permission to arrange safeguarding.

For Bitcoin used as collateral in such an arrangement, the firm cannot simply obtain full ownership so it can deploy the coins elsewhere. The rule prevents either the firm or another person taking full ownership unless the retail client has given express prior consent to an ownership transfer to discharge debt arising from that borrowing service.

The associated debt-discharge provision adds another condition. A written, binding agreement must give the firm the right to take ownership to discharge an obligation, and the firm must actually exercise that right according to the agreement. Until the firm exercises that agreed right, merely signing the agreement leaves the coins subject to the safeguarding requirement.

The practical consequence is that pledging coins does not automatically turn them into the platform's freely usable inventory. The safeguarding obligation continues unless a permitted change in their treatment occurs. Borrowing against coins therefore needs to be distinguished from handing them over for a yield-generating lending service.

For a borrower comparing products, the legal classification therefore matters. These provisions concern qualifying cryptoasset borrowing, a defined service whose treatment depends on the substance of the arrangement. The FCA's perimeter guidance says the legal substance of an arrangement and the roles of its participants determine its characterization. The retail collateral rule cannot automatically be read across to every cash loan secured by Bitcoin.

The retail and wholesale boundaries also differ. The core lending and borrowing chapter generally applies to retail clients who are not overseas retail clients, while certain records and transfer requirements have broader application to clients who are not overseas clients.

Lending can change the customer's claim

Qualifying cryptoasset lending moves assets in the other direction. In the FCA's description, a person disposes of cryptoassets to or through another person, with an obligation or right to reacquire the same or equivalent assets, typically earning yield.

That return right is different from an instruction to keep coins in custody. Under CASS 17.3.4, a firm providing a qualifying lending service can be exempt from acting as trustee for those assets during the service. If it already holds them in a safeguarding trust, the rule allows it to stop treating them as client cryptoassets while the exemption applies.

The exemption ends when the lending service ends, including where the client exercises a right to terminate it. Actual return still depends on the availability of coins, the agreed return timing and access restrictions. Ending the service therefore leaves practical questions about when the customer can receive the assets owed.

Crucially, the lending exemption cannot be used for qualifying borrowing collateral. A separate exemption for other services requiring an ownership transfer is also unavailable for that collateral. The rulebook therefore prevents those routes from undermining the collateral safeguard.

For a customer whose coins have been transferred into lending outside the required trust, a CASS 17 trust claim cannot be assumed. Recovery may instead depend on the contractual return right and the applicable insolvency treatment. The contract and service structure determine the particular claim; the exemption does not assign every lending customer the same creditor ranking.

The FCA's forthcoming information requirements make this distinction part of the customer explanation. Firms must provide information about transfer and return, access, yield and risks. Its guidance also calls for explaining the implications of ownership transfers, including what happens if the firm or another relevant party becomes insolvent.

For a customer earning yield, the agreement is central to understanding the claim behind the balance shown on an app. It needs to establish whether the coins remain safeguarded, whether ownership changes and what must be returned when the service ends.

Custody recovery still depends on assets and costs

For covered custody, CASS 17 generally requires the firm to safeguard cryptoassets as trustee under documented arrangements. The FCA explains that trusts are intended to protect clients' rights against competing claims, including when the custodian becomes insolvent.

The rules require firms to establish private trusts through the relevant legal arrangements. The safeguarding obligation depends on those arrangements being put in place, rather than on a statutory trust arising automatically from the rules. Those arrangements and their operation still have to satisfy the specified legal and safeguarding requirements.

The asset boundary is also important. CASS 17's application rules concern regulated activities carried on from a UK establishment, subject to exceptions. The FCA's final-policy overview says custody of relevant specified investment cryptoassets will initially follow the separate CASS 6 requirements. Different assets and service structures can therefore fall under different custody provisions.

Records help establish what belongs in the trust. The forthcoming reconciliation requirements include calculating what a firm must hold for each client, trust and asset class at least once each business day. That supports identifying entitlements, but identifying an entitlement is different from having all the assets needed to satisfy it.

Trust terms must specify how shortfalls are allocated where several clients share a trust. They must also state whether client assets can pay distribution costs following trustee failure and, if so, how those deductions work. The FCA generally expects a shortfall within an asset class in a trust to be shared proportionally among the affected clients.

Those provisions make the recovery limit concrete. A trust can strengthen the basis for an asset claim without ensuring full repayment after losses or costs.

Staking should also be distinguished from lending. The FCA's collateral guidance says staking eligible collateral should remain possible only with compliance with the staking rules, no transfer of full ownership and continued trust safeguarding. That conditional treatment does not create a lending exemption for borrowing collateral.

Authorization will not add FSCS insurance

The compensation boundary survives the move to authorization. In the future Handbook glossary, the FCA brings the new crypto activities into the definition of designated investment business for general Handbook purposes, then expressly excludes them when that definition is used in the compensation rules.

The exclusions include crypto safeguarding, arranging safeguarding, operating trading platforms, dealing and arranging deals in qualifying cryptoassets, stablecoin issuance and arranging staking. Together with the protected-claim rules, that means authorization for these new activities does not add FSCS investment compensation protection.

A firm could conduct other business with different compensation eligibility. Its authorization for an uncovered crypto service, however, cannot turn that service into a covered investment claim.

The Financial Ombudsman Service is a separate route. DISP's jurisdiction rules can permit eligible complaints about regulated activities, subject to the applicable conditions. An eligible complaint addresses the firm's conduct. Payment of any award still depends on the circumstances, while FSCS eligibility remains a separate question.

Earlier coverage examined the authorization timetable and the stablecoin and lending perimeter.

Overseas platform access is another part of the regulatory picture. For customers, the next question is how the particular service treats their assets after a firm gains the permissions it needs.

The FCA also said in its June policy overview that it would consult later in 2026 on managing cryptoasset firm failures, including distribution rules for failed custodians and stablecoin issuers. The shape of the failure and distribution framework will also matter to the practical outcome for customers.

As applications open, the distinction for Bitcoin holders is between access to a regulated service and the rights attached to their coins within it. Custody, qualifying borrowing collateral and lending for yield can lead to different asset claims. The October 2027 framework will make that distinction more explicit, while leaving recovery dependent on the arrangement, the assets available and the applicable failure process.

The post UK’s 2027 crypto rules let firms remove trust protection from Bitcoin lent for yield appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Investing in cryptocurrencies carries a high level of risk.

A virtual portfolio is a portfolio without money: you buy at real prices, the portfolio books quantity, price and fees, and after a few weeks you see what would have become of your selection. For equities and ETFs, many banks and financial portals offer this. For crypto the choice is narrower, and a crypto virtual portfolio works differently from a securities one in three respects: the market never sleeps, the swings are larger, and tax follows different rules. Here is what a virtual portfolio can do, where the line runs to a watchlist and a portfolio tracker, and how to set up a crypto virtual portfolio without registering.

Crypto virtual portfolio: the key points in brief

• A virtual portfolio is a simulated portfolio with real prices and play money. It books purchases and sales and shows the performance without any money moving.
• Virtual portfolios from banks and financial portals are built for securities: equities, ETFs, funds, bonds. Crypto mostly appears there only as a security, for instance as an ETN.
• A crypto virtual portfolio without registration is possible in CryptoTicker's trading simulator: 10,000 euros of play money, 50 coins, real prices, as of September 28, 2026.
• Crypto trades around the clock, 365 days a year. A virtual portfolio shows you on Monday what happened over the weekend.
• Watchlist, virtual portfolio and portfolio tracker are three different tools: observing, practising, managing real holdings.
• For tax purposes only real ownership counts: coins held privately are tax-free in Germany after a holding period of one year, and below that an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros a year applies (Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, as of 2026).

What is a virtual portfolio?

A virtual portfolio, also called a simulated or demo portfolio, replicates a real portfolio. You decide what you buy and how much of it, the virtual portfolio calculates at the current price, deducts the simulated fees and tracks the performance from then on. If you sell, the gain or loss is booked. There is no real money, no deposit and no withdrawal.

The benefit lies not in the result but in the process: you learn how an order feels, how fees change the outcome and how you react to a decline, without it costing anything. Anyone who later wants to open a real account will find providers, fees and licences for crypto in the exchange comparison.

How is a virtual portfolio structured?

A virtual portfolio looks like a bank's portfolio overview. Each line is a position, and the columns are almost everywhere the same:

• Quantity: how many shares, ETF units or coins you have bought. With crypto, fractions are usual, for instance 0.015 Bitcoin.
• Entry price: the price at which you bought, including the simulated fee.
• Current price: the price now. Some virtual portfolios show real-time prices, others prices delayed by 15 minutes; for practice either will do, for short-term trades it will not.
• Gain or loss: the difference between entry and current value, in euros and in percent.
• Share of the portfolio: what percentage of the total value this position accounts for. That column shows you when a single position has grown too large.

Added to that is the balance, the play money not yet invested. Anyone setting up a virtual portfolio should choose starting capital that matches their later stake, otherwise they practise with sums they will never move.

Watchlist, virtual portfolio, portfolio tracker, demo account: the difference

The four terms are often used interchangeably. They answer different questions:

The watchlist remembers prices, the virtual portfolio remembers decisions. A demo account is a virtual portfolio with the full toolkit of a trading account, that is, with stop loss, shorting and leverage; more on that in the guide to the trading demo account. A portfolio tracker, by contrast, is not a practice tool: it collects your real transactions from exchanges and wallets and calculates holdings and tax from them. Which trackers do that well is shown by the comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Why a crypto virtual portfolio works differently

The market never sleeps

Equities are traded on weekdays during exchange hours. Bitcoin and the other large coins trade around the clock, including on public holidays. A crypto virtual portfolio therefore often only shows you on Monday that something happened on Saturday. For practice that means: decide in advance at which times you will look, and stick to it.

The swings are larger

Daily moves of ten percent are no exception among smaller coins. A virtual portfolio holding five small coins can halve or double within a week without your having done anything right or wrong. That is why the result of a single month serves poorly as evidence for a selection.

Security or coin

The virtual portfolios of banks and financial portals hold securities. Crypto appears there as a rule as an exchange-traded product, for instance as an ETN or ETP. That is not the same as the coin: an ETN is a debt instrument issued by an issuer, and it is treated differently for tax than a coin held privately. What you should check with such products is explained in the guide crypto ETNs in your portfolio. Anyone wanting to practise with the coin itself needs a virtual portfolio with coin prices.

Setting up a free crypto virtual portfolio: in three steps

The trading simulator in CryptoTicker's Trading Hub works as a crypto virtual portfolio without registration, as of September 28, 2026:

1. Open the page. No account, no email address, no credit card. 10,000 euros of play money are ready, and your state stays saved in the browser.
2. Select coins and buy. The 50 largest coins with more than 50 million US dollars of daily volume are available, at real prices. For a classic virtual portfolio you buy without leverage and hold.
3. Follow the performance. The portfolio shows the balance, open positions and result. You only need an account once you want to continue on a second device; you can reset at any time.

One exercise: two virtual portfolios, one question

A virtual portfolio becomes valuable when it answers a question. One suggestion, expressly as an exercise with play money and not as investment advice:

• Portfolio A weights three large coins by their market capitalisation.
• Portfolio B spreads the same amount equally across the same three coins.
• Rule for both: look once a week at the same time, reset to the original weighting once a month, and book every reallocation with a fee.

After four weeks you compare not only the result but also the largest drawdown along the way. The question is not which portfolio won, but which one you would have endured. Anyone wanting to do the same exercise with short-term trades will find the fundamentals in the Learn Trading pillar.

Where to find the best virtual portfolio?

That depends on what you want to practise:

• Equities, ETFs and funds: virtual portfolios from direct banks and financial portals. They are mostly free but require registration with an email address.
• Coins at real prices, without registration: a crypto simulator such as CryptoTicker's.
• Active trades with stops, shorts and leverage: a demo account or paper trading on a charting platform.
• Your real holdings: not a virtual portfolio but a portfolio tracker.

You recognise a good virtual portfolio by three things: real or only slightly delayed prices, calculated fees, and starting capital that matches your later stake. Anyone practising with 100,000 euros and later investing 2,000 euros has learned position sizes they will never need.

The way from the virtual portfolio to your first own trade runs through the Learn Trading pillar, with order types, position sizing and a practice plan. Anyone who already owns real coins and needs an overview for tax will find the right tools in the comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Sources

• Income Tax Act, Section 23, private disposal transactions, as of 2026.
• CryptoTicker Trading Hub, trading simulator, as of September 28, 2026.
• Guide to crypto tax in Germany on CryptoTicker.

XRP costs $1.51 on Wednesday evening, and the number this day turns on lies exactly one cent below that. Since September 22, $1.50 has been the line on which every trading day is decided. Today a date is added that has nothing to do with the chart: in New York, the shareholders of a special purpose vehicle vote on whether a treasury holding 473,276,430 XRP comes to the Nasdaq as a share. And tomorrow morning Ripple's monthly escrow window opens. Two dates in 24 hours, both with numbers, both with consequences for the quantity of XRP reaching the market. This article sorts out what among it can move the price, what counts for you in Germany, and where the levels lie to the upside and the downside. The running assessment sits on our XRP forecast.

What is decided in New York tonight: 473 million XRP and the ticker XRPN

Up for the vote is the merger of Armada Acquisition Corp. II with Evernorth Holdings. Armada is a special purpose vehicle, a SPAC in the jargon: a listed shell with no business of its own that raises capital and then combines with a real company so that the latter is listed without a conventional IPO. The shareholder meeting is set for Wednesday at noon Eastern time, which corresponds to 6 p.m. in Germany. The deadline by which shareholders could redeem their shares already expired on September 28.

If the vote passes and the remaining conditions are met, the merged company is to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN. According to the figures in the proxy materials, the company projects at least 473,276,430 XRP on its own balance sheet at closing. Ripple itself contributes 126,791,458 XRP of that, or 26.8 percent of the holding. Behind the plan, according to the FinanceFeeds report, stand the SBI Group, Pantera Capital, Kraken, GSR and Arrington Capital alongside Ripple. The US Securities and Exchange Commission declared the registration on Form S-4 effective on August 27. Evernorth expects around $1 billion in gross proceeds from the transaction, the bulk of which is to flow into building the XRP treasury.

One figure in that list deserves a second look, because it shows what the entry point looks like. Evernorth bought 84,365,876 XRP on the open market, for around $214 million and at an average price of $2.5366 per token. At today's price of $1.51 the same tokens are worth roughly $127 million. That is a paper loss of around 40 percent on this part of the holding before the share has even traded. Anyone buying XRPN after a listing is therefore not buying a fresh treasury at market price, but a balance sheet with a history.

XRP price at $1.51: $1.50 has carried almost every daily close since September 22

The price data in this article come from CoinGecko, as of Wednesday, September 30, shortly before 7 p.m. German time. XRP trades at $1.51, up 1.42 percent within 24 hours. Over seven days it is down 1.31 percent, over 30 days up 9.35 percent. The day's range ran from $1.48 to $1.54. Market capitalisation stands at $95.27 billion, turnover over the past 24 hours at $3.30 billion. The price is 58.6 percent below its all-time high of $3.65.

More interesting than the daily bar is how narrow the past few days have been. The daily levels since September 22 read $1.5350, $1.5713, $1.5011, $1.5340, $1.5681, $1.5273, $1.5165, $1.4959 and $1.4901. Nine values within a range of around 5.5 percent, and every single one of them within sight of $1.50. On September 28 the price slipped below that level, which we reported on that day; it has reclaimed it twice since. A level touched that often is not a curiosity but the price on which buyers and sellers currently agree. Which is precisely why one event with news value is enough to dislodge it.

Escrow on October 1: up to 1 billion XRP out of 31.98 billion held in trust

Escrow is not a marketing term at XRP but a function of the XRP Ledger. Ripple has placed a large part of its own holding into time-controlled contracts that open on the first of each month. Up to 1 billion XRP can be released; what is not needed has historically moved back into new contracts and is thereby locked again.

The quantities behind it are given in weekly report 39 from XRP Insights, as of September 26: 31.98 billion XRP sit in trust, which is 32.0 percent of the hard-capped total supply of 100 billion. A further 4.74 billion XRP sit in operational wallets. On the venues observed there were 21.14 billion XRP, a decline of 625.9 million over the reporting week.

Why the release is nonetheless more than a formality is shown by a simple calculation: 1 billion XRP corresponds to around $1.51 billion at today's price. That is about 46 percent of the entire daily turnover of $3.30 billion. Even if only a fraction were actually sold, it would meet a market that does not absorb that order of magnitude in passing. How the release on October 1 unfolds in detail, we wrote up separately yesterday.

XRP ETFs hold 1.16 to 1.18 billion tokens: a good one percent of the fixed supply

The second source of demand alongside treasury companies is exchange-traded funds in the United States. The counts differ slightly, so here are both: XRP Insights reports 1.16 billion XRP across seven funds as of September 26, with assets of $1.76 billion. A tally from the end of September arrives at 1.18 billion XRP and around $1.82 billion. Both figures correspond to a good one percent of the fixed total supply of 100 billion XRP.

Inflows in the week from September 18 to 26 were positive at a net 34.0 million XRP, but uneven: an outflow of 716,000 XRP on Monday, an inflow of 12.7 million on Tuesday, 12.5 million on Wednesday, 9.9 million on Thursday, and another outflow of 473,000 on Friday. Cumulatively, the US spot products stand at around $1.79 billion of inflows.

For you in Germany there is a restriction here that most reports overlook: these funds are US products and are regularly not tradable for retail investors in this country through the usual brokerage route, because they lack the European investor information. The exchange route in Germany instead runs via certificates and exchange-traded notes, which we have sorted through in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany. The US inflows are therefore a sentiment gauge for you, not a way to buy.

Two routes to XRP: the XRPN share against the token in your own account

Should XRPN actually list, two very different things sit side by side. The token is the asset itself. The share is a stake in a company whose balance sheet consists predominantly of that asset. Three differences lie between them, barely noticeable in calm market phases and very noticeable in turbulent ones.

First, the premium. Shares in treasury companies rarely trade at exactly the value of their holdings. If the price sits above it, you pay more than a dollar for a dollar of XRP; if it sits below, you get a discount that can also persist. Second, the management. Evernorth is announcing an actively managed treasury, meaning purchases, sales and further financing. The convertible bonds already issued, $30 million at 4 percent interest maturing in 2031, are an example of how the shareholder structure can change. Third, the currency. A Nasdaq listing accounts in dollars, and your portfolio carries the exchange rate risk with it.

Holding period, exemption threshold, withholding tax: Section 23 and Section 20 side by side

The biggest difference between the two routes is not in the chart but in tax law, and for German investors it is the most tangible point of the whole subject.

If you hold XRP directly, Section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies, the private disposal transaction. If you sell within a year of buying, the gain is taxable, and at your personal income tax rate. In return there is an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year, in force since 2024, which aggregates all private disposal transactions. An exemption threshold is not an allowance: anyone above it with a gain of 1,001 euros pays tax on the full amount. After a holding period of more than a year the gain is tax-free. For allocating the units sold, practice calculates per wallet on a first-in, first-out basis.

A share such as XRPN, by contrast, falls under Section 20 of the Income Tax Act, that is, under investment income. There the withholding tax of 25 percent applies, plus the solidarity surcharge of 5.5 percent on that tax, together 26.375 percent, and church tax where applicable. The saver's lump-sum allowance is 1,000 euros per person per year, or 2,000 euros for joint assessment. There is no holding period here after which a gain would become tax-free. If the account sits with a foreign provider, nobody deducts the tax automatically, and the transaction then belongs in the KAP annex of the tax return. Which tools log the transactions cleanly is set out in our comparison of crypto tax tools. What is binding in the end is the advice of your tax adviser; this article does not replace it.

Buying XRP in Germany under MiCA: CASP licence, ETPs on the exchange, your own wallet

The European regulation on markets in crypto-assets has applied in full since December 30, 2024. MiCA requires every provider that trades or holds crypto-assets for clients to hold an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider, called a CASP in the text of the regulation. It is granted by BaFin or another supervisor in the EU, and the authorisation then applies across the entire single market. Whether your provider holds one is stated in BaFin's company database and, as a rule, in the imprint. That is the first check, one that can be done today in five minutes, and it is independent of how the vote in New York turns out. Which trading venues are authorised in Germany and what they cost, we have set side by side in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

Custody at XRP comes with a peculiarity worth knowing when you open your first account of your own. An account on the XRP Ledger requires a base reserve of 1 XRP, which stays permanently tied up and cannot be sent. Every additional object in the ledger, such as a trust line or an escrow, ties up a further 0.2 XRP. At today's price that is around $1.51 for the base reserve. Anyone transferring XRP to an exchange also needs the so-called destination tag, a number that assigns the deposit to the right client account. Without that tag the transfer lands in the provider's omnibus account, and retrieving it is laborious to hopeless.

Leverage on XRP: the liquidation price at 10x sits in the middle of the September range

Anyone wanting to play the two dates with a leveraged product should calculate beforehand rather than afterwards. Liquidation means the exchange closes the position by force as soon as the collateral deposited is used up. For a tenfold leveraged purchase, a decline of around ten percent is enough. From today's price of $1.51 that threshold sits at about $1.359, before fees and financing costs are counted in. At fivefold leverage it sits at around $1.208.

These numbers acquire their meaning through September: the monthly low was $1.2833 on September 16. A tenfold leveraged buy position opened at the start of the month at today's price level would not have survived that move. A fivefold leveraged one would have scraped through. Added to that is the financing rate, known in trading as the funding rate: a payment that flows between buyers and sellers of perpetual contracts at short intervals and can make a held position noticeably more expensive over days. Anyone trading such contracts will find the terms of the authorised providers in our broker comparison.

Two scenarios to mid-October: $1.5713 above, $1.2833 below

The following levels are derived from the price data of the past 30 days and are not analysts' price targets. What they describe is where the market last turned.

In the benign case the merger is approved, the bulk of the escrow release moves back into new contracts as in previous months, and ETF inflows stay positive. The first serious hurdle is then the monthly high of September 23 at $1.5713, around 4.1 percent above today's level. Above that begins the round area around $1.60, which was not reached once in September.

In the adverse case the vote is postponed or fails, and a larger part of the released quantity stays in motion. Then the day's low at $1.48 comes up for testing first, after that the monthly low of September 16 at $1.2833. That would be 15.0 percent below today's price. Between the two scenarios lies a range of around 19 percent, and both hang on events that become known within the next 24 hours. That is precisely why position size carries more weight here than direction.

XRP after the Nasdaq vote: How to proceed now

1. Check the buying route and its authorisation. Look in the imprint or in BaFin's company database to see whether your trading venue holds a MiCA authorisation, and compare the fees before you move anything. The overview sits in our comparison of crypto exchanges.
2. Note the holding period for each position. Write down the purchase date for every XRP position. Only then do you know which sale still falls under the one-year period and which no longer does. Tools that track this automatically are in our comparison of tax tools.
3. Work out the liquidation price before you use leverage. Enter your intended leverage and entry into your provider's calculator and hold the result against the monthly low of $1.2833. If the distance does not fit, the leverage is too large. The terms are in the broker comparison.

(As of September 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Chainlink is the weakest performer among the 25 largest cryptocurrencies on September 30, 2026. The LINK price stands at $14.14, around 6.5 percent below its level 24 hours earlier. The reason lies not in bad news but in the day before: on September 29, LINK marked $15.44, its highest level since mid-September, after Chainlink announced on September 28 that financial institutions could connect to the blockchain ledger of the payment network Swift. Anyone who bought into that advance is in the red today, while the weekly balance remains clearly positive.

This article sets out how large the move really is, which levels govern what follows, and which points now count concretely for you as a holder in Germany: trading venue and licence, leveraged positions, holding period, and LINK locked in staking.

Chainlink falls to $14.14: the move in numbers

As of September 30, 2026, LINK trades at $14.14, or 12.45 euros. The 24-hour high was $15.10, and the decline since then amounts to 6.5 percent. Market capitalisation stands at $10.58 billion, securing Chainlink 13th place in the overall market. Around $607 million changed hands in 24 hours. In circulation are 748.1 million LINK out of a total of one billion. All price data in this article come from CoinGecko market data as of September 30, 2026.

What matters for the classification is the comparison of time frames. Over seven days LINK is up 11.2 percent, over 14 days up 32.1 percent, and over 30 days up 26.4 percent. Measured over a year, by contrast, the price is 33.8 percent lower, and LINK remains 73.2 percent below its all-time high of $52.70 from May 2021. Against that picture, a 6.5 percent loss in a day is a correction inside a running advance, not a collapse.

It also matters that the decline is specific to LINK. Bitcoin lost 0.3 percent over the same period, Ether 1.4 percent. The broader market barely moved, then, while Chainlink gave up a multiple of the large caps. That argues against a macro trigger and for profit-taking in a single asset.

On the basis: for this article, LINK's daily closing prices over the past 14 days and the 24-hour changes of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies were evaluated. cryptoticker.io compiled that evaluation itself on September 30, 2026.

From $11.05 to $15.44: how the September rally unfolded

The move of the past two weeks can be read off the daily values. On September 17, LINK stood at $11.05, the lowest point of the period. From there it climbed in steps: $12.35 on September 24, $13.21 on September 25, $14.14 on September 27. After a quiet September 28 at $14.02 came the jump to $15.44 on September 29, the day after the Swift announcement. That is a gain of 39.7 percent in twelve days.

On September 30 the daily value was $14.60; it currently stands at $14.14. From the high of $15.44, LINK has therefore given up 8.4 percent. The move has returned the price to precisely the level it had already reached on September 27. Put differently: the jump after the Swift news has been unwound but for a small remainder, while the previous week's advance stands unchanged.

$14.02 and $13.21: the level that decides the LINK trend

The price path of the past two weeks yields three reference points to the downside and two to the upside. These levels are not a forecast; they are the points where the price actually spent time in September.

To the downside, $14.02 is the first level, the value from September 28 and thus the springboard of the rally. As long as the price holds above it, the advance remains intact. Below that follows $13.21 from September 25 as the second support. Only a fall below $12.35, the low of September 24, would call the greater part of the September advance into question.

To the upside, resistance sits first at the daily high of $15.10, and above that at the two-week high of $15.44. As long as LINK does not reclaim that zone, the move after the Swift news remains a single spike and not a new trend. For your own monitoring it is enough to note these five numbers rather than to follow every intermediate swing.

The Swift connection of September 28: the documented trigger

On September 28, 2026, Chainlink announced that financial institutions can connect their systems and their key-management infrastructure to Swift's blockchain ledger via the Chainlink platform. Swift is the messaging network through which international payments are settled; according to the announcement it connects more than 11,500 financial institutions and companies across over 200 markets. The statement is publicly available in Chainlink's press section.

Seventeen institutions are using the ledger in a first step and are piloting transactions with tokenised deposits. A tokenised deposit is a balance held at a bank that is represented as a token on a blockchain and is therefore transferable around the clock, while the claim against the bank remains in place. Sergey Nazarov, head of Chainlink Labs, is quoted in the announcement saying he is "very excited about the Swift ledger and what it will mean for tokenized deposits, as well as where global payments goes next".

How the connection works in detail and which banks are involved, we wrote up on September 29 in our report on the Swift ledger connection. What matters for the price is that this is a pilot operation. A pilot with seventeen institutions generates no measurable revenue and no measurable demand for LINK; it generates the expectation of it.

Chainlink Runtime Environment and self-signing: the technical core

At the centre of the solution, according to the announcement, is a self-signing model built on the Chainlink Runtime Environment, or CRE. The CRE is an execution environment in which processes running across different systems can be stored as workflows and settled automatically. Self-signing means the institutions keep the keys with which transactions are authorised and do not hand them to a third party.

This point is the real lever of the news. A bank that had to surrender its keys in order to take part in a shared ledger would hardly clear an internal review under supervisory rules. If key control stays in house, the question shifts from "are we allowed to do this at all" to "when and for which products". That is precisely what explains how an announcement with no immediate revenue attached could move the price by more than ten percent.

At the same time it explains the counter-move. Between a pilot with tokenised deposits and live operation generating fees in LINK lie approval processes, supervisory discussions and technical sign-offs. Projects of that kind are counted in quarters and years. The market priced that expectation in within a day and corrected it the next.

Profit-taking after a 39.7 percent gain: correction or broken trend

A correction differs from a broken trend in where it ends. As long as the declines stay above the starting points of the previous advances, the structure of higher lows remains intact. For LINK that starting point is $14.02 for the last step and $12.35 for the September move as a whole.

The structure of the decline argues for profit-taking. An asset that gives up 6.5 percent within a day after a 39.7 percent advance, while the broader market barely moves, typically gives way where short-term positions rode the jump. Against a fundamental trigger stands the fact that there is no new report on Chainlink or on the Swift project that would account for the decline.

What is reliable, then, is only this: the occasion for the rally remains valid, the assessment of that occasion has changed. Anyone deriving a direction for the coming days from it is making an assumption, not an observation.

Leverage and liquidation: what LINK holders should watch now

For leveraged positions, a 6.5 percent move in a day is the relevant case. A liquidation price is the price at which the exchange forcibly closes a leveraged position because the collateral no longer suffices. At five times leverage a counter-move of around 20 percent is enough; at ten times leverage, around 10 percent. Today has therefore already consumed two thirds of the distance available at ten times leverage.

Three things are worth a look in your account. First, the liquidation price of every open position, measured against the $14.02 and $13.21 levels. Second, the funding rate, the running payment between the long and short sides of perpetual futures: if it is strongly positive after a rally, long positions are paying to hold. Third, the size of the collateral deposited, because topping up in a falling market is more expensive than a position reduced beforehand.

Anyone holding no leveraged products can skip this section. For spot holdings, a daily loss of 6.5 percent changes nothing about the underlying conditions.

Buying LINK in Germany: MiCA licence, trading venue and custody

If you want to buy LINK into a pullback, the trading venue comes first. Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets, MiCA for short, took full effect, providers that hold or trade crypto-assets in the EU need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. In Germany, BaFin grants and supervises these authorisations. For you that is no formality: authorisation binds the provider to rules on segregating client assets, on handling complaints and on disclosing costs.

Which providers hold that authorisation in Germany and how they differ on fees, trading pairs and withdrawal routes is set out in the overview of the best regulated crypto exchanges. Check two points there above all: whether LINK is available in a euro trading pair and how withdrawals to a bank account are handled.

The second point is custody. LINK is a token on Ethereum and can be transferred to any wallet that supports Ethereum tokens. Holdings you intend to keep for months sit more safely in a wallet whose keys you control yourself than in an exchange account. Holdings you intend to trade sit more conveniently on the exchange. That decision hangs on your investment horizon, not on the daily move.

Holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act: the one-year rule for LINK from the rally

For tax purposes, crypto-assets in Germany are private disposal transactions under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If you sell LINK at a profit within a year of buying, that profit is taxable and charged at your personal income tax rate. If more than twelve months lie between purchase and sale, the profit remains tax-free. Profits from private disposal transactions are also subject to an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year; once it is exceeded, the entire profit is taxable, not just the excess.

That has a practical consequence for the present case. LINK holdings bought between September 17 and September 29 are at the very start of their holding period. Selling into the pullback realises a loss that can only be offset against gains from other private disposal transactions, in the same year or through a loss carry-forward in later years. A sale at a profit, by contrast, would be fully taxable.

What is decisive is that you can document the acquisition dates at all. Anyone who bought in several tranches in September needs the date, quantity and price for each tranche, otherwise the one-year period cannot be evidenced later.

Chainlink staking: what happens to locked LINK in a pullback

Chainlink operates its own staking, in which LINK is deposited to secure the network's data delivery. According to the figures on Chainlink's staking page, version 0.2 was capped at launch at a total of 45,000,000 LINK, of which 40,875,000 LINK were for community participants and the remainder for node operators. The base rate at launch was 4.5 percent a year, and after the payments to node operators an effective 4.32 percent for community participants.

For a pullback, a different point matters more than the yield: the lock-up. Anyone wanting to withdraw deposited LINK starts a cooldown of 28 days. Only afterwards does a window of seven days open in which the payout can actually be initiated. In practice that means staked LINK is not available during a daily move. Anyone who wanted to react to today's decline could not do so with that part of their holdings.

That is not an argument against staking but one for splitting holdings. A position you will under no circumstances need at short notice tolerates a 28-day lock. A position you want to use to react to price levels does not belong in it. Lock-up periods differ markedly between providers; anyone using staking should know the period before depositing.

What argues for and against a continuation

On the credit side it is documented that the Swift connection describes, for the first time, a route on which banks can use a shared ledger without surrendering control of their keys, and that seventeen institutions are taking that route in pilot operation. It is also documented that LINK has gained 32.1 percent over 14 days and thus sits in an advance that today has not broken.

On the debit side it is equally documentable that this is a pilot, that no figures on volume, fees or a timetable for live operation have been published, and that LINK is down 33.8 percent over a year and 73.2 percent below its 2021 all-time high. An expectation of institutional demand is therefore not the same thing as institutional demand.

How these two sides resolve over the coming weeks is open. Anyone reading an assessment that presents a direction as certain should ask for the number it rests on.

Chainlink pullback: What to take away

Chainlink has given up 6.5 percent in a day and is still up 32.1 percent over 14 days. The occasion for the rally, the connection of financial institutions to the Swift ledger, remains valid and remains a project in pilot operation. Three steps turn that into an action rather than an observation:

1. Settle the trading venue and its authorisation. If you want to buy or sell, check whether your provider holds MiCA authorisation, whether LINK is tradable in a euro pair and what trading costs. The overview of hardware wallets additionally helps with the question of where longer-term holdings go afterwards.
2. Secure the acquisition data. Note the date, quantity and price for every September tranche, so that the one-year period under Section 23 can be evidenced later. A tax tool or portfolio tracker takes that from the exchange data.
3. Record five levels. To the downside $14.02, $13.21 and $12.35; to the upside $15.10 and $15.44. Anyone storing those numbers in an analytics tool with price alerts does not have to watch the chart.

(As of September 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Mint Chain, the NFT-focused Ethereum layer 2 built by data provider NFTScan, stopped accepting new applications on April 17, 2026 and keeps nothing open but a withdrawal portal. According to the operator, that portal closes on October 20, 2026. Anyone who has not withdrawn by then will, on the same statement, no longer be able to reach their balance. In practice your own cut-off falls earlier: the portal bundles withdrawal requests into weekly batches and quotes a range of up to ten days for funds to land on Ethereum. That makes October 10 the last day on which a request still arrives before October 20 even if the batch cycle runs against you.

That calculation is the whole point of this article, because it appears in none of the coverage. What was reported in April was the date. What has been left open ever since: whether October 20 refers to the request in the portal or to the arrival on Ethereum mainnet. As long as that is unresolved, a cautious holder assumes the second reading and moves their own deadline ten days forward.

Mint Chain has been in withdrawal-only mode since April 17, 2026

Mint Chain launched as a specialist network: a layer 2 on the OP Stack, the same architecture used by Optimism and Base, and tailored to NFT applications. Layer 2 means transactions are executed off the Ethereum main chain and reported back to Ethereum in bundles; the safety of your balance rests on the contract on mainnet, not on the layer-2 operator alone.

Shutting down operations on April 17, 2026 inverted that role. The network processes no new applications, and the only operation it still supports is withdrawal back to mainnet. Independent monitoring service L2BEAT has listed Mint as an archived project since the shutdown and no longer reports any secured value there. That does not mean every address is empty: it means the service stops counting for a network that has been switched off. Anyone who withdrew nothing in the spring has to look for themselves.

The case is the standard sequence at the end of a network. How a shutdown unfolds and what role the mainnet contract plays is set out in our overview of blockchains that have been switched off and how to secure your coins, which describes the same mechanics using a different network.

The Mint Chain withdrawal portal returns four assets to Ethereum mainnet

The portal at mintchain.io/withdraw is reachable and names exactly four positions it sends back: ETH, WBTC, USDC and USDT. Nothing else is listed. The interface is plain: connect a wallet, balances are read out, trigger the withdrawal. For questions the operator gives an address at its own team.

Two of the four positions are stablecoins, tokens pegged to the US dollar. WBTC stands for Wrapped Bitcoin: a token representing a Bitcoin held under a custody contract, which does not itself sit on the Bitcoin chain. That is precisely why WBTC is the most sensitive of the four on a wound-down layer 2: what you hold is a claim, and a claim needs a functioning counterparty.

Before you can see anything at all, the network has to be added to your wallet. How to add a network and use the right block explorer to check whether an address really still holds a balance is covered in our guide to networks, bridges and explorers. An empty portal window is no proof of an empty account if the wallet is pointed at the wrong chain.

The ten-day figure: weekly batches instead of individual settlement

The sentence the entire timetable hangs on sits as a note beneath the withdrawal form. The operator writes there that withdrawal requests are processed once a week in batches and typically arrive within ten days. Two phrases in that sentence decide everything.

Once a week means the day you submit does not determine when processing starts. Submit shortly after a batch has gone out and you wait up to seven days before anything happens at all. Typically means ten days is the operator's rule of thumb, not a commitment. A figure described as typical can run longer in an individual case.

Add the two together and the span between request and arrival grows wide. A request on October 15 can, on paper, land after October 20. A request on October 10 has room even on an unfavorable batch cycle. That is why October 10 is the deadline that counts in this article, and October 20 merely the deadline that was published.

Why a second week of buffer would be better still

Anyone who wants certainty submits now rather than on October 10. The reason is mundane: a withdrawal that stalls needs time for a second attempt, and a second attempt needs another batch. Between today and October 10 there are several batch runs left. After October 10 there is at best one.

Challenge period and state root: why an OP Stack withdrawal takes days

The operator's ten days are not arbitrary; they have a technical cause. A layer 2 on the OP Stack reports its state to Ethereum in packages. Such a package is called a state root: a kind of certified statement of account for the network, filed on mainnet. Only once that statement is on file does the contract on Ethereum know how much of the layer-2 balance is yours.

Next comes the challenge period, the window for objections. During that time authorized verifiers can dispute a filed statement if it is wrong. While the window is open, the contract releases no funds. At Mint this window runs to at least three and a half days according to L2BEAT, and the withdrawal only becomes executable there seven days after the statement is filed.

The objection window, the weekly batch and the final processing step together add up to the ten-day figure. This is not a backlog that a polite enquiry could shorten, but the built-in latency of this architecture. The same latency explains why a layer-2 withdrawal rarely arrives the same day even on networks that are still running.

What L2BEAT notes on the question of trust

Two further entries in the same monitoring file belong to the picture, uncomfortable as they are. Mint does not even meet the lowest maturity stage there, because fraud proofs are open only to a closed circle of verifiers. And the network's administrative keys can change the contracts with no delay. For you that does not mean a withdrawal fails today. It means the safety of that withdrawal rests on a small group of key holders, and that an early withdrawal gives this circumstance less time than a late one.

Request or arrival: what the operator leaves open about October 20

The withdrawal portal itself names no date. It names the batch rule, the four assets and a contact address. The date of October 20, 2026 comes from the project's announcement of April 17, 2026 and was picked up by several trade publications in the same week, among them PANews and via the TechFlow news chain. The wording there is that users must withdraw their assets before October 20, 2026.

A "before October 20" does not answer the actual question. A withdrawal consists of two events, the request in the portal and the arrival on mainnet, and up to ten days sit between them by the operator's own account. Which of the two the date applies to is stated nowhere. That gap is exactly why October 10 stands as the cut-off in this article: it is the only reading that works under either interpretation.

One caveat belongs here and it stays: the date is an operator statement documented through media reports. The portal that handles the withdrawal does not carry it. Anyone who wants to be certain checks it once more on the project's official channel before submitting.

NFT holdings on an NFT chain: the portal names only four assets

This is the hardest point in the case, and it calls for an honest answer. Mint was built as a network for NFTs. The withdrawal portal lists ETH, WBTC, USDC and USDT. NFTs are not there.

What that means for NFTs held on this chain cannot be derived from the portal, and we are not going to assert a route we cannot document. The mechanics are certain: an NFT on a layer 2 is an entry in that chain's contract state. Remove the infrastructure that makes the entry readable and practical availability disappears, even if the entry formally persists. Anyone holding NFTs on Mint takes that question directly to the project team at the contact address given in the portal, and does so now rather than in October.

For the four named assets the opposite applies: there the route is open and documented. Anyone holding both withdraws the four assets first and settles the NFT question in parallel. An unresolved question is no reason to leave a resolved balance sitting.

Contract balance versus genuine holding

With USDC, USDT and WBTC on a layer 2 you are as a rule holding a bridged version: a token issued on the layer 2 whose backing sits in a contract on Ethereum. The withdrawal unwinds that link and releases the backing. What can be left behind when a bridge is no longer operated is something we described in the case of another bridged token: remaining balances after the end of a bridge.

After the deadline: the operator's statement on balances left behind

The announcement is terse on this point and identical in every reproduction: assets not withdrawn by the cut-off will no longer be processed and cannot be retrieved. The word used in the reports is unrecoverable.

Treat that statement as what it is: the operator's account of its own portal. It does not say a contract on Ethereum deletes itself on October 21. It says the operator is discontinuing settlement. Whether anything can still be moved via the mainnet contract afterwards is a question for specialists with access to the contract code, not for a holder with a wallet and a deadline. For the decision in front of you the distinction changes nothing: the reliable route ends on October 20, and your request belongs ten days before that.

Fake withdrawal portals: the scam pattern around networks that shut down

A publicly announced deadline is an invitation to fraud, and the reasons are uncomfortably good: the occasion is real, the time pressure is real, and the target group is known. Around networks that have been switched off, rebuilt withdrawal pages show up regularly, along with direct messages from supposed support staff and invitations to help groups.

Three markers separate the genuine process from the imitation. First: a withdrawal portal never asks for your seed phrase, the recovery sentence for your wallet. If it is requested, the process is over. Second: the portal address comes from a source you already had before the shutdown date, from a bookmark, the documentation or a trade publication, and never from a message that approached you. Third: nobody from support writes first. Support replies.

Then there is the approval itself. Connecting a wallet means giving a signature, and a malicious signature can release more than the single action you have in mind. What matters with such approvals, and which patterns stand out when a wallet connection is being forced, is set out in our piece on supposed checks that demand a wallet connection. Anyone facing a withdrawal of this size is best served by a wallet whose keys sit on a device of their own; we have set the differences between the custody types side by side in our comparison of software wallets.

The destination address is the second stumbling block

The portal pays out to an Ethereum address. Enter one whose keys belong to you. An exchange deposit address is risky at this point: many exchanges do not automatically credit incoming funds from bridges and settlement contracts, and an incoming transfer that is not credited automatically needs a support case. A support case takes time. Time is exactly what is short here.

For tax the withdrawal is not a sale: acquisition date and holding period run on

For investors in Germany the classification is pleasingly clear. Transferring your own coins from one address you control to another is not a disposal under income tax law. No taxable event arises, the acquisition date stands, and the one-year holding period under Section 23 runs on without interruption. A withdrawal from a layer 2 to Ethereum mainnet is exactly such a transfer.

In practice that means you give up no holding period through the withdrawal and trigger no tax. Two things are still worth the effort. Record the transaction with date, amount and the transaction hashes on both chains, so your portfolio tracker can reconcile the balances later, and treat a swap before the withdrawal as a separate event: swapping on the layer 2 before withdrawing is a sale, and sales within the first year are taxable.

The reverse case, should the deadline pass

Should a balance genuinely remain unreachable after the cut-off, that is not an automatically deductible loss. A loss from a private disposal requires a disposal, and an unreachable balance is not one. The treatment of such cases is not settled and depends on a case-by-case review by your tax office. That is the most expensive part of this deadline: a loss that does not count for tax is a double loss. Which is precisely why this section sits behind the cut-off rather than in front of it.

Mint Chain: How to proceed now

The sequence is short, and it has an expiry date. Do it in one go instead of pushing it into October.

1. Establish the balance and prepare the destination. Add the Mint network to your wallet and check whether ETH, WBTC, USDC or USDT are still sitting there. Have an Ethereum address ready whose keys are yours; which custody type suits your amount is shown by the comparison of hardware wallets.
2. Submit the withdrawal by October 10. Connect the wallet to the operator's withdrawal portal, submit the four assets and note the transaction hash. Only once the assets have arrived on Ethereum do you decide on the next step; if that runs via an exchange, choosing the venue belongs to that decision and not to the withdrawal: the crypto exchanges compared.
3. Document the transaction and track the deadline. Write down the date, the amount and both transaction hashes, and check by October 20 that the arrival on Ethereum has actually been booked. That the acquisition date and holding period run on unchanged should be stated in your records too; the tools in our overview of tax software and portfolio trackers help with that.

If anything remains unclear after submitting, the contact address in the Mint Chain withdrawal portal is the only point of contact the operator names itself. Anything else that writes to you about this subject has not identified itself.

(As of September 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Six days after the attack on its hot wallets, Bitget is back with good news. Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether and USDT are running again, the customer Protection Fund is back above $300 million, and the new proof of reserves shows coverage above 100 percent for all 19 audited coins. According to the exchange, $231 million in deposits also came in within 24 hours.

We checked the figures against Bitget's own publications and show what applies to customers now and what comes next.

Withdrawals for Bitcoin, Ether and USDT are running again

Bitget paused withdrawals as a precaution after the incident on 24 September, while trading and deposits kept running throughout. Since 28 September the exchange has been reopening withdrawals in fixed steps, each at 8:00 UTC. The first three stages are done, so the three most widely held coins are flowing again. The first day shows how smoothly the restart went: by 9:00 UTC on 28 September, Bitget had processed 9,585 bitcoin withdrawals totalling 4,098 BTC, according to CEO Gracy Chen.

According to Bitget, customer balances were never affected. The loss of around $388 million was absorbed by the exchange's Protection Fund, not by user accounts. We described the reopening in our overview of the phased plan, and the dates are listed in the Bitget support center.

Protection Fund refilled two days ahead of its own deadline

On 28 September Bitget pledged to bring the Protection Fund back to at least $300 million within one week. By 30 September it was done, two days earlier than promised. The fund was set up in 2022 with 5,500 bitcoin and exists for exactly this kind of situation. Its wallet addresses are public on the Bitget Protection Fund page, so anyone can verify the balance on-chain.

CEO Gracy Chen said the fund was created for moments like this and absorbed the financial impact of the incident. Bitget had promised to restore it to at least $300 million within a week, and it has done that (Bitget announcement). The day before, Chen explained in detail what had happened in a livestream on X, and the recording is still available. Customer balances are once again backed by a buffer of more than $300 million that steps in if needed.

Proof of reserves shows 131 percent coverage

Bitget also published its 47th proof of reserves, a report it has released every month since December 2022. The snapshot was taken on 29 September at 9:00 UTC. Overall coverage is 131 percent across 19 coins, and every single coin is above 100 percent. Bitget holds 142 percent of customer holdings for Bitcoin, 110 percent for Ether, 107 percent for USDT and 154 percent for USDC.

Coverage above 100 percent means that for every bitcoin customers hold on the exchange, Bitget keeps more than one bitcoin in its wallets. With a Merkle tree you can check yourself whether your balance is included in the snapshot, without seeing anyone else's. At the start of September the report covered four coins, now it covers 19. All figures are in the Bitget proof of reserves.

Deposits of $231 million in a single day

The clearest signal comes from customers themselves. According to Bitget on X, deposits of $231 million came in within 24 hours. That is close to August's daily average of $245 million, and futures volume reached $9.2 billion on 29 September. The figure measures deposits rather than the net balance, but it shows that customers are bringing money back to the exchange. As recently as 29 September we reported net outflows of $463 million.

There is progress on the stolen funds too. NEAR Intents blocked around $50 million from the attack, as we reported. Bitget pays anyone whose tip leads to funds being frozen or recovered 5 percent of the secured amount. Security firms Mandiant and SlowMist are supporting the investigation.

What Bitget customers can do now

• Check your balance: compare the balance in the app with your own records and use the Merkle check in the proof of reserves.
• Pick the right network: BTC, ETH and USDT go out via the networks listed in the table above, all other coins follow on 2 October.
• Secure your account: switch on two-factor login and a withdrawal address whitelist if you have not done so yet.
• Keep long-term holdings in your own wallet: this applies to every exchange. Suitable devices are in our hardware wallet comparison.

You can open an account or log in via this link to Bitget. Bitget ranks first in our crypto exchange comparison, where you can also see fees and features of the alternatives side by side.

What comes next for Bitget

The cause has been contained. According to Bitget, the attack ran through a flaw in a bought-in third-party security product, and further unauthorized transfers are no longer possible. The background is in our analysis of the attack path.

The next date is 2 October at 8:00 UTC, when Bitget reopens withdrawals for all remaining coins, fiat and P2P trading. Until then, three things Bitget has already delivered count most: a Protection Fund above $300 million, 131 percent reserve coverage and withdrawals that are back on schedule.

The Coinbase-backed group's first Senate endorsements—Republicans Jon Husted and Ashley Hinson and Democrat Chris Pappas—come two weeks after the Clarity Act's collapse, as the industry's fight shifts to the campaign trail.

The attacker behind the $387.5 million Bitget heist has started hiding about $3.8 million in ZEC inside Zcash's Ironwood pool, after Near Intents turned their swaps away.

Ask the U.S. government's new AI chatbot about Minecraft and it produces a roughly 1,800-word bureaucratic remix of the game's ending poem. It's an easter egg, not a hallucination.

The two proposals would define event contracts as "swaps" while excluding "casino-style gambling products"—a bid to cement the agency's exclusive jurisdiction as states sue prediction-market operators over gambling claims.

Bitcoin ETFs added $66 million Tuesday, matching August's nine-day run and topping it in dollars. How long will the streak stay alive?

Brazilian oil giant Petrobras is expanding its use of Cardano technology, with two new blockchain applications focused on sustainable aviation fuel and renewable Diesel R.

DogeOS deploys a ZK-Rollup layer on Dogecoin, bringing EVM smart contracts and DeFi apps to native DOGE holders.

Hyperliquid is set for a massive token unlock next month, with already about $856 million worth of HYPE in line to be unlocked in six days.

Crypto shorts face a 2,633% liquidation imbalance as BTC, ETH, and XRP shrug off sticky inflation and 5.2% US Treasury yields.

Bitcoin surged above $85,000 after softer-than-expected U.S. inflation data sent the odds of another Federal Reserve rate hike tumbling below 50%.

TLDR

• HPE stock gained 5.14% after announcing Vultr’s $1.2 billion order
• Vultr will deploy AMD Helios AI Rack systems across US data centers
• HPE expands AI infrastructure with AMD computing and networking solutions
• The deal strengthens HPE’s position in large-scale enterprise technology
• AMD Helios supports advanced workloads with high-performance infrastructure designs

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) stock advanced after the company secured a $1.2 billion order from Vultr for AI infrastructure systems. The deal strengthens HPE’s position in large-scale computing solutions for advanced workloads. The company will deploy AMD Helios AI Rack by HPE systems across Vultr’s United States data centers.

The stock climbed to $64.65, gaining 5.14%, after breaking above the $61.49 support zone. However, shares moved toward the $65 resistance level and remained near session highs. The market reaction followed news of expanded demand for HPE’s infrastructure products.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, HPE

The agreement marks HPE’s first order involving the AMD Helios system. It combines HPE networking technology with AMD computing solutions. The deployment will support model training and inference workloads for cloud customers.

HPE Expands AI Infrastructure With Vultr Partnership

HPE will provide AMD Helios AI Rack systems through its AI Data Center Solutions portfolio. The platform integrates computing, networking, software, and cooling technologies. It targets organizations requiring high-performance infrastructure.

The AMD Helios system supports large-scale model development and high-volume computing tasks. Each rack includes AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs and AMD EPYC Venice CPUs. It also features AMD Pensando Vulcano AI NICs and AMD ROCm software.

HPE Networking will provide scale-up Ethernet technology for the systems. The solution uses HPE Juniper Networking QFX5252 switch trays within each rack. This design connects GPUs with high bandwidth and low latency.

The partnership builds on nearly three years of collaboration between Vultr and Juniper Networks. HPE expanded its networking capabilities after acquiring Juniper Networks. As a result, the company continues integrating networking solutions into its infrastructure offerings.

Vultr operates cloud infrastructure services for businesses requiring scalable computing resources. The company has increased its focus on supporting artificial intelligence workloads. The HPE agreement supports its expansion into advanced data center services.

HPE and AMD Target Growing Data Center Demand

The AMD Helios AI Rack by HPE represents a broader push toward open infrastructure solutions. HPE designed the system to support large AI workloads through integrated hardware and software. The platform also focuses on efficiency, deployment speed, and operational management.

HPE will provide deployment support through its global services network. The company offers expertise in infrastructure installation and liquid cooling systems. This approach helps organizations manage complex computing environments.

AMD continues expanding its role in enterprise computing markets. The company provides processors, accelerators, and networking technologies for demanding workloads. HPE’s collaboration with AMD combines these technologies into a complete infrastructure solution.

The Vultr order highlights rising demand for advanced computing capacity. Cloud providers continue expanding infrastructure to support new applications. Therefore, HPE aims to capture additional opportunities through integrated data center systems.

HPE operates across enterprise technology markets, including networking, cloud, and computing solutions. The company helps organizations improve operations and manage growing data requirements. The Vultr agreement adds another major deployment to its infrastructure portfolio.

The post HPE (HPE) Stock: Surges After $1.2 Billion Vultr AI Infrastructure Deal appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Synopsys stock rises after OpenAI partnership targets faster chip design workflows.
• OpenAI and Synopsys develop GPT-Synopsys for advanced semiconductor engineering.
• New AI tools aim to improve chip performance, verification, and design efficiency.
• Synopsys integrates AI capabilities into its existing semiconductor design platforms.
• Partnership strengthens Synopsys role in the evolving global chip industry.

Synopsys, Inc. (SNPS) stock traded at $425.06, up 2.40%, after recovering from an intraday low near $410. The shares moved toward the $440 resistance level before settling above the $425 support zone. The move followed news of a strategic partnership with OpenAI to advance semiconductor design workflows.

Synopsys, Inc., SNPS

Synopsys Expands Semiconductor Design Capabilities

Synopsys and OpenAI announced a multi-year partnership focused on improving chip design processes. The collaboration combines advanced artificial intelligence models with Synopsys electronic design automation tools. The companies aim to create faster and more efficient semiconductor development workflows.

The partnership will allow engineers to use automated systems for complex design tasks. These systems can analyze results, adjust designs, and improve performance targets. The process focuses on power efficiency, performance levels, and area optimization.

Synopsys will integrate the new capabilities into its Synopsys.ai platform and Autopilot environment. The company will provide access through enterprise infrastructure with security controls. Customer design information will remain protected through encryption and permission management features.

OpenAI Partnership Targets AI Native Chip Development

The agreement introduces a new approach to semiconductor engineering through automated design assistance. The technology will help engineers explore more design options during development cycles. It will also support verification tasks before chip production begins.

Synopsys stated that the partnership expands access to advanced design tools for semiconductor companies. The collaboration supports growing demand for more powerful chips across technology industries. Semiconductor complexity continues increasing as companies develop advanced computing systems.

The joint service will combine computing resources, specialized models, and Synopsys licenses. The offering will support customer systems while maintaining data protection standards. Early technology programs are already underway with semiconductor companies.

Synopsys Builds Position in Growing Chip Market

Synopsys provides electronic design automation software used across the semiconductor industry. Its tools help companies create, test, and verify chip designs before manufacturing. The company has maintained a major role in supporting global semiconductor development.

The OpenAI partnership strengthens Synopsys’ focus on automated engineering solutions. The agreement connects advanced computing models with established chip design expertise. Therefore, engineers can access additional support during complex development stages.

The collaboration arrives as demand rises for advanced semiconductor technology. Companies require faster design methods to support expanding computing applications. Synopsys continues developing solutions that address changing needs across the chip industry.

The post Synopsys, Inc. (SNPS) Stock: Surge as OpenAI Partnership Sparks AI Chip Design Revolution appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Robinhood stock falls as HOOD Summit reveals major platform upgrades
• Company adds AI agents to improve research and trading experiences
• New perpetual contracts expand Robinhood’s market access strategy
• Social investing features aim to improve user engagement levels
• Weekend trading and options updates broaden platform capabilities

Robinhood Markets, Inc. traded at $112.82, down 2.93%, after the company unveiled new platform features at its HOOD Summit. The announcements included automated research tools, expanded trading options, and social investing updates. The company continues to expand beyond its traditional retail trading services.

Robinhood Markets, Inc., HOOD

Robinhood introduced several upgrades designed to cover more parts of the investment process. The platform added features for research, strategy development, and trade execution. The company increased its focus on automation and broader market access.

The HOOD Summit highlighted three major areas, including agents, perpetual contracts, and social trading. These developments show Robinhood’s plan to build a wider financial platform. The company also introduced weekend stock trading and expanded margin capabilities.

Robinhood Expands Trading Platform With Automated Tools

Robinhood has integrated automated agents directly into its application to support users. The tools aim to help customers process market information and research more efficiently. The company is moving toward a more connected trading experience.

Previously, Robinhood focused on allowing external automated tools through its Trading MCP system.The latest update places these capabilities inside the platform. This change gives users direct access to automated assistance during their investment activities.

The company sees automated systems as a way to connect users with financial information. As a result, Robinhood can provide more support throughout the trading process. The development reflects wider changes across financial technology platforms.

Robinhood’s automated features focus on improving how users discover and evaluate market opportunities. The company has not provided detailed financial projections from these updates. The long-term impact will depend on adoption and usage across its customer base.

Robinhood Adds Perpetuals and Broader Market Access

Robinhood also highlighted perpetual contracts as part of its platform expansion. The feature adds another trading product alongside existing stocks, options, and other financial services. The company continues developing tools for active market participants.

The expansion of trading products follows Robinhood’s efforts to increase engagement among users. The company has gradually added advanced features while maintaining its retail-focused approach. These changes aim to create a broader ecosystem within the platform.

Weekend stock trading and longer options hours also formed part of the HOOD Summit announcements. These updates increase the periods when users can access certain market activities. Expanded margin options provide additional flexibility for eligible customers.

Robinhood’s latest additions represent a shift toward a wider investment platform. The company continues adding services that cover different stages of the trading journey. The company’s future growth depends on successful execution of these features.

Robinhood Strengthens Social Investing and Platform Vision

Social investing remained another key focus during the event. Robinhood is developing features that allow users to interact more within the investment environment. The approach combines community elements with financial tools.

The company’s strategy connects research, decision-making, and execution within one platform. Robinhood aims to reduce the separation between information sources and trading actions. This approach could reshape how retail users manage investment activities.

Robinhood Chain and tokenization received less attention during the summit. The company continues exploring digital asset technology as part of its broader strategy. The latest announcements focused more on trading automation and user experience.

The HOOD Summit demonstrated Robinhood’s continued expansion across financial services. The company is building a platform that combines traditional trading with new digital tools. The stock market response reflected short-term pressure after the feature announcements.

The post Robinhood Markets, Inc. (HOOD) Stock: Platform Pushes Into AI Trading and Social Investing appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Amazon introduces new shipping tools designed to reduce bulky item delivery costs
• AMZN expands logistics support with new options for heavy product sellers
• Amazon Buy Shipping adds less-than-truckload labels starting in October
• Sellers will access regional pricing and faster delivery options through Amazon
• Amazon strengthens bulky product fulfillment with Seller Flex expansion plans

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) stock traded at 251.72, up 2.05%, after the company introduced new shipping tools aimed at reducing costs for sellers handling heavy and bulky products. The stock recovered from the $246.70 support area and moved above the $251 level during the trading session. The company announced the updates during the Amazon Accelerate 2026 conference as it expands logistics support for merchants.

Amazon.com, Inc., AMZN

The new features will allow sellers to access less-than-truckload shipping labels for large shipments through Amazon Buy Shipping. The service will become available in October through Seller Central and supported third-party shipping software. Amazon designed the option to help merchants manage bulky deliveries through its existing shipping network.

The shipping upgrades focus on improving delivery options for large items such as furniture, appliances, and other heavy products. Amazon Supply Chain Services Vice President of Product and Software Development Ripley MacDonald presented the changes during the conference. The company said the tools will provide sellers with more shipping flexibility and additional delivery support.

Amazon Adds Regional Pricing and Local Delivery Support

Amazon plans to introduce regional delivery pricing for heavy and bulky items starting in early 2027. The feature will allow sellers to set different shipping fees based on delivery regions. Therefore, merchants can adjust prices according to their delivery locations and shipping needs.

The company will also connect large product sellers with local carriers that support same-day and next-day delivery within nearby areas. This service will focus on sellers operating warehouses that can support faster regional fulfillment. Amazon said the approach will expand delivery options for bulky product categories.

Additionally, Amazon will include heavy and bulky orders in its invite-only Seller Flex program. The program allows approved sellers to fulfill orders directly from their own warehouses. After sellers prepare orders, Amazon manages pickup, delivery, installation, customer service, and returns.

Amazon Expands Seller Flex for Heavy Product Orders

The Seller Flex expansion will provide sellers with more control over warehouse operations while using Amazon logistics services. The program supports products that require special handling because of their size and weight. Amazon said the service aims to improve delivery accuracy for customers.

Amazon reported that heavy and bulky products represent one of its fastest-growing merchant categories. The company continues to develop logistics solutions as demand increases for large household items. The updates follow broader efforts across the retail sector to improve bulky item delivery networks.

Other retailers have also expanded large-item delivery services as online demand grows. Costco expanded its Costco Logistics service for appliances and furniture deliveries in 2024. Wayfair also developed its CastleGate logistics network in 2025 to support large home goods shipments.

The Home Depot introduced real-time delivery tracking for large products, including lumber and appliances. The retailer uses delivery devices to provide customers with shipment updates. Amazon’s new shipping tools add another layer to the growing competition in large-item logistics.

The company’s latest updates strengthen its marketplace infrastructure for sellers handling complex deliveries. Amazon continues to build logistics services that support merchants across different product categories. The new features will roll out through 2026 and 2027 as part of its seller support expansion.

The post Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) Stock: Launches New Shipping Tools to Cut Seller Costs appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• JPMorgan Chase stock trades lower as AI safety project gains attention
• Bank joins Nvidia collaboration focused on controlling AI agent actions
• OpenShell and Sentry tools aim to improve agent security measures
• JPMorgan and Citi explore shared technologies for banking workflows
• Valuation concerns remain as JPM stock trades above GF Value estimate

JPMorgan Chase  traded at $332.76, down 0.66%, as the bank joined Nvidia’s open agent-safety collaboration. The move placed JPMorgan among financial firms exploring stronger controls for autonomous systems. Market pressure continued as shares faced valuation concerns after recent movements.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., JPM

The banking giant joined the project alongside other financial institutions to develop safer frameworks for advanced software agents. The collaboration focuses on setting limits around automated actions in sensitive banking operations. The initiative highlights the growing need for security standards in financial technology.

JPMorgan’s participation follows increasing adoption of automated tools across the financial sector. The partnership alone does not confirm immediate financial benefits for the company. The impact will depend on future use cases, cost reductions, and wider operational deployment.

JPMorgan Joins Nvidia Safety Project for Banking Automation

JPMorgan joined Nvidia’s open-source agent-safety project announced on September 28. The initiative focuses on creating systems that control how automated agents operate. The project addresses concerns around granting software access to important financial processes.

The collaboration introduces tools designed to manage agent permissions and restrict unwanted actions. OpenShell establishes boundaries for automated systems before they perform assigned tasks. Sentry can isolate an agent quickly when it moves beyond approved limits.

JPMorgan and Citi are developing shared safety technologies through the collaboration. The companies have not disclosed the project’s full scope or expected production timeline. The development shows how banks are building safeguards before expanding automated financial services.

JPMorgan Stock Faces Valuation Pressure After AI Move

JPMorgan stock remains under attention as the company advances its technology strategy. The bank has invested heavily in digital infrastructure and automation across financial services. Valuation remains a key factor influencing market sentiment around the shares.

The company’s stock trades above the GF Value estimate of $308.63. The valuation measure places JPMorgan shares at a premium compared with that estimate. Future performance may depend on whether new technology investments create measurable returns.

The AI safety collaboration could support JPMorgan’s long-term technology goals. The project must demonstrate practical benefits through improved efficiency or reduced operational risks. Market participants continue to assess whether these developments can translate into stronger business outcomes.

Banking Sector Expands Focus on Safer AI Systems

Financial institutions are increasing efforts to adopt automated solutions while maintaining strict controls. Banks require secure systems because automated tools may handle sensitive customer and financial information. As a result, safety frameworks have become an important part of technology development.

JPMorgan’s latest move reflects the wider banking industry’s approach toward controlled automation. Companies are seeking systems that provide efficiency while limiting operational risks. Technology partnerships are becoming a common method for developing these solutions.

The collaboration with Nvidia adds another step in JPMorgan’s technology expansion. The company will need successful implementation before the initiative affects earnings performance. The stock’s future direction may depend on both financial results and progress in digital transformation.

The post JPMorgan Chase (JPM) Stock: AI Collaboration Gains Attention Amid Market Pressure appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin (BTC) remains in a bull market after closing above its 365-day moving average last week, but recent on-chain data suggests momentum is slowing. CryptoQuant said in a recent research note that several indicators now point to higher selling pressure and weaker demand.

Despite these concerns, CryptoQuant’s Bitcoin Bull Score Index remains at 90, showing that most tracked indicators still support a bullish structure. BTC recently reached about $87,400, its highest level in eight months, before pulling back toward the low $83,000 range.

Profit-Taking Picks Up

One concern comes from short-term holders, whose unrealized profit margin has risen to 33%. The analytics firm said this is the highest level since December 2024 and that similar levels have preceded profit-taking.

That profit-taking is already showing up in realized gains, with Bitcoin holders cashing out about 25,700 BTC in profit on September 22. It was the largest single-day realized profit figure recorded in 2026, adding to evidence that some holders are selling after the recent price gains.

Selling signals are also appearing beyond Bitcoin, particularly in the altcoin market. Seven-day cumulative altcoin exchange inflows reached 76,000 transactions involving about 51,000 depositors, the highest levels recorded since October 17, 2025.

At the same time, demand is weakening in both the spot and futures markets. Apparent spot demand fell by roughly 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days. Speculative futures demand growth also slowed, dropping from about 164,000 BTC on September 14 to roughly 16,000 BTC more recently.

Key Support Levels Remain

Despite these signals, Bitcoin remains above several important on-chain support levels. CryptoQuant identified the 365-day moving average near $80,000 and the 200-day moving average around $71,000. The firm also identified the trader-realized price near $67,000 as a key level to watch.

According to the analytics firm, a decline toward these levels could signal consolidation. This would not necessarily mean a broader market reversal if support holds. However, continued weakness in demand alongside increased profit-taking could increase the risk of a deeper correction in the near term.

CryptoQuant described the market as still bullish but showing signs of fatigue. The next test will be whether buying demand returns to absorb selling pressure or whether Bitcoin moves closer to those support levels.

The post Bitcoin Bull Market Shows Signs of Cooling: CryptoQuant appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin climbed above $87,400 last week, but the rally has since lost momentum. The world’s largest cryptocurrency then tested the $83,000 range before it surged past the upper boundary of its weekly range at $85,000.

Amidst the stagnation, larger holders are increasing their holdings again.

Whale Accumulation Returns

According to blockchain analytics platform Santiment, wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC added 41,025 units over the past 10 days. Their total balance has now reached 13.64 million BTC, equal to about 67.93% of Bitcoin’s total supply. Santiment explained that these whale and shark wallets are now at their highest holdings since the market rally in mid-August.

There is a clear difference between large and small holders. Wallets holding less than 0.01 BTC have remained mostly unchanged during the same period. Santiment revealed that stronger market conditions have historically appeared when larger holders accumulate while smaller traders sell.

However, the analytics firm said the current pattern is not a guaranteed signal for Bitcoin’s price. Market watchers will likely focus on whether large holders continue adding BTC and whether retail investors begin reducing their positions. The trend could provide another indicator of changing market sentiment in the coming days.

Adding to the bullish picture, BIT Research said Bitcoin’s bear market may have already ended. The firm identified the cycle low in late July after the asset held above $62,900 and showed signs of weakening downside momentum. Since then, BTC has reclaimed key levels, including its 21-week moving average at $69,272, and moved above its March 2024 high of $73,084.

The report also highlighted Bitcoin’s cost basis. The True Market Mean currently stands at $76,897, which essentially means that the typical holder is back in profit. This could reduce selling pressure from investors looking to exit at break-even. The firm expects an upside range of $185,000 to $215,000 in its bullish scenario.

However, crypto analyst Doctor Profit speculated a short-term pullback before BTC’s next move higher. He pointed to bearish signals across several indicators, including RSI, MACD/PPO, and MFI, while also noting weaker trend strength on the ADX indicator.

ETF Inflows and Corporate Buying

Even as the market moves through a quieter stretch, institutional demand is still showing up. US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs, for instance, attracted a whopping $2.4 billion last week. This week started at a slower pace, but the flow has remained positive. The funds raked in just over $31 million on Monday and another $66 million on Tuesday.

Corporate buyers have also stayed active. Strategy added another 1,665 BTC over the past week. The company paid an average of $85,681 per coin, taking its total holdings to 847,666 units. Strive has added to the buying activity as well. CEO Matt Cole said the company spent $94.5 million on 1,107 BTC at an average price of $85,400. Its total holdings have now reached 27,462.

The post Bitcoin’s Biggest Holders Ramp Up Buying While Retail Traders Remain Flat appeared first on CryptoPotato.

US midterm elections have a history of making investors nervous and markets more volatile. According to Ali Martinez, Bitcoin could face more volatility after this year’s highly anticipated event.

In a recent post, the analyst noted that BTC fell 72% after the 2010 midterms, 65% after 2014, 52% after 2018, and 27% after 2022. While this pattern does not prove the elections caused the declines,  the historical moves are worth watching ahead of November 3, 2026.

Four Midterms, Four Drops

Martinez also highlighted Bitcoin’s fourth-quarter performance in previous midterm years. BTC gained 391% in Q4 2010 but fell 16.7% in 2014, 42.16% in 2018, and 14.75% in 2022. This data indicates the possibility of increased volatility as the fourth quarter begins.

$73,000 area was flagged as an important level to watch. According to his analysis, this zone represents Bitcoin’s short-term holder cost basis and could act as support if the market sees a post-election decline.

Prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket show Democrats maintaining an advantage over Republicans. The latter’s loss in the 2026 midterms could create fresh uncertainty for the crypto market. Democrats could gain control of the House, Senate, or both, which would make crypto-friendly regulation harder to advance. The CLARITY Act, which aimed to create clearer and lighter rules for digital assets, already failed to clear the Senate in September.

Reset Soon?

Amid all the midterm uncertainty, a Bitcoin pullback appears to be on the cards. For instance, pseudonymous trader “bee” believes the crypto asset may be setting up for a larger move, but sees a possible pullback before the next major rally.

BTC is currently trading between the 50-week moving average near $77,600 and the 100-week moving average around $89,700. The 200-week moving average sits lower, near $66,000. Bitcoin could first hold its current range and climb toward $90,000. A break above the 100-week moving average may attract more liquidity and push BTC higher. However, the trader expects momentum could weaken around the $90,000-$95,000 area.

From there, BTC risks rotating back toward $75,000-$77,000. “bee” isn’t the only one anticipating a correction. Doctor Profit also expects the asset to retest $79,000 before continuing higher.

The post Bitcoin Fell After Four US Midterms: Could 2026 Break the Pattern? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

ZCash has been on a wild ride in the past year or so. The privacy-centric crypto asset has rallied by more than 1,000% within this timeframe, while most other alts have stalled.

Despite this short-term instability and stall near $1,400, ZEC accumulation continues.

More Room to Capture Market Share

A whale has been accumulating the cryptocurrency across multiple wallets over the past week, according to Onchain Labs. The main wallet received around 41,690 ZEC and moved about 18,730 out, which leaves a net balance of roughly 22,960 tokens, worth $31.7 million. The wallet also received another 4,200 ZEC, which is approximately $5.84 million.

Amidst this accumulation spree, Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl said that the token may have more room to grow. ZEC has climbed from around $60 to roughly $1,700 in a year before its most recent pullback. Pandl said the move does not necessarily mean the token has reached a valuation ceiling but reflects its low starting point and its potential market size.

Zcash and Bitcoin are both part of the Currencies Crypto Sector. This group includes blockchain projects focused mainly on digital currency use cases. Bitcoin remains the largest asset in the sector. Zcash, however, has increased its market share significantly over the past year. It was worth less than 0.1% of BTC’s market capitalization a year ago. Today, that figure stands around 1.5%.

According to Pandl, if ZEC continues to provide strong privacy capabilities, it could capture more market share from competing cryptocurrencies.

“We think Zcash can continue to capture market share.”

Pandl had previously said that artificial intelligence could trigger a new wave of concerns around financial privacy, and expects AI to create new privacy risks, especially for transparent public blockchains. Bitcoin transactions, for example, are publicly recorded and can potentially be linked to real-world identities. Pandl believes this could increase demand for privacy-focused blockchain solutions, with Zcash emerging as one potential option.

ETFs Face Fresh Pressure

The picture for US-listed Zcash ETFs has been less encouraging. These investment products recorded zero net flows for three straight days from September 23 to 25. Activity turned negative this week. The funds posted their largest single-day outflow so far on Monday, with around $8.12 million leaving.

Despite the recent outflows, the ETFs still hold about 3.75% of Zcash’s total supply, even though they launched only a month ago.

The post Zcash (ZEC) Gains 1,000% and Still Has Room to Grow, Grayscale Research Says appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Security firm SlowMist says North Korean hackers are laundering funds stolen from Bitget by pairing CoW Protocol orders with Chainflip deposit addresses and then converting the proceeds to Bitcoin.

The firm’s founder, who posts on X as Cos, argues that anti-money laundering checks are falling behind automated laundering scripts, even as Chainflip tried to block the flows.

SlowMist Traces the Attack Into Third-Party Systems

In a September 29 post, Cos said SlowMist had detected North Korea-linked hackers using CoW Protocol and Chainflip to move funds from Bitget. An automated script created CoW orders with the receiving address set to a pre-prepared Chainflip deposit contract. After execution, Chainflip handled the cross-chain swap, and the asset was converted to BTC.

Cos later described a broader pattern after tracking the funds for several hours. Chainflip was attempting to block the suspected laundering activity, but automated fragmentation and repeated attempts across different bridges could let the operators try another route when a transfer was rejected or returned.

The funds were ultimately converted to BTC before CoinJoin was used to obscure the movements further.

MistTrack, a crypto tracking and compliance platform built by SlowMist, reported that Chainflip had rejected one attempted deposit. The message returned was “Deposit rejected by the broker,” but the funds were refunded rather than frozen.

Recall that MistTrack had earlier highlighted that funds from the Bitget hack were flowing into THORChain for cross-chain swaps, arguing that the permissionless L1 should bear responsibility for handling stolen funds. However, the DEX claimed it was decentralized and permissionless and “doesn’t censor by design.”

SlowMist’s investigation traced the theft itself to activity that started before the transfers, with the earliest malicious acts in available logs dating back to August 31, when a service on one third-party product was compromised through a zero-day vulnerability.

The attacker later accessed a second product’s management platform on September 25 using an internal employee identity and attempted to inject commands and write malicious files.

Withdrawal Tool Connected the Attack to On-Chain Transfers

SlowMist also recovered a customized withdrawal tool from deleted files that was tailored to Bitget’s wallet withdrawal logic, forging risk-control parameters, constructing withdrawal requests, and invoking the withdrawal process.

Logs show it began executing the theft at 01:49 on September 25, with on-chain activity starting at 02:31 as 93 TRX was sent to the attacker’s address, followed 11 seconds later by 0.84 ETH arriving on Ethereum.

The transfers continued across several blockchains until 05:23, covering about 2 hours and 52 minutes. At the same time, the attacker also attempted to alter withdrawal records and trigger additional BTC withdrawals, according to the SlowMist report.

Bitget attributed the incident to a backend system in its wallet infrastructure rather than a stolen private key, and the exchange has said its User Protection Fund will cover those affected by the incident.

The post Stolen Bitget Funds Converted to BTC via CoW, Chainflip: Report appeared first on CryptoPotato.