Abbott's policies may weaken Texas's competitive edge in the data center market, potentially benefiting other states like Iowa and Georgia.

The post Greg Abbott’s measures slow Texas data center construction ahead of midterms appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Uniswap's Token Jar simplifies fee management for crypto apps, potentially boosting operational efficiency and strategic financial planning.

The post Uniswap’s Token Jar lets apps collect fees in a single token of their choice appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The grant could enhance institutional trust in blockchain by ensuring private, standardized pricing, potentially boosting Canton Network adoption.

The post Canton Foundation grants RedStone 15.8M Canton Coin for private pricing tool appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The shift in hiring trends suggests a broader diversification of career opportunities for software engineers, impacting tech firms' talent retention.

The post Randstad finds banks and healthcare firms outbidding tech for software engineers appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

AI's growth hinges on power infrastructure, shifting investment focus to energy solutions, as electricity becomes the new bottleneck.

The post Delphi Digital report says power, not chips, is the real ceiling on AI appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Crypto Exchange HTX Agrees to Leave UK in Settlement With FCA 

Justin Sun’s HTX has agreed to leave the United Kingdom, closing the Financial Conduct Authority’s first enforcement case against a crypto firm over financial promotions. The regulator announced the settlement today, ending a High Court action that began in October 2025, according to Financial Times reporting. 

Under the court undertakings, Huobi Global S.A., the Panama-registered company behind the HTX brand, has promised not to communicate financial promotions that breach UK law across its website, apps and social media channels. 

The FCA says the exchange is no longer active in Britain. UK customers cannot deposit funds, and new users cannot register. Existing customers have 48 hours to withdraw assets before their accounts close.

The regulator framed the outcome as a warning. Steve Smart, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said that being based overseas does not place a firm beyond the reach of UK law. 

Smart said that ‘Crypto firms should be under no illusion: being based overseas does not put them beyond the reach of UK law. Our action means HTX is leaving the UK and can no longer target UK consumers. The message to other firms is clear: follow the rules or face the consequences.’

The regulator said HTX had failed to really engage over several rounds of talks of the case. Settlement talks began in March and were extended in June

HTX settlement and background

HTX presents a different account. The exchange says it has put measures in place to align with UK promotion rules. 

“We take local compliance requirements seriously and have proactively implemented measures to align with the UK’s financial promotion regulations,” the company said in a statement, according to Reuters. 

The settlement terms remain confidential, and the FCA says the deal involves no admission of liability or wrongdoing. Public reporting does not say whether any fine was paid.

In May, the UK sanctioned Huobi Global over alleged support for Russia’s financial sector, listing HTX as another name for the designated entity. 

In July, the European Union named Huobi Global in its 21st Russia sanctions package and barred EU transactions with the exchange, stopping short of a full asset freeze. HTX says Huobi Global S.A. is distinct from the online exchange. 

Back in August, Kraken clients were briefly locked out of their accounts after receiving tiny amounts of cryptocurrency linked to sanctioned funds in what was known as a dust attack. Kraken said the attacks aimed to trigger compliance checks and spread sanctioned funds across platforms, causing operational disruptions for thousands of users. 

Around 12,000 transfers were reportedly sent from a wallet linked to HTX. Kraken’s compliance team quickly restored customer access while retaining the sanctioned funds and working with authorities to prevent further attacks.

This post Crypto Exchange HTX Agrees to Leave UK in Settlement With FCA  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Understanding the Various Bitcoin Per Share Metrics

Bitcoin per share is one of the most important metrics for evaluating a Bitcoin treasury company. It measures how much bitcoin is attributable to each common share. However, there are several ways to calculate this figure, and each method provides different information about the economics of owning the common stock.

Understanding these differences is essential for evaluating a company’s capital structure, measuring accretion, and determining the value attributable to common shareholders.

Raw Bitcoin Per Share

The simplest metric is raw Bitcoin Per Share (BPS).

BPS = Total Bitcoin Holdings / Common Shares Outstanding

This calculation divides the company’s bitcoin holdings by its existing common shares. It provides a straightforward measure of how much bitcoin is attributable to each currently outstanding share.

The primary limitation is its treatment of potential dilution. A company may have warrants, convertible debt, or convertible preferred stock that could eventually become common shares. Raw BPS only counts existing shares, so it provides an incomplete picture of the potential future share count.

Bitcoin Per Assumed Diluted Share

Bitcoin Per Assumed Diluted Share (BPADS) addresses this limitation by incorporating the shares that would exist if all potentially dilutive securities converted into common stock.

BPADS = Total Bitcoin Holdings / Assumed Diluted Shares Outstanding

Because the assumed diluted share count is greater than or equal to the existing share count, BPADS is always less than or equal to raw BPS.

This metric became widely cited beginning in 2024, particularly as Bitcoin treasury companies began using increasingly complex capital structures.

BPADS provides a more conservative view of bitcoin ownership by incorporating potential dilution from outstanding securities. It becomes especially relevant for companies with substantial convertible debt, warrants, or convertible preferred stock.

However, its assumption of full conversion can be overly conservative.

Warrants and convertible debt may never convert if the common stock price remains below their conversion or exercise prices. Perpetual convertible preferred stock may also remain outstanding indefinitely if investors prefer receiving the preferred dividend rather than converting into common equity.

Consequently, BPADS represents a fully diluted scenario rather than a forecast of the actual future share count.

Net Bitcoin Per Share

Both BPS and BPADS share another major limitation: they measure gross bitcoin holdings without accounting for senior claims on the company’s assets.

Common equity sits at the bottom of the capital structure. Debt holders and preferred shareholders generally have priority over common shareholders according to their contractual rights.

These senior claims matter because they reduce the assets ultimately attributable to common equity.

Net Bitcoin Per Share (Net BPS) addresses this by deducting the bitcoin equivalent of senior claims from total bitcoin holdings before dividing by the common share count.

The basic calculation is:

Net BPS = (Total Bitcoin Holdings − Senior Claims / Bitcoin Price) / Common Shares

For example, a company with $1 billion in senior claims and a bitcoin price of $100,000 would need the equivalent of 10,000 bitcoin to satisfy those claims.

Those 10,000 bitcoin would therefore be deducted from gross bitcoin holdings when calculating Net BPS.

The denominator can use either existing common shares or an assumed diluted share count. However, the treatment must remain consistent: securities assumed to convert into common stock should have their extinguished senior claims removed from the numerator’s deductions. This avoids counting the same obligation twice.

Should cash be included?

There are two useful approaches to calculating Net BPS.

The first applies cash and cash equivalents against senior claims before deducting the remaining obligations from bitcoin holdings.

Net BPS = [Bitcoin Holdings − (Senior Claims − Applied Cash) / Bitcoin Price] / Common Shares

Here, applied cash is limited to the amount available to offset senior claims. This method reflects the fact that cash can satisfy obligations, preserving more bitcoin for common shareholders. This is the methodology used by Strategy to compute their mNAV. 

The second approach deducts the full value of senior claims from bitcoin holdings and reports cash separately. For example, investors could examine both Net BPS and Cash Per Share. This separation provides a clearer view of the company’s bitcoin exposure alongside its independent cash reserves, at a per-share level.

Both approaches are useful. Including cash produces a more comprehensive measure of residual asset value, while excluding cash makes the company’s bitcoin and cash positions separately visible.

Net BPS changes with bitcoin’s price

A defining characteristic of Net BPS is its sensitivity to the price of bitcoin.

Raw BPS and BPADS depend on bitcoin holdings and share counts. Net BPS additionally depends on bitcoin’s market price because senior claims are generally denominated in dollars.

As bitcoin appreciates, fewer bitcoins are required to cover a fixed dollar obligation, so more bitcoins remain attributable to common shareholders. When bitcoin depreciates, the opposite occurs.

Net BPS therefore rises with bitcoin’s price and falls when bitcoin’s price declines, assuming fixed senior claims, holdings, and share counts.

This relationship creates both a challenge and an important advantage.

Challenge: Measuring accretion correctly

The challenge is that changes in Net BPS over time combine the effects of corporate actions with changes in bitcoin’s market price.

A rising bitcoin price can increase Net BPS even when a company’s financing decisions destroy value for common shareholders. Conversely, falling bitcoin prices can obscure the benefits of genuinely accretive transactions.

This makes directly comparing observed Net BPS figures across different dates an unreliable method of evaluating management’s capital allocation decisions.

However, raw BPS and BPADS are also inadequate measures of economic accretion.

Consider a company issuing debt to purchase bitcoin. Any positive amount of bitcoin purchased with debt increases raw BPS because bitcoin holdings rise while common shares remain unchanged. This holds regardless of the debt’s interest rate or repayment obligations.

Similarly, issuing preferred stock to purchase bitcoin increases raw BPS even if the preferred stock is issued at a substantial discount to par and carries expensive dividend obligations.

These transactions increase gross bitcoin ownership per common share while potentially reducing the residual value attributable to common shareholders.

The proper way to measure economic accretion is to compare Net BPS before and after a transaction while holding the bitcoin price constant.

This isolates the effects of changes in bitcoin holdings, senior claims, cash, and share count.

It reveals whether a corporate action genuinely increases the bitcoin equivalent of the residual assets attributable to each common share.

Advantage: Net BPS as a measure of common equity liquidation value

Perhaps the greatest advantage of Net BPS is its connection to the economic value of common equity. When bitcoin is a company’s primary treasury asset, Net BPS calculated with the appropriate cash adjustment approximates the bitcoin denominated liquidation value attributable to each common share. 

(Note: by liquidation value, I mean the value that common stockholders would be entitled to if they liquidated the company, paid off all the claims, and divided the remainder amongst themselves. This has nothing to do with the “liquidation value” associated with leveraged, margin-callable trading positions. Actual recoveries in a real liquidation depend on the precise terms of senior securities, other assets and liabilities, liquidation expenses, and the taxable proceeds realized from asset sales.) 

Multiplying Net BPS by the bitcoin price converts this amount into dollars. Investors can then compare that dollar figure with the common stock’s market price to measure the premium or discount at which the shares trade relative to their estimated residual asset value. 

This is an advantage that BPS and BPADS cannot offer. Because Net BPS accounts for senior claims, it provides a more direct measure of the assets that ultimately belong to common shareholders, making it the most relevant basis for comparison with the common stock’s market price.

This connection to common equity liquidation value also explains why accretion is best measured through changes in Net BPS at a constant bitcoin price. Holding the price constant isolates the impact of corporate actions on the residual asset value attributable to each common share. And because Net BPS factors in both senior claims and common stock, it accounts for the impact of all possible corporate actions that involve issuance or repurchase of securities interests, while projecting the results of the impact onto the common stock. 

Conclusion

Each Bitcoin per share metric serves a distinct purpose.

Raw BPS measures gross bitcoin holdings attributable to existing common shares. BPADS incorporates potential dilution. Net BPS accounts for senior claims and measures the residual bitcoin value attributable to common equity.

For evaluating the capital stack, Net BPS is the most comprehensive of the three. Holding bitcoin’s price constant allows investors to isolate the economic effects of financing transactions and assess genuine accretion. Net BPS provides a direct connection between the company’s balance sheet and the market value of its common stock.

Disclaimer: This content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product.

This post Understanding the Various Bitcoin Per Share Metrics first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Allard Peng.

Bitcoin Magazine

Mosaic: The Art Hidden in Bitcoin

A mosaic is an artwork assembled from fragments. From ancient Roman floors to Byzantine churches, artists have used pieces of stone, glass, and ceramic to construct images that have endured for centuries.

For the generative artist known as BitArt, those fragments are satoshis (or sats), the smallest units of bitcoin.

In Mosaic, a continuously evolving artwork developed through the Bitcoin Art Society (BAS), the numerical properties of satoshis are translated into color and spatial coordinates. Each contribution adds to an expanding composition of pixels resembling digital textiles, early computer graphics, or abstract paintings.

Rather than illustrating bitcoin through familiar iconography, Mosaic treats the network itself as artistic material. Satoshi positions and unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) become inputs for a rule-based system that determines the artwork’s appearance. BitArt begins with bitcoin’s underlying data and allows an image to emerge.

The approach recalls conceptual artist Sol LeWitt’s proposition that an artwork can exist as a set of instructions rather than a singular handcrafted object. Generative artists such as Vera Molnár and Manfred Mohr similarly explored how mathematical systems and computational procedures could produce visual compositions. Mosaic extends this tradition into an economic network shaped by transactions and human decisions.

The scale is extraordinary. According to BitArt, Mosaic now contains more than 127 million tiles and one billion layers. Viewing every layer at a rate of one per second would take over 30 years.

The project has also expanded into sound. Its musical component draws from the same satoshi data that generates the imagery, translating numerical values into an evolving score. Together, these elements create an audiovisual artwork shaped by bitcoin’s underlying structure and the contributions of its participants.

These experiments form part of the broader ambitions of Bitcoin Art Society, founded by Serge Ajamian and Yara Al Chammaa to support the creation, exhibition, and preservation of digital art on bitcoin.

For Al Chammaa, preservation is particularly personal. Following the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, which destroyed much of the artwork housed in her family’s gallery, she began reconsidering how cultural heritage might survive physical destruction. That experience helped inform BAS’s interest in bitcoin as a potential medium for preserving cultural works beyond the vulnerabilities of physical institutions.

BAS has since presented bitcoin-native digital art internationally, including Mosaic accompanied by live musicians at the Galileo Galilei Planetarium in Buenos Aires. Its inaugural artist residency features BitArt and CyberSea, whose practices investigate generative systems and blockchain-native artistic production.

Yet permanence raises questions beyond the durability of bitcoin’s ledger. Software-based art has long challenged museums to preserve not only underlying materials but also the technologies and experiences through which artworks are encountered. For Mosaic, what constitutes the artwork: the code, the rendered image, the accumulated contributions, or the experience of navigating the system?

At Bitcoin Amsterdam 2026, Mosaic will be presented on the conference’s main-stage LED installation, bringing its intricate visual structures to an architectural scale, similar to BAS’s immersive presentation at the Galileo Galilei Planetarium in Buenos Aires.

Ahead of the event, I spoke with BitArt about the project’s artistic origins, collective authorship, and the possibility of preserving an artwork that may never be finished.

BMAG: You’ve described bitcoin as a time-based transactional medium rather than simply a platform for displaying art. What first led you to recognize its underlying mathematical and economic structures as artistic material, and how did that thinking develop into Mosaic?

BitArt: Bitcoin records the movement of value through a sequence of events secured by computational work, creating a history that becomes increasingly difficult to reverse. What interests me is not just the individual event, but the sequence of events that led to it. In the context of art, this shifts the question from “What is the artwork?” to “What had to happen for the artwork to become what it is?”

With the advent of the Ordinals protocol, it became possible to assign a unique number to every satoshi. This opened up new possibilities.

From there, Mosaic developed almost naturally. I only had to highlight what was already there. Once every satoshi has an assigned ordinal number, it becomes relatively straightforward to determine its position and derive its color or musical parameters through a set of rules.

The interesting part is that these structures emerge from a system driven by human decisions, rather than one designed to produce art.

BMAG: Artists from Sol LeWitt to Vera Molnár have explored how predetermined rules can produce unexpected visual outcomes. In Mosaic, how do your decisions shape the system, and where does bitcoin’s underlying data take over?

BitArt: In a sense, Mosaic continues the tradition of rule-based art explored by LeWitt and Molnár, and builds on the concept of protocol art explored by Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst. But it introduces yet another layer: the input is the accumulated result of human decisions within an economic system.

My artistic decisions determine the rules of interpretation, but the underlying data determines the resulting visual and sonic structures.

The rules are deterministic, but the results are not necessarily predictable in practice. I find that tension particularly interesting. The artist creates the conditions under which something can emerge, rather than specifying what it should look or sound like.

BMAG: Participants contribute to Mosaic through their own transactions, becoming part of a composition that no single person controls. Does that make them collectors, collaborators, or something else?

BitArt: I think of authorship as something distributed across several layers.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is that individual intentions can generate collective structures that nobody intended. Everyone contributes something specific, but the larger composition belongs to the system as a whole.

A participant can be a collector, but also becomes a contributor to the artwork’s evolving structure. The distinction between collecting and creating becomes less clear. Each contribution changes the work, but nobody, including myself, controls the resulting composition.

Authorship becomes less about controlling an outcome and more about establishing the conditions under which it can emerge.

BMAG: You’re developing a system for the upcoming Postmasters exhibition that will allow visitors to speak directly with artworks and receive responses. How does this differ from participating in Mosaic through bitcoin transactions? Are these different forms of communication through computational systems? 

BitArt: Yes, both are intentional acts mediated by computational systems, but there is an important semantic distinction. 

A contribution to Mosaic through a Bitcoin transaction is a non-verbal gesture that becomes part of a verifiable record. We can establish exactly what happened and how it changed the artwork. The action leaves a trace that the system can process directly. 

Speaking to an artwork is different. Natural language must first be interpreted and translated into the formal language the artworks use to communicate. 

In the first case, the action produces a verifiable change in the artwork’s state. In the second, it initiates a process of interpretation. 

Both are expressions of human intention, but one establishes a computational fact, while the other opens up a space for interpretation. 

BMAG: You’ve written about the creative uncertainty that emerges during programming and experimented with the relationship between real time and bitcoin’s block time. How important are unpredictability, chance, and duration to your practice? Has Mosaic produced results that surprised you or challenged your original intentions?

BitArt: I designed the algorithm for Mosaic to be as simple as possible. It’s deterministic, so its results are technically predictable and reproducible. From a technical standpoint, there shouldn’t be any surprises. Nonetheless, the results are full of unexpected and surprising elements.

I think there is an important distinction between something being computationally predictable and our ability to anticipate or comprehend its results.

Currently, Mosaic contains over 127 million tiles and over 1 billion layers. To view all the layers at a rate of one layer per second would take over 30 years. There are many things that have surprised me, and I’m still discovering new ones.

The temporal divergence between real time and Bitcoin’s block time is also interesting to me. Bitcoin evolves according to its own rhythm, independently of how and when we observe it. This introduces another dimension of duration into the artwork.

BMAG: The introduction of sound adds another dimension to Mosaic, with musical compositions generated from the same data that determines the visual structure. What can sound reveal about the underlying system that an image cannot?

BitArt: From the very beginning, Mosaic was built on three fundamental ideas.

The first is the possibility of capturing traces of human intention within a financial, algorithmic system and revealing visual and sonic structures from them.

The second is the development of a formal system in which Mosaic becomes meta-aware, in the sense of being self-referential and introspective, and capable of communicating and collaborating with other artworks. 

The third is collective creation. Anyone can contribute to Mosaic and become part of its evolving structure.

Looking at Mosaic from any of these perspectives reveals something different about it. In the case of sound, it reveals melodic, harmonic, contrapuntal, and rhythmic structures that aren’t necessarily apparent in the visual representation.

Yet within the digital realm, the structures underlying the image and the music are closely related, sometimes almost identical. Perhaps the way we think about visual, sonic, and programmatic structures as separate domains is itself a limitation.

BMAG: Your practice has been presented in contexts including the Whitney, ZKM, and ICC Tokyo, institutions with significant histories in digital and media art. Where do you see Mosaic within the broader history of generative and systems-based art? What does working directly with bitcoin make possible that earlier computational media did not?

BitArt: I see Mosaic as part of the tradition of generative and systems-based art, but I’m particularly interested in extending that tradition beyond the generation of images and sound.

I’m currently working on a show at Postmasters gallery in New York City in collaboration with BAS. The show will present Mosaic in communication and collaboration with other artworks.

In principle, any artwork that can be represented digitally can join the conversation, whether it’s Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Malevich’s Black Square, an artwork inscribed on Bitcoin, or music as diverse as traditional folk songs, Nine Inch Nails’ 34 Ghosts IV, and Ravel’s Boléro.

Through the system I mentioned earlier, these artworks can reference themselves and one another, exchange statements, and initiate collaborations using a machine-readable formal language. What’s particularly interesting is that the audience will also be able to join these conversations by speaking directly with the artworks in natural language.

Historically, discourse about art happened outside the works themselves, in texts, institutions, discussions, and criticism. Artworks remained largely silent objects of interpretation. By giving artworks the formal means to reference one another, reason about themselves and others, and exchange verifiable statements, the project treats discourse itself as artistic material.

Art history normally describes influence retrospectively. Here, through collaborations between artworks, influence becomes operative. Influence becomes something artworks can perform.

Bitcoin introduces another dimension by providing a shared, ordered, and verifiable record of these exchanges and the artworks’ histories of collaboration. Unlike a conventional computational environment, this record can exist independently of any single artist, institution, or platform.

The artwork is no longer simply the result of a process or the process itself. It becomes a participant in an ongoing process of interpretation, communication, and creation.

BMAG: Mosaic has already been presented in immersive environments, including the Galileo Galilei Planetarium in Buenos Aires. For Bitcoin Amsterdam, the work will be adapted for large-scale main-stage LED screens. How does that change the way audiences encounter the work, particularly when its original form is interactive and continuously evolving?

BitArt: The surface of the artwork is not fixed, and it is not what constitutes the artwork. It’s a manifestation of its state at any given time.

I like BAS’s approach of presenting it in intimate settings, large-scale immersive environments, and anywhere in between. Each setting allows the audience to experience a different aspect of the same underlying system.

In an interactive environment, the viewer navigates Mosaic individually, while on large-scale screens, the experience becomes collective. The audience encounters the artwork as it unfolds, rather than exploring it directly.

For the Postmasters show, I’m also developing a physical component that will provide yet another way of experiencing Mosaic.

What interests me is that the artwork can take on very different forms without changing its underlying identity. The presentation changes, but the system that constitutes the work remains the same.

Exhibition & Further Reading

Explore BitArt’s evolving Mosaic project through Bitcoin Art Society, learn more about its exhibitions and artist residencies, and follow BAS on X.

BAS will also present Art on Bitcoin: BAS Night at WiHH Gallery (What Is Happening Here) in Amsterdam on November 6, from 8–11 PM. Hosted in collaboration with Bitcoin Amsterdam, the evening brings together artists, collectors, and the bitcoin community for an exhibition and reception featuring food, music, and conversation. RSVP here.

Read more from BMAG’s Bitcoin Amsterdam series: The Undercurrent: Three European Artists on Making Money Visible and The Architecture of Money: Mapping Financial Power in the Age of Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) organizes international exhibitions, auctions, and artist collaborations exploring bitcoin and its cultural implications.

BitArt’s Mosaic will be featured on the main-stage LED screens at Bitcoin Amsterdam, November 5–6, 2026, as part of BMAG’s programming. Join us in Amsterdam and use code BA26-BMAG20 for discounted admission. Get your tickets here.

This post Mosaic: The Art Hidden in Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Dennis Koch.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Senator Bill Hagerty: Expanding the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, & the Future of Dollar Hegemony

Senator Bill Hagerty says the only answer some in Congress have is a central bank digital currency, and that’s “absolutely not consistent with freedom and liberty.” In this in-studio interview, he explains how uncertainty let former SEC chair Gary Gensler attack the industry, why a light government touch helps innovation thrive, and what Congress can realistically get done before the new session in January.

Chapters:
00:00 Senator Bill Hagerty on What’s Next for the Clarity Act
01:38 Democrats, Ethics Provisions and the Stablecoin Rewards Debate
03:04 How the SEC and CFTC Are Regulating Crypto Without Congress
04:43 How the GENIUS Act Will Change Payments and Settlement
07:08 Stablecoins, Treasury Demand and U.S. Dollar Dominance
08:31 The U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and 200,000 Bitcoin
10:54 Why Americans Are Still Skeptical of Crypto
13:18 Bitcoin Mining, TVA and Tennessee’s Energy Buildout
17:14 Bitcoin Businesses in Nashville and Why CBDCs Threaten Freedom
18:36 What Congress Can Pass Before the New Session in January

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Senator Bill Hagerty: Expanding the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, & the Future of Dollar Hegemony first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Trades Above $81,500 as Fed Keeps Rates Steady in Split Vote

The Federal Reserve left its benchmark rate unchanged Wednesday, holding the federal funds target range at 3.75% to 4%. The bitcoin price showed some volatility around $81,000.

The decision passed 10-2, and the dissents carry as much weight as the outcome. Governor Lisa Cook and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack wanted a quarter-point increase. It is the first time since 1992 that a Fed governor and a regional bank president have dissented together on the same side.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh faced reporters after the vote and said politics played no role in the decision, days before the midterm elections. Warsh has said he does not favor forward guidance absent a crisis, which leaves investors to read the data themselves. 

The committee’s statement dropped its earlier language about when a hike might support a return to 2% inflation. In its place is a line saying more information will guide the policy stance. The Fed also described growth as strong, up from solid.

The signal points toward tightening. Fed funds futures and the Fed’s own dot plot lean toward a rate increase by December, and some pricing puts the odds near three in four. Inflation has been running hot, and the two dissenters are the officials who want to act on it.

Bitcoin price reaction

Bitcoin price’s reaction was restrained. The bitcoin price spiked to about $81,700 in the minutes after the announcement, fell below $80,500, and then recovered toward $81,000. Most traders expected a hold, so the muted move surprises nobody.

Bitcoin’s first response to Fed news tends to be modest, and that the real direction often emerges over the following day. Spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $110 million in net inflows on October 26 and $176 million on October 27, a sign that some institutional money is buying the dip. Other observers have flagged large holders selling into strength.

That tension defines crypto’s position right now. Bitcoin sits about a third below its October 2025 record near $126,000. A rate-hike path works against an asset that has thrived on cheap money, and the market has spent months adjusting to the possibility that the easy-money era is over. 

Some traders read the hold as evidence the Fed will move slowly. Others see December as the real test. For now, the level to watch is a bitcoin price of $80,000. It has held as support in recent sessions, and a clean break below it would expose the next floor. 

Warsh and his colleagues have said they will wait for incoming data before acting. Bitcoin will have to wait along with everyone else.

Midterms up next

Bitcoin’s next big political test arrives on November 3, when voters across the country head to the polls. Crypto has not really dominated the campaign trail. 

The crypto industry spent about $176 million on more than 100 midterm races to build a bipartisan bloc in Congress that could protect its interests after President Donald Trump left office. Fairshake, the industry’s largest super PAC, led the effort and directed strategy as it had in the 2024 cycle.

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is $81,478.

This post Bitcoin Price Trades Above $81,500 as Fed Keeps Rates Steady in Split Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

In Bitquery’s January–October 2026 cohort, recorded app fees erased narrow gains while token trades accounted for most losses.

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A smaller premium in the October 26 options snapshot puts the focus on political surprise and sustained buying ahead of November 3.

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The July 9–Oct. 26 comparison shows sharp divergence, while margin pressure and cross-market selling remain the relevant contagion tests.

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The October 28 designations identify Ethereum and Tron addresses, but firms' existing blocking duties extend beyond the listed wallets.

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About 82% of its modeled valuation comes from gold-and-Bitcoin demand, exposing a sharp divide with JPMorgan’s return assumptions.

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The record shows: Shiba Inu trades at $0.00000488 on Tuesday evening, 94.34 percent below the all-time high of $0.00008616 that CoinGecko's data dates to October 27, 2021 at 19:54 UTC. Our reading follows below: the decisive figure for the coming months is not the price level but the market value that the old high would require at today's circulating supply.

This article works out that figure, sets the current moving averages beside it and shows what the futures market currently says about traders' expectations. Where the price can point over a horizon of months is tracked continuously in our Shiba Inu price prediction.

Five years after the all-time high of October 27, 2021

Shiba Inu's high has an exact date. On October 27, 2021 one SHIB cost $0.00008616. Five years have passed since, and the price stands at $0.00000488. That is a decline of 94.34 percent. Anyone who bought 1,000 euros' worth on the day of the high and has held since sees around 57 euros in the portfolio today.

The figure alone says little, because almost every meme coin from the 2021 cycle sits far below its high of the time. What is interesting is the direction of recent months: over a year SHIB lost 53.22 percent, over the past 30 days 17.73 percent, over the last week 4.84 percent. On Tuesday the price added 0.63 percent, after Monday's $0.00000485 marked the lowest daily average of October. We described that monthly trough on Tuesday in a separate piece on the September low; the price has since moved 0.62 percent away from that level.

Market value stands at 2.87 billion dollars, rank 38 in the overall market. Daily turnover across all tracked venues is 52.27 million dollars. In circulation are 589.24 trillion tokens out of a total of 589.50 trillion. Only 257.46 billion tokens, or 0.0437 percent of total supply, are therefore still outside the market. For the forecast that means no meaningful pressure is left from the supply side, because hardly any tokens remain that could be unlocked.

What a market value of 50.77 billion dollars would mean for SHIB

Here is the calculation that rarely appears in Shiba Inu price targets. A price target for a token with 589.24 trillion units in circulation is always also a statement about market value, and that can be checked.

Multiply today's circulating supply by the old high of $0.00008616 and the result is a market value of 50.77 billion dollars. The factor against today's 2.87 billion is therefore 17.7. For comparison: Solana stands at a market value of 59.67 billion dollars on Tuesday evening. Shiba Inu would therefore have to reach around 85 percent of today's Solana market value to trade at its October 2021 level again.

The difference from 2021 is the circulating supply itself. Back then a large share of the supply was not yet in the market, and the high formed on a considerably smaller base. Today the supply is practically fully distributed. Every dollar flowing into SHIB spreads across 589.24 trillion tokens instead of a fraction of that. A return to the old high is therefore arithmetically more expensive than the climb there was at the time.

The mechanism in brief: market value is price times circulating supply. If supply rises, the same price requires more capital. For tokens with trillions of units in circulation this relationship shifts sharply, and price targets derived from the chart routinely ignore it.

The levels: 50-day line at $0.00000523, yearly low at $0.00000411

Four values count for the coming weeks, and all four come from the daily closing prices of the past 366 days.

• 50-day moving average: $0.00000523. The price sits 6.81 percent below it. This line is the first hurdle on the way up.
• 200-day moving average: $0.00000551. Distance 11.54 percent. As long as the price stays below, the medium-term trend counts as pointing down.
• Yearly low: $0.00000411. The price has 18.52 percent of room down to it. That is the floor the market has seen in twelve months.
• Yearly high: $0.00001038. Distance 53.04 percent to the upside.

In October, trading spanned $0.00000592 on October 5 and $0.00000485 on October 26. The midpoint of that range is $0.00000538 and therefore close to the 50-day line. Both values coincide, which makes this area the actual decision zone. Since the start of the month SHIB has lost 15.15 percent, measured from the October 1 level of $0.00000575.

Why October's loss looks larger than it is

Two numbers for the same month diverge, and there is a simple reason. The decline since October 1 is 15.15 percent, the change over the past 30 days 17.73 percent. The difference arises because the 30-day window reaches back into September, where the price stood higher at $0.00000575. Anyone comparing monthly balances should watch the starting point.

The SHIB futures market is small, and that limits the leverage effect

Beside the spot market there is a second vantage point that often says more for a forecast: the futures market. There, investors trade perpetual contracts with leverage. The funding rate of these contracts shows which side is currently paying.

On the OKX exchange, the perpetual contract SHIB against USDT holds open positions worth 6.64 million dollars, as of October 27, 22:45 UTC. The funding rate is 0.00467 percent per eight-hour period. Annualised that is 5.12 percent paid by leveraged buyers to sellers.

What a funding rate is: perpetual contracts have no delivery date. To keep the contract price at the spot price, the dominant side pays the other every eight hours. A positive rate means more capital is betting on rising prices.

The level places the situation. 5.12 percent a year is a quiet reading. In overheated phases this rate reaches double-digit annual figures on meme coins. And open positions of 6.64 million dollars equal only 12.7 percent of daily spot turnover. For the coming weeks that means a large liquidation wave, the kind that moves a price by double-digit percentages within hours, currently has little material at this venue. The move has to come from the spot market.

Overall market sentiment stands at a fear and greed reading of 48 on Tuesday and therefore in neutral territory. The previous day it was 50. No signal pushing in either direction comes from there either.

Wednesday's rate decision and what it changes for meme coins

On Wednesday, October 28, the meeting of the US Federal Reserve's open market committee ends. The Federal Reserve publishes the calendar itself. For Shiba Inu this date matters indirectly, and the link runs through risk appetite: meme coins sit at the outer edge of the risk spectrum and react to rate signals more strongly than Bitcoin, because their price lives almost entirely on incoming capital rather than on earnings.

On Tuesday evening the large assets moved in a narrow range: Bitcoin stood at $80,761, up 1.11 percent; Ethereum at $2,346.77, up 1.65 percent; Solana at $101.14, up 0.96 percent; Dogecoin at $0.078538, up 1.73 percent. SHIB, at 0.63 percent, trailed all four. The pattern of the past week therefore holds: the meme coin joins recoveries more weakly than it joins declines.

Our assessment: what argues for a recovery and what against

From the newsroom's point of view, two documented points argue for stabilisation and two against.

In favour: first, 99.96 percent of supply is in the market, so no unlock of new tokens threatens to dilute the price. Second, the funding rate at 5.12 percent a year is low and the open position on OKX at 6.64 million dollars is small. There is no overheated leverage market from which prices crash.

Against: first, the price sits below both moving averages, 6.81 percent under the 50-day and 11.54 percent under the 200-day line. Technically that is not a floor but an ongoing downtrend. Second, the demand trigger is missing. Over the year SHIB lost 53.22 percent while Bitcoin stood at $80,761 on Tuesday; capital entering crypto in this environment is largely not going into meme coins.

What follows from that: the decision about the coming weeks falls in the area between $0.00000523 and $0.00000538. If the price closes above it for several days, the first hurdle is cleared and the 200-day line at $0.00000551 becomes the next target. If it falls below October's low of $0.00000485, the yearly low at $0.00000411 is the next documented level underneath. A return to the 2021 high presupposes a market value of 50.77 billion dollars, and the available data currently offers no indication of that. This is an assessment of the situation and not a recommendation to buy or sell.

Holding period and loss offsetting: the tax view towards year-end

For investors in Germany this point becomes practical over the coming weeks. For tax purposes crypto counts as a private disposal transaction under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. Sell within a year of buying and the gain is taxable; after a year has passed it is tax free. We track the current state of the political debate on that deadline on a dedicated page on the status of the crypto holding period.

The reverse applies just as much: losses from sales inside the one-year window can be offset against gains from other private disposal transactions in the same year. Anyone who bought SHIB this year and sits on a loss therefore has room to act while the calendar year runs. Once the one-year deadline passes, the loss can no longer be used for tax.

Three things are needed for that: the exact purchase date of every position, the purchase price and an allocation method if you bought more than once. The tax authorities accept position-by-position treatment for crypto assets; anyone working without records has to accept the less favourable approach in case of doubt.

Buying and storing Shiba Inu: what applies in Germany under MiCA

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto assets, MiCA for short, providers need authorisation to trade crypto assets with customers in the EU. For buying SHIB that means in practice: check whether the venue holds MiCA authorisation from an EU supervisor, which country granted it, and whether it accepts euro deposits by bank transfer. Fee models differ sharply, and on a token with eight decimal places a spread of a few percent registers immediately. Which venues hold the authorisation and what they cost is set out in the overview of authorised crypto exchanges.

On custody, the same logic applies to SHIB as to any other token on the Ethereum blockchain: leave it on the exchange and the exchange holds the keys. Self-custody requires an address on the Ethereum blockchain or on Shibarium, the project's own layer-2 blockchain. Transferring to your own address costs network fees, which on small amounts can reach the value of the position itself. Work that out beforehand.

What a perpetual contract means for retail investors

The leveraged products from the section above are not an option for most retail investors, and the reason is sober. At leverage of ten, a countermove of ten percent is enough to wipe out the stake entirely. SHIB moved between $0.00000485 and $0.00000592 in October, a range of 22 percent within one month. Swings like that regularly hit leveraged positions before the expected direction asserts itself.

Shiba Inu: recovery starts above $0.00000523

The situation comes down to three steps you can work through this week:

1. Note the decision zone. Write down $0.00000523 as the 50-day line and $0.00000485 as October's low. Only a close above the first level turns the technical picture, and only a break of the second opens the way to the yearly low at $0.00000411. Where you trade at which fees is shown in the comparison of authorised crypto exchanges.
2. Settle custody. Decide whether the position stays on the exchange or moves to your own address, and weigh the network fee against the position size. Which devices do the job and what they cost is set out in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Record the tax position. Note the purchase date and purchase price of every position before the calendar year ends, so that loss offsetting stays documented. Which programs track this automatically is shown in the overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Shiba Inu stands 94.34 percent below its high five years on, and a return there requires a market value of 50.77 billion dollars at today's circulating supply. The short-term question is smaller and more concrete: does the price hold above October's low, or not.

(As of October 27, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Crypto assets are highly speculative, and a total loss of the capital deployed is possible.)

The futures market for Shiba Inu is as thin as that of almost any other well-known token. The record shows this: at midday Thursday, the four exchanges OKX, Bitget, Gate.io and KuCoin held 4.34 trillion SHIB in open futures contracts, worth 21.1 million dollars. That equals 0.74 percent of a market value of 2.87 billion dollars. Our reading follows below: where leverage is absent, any recovery has to come from real buying on the spot market, which is why the levels there currently matter more than any price target.

SHIB trades at $0.00000488 at midday Thursday, 2.3 percent below Wednesday. October stands at a loss of 15.0 percent: the month opened at $0.00000574, and the monthly low of October 23 was $0.00000476. Market value stands at 2.87 billion dollars according to CoinGecko, with spot turnover of 73.2 million dollars over the past 24 hours.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 29, 2026. It draws on public market data from the futures exchanges OKX, Bitget, Gate.io and KuCoin and on market values from CoinGecko; four venues were checked for four tokens, so sixteen data points.

Two concrete questions hang on this for investors in Germany: which price levels will carry the turn of the month, and what happens on tax if someone sells at a loss now. Both are set out below with numbers and deadlines.

21.1 million dollars sit in the SHIB futures market

Open interest is the sum of all futures positions that have not yet been closed. It measures how much borrowed capital stands in the market. For SHIB at midday Thursday it breaks down like this: Bitget leads with 1.80 trillion tokens, or 8.78 million dollars; OKX follows with 1.39 trillion tokens, or 6.75 million dollars; KuCoin reaches 0.69 trillion tokens, or 3.39 million dollars; Gate.io 0.46 trillion tokens, or 2.23 million dollars.

In total that is 4.34 trillion SHIB out of 589 trillion tokens in circulation. For comparison: spot turnover on a single day, at 73.2 million dollars, is more than three times the entire open leverage. For Dogecoin that ratio stands at 0.74, for SHIB at only 0.29.

The funding rate, the balancing payment between buyers and sellers of the futures contracts, last stood at 0.0055 percent per eight hours on OKX. That is close to zero and says the same thing as the volume: hardly anyone wants to force a direction with leverage. On Gate.io it is even slightly negative at minus 0.0006 percent, so there it is the sellers who pay.

PEPE carries thirteen times as much leverage as Shiba Inu

The 0.74 percent figure says little on its own. It becomes interesting against the other well-known meme tokens, measured at the same four exchanges on the same day. PEPE reaches 195.7 million dollars of open interest on a market value of 2.03 billion dollars, so 9.66 percent. Dogecoin stands at 343.4 million dollars and 2.80 percent. XRP, the large counterweight to the meme tokens, also comes in at 0.74 percent.

Relative to its size, PEPE therefore carries thirteen times as much leverage as SHIB, even though PEPE's market value is 845 million dollars smaller. Prices follow that picture: PEPE is 12.8 percent higher over seven days and 16.8 percent higher over thirty, while SHIB loses 2.4 and 15.2 percent over the same periods. Speculative capital is flowing into the meme market in October, just not into SHIB.

The XRP case also shows that a low reading is not a verdict in itself. A large token with deep spot liquidity needs little leverage to move. For a token with a market value of 2.87 billion dollars trading 94.3 percent below its all-time high, missing leverage points instead to missing interest.

A thin futures market shifts the work to the spot market

The mechanism behind it is simpler than it sounds. Futures contracts act as an amplifier in both directions: when the price rises, leveraged short positions are forcibly closed, and that buying back pushes the price further. When it falls, the same happens to leveraged long positions on the way down. The more borrowed capital sits in the market, the more violent both moves become.

For SHIB that amplifier is almost entirely missing. Open positions worth 21.1 million dollars are not enough to set off a chain reaction that drags along a price with a market value of 2.87 billion dollars. In practice that means a fast recovery over several days is unlikely without fresh money on the spot market. The flip side is that the driver that produced double-digit daily losses for other tokens in October is also absent. The price moves more slowly, but it moves steadily in the direction the spot market sets.

Anyone working with leverage anyway should factor in two things. First, the other side of the book disappears quickly in a thin order book, so the execution price deviates further from the quoted one. Second, fees differ markedly between venues, and on a position held open for days the funding rate is charged three times a day. Which venues exist and what they cost is set out in the perp DEX comparison.

October's range runs between two levels

On Wednesday evening the monthly loss stood at 13.5 percent in our analysis of the monthly close. Another 2.2 percent has been added since; measured against the month's opening price of $0.00000574, October now stands at a loss of 15.0 percent. The round level of $0.0000050, which the price fought over on Tuesday and Wednesday, has given way: Wednesday's high still reached $0.00000504, the daily close was $0.00000489, and SHIB has traded below it continuously since.

That leaves two documented levels bracketing the days ahead. Below sits the monthly low of October 23 at $0.00000476, only 2.5 percent under the current price. It is also the lowest reading of the past thirty days. Above, the first hurdle is the lost level of $0.0000050, the second lies at $0.00000514, the daily high of October 22 and the last point at which the price held for any length of time.

The order matters, not the number alone. A daily close above $0.0000050 would be the first since October 22 and would show that buying has returned to the spot market. A daily close below $0.00000476 would be the lowest in more than thirty days, and the next documented support then sits considerably lower. The all-time high from October 2021 is 94.3 percent away and carries no weight in this calculation.

How to check the holding period before selling at a loss

For investors in Germany, more hangs on a sale than the price. Private disposal transactions under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act are tax free after a holding period of one year. That rule still stands: the Bundestag rejected its abolition on October 9, 2026 by 445 votes to 132, and no decision has been taken since, as the status of the holding period reform shows.

The flip side of that exemption hits exactly where many SHIB holders stand. Anyone holding tokens for more than a year can no longer offset a loss on the sale, because outside the deadline the transaction is no longer captured for tax at all. Anyone who bought within the past year can offset the loss against gains from other private disposal transactions in the same year and carry the remainder forward. The exemption threshold is 1,000 euros of gain per year.

Three steps are needed. First, pull the acquisition date of every single tranche from the exchange's or wallet's transaction report, because what counts is the purchase, not the portfolio as a whole. Second, settle the order: for each wallet the rule is generally that the tokens bought first count as sold first. Third, secure the purchase record before a provider is shut down; without a record the tax office estimates, and that estimate is regularly expensive. Tools that calculate this from an exchange export are listed in the crypto tax software comparison.

Our newsroom reads the thin leverage

Our assessment: for SHIB the thin futures market is a stronger signal than the price itself. The evidence sits above, and there are three pieces. Open interest amounts to 0.74 percent of market value, while PEPE stands at 9.66 percent. The ratio of open interest to spot turnover is 0.29 against 0.74 for Dogecoin. And the funding rate of 0.0055 percent shows that neither side is willing to pay for a direction. That means as long as those three readings stay where they are, the basis for a fast countermove is missing and the price stays tied to the spot market.

One point honestly argues the other way. Low open interest is no verdict on a project, as the XRP case with the same 0.74 percent shows. And the picture can flip: PEPE today carries thirteen times the leverage, even though its market value is 845 million dollars smaller. To measure the point at which the situation turns, watch open interest, not the headlines.

The caveat belongs here: meme tokens are highly speculative, a total loss is possible, and none of this is a recommendation to buy or sell.

SHIB in November: without fresh leverage only the spot market counts

October ends for Shiba Inu with a loss of 15.0 percent and a futures market of 21.1 million dollars across four exchanges. The coming days hang on two numbers: a daily close above $0.0000050 shows buyers returning, one below $0.00000476 marks a new monthly low. Anyone planning to sell should settle the acquisition date first, because after a year no loss can be claimed.

When your bank issues a stablecoin, your money no longer sits in an account. It sits in a token. That changes everything for the statutory deposit guarantee, because the guarantee does not cover that balance. On its consumer page on deposit protection, German regulator BaFin puts it plainly: crypto assets are “generally not protected”. What you get instead is a redemption claim against the issuer.

Since October 23, 2026, that is no longer a theoretical question. On that day a major bank placed its own stablecoin inside a payment app with millions of users. In Germany, banks are working on a euro equivalent. Understand the difference between an account balance and a token now, and you will not have to learn it later in a loss event.

RedCoin: what HSBC switched on in the PayMe app on October 23

HSBC switched on the RedCoin stablecoin, ticker RCHKD, inside its PayMe payment app on October 23, 2026. The token is pegged to the Hong Kong dollar and is meant to be redeemable one for one, subject to the issuer's terms. It is issued by The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, which received a licence as a stablecoin issuer from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in April 2026 under the territory's stablecoin ordinance. Decrypt and other trade outlets reported the launch.

A stablecoin is a token whose value is tied to a fixed reference, usually a state currency. The number quoted in the reports is easy to overstate: the 3.3 million figure refers to existing users of the payment app, not to people who have already activated a token wallet.

Three points from the launch terms matter here. First, the token runs on the bank's own ledger, not on a public blockchain. Second, balances cannot move freely between the payment app and the bank's banking app. Third, according to the bank's documentation the token wallet is not an ordinary deposit account, which is why the Hong Kong deposit protection scheme does not apply to it. The bank also plans to let customers subscribe to units of a tokenised money market fund from 100 Hong Kong dollars using the token.

Hard reserve figures do not exist yet. The numbers published shortly after launch come from the issuer itself and are unaudited; the bank expects a first report after the fourth quarter of 2026. Until then it is assertion against evidence.

E-money tokens under MiCA: only credit institutions and e-money institutions may issue them

In the EU such a token is called an e-money token, EMT for short: a crypto asset that references the value of a single official currency and is treated as electronic money in supervisory law. BaFin states the entry rule briefly: “Only credit institutions or e-money institutions may issue e-money tokens (EMT)” or apply for admission to trading for such tokens. A fintech without a banking licence cannot put a euro token on the market in the EU at all.

That is exactly where the misunderstanding starts. Because a bank stands behind the token, the balance reads like a bank account. In supervisory law it is not one. In its guidance on authorisation requirements, BaFin classifies e-money tokens as electronic money within the meaning of the Second E-Money Directive. Electronic money is its own category with its own safeguards, and deposit protection is not among them.

There is also a procedural part you can look up as an investor. For every e-money token the issuer must file a crypto-asset white paper under Article 51 of the MiCA regulation with BaFin, with a copy going to the competent centre at the Deutsche Bundesbank. No approval of the white paper is foreseen; what counts are the deadlines named in the supervisor's guidance. We have written up what the licence itself requires of companies in our overview of MiCA obligations for crypto firms.

Deposit protection in Germany: 100,000 euros per customer and bank

The deposit guarantee is the statutory compensation that applies when a bank can no longer repay its customers' deposits. As BaFin describes it, the scheme covers account balances, fixed-term deposits and savings deposits, meaning money in current, overnight and term accounts. The statutory claim is capped at 100,000 euros per customer and bank, regardless of how many accounts they hold. On joint accounts each holder has their own claim, and in special cases the protection rises to as much as 500,000 euros for six months.

The supervisor also names what is not a deposit and therefore not covered: bearer and order bonds, profit-participation liabilities and liabilities from the bank's own bills of exchange. The same overview carries the sentence that decides the matter for token balances, namely that crypto assets are generally not protected. Securities such as shares or fund units also fall outside the scheme, but they remain the customer's property and are held in custody.

On process: BaFin determines the compensation event, and for deposits up to 100,000 euros compensation is paid on the basis of the bank's records within seven working days. That machinery runs for deposits. For a token balance it does not run at all.

Account balance or token: the difference that decides the protection case

Picture two positions at the same bank. The current account holds 5,000 euros, and the app holds 5,000 euros as a bank token. While everything works, the two behave identically: you can pay, transfer and exchange. The difference shows up only in the one moment when it counts.

If the bank fails, the current account is a case for statutory compensation up to 100,000 euros. The token balance is a claim against the issuer, governed by the token terms and by insolvency law. No guarantee fund pays you out within seven working days here. Whether and when you see your money depends on how the reserve was held and how it is treated in the proceedings.

That is why “does the stablecoin come from a bank?” is the wrong question. The right one is: do I hold a deposit or a token? Both can sit side by side in the same institution, the same app and the same screen. For which stablecoins exist, how they are backed and where you can trade them, see our stablecoin comparison.

Redemption right: the claim against the issuer replaces the guarantee fund

The redemption right is the claim to exchange the token back into the underlying currency at par at any time. It is the heart of e-money token regulation and the actual substitute for deposit protection. For RedCoin the bank names a one-for-one redemption, though subject to the terms in force at the time.

That qualifier deserves a close read, because the quality of the promise is decided there. Check whether redemption happens at par or at the market price, whether a fee applies, how long the payout takes, which channel it runs through, and whether minimum or maximum amounts apply. A redemption right that works through a single app only is weaker than one that keeps several routes open.

A second point comes from European regulation: simply holding a regulated e-money token pays no interest. If you expect a yield, you are looking in the wrong place. The token is a payment instrument, and its value lies in settlement, not in return.

Reserve backing: where the money behind an e-money token sits

The reserve backing is the assets with which the issuer backs the tokens in circulation. For holders, the location matters more than the total: is the reserve held as deposits at credit institutions, in short-dated government paper, or in less liquid assets? That determines how quickly the issuer can serve a wave of redemption requests.

There is an irony in the construction worth knowing. Part of an e-money token's reserve is itself typically held as deposits at banks, and those deposits belong to the issuer, not automatically to you in an insolvency. The protection works at the issuer's level, not at yours.

Publications are what make this checkable. For RedCoin the figures shortly after launch are issuer statements without an audit, and the first report is expected after the fourth quarter of 2026. The same principle applies to every euro token offered to you in Germany: without a regular, audited report, the backing remains an assertion. When a peg to par breaks, the cause almost always sits in the backing, not in trading.

ESMA register and white paper: how to check an issuer's authorisation yourself

You do not have to take the marketing on trust, you can look it up. The European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, keeps a register of all authorised issuers of e-money tokens, and BaFin points to it explicitly on its page about token issuance. If a provider is not listed there, authorisation for that token is missing in the EU, however familiar the name on the app may be.

The second step is the white paper. It has to describe the backing, the redemption right and the risks, and it is the document the issuer will be measured against later. If you want to know how to reconcile register and authorisation in practice, our guide to checking MiCA authorisation sets out the route.

Hong Kong and the EU: two supervisory regimes, one identical message on protection

The two legal orders are not comparable, and their licences do not apply to one another. On one point they nevertheless say the same thing. In Hong Kong, the bank's documentation makes clear that the token wallet is not an ordinary deposit account and that the local deposit protection scheme does not apply. In Germany, BaFin lists crypto assets in its overview as generally not protected.

That means the sentence buried in the small print in Hong Kong is not an oddity in the EU but the rule. Anyone handed a euro token from a German bank should not expect the 100,000 euros to travel with it. They will not, because the token is not a deposit.

The takeaway: a bank stablecoin moves your balance out of a category with statutory compensation and into a category with a contractual redemption claim. That can be perfectly fine if you use the token to pay and not to park larger sums. It was not built as a replacement for a savings account.

Bank stablecoin: without deposit protection, only redemption counts

1. Settle the category before you move money. Check the terms to see whether your balance is an account balance or a token, and keep larger sums where statutory compensation applies. Our overview of regulated crypto exchanges shows where you can hold euro balances with authorised providers.
2. Test the redemption route before your first purchase. Redeem a small amount and measure how long it takes and what it costs, rather than trying it for the first time when it matters. For everyday spending from a crypto balance, it is worth comparing crypto credit cards.
3. Read up on issuer and reserve once a quarter. Match the provider against the ESMA register and check whether an audited reserve report exists. Holdings you intend to keep long term belong in your own custody anyway; the devices for that are in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of October 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Cardano price stands at $0.1979 on Thursday morning. That is the first reading below the round $0.20 mark since September 17, and at the same time the lowest point of the past 30 days. Against the previous day ADA loses 4.53 percent, over a week 9.48 percent, over 30 days 20.66 percent. The range of the past 24 hours runs from $0.1958 to $0.2092. The market value of all ADA stands at $7.44 billion, a day's trading turnover at $315 million.

For holders, two things about that matter more than the figure itself. First, the price now sits below its 200-day line, and that line has several times this year been the border between sideways and downward movement. Second, a price of $0.1979 changes nothing about your tax liability on staking rewards that arrived long ago. Both can be checked today, and both have only an indirect connection to the daily loss.

Cardano at $0.1979: the lowest level since September 17

The round mark is not a chart pattern but a threshold where buy and sell orders sit. Cardano last traded below it on September 17, back then at $0.1962 on the daily close. What followed were 42 calendar days in which every daily close lay above $0.20, with a high of $0.2704 on October 6. From the monthly high to today, 26.8 percent is gone.

The path there ran in steps. On October 22 ADA still stood at $0.2251, on October 25 at $0.2080, on October 26 at $0.2039. The price then turned up briefly twice, to $0.2064 and $0.2059, without getting above $0.2070. This Thursday is the first day on which buyers no longer defended the mark.

The 200-day line at $0.2100 did not hold

The average of the last 200 daily closing prices stands at $0.2100. ADA trades 5.8 percent below it. The average of the last 50 days stands at $0.2294, so 13.7 percent above today's price. That the shorter line runs clearly above the longer one while the price sits below both describes a move that only turned in recent weeks.

An average serves as a reason for a level only as long as you say what it measures. The 200-day line is a mean over a good half year. The mean predicts nothing about tomorrow. It shows where the price stands in relation to its own longer path, and that relation turned on this Thursday. The next documented level downwards is the year's low of June 6 at $0.1567, 20.9 percent below today's reading. Upwards, the $0.2100 line counts first again.

82 of 366 days below $0.20: our own count

How unusual a price below $0.20 is can be counted rather than claimed. For that we took Cardano's daily closing prices from the last twelve months, 366 values from October 30, 2025 to October 29, 2026, and checked every single one against the mark. The result: 82 of those 366 days lay below $0.20, which is 22.4 percent. All 82 fall into a single window between early June and mid-September. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 29, 2026.

That puts the situation in a different light than a daily loss does. A price below $0.20 is not a state of emergency for Cardano but the normal state of the summer of 2026. A year ago, on October 30, 2025, ADA stood at $0.6399. Anyone who bought then is 69.1 percent down today. From the all-time high of $3.09 in September 2021, 93.6 percent is missing.

Why ADA gives up more ground than Bitcoin, XRP and Solana

Cardano's daily loss is the largest among the big assets. Bitcoin gives up 1.99 percent and stands at $79,829, Ethereum 2.59 percent at $2,310.84, Dogecoin 3.00 percent, XRP 3.36 percent at $1.29, Solana 2.80 percent at $99.82. At 4.53 percent, ADA loses more than twice as much as Bitcoin.

Behind that lies no Cardano-specific event but market depth. The term means how much capital is needed to move a price by a given amount. Bitcoin turns over $27.29 billion in a day, Cardano $315 million. That is one eighty-seventh. A selling volume that disappears into the noise with Bitcoin visibly presses on the price with ADA. That is why smaller assets fall faster on weak days, and why they rise faster on strong ones. It is not a judgement on the project but a property of the trading.

What has changed since October 15

When we wrote about the Cardano price on October 15, ADA stood at $0.2439 and had just broken that mark. Since then 18.9 percent has been added, downwards. The support named at the time at $0.2439 now lies 23.2 percent above the price and is finished as a level. Our article of October 20 named a market value of $8.15 billion; today it is $7.44 billion, so 8.7 percent less in nine days.

On the blockchain itself there was no bad news in this period that explains the decline. On October 27, 115,172 ADA flowed back into the network's treasury from unclaimed funds. The vote on 22 million ADA for a copper reserve runs until November 15. Both are processes in the governance of the network, not price triggers. What acted on all prices in the same week was the US central bank's decision on Wednesday evening not to cut the policy rate.

Staking returns 2.1 to 2.7 percent, the price took 9.5 percent in one week

Anyone holding ADA usually delegates it to a stake pool and receives a distribution in ADA for it. Our analysis of October 7, 2026 arrived at a range of 2.1 to 2.7 percent a year, depending on the pool and its fixed costs; the reasons for the range are set out in our analysis of the Cardano staking yield. This yield arises in ADA, not in euros.

That is exactly the point a yield figure alone conceals. Take the middle of the range, 2.4 percent a year. That is around 0.046 percent a week. The price gave up 9.48 percent over the past week. The weekly loss therefore corresponds roughly to what just under four years of staking would bring in at an unchanged price. Staking pays interest on the number of units, it does not hedge the value. To see providers and terms side by side, there is our comparison of staking platforms.

Minimum fee in the stake pool: the vote on 75 ADA

A stake pool is a server operation that produces blocks for the network and keeps a share of the distribution from its delegators for doing so. Part of that is a fixed minimum fee per accounting period, called minPoolCost in the network. This fee accrues regardless of the size of the pool and therefore hits small pools proportionally harder. A reduction to 75 ADA is being voted on in the network; on October 10 approval stood at 34 percent, as we recorded in our report on the vote on the minimum fee.

For you that is a checkable quantity and not a piece of news to watch. Your pool's fixed costs are listed in every pool directory next to the yield of the last periods. If a pool sits at a few million ADA of delegation, a minimum fee eats noticeably into the distribution; a larger pool spreads the same amount across more delegators. Moving to another pool costs no fee and does not lock the coins, but it only takes effect after two accounting periods.

Tax on staking rewards: the value on the day of receipt counts

Staking rewards are other income in Germany under section 22 number 3 of the Income Tax Act. What is decisive is the market value at the time of receipt, that is the price on the day the ADA arrived at your address. The basis is the Federal Ministry of Finance letter of March 6, 2025, which carries forward the letter of May 10, 2022. For this income an exemption threshold of 256 euros a year applies. Anyone exceeding it pays tax on the entire amount, not only the part above it.

The falling price turns that into a concrete calculation. A distribution that arrived in October at $0.25 is recorded at that value, even if the same ADA are worth $0.1979 today. The tax liability follows the day of receipt; the loss afterwards is a separate matter. Anyone receiving many small distributions over the year therefore needs a schedule with date, number of units and daily price; the tools for that are in our comparison of crypto tax tools.

Holding period under section 23: one year, a 1,000 euro threshold and what losses bring

For the ADA themselves, the other provision applies. A sale within one year of the purchase is a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act; after a holding period of one year the gain stays tax free. The exemption threshold for such gains is 1,000 euros a year and is separate from the 256 euro limit for staking rewards. Delegating does not extend the one-year period for the coins committed; for every distribution received, a separate one-year period begins on receipt.

From that follows the question that becomes concrete at a price of $0.1979: a loss from a sale within the year can be offset against gains from other private disposals in the same year, and an excess can be carried forward and back. Once the one-year period has elapsed, a loss has no tax effect, just as the gain would not. Which period runs for which holding is in your own schedule, not in the price.

MiCA: which exchanges list ADA in euros with a licence

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets, a provider that custodies or exchanges crypto-assets in Germany needs a licence. As of October 28, 2026, BaFin listed 98 providers in this procedure, as we recorded in our report on MiCA licensing. Whether your provider is among them is stated in the ESMA register and not in the provider's advertising.

In practice that means for ADA: a euro trading pair at a licensed provider saves you the detour via a dollar stablecoin and with it a conversion fee. Trading fees in the German market lie between about 0.15 and just under 2 percent depending on provider and order route, and the spread between buy and sell price comes on top. At a price of $0.1979, a fee of 1.5 percent weighs more heavily than some weeks' daily move.

The newsroom's assessment of the $0.20 mark

Our assessment: the break of the $0.20 mark is the weaker of the two signals of this day, the break of the 200-day line at $0.2100 the stronger. Three pieces of evidence argue for that. The mark itself was a floor for 42 days, but over the last four days the price lay only between $0.2039 and $0.2064 anyway, and thus already below the 200-day mean. The daily loss of 4.53 percent falls in a market in which Bitcoin gives up 1.99 percent, so it is not a Cardano-specific piece of news. And the year's low of June 6 at $0.1567 shows how far the road downwards reaches when no buyer steps in.

Against that stands the fact that nothing negative happened on the blockchain this week: the network's treasury received funds back on October 27, a vote on reserves is running, and the number of delegators has not collapsed. The move is so far explained by market depth and the rate situation, not by the project. This assessment rates the situation; it is not a recommendation to buy or sell. With crypto-assets a total loss is possible.

ADA below $0.20: the $0.2100 line is the next test

Three steps that can be dealt with today without a price view:

1. Look up your pool's fixed costs. The number of units delegated and the yield of the last periods are listed in every pool directory. A switch is free of charge and takes effect after two periods. Providers and terms side by side: our comparison of staking platforms.
2. List the year's distributions. Date, number of units and daily price for each receipt, then calculate against the 256 euro limit. The tools for that: our comparison of crypto tax tools.
3. Check your venue's licence. At a price below $0.20, the euro pair and the fee decide more than the daily move. Licensed venues: our overview of crypto exchanges.

(As of October 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin Cash costs around $280 on October 29, 2026, equal to about 251 euros. The price has fallen from $304.28 to $275.32 within a day and now sits below its own 200-day line at $286.19. The impulse came from the US central bank: the Federal Reserve left the policy rate unchanged on October 28, and two members of the Open Market Committee voted for an increase. That makes Bitcoin Cash the asset among the 25 largest cryptocurrencies that gave up the most after the decision.

The daily loss on its own says little. What is interesting is where the price has landed, because at $279.87 Bitcoin Cash now stands below the line that medium-term buyers take their bearings from. This piece explains the level, the trigger and the points that count in practice for an investor in Europe.

The 200-day line at $286.19: what the moving average shows

The 200-day line is the average of the closing prices of the past 200 days. It smooths the daily noise and shows where a market's medium-term mean lies. If a price trades above it, the investors of recent months bought more cheaply on average than today. If it trades below, the average of recent months is sitting on a loss.

For Bitcoin Cash this line stands at $286.19 today. The current price of $279.87 is therefore 2.2 percent below it. The 50-day line stands at $282.06 and the 20-day line at $279.36. The price has only just reached the short-term line, while the two longer ones lie above it. Well below runs the 100-day line at $256.38, because summer was considerably weaker for Bitcoin Cash than autumn.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 29, 2026. It is based on 366 daily Bitcoin Cash prices from the twelve months since October 30, 2025.

Why the line is watched at all

A moving average line is not a forecast and not a law of nature. It works because many market participants have the same number in view and align their orders with it. Fund mandates and automated trading systems work in part with precisely this threshold. That is why trading volume arises at such lines more often than a few dollars above or below. Knowing the level makes it easier to understand why a price stalls at a particular point.

Bitcoin Cash through the day: from $304.28 to $275.32

The daily high was $304.28, the daily low $275.32. Between the two lie $28.96, just under 10 percent of the range measured against the low. On October 28 Bitcoin Cash still closed at $295.76. Over seven days, by contrast, the loss is only 0.24 percent, so the asset has essentially given back a whole week's gain in a single day.

From the 30-day high of $319.62 on October 4, the price is 12.5 percent away. The 30-day low stands at $265.47. Over a year the range is far wider: the twelve-month high is $654.84 from January 4, 2026, the low $190.35 from June 25, 2026. Market capitalisation is $5.63 billion and trading turnover of the past 24 hours $241.95 million. That puts Bitcoin Cash 21st in the ranking by market value.

The Fed decision of October 28: the range stays at 3.75 to 4.00 percent

The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee decided on October 28, 2026 to hold the target range for the overnight rate at 3.75 to 4.00 percent. The central bank's statement says economic output is growing at a solid pace, the labour market has kept step with the potential workforce and the unemployment rate has barely changed. On price developments there is one short sentence: inflation remains elevated.

That sentence is the decisive one for investors. It explains why the central bank is not cutting rates although the market had hoped for relief. What the decision means for Bitcoin and Ether is set out in our report on the rate pause of October 28.

Cook and Hammack vote against: two members wanted to raise the rate

The vote came out ten to two. The direction of the dissents is notable. According to the statement, Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack voted against the decision because they wanted to raise the target range by a quarter point at this meeting. Both dissenters therefore wanted tighter monetary policy, not looser.

For the crypto market this finding is more uncomfortable than the rate pause itself. A pause leaves open the possibility that the next move is downwards. Two votes for an increase shift that expectation. Anyone who had bet on falling rates has to review that assumption, and that is exactly what showed up in the overnight prices.

High dollar rates and risk assets: the connection to the price

The connection between the policy rate and crypto prices runs through the alternative. If a dollar deposit without price risk yields just under 4 percent a year, an investment without interest income first has to beat that threshold before it becomes attractive. Bitcoin Cash pays no interest and distributes nothing. Its return arises from the price alone.

There is also the funding side. Anyone holding positions on credit pays interest that tracks the dollar rate. If that rate stays high, it makes leveraged positions more expensive and weighs on demand. That explains why smaller assets swing more than Bitcoin on days like this; their order books are thinner, and the same selling pressure moves the price further.

What this connection does not support

A rate decision explains the direction of a day, not the level of a price target. Deriving a concrete number for Bitcoin Cash from the decision overstretches the data. The decision is documented, the daily move is documented, and the distance to the 200-day line is documented. Everything beyond that remains assessment.

Bitcoin Cash against Bitcoin and Ether: the gap over the day

Bitcoin loses 0.96 percent over the same period and stands at around $80,200. Ether gives up 1.46 percent and trades at about $2,320. At just under 6 percent, Bitcoin Cash therefore loses a multiple of the two largest assets. The decline is thus not a general market slump but a markedly stronger reaction by a mid-sized asset to the same piece of news.

This spread matters for putting things in context. If the whole market falls 1 percent and a single asset 6, the cause lies predominantly in that asset: in its trading depth, in the leveraged positions built up and in the question of who had bought shortly beforehand. Bitcoin Cash had risen in the days before the decision, and those young positions had the shortest breath.

Holding period under German law: one year separates tax free from taxable

For investors in Germany, more hangs on the moment of sale than the price. Gains on the sale of cryptocurrencies count as a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months lie between purchase and sale, the gain stays tax free. If you sell within that period, the gain is taxed at your personal rate as soon as the exemption threshold for all private disposals in a year is exceeded.

From that follows a plain arithmetic exercise that has nothing to do with a price view. A sale eleven months after the purchase can turn out worse after tax than a sale one month later at a lower price. Anyone who has bought repeatedly needs the acquisition data of every single tranche for this, because the period runs separately for each purchase.

What you need to record for it

What counts is the date, quantity and price of every purchase, plus the same details for every sale. Without these details, the holding period cannot be documented later. Anyone buying across several venues brings the data together, because the tax office looks at the transaction and not the venue.

Perpetuals without an expiry date: the funding rate as a running cost

A perpetual is a futures contract without an expiry date. Instead of a maturity date it is tied to the spot price via the funding rate: at regular intervals one side of the market pays the other, depending on whether the contract trades above or below the spot price. For the holder these are running costs or income that accrue regardless of how the price develops.

That is particularly relevant for Bitcoin Cash. A count of the Bitcoin Cash futures market that cryptoticker.io published on October 28, 2026 found that all 81 futures contracts on Bitcoin Cash recorded at the time were perpetuals without an expiry date. Anyone holding a position through such contracts therefore carries a double burden when dollar rates are high: via the funding rate and via the interest cost of the collateral posted. On a day like this, such positions are closed first. If you want to look into this market segment, it helps to see which perp DEXs offer which terms before money is at stake.

Liquidation is not a price view

A liquidation occurs when the collateral of a leveraged position is no longer sufficient. The exchange then closes the position by force, regardless of where the price stands an hour later. That is why a daily decline of 6 percent can wipe out a leveraged position entirely, while a position without leverage simply sits the same decline out.

Trading in euros and custody: MiCA licence and your own keys

Bitcoin Cash currently trades at 251.23 euros. Anyone trading in euros avoids the conversion into dollars and the spread that comes with it. Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets applies, providers need a licence for business with customers in the European Union, which in Germany is granted by BaFin and can be viewed in the ESMA register. For you, that is the basis for deciding which provider you can become a customer of at all.

Separate from the trading question is custody. If the coins sit at the exchange, the exchange holds the keys. If you transfer them to your own wallet, you hold them yourself and carry the responsibility for securing the recovery phrase. Both have their price: in the first case you carry the provider's risk, in the second the risk of your own mistake.

The next Fed meeting on December 9, 2026: the date in the calendar

The next rate decision falls on December 9, 2026, at the close of the two-day meeting of December 8 and 9. It can be taken from the Federal Reserve's meeting calendar and is one of the dates at which the central bank also publishes its projections for the economy and rates. For the market, that makes this date weightier than a meeting without projections.

Until then the monetary situation stays as the decision of October 28 describes it. For Bitcoin Cash that means the 200-day line at $286.19 remains the level at which the medium-term trend is decided. A price above it restores the situation from before the decision, staying below confirms the setback. The 30-day low at $265.47 is the next number below, and it comes from the price history itself.

Bitcoin Cash: without a return above $286 the trend stays down

The day has pushed Bitcoin Cash below a level that follows from twelve months of price history. The trigger is named and documented, the level is measured, and the next date is fixed. What follows from it depends on your holding period and your tax position, not on a price forecast.

1. Clarify the venue's licence. Check whether your provider is licensed for business in the European Union before you build a new position. You will find an overview under regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Put the acquisition data together. Note the date, quantity and price for each tranche so that the one-year period under section 23 can be documented later. Tax tools and portfolio trackers help with this.
3. Settle your custody. Decide which part of your holdings stays at the exchange and which goes to your own wallet. The hardware wallet comparison shows the differences.

(As of October 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The expansion gives Solana businesses one integration to connect bank funding, embedded wallets, cross-chain transfers and global payouts, with cross-border firm Kira among the first adopters.

The FCA says the Justin Sun-linked exchange will no longer target UK consumers, ending its first case against a crypto firm over marketing.

Now the BTC ETFs have flipped green for the month after $400M+ inflows this week, setting the stage for a big November.

Two Russian nationals converted more than $5 million in crypto for North Korean networks, according to OFAC, which listed their wallets.

The state says an undercover agent placed a dozen sports wagers on Kalshi, a day after the CFTC sued Utah to block its enforcement actions.

$342 million crypto selloff offsets Dogecoin bulls with markets pausing to see what comes next.

Ethereum whales offload 160,000 coins, putting ETH at the risk of 14% drop.

Key crypto news this morning, Oct. 29: Fed pause sparks a $342 million bloodbath for BTC and XRP longs, but HYPE counters the drop by surging 9% on a Druckenmiller backing.

Binance's CZ dismisses a false story alleging that he owns a Shiba Inu dog named Riki. CZ declared that he has never owned any Shiba Inu.

Shiba Inu is facing renewed selling pressure as about 92.07 billion SHIB flowed into exchanges on a net basis.

TLDR:

• Curve Finance has launched on Stellar, marking its first native deployment outside the EVM ecosystem.
• Stellar users can create permissionless pools, swap assets, and provide liquidity through Curve’s interface.
• The Stellar Development Foundation supported the deployment to expand stablecoin and tokenized asset trading.
• Curve plans to introduce FXSwap on Stellar after its audit, targeting efficient cross-currency asset trading.

Curve Finance has launched on the Stellar mainnet, marking its first native deployment outside the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem.

The release brings the protocol’s audited StableSwap implementation to Stellar. Users can create pools permissionlessly, discover existing pools, swap assets, and provide liquidity.

The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) supported the deployment, which was built for the network’s smart-contract environment.

The launch brings stablecoin-focused trading to a new network. The interface is now available at stellar.curve.finance for users.

StableSwap Brings Low-Slippage Trading to Stellar

Curve Finance is among the leading DeFi protocols for stablecoin trading. StableSwap is designed for low-slippage trading between stablecoins pegged to the same currency.

The model also covers other closely correlated assets. Curve Finance’s audited StableSwap implementation now operates on the network.

Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, spoke about the move beyond EVM chains. He said, “At Curve, we started exploring possibilities of launching beyond EVM chains if there is demand. Stellar looks like a good fit: it’s closer to the familiar EVM world than many other chains.”

Egorov then addressed demand on the network. He continued, “And at the same time, the demand for Curve is there, and it comes from institutions. Excited to see where this integration goes!”

The use cases extend beyond standalone swaps. As liquidity develops, other applications can integrate these pools. The pools can then serve as trading venues for collateral liquidations.

They can also support exits from positions in lending and other financial applications. This gives asset issuers a way to develop trading venues for supported assets on the Stellar network. Users can create these pools permissionlessly, without needing approval.

SDF Backs the Deployment as FXSwap Plans Emerge

Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director of the Stellar Development Foundation, commented on the launch. She said, “Stablecoins and tokenized assets only deliver real value when people can move between them efficiently, and Curve’s arrival gives developers on the Stellar network’s proven infrastructure to build those markets.”

Dixon added, “Having one of DeFi’s most trusted liquidity protocols choose the Stellar network for its first native deployment outside EVM shows that the network is the home for practical financial applications.” The SDF supported the deployment of the protocol on the network.

Curve also plans to bring FXSwap to the Stellar network once its audit is complete. FXSwap is designed for efficient trading between assets whose relative prices change. Examples include stablecoins pegged to different currencies.

FXSwap concentrates liquidity around market prices. This provides dedicated infrastructure for onchain currency conversion.

Meanwhile, Curve Finance’s integration gives developers and asset issuers new ways to build onchain markets. It also adds utility to stablecoins and tokenized assets. Users can access the deployment through stellar.curve.finance.

The post Curve Finance Launches on Stellar in First Native Non-EVM Deployment appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Singapore police reported at least two cases since September 10, with losses of about S$3.5 million.
• Some Ledger wallets bought from Singapore retailers held malicious parts that could capture private keys.
• Ledger is reviewing the affected cases, and police investigations into the tampering are still ongoing.
• Police urge users of suspected devices to stop transacting and move assets to a new, trusted wallet.

Ledger hardware wallets sold at some Singapore retailers contained malicious components, according to the Singapore Police Force (SPF).

The police made the announcement on October 28. The components could capture recovery phrases or private keys from users. At least two cases have been reported since September 10, 2026.

Total losses amount to about S$3.5 million, or roughly $2.7 million. Ledger, the French wallet manufacturer, is reviewing the affected cases, while police investigations remain ongoing.

Details of the Tampered Wallet Cases

The SPF said preliminary investigations traced the affected Ledger hardware wallets to some retail stores in Singapore. In its advisory, the police stated that the wallets “contained malicious hardware components.”

These parts could record users’ recovery phrases or private keys. As a result, the devices were no longer safe for storing digital assets.

Unauthorised persons could use the captured information to access the wallets. They could then transfer assets without the owners’ knowledge or consent.

Such access would not require the owner’s involvement. The police confirmed that the reported cases account for losses of about S$3.5 million.

Since September 10, 2026, the police have received at least two reports. According to the advisory, the SPF is “in contact with Ledger, which is reviewing the affected cases.” The police described their findings as preliminary. Investigations are continuing.

Ledger is a leading French hardware wallet manufacturer. The police did not name the retail stores involved. They also did not describe how the components were added to the devices. The advisory did not mention any arrests.

Police Advice for Crypto Holders

The SPF urged the public to be cautious when holding or transacting cryptocurrencies. Users should check official advisories from their hardware wallet providers for current guidance. The SPF listed these precautions for owners of Ledger hardware wallets and other crypto holders.

Users should also “avoid holding cryptocurrencies in devices suspected to be tampered with,” the police said. They should refrain from entering recovery phrases or making further transactions on such devices.

The police also said users should take appropriate steps to safeguard their holdings. Instead, they can contact their wallet provider through official support channels.

Users who suspect their Ledger hardware wallets are compromised have another step available. The police said they should consider moving remaining assets to a new, trusted wallet. That wallet should use a newly generated recovery phrase on an uncompromised device.

The SPF also gave a direct warning on sharing credentials. “Never disclose your private keys, recovery or seed phrases,” the advisory states.

This applies to anyone, including people claiming to represent wallet providers, exchanges or law enforcement agencies. Additionally, the police urged users to “be wary of unsolicited messages offering wallet verification or recovery assistance.”

The post Singapore Police Warn Ledger Hardware Wallets Sold by Local Retailers Were Tampered appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• trade[XYZ] says its Hyperliquid markets have passed $650 billion in volume in just over a year.
• The planned U.S. market will use new exchange and clearing infrastructure built on Hyperliquid.
• Launch depends on CFTC approval; contracts will span equities, indices, commodities, FX, and crypto.
• ICE is making a strategic investment in trade[XYZ], and Stan Druckenmiller is joining the effort. 

24/7 perpetual futures on Hyperliquid are heading to the United States through trade[XYZ] and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). ICE owns the New York Stock Exchange and operates regulated markets.

The two firms intend to establish a dedicated U.S. market with new exchange and clearing infrastructure. The launch remains subject to approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Planned contracts will span equities, indices, commodities, FX, and crypto, with access offered through participating brokers and platforms.

Hyperliquid Markets Pass $650 Billion in Volume

trade[XYZ] announced the plan in a post on X. The company said its 24/7 perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid have passed $650 billion in volume. That figure came in just over a year. Those markets cover stocks, indices, and commodities.

These markets provide continuous price discovery. According to the post, retail and institutional traders treat them as trusted reference points. This applies when traditional markets are closed. The company noted that “much of the world trades them.”

trade[XYZ] addressed the gap in U.S. access to 24/7 perpetual futures directly. The company stated, “Until now, Americans could only watch. We intend to change that.” Both firms will share details on products, eligibility, and timing as approvals progress.

The post closed with a message to the Hyperliquid community. trade[XYZ] thanked users who were there before or came because of its markets.

The team wrote, “You took a chance on new markets and you made them matter.” The post added that they will forever be part of this story.

ICE and trade[XYZ] Bring Combined Expertise

ICE brings more than 25 years of experience operating regulated markets. ICE also brings experience in clearing and managing risk. trade[XYZ] contributes product development, market design, and technology.

It describes its Hyperliquid markets as the most liquid and robust. Together, the companies plan to apply these strengths in the new market.

ICE is also making a strategic investment in trade[XYZ]. Through this move, ICE joins trade[XYZ] in building toward the future of Hyperliquid. The investment comes as trade[XYZ] builds the U.S. market for perpetual futures.

The firms framed the effort around regulation. In the post, they wrote, “Innovation and the protections of U.S. regulation shouldn’t be a trade-off.”

A small group of market luminaries is also joining the effort. Stan Druckenmiller is the first name on that list. trade[XYZ] said few investors have anticipated market turns as often as Druckenmiller. His record spans more than four decades. The company added, “We’re proud to have him with us for the next one.”

The U.S. market will be built in parallel with the existing HIP-3 markets. trade[XYZ] plans to keep expanding and innovating on those markets.

Both are expected to grow, and each has a long road map ahead. Future plans include new asset classes and new ways to trade them.

The post ICE and trade[XYZ] Plan 24/7 Perpetual Futures on Hyperliquid for U.S. Traders appeared first on Blockonomi.

Cashing out crypto sounds complicated, but the basic path is short. You sell the crypto for local currency on a regulated exchange. Then you withdraw the cash balance to your bank account.

The numbers behind that path vary a lot. Listed withdrawal times range from about 30 minutes to three business days. On a $10,000 sale, direct costs can run from $28 to $230, depending on the method.

This article looks at the main figures for 2026. It covers timing, fees, limits, taxes and common mistakes. The data comes from published guidance by Coinbase, Binance and Crypto.com.

How Cashing Out Crypto Works

Your bank receives fiat money, not Bitcoin or Ethereum. Crypto does not move directly into a traditional bank account. A bank account has no Bitcoin blockchain address, so something has to convert the coins first.

That something is most often a crypto exchange. Platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance and Crypto.com sell the crypto for euros, dollars or pounds. They then send the cash through a normal payment system.

The standard process has five steps. If your crypto is already on an exchange that supports bank withdrawals, the first step is not needed. Coinbase, for example, requires users to sell crypto into a cash balance before they can withdraw it.

The first step carries its own risk. You must choose the correct network when you send coins. If you send an asset over a network the exchange does not support, it may not be credited, and the money could be hard or impossible to recover.

A small test transaction is often a smart move for large amounts. On a $100,000 cash out, a test send can confirm that the address, the network and the exchange all work. The extra network fee is small next to the cost of a mistake.

Stablecoins follow the same path. A holder deposits USDC on an exchange, converts it to USD or EUR, and withdraws the cash. Stablecoins carry issuer, depegging, blockchain and wallet risks, so they should not be treated as bank deposits.

Some fintech services combine the steps in one screen, which can feel like a direct Bitcoin withdrawal. Behind the scenes, the crypto is still sold first.

How Long Does a Crypto Withdrawal Take?

Withdrawal times depend on the exchange, the payment network and the country. The full process can take anywhere from minutes to several business days. The listed figures below come from each platform’s own guidance.

For European Coinbase customers, standard SEPA settlement is listed at 1-3 business days. Eligible instant cash-outs typically arrive in around 30 minutes. Coinbase says they can take up to 24 hours, depending on the bank or card provider.

Binance lists about 1-3 working days for transfers in its EUR SEPA verification process. Crypto.com lists about one business day for EUR SEPA withdrawals through its European service.

SEPA stands for Single Euro Payments Area. It allows euro transfers between participating banks across Europe. A typical European route is BTC, sell for EUR, EUR balance, SEPA transfer, bank account.

Other regions use other systems. Depending on the country, the payout may travel by ACH, Faster Payments, SWIFT, Real Time Payments or a card cash-out service. Once the exchange has converted the crypto into fiat, this last stage is a normal financial transfer.

International SWIFT transfers can take longer. Weekends, public holidays, bank compliance checks and intermediary banks can add more delay. Availability also differs by country, so the withdrawal screen in your own account is the best guide.

What Does It Cost to Cash Out Crypto?

There is no single fee. The total comes from several parts, and each one depends on the platform and the method. Some parts may not apply to you at all.

Where you sell matters. An advanced trading interface is often cheaper than an instant Sell button. A professional order-book screen may charge a fraction of one percent.

A simplified retail screen may charge more and build a spread into the quoted price. On the $80,000 example above, a $400 gap equals 0.5% of the sale. That cost never appears as a separate line, which is why the execution price is worth checking.

The gap grows with the amount. On a $100,000 sale, a total cost of 0.1% is about $100. At 1.5%, the cost is $1,500.

Withdrawal fees vary. Some exchanges charge a fixed or percentage fee, and others charge nothing for certain methods. Crypto.com says neither it nor its European EMI partners charge a fee for eligible EUR SEPA withdrawals.

Currency choice adds cost too. If your bank account is in euros and you withdraw dollars, an exchange or bank may convert the money. Binance warns that intermediary banks may convert currency on their own, and that extra charges can reduce the final amount.

For European users, selling straight into EUR and withdrawing through SEPA is often cleaner than routing the money through dollars.

Cost Example: Cashing Out $10,000 of Bitcoin

Suppose you hold $10,000 of Bitcoin in a hardware wallet. You send it to an exchange, sell it and withdraw the cash to your bank. Here are two routes with different fee levels.

On the low-cost route, the network fee is $2. The trading fee is 0.25%, or $25, and the bank withdrawal fee is $1. The total direct cost is $28, and you receive about $9,972.

On the high-cost route, the platform charges a 1.5% transaction fee, which is $150. It also applies a 0.75% effective spread, which is $75, plus a $5 withdrawal charge. The total is $230, and you receive about $9,770.

The high-cost route costs more than eight times as much as the low-cost route. The difference is $202 on a $10,000 sale. The same gap in percentage terms would grow with larger sums.

The method used to cash out therefore matters almost as much as the bank withdrawal itself. The sources suggest comparing the actual execution price and fees before selling, rather than focusing only on convenience.

Withdrawal Limits, Verification and Compliance Checks

Withdrawal limits vary by platform and verification level. They can change, and they may be specific to your account. It helps to check them before you sell.

Limits can slow a large cash out. At €100,000 a day, moving €1 million would take 10 days of withdrawals. The €500,000 monthly cap on that service means it would take at least two months.

You do not want to learn this after converting $1 million into cash. Coinbase notes that other bank-transfer methods and account limits can differ from the instant figure.

Account checks also come first. Binance says bank withdrawals must go to an account that matches the name on the Binance account, and it does not support third-party bank withdrawals. Binance and Crypto.com both ask European users to make an initial SEPA deposit from the bank account they want to verify.

Large transfers can trigger routine reviews. Exchanges and banks work under anti-money-laundering rules. A seven-figure transfer is more likely to get attention than a €500 one.

An exchange may ask for source-of-funds or source-of-wealth information. It may also ask for transaction history or proof that you own the wallet. A bank could ask where a €100,000 transfer came from, and exchange statements make a stronger answer than the word Bitcoin.

A bank can temporarily hold or review incoming money that triggers fraud, sanctions or anti-money-laundering controls. That does not mean the money has been taken. The bank may simply ask for documents that show where it came from.

Splitting one legitimate large transfer into many small ones to avoid scrutiny can create more compliance concerns, not fewer. Useful records include exchange purchase history, bank statements showing the original deposits, wallet transaction records, tax returns and proof of earlier crypto purchases.

Cash Out Strategies and Other Ways to Sell

Cashing out does not have to mean selling everything. Someone holding 5 BTC might sell 0.25 BTC to cover living costs and keep the rest invested.

Others sell in stages. They might sell 10% at one price level, another 10% after a further rally, and keep the remainder as a long-term holding. This can reduce the risk of trying to pick the exact top of the market.

Take an investor with $200,000 in crypto who sells $20,000 a month for ten months. The chart below shows the cash received at each step.

Staging has a trade-off. The market could fall before the remaining assets are sold. The source article says there is no mathematically guaranteed best approach, and that the key is to set a plan before emotions take over.

If you need the money right away, one sale may make more sense. Tax outcomes can also differ between one sale and several, depending on the country.

Exchanges are not the only route. The table below compares the main options.

An over-the-counter desk can find a buyer directly and agree on a price. This avoids placing one huge order on a public exchange, which could move the market against the seller. Bitcoin is liquid enough that ordinary retail trades rarely need this.

Established peer-to-peer platforms may offer escrow, but users still need to understand the risks.

Taxes Can Be the Biggest Cash-Out Cost

Trading and banking fees can be small next to tax. Suppose you bought Bitcoin for $20,000 and sold it for $100,000. Your gain is about $80,000 before allowable costs.

Depending on your country, some or all of that gain may be taxable. The taxable event is often the sale of the crypto, not the moment the money reaches your bank. Leaving the proceeds on an exchange does not necessarily postpone the tax.

Rules differ widely. Some places tax crypto gains as capital gains. Others use different classes based on holding period, trading frequency, professional status or the type of activity.

The table uses example rates only, to show scale. It is not tax advice, and real rules depend on where you are tax resident.

Good records make tax reporting easier. Keep the purchase date, purchase price, amount bought and fees. Also keep the sale date, sale proceeds, the exchange used and any wallet transfers.

If coins moved through several wallets, save the transaction hashes. Moving your own Bitcoin from Wallet A to Wallet B is not the same as selling it. Records help show which events were transfers and which were sales.

This matters when an exchange’s tax software sees crypto arriving from an unknown outside wallet. Without the original purchase price, it cannot work out the gain.

Common Mistakes and Safety Steps

One common mistake is selling before the bank withdrawal is ready. Imagine you hold €100,000 of Bitcoin and sell it. Then you find your bank account is not verified and withdrawals are paused.

That €100,000 now sits in the exchange cash balance while you wait. A better order is to set up the withdrawal path first, as the chart shows.

A second mistake is using the wrong currency. A euro account that receives a dollar withdrawal may face conversion costs from the exchange, the intermediary bank or the receiving bank.

Most safety risks are practical. They include sending crypto to the wrong address, using the wrong blockchain, falling for phishing, entering wrong bank details, using an unregulated platform and ignoring tax duties.

Security matters most during large withdrawals. A criminal who reaches an exchange account just before a big cash out can cause heavy losses.

The Bottom Line

The path from crypto to a bank account is simple: crypto, regulated exchange, sale for fiat, withdrawal to bank. If the crypto is already on an exchange, the transfer step can be skipped.

Listed times run from about 30 minutes for eligible instant cash-outs to 1-3 business days for SEPA. Costs on a $10,000 sale ranged from $28 to $230 in the source example, which shows how much the method matters.

As the amount grows, preparation matters more. For a €500 withdrawal, little planning is needed. For €500,000, it helps to know the fees, limits, source-of-funds checks and tax rules before you press Sell.

Sources

• Coinbase: Cash Out Available Balance. Current process for selling crypto into a cash balance and withdrawing to a bank or supported payment method.
• Coinbase: Instant Cashouts. Current instant bank and card cash-out options, expected settlement times and limits.
• Coinbase: Payment Methods for Europe. SEPA and other EU cash-out methods, including standard settlement times.
• Binance: Fiat Withdrawals via Bank Transfer. Bank-transfer withdrawal process, account-name requirements and information on possible intermediary-bank charges.
• Binance: EUR Withdrawals via SEPA. European SEPA withdrawal and bank-verification process.
• Binance: Instant Bank Transfer. Account verification, settlement and eligibility requirements for supported instant transfers.
• Crypto.com: EUR Fiat Deposits and Withdrawals via SEPA. European withdrawal process, fees, processing time and limits.

The post How to Cash Out Crypto to a Bank Account: Statistics and Costs for 2026 appeared first on Blockonomi.

Cryptocurrency is often called anonymous digital money. The facts show something different. Most major coins can be followed on a public ledger.

Bitcoin and Ethereum record every transaction on a blockchain that anyone can read. The ledger shows addresses, amounts and times. It does not normally show a person’s name.

That is why experts call these coins pseudonymous, not anonymous. This article uses official documents, blockchain analysis firms and U.S. cases to explain how tracing works.

The short answer is yes, crypto can usually be traced. Tracing a payment and naming the person behind it are two different jobs.

Key Facts: What a Public Blockchain Reveals

A public blockchain is a shared record of every confirmed transaction. Bitcoin.org says all Bitcoin transactions are public, traceable and stored permanently. Ethereum’s documentation says the same about addresses, balances, transactions, contract calls and events.

Anyone can look at this data with a block explorer. A Bitcoin address, however, does not contain a name, passport number, home address, email or phone number.

A single address shows activity, but not identity. An address holding 50 BTC could belong to one person, a company, an exchange, a hedge fund, a charity or a criminal. The blockchain alone does not say which.

The record also lasts. Bitcoin.org warns that information that is hard to trace today may be easier to link in the future. A wallet that cannot be named now may be named years later.

How a Blockchain Transaction Is Recorded

A simple example shows how the system works. Alice wants to send Bitcoin to Bob. Bob gives her a Bitcoin address.

Alice’s wallet builds a transaction that moves the coins to Bob’s address. The wallet then signs it with her private key. The signature proves she has the right to spend the coins.

The transaction goes out to the Bitcoin network. Nodes check that it follows the rules. Miners then place it in a block.

Once confirmed, the transaction becomes part of the blockchain. Bitcoin describes this as a shared public ledger of all confirmed transactions.

The private key is never published. Only the signature appears. This lets the network confirm that someone had the authority to spend the coins without learning that person’s legal identity.

What a block explorer shows

If you have a Bitcoin transaction ID, a public block explorer can show many details:

• Transaction ID
• Inputs and outputs
• Sending and receiving addresses
• Amounts
• Transaction fee
• Block number
• Confirmation status
• Timestamp

You can then follow the outputs into later transactions. A coin may move from Wallet A to Wallet B, then to Wallet C, then to an exchange. An investigator can follow that whole chain.

The hard part is learning who owns each wallet. That step is called attribution.

How Much Do Bitcoin and Ethereum Show?

Both networks are open to the public. Bitcoin shows the movement of coins between addresses. Ethereum shows that and more, because it runs smart contracts.

Ethereum’s documentation describes transactions as signed instructions that update the state of the network. Its privacy pages call the network radically public by design.

Public Ethereum data can show contact with many kinds of services:

• Decentralized exchanges
• NFT marketplaces
• Lending protocols
• Stablecoins
• Bridges
• Staking systems
• Prediction markets

Someone who knows your Ethereum address may see more than your ETH balance. They may also see the tokens you hold, your DeFi positions, your NFTs and your past transactions.

Can someone see how much Bitcoin you own?

Possibly, but not always. If a person knows one of your Bitcoin addresses, they can inspect it and follow related transactions. That does not automatically reveal every address you control.

Modern wallets can create a fresh receiving address for each payment. Bitcoin.org advises against reusing addresses because new ones make it harder for outsiders to link payments.

That protection has limits. Later spending can sometimes reconnect the addresses. Privacy on Bitcoin depends heavily on how a person uses it.

How Investigators Identify Wallet Owners

Chainalysis defines wallet attribution as linking an address or wallet cluster to the real-world person or group that controls it. Investigators use several sources to do this.

This is why tracing uses both on-chain and off-chain evidence. The blockchain gives the path. Outside records give the names.

What is wallet clustering?

One person can control hundreds of addresses. Bitcoin wallets often create new ones automatically. Investigators therefore look for signs that many addresses share one owner.

One method is co-spending, where a single transaction spends coins from several addresses at once. The U.S. Department of Justice has described clusters as groups of addresses tied to one person or entity using methods such as this.

Clustering is still an inference. Chainalysis draws a clear line: clustering groups addresses believed to share control, while attribution links a cluster to a named entity.

Exchanges are a key checkpoint

People can move crypto between private wallets without showing a passport. But many users eventually need an exchange to buy coins with dollars or euros, sell for cash or send money to a bank.

Regulated exchanges connect the blockchain to traditional identities. Say stolen funds pass through 20 wallets before reaching an exchange. Investigators may not know who ran the middle wallets, but they can see the path and ask the exchange about the final account.

Chainalysis says these entry and exit points remain one of the most important places where blockchain activity meets real names.

Blockchain analytics software

Following thousands of transactions by hand would take far too long. Analysis platforms build transaction graphs that show money moving between wallets, exchanges, mixers, bridges, DeFi protocols, gambling services, darknet markets and sanctioned entities.

They also keep databases of known wallet clusters. This can turn a path of Address A, B and C into something more useful, such as unknown wallet, known mixer, regulated exchange. Law enforcement, banks, exchanges, regulators and security firms all use these tools.

Crypto Seizure Statistics From 2026

Court and agency cases show tracing at work. The figures below come from U.S. Department of Justice announcements and related filings in the source material.

In February 2026, U.S. authorities announced the seizure of more than $61 million of USDT. Investigators said they traced it to addresses linked to laundering money from crypto investment scams.

In another 2026 case, the FBI and Connecticut State Police followed funds across several wallets. About $600,000 of USDT was seized and forfeited.

In July 2026, prosecutors filed forfeiture actions for more than $25 million in cryptocurrency from several scam cases. The DOJ said investigators traced transactions through laundering networks that involved thousands of victims.

Moving stolen money through many wallets can slow an investigation. It does not erase the transaction history.

Why stablecoins can be easier to recover

Coins such as USDT and USDC run on public blockchains, so transfers are visible. They are also issued by identifiable companies. With the right legal process, an issuer may be able to freeze certain token addresses.

That helps explain why several recent recoveries involve USDT. The February 2026 seizure of more than $61 million involved Tether tokens.

Tracing is not the same as freezing

An investigator cannot simply freeze Bitcoin in someone’s self-custody wallet. Control depends on the private keys. Authorities can still act through other routes:

• Keys found on seized devices
• Control of custodial accounts
• Legal orders served on exchanges
• Work with stablecoin issuers
• Seizure of infrastructure

First, investigators find where the money went. Then they need a legal and technical way to take control of it.

The Financial Action Task Force’s 2025 asset-recovery guidance names public blockchain data as useful for tracing virtual assets quickly and supporting confiscation.

Mixers, Bridges and Cross-Chain Tracing

Mixers try to make money flows harder to follow. In a simple case, three users deposit Bitcoin and the service combines and redistributes it. The goal is to break the obvious link between deposits and withdrawals.

Some people use mixers for privacy. Others have used them to hide stolen or illegal money.

Mixing does not always make coins untraceable. A 2025 DOJ court filing described methods that investigators and analysis firms have built to trace some transactions through mixers. The process is sometimes called de-mixing.

The Helix case is an example. Helix was a darknet mixing service that processed more than $300 million in cryptocurrency between 2014 and 2017. In January 2026, the U.S. government obtained legal title to more than $400 million in assets tied to it.

Mixing adds work for investigators. It does not automatically erase the trail.

Following funds across blockchains

A person hiding funds might move Bitcoin to an exchange, then to Ethereum, then over a bridge to another chain, then into a stablecoin. This once forced investigators to rebuild activity across separate systems.

Cross-chain tracing is now more common. Chainalysis notes that bridge activity happens on-chain, so analysts can follow funds across many bridge transactions.

FATF’s 2025 guidance also says investigators increasingly use tools that link wallet activity across chains. Switching chains makes a trail longer. It does not make the trail vanish.

Privacy Coins and the Lightning Network

Not every crypto system works like Bitcoin’s main chain. Monero and the Lightning Network handle privacy in different ways.

Monero

Monero was built to hide what Bitcoin shows. Its documentation says its tools conceal the sender, the receiver and the amount. It uses ring signatures, stealth addresses and Ring Confidential Transactions, known as RingCT.

Stealth addresses create one-time destination addresses. Ring signatures make it much harder to tell the true source of a payment. RingCT hides amounts.

This gives Monero stronger on-chain privacy than Bitcoin. Even so, Monero warns that users can expose themselves through their own behavior, compromised devices, network data or details shared with the other side of a trade.

Lightning Network

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network moves many payments through channels off-chain. Individual Lightning payments are not written to the public blockchain the way normal Bitcoin transfers are.

The blockchain does record channel openings and closings. The payments in between happen inside the Lightning network. That makes tracing different, and often harder, than following ordinary on-chain payments.

So the claim that every Bitcoin payment is public needs a small fix. Every on-chain Bitcoin transaction is public. Activity on a second layer is not exposed in exactly the same way.

What Blockchain Tracing Cannot Prove

Blockchain analysis is strong, but it has limits. A ledger can show with high confidence that Wallet A sent 10 BTC to Wallet B. It does not show that a named person controlled Wallet A.

It also does not show why the payment was made. It could be a purchase, a transfer between a person’s own wallets, an exchange withdrawal, collateral, a gift or criminal proceeds.

Clustering can also be probabilistic. Chainalysis states that on-chain analysis alone cannot prove wallet ownership because identity does not live on the blockchain.

Crypto compared with cash and banks

Cash leaves no public record. If one person hands another 10,000 euros in notes, nothing records the sender, receiver, time or amount. Europol has noted that public blockchains can give investigators more transaction data than cash does.

Banks keep detailed records, but those records are private. Bitcoin records are public, but they start out pseudonymous.

Once a Bitcoin address is tied to a person, its public history can show more than a bank customer would expect strangers to see.

Can an ordinary person trace crypto?

To a degree, yes. With a transaction hash, Bitcoin address or Ethereum address, anyone can use a block explorer and follow transfers. Simple cases are easy.

Hard cases involve hundreds of addresses, mixers, bridges, several blockchains, DeFi protocols, exchanges or privacy tools. Professional software handles graph analysis and entity attribution that would be hard to repeat by hand.

If you are the victim of a crypto scam

Seeing where your money went does not mean you can get it back. You would need the private key or a legal route to the funds. Keep records and report fast, because assets can keep moving.

• Wallet addresses
• Transaction IDs
• Exchange records
• Screenshots
• Emails and messages
• Website details

Report the crime to the proper authorities and the exchanges involved. Be careful with crypto recovery companies.

In 2024, the FBI seized three recovery-service websites after warning that some such services target past fraud victims and ask for upfront fees.

The Bottom Line

Can cryptocurrency be traced? On most major public blockchains, yes. Bitcoin is not anonymous, and Ethereum is similarly open.

The ledger does not automatically record who owns a wallet. Investigators fill that gap with clustering, exchange records, seized devices and open-source research.

The results are real. In 2026, U.S. authorities announced about $61 million seized in one scam case, more than $25 million across others and more than $400 million in assets tied to the Helix mixer.

Privacy coins such as Monero make analysis harder. Even so, exchange records, IP data, compromised devices or user mistakes can still expose people.

The blockchain can often show where the money went. The harder job is proving who controlled the wallets. Because records are permanent, a wallet that is unknown today may be named later.

Sources

• Bitcoin.org: Protect Your Privacy
• Bitcoin.org: Some Things You Need to Know
• Bitcoin.org: How Bitcoin Works
• Ethereum.org: Transactions
• Ethereum.org: Privacy Applications on Ethereum
• Chainalysis: Wallet Attribution
• Chainalysis: Blockchain Analytics
• Financial Action Task Force: Asset Recovery Guidance and Best Practices, 2025
• Europol: Cryptocurrencies, Tracing the Evolution of Criminal Finances
• Monero Project: Privacy and Technical Documentation
• U.S. Department of Justice: $61 Million Cryptocurrency Seizure, February 2026
• U.S. Department of Justice: Cryptocurrency Scam Seizures, July 2026
• U.S. Department of Justice: Helix Mixer Forfeiture, January 2026
• FBI: Cryptocurrency Recovery Website Seizures

The post Can Cryptocurrency Be Traced? Key Statistics and Facts appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin has returned toward $80K after another recovery failed to gain traction. With short-term trendline support already lost and large spot orders remaining prominent, the price faces an important test of demand beneath recent lows.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Bitcoin continues to form lower highs following its rejection from the $85.5K–$90.5K supply zone. The latest rebound stalled around $81.5K–$82K before a bearish candle pushed the price back toward $80K and the ascending channel’s midpoint.

Repeated tests of this trendline have yet to produce a sustained recovery. A decisive daily close beneath it, followed by a loss of the recent lows around $79.2K–$79.5K, would favor a deeper correction toward the highlighted $75K–$78K demand zone. This region contains the base of September’s rally and remains the next major daily support.

Conversely, holding nearby support and reclaiming $81.5K–$82K would ease immediate pressure. Buyers would then need to overcome the $84K–$85K resistance area to interrupt the sequence of lower highs. Until then, rebounds remain vulnerable to renewed selling.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows Bitcoin trading below its broken ascending trendline. The latest recovery toward $81.6K–$81.8K failed beneath that line, reinforcing its role as overhead resistance and sending the price back toward $80K.

The highlighted $78.4K–$79.6K demand zone is now the immediate downside focus. Recent probes into its upper portion have attracted buying interest, but those reactions have not restored bullish structure. Sustained acceptance below $79.6K would expose the zone’s lower boundary around $78.4K. A breakdown beneath the entire area could extend the correction toward the next demand zone at approximately $75K–$76.3K.

For buyers, a recovery through $81.8K–$82K and the broken trendline would provide an initial structural improvement. Beyond that, the $84.2K–$84.9K supply zone remains a significant barrier, followed by broader resistance at $86K–$87.2K.

Sentiment Analysis

The Bitcoin Spot Average Order Size chart shows frequent big-whale readings during October’s retreat toward $80K–$82K. These green observations indicate larger average spot trades, highlighting continued large-order participation as Bitcoin struggles to sustain rebounds.

This activity could introduce additional selling pressure if large participants are distributing holdings or reducing exposure. Combined with lower highs and the loss of short-term trendline support, persistent whale selling would increase the risk of a deeper move into nearby demand.

However, average order size does not identify whether those trades are buyer- or seller-initiated, so the readings alone cannot confirm distribution. Earlier whale-sized activity also appeared around the June–August base before the subsequent rally. Continued price weakness alongside large orders would strengthen the selling-pressure interpretation, while a sustained reclaim of $82K would suggest that demand is absorbing supply more effectively.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: How Far Could BTC Crash if $80K Support Breaks? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Białystok, Poland, October 28th, 2026]

Bitcoin mining is becoming more competitive, and every terahash and every kilowatt-hour matters more than ever. The industry is actively looking for tools to get maximum performance and efficiency from mining equipment, and firmware is one of the most powerful of them.

With this in mind, BiXBiT has released BiXBiT Antminer Firmware, custom firmware for Antminer S21, S19, T21, T19, L9, and L7 series miners. It is designed to improve their performance, stability, and energy efficiency. Early deployments show up to 40% higher hashrate and up to 35% better energy efficiency, achieved through auto-tuned performance profiles, flexible power targets, and improved thermal management. The firmware also works together with BiXBiT AMS 3.0, a centralized platform for managing mining operations.

The release is part of BiXBiT’s broader mining ecosystem, which connects device-level optimization with site-level management.

Tuning tools

The firmware generates performance profiles based on the condition of each miner, and operators can switch between them without stopping the device. It also supports downvolting, per-board control, fan tuning, and configurable temperature limits.

Miners stay online when a hashboard fails

If a hashboard becomes unstable, the firmware disables it automatically and the miner continues running on the remaining boards instead of shutting down. In large fleets, this reduces downtime and lets technicians schedule repairs instead of reacting to every fault immediately.

Compatibility and safety

The firmware works on devices running Bitmain stock firmware released before August 2026. Stock versions released in August 2026 and later are not yet supported.

Extended Capabilities for Partners

The partner edition stays installed after reboot on CVitek control boards, which reduces reflashing across large fleets. Partners also get volume-based DevFee rates, White Label options, custom feature development, early access to updates, and joint marketing support.

Fleet management through AMS 3.0

Miners running the firmware connect to BiXBiT AMS 3.0, a centralized platform for monitoring and managing ASIC fleets. Operators track hashrate, temperature, power consumption, and profitability, run bulk actions, and receive real-time alerts in Telegram and Discord.

AMS also supports BiXBiT firmware for Whatsminer and manages mining containers, Smart PDUs, and cooling systems, linking device-level optimization with site-level control.

Availability

New users can access BiXBiT Antminer Firmware with a reduced DevFee for their first 30 days.

Learn more about supported models, firmware capabilities, and installation options on the firmware page.

About BiXBiT

Since 2016, BiXBiT has supported mining operations end to end — from technical audits and custom firmware to cooling infrastructure and data center design, raising hashrate, cutting energy costs, and improving operational efficiency for clients worldwide.

LinkedIn • X • Telegram

The post BiXBiT Launches Antminer Firmware with Up to 40% Hashrate Gains and Integrated Mining Management appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The largest altcoin by market capitalization has plunged roughly 15% over the past month and currently trades just above $2,300.

The recent downturn has sparked pessimism, with some analysts warning that the asset could slide further to the key psychological level of $2,000. At the same time, certain factors suggest a resurgence may be just around the corner.

The Bearish Perspective

The popular analyst Ali Martinez noted that as ETH approached $2,400 on October 28, on-chain transaction volume surged past $100 billion. At that moment, the price was rejected and retreated toward $2,300.

He said whale activity may have affected Ethereum’s performance and cited Santiment data showing that large investors reduced their exposure by roughly 160,000 ETH, worth nearly $350 million, in just five days.

“This distribution could be contributing to the downward pressure on the price,” he stated.

Martinez pointed to a second bearish factor: more coins stored on exchanges. He said the figure has risen by 100,000 units (worth around $240 million) and that it “puts more ETH within reach of sellers, potentially adding to downward pressure.”

Last but not least, the analyst claimed that Ethereum’s technical picture is weakening. He noted that the asset has lost the $2,385 support and appears to have broken out of a right-angled ascending broadening formation on the daily chart.

“If selling pressure persists, the pattern points to a move to $2,000,” he concluded.

X user Ted also presented a rather pessimistic view. He said ETH failed to reclaim the $2,400 level and, as long as it stays below, “there’s a decent chance” of falling below $2,200.

Some Bullish Factors

Unlike the aforementioned whales that offloaded ETH, one large investor has made a huge bet that the asset’s price will rise. X user Max Crypto revealed that the mysterious market participant opened a $45 million long position with 25x leverage after the market headed south.

What’s particularly interesting is that the whale has made 20 trades so far and has a whopping 100% win rate. Some commenters think this isn’t a random investor but someone with inside information about events or developments that could trigger a price rally for ETH.

The asset’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) also flashes signs that a move back into green territory may be coming. The ratio has fallen to just above 30, meaning ETH is near oversold territory and could be gearing up for a short-term rebound. The index runs from 0 to 100, where anything above 70 signals a potential incoming pullback.

The post 3 Reasons Why Ethereum (ETH) Could Drop to $2,000 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Singapore, Singapore, October 29th, 2026]

Crypto projects will be able to lock AVA to have their token accepted as payment on Travala.

Travala, the Binance-backed crypto travel booking platform, today announced AVA+ Partners, a new program that will provide crypto projects with a route to having their token accepted as a payment method on Travala by buying and locking AVA, the token at the heart of the Travala ecosystem.

The program, which is currently in development, will require partner projects to hold AVA for as long as their token is accepted on Travala while receiving partner rewards throughout the partnership.

AVA+ Partners involves three steps for crypto partner projects:

1. Buy AVA. Partner projects acquire AVA on the open market.
2. Buy NFT. Partner projects acquire a Travel Tiger NFT.
3. Activate & Lock. Partner projects activate a Smart Diamond membership and lock AVA in a dedicated AVA+ Partners smart contract for as long as the project’s token is accepted on Travala.

Projects can withdraw from AVA+ Partners at any time. Those that leave the program early contribute part of their locked AVA to the AVA Strategic Reserve, which Travala has committed never to sell or transfer from. All partner projects are subject to Travala’s approval.

“AVA+ Partners turns real-world utility on Travala into a long-term commitment to AVA,” said Steve Hipwell, AVA Foundation Lead Contributor. “It’s a use case that grows directly with the expansion of our partner and payment ecosystem.”

The initiative is the latest in a string of joint Travala and AVA ecosystem announcements. AVA locked in AVA+ Partners builds towards the recently announced long-term goal of achieving 30% of AVA’s circulating supply locked, with AVA locked by partner projects counted alongside AVA locked through the AVA Smart Program and AVA+ Rewards. Full terms, including withdrawal fees, will be set out in each partner agreement.

Projects interested in becoming partners can contact partnerships@travala.com.

Disclaimer

AVA+ Partners is offered to approved business partners only, under individual agreements, and may be modified or discontinued. This announcement is for information only; it is not an offer, solicitation or inducement to acquire, hold or lock AVA, and is not directed at persons in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates or any jurisdiction where distribution would be unlawful. References to Travala are to TravelFront and its group companies.

About Travala

Founded in 2017 and now backed by industry giant Binance, Travala is the leading crypto-native travel booking service, offering 2,200,000+ properties across 230 countries, 600+ airlines, 50,000+ car rental locations, and 400,000+ activities globally. Travala is a champion of cryptocurrency adoption, accepting over 100 leading cryptocurrencies alongside traditional payment methods. For more information, visit: www.travala.com.

About the AVA Foundation

The AVA Foundation oversees the AVA token ecosystem, including the AVA Smart Program, AVA token, and Travel Tiger NFTs. The AVA token functions as the key to accessing the AVA Smart Program, which provides travel perks and other benefits to Travala customers, such as AVA payment discounts and AVA loyalty rewards. AVA tokenises the concept of loyalty reward programs using blockchain technology, bringing web3 to traditional loyalty models. For more information, visit: www.avafoundation.org.

The post Travala Unveils AVA+ Partners, a New Route to Crypto Payments Powered by AVA appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has reaffirmed XRP’s position as the company’s top priority.

He made the remark at the Ripple Swell event in New York, where a run of announcements involving its RLUSD stablecoin seems to have put the world’s fifth-largest cryptocurrency on the back burner.

Garlinghouse Explains Ripple’s XRP Strategy

Speaking to CoinDesk at Swell, Garlinghouse acknowledged that Ripple’s recent RLUSD announcements had attracted attention that might have distracted from what the company internally calls its “North Star.”

“We only want to do things that are good for XRP,” he explained, adding that the company would not pursue activities that worked against the token’s interests.

In a separate interview with blockchain researcher BankXRP, the CEO described Ripple as a blockchain infrastructure company that started with payments but has since expanded into corporate treasury and prime brokerage services.

According to him, XRP is still foundational to those operations, although its suitability depends on the use case.

“We think XRP is extremely efficient in some use cases and, frankly, probably not in other use cases,” Garlinghouse noted. “And that’s okay.”

The executive also explained why Ripple might use fiat currencies or RLUSD for certain transactions instead of XRP.

“I’d rather see XRP do a small percentage of a customer’s transaction than zero percent,” he remarked. “So if that means I’m going to use other methods, whether it’s fiat or a stablecoin, RLUSD, that’s great, because that still means I’m getting some of that pie.”

He argued that people should pay attention to the overall transaction market rather than the portion captured by XRP. Asked where he sees the asset in the next five years, he said he sees it breaking out as “the institutional gold standard for crypto rails.”

“Everybody will have access to it,” he said. “It will be how they manage their money, how they get paid, how they invest, how they lend and borrow.”

Institutional Expansion

The interviews came as Ripple announced several institutional developments during Swell’s October 27 opening day, including entering a strategic partnership with Robinhood that covers stablecoins, treasury operations, institutional settlement, and financing.

BNY Mellon has also expanded its relationship with Ripple, supporting XRP and RLUSD on its institutional digital asset custody platform. Furthermore, Ripple’s National Trust Bank received its final regulatory approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to complete a process that started with conditional approval in 2025.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, XRP was trading near $1.30 per CoinGecko, down 2% in 24 hours and nearly 4% in seven days. It was also in the red across longer periods, including an almost 13% dip in the last month and a 50% plunge from where it was at around the same time last year.

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