This collaboration could enhance AI safety standards globally, fostering trust and transparency while potentially influencing international AI policies.

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Raffles Family Office's focus on Asia's stablecoin billionaires highlights the growing need for tailored financial services in the digital asset era.

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Robinhood's dual investments in AI coding startups highlight its strategic positioning in a rapidly evolving tech landscape, fostering innovation.

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South Korea's stablecoin regulation may boost cryptocurrency adoption and influence global digital asset policy and market dynamics.

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Capital Group's fluctuating stake in Metaplanet highlights the dynamic nature of institutional investment strategies amid evolving market conditions.

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Bitcoin Magazine

The Sleeper Has Awakened: Pepenardo’s Sleeping Knights Return

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockchain Association Presses Congress on Crypto Taxes as Clarity Act Stalls

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

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

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

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

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

Where the tax bills stand

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awkward timing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

Utexo Mint

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

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

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

Bringing USDT Back Home to Bitcoin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Polling firm Wedgewood admitted on Oct. 20 that it fabricated most of its election surveys, and VoteHub, one of the aggregators that carried its results, is also the data source for recurring Kalshi contracts. Kalshi's September 2025 regulatory filing names VoteHub as the source agency for those contracts and states that “revisions to the Underlying…

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Bitcoin briefly lost the $81,000 footing on Oct. 22, while the Nasdaq lost more than 2%, spot gold dropped about 2.7% to $4,025, and silver sank about 5.8% to near $54.63. The 10-year Treasury yield fell from 5.146% to below 5%, marking its biggest one-day drop in more than two years. Brent crude hit an…

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The resurfaced TOKEN2049 exchange captures his belief that the wallets will eventually reach billions despite the reported paper drawdown.

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

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

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An altcoin season is the period in which the majority of large cryptocurrencies beat Bitcoin over several months. That is not a mood and not a feeling but a ratio: an index counts how many of the largest coins have performed better than Bitcoin over a fixed window. If that ratio reaches 75 percent or more, the altcoin season counts as confirmed. On October 23, 2026 it sits clearly below that.

This piece explains how to recognise an altcoin season, which metrics are fit for the job and which only look like it. It names no coins and no buy signal, but the quantities you can work out yourself, and the places where the common indicators mislead.

Altcoin season: what the term makes measurable and what it does not

An altcoin is any cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin. The term comes from a time when Bitcoin was practically the only market; everything after it counted as an alternative. An altcoin season accordingly describes a phase of relative strength of those alternatives against Bitcoin.

The word relative is what matters. An altcoin season says nothing about whether prices are rising, only that altcoins are performing better than Bitcoin. In a falling market an altcoin season can therefore mean that altcoins are losing less heavily. That is exactly where most readings fail: anyone taking the term as a promise of price gains has misunderstood it.

What the term does capture well is the capital rotation inside the crypto market. Capital rotation means money moving from one part of the market into another without the market growing overall. That shift can be read off three quantities, and you can check all three at any time yourself.

Bitcoin dominance: why market share alone is no rotation signal

Bitcoin dominance is Bitcoin's share of the market capitalisation of all cryptocurrencies. Market capitalisation means price times circulating supply. On October 23, 2026 Bitcoin dominance stands at 59.44 percent, with a total market of around $2.76 trillion. Ethereum comes to 10.62 percent. How that share has moved over the months is shown by our Bitcoin dominance chart.

Falling dominance is often read as a starting signal. That is too simple, for an arithmetic reason: the share can also fall when nothing at all happens to Bitcoin. Stablecoins are counted in most dominance calculations. If new money shoots into the market in the form of dollar tokens, the denominator grows and Bitcoin dominance falls without a single altcoin having become stronger. The same happens with a large new issuance, or when a tokenised money market fund is taken into the statistics.

On October 23, 2026 the two largest dollar tokens alone make up 9.20 percent of the total market. You should mentally strip out that block before concluding from a move in dominance that rotation is under way.

What dominance is good for anyway

As a trend quantity, dominance remains useful. A share that sits in a narrow band for weeks and then leaves that band to the downside is a hint that the relationship is shifting. As a single value on one day it says almost nothing. So: read the direction over weeks, not today's number.

The Altcoin Season Index: 75 percent outperformance over 90 days

The Altcoin Season Index is the best-known metric on the subject. It comes from Blockchaincenter and has a clear definition: if 75 percent of the top 50 coins beat Bitcoin over the last 90 days, it is altcoin season. Stablecoins and collateralised tokens such as wrapped Bitcoin or staked Ether are excluded from the basket. The index is brought onto a scale of 1 to 100; up to 25 it speaks of Bitcoin season, between 26 and 74 of a neutral market, and from 75 of altcoin season.

On October 23, 2026 this index stands at 53, squarely in neutral territory. The site itself puts it briefly: it is not altcoin season. We keep the current value and its history on our Altcoin Season Index page.

Two properties of this construction are worth knowing. First, the window is rolling: every day the oldest day falls out and a new one comes in. An index that rises sharply within a few days may be doing so because a strong Bitcoin week 90 days ago is dropping out of the calculation. Second, the index is equally weighted: a coin with a billion dollars in market value counts for just as much as Ethereum. That is deliberate, because the index is meant to measure breadth, but it means a handful of small breakouts lifts the value while the big money sits still.

Two indices, two baskets: Blockchaincenter counts 50 coins, CoinMarketCap 100

There is not one Altcoin Season Index but several, and they calculate differently. The variant from CoinMarketCap takes the top 100 instead of the top 50, likewise without stablecoins and wrapped tokens, likewise rolling over 90 days, likewise with the thresholds of 75 and 25, and updates daily.

The larger basket shifts the result systematically. Places 51 to 100 are smaller, swing more widely and more often perform worse than Bitcoin in quiet phases. Two indices on the same term can therefore sit far apart on the same day without either of them calculating wrongly. When you read a figure for the Altcoin Season Index somewhere, it is worth checking which basket sits behind it.

The practical consequence: never compare two values from two different sources. Take one source and follow it over time.

Market breadth measured ourselves: 17 of 50 coins ahead of Bitcoin over 30 days

Market breadth is the share of assets carrying a move. This quantity is the most honest on the subject, because it is distorted neither by stablecoins nor by market weighting. We compiled it ourselves for this article.

The basket covers the 50 largest crypto assets other than Bitcoin by market value, without dollar tokens, without tokenised money market funds, without gold tokens and without wrapped or staked images of other coins. The smallest asset in the basket still carries around $1.1 billion. Each is compared against Bitcoin over the same period, as of October 23, 2026:

• 30 days: 17 of 50 beat Bitcoin, so 34 percent. Bitcoin itself is at minus 6.2 percent, the median asset in the basket at minus 10.1 percent.
• 24 hours: 31 of 50 beat Bitcoin, so 62 percent. Bitcoin sits at minus 0.9 percent.
• Twelve months: 17 of 48 beat Bitcoin, so 35 percent, against a Bitcoin loss of 24.8 percent.

The daily reading of 62 percent looks like rotation and is not. On a single day that ratio swings widely without anything changing in the relationship between the asset classes. Only over weeks does the number carry weight, and over 30 days as over twelve months it stands at roughly a third. That is the opposite of an altcoin season.

Why looking at the list matters more than the ratio

Behind the 17 assets that beat Bitcoin over 30 days stands no breadth but a handful of individual cases. The strongest four are at plus 152, plus 94, plus 24 and plus 19 percent; after that it thins out, and from tenth place the values are already below zero and beat Bitcoin only because Bitcoin itself is in the red. Fifteen assets in the basket lost between 19 and 35 percent over the same 30 days.

A genuine rotation looks different. Then it is not the top that pulls, but the median. Which tools take such analysis off your hands without a spreadsheet is shown in our comparison of analytics platforms.

The ETH/BTC ratio as an early indicator of capital rotation

The ETH/BTC ratio is the price of Ethereum expressed in Bitcoin instead of dollars. It counts as an early indicator because capital leaving the Bitcoin block has, in earlier phases, moved first into the second-largest market and only then further down the rankings.

On October 23, 2026 one Ether costs 0.02955 Bitcoin. Over 30 days the ratio has lost 7.1 percent, over 90 days it has gained 1.4 percent, and over twelve months it has lost 15.0 percent. It is 19.4 percent short of its highest level of the past twelve months.

The same can be calculated for other large assets, each in Bitcoin and over 30 days: Solana loses 5.8 percent, XRP loses 8.4 percent. Over 90 days the picture partly turns: Solana stands at plus 10.8 percent there, Ethereum just in the black, XRP at minus 4.5 percent. That very inconsistency is the finding. A rotation shows itself in the large alternatives gaining against Bitcoin together, not in one of three doing so over a quarter.

How to work out the ratio yourself

You need no tool for it. Divide the coin's dollar price by Bitcoin's dollar price and note the result once a week. If the number rises, the coin is gaining against Bitcoin; if it falls, the coin is losing, even when its dollar price has risen. That second case is the most common reason for the feeling of falling behind despite green numbers.

Altcoin market capitalisation without stablecoins: $866 billion

The third quantity is the market value of all altcoins, adjusted for dollar tokens. Subtract the Bitcoin share and the two largest stablecoins from the total market of around $2.76 trillion, and around $866 billion remain on October 23, 2026, or 31.4 percent of the market.

That number is the test on dominance. If Bitcoin dominance falls and the adjusted altcoin market value does not rise at the same time, then no money has rotated: only the denominator has grown. The two values together answer the question that neither answers on its own.

Over the past 24 hours the total market has lost 3.6 percent, Bitcoin 0.9 percent and Ethereum 1.2 percent. That Bitcoin loses less than the market it makes up 59 percent of means, by arithmetic necessity, that the rest loses more. The daily ratio of 62 percent from the section above therefore counts only how many assets do marginally better than Bitcoin, not how much capital is moving.

Liquidity and spread: what rotation costs with small coins

The spread is the difference between the best bid and the best ask. It is the price you pay immediately when you open a position, and it grows the thinner a market is.

That is the blind spot of every rotation calculation. An index treats place 48 like place 2; your trading venue does not. With an asset turning over a few million dollars a day, the spread eats part of what the index reports as outperformance, and on the way out you pay it a second time. With Bitcoin and Ethereum that item barely registers; further down the rankings it is part of the decision.

On top of that comes the question of whether the asset is tradable in Germany at all. Some of the coins sitting in the indices are not listed with the providers licensed here, and since the European crypto regulation MiCA the exchanges review their offerings regularly. A signal on an asset you cannot buy is no use for your decision.

The three most common false conclusions about the Altcoin Season Index

First false conclusion: the index is a forecast. It is a look back over 90 days. A value of 53 describes what was, and says nothing about what is coming. Anyone reading it as a lead indicator is reading a rear-view mirror as a windscreen.

Second false conclusion: a rising index means rising prices. It means relative strength. In a falling market the index rises when altcoins fall more slowly than Bitcoin. That is exactly the situation on a daily view on October 23, 2026: 62 percent of the large assets stood better than Bitcoin, and the total market lost 3.6 percent in the process.

Third false conclusion: the altcoin season applies to all altcoins. The index counts heads, not capital. Even at a value above 75, a quarter of the assets stay behind Bitcoin, and the index does not say which ones. In earlier phases the gains concentrated in individual sectors each time, and the order was different every time.

A fourth point sits slightly to the side but belongs here: the term assumes a recurring rhythm in the market. Whether that rhythm still holds is disputed among market observers, and the Altcoin Season Index does not answer the question. It measures a state, not a law.

Tax in Germany: every swap into an altcoin is a disposal

This part is regularly overlooked, and it costs money. Anyone swapping Bitcoin for an altcoin sells Bitcoin under German tax law and buys something else. The swap is a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act, even when not a single euro reaches your account.

Three things follow. The one-year holding period starts at zero for the newly acquired coin, and the period already built up on the coin given away is spent. If the holding sold is less than a year old, the gain is taxable as soon as the total of all private disposal gains in a year reaches the exemption limit of €1,000. And because it is an exemption limit and not an allowance, one euro above it makes the entire amount taxable, not only the part above the threshold.

In practice that means every swap needs a date, a quantity, a euro equivalent and the acquisition date of the holding given away. Anyone reshuffling several times in a rotation phase quickly has a three-digit number of transactions to document by the end of the year. Reconstructing that after the fact is barely possible.

Altcoin season: only above 75 on the index does the relationship really turn

The picture on October 23, 2026 is clear and unspectacular: index at 53, Bitcoin dominance at 59.44 percent, a third of the large assets ahead of Bitcoin over 30 days and over twelve months, the ETH/BTC ratio 19.4 percent below its twelve-month high. That is a neutral market with a narrow top, not a rotation. Three steps with which you notice the next shift before it reaches the headlines:

1. Settle tradability first. Before you calculate anything, check whether the asset is listed with a provider licensed in Germany and how large your order would be relative to daily turnover there. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges tracks the state of the licences.
2. Note three numbers weekly instead of thirty daily. Bitcoin dominance, the adjusted altcoin market value and the ETH/BTC ratio, in one line every Sunday. If all three shift in the same direction for four weeks running, that is solid. What the venues cost in fees and spread is shown in our exchange comparison.
3. Open the tax file before you rotate. For every swap, the date, quantity, euro equivalent and acquisition date of the holding given away belong in the record. The programs that pull this together from exchange data are in our comparison of crypto tax software.

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

The protocol update fixCleanup3_4_0 will not go live on the XRP Ledger on October 23, 2026. Validator support fell below the required threshold for around two hours on October 21, and the mandatory count started over. A query of the XRP Ledger mainnet that cryptoticker.io ran itself on October 22, 2026 shows the new earliest date: November 4, 2026, 14:46 UTC. For holders, nothing changes on the ledger until then, and the price has not reacted to the delay so far. XRP trades at $1.32, or €1.18, 2.46 percent below its level 24 hours earlier.

What exactly was delayed, why two hours cost twelve days, and which part of it concerns you at all is set out in this article. The main point first: the much-watched lending protocol of the XRP Ledger was never part of this date and stays switched off after November 4 as well.

Two hours below the threshold reset the 14-day count

An amendment is a protocol change to the XRP Ledger that the network's validators vote on. It is not deployed on a fixed date but only becomes active once it has met one condition for two full weeks: more than 80 percent of the trusted validators have to vote in favour, at every check in that period. If support falls to 80 percent or below at a single check, the count starts again.

That is exactly what happened on October 21. According to consistent reporting, approval briefly dropped that day to 26 of the 35 validators then counted, putting it below the line. At 14:46:22 UTC the required majority was restored. The fourteen days run again from that moment, which gives November 4, 2026 at 14:46:22 UTC as the earliest possible activation.

You do not have to take anyone's word for that timestamp; it sits in the ledger itself. The network keeps an entry for every running vote with the moment the majority was last established. Our query on October 22 returns October 21, 2026, 14:46:22 UTC for fixCleanup3_4_0. Fourteen days later is November 4.

The time originally given for October 23 was 09:34 UTC. That figure is obsolete and should no longer appear in any planning.

28 of 32 validators: where the XRP Ledger stands this Wednesday

How close was it? The current count from October 22, 2026 puts fixCleanup3_4_0 at approval from 28 of the 32 counted validators against a threshold of 25. The buffer is therefore three votes. That is more room than at the moment of the drop, but it is not a wide margin: if four validators go offline at the same time or change their vote, the count begins a second time.

That is not a theoretical risk. The XRP Ledger has already been through this process this year. In September a batch amendment slipped to a later date for the same reason, which we reported on September 18: XRP Ledger batch amendment pushed back to October 9, 2026 at the earliest. The pattern repeats because the rule is deliberately strict and is meant to keep a change with a narrow, wobbling majority out of a network that settles payments.

Amendments on the XRP Ledger: the 80 percent hurdle and the 14-day period

For readers who are new to this, the mechanism in brief. Validators are the servers that confirm the order and validity of transactions on the XRP Ledger. Each operator decides for itself which software version it runs and which protocol changes it approves. An amendment is a clearly delimited proposed change to the protocol that carries its own identifier and is voted on individually.

The hurdle of more than 80 percent over fourteen days serves a practical purpose: every operator should have enough time to move its servers to a version that knows about the change. An operator that does not support a protocol change may see its server lose its connection to the network after activation. The period is therefore not red tape but lead time for the operators.

From that comes a quirk that regularly causes confusion: an activation date on the XRP Ledger is always the earliest possible one, never a promised one. Any report that announces an amendment date like a product launch leaves out that condition.

fixCleanup3_4_0 in detail: token burn gap, vault rounding and AMM clawback

The name says it: this is a collective amendment of corrections, not a new feature. According to the XRP Ledger documentation and the reporting, it covers these points among others:

• Token burn: delegating the PaymentBurn permission could under certain circumstances lead to new tokens being created instead of destroyed. The official documentation explicitly advises against delegating this permission while fixCleanup3_4_0 is not active.
• Vault rounding: the calculation for single asset vaults is made more precise in its rounding.
• AMM clawback: the recovery of tokens from automated market makers is corrected.
• Further areas: trust lines, NFTs, multi-purpose tokens, escrow reserves, the handling of transaction signatures and the granting of permissions.

That list makes the purpose clear: the patch tidies up in many places at once before larger building blocks are set on top. In practice it affects developers and operators of applications on the ledger. Anyone who holds, trades or transfers XRP will notice nothing of these corrections, either before or after.

The lending protocol is stuck at 17 of 32 votes

Here lies the most common misunderstanding. The XRP Ledger's credit function has been awaited for months, and some reports tie it to every amendment date. Our measurement from October 22 shows where it actually stands.

The lending protocol reaches 17 of 32 votes. It needs 25. Eight validators are therefore missing, and the fourteen-day period has not even begun for this amendment. The related follow-up development sits at the same 17 votes, and the supplementary building block Single Asset Vault at 19.

That produces a sober timetable. Even if the lending protocol reached the necessary 25 votes tomorrow, another fourteen days without a single drop would lie between that day and activation. A launch of the credit function before mid-November is, on the current picture, arithmetically out of reach. On October 17 we stood at a different point with the question about October 23: fixCleanup3_4_0 was on track then, and the open question was whether the lending protocol would catch up. Both answers today are no.

Other open votes as of October 22: Confidential Transfer at 18 votes, Dynamic MPT at 14, Sponsor at 8 and XChain Bridge at 3. None of these amendments is close to activation.

Seven amendments are still open only at the block explorer

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 22, 2026. It rests on two public queries: a direct query of a node in the XRP Ledger mainnet and the amendment list of a widely used block explorer. We checked every amendment that at least one of the two sources lists as not yet active.

The result is worth the effort. The node reports 97 active amendments and exactly ten that are still open. The explorer list, by contrast, shows seventeen entries as open. The difference of seven concerns older proposals throughout, among them the granting of permissions, whose activation we reported at the start of October, as well as several NFT fixes. On the mainnet they have long been active.

For you that means something very practical: when two overviews show different figures, the node query governs. The protocol itself answers there, and everything else stays a representation of it. The same caution applies when a report names a vote count without the date and the number of counted validators alongside it: 28 votes mean something different with 32 validators than with 35.

XRP at $1.32: the price is not reacting to the delay

On October 22, 2026 XRP trades at $1.32 and €1.18. That is 2.46 percent less than 24 hours earlier, while over a week the price is 1.35 percent higher. The day's high was $1.40 and the day's low $1.32. Market value stands at $83.56 billion, which keeps XRP in fifth place among all crypto assets. It is 63.7 percent short of the all-time high of $3.65 from July 17, 2025.

The day's loss is not an amendment effect. The whole market gave way this Wednesday, Bitcoin by 2.04 percent and Ether by 2.59 percent. XRP is therefore moving in line with the market and reacting to the delay the way protocol dates usually work: not at all. That matches the finding from September, when the delay of the batch amendment also passed the price without a trace.

Two levels can be justified from today's trading. On the downside the day's low sits at $1.32, where the price currently rests. On the upside the day's high of $1.40 marks this day's range. A third number with more weight arrives on November 1: one billion XRP are then scheduled to leave escrow, a monthly recurring event that matters considerably more to the market than a patch.

What changes for XRP holders before November 4

The short answer: nothing. The longer one is still worth having, because the answer differs by type of custody.

XRP on an exchange: amendments do not affect you in principle. The exchange runs its own connection to the network and keeps software versions up to date itself. No action is needed from you, before or after November 4.

XRP in your own wallet: common wallets talk to the network through nodes operated by the providers. Here too the adjustment happens without your involvement. An amendment only becomes relevant for whoever runs a node of their own.

Your own node: then the date concerns you directly. Your software has to know the amendment, otherwise your server loses its connection to the network after activation. The current version is rippled 3.4.1, which the node we queried was running on October 22.

Developers on the ledger: for you the most concrete instruction is in the documentation. While fixCleanup3_4_0 is not active, you should not delegate the PaymentBurn permission. That advice now applies for twelve days longer than planned.

Trading and custody in Germany: MiCA exchanges, wallets and the destination tag

XRP is among the crypto assets that are widely tradable in Germany. Since the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, providers need a licence to offer crypto-asset services in the EU. For a buyer that is the first check: does the venue hold a MiCA licence, or is it working under a transitional arrangement? An overview of the venues that meet these requirements is in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

Transferring XRP comes with a peculiarity that applies regardless of any amendment and regularly costs money. Many exchanges hold their client balances on a shared address and tell the accounts apart by a destination tag, a number sent along with the transfer. If you send XRP to an exchange without that tag, the balance does land on the address, but not in your account. Recovery is laborious and does not always succeed.

A second peculiarity of the XRP Ledger is the minimum reserve. Every account has to hold a small balance of XRP permanently in order to exist at all. Anyone wanting to withdraw their holdings in full cannot take them down to zero.

Holding period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: one year decides the tax on the gain

For investors in Germany the tax is often a bigger lever than any protocol date. Gains from selling crypto assets count as a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If the holding period between purchase and sale is more than one year, the gain stays tax-free. Within one year it is taxable at your personal rate, provided the total of all private disposals in a year exceeds the exemption limit.

Documentation is the deciding factor here. Anyone buying and selling across several venues and wallets needs a complete record of the acquisition dates, otherwise the holding period cannot be proven to the tax office. Which tools keep that record automatically is shown in our overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers. This information does not replace tax advice in an individual case.

Leverage and liquidation: why a protocol date is not a trading signal

Around amendment dates, positions regularly appear that bet on a price move on the day. The data argues against it. Neither the activation in September nor the delay at the time left a recognisable trace in the XRP price, and today too XRP is moving in step with the broader market.

Anyone who works with leverage anyway should know the mechanism. Leverage multiplies gains and losses alike. If the price falls far enough that the collateral posted no longer covers the losses, the provider closes the position by force and the amount staked is gone. That happens faster in thin market phases, because even small volumes of selling move the price. With daily volume of $1.88 billion against a market value of $83.56 billion, turnover runs at 2.25 percent, a figure that does not point to particularly high trading activity.

In the EU, leverage on contracts for difference on crypto assets is capped by regulation for retail clients. That protects against the extreme cases, not against the total loss of the collateral.

Our reading: a delayed patch is no setback for XRP

The newsroom regards the delay as news about a working procedure, not about a problem. Three documented points support that. First, the shortfall was brief and was fixed within two hours; approval today, at 28 of 32 votes, sits above the level before the drop. Second, the amendment contains corrections only, none of which touches a promised feature for investors. Third, the price has not reacted, which argues against a broad expectation in the market.

We take a critical view of something else: the communication around amendment dates regularly mixes the patch up with the lending protocol, even though the two are voted on separately and the lending protocol, at 17 of the 25 votes needed, is a long way off. Anyone pinning their expectation of a credit function on the XRP Ledger to November 4 will be disappointed. That date does not concern it.

What remains open is why support broke down on October 21. We have not found a solid explanation for it, and we are not speculating here about individual operators.

XRP amendment: nothing changes on the ledger before November 4

The situation fits into one sentence: a collective patch arrives twelve days later, the credit function comes separately and for now not at all, and your holdings are affected in neither case. Three steps are worth taking all the same:

1. Check your venue. Look up whether your provider holds a MiCA licence and what fees apply to XRP. Our comparison of the best crypto exchanges gives you the overview.
2. Settle custody. Larger holdings do not belong on an exchange permanently. Which devices support XRP and what matters during setup is in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Record your purchase data. Note the acquisition date and price of every position so the one-year period stays provable. Tools for that are under crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.

You can look up the current state of all votes yourself at any time, in the XRP Ledger amendment documentation and in the amendment overview at XRPScan. What governs, as shown above, is the query at the node.

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

Here is what is documented: XRP's 100-day moving average sat 0.09 percent below the 200-day average on October 20 and 0.10 percent above it on October 21. On Friday morning the gap is 0.49 percent and the price stands at around $1.32. Our own reading follows further down: the crossover comes out of the calendar, not out of fresh demand, and reading it as a buy signal mistakes an arithmetic mechanism for a market. This piece shows both sides with numbers, names the levels that follow from them, and says what an investor in Germany can do with it today.

The 100-day average crossed the 200-day average on October 21

A moving average is the mean of the daily closing prices over a fixed number of days. The 100-day average therefore averages the last 100 closes, the 200-day average the last 200. Because every new day pushes the oldest one out of the window, a line like this moves even when nothing at all happens in the market.

We pulled XRP's daily closes for the past twelve months from CoinGecko, cleaned the series down to one value per calendar day, and calculated both averages ourselves. The result for October 23: the 100-day average stands at $1.286, the 200-day average at $1.280. The crossover falls on October 21. Before that the shorter line ran below the longer one throughout, with the widest gap in the series of 19.94 percent on May 11.

How to place the price over a horizon of months is set out in our XRP price prediction, which we keep updating with the current levels.

One limitation belongs here because it caps what we can say: our series goes back to October 24, 2025. The 200-day average can only be calculated from it from May 11, 2026 onwards. Whether the two lines had already crossed in this direction before that, our measurement does not say, so we do not claim it either.

The base effect lifts the 100-day average while the price loses 6.78 percent

This is where it gets interesting, because the two moves do not fit together. Since October 8 the 100-day average has risen 2.93 percent, from $1.2494 to $1.286. The price itself fell 6.78 percent over the same stretch, from $1.4208 to $1.3245. One line rises, the price falls, and both figures are correct.

The explanation sits in the window. Today's 100-day window runs from July 16 to October 23. Over the past 15 days, days have dropped out of that window whose closes averaged $1.1017, the first half of July. What came in were 15 days averaging $1.3460. Between old and new there are 24.4 cents per day. That swap lifts the mean without a single extra buyer.

In technical language this is called the base effect: a metric changes because the comparison period moves, not because the thing itself has changed. Even now, 29 of the 100 days in the window sit below $1.10, leftovers from the summer. Those days will drop out one by one over the coming weeks. As long as that continues, the 100-day average keeps rising even if XRP marks time.

The reason for the jump lies in August. From August 19 to 22, XRP climbed from $1.0011 to $1.4543, a gain of 45.3 percent in three trading days. Precisely those days now sit in the middle of the 100-day window and pull the mean up, while in the 200-day window they are diluted by much weaker months.

6.05 billion XRP flowed onto exchanges in 30 days

Alongside the crossover runs a move that points the other way. According to data from the analytics firm CryptoQuant, which Cointelegraph analysed on October 20, around 6.05 billion XRP flowed onto the observed trading venues in the 30 days to October 19. That is the highest reading since March. Binance alone accounted for roughly 2.46 billion tokens, or 40.7 percent.

What does that mean? Tokens that move onto an exchange sit there ready to sell. Nothing is necessarily sold as a result, and CryptoQuant itself names simply higher trading activity and reshuffling between wallets as possible reasons. But the supply that can hit the market at any moment is growing. For price formation it is exactly that supply that counts, not the balance in cold wallets.

Where things stand since October 21: whales out, exchanges full

On Tuesday we measured the other side of this: the outflows of large addresses from Binance stood at $49.7 million on a 90-day average, the lowest level in five years. Little has changed in the picture since then, and the combination is the genuinely notable part: large holders are taking less off the exchange than at any time in five years, while others are pushing more onto it than at any time since March.

The price has barely moved over those two days. XRP stood at $1.33 on October 21 and at around $1.32 on Friday morning, with a daily range between $1.30 and $1.33. Two strong opposing forces that cancel each other out produce exactly this picture: plenty of movement below the surface, little in the price.

The narrow support band sits at $1.286 and $1.280

Two levels follow from the crossover, and they lie close together, which makes them usable for the coming weeks. The 100-day average stands at $1.286, the 200-day average at $1.280. Between them there are 0.6 cents, or 0.49 percent. From the current price it is 2.99 percent down to the upper edge of that band.

A band like this matters because many automated trading systems align their orders with exactly these two lines. If the price holds above it, the picture of recent weeks stays intact. If it falls below and closes there, the crossover is effectively void again at once, because the new low then pulls the 100-day average down faster than the more sluggish 200-day average.

The last daily close below the 100-day average was on August 20 at $1.1051. XRP has been above it without interruption since then. That run is the real piece of information, not the crossover itself.

The 50-day average at $1.41 is the next resistance

On the upside, the shortest of the three lines stands in the way. The 50-day average sits at $1.4127, which is 6.24 percent above the current price. That line has been falling since the start of October because the strong September days are running out of its window one by one. If the price and the 50-day average keep converging, they meet arithmetically somewhere around $1.36 to $1.38.

For the range, some context: the series high is $2.6455 from October 27, 2025, the series low $0.9927 from August 17, 2026. XRP sits almost exactly in the middle of those two extremes today, and that explains why the long averages are meeting right now.

How to work out the gap to the 100-day average yourself

The calculation needs no tool and no subscription. Take the daily closes of the last 100 days, work out the mean, and divide the current price by that mean. A value above 1 means the price sits above the line. For October 23 that gives 1.3245 divided by 1.286, or 1.0299, a gap of 2.99 percent.

Two things matter here. First, take daily closes in one currency and from one source, otherwise you are mixing time zones and quotations. Second, check whether your series has gaps. Many free data sources deliver two values on some days and none at all on others, and the window shifts straight away. We cleaned our series down to exactly one value per calendar day before the calculation, otherwise the crossover would have slipped by a day.

Ripple backs the SEC rules, XRP's status stays open

Alongside the chart picture, the regulatory thread runs on. Ripple filed a 20-page comment on the draft rule Regulation Crypto Assets with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on October 20, the end of the comment period, Crypto Briefing reports. The core of the argument: an investment contract over a token does not automatically make the token itself a security. Ripple's chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty puts the cost of the legal clarification so far at more than $150 million.

For the price that changes nothing for now, and that is exactly the point where many reports go too far. The SEC has not adopted the rules; it is evaluating the submissions. A company's comment letter is not an administrative act. Deriving a change of status for XRP from it reads more into the document than is there.

For investors in Germany the US rule is not the governing framework anyway. MiCA applies here, and the practical consequence is a different one: the venue you buy through needs a licence in the EU. Which providers hold that licence and what they charge is in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

Holding period, custody and tax: what counts in Germany

Three points count concretely now. The first concerns the holding period. Investors who keep XRP in their own holdings for more than a year can so far take the gain tax-free in Germany. If tokens are shifted back and forth these days, the clock starts again for the quantity sold. Where the reform currently stands is summarised in our overview of the holding period.

The second point is custody, and it hangs directly on the 6.05 billion tokens on exchanges. What sits on a trading venue does not belong to you legally in the same way as a balance in your own wallet. If you do not intend to trade, there is nothing to gain on the exchange and a counterparty risk to carry. Which devices are suitable and what they cost is shown by our hardware wallet comparison.

The third point is documentation. Every transfer between exchange and wallet creates an entry that the tax office will later want to follow. If you reshuffled in October, it is better to pull the records together now than in the spring.

Our reading of the crossover

From the newsroom's point of view, the crossover of October 21 is a calendar effect and not a demand signal. Our own numbers support that: the 100-day average rose 2.93 percent since October 8 while the price gave up 6.78 percent, and the swap inside the window, with a difference of 24.4 cents per day, explains the entire move. Against it stands the fact that crossovers like this are traded by automated systems and can therefore have an effect of their own, short-lived though it may be. Add to that the band at $1.286 and $1.280, which does exist as a support line, however it came about.

What would tip that reading can be named: a daily close above $1.41, meaning above the 50-day average, or a clear drop in exchange inflows below the level of mid-August. Both are measurable, and both are outstanding for now. On October 28 the US Federal Reserve also decides on the policy rate, and experience says that date moves the whole market more than any moving average.

XRP at $1.32: the crossover alone brings no demand

1. Write down the two levels of $1.286 and $1.280 and check at the end of the month whether XRP has stayed above them. If the price falls below and closes there, the crossover is done. If you are looking for an EU-licensed exchange for that, you will find one in our exchange comparison.
2. Go through your holdings and separate what you want to trade from what is meant to sit still. The part that sits still belongs in your own custody, and the hardware wallet comparison names the devices along with their prices.
3. Pull your October transactions together now, while the records are at hand. The tools for that are in our comparison of tax software.

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

BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF IBIT took in a net $665.16 million on Monday, October 19, 2026. That is the fund's largest daily inflow since October 7, 2025. The Bitcoin price has not followed the money: on Tuesday morning one Bitcoin costs $81,421, or €72,598, and sits 1.61 percent lower than 24 hours earlier. That gap between demand inside the fund and a falling price is the real story.

$665.16 million in a day: the numbers behind the IBIT inflow

The figure comes from the data service SoSoValue, which compiles the daily flows of the US spot ETFs. It puts the iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, at a net $665.16 million on October 19. Net means shares issued minus shares redeemed. IBIT's assets now stand at $66.37 billion. No Bitcoin fund anywhere is larger.

A spot ETF is an exchange-traded fund that actually holds Bitcoin instead of tracking it through futures contracts. That is why the daily flows of these funds have been the most visible gauge of institutional demand since their approval in the US in January 2024: every dollar that goes in ends up, after a short delay, in real Bitcoin.

Eleven of twelve US Bitcoin ETFs lost money on the same day

The inflow was not a market trend but an isolated case. Across all twelve US spot Bitcoin ETFs, October 19 closed with a net gain of $526.6 million, well below IBIT's $665.16 million on its own. The difference comes from the other funds: Fidelity's FBTC lost $83.63 million and Grayscale's GBTC $54.93 million. According to SoSoValue data, IBIT was the only one of the twelve funds to gather any money at all that day.

That changes the reading entirely. Capital is pooling with a single provider while it drains away from the others. Reading a broad return of institutional buyers into the $526.6 million total puts more into the figure than the individual numbers support. What is visible here is a reshuffle inside the ETF market, not necessarily fresh money from outside.

The price is not following the money: Bitcoin stays below $82,000

While the $665 million flowed into the fund, Bitcoin moved in a narrow band between $82,000 and $83,000. It has since slipped below that. At $81,421 on Tuesday morning, the market has absorbed demand from the world's largest Bitcoin fund in full without breaking higher.

That is notable because it reverses the familiar arithmetic. Through the strong phases of the past two years the rule held: large ETF inflows, rising price. An inflow of this size with no price reaction means at least as much was sold on the other side. Public data does not show who sold. Only the result is visible: supply and demand balanced out around $82,000.

Why an ETF inflow moves the Bitcoin price at all

The path from fund share to price runs through the authorised participants, large trading houses allowed to create new ETF shares. When an investor buys an IBIT share, demand for that share appears. If it exceeds supply, an authorised participant issues new shares and deposits Bitcoin against them, which it has to source in the market. That turns an order on the Nasdaq into a real purchase on a crypto exchange.

The same mechanism explains why the effect on the price is not guaranteed. The fund buys, but it buys against every other participant: long-term holders taking profits, miners selling their production, and traders closing positions. Measured against Bitcoin's daily spot trading volume, $665 million is a noticeable sum but not an overwhelming one. If the rest of the market sells in the same direction, nothing of the inflow is left on the chart.

Two weeks of outflows: $681 million and $229 million before the turn

Monday broke with the two weeks before it. In the week of October 5 to 9, investors pulled roughly $681 million out of the US spot Bitcoin ETFs, and another $229 million in the week of October 12 to 16. Together that is a good $910 million over ten trading days. Against that backdrop, a single day with $526.6 million of inflows is no turning point but at best its first building block: about 40 percent of two weeks of outflows came back in one day.

Investors who track the flows therefore watch weekly totals rather than single days. Demand can only be called turned once a second consecutive week closes above zero. We have set out how the mechanics of inflows and outflows work in detail, and what they mean for the price, in our overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

Two analysts, two readings of the inflow

Dominick John, an analyst at Zeus Research, reads Monday as a sign of strength. In his words, the BlackRock inflows signalled robust institutional demand despite macroeconomic headwinds and Bitcoin's volatile price action. He also names the other side: the persistent resistance suggests the ETF buying is being absorbed by selling pressure.

Min Jung, a researcher at Presto Research, considers the trigger an open question. She points out that investors may be positioning for a possible catch-up trade in Bitcoin, and describes the market as largely moving sideways as long as crypto-native catalysts are missing. Both readings fit the same numbers, and that is exactly where things stand: the direction of the coming weeks is not decided on this one day.

Ether ETFs run the other way: $103.3 million of outflows

On the same Monday the US spot Ether ETFs lost a net $103.3 million. It was their fourth negative day in a row. Ether trades at $2,381.55 on Tuesday morning, 2.21 percent lower than 24 hours earlier, which leaves it weaker than Bitcoin in percentage terms.

That spread is the second thing to work with alongside the Bitcoin inflow. Money leaving Ether funds while it enters the largest Bitcoin fund points to a reshuffle within the asset class rather than to new capital. For placing Monday in context, that is the less comfortable but better documented explanation.

The Fed rate decision on October 28 sets the next beat

The next big date comes from the US central bank. The Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meets on October 27 and 28, 2026, with the decision on the policy rate falling on the second day. Rate worries currently count as the reason Bitcoin is stuck in its narrow band: rising rates, or rates that stay high for longer, make risk-free assets more attractive and pull capital out of risk assets.

For the European market the European Central Bank follows a day later. Both dates fall in the same week, and both work on the price through the same channel. Six trading days lie between today and October 28, enough for the ETF flows to show whether Monday was an outlier. If you plan to step in during this phase, it is worth knowing which venues are licensed under MiCA, the European crypto regulation: our overview of crypto exchanges sorts fees, licensing and deposit routes.

IBIT is not approved in Germany: the route runs through ETNs

The US figures are market information for German investors, not a way to buy. IBIT and the eleven other US spot ETFs are set up under US law and do not meet the European fund rules. A German broker therefore cannot offer them to retail clients in the ordinary way, and a record inflow changes nothing about that.

What Germany does have are exchange-traded notes on Bitcoin, ETNs or ETPs for short. They track the price and trade on German exchanges, but legally they are not segregated fund assets: they are bearer debt securities issued by a provider. If the issuer fails, repayment depends on the collateral behind the note. Many providers therefore hold the Bitcoin physically with a custodian; how that is arranged in each case is in the product documents, not in the price chart.

Holding period and tax: what works differently with a crypto ETN

Two worlds part company at this point for tax. Someone who holds Bitcoin directly and sells after more than a year makes a tax-free private disposal gain under current German law. An ETN has no such one-year holding period: gains from debt securities generally fall under the 25 percent withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, regardless of the holding period.

Over the years that difference can matter more than any fee. In exchange, with an ETN the custodian bank handles the tax payment, while directly held Bitcoin has to be declared in the tax return. Losses from crypto ETNs, in turn, run into the loss pot of the securities account; we have described the December 15 deadline for the loss certificate separately.

Our editorial reading: one day is not a turn

From the newsroom's point of view, Monday carries less than the headline promises. Three documented points support that: the inflow does not spread out but concentrates in a single one of twelve funds, while eleven funds lost money. At $526.6 million it covers only about 40 percent of the $910 million of outflows from the two preceding weeks. And it did not lift the price above the $82,000 to $83,000 band; it was absorbed by selling pressure, as Dominick John also describes.

Against that, $665 million in a day does not come from retail investors, and a fund with $66.37 billion in assets shapes the market. If the inflows persist, the weekly total will turn at some point. That turn is not documented today. Bitcoin remains an investment carrying the risk of total loss, and a single day of fund flows does not change that.

ETF inflows: only a second week above zero shows the turn

Three steps put the situation in order for your own portfolio:

1. Follow the weekly total rather than the daily figure. What matters is whether the week to October 23 closes above zero on a net basis, and the week after it as well. If you need a venue with a European licence for that, the terms are in our overview of crypto exchanges.
2. Place your own route in tax terms. Directly held Bitcoin and ETNs are taxed differently. A portfolio tracker shows which holding periods and gains sit in your holdings; the common tools are in our overview of crypto tax software.
3. Settle custody before the next date arrives. The run-up to the rate decision on October 28 is the right moment to put your own custody in order. Which devices qualify is in our hardware wallet overview.

The sources for this article: the daily flows at SoSoValue and the analysis including the analyst quotes at The Block.

(As of October 20, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How a forced liquidation starts and feeds on itself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leverage and liquidation distance: the maths behind a forced close

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buying under MiCA: which crypto exchanges are licensed in Germany

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Bitwater element swaps a tank's resistance wire for 20 mining chips, and Heatbit says it uses the same electricity to heat the water.

The crypto market has been quiet as of late. Market analysts think that might actually be a good sign and that a bull market might be near.

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

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

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

XPR Ledger is finally showing signs of life as we witness almost a 120% increase in payments volume in the last 24 hours.

The next Cardano hard fork carries Leios alongside nested transactions, account enhancements, guard scripts, Plutus V4, and freely withdrawable staking rewards.

BlackRock and the IMF head to New York as Ripple unleashes AI-driven payments and fresh RLUSD liquidity to fuel an historic XRP utility breakout.

Near Protocol witnessed a substantial pullback from local highs, however the pullback has somewhat stabilized recently.

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

TLDR

• A Circle shareholder filed a federal lawsuit against President Trump, World Liberty Financial and Steve Witkoff.
• The suit claims foreign money moving through the USD1 stablecoin left Circle’s USDC unable to compete.
• It centers on a $2 billion MGX investment in Binance that was paid using USD1.
• The plaintiff asks the court to rule that Trump violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.
• The White House called the lawsuit “frivolous,” and Circle said it had no role in the filing.

A shareholder of Circle Internet Financial has filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, his family’s crypto company World Liberty Financial, and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.

The case was filed Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. It also names several affiliate entities connected to World Liberty.

What the Lawsuit Claims

The plaintiff, J. Benjamin Greenberg, says he holds 10,000 ordinary shares of Circle. The company issues USDC, one of the largest stablecoins on the market.

Greenberg alleges that Trump, Witkoff and World Liberty created a path for foreign governments to move money through USD1, the Trump family company’s stablecoin. He claims this “brazen corruption” left Circle “unable to compete” in the stablecoin market.

At the center of the case is MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates royal family. In 2025, MGX invested $2 billion into crypto exchange Binance using the USD1 stablecoin.

The Wall Street Journal reported in February that another investment vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty for $500 million.

“By accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from a foreign government, the President and his companies have diverted business from [Circle],” Greenberg alleged in the filing.

Greenberg asks the court to declare that Trump violated the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. He also wants injunctions that would stop Trump and Witkoff from pursuing similar financial interests without the consent of Congress.

The lawsuit seeks an accounting of payments from foreign states to the president and his businesses. It also asks the court to force the companies to give up those payments and to award compensatory and punitive damages.

Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, is a co-founder of World Liberty. Trump and his three sons are also co-founders of the crypto venture.

Crypto Deals Become a Campaign Issue

Trump reported that his family’s crypto ventures earned him $1.4 billion in 2025. The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen reported that the same ventures cost investors about $4.7 billion.

The crypto business is one of several deals drawing scrutiny of the president. Others include his acceptance of a jet from the government of Qatar.

The 2026 midterm elections are less than two weeks away, and early voting has already started in some states. Democrats seeking reelection are using Trump’s crypto deals to appeal to voters.

Last week, Senator Mark Warner released a campaign ad saying the president made “more than $600 million alone from the crypto memecoin.”

A Circle spokesperson said the company “did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing.” The company declined to comment further on the pending case.

A spokesperson for World Liberty did not respond to a request for comment.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump has “no conflicts of interest” with his crypto investments. She called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

The post Circle Shareholder Sues Trump, World Liberty and Witkoff Over USD1 Stablecoin Deals appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• FINMA approved Switzerland’s first spot Bitcoin ETF for retail investors on Tuesday.
• BIT Asset Management said Thursday that its Bitcoin Fund ETF is expected to start trading on SIX Swiss Exchange in November.
• The fund holds Bitcoin directly and is approved for public offering in Switzerland only.
• It is set up as a Swiss collective investment scheme, with investor assets kept separate from the fund manager.
• FINMA said other providers have also applied, and warned that Bitcoin remains highly volatile.

Switzerland’s first spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund for retail investors is expected to begin trading next month. The fund is the first in the country approved to invest only in Bitcoin.

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, known as FINMA, announced the approval on Tuesday. The regulator did not name the issuer at that time.

On Thursday, BIT Asset Management said it was the company behind the product. It said its Bitcoin Fund ETF is expected to begin trading on SIX Swiss Exchange in November.

How the Fund Is Structured

The Bitcoin Fund ETF holds Bitcoin directly. This means the fund owns the actual cryptocurrency instead of tracking its price through other products.

The fund is approved for public offering in Switzerland only. It is not being offered to the public in other countries.

BIT Asset Management said its fund is different from most Bitcoin products sold in Europe. “Most bitcoin products listed in Europe today are exchange-traded products (ETPs), which are debt instruments that carry issuer risk,” the company said.

Issuer risk means investors depend on the financial health of the company that created the product. If that company runs into trouble, investors could be affected.

The new fund is instead a Swiss collective investment scheme. Under this setup, the fund’s assets are held separately from those of the fund management company.

The company said these assets are “ring-fenced” for investors. In other words, they are kept apart and set aside for the people who own shares in the fund.

Regulator Points to Bitcoin’s Trading History

The fund falls under a Swiss category called “other funds for alternative investments” with particular risk. This category covers funds that carry higher levels of risk.

FINMA has allowed funds that invest mainly in a basket of cryptocurrencies since 2021. However, this is the first time it has approved a fund that invests only in Bitcoin.

The regulator said it made the decision based on Bitcoin’s trading history. It also cited Bitcoin’s higher trading volume compared with other cryptocurrencies.

FINMA also issued a warning to investors. It stressed that Bitcoin remains highly volatile, even when people access it through an approved ETF.

The regulator said other fund providers have also submitted applications for Bitcoin ETFs. Those applications have not yet been approved.

For now, BIT Asset Management’s fund is the only spot Bitcoin ETF approved for retail investors in Switzerland. The company expects trading on SIX Swiss Exchange to begin in November.

The post Switzerland Spot Bitcoin ETF Issuer Named as BIT Asset Management appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• A whale bought more than 80,000 LINK worth $1.02 million through CoWSwap.
• Chainlink’s Whale vs Retail Delta climbed to 0.594 on October 22, up from near 0.10.
• Spot and futures Taker CVD readings on CryptoQuant remain seller-dominant.
• LINK pulled back from $14.218 resistance and is holding the $12 support.
• A break above $14.218 could open a path toward the $18 zone.

Chainlink (LINK) drew fresh interest from large investors this week. A whale bought more than 80,000 LINK worth about $1.02 million, according to on-chain data shared on X.

The post showed the wallet made the purchase through CoWSwap. It also showed the wallet’s total crypto portfolio was close to $3 million, including stablecoin holdings.

The buy came during a period of wider market uncertainty. It has raised questions about whether large holders expect stronger LINK performance in the fourth quarter.

Whales Return as Sellers Hold Ground

The single purchase was not the only sign of whale activity. Chainlink’s Whale vs Retail Delta indicator climbed to 0.594 on October 22, according to CoinGlass.

That reading followed an earlier drop toward the 0.10 level. The rise shows whales are now more active relative to retail traders.

The metric has stayed mostly positive through much of 2026. Its latest increase brought whale participation closer to levels seen during past accumulation phases.

However, trading data from CryptoQuant shows sellers remain in control. The Spot Taker CVD is still seller-dominant, meaning market sell orders outweigh aggressive buying.

The Futures Taker CVD shows the same pattern. Traders using leverage have not yet built steady buying demand.

This leaves a gap between whale buying and the wider market. So far, large purchases have not reversed the selling pressure.

Chainlink’s recovery may depend on whether other market players follow the whales. For now, that shift has not appeared in the data.

LINK Holds $12 Support After Rejection

LINK’s weekly recovery from the $8 support area stalled at $14.218. The rejection pulled price back toward $12, where buyers stepped in.

Holding that level kept LINK above its recent recovery base. The $12 area is now the key support on the weekly chart.

On the weekly TradingView chart, the MACD is still leaning bullish. The MACD line sits at 0.800 above the signal line at 0.433, but the histogram has cooled to 0.367, so momentum is fading, not flipping. RSI is at 54.79, just under its 55.43 average but still above neutral.

Simple setup here: $12 is the floor, $14.218 is the ceiling. What to watch next is a clean weekly close above $14.218, which would put the $18 zone back on the table, where sellers stepped in before.

As of October 22, LINK continued to hold above $12. The Whale vs Retail Delta stood at 0.594, while both spot and futures CVD readings still favored sellers.

The post Chainlink (LINK) Price: Whale Buys 80,000 LINK Worth $1.02 Million appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Chainlink has partnered with LG CNS, the IT and AI services arm of South Korea’s LG Group.
• The deal focuses on expanding the use and distribution of Korean won stablecoins.
• LG CNS will add Chainlink’s cross-chain, data, and orchestration tools to its digital asset platform.
• South Korea’s crypto market is valued at $68 billion, with more than 11 million eligible stablecoin users.
• No financial terms, customers, or launch timeline were shared.

Chainlink has formed a strategic partnership with LG CNS, the IT service and AI transformation arm of South Korean conglomerate LG Group. The deal was announced on October 22.

The two companies said they will work to expand the use and distribution of Korean won stablecoins. They also plan to build infrastructure for South Korea’s $68 billion crypto market.

According to the announcement, the Korean stablecoin market has more than 11 million eligible users. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a steady value, often tied to a national currency.

What the Partnership Includes

LG CNS will integrate Chainlink’s cross-chain, data, and orchestration infrastructure into its Digital Asset Platform Solution. This platform is aimed at Korean financial institutions looking for regulated blockchain tools.

Chainlink is a decentralized oracle network. It connects smart contracts on blockchains with real-world data and outside systems.

Its technology lets separate blockchain networks communicate and coordinates transactions across platforms. The companies plan to use these tools to help move tokenized money between systems that would otherwise not work together.

The two firms will also cooperate on technical standards. They said they will combine their expertise to help advance the country’s digital asset framework.

“Korea’s financial infrastructure is entering the tokenization era,” said Hongkeun Kim, executive vice president and head of LG CNS’s Digital Business Division. He said the partnership aims to grow Korea’s tokenized securities market and create a foundation for global expansion.

LG CNS and South Korea’s Stablecoin Rules

LG CNS is the lead contractor for Project Hangang, the Bank of Korea’s digital currency initiative. The company handles development, operations, and infrastructure for the program.

The first phase of Project Hangang involved about 80,000 customers across seven Korean banks. This gave LG CNS hands-on experience with digital payment systems.

LG Group holds about 186 trillion won ($140.5 billion) in assets across 63 affiliates. Its subsidiaries have a combined market value of more than $100 billion.

South Korea does not yet have a clear legal basis for issuing and trading stablecoins tied to the won. Lawmakers and the government are working on the Digital Asset Basic Act, which would set rules for won stablecoins and other digital assets.

South Korea is Asia’s second-largest crypto market. The Korean won ranks behind only the U.S. dollar in global crypto trading volume.

Chainlink already works with major financial firms, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, and UBS. These ties give it an established presence among large financial organizations.

However, the announcement did not include financial terms, named customers, or a date for commercial launch. It also did not confirm that Chainlink’s technology will be used directly in Project Hangang.

The post Chainlink Partners With LG CNS to Expand Korean Won Stablecoins appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Bitcoin fell 72% in 2010, 65% in 2014, 52% in 2018, and 27% in 2022 around US midterm elections. 
• Three of the last four midterm years closed the fourth quarter negative; only 2010 gained 391%. 
• Ali Charts marks $73,000, near the short-term holder cost basis, as the key downside level. 
• The analyst says elections may not cause the declines, as market cycles and liquidity also mattered. 

Bitcoin midterm elections have preceded steep price drops in each of the last four US cycles, according to market analyst Ali Charts. The next vote takes place on November 3, less than two weeks away. Past data shows Bitcoin declines between 27% and 72% around these events, based on figures shared on X. The analyst also pointed to a key support level that traders may track if selling pressure builds after the election results.

Bitcoin Midterm Elections Show Four Straight Declines

Prominent analyst Ali Charts shared the data in a post on X. The post framed the Bitcoin midterm elections trend as a historical pattern that investors may be overlooking.

The analyst listed the drops seen around each midterm election since 2010. Bitcoin fell 72% in 2010 and 65% in 2014. The decline reached 52% in 2018.

The most recent case came in 2022, when Bitcoin dropped 27%. As a result, all four cycles ended in a decline. The analyst noted that correlation does not equal causation.

Market cycles, liquidity, and investor sentiment also shaped those moves. Even so, Ali Charts said the consistency of the pattern deserves attention.

Fourth-quarter returns in midterm years show a similar trend. Bitcoin gained 391% in the final quarter of 2010. However, it lost 16.70% in 2014 and 42.16% in 2018. The asset then fell 14.75% in 2022. These numbers add a second data point to the price drops cited earlier.

Three of the last four midterm election years closed the fourth quarter in negative territory. The only exception was 2010, when Bitcoin was still in its early stage.

Ali Charts asked whether the fourth quarter of 2026 could follow the same path. The analyst presented this as a reason to monitor risk before the vote.

$73,000 Emerges as Key Support Level

Ali Charts identified $73,000 as the level to watch if selling pressure rises after November 3. That price roughly matches the short-term holder cost basis.

The metric tracks the average purchase price of coins held by recent buyers. Ali Charts described it as an important indicator of market sentiment.

This metric reflects how recent investors position themselves in the market. During established bull markets, Bitcoin has frequently found support near it after sharp corrections. Therefore, a pullback toward $73,000 could test whether buyers still defend the broader uptrend.

A sustained recovery from that zone would strengthen the bullish case, according to the analyst. Ali Charts also expects the November 3 vote to coincide with a volatile period for Bitcoin. Still, the analyst said elections may not cause the declines.

If Bitcoin falls toward $73,000, the analyst will watch for seller exhaustion turning into renewed demand. Only then would a long position come under consideration.

The analyst added that downside risk deserves close attention during the Bitcoin midterm elections period.

The post Could Q4 Turn Painful for Bitcoin? Midterm Elections History Points to Downside Risk appeared first on Blockonomi.

On-chain data from earlier today indicated that another ETH holder from the project’s initial days has taken profits after nearly a decade of holding, turning a relatively modest investment of $56,000 into more than $7 million.

The transaction follows several recent moves by some of the oldest wallets in the crypto industry, including ETH addresses dormant for approximately a decade.

Lookonchain noted on Friday that an Ethereum OG sold 3,000 tokens worth over $7.2 million. The unknown investor acquired the funds nine years ago ar under $19 apiece, meaning the position generated a return of nearly 130x.

An #EthereumOG who bought 3,000 $ETH($7.23M now) at only $18.83 nine years ago sold today, making a 128x return!

https://t.co/tUMi07RLsy https://t.co/jG32qwjdQk

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 23, 2026

Earlier this month, another early ETH holder deposited 6,369 ETH worth about $16 million to Kraken after accumulating the stash at $14 each. An Ethereum ICO participant, on the other hand, moved 13,330 ETH (worth well over $36 million) to Coinbase during October as well. The wallet originally obtained 170,000 during the 2015 ICO at $0.31 per token.

These transfers come in a rather interesting time for the underlying asset. Ethereum’s token soared from under $2,000 to $2,800 in a few months before its ascent was stopped. It slipped to $2,300 during the most recent market-wide pullback, before recovering to $2,400 as of press time.

More on the OGs moving out: Back in August, another ICO investor transferred all 2,000 tokens, worth $3.77 million at the time, to Coinbase, roughly 11 years after buying the tokens for just $622. This translated into an increase of more than 6,000x.

The post Why Are OG Crypto Whales Cashing Out? Early ETH Holders Move Millions appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The lackluster price movements over the past few weeks have failed to deter certain large market participants, often referred to as whales, from accumulating substantial portions of BTC.

Recent on-chain data from Lookonchain indicated that 40 newly created addresses have withdrawn over $770 million worth of the primary cryptocurrency since October 1 alone. These withdrawals were completed through Wintermute.

Whales are accumulating $BTC!

Since Oct 1, 40 newly created wallets have withdrawn 9,458 $BTC ($771.5M) from #Wintermute.

https://t.co/AR7qxcyoiU https://t.co/TfzSTKz7UF

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 23, 2026

The latest report builds on previous ones, such as CryptoQuant’s mid-month research. It stated that whales have resumed accumulation after months of selling, and the shift came amid the underlying asset’s major price recovery from under $62,000 in early August to $87,000 in September.

The data at the time said that these large wallets held just over three million BTC, which was the highest combined balance since November 21, 2025. Another report from earlier this week claimed that these large market participants had purchased almost 89,000 BTC in just one month.

Bitcoin’s price movements, though, have been quite unimpressive in the past few weeks. Despite expectations for Uptober, the asset was rejected at $87,000 on a couple of occasions and eventually dipped below $80,000.

Its rebound took it to $85,000 earlier this week, where the quickly deteriorating macro landscape served as another hurdle on its path forward. In the following 36 hours, the cryptocurrency crashed by over $3,000 and now sits below $82,000.

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Fireblocks has denied reports that Visa is in late-stage talks to acquire the crypto custody firm for about $2.5 billion.

“We are aware of the rumors about a possible acquisition of Fireblocks by Visa. This is news to us, and not true at present time. We don’t comment on rumors or speculation,” Fireblocks told The Block.

Axios Pro published that report earlier in the day, citing “multiple sources.”

Fireblocks Moves Into Card Payments

Fireblocks sells the software that banks, exchanges and fintechs use to hold and move digital assets. It handles more than $300 billion in stablecoin volume a month on average.

The platform raised $550 million in a Series E round at an $8 billion valuation in January 2022. It said at the time that its customer count had grown from 150 to more than 800 during 2021. Its website now lists 2,500 enterprise customers, including Revolut and ABN AMRO.

In October 2025, Fireblocks acquired Dynamic, a wallet developer platform that powers more than 50 million onchain accounts. In June this year, Fireblocks launched Flow, a product that lets payment providers and fintechs accept stablecoins.

Euronet, a payments firm, began working with Fireblocks in October 2025 on settlement and pre-funding for its cross-border business. On Monday, Euronet said banks and fintechs can now issue stablecoin-funded cards on its Ren and CoreCard platforms. Fireblocks embedded wallets hold the stablecoin balances those cards spend from. Each cardholder gets a wallet at sign-up. Fiat deposits convert to stablecoins before they are credited.

Mastercard Bought Visa-Backed BVNK

Visa’s venture arm, Visa Ventures, invested in UK-based payments company BVNK in May 2025. Coinbase then ended talks to buy BVNK in a $2 billion deal in November 2025. In January, the company picked BVNK to supply stablecoin infrastructure for its Visa Direct payout pilots.

Two months later, Mastercard agreed to acquire BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments. Mastercard completed the purchase on August 3.

In September, Visa said its stablecoin settlement volume had passed a $20 billion annualized run rate. That run rate is up more than 15 times from a year earlier. The company also counts more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs on its network.

Visa invested in stablecoin firm BVNK in 2025 and tapped it for Visa Direct payouts in January, before Mastercard bought it for up to $1.8 billion.

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

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

Developers Pull Hoodi Date to Probe EIP-8037 Interactions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sepolia Went First, After Devnet Trouble in September

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

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

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

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

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

XAO DAO Vote Approves XRP Deployment to Firelight

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

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

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

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

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

Governance Changes Aim to Broaden Community Participation

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

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

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

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

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