Yuga Labs' Mudwater launch on Solana could boost NFT market dynamics, enhance BAYC/MAYC value, and drive ApeCoin demand through trading activity.

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The lack of transparency around these models could hinder developer adoption and create uncertainty in the AI market, affecting innovation.

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DeepSeek V4.1 Flash's cost-effective AI model could pressure competitors to lower prices or enhance capabilities, reshaping the AI market landscape.

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Saylor's Bitcoin pitch could redefine financial strategies, influencing market confidence and shareholder decisions on dividend structures.

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Increased regulatory scrutiny on AI models could reshape market dynamics, posing operational risks and impacting competitive positioning.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves

Call it poetic justice: one of the biggest victims of last week’s Ledger theft happened to be a scammer themself, according to blockchain analysts, and lost nearly $5 million in bitcoin. 

In a post Thursday, Chainalysis wrote that a crook lost 60 bitcoins worth about $4.8 million they’d stolen via a so-called task scam. 

According to Chainalysis, the address was linked with a con where people were paid to fake sales and reviews of real items. They were told to add their own money in order to get paid — and then stolen from. 

But the mastermind behind the task scam moved the stolen money to Ledger addresses which were then targeted by different scammers last week.

“On Sep 22, the person behind the scam moved the proceeds into three separate Ledger addresses,” Chainalysis said. “On Oct 9, thieves emptied all three. One transfer each, into the same wallet. The wallet is reported as stolen funds.”

Paris-based Ledger last week said it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported they’d lost funds after buying from Malaysia-based reseller, CryptoBilis. 

Ledger has since said that the scam was a massive organized crime operation where a group installed implants into devices and put them back on the market. The implants could read users’ seed phrases so criminals could then drain wallets. 

Calling it one the most “sophisticated attacks” the digital asset industry has experienced, Ledger is yet to reveal how much money has been lost — but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained. 

And the task scam conman, according to Chainalysis, was one of the victims.

Ledger has said that it is working with law enforcement to “follow the funds and dismantle the attackers’ infrastructure” and has made sure no other vendors have been targeted by scammers. 

CryptoBilis has stopped selling Ledger products, the company said. 

Criminals have targeted bitcoin hardware sellers this year, with a huge attack taking place in July on the popular Coldcard products. 

Crooks were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users because the devices had a firmware bug which led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to guess investor seedphrases. 

This post Poetic Justice: Scammer Lost $5M in Bitcoin After Being Targeted by Ledger Thieves first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

BFFS26 Denver: Joseph Kelly on Bitcoin Custody and Credit; Alan Lane on Banking Lessons

The Bitcoin for Financial Services Summit (BFFS26) returns to Denver October 20–22, 2026, bringing together CPAs, wealth advisors, attorneys, lenders, and finance leaders who are building Bitcoin into their practices. Now in its second year, the summit has grown to more than 30 sessions across two full program days, with a speaker lineup drawn from the firms defining Bitcoin custody, credit, and advisory.

Headlining the program are Joseph Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Unchained, who opens the summit with a keynote on custody, credit, and trust at scale; Alan Lane, former CEO of Silvergate Bank, on lessons for Bitcoin and banking; Patrick Lowry, CEO of Samara Asset Group, on holding Bitcoin as a public-company treasury reserve; and Colin Crossman, Wyoming’s Deputy Secretary of State, on the regulatory outlook for banks, exchanges, and advisors. Additional speakers include Kate Goldman of Anchorage Digital, Sam Baker of River, Eric Yakes of Epoch Ventures, Daniel Hillery of UTXO Management, Moish Peltz of Falcon Rappaport & Berkman, and CJ Konstantinos of Peoples Reserve.

Sessions focus on practical application: bringing Bitcoin into wealth planning and family offices, Bitcoin-backed lending and mortgages, treasury accounting and valuation, retirement and income planning, charitable giving strategies, mining as an asset class, and fiduciary duty when clients hold Bitcoin. Dedicated workshops will offer continuing education credit for financial advisors and CPAs.

“Last year proved that financial professionals want more than a Bitcoin primer. They want to know how to serve clients who already own it,” said Jordan Guess, CPA, co-host of the summit in a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “This year’s program is built around the questions advisors and accountants are actually getting from clients, answered by the people building the infrastructure.”

The summit opens Tuesday, October 20, with the Better Money Invitational golf tournament at City Park Golf Course, hosted with Bitcoin Sports Network, followed by a welcome party at The Space sponsored by Falcon Rappaport & Berkman. Evening programming includes wine and whiskey tastings, and Thursday begins with an optional sunrise hike in the Rocky Mountains.

BFFS26 is co-hosted by Jordan Guess and Wyatt O’Rourke of BFFS Media, producers of the Bitcoin for Financial Services podcast. Sponsors include Unchained, Anchorage Digital, UTXO Management, River, SOUND HSA, SustainHash, and Stormrake.

Registration is open now at https://www.bffs.media/summit.

Media contact: Wyatt O’Rourke, wyatt@bffs.media

This post BFFS26 Denver: Joseph Kelly on Bitcoin Custody and Credit; Alan Lane on Banking Lessons first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

Sazmining Now Sells Jack Dorsey’s Proto Immersion Hashboards 

Bitcoin mining just got a lower barrier to entry. 

Sazmining announced Thursday that it is now selling Proto’s immersion hashboards directly to individual and institutional buyers through its mining-as-a-service platform. Previously, the hardware was mostly in the hands of large-scale operators.

Each hashboard delivers roughly 200 TH at around 15 J/TH, and buyers own them outright while Sazmining handles deployment, monitoring and maintenance at a US facility. Mining rewards go straight to the owner’s wallet.

The move follows a multi-megawatt supply deal between Sazmining and Proto — the bitcoin mining arm of Jack Dorsey’s Block (NYSE: XYZ) — which both companies expect to expand as demand grows.

“Because of our aligned-incentive model, Sazmining only earns when we produce bitcoin for our clients,” said Kent Halliburton, CEO and co-founder of Sazmining. 

He also pitched mining as a form of bitcoin acquisition diversification: rather than paying the market price on the day of purchase, a miner’s costs are spread across the machine’s working life.

Wyoming-based Sazmining, founded in 2018, operates renewable-powered facilities across the US, Paraguay, and Norway. It says its fleet runs more than 20 percentage points ahead of the Bitcoin network’s carbon-free share.

Proto is Jack Dorsey’s Block’s bitcoin mining play. The Twitter founder has spent years arguing bitcoin is the foundation of “a more open financial system,” funding everything from Cash App’s buy-and-send rails to the Bitkey self-custody wallet, and he framed mining as the obvious missing piece back in 2021: “Bitcoin mining should be as easy as plugging a rig into a power source.” 

Block formally announced it was building an open bitcoin mining system in January 2022, with the stated aim of making mining “more distributed and efficient.”

This post Sazmining Now Sells Jack Dorsey’s Proto Immersion Hashboards  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Hot Inflation Data Puts Bitcoin Under Pressure, but ‘Difficult’ Isn’t ‘Bearish’: CoinShares

Bitcoin’s price has dropped this week as new inflation data has come in hot. 

But while the largest cryptocurrency’s near-term setup is difficult, it’s not “fundamentally bearish,” according to European asset manager CoinShares’ Head of Research, James Butterfill. 

In a report Friday, the analyst said that bitcoin’s near-term challenge stems from a macro environment that’s caught in an awkward middle ground: inflation is too elevated for the Fed to ease up, while the economy is too resilient to force a policy pivot. 

“Bitcoin and the broader digital asset market have moved lower on the resulting hawkish repricing, a reminder of how sensitive Bitcoin remains to monetary policy over short horizons,” he wrote. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at $81,473, down 2% over a seven-day period. 

The price of the leading cryptocurrency dropped Wednesday after data showed that U.S. consumer prices shot up more than expected in September. 

Then, on Thursday, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said that U.S. producer prices rose in September at the fastest pace in more than four years. 

This has weighed on bitcoin’s price because higher inflation means the Federal Reserve may hike interest rates. Higher borrowing costs can restrict the liquidity the digital coin needs to rally. 

The Federal Reserve hiked rates in September and will meet at the end of this month. 

But Butterfill added that investors should be patient and advised investors to instead think in the long-term and not react to any single weekly data point. 

“For investors, that argues for reading the coming weeks as a data-driven range rather than a trend, and for sizing digital asset exposure against a strategic allocation rather than against this week’s print,” he wrote. 

Bitcoin spent the first half of 2026 in a bear market but had its best quarter in years after surging in August and September. Analysts have now said the leading cryptocurrency is now back in a bull market after trading above its 365-day moving average. 

This post Hot Inflation Data Puts Bitcoin Under Pressure, but ‘Difficult’ Isn’t ‘Bearish’: CoinShares first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Deutsche Bank To Debut Bitcoin Custody Within Weeks: Report

German multinational Deutsche Bank is just weeks away from its crypto custody service, according to reports. 

The lender — which is Germany’s biggest — also plans to ​expand the custody platform into Asia next year​, according to a Friday Reuters report, which quoted its corporate banking chief. 

Top banks worldwide are debuting or planning to debut crypto custody services, with BNY Mellon, State Street, Standard Chartered, U.S. Bank, and Citigroup all committing to direct crypto custody over the past 18 months.

Deutsche Bank first officially announced plans to debut a bitcoin custody service for European corporate and institutional clients in September, with the German multinational at the time saying service was subject to the completion of the applicable regulatory timeline.

Friday’s report added that the service will support custody of ​major ⁠cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin before moving to services that help clients move money into and out of ⁠stablecoins.

Gerald Podobnik, co-head of the corporate ⁠bank, was quoted by Reuters saying that the financial system will need to “offer tokenized or blockchain solutions.” 

A number of top banks have started using the technology that powers bitcoin, the blockchain, for their own products in recent years. 

Stablecoins and tokenization in particular have become a hot topic as traditional financial firms aim to accelerate certain services. 

Crypto custody is often a starting point for banks moving into the digital asset space. BNY Mellon in 2022 became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services.  

Banks like Citi and Standard Chartered have this year debuted or announced plans for bitcoin custody around the world. 

This post Deutsche Bank To Debut Bitcoin Custody Within Weeks: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

TRX supply grew on all 108 days from July 1 through October 16 as burns fell short of newly issued rewards.

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In early October, customers in Southeast Asia discovered that their crypto had disappeared from Ledger hardware wallets that still seemed to be working normally. They bought the devices through CryptoBilis, an authorized reseller, and believed their private keys were protected inside a device built for that purpose. What they couldn't see was a second piece…

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Hoodi’s Glamsterdam test schedules a 200 million gas target, while the mainnet activation date remains undecided.

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Someone paying for lunch with a stablecoin card doesn't need the restaurant to know what USDC is. The card works like any other at the terminal, with the customer's digital dollar balance funding the purchase while the merchant receives regular dollars through its usual payment provider. That leaves several companies to collect fees for connecting…

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Mining stops at 07:00 UTC, while final payments depend on eligibility and historical pages close two weeks later.

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Bitcoin Cash has produced 131 blocks over the past 24 hours. The target is 144. The network is running about ten percent slower than intended, and as a holder you notice it in one place only: every deposit and withdrawal that waits for confirmations takes longer than usual.

The price does not explain it. Bitcoin Cash stands at $275.66 and has lost 0.76 percent over seven days, which is practically nothing. The cause lies in the computing power behind the network, and that has fallen this week. This piece sets out what has been measured, why it rights itself and which three places you can look at while it lasts.

Bitcoin Cash at $275.66: the week in numbers

Bitcoin Cash costs $275.66, as of Sunday, 3 a.m. Over seven days that is a loss of 0.76 percent, over 24 hours a loss of 0.55 percent. It is a quiet week, and it stands out because the month before it was anything but quiet: over 30 days Bitcoin Cash is up 17.1 percent.

The week ranged from $256.19 to $288.40. Between high and low there are 12.6 percent, on a weekly result of less than one percent. The coin has not run quietly, then; it has arrived where it started.

On market value Bitcoin Cash sits at $5.54 billion, which places it outside the 25 largest cryptocurrencies. Figures for the weekly change differ slightly by data provider, with the range between a loss of 0.76 and 1.03 percent; nothing is smoothed here.

131 blocks instead of 144: our count on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain

A block is the package in which transfers are bundled and finally written down. Bitcoin Cash aims at one block every ten minutes, so 144 over a full day. That number is not a preference of the developers but the target against which the network continuously readjusts its difficulty.

We counted 131 blocks in 24 hours. That is 91 percent of the target. The average block time therefore stands at 11.0 minutes instead of ten. A cross-check over the most recent 120 blocks arrives at 22.8 hours, which works out at 11.4 minutes per block. Both values sit above the target, and between them lies the range in which block time is currently moving: eleven to just under twelve minutes.

The basis is the public block data of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. We checked the 131 blocks of the past 24 hours and the 120 blocks of the cross-check, plus the most recent block at height 973,335. This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io itself on October 18, 2026.

For a sense of scale: the block reward stands at 3.125 BCH per block, which converts to roughly $861. Thirteen blocks fewer in a day therefore mean a good $11,000 in total that was not paid out to miners that day.

2.99 exahash: the computing power behind the slower block time

The hash rate is the computing power that all miners together direct at the network. For Bitcoin Cash that figure currently stands at 2.99 exahash per second, so just under three quintillion attempts every second. When it falls, it takes longer for anyone to find a valid block, because the task stays equally hard for a while.

That is exactly what has happened here. The hash rate of Bitcoin Cash swung sharply this week, as the running curves at CoinWarz show. Such jumps are far more frequent at Bitcoin Cash than at Bitcoin, and there is a sober reason for it: both networks can be run with the same hardware.

Miners point their machines where they earn more per kilowatt hour spent. If that ratio shifts in favour of Bitcoin, computing power migrates away, and Bitcoin Cash is left with less of it for a few hours. Because the network carries only about one percent of Bitcoin's computing power, even small migrations show up clearly there.

Difficulty adjustment: how Bitcoin Cash retunes the ten-minute target

The difficulty adjustment is the rule by which a blockchain matches the hardness of its computing task to the computing power available. Bitcoin recalculates that difficulty every 2,016 blocks, so roughly every two weeks. Bitcoin Cash readjusts it after every single block.

That difference is the heart of the matter. Because Bitcoin Cash readjusts continuously, a block time that has grown too long corrects itself within hours: the difficulty falls and blocks come in faster again. The current difficulty stands at 458.5 billion. If computing power flows back, it rises just as quickly.

For investors that means eleven minutes per block is not a defect and not a sign of a damaged network, but the normal swing of a system that regulates itself. The figure holds only as long as the computing power is missing. To follow block times over several days, the series are available at BitInfoCharts.

Confirmations on deposits and withdrawals: eleven minutes per block shifts every transfer

A confirmation is a block that was found after your transfer. Every exchange sets out how many of them it wants to see before it releases your balance. At Bitcoin Cash, between one and six confirmations are usual, and some houses demand more.

Work it through and the difference becomes tangible. At ten minutes per block you wait one hour for six confirmations. At eleven minutes that becomes 66 minutes, at 11.4 minutes just under 69. A single deposit loses little by it. It becomes noticeable when a deadline sits behind it, such as a withdrawal before the end of a delisting window, or a transfer an exchange is meant to complete before a maintenance window.

What matters is the difference between two things that are easily confused: your transfer is not travelling more slowly, it reaches the network as fast as ever. Only the rhythm in which it is written down has been stretched.

How to check the confirmations on your BCH deposit

The first look goes to the transaction overview of your exchange or your wallet. The transaction ID sits there, a long string of characters, and next to it usually the number of confirmations so far. If it shows a zero, your transfer is in the network but not yet in a block.

The second look goes to the terms of the exchange. Every house publishes how many confirmations it requires for Bitcoin Cash; the number is in the help pages on deposits and differs considerably in places. Only that number together with the current block time tells you how long you are actually waiting.

Many overlook the third point: the fee you have set currently plays almost no role at Bitcoin Cash. The blocks are far from full, so your transfer makes it into the next block even with a low fee. A higher fee buys you no time here, because what is missing is not space but rhythm.

90.6 transactions per block: the blocks are far from their limit

Bitcoin Cash processed 11,872 transfers in 24 hours. Spread over 131 blocks that is 90.6 per block. The block size of Bitcoin Cash stands at 32 megabytes and therefore holds roughly tens of thousands of transfers. The most recent block was just under seven kilobytes.

Which brings the point that counts for you: the slowdown is a question of computing power, not of capacity. An overflowing network would show itself differently, namely in rising fees and a growing pile of unconfirmed transfers. Neither is visible here; the waiting pile last held 160 transfers.

Set against the lifetime of the network: 20,104,446 BCH are in circulation out of a maximum of 21 million. A good 95.7 percent is therefore allocated, and the rest arrives through the block reward over the coming decades. Every block that comes later stretches that plan a little.

Buying through a MiCA exchange: where BCH can be traded in Europe

Bitcoin Cash is among the coins that the European crypto regulation MiCA covers without special rules. There is no anonymity feature in the protocol that forces a trading venue in Europe to withdraw, as is the case with privacy coins. Anyone wanting to buy BCH in Germany will therefore find the coin at almost every licensed provider.

What counts in a provider is the licence itself. A platform serving customers in Germany has needed permission from an EU state since MiCA came fully into force; BaFin lists the German institutions in its register. Which houses hold that permission and what they charge for trading is set out in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

In trading itself, the depth of the order book counts alongside the fee. Bitcoin Cash turns over around $72 million a day, a fraction of Bitcoin's volume. On larger orders it is worth looking at the gap between buying and selling price, because in thin trading that gap quickly costs more than the order fee.

Holding period and custody: the difference between an exchange account and your own wallet

For tax purposes Bitcoin Cash counts in Germany as another asset. If you sell at a profit within a year of buying, that profit is taxable; after holding for more than a year it stays tax free. For short-term gains there is an exemption limit of €1,000 a year. If it is exceeded, the whole gain is taxable, not only the part above it.

The longer block time does not touch that period. What matters are the times of purchase and sale, not the moment a transfer was confirmed. Anyone moving holdings between accounts towards the end of the year should allow for the extra minutes and keep the transaction IDs, so that the allocation remains traceable later.

On custody you decide between two routes. If the coins sit in the exchange account, the provider holds the keys, and you depend on its withdrawal schedules, particularly in weeks like this one. If they sit in your own wallet, you hold the keys yourself and carry the responsibility for securing them.

Levels at $256.19 and $288.40: the range of the past week

To the upside the first level to watch is the weekly high of $288.40, behind it the round $300 mark that Bitcoin Cash did not reach this week. To the downside the weekly low sits at $256.19, below it the round $250 level.

Both are observation points from the range of the past seven days, not price targets and not a recommendation. How far the price sits from the start of the month can be read off the thirty-day gain of 17.1 percent: the coin comes out of a strong upward move and has this week neither continued nor given it up.

CME futures from October 19: next week's date

On October 19 the derivatives exchange CME Group starts its futures on Bitcoin Cash. It is the only dated event that acts directly on the coin in the coming week, and it falls on the day after this weekly review. What the launch brings in concrete terms, which contract sizes apply and which levels are in view, we set out in our piece on the CME launch.

A regulated futures market changes nothing about block time. It concerns the side on which prices form, not the technology beneath. For holders the date is of interest nonetheless, because futures open access to Bitcoin Cash for institutional addresses without custody of their own.

Bitcoin Cash blocks: at 131 a day every confirmation takes longer

The situation is manageable: the network is currently finding 131 blocks a day instead of 144, computing power stands at 2.99 exahash, and the readjustment of difficulty after every block pulls that shortfall back in without anyone's help. Three steps follow from it.

1. Look over open transfers. On every deposit or withdrawal in flight, look at the number of confirmations and your provider's requirement, and allow eleven to twelve minutes per confirmation where a deadline applies. Whether your provider is licensed in Europe at all you can see in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Settle custody. Decide whether the holdings stay in the exchange account or move into a wallet of your own. The devices and their differences are in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Document the holding period. Record the purchase date and the transaction ID while the data is at hand. Tools that keep that record running are in the comparison of tax software and portfolio trackers.

(As of October 18, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Anyone planning to buy a Trezor hardware wallet before Christmas is buying it on different terms than a week ago. The Czech manufacturer announced on October 13, 2026 that it is sharply cutting its network of authorized dealers. Affected partners receive no further stock from the date of the letter and may sell their remaining inventory only until January 1, 2027. After that they are no longer authorized dealers. The trigger does not lie with Trezor itself but with rival Ledger: there, devices reached the market through one reseller with a foreign radio component built in.

For buyers, that shifts the most important question. What matters is no longer which model supports the most assets, but which route the device travelled into your hand. This article sets out what exactly Trezor announced, what happened at Ledger, which deadlines apply and what marks an authorized supply route.

What Trezor announced on October 13

Trezor published the decision through its channel on the platform X; chief commercial officer Danny Sanders had shared the letter to partners shortly before. According to the report by trade outlet The Crypto Times, the decisive sentence to the dealers being dropped reads: “your authorization ends on 1 January 2027”.

The letter sets out three points. First, Trezor supplies the affected partners with no new stock from now on. Second, those partners may continue to sell existing inventory until the authorization expires at the turn of the year. Third, the remaining partners will work under a revised contractual framework in which Trezor looks more closely at where devices come from, how they are stored and how they are handled.

One point matters for context: Trezor states explicitly that there is no indication of tampering with its own devices. The announcement says there is “not a single piece of evidence that Trezor devices have been compromised”. The cut is a precaution, not a response to a loss of its own. The company also said it would review the decision should the situation change.

Supply chain attack: how the implant at Ledger worked

The trigger is an incident at French manufacturer Ledger. On the company’s account, reported by industry outlet CoinDesk on October 13, devices sold through the Southeast Asian reseller CryptoBilis carried an additional radio component. That component read the 24 words of the recovery phrase off the device display and sent them out over a mobile network, technically through a built-in eSIM.

Ledger describes the case as a physical intervention in the supply chain, not as a hole in its own software or internal systems. That is the heart of the matter and the reason a dealer list suddenly becomes a security question: the encryption inside the device stays intact, while the attack sits one step earlier, at the device itself, before it reaches the customer.

Recovery phrase is the sequence of twelve or twenty-four words from which every private key of a wallet can be recalculated. Anyone who knows it has full access to the balance without holding the device. That is why a hardware wallet shows these words only once, and only on its own display: a display that is being read along defeats the whole protection. How that protection works in the normal case, we took apart in our explainer on the hardware wallet.

On the scale of the losses there are only estimates so far, and they diverge. The research arm of Galaxy Digital put the losses at more than $90 million across several hundred addresses. CoinDesk cited on-chain estimates of up to $93.2 million across more than 300 wallets; stablecoin issuer Tether froze 10 million USDT of that, according to the same report. Ledger itself has confirmed neither the number of victims nor a total. The range of roughly $90 million to $93 million is the state of the estimates, then, not an audited tally. The details of the case and the first reactions we recorded in our report on the Ledger incident.

Trezor removed CryptoBilis from its own dealer list on October 12, a day before the big announcement and, on its own account, as a precaution. The reseller was therefore listed at Trezor as well, without any loss becoming known there.

The cut-off date of January 1, 2027 and what applies until then

From a buyer’s point of view the deadline is the most awkward part of the announcement. The dealers being dropped do not lose their authorization at once, but only on January 1, 2027. Until then they may sell down their stock. That means the whole Christmas season and Black Friday still fall under the old order. Trezor names this period in the letter itself, so it is not an accident but a transition deliberately granted to the partners.

For you that has an uncomfortable consequence. Over the coming weeks, devices will sit on shelves and in online shops whose sellers are still formally authorized but will not be from January. A dealer’s status in December therefore says nothing about how Trezor will classify that dealer in January. If the shortest supply route matters to you, check the status now and not when the parcel has arrived.

Authorized dealer, marketplace, reseller: the differences

Three terms are often mixed up in retail, and the difference between them decides the risk.

An authorized dealer is a company that has a contract with the manufacturer and sources its goods directly from it. A marketplace is a platform on which many different sellers offer their wares; the operator of the marketplace is not necessarily the seller. A reseller, finally, buys goods and sells them on, with or without a contract with the manufacturer.

The weak point that the Ledger case has exposed sits precisely in that middle. A device that passes through several hands was unpacked, repacked or stored somewhere along the way. The longer that route, the more opportunities there are to alter the hardware. Trezor describes its own requirement of partners on its help pages as goods that come directly from the manufacturer and are kept apart from other products: “Stock is supplied by us directly and kept separate so that devices are not mixed with other goods.”

Which models exist at all and how they differ in handling, you can look up in our comparison of hardware wallets; the question of the supply route arises in the same way for every one of these devices.

Which supply routes Trezor itself calls safe

On its help page on buying a genuine device, Trezor names its own shop as the best source. Alongside that, the company lists authorized dealers as a legitimate source and points to its own storefront on Amazon. Devices from these channels Trezor calls unproblematic in principle, and for the individual case it points to its own guide on whether a device can be used.

Since October 13 that order has been more than a recommendation. When a manufacturer shrinks its partner network because it does not have enough control over third-party storage routes, buying direct is not merely convenient: it is the option with the fewest stops. Ledger has gone one step further down the same path and sells its new flagship model exclusively through its own shop.

Seals, packaging and firmware: the checkpoints on a new device

An implant inside the case is hard to spot from the outside. Four points still give an indication, and together they cost less than ten minutes.

1. Packaging. Look at the security seals, the film and any traces of glue before the device comes out of the box. A seal that has already been broken is a reason not to put the device into service.
2. Weight and gaps. An additional component in the housing changes both slightly. Anyone with a second device of the same model will notice the difference.
3. First setup. A new device generates the recovery phrase itself. If a phrase is already included, on paper, as a card or as a sticker, the device is no longer new and does not belong in service.
4. Check by the manufacturer. Both vendors offer a genuineness check through their own software. That check argues against swapped firmware, not against every additional component.

The fourth point is where care is needed: a passed genuineness check proves that the software comes from the manufacturer. A radio component that merely reads along does not touch the software. No check on a powered-up device therefore replaces a clean supply route.

Secure element and seed: the blind spot lies in showing the phrase

The secure element is a chip hardened against read-out that stores the private keys and computes signatures without releasing the keys. That design protects well against attacks over the cable, over the software and through an infected wallet app on the computer.

Against an attack that starts at the display it does not help. The recovery phrase has to be shown to the owner once during setup, otherwise they could not write it down. That single moment is the only one in which the secret leaves the device, and in the Ledger case it is exactly that moment the component read along. The lesson is uncomfortable: the hardening of the chip is not the weakest point of a hardware wallet, the route the goods travel is.

Used hardware wallets: the second-hand market stays unverifiable for buyers

For used devices the situation has been even clearer since October 13: a second-hand device cannot be verified by its buyer. They know neither who opened it before nor whether the packaging belongs to the goods. Both manufacturers have advised against this route for years, and the current case supplies the argument after the fact.

Anyone facing the question of whether a hardware wallet is needed at all will find the alternative in a pure software solution, with its own advantages and drawbacks. A software wallet carries no supply chain risk, but its key sits on a device that is connected to the network.

MiCA and consumer protection: what supervision does not cover for hardware

An obvious question is whether the European crypto regulation MiCA applies here. The answer is no. MiCA governs services around crypto assets, that is trading, custody for third parties, exchange and the issuance of tokens, and for those a provider in Germany needs permission from BaFin. A hardware wallet that you manage yourself is not such a service: nobody holds anything for you, the device is a piece of electronics.

That leaves the purchase under general product and sales law. It gives you warranty rights against the seller, but it does not place a supply chain under supervision. This gap is why the manufacturers have to solve the problem themselves, through contract terms and through the length of their dealer lists, and why their announcements have immediate practical consequences for buyers. How far the loss of trust at Ledger already reaches became visible in German retail.

What is documented in the Ledger case and what remains open

Honesty requires separating the two. Documented is this: Trezor is shrinking its dealer network as of January 1, 2027 and names the incident at Ledger as the reason. Ledger traces the confirmed losses to devices sold through a single reseller and describes the attack as a physical intervention in the supply chain. Trezor took that reseller off its own list on October 12.

Open, by contrast, is the total, because the estimates of roughly $90 million to $93 million come from third parties and are not confirmed by the manufacturer. Also open is how many dealers Trezor is dropping and which countries this affects: the company has given no figure. For buyers in Europe that means the list of authorized dealers remains the only reliable source of information, and specifically the list at the time of purchase.

For anyone watching this and wondering how much caution is appropriate: the attack was elaborate, it hit devices from one particular supply route, and on everything that is public it has affected no model and no manufacturer as a whole. Panic is a poor guide here. A verified supply route, by contrast, costs nothing and closes the gap at issue.

Trezor dealers: until January 1, 2027 the old list still holds

Three steps follow from the announcement, and they build on each other.

1. Settle the supply route before you pick a model. Direct from the manufacturer or from a dealer who is on the official list at the time of purchase. Which devices qualify is set out in the comparison of hardware wallets.
2. Weigh up whether a hardware wallet is the right solution. For small holdings a well-secured software solution can be enough; the trade-off is set out in the comparison of software wallets.
3. Classify the devices you already own. Anyone who owns a device from an unclear source will find the checks and the manufacturers’ response in our report on the confirmed implant at Ledger. Setting a device up again necessarily generates a new recovery phrase.

(As of October 17, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Mudwater claim is open: since 23:35 UTC on 17 October 2026, every holder of a Bored Ape (BAYC) or Mutant Ape (MAYC) can collect free trading card packs from Yuga Labs' new collection. Each Bored Ape gets 10 packs, each Mutant Ape 2, claimed on the official Mudwater claim page until 19 January 2027, 00:00 UTC. The packs themselves are free. You only pay Ethereum gas and a cross-chain fee, and the packs arrive in a Solana wallet.

Yuga Labs announced the launch on X in the middle of ApeFest 2026 in Charleston. Shortly before, the Bored Ape Yacht Club had dropped a so-called Totem to every ape, which unlocks the claim. Below you will find what Mudwater is, how the claim works step by step, what it costs and how to spot fake claim sites.

How the German Apes celebrate ApeFest is shown in this video by CrazyCrypto.eth, the X account of Dennis Weidner:

What is Mudwater?

Mudwater is a trading card game from Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club. The first set is called "Swamp Origins" and, according to the official site, has 120 card designs with foil and serialized editions, 2.4 million cards in total. The rarest tier is a serialized "cracked ice" one of one, and there are eight of them. Every card exists twice: as an NFT on Solana and as a printed card kept in a vault. A token can be redeemed for the physical card, and a physical card can be mailed back and turned into a token again.

It is Yuga Labs' first collection on Solana. CEO Michael Figge calls it an experiment in aligning projects and collectors: every trade of a Mudwater NFT carries a 2.5 percent reflection that buys ApeCoin (APE) and pays it out to holders. The game is already playable in Otherside, for now with demo cards. In the Ante mode both players stake three cards and the winner takes one of the opponent's at random.

Source: mudwater.bayc.com, as of 18 October 2026.

Who can claim Mudwater packs?

Every Bored Ape and every Mutant Ape. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has paired a Totem with every BAYC and MAYC, built on the ERC-6551 standard for token-bound accounts. That Totem is what the claim page checks. The allocation belongs to the ape, not to the wallet: if an ape changes hands before its packs are claimed, the page tells the seller that this ape is no longer theirs to claim, and the new holder can claim instead.

If you keep your apes in a cold wallet, you do not have to connect it directly. The signed claim configuration references the delegate.xyz registry, so a hot wallet with a delegation for the vault should be recognised. If it is not, connect the wallet holding the ape, ideally through a hardware wallet. ApeFest visitors also get a sealed box per ape, according to the official site. What an airdrop is in general and what to watch out for is covered in our guide to crypto airdrops.

How to claim Mudwater: step by step

The claim takes a few minutes and consists of a sign-in, one transaction on Ethereum and the delivery on Solana. Here is how it works:

1. Open the official page. Type mudwater.bayc.com/claim yourself or use the link on bayc.com. The club says it has updated bayc.com, yuga.com, Discord and all social channels with the official links so that you can cross-check them.
2. Connect your Ethereum wallet. Click "Connect Ethereum Wallet" and choose the wallet that holds your apes, or the delegated hot wallet. Your wallet asks you to sign a login message. According to the claim page, this does not approve a payment.
3. Check your Totems. The page shows how many Totems and packs you are eligible for, based on your apes.
4. Connect a Solana wallet. The packs are Solana NFTs and need a Solana address, for example in Phantom, Solflare or Backpack. Choose carefully: according to the claim page, the recipient is fixed after the first successful transaction. All packs from the same Ethereum wallet go to that one Solana wallet.
5. Claim all packs. "Claim All" sends a single transaction on Ethereum. Your wallet shows the gas and a fee limit for Chainlink CCIP, the protocol that carries the claim over to Solana. Unused CCIP fees are refunded. According to the signed configuration, one transaction carries up to twelve messages of six packs each, so up to 72 packs.
6. Wait for delivery. The page shows the dispatch status. Do not claim a second time, you can close the page and come back later. Delivered packs show up under "Inventory".

What does the Mudwater claim cost?

The packs are free. Mudwater pays for delivery on Solana, you cover the Ethereum gas and the quoted CCIP fee. Further costs only arise when you open packs, convert cards or trade.

Source: Mudwater claim page and signed release configuration, as of 18 October 2026.

Opening all ten packs of one Bored Ape therefore costs an extra 80 USDC. Payment is in USDC on Solana: after signing in, Mudwater shows you its own Solana address to which you send USDC for these fees. That is also where you can withdraw unused network fees from the claim. Whether you open, keep sealed or sell is a decision you do not have to make right away.

Mudwater packs on OpenSea: the first hour

OpenSea lists Totems, packs and cards as separate collections: Mudwater Totems, Mudwater Packs and Mudwater Cards. About an hour after launch, at around 00:35 UTC on 18 October, OpenSea showed 831 claimed packs held by 87 addresses. Four were listed, the cheapest at 1.90 SOL, about 196 US dollars. None had sold yet. That is a snapshot, not a price: with four listings, the floor says little.

The 5 percent fee that OpenSea displays is the sum of both parts: 2.5 percent buys APE for holders, 2.5 percent goes to the publisher as a royalty. How much APE actually reaches holders depends on trading volume, and NFT volume has been thin for months. A Bored Ape costs about 97 percent less than at its peak, as our overview of NFT prices in October 2026 shows. Mudwater is Yuga Labs' attempt to bring new buyers from the Solana side into the Ape world, and the APE reflection is the hook. If you want to trade NFTs, check the fees first with our NFT marketplace comparison.

Staying safe: how to spot fake Mudwater claim sites

The Bored Ape Yacht Club ended its own announcement thread by asking holders to cross-check every link against the official channels. Big NFT claims attract copycats, so four rules apply:

• Only mudwater.bayc.com. No links from direct messages, replies under posts or ads.
• Only sign-in and claim. The real flow asks for a login signature and one claim transaction. If a site asks for "setApprovalForAll", for your seed phrase or for a transfer of your ape, stop.
• Check the amounts. The packs are free. The claim costs nothing beyond gas and the CCIP fee.
• Protect your vault. Keep valuable apes in the cold wallet and use delegation or a hardware wallet. Our hardware wallet comparison shows which devices fit.

What comes next for Mudwater

• Serialized packs: according to the official site, they will be randomly awarded 30 days after the initial claim.
• Combine: 24 pack tokens make a sealed box, ten boxes make a case. Coming soon.
• Convert: switch cards between printed and digital form, also coming soon.
• ApeChain communities: they receive their own pack allocations, and ApeCoin promises details this week.
• Glyph: Yuga Labs' wallet is set to add a Solana address in the future, according to Figge.

Our take: Mudwater is the most tangible thing Yuga Labs has handed its holders in a long time. The claim costs only gas and the CCIP fee, the window runs until January, and nobody has to decide today whether to open, hold or sell. Whether the APE reflection gives holders a noticeable share will only show in the trading volume of the coming weeks.

Aster faces a date that is in the calendar and not up for negotiation: on October 28 at 12:00 UTC the claim window opens for the Stage 6 allocation that vests in full over time. It stays open until November 28 at 12:00 UTC. That leaves eleven days to the start and roughly six weeks in which eligible holders can act. These details are set out on the official Aster airdrop page.

The price itself says little this week. According to CoinGecko data, one ASTER costs $0.70 on Saturday evening, up 0.13 percent over 24 hours and down 1.42 percent over seven days. The more important question is what can reach the market on October 28, and what a holder in Germany should settle before then.

Aster at a glance: price at $0.70, ranked 52 by market value

Aster is the token of the decentralized exchange of the same name for perpetual contracts. CoinGecko puts its market value at $1.91 billion on Saturday evening, which means rank 52 among all crypto assets. Trading volume in the token across all recorded venues adds up to $83.8 million over 24 hours.

A perpetual contract, or perp for short, is a futures contract without an expiry date: it runs on as long as one side pays the ongoing funding payment to the other. A decentralized exchange for such contracts settles that trading through smart contracts on a blockchain instead of through an account at a company.

The token sits a long way from its high. Its all-time high, according to CoinGecko data, was $2.41 on September 24, 2025. From today's price that leaves a gap of around 71 percent to that level. Anyone who came across Aster only this year sees a token that has traded below its high for more than a year and whose movement has calmed down markedly of late.

The Stage 6 claim window: October 28 to November 28, 12:00 UTC each

The occasion itself is a date. Aster's Stage 6 allocation came in two forms: an immediate payout of part of the allocation, whose window closed long ago, and the fully vested variant. For this second group the official page names a window from October 28, 12:00 UTC, to November 28, 12:00 UTC.

Two points about it matter for eligible holders. First, 12:00 UTC in October is 2:00 p.m. German summer time, and after the clocks change on October 25 it is 1:00 p.m. German winter time. Anyone noting the date is better off noting it in UTC and converting on the day itself. Second, a window is not the same thing as a cut-off date: it has a start and an end, and both are fixed.

Third-party sources name different start dates, among them November 4. Those figures come from older or downstream overviews. The project's own page is what counts, and it states October 28. Third-party sources also contradict each other sharply on the size of the Stage 6 allocation, which is why no token count is given here.

Vesting explained: the allocation is released over a period

Vesting describes the release of a token allocation spread over time: the entitlement exists, but the tokens become available only gradually or at a set point in time. For the market that is a difference with consequences, because released tokens can be sold and locked ones cannot.

Hence the obvious worry among many holders: a claim window puts additional tokens into the hands of people who could sell them. That link cannot be proven in advance, and how much actually reaches the market depends on how many eligible holders claim and what they do afterwards. What remains as an observation: October 28 is a date on which the supply side can change.

The price week: $0.68 to $0.72 in seven days

Based on CoinGecko's daily values, ASTER moved between $0.6847 and $0.7153 over the past seven days. That is a range of around 4.5 percent, measured against the lower value. The lowest daily value fell on October 13, the highest on October 12. Within the past 24 hours the price ranged between $0.6955 and $0.7101.

Over 30 days the token is down 5.47 percent. It has therefore neither benefited from news of its own nor suffered more than the broad market, which also gave ground over the same period. For a weekly picture that means a quiet sideways move at a low level, with a known date ahead.

Aster as a perp DEX: $1.55 billion in daily volume, second behind Hyperliquid

The token hangs on the business of the exchange behind it. The perp DEX ranking from Castle Labs dated October 14, 2026 shows trading volume of $1.55 billion over 24 hours for Aster, which equates to 8.5 percent of total DEX volume there. Open interest, meaning the sum of all contracts not yet closed, stood at $1.31 billion according to the same ranking. In that assessment Aster ranks second behind Hyperliquid.

These figures swing widely and are collected differently by different providers, because every service uses its own boundaries for volume and open interest. Anyone comparing values compares them only within the same source. How the large platforms for perpetual contracts differ in fees, licensing and access is shown in our comparison of the best perp DEXs.

Circulating supply and FDV: 2.71 of 8 billion ASTER are in the market

A look at the quantities puts the market value in context. Around 2.71 billion ASTER are in circulation, according to CoinGecko. The maximum supply is 8 billion tokens. That puts about 33.9 percent of total supply in the market, with around 5.29 billion tokens still outstanding.

The fully diluted valuation, or FDV, applies the current price to the entire supply and comes to $5.48 billion. That is almost three times today's market value of $1.91 billion. This gap is a calculation and not a forecast. The figure shows which part of the valuation hangs on tokens that become available only later. For a project whose next date concerns precisely such a release, that figure deserves more attention than the daily move.

Custody at the claim: why connecting a wallet is the delicate step

A claim is technically a process in which you connect a wallet to a website and confirm a transaction. That is exactly where most losses occur, and not through an error by the project but through replica sites that imitate the same window. Copies like these appear around every announced claim date.

Three things reliably help against them. Open the claim page only through the project's official address, one you have typed yourself or opened from your own bookmark. Read what approval the transaction asks for before you confirm, because an unlimited approval for someone else's token balance has nothing to do with a claim. And never enter your seed phrase: no claim anywhere requires it. For the question of what kind of wallet tokens should sit on after a claim, our hardware wallet comparison helps.

Buying route in Germany: MiCA licensing, euro deposits and spot instead of leverage

Anyone who wants to buy ASTER rather than receive it through a claim takes a different route in Germany than on the DEX itself. Since the EU's MiCA regulation applies in full, providers serving customers in the EU need authorization as a crypto-asset service provider. You recognize a regulated provider by three things: it shows a European license, it accepts euro deposits by bank transfer, and it identifies you before your first trade.

A decentralized trading venue such as Aster itself works differently. There you connect your own wallet, there is no account opening and no deposit in euros. For the spot purchase of a token that is the more cumbersome route, because you have to organize the blockchain fees and the exchange yourself.

Leverage and liquidation: what separates a perp contract from a spot purchase

In a spot purchase you acquire the token and own it. With a perpetual contract you bet on the direction of the price with collateral, often at a multiple of your stake. Liquidation is the moment when that collateral no longer suffices and the position is closed automatically. The stake is then lost, regardless of where the price runs afterwards.

Two costs come with perps that a spot purchase does not know: the ongoing funding payment between the long and short side, and the price gap between contract and spot market. In a token that barely moved this week, as ASTER did, those costs eat up a leveraged position over days, while a spot holding simply sits there. Ahead of October 28 that is a point that counts: a date with an open outcome is the worst moment for a position that cannot survive a short move against it.

Holding period and tax: after one year a sale is tax-free in Germany

For private investors in Germany, the one-year holding period applies to crypto assets. If you sell at a profit within a year of buying, that profit is taxable as a private disposal. Once a year has passed, the sale is tax-free. For tokens from a claim one question matters above all, and it belongs with a tax adviser rather than in an article: which date and which value apply to the acquisition.

What counts in practice is therefore documentation. Record the date, quantity and price for every acquisition and every sale, ideally as you go rather than in the spring. Which tools take that record-keeping off your hands is shown in our overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

Levels above and below: $0.72 capped the week, $0.68 carried it

Two values emerge from the weekly data that can be watched. On the upside, the week's highest daily value at $0.7153 capped the move. On the downside, the lowest daily value held at $0.6847. Between them lies the round $0.70 level, around which the price oscillated all week.

These are observations from the past and not price targets. Whether those values still play a role when the claim window opens cannot be said today. A current assessment of the price trend is available at any time on our Aster price prediction page.

Aster claim: from October 28 only the official page counts

The date is set, the figures on the token are known, and so are the mistakes that happen around a claim. Three steps are enough to go through the coming weeks prepared:

1. Note the date and the address. Write down the window from October 28, 12:00 UTC, to November 28, 12:00 UTC, and save the official project address as a bookmark instead of searching for it on the day itself. If you want to check your trading venue as well, our comparison of the best regulated crypto exchanges covers that.
2. Settle custody before the window opens. Decide in advance which wallet the tokens should sit on after the claim, and practice the connection with a small amount. The differences between the common wallet types are in our software wallet comparison.
3. Keep records from the first token onwards. Note the date, quantity and price of every acquisition so that the holding period can be traced later. Which tools write that down automatically is shown in our list of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

The Aster week: what to take away

Aster had no big news this week and no big move either: $0.70, down 1.42 percent over seven days, rank 52 by market value. The date on October 28, by contrast, is concrete and documented, and it concerns the supply side. Two thirds of total supply are not yet in circulation, which makes every release more important to watch than the daily move. Anyone who is eligible has eleven days to settle the address and the custody. Anyone merely watching now knows the date on which something can change.

(As of October 17, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

A Bitcoin wallet is set up in ten minutes, and that is exactly where the danger lies. The app asks for a password, shows twelve words, lets you tick a box, and the first receiving address is already there. Skip a step in those ten minutes and you often notice months later, when the phone is broken and nobody can reach the coins any more.

This guide works through the setup in the order in which it happens, and says at every point what goes wrong if you cut it short. That holds for Bitcoin just as it does for most other wallets, because the technical underpinning is the same.

What a Bitcoin wallet actually stores

The word is misleading. There is not a single bitcoin inside a wallet. The coins exist solely as entries in the Bitcoin blockchain, a ledger that thousands of computers worldwide keep at the same time. What the app on your device holds is the private key: a very large random number that can move those entries.

Everything else follows from that. Whoever holds the key can spend the coins, regardless of who bought them. Whoever loses it can move nothing, and no office exists that issues a replacement. No hotline, no forgotten-password link, no bank that reverses the transaction. This one property explains every precaution in this text.

The recovery phrase, usually twelve or twenty-four words long, is the readable form of that key. From it the entire wallet can be rebuilt on any other device, years later and with another provider's software.

Software, your own device or an exchange: the three routes

Before the first installation comes a decision that can be corrected later only with effort. A software wallet on a phone or computer is free, ready in minutes and perfectly fine for small amounts; the key then sits on a device that is also connected to the internet. A device of your own, usually called a hardware wallet, keeps the key permanently offline and costs between 50 and 200 euros depending on the model. At an exchange, finally, the provider holds the key for you.

Which route fits depends less on the amount than on what happens if something goes wrong. We took apart the differences between permanently connected and disconnected custody in our article on hot wallets and cold wallets, and the technology behind it in the piece on the hardware wallet. A usable rule of thumb from practice: what you would not carry around in cash day to day does not belong on a phone.

The setup step by step

Download the software only from the manufacturer's site or the official app store. Fake wallet apps regularly make it through the stores' checks, and a search advert is not a source. With a device of your own, check the packaging as well: a slip of paper already enclosed with finished words means somebody else knows the key. A genuine device generates the phrase itself, at first start-up, in front of you.

Four steps then follow, which every wallet runs through in a similar form. First you set a device password or a PIN, which protects access to that device alone and not the coins themselves. Second, the software generates the recovery phrase and displays it once. Third, you have to re-enter individual words as a check. Fourth, the first receiving address appears.

Some apps let you skip the third step on request. Do not. That prompt is the only occasion on which you notice whether you really wrote the words down correctly, and it comes before any money sits on them. What a setup looks like screen by screen in practice is shown in our guide to Trust Wallet.

The recovery phrase: twelve words, one order

The phrase comes from a fixed list of 2,048 English words and follows an open standard that every major wallet supports. A wallet created today with one manufacturer's software can therefore be opened in ten years with another's. What is decisive is the order: the same words in a different sequence produce an entirely different wallet. More on the technical side sits in the seed phrase reference in the Bitcoin wiki.

Three rules apply to storage and they are not negotiable. The words are written down by hand, not photographed and not typed into a password manager that lives in the cloud. They are kept somewhere that survives water and fire, and ideally in two separate copies at two locations. And they are shown to nobody, not even a friendly support agent who gets in touch by direct message; genuine support never asks for them. Which variants from steel plate to multi-signature suit which case is worked through in our article on storing the seed phrase safely.

Why the first transfer should be a test amount

Before any sizeable amount goes to the new address, send a small one. Ten or twenty euros is enough. Then delete the app from the device or reset the hardware device and restore the wallet from your written-down words alone. If the test amount reappears, the phrase is right. If it does not, you have just risked twenty euros instead of your entire holding.

That run-through costs a quarter of an hour and is the only real test there is. Everything else is trust that the words were copied correctly. The network fee for it barely registers: according to data from mempool.space, recommended rates stood at one to three satoshi per byte on October 16, which puts a normal transfer in the range of a few cents. At a Bitcoin price of around 72,200 euros that changes nothing in any portfolio.

Receiving addresses and why they keep changing

After every incoming payment the wallet displays a new receiving address. That is neither a fault nor a sign that the old one has become invalid: old addresses keep working, and money arriving at them lands in the same wallet. The change serves privacy, because every address is publicly visible in the blockchain. Anyone who always uses the same one lays bare their entire balance and every payment that has ever arrived there.

Modern addresses begin with bc1 and are slightly cheaper in fees than the older formats that start with a one or a three. All three work side by side. Always copy the address with the copy function or the QR code, never by typing it out, and compare the first and last four characters after pasting. Malware that swaps the clipboard is among the most common attacks of all, and a wrong address cannot be recalled.

What fees arise when sending

The network fee is measured by the size of the transaction in bytes rather than by the amount. A transfer of 50 euros costs the same as one of 50,000 euros, as long as both bundle the same number of inputs. Anyone who has received many small amounts pays more when sending, because the transaction consists of more parts.

In quiet phases such as the present one, a normal transfer costs cents; at peak times it can rise to several euros. Most wallets offer three speeds. Anyone who is not in a hurry picks the slowest: the transaction does not become less secure, it merely takes longer to confirm. A payment is usually considered final after six confirmations, which corresponds to about an hour on average.

The five most common mistakes with a first wallet

First: photographing the words. The image ends up in the phone's cloud backup and so on someone else's computer. Second: keeping the phrase and the device in the same place, where a house fire or a burglary takes care of both at once. Third: skipping the test run because things have to move quickly.

Fourth: putting the entire holding on the first, improvised wallet. Two separate addresses are better, one for everyday use with a small amount and one for the holding, which is rarely touched. Fifth: telling nobody. If something happens to you, the phrase is as worthless to your family as it is to a stranger, as long as nobody knows that it exists and where it lies. A sealed note with a notary or in a safe deposit box solves that without anyone reading along during your lifetime.

Our assessment: when the exchange is the more sensible place

In the view of this newsroom, self-custody is sold to beginners too often as the only right route. The evidence against it sits in the loss statistics: lost or never properly backed-up keys cost private investors more money, by all experience, than attacks on regulated custodians do. Anyone investing 200 euros who trusts themselves to keep twelve words safe over years should do exactly that. Anyone who honestly does not trust themselves to do it is initially better off with a supervised provider than with a slip of paper in a desk drawer.

Against that stands the familiar counter-argument, and it remains valid: at an exchange the key belongs to the provider, and in an insolvency the legal position is uncomfortable for customers. Our assessment is therefore neither "exchange" nor "wallet at any price": start with the amount whose loss you could absorb, practise the recovery once in earnest, and only then move more across. A total loss is possible at any time with Bitcoin in any case, wherever the coins sit.

Bitcoin wallet: a test amount costs a few cents and exposes mistakes

1. Settle the route before you install. A small amount and daily use argue for software, a growing holding for a device of your own. Which models differ in what and what they cost is shown in the hardware wallet comparison.
2. Play the recovery through once for real. Send a small amount, reset the wallet, rebuild it from the words. Only once the amount reappears is the backup proven.
3. Build up the holding only after that. Where to top up cheaply and how high the withdrawal fee to your own address turns out are set out in the comparison of crypto exchanges and in the overview of the ways to buy Bitcoin.

(As of October 16, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

An FEC filing shows the Fairshake affiliate Defend American Jobs disclosed roughly $7 million more in ads against the Ohio Democrat, pushing its total past $46 million—days after the PAC expanded its map to 32 House races.

The nine-member group, modeled on the Internet Engineering Task Force, aims to set open standards for testing quantum-resistance claims as forecasts place the first practical attack in the late 2020s.

StepFun's STEPX Neo opened for pre-orders in China on Oct. 13 at 3,999 yuan, with an AI agent built into the operating system instead of bolted on as an app.

AI companies charge by the token, and most people burn them on jobs a cheap model could do. Here's how to spend less and get better results, from your first prompt to your first agent.

Tesla's new Roadster flips through the air, jumps a row of Teslas and lands on SpaceX thrusters. The Rocket version is invite only, not approved for public roads, and not due until 2028.

The drop in volume highlights quieter trading environment, with the market now watching for what comes next.

Shiba Inu's exchange supply is headed to exiting the 87 trillion SHIB zone as netflow shows that bullish traders are gradually taking over the market.

Claude reveals ECDSA curve origins, solving 26 year old cryptography mystery.

Bitwise now owns over half a billion dollars worth of XRP through its XRP ETF, establishing its dominance in the industry over other existing XRP funds.

Major crypto exchange Binance brings XRP rewards to RLUSD holders.

TLDR:

• OpenCode says the breach affected approximately 1.4% of Console users with external providers linked.
• Exposed credentials may include API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
• The company identified a large-scale distillation attack but has not disclosed full technical details.
• Affected users should revoke keys, replace credentials, update applications, and review recent API usage.

OpenCode disclosed a security breach that exposed third-party API keys belonging to approximately 1.4% of its Console users. The incident involved unauthorized access to a legacy system that the company was preparing to decommission.

Exposed credentials may have included keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, according to OpenCode’s customer notification. The company said attackers carried out a large-scale distillation attack, although it has not released further technical details. 

Affected users were instructed to revoke their keys, replace them, and check for unexpected usage and charges.

The disclosure raises concerns about credential security across AI development tools. Users who connect external providers through third-party platforms may face financial risks when attackers obtain their credentials.

How the OpenCode Security Breach Exposed API Keys

OpenCode announced the incident on X, confirming that unauthorized access affected a subset of Console users with external providers linked. The company said it notified all identified affected users by email on the morning following the breach.

The customer notice identified a legacy system as the entry point. OpenCode had been preparing to decommission that system when the unauthorized access occurred. Third-party provider keys stored in user workspaces may have been exposed.

The company is working with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to address the incident. However, OpenCode said the investigation remains ongoing and declined to share additional details.

Security commentator Matt Johansen also reported customer concerns about stolen keys and unexpected API charges. Community discussions described users receiving breach notifications and warnings to revoke their credentials.

OpenCode has not disclosed the total number of affected accounts or confirmed the full extent of the attackers’ access. The 1.4% figure represents the share of Console users affected, not the percentage of exposed keys or compromised providers.

What the OpenCode Distillation Attack Means for API Security

A distillation attack involves querying an AI model extensively to collect outputs that can help train another model. Developers can use these responses to approximate aspects of a more capable model’s behavior.

In this incident, OpenCode identified a large-scale distillation attack but has not explained which models attackers targeted. It also has not disclosed the query volume, the duration of the activity, or the identity of those responsible.

Stolen API keys can allow attackers to make requests using a victim’s provider account. Depending on the provider’s billing arrangements and account permissions, unauthorized requests can generate charges for the key’s owner.

This creates a direct financial risk for developers and businesses that store provider credentials in external applications. A compromised key may remain usable until its owner revokes it or the provider otherwise disables access.

OpenCode instructed affected customers to revoke and replace exposed keys through their providers’ dashboards. Users must also update applications that rely on those credentials and review recent usage for suspicious activity.

Rotating keys quickly can prevent further unauthorized requests using the compromised credentials. Spending limits and usage alerts can help reduce potential losses, while secure credential storage can limit exposure.

The incident highlights the risks of linking external AI services to development platforms. Until OpenCode provides further findings, affected users should treat potentially exposed credentials as compromised and verify their provider usage.

The post OpenCode Security Breach Exposes API Keys of 1.4% of Console Users appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Mark Karpelès says Ledger knew about advanced hardware wallet implants by March 2026.
• Karpelès claims stronger public warnings could have prevented more than $90 million in losses.
• Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier responded by referencing Karpelès’ history leading Mt. Gox.
• The dispute raises questions about hardware wallet security disclosures and customer communication.

Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès has criticized Ledger’s response to a hardware wallet supply chain attack involving sophisticated implants.

He argues that the company should have issued a stronger public warning after documenting advanced implant designs in March 2026. Karpelès says clearer communication could have prevented more than $90 million in losses. 

Ledger CEO Pascal Gauthier responded by referencing Karpelès’ leadership at Mt. Gox. The exchange has raised questions about how hardware wallet providers communicate emerging security threats to customers.

Ledger Hardware Wallet Attack Sparks Disclosure Dispute

Karpelès acknowledged that Ledger published an educational article about the implant threat in March 2026. The Ledger Academy article reportedly recommended purchasing devices directly from Ledger or its authorized resellers.

However, he argued that a single educational article was insufficient for a threat of this severity. He said evidence of mass-produced, self-aligning implants should have prompted an urgent security response.

Karpelès pointed to multiple reports of implants received in early 2026. He also referenced hardware implant designs documented by security researcher Joe Grand, including a handmade device with an improvised LTE antenna.

According to Karpelès, Ledger’s March article showed both handmade and advanced, mass-produced implant designs. He argued that these devices indicated a serious effort to compromise Ledger products.

He described the situation as a potential “five-alarm fire” that demanded immediate and appropriate action. He also estimated that better communication at the time could have prevented more than $90 million in losses.

These figures and assessments reflect Karpelès’ claims in his public statements. The supplied information does not independently establish the amount of losses attributable to the alleged communication failures.

Ledger Security Disclosure Raises Questions for Crypto Users

The dispute intensified after Gauthier responded to Karpelès by invoking his history as Mt. Gox CEO. Karpelès rejected that criticism, arguing that the exchange’s past had no bearing on Ledger’s responsibilities.

He said he had expected Ledger to learn from Mt. Gox’s failures and maintain stronger security and disclosure standards. He also questioned the company’s continued characterization of the incident as the CryptoBilis incident.

Karpelès noted that similar implants had reportedly surfaced in other locations. He acknowledged there might be reasons for Ledger’s terminology but argued that customers should not have to determine whether their devices had been altered.

He also recognized some improvements, including greater involvement from Ledger’s X account. However, he said users continued reporting difficulties obtaining responses from the company.

The controversy highlights a key distinction in hardware wallet security: publishing technical guidance is not necessarily equivalent to issuing an urgent customer warning. Users need clear information about potential threats, recommended purchasing channels, and steps to assess their exposure.

Hardware wallets protect private keys by keeping them isolated from ordinary internet-connected environments. However, compromised hardware can undermine those protections if malicious components interfere with device operations or security checks.

For crypto investors, the dispute reinforces the importance of buying hardware wallets directly from manufacturers or authorized resellers. It also highlights why transparent incident reporting matters when sophisticated attacks threaten devices designed to protect digital assets.

The post Ledger Faces Backlash Over Hardware Wallet Implant Warnings appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR: 

• G7 average 10-year government bond yields rose over one percentage point between February and September.
• Global public debt is projected to exceed 100% of GDP by 2030, the IMF warns.
• US government interest payments could reach 5.7% of GDP in 2031, matching projected Social Security spending.
• The IMF says reducing deficits and improving debt management are essential to limit future borrowing costs.

Global bond yields are climbing as governments face mounting debt and tighter fiscal constraints. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that rising borrowing costs could worsen public finances and complicate efforts to stabilize debt. 

Between February and September, the Group of Seven’s average 10-year government bond yield rose by more than one percentage point. 

The average reached its highest level in nearly two decades. Meanwhile, global public debt is projected to exceed 100% of global GDP by 2030, a threshold last reached immediately after World War II.

Why Rising Bond Yields Are Increasing Global Debt Pressures

The IMF identifies several forces behind rising yields, including persistent inflation, higher oil prices, stronger investment demand, and expected growth linked to artificial intelligence. However, fiscal fundamentals remain central to the outlook.

High government debt, expanding spending needs, and expectations of substantial bond issuance are pushing up the returns investors demand. Higher yields in major economies can also spread across borders, increasing financing costs elsewhere.

The pressure is already appearing in government budgets. The effective average interest cost of government financing is projected to increase from 2.3% in 2021 to 3.7% by 2031.

The United States faces a particularly heavy burden. 

Government interest payments are projected to rise from approximately 2.8% of GDP before the pandemic to 5.7% in 2031. That would roughly match projected Social Security spending, the country’s largest entitlement program.

Low-income countries face even tighter constraints. Interest payments currently consume more than 15% of their total fiscal revenues, compared with an average of approximately 9% between 2011 and 2019.

These payments leave governments with fewer resources for infrastructure, social programs, and economic support. They also restrict governments’ ability to respond to downturns or meet growing defense and energy security demands.

How Rising Bond Yields Could Complicate Debt Stabilization

The IMF warns that debt stabilization requires stronger fiscal balances when borrowing costs exceed expected nominal economic growth. Governments must generate larger primary surpluses or reduce primary deficits to prevent debt ratios from increasing.

However, the global primary deficit is projected to reach 3.3% of GDP in 2026. 

Stabilizing the global debt-to-GDP ratio this year would require reducing that deficit to approximately 2.6%. Further adjustment of a similar magnitude would be needed in subsequent years as debt continues rising.

Debt maturity also matters. Governments refinancing more debt over shorter periods face faster transmission of higher policy rates into their borrowing costs. This creates a feedback loop between monetary policy, fiscal pressure, and market interest rates.

The IMF also cautions that favorable financing conditions for emerging markets may not last. A change in investor risk appetite could widen sovereign spreads and restrict access to international funding.

The report calls for credible medium-term fiscal plans, stronger debt management, improved tax systems, and more efficient public spending. Its central warning is clear: delaying fiscal adjustment could increase borrowing costs and force governments into more painful measures later.

The post IMF Warns Rising Bond Yields Could Deepen Global Debt Crisis appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• NEAR weekly TD sequential sell signal puts $4.30 support in focus, with $3.76 below it.
• Zcash’s bearish Parabolic SAR flip comes as ZEC tests $1,100, with $850 as the next downside level.
• BNB’s daily SuperTrend sell signal puts $710 support at risk, with $680 as the next level to watch.
• Analysts warn of downside risks, but confirmed support breaks matter more than historical signal outcomes.

Three altcoins are flashing bearish technical signals as NEAR Protocol, Zcash (ZEC), and BNB face critical support tests.

Market analyst Ali Charts identified sell signals across the three assets using the TD Sequential, Parabolic SAR, and SuperTrend indicators. Each signal has preceded a substantial correction in a previous comparable setup. 

However, past price movements do not guarantee similar outcomes this time. Traders are now watching key support levels for signs of whether the current pullbacks will deepen.

NEAR, Zcash, and BNB Sell Signals Put Support Levels in Focus

According to Ali Charts, NEAR’s weekly TD sequential indicator has flashed a sell signal. 

The last comparable signal preceded a 32% correction. NEAR has already fallen 24%, with $4.30 identified as immediate support. A break below that level could expose the $3.76 area.

However, analyst Giannis Andreou highlights a longer-term bullish structure. He says NEAR has broken above a falling trendline stretching back to its 2022 peak. The breakout preceded a rally toward $6, while $3.73 remains the key level buyers must defend.

If NEAR holds that support, Andreou identifies $7.60 as the next major resistance. The $9 region represents a potential neckline for a multi-year double-bottom pattern.

A confirmed breakout above that neckline could strengthen the case for a move toward $20.59. Losing $3.73, however, would weaken the bullish structure.

Zcash faces a separate warning from its Parabolic SAR indicator. The indicator’s dots have moved above the price, suggesting bearish momentum.

Ali Charts notes that the previous bearish flip preceded a 54% retracement. ZEC has already pulled back 25%, while $1,100 and $850 mark the levels traders are monitoring.

Analyst Ardi offers a broader interpretation of Zcash’s price action. He describes the pullback as mean reversion following an overheated rally toward $1,600. 

Under this framework, prices can retreat toward their historical average before consolidating or attempting another advance.

Can BNB, NEAR, and Zcash Avoid Deeper Corrections?

BNB’s daily SuperTrend indicator has also flipped to a sell signal, according to Ali Charts. 

The previous comparable flip preceded a 26% decline, while BNB has fallen 8% so far. Ali identifies $710 as support and $680 as the next downside level if buyers fail to defend it.

CoinGecko data puts BNB at $713.73, down 0.98% over 24 hours and 4.67% over seven days. Its reported daily trading volume stands at $504.96 million, providing additional context for the ongoing pullback.

Analyst Don Wedge identifies a falling wedge on BNB’s daily chart following its $1,370 peak. 

Price faced rejection near the upper boundary around $800 and subsequently retreated toward $730. He places the lower wedge boundary near $540, with a daily close above the upper trendline potentially targeting $1,601.

These technical readings present different scenarios rather than confirmed price outcomes. 

Sell signals suggest caution, but support breaks would provide stronger evidence of further downside. For traders, the immediate focus remains on whether NEAR holds $4.30, ZEC defends $1,100, and BNB maintains $710.

All three altcoins face bearish technical warnings, but their next moves depend on how price responds at critical support levels.

The post NEAR Price Risks $3.76 as Zcash and BNB Signal Further Downside appeared first on Blockonomi.

Tokenized real-world assets, often called RWAs, are digital tokens on a blockchain that represent ownership of an off-chain asset. The asset can be a government bond, a loan, a fund share, a stock or a bar of gold. Supporters point to faster settlement, smaller minimum purchases and assets that can serve as collateral.

The market has grown quickly in 2026, but the totals depend on who is counting. Trackers report anywhere from about $19 billion to more than $60 billion, because they define tokenized assets in different ways. This article pulls together data from several recent reports to show where the market stands.

Most of the value sits in a few places. US Treasuries lead, private credit follows, and real estate remains very small. The sections below cover market size, growth, major products, asset classes, holders, lending, stocks and forecasts.

How Big Is the Tokenized RWA Market in 2026?

There is no single agreed figure. As of mid-September 2026, tracked data cited by Learnsignal shows about $38.8 billion in tokens distributed on-chain. Those tokens represent underlying assets worth around $365 billion, or about $305 billion once stablecoins are removed.

Other trackers land in a similar range for distributed assets. Chainalysis put the market at $36.07 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2026. Dune reported that total supply passed $34 billion this year, and Centrifuge reported a rise from about $25 billion to $37 billion in the first seven months.

Some counts are lower and some are much higher. CoinGecko measured a market capitalization of $19.32 billion in March 2026. Bernstein, cited by CoinDesk, said about $51 billion of tokenized assets are on-chain, and broader definitions have produced totals above $60 billion.

The gap comes from method. Market capitalization counts the circulating value of tokens. Total value locked can include assets held in smart contracts, such as collateral that does not trade freely.

Some trackers also count assets on permissioned chains, while others count only publicly distributed tokens. Chainalysis noted that activity on private networks such as Canton does not appear in on-chain holder counts. The full market may be larger than any single dataset shows.

For scale, CoinDesk Data reported that the total stablecoin market capitalization reached $317 billion in March 2026. A distributed RWA market of roughly $30 billion to $40 billion is a small fraction of that figure.

Dates matter too. Several of these figures were taken in different months, and the market moved between them. A March 2026 report will look small next to a September 2026 report, even if both use the same method.

How Fast Is Tokenized Asset Growth?

Growth over the past year is large on every measure. RWA.xyz data shows the market rose from $8.8 billion on April 16, 2025, to about $29.9 billion on April 16, 2026. That is an increase of about 240%.

CoinGecko reported a rise of 256.7%, from $5.42 billion in January 2025 to $19.32 billion in March 2026. Yellow.com research cited year-over-year growth of 184% in its mid-2026 count. Chainalysis reported 135% growth over the prior period for a market that ended the second quarter at $36.07 billion.

The fastest percentage gains came from small starting points. Chainalysis found that corporate credit grew 3,156% and private equity 1,340%, but those moves took each category from tens of millions of dollars to about a couple of billion. Dune reported that tokenized stocks rose more than 2,000%.

Treasuries grew less in percentage terms but added more dollars. Chainalysis reported a 125% rise, from $6.86 billion to $15.42 billion. That is more than the next three categories combined in dollar terms.

Base effects matter when reading these numbers. A category that moves from $50 million to $1.5 billion shows a huge percentage gain, yet it adds little to the total. Readers should check the dollar change as well as the percentage.

Short-term data shows the mix is still changing. Learnsignal’s 30-day figures for September 2026 showed tokenized stocks growing more than 17%, the fastest category. Tokenized Treasuries slipped slightly over the same stretch.

Tokenized US Treasuries: The Largest Category

US government debt is the largest tokenized asset class. Chainalysis counted $15.42 billion on-chain in the period ending mid-2026, or 42.8% of all tokenized RWA value. Learnsignal’s September data shows about $15.7 billion, roughly 40% of the market.

Other counts are lower. MetaMask, citing RWA.xyz, listed about $12.88 billion in early April 2026, up from roughly $5 billion in late 2024. Astraea Law found that tokenized Treasury funds crossed about $15 billion by mid-May 2026.

Three products stand out. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund holds roughly $2.7 billion, and BeInCrypto put its market cap at $2.8 billion on August 31, 2026. Circle’s USYC holds around $2.6 billion, and Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund is also reported at $2.6 billion.

These products hold short-term government securities and issue tokens that represent a claim on the pool. MetaMask lists typical yields of about 3% to 5%, with daily redemption common. Some tokens grow in price as interest builds, while others keep a price near $1 and add more tokens to the wallet.

Learnsignal makes a useful point about what changes. The legal exposure is familiar, since a tokenized Treasury fund still holds Treasury bills. What changes is the record-keeping layer, where transfers can settle in minutes instead of days and the token can serve as collateral without a separate custody handoff.

The risks sit mostly in the token layer. The underlying debt carries little credit risk, but holders face counterparty, smart contract and redemption delay risk. Franklin Templeton has also received SEC no-action relief that lets its mutual funds and ETFs invest in BENJI, with implementation possible as early as the fourth quarter of 2026.

Tokenized Assets by Category

Each category behaves differently. MetaMask, using RWA.xyz data from early April 2026, lists Treasuries at about $12.88 billion and commodities at about $7.37 billion. Private credit stood near $5 billion in distributed value, though broader counts reach $18 billion to $19 billion.

Commodities are almost all gold. Tether Gold holds about $2.7 billion and Paxos Gold about $2.4 billion, together roughly 74% of the category. These tokens pay no yield, so returns depend on the gold price.

Real estate is the smallest of the major categories. Learnsignal puts it at about $226 million, less than 1% of the tracked market. That stands out because real estate is one of the most cited use cases in industry commentary.

Forecasts for the category are far larger. Deloitte projects $4 trillion in tokenized real estate by 2035. The gap between that figure and today’s value shows how early the category is.

Higher yields come with higher risk. MetaMask noted that stress in the broader private credit market in March 2026 showed how weak loans can affect tokenized products. Lockup periods are common, and secondary market trading is thin.

Who Holds Tokenized Assets

The holder base is global. Chainalysis found that US holders make up 11.7% of the global tokenized RWA holder base and 11.4% of its value. Tokenized Treasuries break that pattern.

By value, Italy accounts for 29.9% of geolocated tokenized Treasury holdings. Portugal holds 18.8% and Singapore 18.2%, while the United States ranks fourth at 10.5%.

Holder counts tell a different story. Japan leads with 16.4% of holders but just 0.4% of the value. Chainalysis reads this as a small group of large foreign holders driving value, with a wider retail base building small positions.

The issuers are mostly large traditional firms. Learnsignal lists BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, Apollo, Hamilton Lane and WisdomTree among the main builders. These are asset managers, not crypto startups.

Ethereum remains the main network. MetaMask reports that it hosts over 56% of all tokenized asset value as of April 2026. Stellar, Solana, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Base and BNB Chain also host products.

Chainalysis adds a policy point. A holder outside the United States who buys a tokenized Treasury product creates demand for US government debt rather than for their own government’s debt.

Tokenization also changes who can buy. Chainalysis says it lowers the minimum position size and removes the need for a US brokerage relationship. A wholesale instrument becomes one that a retail holder in Lisbon or Singapore can buy directly.

Private Credit and On-Chain Lending

Lending data shows how people use tokenized assets. Dune found that credit assets make up about three-quarters of all real-world assets deposited in decentralized lending. Only a tiny fraction of tokenized Treasuries is used the same way.

Chainalysis reached a similar result. Private credit accounts for 77% of all value lent against tokenized RWAs. The number of wallets lending private credit grew 1,618% over the period.

Commodities lending grew 875%. Treasuries went the other way and fell 23%, the only category to contract. Chainalysis links the split to liquidity.

Private credit is hard to sell in its untokenized form, so a token that can be posted as collateral is worth more to its holder. Treasuries are already the most liquid collateral in traditional finance. A holder who wants cash against them has established ways to get it.

Yield is another reason. Dune CEO Frederik Haga said tokenized private credit lets investors earn interest while using the same assets as collateral to borrow and fund other trades. MetaMask lists typical private credit yields of 8% to 15%.

Private credit also looks larger in some datasets. Bernstein, cited by CoinDesk, said about 47% of $51 billion in tokenized assets is private credit. That category often sits below the surface of public dashboards.

Tokenized Stocks and ETFs

Tokenized equities are small by value but growing fast in users. Insights4VC tracked distributed tokenized stocks rising from $951 million in March 2026 to $1.89 billion in July. Dune reported that active holders passed one million.

Other data points higher. A figure cited by OneBullEx shows holders rising from 103,000 in January to 1.9 million by September 2026. Ondo Finance’s stock platform reached $1 billion in total value locked in May 2026.

Token Terminal data shows tokenized ETFs tripled in size this year. Market capitalization rose from $219 million on January 1 to $654 million. Holders of tokenized ETFs rose about 51-fold, while holders of individual tokenized stocks rose about 26-fold.

Binance bStocks has 448,400 holders, half of all tokenized ETF holders, but only 23.3% of market cap, or $160 million. Robinhood has 13.1% of holders and 5.4% of capital. Ondo Finance holds 47.4% of capital, or $325.7 million, from only 20.3% of holders.

Users prefer single companies over funds. Dune estimates that individual stocks make up 81% of tokenized equities held in spot markets, and their value grew ninefold in a year. On traditional markets, more than 6,000 US-listed ETFs now outnumber individual stocks.

The Token Terminal data also shows overlap. Products tracking the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 have a combined value of about $330 million, nearly half the sector total. Because several issuers offer similar exposure on different chains, demand for one index is split across near-identical tokens.

Liquidity is a limit. MetaMask notes that order books for most tokenized stocks are much thinner than for traditional shares. The SEC said on January 28, 2026, that existing securities laws apply whether ownership is recorded on-chain or off-chain.

Forecasts, Regulation and Risks

Long-term forecasts vary widely. BCG and ADDX project a $16.1 trillion opportunity by 2030. McKinsey’s base case is about $2 trillion in tokenized market capitalization by the same date.

That is a gap of about eight times between two institutional forecasts. Today’s distributed market is about $38.8 billion. Any single projection should be treated as an estimate, not a settled fact.

Rules differ by region. The US House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on March 25, 2026, on the Modernizing Markets Through Tokenization Act of 2026. No comprehensive federal framework exists, and the SEC works case by case, including the Franklin Templeton relief and a pending Ondo filing.

The EU treats tokenized securities as financial instruments under existing law and licenses service providers under MiCA. OneBullEx describes this as clearer, though demanding. Firms that operate across borders face questions about which rules apply.

The risks are practical. An arXiv study of December 2025 to May 2026 found signs of illiquidity in some tokenized markets. Tokenized funds are also spread across networks that cannot share collateral without a bridge.

Infrastructure may drive the next phase. The NYSE has announced plans for 24/7 trading and instant settlement. Franklin Templeton is working with DigiFT and Binance on wider institutional use.

What the Statistics Show

The tokenized RWA market is real and growing, but it is still narrow. Distributed value sits in the range of $30 billion to $40 billion on most trackers, and Treasuries account for about 40% of it. Private credit comes next, while real estate is under 1%.

Growth is fastest in stocks and ETFs, driven by retail users on large platforms. Capital still sits with a smaller group of large holders. The gap between holder counts and dollars is a pattern across ETFs, Treasuries and stocks.

Forecasts for 2030 range from $2 trillion to $16.1 trillion. Readers should compare sources carefully, because each tracker defines the market differently. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.

Several events could change the picture in the coming months. These include the SEC response to Ondo’s filing, Franklin Templeton’s plan to place BENJI inside traditional funds, and whether NYSE round-the-clock trading leads to tokenized listings. Each would change how easily assets move between old and new markets.

Sources

1. Real-World Asset Tokenization Explained: Where the Market Actually Stands in 2026 (Learnsignal)
2. North America: Inside the Growth of Agentic Commerce (Chainalysis)
3. RWA categories in 2026: tokenized Treasuries, stocks, commodities, and more (MetaMask)
4. New report finds that rapid expansion of tokenization is giving rise to new styles of investing (Fortune)
5. Tokenized ETFs Triple in Size as Retail Adoption Outpaces Capital Growth (Richard Salmond)
6. Tokenized Treasuries Drive RWA Market Past $30 Billion In Early 2026 (OneBullEx)
7. Stablecoins & Tokenized Assets Report March 2026 (CoinDesk Data)

The post Tokenized Real-World Assets Statistics 2026: Market Size, Growth and Top Asset Classes appeared first on Blockonomi.

Solana’s on-chain economy is growing beyond meme coins. In fact, a new report suggests that real-world assets (RWAs) are emerging as one of its fastest-growing sectors.

Castle Labs found that Solana’s tokenized RWA market grew by more than 600% over the past year as it rose from $700 million to $4.3 billion. That puts it well ahead of Ethereum, where the tokenized market grew just 7% over the same period, from $15.5 billion to $16.6 billion.

For context, Solana’s RWA market was only 4.5% of Ethereum’s size a year ago. It now stands at 26%.

Solana’s Onchain Economy

The growth comes as Solana builds out its DeFi ecosystem and attracts more assets beyond speculative trading. The network now offers access to US Treasury debt, asset-backed credit, tokenized stocks, commodities, and curated investment strategies. Tokenized stocks, for one, have been a major part of this expansion. Their market value on Solana jumped from $63 million to $455 million.

The report said more than $65 million in tokenized equities on the chain are being used to earn yield. Much of this activity is driven by xStocks, whose assets can be used as collateral on lending platforms such as Kamino and Jupiter Lend. This gives holders more options than simply buying and holding tokenized shares.

Castle Labs said that the same trend was seen across other RWA categories. Ondo-related reinsurance exposure is available through ONyc from OnRe, while Hastra offers PRIME and AUTO, backed by home and consumer auto loans. Maple Finance has also expanded to Solana with syrupUSDC. These products are bringing yield-bearing assets into the network and creating new opportunities for lenders and borrowers.

DeFi Ecosystem Gains Momentum

The RWA expansion is also helping support Solana’s wider DeFi growth. Lending protocols can use tokenized assets as collateral, while users can borrow against them and put their capital to work elsewhere. As more assets arrive, that activity can create additional demand for lending and borrowing, Castle Labs explained.

Additionally, Solana has become a major force in onchain application revenue. It generated over $193 million over the past 30 days. This figure, interestingly, is nearly twice Hyperliquid’s $86.5 million. Consumer applications still account for around 80% of that revenue. Launchpads, trading terminals, wallets, and other platforms have contributed to the total.

The post Solana’s RWA Market Explodes 600% in a Year as Ethereum Struggles to Keep Up appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Turkish authorities have arrested Richard James Schueler, better known as Richard Heart, in an Istanbul operation targeting an internationally wanted crypto fugitive.

Heart was detained on Wednesday morning along with his wife, identified as A.K., according to local media reports. An update from the country’s Justice Minister, Akın Gürlek, confirmed the news today.

The operation involved Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Istanbul police teams, including the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Heart was reportedly found at an address in the Beşiktaş district after security and intelligence units tracked his movements through technical and physical surveillance. He was wanted under an Interpol Red Notice issued at Finland’s request over allegations involving high-profile crypto fraud.

Authorities also seized over $7 million in cash in several currencies, mobile phones, laptops, graphics cards, SSDs, firearms, ammunition, drones, gold bracelets and necklaces during searches at the property. Heart’s arrest follows years of legal trouble linked to his crypto ventures.

In 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged him and three entities he controlled, Hex, PulseChain and PulseX, over allegedly unregistered crypto asset securities offerings that raised more than $1 billion from investors. The regulator also accused Heart and PulseChain of fraud, alleging they misappropriated at least $12 million in offering proceeds to buy luxury items.

The SEC had previously listed sports cars, expensive watches, and a 555-carat black diamond known as The Enigma among the purchases. The diamond was reportedly one of the largest black diamonds in the world. The case was, however, ended in 2025 after a US federal judge dismissed the lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds. The SEC later declined to amend its complaint.

Heart was notorious for relentlessly flaunting extreme wealth online. Following news of his arrest, HEX sharply plunged nearly 50% from $0.00090 to $0.00046 on October 14, in less than 24 hours. The token has since recovered and is currently trading near $0.00060.

The post HEX Founder Richard Heart Arrested in Türkiye: $7.15M Cash, Guns, Cold Wallets, and Luxury Goods Seized appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The analysts at the Kobeissi Letter argued that Wall Street is in a rare “bull-bear market,” with key indices, such as the S&P 500, hovering near record highs even as most of its components trade well below their peaks.

The KL’s analysis believes this divergence could eventually fuel another powerful rally if inflation, energy prices, and interest-rate pressures ease.

The Contradiction

The apparent discrepancy comes after a dramatic deterioration in the macro backdrop. At the start of the year, markets expected at least three Fed rate cuts. Instead, the central bank hiked rates in September, and current expectations imply another three increases by June 2027. This translates to a 175-basis-point swing in the expected policy path.

At the same time, Brent crude skyrocketed to $106 per barrel, diesel has surged more than 80% from its January lows, and inflation remains almost 2x higher than the Fed’s target.

According to the KL, this contradiction stems from extreme market concentration. The analysts found that 84% of S&P 500 companies are at least 10% below their all-time highs, while 59% are down 20% or more. 41% are down more than 30%, and 17% are down more than 50% from their respective ATHs.

Only 10 companies have generated roughly 70% of the S&P 500’s gain since the March 30 bottom. Nvidia alone accounts for about 13% of the rally, while Micron, Apple, Microsoft, AMD, and Alphabet were among the other dominant contributors.

Put simply, the headline index looks healthy largely because a small group of technology giants continues to pull it higher. In reality, the analysts argued that this may actually represent an opportunity rather than a warning. If market conditions improve even mildly, the broader index could receive a powerful new source of buying pressure.

What About BTC?

The analysis added that if geopolitical tensions subside and oil prices pull back, inflation expectations could fall with them, potentially allowing the Fed to become less restrictive. This could remove part of the discount currently weighing on equities and allow the rally to broaden beyond the mega caps.

Although BTC was not a central focus of the analysis, its presence in global finance and its susceptibility to inflation and macro news put it under the microscope. Persistent inflation and the dollar’s declining purchasing power can strengthen the long-term appeal of scarce assets, while lower energy prices and a more dovish Fed would generally improve liquidity conditions for risk assets, including crypto.

For now, though, the S&P 500 paradox remains, and all eyes are on the late October FOMC meeting, where the Fed is expected to keep rates unchanged. However, a hawkish surprise is likely to intensify the selling pressure on risk-on assets.

The post The S&P 500 Is Near Record Highs: But Most Stocks Are Already in a Bear Market appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin is hovering near $81.5K as repeated tests of nearby demand keep buyers under pressure. The broader ascending structure remains intact, but fading rebounds suggest that a stronger response is needed to prevent a deeper correction.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, BTC has continued to retreat following its rejection from the $85.5K–$90.5K supply zone. Recent candles show lower highs and repeated probes toward $80K, indicating that buyers have struggled to regain momentum after the initial selloff.

The price is now approaching the ascending channel’s midpoint around $79K–$80K. This trendline represents nearby structural support, while the highlighted $75K–$78K demand zone remains the main daily defense below. Holding these areas would preserve the broader recovery structure, although it would not immediately reverse the recent bearish sequence.

To improve the outlook, Bitcoin needs to reclaim the recent rebound highs around $83K–$84K before challenging the $85.5K–$90.5K resistance zone again. Conversely, sustained weakness beneath $80K would increase the likelihood of a move toward $78K and potentially the lower boundary of demand near $75K.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart places Bitcoin just above the marked buyers’ decision point at $80K–$81.3K. This demand zone overlaps with the rising channel’s lower boundary and has attracted several buying responses. However, successive rebounds have failed to recover the previous highs, leaving the short-term structure vulnerable.

A sustained recovery above $82.5K–$83K would provide an initial sign of improving demand, followed by the recent resistance area around $84K. Beyond that, the sellers’ decision point at $85.5K–$86.7K remains the main barrier. Reclaiming this zone would weaken the corrective scenario and bring the highs near $87K back into focus.

Conversely, a decisive break below the $80K demand boundary and ascending trendline would undermine this support confluence. Such a development could extend the decline toward the next highlighted demand zone around $74.8K–$76.3K. The current area therefore remains pivotal, with buyers needing stronger follow-through to turn repeated defenses into a meaningful recovery.

Sentiment Analysis

The Realized Price UTXO Age Bands chart tracks the average on-chain cost basis of coins grouped by age. Bitcoin, currently near $81.7K, remains above the realized prices of the 1-to-3-month and 3-to-6-month cohorts, positioned around $70.5K and $69.5K, respectively. These younger cohorts remain in aggregate unrealized profit despite the correction.

However, the price remains below the 6-to-12-month cohort’s realized price near $87K and the 18-month-to-2-year cohort’s level around $91K. These cost bases form overhead reference points, with the former overlapping the technical supply zone. Holders approaching breakeven during a rebound could introduce selling pressure, although the metric alone does not confirm that they will sell.

The chart also shows the 1-to-3-month realized price rising while the 3-to-6-month measure declines, bringing both toward the $70K region. This identifies a concentration of younger-holder cost bases well below the current price, rather than immediate support for the present consolidation.

For now, the $87K–$91K cost-basis region remains an important hurdle for a broader recovery. Sustained acceptance above it would return these older cohorts to aggregate unrealized profit, while continued rejection would leave the overhead resistance intact.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: Will BTC Lose the $80K Support Next Week? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin faces the prospect of being removed from major MSCI indexes under newly finalized eligibility rules, potentially triggering billions of dollars in passive outflows.

However, CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju argued that the risk is already priced in, while Michael Saylor, Strategy’s co-founder and former CEO, has dismissed the issue as relatively unimportant to the company.

MSCI Risk Priced In?

CryptoPotato reported yesterday that MSCI finalized the new rules this week targeting companies it classified as “non-operating,” potentially putting Strategy, Metaplanet, and other digital-asset treasury firms at risk of exclusion from the Global Investable Market Indexes. The final list of affected entities is due on November 11, with the methodology taking effect at the close of November 30.

JPMorgan analysts have previously estimated that Strategy’s removal could lead to approximately $2.8 billion in passive outflows from MSTR. However, CryptoQuant’s Ki Young Ju offered a different perspective, indicating that investors may be focusing too heavily on that figure.

He explained that MSCI is primarily a fund-flow issue already reflected in MSTR’s valuation, while major Wall Street firms continue to maintain substantially higher price targets. He cited Citigroup putting MSTR at $240, Barclays at $175, and B. Riley at $195, adding that these targets have generally moved higher rather than lower.

CryptoQuant’s CEO added that Strategy’s positioning depends on more important factors, including its roughly 1x market-cap-to-Bitcoin-NAV ratio, STRC trading close to par, and billions of dollars in reserves to support dividend obligations.

Analysts don’t care about MSCI. $MSTR consensus still very bullish.

Citi $240, Barclays $175, B. Riley $195. Targets going up, not down.

MSCI is a flow story, and it’s priced in. What matters now: mNAV ~1.0x, STRC at par, $3.75B reserve covering dividends. https://t.co/NWKtUrVVaM

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) October 16, 2026

Saylor Fires Back

Speaking to Bloomberg before MSCI finalized the rules, Strategy’s former CEO said the decision was “not that important to us,” as the capital controlled through the relevant indexes is relatively small from the company’s perspective. He also attacked the reasoning behind the classification, arguing that treating oil, natural gas, land, or machinery as legitimate corporate capital while refusing to treat BTC the same way amounts to a subjective value judgment.

Saylor called MSCI’s stance a bad precedent and said digital assets remain the future regardless of whether the index provider agrees. However, the market reacted differently. MSTR experienced a substantial sell-off on Friday, dumping from a Thursday peak of over $151 to under $137 at Friday’s close.

Strategy remains the largest corporate holder of BTC, holding 848,250 units after the latest purchase announced on October 12.

The post Wall Street Stays Bullish on Strategy Despite MSCI Threat, CryptoQuant CEO Says appeared first on CryptoPotato.