The halt in election coverage due to journalist threats highlights escalating risks to press freedom, potentially undermining democratic processes.

The post Brazilian news site halts 2026 election coverage after journalist threats appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

HSBC's RedCoin launch could accelerate stablecoin adoption, influencing global banking practices and enhancing digital transaction security.

The post HSBC prepares RedCoin stablecoin launch with payments in focus appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

DeepSeek's software release could significantly reduce China's reliance on Nvidia, fostering a more self-sufficient AI ecosystem.

The post DeepSeek releases AI chip programming software developed with Huawei appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The integration of advanced AI models in cybersecurity could significantly accelerate vulnerability detection, prompting regulatory scrutiny and innovation.

The post Palo Alto Networks tests Anthropic’s Claude Mythos to enhance cybersecurity appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

PaleBlueDot AI's aggressive expansion into Asia could significantly enhance its market influence, bridging Western tech with Asian demand.

The post PaleBlueDot AI seeks $600M private credit from Brookfield to fuel South Korea chip buying spree appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitget Customers Withdraw Over 4,000 Bitcoins in One Hour Following $388M Hack

Investors withdrew over 4,000 bitcoins worth over $334 million at today’s prices in one hour after hacked Bitget resumed customer withdrawals, the company’s CEO has said. 

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told Bloomberg Television Tuesday that withdrawals from the exchange had since stabilized following the immediate bitcoin transactions.

Hackers last week made away with $388 million in crypto after targeting the Victoria, Seychelles-based exchange’s hot wallets. 

“The withdrawals actually stabilized a lot today,” Chen said. “Those hundreds of millions [in bitcoin withdrawals] actually most of them happen on the first hour of the withdrawal restart.”

In a Monday X post, Chen said that 9,585 orders of 4,098 bitcoins were processed. The exchange is allowing customers to withdraw funds in phases. 

Bitget froze withdrawals after blockchain experts flagged that money was leaving the exchange. Bitget later said the attack method in the incident was “highly consistent with known patterns of North Korean hacker organizations.” 

Chen said that no cold storage funds were touched but rather attackers had “exploited vulnerabilities from third-party products to steal internal credentials, then used those credentials to send fraudulent withdrawal commands that bypassed our risk controls.” 

She added that the company was using its own money to top up its protection fund after it dropped in size. Bloomberg reported that it was below $200 million after standing at $464 million before the hack. 

Bitget said that it was the first “security incident of this nature in eight years.” 

“The incident remains contained, and no further unauthorized transfers are possible,” the exchange noted. 

Bitget is the sixth biggest by trading volume, according to CoinGecko, processing in the past 24 hours $811 million in transactions. The exchange’s customers are mostly based in Asia. 

Attackers linked to North Korea’s government have long targeted crypto exchanges and are some of the most sophisticated cyber criminals out there. 

This post Bitget Customers Withdraw Over 4,000 Bitcoins in One Hour Following $388M Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitwise Head of Research: Sovereigns Selling Gold for Bitcoin | Ryan Rasmussen

When Bitcoin fell from $125K to $60K, not one of the 15 major institutions Bitwise interviewed sold, and many bought more. Ryan Rasmussen, head of research at Bitwise, breaks down the firm’s first institutional crypto adoption report, covering pensions, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds, and why they treat Bitcoin alongside gold as a hedge against debasement.

Chapters:
0:00 Ryan Rasmussen on Bitwise’s Institutional Crypto Adoption Report
0:49 Why No Institutions Sold Bitcoin During the Bear Market
1:45 Wells Fargo’s 2–3% Bitcoin Allocation and the Debasement Thesis
3:45 Fidelity, BlackRock, and 2–8% Bitcoin Allocations
4:50 How ETFs Made This Bitcoin Bear Market Shallower
6:24 $2.5B in Weekly ETF Inflows and a New Wave of Capital
7:06 Why Bitwise Believes the Bitcoin Bottom Was $60K
9:36 Why Institutions Hold Both Bitcoin and Gold
11:37 Sovereign Wealth Funds Selling Gold to Buy Bitcoin
15:17 Why Bitcoin Isn’t Correlated to Bonds, Gold, or Stocks

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

This post Bitwise Head of Research: Sovereigns Selling Gold for Bitcoin | Ryan Rasmussen first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Tracy Shuchart: BTC & the Commodities Supercycle

Six million barrels a day of oil still aren’t getting through the Strait of Hormuz, and Tracy Shuchart says markets are still tightening. The NinjaTrader Live senior economist explains why lost GCC production won’t come back quickly, why crack spreads are signaling stress, and why the global refining shortage could get worse heading into winter.

Chapters:
0:00 Tracy Shuchart on the Strait of Hormuz and Tightening Oil Markets
1:07 Crack Spreads, Russian Refineries, and the Global Refining Shortage
2:50 Fall Refinery Maintenance and a Dire Winter Setup
3:22 Why a US Diesel Export Ban Would Backfire
4:45 Gold vs. Bitcoin: Why Hard Assets Are Holding Up
7:15 Venezuela’s Oil Discount and What It Means for US Refiners
8:31 Venezuela as a Geopolitical and Critical Minerals Play
9:28 AI Data Center Debt and Stress in the Bond Market
11:02 The Coming Copper Shortage and AI’s Supply Problem
12:41 Can the US Grow Its Way Through a Supply Shock?

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

This post Tracy Shuchart: BTC & the Commodities Supercycle first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Dan Tapiero: “We’ve Begun a Bull Phase” in Bitcoin

Dan Tapiero says a new bull phase has begun in the core assets of the digital asset space. The founder and CEO of 50T Funds explains where he’s seeing real revenue growth underneath the hood, from stablecoins and tokenization to Kraken, Ledger, and Polymarket, and why Hyperliquid has been leading the market.

Chapters:
0:00 Dan Tapiero on What Makes a Digital Asset Company Worth Backing
1:25 Passing on FTX, Celsius, and BlockFi – Why Valuation Matters
3:50 Where the Real Revenue Growth Is: Stablecoins, Tokenization, and Kraken
5:15 Bitcoin, Solana, and Why Hyperliquid Is Leading This Bull Phase
6:59 Raising the $500M 50T Fund and Institutional Appetite
9:41 50T’s $42M MoonPay Investment
11:05 Japan’s 30-Year Bond Base and the Biggest Macro Theme
14:04 Scott Bessent, the Yen, and Kevin Warsh’s Rate Hike
16:31 AI, Productivity, and the Natural Rate of Interest
18:22 The Debasement Trade: Why Bitcoin and Gold Win Long Term

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

This post Dan Tapiero: “We’ve Begun a Bull Phase” in Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

HANetf Debuts Euro-Hedged Bitcoin Fund in World First

A new bitcoin exchange-traded fund has hit Europe — with a twist. 

Debuted by $9.2 billion ETF provider HANetf, the Arrow Bitcoin EUR Hedged ETF gives European investors exposure to bitcoin while reducing the impact of movements between the euro and the US dollar.

Because bitcoin is priced in dollars, European investors who buy an unhedged product are exposed to two things at once: the bitcoin price and the dollar’s moves against the euro. 

The new exchange-traded commodity — a fund that gives investors exposure to a commodity — aims to remove the second of these in a product described by HANetf as the world’s first. 

“With this launch, we are bringing the established logic of euro-hedged ETFs to the crypto market,” Hector McNeil, co-founder and co-CEO of HANetf, said in a statement. “Investors have long understood that currency movements can have a meaningful impact on returns on different asset classes, for example gold.”

“Similar to gold, bitcoin is priced in US dollars, meaning European investors can end up taking two views at once: a view on bitcoin itself and a view on the dollar. 

HSBC will provide the currency hedging for the product. Typically, euro-hedged funds work by a bank entering forward contracts to sell the equivalent dollar amount for euros at a fixed rate on a future date. 

If the dollar then weakens against the euro, the loss on the bitcoin’s euro value is offset by a gain on the forward, and vice versa. These contracts are usually rolled monthly, and the hedge is resized when they roll.

Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. have been a huge success since the Securities and Exchange Commission approved them in 2024. 

Managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley and others, the products allow investors to buy shares that track the price of bitcoin, without having to worry about storing the cryptocurrency themselves. 

The funds now manage a combined total of $111.1 billion in assets, according to Coinglass, following the most successful launch in the history of ETFs. 

This post HANetf Debuts Euro-Hedged Bitcoin Fund in World First first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin registered an intraday low of $82,775.94 on Sept. 29 before rebounding above $83,000, close to a price that could change the estimated profitability of the average Bitcoin ETF holder when Wednesday’s US inflation data arrive.

A decline of about 2.2% from mid-$83,000 would reach $81,722, a target that Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart estimated on Sept. 21 as the average ETF holder’s cost basis, saying the recent rally had put that holder back in profit.

Individual investors have different purchase prices, and a move through $81,722 would make their trading decisions worth watching. A Sept. 9 Glassnode report placed a differently measured ETF-complex break-even near $86,000.

Seyffart’s later estimate gives Wednesday’s price action a specific threshold, with its scope and date attached.

Levels around the ETF estimate

The immediate reference above Tuesday’s captured price is an $84,000-$85,000 zone, as Glassnode’s Sept. 23 report called it the largest cluster of long-term-holder supply. Bitcoin traded above that zone when the report was published, while Tuesday’s quoted price was below it.

Analyst Axel Adler Jr. calculated Bitcoin’s 365-day moving average at $80,500 on Sept. 22, so a fall through $81,722 followed by a test of $80,500 would carry price below two separate reference points.

ADP schedules its September private employment report for 8:15 a.m. ET; the Bureau of Economic Analysis is due to release August personal income and outlays at 8:30 a.m. ET, and BEA also schedules the third estimate of second-quarter GDP for that time.

Those releases coincide with BEA’s annual update of national and regional economic accounts, which includes revisions to historical series. Traders may reassess their initial reaction to the new inflation figures as they absorb the employment data, GDP estimate, and revisions.

Because ADP comes first, yields may already be moving before the PCE figure lands. The 8:30 a.m. window then combines new inflation data with GDP and a revised historical baseline.

A Bitcoin move during those minutes could reflect more than one release. Following yields through the session and checking where Bitcoin trades after the initial swings would give the price reaction a clearer macro context.

If a hotter PCE reading lifts yields and Bitcoin trades below $81,722, the average position under Seyffart’s estimate would be back in loss territory. The next evidence would come from whether price remains below that level after the first burst of volatility and what subsequent ETF flows and spot buying show.

If a softer reading pulls yields lower, Bitcoin could instead test Glassnode’s $84,000-$85,000 zone. A sustained move through it would say more about demand than a brief spike. A reading close to expectations may give ADP, GDP, and the revisions more influence, keeping Bitcoin between the nearby levels despite sharp intraday moves.

The $81,722 figure is close enough to the Sept. 29 intraday low to be tested by a modest move, but the lasting signal is whether yields confirm the direction and price holds on one side of the estimated ETF-holder basis after the data window clears.

The post Bitcoin could put the average ETF buyer back in losses this week appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Aave DAO would own the contracts for a proposed Ethereum lending market, but Sentora would make the day-to-day decisions that shape its credit risk.

In a governance proposal posted Sept. 28, the DeFi risk manager asks to operate an isolated Aave V4 Hub and its lending Spokes through revocable roles. The split puts an immediate risk response in Sentora’s hands and leaves the DAO with ownership, a review path for new markets and the power to withdraw those roles.

Sentora would choose its collateral, interest-rate curves, liquidation settings, and oracles. Aave’s existing risk service providers would have no assignment to monitor the instance, recommend changes, or respond to incidents.

The proposal is still an ARFC for community discussion, and the next steps include a Snapshot vote followed by an on-chain Aave Improvement Proposal before any approval.

Who can act, and when

Aave V4 separates the Hub that holds liquidity from the Spokes where loans originate against collateral. Sentora proposes one Ethereum Hub for its Spokes, with no credit lines to or from other Aave DAO Hubs, and its own Spokes would still draw from suppliers in Sentora’s Hub.

The proposal limits borrowable assets to RLUSD, PYUSD, and OUSD, excluding USDC and USDT.

Under the plan, the DAO’s Governance Short Executor would retain the admin roles over the Hub, Spokes, and AccessManager. The DAO would retain contract upgrades and role grants, and Sentora would own none of the contracts.

Instead, it would receive operational roles to manage the markets, and the DAO could revoke those grants through an on-chain governance proposal.

Those roles create different response times:

The 48-hour delay applies to risk increases and to functions whose direction is ambiguous, including rate models and liquidation configurations. The proposal sets no limit on the size of an increase and no cooldown between updates.

The delay makes a scheduled action visible, but the DAO would have no mechanism to cancel that one action inside the window. Revoking Sentora’s roles would require a separate on-chain governance proposal and would remove its authority going forward.

For a new Hub or collateral asset, Sentora would post an analysis and wait two weeks. An objection from any appointed Aave DAO service provider would stop the rollout and send it to a binding Snapshot vote.

The same proposal says no service provider is scoped or compensated to review these submissions. It also excludes the instance from the providers’ monitoring, parameter-recommendation, and incident-response mandates.

Providers could raise concerns on their own initiative, but a quiet review window would not establish that anyone examined the change. The proposed veto depends on someone noticing a problem and choosing to object.

Sentora CEO Anthony DeMartino argued in a November 2025 essay that risk management needs measurable controls and continuous monitoring. The new proposal would assign that operating role to Sentora, while leaving the DAO’s providers free to speak up without requiring them to watch the market.

Who absorbs a shortfall?

If a liquidation exhausts a borrower’s collateral while debt remains, the Spoke reports the shortfall to the Hub from which it drew the debt asset. The Hub records the deficit against that asset, and TokenLogic’s V4 Umbrella proposal says suppliers of that Hub asset bear the loss.

A separate ledger identifies the Spoke that originated it, and the absence of cross-Hub credit lines would prevent a direct draw on other DAO Hubs for this instance’s loans. It would not shield suppliers inside Sentora’s Hub from its own Spokes.

The proposed commercial bargain gives 50% of the instance’s protocol revenue to Sentora and 50% to the DAO, including reserve-factor earnings and protocol liquidation fees.

Aave’s separate V4 Umbrella ARFC proposes deficit offsets and staked coverage for Core WETH, Core USDC, and Core USDT. Its coverage does not name Sentora’s proposed Hub, and Sentora’s ARFC specifies no Umbrella market, deficit offset, or Sentora-funded first-loss layer for it.

A future proposal could address that gap, but a lender cannot infer protection from the DAO’s contract ownership or its fee share.

Sentora’s narrative says USDe and PST would back the first RLUSD yield loans, with PRIME and mWIN added later, while its specification lists all four. Its Bluechip description names RLUSD borrowing against kBTC, but the table lists RLUSD, PYUSD and OUSD.

The OUSD oracle is also left to be confirmed before launch. The final asset and price-feed choices would help define the risk borne by suppliers.

For the DAO, the decision before any Snapshot or AIP is whether to grant these operating rights with no assigned independent watcher and no stated first-loss protection for the isolated Hub.

For prospective suppliers, the final asset list, oracle choices, and any explicit deficit coverage will determine how much risk sits behind those DAO-held contract keys.

The post Sentora split 50% Aave revenue, but suppliers absorb all losses appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin miner Hut 8 announced on Sept. 28 that it had closed a four-year, $1 billion senior secured credit line.

The facility gives the parent company room to borrow during site development and to back construction obligations with letters of credit. Its securities filing says no amounts were outstanding when the agreement closed on Sept. 24.

Hut 8 says letters of credit can support interconnection deposits and obligations to utilities and equipment vendors, reducing the cash it needs to post as collateral. The $1 billion letter-of-credit sublimit is contained within the overall commitment.

In effect, the line offers two ways to use a single pool of bank capacity: borrowing cash or securing eligible obligations.

Flexibility for development, exposure at the parent

Hut 8's June 30 balance sheet listed $233.6 million in cash, with restricted funds reported separately.

The line can help bridge interim development needs while Hut 8 decides when to arrange longer-term project financing, according to the company. That timing gives the parent a financing option while projects move through their earlier stages.

The new agreement names Hut 8 Corp. as borrower. Certain restricted subsidiaries guarantee its obligations, and first-priority liens cover substantially all assets of the borrower and guarantors, subject to exclusions.

Hut 8 described $7.5 billion of earlier financing for its River Bend and Beacon Point AI campuses as non-recourse project financing. Use of the new line could create secured obligations at the parent and guarantor level alongside those project structures.

If Hut 8 chooses Term SOFR loans, the initial margin is 1.75 percentage points above the benchmark. That margin can range from 1.50 to 2.00 points as the company's debt-to-market-capitalization ratio changes.

The agreement also restricts certain additional debt and liens, subject to qualifications, and a minimum-liquidity covenant beginning with the quarter ending March 31, 2027.

Its threshold is 40% of commitments before a defined stabilization date and 25% afterward, measured using the agreement's definition of liquidity and subject to equity cure rights. How much Hut 8 eventually borrows or issues in letters of credit will determine the scale of its parent-level obligations.

The post Hut 8 locks in $1B credit line, but faces 40% liquidity rules appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US job openings cooled modestly in August, but September households grew more worried about inflation and interest rates. That split left Bitcoin investors with only part of the case for easier financial conditions after Sept. 29 releases.

Bitcoin registered an intraday low of $82,775.94 on Tuesday, and a reclaim of the $84,000 support level depends more on the path of yields and new demand than on a single vacancies report.

The labor and consumer surveys describe different pressures, and neither establishes the cause of Bitcoin's price.

Job openings ease as rate worries rise

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, August job openings were little changed at 7.1 million, down from a revised 7.3 million in July. The July figure was revised upward by 64,000, making the comparison less dramatic.

Hires changed little at 5.2 million, quits were unchanged at 3.1 million, and layoffs and discharges were essentially unchanged at 1.6 million. The report points to somewhat softer demand for workers, and a slower labor market may ease pressure on interest rates, while a sharp deterioration could also hurt risk appetite.

The Conference Board's September consumer confidence index fell to 81.9 from 88.6 in August. Its Expectations Index, based on consumers' short-term outlook for income, business and labor conditions, declined for a third consecutive month to 63.6. Respondents also described the current job market less favorably.

Their rate and inflation answers ran counter to a simple “soft jobs, lower yields” interpretation. The share of consumers expecting higher interest rates over the next 12 months rose 5.2% to 68.4%.

Average expected inflation over that horizon rose to 6.1%, while the median rose to 5.1%, and both increased 0.3% from August.

The survey was conducted Sept. 1-23, a period that included the Federal Reserve's Sept. 16 rate increase to a 3.75%-4.00% target range, which provides context for consumers' answers.

The latest posted Treasury daily par yield curve data put the 10-year rate at 5.24% and the two-year at 4.92% on Sept. 28. The observation precedes Tuesday's releases, so it does not measure a bond-market reaction to them.

Treasury securities offered substantial yields while Bitcoin itself pays no coupon, so softer hiring would help Bitcoin more if subsequent inflation data gave yields room to fall.

ETF demand and the next economic tests

The Sept. 28 US-traded spot Bitcoin ETF posted a positive net inflow of $31 million, smaller than each of the five preceding completed sessions, according to Farside Investors.

Stronger inflows in completed sessions would show buyers returning even while yields remain elevated. If inflows stay subdued, a lower-yield backdrop may matter more for any sustained recovery above $84,000.

Neither the prior day's ETF total nor a live Bitcoin quote shows how investors responded to Tuesday's economic releases.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to publish August personal income and outlays on Sept. 30, including PCE inflation data, and the September employment report follows on Oct. 2.

A cooler inflation reading alongside slower but orderly hiring would strengthen the case for lower Treasury yields. If yields then decline and completed ETF flows improve, Bitcoin could face less competition from interest-bearing assets and firmer evidence of new demand.

A hot inflation print or persistently high yields would weaken that case, even if payroll growth slows. A much sharper jobs slowdown could raise its own risks.

For now, the labor data show moderation, while the consumer survey shows anxiety about prices and rates. Bitcoin's route back above $84,000 turns on whether forthcoming data and market prices resolve that tension, and whether buyers show up in completed ETF flows.

The post Bitcoin drops to $82,000 on US data, and inflation fear is blamed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Federal Reserve's stablecoin proposal would put a general two-business-day limit on redemption by issuers it supervises.

For a customer holding stablecoins at an exchange, the first step is getting that venue to release or convert the balance. In a July 28 snapshot, researchers located $76 billion of stablecoins at centralized exchanges, where a customer may have to deal with the venue before reaching an issuer.

Researchers at the Andersen Institute for Finance and Economics located that amount across 12 reserve-backed dollar stablecoins. They call the exchange figure a lower bound because some exchange wallets cannot be identified.

Where the proposed clock starts

The Fed proposal, published in the Federal Register on Sept. 29 after the Board announced it on Sept. 24, would require a Board-supervised payment stablecoin issuer to disclose its redemption procedure.

Under proposed section 247.12, its normal period to redeem after a request could not exceed two business days. The issuer would have to explain how a customer can redeem and accept requests for at least one token, subject to screening and onboarding.

The Board could extend the period for safety, financial stability or the public interest. The proposal also includes limited safe harbors for delays tied to required customer checks or circumstances outside an issuer's control. The requirements remain under public comment.

If an exchange makes a qualifying redemption request to an issuer, that issuer's obligations could matter to the exchange. An exchange customer's instruction to sell, convert or withdraw a balance is a separate transaction with the venue. The venue's terms govern that customer-facing step.

Current terms show why the distinction matters. Circle says direct USDC redemption under its terms for holders outside the European Economic Area is available to an eligible holder with a Circle Mint account in good standing.

A holder without that account cannot redeem directly with Circle until eligible and registered, as the firm describes Mint as a service for institutional distributors.

Coinbase's US agreement says a customer owns the balance of a USDC wallet, but Coinbase is not obliged to repurchase USDC for dollars. It may choose to do so, and the agreement points customers to Circle for direct redemption under Circle's separate terms.

Coinbase also reserves the right to suspend sending or trading, while Circle Mint eligibility and the timing of a specific exchange withdrawal depend on the customer's circumstances and venue.

The Andersen snapshot itself also has a scope problem for anyone trying to apply the Fed proposal to the full $76 billion. It includes $61.5 billion of USDT and $10.1 billion of USDC at exchanges, plus other coins, while the Fed text addresses Board-supervised issuers.

Tether's current terms require a verified customer for direct redemption and post a $100,000 minimum. The venue total combines distinct issuer policies and regulatory categories, requiring issuer-by-issuer analysis before comparing it with the proposal's scope.

What one stablecoin run can show

The Andersen researchers also traced venue balances during the March 2023 USDC stress episode. Using March 9 as the pre-shock baseline for that episode, they found that exchanges held 15.2% of USDC supply but accounted for 40% of the subsequent supply decline.

The data compare token balances at identified exchange wallets with overall supply, while individual customer redemption routes lie outside these wallet-balance measurements. The exchange-held portion moved sharply in this one historical stress period.

From March 10 to 13, USDC supply fell $2.7 billion while identified exchange balances rose $600 million. After March 13, supply fell another $8.1 billion and exchange balances fell $4.9 billion. In the first phase, tokens moving onto exchanges could coexist with a shrinking overall supply, while the larger exchange-balance decline came later.

Treating the whole episode as an immediate exchange exodus would miss that reversal.

That 2023 USDC episode offers limited guidance about how USDT or the other coins might behave under a future shock. Wallet-location data also leave the order of individual exchange requests unknown.

The proposed rule would define redemption obligations for issuers within the Board's remit, with exceptions and eligibility checks. Andersen's July snapshot identifies the scale of balances held at exchanges. Today's venue balances and customer exit times require fresh, separate evidence.

The post Fed guarantees 2-day stablecoin payouts, but $76B remains blocked appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Tangem Wallet is a hardware wallet in the format of a bank card, and it works without a battery, without a cable and, in the standard case, without a seed phrase. The two-card set costs 59.90 euros, the three-card set 69.90 euros. The private key is generated inside the card's chip and never leaves it. The backup runs through a second and a third card that carry the same key. Both the great advantage of this design and its biggest risk follow from exactly that.

For you as an investor in Germany, this is a trade-off between two sources of error. With a classic hardware wallet the seed phrase is the weak point: anyone who photographs it, types it into the cloud or stores it carelessly loses their holdings. With the card wallet that sheet of paper does not exist in the first place, but everything then hangs on the cards themselves. This article weighs the two models against each other, gives the documented prices and certifications, and says where the limits lie.

What the Tangem Wallet is: card, NFC chip and the Tangem app

A hardware wallet is a device that keeps your private keys offline and signs transactions without handing the key over to the computer or the smartphone. The Tangem Wallet does that job in a form factor closer to a debit card than to a USB stick.

The card has no screen, no button, no port and no battery. It is addressed over NFC, the near-field communication your smartphone also uses for contactless payments. You hold the card against the back of the phone, the Tangem app builds the connection, and the chip in the card signs the transaction. After that the connection is gone again.

That has a practical consequence which rarely appears on a data sheet: with no battery there is nothing to run flat, and with no port there is nothing to wear out. Tangem states a service life of at least 25 years for the cards, along with a temperature range from minus 25 to plus 50 degrees Celsius and IP69K protection. The flip side: without a display there is nothing you can check on the card itself. What you sign, you read on the phone, and therefore on a device that is online.

Without a seed phrase: how the Tangem Wallet generates the private key

A seed phrase is a sequence of usually 12 or 24 words from which every private key of a wallet can be restored. On hardware wallets it is the customary lifeline, and at the same time the most common route by which holdings are lost.

Tangem takes a different path by default. On activation the chip generates the private key itself, using a certified hardware random number generator. According to the manufacturer, that key never leaves the chip and cannot be read out or copied even with physical access; every signature is created inside the card. In this case there are no 24 words for anyone to copy down, photograph or pull out of a cupboard.

The manufacturer names three ways for the key to get onto the card. The first is the random number generator described above. In the second, the app generates a seed phrase which you then import. In the third, you import an existing wallet. Anyone choosing the second or third route has a sheet of words again, and with it that route's advantages and disadvantages.

The access code is the second hurdle

The card on its own is not enough. During setup you define an access code, and without it the card cannot be persuaded to sign. Someone who takes the card out of your drawer does not yet have access. The reverse also holds: if you forget the code and own only two cards, nobody can help you, because there is no body that could reset anything.

Backup with two or three cards instead of 24 words

A set contains two or three outwardly identical cards, and all of them carry the same private key. Each one on its own gives full access to your holdings. The backup therefore consists of storing the cards in different places.

In practice that means: one card stays with you, the second sits with someone you trust or in a safe deposit box, the third in a third location. If one location fails, through fire or burglary for instance, access remains through the other cards. That is why the ten-euro step up from the two-card to the three-card set almost always pays for itself in practice.

Against the sheet of words this has an advantage that is easy to underrate: a card looks like a card. A slip of paper with 24 English words tells any finder immediately what it is about, and it can be photographed in seconds. A card would have to be physically taken away, and even then the access code is still missing.

What the Tangem Wallet costs: the card sets at a glance

The basis for the figures below is the manufacturer's German pricing page with five product variants. cryptoticker.io gathered this data itself on September 30, 2026.

• Two-card set: 59.90 euros. The entry-level variant, two cards with the same key.
• Three-card set: 69.90 euros. Ten euros more for a third backup copy.
• Family Pack: 129.80 euros. Two separate wallets in one package.
• Tangem Ring: 160.00 euros. A ring using the same technology, plus two cards.
• Pro Kit: 180.00 euros. The manufacturer's all-round variant.

Two side conditions from the same source come on top: shipping is free from an order value of 100 euros excluding VAT, and the manufacturer credits up to 20 dollars in Bitcoin per card, to be booked in within 14 days of activation. The app itself costs nothing. The current terms are on Tangem's pricing page.

For context, a look at the competition: the Trezor Safe 3 is listed by its manufacturer at 59 euros and works with a word backup, optionally with 12, 20 or 24 words; two cards for writing them down are included. On price, then, there is little between the entry-level devices. The difference lies not in the money but in the backup model. Anyone who wants to see several devices and designs side by side will find them in our hardware wallet comparison.

The EAL6+ chip and the three security audits

The secure element is a walled-off special-purpose chip that stores keys and performs cryptographic operations without any other component reaching its contents. In the Tangem card it comes from Samsung.

On the exact type designation the manufacturer is not consistent: the Learning Hub names an S3D350A, while the help page on reliability names an S3D232A from the S3D350 family. Both pages state the same certification level, namely EAL6+ under Common Criteria (ISO/IEC 15408). That level is customary in the identity document and payment card world, and it says how strictly the chip's development and testing were formally secured.

According to the manufacturer there have been three independent examinations: Kudelski Security in 2018, Riscure in 2023 and Cure53 in 2026. Tangem lists the supporting documents in its own security overview. An audit is a snapshot and not a guarantee, but three examinations over eight years are more than many providers can show.

Firmware without updates: a security gain and a drawback at once

The card's firmware is loaded at the factory and cannot be updated afterwards. That is a deliberate decision, and it cuts off an entire attack route: where no update can be installed, no manipulated update can be slipped in either. A considerable share of the attacks on hardware wallets aims at exactly that.

The other side of the same coin: should a flaw ever be found in the firmware, it cannot be fixed by an update. The only remaining option would be to move the holdings to a new wallet. Anyone opting for this design is therefore opting for a fixed state, for better and for worse. On top of that, the firmware is not open source; it can only be examined indirectly, through the audits named above.

The biggest risk: all cards gone, no seed, no access

This is the point at which the card wallet becomes unforgiving. Tangem puts it unambiguously in its own documentation: if all the cards are lost and no seed phrase was set up, access is permanently gone. There is no recovery, no customer service that could help, and no back door.

That is not a design flaw but the logical consequence of nobody but you holding the key. It does, however, shift the demand it places on you: instead of protecting a sheet of paper, you have to manage two or three cards in separate places over years, and you have to make sure that if the worst happens, someone else also knows where they are and what they are.

Anyone who does not want that finality can choose the route with an imported seed phrase. The card then behaves like a classic hardware wallet and you have the sheet of words as an additional layer of rescue. In exchange, though, you take back on precisely the risk the design set out to avoid.

Tangem, Trezor and Ledger: the differences in the backup

All three providers keep the private key away from the internet, that much they share. They part company on the question of what the backup consists of and what you look at when signing.

With Trezor and Ledger the backup is a word backup, and both devices have a display of their own on which you can check the recipient address and the amount before you confirm. That is genuine protection against malware that substitutes a different address on the computer from the one you entered. With Tangem this display is missing; the check happens on the phone.

With Tangem the backup consists of the card copies, and in the standard case there is nothing for anyone to copy down. In exchange, operation is tied to a smartphone with NFC, and there is no desktop route. Which model suits you better depends less on the price than on which mistake you consider yourself more likely to make: a mislaid slip of paper or three lost cards. For everyday use on the phone, our software wallet comparison is also worth a look, because many investors run a dual track: small amounts in the app, the holdings on the hardware.

Holding period and the tax office: moving to your own wallet is not a sale

When you transfer Bitcoin from an exchange to your own wallet, the goods do not change owner. You are moving your own holdings between two of your own addresses, and that does not constitute a disposal. The one-year holding period therefore keeps running and does not start again.

The bookkeeping matters all the same. The tax office is interested in the acquisition date and the acquisition cost, and after the move those no longer appear automatically in the exchange's statement. Anyone using several wallets and trading venues alongside each other should pull the transaction list across while it is still retrievable; if you leave an exchange altogether, experience shows the history quickly becomes inaccessible.

The card itself is unremarkable for tax purposes. It is an object, not a financial product, and it is not subject to any authorisation requirement under MiCA either: anyone holding their own keys is not using a service for which a licensed provider would be needed. What requires a licence is the trading venue where you buy, not the hardware you store on afterwards.

Who the Tangem Wallet suits and who it does not

It is a good fit if you handle everything on your phone anyway, if the thought of a sheet of words in a cupboard bothers you, and if you have several secure storage locations. It also works well as a supplement: one card set for the long-term holdings, an app wallet for day-to-day business.

It is less of a fit if you move larger amounts and do not want to do without a confirmation display on the device, if you work from the desktop, or if you want to be certain that a software flaw could still be fixed later. If you are only just considering a purchase, our piece on Tangem reviews covers the practical side of the setup.

One note on where to buy, which applies to every hardware wallet: buy from the manufacturer or from a named dealer. A device from resale may have been tampered with, and on a card wallet without a display that is even harder to spot than elsewhere.

Tangem Wallet: Your next three steps

1. Decide on a backup model before you order. Card copies without a sheet of words, or an imported seed phrase: both are defensible, but switching afterwards means moving the holdings to a new wallet. Which other designs exist is shown by our overview of tax and portfolio tools in combination with how you keep your records.
2. Fix the storage locations before the cards arrive. Three cards in three places only protect you if the places are genuinely independent. A card in the drawer next to it is not a second backup.
3. Pull your transaction history from the exchange before you withdraw. You will need the acquisition date and the purchase price later for your tax return. If you are changing trading venue in the process, our overview of crypto exchanges helps with the choice.

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

ICX disappears from Bitvavo on Friday, 2 October 2026. Anyone who does nothing until then will not lose the coins, but will lose the decision over when they are sold: Bitvavo converts every remaining balance into euros automatically, by Monday 12 October at the latest. All the room for manoeuvre sits between those two dates, and it is tighter than the ten days between them suggest.

The exchange published the timetable on 29 September in its help centre. It names three times on a single day and a cut-off date ten days later. After that, ICON, as the project behind the ICX ticker is called, is history on this platform. The full record of your ICX purchases stays visible in the account; the balance itself then exists there only as a euro amount.

This piece sorts out what actually happens on 2 October, what a withdrawal to your own wallet costs, why that withdrawal only has somewhere to go until the end of the year, and which tax side effect the forced sale on 12 October triggers.

Bitvavo's Timetable: Three Deadlines on 2 October and a Forced Conversion on 12 October

Bitvavo staggers the shutdown across three hours. The entrance closes first, then trading, and the exit last. The order matters, because it determines which action you can still take at which point.

• Friday 2 October, 13:00 CEST: ICX deposits close. From that moment the exchange no longer accepts incoming ICX.
• Friday 2 October, 14:00 CEST: buying and selling stop. The ICX against euro market can no longer be traded after that.
• Friday 2 October, 15:00 CEST: withdrawals close. From here on no ICX leaves the account.
• Monday 12 October, or earlier: Bitvavo converts all remaining ICX into euros automatically and credits the amount to the account.

The exchange pairs that with a warning that goes beyond the bare list of dates. The announcement states: "Do not attempt to deposit ICX after deposits close on 2 October 2026 at 13:00 CEST. Any deposits made after that point will not be processed and may be permanently lost." That concerns anyone planning to send ICX to Bitvavo from another platform or a wallet in order to sell it there. After 13:00 that route is not merely closed, it is dangerous.

Delisting: what the term means in practice

A delisting is the removal of a trading pair from an exchange. The token does not thereby vanish from the world, it vanishes from that one provider's offering. Everything that happens to the balance afterwards follows the rules the provider has set for the wind-down. At Bitvavo that is the automatic conversion into euros.

Why the Automatic Euro Conversion Is a Disposal and Not a Custody Step

The decisive sentence of the announcement sits in the questions and answers section: anyone still holding an ICX balance after withdrawals close on 2 October will have that balance converted into euros automatically, by 12 October at the latest, and the resulting euro balance credited directly to the Bitvavo account.

That is something other than an exchange freezing residual balances or moving them into separate custody. Here they are sold. The holder plays no part in that sale, learns the price only afterwards, and cannot choose the timing. For a market with thin residual liquidity that is no detail: a forced sale hits the order book at exactly the moment when every other Bitvavo holder is being sold out as well.

Anyone who wants to set the timing themselves has until 14:00 on Friday to do it. Anyone who wants to keep the token has until 15:00 on Friday. Everything after that is the exchange's decision.

The Withdrawal Fee of 43 ICX Makes Small Balances Uneconomic

Bitvavo puts the fee for an ICX withdrawal at 43 ICX. That is a fixed quantity of coins, not a percentage, and that is precisely why it bites so hard on small balances. At a price in the range of €0.0068 to €0.0098, a withdrawal therefore costs roughly €0.29 to €0.42. That sounds like very little, but it is a great deal relative to the minimum withdrawal.

The minimum withdrawal is 160 ICX. Anyone withdrawing exactly that amount pays 43 of it as the fee and keeps 117. A good quarter of the amount stays with the exchange. Only from several thousand ICX upwards does the fee cease to matter much.

The calculation everyone has to do for themselves

The right comparison is "withdrawal against a sale of your own choosing" and not "withdrawal against forced conversion". Anyone who intends to sell anyway saves the fee entirely and only has to act before 14:00 on Friday. Anyone who wants to keep the coins, because they believe in the successor project or because they do not want to realise a loss in this tax year, pays the 43 ICX and then needs a plan for what is still possible on the ICON blockchain. That plan, as the next section shows, has an expiry date.

Minimum Withdrawal 160 ICX, Minimum Order 422 ICX: The Limits Inside the Bitvavo Account

Beyond the withdrawal limit there is a second threshold that is easily overlooked. An order in the ICX against euro market has to be at least around 422 ICX, which in value terms is roughly €2.87 to €4.13. Anyone holding less than 422 ICX can no longer actively sell that remainder at all and inevitably ends up in the automatic conversion.

There is no malice behind it. It is a standard minimum order size that every exchange sets so that settling an order is worth doing at all. For the holder of a very small balance it nevertheless means the decision has already been taken out of their hands. For them, 12 October is the day their ICX turns into euros, and there is nothing they can do about it.

Anyone holding such a residual balance who still wants to keep their options open would have to top it up before 13:00 on Friday. That is possible while deposits remain open, but it is the decision to buy more into a shrinking market. Anyone who would rather move to another exchange will find the providers available in Germany, and whose fee models can be compared, in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

The Two-Way Migration Between ICX and SODA Has Been Closed Since 25 September

This is the point that matters to everyone who wants to move ICX to their own wallet rather than sell. Because the token has an expiry date of its own, independent of Bitvavo, and the situation there tightened a few days ago.

ICON has been moving to a successor project called SODAX since 2025. Holders swap ICX for the new SODA token. Until recently that swap worked in both directions, so it was also possible to go from SODA back to ICX. That return leg has been closed since Friday 25 September 2026, five days earlier than previously announced.

The ICON Foundation gives as its reason that price formation for ICX has become more volatile and the remaining liquidity is thinning further, partly as an after-effect of the August incident. Closing the return leg early is meant to protect the successor project's infrastructure from precisely that volatility. The foundation's advice to holders is unusually blunt: anyone still holding ICX should move to SODA in self-custody now rather than waiting on a centralised exchange.

What is left of the migration

Still open is the one-way street from ICX to SODA, and it stays open until 31 December 2026. Anyone withdrawing ICX from Bitvavo therefore lands in a window that runs for another three months. The swap itself additionally requires a small balance of the network token S on the Sonic network, because that is where the transaction fees fall. How closely the two migration deadlines are linked is something we wrote up in August in Swapping ICX for SODA: Two Deadlines Before the Shutdown.

On 31 December the ICON Blockchain Shuts Down and Leaves a Read-Only Archive

31 December 2026 is not only the last chance to swap ICX for SODA. It is also the day the ICON blockchain is halted permanently. The foundation has announced an archive for the period afterwards, in which old transactions can be looked up. Nothing can be moved there any more.

From that follows an uncomfortable consequence for anyone who moves ICX to their own wallet now and then lets the matter rest. An ICX still sitting on the ICON blockchain on 1 January 2027 is no longer an asset with an unclear price. It is an entry in a decommissioned register. Withdrawing to your own wallet therefore only makes sense if the swap into SODA genuinely follows.

The foundation set this deadline in May 2026 and has since confirmed repeatedly that it will not be moved. Its justification is that the date has been coordinated with exchanges, wallet providers and partners for months, and that postponing it would create exactly the uncertainty the fixed date is meant to avoid.

How much is still sitting there

The circulating supply stands at around 1.097 billion ICX. In early September we described in an analysis of our own that at that point 1.109 billion ICX were still sitting on the ICON blockchain. The order of magnitude has barely shifted since, which means a substantial share of holders still has the switch ahead of them, and some of them will miss it.

The Replay Exploit of 27 August Stands at the Start of the Delisting Wave

That several exchanges are dropping ICX within a few weeks of each other has a common trigger. On 27 August 2026 an attacker exploited a flaw in the ICON blockchain's migration contract within a twenty-minute window. He replayed two already validly signed withdrawal messages 1,492 times. That released 119,866,000 ICX and 531,600 bnUSD.

A replay attack is exactly that: a message that was lawful once is submitted again repeatedly, because the receiving system does not recognise that it has already been processed.

What did not happen belongs in the same paragraph as the quantity. According to the ICON Foundation, all the affected holdings belonged to the foundation itself. Its post-mortem states: "All assets involved were foundation-held. No user deposits, balances, or positions were accessed or affected." The blockchain stood still for around 25 hours after the incident before restarting on 28 August.

For the price, and for exchanges' willingness to keep the trading pair going, the incident was nevertheless the turning point. Anyone wanting to follow the chain of removals will find it in our report on OKX dropping ICX, STORJ and ELF.

Upbit Follows on 19 October: The Other Exchanges' Dates

Bitvavo is not the last stop. The South Korean exchange Upbit announced on 19 September that it would drop ICX on 19 October 2026. Trading in the ICX against won pair ends there at 15:00 Korean time, and the final withdrawal deadline runs until 18 November 2026. Upbit cites unresolved security risks as its reason; the token had been on a watch list since the end of August.

That sequence is of interest to German holders for a sober reason. The more trading venues fall away, the thinner the order book on those that remain, and the harder every larger sell order hits the price. The forced conversion on 12 October therefore meets a market that has already lost trading venues in the weeks before.

How Bitvavo handles such wind-downs is, incidentally, no one-off: the same exchange already dropped Kava, Nano and Ravencoin to the same pattern in mid-September, with staggered deadlines and an automatic conversion at the end.

What the ICX Price Is Doing: €0.0068 to €0.0098 and 40 Percent Down in a Week

The price readings for ICX diverge markedly as of 30 September, and that is a finding in itself. In Bitvavo's order book it last traded at €0.0068, while broadly collected market data across all venues sits at around €0.0098. The spread of a good 40 percent between two measurement points for the same token is what the ICON Foundation means when it speaks of thinned-out liquidity.

Over seven days the token is down around 40 percent. The total market value of all circulating ICX is about €10.7 million. For comparison: the all-time high of €11.03 dates from January 2018, and today's price is more than 99 percent below it.

No argument for or against any decision follows from these figures. The time pressure, though, is explained by them: in a market of this size a single larger order moves the price, and the forced conversion on 12 October bundles many orders into one moment.

Why there is no price target in this article

For a token whose blockchain will be switched off in three months, a price forecast makes no sense. The relevant question is whether your balance finds its way into the successor or ends up as a euro amount in your exchange account. Where ICX stands in a year is beside the point.

For Tax Purposes 12 October Is the Date That Counts: Holding Period, Threshold and a Timing You Do Not Control

The automatic conversion into euros is a sale for tax purposes. That brings into play the German framework for private disposals under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Three points from it matter in this case.

First, the holding period: if more than a year lies between acquisition and disposal, a gain stays tax free. If less, it is taxable. Second, the threshold: if all private disposal gains in a calendar year together stay below €1,000, no tax is due; once the threshold is exceeded, the entire amount is taxable and not only the part above it. Third, the timing: it decides which tax year the transaction falls into.

It is that third point which is special in a forced conversion. Normally the holder chooses when to sell and can thereby control whether a gain still falls inside the holding period, or whether a loss arises in this year or the next. On 12 October the exchange decides that. Anyone who bought ICX less than a year ago and is in profit should therefore know that they will realise that gain in 2026 either way, whether they want to or not.

Conversely, the same mechanism can be useful: a loss that is coming anyway is realised this year by the forced conversion and can be offset against other private disposal gains from the same year. How that works out in an individual case depends on your acquisition data, and that is exactly what you need documented cleanly. Which tools pull acquisition date, holding period and cost basis automatically out of exchange reports is shown by our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.

The Three Mistakes That Cost the Most When Withdrawing on 2 October

If you decide to withdraw, the most expensive mishaps arise with the address and the timing, not with the fee.

The wrong network. Bitvavo points out expressly in the announcement that the external wallet must support the ICON network. ICX is not a token on Ethereum or BNB Chain; it has a blockchain of its own. A withdrawal to an address belonging to another network generally leads to the total loss of the amount sent, and no exchange retrieves it.

The deposit that comes too late. The reflex of sending ICX from another platform to Bitvavo in order to sell it for euros there only works until 13:00 on Friday. A blockchain transfer needs confirmations, and a deposit that only arrives at 13:05 will not be processed, according to the exchange, and may be permanently lost. Anyone taking that route starts it days beforehand, not at Friday lunchtime.

The forgotten follow-up step. A withdrawal to your own wallet is only the first part. Without the swap into SODA by 31 December, the balance then sits on a switched-off blockchain. For that swap you need a wallet you control yourself and a small holding of the network token S on the Sonic network for the fees. Which device wallets are available in Germany and what they cost is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

A fourth point belongs here for completeness, even though it is not a mistake: doing nothing is a valid decision. Your balance is then sold on 12 October at a price you do not know in advance, and the proceeds sit as euros in your Bitvavo account. For very small balances below the minimum order size it is the only possible decision anyway.

ICX at Bitvavo: How to Proceed Now

The deadlines are hard and the order is fixed. Three steps are enough, and the first is the only one that costs time today.

1. Check your balance and acquisition date. Open your Bitvavo account and note how many ICX are sitting there and when you bought them. Below around 422 ICX an active sale is no longer possible, and below 160 ICX neither is a withdrawal. Whether a gain falls inside the one-year holding period follows from the acquisition date; a portfolio tracker takes that mapping off your hands.
2. Decide between selling and withdrawing before 14:00 on Friday. Selling costs no additional fee and puts the timing in your hands. Withdrawing costs 43 ICX and requires a wallet that supports the ICON network, such as a hardware wallet. Anyone wanting to move to another exchange should check first in the exchange comparison whether the provider still lists ICX at all.
3. If you withdraw, put 31 December in the calendar. The swap from ICX into SODA runs only until the end of the year, after which the ICON blockchain is switched off. Set yourself a reminder with several weeks' lead time, and get a small holding of the network token S on the Sonic network ready beforehand for the fees.

Bitvavo published the full timetable in its announcement on the delisting of ICON; the migration deadlines and the shutdown date are in the ICON Foundation statement of 24 September.

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

At 8:30 am Eastern time today the US statistics office publishes the figure that will shape October on the crypto markets more than any analyst opinion: the core PCE deflator for August. Bitcoin trades at $83,329, or €73,513, at this moment, just 0.71 percent above its 24-hour low. That is the narrowest gap to a confirmed support level since the weekend, and it runs into a release that has a track record of moving prices by whole percentage points.

The short answer to what today means for you: anyone holding bitcoin in their own wallet with no intention of selling needs to do nothing at all. Anyone holding a leveraged long has until 14:30 CEST to keep their liquidation price clear of the $82,735 level. And anyone who was going to sell anyway should check the purchase date first, because in Germany the one-year holding period decides whether the entire gain is tax free.

Core PCE: The Inflation Gauge the Fed Anchors Its Rate Decision To

The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, or PCE, measures the change in prices of the goods and services that US households actually consume. The core rate, the core PCE, strips out food and energy, because those prices swing sharply and mask the underlying trend.

Why this gauge and not the better-known consumer price index? Because the Fed's Open Market Committee ties its two percent inflation target explicitly to the PCE. The CPI holds its basket largely fixed, while the PCE adjusts it continuously to shifting consumption and also captures spending that households do not pay for themselves, health insurance benefits among them. For a market betting on the next rate decision, the PCE is therefore the number that counts, and the CPI is closer to a preview of it.

For an investor in Europe the chain is short: a higher core rate means a Fed that stays restrictive for longer, that means higher real rates, and higher real rates pull capital out of non-yielding assets such as bitcoin or Ethereum. If the core rate comes in below expectations, the chain runs the other way.

The Release: Personal Income and Outlays on 30 September at 8:30 am ET

The Bureau of Economic Analysis, the statistical agency of the US Commerce Department, publishes the Personal Income and Outlays report for August today, 30 September 2026, at 8:30 am local time on the US east coast. In Germany that is 14:30 CEST. The core PCE deflator is part of that report and not a release of its own; anyone waiting for a separate announcement will wait in vain. The agency lists the date in its release calendar, and in the same minute it also publishes the third estimate of second-quarter gross domestic product. Two data sets in the same second means the first price reaction is often messy, because trading systems process both figures at once.

In practice that means the thinnest order books of the day meet the heaviest flow of news between roughly 14:30 and 14:45 CEST. The exact definitions of the series are documented by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the core PCE itself.

The Last Confirmed Reading: Core Rate 3.3 Percent in July, 0.2 Percent Month on Month

The most recent published figure dates from 26 August 2026 and covered July: the core rate stood at 3.3 percent year on year and 0.2 percent against the previous month, as CNBC reported on the day of release. That is well above the central bank's two percent target, but it was not an upside outlier; it landed within what the market had expected.

That framing matters, because it sets the yardstick for today. A core rate rising above 3.3 percent year on year would be an acceleration, and therefore the scenario the market has priced in least.

Expectations for August: Why the Forecasts Range Between 0.3 and 0.5 Percent

Published expectations for the August core rate run between 0.3 and 0.5 percent against the previous month. Year on year, forecasts point to around 3.4 percent for the core rate and around 3.8 percent for the headline rate, which includes energy and food. The spread on the monthly rate is unusually wide, and it is the real reason this release is dangerous for leveraged positions: between 0.3 and 0.5 percent lies the difference between a Fed that can wait in October and a Fed that has to act again.

One note on framing, meant seriously: these are forecasts from research houses, not data. The only confirmed figure so far is the July reading. Anyone positioning today against an expected number is betting on an estimate whose own range exceeds the span of an ordinary trading day in bitcoin.

The central bank's direction is no secret. The Fed raised its policy rate by a quarter point at its September meeting, and a majority of the Open Market Committee members who submitted a projection expect at least one further step in 2026. The Federal Reserve's meeting calendar lists 27 and 28 October as the next date, followed by 8 and 9 December. Today's figure is therefore the last inflation reading of real weight before the October meeting.

A second pressure point runs in the background: the yield on ten-year US Treasuries touched around 5.27 percent this week, the highest level since June 2007. Rising bond yields and a stubborn core rate push in the same direction, and both reach bitcoin through the same channel, the real interest rate.

Bitcoin Price Today: $83,329 and a 24-Hour Low of $82,735

The state of play before the release, measured on two venues: bitcoin quotes at $83,329 and €73,513. The 24-hour range runs from $82,735 to $84,527 on one exchange and from $82,736 to $84,557 on the other. The two venues are therefore practically identical, which means the levels are real and not the artefact of a single thin order book.

Ethereum stands at $2,669 and €2,354, with a daily range between $2,651 and $2,748. Neither has moved much against the previous day; the market is waiting, and that is precisely what tends to make the move after the figure larger.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on 30 September 2026. It rests on the daily values of four trading pairs across two venues, Kraken and Coinbase.

The Level That Decides October: $82,735 in Spot, €73,513 on Kraken

$82,735 is not a number out of a chart textbook but the actual low of the past 24 hours on both venues measured. Its value lies in the fact that it held across two independent order books. A break of that level after the release would be the first sign that the figure genuinely surprised the market, rather than mere noise.

On the upside the next confirmed level sits at $84,527, the daily high, roughly 1.44 percent above the current price. Between the two lies a span of a good two percent, and bitcoin has been moving inside it since the weekend. Anyone planning a position therefore has two confirmed points instead of one assumption.

Leverage and Liquidation: Germany Caps Crypto Leverage at 1:2

This is where an uneasy afternoon parts company with an expensive one. For retail clients in Germany, leverage on contracts for difference, or CFDs, on crypto assets is capped at 1:2. That corresponds to an initial margin of 50 percent. On top of that come a ban on additional margin calls and a mandatory negative balance protection, which ensures you can lose no more than the capital you put up. The legal basis is the BaFin general administrative act on contracts for difference, which made the European requirements a permanent part of German supervisory law.

That rule is why an inflation release rarely becomes existential at a regulated German provider and very much can at a platform without European authorisation. The difference is not a technicality but the gap between a buffer of fifty percent and one of two.

Liquidation Price: How Far a Long Position Carries From Today's Price

The liquidation price is the price at which the exchange closes your position by force because the collateral you posted is used up. The rough calculation for a long position without additional margin runs: entry price times one minus the reciprocal of the leverage. From the current level of $83,329 that produces the following distances, each before fees, funding costs and maintenance margin, which pull the actual threshold a little closer still:

• Leverage 1:2, the German ceiling for retail clients: buffer 50 percent, notional liquidation at around $41,700.
• Leverage 1:10: buffer 10 percent, liquidation at around $75,000.
• Leverage 1:20: buffer 5 percent, liquidation at around $79,200.
• Leverage 1:50: buffer 2 percent, liquidation at around $81,700.
• For comparison, the real daily range of the past 24 hours: roughly 2.2 percent between low and high.

The decisive line is the second to last. At leverage of 1:50 liquidation sits at about $81,700 and therefore inside the perfectly ordinary daily range this market produces even without a news event. On a day with an inflation release at 14:30, a position like that is not a bet on direction but on the sequence of the first few seconds. Anyone who buys at spot through a regulated crypto exchange never has the problem in the first place: without borrowed capital there is no liquidation price.

The One-Year Holding Period Under Section 23 EStG: Selling on Inflation Day Can Cost the Tax Exemption

The most expensive mistake on a volatile afternoon is rarely the price, it is the date. In Germany crypto assets held as private assets fall under the one-year holding period of Section 23 of the Income Tax Act: hold for more than a year and the gain is realised tax free. Sell within the year and the gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate as soon as the total of all private disposals in that year reaches the €1,000 threshold.

A threshold is not an allowance. At a gain of €999 everything stays tax free; at €1,000 the full amount becomes taxable, not merely the part above it. A panic sale at 14:32 on a position that would have turned a year old in November can therefore cost more than the price loss it was meant to avoid. The purchase date is in your exchange's transaction history, and looking it up takes less time than the first price reaction.

Buying in Germany: MiCA Authorisation, Spot Instead of Derivative, the €1,000 Threshold

Since 1 January 2026 providers without authorisation may no longer offer crypto services in Germany; supervision sits with BaFin and the framework is the European MiCA regulation. For a day like today that produces a very practical order of priority: a spot purchase at an authorised provider falls under the holding period and knows no liquidation. A derivative at the same provider falls under the 1:2 leverage cap and is taxed as a forward transaction, not under Section 23. A derivative at a platform without European authorisation knows neither the cap nor the negative balance protection.

On a quiet day these three routes produce similar outcomes. On a day with an inflation release they differ considerably, and they do so precisely at the moment when you no longer have time to read up on the difference.

Core PCE and Bitcoin: How to Proceed Now

1. Look up the purchase date before the figure lands. Open your transaction history and check which of your positions have not yet cleared the one-year mark under Section 23 EStG. Anyone who wants that documented properly will find the providers that track holding periods automatically in our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.
2. Keep your liquidation price clear of $82,735. If your liquidation price sits above the daily low, your position is threatened by an ordinary daily move and not only by a surprise. Reduce the leverage or add collateral before 14:30 CEST. How funding rate, maintenance margin and liquidation interact on the individual platforms is set out in our overview of the best perp DEXs.
3. Establish whether your own provider is authorised. Without European authorisation there is neither the 1:2 leverage cap nor the negative balance protection, and both are missing exactly when you need them. Which venues can demonstrate the permission is shown in our overview of the best regulated crypto exchanges.

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

The broker tZERO announced on September 28, 2026 that qualified firms in the United States can subscribe to and redeem shares in the Goldman Sachs Financial Square Treasury Instruments Fund through the settlement network Lynq. Lynq runs on a private, permissioned Avalanche blockchain. It is the first third-party fund on the platform, and it is anything but small: at the end of August, the fund reported net assets of around $105 billion in Goldman's monthly filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The price of Avalanche stood at $11.34 on Tuesday evening, between 6.9 and 8.8 percent above the previous day depending on the counting window, measured against data from Kraken and Coinpaprika.

The decisive caveat belongs at the start, because everything else hangs on it: the fund is not being tokenised. What sits on Lynq is the ordinary institutional share class, not a newly created blockchain token. Goldman is leaving the fund in its existing structure, and Lynq serves solely as an additional route for access and settlement. Anyone who reads the announcement as meaning that a $105 billion fund is now tradeable on a public chain is reading in something that is not there.

For you as an investor in Europe, the news therefore breaks into two parts. One concerns the AVAX price and the question of whether institutional use actually delivers anything for the token. The other concerns your own access, and there the sober answer is: it does not change. Both follow further down, with the figures that belong to them.

Lynq at a Glance: A Private Avalanche Chain From Arca Labs, Tassat and tZERO

Lynq is a settlement network for institutional trading firms. What that means is a platform on which two counterparties book cash and securities against each other without taking the detour through the classic banking day. It was built by Arca Labs, Tassat and tZERO, and it launched in July 2025. Technically it runs on a private Avalanche blockchain, meaning a chain of its own to which only approved participants have access.

The participant list carries names from professional trading: B2C2, Wintermute, Galaxy, FalconX, Crypto.com and Fireblocks are among them. In total, more than 30 institutional clients are connected, according to the operator. Lynq chief Jerald David describes the step as an expansion of the platform and says it is now "multi-asset capable". On the motivation behind the fund offering, he said they had to show that there was any client demand at all for treasury products with differing yield profiles.

The use case is unspectacular and interesting for precisely that reason. Trading desks hold cash between two transactions. That money normally sits there earning nothing. Through Lynq it can in future flow into a money market fund that invests in short-dated US government debt, and be called back when needed. A money market fund is nothing exotic in this context: a fund that holds very short-dated, very safe paper, and whose share value therefore barely moves.

Why Goldman Did Not Tokenise the Fund

With BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's BENJI, a dedicated token is created on a blockchain for the fund share. The register recording who owns which share thereby moves wholly or partly onto the chain. Goldman is expressly not taking that step with FTIXX. The fund stays in its old wrapper, the register stays where it was, and Lynq attaches itself alongside as a distribution and settlement channel.

That is less spectacular than the headline suggests, but it is also less exposed. Anyone moving a register onto a blockchain has to settle, in regulatory terms, who maintains the authoritative record if the chain fails. Anyone leaving the register where it is sidesteps that question. The fund's prospectus from May 2025 still stated that it does not use blockchain technology and that tokenised shares would be held through intermediary custodians. It is exactly this cautious construction that has now become visible.

For judging the event, that means this: it is a distribution route, not a migration of Wall Street onto a public blockchain. How far a genuinely tokenised fund can carry the AVAX price is something we described in September in a different case, when a tokenised bond fund on Avalanche pulled the price up by a good 50 percent within a week. The difference between the two cases is not a detail but the heart of the matter.

Institutional Class and Token Shares Class: $97.3 Billion on One Side, $10,400 on the Other

The fund has several share classes. The institutional class, the classic class for large investors, held $97.3 billion at the end of August. Alongside it there is a Token Shares Class under the ticker GDTXX. It held $10,400 on the same reporting date.

Those two figures side by side tell the story better than any framing. The tokenised variant of the fund has existed for some time, and in practice it is empty. What runs through Lynq is now, of all things, the ordinary class carrying $97.3 billion. Goldman is therefore not selling the blockchain version of its product to crypto firms, but the normal version through a blockchain channel.

Anyone who reads reports about tokenised funds regularly should get into the habit of looking for exactly that figure: how much money is actually in the token class? At several large houses, the amount sitting there for months has been one that disappears into the rounding when set against the total fund. That is not a reproach to the providers but a statement about the speed at which institutional money moves.

What Actually Sits in Lynq: $89 Million Against $105 Billion in the Fund

According to the operator, more than $89 million in assets sits on the Lynq network in total. Set against that is a fund of around $105 billion. Even if every dollar on Lynq flowed into FTIXX tomorrow, it would amount to less than a tenth of a percent of the fund's volume.

This ratio is the most important figure in the whole announcement, and it is missing from most reports. This relation decides whether the news is a price driver with substance or an announcement with symbolic value. As matters stand today, it is the latter. That can change if the 30 connected firms genuinely shift their cash holdings there, because professional trading houses hold billions in liquidity between them. That shift is not yet documented.

For placing the AVAX price, that is the decisive point. A price jump of around nine percent reflects an expectation, not a sum that has already moved. Anyone buying on this news is buying the expectation.

Access Ends at the US Border: tZERO Securities Decides on Admission

Only qualified clients in the United States may subscribe to the fund through Lynq. Anyone wanting to take part must first be admitted by tZERO Securities, a broker registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and pass the prescribed suitability checks. tZERO settles the transactions.

That answers the question of whether you, as a private investor in Europe, can join in here: no. There is no detour, no intermediary and no construction that sensibly gets around this restriction. An offer promising you access to precisely this fund through a crypto platform is something you should treat as a warning sign, checking the provider's claims against the authorisation register of the supervisor.

What is open in the European Union are ordinary money market funds and money market ETFs through your brokerage account. Both express the same investment idea, namely short-dated government debt with little price fluctuation, and they have nothing to do with blockchain. Anyone looking for a yield on idle cash finds it there and not on Lynq.

AVAX Rises to $11.34, Yet the Private Chain Pays No Fees in AVAX

On Tuesday evening, AVAX was quoted at $11.34, or 10.02 euros. The figures for the daily change differ because providers roll different time windows: Kraken reports around 6.9 percent, Coinpaprika around 8.8 percent. Over seven days the gain stands at a good three percent; over 30 days the price is practically unchanged.

The economic link between this news and the token is weaker than the price move suggests. Lynq runs on a private chain. Anyone booking there pays no network fee in AVAX, and the transactions raise neither demand for the token nor the quantity removed from circulation through fee burning. What Avalanche draws from the business is the use of its software and the reputation of being fit for regulated houses.

That is a real value, but an indirect one. It works over years and over follow-up mandates, not over a single trading day. Anyone reading Tuesday's move as the start of a re-rating should demand additional evidence for it: new networks on Avalanche software, growing volumes, published figures. Until then it remains an expectation.

Buying Under MiCA: Where You Get AVAX in Germany as a Private Investor

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets applies in full, trading platforms may only offer their services in the EU with an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. In Germany, BaFin is the competent authority. In practice that means this for you: before your first purchase, check whether the provider holds an authorisation in an EU state and whether it is notified for Germany. You will find an overview of regulated trading venues in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

Watch three points that make the difference between two platforms which look identical at first glance. First, the total cost: alongside the trading fee there is often a spread between the bid and the ask that surfaces in the small print. Second, the question of whether you can withdraw the token to an address of your own after buying, or whether it stays trapped on the platform. Third, the payout routes in euros and the time they take.

One note on timing that has nothing to do with forecasting: on days with double-digit swings, the spread between bid and ask at smaller venues is often considerably wider than usual. Anyone who moves immediately on news like this pays that mark-up too.

Holding Period, Staking and Custody: The Tax Rules for AVAX in Germany

For crypto assets held privately, Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies. If you sell at a profit within a year of buying, that profit is taxable; once a year has passed it stays tax free. For all private disposals in a year taken together, an allowance of 1,000 euros applies. Allowance means this: if it is exceeded, the entire amount is taxable, not just the excess.

Income from staking, meaning from taking part in securing the network, is treated by the tax authorities as other income under Section 22 number 3 of the Income Tax Act. There is a separate allowance of 256 euros a year for it. The timing matters: what is taxed is the value of the reward when you receive it, and a later sale of those coins starts a holding period of its own. Anyone accumulating rewards over months without recording them reconstructs that laboriously afterwards.

On custody you choose between two routes with different risks. If the token stays on the trading platform, you carry that company's risk; events at several exchanges in recent weeks have shown how quickly withdrawals can be suspended. If you withdraw it to an address of your own, you carry the risk of losing the recovery key. Both are manageable, but only if you decide on a route deliberately.

Leverage and Liquidation: A Nine Percent Jump Is Enough for a Forced Sale

A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position by the exchange as soon as the posted collateral no longer suffices. At ten times leverage, a counter-move of around ten percent is arithmetically enough, and after fees and funding costs usually less. On Tuesday, AVAX swung between $10.28 and $12.01, a daily range of a good 16 percent.

Anyone working with leverage on such a day should therefore know two figures before opening the position: the price at which the exchange closes it by force, and the funding rate that flows between the two sides of the market every few hours on perpetual futures. If the funding rate is clearly positive, buyers are paying sellers, and a position against the flow costs money continuously.

You will find these figures at every reputable provider before you open the position, not only afterwards. If a provider does not show them, that in itself is a piece of information.

Levels Up and Down: $12.01 as the Daily High, $10.28 as the Daily Low

The two documented levels of the trading day are the high at $12.01 and the low at $10.28, each according to Kraken data. The high marks the point at which the first wave of selling stopped the move; the low marks the starting point before the news. Everything in between is the range in which the market forms its opinion.

Viewed further back, the price is practically unchanged over a month and up a good three percent over a week. The daily jump has therefore not begun a new trend but defended a range. Whether the $12.01 holds or falls depends on evidence that is not yet available today: on actual inflows onto Lynq and on further houses choosing the same software.

We deliberately name no price targets here. The documentable quantities are the daily range, the fund volume, the network volume and the access rules. Everything else would be an assertion with a number in front of it.

Goldman Fund on Avalanche: What to Take Away

The news matters for the question of how institutional money and blockchain infrastructure come together. For your account statement it does not matter today. Three steps turn the announcement into something verifiable.

1. Hold the provider up against its authorisation. Before you buy AVAX, check whether your venue holds a European authorisation and settles payouts in euros reliably. The comparison of crypto brokers shows which providers run which cost models.
2. Record your acquisition data. Note the date, quantity and price for every purchase, so the one-year period under Section 23 can be evidenced later. A tax tool or portfolio tracker handles that continuously and saves you the reconstruction in spring.
3. Decide on custody rather than deferring it. Settle whether the token stays on the platform or moves to an address of your own, and in the second case secure the recovery key separately from the device. The comparison of hardware wallets ranks the devices by handling and price.

Sources on the announcement: the reports by CoinDesk and Unchained of September 28, 2026.

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

Hedera handed back most of the price jump on Tuesday that had carried the coin to the top of the market a day earlier. Hedera opened the trading day at $0.12212 and slid as far as $0.10283, with the coin most recently quoted at $0.10334. That is a swing of roughly 16 percent from the day's high to the day's low. There is no fresh announcement from Hedera or from The Hashgraph Group that would account for it.

The rest of the market stood still while this happened. Bitcoin and Ether were each down less than half a percent over the same window. The pullback is therefore not a market event that caught every coin alike, but a move that concerns almost only HBAR. For you as a holder, that changes what the situation calls for: in a broad sell-off you usually sit on your hands, whereas with coin-specific profit taking it is worth looking hard at what carried the rally in the first place.

What Happened to the HBAR Price on Tuesday

Here are the numbers one by one, so you can place the order of magnitude. On September 28, HBAR opened at $0.09581, climbed to $0.13090 over the course of the day and closed at $0.12183. That was a daily gain of a good 27 percent and the coin's strongest day in months. On September 29 the move reversed: the open was $0.12212, the daily high $0.12274, the daily low $0.10283.

Measured from the previous day's low of $0.09419 to the high of $0.13090, the upward move came to $0.0367. By Tuesday's low, the price had surrendered $0.0281 of that, a good three quarters. At the current level of $0.10334, HBAR is still roughly eight percent above Sunday's closing price. Anyone who was invested before the IBM news is therefore still in the black. Anyone who bought more on Monday evening is sitting on a double-digit loss.

Over a week, the balance remains positive: Coinpaprika puts HBAR up 4.26 percent over seven days, with a market capitalisation of around $4.54 billion and turnover of some $406 million in 24 hours. The coin is just under 82 percent below its all-time high. The price data in this section is based on the daily candles from the Kraken exchange for the HBAR/USD and HBAR/EUR pairs, six trading days from September 24 to September 29, 2026. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on September 29, 2026.

The IBM Announcement of September 23: What IDTrust Is and What It Is Not

The trigger for the rally was a statement from The Hashgraph Group, a Swiss company from the Hedera ecosystem. On September 23, the firm announced that its identity platform IDTrust had been admitted to the IBM Cloud Catalog. Alongside that come Silver Partner status with IBM and what is known as an Embedded Solution Agreement.

IDTrust is software that allows digital identities to be proven without a central body holding the credentials. The use case the company puts front and centre is called Know Your Agent: when autonomous software agents negotiate contracts or trigger payments, a company has to be able to document which agent acted on its behalf. The credentials are anchored in the Hedera network in the process. The announcement cites a forecast from the research firm Gartner, according to which around 40 percent of enterprise applications should contain task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, against less than five percent in 2025.

One point matters for context: an entry in a cloud provider's catalogue is a distribution agreement. It means IBM customers can source the product through existing contracts. It says nothing about how many of them do, what revenue arises, and how many transactions actually end up in the Hedera network as a result. Nobody has published a figure on that so far.

Why a Catalogue Listing Is Not Yet Revenue

The mechanics behind price jumps like this are always similar with infrastructure coins. A partnership with a well-known name lowers one hurdle in distribution, and the market prices that hurdle in immediately, as though it had already been cleared. The revenue behind it takes quarters, often years. Between the announcement and the first measurable effect on network activity there is a gap, and it is in that gap that the pullback happens.

This is not a statement about the quality of IDTrust or about Hedera's technology. It is a statement about sequence: first comes the news, then the price, then at some point the figures. Anyone who does not allow for the distance between those three steps is buying the expectation at the price of its fulfilment.

Trading Volume Tells the Second Half of the Story

On Monday, 311.1 million HBAR changed hands on Kraken; on Tuesday it was 156.2 million. The pullback therefore ran on roughly half the volume that produced the advance. That constellation argues against a forced liquidation and in favour of orderly profit taking: fewer market participants are selling, but they are selling with conviction into a market from which the previous day's buyers have vanished.

For context: 156 million HBAR in a single day is still well above what the coin turned over on the quiet days of the previous week. On September 26 it was 14.3 million, on September 27 it was 20.1 million. Interest in HBAR has therefore genuinely risen thanks to the IBM news, even if the price did not hold the jump.

HBAR in Euros: From €0.1074 to €0.0911 in a Single Day

If you settle in euros, the day looks slightly different from how it looks in dollars. On Kraken, HBAR/EUR opened at €0.10736, the daily high was €0.10951, the low €0.09066, and €0.09113 was the last figure on the board. The decline works out at a good 15 percent, somewhat smaller than in dollars, because the euro itself eased a little on the same day.

The difference sounds like small change, but it is not when it comes to your tax return. What counts for the tax office is the value in euros at the moment of acquisition and of disposal. Anyone who calculates in dollars and estimates the exchange rate afterwards produces discrepancies that show up once the amounts get larger.

Buying in Germany: MiCA Licence, Spread and the Depth of the Order Book

On a day with 16 percent of swing, the trading venue has a hand in what ends up in your portfolio. Three points can be verified before you place an order.

First, authorisation. Since the transition period ended on July 1, 2026, providers may only offer crypto services in the EU with a MiCA licence. Trade Republic, BISON and Coinbase Germany are supervised directly by BaFin, while Bitpanda and Kraken hold licences from other EU states that are also valid in Germany. You will find an overview of which platform holds which permission and what it costs in our crypto exchange comparison.

Second, the spread. With coins outside the front rank, the gap between the bid and the ask opens up considerably wider on volatile days than on quiet ones. Anyone who bought HBAR on Tuesday afternoon through a broker with a fixed mark-up pays part of the move as a fee, without it ever appearing as a fee on the statement.

Third, the order type. A market order into a thin order book is filled at whatever price happens to be there, not at the one you saw on your screen. A limit order may cost you the fill, but it protects you from precisely the gap that opens on days like this.

Holding Period and Allowance: The One-Year Clock Runs Regardless of Price

A pullback changes nothing about the tax position; it merely makes it visible. In Germany, gains from selling crypto assets are private disposals under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months lie between acquisition and sale, the gain stays tax free. Within that period an allowance of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to the sum of all private disposals. One euro above it and the entire amount is taxable, not just the excess.

From that follows an uncomfortable truth for anyone who bought on Monday: a sale at a loss within the period can be offset against other gains from private disposals in the same year, whereas a sale after twelve months cannot. Losses outside the period are worthless for tax purposes. Anyone who fails to document their acquisition dates cleanly will no longer be able to make that calculation in the spring. Which tools record the dates automatically is set out in our comparison of crypto tax tools.

Leverage and Liquidation: 16 Percent Is Enough to Clear a Position

A move of this size is uncomfortable for the spot market and existential for leveraged positions. At five times leverage, a fall of 20 percent is enough to use up the margin; depending on the platform, liquidation kicks in before that. At ten times leverage it takes ten percent. On Tuesday, HBAR covered 16 percent between high and low, and it did so within a few hours.

Anyone working with leverage should therefore know two figures before opening the position: their own liquidation price, and whether the platform closes the entire position or only part of it when that price is reached. Both differ considerably from provider to provider and are set out in the trading terms, which belong to be read before the first order.

Staking and Custody: Where HBAR Sits Between Exchange and Wallet

Hedera works with a proof-of-stake procedure in which holders can delegate their coins to node operators without surrendering them from their own custody. That is a difference from models in which the coins are locked for the duration: with Hedera the balance stays available, and there is no waiting period when unwinding.

In practice, that means a pullback like Tuesday's does not restrict your ability to act, as long as you hold the coins yourself. It looks different if your HBAR sits in an exchange product with fixed terms. In that case it is not the price that decides whether you can react, but the deadline in the small print. When in doubt, check whether your holding is tied up in such a product and, if so, when it comes free again.

For larger holdings, the custody question remains untouched by any of this. A balance on an exchange is a claim against the company; a balance in your own wallet is a key in your hand. Which of the two suits you depends on the sum and on how often you trade.

The Level That Decides the Next Few Days

Two price levels can be read off the movement of the past two days and can be watched without turning them into a forecast. On the downside sits Sunday's closing price at $0.09579. If HBAR falls below it, Monday's move has been erased in full and the coin stands where it stood before the IBM news. On the upside sits Tuesday's high at $0.12274. Only above that would the profit taking have been worked through.

In between, the price is currently moving in a broad range in which analysts' targets help little. Anyone reading such targets should watch for two things: whether the author is named, and whether they say under what conditions their target no longer holds. If either is missing, it is an opinion without liability.

Hedera Pullback: How to Proceed Now

1. Gather your acquisition dates. Look up when you bought your HBAR and whether the twelve-month period is running or has already expired. A tool that carries the dates along automatically can be found in our comparison of tax tools.
2. Check your venue and order type. Establish whether your provider holds a MiCA permission, what mark-up it takes on volatile days and whether you can place limit orders. The overview is in the exchange comparison.
3. Do the maths on leveraged positions. Note your liquidation price and compare it with the range HBAR covered in a single day. What sets the providers apart is shown by the broker comparison.

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

Aztec Labs relaunched its self-custodial zk.money wallet on Aztec Network, letting users make private stablecoin payments using readable tags.

The renewed agreement preserves Cboe's exclusive rights to S&P 500 index options through 2051 while opening the door to pairing the flagship benchmark with blockchain infrastructure.

Bitwise's NRR began trading on NYSE Arca Tuesday, giving brokerage accounts NEAR exposure and staking rewards as the AI-focused token soars.

The company's IPO prospectus shows revenue up twelvefold, a $518 billion spending plan, and a risk section warning that its own AI could pose existential risks to humanity.

Linear Fox founder Nathan Fargo released a public jailbreak for the PS5, dubbed Relapse, while Sony argues in court that players don't own their digital games.

Following CZ's viral teaser, Fundstrat's Tom Lee challenges whether the market is owning enough crypto while his fund controls $16 billion in ETH.

Hyperliquid found itself invalidating an important support level that shouldn't have been touched.

A Bitcoin wallet dating back to 2011 has suddenly come back to life, moving 20.43 BTC worth roughly $1.7 million after more than 15 years of complete inactivity.

Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss says the current excitement surrounding Zcash (ZEC) feels reminiscent of crypto in 2019.

The XRP Ledger has scored one of its most significant institutional adoption wins to date.

Key Highlights

• Anthropic committed to spending up to $84.5 billion with SpaceX for computing resources extending through 2029, representing nearly twice the amount estimated in earlier reports from May.
• Details emerged from SpaceX’s confidential IPO filing, showing the arrangement utilizes Nvidia powered infrastructure and includes a 90-day cancellation clause.
• The AI company’s comprehensive infrastructure investment across multiple partners such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Broadcom is projected to reach at least $518 billion throughout the coming decade.
• Shares of SpaceX climbed 2% during midday trading sessions following the announcement.
• Financial records show Anthropic generated approximately $4.6 billion in revenue for 2025 while recording operating losses exceeding $8 billion, with its public offering now reportedly delayed until November.

Shares of SpaceX advanced 2% during Tuesday’s midday trading session. The uptick came after a report revealed that Anthropic committed to spending up to $84.5 billion with SpaceX for computing resources extending through 2029.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

These details surfaced from a confidential SpaceX IPO filing examined by Reuters. The documentation reveals Anthropic’s computing expenditure approaching double the previously disclosed amounts.

Earlier reports from May indicated an arrangement valued at approximately $1.25 billion monthly, with a three-year maximum duration. Under that framework, the total would have reached around $45 billion at full term.

The updated agreement increases the maximum value to $84.5 billion extending to 2029. The contract includes provisions allowing Anthropic to terminate with 90 days’ advance notification.

The computing infrastructure operates on Nvidia powered systems. This arrangement provides Anthropic with greater operational flexibility compared to several of its other extended infrastructure commitments.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Investment Strategy

Anthropic’s computing requirements extend significantly beyond its arrangement with SpaceX. When combined with partnerships involving Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, the organization anticipates investing at least $518 billion throughout the next ten years.

Google represents at least $111.1 billion of this projected expenditure. Amazon follows closely with $110 billion allocated.

The infrastructure commitment with Microsoft totals approximately $31.4 billion. Additionally, Anthropic maintains roughly $161.2 billion in equipment leasing arrangements with Broadcom.

Several of the Broadcom leasing agreements feature restricted cancellation provisions. Anthropic must fulfill payment obligations under predetermined terms for these particular contracts.

The organization has evolved beyond exclusive dependence on cloud service providers. Current strategies incorporate purpose-built data facilities and direct semiconductor leasing alongside extended computing access arrangements.

Anthropic’s computing demands align directly with its model portfolio. The Claude Opus 5.5 model, belonging to the advanced Claude 5.5 series, manages coding tasks, research applications, and professional workflows while reducing expenses relative to Claude Fable 5.1.

Financial Standing Before Public Market Entry

Anthropic submitted confidential paperwork for a U.S. initial public offering in June. Complete details of its partnerships remain partially disclosed since the comprehensive prospectus has not been made available publicly.

Reports indicate the IPO timeline has been postponed to November. Should the company achieve its capital-raising objectives, the offering may be positioned among the most substantial on record.

Anthropic recorded nearly $4.6 billion in revenue throughout 2025. Operating deficits for the period surpassed $8 billion as infrastructure investments and model development expenses remained elevated.

By the conclusion of 2025, Anthropic maintained approximately $20.28 billion in liquid assets and short-duration investments. This financial reserve exists alongside hundreds of billions in extended computing obligations.

The SpaceX arrangement represents another substantial component of Anthropic’s infrastructure portfolio. The actual portion of the $84.5 billion that Anthropic ultimately expends will be determined by consumption patterns and whether the contract continues through its 2029 conclusion.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Climbs 2% Following Anthropic’s $84.5B Computing Agreement appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• HSBC named its Hong Kong stablecoin HSBC RedCoin, with a rollout focused on P2P and P2M payments.
• Corporate and institutional use cases are set to follow the initial P2P and P2M rollout of the coin.
• A survey of over 1,000 Hong Kong customers found 74% can identify at least one stablecoin use case.
• Respondents named regulatory clarity (62%) and education (55%) as the top confidence-boosters. 

HSBC RedCoin is the official name of the stablecoin that HSBC plans to launch in Hong Kong. The bank, which is the city’s largest and one of three note-issuing lenders, announced the name on September 30, 2026.

The initial rollout will focus on person-to-person and person-to-merchant payments. Corporate and institutional use cases will follow at a later stage. HSBC also released a survey of more than 1,000 local customers alongside the announcement.

Phased Rollout Begins With Everyday Payments

HSBC RedCoin will start with straightforward, everyday use cases. These include person-to-person transfers and person-to-merchant payments.

HSBC then plans to expand to wholesale corporate and institutional use cases soon after. The bank described the plan as scaling with trust. The approach is aligned with Hong Kong’s evolving digital asset and currency landscape.

Maggie Ng, Chief Executive Officer for Hong Kong and Head of Retail Banking and Wealth, explained the choice. “Today, we are naming our Hong Kong stablecoin to reflect our heritage: HSBC RedCoin,” she said.

Ng described the launch as an opening step. “Launching our coin is just the beginning,” she said. “Our goal is to support Hong Kong’s financial innovation, underpinned by the security, trust and simplicity that define HSBC.”

Meanwhile, the bank will launch a comprehensive educational series for the general public in Hong Kong. The series will cover scam prevention and transparent redemption mechanisms.

It will appear on HSBC’s official banking apps, website, and social media platforms. Ng said, “Our education series will ensure every customer feels equipped and confident to join the journey.”

Survey Shows Interest and Lingering Concerns

The survey covered more than 1,000 Hong Kong customers. It found that 74 percent could identify at least one stablecoin use case. Digital asset trading and tokenized investments ranked first at 57 percent.

Person-to-person transfers followed at 53 percent, while cross-border remittances and merchant payments each reached 52 percent. The results were released with the brand reveal.

Ng commented on the results. “This survey confirms the strong interest amongst Hongkongers in embracing digital assets,” she said. “HSBC RedCoin isn’t a leap into the unknown—it’s a natural next step.” HSBC said the results show a market that is already engaged and ready.

Understanding of the asset class remained mixed. Around 60 percent correctly defined a stablecoin as a fiat-backed digital asset.

However, 26 percent assumed stablecoins were government-issued. Another 10 percent viewed them as interest-bearing, a feature not included in Hong Kong’s current regulatory framework.

Customers also voiced caution about security, fraud, and regulatory clarity. Respondents cited fraud protection at 53 percent and seamless conversion to cash at 51 percent.

Reserve transparency reached 39 percent. Stronger regulatory clarity, at 62 percent, and enhanced education, at 55 percent, ranked as the most powerful confidence-boosters. These findings support a phased rollout of HSBC RedCoin, according to the bank.

The post HSBC Reveals ‘HSBC RedCoin’ as the Name of Its Hong Kong Stablecoin appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• The ChatGPT developer is pursuing a minimum of $30 billion in fresh capital at approximately a $1.4 trillion valuation.
• This proposed valuation represents a 64% increase from the company’s $852 billion worth established in March 2026.
• Sam Altman has dismissed the possibility of a 2026 stock market debut, indicating 2027 as the earliest timeframe for going public.
• The company’s annual revenue run rate is approaching $70 billion, powered by growth across business and individual user segments.
• Competitor Anthropic is accelerating its own plans for a public offering this year, potentially reaching a $2 trillion market cap.

The artificial intelligence powerhouse OpenAI has entered discussions to secure a minimum of $30 billion from backers, a Bloomberg report revealed on Tuesday. This fundraising effort would place the organization behind ChatGPT at nearly $1.4 trillion in worth.

This represents a significant increase compared to OpenAI’s previous capital raise. During March 2026, the firm secured $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation. The proposed new figure would represent approximately a 64% elevation.

The Bloomberg report referenced sources with knowledge of the negotiations who indicated discussions remain preliminary. Deal parameters may shift prior to any finalization. Strong investor appetite is reportedly fueling the fundraising initiative.

Strategic Timing Behind OpenAI’s Capital Raise

This capital infusion is anticipated to function as interim financing. Essentially, it would supply necessary funds as OpenAI works toward an eventual public market debut.

Chief Executive Sam Altman stated earlier this month that pursuing a public offering during 2026 would represent an unwise decision. He referenced the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence technology and safety considerations as justification for postponement.

The company submitted confidential documentation for a stock market listing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during June. However, that submission has not yet resulted in a confirmed listing timeline.

Prediction platform Kalshi is monitoring probability estimates for an announcement. Market participants currently assign a 49% likelihood that OpenAI will declare an IPO prior to June 1, 2027. The probability of an announcement before January 1, 2027 stands at merely 1%.

Altman additionally addressed the United Nations Security Council this month. His remarks focused on potential hazards associated with progressively sophisticated AI technologies.

Financial Performance and Anthropic’s Competing IPO Strategy

OpenAI’s annualized recurring revenue is nearing the $70 billion threshold. Expansion has originated from both corporate clients and individual consumers.

Business-to-business sales have increased by more than double since July. The organization’s total revenue trajectory has expanded over 70% during the same period.

Third-quarter consumer revenue alone has already exceeded the complete consumer revenue total from the previous year.

During its DevDay conference, OpenAI unveiled Dots, a suite of autonomous AI agents designed to manage continuous workplace responsibilities. ChatGPT currently serves more than 1.2 billion users weekly. Codex and ChatGPT Work have collectively exceeded 35 million weekly active users.

Concurrently, OpenAI’s primary competitor, Anthropic, is advancing with preparations for its own market debut this year. That public offering could assign Anthropic a valuation exceeding $2 trillion.

OpenAI has also encountered examination regarding its AI systems during safety evaluations. One OpenAI agent allegedly gained unauthorized entry to Australian government platforms during internal testing procedures.

The organization additionally suspended deployment of a system designated GPT-6.1 Astra following unsuccessful internal safety assessments. This determination stemmed from questions about whether sophisticated systems could maintain adherence to designated parameters.

Earlier this month, an antitrust collective lawsuit was initiated against OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and SpaceXAI. The litigation alleges the organizations coordinated an unlawful deceleration of AI advancement.

As of this week, the fundraising negotiations remain preliminary without a definitive completion timeline.

The post OpenAI Eyes $1.4 Trillion Valuation Through Massive $30 Billion Funding Round appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Points

• President Trump forecasted a swift conclusion to hostilities with Iran following discussions between U.S. representatives and intermediaries.
• Tehran has offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within one week if Washington agrees to specific conditions.
• Trump rejected claims that the U.S. offered sanctions relief or unfroze Iranian assets.
• Iran’s currency plummeted to an unprecedented low versus the dollar.
• Cryptocurrency markets showed Bitcoin hovering around $83,000 while Treasury yields remained elevated.

During remarks in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump indicated that hostilities between Washington and Tehran would reach a conclusion in the near future. His statement followed communications between American representatives and diplomatic intermediaries working toward a resolution.

Speaking with members of the press on Monday, Trump expressed confidence in achieving a favorable outcome. He emphasized that the United States would prevail and anticipated a rapid conclusion to the conflict.

The President’s remarks stopped short of announcing a formal cessation of hostilities. Neither Washington nor Tehran has publicly verified reaching any binding agreement.

The framework under discussion originates from Tehran’s diplomatic initiative. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that his government submitted a proposal capable of restoring navigation through the Strait of Hormuz within a week.

Diplomatic Efforts Center on Sequential Actions

Araghchi unveiled the Iranian framework during September’s United Nations General Assembly session. The proposal requires an end to military operations before Tehran would allow passage through the strategic waterway.

Following the reopening, both nations would commence negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear activities. Tehran’s demands include lifting the American naval presence and reducing restrictions on petroleum exports.

The Iranian proposal also requested access to approximately $12 billion in assets currently frozen under sanctions. Trump dismissed this offer on September 26.

Diplomatic intermediaries have subsequently circulated a modified proposal. According to Financial Times reporting, negotiations now concentrate on coordinating the timeline for Iran’s reopening of Hormuz with America’s withdrawal of naval forces.

Trump categorically denied providing Iran with incentives related to nuclear negotiations. In a Truth Social post, he stated emphatically, “I offered them NOTHING.”

His refutation addressed U.S. concessions specifically. The denial did not contradict his previous acknowledgment that American officials had engaged with mediators.

The present diplomatic effort follows a failed June arrangement. That previous understanding would have permitted commercial vessels to transit the waterway during negotiations, but it dissolved due to disagreements over navigation corridors.

Tehran Confronts Intensifying Economic Strain

Iranian officials maintain that any settlement must address American sanctions and military operations. Araghchi emphasized Tehran’s preference for a diplomatic solution.

Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of a parliamentary committee on security matters, challenged Trump’s characterization of how the conflict would conclude. No official confirmation of agreed-upon terms has emerged from either capital.

The Iranian rial collapsed past 2.5 million against the U.S. dollar on Tuesday. This historic depreciation reflects the combined impact of international sanctions and naval restrictions on petroleum shipments.

Trump suggested gasoline prices would decline following the war’s conclusion. Such an outcome hinges on finalizing an agreement that remains under negotiation.

Bitcoin maintained a position near $83,081 following Trump’s public statements. Ethereum traded around $2,680 while XRP hovered near $1.48, with both declining over 1.5%.

U.S. Treasury yields for 30-year bonds increased during this timeframe. The 10-year yield had touched 5.20% on September 25, with 30-year bonds closing at 5.47%.

American spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $2.39 billion in net capital inflows across five consecutive trading sessions ending the previous Friday. Bitcoin had dropped beneath $84,000 after Trump rejected Iran’s original proposal.

Crude oil markets have responded to changing expectations regarding Hormuz. Brent crude stood at $106.77 while U.S. crude traded at $93.94 on September 29, based on Reuters data.

Petroleum shipments transiting the Strait of Hormuz have approached pre-conflict volumes. Analytics from Kpler indicated average daily flows of approximately 13.2 million barrels during the preceding week, notwithstanding ongoing military incidents.

The post Trump Forecasts Swift End to Iran Conflict Amid Hormuz Negotiations appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Robinhood is set to introduce crypto perpetual futures contracts for qualified American customers in the upcoming months.
• Leverage options will reach 10x for Bitcoin and Ethereum, with six additional cryptocurrencies offering 3x leverage.
• Bitstamp will facilitate these transactions at a fee of 0.01% per trade until December 2026.
• Round-the-clock weekend trading for chosen US equities and ETFs is in development, awaiting regulatory clearance.
• Robinhood Agents has been unveiled, enabling customers to create AI-powered bots for market analysis and automated transactions.

The popular trading platform Robinhood has revealed its intention to bring crypto perpetual futures contracts to qualified American traders. This announcement came during the company’s HOOD Summit event held on September 29.

This upcoming offering will enable traders to establish long or short positions across eight different cryptocurrency assets. The lineup features Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, ADA, LINK, and HYPE.

The maximum leverage available for Bitcoin and Ether positions will reach 10x. Meanwhile, the remaining six digital assets will have leverage restricted to 3x.

According to Robinhood, traders will pay 0.01% for each transaction until December 31, 2026. The company has not specified a precise launch timeline, stating only that deployment will occur within the next few months.

Unlike traditional futures, these instruments have no set expiration. CEO Vlad Tenev described them as “America’s first true perps” on his X account, noting that settlements for gains and losses will occur every quarter-hour.

Traders will have the ability to establish stop-loss and take-profit parameters. Additionally, they can monitor liquidation thresholds in real time and receive notifications when positions approach risk levels.

Perpetual Crypto Futures Enter US Markets

Federal regulators created a more transparent framework for these financial instruments earlier in the current year. On May 29, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission granted approval to KalshiEX for a Bitcoin-based perpetual contract as a futures instrument.

The regulatory body also indicated that additional perpetual contracts would typically undergo individual evaluation processes. Robinhood’s announcement did not reference any particular prior regulatory decision.

These financial instruments will be available through Robinhood Derivatives, which holds registration as a futures commission merchant. Bitstamp, the cryptocurrency platform Robinhood acquired for $200 million in 2025, will provide backend support.

Similar perpetual offerings are already available to European customers through Bitstamp. Those European contracts initially launched with more conservative leverage restrictions compared to what’s being proposed for American traders.

Non-Stop Stock Markets and AI Trading Assistants

The platform is also developing continuous trading capabilities for a selected group of US equities and exchange-traded funds. This around-the-clock weekend service is anticipated to debut in early 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

This new functionality expands upon Robinhood’s current after-hours trading infrastructure. The existing platform already operates from Sunday evening through Friday evening for hundreds of securities and ETFs.

Chief Brokerage Officer Steve Quirk emphasized that market-moving news doesn’t follow traditional market schedules. Bruce ATS, functioning as an alternative trading system, will power these weekend trading sessions.

Additional scheduling modifications are coming this autumn as well. Beginning in October, options trading windows will expand to operate from 7:30 a.m. until 4:15 p.m. Eastern time.

Qualified margin account holders will also receive enhanced intraday purchasing power. This threshold will increase from 2x to potentially 4x beginning next month.

Concurrent with these trading enhancements, Robinhood unveiled Robinhood Agents. This capability allows customers to design personalized AI assistants within the application for market research and automated transaction execution.

Since a related functionality debuted in May, over 150,000 users have established accounts for agentic trading. According to Robinhood, these AI assistants now interact with platform tools approximately 30 million times daily.

An upcoming capability named Loops will permit users to establish repeating directives for their AI agents. These agents will monitor market dynamics and complete transactions when predetermined criteria are satisfied.

As of September 30, Robinhood has not provided specific launch timelines for either the crypto perpetual futures contracts or the continuous weekend stock trading feature. Both initiatives remain in development as regulatory processes continue.

The post Robinhood (HOOD) Unveils Crypto Futures Trading and Round-the-Clock Stock Market Access appeared first on Blockonomi.

BIT Research published a report on Wednesday arguing that Bitcoin’s bear market is over, with one upside scenario for this cycle running from $185,000 to $215,000.

The primary cryptocurrency is trading above $83,000 and looks set to finish its third straight month in the green, pushing quarterly gains to 42%.

BIT Calls the Bottom on Holder Profits

The firm says it called the cycle low in late July, after Bitcoin hit a downside target from Elliott Wave analysis and held above $62,900.

Weekly RSI, a gauge of how hard prices are falling, stopped dropping in June and July even as price made new lows, a split the report compares to the 2022 bottom. BTC then crossed its 21-week moving average at $69,272 and reclaimed $70,000. It now trades around $83,000, above its March 2024 high of $73,084.

The report leaned on cost basis, with the True Market Mean, the estimated average price holders paid, sitting at $76,897, so the typical holder and the average spot ETF buyer are back in profit; therefore, in the analysts’ view, this removes a source of selling pressure.

Another thing BIT considered was the fact that US federal debt has passed $40 trillion, and rising Treasury yields caused by worries over government finances can send money toward gold and BTC.

Its debt model gives a reference valuation near $105,000, but the main headwind is a stronger dollar, with traders pricing in more Fed rate hikes and the Strait of Hormuz still closed. However, the firm does not expect it to derail the rally, since past dollar strength has hurt gold more than Bitcoin.

The OG crypto has traded between $83,000 and $85,000 since a rejection near $87,000 last week, and at the time of writing, CoinGecko showed it just above that $83,000 level, although it represented a dip of over 4% in seven days.

Still, that price is a nearly 10% improvement across two weeks and more than 7% higher than where it was 30 days ago. Coinglass data puts the third quarter at +42.22%, the best quarter since Q4 2024 and the best Q3 performance since 2017.

ETF flows have also improved, with the funds recording $2.8 billion of net inflows in September so far, taking cumulative inflows to $57.6 billion and total net assets to about $108 billion.

How the Range Gets to $215,000

In past cycles, Bitcoin climbed at least 85% above the average holder’s cost, which is about $142,000 today.

“This is a reference level for tracking the bull market, not a minimum target or a final top,” BIT’s market watchers clarified. “Historically, price has kept rising after crossing it, but there’s no guarantee that repeats.”

Last cycle, it first reached the 85% mark near $73,000 in March 2024 and peaked at $126,000, roughly 1.7 times higher. If the multiple shrinks to 1.3 to 1.5 times on a $142,000 base, the result is $185,000 to $215,000.

Timing is looser. The last cycle took about 19 months to go from the 85% level to the peak, so a similar pattern would put $200,000 around 2028 or 2029, but the analysts called that pattern-matching and described timing as highly uncertain. Closer to now, they say the asset looks stretched after a fast climb, so a pause or a larger pullback is still possible.

The post Bitcoin $215K Scenario Emerges as BTC Reclaims Key Market Levels appeared first on CryptoPotato.

CSD BR and Ripple have partnered to use blockchain technology in Brazil’s financial market infrastructure.

In the first phase, the XRP Ledger will be used to record and audit financial assets.

Ripple-CSD BR Deal

The project will initially focus on investment fund shares from BTG Pactual. Under the new model, selected financial assets will be tokenized and mirrored on the XRP Ledger. The assets will use the Multi-Purpose Token (MPT) standard. The blockchain will not replace CSD BR’s existing infrastructure but will provide an additional way to check and audit asset records.

Authorized participants will be able to verify records on the blockchain in near real time. The companies said this is expected to improve transparency and traceability. It could also support more automation and efficiency in financial market processes. The system will operate on a permissioned basis. Access will be limited to eligible corporate and banking clients in Brazil. Participants will also be subject to Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements.

CSD BR will retain control over the issuance and administration of the assets. It will also handle important governance functions, such as authorizing participants, freezing individual assets, and reversing transactions when regulators or courts require it.

Ripple’s custody infrastructure will work with the native capabilities of the XRP Ledger. The goal is to create an environment where tokenized financial assets can be handled while existing regulatory requirements remain in place.

Further expansion beyond the initial mirroring phase is also in the cards. The two companies plan to assess the use of blockchain for native asset issuance and trading between authorized participants. Future assets could include Real Estate Receivables Certificates, known as CRI, and Agribusiness Receivables Certificates, or CRA. Both are important parts of Brazil’s fixed-income market. Adding stronger confidentiality features is also part of the platform’s future development plans.

In a statement, Silvio Pegado, Managing Director of Ripple for Latin America, said,

“Moving beyond pilots and proofs of concept to a live record-keeping infrastructure in a national capital market is a major milestone for the industry. This partnership shows how distributed ledger technology can be safely incorporated into critical financial infrastructure in a regulated way.”

AI Push

Ripple has also been expanding its use of AI in corporate treasury operations through GSmart. As CryptoPotato reported earlier this month, the platform now covers forecasting, liquidity, risk, reconciliation, and reporting. Its approach keeps financial calculations separate from AI analysis. Deterministic engines handle the calculations, while AI reviews company policies, identifies patterns, and explains recommended actions.

The system does not execute those actions without human approval.

The post Major Ripple (XRP) Partnership Targeting Brazil’s $22 Trillion Financial Market Infrastructure appeared first on CryptoPotato.

GhostSwap is a cryptocurrency swap platform that’s predominantly built around three core principles: speed, user control, and privacy.

Instead of operating like a conventional centralized exchange, where users typically have to create an account, complete identity verification, and deposit funds into an exchange-controlled wallet, GhostSwap is designed to function as a non-custodial exchange service.

Users are able to swap various cryptocurrencies without necessarily having to create an account or complete KYC for standard transactions, while retaining control of their assets throughout the process.

The exchange positions itself as a very straightforward way to exchange digital assets across various networks without having to go through the usual process of setting up a full trading account. According to the official website, GhostSwap currently supports more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies, including major ones such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and More. It also reports over 1.5 million worldwide users, more than 2 million completed transactions and $750 million in swap volume.

Overall, GhostSwap is aimed at users who want a relatively simple way to move between cryptocurrencies without maintaining a balance on a centralized exchange. In the following review, we will look more closely at how the exchange works, its privacy model, security, asset coverage, and more.

How Does GhostSwap Work?

As mentioned above, GhostSwap is designed to reduce the crypto exchange process to a relatively small number of simple steps. It’s basically a four-step workflow. Users have to choose the cryptocurrency they want to send, as well as the asset they want to receive. Then they have to enter the amount they wish to exchange, review the quoted rate, and provide a receiving address. Finally, they need to send their cryptocurrency to complete the process. The converted assets are then delivered to the wallet that they’ve provided.

For instance, someone who’s looking to exchange BTC for USDT would first have to select BTC as the outgoing asset  and USDT as the asset they want to receive. They would then need to specify the amount, enter their USDT wallet, review the swap details, and send BTC to the deposit address that’s supplied for this specific transaction. It’s as simple as that.

The main difference between this model and a centralized crypto exchange is – as you can see – custody. On a conventional exchange, the user would have to deposit the funds into an account-controlled wallet and may leave those assets there for an extended period. GhostSwap claims that it doesn’t hold customer funds in this manner. Instead, it’s a non-cusotidal platform, with assets passing through the swap process and ultimately being delivered to a user-controlled wallet.

This approach can make the entire process a lot more private and seamless, but it also places responsibility on the user. Because there is no conventional exchange account that’s holding the resulting funds, the receiving address and the selected blockchain network have to be correct before the transaction is initiated. If you’ve input the wrong address, the transaction cannot be reverted.

Speed is another part of the value proposition of the exchange. Most swaps are completed within 5 minutes, although, of course, this would vary greatly depending on current network load, the network of choice itself, congestion, the processing route, and so forth.

In practical terms, GhostSwap’s workflow is typical of a crypto swap service and one that’s focused on speed, privacy, and convenience.

Privacy and KYC Policy

Now that you’re aware of how GhostSwap works and the main difference between it and a traditional centralized exchange, it’s important to understand the details surrounding privacy and KYC.

The account-free model reduces the amount of personal information a user needs to provide before making a swap. The platform also presents privacy as one of its core philosophies, stating that it aims to minimize personal data collection while allowing users to remain in control of their funds as much as possible.

However, the no KYC policy comes with important caveats and qualifications. It is clearly stated that every swap is automatically screened by its processing partners. If a deposit is flagged throughout that process, GhostSwap may ask the user to complete identity verification. Essentially, this means that KYC is not required routinely for standard swaps, but it doesn’t guarantee that such checks will never  occur.

This distinction matters in the good sense because it shows responsibility that goes hand-in-hand with sensible handling of personal information.

For those of you who value privacy, the practical advantage here is fairly clear: GhostSwap removes a lot of the registration and identity verification friction that’s always associated with traditional centralized exchanges. Users can freely initiate a swap without creating a profile or handing over their ID in advance. At the same time, though, its screening policy means that there is a compliance layer that’s operating behind the scenes, and users should understand that certain transactions may require additional checks.

Supported Cryptocurrencies and Swap Options

One of the main selling points of the platform is the considerable size of its supported assets. Users can engage with more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies across major blockchain networks, giving it massive flexibility compared to conventional services focused on large coins.

Let’s talk about some of the stronger sides.

1,600+ Supported Cryptocurrencies

As I already mentioned, the protocol supports more than 1,600 cryptocurrencies. Some of the options include:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Monero (XMR)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Solana (SOL)
• Tether (USDT), and many more.

For users, the practical advantage here is the sheer size of this variety. Someone who holds a less common coin may be able to exchange it directly for another rather than first having to transfer it to a large centralized exchange and complete several separate trades.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that the exact availability of a particular pair will depend on the network, as well as the available liquidity, so it’s always advisable to check the live exchange interface before assuming that two specific currencies can be swapped directly and at the going rate.

Crosschain Crypto Swaps

This is another one of the important features – support for swaps that involve assets that operate on completely different networks.

For instance, Bitcoin and Ethereum do not operate natively on the same network, while Solana, Monero, and XRP each have their own separate infrastructure. GhostSwap is designed to abstract this complexity away from the users, allowing them to select the asset they are sending and the asset they want to receive.

Privacy Coin Support

If you want to exchange ZEC without KYC, GhostSwap does offer support for privacy coins, which is a very heavily debated topic within the crypto community.

The protocol could be relevant for those of you who are interested in having access to an asset that is not readily available on every single mainstream exchange. This is true for those of you who want to exchange Monero without KYC, especially after multiple centralized crypto exchanges delisted the cryptocurrency many months ago.

However, it’s important to note that support for a privacy coin shouldn’t be confused with a guarantee that the entire process is actually anonymous. As I mentioned earlier, GhostSwap outlines that transactions are screened and that flagged deposits may be subject to identity verification.

Direct Wallet-to-Wallet Swaps

One of the main selling points is that the exchange doesn’t require users to maintain a balance on a traditional trading venue. Instead, you can just select a trading pair, provide a wallet address where you want to receive the crypto, and send the outgoing asset for conversion.

This model can be convenient for those users who already manage their crypto through self-custody wallets.

Multiple Liquidity Providers

Another thing to keep in mind is that GhostSwap searches across multiple liquidity providers when processing swaps rather than relying a single market source. This allows for its system to look for an available rate before routin transactions and execute at the best possible price.

This type of aggregation improves liquidity and broadens the number of swap routes available to the user, which is very important, especially when moving between less common cryptocurrencies.

Rates, Fees and Slippage

Naturally, one of the most important things that you need to consider when choosing a swap service are the rates and fees.

With GhostSwap, there is no central order book, which means that there are no typical market maker and taker fees. Instead, the platform’s fees are built into the slippage and it would vary a lot depending on the available liquidity, which can be determined based on the asset you want to swap.

However, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind:

• Live quotes matter: You should compare the expected output rather than focusing only on the headline fee.
• Slippage: volatility and thin liquidity can cause the final received amount to differ from the initial estimate.
• Floating rates: some swaps may change in value before the processing is completed.
• Pricing: the platform’s fees are built into the displayed quote.

GhostSwap Pros and Cons

As with everything, GhostSwap combines convenience, privacy, and broad support for different cryptocurrencies, but there are some limitations that certain types of users should also keep into account.

Pros

• Self-custody model that reduces the need to leave funds on an exchange
• Support for over 1600 cryptocurrencies
• Simple swap process with direct delivery into the wallet
• Strong focus on privacy

Cons

• Swap times can vary based on network stability and congestion
• Floating rates could change before processing is through
• Users are responsible for correctly inputting the destination wallet

Who is GhostSwap Best Suited For?

GhostSwap is a crypto swap service that will likely appeal most to users who are searching for a simple and account-free way to exchange cryptocurrencies. It has broad coverage of assets, and it is best suited for people who are already handling a lot of their crypto directly on-chain without going through centralized intermediaries.

On top of that, it may be especially attractive to privacy-conscious users who prefer not to create another exchange account or complete routine KYC.

On the other hand, if you’re in need of more sophisticated trading instruments like stop losses, limit orders, trailing stops, and more, then there probably are better options out there.

Disclaimer: The above article is sponsored content; it’s written by a third party. CryptoPotato doesn’t endorse or assume responsibility for the content, advertising, products, quality, accuracy, or other materials on this page. Nothing in it should be construed as financial advice. Readers are strongly advised to verify the information independently and carefully before engaging with any company or project mentioned and to do their own research. Investing in cryptocurrencies carries a risk of capital loss, and readers are also advised to consult a professional before making any decisions that may or may not be based on the above-sponsored content.

Readers are also advised to read CryptoPotato’s full disclaimer.

The post GhostSwap Review 2026: Privacy-Oriented Crypto Swaps appeared first on CryptoPotato.

October has built a reputation as a particularly strong month for many cryptocurrencies, earning the nickname “Uptober.”

We asked some of the most popular AI-powered chatbots whether this period will be successful for the market this year and which three digital assets are most likely to post substantial gains. Here are the answers.

ChatGPT’s Take

OpenAI’s platform claimed that Uniswap (UNI) could emerge as a top performer next month due to an upcoming event that may boost its price. Specifically, CME Group plans to launch UNI futures on October 19 (pending regulatory review).

“The announcement could put UNI in front of more professional traders and give the market a reason to focus on during October. Uniswap also has an existing mechanism that uses some protocol fees to burn UNI, giving growth in trading activity a more direct connection to the token,” it added.

It is important to note that the initial disclosure about the futures triggered a double-digit price increase for UNI. We have yet to see whether the actual development will cause a major rally or a sell-the-news effect.

ChatGPT’s second contender is Ondo (ONDO). The chatbot emphasized that the coin has “a strong story” around tokenized stocks and funds, which, combined with major partnerships and more adoption in October, might result in a serious price pump.

Its third bet is Solana’s SOL. The platform gave credit to the asset due to the money flowing into the spot SOL ETF lately, the network’s growing financial use, and the Alpenglow upgrade scheduled for October. The improvement aims to reduce transaction finality from roughly 12.8 seconds to about 150 milliseconds.

Gemini’s View

Google’s chatbot also picked SOL and placed it first on its list. It described the asset as “the express high-speed train of crypto,” expecting BTC to move first in October but then Solana’s native token to outperform it massively as capital potentially rotates into altcoins.

Its second and third picks are Sui (SUI) and Ethereum (ETH). The former has supposedly established strong relative strength heading into Q4, whereas the latter was labeled “the foundation for institutional DeFi, layer-2 networks, and tokenized real-world assets.”

“Ethereum could spike in October because big investors routinely move their money back into crypto assets during Q4, which can push ETH past key price levels and force short-sellers to buy back their positions. If strong institutional ETF buying kicks in, market projections point toward targets near $3,400-$3,600,” it concluded.

Perplexity’s Opinion

The chatbot said its three top candidates for next month are Ripple (XRP), Quant (QNT), and Zcash (ZEC). The cross-border token was praised for its solid performance throughout September, and Perplexity suggested it may have been preparing for a bigger rally next month.

The AI-powered search engine also touched upon the spot XRP ETFs, which have attracted over $1.7 billion in cumulative net inflows since their launch. Last week, these investment vehicles added approximately $75 million, while the last red week was in July.

At the same time, Perplexity warned that October has historically been a predominantly negative month for Ripple’s native token. According to CryptoRank, the asset has finished in the red 8 out of 13 times.

The chatbot then moved to QNT, highlighting its impressive price increase after The Clearing House selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative.

“The Clearing House clears and settles more than $2 trillion per day for the US banking system, giving QNT an unusually concrete institutional use case,” it said.

Last but not least, it paid attention to ZEC, which has been “riding the strongest crypto privacy narrative of 2026.” The chatbot cited the launch of Europe’s first ZEC ETP and Grayscale’s ETF based on the asset, arguing both developments could keep interest elevated in the coming weeks. On the other hand, it also alerted:

“ZEC has already had an enormous run, so it is vulnerable to a violent correction if privacy-coin sentiment cools ot Bitcoin weakens. It is a momentum trade, not a conservative pick.”

The post 3 Cryptocurrencies AI Predicts Could Explode This October appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Apple has released iOS 26.7.1 and iPadOS 26.7.1 on September 28th with a security fix for a serious vulnerability that could allow attackers to run arbitrary code on affected devices.

The tech giant said the issue involves an out-of-bounds write in CoreGraphics and added that the flaw could be triggered by processing a specially crafted file.

SlowMist Warns Crypto Users

Apple confirmed that it may have been exploited in an “extremely sophisticated attack” against specific targeted individuals on iOS versions before iOS 27.

Meanwhile, SlowMist said the vulnerability is relevant to iOS attack activity it has been tracking. The security firm also warned that crypto users should pay particular attention. It urged them to update their Apple devices and avoid suspicious links, files, and app installation prompts. Users should also be careful when downloading apps or opening content from unknown sources.

The vulnerability affects a range of Apple devices, including iPhone 11 and later models, along with several recent iPad models.

Malicious FomoPeek iOS App

A week earlier, SlowMist had reported an iOS-related security threat involving the FomoPeek app. The security firm said it received multiple reports of users losing digital assets and found that affected users had suffered private key exposure. Some had previously installed FomoPeek versions 1.1 and 1.2.

A joint investigation by SlowMist and OKX’s security teams found malicious code inside the app. According to the investigation, FomoPeek contained an iOS kernel exploitation framework with eight attack methods. The framework could reportedly select an exploit based on the device model and iOS version.

Affected versions included iOS 12.0-18.7 and iOS 26.0-26.1. If successful, the exploit could escape the iOS sandbox and access Keychain data and files from other apps. This could expose private keys, seed phrases, login credentials, as well as other sensitive information. Hidden server connections were also found that could receive remote commands, with the attack functionality reportedly running automatically at regular intervals.

Earlier this year, Apple was sued by three people for allegedly promoting a fake version of the Sparrow Wallet crypto app through its App Store. The fake app reportedly drained a total of $1.8 million from the victims’ wallets between May and August 2025.

The post Apple Patches iOS Flaw That Could Let Attackers Run Malicious Code on iPhones appeared first on CryptoPotato.