Fortitude's rapid Zcash hashrate growth could centralize mining power, impacting network decentralization and competitive dynamics.

The post Fortitude surpasses 5 GSol/s of Zcash hashrate as expansion plans grow appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The liquidation of leveraged shorts highlights the volatility and risk in crypto markets, emphasizing the need for cautious trading strategies.

The post Bitcoin retests $82,000 as $20 million in leveraged shorts get liquidated appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The comptroller's call for delay highlights growing investor caution and could lead to increased scrutiny of AI firms' governance practices.

The post NYC comptroller urges Anthropic to delay IPO over AI safety concerns appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Nvidia's stance on CoreWeave highlights the delicate balance between market confidence and the implicit support embedded in strategic partnerships.

The post Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says CoreWeave doesn’t need a backstop appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

CoreWeave's rising credit risk and borrowing plans may deter investors, impacting AI infrastructure financing and market confidence.

The post CoreWeave’s credit risk hits a record high as new borrowing plans spook bondholders appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Latin America’s MSTR: How OranjeBTC is Running the Saylor Playbook in Brazil | Gui Gomes

Bitcoin is “likely the best collateral one could ask for,” says OranjeBTC CEO Gui Gomes. He explains how digital credit, Bitcoin-backed loans, and new financial products are pushing Bitcoin deeper into global financial markets, including a first-of-its-kind Bitcoin-backed loan in Brazil. He also shares why every step brings Bitcoin closer to becoming the world’s reserve currency.

Chapters:
0:00 – OranjeBTC CEO Gui Gomes on Running the Strategy Playbook in Latin America
0:32 – Why Brazil Ranks No. 1 in Grassroots Bitcoin Adoption
1:57 – Brazil’s Advantages for Building a Bitcoin Treasury Company
3:38 – Brazil’s New Bitcoin Regulations and VASP Licensing
5:23 – Brazil’s Elections and the Shift Toward a Pro-Market Economy
7:22 – Lower Rates, the Real and Brazil’s Next Growth Phase
8:27 – How Global Investors Can Buy OranjeBTC Shares
9:21 – DIGI11: Bringing STRC and SATA to Brazilian Investors
11:21 – How DIGI11 Delivered Its First Dividend
14:08 – Bitcoin as Collateral and the Future of Digital Credit

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 Latin America’s MSTR: How OranjeBTC is Running the Saylor Playbook in Brazil | Gui Gomes first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Charles Edwards: Why Quantum Risk Could Be MASSIVE BTC Upside Catalyst

What will it take for Bitcoin to break to new all-time highs? Charles Edwards says something substantial has to happen, whether it’s real progress on quantum, a shift in Fed policy, the U.S. government buying Bitcoin, or a stimulus event. He also discusses how institutional buying through ETFs is keeping the backdrop strong.

Chapters:
0:00 – Charles Edwards on Rates, Liquidity and Bitcoin’s Market Outlook
1:36 – ETFs vs. Treasury Companies: Who’s Driving Bitcoin Buying?
2:54 – How AI-Driven Unemployment Could Change the Fed and Bitcoin
4:01 – Hash Ribbons: Why Rising Hash Rate Is a Bullish Signal
6:13 – Is This Hash Rate Cycle Different With AI?
8:14 – Is Bitcoin Still Undervalued? Production Cost, Energy Value and MVRV
10:37 – Global Liquidity, 5% Rates and Bitcoin’s Uncharted Territory
14:50 – Quantum Computing: Why a Roadmap Could Be an Upside Catalyst
17:21 – Can AI Break Bitcoin? Superintelligence and Encryption Risk
19:15 – What Could Trigger Bitcoin’s Next All-Time High

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 Charles Edwards: Why Quantum Risk Could Be MASSIVE BTC Upside Catalyst first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Wellington-Altus’ James Thorne: Bitcoin “Supercycle” has Begun

“The next run in Bitcoin is going to be one for the ages.” Economist James Thorne, Chief Market Strategist at Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, joins Grace Remington and Sean Hagan to explain why he believes Bitcoin is entering a generational supercycle. Drawing on his experience with the commodities supercycle, he explains why a changing market structure makes this time different. He also explains why he thinks the four-year cycle is done.

Chapters:
0:00 – James Thorne on Hot Core CPI: Why Shelter, Not Energy, Drove It
1:30 – Is the Fed Making a Policy Mistake by Hiking?
5:35 – Why Hedge Funds Are Acting Like the New Bond Vigilantes
6:42 – Can AI Deliver a Greenspan Moment? Warsh’s Jackson Hole Miss
10:22 – Why Bitcoin Is Entering a Generational Supercycle
14:11 – The Four-Year Cycle Is Done and Who Buys Bitcoin Next
18:45 – Why Bitcoin Solves the Settlement Problem
21:15 – Strategy, Pristine Collateral and Harvesting Bitcoin Volatility
24:59 – Tokenization and the End of Delayed Innovation
27:04 – Bitcoin vs. Gold: Will Bitcoin’s Market Cap Surpass Gold?

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 Wellington-Altus’ James Thorne: Bitcoin “Supercycle” has Begun first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Troy Cross: Number Go Up – The Solution to Bitcoin’s Marketing Problem?

Can Bitcoin really separate money and state? Philosopher Troy Cross offers a grounded answer. He doesn’t expect governments to give up printing money anytime soon, but argues Bitcoin puts a check on endless money printing because people will take refuge in it. He also explains why he thinks academics will be the last to get Bitcoin, after innovators, finance, and journalists.

Chapters:
0:00 – Troy Cross on the Clarity Act’s Failure and Why Bitcoin Continues On
1:20 – The Getting Bitcoin Campaign in the Wall Street Journal
2:32 – Why Readers Are Clicking Bitcoin Essays at 4–6x Normal Rates
4:10 – Why Academics Will Be the Last to Get Bitcoin
5:51 – Nakamoto Project Survey: Is Bitcoin Becoming Partisan?
7:52 – The 2026 Survey: Bitcoin Normalizing While Polarizing
10:08 – Bitcoin’s Brand Problem and Confusion With Crypto
11:44 – Price Action, Education and Why Number Go Up Is the Universal Language
13:39 – Crossing the Chasm to Reach the 82% of Non-Bitcoiners
16:55 – Separation of Money and State: Why Bitcoin Keeps Governments Honest

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 Troy Cross: Number Go Up – The Solution to Bitcoin’s Marketing Problem? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Russia’s Central Bank Authorizes Sberbank to Exchange Cryptocurrencies

Russia’s central bank has added Sberbank to its register of organizations authorized to exchange digital currencies, according to reports. 

Sberbank was added to the list of digital depositories, which will keep a record of cryptocurrencies and digital rights, earlier this month. 

Now, it joins eight other organizations on the exchange register, including state-controlled VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, and T-Invest Lab, part of T-Technologies, which also owns online lender T-Bank, according to a Monday report from Interfax. 

The announcement comes as Russia fast moves forward with Bitcoin-related regulation. Sberbank last month announced that it was the first in the country to have been approved to custody bitcoin. 

The Bank of Russia gave it the green light for “digital currency record-keeping” and to facilitate the transfer of such assets, covering bitcoin and other, smaller cryptocurrencies. 

“This status will allow the bank to provide services related to organizing the circulation of digital currency on interfaces which clients already use,” Sberbank was quoted saying in the news report. 

A law on digital currencies and digital rights came into effect in Russia on September 1, creating a comprehensive legal framework for cryptocurrency circulation. Transactions involving cryptocurrencies can be conducted via the existing infrastructure of exchanges, brokers and trustees, and now also via crypto exchanges and digital depositories. 

Cryptocurrency can be bought and sold via crypto exchanges, while the rights to these assets are recorded in digital depositories.

Banks and other organizations have been able to apply to the CBR for the corresponding licenses since October 5. Some existing players have simplified access to the market and can obtain licenses on a notification basis within just one day.

Under the new rules, unqualified investors will be able to buy bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies including stablecoins, within a limit of 300,000 rubles ($3,556) per year through one intermediary. 

Qualified investors will have access to all cryptocurrencies traded on the exchange and over-the-counter markets.

Sberbank will debut its crypto wallet in December — the same month the Moscow Exchange will debut crypto trading.

This post Russia’s Central Bank Authorizes Sberbank to Exchange Cryptocurrencies first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Chainalysis’s rate covers wallets already active on multiple days, leaving overall retention and independent commercial demand unmeasured.

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A dated three-week entry estimate shows how direct deposits and pooled holdings bear the cost of inactive staking capital.

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Prosecutors say recovered data showed the same scammers returning weeks later with false promises to recover stolen assets.

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Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argued in an Oct. 14 memo that nearly every macroeconomic path ends with Bitcoin higher, including an extraordinary AI productivity boom that makes scarce assets more valuable. Two days earlier, the Bank for International Settlements published a working paper that models a fourth path. In it, AI automates work and lifts…

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Bitcoin registered an intraday low of $81,514.28 on Oct. 14 as September CPI came in hotter than forecast, with headline inflation at 3.7% year over year against 3.6% expected and core at 2.6% against 2.5%. Glassnode's latest on-chain data suggests a calmer holder base than the price action. The harder test sits near $80,000, where…

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On Friday, October 16, 18,029 Bitcoin contracts expire on the options exchange Deribit. The calculated pain point of this expiry sits at $83,000, while the price on Thursday afternoon was $80,771. That leaves $2,229 between the market and the level at which options buyers collectively gain the least. Whether the gap closes on Friday is not for the expiry alone to decide, and the structure of the open contracts explains fairly precisely why.

Bitcoin traded at $80,771, or 72,029 euros, at around 2:50 pm German time on October 15, down 2.46 percent over 24 hours (source: CoinGecko). The high of the day was $83,005, the low $80,444. Over a week the loss stands at 2.12 percent, and the price is 35.9 percent below the record of $126,080 set on October 6, 2025.

Friday's Bitcoin options expiry: 18,029 contracts on Deribit

Deribit is the largest venue for Bitcoin options. An option is a right, not an obligation: the buyer of a call may buy Bitcoin at an agreed strike price, the buyer of a put may sell at that price. If the option runs out without the right being worth exercising, it expires worthless.

For Friday's expiry, our own reading of the Deribit raw data from October 15, 12:50 pm UTC, shows 18,029 open contracts. Of those, 10,410 are puts and 7,619 are calls. Measured against a price of roughly $80,800, that is a notional value of a good $1.45 billion. One Deribit contract covers one Bitcoin.

For a sense of scale: the monthly expiry on October 30 carries 148,348 contracts, more than eight times as many. Friday is one of the small weekly dates, not a quarterly event.

Max pain at $83,000: what the Bitcoin options figure measures

Max pain is the strike price at which the sum of all payouts to options buyers comes out smallest. The calculation is plain: for every conceivable closing price, the combined worth of all calls and all puts is added up, and the price with the smallest result is the point of maximum pain.

For October 16 our own calculation puts that point at $83,000. At $80,000 the options together would be worth around 8.2 million units, at $83,000 only 2.3 million, and at $86,000 again 7.2 million. The curve has a clear trough, and the trough lies above today's price.

What the figure is not: a price target. Max pain describes where the interests of the options writers lie, not a forecast. The notion that the market drifts towards maximum pain on expiry day is an observation with plenty of counter-examples, not a law. Read the number as a target and you have mistaken a statistic for an intention.

A Bitcoin put-call ratio of 1.37: hedging has the upper hand

Divide the open puts by the open calls and Friday comes out at a ratio of 1.37. For every three calls there are a good four puts. A reading above 1 means more capital is positioned for falling prices, or for protection, than for rising ones.

The comparison with the monthly expiry makes the difference visible. For October 30 the ratio is 0.52, with 97,612 calls against 50,736 puts. Positioning further out is therefore mostly bullish, while the near term looks defensive. Together the two describe a market that is hedging the next few days without writing off the month.

How a Bitcoin options expiry affects the price at all

The mechanism runs through the traders who sold the options. A writer carries the other side's risk and offsets it on the futures market by buying or selling Bitcoin. How much they have to move depends on how close the price is to the strikes at which they hold open contracts.

As the price approaches a strike with many open contracts, the hedge required changes quickly, and the trader has to adjust more often. In quiet phases that adjustment dampens the market, because it works against the move. It can also amplify, when the price cuts through a densely occupied level and many traders have to buy or sell in the same direction.

After the expiry that tie is cut. The bigger move therefore often comes not on expiry day itself but in the days that follow, once the hedge is no longer needed.

The Bitcoin put clusters at $78,000 and $80,000

The densest positions into Friday are the puts below the price. At $78,000 there are 2,746 contracts, at $80,000 2,142, at $76,000 1,150 and at $79,000 777. Those four strikes alone carry 6,815 contracts, or 38 percent of the entire expiry.

On the other side the calls sit far above: 1,144 contracts at $90,000, 835 at $87,000, 690 at $85,000 and 606 at $92,000. Those levels are 5 to 11 percent away from today's price and play practically no part in Friday.

The $80,000 level deserves particular attention because it counts twice: as the second-largest put cluster of the expiry, and as a level $771 below the current price. Should Bitcoin fall through it, those 2,142 contracts move into the money, and the writers on the other side have to widen their hedge.

The monthly Bitcoin expiry on October 30: 148,348 contracts

The month's real date falls on October 30, two days after the next US Federal Reserve rate decision on October 28. It carries 148,348 open contracts, by far the largest position of the coming weeks. The expiry on November 27 follows with 25,150 contracts.

For placing Friday in context, that means the small date clears out short-dated hedging while positioning for the end of the month is left untouched. The next larger turning point is more likely to come at the end of October than on Friday.

What has changed since Tuesday's inflation reading

In our article of October 14 on US inflation at 3.7 percent and the core rate above forecast, Bitcoin stood at $83,115 on the day. The price has since given up 2.8 percent and sits at $80,771. The $82,000 level discussed at the time broke during Wednesday and has not been recovered.

In between came a wave of liquidations on Thursday morning, in which market data show $489 million of leveraged positions closed within an hour; the details are in our report on the liquidation cascade. What is new since Tuesday is therefore less the direction than the nature of the move: the selling pressure now comes from the futures market rather than from the macro headline.

Sentiment has turned accordingly. The Fear and Greed Index from alternative.me stands at 53 points on October 15, which is neutral, after 62 points and greed the day before.

Our assessment: Friday's expiry will not carry the big move

In the view of the editorial team, Friday's expiry is too small to pull the price to $83,000 on its own. Three pieces of evidence support that. First, the volume of 18,029 contracts is only a good eighth of the monthly expiry on October 30. Second, the futures market is not stretched right now: the funding rate on the Deribit perpetual is 0.0041 percent per eight hours and 0.0046 percent at OKX, both close to zero and therefore without an imbalance on either side. Third, historical volatility at Deribit stands at 32.8, in the lower range of recent months.

The argument against: the put clusters at $78,000 and $80,000 sit tightly below the price. If the $80,000 level goes, the writers' hedging amplifies the move downwards instead of damping it. The expiry is then not a driver, but an amplifier. Our assessment weighs up the situation and is not a recommendation to buy or sell.

Leverage and liquidation on a Bitcoin expiry day

Open positions in the Deribit perpetual add up to $881.5 million. Perpetuals are futures contracts without an expiry date, tied to the spot price through a funding rate. When that rate sits near zero as it does today, the long and short sides pay each other almost nothing, and the market carries no pronounced imbalance.

For leveraged positions an expiry day is still the more uncomfortable part of the week, because swings around densely occupied levels increase. The liquidation price is the price at which the exchange force-closes a position because the posted collateral has run out. At five times leverage it sits around 20 percent from entry, at ten times around 10 percent, at twenty times still around 5 percent.

Applied to today's price, twenty times leverage means a liquidation price of roughly $76,700. That value sits between the two largest put clusters of the expiry. If you hold a leveraged position, set your own liquidation distance against the $80,000, $78,000 and $76,000 levels instead of thinking of it in percent. Which venues charge which fees and demand which collateral is set out in our comparison of the best perp DEXs.

Thursday morning's wave shows how fast that happens: $489 million in one hour is more than half of all open interest in the Deribit perpetual.

Holding period and exemption limit: December 31 is closing in

For investors in Germany, more hangs on the turn of the year than the price question. Under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, the gain on a Bitcoin sale is tax-free if more than a year lies between purchase and sale. Inside that window the gain is taxed at the personal income tax rate, though an exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to all private disposals taken together.

Exemption limit means a gain of 999 euros is taxed at nothing, while a gain of 1,001 euros is taxed in full. The difference from a tax-free allowance is expensive here, and it is regularly confused.

A planned extension of the holding period was recently on the political agenda without a decision being taken. The cabinet date passed without a result, so the December 31 cut-off stands unchanged. To offset this year's losses against gains, you need your transactions documented cleanly by the turn of the year; a tax tool with a portfolio tracker takes that work off your hands.

Buying route and custody under MiCA

Since the EU's MiCA regulation applied in full, providers of crypto services in the EU need authorisation and are supervised, in Germany by BaFin. For the buying route that means an authorised provider must hold client funds separately from its own assets and must evidence custody.

The choice between an exchange and self-custody is untouched by that. Leave Bitcoin sitting on an exchange and you hold a claim against that exchange, not Bitcoin on the blockchain. Move it to your own wallet and you carry responsibility for the key yourself. For amounts beyond what you intend to trade at short notice, self-custody is the safer route.

Bitcoin expiry on October 16: $2,229 short of max pain

With 18,029 contracts, Friday's expiry is a small date with a clear tilt to the downside. The deciding question is not the $83,000 calculation but whether the $80,000 level holds.

1. Recalculate your liquidation distance. Put your own liquidation price next to the $80,000, $78,000 and $76,000 levels. If it falls between them, the leverage is too high for this expiry day. The terms offered by the venues are in the perp DEX comparison.
2. Sort the holding periods in your portfolio. Every position that completes its year before December 31 can be sold tax-free afterwards. Which transaction was bought when is settled faster by a tax tool with a portfolio tracker than by a spreadsheet kept by hand.
3. Check the buying route for authorisation. Before the next purchase it is worth looking at fees, withdrawal costs and the provider's MiCA authorisation; the exchange comparison provides the overview.

The next test comes on October 28 with the US Federal Reserve's rate decision, two days before the monthly expiry and its 148,348 contracts. Until then the $80,000 level remains the line on which October is decided.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

On Wednesday, 15 October 2026, forced closures on the crypto market wiped out roughly $489 million in leveraged positions within a single hour. That is more than half the sum that accumulated over the full 24 hours. Across the day, traders lost about $942.1 million according to figures from CoinGlass, and $863.3 million of that fell on long positions, that is, on bets that prices would rise.

For anyone trading with leverage, the decisive number is not the price loss. Bitcoin gave up just under three percent that day, Ethereum a good five. Holding without leverage, you see a red day in the portfolio. Being long with tenfold leverage at a five percent price loss means half the stake is gone, and at ten percent the position is closed before any recovery can catch up with it. That is exactly what happened on a mass scale in this one hour.

$942 million in 24 hours, more than half in 60 minutes

The numbers diverge depending on the time window and the provider, and they are not going to be smoothed over here. CoinGlass reports $489.4 million for the hour in question. The news service PANews names $476 million for a window as of 10:35, of which $457 million on long and $18.2 million on short positions. The range therefore lies between $476 million and $489 million, depending on where the hour begins. Both are robust on the point that matters: the lion's share of the day's losses fell into a very short window.

A liquidation is not a decision to sell but an enforcement measure by the exchange. Once the posted margin no longer covers the accumulated loss, the risk system closes the position automatically at the market price. The client is not asked, and gets no grace period. CoinCentral traces the course of the day with the values for the individual coins.

Leverage works in both directions, and that is what makes it dangerous in down phases: the larger it is, the smaller the price move that wipes out the stake. At fivefold leverage that threshold sits at a 20 percent price loss, at twentyfold at five, at fiftyfold at two. Fees and funding costs move the point forward further still.

Long positions carry 91.6 percent of the losses

Of the day's $942.1 million, $863.3 million fell on long positions. That is 91.6 percent. A distribution that lopsided says something about sentiment in the preceding days: the market was predominantly positioned for rising prices, and the other side was thinly occupied.

From that arises the mechanism that turns a pullback into a cascade. A forced closure is a sale into the market. That sale pushes the price down another notch. A notch lower sit the liquidation prices of the next positions, and those get closed too. In a market where almost everyone has bet in the same direction, one initial nudge is enough to set that sequence in motion. It explains why the losses clustered into a single hour instead of spreading evenly across the day.

Why Ether was hit harder than Bitcoin

According to the daily data, roughly $286 million in liquidations fell on Ethereum and roughly $197 million on Bitcoin. That is remarkable, because Bitcoin is considerably larger by market value. A market worth three times as much carried a third fewer forced closures that day.

Reports say that on Binance alone more than $106 million in Ether long positions were closed within about an hour. The explanation lies not in the price but in how the futures market was positioned: before the slump, markedly more accounts stood on the long side in Ether than in Bitcoin. That claim can be recalculated, and we did it.

Our analysis: 2.36 long accounts per short account in Ether

This analysis was compiled by cryptoticker.io itself on 15 October 2026. It is based on the public market data of the exchange OKX on its perpetual futures contracts on Bitcoin and Ether, queried across ten individual data points: account ratio, open contracts, funding rate, daily range and turnover, in each case for both coins.

The result: for every account betting on falling prices in Ether there are 2.36 accounts betting on rising ones. In Bitcoin the figure is 1.73. The long overhang in Ether is therefore a good third larger. In the hours before the slump the Ether ratio even stood at 2.65 to one, the highest reading in the series examined.

Add to that the open contracts. On the Ether contract, 622,656 ETH were open at the time of the query, equivalent to $1.47 billion. On the Bitcoin contract it was 30,777 BTC, or $2.49 billion. Over the past thirty days the dollar value of open Ether positions has fallen by just under two percent, that of Bitcoin risen by a good 16 percent. Against its respective monthly high, Ether sits just under 15 percent lower, Bitcoin only just under four percent.

Both funding rates were still positive at the time of the query, at 0.0051 percent for Bitcoin and 0.0036 percent for Ether per settlement period. A positive funding rate means the long side pays the short side. As long as that figure sits above zero, the overhang on the long side has not been worked off, not even after a cascade of this size.

What has changed since the deleveraging of 13 October

On 13 October 2026 we described in this space how the Ether futures market had shed 16 percent of its leverage within five days, at a price of $2,534 (Ethereum price $2,534, 16 percent less leverage in five days). Two days later the price stands at roughly $2,364, that is $170 lower. The $2,500 level, which held back then, has fallen.

The deleveraging, in other words, did not settle the matter. It brought the market into a new long-overhang position at a lower price, and that position was unwound for the second time this Wednesday. The difference from 13 October lies in the speed: back then the unwind spread across five days, this time more than half of it fell into one hour.

Liquidation price and margin: how a forced closure runs

The liquidation price is the price at which the posted margin is used up. Every exchange calculates it from position size, leverage, maintenance margin and fees, and displays it in the trading window before the position is opened. Trading without knowing that number is trading blind.

Two points are regularly overlooked here. First, many platforms work with a reference price drawn from several exchanges rather than their own last traded price. A brief spike on a single venue therefore does not necessarily trigger a closure, whereas a market-wide move very much does. Second, risk systems tier the maintenance margin by position size: a large position needs proportionally more margin than a small one, and its liquidation price therefore sits closer to the current price.

In practice that means the distance between the current price and the liquidation price is the only buffer there is. That distance can be widened in three ways, and all three cost something. Adding margin ties up additional capital. Partly closing the position shrinks the possible gain. Lowering the leverage means putting up more equity for the same position size. What does not exist is a way to widen the buffer for free.

The daily ranges and what they offer as levels

According to our query at OKX, Bitcoin moved between $80,168 and $83,910 that day and was last quoted at $80,913.70. Ether ran between $2,315.26 and $2,520 and stood at $2,363.78. Those daily lows are the levels that matter now for leveraged positions, because below them there are no fresh reference points from current trading.

The distance is narrow in both cases. Bitcoin sits less than one percent above its daily low, Ether around two percent. A position with twentyfold leverage opened this morning is therefore already close, on the arithmetic, to its closure threshold. Waiting in that situation for a quick counter-move relies on the cascade being complete. The positive funding rates argue against it.

Leveraged trading in Europe: what is permitted and what is not

Retail clients in the European Union can trade crypto contracts for difference only with leverage of at most 2:1. That cap has applied since the product intervention measures of the European securities authority and was adopted for Germany by BaFin. Negative balance protection applies for retail clients: the loss cannot exceed the stake.

The leverage of ten, twenty or fifty that produced this day's liquidations comes predominantly from platforms outside that framework. Trading there means giving up two things: the leverage cap and the protection against a loss beyond the stake. On top of that, no deposit guarantee exists for crypto assets in any case, neither here nor there. An orderly overview of providers with clear leverage limits and local settlement is given in our crypto broker comparison; for trading perpetual futures contracts on decentralised venues, the differences in funding costs and risk systems are set out in our perp DEX overview.

Spot instead of leverage: holding period and custody

For investors watching this day from the outside, the real point lies elsewhere. A cascade of this kind hits leveraged positions exclusively. Holding coins directly and keeping them in self-custody means having no risk system above you that sells in a price slide. A red day stays a red day.

Added to that is the tax difference, and in Germany it is considerable. Gains from selling directly held crypto assets are tax-free after one year of holding, provided the coins were not used for staking or lending in that time. Gains from contracts for difference and other derivatives, by contrast, fall under capital gains tax, and losses from futures transactions are restricted in how they can be offset. One year of holding is therefore no side issue but the most tax-efficient route German law provides for crypto assets. If you prefer the spot purchase to leverage, the best way to compare venues and fees is our crypto exchange overview.

Our assessment: the deleveraging is not complete

In this newsroom's view the data argues that this Wednesday was not a clean-out but a stage. Three pieces of evidence carry that assessment. The account ratio in Ether, at 2.36 to one after the cascade, still sits above the Bitcoin figure, and Bitcoin came through the cascade better. The funding rates are positive for both coins, so the long side keeps paying for its positions. And the dollar value of open Ether contracts sits only just under 15 percent below the monthly high, after a day in which roughly $286 million in forced closures fell on this coin alone.

Against that stands the speed of the sequence. A cascade that works through more than half its volume in one hour clears out the most thinly margined positions thoroughly. The accounts still long now are on average better cushioned than those closed at ten o'clock. That makes a second wave of the same size less likely, but does not rule it out. This assessment evaluates the market situation and is not a recommendation to buy or sell; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

Liquidation cascade: below $80,168 it gets tighter for longs

Bitcoin's daily low at $80,168 and Ether's at $2,315.26 are the two levels from which the coming trading days will show whether the market has digested the cascade. If the distance above them holds, this Wednesday was a clean-out. If the levels fall, the next nudge meets a futures market that by our measurement still stands predominantly long.

1. Look up the distance to the liquidation price. Every open leveraged position shows that price in the trading window. If it sits closer than today's daily range of three to four percent, a day like this one is enough for the forced closure. How platforms differ on leverage limits, maintenance margin and funding costs is set out in the broker comparison.
2. Check the funding rate before the next position. It is quoted on every perpetual contract and says which side pays. Positive values mean running costs for long positions, which add up over a longer holding period. The differences between the decentralised venues are broken down in the perp DEX overview.
3. Set the spot share against the leveraged share. Directly held coins are tax-free after one year and are sold by no risk system. Which venues charge what on a plain purchase is shown by the exchange overview.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Dogecoin trades at $0.0801 on Thursday midday, down 8.6 percent over seven days. Bitcoin gave up 2.0 percent in the same period. That distance is the real finding of the day: Dogecoin is falling more than four times as hard as the market's largest asset, and it is doing so at a point the price already visited four weeks ago.

Dogecoin at $0.0801: the numbers at Thursday midday

As of 15 October the price stands at $0.080056. Over 24 hours that is 5.0 percent lower, over seven days 8.6 percent, over 30 days 3.0 percent. On a one-year view there is a loss of 61.1 percent. Spot turnover over the past 24 hours is $1.07 billion and market capitalisation $12.52 billion. That is rank twelve in the overall market. All figures come from CoinGecko and were read off at Thursday midday.

CoinGecko reports the day's low from tick data at $0.078426. On hourly values, which allow lows to be compared cleanly across weeks, the lowest hourly print of the day is $0.078951, reached in the early morning. The two numbers do not contradict each other; they measure at different resolutions. For the comparison with September, the second one counts.

Seven days down 8.6 percent, Bitcoin down 2 percent

The weekly comparison places the move. Over seven days Ethereum loses 7.3 percent, XRP 6.6 percent, Shiba Inu 7.8 percent, Litecoin 9.3 percent, Solana 10.2 percent and Cardano 11.5 percent. At 8.6 percent, Dogecoin sits in the middle of that group. The only striking figure is the distance to Bitcoin, which at 2.0 percent is almost unmoved and over 30 days is even 5.5 percent up.

That yields a plain reading which needs no speculation. What is under way bears the marks of a rotation out of the smaller assets into the largest. Managing a portfolio by weights shows it in Dogecoin's share of the overall market, which has fallen this week, while Bitcoin's share has risen.

What the term rotation means here

Rotation describes capital shifting between segments of the same market without money leaving that market. It is recognisable when one segment falls while another holds or rises, with turnover overall normal. That is precisely the picture this week's numbers show.

Since yesterday: $0.0845 has become $0.0801

On 14 October the price stood at $0.0845 in our look at the large-address share, as set out in Wednesday's edition on the Dogecoin price and the share held by large addresses. Since then 5.2 percent has been given up. The level named there as the next test has now been reached and was briefly breached during the day.

What matters here is keeping the time frames apart. This year's February low was $0.0887, measured on 6 February. That line has been history since June, a month that brought hourly prints down to $0.0731. The line where something is being decided today is younger and sits lower.

The $0.08 line and the September low at $0.078889

On 16 September the lowest hourly print fell to $0.078889. On 15 October it was $0.078951. Between the two values lie $0.000062, less than a tenth of a percent. Two attempts 28 days apart therefore ended at practically the same point.

Alongside that stands September as a month with a lowest daily value of $0.080051 and October with $0.080024. On a daily basis the round $0.08 line has held twice; on an hourly basis it was briefly breached both times. In practice a level is rarely an exact line. Usually it is a zone a few tenths of a percent wide.

To the upside the next well-founded level is the October high of $0.097149 from 2 October. To the downside the year's low sits at $0.06902, reached on 7 August. The current price is 89.1 percent away from the all-time high of $0.7316.

The last test on 16 September and the recovery to $0.1039

The comparable case is four weeks back and can be recalculated to the hour. After the low of 16 September the price turned up and reached $0.103908 on 23 September. That is 31.7 percent above the low, achieved in seven days. After that it went down again in stages: $0.097149 on 2 October, $0.088349 on 8 October, $0.0801 today.

For investors that means two things. The line held at the last test, and it brought no trend reversal. The recovery ended 32 percent higher and then retraced in full. Taking September as a template means taking both halves of the template.

Where Dogecoin is traded and at what cost differs markedly from venue to venue. A look at the crypto exchange comparison shows the ranges on trading fee, spread and withdrawal, which weigh more heavily on a price with four decimal places than they do on Bitcoin.

Mining supply: 13.64 million new DOGE a day

A second way into the subject lies not in the chart but in the blockchain itself. Dogecoin has no cap on total supply. Each block creates 10,000 new DOGE, as the project site at dogecoin.com describes it. Over the past 24 hours, 1,364 blocks were found according to Blockchair.

That works out to 13.64 million new DOGE in a day and around 4.98 billion a year. At the current price the daily amount corresponds to a value of roughly $1.09 million. Circulating supply lies between 156.3 billion units at CoinGecko and 172.0 billion at Blockchair, depending on the count. Annual expansion thus comes to just under three percent.

Why that number does not explain today

$1.09 million in new supply faces $1.07 billion in spot turnover. New supply therefore accounts for roughly one part in a thousand of daily turnover. As an explanation for a weekly loss of 8.6 percent it does not serve. It works as a permanent drag over years, not as the trigger of a single trading day. Anyone seeking to understand the annual balance of minus 61.1 percent finds one building block here. For today it contributes nothing.

The blockchain, incidentally, shows no congestion. 23,015 transactions in 24 hours, 17 items in the mempool, an average fee of $0.028. Panic-driven movement on the blockchain looks different.

Holding period and the exemption limit: 31 December under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act

Here lies the concrete check an investor in Germany can carry out today, and it has little to do with the chart. Crypto falls under private disposal transactions. The governing rule is section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. It sets the period between acquisition and disposal at "not more than one year", and it sets the exemption limit: gains stay tax-free if the total gain from private disposal transactions in the calendar year comes to less than 1,000 euros.

What the annual balance of minus 61.1 percent has to do with it

Anyone who bought Dogecoin within the past twelve months is, at today's price, sitting on a loss on paper. Losses from private disposal transactions realised within the one-year period can be offset against gains in the same category in the same year, for instance gains from other coins or from gold. The calendar year ends on 31 December, and a disposal takes effect only in the year in which it occurs.

Two points belong with that. First, with every month a part of the holding runs out of the one-year period, and what lies outside the period has no tax effect, in gain or in loss. Second, the order of acquisitions is decisive, which is why a clean record per purchase matters more than any view on the price. Which tools keep that record and track the deadlines per lot is shown in the overview of tax software and portfolio trackers.

This account is no substitute for tax advice. What is named here is the deadline, the section and the exemption limit, so that the question to check is on the table before the turn of the year.

Buying route and custody: fees, spread and your own keys

At a price of $0.08 the buying route decides a noticeable part of the outcome. On the cost side at entry we have already broken down the ranges between instant buy and order book, as set out in our look at the buying route for Dogecoin. The finding there still holds: the convenient route costs the larger mark-up.

For custody the usual trade-off applies. On the exchange the holding stays quickly tradable and sits with a third party. On your own hardware it sits with you, with full responsibility for securing the recovery words. Which devices support Dogecoin and what they cost is set out in the hardware wallet comparison. For amounts earmarked for a sale within the one-year period anyway, moving to your own hardware is rarely the first job.

Our assessment: the line is holding so far, the annual balance is not

In this newsroom's view the situation is less dramatic than the daily loss of 5.0 percent suggests, and at the same time less reassuring than the line holding makes it look. Three documented points support that. First, the zone around $0.0789 has stopped the price twice within 28 days, at $0.078889 on 16 September and at $0.078951 on 15 October. Second, the blockchain is unremarkable: 17 items in the mempool and an average fee of $0.028 show no selling pressure backing up in the network. Third, the weekly loss sits in the middle of the larger altcoins, not at the bottom of them.

Against that stands the longer view. On a one-year basis there is a 61.1 percent loss, over 30 days 3.0 percent, while Bitcoin gained 5.5 percent in the same month. The recovery after the September low ended at $0.103908 and retraced in full. A line that holds twice is a floor and not yet a turn. A turn can only be proven once an attempt ends above the October high of $0.097149. This assessment evaluates the situation and is not a buy or sell recommendation.

Dogecoin: below $0.078889 the path to the August low opens

Three steps order the coming weeks, each of them checkable.

1. Watch the zone around $0.0789. If it holds a third time, the picture of the past four weeks stays intact. If a daily close lands clearly below it, the year's low of $0.06902 from 7 August is the next figure the market can refer to. To be ready to trade on that, know the costs of your venue and check them against the exchange comparison.
2. Write down the one-year deadline for each purchase lot. Purchase date, quantity, price, and from that the date on which the one-year period under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act ends. Until 31 December this list decides which losses can still be offset. The tools for it are in the overview of tax software.
3. Match the place of custody to the investment horizon. Holdings that will sit longer than the one-year period belong on your own hardware rather than at a trading venue. The devices and their costs are in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Crypto investments can lead to a total loss.)

Chainlink has been delivering its price data on Stellar since 14 October. Applications on that blockchain can now pull quotes for Bitcoin, Ether, LINK, XLM and USDC without building a data supply of their own. The token price is not following the news: Chainlink trades at $12.13 on 15 October, 6.12 percent below the previous day. The day's low was $11.98, the high $12.99.

That gap between network expansion and price action is the real story of the day. An oracle network wins another blockchain as a customer, and the paper on it gives way because the whole market gives way. The two are connected far less tightly than they look at first glance. This case shows precisely why.

What Chainlink delivers on Stellar: Data Feeds and Data Streams

Chainlink is an oracle network. An oracle is a service that brings data from outside a blockchain onto the blockchain in a form that contracts there can compute with. A blockchain knows no prices of its own; it knows only what sits in its own blocks.

Two products are available on Stellar. Data Feeds are continuously updated price readings that sit on the blockchain as a contract and can be queried by any application. Data Streams deliver the same data at a higher cadence and are written to the blockchain only when they are called, which is aimed at trading applications that need fast quotes.

Reports on the launch name feeds for BTC/USD, ETH/USD, LINK/USD, XLM/USD and USDC/USD. Developers select a single feed through an identifier addressed via a shared contract. Data like this is used above all where collateral has to be valued: in lending applications, with stablecoins, with tokenised equities and with derivatives.

Chainlink Scale: who carries the cost of the oracles

The launch runs through a programme called Chainlink Scale. The announcement by the Stellar Development Foundation describes joining that programme and the intention to adopt Data Feeds, Data Streams and CCIP. CCIP is Chainlink's protocol for transfers between different blockchains.

Economically this is the most interesting point. Under the Scale programme the adopting network carries the running cost of oracle operation, not the individual application and not Chainlink. Reports on the 14 October launch describe exactly that: the foundation behind Stellar bears the operating cost. That lowers the barrier for developers on Stellar to use this data. For demand for the LINK token, little follows for now, because payment happens at the level of the foundation rather than through every single call made by an application.

Two executives speak in the announcement. Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs, calls the move an entry point to the infrastructure needed for institutional tokenisation. Raja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer of the Stellar Development Foundation, says that once the integration is complete Stellar will be a step closer to a unified financial system on the blockchain. The announcement itself is written in the future tense and describes the integration as a plan; the reports of 14 October cover the feeds going into operation.

Stellar's tokenised assets: $3.54 billion to more than $4 billion

The size of the target market is stated differently in different places, and those differences are not a trifle. Several reports on the launch put the stock of tokenised assets on Stellar at roughly $3.54 billion, others at more than $4 billion, depending on cut-off date and definition. One of those figures refers explicitly to the position on 1 September 2026.

The foundation itself cites a different measure in its announcement: $5.4 billion in payment volume with tokenised assets per quarter. That is not the same as a stock. A payment volume counts movements over a period; a stock counts what exists on a given date. Setting the two numbers side by side without naming the difference compares two different things. On DeFi activity on Stellar, the foundation writes that it has grown more than threefold this year.

The LINK price on 15 October: $12.13 after $11.98 at the low

The price figures in this article come from a direct query at CoinGecko on 15 October 2026. LINK stands at $12.13, or 10.82 euros. Over 24 hours that is 6.12 percent down, and 7.23 percent down over one week.

Longer periods look different. Over 30 days LINK is 7.01 percent up. The month, in other words, was friendly, and the weak day falls within a phase that trended higher overall. Over twelve months there is a loss of 35.71 percent. From the May 2021 record high of $52.70 the price is almost 77 percent away.

Market capitalisation is $9.30 billion and daily turnover $382.56 million. There are 766.85 million LINK in circulation out of a total supply of one billion. A good fifth of the supply, then, is not yet in the market.

Oracles explained: how a price feed triggers a liquidation

The path from a price reading to a change in a position is shorter than many assume. Borrowing on a blockchain means posting collateral, Ether for example. The contract that manages that loan has to know continuously what the collateral is worth. It takes that reading from a price feed.

If the posted value falls below a defined threshold, the contract sells the collateral by itself. This is called a liquidation. What decides the outcome is not what is happening on a trading venue, but the value standing in the feed. A feed that delivers late or delivers wrong triggers liquidations that should never have happened, or prevents ones that were needed.

That is why the choice of oracle is a decision about liability and trust for a blockchain, and not merely a technical detail. And that is why landing an established provider weighs heavily for Stellar. The foundation notes in its announcement that the security layer of CCIP builds on infrastructure which, on its account, secures value in the region of nearly $100 billion across DeFi.

Why network expansion and token demand drift apart

An oracle network earns money when applications call data and pay for it. When a network such as Stellar covers those costs in a lump sum, reach is created without an amount in LINK falling due for every call. The link between distribution and token demand does exist, but it is indirect and lagged.

There is also the question of scale. Even a stock of $4 billion in tokenised assets is, measured against a market capitalisation of $9.30 billion, not a sum that moves a price on its own. Chainlink has reported several integrations in recent weeks alone, most recently the CCIP Vault Adapters on 8 October. The price has not turned any of them into a lasting uptrend.

Terms at the trading venues are set out in the crypto exchange comparison for anyone looking to buy in. The spread between bid and ask barely matters for an asset of this size; at $382.56 million in daily turnover the market is deep enough that larger orders also fill at the quoted price.

What the funds hold in Chainlink

Alongside buying directly, there are exchange-traded products on LINK. According to SoSoValue data cited by Coingape, the two US funds together held $244.34 million, of which $175.69 million sat with Grayscale and $68.64 million with Bitwise. On 1 October, $2.62 million flowed in, all of it into the Bitwise product.

Measured against a market capitalisation of $9.30 billion, $244.34 million is around 2.6 percent. These products are a factor, then, but not a dominant one. How the inflows have developed lately was set out by cryptoticker.io on 10 October in its piece on the first fund inflow after five trading days.

The broad decline on 15 October

The day was weak for almost every large crypto asset. Bitcoin gave up 2.54 percent, Ether 5.20 percent. At 6.12 percent, LINK sat clearly below Bitcoin and somewhat below Ether. That pattern is not unusual for Chainlink: in broad declines the asset usually falls harder than the two largest ones, and in recoveries it rises harder.

For reading the day, that leaves one conclusion: the price loss cannot be attributed to the Stellar news. It fits a market that gave way across the board that day. The only robust statement is that the news did not prevent the decline.

Access in Europe: MiCA licensing, custody and the holding period

For investors in Europe the Stellar launch changes nothing about the practical questions. LINK is tradable at the large venues that hold a licence under the MiCA regulation in the European Union. MiCA is the single European legal framework for crypto assets; a licence under it means the provider is supervised and has to meet certain obligations to protect client funds.

On custody the familiar trade-off remains. Leaving the coins at the trading venue is more convenient and carries the provider's risk. Moving them to a wallet of your own means taking responsibility for securing the keys yourself.

For tax, private sales in Germany fall under the one-year holding period set out in section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Hold for at least a year and no income tax is due on the gain from the sale. Staking income has to be treated separately. On the deadlines in Chainlink staking, cryptoticker.io reported on 12 October ahead of the 29 October date.

Our assessment: the reach is documented, demand for the token is not

In this newsroom's view the Stellar launch is a good day for Chainlink as a company and a neutral one for the token. Three documented points support that. First, the foundation behind Stellar carries the operating cost, which aids distribution but triggers no per-call payment in LINK. Second, the target market, with a stock between $3.54 billion and a good $4 billion, is smaller than LINK's market capitalisation. Third, the price has not reacted lastingly to comparable announcements in recent weeks.

Against that stands the fact that the value of infrastructure only shows over years. If lending and trading applications do emerge on Stellar that need these feeds permanently, business will follow later. That is not measurable today, and selling it as a price argument claims more than the figures support. This is an assessment of the situation, not a recommendation to buy or sell; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

Chainlink on Stellar: only fees turn reach into demand

1. Check the terms before buying. Venue, fee model and withdrawal costs differ markedly. The terms are set out in the crypto exchange comparison.
2. Look for the EU licence. A provider with a MiCA licence is supervised. Which venues meet that is shown in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Record the purchase date. The one-year holding period can only be proven if the data is captured cleanly. The tax software and portfolio trackers help with that.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

On October 25, 2026, 227,777,777 XPL become free at Plasma. That is around 5.0 percent of the circulating supply and, at the current price of $0.077, about $17.6 million. The more important figure, though, is not in that single day's calendar entry: the same tranche falls every month afterwards, for 24 months, until September 25, 2028. From that date on, the XPL unlock is no longer a single event but a rhythm.

That is exactly what separates October 25 from September 25, when the one-off cliff tranche for the team and investors fell. Treat the September date as settled and you miss that only a third of the team and investor supply was released there. The remaining two thirds follow in even monthly tranches. This article works through the schedule, sets it against the circulating supply and answers what follows from it for you as an investor in Germany.

XPL unlock on October 25: these three items become free

The release is made up of three parts, all of which take effect on the same day. The official documentation on XPL distribution describes the rules from which every single figure follows:

• Ecosystem and growth: 88,888,889 XPL. This tranche has already been running every month for a year.
• Team: 69,444,444 XPL. The first monthly tranche at all.
• Investors: 69,444,444 XPL. Likewise the first monthly tranche, on the same schedule as the team.

Together that comes to 227,777,777 XPL. At a price of $0.077129, the tranche corresponds to around $17.6 million and to 5.02 percent of the circulating supply of 4.53 billion XPL. Measured against the total supply of 10 billion tokens, it is 2.28 percent.

From cliff to standing schedule: what changes against September

A cliff is a lock-up period at the end of which a large block is released in one go. At Plasma that point came one year after the mainnet beta launch of September 25, 2025. On that day a third each of the team and the investor supply became free, so 833.3 million XPL twice over. How the date was to be judged at the time was set out by cryptoticker on September 1, 2026, in the analysis of the XPL lock-up period; the launch of the network itself is covered in the report on the mainnet beta of September 25, 2025.

Vesting is the name for the schedule under which the remaining supply is then released in portions. For the team and investors it spreads the remaining two thirds across 24 equally sized monthly tranches. October 25 is the first of them.

In practice that changes the order of magnitude of the monthly inflow. Between October 2025 and September 2026, 88.9 million XPL came in month after month from the ecosystem pot. From October 2026 it is 227.8 million, around 2.6 times as much. That jump belongs to the picture when the calendar entry for October 25 crosses your path.

The maths behind the 227.8 million tokens

Both figures can be recalculated from the parameters in the documentation, and they add up exactly:

• Team and investors: 2,500,000,000 XPL total allocation each. A third of that was the cliff, leaving 1,666,666,667 XPL. Divided by 24 months, that gives 69,444,444 XPL per tranche and group.
• Ecosystem and growth: 4,000,000,000 XPL total allocation, of which 800 million were immediately free at launch. The remaining 3,200,000,000 XPL are spread over 36 months, so 88,888,889 XPL per tranche.

The schedules end on the same day, September 25, 2028. The team and investors need 24 months for that because their schedule starts a year later; the ecosystem pot runs over 36 months from the network launch. Three years after the mainnet beta, the full supply is released in all three cases.

What 5.02 percent of the circulating supply means in proportion

An absolute token figure says little as long as it is not set in proportion. XPL currently weighs in at around $350 million in market capitalisation, with 4.53 billion tokens in circulation. That is 45.3 percent of the total supply of 10 billion. More than half of all XPL is therefore still locked.

If the schedule continues unchanged, the released supply twelve months later stands at around 7.27 billion XPL. That would be an increase of about 60 percent against today, spread across twelve equally sized steps. This calculation describes supply only, however. How much of it actually arrives at a trading venue depends on what the recipients do with their tokens, and that cannot be read off the unlock schedule.

The roadmap to September 2028 in figures

Once you have grasped the rhythm, you can work out every coming date yourself. The tranches are constant, only the total grows:

• October 25, 2026: first joint monthly tranche, 227.8 million XPL. Circulating supply afterwards around 4.76 billion.
• Every 25th thereafter: the same 227.8 million XPL, unchanged in size.
• October 25, 2027: circulating supply around 7.27 billion XPL, so just under 73 percent of the total supply.
• September 25, 2028: final tranche. After that, all 10 billion XPL are released.

Two items are no longer part of this schedule. The public sale covered 1 billion XPL and is fully unlocked: buyers outside the US received their tokens at the network launch, and the lock-up for US buyers ended on July 28, 2026. No further inflow comes from that direction.

Staking and emissions: why one important clause currently runs into nothing

One sentence in the documentation is usually missing from pure date announcements: locked XPL held by the team and investors are excluded from staking rewards. With every monthly tranche, the amount allowed to take part in future emissions therefore grows as well.

Emission here refers to the reward that a proof-of-stake network creates anew and distributes to those who post tokens as security. Plasma plans a start at 5 percent annual inflation, decreasing by 0.5 points a year down to a floor of 3 percent. The counterweight comes through transaction fees: the base fee is permanently destroyed, following Ethereum's example.

For holders, one detail dampens expectations here. This inflation is not active yet. According to the documentation, the start only follows once external validators and the delegation of stakes are enabled, and both are still outstanding. Buy XPL today and you cannot currently delegate the tokens to a validator, and you receive no network reward for them either. The network is opening its validator circle in stages, and the documentation names no fixed date for it.

Where XPL can be traded and what matters in choosing a venue

XPL is listed at several large international trading venues, among them Binance, OKX, Kraken, Coinbase, Bybit and Bitget, as well as at decentralised exchanges. For you as an investor in Germany, the number of venues matters less than their legal standing.

Since the European crypto regulation MiCA, providers targeting clients in the EU need authorisation in a member state. Plasma has published a MiCA white paper for XPL, bringing together the mandatory disclosures on the token. That concerns the token itself and says nothing about the authorisation of the venue where you buy. Which providers can show a European licence is set out in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges; fees, selection and deposit routes are in the crypto exchange comparison.

One practical point with a token of this size is market depth. At around $350 million in market capitalisation, XPL sits well below large assets such as Bitcoin. With thin order books, even a medium-sized order moves the price noticeably. A limit order, where you set the maximum price yourself, protects you better here than a market order, which is executed at the next available price.

Tax in Germany: your purchase date beats the unlock schedule

Gains from the sale of cryptoassets are a private disposal in Germany under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. If more than a year lies between purchase and sale, the gain remains tax-free under the law as it stands. Below that it counts towards other income as soon as the exemption threshold for all private disposals in a year is exceeded.

For XPL that means concretely: the token has existed since September 25, 2025. Anyone who bought in the first few days and has held since has already met the one-year period. Anyone who entered later reaches it on their own respective date. The project's unlock schedule has no bearing on that whatsoever, because the only thing that matters is your acquisition date for each tranche.

This connection matters because an unlock date regularly tempts investors into short-term reshuffling. A sale shortly before your own one-year period expires can turn a tax-free gain into a taxable one. On top of that comes the reform under way: a draft bill provides for a cut-off date at the end of 2026, from which newly acquired cryptoassets are to be treated differently. The state of that discussion is summarised in the article on grandfathering and the cut-off date for the crypto holding period.

What an unlock date says about the price and what it does not

An unlock increases the freely available supply. It does not force a sale, though. Team tokens are additionally subject to individual vesting schedules tied to joining dates, and funds from the ecosystem pot flow into liquidity, partnerships and incentive programmes rather than landing on an exchange without a detour.

To place the starting position: XPL trades around 95 percent below the peak of $1.68 that the token reached on September 27, 2025, shortly after launch. Over the week it is down a good 10 percent. Part of the expectation around the monthly schedule is therefore likely to be in the price already, because the schedule has been publicly documented since the network launch and is no surprise.

No serious statement about the price can be derived from this, in either direction. The only robust part is the mechanics: supply grows in known steps on known dates, and from October 25 those steps are considerably larger than in the year before.

Three questions that deserve an answer before October 25

Not every one of these questions concerns every holder, but each can be answered in a few minutes:

First, when did you buy? Without that date for each tranche, the tax position cannot be judged. Exchanges provide transaction overviews for export, and portfolio tools sort purchases by holding period automatically.

Second, how liquid is your trading venue? A look at the order book shows how far the buy and sell sides are apart. The wider that spread, the more expensive an order executed at the market price becomes.

Third, what share of your portfolio does XPL make up? With an asset sitting 95 percent below its peak and whose circulating supply can rise by around 60 percent within a year, position size is the most effective lever.

XPL unlock: the same tranche falls every month until September 2028

October 25 is the first of 24 identical dates. To get a handle on it, proceed in this order:

1. Compile your purchase dates. Export the transaction overview from your exchange and sort the purchases by date, so that you know for each tranche when your one-year period expires. Which programmes handle that automatically is set out in the overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.
2. Check your trading venue. Verify whether your provider holds a European authorisation and what fees apply at your order size. The terms are in the crypto exchange comparison.
3. Correct your expectations on income. There is no staking yield on XPL until delegation starts. If you are looking for running income, compare it where it is already being paid out today, for instance through the overview of staking platforms.

(As of October 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Hot inflation data revived Fed rate-hike bets, and leveraged bulls paid the bill as nearly $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated.

Market analysts say that macro factors are pushing altcoin prices down, after ETH, XRP, and SOL all dropped on the day.

Ledger says the Android-based Atom will carry anti-tamper protections and be sold only on its site, as it probes tampered resold wallets.

Experts blame a build up in leverage for Zcash's drop in value, as well as growing concerns about AI breaking crypto encryption.

Alpenglow is coming next week, slashing Solana finality from 12.8 seconds to a target of about 150 milliseconds—some 85 times faster.

Ripple is expanding its Wall Street ambitions by giving institutional investors access to perpetual futures tied to more than 100 traditional asset markets, tapping into a rapidly growing $9 billion trading sector.

Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson revives bold ZEC call with new prediction.

XRP crashes to $1.31 under US macro pressure, but heavy fund inflows suggest a massive institutional buy-the-dip window ahead of November.

Starknet targets a 2027 quantum upgrade by severing ties with Ethereum, sparking an immediate 25% surge in STRK token markets.

The number of XRP holders on Binance is rising little too rapidly which might be a reflection of a bearish dynamic on the market for now.

TLDR

• FreeCast (CAST) shares drop 1.89% as the company announces a Louisiana deal.
• Cajun Broadband will offer FreeCast streaming services across rural Louisiana.
• FreeCast’s SmartGuide combines free TV, premium content, and subscriptions.
• The partnership could create new revenue from ads and digital subscriptions.
• FreeCast’s partner-led strategy expands reach without building cable networks.

FreeCast, Inc. (CAST) stock fell 1.89% to $1.05 Thursday morning following a Louisiana distribution announcement. The agreement will let Cajun Broadband offer FreeCast’s media marketplace to customers across its service areas. The deal expands FreeCast’s reach into communities where providers are seeking additional service options.

FreeCast, Inc. Class A Common Stock, CAST

Cajun Broadband Deal Expands Louisiana Access

Under the agreement, Cajun Broadband will incorporate FreeCast’s streaming tools into its customer offering. The Louisiana company operates fiber-optic and fixed wireless networks, including services in rural locations. Those connections give FreeCast a distribution route without requiring new infrastructure.

Customers will access an entertainment marketplace combining free television, on-demand programming, and premium subscription options. FreeCast’s SmartGuide technology gathers viewing choices across devices into a unified discovery system. The platform supports subscription management and advertising-funded content through one interface.

Cajun Broadband can use those features to offer more than internet access to existing subscribers. The company may earn revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and other digital purchases. FreeCast has not disclosed the partnership’s financial terms or projected customer activations.

FreeCast’s Software Model Reduces Infrastructure Needs

FreeCast operates a Platform-as-a-Service model aimed at businesses with established customer relationships. Its software gives broadband and telecom operators media services without requiring proprietary television systems. This approach separates entertainment delivery from the cost of conventional cable infrastructure.

Instead of pursuing each streaming subscriber directly, FreeCast distributes technology through commercial partners. Internet providers, wireless operators, and satellite companies can connect their subscribers to its marketplace. The arrangement allows businesses to introduce digital services alongside their core connectivity products.

FreeCast calls its potential partner reach Partner-Enabled Addressable Customers, or PEAC. The measure estimates available customer exposure through distribution relationships rather than actual paying subscribers. Consequently, a larger partner network does not establish subscriber growth or new revenue.

Rural Expansion Adds Another Distribution Channel

Cajun Broadband’s networks serve parts of Louisiana where conventional television options may remain limited. The agreement brings FreeCast’s software into both fiber-connected households and fixed wireless service areas. It allows the provider to build entertainment offerings without installing cable television equipment.

FreeCast has positioned enterprise distribution as a way to scale across network sizes. The company targets telecommunications firms, broadband operators, satellite providers, and multifamily housing operators. Each partnership may expand its potential audience while its partners maintain direct customer relationships.

Chief Executive William Mobley described broadband connections as a foundation for media services. His comments emphasized software infrastructure rather than direct competition for individual streaming subscriptions. For now, the Louisiana agreement adds distribution capacity, while use and revenue depend on adoption.

The post FreeCast, Inc. (CAST) Stock: Cajun Broadband Deal Targets Louisiana Media Market appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Verizon (VZ) shares rise 1.77% as Ericsson delivers a major 6G field milestone.
• Verizon and Ericsson complete a pre-standard 6G field call using the 7 GHz band.
• California trial moves 6G technology beyond labs and into a commercial network.
• Engineers examine 6G coverage, latency, stability and signals entering buildings.
• 6G remains in testing, with no commercial launch or finalized standards announced.

Verizon Communications (VZ) stock rose 1.77% to $45.21 Thursday morning following a milestone in its Ericsson partnership. Shares gained $0.79 before retreating from an intraday high near $45.55. The companies completed a pre-standard 6G outdoor field call at a commercial network site in Concord, California.

Verizon Communications Inc., VZ

Verizon and Ericsson Complete First 7 GHz 6G Field Call

Verizon and Ericsson described the demonstration as the first pre-standard 6G field call using the 7 GHz band. Ericsson deployed its 6G proof-of-concept equipment at Verizon’s commercial network site. The test moved their research beyond laboratory systems and into a network setting.

The trial used a pre-standard 6G system with a 400 MHz carrier. Engineers placed the base station equipment inside a shelter at the Concord location. Meanwhile, they positioned the test user equipment inside a small mobile structure nearby.

That structure measured 12 feet by eight feet and supported different testing arrangements. The enclosure included power supplies and battery backup to support the equipment. It also offered different wall and window materials for examining signal behavior.

Field Testing Examines Network Performance in Real Conditions

The companies confirmed an outdoor call, while their wider program also examines signals entering buildings. Engineers will study how radio coverage changes across indoor and outdoor environments. Their work will help identify practical limits before developers finalize future network designs.

The testing program evaluates connection speed, delay, reliability, coverage and network feature performance. It also examines direct signal paths and routes that encounter obstacles. Trees, buildings and other barriers create conditions that laboratory testing cannot reproduce.

Different glass types and construction materials form another part of the evaluation. These tests help engineers understand how higher-frequency signals travel from outdoor equipment into enclosed spaces. However, the announced milestone does not establish a completed indoor 6G call.

Verizon Outlines Next Steps for 6G Development

Verizon and Ericsson will use the field findings to guide further 6G experiments and network planning. Their work also supports technical discussions as industry groups develop common 6G standards. Both companies participate in broader efforts to shape the next generation of wireless infrastructure.

Verizon views the partnership as part of its efforts to expand practical network research. Ericsson contributes radio technology and engineering support through the joint field program. The collaboration brings early 6G equipment into environments that resemble future deployment locations.

The demonstration does not mark a commercial 6G launch or a finished standard. Future networks could support industrial robotics, artificial intelligence services and more responsive wireless applications. For now, Verizon and Ericsson will continue gathering field data before making deployment decisions.

The post Verizon Communications (VZ) Stock: Surges as Ericsson Partnership Delivers First 6G Field Call appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Tesla (TSLA) stock slides 2.82% to $356.80 ahead of the new Roadster unveiling.
• Tesla prepares to unveil its redesigned Roadster nine years after its debut.
• Tesla’s Roadster was priced at $200,000 in 2017, with reservations at $50,000.
• Tesla targets a 620-mile range and sub-one-second acceleration for Roadster.
• Tesla’s Roadster revival comes as it shifts toward AI, robots and Cybercab.

Tesla (TSLA) stock fell 2.82% to $356.80 on Thursday morning, losing $10.36 as the company prepared to unveil its redesigned Roadster. The electric sports car returns nearly nine years after Tesla introduced its next-generation prototype in 2017. The unveiling marks another step in Tesla’s product strategy as the company expands its focus on robotics and autonomous driving.

Tesla, Inc., TSLA

Tesla Roadster Returns After Years of Production Delays

Tesla originally introduced the second-generation Roadster in 2017 and scheduled deliveries for 2020. However, repeated delays pushed the project beyond its initial timeline and left reservation holders waiting. The company now plans to present the redesigned model on October 15, 2026.

The original prototype carried a $200,000 price tag, while Tesla required customers to pay $50,000 for reservations. Tesla has not announced a revised price despite the extended development period. Meanwhile, the upcoming presentation will provide another opportunity to demonstrate the vehicle’s engineering capabilities.

Chief Executive Elon Musk previously outlined ambitious performance targets for the electric sports car. He projected a driving range of 620 miles per charge and acceleration from zero to 60 mph within one second. Furthermore, Musk announced a redesign in 2024 and linked the project to collaboration with SpaceX.

Tesla Roadster Targets Premium Electric Sports Car Market

The Roadster will serve as Tesla’s flagship performance vehicle rather than a major source of revenue. Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein expects annual sales of approximately 2,000 units. That estimate represents a small share of the 1.6 million vehicles Tesla sold during 2025.

Goldstein also identified the Roadster as an important addition to Tesla’s vehicle lineup. The company currently lacks a dedicated luxury performance model that demonstrates its highest engineering capabilities. Therefore, the redesigned Roadster could strengthen Tesla’s position in the premium electric sports car segment.

Tesla’s first Roadster entered production in 2008 and remained available until 2012. The vehicle used a Lotus Elise chassis and introduced Tesla’s electric performance technology to the automotive market. Subsequently, Tesla expanded its lineup through the Model S, Model 3, Model X, and Model Y.

Tesla Expands Robotics and Autonomous Driving Strategy

The Roadster unveiling comes as Tesla directs more resources toward artificial intelligence and autonomous transportation. The company has increasingly emphasized software development, robotics, and vehicles that operate without human drivers. Consequently, its long-term business strategy now extends beyond conventional electric vehicle manufacturing.

Tesla discontinued sales of the Model S and Model X during 2026 to support its manufacturing transition. The company plans to use the additional production capacity for its Optimus humanoid robots. Meanwhile, Tesla introduced the Cybercab, a two-seat autonomous vehicle without conventional driving controls.

The Cybercab removes steering wheels, pedals, and mirrors from its design to support driverless transportation. Tesla continues developing these technologies alongside its existing electric vehicle operations. The Roadster’s return therefore combines the company’s performance heritage with its broader technological ambitions.

The post Tesla (TSLA) Stock: Drops as Roadster Returns After Nine Years of Delays appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SCHW stock slides 5.05% to $91.91 despite its strong third-quarter earnings.
• Schwab’s Q3 revenue jumps 17% to $7.2 billion as net income hits $2.9 billion.
• Client assets climb 15% to $13.33 trillion as new inflows reach $190.4 billion.
• Schwab adds 1.2 million brokerage accounts, lifting the total to 48.6 million.
• Schwab expands AI offerings through Charley and its new Anthropic partnership.

Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) stock fell 5.05% to $91.91 on Thursday, losing $4.88 despite reporting strong third-quarter financial results. The financial services company recorded $7.2 billion in revenue, representing 17% annual growth. Meanwhile, quarterly net income reached $2.9 billion as the company expanded client assets and brokerage accounts.

The Charles Schwab Corporation, SCHW

Charles Schwab Reports Strong Q3 Earnings and Revenue Growth

Charles Schwab reported third-quarter net income of $2.91 billion, up 23% from $2.36 billion last year. Additionally, diluted earnings per share increased 29% to $1.62 from $1.26 in the comparable period. The company recorded adjusted earnings of $1.69 per share after excluding transaction-related expenses.

Quarterly revenue reached $7.17 billion, compared with $6.14 billion during the third quarter of 2025. Furthermore, the company’s GAAP pre-tax profit margin improved to 52.7% from 49.2% a year earlier. Its adjusted pre-tax profit margin also increased to 54.8%, reflecting stronger operating performance.

Schwab reported $20.73 billion in revenue during the first nine months of 2026, representing 18% annual growth. Meanwhile, nine-month net income increased 28% to $8.19 billion, supported by broader revenue growth. The company also repurchased 4.7 million common shares for approximately $500 million during the quarter.

Charles Schwab Client Assets Reach $13.33 Trillion

Charles Schwab reported $13.33 trillion in total client assets, representing 15% growth from the previous year. Additionally, clients contributed $190.4 billion in core net new assets during the quarter. These contributions represented 38% annual growth and an annualized organic growth rate of 5.8%.

The company opened 1.2 million new brokerage accounts, bringing its total client accounts to 48.6 million. Schwab Wealth Advisory net flows increased 55% compared with the third quarter of 2025. Managed Investing Solutions also recorded 22% annual growth in net flows.

Bank loan balances reached $72.3 billion at September’s end, representing 35% annual growth. Furthermore, margin loan balances increased 14% quarterly to $187.9 billion, including financing for long/short strategies. Pledged Asset Line balances also climbed 59% annually to $37.3 billion.

Schwab Expands Financial Services and Digital Capabilities

Schwab generated $1.9 billion in asset management and administration fees, representing 14% annual growth. Meanwhile, trading revenue increased 16% to $1.2 billion as daily average trading volume reached 10.7 million. The company also expanded its net interest margin to 3.04% during the quarter.

Schwab introduced Charley, an artificial intelligence assistant that provides retail clients with access to financial tools and information. Additionally, the company partnered with Anthropic to offer Claude for Financial Advisors to independent registered investment advisers. It also announced single-stock futures for thinkorswim and plans to expand digital assets through Schwab Crypto.

Operating expenses increased 9% annually, while average interest-earning assets reached $451.5 billion. Meanwhile, client transactional sweep cash balances rose to $492.8 billion, supported partly by organic growth. Schwab maintained a preliminary consolidated Tier 1 leverage ratio of 8.9%, supporting its capital position.

The post Charles Schwab (SCHW) Stock: Slides as Q3 Revenue Surges 17% to $7.2B appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• BNY stock rebounds 2.44% premarket after Q3 earnings rise 24% from a year ago.
• BNY reports $5.68 billion in Q3 revenue as fee income and lending gains grow.
• BNY’s diluted earnings per share jump 24% to $2.34, as net income rises 20%.
• BNY custody and administration assets reach $63.4 trillion after 10% growth.
• BNY returns $1.4 billion to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks.

Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) shares recovered in Thursday’s premarket session after the bank reported stronger third-quarter earnings. The stock advanced 2.44% to $141.00, following Wednesday’s 2.40% decline to a $137.64 close. The results showed 12% annual revenue growth and a 24% increase in diluted earnings per share.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp, BNY

BNY Reports Higher Revenue and Stronger Quarterly Earnings

BNY generated $5.68 billion in third-quarter revenue, compared with $5.08 billion a year earlier. Fee revenue increased 12% to $4.08 billion as new business and client activity supported growth. Meanwhile, net interest income rose 15% to $1.42 billion on higher reinvestment yields and balance sheet expansion.

Net income available to common shareholders increased 20% to $1.61 billion from $1.34 billion. Diluted earnings per share climbed to $2.34 from $1.88, extending the bank’s annual profit growth. However, earnings per share declined 4% from the second quarter, when BNY reported $2.45.

BNY reported a 38.5% pretax operating margin, compared with 36.4% a year earlier. Return on common equity improved to 16%, while return on tangible common equity reached 29%. Meanwhile, operating expenses increased 8% to $3.49 billion as revenue-related costs and investments grew.

Asset Servicing and Issuer Services Support BNY Revenue Growth

BNY’s Securities Services business reported $2.82 billion in revenue, up 15% from the prior year. Asset Servicing generated $2.13 billion, reflecting 12% annual growth across the business. Issuer Services contributed $690 million, an increase of 27% from the same quarter last year.

Investment services fees rose 19% to $1.71 billion, supported by both operating divisions. Securities lending revenue increased 48% to $92 million, while foreign exchange revenue climbed 20% to $171 million. However, the Securities Services segment recorded higher costs, with noninterest expense rising 10% to $1.81 billion.

BNY ended September with $63.4 trillion in assets under custody or administration, up 10% annually. Assets under management reached $2.2 trillion, representing 2% growth despite outflows and currency effects. Higher market valuations and fresh client business helped increase custody assets across its operating platforms.

BNY Returns $1.4 Billion to Shareholders as Deposits Grow

The bank returned $1.4 billion to common shareholders during the quarter through dividends and share repurchases. Those distributions included $436 million in dividends and $937 million in share buybacks. Its year-to-date payout ratio reached 86%, reflecting the scale of ongoing capital distributions.

Average deposits totaled $311 billion, a 4% increase from the corresponding quarter of 2025. However, deposits declined 1% from the previous quarter, while average loans climbed 19% annually. The bank also reported a $1 million provision for credit losses during the period.

BNY’s Common Equity Tier 1 ratio stood at 10.9%, down from 11.7% one year earlier. Its Tier 1 leverage ratio declined to 5.7%, while the average liquidity coverage ratio reached 111%. Chief Executive Robin Vince attributed quarterly progress to broader platform growth, client demand, and product development.

The post The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) Stock: Rebounds as Q3 Revenue Rises 12% and Earnings Jump 24% appeared first on Blockonomi.

The company behind XRP and RLUSD has expanded its institutional trading business again, launching support for real-world asset perpetual swaps through its prime brokerage, Ripple Prime.

The offering allows clients exposure to more than 100 reference markets 24/7, spanning stocks, ETFs, metals, energy, currencies, and other traditional assets.

Ripple Prime Goes Further

The official announcement published by Ripple earlier today states that its prime brokerage will offer the swaps as principal and reference perpetual futures listed by trade.xyz on Hyperliquid. Unlike traditional stock and commodity markets, which operate during fixed hours, Ripple’s alternatives can trade continuously, including weekends.

The company argued that this gives institutions far greater flexibility to react to market developments and manage risk outside normal exchange sessions.

“Institutions want exposure to equities, commodities, and currencies with the round-the-clock access and efficiencies of digital infrastructure. Ripple Prime was built to operate in both worlds, with deep experience clearing trades and managing digital collateral and risk across venues, 24/7.

With RWA swaps, we are enabling clients to execute increasingly sophisticated trading strategies and actively manage their portfolios in response to today’s dynamic global markets,” said Michael Higgins, International CEO, Ripple Prime.

Clients can also cross-margin their RWA swap positions against other asset classes supported by Ripple Prime, while RLUSD can be used as collateral for trades. This allows institutions to manage multiple exposures through one counterparty and consolidate margin and risk management across their portfolios.

Ripple’s Wall Street Expansion Grows

Earlier this month, CryptoPotato reported that Ripple Prime expanded its relationship with Brevan Howard, providing the investment giant with multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing, and financial services. Ripple has also moved into leveraged ETF swap financing, a market historically dominated by large banks.

This expansion builds on the company’s major acquisition of Hidden Road last year for $1.25 billion, which it later rebranded as Ripple Prime.

The post Ripple (XRP) Deepens Wall Street Push With 24/7 RWA Swaps for Institutions appeared first on CryptoPotato.

GMGN is a cryptocurrency trading platform with a twist. It’s designed to help users discover, analyze, and trade meme coins.

It provides real-time token data, smart money tracking, wallet analytics, automated trading tools, and more in a single interface, along with a range of other features that I will be exploring in this review.

Overall, the goal is to make it easier to spot emerging opportunities in the fast-moving trenches market.

Unlike traditional cryptocurrency exchanges, GMGN is focused entirely on on-chain trading activity. Users are able to monitor profitable wallets, track newly launched tokens and analyze different patterns. They can also execute trades without having to switch between multiple platforms.

In the following review, I will take a look at some of its key features, supported networks, trading fees, security, and overall usability. The goal is to help you decide whether it’s the right platform for your specific trading needs and requirements.

Before we continue!

GMGN is hosting a major global trading championship that starts on October 16th. It will feature 10 days of relentless live, on-chain trading, with the top six users heading to a Grand Final in London during the flagship conference Solana Breakpoint. Entry is completely free and the champion will win a custom Aston Martin Vantage. Check out the GMGN Global Championship and sign up here.

What is GMGN?

As mentioned above, GMGN is a multi-chain cryptocurrency trading platform. It’s designed to help you discover, analyze, and ultimately trade meme coins. The protocol combines real-time market data with wallet tracking, token security checks, and automated trading tools. You can access this through a single interface, which is convenient.

How does GMGN work?

GMGN aggregates on-chain information to help you identify trading opportunities and analyze the activity of a certain token. You can explore trending tokens, search using contract addresses, examine price charts, as well as monitor transactions from other wallets.

The platform also supports automated trading through limit orders, take-profit, and stop-loss settings. It also features copy trading. You can configure various execution parameters, including slippage tolerance and priority fees. This can help you manage the way your transactions are prioritized and processed.

Supported Blockchains and Trading Markets

GMGN supports multiple networks. These include:

• Solana, which is the core primary network for high-speed meme coin trading
• BNB Smart Chain (BSC)
• Base
• Ethereum
• MegaETH
• Robinhood Chain
• Monad
• TRON

However, the protocol also supports cross-chain integration support for networks such as Solana, BSC, Rohinhood, Base, ETH, Arbitrum, Stable, Arc, Xlayer, HyperEVM, MegaETH, Monad, and Tron.

Who Should Use GMGN?

Now, GMGN is primarily suited to active meme coin traders who look for real-time market insights and advanced trading capabilities. Its wallet tracking and copy trading tools, however, may also appeal to users who want to monitor experienced traders. That said, if you have no previous experience in dabbling in the world of on-chain meme coin trading, there might be a learning curve to go through.

That said, beginners can use GMGN to explore tokens and analyze market activity. Of course, most of its advanced capabilities make understanding of on-chain transactions and adjacent trading risks very important.

Key Features of GMGN

GMGN provides a range of different tools that can help you discover new meme coins, analyze on-chain activity, and execute trades. Let’s have a look at some of the most important ones.

Meme coin discovery and token tracking

The platform’s core functionality allows you to discover newly launched and trending tokens through dedicated market lists. You can filter tokens using various criteria, including but not limited to market capitalization, transaction activity, price movements, and trading volume.

Every single token has a dedicated page that displays price charts, transaction histories, holder information, and trading activity. GMGN is also designed to support cross-chain multicharts, allowing users to monitor multiple charts at the same time.

These features can help you identify emerging tokens and compare market activity. You won’t have to switch between multiple analytics platforms, which is a considerable benefit.

Smart money and wallet tracking

The platform’s smart money tracking feature is designed to allow you to monitor wallet addresses that are associated with profitable traders, whales, and other market participants that you may find interesting.

You can follow individual wallets and receive notifications when those addresses execute transactions. Trading activity can also be categorized by the type of wallet, including KOLs, smart money, developers, and snipers.

Another notable feature is Wallet Radar, which helps users identify profitable wallets by analyzing trading activity across the selected tokens. Some of the factors used to categorize addresses include:

• Highest profit
• Earliest bought
• Most bought
• Shared holdings

You can analyze multiple tokens at the same time and add discovered addresses to your list for copy trading. Naturally, this brings me to the next feature.

GMGN copy trading

Now, copy trading has become particularly popular in the crypto space, and GMGN supports automated copy trading, which allows you to replicate buying and selling made by selected wallet addresses.

You can configure fixed purchase amounts or set maximum follow-buy limits. Selling options also include automatically copying a wallet’s sales or using separate take-profit and stop-loss conditions.

The platform also offers a Lightning Mode. This is designed to accelerate trade execution while copy trading. However, it’s worth noting that this introduces additional risks because it uses unconfirmed blockchain transaction data.

All in all, copy trading can definitely save time, but users should also account for slippage, transaction costs, as well as the differences between the original trade and its execution.

Token security analysis

This is another very important feature for on-chain traders because a lot of the upcoming and trending meme coins have not been verified by anyone. That’s why GMGN includes token security checks that can help you identify potentially suspicious assets.

Depending on the network, the platform can display indicators such as:

• Honeypot detection: Identifies tokens that may restrict selling.
• Liquidity status: Shows whether liquidity pool tokens have been locked or burned.
• Mint authority: Indicates whether additional tokens can be created.
• Holder concentration: Highlights potential risks associated with concentrated token ownership.
• Contract permissions: Shows whether certain administrative privileges have been relinquished.
• Rug pull indicators: Provides information about potential rug pull risks and previous token creator activity.

These checks can help you assess common warning signs before committing to a trade. Of course, these can never guarantee complete accuracy and even GMGN recommends consulting multiple security tools before coming to a conclusion.

Trading tools and automated orders

GMGN offers several features that are designed to automate trade execution and manage your positions.

Traders are able to place instant buy and sell orders, configure limit orders, and establish automatic take-profit or stop-loss strategies.

Specialized automated trading strategies such as Dev Sell are also included. This allows you to trigger a sale when a token creator sells a specified portion of their holdings. There are also Migrated Sells, which allow the user to automate selling when eligible Solana tokens migrate to a decentralized exchange liquidity pool. This is important for those traders who participate in launchpads such as Pump.fun, for instance.

On top of that, users are able to adjust execution settings such as slippage tolerance, priority fees, and Anti-MEV protection. The latter is designed to reduce exposure to sandwich attacks. However, stronger transaction protection could also involve additional fees or slower execution, so it’s a trade-off that you would have to consider.

It’s also important to understand that while all of these features reduce the need for constant market monitoring, automated transactions remain subject to other factors such as liquidity conditions, execution failures, network congestion, and more – all of which bring challenges that you need to take into account.

Wallet analytics and profit tracking

Another interesting feature is the ability to analyze a lot of compiled data. GMGN provides wallet-level analytics. These allow you to examine transaction histories and evaluate trading performance. You can then use the conclusions to determine whether a certain trader is worth following.

You can review metrics such as realized and unrealized profit, total buying and selling activity, average purchase prices, and current holdings.

The platform also displays historical trading activity, making it possible to investigate how individual wallets have interacted with particular tokens.

These analytics complement GMGN’s tracking and copy trading features by helping users assess wallet activity before deciding whether to follow another trader.

However, wallet performance data should be considered alongside transaction costs and market conditions, as historical profitability does not guarantee future returns.

How to Use GMGN

Getting started with the platform is going to feel incredibly familiar to anyone who has previously done any sort of on-chain trading and a bit intimidating for those who are new to it. That said, the learning curve is not that steep once you get the hang of it.

GMGN does a fairly good job of dividing the interface in clear sections, which become easy to follow once you connect your wallet.

Getting started

Once you have landed on the homepage, you can select your preferred blockchain network and start exploring trending meme coins, newly launched tokens, and market activity. If you don’t want to trade, that’s fine, you’re not required to. GMGN also allows you to search for specific tokens using their contract addresses.

When you’re ready to trade, you can connect a compatible wallet or log in through Telegram, which can expand the available automated trading features.

Setting up and funding a wallet

GMGN supports different types of wallet connection methods including Telegram-based wallets and compatible Web3 wallets such as Phantom and MetaMask, for example.

Once you have done that, you can select the deposit option, which is found in your account tab in the top-right section of the main navigation menu.

Finding and Trading Tokens

Once the wallet is funded, you can browse GMGN’s token discovery lists or search for a token using its contract address.

Before trading, you can review price charts, liquidity, transaction activity, holder distribution, and available security indicators.

To execute a trade, users select the desired token, enter the purchase amount, and configure transaction settings such as slippage tolerance and priority fees. They can then submit the transaction through the trading interface.

GMGN also allows you to configure automated orders and exit strategies, including take-profit and stop-loss conditions.

Before confirming a transaction, you should review the expected execution costs. GMGN charges a 1% trading fee, while blockchain gas fees, priority fees, tips, and any applicable token launchpad fees may increase the total cost.

Is GMGN Safe and Legit?

GMGN is a well-known and established name in the world of on-chain crypto trading. It provides several safety features, but it’s important to know that these do not eliminate the possibility of losses or malicious activity pertaining to events that are not directly associated with the platform itself. That said, let’s have a look.

Wallet Security and Asset Custody

GMGN supports external Web3 wallets alongside Telegram-based wallets for automated trading.

Now, when you connect an external wallet, you retain full responsibility for protecting your private keys and recovery phrases.

In essence, if you connect your wallet, you retain full custody of your funds. However, if you decide to use the Telegram bot, then you also need to export the private key of the newly created wallet. That said, there are caveats, so I highly recommend that you check here.

Potential Risks and Limitations

Despite the non-custodial model, there are several risks that you need to account for, all of which are not really manageable by the platform but stem from the nature of trading meme coins and newly launched cryptocurrencies.

• Severe volatility: newly launched tokens and meme coins can experience sudden price crashes and liquidity shortages.
• Copy trading risks: you can get different results based on execution delays and slippage.
• Transaction risk: blockchain congestion, network failures, and incorrect execution settings can cause unfavorable trades or failed transactions
• Phishing threats: fake websites and Telegram bots may attempt to compromise your wallet

GMGN also discussed these at length in their documentation. Overall, though, the platform provides a useful set of security and risk-analysis tools but as with all on-chain platforms, it shouldn’t be considered risk-free.

GMGN Pros and Cons

Pros

• Advanced token discovery
• Smart money tracking
• Automated trading
• Built-in security indicators
• Multiple trading products

Cons

• Trading fees
• Steep learning curve for beginners

Final Verdict: Is GMGN Worth Using?

If you are an on-chain trader, GMGN is absolutely worth using. It offers valuable tools for discovering up-and-coming tokens, meme coins, analyzing on-chain activity, and automating trading strategies. Its combination of wallet analytics, copy trading, token security indicators, and wallet tracking makes it a very appealing choice for active crypto traders.

However, it’s also worth noting that a 1% trading fee on top of common execution costs can add up, especially if you are a frequent trader.

That said, GMGN is worth considering, especially if you are an experienced meme coin and on-chain trader. If you are a beginner, you should approach the platform with caution and familiarize yourself with all the features and potential risks before committing funds.

The post GMGN Review 2026: Features, Fees, Trading Tools, and Safety appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The popular and award-winning international cryptocurrency exchange Toobit announced a series of upgrades to Toobit Futures.

The platform introduced a series of changes, including a redesigned trading interface, faster order execution, and enhanced position management and tracking tools.

What’s New?

The revamped Toobit Futures web interface comes with a much more intuitive trading panel, clearer order parameters, and customizable layouts and display settings.

In addition, users can also take advantage of keyboard shortcuts, one-click trading, faster trading pair search and switching, which further simplify order placement and navigation.

A new data timeline is also designed to display trading activity and position changes in a chronological way, making it a lot easier to review past transactions. An important improvement is separate isolated margin mode. It allows users to maintain many independent positions in the same direction on a single trading pair.

Unlike the previous approach of calculating positions collectively, now each position has its own profit and loss, margin allocation, and liquidation price calculations. This is intended to allow traders to manage different entry points, exit targets, and risk exposure separately. The feature is going to be first available in Demo Trading on the web and app version 2.3.8, with live support planned for a subsequent release.

What Does it All Mean?

The move is designed to make the overall futures trading experience a lot faster, more intuitive, and easier to manage. The interface brings key trading functions together in a way that is more accessible and clearer, while also featuring customizable display settings that allow users to tailor the platform to their specific preferences.

Moreover, the faster order execution, one-click trading, and keyboard shortcuts also help streamline the trading process, particularly for active traders who are looking for means to respond quickly to market movements.

The upgrade comes amid substantial activity in the field of cryptocurrency derivatives trading. According to CoinGlass’s 2026 Semi-Annual Cryptocurrency Derivatives Market Report, derivatives trading volume reached $35.08 trillion in the first half of 2026, averaging $193.8 billion daily. Average daily open interest stood at $112.7 billion, underscoring the importance of effective position monitoring and risk management.

The post Toobit Reveals Revamped Futures Trading Experience appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin is witnessing a decline in buying pressure, according to crypto analytics platform Alphractal. The latest reading of the Buy/Sell Pressure Delta indicates that bullish momentum is starting to cool.

Alphractal outlined two possible outcomes when the metric stops climbing.

Buyers Aren’t Looking as Strong

Bitcoin could face a decline, or it could move sideways and enter a consolidation phase. In past market cycles, both patterns have appeared before larger price moves, including deeper corrections.

For now, the dip in buying pressure is not a major warning sign on its own. The bigger concern would be a continued decline over several days. If the metric turns negative, it could signal that sellers are gaining control.

Interestingly, Bitcoin plunged briefly towards $80,000. The world’s largest crypto asset has since recovered modestly as it trades at $81,200. While it’s still early to say if bulls are losing their buying momentum, Joao Wedson believes that the impact will always be “greater” on altcoins.

But Wedson also flagged a historical pattern that could add to the uncertainty in the altcoin market. According to the Alphractal founder, when the median performance of the top 100 altcoins outpaces Bitcoin, a period of increased volatility often follows. This outperformance rarely lasts for long, and market trends typically reverse around every 60 days. During these changes, capital tends to flow back into BTC and stablecoins. If the pattern holds, altcoins could face increased selling pressure as traders adjust their positions.

This could make the coming weeks more volatile, especially if Bitcoin’s buying momentum continues to weaken.

Is Uptober Failing?

BTC’s start to October has been far from the strong run traders have come to expect from “Uptober.” With the month yet to deliver much upside, Bernardo Brites, Co-Founder and CEO of Trace Finance, offered a different take on why the usual October rally may not play out as expected. While speaking to CryptoPotato, Brites said,

“A roughly flat October so far challenges the narrative more than the market. Uptober was always a pattern, not a law. Ten green Octobers in thirteen years is a strong record, but it’s a small sample, mostly from a market driven by retail momentum and leverage. And last year already broke a six-year streak. Today Bitcoin trades more on ETF flows, rates, and the dollar, and none of those follow the calendar. This month’s real catalyst is the Fed meeting on October 27 and 28. If October ends green, that’s where it will come from.”

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September’s hotter-than-expected CPI report reignited fears that inflation is rising again, especially since the 3.7% annual increase was considerably larger than the 3.4% in August. Core CPI also rose to 2.6% year over year, above expectations and up from 2.4% the month prior. Gasoline jumped 9.1% in September alone, while shelter, airline fares, medical care, apparel, and other categories also moved higher.

This is what experts mean by sticky inflation: price pressures aren’t disappearing even after years of restrictive monetary policy. More importantly, they are spreading beyond one volatile category such as energy.

Why So Bad for Markets

Analysts at the Kobeissi Letter noted that US inflation has stayed above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for 67 consecutive months. It was last below that level during the COVID-19-induced lockdown in January 2021. The KL also outlined particularly sharp annual increases in several sectors: fuel oil up 74.2%, gasoline up 34.2%, airline fares up 22.4%, car repairs up 5.8%, hospital services up 5.6%, and electricity up 4.4%.

Persistent inflation creates a difficult environment for financial markets because it gives the central bank less room to lower rates and can even force it to raise them further, as it did at the September FOMC meeting.

Higher rates increase returns on relatively safe assets such as government debt while raising borrowing costs throughout the economy. Highly valued growth stocks in particular are hurt by this because future earnings are discounted at a higher rate and debt-funded expansion becomes more expensive.

The reaction was telling yesterday: the S&P 500 lost over 1%, the Nasdaq fell almost 2%, and technology and AI-linked companies saw a brutal sell-off. The Kobeissi Letter estimated that roughly $800 billion in S&P 500 market capitalization disappeared during the trading session, making it the worst day since late July.

BREAKING: The S&P 500 officially posts its worst day since July 29th, erasing -$800 billion of market cap.

Inflation is rising again in the US, now nearly double the Fed’s long-term target. https://t.co/aVXLApZrQA

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) October 14, 2026

Additionally, Asian markets fell sharply, with South Korea’s KOSPI down 8%.

BTC Was Hit Hard Too

Bitcoin wasn’t exempt from the broader market crash. The asset plunged to a monthly low of $80,200 earlier this morning after reacting negatively immediately after the CPI release. The concern is pretty straightforward: hotter and more persistent inflation means higher-for-longer interest rates and tighter liquidity, both of which tend to hurt risk-on assets.

Expectations for another rate hike during the upcoming October meeting skyrocketed after the CPI data went live. That shift matters for BTC because it doesn’t generate yield. When Treasury yields rise and cash becomes more attractive, investors have a stronger incentive to reduce exposure to volatile assets.

After it was rejected at $87,000 last week, bitcoin now fights to stay above $80,000 but the increasingly hostile macro environment spells further trouble ahead: sticky inflation, elevated rates, falling equities, ETF outflows, and leverage are all applying pressure at the same time.

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