Limited access to Bitcoin ETPs on major platforms may hinder widespread adoption, affecting potential capital inflows and industry growth.

The post Bitwise finds 5 US wealth platforms restrict Bitcoin ETP access appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Firmus's IPO withdrawal highlights challenges in securing investor confidence amid market volatility, impacting future AI infrastructure investments.

The post Firmus shelves multibillion-dollar Australian IPO as investor demand falls short appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The AI investment surge risks destabilizing global financial balance, straining US fiscal health, and limiting growth in developing nations.

The post AI is pulling in global cash, and the US government is feeling the squeeze appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Tokenization could revolutionize financial markets by enhancing liquidity, optimizing capital deployment, and enabling 24/7 trading.

The post Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman says tokenization can free billions in trapped capital appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Nvidia's collaboration with financial giants could redefine AI infrastructure investment, potentially boosting AI growth but increasing financial risk.

The post Nvidia partners with six financial giants to fund AI compute appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

AI Coding Agents Drive Surge in Bitcoin Integration Requests: Breez

Bitcoin software company Breez said demand for its developer tools has surged since AI coding agents went mainstream, with partnership inquiries rising roughly 14-fold as developers, and increasingly the agents they deploy, look to add bitcoin payments to their apps.

In a company blog post, it tied the jump directly to Anthropic’s Claude Code, which launched as a research preview in February 2025 and became generally available three months later.

Before 2025, Breez said, most prospective partners fell into three camps: committed bitcoin enthusiasts, crypto developers, and fintech firms that treat bitcoin as an asset class.

Since Claude Code arrived, the company said, it has heard from many developers with little or no bitcoin experience. Requests have come from fitness apps, messaging apps that want users to send each other money, an eSIM service for travelers, and the team behind a mushroom-identification app.

Breez said many of these developers pick bitcoin for speed. Setting up traditional payment acceptance, including a bank account and cross-border transfers, can take weeks or months, while the company says its SDK can be running within minutes.

Breez said a growing share of inquiries now come from software, not people. The company said it regularly fields requests from coding agents writing on behalf of the companies that deploy them.

The company argues agents favor bitcoin because it is permissionless. An agent can build an app and set up payments for users worldwide without opening a bank account, passing onboarding checks or signing forms.

“Bitcoin is agnostic about whether the code of its current owner and user is composed of DNA base pairs or weights in a neural net,” Breez wrote.

That same absence of gatekeeping has long drawn scrutiny from financial regulators, who require traditional payment providers to verify customers.

Breez said its newest SDK implementation, built on the Bitcoin scaling protocol Spark, handled the added volume without problems.

The company framed the shift as an update to investor Marc Andreessen’s 2011 essay arguing that software is eating the world, saying AI is now eating software. It compared Bitcoin’s role to background infrastructure like electrical sockets and subsea cables.

This post AI Coding Agents Drive Surge in Bitcoin Integration Requests: Breez first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

WhiteBIT Integrates Lightning Network for Fast and Cheap Bitcoin Transactions

The Lightning Network continues to find use cases. 

Crypto exchange WhiteBIT announced on Thursday that the platform has integrated the network to help users quickly and efficiently move funds. 

Powered by BTC infrastructure provider Voltage, the Swiss exchange said that bitcoin withdrawals and deposits can be made over the network. A number of major exchanges — including Coinbase and Kraken — have integrated the second-layer solution in recent years. 

“WhiteBIT’s mission is to make blockchain technology accessible and widely adopted by delivering practical, user-friendly solutions for digital assets,” WhiteBIT Founder and CEO Volodymyr Nosov said in a statement.  

“Adding Lightning support brings us closer to this goal as we are making Bitcoin faster and more useful for customers who want to top up accounts, send and receive funds, and use Bitcoin across more real-world flows.”

Zug-based WhiteBIT, the 17th biggest exchange by transaction volume, according to CoinGecko data, added that the launch supports a faster Bitcoin rail with use cases for “remittances, exchange funding, merchant-style QR payments, and interoperability with Lightning-enabled wallets and applications.”

Transaction volume on Lightning has surged this year. The reason, broadly, is that exchanges are using the network to move funds because it’s so cheap and fast. 

Launched in 2018, Lightning was previously pushed for smaller transactions like tipping or buying a cup of coffee.

The network also offers more privacy than Bitcoin’s main chain: because Lightning payments are settled off-chain rather than recorded on the public blockchain, individual payments are harder to trace.

This post WhiteBIT Integrates Lightning Network for Fast and Cheap Bitcoin Transactions first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Greece Plans Crypto Capital Gains Tax: Report

Greece is planning a law to tax crypto investors’ capital gains at a rate of 15%, according to reports.

According to Reuters and local media, the country’s Finance Ministry has drafted a bill with the proposal. Greece currently has no legal framework for taxing crypto.

Under the draft, the first €500 (about $580) of crypto gains each year would be exempt.

The bill would tax only the net gain when crypto is sold, after deducting trading fees. Swapping one cryptocurrency for another, such as bitcoin, would not trigger the tax. It would apply only when holdings are converted into euros or another fiat currency, or used to pay for goods and services. 

Investors could carry losses forward against future crypto gains for up to five tax years, and tokens earned through staking or lending would be taxed only when sold.

The rules would apply retroactively from January 1, 2025, meaning gains from last year onward would be declared on tax returns filed in 2027.

The bill is due to be submitted to parliament in November.

Greece follows the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation. The Hellenic Capital Market Commission authorizes and supervises crypto service providers, and the Bank of Greece handles prudential oversight of stablecoin issuers. 

Licensing has been slow: no Greek providers appeared on the EU’s register until September, about two months after MiCA’s transitional period ended on July 1.

Since January 2026, the EU’s DAC8 directive has required crypto exchanges to collect detailed data on their users and transactions and report it to national tax authorities, much like banks already do for ordinary accounts. Greece wrote those rules into national law in May. 

Crypto tax treatment varies widely across the bloc. Rates range from 8% in Cyprus to 30% in France. Some countries are more lenient: Germany exempts crypto held for more than a year, and Portugal does the same after 365 days. 

This post Greece Plans Crypto Capital Gains Tax: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Falls Below $81,000 as Oil Spikes, Fed Talks Tough

Bitcoin’s price has dropped further, sliding with other assets as the oil price continued to climb and the Federal Reserve made a hawkish statement. 

The price of the leading asset recently stood at $81,203 after dropping as low as nearly $80,922 at one point on Thursday morning in New York. 

Over the past day, bitcoin’s price has shed nearly 3% of its value; over a seven-day period, it’s down by 4%. 

Just last week, the coin seemed to be closing in on the $90,000 mark after a phenomenal September rally and one of its best quarters in years. 

But so-called Uptober — the month of October typically gives bitcoin investors good returns — is starting slow on a surging oil price. 

This week, the price of Brent crude has jumped following renewed attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. President Trump also hinted that talks with Iran weren’t going the way he wanted. 

A surging oil price this year has — at least in the short-term — hurt the price of bitcoin and other “risk-on” assets because it increases the chances of the U.S. central bank raising interest rates. Bitcoin has in the past done well with low interest rates because of increased liquidity. 

In a speech Thursday, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller also said further interest-rate hikes will likely be needed to slow inflation. He did add that there was “flexibility” about ‌the pace of increases. 

Oil prices have jumped since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in February, which resulted in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation by Iran. Higher oil prices have meant sticky and climbing prices around the world — including in the States. 

But bitcoin’s price in September appeared to shrug off comments by the new Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, and jumped despite the central bank raising interest rates. 

Despite the bitcoin price dip, the coin, according to some analysts, has entered a bull market again. The biggest cryptocurrency spent most of 2026 in a bear market after reaching record highs in October 2025. It is currently more than 30% below its record of $126,080. 

This post Bitcoin Falls Below $81,000 as Oil Spikes, Fed Talks Tough first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

EDX Markets and VerifiedX Partner to Bring Verified Bitcoin (vBTC) to Institutional Markets

VerifiedX (verifiedx.io), a programmable layer for Bitcoin and other crypto assets, and EDX Markets (“EDX”), a Chicago-based digital asset technology firm that combines an institution-only trading venue with a central clearinghouse, announced a strategic partnership to bring Verified Bitcoin (vBTC), a tokenized form of Bitcoin, to EDX for institutional spot trading.

vBTC, VerifiedX’s flagship product, is designed to be a programmable, one-to-one backed Bitcoin asset, enabled by their layer-two protocol. As part of the partnership, EDX will join the VerifiedX network as a validator, providing EDX with direct participation in network validation and governance. The partnership will extend the relationship beyond asset trading into the underlying infrastructure supporting vBTC, while unlocking the asset for institutional traders and investors, according to a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. 

“Bitcoin has become a globally recognized institutional asset, yet much of its financial utility remains fragmented across exchanges, custodians, wrappers, bridges and application-layer protocols,” they wrote. The press release explained how VerifiedX works to address that fragmentation by making the bitcoin backing vBTC verifiable on-chain at a more granular level, avoiding the pooling of funds and using more advanced Bitcoin technologies than other alternatives. In turn, this makes the asset easier to program for trading, payments, treasury management, lending, and other financial applications.

The partnership is expected to support a range of institutional strategies, including:

• Bitcoin trading and price discovery through institutional spot markets;
• Cross-market arbitrage and liquidity strategies between BTC and vBTC markets;
• Treasury and balance-sheet mobility, allowing Bitcoin capital to move between trading and programmable environments;
• Borrowing, lending and yield strategies built around Bitcoin-backed capital;
• On-chain liquidity and financial applications native to VerifiedX;
• EVM composability through vBTC.b, the canonical representation of vBTC for supported EVM environments, allowing Bitcoin capital to participate in broader decentralized financial markets while preserving a direct redemption path to underlying Bitcoin.

Through EDX, market participants will gain a new venue for trading vBTC within an institutional market structure designed around aggregated liquidity, central clearing and capital-efficient settlement.

“Bitcoin does not need another financial abstraction. It needs infrastructure that allows the asset itself to do more,” said Jay Pollak, Head of Strategy at the VerifiedX Foundation. “Bringing vBTC to EDX is important because it connects programmable Bitcoin capital with market infrastructure purpose-built for sophisticated institutions. An allocator should be able to trade Bitcoin, deploy it, move it across financial environments, and ultimately redeem back to Bitcoin without losing the fundamental ownership characteristics that made Bitcoin valuable in the first place.” 

“EDX joining as a validator makes this partnership even more meaningful. This is not simply about adding another trading pair. It connects institutional trading infrastructure directly with the network infrastructure underneath the asset,” Pollak added. As a validator, EDX gets maximum sovereignty over the signing and governance of the vBTC they are responsible for, while also becoming a node in Bitcoin and the VerifiedX layer. 

Aside from their home page at VerifiedX.io, the company has a dedicated block explorer as well as a Discord, X profile, and GitHub repo. They can also be contacted via email at info@verifiedx.io.

Bitcoin Magazine has a financial relationship with VerifiedX. This article was not commissioned or reviewed by VerifiedX and reflects the independent judgment of the author.

This post EDX Markets and VerifiedX Partner to Bring Verified Bitcoin (vBTC) to Institutional Markets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Roger Wattenhofer and Quentin Kniep propose speeding Solana’s block production by scheduling nearby validators consecutively. Their plan relies on self-reported locations, bringing an unverifiable physical input into the order of block producers. Each scheduled turn at block production is called a leader window.

The aim is to make fast handovers less dependent on operating near Solana’s biggest stake centers. The authors’ simulation cuts the mean handover delay between honest validators from 36.2 milliseconds to 17.0 milliseconds without giving any validator more leader windows. Reordering also changes the continuity of control: three-window groups can combine into longer consecutive stretches.

Wattenhofer, Anza’s head of research and an ETH Zurich professor, coauthored the geographic schedule with Kniep, who identifies himself as a researcher at Anza and ETH Zurich. Their SIMD-0675 draft makes that tension explicit, recording six adversarial windows in succession under its proposed three-window setting.

Both the scheduling proposal and its companion location-registration proposal were introduced as pull requests on Sept. 29. As of Oct. 7, they remain open. These are proposed rules and modeled outcomes, rather than results from a deployed geographic schedule.

Geographic order for the same allocations

Under the design, Solana would first calculate its stake-weighted random leader schedule as usual. A second pass would rearrange those leader windows into small groups, called bins, using reported geographic proximity.

A leader is the validator assigned to build blocks during a window. Every validator would retain exactly the number of windows it received in the original schedule; the change concerns when those opportunities arrive and which leader precedes them.

That predecessor matters under Alpenglow’s fast leader handover, where the previous leader sends its block directly to the next one. The authors argue that a random schedule favors validators near large concentrations of stake: they are more likely to be close to the leader they follow, while remote validators more often face a long hop.

Grouping nearby leaders seeks to give validators outside those centers more local handovers. The intended decentralization benefit is therefore an incentive to operate away from existing hubs, rather than a redistribution of stake or additional leader allocations. The simulations measure scheduling and latency, leaving actual operator relocation and stake concentration outside their results.

The draft pairs a three-window bin size with a 10% stake floor. That floor defines how widely a validator’s neighborhood must extend to reach enough stake. A densely populated location gets a smaller radius; a sparse one needs a larger radius. The floor covers active stake with valid reported locations. A completed bin can contain less than 10% of stake and repeated windows from the same operator.

The run-length simulation uses the mainnet stake distribution from epoch 1038, with 661 validators whose locations were corrected using Globalping measurements. Each simulated epoch contains 108,000 leader windows, and the results average five random seeds.

Geographic distance determines bin membership. To evaluate handover speed, the model maps validators to the nearest RIPE Atlas metropolitan area and estimates one-way latency as half the median round-trip time between those areas. Handovers within one metro are priced at zero.

With the random schedule, the mean delay between honest validators is 36.2 milliseconds. With three-window bins, it is 17.0 milliseconds. The median across all handovers, a different population, falls from 23.4 milliseconds to 4.5 milliseconds.

Those results support a substantial modeled reduction in transfer delay. Slot duration and transaction finality measure different intervals from the modeled transfer delay. The zero-delay assumption within metros also simplifies the network conditions validators actually face.

There is a broader reason to treat geography as a useful but imperfect shortcut. An August study published by the Solana Foundation associated greater distance with handoff penalties, while warning that it had not identified distance as the cause. Routing, peering and validator infrastructure remained unobserved.

Consecutive control and location incentives

The security trade-off appears in the same simulation. Its adversary holds 5% of total stake and sits in Sydney, with no other validator in Oceania. The authors describe this isolated placement as close to a worst case because the attacker can fill bins alone.

That example matters alongside the 10% stake floor. The floor governs neighborhood construction; the isolated 5% attacker illustrates how actual control of a bin can differ from that radius threshold.

An attacker leading the next bin can continue its control across the boundary. At the proposed setting, the longest adversarial sequence observed was six windows, consisting of two bins back to back. The design permits adjacent bins to extend consecutive control beyond the configured bin size.

The draft acknowledges that regional power, network or jurisdictional disruption could now affect consecutive leaders, producing longer skipped-slot sequences than a fully random schedule. It also identifies the possibility of more effective regional censorship during a run.

Using the draft’s assumptions of four slots per leader window and 200-millisecond slots, a three-window bin ideally spans 2.4 seconds. That figure describes one bin under the stated timing assumptions; regional exposure can cross bin boundaries.

The authors recognize a further speed-versus-security choice. An alternative added on Oct. 2 would arrange leaders along a shortest geographic path within each bin. The draft does not adopt it, explaining that it would weaken randomized schedule symmetry and make adjacent slots more predictable for co-located adversarial validators.

The companion SIMD-0674 specification would place self-reported coordinates in validators’ vote accounts. Signed updates establish who authorized a registration, and a geometric check establishes that the reported point lies near Earth’s surface. The machine’s actual location remains outside those checks.

SIMD-0675 relies on an economic argument: reporting a distant location will often put a validator behind leaders that are farther from its real machine, making its own handovers slower.

The authors test that argument by taking the largest validator in each of ten cities, leaving it physically in place and changing its registered city. The modeled Ashburn validator reduces its mean handover delay from 23.7 milliseconds to 21.0 milliseconds by claiming São Paulo, a reported improvement of 2.7 ± 0.2 milliseconds.

The authors report no other non-equivalent lie gaining more than 0.3 milliseconds.

The experiment also forms neighborhoods and bins using RIPE Atlas latency, whereas the proposed schedule uses geographic distance. Its individual-validator incentive results leave coordinated malicious location reporting and its effects on consecutive control unresolved.

False reporting often hurts the sampled validator’s speed, but the Ashburn exception limits the case for trusting physical location through economic incentives alone.

Timing compensation and the review ahead

Another number in the proposal can obscure the speed claim. SIMD-0675 would raise HANDOVER_COMPENSATION from 25 milliseconds to 50 milliseconds, even as transfer delays fall.

The separate compensation proposal accounts for optimistic block production already performed before ParentReady, the protocol event that starts the counted production timer. Compensation subtracts time from the first slot’s production budget after that event and shifts leader-window timeouts earlier. It is a timing adjustment, rather than validator pay.

The geographic simulation increases the interval from receiving the previous leader’s block to ParentReady from 23.2 milliseconds to 46.2 milliseconds. This separate interval accounts for the larger compensation value even as transfer delay falls.

The scheduling pull request currently shows no reviews. The location-registration pull request received buffalojoec’s approval on Oct. 5, with a caveat about potentially separating vote-account layout changes, but remains open. The Foundation’s Oct. 1 changelog likewise calls both changes proposed while listing Alpenglow under Devnet feature gates.

The schedule itself is consensus-critical and would require a feature gate; the draft still leaves its feature key and tracking issues unfilled. Its proposed transition would use the new algorithm from two epochs after activation.

The review question is whether the modeled reduction in delay and co-location advantage justifies the changed continuity of block production.

The post Solana’s geographic speed plan trusts validator locations the network cannot verify appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin Core has merged a privacy fix into its 32.x source branch addressing behavior that could correlate private-broadcast connections with ordinary node connections. The backport for 31.x remains open as of Oct. 8, leaving users who enable the feature on the latest stable release, 31.1, awaiting the repair. Private broadcast is disabled by default.

The Oct. 1 backport includes the original change, which reached the main development branch on Sept. 25. The separate proposal to bring the fix to 31.x received an approval from reviewer vasild on Oct. 6 and carries a 31.2 milestone. That assignment does not establish a release date.

The official download page still lists 31.1 as the latest version. The 32.0 download directory contains test candidates rather than final-release files, including rc3 binaries dated Oct. 6.

The opt-in path at risk

Users enable the privatebroadcast option for submissions through sendrawtransaction, the command for sending a raw transaction to the network. That path uses dedicated, short-lived connections to Tor or I2P peers, or to IPv4 and IPv6 peers through Tor. The connection-linking concern applies to this private-broadcast activity, rather than every node running the default configuration.

The problem involves “discouragement,” Bitcoin Core’s handling of certain misbehaving peers, the other nodes it connects to. Reviewers of the original fix explained that discouraging a private-broadcast peer could alter node behavior visible from outside. Normal discouragement could also disconnect other connections to the same peer address. Those shared effects could provide an observer with a clue linking the private connection to ordinary node activity.

The patch separates those behaviors. Private-broadcast peers are excluded from normal discouragement handling, while misbehaving private peers are still disconnected. Conversely, discouraging an ordinary peer no longer disconnects private-broadcast connections sharing its address.

Bitcoin Core’s 31.1 release notes describe an earlier IP-address leak: under some circumstances, private-broadcast connections used clearnet instead of the enabled privacy network. That repair addressed how connections were routed. The newer change addresses observable effects of peer handling.

Developers also marked private broadcast experimental and narrowed its privacy claims to risk reduction. For users on the older branch, the next steps remain a completed 31.x backport and a release containing it.

The post Bitcoin Core’s privacy fix reaches v32 code while the v31 patch remains open appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Pump.fun, a leading Solana token launchpad, keeps generating millions of dollars from memecoin trading even as most established tokens struggle to recover from steep losses.

The platform produced about $18.6 million in protocol revenue over the seven days through Oct. 7, according to DefiLlama data. Separately, a Talos study found that 81% of a selected group of memecoins had fallen at least 90% from their all-time highs, and recoveries from deep collapses were rare.

The contrast exposes a central fault line in the memecoin economy: trading across Pump.fun can enrich the platform, support PUMP buybacks, or reward selected users without necessarily helping someone holding a token whose demand has already disappeared.

Talos examined 150 memecoins for its survival analysis and 151 for return comparisons, requiring each asset to have pricing available on at least one centralized exchange. That threshold already selects for relatively successful tokens, meaning the results may understate the failure rate across the much larger universe of launchpad coins that never secure such listings.

Even among that stronger cohort, losses were severe.

The median token peaked about 17 days after exchange trading began. Talos defined collapse as a 95% decline from the eventual peak and estimated a median of about 370 days between the high and that threshold.

Only a small fraction of collapsed tokens later revisited their previous highs, while just five of the 151 coins in its return sample remained above their first-day price. In Talos’ analysis of major Solana memecoins, active addresses with balances of at least $1 had also fallen to no more than 7% of their respective peaks.

The pattern suggests attention frequently moves on rather than returning to repair older positions. Talos found roughly two-thirds of the Solana-era memecoins it examined never staged a meaningful second rally after their initial run.

For a trader, that creates a very different economic exposure from the one Pump.fun itself carries.

Memecoin churn keeps Pump earning

Pump’s revenue depends on transactions occurring somewhere across its ecosystem and does not require an older token to recover.

A trader who sells one fading coin and moves into another generates another fee-producing transaction. New launches, rotations between tokens and speculative bursts can therefore support platform income even while earlier buyers remain heavily underwater.

DefiLlama showed traders paying about $52.5 million in fees over the seven days through Oct. 7, with roughly $18.64 million accruing to the protocol. Over 30 days, fees totaled about $184.5 million, and protocol revenue reached about $60.7 million.

Who ultimately benefits from that activity depends on where the money flows.

Pump’s fee structure distributes portions of trading income among the protocol, creators and liquidity-related recipients. Its native PUMP token also has a route through buybacks and burns, giving the asset exposure to activity across the broader platform.

DefiLlama recorded about $8.45 million of PUMP burns over seven days and $27.29 million over 30 days. Pump has committed part of designated revenue to buy and burn PUMP for a year starting in April.

However, that mechanism does little directly for somebody holding a separate memecoin.

For those investors, recovery still depends on demand returning to the asset they own, enough liquidity to sell it, and distributions large enough to offset losses in the token itself.

Still, Pump.fun says it is widening the share of platform economics reaching users.

Alon Cohen, the memecoin launchpad co-founder, said more than 140,000 users collectively received about $4.46 million over a recent 24-hour period, including $730,000 in Holder Rewards, $330,000 in Callout Rewards and $3.4 million in creator fees.

“In time, Pumpfun will vastly outperform the social media industry in user payouts & rewards,” he said.

The payouts support Pump’s argument that the platform is increasingly distributing trading economics rather than retaining them entirely at the protocol level. But the three categories reward different participants.

Creator fees benefit people behind tokens. Callout Rewards compensate eligible promoters or contributors. Holder Rewards apply to participating coins and do not automatically reach every person holding a Pump-launched asset.

That distinction matters most when token losses are measured against the rewards.

A holder can receive distributions and still lose money if the underlying coin's value falls faster. Likewise, a creator can generate substantial trading fees even as buyers who entered near the peak suffer deep drawdowns.

PUMP holders face another equation. Buybacks create demand and burns reduce supply, but the token carries its own market risk and does not grant a contractual claim on Pump.fun revenue. Scheduled unlocks can also add supply even as burns remove tokens from circulation.

The economics therefore separate as speculation moves through the platform. Pump can earn from aggregate trading, PUMP can capture part of that activity through buybacks, and selected creators or holders can receive fee distributions. None guarantees recovery for the investor waiting for buyers to return to an older memecoin.

That gap will become more important as Pump expands its rewards programs.

If distributions grow enough to materially compensate holders for declining token values, they could alter the economics of staying invested after the initial speculative rush fades. If trading continues migrating toward new launches faster than rewards accumulate in older ones, Pump may keep converting churn into revenue while many of the traders supplying that activity remain unable to exit their original positions at break-even.

The post PumpFun is making millions from a market where 81% of memecoins crashed 90% appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin registered an intraday low near $80,000 as a cryptocurrency selloff triggered over $1 billion in liquidations, overwhelmingly hitting traders betting on higher prices.

The largest cryptocurrency traded around $80,744 as of press time, down 3% over 24 hours and roughly 4% over the past week, extending a retreat from its recent attempt to reclaim $87,000.

The decline triggered $1.16 billion in liquidations across the crypto derivatives market over the preceding 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data. Bullish positions accounted for $1 billion of that total, compared with $108 million in short positions.

The figures show how quickly the market's positioning has deteriorated as falling prices force exchanges to close leveraged trades that can no longer meet collateral requirements. Such liquidations can accelerate a decline when exchanges sell assets or close long positions into an already weakening market.

The pressure has intensified in recent hours. CoinGlass recorded nearly $700 million in liquidations over four hours, including $650 million in long positions. Overall, 166,769 traders were liquidated during the 24-hour period.

Ethereum leads the over $1 billion liquidation rout

Although Bitcoin's slide has dominated market attention, Ethereum has suffered the largest liquidation losses among major cryptocurrencies.

CoinGlass data showed approximately $324 million in Ethereum positions liquidated over 24 hours, compared with $240 million in Bitcoin positions.

Ethereum plunged below $2,500, down 4% over the same period, extending its weekly decline to approximately 9.3%.

The largest individual liquidation occurred on Hyperliquid, where traders closed an ETH-USD position worth about $20 million.

Losses spread across other major digital assets as the market unwound leveraged bullish exposure.

Solana fell 7.2% over 24 hours to approximately $108.61, while XRP declined 5.7% to $1.35. BNB fell 4.9%, and Zcash posted one of the steepest declines among the largest cryptocurrencies, down 14%.

Heavier losses across several altcoins suggest the broader market is under more stress than Bitcoin's percentage decline alone indicates.

The development also comes after warnings that leverage across the altcoin market had become increasingly stretched.

In its Oct. 7 weekly market report, Glassnode observed that a growing share of large-cap altcoins carried unusually elevated open interest relative to their market capitalization.

The analytics firm said the proportion had reached its highest level since before the October 2025 crypto market crash.

That positioning leaves traders vulnerable to further forced liquidations if prices keep falling before they reduce leveraged positions.

Bitcoin's newest investors rush coins to exchanges

The pressure is also visible in Bitcoin's on-chain activity, where recently acquired holdings are increasingly moving toward exchanges.

According to CryptoQuant, short-term Bitcoin holders transferred more than 50,000 BTC to exchanges at the 24-hour daily peak.

Of that amount, more than 29,500 BTC was transferred at a loss, representing approximately 59% of the cohort's exchange inflows.

CryptoQuant said the losses associated with those transfers were the largest recorded among short-term holders in nearly four months.

The movement marks a deterioration in sentiment among investors who acquired Bitcoin relatively recently and are generally more sensitive to changes in market prices.

Large exchange deposits can signal an intention to sell, particularly when investors are moving assets at a loss.

However, such transfers do not necessarily result in immediate sales, though the rise in loss-associated deposits adds another potential source of market supply as leveraged positions are already being unwound. It also contrasts with the profit-taking that accompanied Bitcoin's recent advance above $85,000.

Glassnode previously reported that short-term holders accounted for approximately 86% of exchange inflows on Oct. 4 as Bitcoin closed above that level, the highest such share in a year.

The shift from profit-taking to loss-associated transfers suggests that the market's retreat is increasingly affecting participants who bought during the recent rally.

Bitcoin's $81,000 buy wall faces a crucial test

The immediate question is whether Bitcoin can find sufficient demand near $81,000 to absorb the rising selling pressure.

Glassnode identified a substantial concentration of resting buy orders between $81,000 and $81,250 on Binance's spot order book in its Oct. 7 analysis.

Those orders had accumulated since Oct. 3 and represented the largest visible block of bids below Bitcoin's prevailing price.

The firm identified the area as an important support zone after Bitcoin failed to overcome sell orders between $86,500 and $86,750 and subsequently lost the buying support that had developed around $85,000.

However, bid concentration does not guarantee price stability. Orders can be withdrawn, while continued selling could overwhelm available demand.

Glassnode's derivatives analysis identified a large concentration of potential liquidation levels between $81,700 and $83,300, with another significant cluster near $75,000.

The latest decline has already carried Bitcoin through much of the near-term zone, leaving traders focused on whether buying interest around $81,000 can withstand further pressure.

A sustained break below the $81,000 bid zone could send Bitcoin lower again, potentially drawing attention to the deeper liquidation concentrations Glassnode identified.

The post Bitcoin crashes through $81,000 buy wall as $1 billion crypto liquidation bloodbath unfolds appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Circle has added a USDC payment route to SAP Pay through a partnership with payments provider Tereina, letting eligible businesses use stablecoins inside their existing SAP workflows. Access requires an institutional Circle Mint account and depends on regional availability, according to Circle’s SAP Pay page.

The Oct. 7 announcement says Circle’s integration with Tereina, the payments company behind SAP Pay, is available to SAP customers. It says USDC will be the preferred stablecoin for eligible dollar-denominated workflows, with EURC offering an option for euro activity.

For finance teams, the change is an additional settlement method within the software they already use to manage business payments. SAP announced SAP Pay on Oct. 6 as a service embedded in SAP Cloud ERP that executes and reconciles payments when invoices are due.

Circle describes use cases for USDC including cross-border supplier payments, transfers between company entities, and settling accounts payable and receivable. It says the route works alongside existing banks, approvals, controls and reporting. Circle Mint connects to the SAP stack through an API to mint, redeem and manage USDC.

Institutional access and regional limits

SAP customers must also meet Circle’s account requirements. Mint is available only to institutions, excluding individual applicants. Circle’s onboarding requirements include background checks, identity verification, know-your-customer checks and sanctions screening. Circle says processing can take one day to a week or longer.

The public regional descriptions differ. SAP’s Connect guide says SAP Pay is generally available in the United States and United Kingdom. Its separate product-page terms limit transaction processing to customers or affiliates domiciled in the US or European Union unless documentation provides otherwise. How the UK launch fits those domicile terms remains unclear. Circle’s regional account requirements apply separately.

Circle’s general Mint country guidance distinguishes fiat connectivity from wallet-only support. Those classifications cover general Mint services; the integration’s full country coverage remains unclear.

Banking access remains relevant when moving between dollars and USDC. Circle’s general wire guidance requires an account in the institution’s name that can send wires to Circle’s US bank account. It also says redemption is unsupported for accounts requiring an intermediary bank to receive dollar wires.

Circle promotes round-the-clock and near-instant USDC settlement, with potential improvements in working capital and reconciliation. The announcement and SAP Pay page provide no transaction volumes or measured customer savings for the integration.

SAP’s guide reports an unnamed distributor using SAP Pay, but does not identify it as using Circle stablecoins. That example establishes use of the payment service, without measuring uptake of the new USDC route.

Tereina and Circle plan joint customer proof-of-value programs over the coming months and intend to develop adoption insights as implementations progress. The companies also plan to train treasury and payment specialists and work with ecosystem partners.

The post SAP Pay adds USDC payments, with Circle Mint access required appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin staking through Babylon does not earn you Bitcoin, but units of the protocol token BABY. Knowing that before delegating leads to a different decision than expecting a yield on a Bitcoin holding. The protocol currently holds 40,573 Bitcoin, worth roughly $3.34 billion according to DefiLlama's data. A year earlier the figure was $7.14 billion. Bitcoin itself trades at $81,394, or €72,636, on Wednesday evening, a good two percent below the previous day.

This article explains what technically happens in Bitcoin staking, what the yield depends on, which deadlines tie up your holding and how German tax law treats the rewards. Price targets for BABY are not part of it.

Bitcoin staking pays no interest in Bitcoin

Bitcoin staking means locking up Bitcoin as collateral for an external network, which pays a reward in its own token in return. The Bitcoin themselves do not multiply. The Bitcoin protocol has no mechanism that allocates anything to holders for holding; new Bitcoin arise exclusively through mining.

That makes the process fundamentally different from a savings account, even though the terms sound similar. You post collateral, and another network pays you for that collateral in its own coin. Whether it pays off depends on what that coin is worth and stays worth.

Babylon is the protocol that opened this route for Bitcoin. It consists of a locking mechanism on the Bitcoin chain and a proof-of-stake chain of its own called Babylon Genesis, which benefits from the locked Bitcoin collateral and distributes BABY in return. An overview of other providers and their terms is in our comparison of staking platforms.

How Babylon locks up Bitcoin without taking it off the Bitcoin chain

The technical core is a time lock on the Bitcoin chain itself. Your Bitcoin move into an output that, under the rules of Bitcoin script, can only be moved again after a deadline expires or through a route you have signed. Babylon calls this a self-custodial construction and writes on its own site that there is “no wrapping, no bridging to other networks”, the process taking place inside your own wallet.

Wrapping means a custodian retains real Bitcoin and issues a substitute token on another chain in return. A bridge transfers value between two chains and becomes a target for attack in the process. Both fall away at Babylon, and with them the question of whether a custodian stays solvent.

What remains is a different risk that many underestimate: you keep the keys, so you also carry the responsibility for them. If your access is lost, nobody can help you. Which devices come into question for that is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

40,573 Bitcoin in the protocol: the capital has more than halved within a year

On October 7, 2025, Babylon held Bitcoin worth $7.14 billion, the highest level in the protocol's history. Today it is $3.34 billion, a fall of a good 53 percent. Both values come from DefiLlama's time series, which updates the locked holding daily.

Part of that decline is explained by the Bitcoin price, which fell over the same period. The rest is withdrawn capital. The low point came in mid-July 2026 at $2.63 billion; the holding has grown again since then, without coming anywhere near the level of a year ago.

For assessing the protocol, this movement says more than any yield figure. A protocol whose security capital shrinks by more than half within a year has not convinced its users. Entering today means entering a smaller network, not a growing one.

The yield comes in BABY, and BABY trades 92 percent below its peak

BABY is the token of the Babylon Genesis chain and the only means of payment in which Bitcoin delegators are rewarded. Babylon itself writes in its guide to the second protocol phase that delegators receive “BABY staking rewards” after the transition. There is no payout in Bitcoin.

The token trades at $0.0125, or €0.0112. Its peak dates from April 12, 2025 and stood at $0.1661. The gap to it comes to roughly 92 percent. The total market value of all circulating BABY adds up to $61.2 million, which puts the token in 402nd place by market capitalisation. These figures come from CoinGecko.

Two numbers beside the price matter more. In circulation are 4.89 billion BABY, with a total supply of 11.01 billion. More than twice as many units therefore sit on the books as are traded today, and the rewards for Bitcoin collateral are paid out of that issuance. A yield accruing in a token with a growing supply and a falling price is a different yield from one in euros.

We deliberately do not name a percentage here. The actual payout depends on the chain's issuance, on the number of competitors for that same issuance and on the commission of the provider you delegate to. Any fixed figure would be a snapshot that no longer holds by the time you read it.

Slashing capped at 0.1 percent: the penalty risk is small, but it is not zero

Slashing means the confiscation of part of the posted collateral as a penalty for misconduct in the network. In Bitcoin staking through Babylon, that penalty does not hit you personally but the provider you assigned your collateral to, and through them you as well.

The upper limit is stated in Babylon's own guide to the second protocol phase: the collateral becomes exposed “at a maximum slashing rate of 0.1%”. On one locked Bitcoin that would be a thousandth, so about €73 at today's price.

That order of magnitude puts the risk in perspective without removing it. Slashing is triggered by double signing, meaning contradictory signatures from the same provider on the same block. That is an error in their operation, over which you have no influence. Your only lever lies in the selection.

1,008 Bitcoin blocks of waiting: the unbonding period ties up your holding for seven days

Unbonding is the process by which you release locked collateral. It does not run immediately. In the same guide, Babylon states that after it is triggered, “1,008 Bitcoin blocks, approximately 7 days” must pass before the holding can be withdrawn.

Seven days is a long time in the crypto market. If the price falls ten percent during that week, you cannot react, because the Bitcoin are immobile. This waiting period is the real price of Bitcoin staking, and it appears in no yield promise. How long lock-up periods run at other networks is set side by side in our overview of staking lock-up periods.

The period runs in Bitcoin blocks, not in calendar days. If the network finds its blocks more slowly than average, it takes longer. Treat seven days as a guide value, then, and not as a commitment.

Finality providers: how to check commission and minimum amount before delegating

A finality provider is the operator you assign your Bitcoin collateral to and which uses it to confirm the finality of blocks on the Babylon Genesis chain. It retains a commission from the rewards before the remainder reaches you. Babylon puts the relationship briefly in its guide: a lower commission means more reward for the delegator.

Before a first delegation, three points are worth a look. First the commission, because it comes off every payout permanently. Second the operating history, because double signing happens exactly there. Third the minimum amount, because on small positions the Bitcoin transaction fee for locking and for later withdrawal eats a noticeable part of the return.

That last point decides everything on small amounts. Two Bitcoin transactions arise regardless of the sum you lock. On a fraction of a Bitcoin, that fee can exceed several months of rewards.

Liquid staking through LBTC puts a second layer of risk over your holding

Liquid staking describes offers that issue you a tradable substitute token for locked Bitcoin, so your capital does not lie idle. The best-known offer on Babylon is LBTC from Lombard, which currently holds $643.9 million according to DefiLlama's data.

The appeal is obvious: you keep a position you can sell or use elsewhere, and you sidestep the seven-day period. The price for that is an additional layer. To Babylon's protocol risk is added the risk of the contracts that issue and redeem LBTC, and the risk that LBTC trades below the value of a Bitcoin on the market when many want out at once.

If self-custody is your main argument for Babylon, such a substitute token partly gives it up again. Both routes are defensible, but they are not the same route, and they do not carry the same risk.

Tax in Germany: staking rewards are other income under Section 22 no. 3 of the Income Tax Act

For German tax law the BABY rewards are not a capital gain but income. The tax authorities generally classify passive delegation as other income under Section 22 no. 3 of the Income Tax Act. The authority is the Federal Ministry of Finance circular on crypto assets of March 6, 2025, which replaced the 2022 guidance.

Each reward is valued at its market value in euros at the time it accrues. An exemption threshold of €256 per calendar year applies to this income, covering all other income from services together. An exemption threshold is not an allowance: at €255 everything stays tax-free; at €256 the entire amount is taxable, not only the part above it.

The accrual value applied becomes your acquisition cost for those BABY at the same time. If you sell them later, a one-year period of their own under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act runs for them. That makes two transactions per reward, both of which have to be documented. What this looks like in practice is set out in our article on staking and taxes in Germany.

With a token in the tenth-of-a-cent range, that quickly turns into an accounting task. Thousands of small accruals, each with its own price and its own date, cannot be kept cleanly by hand.

Tax reform from 2027: the cabinet date of October 14 and the year-end cut-off

For the question of whether to enter now, a change in the law that has not yet been adopted matters. Our reporting of October 1 names October 14, 2026 as the cabinet date for a draft bill that would move gains from exchange crypto assets out of Section 23 and into Section 20 of the Income Tax Act and charge them 25 percent withholding tax from 2027. December 31, 2026 is envisaged as the cut-off date for existing holdings.

Three qualifications belong with that. It is not yet a law, because the Bundestag and Bundesrat follow the cabinet, and changes are possible at every step. For the current year the one-year holding period applies unchanged. And anyone buying by the end of the year stays under the old rules as the draft currently stands.

Staking rewards are affected only indirectly, because they are recorded as income and not as a disposal gain. What would be affected is the later sale of the tokens received. Until the draft is a law, that remains a planning figure and not a legal position.

MiCA and BaFin: authorisation as a crypto service provider does not automatically cover staking

MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto assets, in force since 2024, which subjects service providers to an authorisation requirement. It covers custody, exchange, trading and several further services. It contains no separate permission category for staking as a service.

A widespread misunderstanding hangs on that gap: a provider can be authorised in Germany and still run a staking offer that this authorisation does not cover. What matters is whether it holds your keys in the process, because custody requires permission. At Babylon in its self-custodial form, nobody holds anything for you, which is why no supervision applies there for want of a custodian.

This position is uncomfortable, because it withdraws protection without issuing a prohibition. If a finality provider fails or behaves improperly, there is no German supervisor to turn to and no deposit guarantee. Which providers hold an authorisation in Germany at all is examined in our overview of staking under MiCA.

Bitcoin staking: 0.1 percent penalty risk, yield only in BABY

Bitcoin staking through Babylon is solved more cleanly in technical terms than the label suggests, and more weakly in economic terms than the headlines promise. Self-custody remains, the penalty risk is small at a thousandth, but the reward comes in a token trading 92 percent below its peak whose supply keeps growing. Three steps help with the decision:

1. Work out the incidental costs before the yield. Two Bitcoin transactions and the operator's commission arise regardless of the sum. Enter the expected rewards into a tool that records accruals with date and price; the common programmes are in the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.
2. Compare several routes before delegating. Rewards in a secondary token are not the only form of staking, and established networks pay in their own, more liquid currency. The terms are in the comparison of staking platforms.
3. Secure the keys before you lock up. Without a custodian there is no recovery. A device that keeps the key offline is the precondition and not the extra; the selection is in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Chainlink switched on the CCIP Vault Adapters on October 8, 2026. A vault that sits on a single blockchain can now accept deposits from more than 80 networks, with one click instead of a bridge and a second transaction afterwards. The vault's strategy and accounting stay on its home chain. On the same day the price of Chainlink fell 5.47 percent to $12.62.

The real news of the day sits between those two sentences. The protocol delivered; the token followed the broader market down. Bitcoin gave up 1.90 percent over the same 24 hours and Ether 3.95 percent, so LINK lost considerably more than the market on the day its operators presented a finished product. All price data in this article was collected by cryptoticker.io from CoinGecko on the evening of October 8, 2026.

CCIP Vault Adapters: what Chainlink switched on October 8

A vault is a smart contract that collects deposits, invests them according to a fixed strategy and issues the depositor a share certificate in return. Until now a user whose balance sat on another blockchain had to cross a bridge first and then deposit: two operations, two fees, two opportunities for a mistake.

The adapters remove exactly that detour. Chainlink writes in its announcement post that vaults can now “accept deposits from over 80 supported blockchains with a single click”. According to that post, the adapters are in use with immediate effect. A vault's share certificate, a receipt token in the technical vocabulary, can additionally be issued as a cross-chain token, so a holder can later carry the position to another chain.

The foundation is the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, or CCIP: a transfer standard with which a smart contract on one chain sends a message together with a value transfer to a smart contract on another. Technical details are set out in the provider's CCIP documentation.

ERC-4626: the vault standard behind the one-click deposit

ERC-4626 is the Ethereum standard for tokenised vaults. It sets out how a vault accepts deposits, calculates shares and settles withdrawals, so that any application can talk to any vault in the same pattern. Chainlink names this standard explicitly as the starting point: the first focus lies on deposits and redemptions under ERC-4626.

Everything beyond that is announced and not yet there. The post names asynchronous vault interactions, cooldown periods, multi-asset vaults and permissioned adapters as projects said to be under way. A vault with a notice period or with several deposit currencies cannot be served through the adapters today.

Programmable token transfers: how a deposit arrives across chains

The mechanism behind the single click is called a programmable token transfer. What travels is not only an amount but also an instruction: move this balance to the target chain and execute the deposit into the vault there straight away. Chainlink cites Lombard as an example, whose vault sits on Ethereum and accepts deposits in BTC.b from Avalanche through the adapters.

One point matters for understanding the risk: the message and the value transfer run over one provider's oracle and transfer network. If that route fails or is attacked, every deposit using it is affected, regardless of how securely the target vault itself is programmed.

Aave, Venus, Lombard: which protocols are adopting the adapter

Chainlink names a long line of partners in the announcement, and it breaks into groups of differing weight. On the protocol side stand Aave and Venus; Aave is using it to extend its sGHO vault beyond Ethereum. As asset issuers, the post lists Lombard, Maple, Huma Finance, United Stables, Tenbin, Tori Finance, Saturn, World Liberty Financial and USDX, among others.

Two figures from the post put the scale in context. Lombard holds roughly 70 percent of the market for yield-bearing Bitcoin, according to Chainlink. Veda, the platform that sets up vaults for third parties, has handled more than $32 billion of volume across more than 200 vaults. Both figures come from the provider itself and are not audited third-party numbers.

Reading such lists rewards close attention to the verb. Chainlink describes Veda as integrating, most of the others as adopting, and of the vault curator RockawayX it says expressly that it is live with the adapters. A statement of intent and a running operation sit side by side in the same list.

LINK at $12.62: the numbers of the trading day

The price stood at $12.62 on the evening of October 8, 2026. Within 24 hours it moved between a high of $13.36 and a low of $12.11, and the loss over the day came to 5.47 percent. On a weekly view LINK is down 12.76 percent.

Market capitalisation comes to roughly $9.44 billion, which corresponds to 16th place in the overall market; turnover for a single day was about $467 million. The price sits 76.1 percent away from its peak of $52.70, reached on May 9, 2021. This distance to the all-time high is the soberest finding of the day: five years of infrastructure work have not brought the token anywhere near its old valuation.

Product news against market conditions: why the price did not react

October 8 was not a good day for risk assets. Bitcoin traded below $82,000 after the Fed minutes of October 7 revealed a majority for a further rate rise by the end of the year, and a broad slide dragged almost the entire market along. In such an environment, product news barely moves the price of an infrastructure token.

The construction itself supplies a second reason. The adapters generate fees only once users use them, and no figures on that usage exist so far: the announcement post names partners, but no deposit volume and no fee schedule. Valuing the news therefore means valuing a possibility, not a revenue stream.

A plain rule for observation follows for the coming weeks: what carries the price is not the length of the partner list but the volume that actually flows through the adapters into the vaults. Solid figures on that would be a fresh trigger. Absent them, the launch remains an announcement with partner logos.

748 million of one billion LINK: where the circulating supply stands

In circulation are 748,099,970 LINK out of a total supply of one billion. Around 252 million tokens, about a quarter of the total, are therefore not yet in circulation. For an investor this is the most important figure after the price, because every token that enters circulation later meets demand against an unchanged supply.

The project does not publish a publicly fixed schedule for when and in which steps that amount reaches circulation. Circulation figures on individual movements circulate regularly in trade media without yielding a reliable calendar. Working solidly here means tracking the circulating supply over time rather than single reports about wallet movements.

Buying route in Germany: exchange, broker or ETP

Buying LINK is straightforward in Germany; the differences lie in the wrapper. Through a crypto exchange you acquire the token directly and can withdraw it to your own wallet. Since the EU's MiCA regulation, providers addressing retail customers in the EU need authorisation as a crypto service provider; an overview of authorised houses is in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

The second route runs through an exchange-traded product. An ETP on LINK sits in a normal securities account, trades on an exchange and spares you custody, but you pay a running fee and never hold the token itself. Which products are accessible in Germany and how they differ is set out in the overview of crypto ETFs and ETPs in Germany.

The decisive difference is a tax one rather than a fee one, and in Germany it is clear-cut. The one-year holding period for private disposals applies only to a direct purchase; an ETP is a security and falls under withholding tax no matter how long you hold it.

Vault returns and the holding period: the tax side in Germany

If you hold LINK directly, Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies: after a holding period of one year a gain on sale is tax-free, while within the year it is charged at your personal income tax rate as soon as the sum of all private disposal gains in a year exceeds the €1,000 exemption threshold.

With returns from a vault it gets more complicated, and caution is in order here. The tax authorities treat ongoing rewards from the deployment of crypto assets differently depending on the arrangement, for instance as other income under Section 22 no. 3 of the Income Tax Act with its own €256 exemption threshold. The German Federal Ministry of Finance's circulars on crypto assets are the authority, and whether a vault fed across several chains falls under them depends on the specific construction. If you earn vault returns, settle this with a tax adviser before the tax return is due.

Regardless of the classification, one practical duty applies: every deposit, every redemption and every reward needs a record with date, quantity and price. With a deposit across several networks, these records arise in several places at once, which makes documentation harder. A tool that brings the transactions from several networks together is not a convenience here but the precondition for the numbers adding up at all at year-end.

Custody and risk: what a smart-contract vault does not secure

A deposit into a vault is not a bank deposit. There is no deposit guarantee, no claim against an institution and no supervisor stepping in if something goes wrong: MiCA regulates service providers, not the smart contracts of decentralised applications. If a vault fails through a programming error, the balance is gone.

The adapters add a second layer. Alongside the risk of the target vault you now also carry the risk of the transfer route and of the adapter contract. A failure on that route can hit a deposit that is in transit, before it has even arrived at the target vault. The more chains involved in an operation, the more places have to work.

For holdings you do not actively deploy, self-custody remains the quieter choice. A hardware wallet keeps the keys beyond the reach of an exchange or a contract. If you are after yield on holdings, compare the terms beforehand and read the conditions closely instead of following the highest number on display.

CCIP Vault Adapters: without usage figures it stays a promise

The launch is documented; its economic return is not. Three steps put the situation in order:

1. Yield only against checked conditions. Before a balance moves into a vault, what counts are notice periods, fees and the question of who controls the contract. A starting point for that comparison is the overview of staking and yield platforms.
2. Collect records from the start. Note deposit, redemption and reward with date, quantity and price, ideally automatically through a crypto tax tool, because operations across several chains otherwise stay close to impossible to reconstruct.
3. Separate your holdings. What you do not actively deploy belongs in self-custody; the differences between the devices are set out in the hardware wallet comparison.

The number that matters in the coming weeks is not the price but the deposit volume through the adapters. Once Chainlink names it, the launch can be assessed economically for the first time. The full wording of the announcement is in Chainlink's blog post of October 8, 2026.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

A US government wallet transferred roughly 264.863 Bitcoin, worth about $22.87 million, to Coinbase on Tuesday. The coins come from the holdings stolen from the crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2016 and secured by US authorities in 2022. For holders of the LEO Token this is no footnote: Bitfinex has committed in writing to spend at least 80 percent of the remaining net proceeds from this very reflow on buying back and destroying its own token.

The price has barely reacted. LEO trades at $8.90 and has moved 0.4 percent over seven days. The calm has a cause that has nothing to do with the Bitcoin reflow, and it is the real thing to examine for anyone looking to hold or buy the token in Germany.

LEO Token at $8.90: the week in numbers

According to CoinGecko, as of Thursday evening, one LEO costs $8.90. Over 24 hours that is a gain of 0.23 percent, over seven days a gain of 0.41 percent. The daily range ran from $8.88 to $8.98.

Across the week the high was $8.99 last Sunday, the low $8.86 on Thursday of the previous week. The entire swing of a full trading week therefore comes to 13 cents, or just under 1.5 percent. In the same week Solana lost 9.5 percent and Cardano 8.3 percent, while the broader market gave way after a wave of forced liquidations that we broke down in this week's market pullback.

The decoupling at LEO is neither coincidence nor a sign of strength. It follows from the way the token is traded, and we return to that further down with a count of our own.

264 Bitcoin to Coinbase: what moved on October 6

Tuesday's transfer is the largest in a series so far, according to CryptoBriefing. Back in April, roughly 8.2 Bitcoin had gone to a deposit address at Coinbase Prime. At 264.863 Bitcoin, the current transfer is many times larger.

The legal framework has been in place since 2025. A US federal court ruled that the confiscated Bitcoin goes back to Bitfinex in kind, meaning as Bitcoin and not as a dollar amount. One point matters for understanding the case: the same court found in January 2025 that Bitfinex and its users do not qualify as victims in the legal sense under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act. The return therefore runs through voluntary restitution agreements that became part of the deals struck with the defendants.

For scale: around 119,754 Bitcoin disappeared in the 2016 breach. Authorities managed to secure about 94,636 of them in 2022. Tuesday's 264.863 Bitcoin are a fraction of what is meant to flow back in total. No timetable for the remaining tranches has been published.

Recovery Right Tokens first: the word “net” decides the burn total

The 80 percent pledge sounds like a clear calculation, but it carries a condition that can change the amount considerably. What gets burned is not 80 percent of the returned Bitcoin, but 80 percent of the remaining net proceeds. Deducted first are the Recovery Right Tokens, or RRT.

RRT are vouchers Bitfinex issued in 2016 to users who lost balances in the breach. They were handed out as compensation at the time and carry a claim to repayment should the stolen coins ever resurface. That case is now arriving. Only once the RRT have been redeemed and the costs of the proceedings covered does the calculation for the LEO buyback begin.

Bitfinex has not put a figure on the size of that deduction. For holders, the 80 percent number therefore says nothing yet about the sum that ends up back in the market. It says only which share of a so far unknown remainder has been pledged.

The 27 percent burn: how iFinex keeps shrinking the circulating supply

Alongside the one-off pledge from the hack reflow, a second mechanism runs at LEO, and it has been working continuously since May 2019. Token burn describes the permanent removal of tokens from circulation by sending them to an address without an access key. Nobody can move them afterwards.

Parent company iFinex has pledged to use at least 27 percent of its consolidated gross monthly revenues to buy LEO on the open market and destroy it afterwards. The purchases may also take place off-exchange, expressly including a direct swap of Bitcoin for LEO. A third pledge covers recoveries from the Crypto Capital case, where the share is 95 percent of the net amount.

$8.2 billion market value, $188,533 daily turnover: our own count

How far the running burn has come can be read off the circulating supply. At the May 2019 sale iFinex issued one billion LEO. On October 8, 2026 we pulled a circulating supply of 919,857,851.9 LEO from CoinGecko. The difference from the issued amount therefore comes to roughly 80.1 million tokens, or about 8 percent in a little over seven years. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 8, 2026.

The second figure from the same survey is the more important one. LEO ranks 18th among all cryptocurrencies with a market capitalisation of $8.19 billion. Trading turnover over the past 24 hours came to $188,533. The ratio works out at roughly 1 to 43,000: every dollar of daily turnover carries $43,000 of market value.

For comparison, from the same query: with a market capitalisation of a good $1.6 trillion, Bitcoin moves many times that in a single day. At LEO, the entire daily turnover equals the value of some 21,000 tokens. A larger position cannot be unwound on a normal trading day, because no counterparty is there for it.

Here lies the explanation for last week's quiet price line. A price that is barely traded barely moves. The stability is a side effect of thin markets, not a statement about the token's valuation.

Buying LEO in Germany: how to check access through a MiCA-licensed exchange

LEO is Bitfinex's house token, and trading takes place essentially there. For investors in Germany, the question of access therefore matters more than the question of price. Since the MiCA transition period ended on July 1, 2026, crypto service providers without authorisation under the EU regulation may no longer serve customers in the EU. We have set out the obligations that follow from it in our overview of the MiCA licence for crypto companies.

Before you place a buy order, check three points directly with the provider. First, whether it can show MiCA authorisation for customers resident in Germany. Second, whether the trading pair you want is enabled for your account at all. Third, which withdrawal routes stay open should trading in a token be discontinued. Which platform suits which trading style, and who is authorised in the EU, is shown by the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

Early October showed in Germany that a missing authorisation is no theoretical risk: after 15 months of review, BaFin refused the operator of bitcoin.de authorisation under MiCAR. For LEO the venue question weighs more heavily than for broadly listed coins, because there is barely anywhere else to go.

Custody and the holding period: exchange account versus your own wallet

LEO runs as a token on Ethereum and on Bitfinex's own network. Both variants can be withdrawn and self-custodied. If the token sits in an exchange account, you also carry the custodian's risk, and that very risk materialised at the same exchange in 2016. Which devices come into question for self-custody differs above all in key management.

For tax purposes, the one-year holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act continues to apply to crypto assets held privately. If you sell LEO at a profit within a year of buying, that profit is taxable above the €1,000 annual exemption threshold. After a year has passed, the gain stays tax-free. A draft bill from the German Federal Ministry of Finance provides for flat-rate taxation without a holding period for crypto assets acquired from 2027, while the one-year period is meant to remain for existing holdings. None of it has been adopted, and a cabinet decision alone would not yet be a law.

In practice, that means: document the purchase date and purchase price of every entry. Under the draft, a purchase price you cannot prove later brings an estimate that works out considerably more expensive than the actual bill. Tools that track additional purchases and holding periods automatically take that work off your hands.

Levels at $8.86 and $10.61: the past week's range

The edges of the trading week serve as reference points. On the downside the weekly low sits at $8.86, below that the round $8.50 level. On the upside the weekly high of $8.99 caps the range, behind it the $9 threshold that LEO did not clear this week.

The all-time high dates from May 4, 2026 and stands at $10.61. Roughly 16 percent separates the token from it at the current price. These figures are observations from the week just ended and not a forecast; with daily turnover of $188,533, individual larger orders can leave the range anyway without anything having changed in the situation.

No date for the buyback: the gap that remains in the pledge

The commitment names a period of 18 months, counted from the point at which Bitfinex receives the recovered funds. This point is the open question. Tuesday's tranche went to Coinbase, not to a published Bitfinex address, and the company has not explained whether receipt in the sense of the pledge has thereby occurred.

The order of events in practice also remains open. Under the pledge, larger reflows are deployed spread across the full 18 months, smaller ones faster. The staggering is meant to dampen price jumps. For holders it means that a reflow, even in the favourable case, arrives in the market spread over many months rather than as a single buying impulse.

What is missing so far is a number. Bitfinex publishes buybacks and burns through a reporting page of its own; for the reflow from the hack, no figure has been given yet. As long as the size of the RRT redemption is unknown, the pledged burn total cannot be calculated from public information.

LEO burn: without numbers from Bitfinex it stays a statement of intent

Three concrete steps follow from this for the coming weeks.

1. Clarify access before you trade. Check with the provider whether it may serve you as a resident of Germany under MiCA and whether LEO is enabled for your account. The authorised platforms are listed in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Match position size to turnover. At $188,533 of daily turnover, liquidity decides whether a position can be unwound again. How venues differ in depth and fees is shown by the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
3. Keep purchase records and track the holding period. The date and price of every entry belong on file as long as the one-year period applies to existing holdings. Suitable tools are listed in the comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

The return of the Bitcoin stolen in 2016 is the largest single impulse imaginable for LEO, and it has begun. It becomes solid only when Bitfinex names the size of the RRT redemption and the start of the 18-month period. Until then, a pledge covering 80 percent faces a market that turns over less in a whole day than some single trade on the stock market.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Most price targets for Shiba Inu rest on a single promise: Shibarium is to gain confidential smart contracts, and with them a reason to be used. The target window for that upgrade was the second quarter of 2026. It ended on June 30, and to this day there is no confirmed mainnet date.

SHIB traded at $0.00000528 on Thursday evening, the equivalent of €0.00000471. That is 2.6 percent below the level 24 hours earlier and the lowest reading of the past seven days. More telling than that figure, though, is what the chain itself currently delivers, because every forecast reaching beyond the day rests on exactly that.

Zama's target window for Shibarium: Q2 2026 ended on June 30

In December 2025, a roadmap from the encryption company Zama came to light, holding out full on-chain privacy and confidential smart contracts for Shibarium by the second quarter of 2026. Attribution is decisive here, and it belongs in any assessment: the target window came from the technology partner, not as a binding commitment from the Shiba Inu team, and it named a quarter rather than a date.

That quarter is now more than three months past. No public confirmation that the technology has reached Shibarium's mainnet can be found, and no new date either. For a forecast this is not a footnote but the core of the matter: a catalyst without a date cannot be priced in, because nobody can say which month it is supposed to act on.

Fully homomorphic encryption in one sentence

Fully homomorphic encryption, or FHE, is a method that lets a computer calculate with encrypted data without decrypting it first. On a public blockchain that would be the difference between a bank statement anyone can read along with and a transfer whose amount stays hidden while the network still validates it. For Shibarium it would be the first feature setting the chain apart from dozens of other layer-2 networks.

Shibarium by the numbers: 1,323 transactions a day and $159,561 in the protocol

The chain's block explorer reports 1,323 transactions for October 7. The seven days before that swing widely: 1,011 on October 1, 2,288 on the 2nd, 1,806 on the 3rd, then 4,084, 4,859 and 5,711 through October 6. That averages 3,012 transactions a day. Average block time runs at around five seconds, and the explorer counts 10.97 million blocks in total.

The second number carries more weight. The value deposited in Shibarium applications, the total value locked, comes to $159,561 according to DeFiLlama data. Not millions, but roughly $160,000. For comparison: the SHIB token itself carries a market value of $3.11 billion. The ratio between the token's value and the capital working on its own chain therefore stands at about 19,500 to 1.

You can look up both numbers yourself, at ShibariumScan for the transactions and at DeFiLlama for the deposited capital. The time of retrieval and the source belong with every figure older than a day.

Why the explorer knows only part of the blocks

One qualification has to go with this, or the number would look larger than it is. Shibarium's explorer had indexed only around 55 percent of its blocks in early October, as we showed in the Shibarium figures on October 6. The daily readings above are therefore a lower bound, not a complete count. It changes nothing about the order of magnitude: even double would still be a few thousand transactions a day.

The price since the target window: $0.00000528 and the 90-day range

Over the past 90 days, SHIB moved between $0.00000411 and $0.00000610. The 90-day average sits at $0.00000503, placing the current price around five percent above it. Measured over 30 days the picture flips: there the mean is $0.00000556, and the price trades just under five percent below.

The week itself ran in two halves. SHIB climbed to $0.00000592 by October 5, and has since eased to $0.00000528. Daily volume picked up along the way, from $68.6 million on October 7 to $90.3 million on October 8. Falling prices on rising turnover amount to a sell signal in the sense that the move is being carried, rather than arising from a lack of buyers. The token sits 93.7 percent below its all-time high.

Three checks to test a roadmap promise

Today's numbers go stale within days. What lasts is the routine for fetching them yourself at any time. Three queries are enough, and none of them needs a subscription.

First, activity. Open the chain's block explorer and look at transactions per day over several weeks, not at the daily reading. A single day says nothing; a series does. If the series fails to rise after an announced upgrade, then either the upgrade is not there or it is not being used. For the price, both come to the same thing.

Second, capital. A chain's deposited capital is harder to dress up than a transaction count, because it is real money that somebody moved. Where it sits in six figures, the chain carries no applications a price could live on.

Third, the date. Look for a specific mainnet date, not a quarter and not an announcement about an announcement. Find no date and treat the catalyst as absent. Drawing that line between what is documented and what is hoped for costs nothing and spares expensive disappointments.

Run these three queries once a month and you need no analyst's opinion to form your own view.

Two verified tokens carry the SHIB ticker on Solana: the buying route under MiCA

Since early October, SHIB also exists on Solana, as a bridged version by way of a token bridge. That sounds like a side issue and is a stumbling block in practice, because two verified tokens on Solana now carry the same ticker. Which of them is the canonical version, and how to tell them apart, we set out in detail on October 7.

In practical terms: a bridged version is not the same asset as the original token on Ethereum, because such a version depends additionally on the bridge that issues it. Should the bridge fail or come under attack, the claim on the original is affected, even if the price in your portfolio looks unchanged. Buy through a trading platform authorised in the EU and you will as a rule receive the Ethereum version, with the contract address stated in the product information.

Under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, providers need an authorisation in a member state to trade SHIB. For you that is a simple preliminary check: where the provider appears in the national supervisory register, European law applies, complaints procedure included. Where it does not, you carry the risk alone in a dispute.

Holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act: the bridge transaction belongs in your records

In Germany, gains from selling crypto assets fall under private disposals. After a one-year holding period the gain is tax-free; below that the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per year applies, and above it the full gain is taxed at your personal rate. What decides the period is the acquisition date of the individual holding.

This is where the bridge to Solana becomes interesting for tax. Whether a change of chain counts as a swap, and therefore triggers a fresh holding period, has not been conclusively settled, and the tax authorities have published no clear line on it. In practice that means two things. Document every bridge transaction with date, amount and transaction ID, so that you can evidence the original purchase date if it comes to that. And expect a tax adviser to count the period conservatively from the bridge transaction while no clarification exists.

Spread your holdings across several wallets and exchanges and the acquisition dates quickly slip out of view without a tool. Which programmes track holding periods per holding and produce a report for the tax office is set out in our overview of crypto tax tools.

Custody: exchange account, software wallet and hardware wallet in practice

SHIB is an ERC-20 token on Ethereum, and that determines custody. In an exchange account the token belongs to you economically but to the exchange technically, and a failure of the provider hits your holding. In your own wallet you hold the key yourself and take on responsibility for backing up the recovery words.

With small amounts that trade-off is quickly settled, because transaction costs on Ethereum can make a move expensive. With four-figure amounts the calculation flips, because the price of a hardware wallet is then small against the risk of a provider failure.

Liquidity and fees: $90.3 million daily turnover against a $3.11 billion market value

Daily turnover of $90.3 million corresponds to around 2.9 percent of the market value. For a private investor that is ample: orders in the three- and four-figure range do not move the price. The costs arise elsewhere, namely in the eighth decimal place. At a price of $0.00000528 the smallest representable price step is already worth around 0.19 percent, and the spread between the buying and selling price sits above that at many providers.

With SHIB, then, calculate in percent of total costs rather than in percent of price movement. A trading fee of 0.25 percent per side plus the spread adds up to about one percent for a complete entry and exit. The price has to clear that hurdle before any gain arises at all.

Bull case and bear case: what is attributed to the upgrade

The optimistic case, as put forward in market commentary, runs as follows: should confidential execution actually reach the mainnet, Shibarium would hold a feature hardly any competing layer-2 network offers, and applications would have a reason to move there. Rising usage would increase token burning through network fees. That chain of assumptions is coherent in itself, but hangs entirely on the first link.

The cautious case needs no assumptions, only the measurement. A chain with a few thousand transactions a day and six-figure deposited capital is unattractive to application developers, and a target window that passes without a new date weakens the credibility of future announcements. In that case SHIB remains a token whose price follows general market sentiment, with no occasion of its own.

Between those two readings the decision rests on a date, not on a price target. While the date is missing, the cautious reading is the one that matches the data.

Shiba Inu prediction: $0.00000610 stays the 90-day ceiling

The 90-day high sits at $0.00000610, the low at $0.00000411. Everything that has happened since July played out inside that range, and it is the most honest frame for the coming weeks as long as no date for the upgrade exists. Three steps follow from it:

1. Fix your measuring points before you trade. Note the two values of the 90-day range and Shibarium's current transaction series. Without those starting values there is no saying in four weeks whether anything has improved. Where to read the series at no extra cost is set out in the exchange comparison.
2. Assess custody separately from the price question. A holding meant to sit for a year does not belong in an exchange account out of convenience. The devices that hold Ethereum tokens directly are listed in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Secure the holding period in your records. Keep the purchase date, the amount and every change of chain while the tax treatment of the bridge remains open. Programmes that track this per holding are shown in the tax tool overview.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The European Securities and Markets Authority published an opinion on October 8, 2026 that denies authorised crypto service providers in the EU virtually every service involving stablecoins that do not comply with MiCA. The central case is Tether's USDT, the world's largest stablecoin with a market capitalisation of around $184 billion on October 8, 2026 according to CoinGecko, and still without authorisation as an e-money token in the European Union. National supervisors, BaFin in Germany, are to wind down the remaining holdings on the platforms, and to do so no later than three months after publication. That date is January 8, 2027.

For your balance this does not mean a freeze overnight. It means a one-way street: selling, swapping, transferring and withdrawing remain possible, while buying more and continuing to trade on an authorised EU platform fall away. How long your provider keeps that window open is decided not by ESMA but by BaFin and by the provider itself. In comparable cases, some exchanges have switched off considerably earlier than the deadline required.

The ESMA opinion of October 8, 2026 in its own words

The document carries the reference ESMA75-113276571-1742 and the title "Opinion on the provision of crypto asset services in relation to non-MiCA-compliant asset-referenced tokens and e-money tokens". An opinion is a formal statement by ESMA addressed to the national supervisory authorities, through which the authority seeks to establish a consistent supervisory practice across the EU; the legal basis is Article 29(1)(a) of the ESMA Regulation, Regulation (EC) No 1095/2010.

The key sentence sits in paragraph 12 and is terse: in ESMA's view, crypto service providers should not provide crypto asset services in relation to ARTs or EMTs that fail to meet the requirements of MiCA. No reprieve, no grandfathering clause, no carve-out for tokens that keep running on a purely technical level. The opinion thereby builds on the earlier line drawn by the European Commission's Q&A 2404 and an older public statement from ESMA, and tightens it noticeably.

One point matters for context. In paragraph 7, ESMA says explicitly that it is not changing its existing position and is not claiming that every individual service around such a token automatically amounts to an offer to the public or an admission to trading within the meaning of Articles 16 and 48 of MiCA. Instead it sets out a broader supervisory expectation: whether an authorised provider may continue to offer such services is measured against its obligations under Title V of MiCA.

ARTs and EMTs: which tokens the opinion captures

MiCA recognises two classes of stablecoin. An asset-referenced token, or ART, keeps its value stable by referencing a basket of several assets, currencies or commodities. An e-money token, or EMT, references exactly one official currency, the euro or the US dollar for instance. The classic dollar stablecoins fall into the second group.

A token is non-MiCA-compliant, according to the footnote in the opinion, where the conditions for a lawful offer to the public or an admission to trading in the EU under Title III or Title IV of MiCA are not met, including any exemptions and transitional provisions. In practice it comes down to a single question: does the issuer hold an EU authorisation and a notified white paper, or not.

The opinion deliberately names no token at all. It is a supervisory benchmark, not a list. Which tokens fall under it follows from the supervisory registers and from the platforms' own notices, not from the document itself.

USDT, PYUSD and the state of MiCA authorisation

CoinDesk, in its coverage of October 8, 2026, frames USDT as the big case in point: by far the largest stablecoin, and unauthorised in the EU. The outlet names PayPal's PYUSD as a second unauthorised token. According to accounts in several trade publications, Tether never applied for authorisation as an e-money token, pointing to MiCA's reserve requirements, which call for a substantial share of the backing to sit in bank deposits inside the EU.

On the other side stands a growing group of authorised tokens. Circle's USDC and the euro stablecoin EURC are issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, an e-money institution authorised in France and supervised by the ACPR; the white papers were notified on July 1, 2024, the day MiCA's stablecoin rules became applicable. Further examples routinely listed as EMTs in the trade press are Société Générale's EURCV, EURI, and the tokens EURQ and USDQ issued by Quantoz Payments. Figures for the overall total diverge, ranging from around 25 authorised issuers to roughly 30 authorised e-money tokens; only the supervisory register gives a reliable answer in any individual case.

According to CoinGecko, USDC stood at a market capitalisation of around $73 billion on October 8, 2026. The gap to USDT is therefore wide, and that is precisely where the practical pressure of the opinion lies: the token with the deepest liquidity is the one meant to disappear from EU order books. The effect on spreads and trading pairs will only become visible once the large platforms name their switchover dates. If you want to compare regulated providers, the overview sits in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

One qualification tends to get lost in the noise of the headlines: the opinion contains no ban for private individuals. It binds authorised providers. Holding, receiving or sending USDT, or swapping it on a decentralised exchange, remains permitted for you. The service is what is prohibited, not the ownership. Just how awkward control over such a balance can still become is clear from Tether's clause on freezing addresses.

Article 66 of MiCA as the lever: notices and warnings are not enough for ESMA

Legally, the opinion hangs on Article 66(1) of MiCA. The provision obliges crypto service providers to act honestly, fairly and professionally in the best interests of their clients. A CASP, meaning a crypto-asset service provider and therefore an authorised crypto service provider, breaches that duty on ESMA's reading if it knowingly exposes its clients to risks that follow solely from a token's unregulated status. What is meant here are the issuer-level safeguards MiCA requires: reserve backing, redemption rights, governance and ongoing reporting obligations.

The most striking passage is paragraph 19. There, ESMA closes off the escape route the industry had counted on: risk warnings, additional disclosures and client acknowledgements are, in the authority's explicit view, inadequate. A warning does not prevent the token from remaining available and usable. And a provider's own risk assessment presupposes complex legal and operational judgements that would differ from firm to firm. Clients, as a result, could hardly assess the significance of missing safeguards accurately.

Paragraph 21 draws the circle of affected services widely. It covers the operation of a trading platform, exchange services, the execution of orders, the reception and transmission of orders, the placing of crypto assets, advice, transfer services, custody and portfolio management. Under paragraph 22, firms are to put in place technical, contractual and organisational controls that prevent EU clients from building or increasing positions in such tokens. That is an instruction aimed at system architecture, not at the small print.

Paragraph 20 adds a supervisory argument that attracts little attention: as long as non-compliant tokens run through authorised firms, national authorities cannot enforce white paper quality and marketing communications, nor monitor whether the trading harms holders' interests. The opinion thus looks beyond investor protection to the enforceability of the rulebook itself.

The three-month deadline runs out on January 8, 2027

The hard number sits in paragraph 27. Where national authorities come across remaining legacy holdings, they should require a wind-down, as quickly as possible and no later than three months after the date of publication of the opinion. It was published on October 8, 2026, which makes January 8, 2027 the outer deadline. Any continuation of services is to stay strictly limited to sale, exchange, transfer and withdrawal, time-limited, risk-based and closely supervised.

Three months is no generous transition in this context. It is the outer edge. The phrase "as quickly as possible" comes first and is the actual requirement; the deadline is the limit, not the target. A firm that does nothing until early January and then invokes January 8 is precisely not meeting the opinion's expectation.

In practical terms: expect dates that fall before January 8, 2027. In paragraph 24, ESMA requires that such residual services be communicated clearly to clients. The notice from your exchange, by email or in your account, is therefore the date that applies to you, not the one in the headline. If you do not look at your portfolio over the Christmas period, you can miss a switchover window that stayed open for only a few weeks.

Paragraph 28 closes the loop: ESMA intends to monitor, together with the national authorities, whether the opinion is applied promptly. An authority that sets a deadline and then measures compliance itself leaves little room for quietly sitting it out.

Sell-only: sale, exchange, transfer and withdrawal remain permitted

Paragraphs 23 and 24 of the opinion provide for a narrowly drawn exception. National authorities may allow providers that do not yet meet the requirements to offer strictly limited residual services, insofar as these are necessary for an orderly wind-down and avoid harm to clients. Permitted on that basis are liquidation, exchange, withdrawal, transfer and the custody of existing holdings. Sell-only describes exactly that state: a trading pair stays open for sales, while the system no longer accepts buy orders.

Not permitted under the same paragraph are new acquisitions, advertising, trading, active distribution and the continued market availability of the token. For holders, the single most important point in that passage is that custody appears on the list of permitted residual services: your balance does not vanish from your account overnight, and withdrawing it to your own wallet remains an expressly contemplated route.

What separates this from an ordinary delisting is the motive. A provider that drops a trading pair for commercial reasons can reinstate it. Here a supervisory expectation stands behind it, one that applies equally to every authorised provider in the EU. Moving to the next platform inside the EU will therefore, predictably, lead to the same result.

BaFin implements the opinion in Germany

Under paragraph 9, the opinion is addressed first and foremost to the national competent authorities. For Germany that is the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht. Under paragraph 25 it is to assess whether an authorised provider within its remit offers services around non-compliant tokens or maintains their availability to clients in the Union, and under paragraph 26 it is to ensure that firms put the corresponding controls in place.

That produces a sequence worth keeping in view. ESMA sets the benchmark, BaFin applies it to specific business models, and only then does the platform give you a date. Between October 8, 2026 and the notice from your provider lies a stretch whose length nobody can currently pin down. How directly BaFin decides on authorisations was on display this autumn in the case of bitcoin.de and its refused MiCAR licence.

Two questions are worth answering separately for your own provider. First: is it authorised in the EU? Only then does the opinion bite directly. Second: which entity holds your account? Large providers often serve EU clients through a dedicated European entity, and only that entity sits under the supervision acting here. Both details appear in your contract documents and in the supervisory registers, not in the app's marketing copy.

A provider without EU authorisation is not the safe haven it looks like. ESMA already has reverse solicitation in its supervisory programme, the practice through which firms in third countries serve EU clients. An account outside the European framework shifts the problem; it does not solve it.

Holding period and the exemption threshold: swapping USDT is a sale

The tax angle is more uncomfortable than it first appears. Anyone who swaps USDT for USDC or for euros disposes of an asset in Germany. The governing rule is Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act with its one-year holding period: where less than a year lies between acquisition and disposal, a gain is taxable, and the exemption threshold for private disposals sits at 1,000 euros per calendar year. Exceed it and the entire gain is taxable, not only the portion above the threshold.

With a dollar stablecoin the instinct is that no gain can arise. The price reads one dollar, before and after. In Germany, though, the calculation is in euros, and the euro-dollar relationship may have shifted considerably between acquisition and swap. That is exactly where the taxable gain or loss comes from, without anything changing in the token's dollar price.

Documentation is the next piece. A forced swap initiated by the platform is a sale for tax purposes like any other, and it requires the acquisition date, the acquisition price and the disposal price. Download your transaction data only after a trading pair has been switched off and an account migrated, and obtaining it can turn laborious. Pull the reports while they are still available. Which tools gather the history automatically is shown in our comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

One note for context, because it is often missing here: this text does not replace tax advice, and the treatment in an individual case turns on your acquisition history. The direction, though, is unambiguous. A swap is not a neutral administrative step but a transaction with tax consequences.

Three routes for your USDT balance

The first route is a swap into an authorised stablecoin. The balance stays in the crypto market, liquidity on European platforms is preserved, and the move triggers the tax consequence described above. A euro EMT is worth considering where the purpose is euro-denominated, and an authorised dollar token where dollar trading pairs are involved.

The second route is a withdrawal in euros. If you hold the balance as a parking position anyway, you lose nothing but the ability to trade at any moment, and deposit insurance applies to a bank account in a way it never did to a stablecoin. The tax consequence is the same as for a swap.

The third route is a withdrawal into your own custody. It preserves the token but changes nothing about its status: you will not be able to trade it on an authorised EU platform afterwards. Take this route and you carry responsibility for the keys yourself, and a transfer to the wrong address cannot be reversed. An overview of the devices sits in our hardware wallet comparison.

Which route fits depends on your purpose. If you hold USDT as a staging post between two positions, a swap into an authorised token solves the problem most cleanly. If the balance has been sitting idle for months, a withdrawal is the simpler step. Make the decision before your exchange sends its notice, not after: in a sell-only window you are trading in a market where many people want the same thing at the same time.

ESMA stablecoin deadline: the exit stays open until January 8, 2027

The opinion appeared on October 8, 2026, the outer deadline for the wind-down is January 8, 2027, and the date that counts for your account comes from your platform. Three steps are enough to avoid running into the last window:

1. Establish your holdings and your provider's status. Open your account and note which stablecoins sit there and which entity your contract runs through. Where the provider is authorised in the EU, the opinion bites directly; the overview sits in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Secure your transaction history. Download the full reports while the trading pair is still active, because the acquisition date and acquisition price determine the tax consequence of the swap. Which tools automate that is set out in our comparison of crypto tax tools.
3. Choose a route and carry it out. Decide between an authorised stablecoin, a euro withdrawal and your own custody, and act before your provider names the date. For the third route, the hardware wallet comparison helps with picking a device.

Sources: opinion ESMA75-113276571-1742 of October 8, 2026 is available via ESMA's MiCA page; the framing, including the references to USDT and PYUSD, comes from CoinDesk's reporting of October 8, 2026. The market figures for USDT and USDC are CoinGecko data as of October 8, 2026.

(As of October 8, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Manus built a self-driving AI assistant before the hype, sold itself to Meta, then watched Beijing unwind the deal. Its first fresh money since: more than $500 million.

Google Cloud unveiled a single Gemini agent that takes goals instead of questions, works in the background for days, and can join a company as a staffer with its own inbox and calendar.

Ethereum's Sepolia test network activated Glamsterdam on October 6 with a block gas limit near 200 million, over three times mainnet's 60 million.

The NFL urged the Supreme Court to resolve a circuit split over whether states can regulate sports contracts on prediction markets, arguing they're gambling, not federally regulated swaps.

A batch of 100.02 BTC mined in July 2010 moved Wednesday after 16 years. It's worth about $8.3 million, but nothing in the transaction shows who owns it.

XRP is facing fresh centralization allegations as Cyber Capital founder Justin Bons accuses the network of forcing validators to adopt closed-source code, calling its decentralization claims "straight-up fraud."

Bitcoin dominance has surged to a one-month high of 60.05% as a brutal crypto market selloff sends major altcoins.

David Schwartz confirmed for Ripple's main stage comeback at Swell 2026 to present the next generation of XRP architecture featuring AI and privacy.

Solana has scored another major institutional win as Securitize launches tokenized shares of Apple, Nvidia, Tesla and other U.S. corporate giants.

XRP whale activity across all exchanges weakens as the asset begins to see massive sell-offs, dropping by 27% in eight days.

TLDR:

• Gemini Custody now opens every net-new account on MPC infrastructure, with existing users to migrate. 
• Withdrawals now typically complete in minutes, ending the wait for legacy daily runs for customers.
• Support expands to Tron, SUI, MON, Hype, Arbitrum and XRPL, along with newer signature schemes. 
• Customers approve transfers with their own passkey while assets stay with Gemini Trust Company, LLC. 

Gemini Custody has transitioned to a multi-party computation (MPC) protocol for its institutional custody service. The company announced that every new account now opens with MPC infrastructure.

Existing customers will move to the new system through a coordinated migration. According to Gemini, withdrawals now typically complete in minutes.

The upgrade also adds support for more blockchains and lets customers approve transfers with their own passkey. Gemini said the change keeps its regulated custodial structure in place.

Faster Withdrawals and Wider Blockchain Support

Gemini shared the update in a post on X. The company wrote that its new MPC technology means “withdrawals completed in minutes.”

The post also listed “support for more blockchains” and the ability to “approve transfers with your own passkey.” Gemini closed the post with “Faster access. More flexibility.” Gemini Custody serves institutional clients that require secure storage for digital assets.

Gemini then published a longer post titled “Gemini’s Shift to Multi-Party Computation Marks a New Era in Crypto Custody.” The company said customers “no longer need to wait for legacy daily runs.”

Instead, Gemini Custody can now process withdrawals much faster. Gemini stated that adoption and transaction volumes continue to grow.

Its MPC system can handle near instantaneous withdrawals while maintaining custom policy approval logic for each team.

Customers can now transact on several new networks. These include Tron, SUI, MON, Hype, Arbitrum, and XRPL. Gemini added that the service now supports newer signature schemes. As a result, the platform can keep pace with changes across the crypto market.

How the MPC Design Works

In the MPC system used by Gemini Custody, key shares are distributed across several parties. Gemini wrote that the complete private key is never assembled, “not in storage, not during signing.” The company added that “each share alone reveals nothing.”

Every transfer is also verified end to end at the signer level. Furthermore, each MPC signer undergoes separate upgrades and operates under independent governance.

This process includes cryptographic attestations to the software running in the environment. Gemini said this gives customers the most secure experience possible.

The company noted that its current multi-signature setup already protects against any single point of failure. According to Gemini, MPC adds to that protection.

The firm also pointed to lower-cost transactions and custody addresses that look like any other. The company stated that this approach modernizes the technology behind its custody service while preserving the custodial relationship.

Passkey Approvals and What Stays the Same

Gemini Custody customers now authorize address-book changes and withdrawals with their own passkey. Gemini said this method is “phishing-resistant because it’s bound to the genuine Gemini site.”

A customer may sign in with one passkey and approve transfers with a separate hardware key. Gemini said the approval policy remains under the customer’s control.

Existing customers will move to new custody accounts. Each network will have new deposit addresses. Gemini said customers will receive details of the transition in a separate communication. Meanwhile, every net-new Gemini Custody account already opens on MPC infrastructure.

Several elements of the service remain unchanged. Assets stay with Gemini Trust Company, LLC, a New York State-chartered trust company and qualified custodian.

Client assets remain segregated on-chain in unique, independently verifiable addresses. Account policies such as Multi-User Approval also stay available and configurable.

In addition, the company said custody infrastructure must keep up with the market. Gemini described the update as the start of Gemini 2.0.

The post Gemini Custody Adopts MPC Technology to Speed Up Crypto Withdrawals appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• BNY now offers regulated digital asset custody to select institutional clients in the European Union.
• BNY’s European entity joined the ESMA MiCA register in July 2026, enabling crypto-asset custody services.
• The platform supports BTC, ETH, SOL and USDC, with plans to add broader crypto-assets and stablecoins.
• Launched in 2022, the platform uses multiparty computation, segregated wallets and private key storage. 

BNY Digital Asset Custody is now available to select institutional clients in the European Union under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. BNY announced the expansion on October 8 in Brussels.

The company is one of the first global systemically important banks to offer regulated digital asset custody in the region.

The service covers custody, administration, and transfer of crypto-assets. It is aimed at clients operating in one of the world’s largest regulated markets for digital assets.

MiCA Registration and Executive Comments

The expansion follows a registry update made in July 2026. The Bank of New York Mellon SA/NV, BNY’s European banking entity, joined the European Securities and Markets Authority MiCA register.

As a result, BNY can provide custody, administration, and transfer services for crypto-assets. These services are available to clients across one of the largest regulated digital asset markets.

Jennifer Barker, Head of Europe at BNY, described the demand behind the launch. She said, “Digital asset adoption is accelerating across Europe.”

She pointed to banks and broker-dealers that are expanding crypto-asset and stablecoin offerings. Asset managers and corporate treasurers are also exploring digital payments and tokenized securities.

Barker also spoke about the standards institutions expect. She said they need solutions with “the same resilience, oversight, and safeguards” they rely on across traditional operations.

In her words, BNY is providing clients with “institutional-grade infrastructure to navigate this transition with confidence.”

The announcement called the update breaking news. It referred to institutional-grade security, risk management, and operational expertise.

Additionally, the post said the platform supports digital cash, tokenized assets, payments, settlement, and collateral mobility.

Platform Security and Supported Assets

Launched in 2022, BNY Digital Asset Custody provides secure safekeeping and servicing of digital assets. The infrastructure includes multiparty computation technology, segregated client wallets, and storage of private keys. BNY designed these controls to support risk management and security across the service.

Through this model, clients can access regulated custody for BTC, ETH, SOL, and USDC. BNY also has ambitions to support broader crypto-assets and stablecoins. For now, the platform serves select institutions in the European Union under the MiCA framework.

Emily Portney, Global Head of Asset Servicing at BNY, explained how the platform was built. She said, “Our platform isn’t a standalone solution.”

According to Portney, it draws on the firm’s existing asset servicing expertise and controls. She added that the expansion equips clients to integrate operations with digital strategies “across the full asset lifecycle.”

Carolyn Weinberg, Chief Innovation and Market Transformation Officer at BNY, commented on the BNY Digital Asset Custody expansion.

She said BNY is “committed to building the financial infrastructure of the future in partnership with our clients.” Weinberg added that the expansion connects traditional and digital financial ecosystems. She also cited continued investment in BNY’s capabilities.

The post BNY Expands Digital Asset Custody in Europe Under MiCA Framework appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• • Extended will migrate its settlement network to Circle’s Arc blockchain during the week of October 19.
  • Holders of over $1 in USDT or wBTC must convert to USDC or cirBTC by 12:00 UTC on October 21. 
  • Converting earns a 0.50% premium paid by Extended, with no swap fees and credit within 8 hours. 
  • Deposits and withdrawals pause for about two hours, while trading and sub-account transfers continue. 

The Extended Arc migration will move its settlement network to Circle’s Arc blockchain during the week of October 19. Extended operates a perpetual DEX offering contracts on stocks, commodities, indices, and crypto.

Arc is a Layer 1 network built for financial markets, and it launched on September 16. Trading will continue throughout the process.

Users holding more than $1 in USDT or wBTC must convert those assets by 12:00 UTC on October 21. Neither asset exists on Arc.

Extended Arc Migration Plan and User Deadline

In a post on X, Extended announced, “Extended is migrating its settlement network to Arc.” The platform listed three improvements.

On infrastructure, it said trades “settle on Arc, with sub-second finality and stablecoin-denominated fees that make costs predictable.” Extended also expects broader real-world asset coverage and deeper liquidity across spot and perpetual markets.

Accounts, sub-accounts, positions, orders, history, points, and keys will carry across unchanged. However, users with more than $1 of USDT or wBTC in a sub-account must act before the deadline. They can convert in the app to USDC or cirBTC at a 1:1 rate plus a 0.50% premium.

Extended pays the premium and charges no swap fees. The premium will be credited within 8 hours after the migration.

One approval in the app covers both assets and every sub-account. Deposits of both assets were disabled as of 16:00 UTC on the day of the announcement.

ETH balances will convert automatically to wETH on Arc at a 1:1 ratio. USDC will migrate as native USDC. Vault and XVS balances, along with withdrawal rights, will be preserved. Other users need to take no action.

Process Risks and Arc Features

Deposits and withdrawals will pause for roughly two hours during the Extended Arc migration. Transfers between sub-accounts will keep working.

Extended advised users to “make sure that open positions are comfortably margined.” Precise timing will be shared closer to the date.

Under the Extended Arc migration rules, users who miss the deadline face account restrictions. Standard liquidation rules still apply, and they cannot add margin or close positions.

Affected sub-account positions close at the mark price with no fee, and open orders are cancelled. Extended returns the assets to the login wallet on Starknet or Ethereum and covers network fees.

Arc mainnet went live on September 16 with four features relevant to a trading venue. These are deterministic sub-second finality, gas paid in USDC, and EVM compatibility. The network also has an institutional validator set. Existing wallets and tooling will continue to work as they do today.

Extended is building a unified platform for trading perpetual contracts across asset classes with varied collateral. That plan requires a settlement layer built for markets and trusted by the institutions that distribute them. Arc launched with BlackRock, DTCC, ICE, Visa, and Mastercard among its founding validators.

The post Extended to Migrate Perpetual DEX Settlement to Circle’s Arc Blockchain appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Walmart (WMT) stock jumps 2.22% to $110.56 following its California hub opening.
• Walmart opens its fifth advanced fulfillment center in Stockton, California.
• The new 900,000-square-foot California facility will create over 1,000 jobs.
• Advanced automation cuts Walmart’s warehouse fulfillment process to five steps.
• Walmart targets next-day or two-day shipping coverage for 95% of Americans.

Walmart (WMT) stock gained 2.22% to close Thursday at $110.56, adding $2.40 before slipping 0.03% to $110.52 after hours. The retailer opened a new fulfillment center in Stockton, California, expanding its West Coast delivery network. The facility will create more than 1,000 jobs and increase Walmart’s capacity to process online orders.

Walmart Inc., WMT

Walmart Expands California Fulfillment Network

Walmart opened its fifth next-generation fulfillment center, covering more than 900,000 square feet in California’s Central Valley. The new Stockton location strengthens the company’s distribution operations across California and neighboring western states. Its location also brings inventory closer to customers and supports faster shipping across the region.

The facility combines automated systems, machine learning, and warehouse employees to handle orders more efficiently. Its storage technology moves products directly to workers, reducing the traditional fulfillment process from 12 steps to five. Employees can process additional orders while spending less time on repetitive warehouse activities.

Walmart expects its advanced fulfillment network to support next-day or two-day shipping for 95% of Americans. The Stockton center also provides additional space for merchandise from independent businesses using Walmart Fulfillment Services. This expansion supports the retailer’s growing online marketplace and its existing network of stores and distribution facilities.

New Facility Creates Over 1,000 Jobs

The Stockton center will employ more than 1,000 associates as Walmart increases operations at the site. The company continues recruiting employees for warehouse operations, technology, and other positions supporting its automated systems. These roles offer opportunities to develop technical skills and pursue longer-term employment within the company.

Walmart provides eligible full-time employees with medical coverage, dental insurance, retirement benefits, and paid leave. Workers can also access its employee stock purchase program and tuition assistance through Live Better U. Meanwhile, the company continues accepting applications through its online careers platform as hiring progresses.

The opening also brings additional economic activity to Stockton and the surrounding San Joaquin County area. Walmart marked the occasion with $10,000 in grants supporting two local education and food assistance organizations. The contributions went to the Emergency Food Bank of Stockton and Unbound Stockton Community School.

Walmart Strengthens Its California Operations

Walmart already employs more than 102,900 associates throughout California across its retail and distribution operations. The company operates more than 300 stores, clubs, and supply chain facilities across the state. Its latest investment expands an established network serving customers through physical locations and online channels.

During 2025, Walmart spent $36.5 billion with California suppliers, supporting approximately 310,304 supplier jobs statewide.Walmart and its foundation contributed more than $84.2 million to California organizations during fiscal 2026. These contributions included cash donations and goods distributed through local community partnerships.

The Stockton opening forms part of Walmart’s broader effort to modernize fulfillment and improve delivery efficiency. Advanced storage systems allow the company to handle larger order volumes without relying entirely on traditional manual processes. The new center adds capacity as Walmart expands its shipping services across the western United States.

The post Walmart (WMT) Stock: Gains as New California Hub Creates 1,000 Jobs appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Tilray Brands (TLRY) stock drops 3.36% to $3.59 despite strong quarterly revenue.
• Tilray’s Q1 revenue jumps 23% to $257.1M, while net losses reach $40 million.
• Beverage revenue surges 82% to $101.5M, supported by the BrewDog acquisition.
• Cannabis revenue declines to $56.1M, despite improved margins reaching 39%.
• Tilray maintains its fiscal 2027 EBITDA outlook of $68M to $75M despite losses.

Tilray Brands (TLRY) stock fell 3.36% to $3.59 at Thursday’s close, despite reporting strong quarterly revenue growth. Shares later recovered 0.61% to $3.6120 in after-hours trading on October 8. The company reported a $40 million first-quarter net loss, while revenue increased 23% year-over-year.

Tilray Brands, Inc., TLRY

Tilray Brands Reports Revenue Growth Despite $40M Loss

Tilray reported record first-quarter revenue of $257.1 million for the period ending August 31, 2026. Revenue increased from $209.5 million during the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, gross profit climbed 35% to $77.5 million, supported by improvements across several business segments.

The company’s gross margin expanded from 27% to 30%, reflecting stronger profitability across its operations. Tilray recorded a net loss of $40 million, largely due to noncash charges. The company reported a loss of $0.32 per share, while adjusted losses totaled $3 million.

Adjusted earnings per share showed a loss of $0.02 during the quarter. Furthermore, adjusted EBITDA declined to $9.2 million from $10.2 million a year earlier. Management attributed part of the decline to approximately $1.7 million in global fuel surcharges.

Beverage Revenue Surges as Cannabis Sales Decline

Tilray’s beverage business generated $101.5 million in revenue, representing an 82% annual increase. The acquisition of BrewDog contributed to this growth and expanded the company’s beverage operations. Beverage gross profit nearly doubled to $42 million, while margins improved from 38% to 41%.

Cannabis revenue declined to $56.1 million from $64.5 million in the previous year. Cannabis gross profit also slipped to $22 million, compared with $23.3 million previously. Despite lower sales, the segment improved its gross margin to 39% from 36%.

Distribution revenue increased 14% to $84.3 million, supported by the company’s pharmaceutical distribution operations. Wellness revenue remained near $15.3 million, although gross profit declined to $4.4 million. These results highlighted differences in performance across Tilray’s cannabis, beverage, distribution, and wellness businesses.

Tilray Maintains Fiscal 2027 Outlook and Cuts Debt

Tilray ended the quarter with $221.4 million in cash, restricted cash, and marketable securities. The company also reduced outstanding debt by $42 million during the fiscal year. These measures strengthened its financial position while management continued integrating recently acquired operations.

For fiscal 2027, Tilray reaffirmed its adjusted EBITDA forecast of $68 million to $75 million. The company expects stronger financial performance during the second half of its fiscal year. Management also expects the fourth quarter to contribute significantly to annual results.

Tilray continues expanding its presence across cannabis, beverages, wellness, and pharmaceutical distribution markets. Its agreement with Carlsberg will introduce production and sales of selected beer brands in the United States. The partnership will begin January 1, 2027, extending Tilray’s beverage operations beyond its existing portfolio.

The post Tilray Brands (TLRY) Stock: Drops as Q1 Net Loss Hits $40M and Revenue Jumps 23% appeared first on Blockonomi.

Samsung is teaming up with Solana to allow users in the United States to send money across borders using USDC starting in the last week of October 2026.

The feature will be available through Samsung Wallet and Samsung Pay.

Major Mainstream Partner

According to the official press release, the launch will be available across 82 million US Galaxy devices. More markets are expected to follow depending on local regulatory requirements. Solana will run behind the scenes. Users will not need to manage a separate crypto tool to make the transfers. Samsung Wallet will also include integrated fiat on- and off-ramps, which will allow users to convert between local currency and stablecoins within the experience.

The tech giant said the goal is to make stablecoin transfers feel as familiar as other features already available in its wallet.

Woncheol Chai, EVP and Head of the Digital Wallet Team at Samsung Electronics’ Mobile eXperience business, said

“Samsung Wallet is about making useful experiences feel simple and intuitive. Stablecoins have the potential to make moving money around the world faster and easier, and we want Galaxy users to be able to take advantage of that without having to navigate the complexity of traditional crypto tools. Solana helps us bring that experience to Samsung’s scale.”

The partnership also comes as stablecoin activity on Solana continues to grow. Stablecoin supply on the network has increased nearly 20% year over year. Solana has also processed more than $5.25 trillion in stablecoin volume during 2026 alone. Companies such as PayPal and Western Union are already using Solana for stablecoin activity.

The latest development has yet to give SOL’s price much of a boost. The crypto asset was down around 3% over the past 24 hours. At the time of writing, it was trading near $115.

Other Developments

Separately, the Solana Foundation officially joined the x402 Foundation earlier in April as one of the founding members.

The following month, the Swiss non-profit organization and Google Cloud launched Pay.sh, a platform that lets AI agents pay for API services using Solana-based stablecoins. The service removes the need for accounts, API keys, and subscriptions, thereby allowing agents to access services independently while handling payments and billing automatically through the gateway.

The post 82 Million Samsung Galaxy Devices Could Soon Get Native Solana Stablecoin Transfers appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Hunter Biden has said that a forensic review of the LAPTOP launch found the token’s extreme rise and collapse were caused by unusually thin liquidity and later market-maker activity, while on-chain records showed the founders had not sold their allocation.

The account challenges the earlier perception of a rug pull, but the market makers remain unnamed (merely referred to as Market Maker 1 and Market Maker 2), and the investigation was commissioned by the project team.

LAPTOP Launch Exposed By Thin Liquidity

Biden said Groom Lake reviewed every recorded trade from the launch and found that a market maker given $500,000 deployed only about $5,200 into the initial pool. Fewer than 30,000 LAPTOP tokens were available there, creating a market where just $6 of buying could move the price 5%, compared with about $7,400 of selling needed for the same move.

Groom Lake compared 668 other launches and found none with a similar imbalance. LAPTOP then climbed from $0.05 to about $317 in under two minutes before ending the first hour 98% below its peak. Eighty-four seconds after the high, the liquidity position linked by the report to Market Maker 1 was withdrawn, reducing cash available to sellers near the quoted price from about $16,157 to zero.

The report also found gains associated with both market makers. The Market Maker 1-linked liquidity position ended up about $686,000 ahead, while activity linked to Market Maker 2 recorded more than $2.1 million in net USDC receipts under the report’s specified accounting.

Biden acknowledged responsibility for hiring the firms and called on the market maker he believes mishandled the launch to buy the tokens back and burn them.

Founder Wallet Remains Untouched

One point has stronger on-chain support. Groom Lake found that the wallet holding the 300 million LAPTOP founder allocation, equal to 30% of the original supply, made no outgoing token transfers through October 2. Biden also said his allocation is locked for six months and then vests over two years.

The token now trades near $0.08, up about 10% on the day, with a market cap around $29 million versus roughly $560 million on launch day. Daily volume is up 143% from a day earlier to $4.6 million, according to CoinGecko, signaling a rise in market activity that coincided with Biden’s report.

Reaction to the new accounting remains divided. Trader Crypto Bitlord argued that Biden may have been misled by inexperienced market makers, while lawyer Hailey Lennon dismissed the explanation as a post-mortem for what still looked like a rug pull.

However, Nicki Sanders, a crypto consultant, took a more cautious view, noting that the founder wallet claim can be checked on-chain but that the report was commissioned by Biden’s team and the market makers have not publicly responded.

The post Hunter Biden Blames Market Maker for LAPTOP Meme Coin Collapse appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – George Town, , October 8, 2026 —, Cayman Islands, October 8th, 2026]

THORChain, a decentralized exchange, announced that native Zcash (ZEC) swaps are now live, allowing users to exchange ZEC with assets across other supported blockchain networks without relying on wrapped tokens or a centralized exchange.

The launch follows THORChain update 3.20, which introduced support for Zcash and Monero to the protocol. The Zcash pool currently holds more than $50,000 in liquidity, allowing the network to begin processing live ZEC swaps.

The pool remains in a soft-launch phase while performance is monitored. Trading may be temporarily paused if bugs or other issues need to be addressed. The current pool size can easily support trades in the five-figure range, however larger trades will experience higher slippage and take longer to settle until liquidity grows in the pool.

Protocol-Owned Liquidity (POL) will be automatically added to the Zcash pool when the fees/depth ratio is high enough. POL, introduced as part of the 3.20 upgrade, gives the protocol a mechanism to deploy a portion of the liquidity fees (currently set at 20%) into supported liquidity pools. As more liquidity enters the ZEC pool, it will be better equipped to support larger swaps with lower price impact and faster execution.

The integration gives Zcash holders a direct route into the broader crypto market using native assets. Users can swap ZEC against supported assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and stablecoins without needing to deposit their Zcash with a centralized custodian or convert it into a wrapped representation on another network.

Zcash adds another native blockchain to THORChain’s cross-chain liquidity network, bringing the total to 14 blockchains. Rather than move assets through bridges or require users to give up custody to trade between otherwise disconnected networks, THORChain settles swaps using the native assets on their respective chains.

The soft launch will allow the network to test Zcash swaps under real market conditions while liquidity develops. The Zcash pool and its current liquidity can be tracked here.

About THORChain

THORChain is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that enables users to swap native digital assets across different blockchain networks without relying on wrapped assets or centralized custodians. It allows users to exchange assets including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other supported cryptocurrencies while maintaining a self-custodial experience.

Users can swap assets here: swap.thorchain.org

Swap | Website | X | Telegram | LinkedIn

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NEAR Protocol’s native token has been on an absolute tear. While the rest of the crypto market’s momentum cooled, NEAR held on to its rally. It pushed into the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap this week after posting around 125% gains in the last 30 days before correcting earlier today.

According to Bitwise’s Matt Hougan, NEAR stands out because its big AI vision is backed by a business that is already generating real activity and revenue.

AI Ambition

NEAR rose 198% in the third quarter, well ahead of Bitcoin and Ethereum. But for Hougan, the bigger story is what the project is building and how that business is developing. NEAR calls itself “the blockchain for AI.” Its long-term goal is to become the infrastructure for AI agents that can transact with each other and interact with the wider world.

The main criticism is also clear. NEAR is not actually being used mainly by AI agents today. Its users are still mostly humans. But that has not stopped one of its products from gaining serious traction, Hougan said. NEAR Intents has now processed more than $30 billion in cumulative volume. The Bitwise CIO explained that the product is on track to generate around $45 million in fees this year. Some of those fees are returned to tokenholders through buybacks.

Intents allows users to move across crypto networks without having to deal with the usual complexity of wallets, bridges and exchanges. A network of market-making bots, known as solvers, handles the transactions behind the scenes. For Hougan, this is important because Intents is no longer just a product built around a future AI use case. He described it as a “real business” today.

“Even if AI agents never become a big deal, or if NEAR doesn’t capture all of that opportunity, I think NEAR is still positioned to do well. In other words, when I’m investing in NEAR, I’m buying an exciting blockchain business; the AI moonshot is gravy.”

Bitwise launched a spot NEAR exchange-traded fund, under the ticker NRR, on NYSE Arca last month, with Coinbase Custody as custodian.

$3.8 Million Exploit

NEAR Intents suffered a security exploit on Thursday that resulted in around $3.8 million in losses. The incident forced the platform to pause services and temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals across several blockchains.

According to the official update, the issue came from a bug involving its Omni deposit and withdrawal system and the NEAR Intents smart contract. The vulnerability has since been patched, and the project said affected users will be fully reimbursed for their losses.

The post NEAR Cracks the Top 20: Why Bitwise’s Matt Hougan Is Paying Attention appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum’s prolonged consolidation beneath resistance has pushed the asset lower, sending it toward $2.42K. The breakdown has weakened short-term structure, while the broader recovery now depends on buyers defending the support areas below.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Ethereum has fallen sharply after repeatedly failing to clear the $2.68K–$2.77K resistance zone. The large bearish candle marks a departure from the recent consolidation, suggesting that sellers have gained control of the immediate price action.

Momentum has also deteriorated, with the daily RSI dropping to approximately 44 and moving below neutral. Nevertheless, Ethereum remains above both major moving averages. The 100-day average, near $2.21K, has already crossed above the 200-day average around $2.13K, preserving a constructive longer-term backdrop despite the current correction.

The highlighted $2.36K–$2.42K demand zone is the next major daily support area. The ascending trendline approaches this region, creating a potential confluence where buyers may attempt to stabilize the price.

Holding this area would keep the broader recovery structure intact, while a sustained breakdown would expose the moving-average region around $2.13K–$2.21K. On the upside, reclaiming the $2.68K–$2.77K supply zone remains necessary to restore a stronger bullish outlook.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows a decisive bearish break from a symmetrical triangle. After compressing between descending resistance and ascending support, Ethereum fell beneath the lower boundary near $2.68K and extended its decline toward $2.42K. The limited rebound following the selloff suggests that buyers have yet to establish a convincing recovery.

The RSI is now around 26, placing short-term momentum in oversold territory. This could support a temporary relief bounce, although oversold conditions alone do not confirm a reversal. Any recovery would initially face resistance around $2.6K–$2.62K, followed by the broken triangle boundary and supply zone near $2.68K–$2.7K.

As selling pressure persisted, the highlighted $2.40K–$2.42K demand zone became the next important support area. Failure to defend it would increase the risk of a move toward the September lows around $2.36K–$2.38K. Conversely, sustained acceptance back above the triangle’s former support would weaken the bearish breakdown scenario and allow another challenge of $2.77K.

Sentiment Analysis

The two-week Binance ETH/USDT liquidation heatmap shows that the latest decline has moved through the previously dense estimated liquidation bands around $2.6K–$2.65K. These bands fade behind the falling price, consistent with leveraged positions being cleared as Ethereum moved lower, although the heatmap does not quantify actual executed liquidations.

With Ethereum now near $2.56K, the remaining nearby downside concentrations appear around $2.52K–$2.54K, with additional bands toward $2.48K–$2.5K. These areas could become relevant if the correction continues, particularly as the lower clusters approach the technical demand zone.

Above price, a nearby band remains around $2.63K–$2.64K, while the most prominent overhead concentration sits around $2.78K–$2.84K. A sustained recovery could bring these pools into focus, but the current technical breakdown favors caution until Ethereum reclaims its lost support. The liquidation distribution highlights potential areas of accelerated volatility rather than guaranteeing the next direction.

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