The scrutiny over Collins' campaign could sway voter sentiment, potentially altering the competitive landscape of the Maine Senate race.

The post Susan Collins’ campaign faces scrutiny over strategist’s payments to husband appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

House lawmakers expanded their prediction market insider trading probe to Hyperliquid, Crypto.com and Aristotle-linked platforms.

The post House expands prediction market insider trading probe to Hyperliquid and Crypto.com appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Anthropic's massive AI infrastructure commitments highlight the escalating financial stakes and strategic flexibility in the AI industry.

The post Anthropic could pay SpaceX up to $84.5B for computing capacity through 2029 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

AI-driven investments are exacerbating inflationary pressures, complicating monetary policy and highlighting the need for adaptive economic strategies.

The post Federal Reserve’s Barr says AI is feeding inflation before it fixes it appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The rebranding reflects a strategic shift towards crypto treasury management, potentially influencing corporate finance models and investor dynamics.

The post BNB Standard Corporation rebrands from CEA Industries after community vote appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Morgan Stanley Has ‘Digital Asset Lab’ To Test Crypto Products: Report

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley has launched a “digital asset lab” to test crypto products, according to reports. 

Bloomberg on Tuesday reported that the bank was using the lab to test products like stablecoins, tokenized assets and decentralized finance apps. 

Morgan Stanley is one of many banks delving deeper into the crypto world. The traditional finance titan became the first bank to debut a bitcoin exchange-traded fund in April. 

The fund, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, now manages over $871 million in assets, according to its website.  

Citing an interview with Megan Brewer, who is head of firmwide market innovation and labs at the bank, Bloomberg reported that the lab gives Morgan Stanley a “secure, compliant and segregated environment to be able to test and explore some of these new areas of digital assets.” 

The report added that the lab’s team is working to test products like tokenized deposits, central-bank digital currencies and tokenized money market funds.

Morgan Stanley has a number of so-called labs to test out new products, the report continued. 

Morgan Stanley has been making big crypto moves for years now. Back in 2021, it started offering wealthy clients exposure to bitcoin via funds such as those by Galaxy Digital.

Last year, the bank’s CEO and Chairman, Ted Pick, said that the bank was working with regulators to see how they could offer crypto products safely.

Back in April, the bank’s head of digital assets, Amy Oldenburg said client education — not product design — is the central challenge facing Bitcoin adoption.

Top banks worldwide are working on offering products that use Bitcoin’s underlying technology. These products include everything from tokenized equities and stablecoins to bitcoin custody and trading platforms. 

This post Morgan Stanley Has ‘Digital Asset Lab’ To Test Crypto Products: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

André Dragosch: Why Bitcoin’s Fair Value is $197,000

The 10-year Treasury yield is spiking, and Bitwise’s André Dragosch has a rule of thumb for when that becomes dangerous: 80 basis points in 20 trading days. He explains why the speed of the move matters more than the level, how a stock market correction could force a Fed pivot, and why that pivot could be the last domino before a genuine Bitcoin bull market.

Chapters:
0:00 Operation Choke Point 2.0 and Crypto’s Shift to Republicans
0:37 Will Democrats Stop Fighting Bitcoin and Crypto?
1:53 Hunter Biden on Elizabeth Warren’s Crypto Stance
2:44 Blockchain in the Age of AI and Bitcoin Going to Zero
3:34 Why Hunter Biden Launched a Meme Token
4:57 Bitcoin for the Unbanked and Cross-Border Payments
5:52 Hunter Biden on Michael Saylor and Strategy
7:50 Crypto Payments for His Art and the Blockchain Art Economy
9:02 Global Bitcoin Adoption and the Meme Economy
11:20 Is Fiat a Sham? Banks, Argentina, and Wall Street

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

This post André Dragosch: Why Bitcoin’s Fair Value is $197,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Solari Capital Founder Scaramucci: Betting on Bitcoin & Exponential Technology

Solari Capital just came out of stealth with $350 million deployed across AI, biotech, and Bitcoin. Founder AJ Scaramucci explains his “programmable reality” thesis: exponential computing power is turning biology, matter, intelligence, and finance into programmable systems. He also covers why Bitcoin is a core bet against monetary debasement.

Chapters:
0:00 AJ Scaramucci and Solari Capital’s Programmable Reality Thesis
1:22 Programmable Matter: Robotics, Alchemy, and Embodied AI
2:56 Physical Superintelligence and the Next Paradigm in Physics
4:16 How Close Are Humanoid Robots? Lessons From Waymo
5:27 Bitcoin and Monetary Debasement in Solari’s Framework
6:56 Scarcity vs. Abundance: Gold and Bitcoin vs. the Mag 7
8:23 Frontier AI Labs, Open Source, and the Application Layer
9:12 Treasure Trove and Collectibles as a Cultural Store of Value
11:39 The Dinosaur Fossil Market: T-Rex as an Asset Class
13:26 Fission Labs, Tokenized Private Shares, and the Future of IPOs

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

This post Solari Capital Founder Scaramucci: Betting on Bitcoin & Exponential Technology first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Hunter Biden on Bitcoin, Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and $LAPTOP

Hunter Biden’s $LAPTOP token dropped more than 98% within minutes of launch, and now he’s explaining what happened. In this interview, he walks through the plan to list on a centralized exchange, the switch to a decentralized exchange, and the market maker liquidity miss he blames for the crash. He also shares his 2028 Bitcoin price prediction.

Chapters:
0:00 Why Hunter Biden Named His Token $LAPTOP
1:36 What Went Wrong With the $LAPTOP Launch
7:07 $LAPTOP vs. the Trump Token: Tokenomics and Transparency
10:46 Operation Choke Point 2.0 and Lobbying His Father
13:30 Will Democrats Ever Get Behind Bitcoin and Crypto?
19:24 Hunter Biden on Michael Saylor and Strategy
21:22 Bitcoin Payments for Art and Global Bitcoin Adoption
24:52 Is Fiat a Sham? Banks, Wall Street, and Bitcoin
28:32 Silk Road, Bad Actors, and Crypto’s Partisan Shift
31:34 Hunter Biden’s 2028 Bitcoin Price Prediction

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

This post Hunter Biden on Bitcoin, Operation Chokepoint 2.0, and $LAPTOP first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Gary Cardone: Wall Street Is Taking Over Bitcoin — For Good

The Clarity Act cloture vote failed, and Bitcoin rallied anyway. Gary Cardone, co-founder of Chargebacks911, explains why bad news has been bullish, why he thinks $75K will hold, and why he still has bids set at $66K and $68K. He also shares why he’d welcome one more retest of the low $70s.

Chapters:
0:00 Gary Cardone on Bitcoin’s Rally After the Clarity Act Vote Failed
1:38 Capital Rotation to AI and Bitcoin’s Weak Push to $126K
2:23 Why Gary Cardone Parked His Money in STRC
3:13 Collecting 10–12 Bitcoin From STRC Dividends
3:55 Why You Don’t Need to Chase Bitcoin — His $66K and $68K Bids
4:51 STRC vs. Other Preferreds: Liquidity, Yield, and Tax Treatment
6:21 Why $1M–$5M Bitcoin Price Targets Are a Bad Pitch
8:05 Bitcoin’s Real Supply and a Realistic Market Cap Target
10:05 Wall Street, the New Guard, and Bitcoin–Fiat Arbitrage
11:05 What Real Bitcoin Mass Adoption Looks Like

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

This post Gary Cardone: Wall Street Is Taking Over Bitcoin — For Good first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Anthropic is preparing one of the largest IPOs on record, asking investors to finance an unusually expensive race for artificial intelligence dominance.

The Claude developer has confidentially filed for an initial public offering that could value it at more than $2 trillion, according to a prospectus reviewed by Reuters. The listing is now expected after the November US midterm elections.

The filing offers the clearest look yet at the economics, dependencies and technological risks behind a company whose valuation has multiplied alongside demand for generative AI.

It also presents prospective shareholders with an unusual proposition: Anthropic is expanding at extraordinary speed, but doing so requires enormous spending commitments while its founders retain control over major corporate decisions.

The seven co-founders plan to exercise 50.1% of voting power on key matters through a special Founder LLC and Class F share. Anthropic cautioned that decisions made under that structure could sometimes conflict with ordinary shareholders' financial interests.

Anthropic's growth comes with a $518 billion compute bill

Anthropic's revenue jumped 1,088% in 2025 to $4.59 billion as businesses and developers increased their use of Claude.

However, that growth came at considerable cost.

The company posted an $8.06 billion operating loss after spending $7.33 billion on compute and infrastructure, up 190% from the previous year. It finished December with $20.28 billion in cash and short-term investments.

Its reported net loss was substantially larger at almost $42 billion, though roughly $34 billion stemmed from accounting adjustments tied largely to financing instruments whose value increased alongside Anthropic's rising valuation rather than operating expenses.

The prospectus also highlights revenue concentration. Anthropic's two largest direct customers each generated 12% of sales in 2025, while many major customers are not bound by long-term contracts and can reduce their spending.

Its infrastructure obligations offer considerably less flexibility.

According to the IPO prospectus, Anthropic has committed roughly $518 billion to cloud capacity, chips and related infrastructure over the coming decade. About 80% of those obligations are either non-cancelable or require payment even when the company does not use all of the contracted capacity.

Google accounts for at least $111.1 billion of commitments through 2033, while Amazon is due about $110 billion through 2036. Anthropic has another $31.4 billion commitment to Microsoft and about $161.2 billion of largely non-cancelable equipment leases associated with Broadcom.

An agreement involving Elon Musk's xAI could add as much as $84.5 billion of Nvidia-based capacity through 2029, although much of that arrangement can be canceled with 90 days' notice. AMD has separately agreed to provide more than $20 billion of compute and could buy as much as $5 billion of Anthropic stock.

The commitments amount to a massive wager that demand for frontier AI will remain strong enough to absorb years of reserved computing capacity.

They also deepen Anthropic's reliance on some of its biggest strategic rivals. Amazon, Google and Microsoft variously invest in Anthropic, distribute Claude, provide computing infrastructure and operate competing AI businesses.

Anthropic warned that those overlapping relationships may not always align with its interests.

The company is responding by moving beyond its reliance on public cloud providers and toward dedicated data centers and directly leased equipment, shifting more infrastructure exposure onto its own balance sheet.

Claude's own capabilities feature among the IPO risks

Anthropic devoted roughly 80 pages of its 261-page IPO prospectus to risks, including scenarios that go far beyond conventional competition, regulation or cybersecurity disclosures.

The company warned that increasingly capable AI systems could resist efforts to shut them down, conceal information from developers or manipulate people overseeing them.

Controlled evaluations have produced behavior resembling blackmail, code sabotage and assistance with fraudulent activity, while some capabilities have appeared unexpectedly during training.

Anthropic also said future models may recognize when they are being tested and alter their behavior accordingly, potentially making safety evaluations less reliable.

That uncertainty extends to capabilities researchers may not discover until after deployment.

The company warned that sufficiently advanced systems could ultimately pose catastrophic or even existential risks to humanity, putting one of the industry's most severe theoretical concerns directly inside the disclosure document underpinning its planned stock sale.

Managing those dangers carries its own commercial cost.

Anthropic said safety research competes for scarce computing resources and technical talent, while the financial return from that spending is difficult to quantify. During one week in July, about 6% of computing capacity devoted to AI research went toward safety work.

The company has also passed on businesses that could generate additional revenue. Anthropic said it chose not to prioritize image and video generation, directing resources instead toward other research and safety objectives.

At the same time, Claude's economics require frequent improvements. Anthropic said customer usage tends to rise around new releases, forcing it to maintain an overlapping cycle of model development to remain competitive.

That leaves management balancing three demands that could increasingly collide after the IPO: maintaining technological leadership, funding safety work, and generating returns for shareholders.

Its corporate structure gives the founders considerable room to make that choice themselves.

None of it has broken the $2 trillion trade

The disclosures have so far produced little evidence of a fundamental reassessment in markets already wagering on Anthropic's eventual public valuation.

Data from CoinGlass shows that Anthropic-linked pre-IPO perpetual contracts remained near $2,000, corresponding to an implied valuation of roughly $2 trillion under the contracts' pricing convention.

Prices were about 2% lower over 24 hours, while open interest remained around $80 million. The contracts are roughly 10% below a Sept. 9 peak, but the prospectus disclosures have not triggered another sharp leg lower.

A separate synthetic market showed a similarly limited reaction.

CoinGecko data shows that Anthropic PreStocks traded near $1,087, down about 1.6% over 24 hours while remaining roughly 3.4% higher over the previous seven days. The instrument had traded around $1,055 before details from the prospectus began circulating.

Neither market represents Anthropic common equity. Pre-IPO perpetuals are derivatives tied to an implied future valuation, while PreStocks holders do not receive voting rights, dividends, or direct ownership in the company. Their thinner liquidity also makes them less reliable than price discovery in a conventional equity offering.

They nevertheless provide one of the few real-time gauges of how speculative markets are digesting the filing before Anthropic begins formally marketing shares to institutional investors.

So far, traders appear willing to look through the company's historical losses, enormous infrastructure commitments and even its warnings about the behavior of its own technology.

However, that confidence is not universal.

Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said Anthropic could still become a blockbuster IPO but argued that developments in recent weeks should weigh on its price. He put the margin of safety for new investors at around a $1 trillion valuation, saying that level could still deliver substantial gains to existing shareholders while allowing Anthropic to raise roughly $200 billion.

That view leaves a wide gap between what some investors consider an attractive entry point and the valuation still embedded in synthetic markets.

The real test will come when Anthropic releases its public registration statement and bankers begin taking orders.

A deal marketed much closer to $1 trillion would force pre-IPO traders to confront a valuation roughly half the level they are currently assigning the company. An offering near $2 trillion would show that public investors are willing to underwrite much the same bet.

The post Anthropic lost $42 billion, warned AI could resist shutdowns, but traders still price it at $2 trillion appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is scrutinizing a crypto-linked ETF tax strategy as Washington intensifies its campaign against structures designed to avoid taxable gains.

The Treasury Department and IRS identified digital assets as one area where fund managers may be stretching tax provisions beyond their intended purpose, opening the door to additional rules or enforcement.

On X, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the agencies were “serious about cracking down on transactions designed to dodge taxes or exploit our federal tax code,” casting the notice as part of a broader push against tax-motivated investment strategies.

The move puts a fresh tax question over a crypto ETF market that has spent the past year adopting the same in-kind machinery long used by traditional funds. Last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved in-kind creations and redemptions for spot crypto exchange-traded products, saying the change could reduce costs and price slippage.

Treasury stopped short of challenging the conventional ETF redemptions. Instead, its concern centers on structures that use those transactions to achieve tax outcomes regulators say may bear little relationship to a fund’s underlying economics.

Crypto enters the IRS crosshairs through a 90% tax test

At issue is a rule governing regulated investment companies (RICs), which include much of the US ETF industry.

To preserve their favorable tax treatment, RICs generally must derive at least 90% of annual gross income from qualifying sources, including dividends, interest, and gains involving stocks, securities, and certain currencies.

Treasury said some ETFs argue they can keep gains from assets outside those categories out of the calculation altogether.

The notice specifically points to funds holding commodities or digital assets, either directly or through a grantor trust. Instead of selling an appreciated position, the fund can use it to satisfy an in-kind redemption by an authorized participant.

Under Section 852(b)(6), ETFs can generally distribute appreciated property during qualifying redemptions without recognizing the embedded gain. Some funds therefore contend that the unrecognized gain should also be excluded when determining whether they passed the RIC income test.

Treasury said the strategy could allow an ETF to limit the income subject to the 90% threshold regardless of its actual economic income, signaling skepticism toward that interpretation.

That does not amount to a ban. The government has requested information on the practice and is considering what action, if any, should follow.

Its treatment contrasts with another strategy caught in the same regulatory sweep. Revenue Ruling 2026-20 rejects certain prearranged transactions in which investors contribute appreciated securities to an ETF before quickly removing those assets through redemptions, allowing investors to emerge with a different portfolio without initially recognizing the embedded gain.

Bessent was more categorical about those Section 351 conversions, saying the transactions “don’t work under existing law.”

The IRS said the arrangements can be recharacterized as taxable exchanges, putting them at a more advanced stage of the government’s crackdown than the digital-asset strategy identified in the accompanying notice.

Crypto in-kind infrastructure has already reached billions

The scrutiny arrives after in-kind transfers rapidly became a significant part of the plumbing behind US crypto investment products.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) distributed about $5.49 billion of Bitcoin through in-kind redemptions during the first six months of 2026, according to its latest quarterly filing. Roughly $3.85 billion occurred during the second quarter.

Its iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) distributed another $1.72 billion of Ethereum in kind through June, taking the combined total for the two BlackRock products to about $7.22 billion in six months.

IBIT also received about $9.36 billion of Bitcoin through in-kind creations over the period, reflecting how quickly direct crypto transfers between funds and authorized participants have expanded since the SEC abandoned the cash-only model.

Those transactions are not evidence that BlackRock is using the strategy Treasury identified.

IBIT and ETHA are treated as grantor trusts for federal income-tax purposes, meaning gains and losses pass through to shareholders rather than being subject to the RIC income test at the center of the IRS notice.

However, their activity shows the scale of the infrastructure now available to funds seeking to move crypto in kind.

Treasury’s concern applies to a separate category: RICs that obtain digital-asset exposure directly or through vehicles such as grantor trusts and then use redemptions to remove appreciated positions whose gains could otherwise complicate the 90% test.

That distinction could become more consequential as asset managers embed crypto exposure inside multi-asset, income and actively managed ETF strategies rather than relying solely on stand-alone Bitcoin or ETH products.

Fund managers may face scrutiny before new rules arrive

Treasury has left itself several options for what comes next.

Notice 2026-62 says regulators could respond with regulations, revenue rulings or other guidance, and could potentially designate certain arrangements as transactions of interest or listed transactions, classifications that can bring heightened reporting requirements.

New guidance also would not necessarily apply only to future trades.

The agencies said any action could be prospective or, where their legal authority allows, retroactive to transactions completed before the guidance is issued. The IRS separately warned that it can challenge an abusive investment-fund strategy during an examination under existing law without waiting for a new rule.

That means managers using crypto-linked RIC structures may have to assess their exposure before Treasury decides whether to formalize a new standard.

Funds whose tax treatment depends on removing appreciated digital assets through redemption baskets could face pressure to document the economic purpose of those transactions, reconsider how baskets are constructed, or limit structures that rely on excluding those gains from the RIC income calculation.

For sponsors designing the next generation of crypto-linked ETFs, that uncertainty could become a product constraint. Structures that looked tax-efficient under existing interpretations may now require different portfolio mechanics, additional legal opinions, or a wider margin of safety before they reach the market.

The post A $7 billion crypto ETF plumbing boom just ran into the IRS appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds drew just $31 million in inflows on Sept. 28 as institutional demand weakened while BTC stalled below a major supply barrier.

According to SoSoValue data, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led the session with $54.84 million in inflows, adding about 657 Bitcoin and lifting its holdings back above 800,000 BTC for the first time since May 26.

Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust (BTC) added another $10.32 million, while Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) recorded $10.90 million in outflows and Grayscale’s GBTC lost $23.19 million. The remaining products registered no net flows during the session.

The $31.07 million intake extended the positive streak for US spot Bitcoin ETFs to eight trading sessions, but it also marked the weakest day of that run.

The trend has deteriorated steadily since Sept. 21, when daily inflows approached $1 billion. Flows declined through the remainder of last week before falling to just $31 million Monday, leaving the latest total about 97% below that peak.

That slowdown contrasts with the strength of the broader weekly figures. The funds attracted $2.4 billion last week, their strongest weekly inflow of 2026 and the largest since October 2025.

The surge was enough to flip year-to-date flows back into positive territory after the funds had been roughly $5.8 billion in the red as recently as July. Moreover, the latest inflow has lifted the products' month-to-date flows to $2.73 billion and 2026 net inflows to about $1.01 billion, according to SoSoValue.

Bitcoin stalls at heavy supply zone

The slowdown in ETF demand is becoming more consequential as Bitcoin struggles to extend its recovery.

Bitcoin traded around $84,000 after retreating from last week’s move above $87,000, bringing it back toward a price zone where Glassnode says long-term-holder supply is heavily concentrated.

According to the analytics firm, more long-term-holder coins sit between $84,000 and $85,000 than at any other level on its cost-basis distribution. That concentration could increase selling pressure as holders return to breakeven or move back into profit.

Glassnode said Bitcoin needs to break through the zone and hold above it for the rally to continue.

ETF demand has helped absorb that supply during the September advance. Glassnode said inflows supported last week’s roughly 4% gain even as perpetual-futures traders and profit-takers sold into the move.

The shrinking size of those inflows therefore leaves less institutional demand available as Bitcoin tests the supply cluster.

At roughly $84,000 per Bitcoin, Monday’s $31 million net inflow was equivalent in value to fewer than 400 BTC. By comparison, the nearly $1 billion entering the funds at the start of last week was equivalent to more than 11,000 BTC at similar prices.

ETF flows do not translate directly into an identical amount of same-day spot buying, but the comparison shows how sharply the marginal institutional bid has declined.

That puts the next several sessions in focus. A renewed pickup in ETF buying could help Bitcoin absorb supply around $84,000 to $85,000 and reopen the path higher. If inflows keep shrinking or turn negative, the cryptocurrency may struggle to clear the zone that has already stalled its latest advance.

The post Bitcoin’s $84,000 wall gets harder to break as ETF inflows sink to $31 million appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Zano’s team says it will draw on the blockchain network’s developer fund, team members’ personal funds and committed contributors to finance recovery from an emergency rollback. The rollback removed roughly a month of previously confirmed transactions from the recovered Zano chain. The team update gives no funding amount or timetable for payments.

The team says the network is stable and it is working with partners to verify affected activity. ZANO supply and emission will remain unchanged, it said. The named sources are a funding plan, not a published guarantee that every loss will be covered. Eligibility rules and a claims process have yet to be released.

Zano’s emergency release, published Sept. 27, restarted the chain from block 3,833,000, which the release dates to Aug. 26 at 15:50 UTC. Transactions recorded on the previous chain after that point are absent from the recovered chain.

The core team said a Gateway Address vulnerability had allowed unauthorized ZANO and Freedom Dollar, or fUSD, to enter circulation. It reported no compromise of wallet spend keys or ordinary transaction privacy, while a full post-mortem remains pending. The team also said the rollback cannot undo payments already settled in USDT, DAI or other assets on separate networks. That distinction matters for a swap or trade with a Zano transaction on one side and an external payment on the other.

What affected users can do

Zano says affected users need take no claims action yet; it will publish instructions after working with partners and counterparties. Zano’s verified forum account said no claims process was live in its recent reply and advised users to save transaction IDs plus trade and exchange records. It said users can open a support ticket to put a case on record, but nobody can preapprove a claim before the rules are published.

The core team has told users to update their wallets and check a payment’s final status on the recovered chain before resending it. It is supporting exchanges, wallets and payment services as they move over, but each operator must make its own update and announce when ready. Users should confirm a service has adopted the recovered chain before sending funds to or from it.

Zano has promised a further update on wallets, services and exchanges and a post-mortem of the Gateway Address flaw. Affected users still need the separate claims instructions to know what records will count and whether the stated funding can cover their losses.

The post Zano rolls back a month of transactions as team plans to use personal funds for recovery appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Solana's faster clock has not, so far, brought a network-wide jump in skipped slots. But a Solana Foundation study published Sept. 28 found a less even result underneath that stable headline: vote latency rose as the network moved through shorter slot targets, and validators with less stake lost a larger share of vote credits than the stake-weighted network average at 250 milliseconds.

That difference matters because vote credits feed into staking rewards. The Foundation reported group credit-loss fractions, not individual SOL payouts. Its findings make the proposed move to 200ms an economic question as well as a speed question, without showing that the 250ms change itself caused the disparity.

The Foundation's analysis says skip rates stayed low and broadly stable as target slot times fell to 250ms. On that measure, the network continued to produce blocks without evidence in the study of a broad consensus problem. The 250ms feature gate was listed as active on Mainnet in the Foundation's September changelog.

Voting told a more uneven story. As the slot target shortened, the study found that votes took more slots to land, with the largest increase among nodes in Asia and South America. Solana's network-average vote latency nevertheless remained well below two slots, and the Foundation said it saw no evidence of consensus instability. Higher latency for some validators therefore sits alongside healthy aggregate consensus performance.

The geographic data have a further limit. The Foundation counted only seven Asia-to-Oceania and 35 Europe-to-Oceania leader handoffs while the 250ms target was in place. It said those small samples were insufficient to rule out a statistical fluke in the apparent regional skip patterns. They do not establish a general skip-rate penalty for validators in those regions, even as the separate vote-latency observation warrants attention.

The reward question sits in vote credits

At the 250ms target, validators counted equally lost 1.6360% of vote credits in the Foundation's table. When the same measure was weighted by stake, the lost fraction was 0.0874%. The lower stake-weighted figure means that larger-staked validators, as a group, lost proportionally fewer credits than the population of validators considered one by one.

This is the divide that an aggregate uptime figure cannot describe. A stake-weighted average gives greater influence to operators with more delegated SOL. It can remain very low even when some smaller operators lose a greater fraction of credits. The table does not identify a SOL payout loss for any particular operator.

Solana's staking documentation explains the mechanism connecting votes to money: vote credits weighted by stake help determine inflationary rewards issued each epoch to validators and delegators, and validator commissions affect the amount delegators receive. That makes credit performance economically relevant. It does not make 1.6360% or 0.0874% a reward-loss percentage. Actual payouts also depend on the stake delegated, the epoch's reward pool and commissions, so neither table entry can be converted into an operator's lost SOL without account-level reward data.

Nor does the gap alone identify its cause. Stake size, geography and voting performance may be related in the observed sample, but the published group comparison does not isolate the effect of shorter slots from other validator conditions. The result is an observed distributional gap, with its cause and payout size still unresolved.

The Foundation's September study treats 200ms as a possible next target, while the staged slot-time proposal describes it as a separate feature-gated step. The cited Foundation updates report 250ms on Mainnet and discuss 200ms as a possible next target. Any forecast of validator rewards at that faster target is therefore conditional.

There is also a protocol boundary to the comparison. Under today's system, votes are transactions that must land on-chain. The Foundation says the planned Alpenglow design would instead send votes directly between validators and collect proof of voting within eight slots. If that change arrives, the present vote-latency mechanism would not carry over unchanged. The study therefore supports caution about extending today's pattern to a future 200ms network, especially one operating under a different voting design.

For a 200ms decision, the test is broader than whether blocks keep arriving. The Foundation's figures show a functioning network and uneven credit losses across stake sizes. They support scrutiny of reward distribution at the next speed step, without establishing a quantified SOL loss for any validator.

The post Solana’s 250ms data shows lower-stake validators lost a larger share of reward-linked vote credits appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ethereum is getting a fork called Hegotá next year, and after that an era ends. That is the core claim of a post co-founder Vitalik Buterin published on September 27, 2026, under the title “The cryptographic world computer”: Hegotá is likely to be the network's last “normal” fork, with properties and technology that someone from 2015 would still recognise. Everything after it concerns recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, heavily optimised consensus procedures and the task of making the whole thing quantum-safe.

For you as a holder there is nothing to do about it for now. There is no deadline, no swap, no address that becomes invalid tomorrow. What matters is the direction: the way Ethereum authorises a transaction, the way a block is verified and the way your wallet talks to the network are all due to change over the coming years. Anyone deciding on custody today is also deciding how much work that changeover will cause them later. Ethereum traded between $2,711 and $2,722 on Tuesday midday, depending on the data source; Buterin's post did not move the price, and that is the accurate finding: this is technology on a horizon of years, not a trading impulse.

What Vitalik Buterin Wrote on September 27

Buterin's starting point is a critique of the word “blockchain”. He works through the original Bitcoin white paper section by section and sets each method from 2010 against the way Ethereum is meant to solve the same task in 2030. His conclusion: in almost every section the method has changed or will change. The question of whether a transaction was authorised was answered in 2010 by a signature; in 2030 it is meant to be sometimes a quantum-safe signature, sometimes several of them, sometimes a zero-knowledge proof. The question of how a node verifies a block was answered in 2010 by downloading and re-executing everything; in future it will be enough to check a SNARK plus data availability via PeerDAS.

Zero-knowledge proof is the name for a cryptographic method with which one party demonstrates that a statement is true without revealing the underlying data. SNARK and STARK are two constructions of such proofs; STARKs dispense with a pre-generated secret and are, on current understanding, considered resistant to quantum computers. PeerDAS is the method by which nodes check on a sampling basis whether block data is genuinely available, without loading all of it.

From this Buterin draws a conclusion that goes beyond technology: a modern cryptographic network such as Ethereum after the Lean upgrade is still called a “blockchain” mainly for historical reasons. In substance it is a hybrid of Satoshi Nakamoto's core ideas and cryptographic tools that emerged from fifty years of academic work and either did not exist in 2009 or were not mature.

Hegotá: The Last Fork a User From 2015 Would Recognise

Hegotá is the name of the Ethereum upgrade that, according to Buterin, is planned for next year. He is referring to the “strawmap”, the roughly sketched roadmap of the developer community. The sentence at issue appears verbatim in his post: Hegotá is probably Ethereum's last normal fork. After it begins a phase in which it is not individual parameters that change but the construction itself.

The word “normal” carries the actual information here. A normal fork shifts fee rules, introduces a new transaction type or improves a process that already exists. A user from 2015 would have understood all of that. What Buterin expects afterwards would be alien to that user: proofs instead of re-execution, signature schemes resting on different mathematics, and block production involving several parties rather than a single producer.

By way of context: a roadmap is not a commitment. Buterin himself writes of a horizon of the next three years and of the fact that much of it is still research or early implementation. Every component has to take the usual route through the core developers, and dates in Ethereum development shift regularly. Anyone deriving a date from this post is reading in more than it contains.

Recursive STARKs: How Ethereum Will Prove Blocks Instead of Re-Executing Them

Today the rule is: anyone who wants certainty that a block is valid re-executes it. A full node loads the transactions and runs them again. That is why running your own node costs storage space and computing time. The roadmap reverses this relationship: the block brings its proof with it, and the node checks the proof. Recursive here means that a proof in turn aggregates proofs, so that in the end a single compact proof stands for a long chain of operations.

In practice that means two things. First, the barrier to checking for yourself falls. Buterin explicitly names this as a side effect for privacy: anyone running their own node does not have to tell anybody which addresses interest them, and a node becomes easier to run once the computational load disappears. Second, the role of light clients changes. So far they can follow the consensus but have to trust an honest majority for validity. In future they should be able to establish both themselves, data availability and computation.

Quantum-Safe Signatures and the Authorisation of a Transaction

The point that affects holders most directly sits in the first row of Buterin's table. Today a signature demonstrates that you authorised a transaction. That signature rests on elliptic curves, a method that a sufficiently large quantum computer could break on the current understanding of cryptography. For 2030 Buterin describes a different state: sometimes a quantum-safe signature, sometimes several of them, sometimes a zero-knowledge proof.

The Ethereum Foundation also lists quantum resistance as a field of work in its public roadmap, in the section on network security. There too no changeover date appears, only a description of the goal. What follows from that for you depends less on the protocol than on the software you use to access your balance: your wallet has to support a new signature type, and on a device that means new firmware. How it looks in everyday use therefore depends on your custody route and not on the protocol; at European level the question now occupies supervisors and custodians as well.

One qualification belongs with this, because it is often lost: it does not follow from “Hegotá is the last normal fork” that Ethereum would be quantum-safe afterwards. It follows that the work on it moves to the foreground after Hegotá. Between a statement of intent and a rolled-out signature changeover lie several years and many intermediate steps for a network with this volume of wallets, applications and contracts.

Proof of Stake After Hegotá: Few-Slot Finality and What Stakers Will Notice

On consensus, Buterin describes the path from proof of work through today's proof of stake to a “heavily optimised” form. Specifically he names few-slot finality, meaning finality within a few slots instead of today's wait of around a quarter of an hour, and an “available chain”, a chain whose data is demonstrably available. Added to that is block production involving several parties, among other things through the FOCIL mechanism, which does not leave the inclusion of transactions to a single builder.

If you stake ETH through a provider or run your own validator, this affects you in two places. Faster finality shortens the time after which an operation counts as complete, which can speed up deposits and withdrawals at exchanges and staking services. And a change to the consensus always means a client update by a set date for validators. Anyone who misses the date earns no rewards in that period and risks penalties. This is not a new insight but the reason why serious staking requires maintenance.

In his post Buterin also names how a transaction's path into the network is meant to change. Today it goes from the user into the mempool and from there to the producer of the block. In future the mempool itself should bring privacy properties with it, and signatures as well as proofs should be separated out early and bundled by mempool nodes. That sounds technical but has one visible consequence: it becomes harder to read out of the mempool who is planning what, and that is precisely where many front-running attacks originate today.

PeerDAS and Light Clients: The Small Node Gains Weight

PeerDAS is the component of the roadmap that, on Buterin's account, has already begun the transition. Instead of loading all the data, nodes take samples and thereby establish whether the data really was published. The same logic applies to storing history: rather than every node keeping everything, each is meant to hold only a small part, distributed across the network.

For you this is above all a statement about independence. The less an own node costs, the more realistic it becomes not merely to believe what your wallet software reports but to check it against the network. Today that is not an option for most private holders, which is why every wallet asks a service provider. Anyone wanting to know how differently providers handle this dependency will find the differences in the software wallet comparison.

Hardware Wallet and Software Wallet: What Holders Should Look for in the Signature Standard

The changeover of a signature scheme does not reach you through the blockchain but through a software update. That raises questions you can already answer today about your custody route, without waiting for Hegotá.

• Does your device still get firmware? A hardware wallet is only fit for the future as long as the manufacturer keeps delivering new schemes. Older models eventually drop out of support, and then precisely the signature type the network expects is missing.
• Do you know your recovery route? Anyone who has their recovery words safe can change devices. Anyone who does not is tied to one manufacturer's support.
• Does your provider know whose keys these are? If your ETH sits at an exchange, it takes on this work entirely. That is convenient and shifts the risk onto its solvency and its supervision.
• Do you use smart contract accounts? Accounts controlled by a contract can be adapted to new schemes more flexibly than a classic account tied to a single key. That is exactly what the term account abstraction in the roadmap is aimed at.

Holding ETH Through an ETP: Who Hands Over the Key Question

Some German investors do not hold Ethereum themselves at all but through an exchange-traded product in their securities account. For this group the signature question is a matter for the issuer and its custodian. You acquire a debt instrument or a share, not a private key, and with that the topic shifts from your firmware to issuer risk. Which routes exist for this in Germany, and how to recognise costs and structure, is set out in our overview of crypto ETFs and ETPs for German securities accounts.

That is not an argument for or against either route. It is a division of tasks: self-custody gives you control and the duty of maintenance. A product in a securities account takes the maintenance off you and gives you a counterparty whose creditworthiness you cannot influence.

Holding Period and Tax: What a Protocol Upgrade Changes About the Acquisition Date

One question comes up with every major upgrade: does it change anything about the tax holding period? On the current understanding in Germany, the one-year period for private disposals applies to crypto assets held privately, and a protocol upgrade is not an acquisition: your ETH remains the same asset, it is neither swapped nor newly acquired. The case is different if a fork produces two chains with two tokens, or if you sell and rebuy your holdings in the course of a changeover.

With Hegotá, nothing on the record so far points to a split of the chain; it is described as a planned upgrade that the developer community follows together. What gives you certainty, though, is only the documentation of your own transactions: purchase date, quantity, price and equivalent value at every movement. Anyone keeping that continuously never has to reconstruct backwards at an upgrade. A binding answer for your case comes from tax advice, not from a trade article.

What Remains Open: Dates, Intermediate Steps and the State of Research

Three points remain expressly open after Buterin's post, and they belong in any assessment. The timing of Hegotá is roughly named as “next year”; the post gives no date. The order of the components after Hegotá is not settled; Buterin describes a bundle of directions, not a sequence. And the maturity varies: PeerDAS is already getting under way, while real-time proofs for entire blocks and quantum-safe signature schemes are, on his own account, in part still research or early implementation.

What is solid, then, is the direction, not the calendar. Anyone deriving a price forecast from it overstretches the source: a roadmap spanning several years does not move a daily price, and the post contains no statement about valuations. Anyone deriving from it that custody requires maintenance, however, is right, and that needs no date.

Ethereum After Hegotá: What to Take Away

1. Find out how long your custody route is supported. Look at whether your device still receives firmware and whether your recovery words are within reach. The hardware wallet comparison shows which manufacturers keep delivering and for how long.
2. With staking, settle who updates the client. With your own validator that is you, with a service it is the provider. Which models exist and what they cost is set out in the overview of staking platforms.
3. Choose deliberately between key and securities account. If you do not want to take on the maintenance, a product in a securities account is the more honest route than a self-custody arrangement you do not keep up; the routes for that are in the overview of crypto ETFs in Germany.

(As of September 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. The primary source is Vitalik Buterin's post “The cryptographic world computer” of September 27, 2026.)

Demand for Dogecoin through exchange-traded products climbed to a record last week, and it has never been distributed so unevenly. The American spot funds tracking Dogecoin took in a net $2.89 million in the week to September 25. That is the highest weekly figure since this product class launched. At the same time, most of that money now sits in a single fund: the Grayscale Dogecoin Trust holds roughly $13.87 million, about 81 percent of the combined assets of all American DOGE funds.

For the price question this matters more than the small sums first suggest. Anyone in Germany weighing whether Dogecoin belongs in their portfolio is at the same time deciding on the access route, on the running costs and on the tax due on a later gain. This piece puts the numbers in context, sets the supply side against them and shows which levels frame the fourth quarter.

Dogecoin Price at $0.096: The Numbers Going Into Quarter End

Dogecoin traded at $0.09609 on Tuesday midday, the equivalent of about €0.0847. That is a gain of 2.28 percent against the previous day. Over seven days it stands at a loss of 1.83 percent, over thirty days at a gain of 13.12 percent. The daily range ran from $0.091786 to $0.095939, so the current price sits slightly above the 24-hour high. The figures come from the market data service CoinGecko, as of September 29.

Market capitalisation stands at roughly $14.99 billion, with 156.12 billion DOGE in circulation. Over twelve months the coin is down 58.38 percent. From the record high of $0.731578, set on May 7, 2021, the price is around 87 percent away. This framing belongs at the start of any Dogecoin price prediction because it sets the yardstick: even a tripling from today's level would still leave a long road to the old high.

$2.89 Million in One Week: The Record Inflow Into the DOGE Funds

An exchange-traded fund on a crypto asset, a spot ETF in industry parlance, holds the coin itself and tracks its price one to one. Investors buy shares through a securities account rather than through a crypto exchange. For Dogecoin this wrapper has existed in the United States since the start of the year.

Last week's $2.89 million replaces the previous high of roughly $2.59 million, set in the week to January 2. On Friday alone $806,060 came in, and that amount went entirely to the Grayscale fund. Since rival Bitwise announced it would close its own Dogecoin fund, cumulative inflows at Grayscale have risen from $11.7 million to $15.46 million.

Context rather than celebration: $2.89 million is a very small amount for a crypto asset with a market capitalisation of almost $15 billion. The record says more about the short history of these products than about a broad institutional wave. Anyone deriving a price forecast from it should keep the order of magnitude in view.

Grayscale Holds $13.87 Million, Bitwise Winds Down BWOW

The concentration is the real story. On September 10, Bitwise announced it would dissolve its Dogecoin fund, which trades under the ticker BWOW, less than twelve months after launch. Net assets stood at roughly $688,000 on September 9. A fund of that size does not cover its own costs, and that is the usual reason for a wind-down. cryptoticker.io has already set out the background in a separate report on the closure of the Bitwise fund.

What happens next is the part that now becomes relevant. The last trading day on NYSE Arca is Wednesday, October 14. On that day the fund converts its Dogecoin holdings into cash. On Thursday, October 22, the remaining shareholders are paid the net asset value of their shares as of October 21, in cash. The filings are held by the American securities regulator, the SEC, whose servers block automated requests; the dates have been independently confirmed by several trade publications.

October 14 Rarely Affects German Brokerage Accounts

A clarification is worth making here, because the news is running widely through the crypto press. BWOW is an American fund traded on NYSE Arca. It is not usually offered to retail investors in Germany at all, because it lacks the key information document that the European PRIIPs Regulation requires for distribution to retail clients. Most German brokers block American fund shares for exactly that reason.

In practical terms: anyone in Germany who wanted exposure to Dogecoin through an ordinary securities account has in all likelihood never held BWOW. Even so, a look at the account is worthwhile if the investment was made through a foreign broker or an account at a US bank. If a holding with the ticker BWOW appears there, a good two weeks remain until October 14 to sell it directly rather than wait for the cash settlement.

14.4 Million New DOGE a Day: The Supply Side of the Forecast

Set against demand is a supply that, unlike Bitcoin's, does not tighten. Dogecoin pays miners a fixed reward of 10,000 DOGE per block. With a block time of around one minute, that produces roughly 1,440 blocks a day and therefore around 14.4 million new DOGE, or about 5 billion a year.

Converted at the current price of $0.09609, that works out to new supply worth roughly $1.38 million a day. A whole week of record inflows into every American Dogecoin fund thus corresponds to about two days of new issuance. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on September 29, 2026, on the basis of the public block parameters of the Dogecoin protocol and the market data retrieved.

This is precisely where a proposal from the developer community comes in: a request in the Dogecoin project on GitHub suggests cutting the block reward from 10,000 to 1,000 DOGE, pushing annual issuance down from around 5 billion to around 500 million. The proposal has been closed on GitHub and therefore not adopted. Anyone factoring it into a price forecast is counting on something that does not yet exist.

21Shares Dogecoin ETP on Xetra: The Route Through a Brokerage Account

The German exchange-based route is not called an ETF but an ETP or ETN. An exchange traded note is legally a debt instrument issued by the provider, not a ring-fenced fund. With physically backed products the issuer deposits the coins with a custodian, so that each share is actually matched by a holding.

For Dogecoin, 21Shares offers such a product. It carries the ISIN CH1431521033 and the German securities number A4A5WJ, trades on Deutsche Börse in euros and is, according to the provider, 100 percent physically backed; custody is handled by BitGo Europe GmbH. It was launched on April 8, 2025. The annual management fee is 2.50 percent. Assets under management stand at roughly $10.7 million, the same order of magnitude as the American market leader. The details are on the issuer's product page.

The advantage is obvious: no wallet, no key, no separate registration with a crypto exchange, and settlement through the familiar securities account. The price for that is equally fixed, and it is 2.50 percent a year.

2.50 Percent Fee Against the Holding Period Under Section 23 EStG

Weigh the fee against price performance before you settle on a route. Against the 13.12 percent price gain of the past thirty days, an annual fee of 2.50 percent barely registers. In a sideways phase lasting two or three years it eats a noticeable share of the stake, regardless of where the price goes.

The second difference often weighs more heavily in Germany than the fee does. Anyone who buys Dogecoin directly and holds it themselves falls under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act: the gain from a private disposal is tax free after a holding period of more than one year. Within that year an exemption limit of €1,000 applies to all private disposals combined; once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable at the personal income tax rate.

With a certificate or a debt instrument on a crypto asset, the prevailing view is that this one-year rule does not apply. Such securities are regularly treated as capital investments, subject to withholding tax of 25 percent plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, but with the €1,000 saver's allowance. The tax treatment of individual crypto ETNs is not undisputed in the specialist literature and depends on the specific structure. Small portfolios often do well with the allowance, while larger positions held for more than a year argue for buying directly. This paragraph is no substitute for a conversation with a tax adviser; our overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers shows which tools make the documentation easier.

Buying Directly Under MiCA: Licensing, Custody and Fees

The second route runs through a crypto exchange. Since the European Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, became fully applicable, trading venues addressing retail clients in the European Union need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. The authorised firms are listed in a public register kept by the European securities regulator ESMA; in Germany, BaFin is the competent authority. Check before your first deposit whether your provider is listed there, and compare trading fees before you transfer a small amount. Which firms are licensed for German clients and what they charge per order is set out in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

After the purchase comes the custody question. Anyone intending to hold for more than a year should not leave the balance sitting on the exchange indefinitely. A hardware wallet keeps the private key offline; the hardware wallet comparison shows which devices are worthwhile for small holdings. Note down the purchase date and purchase price of every tranche as well, because without that record the one-year period cannot later be demonstrated to the tax office.

Levels for the Fourth Quarter: $0.0918 Below, $0.10 Above

On the downside the nearest solid level is $0.091786, the 24-hour low. If the price falls below it and closes there, the advance of recent days has been given back for now; the next stop would be the area around $0.085, where the price spent a longer stretch before the monthly climb.

On the upside the round $0.10 mark stands in the way, roughly 4 percent above the current price. Round numbers are not a physical quantity; they work through the order books, where sell orders cluster at even figures. A daily close clearly above $0.10 would be the first solid signal that the gain of the past thirty days is more than a counter-move within the downtrend of the year.

What these levels cannot deliver is a statement about where Dogecoin stands in a year. The supply calculation above remains the weightier argument. As long as coins worth roughly $1.38 million are created daily and demand from regulated wrappers runs at a few million dollars a week, the rest of the demand has to come from the spot market. With Dogecoin, experience shows that part hangs on sentiment, and sentiment cannot be forecast.

The Bull Case and the Bear Case Side by Side

The constructive reading is supported by the concentration itself: a provider holding 81 percent of the assets has the cost base to run the product for the long term. A fragmented market of five tiny funds would have helped none of them. Should the issuance cut from the developer proposal arrive after all, the largest structural headwind would fall away too.

The sceptical reading is supported by the order of magnitude. The combined assets of all American Dogecoin funds amount to about $17 million, roughly one thousandth of the market capitalisation. A fund wrapper alone does not move a price; it makes access more convenient. The issuance proposal is closed and not adopted, and a price loss of 58 percent over twelve months describes an intact downtrend in which thirty good days are not yet a turn.

Dogecoin in the Fourth Quarter: Your Next Three Steps

1. Check the account. If you are invested through a foreign broker, look at whether a holding with the ticker BWOW sits in your portfolio. You can sell it yourself until October 14. For a new position, compare the fees of the licensed firms in the overview of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Settle on a route and do the maths. Set the 2.50 percent annual fee of the exchange-traded product against the one-year period that applies when buying directly. Use your actual investment horizon, not the best case. The right documentation tools are listed under crypto tax software.
3. Sort out custody and records. When buying directly, the holding belongs on your own wallet after the purchase; the devices are in the hardware wallet comparison. Note the purchase date and purchase price of every tranche so that the holding period can be demonstrated later.

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

ether.fi has taken restaking out of its liquid staking token weETH and is dissolving the last technical ties to EigenLayer by the end of the year. For you as a holder that means weETH has since been an ordinary liquid staking token. It earns the rewards of the Ethereum network but no restaking premium any more, and in return it carries no slashing risk from outside services.

The occasion is a CoinDesk report of September 28, 2026, in which chief executive Mike Silagadze sets out his reasoning at length for the first time. The ether.fi documentation supplies the timetable. Together they describe a retreat from a business that two years ago counted as the big bet of the Ethereum ecosystem.

How large that retreat is takes one figure to show: weETH was the largest liquid restaking token of all. When that product of all products throws off restaking, it is not a detail of product maintenance. Ethereum traded at around $2,716 on the morning of September 29; anyone holding ether through such a certificate feels the change in the make-up of their yield, hardly at all in the price.

Restaking out of weETH: the August 2026 rebuild

Restaking means that already staked ether is pledged a second time as collateral, this time for outside services that attach themselves to the security of the Ethereum network. EigenLayer invented the procedure and made it big. Liquid restaking tokens such as weETH bundled both into one tradeable instrument: the normal staking reward and the additional premium from restaking.

In August 2026 ether.fi cleared that second layer away. Since then weETH represents ordinary Ethereum staking alone. The provider's documentation puts it soberly: rewards come from Ethereum's consensus and execution layers, they are variable and not guaranteed, and they contain neither restaking income nor slashing exposure to EigenLayer services.

Silagadze commented on the rebuild in four words: "End of an era. Sad." To CoinDesk he was more specific. There had been no yield worth mentioning in restaking, and stakers had perceived a certain risk, so an exit had seemed sensible. Users had been notified several times and had consented to the change.

What separates weETH from eETH

Both tokens stand for the same staked ether; they only book the proceeds differently. eETH is a rebasing token: your number of units grows as rewards accrue. weETH is the wrapped, non-rebasing variant. The number of units stays the same, while the value of one weETH measured in eETH rises. The distinction is no quibble, because it later decides how a gain becomes visible for tax at all.

EigenPod withdrawal credentials: the timetable to the fourth quarter

The exit runs in stages, and ether.fi puts numbers on them in its own documentation. In August 2026, it says, less than one percent of protocol funds were still in restaking. That remainder was to disappear by the end of the third quarter of 2026, that is by September 30. The withdrawal credentials of the EigenPods, the technical bracket between ether.fi's validators and EigenLayer, are to follow by the fourth quarter of 2026.

By the end of the year, then, nothing is left of the connection that could still bite in an emergency. For you the second date is the interesting one. As long as the withdrawal credentials exist, part of the path by which your ether leaves the network again still runs over outside code. After that it does not.

$10 billion secured, $99,977 in fees: why restaking no longer pays

The chief executive's reasoning can be checked against the numbers, and they are merciless. CoinDesk sets two values side by side for the week to September 8. The restaking sector as a whole secured $10.02 billion at that point and took $99,977 in fees for it. That is the turnover of a mid-sized trade business, spread across assets in the tens of billions.

Provider profits follow the same curve. The five largest liquid restaking protocols, namely Renzo, Kelp, Swell, Puffer and Bedrock, together earned $953,350 in gross profit in the second quarter of 2026. Three quarters earlier the figure had been $2.18 million. Taken individually the picture gets starker still: $21,590 fell to Puffer, $22,370 to Swell.

EigenLayer itself has felt the collapse most sharply. The protocol's secured assets stood at $22.06 billion in August 2025 and stand at $5.10 billion today. The peak is put at between $19.7 billion and $22.1 billion depending on the count; the direction is the same either way. The project now trades as EigenCloud and puts verifiable computation to the fore, with deposited capital serving only as the underlay.

Liquid staking versus restaking: 53 times the revenue per dollar

The comparison that matters is in the same CoinDesk analysis. Ordinary liquid staking secured $51.87 billion in the week to September 8 and earned $27.35 million in fees on it. Per dollar secured, plain staking therefore earns roughly 53 times what restaking brings in.

That explains why the exit was commercially unavoidable. A provider that carries an additional default risk for the second security layer while receiving practically nothing for it is subsidising somebody else's business model with its customers' capital. Anyone letting their ether work through a service provider should therefore check regularly which sources of income their provider still taps at all and how much of it arrives with them; our overview of staking providers shows how far the terms diverge.

A side effect concerns commissions. When a source of income falls away, the share the provider retains of the remaining proceeds does not change arithmetically. But it weighs more heavily, because the base has become smaller.

weETHs on Symbiotic: what the second token means for holders

ether.fi has not abolished restaking but outsourced it. Anyone who still wants a restaking premium can switch into weETHs, a separate token built on Symbiotic instead of EigenLayer. Restaking is thus no longer an extra that every weETH holder carries automatically, but a decision you have to take actively.

For most holders that is precisely the good news. The risks are separated again and can be named one by one. Those who do not want them need do nothing; those who do know what they are taking on.

Symbiotic in one sentence

Symbiotic is a competing restaking platform that lends deposited capital to outside networks and says it has more than fifty of them connected. The procedure solves the same problem as EigenLayer but with a different risk architecture, and it faces the same thin market for fees.

Yield, risk, slashing: the three quantities behind the weETH return

Slashing is the penalty a validator pays for breaking the rules of the network: part of the deposited ether is confiscated. With ordinary staking there is exactly one source for that penalty, namely the Ethereum network itself. With restaking a further one is added for every connected service, with its own rules and its own points of failure.

The yield you get for it remains variable. ether.fi expressly does not guarantee it, because it depends on how busy the network is and on the fees users happen to be paying. What the rebuild changed is the composition: the fluctuating but manageable network yield stays, the additional premium falls away, and with it a bundle of risks few people could take in fully.

How much the provider's commission eats into that yield was shown by our analysis of fourteen staking providers on September 13, 2026. The finding holds unchanged after the rebuild; it simply weighs more heavily now.

Buying and custody: weETH through MiCA-regulated providers in Europe

This is the biggest hurdle for European investors, and it has nothing to do with the rebuild. weETH is a DeFi token. A regulated European exchange will not as a rule put it in your account. You buy ether from a provider with MiCA authorisation, pull it into a wallet of your own and deposit it there yourself.

That shifts responsibility entirely to you. There is no deposit guarantee, no provider to restore lost access, and no European supervisor to step in over a flaw in the contract code. Anyone taking this route needs a hardware wallet, a securely stored recovery phrase and the patience to test both once before the first larger amount.

Holding period and accrual: how the tax office treats staking income from weETH

This is where the technical distinction made above comes back. With a rebasing token such as eETH the number of units grows, and every credit can be read as an accrual taxable in the year it accrues. With weETH the number of units stays constant, the gain sits in the exchange ratio and only becomes visible on sale, which argues rather for treatment as a disposal gain.

The question is not conclusively settled, and it is why in our piece on restaking, liquid staking and tax of July 22, 2026 we counselled caution: new products meet old rules that were never written for them. The disappearance of the restaking premium at least simplifies matters, because one type of income, and with it one question of demarcation, falls away.

In practice that means documenting every inflow and outflow with date, quantity and price, from day one. Anyone who has to reconstruct that afterwards ends up paying for gaps that two clicks could have closed at the moment of booking. Only a tax adviser can give a dependable statement about your own liability in any case.

Unstaking at ether.fi: queue, liquidity and the way back into ETH

The way back runs through a redemption in the provider's interface. There is no fixed deadline for it. In its documentation ether.fi names three quantities on which the duration depends: the liquidity available in the protocol, the withdrawal queue of the Ethereum validators and general network load.

Anyone wanting to sell towards a fixed date should allow for that uncertainty and not assume the exit will succeed on the same day. The second route runs through the market: weETH can be traded, and in quiet phases the market price sits close to the calculated value. In hectic phases it does not, and that is exactly when many want out at once.

ETHFI, ETH and the neobank rebuild: the second-quarter numbers

The exit from restaking is also the consequence of a rebuild inside the company. ether.fi's gross profit fell from $18.71 million in the third quarter of 2025 to $9.99 million in the second quarter of 2026, a drop of 47 percent. At the same time the card business has grown: its share of monthly revenue rose from 17 percent in January to 46 percent in July.

Silagadze describes that as a successful swap. Income from the banking business had entirely replaced the loss of restaking revenue and the lower ether price; the annual run rate of total revenue would rise by about 38 percent, while income from staking and restaking had fallen by 70 percent. These figures come from the company itself and are not supported by audited accounts.

For you as a holder that is no footnote. A provider drawing half its revenue from a card business is a different company from a pure staking service, with different dependencies and different supervisory questions.

weETH and restaking: how to proceed now

1. Check what you actually hold. Look in your wallet to see whether weETH, eETH or weETHs is sitting there. Only weETHs still carries restaking risk after the rebuild. Which returns are available from other providers and on what terms is shown by our comparison of staking platforms.
2. Bring your records up to date. Record the date, quantity and price of every movement, including a switch between the token variants. A tax and portfolio tracker takes the reconstruction off your hands, as long as you set it up early enough.
3. Choose your exit route deliberately. Redemption with the provider and a sale on the market lead to different waiting times and different prices. Anyone selling through an exchange anyway should compare the fees first; which houses are authorised under MiCA is in our exchange comparison.

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

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry a high degree of risk.

Crypto paper trading means trading at real prices with money that does not exist. Every order is booked and every profit and loss is calculated, but nothing ever reaches an exchange. It is the cheapest way to watch a strategy fail, which is exactly the point. What paper trading cannot do matters just as much: it simulates the market, not you. This guide explains how paper trading works for crypto, how to start without an account, and the three places where the simulation is kinder than reality.

Crypto Paper Trading: Key Points at a Glance

• Paper trading is trading at real prices with simulated execution. No money moves, so you cannot win any either.
• Free and without signing up, you can practise in the CryptoTicker trading simulator: $10,000 in play money, 50 coins, unlimited trades, as of September 28, 2026.
• Fees belong in the simulation. At 0.05% per execution, 20 round trips a day at full position size cost 2% of the account in a single day.
• Losses weigh double: in Tversky and Kahneman's 1992 study, a loss weighed about 2.25 times as much as an equal gain. Paper trading barely trains that part.
• Risking 1% per trade on $10,000 means losing no more than $100 before your stop.
• Move to real money only after four weeks without breaking a rule, and then with less money than you practised with.

What is paper trading?

The term dates from before trading software: anyone who wanted to test an idea wrote the purchase, price and quantity on paper and later worked out what would have happened. Today software does the job. It reads real prices, fills your orders against them and turns that into an account balance, open positions and a result.

A paper trade is a single simulated trade: entry, stop, target and exit, booked at market prices without an order ever reaching the order book.

Paper trading and a demo account mean almost the same thing in practice. The difference is the provider: a demo account is usually a broker's practice account, designed to lead you into a funded one. Paper trading is the method, and it works without a broker. What to look for in a demo account is covered in our guide to the trading demo account without signing up. If you want to trade for real afterwards, you need a regulated exchange; our exchange comparison sets out fees and licences.

How does crypto paper trading work?

Every paper trading platform does three things at its core:

1. Read prices. It pulls prices continuously from an exchange or data provider. The closer they are to real time, the more honest the result.
2. Simulate orders. Market, limit, stop loss and take profit orders are checked against the current price and filled once the condition is met.
3. Keep the books. Balance, position size, fees, liquidation for leveraged positions, and the result in dollars and percent.

The sentence that matters: the prices are real, the execution is not. Your simulated order moves no price, always finds a counterparty and never waits in a queue. Why that matters is explained below under the three gaps.

Crypto paper trading for free, without signing up

Crypto differs from stocks in three ways: the market never closes, leverage of up to 100x is common on perpetual futures, and daily moves of ten percent are no exception for smaller coins. A crypto simulator should therefore run around the clock, allow long and short positions and calculate liquidation.

The trading simulator in the CryptoTicker Trading Hub works like this, as of September 28, 2026:

• No signup, no credit card. You open the page and trade. Your progress is saved in the browser; you only need an account to continue on a second device.
• $10,000 in play money, unlimited trades. Nothing is ranked, and you can reset at any time.
• 50 coins at real prices. You can trade the 50 largest coins with more than $50 million in daily volume.
• Long, short and leverage. Choose between leverage of up to 10x or up to 100x and watch how quickly liquidation approaches.
• Three levels. Beginner, Standard and Pro; the beginner mode keeps leverage and short selling out of the way at first.

Other ways to paper trade crypto:

A charting platform is strong if you already do your analysis there. A broker's demo account makes sense once you have chosen that broker. A simulator without an account is the shortest route to your first paper trade.

The three gaps between paper trading and real trading

Gap 1: execution

A simulated market order is filled at the displayed price. A real one hits the order book, and with large orders or thin markets the price moves before everything is filled. That difference is called slippage. For bitcoin and ether at retail position sizes it is usually small; for small coins in hectic minutes it is not. That is why the CryptoTicker simulator only lists coins with high daily volume.

Gap 2: costs

A paper account without fees makes every strategy look better than it is. A worked example using the fee the CryptoTicker simulator charges, 0.05% per execution:

The calculation is deliberately simple and ignores compounding, but it shows the mechanism: if you trade a lot, you have to earn the fees first. On perpetual futures the funding rate comes on top, settled between longs and shorts several times a day depending on the exchange. How perpetuals work is explained in our comparison of the best perp DEXs.

Gap 3: you

The biggest gap is psychological. In 1992, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman measured that people weigh a loss about 2.25 times as heavily as an equal gain. With play money the effect is weak: a 20% drawdown is a number on a screen. With your own money it is the moment people move their stop lower instead of letting it trigger.

Paper trading trains your rules, not your nerves. That is not a reason to skip it but a reason to do it properly: with fixed rules that you write down in advance and actually follow in the simulation.

How to paper trade properly: four weeks with rules

1. Week 1: write your rules. Risk no more than 1% per trade, which is $100 on $10,000. Set the stop before you enter. No more than three losing trades a day, then stop.
2. Week 2: size your positions. Position size equals risk divided by stop distance. With a stop 5% below entry, the position may be $100 ÷ 0.05 = $2,000. At 10x leverage that ties up $200 of margin, but the risk is still $100.
3. Week 3: keep a journal. For every trade, note the reason, entry, stop, target and result. After 20 trades you will see which setups work and which only generate fees.
4. Week 4: count rule breaks. Every moved stop and every exceeded limit is a rule break. The goal is zero, not a high balance.

Order types, charts and risk basics are explained in our crypto trading guide for beginners.

From paper trading to real money

The switch only makes sense once three things hold for several weeks: no rule breaks, a known maximum drawdown that you sat through, and a result after fees. Then one simple rule applies: your first real stake is smaller than your play money, not larger. If you practised with $10,000 and deposit $1,000, recalculate every position with the same formula rather than simply scaling down.

Real money also means tax. In many countries, selling or swapping crypto is a taxable event. Our guide on how to file crypto tax covers the basics; for your own situation, ask a tax adviser.

Where to go after your first paper trade, from order types and position sizing to a four-week practice plan, is set out in our guide to learning to trade online for free. If you then want to start with real money, our exchange comparison lists fees, licences and deposit methods.

Sources

• Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman: Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5 (1992), pp. 297 to 323.
• TradingView Help Center: Paper Trading, functionality and initial capital, as of 28.09.2026.
• CryptoTicker Trading Hub, trading simulator, as of 28.09.2026.

Anyone moving funds onto Base for the first time notices quickly that the network is very fast in one direction and very slow in the other. The trip from an exchange to Base takes minutes and costs fractions of a cent. The official way back to Ethereum takes seven days. That is neither a fault nor congestion; it is built into the design of the network. This piece explains both directions, shows what a transfer really costs, and walks through Basescan, the block explorer you use to see what happened to your money.

Base is the Ethereum extension built by the American exchange Coinbase. According to DefiLlama data, the decentralised exchanges on this network handled swap volume of around $1.2 billion in a single day at the end of September. Even so, it remains largely unfamiliar ground for European users: search for the explorer or the bridge in your own language and you will find almost nothing but the providers' own English guides.

What Base is: an optimistic rollup from Coinbase on the OP Stack

Base is a layer 2. The term means a blockchain of its own that draws its security from a larger network instead of producing it itself. Base bundles its users' transactions, processes them cheaply on its own chain and then writes the result to Ethereum. The data on which a dispute would be settled therefore sits on Ethereum, while the computing work happens on Base.

Technically Base belongs to the family of optimistic rollups. Optimistic here means that the network first assumes the results reported to Ethereum are correct and gives everyone a window in which to challenge a false entry. The verification procedure behind it is called a fault proof. The independent monitor L2Beat lists Base as an optimistic rollup at maturity "Stage 1", the middle of three stages, at which some of the emergency powers still sit with a security council.

Base is built on the OP Stack, an open construction kit for layer-2 networks. That is why every tool you know from Ethereum works on Base without modification: the same wallet formats, the same addresses, the same kind of smart contracts. Convenient, and at the same time the most common source of error, because the same address exists on both networks while funds still land on only one of them.

Base network details: chain ID 8453, ETH for gas and no token of its own

Three pieces of information are enough to enter Base into any wallet. The chain ID is 8453, the number by which wallets and applications tell networks apart. The standard endpoint is mainnet.base.org. And the currency for fees is Ether, the same ETH you know from Ethereum. All three values appear exactly like that in the network overview in the Base documentation.

From that follows the most important sentence for anyone starting out: Base has no network token of its own. You need ETH on Base to be able to send a transaction at all. Anyone who moves only stablecoins onto the network without a cent of ETH is left with a visible balance that cannot be moved. What trades under the name Base are projects running on the network, not the network itself; we have written up the look at the Coinbase chain's ecosystem separately.

Setting up a wallet: Base App, MetaMask and the manual entry

Coinbase now runs its own wallet under the name Base App. The network is already configured there, so there is nothing for you to enter. If you use a wallet from another provider, you will in most cases find Base in a list of prepared networks and simply select it.

If only the manual route is left, you enter the three values from the previous section: chain ID, endpoint and ETH as the currency. After that the wallet shows Base as a network of its own alongside Ethereum, and your balance appears differently depending on which network is selected. Which type of wallet suits which amount is broken down in our software wallet comparison; the general procedure for any network is in our overview of adding networks, bridges and explorers.

One note that saves a lot of trouble: a wallet address is valid on Base and on Ethereum alike. You do not have two addresses but one address on two networks. That is exactly why copying the right address is not enough — you also have to select the right network.

Base fees: what a transfer really costs at the end of September

A fee on Base is made up of two parts. The first pays for the computing work on Base itself. The second pays for the space on Ethereum where the data is later stored. Together they make up the amount your wallet displays, and both are settled in ETH.

At the end of September we recalculated several real transactions from a live Base block. The result: a simple transfer cost around 0.13 cents, an elaborate interaction with a smart contract around 3.6 cents. The share accounted for by the space on Ethereum came to a few hundredths of a cent in each case and barely registered against the computing work.

For comparison: the same transfer directly on Ethereum costs a multiple of that, depending on load. That gap is precisely why Base exists. It comes at a price, though, and the price only becomes visible when you want your money back.

The way in: an exchange withdrawal straight onto Base instead of a detour via Ethereum

There are two routes onto the network, and the cheaper one is the one most people overlook. At many trading venues you can send your funds straight onto the Base network when you withdraw. You simply pick Base rather than Ethereum as the destination network. The exchange handles the transfer internally and you pay only its withdrawal fee, often a matter of a few cents or nothing at all.

The second route runs over the official bridge from Ethereum to Base. You send ETH from your own wallet to a contract on Ethereum, and a few minutes later the same amount appears on Base. This route costs you a full Ethereum transaction, so considerably more than the exchange withdrawal. It is worth taking above all when your money already sits in your own wallet on Ethereum.

A third factor often decides the cost question more than the transfer itself: what you paid when you bought on the exchange. How those fees are put together we worked through, using Coinbase as the example, in our breakdown of Coinbase's fees.

One caveat belongs here: maintenance windows and network upgrades halt deposits and withdrawals for a time. For the hard fork at the end of September several trading venues suspended Base transfers for a few hours, as we described in our piece on the Cobalt switch on September 30. If you are transferring on a day like that, it is better to plan in some slack.

The way back takes seven days: fault proofs and the challenge period

The official route from Base back to Ethereum runs in three steps, and the Base documentation describes them expressly. First you send the withdrawal on Base. Then a proof is submitted on Ethereum that this withdrawal actually took place on Base. Only after that does the real waiting time begin.

That waiting time is called the challenge period, and at Base it lasts seven days. The official documentation on bridging and withdrawals puts it unambiguously: standard withdrawals to Ethereum must wait seven days before they can be completed. Only once that period has elapsed can the withdrawal be finalised on Ethereum.

The reason lies in the word "optimistic". Because the network initially accepts its results unverified, it needs a window in which someone can challenge a false entry. Seven days is that window. It protects you personally from an error rather less than it protects the entire balance held on Base from a falsified report to Ethereum.

In practice that means anyone who needs their money at short notice should not treat the official way back as an emergency exit. And once the seven days are running, the process cannot be sped up — the period expires regardless of how urgent the matter is.

Intent bridges: a faster way back over liquidity providers, with a risk of its own

There are providers at which a withdrawal from Base arrives in minutes rather than days. What matters is understanding what actually happens, and the Base documentation is clear on the point: these services do not shorten the challenge period at any stage; instead they front you the money.

The mechanism is called an intent bridge. You declare which amount you want on which network. A liquidity provider pays you that amount on the destination network immediately and takes your funds on Base in return. It then sits through the seven days itself. Your waiting time has been taken over by somebody else, and they charge a discount for it.

From that follows a risk the official bridge does not carry: for the duration of the process you are trusting a contract and an operator, not only the network. Bridges have for years been among the most frequently attacked components in crypto. For small amounts and a quick switch that is often acceptable; for the bulk of a portfolio, rather less so.

Reading Basescan: status, token transfers and granted approvals

The block explorer for Base is called Basescan and sits at basescan.org. A block explorer is a window into the blockchain: you enter an address or the identifier of a transaction and see what actually happened, regardless of what your wallet displays.

Four items matter day to day. The status tells you whether the transaction went through or was aborted with an error; an aborted transaction still costs a fee. Under token transfers you see which tokens actually changed hands in the operation, which in swaps often differs from the display in the wallet. The transaction fee field shows the fee really paid, in ETH. And the token approvals tab lists every approval your address has ever granted.

That last tab is the most valuable and the least used. Anyone who swaps regularly on a network accumulates a long list of open permissions there over time. Tools that pull such overviews together across several networks are in our comparison of analytics platforms.

Typical mishaps: wrong network, missing gas, counterfeit tokens

Three mistakes catch out nearly every newcomer, and all three can be headed off in advance.

The withdrawal to the wrong network. You withdraw from an exchange, pick Ethereum instead of Base by accident, and the funds end up at the right address on the wrong network. That is not a total loss, because the address belongs to you on both networks. But you have to move the money over a bridge and pay Ethereum fees for it. The same applies in reverse. So check the destination network in the withdrawal dialogue before you confirm.

The missing fee token. You hold stablecoins on Base but no ETH. Every transaction fails, including sending on the stablecoins themselves. The remedy is a small amount of ETH placed on the network in advance; the equivalent of a few euros covers a great many transactions.

The token that sits in the wallet but is worthless. On open networks anyone can create a token with any name they like and send it to other people's addresses. A familiar name appearing in your wallet means nothing. What counts is the contract address alone, and you check that in the explorer against the project's own figure. An unsolicited token that invites you to swap it on an unfamiliar site is the entry point to an attempted fraud.

Revoking approvals and spotting phishing on Base

An approval is the permission you grant a smart contract to move a particular token from your address. Without it no swap on a decentralised exchange works. The problem is its duration: many applications ask by default for an unlimited approval, and it stays in place until you actively withdraw it.

Revoking is a simple operation. You call up the list of your approvals, select the entries you no longer need and send a transaction that sets them to zero. On Base, thanks to the low fees, that costs fractions of a cent. Such a sweep makes sense whenever you have not used an application for a longer stretch.

With phishing, things run on Base as on any other network. The most dangerous thing is rarely the fake input mask for a recovery phrase. The heavier risk is the signature you give for something you have not read. Before every confirmation your wallet shows you which contract receives which permission. Anyone holding larger amounts is better off keeping them separate from the wallet they use day to day.

Tax in Germany: what bridging and swapping trigger

For investors in Germany the principle in section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies: selling or swapping a cryptocurrency is a private disposal transaction. If the purchase is more than a year in the past, a gain remains tax-free. Below that it counts as taxable income as soon as the sum of all private disposal transactions in a year exceeds the exemption threshold.

On Base two operations have to be kept apart. When you move ETH over the official bridge between Ethereum and Base, it stays the same asset under your own control; the holding period keeps running. When you swap one token for another on Base, by contrast, that is a disposal transaction like any on an exchange, with everything that entails. With an intent bridge you should look closely at what was actually booked, because in some cases a swap happens there rather than a transfer.

Because many small transactions pile up on Base, the documentation quickly becomes hard to follow. It is best kept as you go rather than reconstructed in the spring. This information does not replace tax advice; assessing a specific case belongs in expert hands.

Market depth on Base: one provider carries half the swap volume

Daily volume on the decentralised exchanges on Base stood at around $1.2 billion at the end of September, according to DefiLlama figures, and roughly half of that fell to a single provider, the Base-native exchange Aerodrome. That is a high concentration and worth knowing about: a large part of the market depth hangs on one project.

For small and medium amounts, Base is therefore one of the cheapest ways to move and swap funds. For large holdings the calculation shifts. There the one-off Ethereum fee barely registers, while the seven days to final withdrawal and the risk of fast bridges weigh more heavily. The honest answer is therefore that Base suits what you move well, and what you leave sitting rather less well.

Base in daily use: your next three steps

1. Set the network up properly and put gas aside. Enter Base with chain ID 8453 into your wallet or pick it from the list, and send yourself a small amount of ETH on the network before you transfer anything else. Which wallet suits which amount is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.
2. Try the way in with a small amount. Withdraw a two-figure euro amount from your trading venue straight onto the Base network and then look the operation up in the explorer. That way you learn how the network behaves on a sum whose loss would not hurt. Which trading venues are authorised in the EU and what their withdrawals cost is shown in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Document every movement from the outset. Note the date, the amount and the equivalent value on every swap, so that the holding period can be traced later. Which programs record that automatically is shown in our comparison of tax and portfolio tools.

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

Bitcoin is up 7.33% in September, edging past 2024 as the best September on record, with one day left before the monthly candle closes.

Analysts point to crude prices capping non-yielding assets, while spot ETFs have taken money in for eight sessions running.

Plus, crypto majors rebound as oil and yields fall and Saylor’s Strategy returns to buying Bitcoin.

The judge has told Pleterski he will raise objections on his behalf, to keep inadmissible evidence away from the jury.

Coinbase Clearing will take USDC as collateral and settle around the clock, though margined products stay with partners.

Quant wallets inactive since 2023 mobilized $10 million in QNT token following an interbank rally, moving massive multi-million dollar positions onto exchanges.

Ethereum has held above $2,600 after a strong September recovery, with institutional buying supporting demand while large holders have begun taking profits near recent highs.

Bitwise rolls out its spot NEAR ETF (NRR) with an audacious $562 target, framing the protocol as the financial clearinghouse for AI agents.

Morgan Stanley intensifies its push into the cryptocurrency market after launching a digital asset lab to test stablecoins and DeFi.

Bitcoin’s derivatives market is undergoing one of its sharpest leverage resets in a year.

TLDR

• Meta Platforms expands Muse AI tools to small businesses and entrepreneurs
• Muse now connects with Shopify, QuickBooks, Stripe, Canva, Slack, and Zoom
• Businesses can link storefront, accounting, marketing, and customer data
• Meta keeps user approval mandatory before messages, purchases, or publishing
• Muse recorded about 2.8 million downloads within its first two weeks

Meta Platforms (META) stock traded at $718.93, rising 0.46% during Tuesday’s session. Shares earlier moved above $725 before retreating toward $717 and recovering modestly. Meanwhile, Meta expanded its Muse AI agent to small businesses through new integrations with business software.

Meta Platforms, Inc., META

Meta Expands Muse for Small Businesses

Meta is extending Muse to smaller companies seeking tools for daily operations and customer management. The service connects with Shopify, QuickBooks, Stripe, and Canva through supported integrations. These links allow businesses to connect commercial information with the Muse platform.

Muse also connects with Instagram professional analytics, Facebook Pages and Meta advertising accounts. Businesses can therefore access information from several Meta services through one connected system. The expansion extends Muse beyond its original focus on individual users and personal tasks.

Meta has also added connections with Asana, Box, Dropbox, Figma, Klaviyo, Notion, Slack, and Zoom. These integrations expand access to project management, design, storage, marketing, and communication tools. As a result, businesses can connect several operational services without switching between separate platforms.

Muse Connects Business Data and Services

Muse can work with information from a company’s brand, online storefront, accounting records, and customer databases. However, users retain control over actions involving messages, purchases, and published content. The agent requires user approval before completing those external actions.

Meta offers most Muse functions without charge, while additional capabilities remain available through paid subscription plans. The pricing structure gives smaller businesses access to its main functions without an immediate subscription. Paid plans provide users with expanded functionality beyond the standard service.

The business expansion also extends Meta’s push into software services beyond its advertising operations. Meta continues adding tools that connect its social platforms with business management services. Muse now provides another entry point linking those services with external business applications.

Meta Builds on Muse Consumer Launch

Meta introduced Muse earlier this month as a personal agent designed to handle several everyday tasks. The original service supports shopping, travel bookings, emails, payments, and other digital activities. Its small-business version now applies similar automation across commercial operations and connected business accounts.

Muse has gained early traction since its consumer launch in the United States and Canada. The application reached leading positions among free applications in both markets during recent weeks. That adoption created an early user base before Meta expanded the service toward businesses.

Sensor Tower estimated Muse recorded about 2.8 million downloads during its first two weeks. Meta is now extending that initial rollout through integrations aimed at smaller companies. The expansion connects Muse with more business data while keeping approval requirements for external actions.

The post Meta Platforms (META) Stock: Platforms Expands Muse AI Agent to Small Businesses appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• FreeCast posts $711K fiscal 2026 revenue as CAST stock edges higher on growth.
• Starlink Business deal expands FreeCast reach across key commercial markets.
• FreeCast secures $23.7M financing to support wider commercial expansion plans.
• DIRECTV relationship broadens FreeCast reach across residential media markets.
• Zer0Gap advertising revenue climbs as FreeCast scales monetization efforts.

FreeCast Inc. reported $711,000 in fiscal 2026 revenue as the company expanded its media platform strategy. CAST stock traded at $1.19, up 0.85%, after recovering from an earlier intraday decline. The company also strengthened its capital position and expanded commercial relationships across several connectivity markets.

FreeCast, Inc. Class A Common Stock, CAST

FreeCast Fiscal 2026 Revenue Reaches $711K

FreeCast generated about $711,000 in revenue during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026. Advertising contributed approximately $386,000 as the company increased commercial activity across its rebuilt Zer0Gap platform. Fourth-quarter advertising revenue reached about $256,000 and showed stronger activity than earlier fiscal periods.

The fiscal year marked FreeCast’s shift from platform development toward broader commercial deployment. Its Platform-as-a-Service model targets telecommunications, broadband, satellite, multifamily housing, and related distribution markets. FreeCast provides media technology that partners can offer through their own brands and customer relationships.

The platform supports content discovery, subscription management, payments, advertising, and other media services. This structure allows distribution companies to add streaming services without building separate media systems. FreeCast now aims to convert commercial agreements into deployments, active users, transactions, and advertising revenue.

Financing Strengthens FreeCast Capital Position

FreeCast completed financing transactions after fiscal year-end that generated about $23.7 million in gross proceeds. The company received approximately $22.3 million after transaction costs and related expenses. Management said the stronger liquidity position removed substantial doubt previously linked to the company’s ability to continue operations.

The company’s fiscal 2026 auditor report therefore did not include a going-concern explanatory paragraph. FreeCast also secured another potential source of capital through an equity purchase arrangement. That agreement could provide access to as much as $50 million through future common stock sales.

The additional capital supports FreeCast as it moves from development spending toward commercial execution. However, future stock sales under the arrangement could increase the company’s outstanding share count. The company plans to use its improved financial position while advancing its distribution and monetization strategy.

Starlink and DIRECTV Deals Expand Growth Strategy

FreeCast expanded its commercial relationship with DIRECTV during fiscal 2026 across residential and multifamily opportunities. The company also entered a reseller relationship covering Starlink Business services. That agreement extends FreeCast’s reach into commercial connectivity and media distribution markets.

FreeCast also signed agreements with Via One affiliates, including Assist Wireless and enTouch Wireless. These agreements extend the company’s PaaS model into mobile telecommunications services. FreeCast has also announced projects involving FPUAnet, Wire3, Caribbean markets, and other regional distribution channels.

The company has since introduced a U.S. local-market strategy and Brazilian television programming distribution plans. However, announced agreements remain at different stages of development and do not automatically represent recognized revenue. FreeCast plans to report additional operating metrics as commercial deployments move forward.

The post FreeCast Inc (CAST) Stock: Rises as Fiscal 2026 Revenue Hits $711K and Starlink Deals Drive Growth Strategy appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• TD Cowen elevated Dell’s (DELL) price target from $500 to $550 while maintaining a Hold rating.
• Susquehanna maintains a Positive outlook with a $700 price target, highlighting AI inferencing as a significant growth driver.
• The company reports a $95 billion AI server backlog, with the majority being noncancelable orders.
• Truist Securities increased its price target to $505, while RBC Capital initiated coverage with an Outperform rating.
• InvestingPro data reveals Dell achieved 49% revenue expansion over the previous year, fueled by AI demand.

Shares of Dell Technologies (DELL) stock hovered near $543.95 during Tuesday’s trading session, registering a modest 0.10% increase. The price movement followed a wave of analyst upgrades released throughout the week.

Dell Technologies Inc., DELL

TD Cowen increased its price objective for Dell shares to $550, up from the previous $500 mark. Analyst Krish Sankar maintained a Hold rating alongside the revised target.

The adjustment came after recent discussions with Paul Frantz, Dell’s head of investor relations. Sankar noted that Dell’s AI server order backlog has reached $95 billion, with the bulk consisting of noncancelable commitments.

This substantial backlog provides Dell with significant negotiating power among leading neocloud service providers. Sankar indicated that order patterns during the latter half of 2026 will be critical for assessing potential upside in 2027 AI projections.

Sankar also highlighted profitability considerations. An increased proportion of AI CPU rack configurations would enhance margins, given Dell’s current gross margin of approximately 20%.

Massive AI Pipeline Drives Positive Analyst Sentiment

Susquehanna’s Mehdi Hosseini echoed a bullish perspective. He maintained a Positive rating on Dell shares while reaffirming his $700 price objective.

Hosseini suggested that expanding AI inferencing requirements could provide substantial momentum for Dell’s conventional server operations. His projections anticipate traditional server revenue will double during fiscal 2027 and maintain double-digit growth rates through fiscal 2029.

He believes Dell may surpass the 100% year-over-year growth guidance already provided by management for fiscal 2027. Hosseini attributes this optimism to emerging agentic AI applications and increasing CPU requirements.

Hosseini provided detailed calculations in his analysis. He projects approximately $0.10 in traditional server revenue for each $1 of accelerated compute revenue from neocloud clients, and $0.23 per dollar for enterprise customers.

When applied to Dell’s $74 billion AI server revenue projection for fiscal 2027, this formula suggests roughly $7 billion in associated traditional compute requirements. That represents a modest portion of the estimated $40 billion traditional server revenue anticipated for the year, with inferencing accounting for approximately 18%.

Hosseini anticipates this percentage will exceed 20% during fiscal 2028 and 2029. He contends the broader market opportunity remains undervalued beyond the fiscal 2027 timeframe.

Additional Analyst Coverage

TD Cowen wasn’t alone in adjusting its forecast this week. Truist Securities lifted its Dell price objective to $505, emphasizing a backlog that provides revenue visibility extending into fiscal 2028.

RBC Capital launched coverage on Dell with an Outperform designation. The firm highlighted Dell’s strategic positioning within AI infrastructure investment as a primary catalyst.

Goldman Sachs also identified Dell among several technology enterprises experiencing tangible financial benefits from AI implementations. The firm noted these advantages are expanding into revenue-producing operations, beyond mere capital expenditure.

Regarding potential challenges, Sankar identified memory supply limitations in 2027 as a factor requiring monitoring. He also mentioned Dell’s client solutions division confronts near-term and medium-term pressures as IT budgets reallocate from personal computers toward infrastructure investments.

InvestingPro data indicates 22 analysts have upgraded their earnings projections for Dell’s upcoming reporting period. However, InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis suggests the stock may be valued above its calculated intrinsic worth at present price levels.

Two Dell subsidiaries recently finalized a $5 billion senior unsecured notes issuance. The offering comprised multiple tranches featuring varying maturity dates and interest rates.

The post Dell Technologies (DELL) Stock Gains Momentum as Analysts Boost Targets on $95B AI Pipeline appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• OpenAI has reached an annualized revenue run rate approaching $70 billion, representing over 70% growth since the start of Q3.
• The financial milestone was disclosed on the same date as OpenAI’s DevDay developer conference in San Francisco.
• Following the announcement, Oracle stock climbed 5% to 7%, while Microsoft’s close partnership with OpenAI continues driving value.
• Competitor Anthropic reached a $65 billion revenue run rate by July, with 2025 contracted revenue jumping twelvefold to $4.6 billion.
• Industry analysts expect both AI companies to pursue public offerings, establishing crucial valuation standards for the sector.

The annualized revenue [[LINK_START_0]]run rate[[LINK_END_0]] for OpenAI has surged to approximately $70 billion, based on financial information disclosed by Axios and confirmed by several media sources on Tuesday.

This represents a remarkable increase exceeding 70% from the beginning of the third quarter. The news broke during OpenAI’s yearly DevDay developer conference taking place in San Francisco.

At the conference, the company presents cutting-edge resources for software developers who integrate OpenAI’s technology into their applications.

Revenue Drivers Behind the Explosive Growth

The remarkable expansion at OpenAI stems from multiple revenue channels across its operations. Business-to-business income has experienced more than double-digit growth since July.

Notably, consumer revenue generated during Q3 alone has already surpassed the company’s entire consumer revenue for 2025. Key contributors include subscription services, corporate contracts, the Codex development tool, and an emerging advertising platform.

The $70 billion projection extrapolates from OpenAI’s latest monthly performance metrics. This represents a substantial acceleration from the $40 billion run rate that Bloomberg and Forbes documented just one month earlier.

According to Axios, complete expense data remains unavailable. This limitation means OpenAI’s true profitability remains somewhat obscured.

When contacted by Seeking Alpha for comment, OpenAI had not provided an immediate response.

Impact on Technology Sector Equities

Following the revenue disclosure, Oracle experienced share price appreciation ranging from 5% to 7%. As a major cloud infrastructure provider for OpenAI, Oracle’s fortunes are directly linked to the AI company’s expansion.

Microsoft maintains substantial financial connections to OpenAI as well. The tech giant generated $24.1 billion in fiscal 2026 revenue through its business arrangements with OpenAI.

Given that both OpenAI and Anthropic remain privately held, market participants frequently utilize Microsoft and Oracle stocks as indirect investment vehicles for AI growth exposure.

Anthropic, positioned as OpenAI’s primary competitor, is experiencing similarly rapid expansion. By late July, the company’s annualized revenue run rate had exceeded $65 billion.

This figure represents more than a sevenfold increase from its year-end 2025 run rate. A preliminary IPO prospectus examined by Reuters indicated that Anthropic’s contracted revenue expanded twelvefold to approximately $4.6 billion annually.

The document also revealed $518 billion in outstanding cloud infrastructure and computing commitments. It featured a risk disclosure acknowledging that the company’s AI technology could potentially represent an “existential risk” to human civilization.

Currently, both OpenAI and Anthropic maintain private company status. However, industry observers anticipate this situation may shift as both organizations appear to be preparing for eventual stock market debuts.

Should Anthropic proceed with a public offering, it would establish the inaugural public market valuation for an enterprise focused exclusively on generative artificial intelligence. This milestone would enable investors to conduct direct performance comparisons between the two AI leaders.

An OpenAI IPO would require the company to publish independently audited financial statements covering both revenues and operating costs. Such transparency would eliminate existing uncertainty regarding the company’s expense structure.

Following a March 2026 financing round, OpenAI achieved an $852 billion valuation. The Financial Times subsequently reported preliminary discussions suggesting a potential $1.2 trillion valuation.

Shareholders in Microsoft, Oracle, and semiconductor manufacturers are monitoring these developments with keen interest. Any forthcoming public listing from either AI laboratory is anticipated to serve as a critical benchmark for evaluating the broader AI infrastructure ecosystem.

The post OpenAI Hits $70B Revenue Run Rate as AI Race With Anthropic Intensifies appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Shares of ASML advanced approximately 3% on Monday, reaching $1,815.84 during morning hours.
• UBS analyst Francois-Xavier Bouvignies maintained a buy recommendation with a EUR 2,350 price objective prior to market open.
• Both Bank of America and Barclays have also maintained buy recommendations on ASML within the past week.
• The company’s third-quarter financial results are scheduled for release on October 14, with Wall Street forecasting EPS of $12.54 and revenue around $13.18 billion.
• A separate UBS report suggests ASML’s equipment production capacity goals for 2027 and 2028 could exceed 30% expansion.

Shares of ASML experienced upward momentum on Monday, gaining roughly 3% during morning session activity to hit $1,815.84. The stock peaked at an intraday high of $1,818.49 after opening near the bottom of its daily range.

ASML Holding N.V., ASML

The upward movement followed a research note from UBS analyst Francois-Xavier Bouvignies, who reaffirmed a buy recommendation on the shares. Released before the opening bell, the note maintained a EUR 2,350 price objective.

The investment bank cited ASML’s extended-term profitability outlook as justification for its bullish stance. UBS also emphasized the company’s monopoly status as the sole provider of extreme ultraviolet lithography technology.

UBS was not alone in expressing optimism this week. Bank of America Securities renewed its buy recommendation three trading sessions prior.

Barclays also reaffirmed a buy stance earlier in the week. This represents three separate buy recommendations within a brief trading window.

The confluence of analyst endorsements arrives just ahead of ASML’s quarterly financial disclosure. Third-quarter earnings are slated for October 14, 2026.

Consensus analyst estimates point to earnings per share of $12.54 for the period. Revenue projections center around $13.18 billion.

Isolated Strength in Weak Market

The broader equity market provided minimal support for ASML on Monday. The Nasdaq registered slight losses while the S&P 500 remained essentially unchanged.

This context framed the advance as a stock-specific catalyst rather than a sector-wide phenomenon. The upward movement occurred independently of general index performance.

ASML’s second-quarter 2026 performance had already provided a foundation for investor optimism. The company reported EUR 9.33 billion in net sales alongside a 54% gross margin.

Semiconductor equipment manufacturers have maintained consistent investor attention throughout the year. Demand for chipmaking infrastructure driven by artificial intelligence applications remains the primary catalyst.

Production Expansion Plans in Focus

In a separate research note released Sunday, UBS addressed ASML’s manufacturing capacity roadmap. The firm suggested the company’s expansion objectives may be raised beyond current projections.

ASML announced in July its intention to boost production of deep ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet systems by 30% during 2027. An additional 30% expansion is targeted for 2028.

UBS analysts believe these goals could be adjusted upward beyond 30% given robust demand for AI-focused semiconductors. The firm also anticipates ASML may provide 2027 revenue growth guidance exceeding 30% on a year-over-year basis.

ASML’s trading range on Monday spanned from $1,800.40 to $1,818.49. The stock maintained its position near the upper boundary throughout early afternoon trading.

The post ASML (ASML) Stock Jumps 3% as UBS Renews Buy Rating Before Earnings Release appeared first on Blockonomi.

The leading cryptocurrency has been quite unstable over the past several days, slipping from its local top above $87,000 witnessed earlier in September.

Some popular analysts believe the asset may soon offer a buying opportunity before resuming its rally toward $90,000 and even $100,000, while key factors support the overall bullish outlook.

Down and Then Massive Pump?

Earlier this month, Ali Martinez outlined several reasons why BTC might be on its way to hit the $100K psychological level. Among them is growing institutional appetite, with the analyst noting that spot Bitcoin ETFs have accumulated more than $1.6 billion worth of the cryptocurrency in about 72 hours.

The interest remained solid and, in fact, last week was the strongest since October 2025, with net inflows reaching almost $2.4 billion. SoSoValue’s data shows these ETFs posted eight green days in a row, last seen in August. This suggests pension funds, hedge funds, and other conservative investors continue to increase their exposure to the asset, potentially paving the way for further price gains in the near future.

Recently, Martinez updated his prediction with additional insights. He claimed that BTC appears to have broken out of a double bottom pattern and is now moving back toward the $82,000 neckline.

“If this level holds as support, the retest could offer a buying opportunity before the rally resumes toward the pattern’s $100,000 target,” he stated.

Gerla and Crypto with Haris ₿ also shared similar views. The former said that Bitcoin’s MVRV has returned to around 1.35 and the cohort is firmly back in profit. To him, this looks more like a healthy retest than the start of a major downfall.

The latter assumed that BTC “is giving small fake pumps to trap more buyers.” He believes the asset has entered the final bull trap and may plummet to roughly $62,000 before potentially rising above $90,000.

Still in a Bull Market?

Doctor Profit is also optimistic about BTC’s broader trend, but he anticipates some turbulence ahead. As CryptoPotato reported, he set a downside target of $79,000, around the 50-week moving average.

“Important: I mention first, this does not mean that there is a second target lower, but 79k, and then I can tell based on BTC reaction, but for now it’s 79k and continue to a new high and continuing the bull. Let me make this extremely clear: I consider Bitcoin to be in a BULL MARKET, but I expect a correction WITHIN that bull market,” he added.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) May Offer a Buying Opportunity Before the Next Big Pump: Analysts appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin is trading around $84K after a strong recovery from the $60K area over the past couple of months. The charts show that BTC has moved back above its major moving averages, while the shorter-term structure remains constructive but capped by a clear supply zone. Meanwhile, adjusted SOPR has recovered above 1, suggesting that realized profitability is improving.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

The daily chart shows a significant structural recovery from the $60K demand area. BTC subsequently reclaimed the $67K resistance zone and broke sharply higher in August, moving above both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages with force.

The 200-day moving average is currently around $71K, and the 100-day moving average is converging from below near $70K. Both are below the current market price, have begun turning higher, and are on the verge of a potential bullish crossover, which keeps the broader structure constructive. The previous resistance around $67K has therefore shifted into an important structural support area.

After the August breakout, BTC established another consolidation zone around $75K-$80K before pushing toward the $88K region. That $75K-$80K area remains the nearest major daily support zone, while the $67K region represents a deeper structural support.

The main obstacle is overhead supply. The first major resistance zone is roughly at $88K-$90K, followed by the higher supply area around $95K. BTC would need to reclaim these zones to extend the current recovery beyond the $100K mark and potentially toward new all-time highs.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart provides a more immediate view of the current consolidation. BTC made a sharp move from the $75K region through the $82K area and subsequently accelerated toward the $86K resistance level.

Since reaching that area, price has been rejected and is now consolidating near $83K. The bullish order block near the $80-$82K zone is the key near-term demand area, and it has already acted as a base following the breakout.

On the upside, the $86K-$90K region is the immediate supply zone. The price has already tested this area and failed to establish a sustained breakout, leaving it as the main hurdle for continuation.

Still, the 4-hour RSI is around 50 after recovering from lower levels. This suggests that short-term momentum has stabilized rather than becoming excessively stretched, but is yet to show a bullish shift.

A strong move above $86K would put the upper part of the supply zone in focus, while a breakdown below $80K would weaken the current short-term structure and increase the possibility of a deeper retracement toward the $75K area.

On-Chain Analysis

The adjusted SOPR chart shows a notable improvement in Bitcoin’s on-chain profitability conditions. Adjusted SOPR measures whether coins being spent are, in aggregate, being moved at a profit or loss, with a value above 1 indicating that profitable spending is dominating.

The metric has recently climbed back above the 1.0 level, and its 30-day exponential moving average is currently around 1.01 after spending much of 2026 below 1.

This recovery coincides with BTC’s move from roughly $60K toward the current $84K level. The improving aSOPR therefore supports the idea that the recent price recovery is accompanied by improving realized profitability rather than occurring while the metric continues to deteriorate.

However, the current reading remains only modestly above 1. The metric has not reached the significantly higher levels seen during previous strong advances. Therefore, the on-chain data currently suggests improving conditions, but does not by itself confirm another major expansion in the trend. Still, this points to the fact that the market participants are once again realizing profits, which reduces the immediate fears of panic selling flooding the market with excess supply and leading to further capitulations and crashes.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Reclaims Major Moving Averages as Bulls Target $90K Resistance appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – NEWPORT BEACH, California, September 29th, 2026]

Proposed acquisition would bring a gold-backed decentralized financial ecosystem, including decentralized financial infrastructure targeting retail, institutional, and blockchain markets.

• A retail and institutional platform designed for the rapidly growing stablecoin industry, delivering compliance-focused infrastructure for payments, yield, lending and open-ecosystem, industry-wide decentralized financial applications.
• Institutional gold-based infrastructure spanning gold as a currency, gold-collateralized USD products and gold-backed financial products, anchored to an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network designed as a stable foundation for the next generation of industry products.
• Proprietary yield engines designed to power institutional products targeting competitive returns by bridging traditional and decentralized markets.

Amaze Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: AMZE) (“Amaze” or the “Company”) today announced it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent (“LOI”) to acquire the assets of BullionFX, including its core platform Alchemy (collectively, the “BullionFX Assets”), for stock valued at approximately $155 million.

The BullionFX Assets comprise the technology, infrastructure and intellectual property behind a blockchain financial ecosystem built around auditable physical gold. If completed, the acquisition would mark a strategic expansion for Amaze beyond creator commerce and into gold-backed digital-asset infrastructure. The transaction comes amid a broad resurgence in cryptocurrency markets, rapid growth in volume within the stablecoin industry, renewed institutional engagement with digital assets, and continued strength in gold as a long-established store of value. Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit $1.79 trillion in June 2026, up 125% year on year, according to Visa Onchain Analytics (Allium).

“Crypto’s renewed momentum and gold’s enduring role as a store of value have opened a rare window for infrastructure built on both,” said Joel Krutz, Interim Chief Executive Officer of Amaze. “Alchemy is a full-stack, gold-backed financial ecosystem, and we believe bringing it into the public markets can create meaningful long-term value for our stockholders.”

The acquisition gives Amaze the technology, infrastructure and intellectual property behind a comprehensive decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem in which every unit of digital value is tied to physical gold held by independent custodians. The platform’s architecture supports lending and borrowing protocols, yield products, cross-chain interoperability, and an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network that links traditional and decentralized finance while offering the rapidly growing market of gold- and USD-backed stablecoins users’ broad functionality, including access to yield opportunities.

Following closing, Amaze intends to prioritize activation of the self-custody retail wallet and yield engines and, as an initial institutional application, to pursue a listed Stable Asset Treasury (“SAT”) vehicle for gold and USD, subject to applicable regulatory approvals.

“We have seen traditional financial markets adopt blockchain, and more recently stablecoins, as a direct result of retail users seeking more control, custody, and transferability of their own assets. We believe traditional finance will increasingly bridge with decentralized finance to extract the ideal attributes of both industries. Alchemy is well-positioned to compete in bringing to market a range of bridged traditional and decentralized financial products to introduce innovative financial offerings on a retail and institutional level while seeking to mitigate certain risks associated with traditional stablecoin models,” said Stephen Moss, Founder, BullionFX. “Joining a publicly listed company gives Alchemy the access and institutional credibility to accelerate our mission. That mission is a stable, transparent financial ecosystem for retail users that bridges traditional and decentralized finance.”

INSIDE THE ALCHEMY PLATFORM

$GOLD, Backed by Physical Gold. Alchemy’s core $GOLD token is designed to be backed one-to-one by vaulted, independently custodied and audited physical gold, with reserves intended to be subject to real-time attestation through third-party, institutional-grade audit mechanisms. $GOLD is designed to serve as the network’s settlement asset, combining the stability of a hard asset with the speed and transparency of blockchain settlement.

Built for the Stablecoin Industry. Alchemy is a retail and institutional platform designed for the rapidly growing stablecoin industry. Its compliance-focused architecture is built to support gold-linked payments, yield, lending and borrowing, cross-chain interoperability and open-ecosystem DeFi applications that third-party developers can build on.

Institutional Gold Infrastructure on Ethereum Layer 2. For institutions, Alchemy provides gold-based infrastructure spanning gold as a currency, gold-collateralized USD products and gold-backed financial products. Running on an Ethereum-based Layer 2 network, it is designed to bring gold’s stability on-chain as a foundation for future industry products.

Proprietary Yield Engines. Alchemy’s proprietary yield engines for gold and USD are designed to power institutional products targeting competitive returns by bridging traditional and decentralized markets.

Self-Custody for Retail. A planned self-custody retail wallet is designed to give users direct access to gold-linked payments, yield and DeFi applications while keeping control of their own assets.

“Stablecoins have proven the demand for digital money. The next question is what that money is anchored to,” said Simon Rahme, Co-Founder and CTO, BullionFX | Alchemy. “We engineered Alchemy’s Layer 2 so that gold sits inside the settlement layer itself rather than on top of it. That gives developers and institutions a base for payments, lending and yield products, with reserves designed to be verifiable on-chain.”

Transaction Terms

Under the LOI, which contains certain binding provisions, the parties will work toward definitive agreements. The transaction, if consummated, will result in significant issuance of Amaze common stock to BullionFX. Final terms are subject to due diligence, regulatory review, approval by each party’s board of directors and other customary closing conditions.

About Amaze Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: AMZE)

Amaze Holdings, Inc. is an end-to-end, creator-powered commerce platform offering tools for brand development, product creation, advanced e-commerce, audience growth and scalable managed services. By helping people turn what they know, create and share into sustainable income, Amaze enables creators to build deeper audience relationships and more flexible paths to a better life. Discover more at www.amaze.co.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the proposed acquisition of the BullionFX Assets; the anticipated benefits, capabilities and potential of those assets; the parties’ ability to negotiate and enter into definitive agreements; the ability to successfully integrate the BullionFX Assets and realize anticipated synergies and value creation; the ability to generate anticipated yields or returns from proprietary yield engines or other platform features; the timing and success of planned product launches, including the self-custody retail wallet and Stable Asset Treasury vehicle; and expectations regarding the adoption and growth of decentralized finance, stablecoins, and gold-backed digital assets. Forward-looking statements often contain words such as “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “will,” “should,” “could,” “may,” “designed to,” or “targeted.” These statements are based on management’s current views and assumptions and are not guarantees of future performance. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, without limitation: the ability of the parties to negotiate and execute definitive agreements; the completion of due diligence; the receipt of required regulatory, stockholder and board approvals and the satisfaction of other closing conditions; the occurrence of any event that could give rise to termination; the significant dilution to Amaze stockholders in connection with the transaction; the continued availability of capital and financing; the ability to commercialize and operationalize the BullionFX Assets; Amaze’s lack of operating history in digital asset infrastructure and decentralized finance; the performance and security of blockchain-based technology and digital assets; risks related to smart contract vulnerabilities, software bugs, cyberattacks, hacking incidents, and operational failures affecting blockchain-based systems; evolving federal and state laws, regulations and guidance applicable to digital assets, stablecoins, decentralized finance platforms and related custodial arrangements, including potential classification of tokens as securities; the creditworthiness, performance and regulatory status of third-party custodians holding physical gold reserves; the ability to maintain one-to-one gold backing and real-time attestation as described, and the risk that reserves may not be verified as anticipated; competition from established and emerging participants in the digital asset, stablecoin and decentralized finance industries; the ability to protect and enforce intellectual property rights in the acquired technology; the volatility of cryptocurrency and gold markets; prevailing market, regulatory and business conditions; and other risks and uncertainties described in Amaze’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release. Amaze undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement except as required by law.

The post Amaze Holdings Executes Binding LOI to Acquire BullionFX | Alchemy, a Decentralized Gold-Backed Financial Ecosystem for Valued at $155 Million appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, September 29th, 2026]

Network fees from personal data reads now fund staking rewards, buybacks and ecosystem development under a fixed protocol split; public dashboard launches at token.vana.org

The Vana Foundation today announced that expanded staking as part of the Vega upgrade to the Vana network is complete and published the paper “VANA: The Asset Behind an Open Data Economy”, which sets out the VANA token economics. A public dashboard at token.vana.org reports network reads, fee income, buybacks, burns and token supply, with the on-chain record behind each figure.

Vana is a network for moving personal data under the permission of the person it belongs to. Under the network’s fee model, an application that reads a person’s data with a granted permission pays one cent per scope read. Fees are allocated by protocol rule: 60 per cent to stakers through staking pools, 20 per cent to the purchase and burn of VANA, and 20 per cent to ecosystem development. Each buyback and burn is published with its transaction hash.

With expanded staking, staking runs through three staking pools, each with a 5 per cent operator commission. Staking rewards are paid from network fees, accrue to the staked position and may be claimed as they accrue. Existing staked positions may be moved into one of the three pools in a single transaction at stake.vana.org by midnight UTC on 31 October 2026. Principal can be withdrawn at any time, with no deadline. After 31 October, a position that has not moved no longer earns rewards.

“Every read of a person’s data on the network is a paid transaction, and the fees pay the node operators and stakers who make that movement possible,” said Art Abal, Managing Director of the Vana Foundation. “The split is written into the protocol, and every figure is published on chain.”

Applications on the network have produced 2,937,447 verified reads to date, as of 28 September 2026.

Total VANA supply and release schedules remain unchanged.

The paper “VANA: The Asset Behind an Open Data Economy” and the whitepaper addendum “The Vega Upgrade: Data Portability and Transformations” are available at token.vana.org.

About Vana

Vana is an open network for personal data portability. Its standard, the Personal Data Portability Protocol, was contributed to Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust as a Community Specification. vana.org

About the Vana Foundation

The Vana Foundation is a non-profit foundation that supports the development and adoption of the Vana network and is a member of Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.

About OpenDataLabs

OpenDataLabs builds and operates the products that governments and industry run on the Vana network. www.opendatalabs.com

This release is for information only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any token or security.

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QNT has suddenly become one of the biggest stories in the altcoin market after a major partnership with The Clearing House. Its price climbed nearly 400% from $74 to $357 in less than a week.

While it has since pulled back to $241, there seems to be more to the story as opposed to the move being simply a news-driven event.

Traders Pile In

According to data shared by Santiment, around 645 QNT whale transactions worth at least $100,000 were recorded on September 28th. This was the highest level ever seen on its chart. The analytics firm explained that while continued whale activity is encouraging, “cooling prices and consolidation would create a healthier setup than another straight-line surge.”

The rally followed The Clearing House’s September 24 announcement that it had selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative. The project is being developed to help financial institutions clear and settle transactions involving tokenized deposits.

The Clearing House operates payment networks that process more than $2 trillion in transactions each day. Quant’s role gives QNT a clear “institutional-use” narrative, which appears to have attracted traders looking for exposure to blockchain infrastructure tied to traditional finance. The network is expected to become available to participating institutions in the first half of 2027.

Still, the announcement was enough to move the market. But that’s not the most interesting part.

The biggest rush in on-chain activity did not happen immediately. Santiment found that QNT recorded just 351 new addresses on the day of the announcement. By September 27, that number had jumped to 7,516. Active addresses followed the same pattern, rising from 2,064 to 14,458 over the same period. That is a huge jump in just a few days.

Open interest also exploded. Dollar-denominated open interest increased almost nine times between September 23 and 27. Measured in QNT, open interest rose about 2.2 times. Much of the dollar increase therefore came from its rapidly rising price. There was also no obvious new announcement on September 26 or 27 to explain the sudden wave of activity. The market simply appeared to catch up with the news a few days later, Santiment added.

Short-Term Risks

One trader, however, decided to lock in his gains. Doctor Profit said the rally has been impressive, but he is not comfortable holding the token at these levels, and highlighted the high funding rate, which suggests many traders are betting on further upside.

Doctor Profit said he would rather be open about taking profits, even if QNT continues to climb after his exit.

The token’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) also shows how overheated the move has become. The indicator briefly climbed close to 100 before falling back to around 74. It remains in overbought territory, which means that QNT could face some short-term pressure after its steep climb.

The post Understanding Why This Cryptocurrency Jumped 400%: Quant (QNT) Defies Market Slowdown appeared first on CryptoPotato.