The unveiling of the 200mm diamond wafer could revolutionize semiconductor cooling, potentially enhancing AI chip efficiency and miniaturization.

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Voter resistance may lead to stricter regulations, slowing AI data center growth and impacting tech industry expansion in key U.S. states.

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Texas's political shift may reshape national debates on immigration and technology, influencing broader U.S. political trends and strategies.

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The Trump era's M&A surge may reshape corporate landscapes, fostering megadeals and influencing future market dynamics and consolidation trends.

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The new AI models by OpenAI and Anthropic could shift competitive dynamics, influencing market perceptions and future AI advancements.

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Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Treasury Cuts Off MEXC From U.S. Financial System Over Alleged $16 Billion in Illicit Flows

The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a final order Friday that will cut offshore exchange MEXC Global off from the American banking system over alleged links to sanctions evasion by Iran, North Korea and Russia, the department said.

FinCEN’s order, published as a PDF pending Federal Register placement, finds MEXC a “primary money laundering concern in connection with Russian illicit finance” under section 9714(a) of the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act. Thirty days after that Register notice, covered U.S. financial institutions will be barred from any funds transfer — including convertible virtual currency — to or from MEXC.

Reuters reported the same cut-off Friday afternoon. Treasury framed the move as part of Operation Economic Outcast. It is not an OFAC sanctions designation: the order says it does not rewrite Bank Secrecy Act duties or OFAC rules, and it is a FinCEN funds-transmittal ban rather than a Section 311 proposed rulemaking.

Treasury alleges MEXC facilitated at least $16 billion in illicit flows from May 2021 through May 2026, including nearly $1.5 billion tied to Russian sanctions evasion and about $22 million linked to Iran’s Central Bank and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force. The platform was still processing trades with sanctioned Garantex and successor Grinex as recently as June 2026, more than four years after OFAC designated Garantex, the release says.

What the order does — and when

The order, signed by FinCEN Deputy Director Jimmy L. Kirby, covers MEXC Global and named affiliates operating outside the United States, including Seychelles-incorporated MEXC Global Ltd / MX Global Ltd, Estonia’s MEXC Estonia OÜ, Switzerland’s GIDA Technology AG and the U.K.’s MXC Global Ltd, plus successors. Covered institutions face civil or criminal penalties for willful violations.

Until the Federal Register publishes the notice, the 30-day clock has not started. As of Friday evening eastern time the Register’s public index still showed no MEXC document, matching the order’s own cover note that publication is pending.

Background on MEXC

Founded in 2018 and formerly branded MXC, MEXC ranks among the world’s 20 largest centralized crypto venues by volume. Treasury puts daily turnover above $1 billion and reserves near $5 billion as of mid-2026, with access claimed across more than 170 countries. The exchange already lists the United States as a prohibited jurisdiction in its user terms, so Friday’s action mainly hits any remaining dollar rails, banking partners and counterparties that still touch U.S. institutions.

Regulators elsewhere have been circling for years. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority put MEXC Global Ltd on its warning list in March 2024 as unauthorized. Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission warned the same month that the platform was marketing to local investors without a licence. Seychelles’ Financial Services Authority said in May 2026 it took action against MX Global Ltd for unlicensed virtual-asset operations — footnoted in FinCEN’s order.

Those compliance gaps matter because the illicit-flow thesis is specific, not guilt by association. Beyond Russia, FinCEN cites about $1 billion in direct traffic with more than 40 Iranian crypto exchangers, nearly $26 million with the OFAC-sanctioned A7 sanctions-evasion network, and almost $200 million tied to the A7A5 stablecoin. DPRK facilitators and cybercrime flows are also alleged. MEXC has not issued a public response to the Friday order; its main X account kept posting marketing content through the afternoon.

Why it matters for bitcoin markets

Practically, once the order bites, U.S. banks, money transmitters and other covered firms cannot move dollars or crypto to MEXC wallets or accounts. Offshore users may keep trading peer-to-peer, but dollar on-ramps and any bank that still clears for MEXC become legal risk. The template tracks earlier 9714 cut-offs of venues such as Bitzlato, and it lands beside a busy sanctions week that has already seen North Korea crypto designations, an Iranian exchange action, and Russia’s push to put bitcoin trading on the Moscow Exchange.

Whether MEXC contests the finding, seeks an exemption, or quietly reroutes liquidity is the open question. For now the paper trail is clear: a final FinCEN order under 9714(a), a 30-day fuse after Federal Register publication, and Treasury’s claim of at least $16 billion in illicit volume sitting behind the cut-off.

This post U.S. Treasury Cuts Off MEXC From U.S. Financial System Over Alleged $16 Billion in Illicit Flows first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Magazine Books Opens 333-Copy Genesis Book Collector Edition for 3rd Anniversary

Bitcoin Magazine Books opened a third-anniversary campaign Friday for Aaron van Wirdum’s The Genesis Book, offering a redesigned Collectors Edition limited to 333 hand-signed, individually numbered hardcovers in an exclusive Genesis Block slipcase.

Each Collectors Edition hardcover is hand-signed and hand-numbered by van Wirdum, the former Bitcoin Magazine editor-in-chief whose book traces the people, projects and ideas that preceded Satoshi Nakamoto’s peer-to-peer cash design. The standard package is priced at $221 and pairs the book with a limited trading card carrying a Certificate of Authenticity, a collector pin, a sticker sheet, the slipcase and a digital package.

Two one-of-one packages sit outside the ordinary number queue. The #1 package is listed at $5,000 and the #21 package at $2,500; each includes the matching numbered copy, a matching one-of-one collector card and the same accessories as the standard collector package.

Standard collector numbers are assigned in purchase order starting at #2 and skipping #21, the campaign FAQ says. Once preorders close, the signed Genesis print run will not be reproduced.

What ships with the anniversary editions

Beside the signed run, Bitcoin Magazine Books is selling a Premium Edition hardcover for $160 with foil stamping, a ribbon marker, stained page edges and custom endsheets. That edition is not limited, signed, numbered or slipcased, and it does not include the collector accessories or digital files.

A standalone Digital Package at $9.99 delivers the ebook in EPUB and the audiobook in MP4 immediately after purchase, independent of whether the physical campaign clears its funding bar.

Physical collector and premium orders are scheduled to ship in calendar year 2027.

Van Wirdum, who discovered bitcoin in 2013 and later led Bitcoin Magazine‘s editorial desk, frames The Genesis Book as a history of computer scientists, privacy activists and heterodox economists who chased government-independent digital money long before the 2008 white paper — from early cypherpunk culture through experiments such as David Chaum’s ecash, Wei Dai’s b-money, Adam Back’s Hashcash and Hal Finney’s reusable proof of work.

Store images for the slipcase and accessories are artistic renderings; the campaign page notes that color, materials and finishes may vary in production. The campaign is operated by BTC Inc., which publishes Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Bitcoin Magazine Books Opens 333-Copy Genesis Book Collector Edition for 3rd Anniversary first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Thailand SEC Files Criminal Complaint Against Bitget Ahead of Dec. 5 Access Block

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission filed a criminal complaint Thursday against BG Limited, the operator of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, alleging it ran an unlicensed digital-asset exchange for Thai users from 2022 to 2025, and notified the government to block the platform from Dec. 5.

The complaint, lodged with the Economic Crime Suppression Division, also names Mr. Kritsana Kritsananuwat as an alleged supporter who promoted Bitget through Facebook and YouTube channels, the SEC said in statement No. 241/2026.

From 2022 through 2025, the regulator found, Bitget offered a trading system in the ordinary course of business, charged fees, ran a Thai-language website that could show values in baht, and solicited Thai users on social channels including “Bitget Thailand” on X, “BGB Thai Holder” on Telegram and “bitgetthailand” on TikTok.

That conduct amounts to operating a digital-asset exchange under Section 3 of the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Businesses B.E. 2561 (2018) without a license, a violation of Section 26 punishable under Section 66, the SEC said. The case now moves to an inquiry official, then prosecutors and the courts.

Separately, the SEC submitted Bitget’s website, other domains and its app to the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society under a 2025 royal decree that authorizes access blocks on unlicensed trading platforms. From Dec. 5, the public “will be unable to access the platform,” the statement said, and investors still holding assets there were told to consider acting before the cutoff.

A licensed path that now sits next to a criminal case

The enforcement push lands weeks after Bitget announced a planned acquisition of GMO-Z.com Cryptonomics (Thailand), a Bangkok digital-asset exchange and brokerage that already holds Thai licenses, through its interest in BTGT Management (Thailand) Ltd.

Under that deal, GMO Internet and its Thai holding company would transfer their entire stake in GMO-Z — about 49% and 50.94%, respectively — to BTGT or a designee at completion, a Sept. 24 GMO Internet filing showed. Bitget said completion remains subject to regulatory approval and, after a change-of-control nod, it intends to introduce its trading platform to Thai users under local rules.

“Thailand is an important part of Southeast Asia’s digital asset landscape, and this acquisition gives us a great opportunity to establish local operations,” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said in the Oct. 20 release.

The timetable has already slipped. GMO Internet Group pushed the effective date of the share transfer from Oct. 31 to Nov. 30, citing careful work on Thai regulatory applications and closing procedures. That revised date sits five days before the planned Bitget access block.

CoinDesk reported that Bitget’s own terms of use, updated in October, already list Thailand among jurisdictions where its services are prohibited, and that the SEC has not said whether the criminal complaint will weigh on the GMO-Z change of control.

What the block does and does not settle

Thailand has used the same access-blocking tool before. In mid-2025 the SEC referred Bybit, OKX and three other unlicensed platforms for a June 28 cutoff, telling users to move assets first. The Bitget action follows that template — and adds a criminal complaint against the exchange operator and a named promoter.

Licensed venues still sit at the center of Bangkok’s policy mix. Thailand has approved a multi-year capital-gains tax break only for trades on SEC-regulated platforms, and has been expanding regulated crypto products in derivatives and capital markets. Unlicensed platforms get the opposite treatment: investor alerts, access blocks and, now for Bitget, a police referral.

What is not yet clear is whether a criminal case against BG Limited for the 2022–2025 period bars, slows or leaves untouched BTGT’s bid to take over a licensed local operator. The SEC statement does not mention GMO-Z. Bitget has not publicly answered the complaint in a statement posted with the acquisition release.

For Thai users still on Bitget, the practical clock is Dec. 5. For Bitget, the test is whether Nov. 30 closes a regulated door into Thailand — or whether the complaint filed Thursday makes that licensed path the next question the ECD and the SEC have to answer.

This post Thailand SEC Files Criminal Complaint Against Bitget Ahead of Dec. 5 Access Block first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Stealing $2.47 Million in Crypto From Investigations

A former FBI agent pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing about $2.47 million in cryptocurrency with wallet credentials the bureau had collected in its own cases, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced.

Patrick Steven Yaroch, 37, of Ashburn, Virginia, entered pleas to wire fraud and money laundering in federal court in Alexandria. U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles accepted the plea. He faces up to 20 years in prison and is scheduled for sentencing on March 4, 2027.

Court papers put the illicit haul at $2,474,380.66. Prosecutors say Yaroch made roughly 100 fraudulent transfers using credentials tied to 35 separate FBI investigations, drawing on wallets controlled by investigation subjects, adversarial nation-state actors and at least one wallet the FBI itself had created for an operation.

The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General had flagged the case in August after Yaroch’s arrest on a criminal complaint. That earlier account described a smaller set of transfers — about 10 moves totaling roughly $1 million — and noted that Yaroch self-reported the activity to two department employees on July 29, 2026. The plea figures are larger.

From 2017 through early 2025, Yaroch worked in the FBI Boston Division on a squad focused on an adversarial nation-state. From February 2025 through July 31, 2026, he served in the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division at headquarters, with access to systems that stored cryptocurrency credentials gathered in investigations.

How the FBI credentials turned into cash

Beginning no later than December 2024, Yaroch used that access to move coins out of those wallets and into ones he controlled. After the transfers, he swapped the stolen cryptocurrency into other digital assets and ran further transactions meant to obscure its source, nature and ownership.

Between Nov. 25, 2025, and Jan. 13, 2026, he moved about $93,082 into one of his accounts, then shuffled funds among other accounts to cover debts, including credit cards, car payments and loans, the office said.

FOX 5 DC, citing the same U.S. Attorney’s Office release, noted the Portugal planning that appears in the plea papers. Yaroch asked ChatGPT how to maximize investment returns and where to live in the European Union. After the chatbot suggested buying a vineyard in Portugal, he gave Portuguese lawyers a power of attorney on June 15, 2026, to register him with the Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority, obtain a tax identification number and collect the password to his finance portal. He arranged travel to Portugal for September 2026.

What the plea says the FBI lost

The agreed statement of facts goes beyond the dollar figure. Yaroch’s conduct compromised multiple FBI investigations into criminal groups and nation-state adversaries, the office said, and it compromised FBI sources and methods used in foreign intelligence collection and criminal cases. It also “deprived FBI employees of their ability to carry out their functions to protect public safety and national security.”

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Theophani K. Stamos and Daniel S. Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division, announced the plea. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kathleen Robeson and Russell Carlberg are prosecuting, with help from the National Security Cyber Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the DOJ inspector general’s Mid-Atlantic region. The case is 1:26-CR-208 in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The admission lands in a week when federal crypto-crime stories keep stacking up — from a failed bitcoin kidnapping plot that produced its own guilty plea last month to FBI tallies putting U.S. crypto fraud losses above $11 billion in 2025, a figure the White House has used to frame a wider crackdown.

What sentencing will do with the gap between Yaroch’s July self-report and the $2.47 million plea figure is still open. So is how many of the 35 FBI cases can be repaired after an insider treated the bureau’s own wallet credentials as a personal ATM. March 4, 2027, is when Judge Giles gets to answer the first question.

This post Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Stealing $2.47 Million in Crypto From Investigations first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strive (ASST) Posts $474.8 Million Common Net Income as Bitcoin Yield Hits 63.2%

Strive reported $474.8 million of net income attributable to common stockholders for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, a print that arrived Friday alongside a company claim that Class A total return had outperformed bitcoin by 103.7% year to date through the same date.

GAAP net income was $509.0 million, or $5.24 a share on a fully diluted basis. Almost all of that came from a $533.7 million unrealized gain on digital assets marked to fair value. Operating revenue for the quarter was just $2.7 million, so the earnings line is a treasury mark, not a fee business.

In a post on X that led with the outperformance figure, Strive also highlighted a year-to-date bitcoin yield of 63.2% and a bitcoin dollar gain of $9.00 per assumed diluted share outstanding, both measured through Sept. 30. Chairman and CEO Matthew Cole tied those metrics to the stock’s relative showing against the asset.

“Strive has continued to successfully execute on its treasury management strategy, delivering a strong bitcoin yield year to date in 2026, which I believe is the primary driver of our common equity’s outperformance relative to Bitcoin so far this year,” Cole said in the earnings release.

Bitcoin yield, buys and the preferred stack

Bitcoin yield, as Strive defines it, is the percentage change in bitcoin per share over a period — not a cash yield. On that measure the company posted 18.5% in the third quarter alone and 19.3% from Oct. 1 through Oct. 30, after the SATS preferred debut.

Strive acquired 8,136 bitcoin in the third quarter at an average cost of about $78,885 and 20,373 bitcoin over the nine months ended Sept. 30. Another 15,124 coins followed between Oct. 1 and Oct. 30. Holdings stood at 28,000 bitcoin on Sept. 30 and 43,124 by Oct. 30, keeping Strive among the largest public corporate stacks after recent multi-thousand-coin buys and smaller weekly adds that still trailed Strategy.

Digital assets at fair value were $2.34 billion on the Sept. 30 balance sheet. Cash had risen to $490.4 million by Oct. 30, and Strive still held Strategy’s variable-rate STRC preferred with a fair value of about $50.1 million.

The capital stack that funded the buys is mostly perpetual preferreds. On Oct. 20 Strive closed a registered offering of 7 million shares of its 15% Series A perpetual preferred (SATS) for about $609 million in net proceeds. Preferred dividends of $34.2 million in the quarter are what turned the $509.0 million GAAP profit into the $474.8 million common figure.

Strip the story to nine-month GAAP and the picture flips. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Strive posted a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $88.4 million. The third-quarter profit is real under fair-value accounting, but it is concentrated in one mark-to-market line.

What ASST stock has done over the past year

ASST itself has not moved in a straight line with the company’s bitcoin-yield scoreboard. Shares closed at $20.59 on Thursday, down about 10% on the day, and traded near $20.70 early Friday. That leaves the stock roughly 29% below its level a year earlier, when Yahoo Finance data put the close near $29, and about 33% under its Oct. 21 local high of $30.75.

The 52-week range on Yahoo Finance runs from $7.02 to $34.40. Year to date, the price path from the Jan. 2 close near $17.30 into the mid-$20s is a gain of roughly 20%, with a February low near the 52-week floor and a September push back toward $30. Through Sept. 30 — the cutoff on Strive’s outperformance claim — ASST had risen about 70% from that January close while bitcoin was down roughly 7% over the same window on Yahoo Finance data, a wide gap even before the company’s own total-return methodology.

The longer chart still carries the scar of 2025, when Asset Entities became the public shell for Strive’s bitcoin-treasury reverse merger and the share price spiked into triple digits on weekly closes before collapsing. Investors who held through that conversion saw a different ride than the tidy year-to-date relative-return figure Strive put at the top of Friday’s note.

Cole said the recent SATS issuance leaves Strive “never been in a better position to generate long-term returns in excess of Bitcoin for our common equity shareholders.” The test for ASST from here is whether another quarter of bitcoin yield and preferred-funded buys can reopen the gap to bitcoin after a year in which the stock still sits well below where it traded twelve months ago, even as the treasury has climbed past 30,000 then 40,000 bitcoin.

This post Strive (ASST) Posts $474.8 Million Common Net Income as Bitcoin Yield Hits 63.2% first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Australia's latest inflation figures showed that prices in the category covering audio, visual, and computing equipment rose 6.1% in a single quarter. That's by far the largest increase in the Australian Bureau of Statistics series, which began in 1980. Computers, TVs, and electronics in general have gotten cheaper and delivered more performance for the same…

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Central banks bought more gold in the third quarter of 2026 than consumers worldwide bought for jewelry. According to the World Gold Council's latest demand report, central banks and other official institutions acquired an estimated net 321 metric tons, while jewelry consumption came to 313 tons. In the same quarter a year earlier, jewelry buyers…

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The regulator asks customers to consider action on holdings before the block, while Bitget promises guidance on service access.

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Treasury says the network concealed ownership and sustained Prince Group operations, while US rules require covered assets to be blocked.

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A November 7 mainnet snapshot puts the historical seed at 99.7% of the reserve, with 1.12 ZEC accumulated under NU7’s fee rules.

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Swing trading means holding a cryptocurrency for a few days to a few weeks in order to capture a single price move. You buy after a pullback and sell when the price has reached the next interim high. Swing trading thus sits between hectic day trading, where positions are closed on the same day, and long-term holding over years. For investors in Germany this time frame has a consequence that many underestimate: every gain falls within the one-year speculation period and is taxable as soon as all private disposal gains in a year reach €1,000.

Swing trading is particularly common in crypto because price swings are larger than with equities. A weekly gain or loss of ten percent is not unusual for Bitcoin, and smaller coins move even more. These swings are the swing trader's trading opportunities and at the same time the biggest risk. This guide explains how the strategy works, which indicators swing traders use, what a trade costs in fees and how the German tax office treats the gains. You will not find buy signals here.

What is swing trading? Positions held for several days to weeks

A swing is a single wave in the price chart: a rise from low to high or a fall from high to low. Swing trading tries to capture part of such a wave. The typical holding period is between two days and three weeks. Anyone holding longer is closer to position trading; anyone trading shorter has arrived at day trading.

The swing trader is interested neither in the move over the next five minutes nor in where a coin will be in five years. They look at the daily chart and the 4-hour chart and ask: where did the price last turn, and how far can the current move realistically go? From this they derive an entry, a price target and a loss limit before opening the position.

Because the crypto market trades around the clock, seven days a week, there are no market closing times. That is an advantage for people in work: swing trading does not require watching a screen during working hours. A check in the morning and one in the evening are enough for most setups, provided the stop-loss and profit target are placed as orders.

Swing trading vs day trading and HODLing: the time frame decides

The three trading styles differ mainly in holding period, and effort, costs and tax follow from that. The table shows the differences for a private investor in Germany.

Swing trading is often seen as a middle way. It takes less time than day trading and reacts faster than simply holding. The price for this is that you practically never reach the tax holding period. For many investors a mix therefore makes sense: a long-term portfolio that stays untouched and a small, separate portion for trades. Separate ideally also means technically separate, with its own wallet or sub-account, so that the order in which coins were used can be cleanly documented for the tax office.

How does swing trading work? Swing highs, swing lows and market trends

Every swing trading strategy is built on turning points. A swing high is a price high flanked on the left and right by lower highs. A swing low is, accordingly, a low between higher lows. Connecting these points makes the trend visible.

• Uptrend: Each swing high is higher than the previous one, and so is each swing low. Swing traders here prefer to buy near a new higher low.
• Downtrend: Highs and lows are falling. Anyone who does not want to trade short stays on the sidelines.
• Sideways phase: Highs and lows are at a similar level. This is where range trading comes in.

Putting market moves into context also means looking at market sentiment. A swing trader checks whether the broad market is moving in the same direction: if a small coin rises while Ethereum and Bitcoin fall, the move is more fragile. Many traders also watch indicators such as the Fear and Greed Index or funding rates in the futures market to spot overheated phases.

The underlying idea matters: swing trading does not predict where the price will go in the long term. It relies on the experience that prices rarely move in a straight line and bets on the next wave within an existing pattern. If the pattern breaks, the trade is closed.

Swing trading strategy: trend following, range trading and breakout trading

Most setups can be traced back to a few basic patterns. A setup is a recurring price constellation in which a trader enters according to fixed rules.

Trend following with pullbacks

In an uptrend, the trader waits until the price comes back to the last swing low or to a moving average and buys there. The stop-loss sits just below the swing low, the target at the last swing high or slightly above. This is the classic swing trading strategy because it works with the trend.

Range trading in sideways phases

If a coin moves back and forth between two levels for weeks, the range trader buys at the lower boundary and sells at the upper one. This works as long as the range holds. If the price breaks below the lower boundary, the stop-loss kicks in immediately. Range trading is riskier in crypto than in equities because breakouts are often violent.

Breakout trading above resistance

In breakout trading, the trader only enters once the price clears an important swing high on increased volume. The idea: a breakout often sets a new wave in motion. The drawback is false breakouts, where the price briefly jumps above the level and immediately falls back. Many traders therefore wait for a daily close above resistance.

A short trade, a bet on falling prices, is not possible in spot trading. That requires derivatives such as perpetual futures or margin accounts. How leverage, margin calls and liquidation are connected is explained in our guide to margin trading. For beginners the rule is: spot first, then think about leverage.

Swing trading indicators: moving averages, RSI and volume

Indicators do not replace a decision; they structure it. An indicator is a formula that generates an additional line on the chart from price and volume. Swing traders usually use only a few:

• Moving averages: The 20-day and 50-day averages show the direction of the trend. If the price is above both and the lines are rising, that points to an intact uptrend. Swing trading with moving averages often means buying pullbacks to these lines.
• RSI (Relative Strength Index): It measures on a scale of 0 to 100 how strong recent gains were relative to losses. Readings above 70 are considered overbought, below 30 oversold. In strong trends, however, the RSI stays in these zones for a long time.
• Volume: A breakout on high trading volume is more reliable than one on thin volume.
• Bollinger Bands: This indicator places a band around a moving average. When the band narrows, a larger price move often follows, but the band does not reveal its direction.

For analysis you need charting tools with candlestick charts, drawing tools and price alerts. Free versions are enough to start with. Anyone watching several coins benefits from alerts that send a signal to their smartphone as soon as a level is reached. Many trading venues now build such trading tools directly into their interface; our crypto exchange comparison shows which exchanges offer them.

Stop-loss and position size: risk management with the 1 percent rule

In swing trading, success or failure depends less on the hit rate than on risk management. A stop-loss is an order that automatically sells a position when the price falls below a set level. A take-profit closes it accordingly when the target is reached. You set both orders before entering, not once the price is already moving.

A common rule of thumb is to risk no more than one percent of trading capital per trade. The position size follows from that. An example calculation:

• Trading capital: €10,000, so the maximum risk per trade is €100.
• The stop-loss sits 5 percent below the entry, just below the last swing low.
• Position size: €100 divided by 5 percent gives €2,000.

If the price target is 10 percent above the entry, the risk-reward ratio is 2 to 1. At this ratio a trader stays in profit before costs even if only 40 percent of their trades work out. The calculation only holds, however, if the stop-loss is actually executed. In sharp sell-offs the sale can take place well below the level because there are no buyers at the stop price. This effect is called slippage.

Leverage changes this calculation fundamentally. With threefold leverage, a 5 percent price decline becomes a 15 percent loss on the capital deployed, and liquidation can come before the stop-loss. Anyone who wants to look at profit and loss in detail will find the difference between realised and unrealised results in our guide to PnL in trading.

Swing trading fees: worked example at 0.40 and 0.80 percent per order

Every swing trade consists of at least two orders, a buy and a sell. Fees are therefore charged twice, and with 20 or 30 trades a year they add up. Kraken's fee schedule shows by how much. On its fee page for Kraken Pro, the exchange lists 0.40 percent for makers and 0.80 percent for takers in spot trading for the lowest volume tier. For a simple instant buy, Kraken charges 1 percent, plus a spread in the price.

By way of explanation: a maker order is a limit order that is not executed immediately and thus adds liquidity to the order book. A taker order is executed immediately against existing orders, for example a market order or a triggered stop-loss.

Our calculation for a trade with a €2,000 stake that produces a 5 percent price gain (sale value €2,100):

Depending on the order type, 16 to 41 percent of the gross profit therefore disappears in fees. With twelve such trades a year, that comes to between just under €200 and just under €500. With higher trading volume Kraken's rates fall in stages, down to 0.00 percent maker and 0.05 percent taker in the top tier, which is barely attainable for private investors. Two practical rules follow for swing traders: place entries as limit orders wherever possible, and avoid trades with a very small price target, because the costs eat up the gain.

Choosing an exchange is not only about fees but also about supervision. Since the end of the transition period under the EU's MiCA regulation, providers serving customers in Germany need a licence as a crypto service provider. An exchange with an EU licence does not protect you against price losses, but it is subject to rules on the safekeeping of customer funds.

Swing trading and tax: holding period, exemption limit and loss offsetting

For the German tax office, a swing trade in cryptocurrencies is a private disposal transaction under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. What matters is the period between purchase and sale: if it is one year or less, the gain is taxable. In swing trading this is practically always the case.

The €1,000 exemption limit

Under Section 23(3) of the German Income Tax Act, gains remain tax-free if the total gain from private disposal transactions in a calendar year is less than €1,000. This is an exemption limit, not an allowance. If the annual gain is €999, you pay nothing. If it is €1,050, the whole amount is taxed at your personal income tax rate. At a tax rate of 30 percent that would be around €315, plus the solidarity surcharge and church tax where applicable. Important: all private disposal transactions of the year count towards the limit, including gains from other assets that fall under Section 23.

Fees for buying and selling reduce the taxable gain. That is another reason to document every order with date, price and fee.

Offsetting losses

Under Section 23(3) of the Income Tax Act, losses from swing trades may only be offset against gains from private disposal transactions, not against your salary. Anything not used up in the same year can be carried back to the previous year or carried forward to future years. To do so, the loss must be declared in the tax return, even if no tax is due in the loss year.

Which coins count as sold?

If you have bought the same cryptocurrency several times at different points, the question arises which units a sale relates to. In its letter of March 6, 2025, the Federal Ministry of Finance takes a wallet-by-wallet approach and permits the FIFO method (first in, first out): the units bought first are deemed to be sold first. Anyone who mixes long-term holdings and trading holdings in the same wallet can therefore easily lose track of which coins are already tax-free and for which the one-year period is starting again. A separate wallet for trades prevents that.

What the planned holding period reform means

The German government plans to abolish the one-year holding period for crypto-assets. As of our information on November 1, no cabinet decision had yet been taken; the details and dates are in our overview of the crypto holding period in 2027. For swing traders the reform changes little about the taxability of their gains, as they hold for less than a year anyway. What the exemption limit and loss offsetting will look like in future depends on the final law.

Drawbacks of swing trading: weekend moves, leverage and discipline

Swing trading is often described as a relaxed form of trading. The risks are nonetheless considerable:

• Moves overnight and at weekends: Crypto trades around the clock. A news item on Sunday morning can move the price while you sleep. Without a stop-loss in place, you are exposed to that unprotected.
• Costs and tax: As the calculations above show, up to a third of a gross profit can quickly go on fees and a further share on tax.
• Psychology: Anyone who loosens the rules after two losses, moves the stop-loss or increases the position to make up for losses loses control of their risk.
• Total loss with small coins: With thinly traded tokens, liquidity can be so low that stop-loss orders are executed far below the level.

Anyone who wants to try swing trading is therefore best off starting with a small amount they can afford to lose entirely and keeping a trading journal with the entry, exit, rationale and result of every position.

Is swing trading easier than day trading? Time required and capital

Swing trading is easier above all in everyday life: it does not require hours in front of the screen and involves fewer quick decisions. In terms of skill it is not simpler, because the price moves are larger and a wrong call costs more per trade. There are fewer decisions, but each carries more weight.

On capital: because fees are charged as a percentage, there is no technical minimum amount. With very small amounts, however, fixed costs such as withdrawal fees weigh more heavily. Very few people can live off swing trading. That would require large capital, a strategy that remains stable over years and the willingness to endure longer losing streaks. It is more realistic to see swing trading as a small building block alongside long-term wealth building.

Swing trading: below €1,000 in annual gains, trading stays tax-free

Swing trading with cryptocurrencies can work if you have clear rules for entry, stop-loss and position size and know the costs. Three steps help to get started:

1. Choose your tools: Find a charting and analysis environment with price alerts and drawing tools. Our comparison of crypto analytics platforms gives an overview.
2. Use a licensed exchange: Trade on a platform with a MiCA licence, limit orders and low maker fees. You can find providers with EU authorisation in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Document every trade: Date, price, quantity and fee belong in a list or a tax tool so that you keep an eye on the €1,000 limit and declare losses properly. We compare suitable programs in our crypto tax software and portfolio tracker comparison.

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

On Sunday, Solana offers its holders a yield of 5.23 percent a year before the validator takes its cut. On the other side of the ledger is a price that has lost 19.2 percent in 30 days and stands at $89.25 on Sunday afternoon, roughly €80. To make up for this single month, a holder would have to stake for a little over four years at an unchanged price.

What is documented: the figures on staking, issuance of new coins and validators come from the publicly visible vote accounts on the Solana blockchain, and the price data from CoinGecko. Our assessment of what this means for the coming weeks follows further down in a separate section and is labelled as such.

Our Solana price prediction covers the medium-term scenarios with price targets up to 2030. This piece deals with a shorter question: what the staking yield can do against the falling price, and what holders themselves are currently doing with their staked SOL.

SOL at $89.25: the 200-day line has barely held since Saturday

On Saturday, in our analysis of the Solana advertising in Shanghai, we put the price at $89.98, just above the 200-day average of around $89. Since then SOL has lost another 0.8 percent. In the 24 hours to Sunday afternoon, the range according to CoinGecko ran from $88.71 to $89.86. During the day the price thus briefly slipped below the line, which, based on the daily closing prices of the past 200 days, sits at $89.00.

The 200-day average is the mean of the closing prices over 200 trading days. Many market participants read it as the boundary between a long-term uptrend and a downtrend, which is why buy and sell orders often cluster around it. Since November 5, SOL has been oscillating around this level without a daily close clearly below it.

The weekly balance is clear: down 6.0 percent in seven days, down 19.2 percent in 30 days. On October 12, SOL still stood at $111.25, the highest daily close of the past month. The coin is almost 70 percent below its record of $293.31 from January 2025.

Solana staking yield: where the 5.2 percent comes from

On Solana, staking means that you assign your SOL to a validator, a computer that confirms blocks and votes on the state of the blockchain. The coins remain yours, and the validator cannot spend them. In return for securing the network, the protocol distributes newly created SOL to everyone who has staked.

How much is newly created is set by the issuance schedule. It started in February 2021 at 8 percent a year and falls each year by 15 percent of the previous year's rate until it reaches a floor of 1.5 percent, as set out in the technical documentation of the Solana developers. In the current epoch 1080 the rate is 3.5666 percent of the total supply. With 637.19 million SOL, that amounts to around 22.7 million new coins a year, a little over 62,000 a day, all of which go to validators and their delegators.

Because these new coins are spread only across the staked SOL, the yield is higher than the issuance rate. On Sunday, 434.15 million SOL were locked with voting validators, or 68.14 percent of the total supply. 3.5666 divided by 0.6814 gives 5.23 percent gross. The validator deducts its commission from that: at 5 percent, 4.97 percent remains; at 10 percent, 4.71 percent. On top of this come tips and priority fees, which some validators pass on; they fluctuate from epoch to epoch and are not included in this calculation.

Dilution from new SOL: the real gain is 1.6 percent

The 5.2 percent is not a gain out of nothing. Anyone who does not stake loses around 3.6 percent of their share of the whole network every year, because the new coins go to others. Anyone who stakes first offsets this dilution and only gains the difference: 1.0523 divided by 1.0357 gives a real increase in network share of 1.61 percent a year.

That is why the Solana staking yield is not interest in the classic sense. Above all, it protects against the disadvantage borne by non-stakers. It only changes the dollar value of a position if the price at least holds steady. If the price falls, the number of your coins still grows, but their value in euros shrinks all the same.

Price drop vs staking: a little over four years for one weak month

Setting the two side by side shows the order of magnitude. Over 30 days, staking at a 5 percent commission yields around 0.41 percent more SOL. Over the same period the price lost 19.2 percent. To offset a decline of this size through additional coins alone, you would have to stake for around 4.4 years at 4.97 percent a year and an unchanged price.

Conversely, you can work out how far the price may fall before a year of staking from today brings no gain in value. In twelve months, 100 SOL become around 104.97 SOL. At $85.02, that amount is worth as much as 100 SOL at today's $89.25. If the price is below $85.02 in a year, staking will only have cushioned the loss, not prevented it.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 8, 2026. It is based on the issuance rate of epoch 1080, the total and circulating supply and all 697 validator vote accounts on the Solana blockchain, plus CoinGecko's daily closing prices for the past 365 days.

4.8 million fewer SOL staked: holders are pulling out

More telling than the yield is how the locked amount is developing. On October 9, cryptoticker.io counted 438.97 million SOL with voting validators in its own analysis, at a price of $110.20 at the time. On October 25 the figure was 436.98 million SOL at $102.38. On Sunday it is 434.15 million SOL at $89.25.

So in 30 days, 4.82 million SOL have left active staking, worth around $430 million at today's price. Measured against the circulating supply, the ratio fell from 74.6 to 73.46 percent. If anything, the figure understates the outflow: ongoing rewards land directly in the staked accounts and, without withdrawals, would have increased the amount by around 1.9 million SOL a month on their own.

Anyone who ends their stake on Solana usually waits until the end of the current epoch before the coins are free again; an epoch currently lasts a little over a day. A withdrawal is therefore not a panic reaction of minutes, but a decision with a lead time. The vote accounts do not show where the released SOL went. Some may have been sold on exchanges, others swapped into liquid staking tokens, which in this count would continue to show up via their own validators.

This fits with Saturday's finding: according to DefiLlama, the Solana blockchain held $1.6 billion less in stablecoins on November 7 than 30 days earlier. Capital is leaving the network at two points at once.

Solana validators: 663 are voting, 18 hold a third of the stake

On Sunday, 663 validators were voting normally, and another 34 were flagged as delinquent, meaning they had fallen behind on voting. Together these 34 accounted for only around 629,000 SOL. On October 9 the count had shown 674 active and eight delinquent validators. The network is thus running with slightly fewer nodes, which does not affect block confirmation.

The concentration is unchanged. The Nakamoto coefficient describes the smallest number of validators that together hold more than a third of the stake and could therefore halt the network. On Sunday it stands at 18, as it did on October 9. For you as a delegator this means a simple trade-off: choosing one of the very large validators reinforces this concentration, while choosing a smaller one with a clean voting record spreads it.

Commissions also vary widely. On Sunday, 222 of the 663 active validators charge zero percent, while 99 charge 10 percent or more. On a position of 100 SOL, the difference between zero and ten percent commission comes to a good half SOL a year.

Solana chart: levels between $85 and $99

The levels are derived from CoinGecko's daily closing prices, recalculated on Sunday afternoon. They have shifted little since Saturday; what matters is where the price now stands relative to them.

Levels to the downside

The first support remains the 200-day line at $89.00, which SOL briefly dipped below during Sunday. The next level is new and comes from the staking calculation above: $85.02. Below it, even a full year of staking from today would bring no gain in value. Further down lies the $72 to $75 range from the summer; on August 17, SOL closed at $74.55, the lowest daily close of the past 90 days. The low for the year dates from June 7 at $62.18.

Levels to the upside

To the upside, the first hurdle is the November 5 daily close at $95.51, the highest level of the past seven days. The 100-day line runs at $99.21 and the 50-day line at $107.70. As long as SOL stays below the 100-day line, the downtrend since the September high of $122.08 remains intact.

Our view on the Solana price prediction: staking cushions, it does not carry the price

In the editorial team's view, the falling stake says more about the coming weeks than the yield does. The figures moving in step support this: 4.82 million fewer SOL staked since October 9, $1.6 billion less in stablecoins in 30 days, and a price that fell from $110 to $89 over the same period. Holders who unwind their stake deliberately forgo almost 5 percent a year. As a rule, they do so because they want to sell or reallocate.

Against this, the withdrawal remains small at just over one percent of the staked amount in 30 days. More than two thirds of all SOL remain locked, and no daily close has formed clearly below the 200-day line since November 5. The yield itself even rises slightly when less SOL is staked, because the new coins are spread across a smaller amount.

What follows from this: as long as the stake keeps falling and the price stays below $95.51, we expect a test of the zone around $85 rather than a recovery to the 100-day line. This view would be overturned by a daily close above $95.51 with a growing stake again. SOL remains a highly volatile coin, and a total loss can never be ruled out with cryptocurrencies.

Staking income in Germany: tax and the €256 exemption limit

For investors in Germany, staking is a matter for the tax return even if no coin is sold. The tax authorities treat staking income as other income, valued at market price at the moment it reaches you. Under Section 22 No. 3 of the German Income Tax Act, this income is subject to an exemption limit: if it stays below €256 in a calendar year, it is tax-free. Once you reach the limit, the whole amount is taxable, not just the part above it.

At Sunday's price of around €80 and 4.97 percent a year, you reach the limit with about 64 SOL. If the price falls further, this amount rises; if it rises, the amount falls. You have to add up all other income of this kind, not just that from Solana.

The holding period for the staked coins themselves remains one year; staking does not extend it. Our overview of the status of the holding period reform summarises where plans to change it stand. A separate period starts for each individual reward from the moment it is received. Anyone who receives regular rewards quickly loses track without a tool; you can find suitable programs in our crypto tax software comparison.

SOL staking at $89: below $85.02 even the yield does not help

1. Choose provider and term: Staking via an exchange is convenient, but providers differ in commission and in the waiting time to unstake. The comparison of staking platforms gives an overview.
2. Buy through a licensed provider: If you want to add to your position at $89, use a provider licensed under MiCA, the EU regulation for crypto-assets. The overview is in our list of the best crypto exchanges.
3. Keep a record of rewards: Each reward counts at its euro value on the day it is received. A tax program from the crypto tax tools comparison records them automatically.

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

Polkadot has approved the first cut to its validator set. On Sunday morning at 6:49 a.m. German time (CET), Referendum 1966 was confirmed with 99.92 percent of the weighted votes. On Tuesday morning, at around 11:20 a.m., the change will be enacted on the blockchain. From the next election after that, the network will award only 500 seats in the active validator set instead of 600. Anyone who nominates their own DOT and has picked validators at the bottom of the ranking may then end up without rewards.

What is documented: the result, timings and vote counts come from the referendum itself, the stake figures from our own query of the staking data on Asset Hub on Sunday around midday, and the prices from CoinGecko and Kraken. Our assessment follows further down in a separate, clearly marked paragraph.

The price offers no tailwind. On Sunday around midday, DOT trades at $0.90 or €0.81 according to CoinGecko, barely changed from the previous day but 5.1 percent lower than a week ago and 22.5 percent lower than a month ago.

Referendum 1966 approved: 48.1 million aye votes after five days

The proposal was submitted at midday on Tuesday, November 3. The decision phase on the "Whitelisted Caller" track began the same evening. Polkadot uses this route for changes that the Technical Fellowship has reviewed and cleared in advance. It is shorter than the "Root" route but still requires the approval of DOT holders.

The confirmation phase started on Sunday at 6:39 a.m., and ten minutes later the proposal had passed. In the end, 48.14 million votes were cast in favour and 36,388 against. Votes are weighted by lock period: anyone who locks their DOT longer for the vote counts several times over, while anyone who does not lock at all counts for only a tenth. The amount of approval actually committed, known in Polkadot jargon as "support", came to 152.9 million DOT. Measured against the total supply of around 1.68 billion DOT, that is 9.1 percent.

In substance, the proposal does three things. It sets the number of active validators at 500. It lowers, in the same proportion, the share of the issuance budget from which validators are paid on top of their commission. And it adjusts two Relay Chain parameters that govern how many validators per core check the work of the connected networks.

What has changed since Friday: support up from 1.8 to 152.9 million DOT

On Friday we presented the referendum in our article Polkadot today: Referendum 1966 aims to cut 100 of 600 validator seats. At the time the proposal was still in the decision phase, and November 10 was a planned date. Three things have changed since then.

First, turnout. On Friday morning, around 8.9 million weighted votes backed the proposal, and support stood at 1.8 million DOT. By Sunday, approval had risen to 48.1 million votes and support had grown eighty-five-fold. Large holders therefore only voted in the last two days, mostly with a short lock or none at all, since support is three times higher than the weighted vote count.

Second, the timing. With the confirmation, block 33,814,400 of the Relay Chain is fixed as the enactment point. On Sunday at 1:46 p.m., the Relay Chain was at block 33,787,047. At six seconds per block, that leaves just over 27,000 blocks, or around 45.5 hours.

Third, the price. On Friday, DOT traded at $0.92, and the $0.89 to $0.92 range had held twice during the week. On Saturday, according to Kraken, the price fell as low as $0.879 and closed at $0.897. That was the lowest daily close since September 3.

Enactment on Tuesday: block 33,814,400 and the first election with 500 seats

Anyone who wants to understand when something changes in their own staking has to keep two clocks apart. The first is the block at which the decision is executed, around 11:20 a.m. on Tuesday. The second is the era. On Polkadot an era lasts 24 hours; the current era 2348 began on Sunday at 12:36 p.m. For each era, the network elects in advance which validators are active and which nominators are entitled to their rewards.

According to the proposal text, the new number applies in the first era after enactment. Whether that is already the era starting on Tuesday at midday or only the one starting on Wednesday at midday depends on whether the election for Tuesday has already run at the time of enactment. Since staking moved to Asset Hub, Polkadot computes this election over several blocks. What is certain is that 500 seats will count from Wednesday midday at the latest.

You can change your nomination at any time. The new selection applies to the next election, not retroactively. Anyone who switches by Tuesday morning will in any case be in time for the first election with 500 seats.

Our own analysis: how closely bunched the 600 validators are

Which validators will survive the cut is not published anywhere in advance. The backing in the current era offers a guide. On Sunday around midday, we queried how many DOT stand behind each of the 600 active validators, own stake and nominations combined. The basis is the "ErasStakersOverview" storage of the staking pallet on Polkadot Asset Hub for era 2348.

The result is a remarkably flat distribution. The best-backed validator has 2.21 million DOT, the weakest 1.38 million. The validator in 500th place stands at 1.420 million DOT, the one in 600th place at 1.376 million. Only 3.1 percent therefore separates the new cut-off from the current last place. For the third step with 320 seats, the cut-off would today be 1.472 million DOT, barely higher.

The reason lies in the election method. Polkadot uses nominated proof of stake with an allocation based on the Phragmén method. It distributes nominators' DOT so that the elected validators are backed as evenly as possible. That is why there is no long tail of weak validators, but a dense field in which small shifts decide who is in and who is out.

From the same query: in total, 916.8 million DOT stand behind active validators in this era, just over 54 percent of all DOT. The 100 validators ranked 501 to 600 account for 140.9 million of them. There are more candidates than seats: 721 accounts are registered as validators, and 28,144 accounts nominate. From Tuesday, 721 candidates will therefore compete for 500 seats instead of 600.

One caveat belongs here. The ranking in the current era does not predict the next election. If 100 seats disappear, the method redistributes the DOT of the remaining nominations, and a validator in 480th place can end up in 520th after the election if its nominators also picked other candidates. A rank close to 500 is therefore not a verdict, but it is a warning sign.

Nominating on Polkadot yourself: up to 16 validators and a minimum amount

Holders who nominate their DOT directly are the most affected. They select up to 16 validators. Rewards are only paid for eras in which at least one of them is active and their own DOT are assigned to it. For direct nomination, the network currently requires at least 250 DOT. Holders with less can still nominate, but their DOT only count if they exceed the minimum amount of the respective election. In the last election it was 191.28 DOT.

You can check your own selection in the Polkadot staking dashboard or in the wallet you used to nominate. If it says "inactive" or "waiting", your DOT are currently earning nothing. It helps to look at the backing of your selected validators: if you have only chosen candidates with just over 1.4 million DOT, you are close to the new cut-off. A broader selection across all 16 slots lowers the risk that none of them is active in a given era.

Switching validators has cost little since the summer. With Referendum 1910, Polkadot abolished slashing for nominators and shortened the unbonding period for unstaking from 28 days to at most two eras. Anyone who wants to exit completely therefore gets their DOT back within about two days.

Nomination pools and exchange staking: the provider makes the choice

A nomination pool bundles the DOT of many holders, from as little as one DOT. The pool operator selects the validators, so after the cut it is the operator who has to adjust, not you. It is still worth checking the list of the pool's validators: a pool whose selection sits at the bottom of the ranking will at times earn less after Tuesday.

If you stake DOT through an exchange or broker, you see none of this. The platform spreads holdings across its own or third-party validators and passes on a yield. Whether it adapts its selection to the smaller set shows up in the yield paid out, usually with a few days' delay. Our comparison of staking providers shows which providers offer DOT staking, on what terms and with what unbonding period.

Mathematically, the cut changes little for stakers' returns. The proposal only trims the pot from which validators receive extra pay. According to the calculation in the forum thread on the roadmap, this share of the issuance budget falls in step one from 22.6 to 18.8 percent, while the stakers' share stays at 45.2 percent. Spread across fewer validators, the reward per nominated DOT may even rise slightly, provided your own validator stays active.

DOT price on Sunday: lowest daily close since September 3

On Sunday around midday, DOT trades at $0.9005. Over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko, the range was between $0.881 and $0.906, with DOT worth just under $49 million traded. With a market capitalisation of around $1.5 billion, Polkadot ranks 57th.

Saturday shifted the picture. At $0.897, DOT closed on the Kraken exchange at its lowest level since September 3. The $0.89 to $0.92 range, which still counted as support on Friday, was breached during the day; it held only narrowly on a closing basis.

On the downside, the next level is the October 30 low at $0.867. Below that there is no tested level until the year's low: on August 18, DOT closed at $0.751, its lowest in two years. On the upside, the average of the last 20 daily closes is $1.00 and the 200-day average $1.02. Both lines sit a good eleven percent above the current price.

The validator cut itself is not a direct price driver. It changes neither the supply of DOT nor the issuance of new DOT; it only shifts who receives part of it. How DOT issuance and distribution work is explained in our background piece Polkadot (DOT): the network behind 2.1 billion tokens.

Steps two and three: 400 and 320 validators need their own referendums

Referendum 1966 is explicitly "Step #1". The roadmap posted in the Polkadot forum on October 16 foresees three steps about a week apart: 500, then 400, and finally 320 active validators. Each step requires its own referendum. On Sunday around midday, no proposal for step two had yet been submitted in the list of ongoing votes.

Two votes affecting staking are running in parallel. Referendum 1967 is meant to register Parity's staking miner again as the preferred submitter of election results. The account had lost this role because of a bug that has since been fixed; according to the text, the proposal changes no other parameter. Referendum 1968 brings runtime version 2.5.3 to all of Polkadot's system chains. Both are in the decision phase.

Polkadot staking and German tax: the €256 exemption limit applies per year

In Germany, staking rewards are classed as other income under Section 22 No. 3 of the Income Tax Act. What counts is their euro value on the day they are received. If all income of this kind stays below €256 a year in total, it is tax-free. The limit is an exemption threshold: if the total exceeds it, the entire amount is taxable.

Switching validators or pools does not trigger a sale. As long as DOT are not exchanged for euros or another token, no private disposal arises. On a later sale, the one-year holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act applies to each tranche; staked DOT do not extend it. Whether the tax-free holding period will survive is politically open; our page on the crypto holding period reform summarises the state of play.

With small holdings the exemption limit easily drops out of view, all the more so at prices around €0.81. But anyone staking several coins can easily exceed it with many small inflows. A tax tool that records inflows at the daily price then saves the arithmetic; the common programs are listed in our comparison of crypto tax tools.

Polkadot validator reduction: our assessment

Our assessment: the decision is manageable for investors, but it demands attention this week from everyone who nominates themselves. In its favour are the clear result of 99.92 percent with 152.9 million DOT of support, the quick release when unstaking and the unchanged return for stakers with an active validator. Against it is the density of the field. Our query shows a gap of only 3.1 percent between rank 500 and rank 600; anyone who has nominated therefore cannot know for sure before the election whether their validator stays in. With 320 instead of 600 validators, Polkadot will also be less broadly distributed, and the rules for the stronger nodes, which the roadmap calls "metanodes", are still open in the forum. We do not derive a buy recommendation from this: the price has slipped further since Friday, and as with any coin, a total loss is possible with DOT.

Polkadot validators: below 1.42 million DOT of backing, it gets tight

1. Review your selection: By Tuesday morning, check which validators you have nominated and how many DOT stand behind them. If they are all close to 1.42 million DOT, spread your nomination more widely. If you would rather let a provider decide, you will find the terms in our comparison of staking providers.
2. Check your status after the election: From Wednesday midday, the staking dashboard shows whether your DOT are active. If it says "inactive", choose again; the change takes effect from the next era. If you hold DOT through an exchange, check its staking terms and compare them with the MiCA-regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Record your inflows: Note your rewards at the daily price so that you keep the €256 exemption limit in view. A tool from our comparison of crypto tax tools does this automatically.

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

Investigators from seven countries struck an alleged supplier of fake trading platforms on November 3, 2026. The authorities searched 17 locations, seized more than 100 servers and arrested seven suspects, who are to be surrendered or extradited to Germany. The case was led by the public prosecutor's office in Itzehoe. For you as an investor, one point matters most: the scam built on supposed crypto, forex and stock platforms carries on, even if part of the technology behind it has been switched off. Looking up a platform yourself before the first transfer protects your money more reliably than any raid.

The figures in this article come from the Eurojust press release of November 3, 2026. Eurojust is the EU agency for criminal justice cooperation; it coordinates cross-border proceedings between the public prosecutors of the member states. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty by a final judgment.

Raid on fake trading platforms: 17 searches in seven countries

Authorities from Germany, Cyprus, Finland, Albania, Israel, Kosovo and North Macedonia took part on the action day. On the German side, Eurojust names the cybercrime unit of the public prosecutor's office at the Itzehoe regional court and the State Criminal Police Office of Schleswig-Holstein. Europol supplied analysis, cross-checked data against its own databases and sent digital forensics experts to Albania and Kosovo.

According to the agency, 17 locations were searched, including a call centre in Kosovo. Besides the more than 100 servers, investigators secured further evidence and assets. The authorities put the damage caused by the fraud system at more than four million euros. The press release does not say how many victims there are or how many of them live in Germany.

In legal terms, the cooperation ran through European Investigation Orders, European Arrest Warrants and orders to freeze assets. A European Investigation Order is a tool that lets a prosecutor request searches or interviews in another EU state without going through the slow channels of classic mutual legal assistance. Two joint investigation teams worked together via Eurojust: one with German, Polish and Albanian authorities, a second with Albanian and Kosovar ones.

Crime-as-a-service: one supplier builds scam sites for call centres

At the heart of the case is a business model that investigators call crime-as-a-service. It describes a division of labour in which one provider supplies the technology for crimes and other groups use it. According to Eurojust, a company based in Cyprus and Israel is alleged to have provided fraudulent websites to various criminal groups. Investigators identified groups in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia as alleged clients of this company; they are suspected of running fraudulent call centres. Eurojust does not name the company.

For investors, this division of labour matters. A platform that looks professional, with price charts, a customer account and a chat window, proves nothing about its legitimacy. If one firm supplies such interfaces as a construction kit to several gangs, many similar sites appear under changing names. When one disappears, the next is already waiting under a new name. That is why memorising individual brand names helps little; checking official registers is more reliable.

A married couple's complaint: how the case started in 2022

It all began with a criminal complaint in Germany. In 2022, a married couple had invested their savings through an online platform and were then unable to withdraw the profits shown on screen. According to Eurojust, this single complaint led to investigations that uncovered an internationally organised system with victims around the world.

A first international action day led to two arrests and the seizure of extensive evidence. While analysing it, investigators came across seven further suspects, including the alleged heads of the call centres. A second action day in 2025 brought more arrests, and the authorities secured evidence and money. Only the analysis of this second operation led investigators to the supplier of the websites, and so to the raid of November 3.

The case shows that a complaint can make a difference even when the sums are small. The couple do not automatically get their money back because of this raid. Whether and when victims are compensated depends on the frozen assets and on the further criminal proceedings, and the press release says nothing about that. Without the first complaint, however, the investigation would never have existed.

The scheme behind fake trading platforms: phantom profits and pressure on the phone

Eurojust describes the process as follows. The fraudsters promised huge profits in a short time from trading cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange and shares. After a small first deposit, victims saw heavily inflated gains in their customer account, so that the platform looked genuine. The supposed brokers then put investors under psychological pressure to transfer further large sums. Anyone who wanted to withdraw their profits was strung along with excuses. In the end, the perpetrators vanished with the money.

A phantom profit is an account balance that exists only on the screen. In reality the platform buys no coins and no shares; it simply shows you numbers that the operators set themselves. That is exactly why the start feels so convincing: the first small withdrawal sometimes even works, because it builds trust for the big transfer.

The call centres are the second building block. A friendly account manager calls every day, knows your balance and always has a new opportunity. Often the next suggestion is to install remote-access software so that he can help with the set-up. With that access, criminals can trigger transfers in your online banking or read out data. We described similar patterns in our report on Operation Herakles in September, in which investigators had the phone numbers of scam call centres shut down.

Warning signs on online trading platforms: five features of many fake sites

No single feature proves fraud. But if several of the following come together, you should not transfer another euro.

• Guaranteed or very high returns: Promises such as double-digit profits per month do not exist at genuine exchanges and brokers, because nobody there can promise how prices will move.
• The contact comes from outside: The first step was an advert featuring a celebrity, a messenger message or a phone call, not your own search for a provider.
• No entry in a register: The provider names no licence, or one that you cannot find in any official register.
• Withdrawal only against a fee: Before paying out, the platform suddenly asks for taxes, fees or an unlocking charge that you are supposed to transfer in advance.
• Time pressure: The adviser insists that an offer is only valid today, or warns that your account will otherwise be blocked.

The fourth sign is particularly reliable. A legitimate provider deducts fees from your balance and does not ask for a new transfer so that you can get your own money back.

MiCA licence and BaFin authorisation: how to recognise legitimate crypto providers

The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, is the EU regulation that makes crypto service providers subject to authorisation. Anyone who holds, exchanges or brokers crypto-assets in the EU needs a licence as a crypto-asset service provider. Forex and share trading are in any case subject to the licensing requirements of financial market law. Our overview of the obligations under the MiCA licence explains what these requirements involve in detail.

The check takes only a few minutes. In the BaFin company database you can search by company name; it shows whether a firm holds a licence from the German supervisor or may operate in Germany on the basis of a licence from another EU state. What counts is the exact name of the company in the legal notice, not the brand name on the website. If you find nothing there, or the address differs, that is a strong warning sign. BaFin also publishes warnings about providers operating without authorisation.

The reverse route is simpler: you choose your provider yourself from a list that contains only licensed firms, instead of checking a provider that approached you. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges lists platforms licensed in the EU, including fees and deposit protection. If you want to trade shares, ETFs and crypto together, you will find regulated alternatives in our crypto broker comparison.

How to protect yourself from fake trading platforms

What happened: On November 3, 2026, authorities from seven countries, led by the public prosecutor's office in Itzehoe, searched 17 locations, seized more than 100 servers and arrested seven suspects. According to Eurojust, the target was a company from Cyprus and Israel alleged to have supplied scam sites to call-centre gangs; the authorities estimate the damage at more than four million euros (as of November 3, 2026).

Are you affected? You may be affected if in recent years you sent money to an online platform for crypto, forex or share trading that came into play after a cold call or an advert and that delays withdrawals. The authorities have not published which sites the supplier built. If you trade with a licensed exchange or bank that you chose yourself, you are not affected by this case.

1. Check the register before transferring: Search for the company name from the legal notice in the BaFin company database before you send any money.
2. No remote access: Never install programs such as AnyDesk or TeamViewer at an account manager's request, and never pass on codes from your online banking.
3. No upfront payment for withdrawals: Never transfer fees or taxes to a platform so that it releases your balance; end the contact at that point.
4. Secure the evidence: Save bank statements, chat logs, phone numbers and screenshots of the customer account before the site goes offline.
5. Police and bank: Report the case to the police and inform your bank immediately so that it can try to recall the transfer.

Our guide How to store crypto safely explains the basics of secure storage, and our hardware wallet comparison looks at suitable devices.

Lost money to a fake platform: report to the police and recall through your bank

If you have already transferred money, every hour counts. A SEPA transfer cannot simply be reversed, but your bank can ask the receiving institution for a recall. That only works while the money is still there. If you paid by credit card, ask your card issuer about a chargeback. Payments in cryptocurrencies offer no such route; what remains is the police report with the transaction data, meaning the recipient address and the transaction ID from your wallet or exchange.

You can file a report at any police station, and in most German states also through the online police service. Take the secured evidence with you or upload it. The Itzehoe case shows that investigators can link individual reports to other cases, even over years. And if a platform showed you profits that never existed, a tax question arises too; we covered it in our piece on phantom gains from investment fraud and the tax office.

Recovery scams after the fraud: the second wave hits the same victims

After a raid like this, victims are often contacted by supposed helpers. This second scheme is known as a recovery scam: alleged law firms, detective agencies or even fake officials promise to recover the lost money and ask for an advance payment. The victims' contact details often come from the same data sets that the first gang already used.

Genuine law enforcement agencies do not ask victims for money to pay out seized assets. Eurojust explicitly warns on its own website against fraudsters posing as agency staff. Anyone who writes to you after November 3 claiming to work on this case and offering help for a fee wants to defraud you a second time. You can get information on your own case from the police station where you filed your report.

Fake trading platforms: no BaFin entry, not a single euro

The raid hit one supplier, not the whole industry of investment fraudsters. Three steps are enough to assess the next offer safely:

1. Choose your trading venue yourself from a vetted list, for example our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges, instead of following a caller.
2. For trading shares, ETFs and coins together, pick a provider from the broker comparison and check it against the BaFin register before your first deposit.
3. Do not leave larger holdings on a platform permanently; store them yourself. Our hardware wallet comparison shows which devices are suitable.

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

What we know: Shiba Inu trades at around $0.00000446 on Sunday morning, November 8, roughly €0.0000040. On Monday of this week, at midnight UTC, the price still stood at $0.00000470. SHIB therefore needs 5.4 percent by the weekly close in the night to Monday just to finish the week flat. If it falls short, a sixth consecutive losing week joins the streak that began at the end of September. Our assessment follows further down, based on the weekly closes since September 28, the derivatives market and sentiment across the wider market.

According to daily data from CoinGecko, SHIB moved between $0.00000445 and $0.00000450 over the past 24 hours, a band of just one percent. Trading volume stood at about $35 million over 24 hours on Sunday morning, against roughly $63 million on Thursday. With a market capitalisation of $2.63 billion, Shiba Inu ranks 38th among the largest cryptocurrencies. Over 30 days SHIB has lost 17.0 percent, over one year 55 percent.

The weekly close is the core of this Shiba Inu price prediction. It is a fixed date that shows whether the downtrend of recent weeks is pausing or continuing. A single price level says little. The sequence of weekly closes, by contrast, shows how persistent a trend is.

Shiba Inu price prediction on Sunday: SHIB at $0.00000446 ahead of the weekly close

The starting point is quickly described. SHIB opened the week on November 2 at $0.00000470, rose to $0.000004844 by midweek and dropped to $0.00000446 on Thursday amid the broad sell-off. Over the weekend the price only drifted sideways just above that low. The week's high is therefore a good eight percent above the current price, while the low sits practically on it.

The wider market offers little support. Bitcoin trades at around $75,800 on Sunday morning, 3.0 percent lower than a week ago and 8.2 percent lower than 30 days ago. The second large memecoin, Dogecoin, is down 16.9 percent over 30 days, almost exactly in line with SHIB. The two dog coins have moved in lockstep for weeks, which suggests the pressure is coming from the market for speculative altcoins as a whole rather than from news about Shiba Inu alone.

Six losing weeks in a row: SHIB's weekly closes since September 28

For this article we looked at Shiba Inu's price every Monday at 00:00 UTC, the start of each new trading week. The basis is CoinGecko daily data for seven weeks, from September 28 to November 8, 2026. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 8, 2026.

• September 28: $0.00000592, the start of the streak
• October 5: $0.00000592, down 0.05 percent and thus almost unchanged
• October 12: $0.00000549, down 7.2 percent
• October 19: $0.00000498, down 9.2 percent
• October 26: $0.00000485, down 2.7 percent
• November 2: $0.00000470, down 3.0 percent
• November 8, Sunday morning: $0.00000446, down 5.2 percent so far in the current week

Taken together, SHIB has lost 24.6 percent since September 28. At minus 0.05 percent, the first week of the streak was more of a standstill than a decline. Honesty requires saying so: strictly speaking, there have been four clear losing weeks and one narrow one, and the sixth is under way. The news site U.Today reached the same count on Sunday, writing that SHIB was on course for a sixth consecutive losing week.

The heaviest losses came in mid-October, when the price slid from $0.00000592 to $0.00000498 in two weeks. Since then the pace has slowed, but the direction has stayed the same. SHIB did not have a streak of this length over the summer: between July and September, winning and losing weeks alternated, with individual weeks posting gains of 28 and 25 percent.

How the weekly candle forms: settlement at midnight UTC

A weekly candle summarises a trading week in four values: open, high, low and close. Crypto exchanges almost universally settle it in Coordinated Universal Time. The week starts on Monday at 00:00 UTC and ends on Sunday at 23:59 UTC. In Germany that is 00:59 on Monday morning in winter, one hour later in summer.

Many chartists watch exactly this closing price because it smooths out random moves within the week. A brief spike on Thursday counts only as a wick in the weekly candle, a thin line above or below the candle's body. What matters is where the price ends. If a week closes below its open, the result is a red candle. When several of them line up, the trend is considered intact until a week closes above its open.

For SHIB, that means in concrete terms: this week's open was $0.00000470. If the price is below that level in the night to Monday, the candle is red, regardless of how far it had risen on Wednesday.

New since Friday: SHIB retests the zone around $0.00000446

On Friday, our Shiba Inu price prediction on the OKX long-short ratio described how the ratio of long to short positions had fallen to 2.2 and which levels SHIB needed to hold ahead of the US jobs report. On Saturday the price then slipped below $0.0000045, as our report on Saturday midday recorded. At the time SHIB stood at $0.00000449.

Two things have changed since then. First, the price has fallen by almost another percent to $0.00000446 and is back at the zone where it turned higher on Thursday. Depending on the data source, Thursday's low lies between $0.00000444 and $0.00000446. Second, the weekend is almost over, and with it the time in which SHIB could still turn the week around shrinks. So far only this zone has held. The $0.0000045 level, which stood from Wednesday to Friday, has been lost since Saturday.

SHIB futures: net outflow of $207,230 in three days

A second look goes to the derivatives market. Futures are contracts that traders use to bet on rising or falling prices, usually with leverage and without owning the coin itself. How much capital flows into such contracts is shown by the futures flow, the difference between inflows and outflows.

According to CoinGlass data analysed by U.Today on Sunday, $10.39 million flowed into SHIB futures over the past three days and $10.60 million flowed back out. The net result was an outflow of $207,230. U.Today reads this as a sign that traders are scaling back their leveraged exposure rather than adding to it. The trigger was Thursday's sell-off, during which positions worth more than $1 billion were forcibly closed across the crypto market.

For the price, this is a double-edged finding. Less leverage means less fuel for another wave of liquidations to the downside. But it also means hardly anyone is betting on a recovery with borrowed money. Whether SHIB steadies therefore depends more than usual on demand in the spot market, that is, on buyers who actually acquire the coin.

Altcoin Season Index at 44 and Fear and Greed at 28: market sentiment

Sentiment across the market is subdued. The Fear and Greed Index from Alternative.me stands at 28 points on Sunday, in fear territory, after 25 points and extreme fear on Saturday. The index combines volatility, trading volume, social media sentiment and Bitcoin dominance into a value between 0 and 100. Our Fear and Greed chart shows how the readings have developed over time.

For memecoins such as SHIB, a second reading is revealing. CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season Index measures how many of the largest altcoins have outperformed Bitcoin over the past 90 days. According to U.Today, it most recently stood at 44 out of 100 points, its lowest level since September. Readings below 50 mean capital is staying with Bitcoin and smaller coins are losing weight. In such phases, speculative assets like Shiba Inu tend to fall harder than the market as a whole.

Shiba Inu price prediction to the upside: $0.0000047 and $0.0000049 as hurdles

The first hurdle is this week's open at $0.00000470. Only a close above it ends the streak of red weekly candles. That would require SHIB to gain 5.4 percent by the night to Monday, on a Sunday with half the usual volume.

The second hurdle is the average of the past 30 daily closes, at $0.00000490. A moving average smooths the price over a fixed period; in a downtrend it often acts as resistance where recoveries stall. Above that, U.Today analyst Tomiwabold Olajide names the 50-week line at $0.00000586 as major resistance. Our own calculation over the past 350 days arrives at a similar value of $0.00000598. That zone lies more than 30 percent above the current price and is out of reach over a horizon of a few days.

Shiba Inu price prediction to the downside: $0.00000439 and $0.00000411 as support zones

If the zone around $0.00000446 does not hold, the 90-day low of $0.00000439 from August 13 comes into view. It lies only just over one percent below the current price. Below that is the year-to-date low of $0.00000411 from July 17. In his analysis, Olajide names $0.0000041 as possible support if the decline continues. From today's price that would be almost eight percent away.

Both scenarios are readings of the chart, not a forecast. The streak of weekly closes and the weak altcoin index argue for the downside. Arguing for stabilisation: the derivatives market has already shed leverage, and the price has been turning at the same zone since Thursday without breaking below it for long.

Weekend orders: limit rather than market when SHIB trading is thin

Anyone buying or selling on Sunday is trading in a thinner market than during the week. Volume has roughly halved since Thursday. That has consequences for the type of order. A market order is executed immediately at the best available price. With little supply in the order book, that price can deviate noticeably from the last quoted price. The difference is called slippage. A limit order, by contrast, sets a maximum price when buying or a minimum price when selling and is only executed at that price or better.

The same applies to stop orders used for protection. A stop-market order sells at the next available price as soon as the stop level is reached. In a thin market that can be well below the level. A stop-limit order sells only down to a set minimum price, but may not be executed at all if the price drops through quickly. If you set a stop level for SHIB, it is better not to place it exactly on a round number such as $0.0000044, where many orders cluster, but a little below it.

Then there is the question of where you trade. Since the German transition period ended on December 30, 2025, crypto exchanges need authorisation under the European MiCA regulation to serve customers in Germany. The European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, lists the licensed providers in its MiCA register. Our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges gives an overview of licensed platforms and their fees.

On tax, nothing changes in Germany: gains from SHIB are tax-free after a holding period of one year, and losses within that period can be offset against gains from other private disposals. Our page on the status of the holding period reform summarises where the plans for the holding period stand.

Our assessment: the streak is likely to hold on Sunday

In the editorial team's view, the evidence points to SHIB closing a sixth week in a row in the red. The reasons: the price is 5.4 percent short of the weekly open, volume has roughly halved since Thursday, and the trading range over the past 24 hours was only one percent. A jump of that size within a few hours would be unusual on a quiet Sunday. On the other side, memecoins can swing quickly and sharply in thin markets, and the derivatives market now carries hardly any leveraged short positions that would amplify a move lower. A red sixth weekly candle would not in itself be a signal to act, but a confirmation of the existing trend. The question for the coming week is whether the zone between $0.00000439 and $0.00000446 holds. Any investment in cryptocurrencies can result in a total loss.

Shiba Inu weekly close: only a finish above $0.0000047 ends the streak

1. Know your exchange's licence: before you buy or sell SHIB, check whether your provider is listed in the MiCA register. You will find licensed platforms in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Record your entry price: if you have bought several times at different prices, a portfolio tracker shows your average price and the holding period of each tranche. Suitable tools are listed in our comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers.
3. Choose your order type deliberately: at the weekend, limit orders are the safer route because they limit slippage in a thin order book. Which exchanges offer limit and stop orders for SHIB is shown in our overview of the best crypto exchanges.

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

Cory Fields wants future quantum attackers to post Bitcoin as collateral before touching vulnerable wallets, giving prepared owners a chance to recover their coins and collect a potentially costly penalty.

Apple and Meta’s objections mean all seven of the biggest U.S. tech companies have now asked to keep their shares off the planned OKX-ICE venue.

A Friday rebound offered relief after a historic selloff. The question now is whether politics and mounting debt could turn an AI correction into something much worse.

Experts say a disc-free PlayStation will price out low-income players, while in much of Africa, digital-only gaming means breaking Sony’s rules.

FinCEN’s order, part of Operation Economic Outcast, bars U.S. institutions from any transfers to or from MEXC, which Treasury says facilitated $16 billion in illicit finance tied to Iran, North Korea and Russia.

Dogecoin cofounder makes Shiba Inu-related observation that gets attention.

Promising “big plans for 2027,” Ripple engineers have begun overhauling the XRPL core to handle smart contracts and commercial bank payments.

XRP Ledger eyes bigger scaling opportunity with key feature beneficial in this regard.

World's largest crypto exchange makes Hyperliquid token HYPE available for withdrawals after $6.4 billion hack amid the community's outrage over 'sabotage' claims.

Top-10 Shiba Inu whales sent only about 2 billion SHIB to exchanges in the past 24 hours.

TLDR:

• The Keplr wallet hack affected Google and Apple sign-in accounts, while Keplr says recovery-phrase and hardware-wallet accounts remain outside the incident scope.
• Web3Auth paused its embedded-wallet service, Keplr froze social login, and users with affected accounts were told not to deposit additional assets.
• Bitquery initially tracked about $6.01 million across eight destinations, but the figure needs review after Web3Auth labeled those addresses as recovery wallets.
• The companies have not released a final loss total, technical root-cause report, return process, or accounting of assets moved in whitehat recoveries.

Keplr wallet hack reports have put Google and Apple login users on alert. Keplr paused both social-login options after unauthorized transactions affected some accounts. The wallet says recovery-phrase and hardware-wallet accounts are not affected. Web3Auth, which provides embedded login technology, paused its service during a security response. Initial blockchain tracking placed more than $6 million at several on-chain addresses. 

Yet Web3Auth later said flagged destinations belong to its recovery operation. That clarification changes how the on-chain flows should be read. It does not erase unauthorized activity or establish a final loss total. Users must distinguish protective transfers from attacker-controlled withdrawals.

Keplr Wallet Hack Triggers Google and Apple Login Pause

Keplr’s social-login feature lets users open an account through Google or Apple instead of recording a recovery phrase. The flow relied on Web3Auth infrastructure to generate and access wallet keys. Web3Auth first placed its embedded-wallet service on pause November 6. It also moved the Login Service into maintenance while investigators reviewed a security incident.

Keplr disclosed the next day that some social-login accounts had transactions their owners did not authorize. The company disabled Google and Apple login while it examined the incident with Web3Auth. The Keplr wallet hack affects the social-login route, not every Keplr account. Its guidance is direct: do not send new assets to an affected account. Users should move any remaining liquid tokens to a separate recovery-phrase or hardware wallet.

A private-key breach can expose Cosmos balances at once. Cosmos chains use one key across related addresses, even though their prefixes differ. That design can turn a single compromised key into an ecosystem-wide problem. It also explains why early tracking found activity on Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Celestia, Akash, Noble, Injective, dYdX, and Babylon.

Bitquery traced at least $6.01 million to eight destinations. It recorded 44,041 drained wallets on seven linked chains and estimated total victims near 44,700. The research did not include unpriced tokens in its dollar total. For the Keplr wallet hack, it logged a largest individual loss near $325,000.

The original figure is not a confirmed, final theft total. It reflects the value held by named addresses at the investigation cutoff. Verified Web3Auth recovery wallets help analysts clearly separate stolen balances from assets transferred during the whitehat response. That assessment may change as the companies reconcile individual transactions with users.

Keplr Wallet Hack Raises Recovery Wallet Questions

Web3Auth later reported that it began whitehat recoveries before an attacker could reach some vulnerable wallets. The company used the same access path to secure affected assets. As a result, a balance moving from a social-login wallet does not automatically prove theft.

On November 8, Web3Auth published verified destinations for its recovery effort. Keplr relayed the same list and said the named addresses were not malicious or exploit addresses. The list included destinations across eight Cosmos chains, three additional Cosmos networks, and an EVM address covering eight chains.

Those Web3Auth recovery wallets overlap with addresses Bitquery had previously associated with the drain. That overlap complicates the headline loss estimate. Web3Auth has not disclosed the value it secured, and neither company has provided a final loss reconciliation. There is no return process or technical postmortem yet.

Some accounts may look empty because assets were moved during mitigation, Keplr said. Staked and locked assets require more time to secure. Users should not trust direct messages, give up recovery phrases, or send funds to a claimed rescue address.

The Keplr wallet hack remains a confirmed security incident with an unsettled financial tally. The key distinction is narrow but important: Web3Auth calls some transfer destinations protective wallets, while unauthorized activity affected social-login accounts.

The post Keplr Wallet Hack Hits Google and Apple Users as Recovery Begins appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Ripple and Privy are bringing embedded XRP Ledger wallets to payment apps, supporting XRP and RLUSD transfers.
• Privy integration supports automated transactions and x402 payments for app developers building on XRP Ledger.
• Ali Martinez reported that XRP whales accumulated 16.46 million tokens over five days, despite falling prices.
• XRP trades near $1.16, while some analysts watch $0.99 support and a possible $1.60 breakout resistance level.

Ripple has partnered with Stripe-owned Privy to bring embedded wallets to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), expanding support for digital payments. The development comes as XRP whale accumulation increases despite continued selling pressure across the cryptocurrency market.

The integration, announced on October 13, lets developers create wallets that support XRP, RLUSD, and other digital assets. Meanwhile, XRP traded near $1.16 on November 8, raising questions about whether the token can recover toward $2.

Recent on-chain activity shows growing interest among large holders, though XRP has struggled to sustain upward momentum. Market analyst Ali Martinez reported that whales accumulated more than 16.46 million XRP over five days.

Ripple and Privy Expand XRP Ledger Payment Infrastructure

Ripple’s partnership with Privy introduces programmable wallet services designed for developers building financial applications on the XRP Ledger. The infrastructure allows businesses to create wallets, manage digital assets, and sign transactions without developing separate wallet systems.

According to Privy’s official announcement, the integration supports XRP, RLUSD, and other XRPL-based assets. Users can access these services without manually managing private keys, while retaining the option to export their credentials.

The partnership also supports automated payments through the x402 standard, allowing AI agents to transact using server-side wallets. These tools can support payments for digital services, including data access and computing resources.

Markus Infanger, RippleX’s senior vice president, said Privy’s infrastructure would help developers build payment applications using XRPL. The network has recorded more than eight million funded accounts and over $1 trillion in cumulative value transferred.

The integration follows other network developments, including a recent XRP Ledger security update addressing token permissions. Privy plans to expand its services with transaction policy controls and network fee sponsorship. However, the companies have not disclosed expected transaction volumes or projected XRP demand from the partnership.

Can XRP Price Reclaim $2 as Whales Accumulate?

XRP traded around $1.16 on November 8 after retreating from approximately $1.34 during the preceding week. Despite the decline, large wallet holders continued accumulating tokens, according to Santiment data shared by Martinez.

In a November 7 post, Martinez reported that whales purchased more than 16.46 million XRP over five days. However, buying activity has not reversed the broader downward trend. Previous XRP price analysis identified $1.60 as an important resistance level.

Martinez has also identified a potential inverse head-and-shoulders formation, although the pattern remains unconfirmed. A sustained recovery above $1.60 would bring higher resistance levels into focus, including the psychological $2 mark. From $1.16, XRP would need to gain approximately 72.4% to reach that target.

XRP/USD 3-day chart (Source: X)

Meanwhile, recent XRP market analysis identified support between $1.04 and $1.16. The same report recorded approximately $529,500 in net XRP ETF outflows between November 2 and 6. Weak ETF demand adds another challenge for buyers attempting to reverse the decline.

However, whale accumulation suggests some large holders have continued increasing their positions at lower prices. Institutional investment products remain part of the wider XRP market picture, with GraniteShares delaying its leveraged XRP ETFs until November 30.

Martinez has separately identified $0.99 as the next potential support area following XRP’s breakdown below its trading channel midpoint. A further decline toward that boundary would place additional pressure on buyers attempting to defend the $1 level.

The post Ripple Partners With Stripe-Owned Privy: Can XRP Price Reclaim $2? appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Trump linked the November 5 stock market sell-off to Democrats’ victories in the USA midterm election results.
• U.S. stocks suffered steep losses on November 5, with the Nasdaq falling 5.52% amid a broader AI stock sell-off.
• Trump described the election result as a giant step back in history after the U.S. stock market’s sharp decline.
• Technology shares led Wall Street’s losses as investors questioned AI spending and the data center expansion plans.

U.S. President Donald Trump blamed the midterm election results for a $3 trillion U.S. stock market loss on November 5. His latest comments followed a sharp sell-off in U.S. stocks and cryptocurrencies, which erased the previous session’s gains.

In a November 8 post shared by The Kobeissi Letter, Trump described the election outcome as a “giant step back in history.” The president linked the market decline to Democratic victories, although concerns over artificial intelligence investments contributed to the selling.

The S&P 500 lost approximately $3 trillion in market value during Thursday’s session, while major technology companies recorded heavy losses. The Nasdaq Composite entered correction territory, and investors reassessed the outlook for AI infrastructure spending.

Trump Blames Democrats for $3 Trillion Stock Market Loss

Trump’s latest remarks followed his November 5 Truth Social statement, where he criticized the market’s reaction to the elections. He argued that Democratic victories had reversed progress made during his administration and affected Americans’ retirement savings.

“The Stock Market suffered one of the Worst Days in History based on the results of the Election,” Trump wrote. He also blamed Democrats for the decline, while maintaining that the market could recover.

However, the sell-off followed a rally on November 4, when investors initially welcomed the election results. The S&P 500 gained 1.58%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced approximately 3% during that session.

The reversal came as investors assessed how the new congressional balance could affect corporate spending and technology regulations. Democrats secured control of Congress, while several gubernatorial victories raised questions about future data center approvals.

Some newly elected governors have proposed restrictions on large AI projects, particularly those requiring substantial electricity supplies. The proposals have raised concerns over planned data center expansion across several states.

However, proposed restrictions have not automatically become law, and governors face different approval requirements across states. Markets have also reacted to company valuations, technology spending, and expectations for future earnings.

Nasdaq Drops 5.52% as AI Stocks Lead Wall Street Decline

The Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.52% on November 5, closing at 24,315 after its steepest daily decline in 19 months. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 fell 4.36% to 7,353.73, while the Dow declined 3.44% to 51,523.06.

Technology companies recorded some of the largest losses, with Nvidia shares falling approximately 9.3% during Thursday’s trading. Advanced Micro Devices and Micron Technology each dropped around 17%, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index declined approximately 12%.

The decline reflected renewed concerns about AI infrastructure spending and the financial returns expected from major technology investments. Investors also examined the funding required to construct data centers and secure electricity supplies.

The technology stock sell-off reached companies involved in chips, cloud computing, and data center development. However, several semiconductor stocks recovered during Friday’s trading as buyers returned after the previous session’s declines.

The broader market downturn extended into other sectors, with all 11 S&P 500 sectors closing lower on Thursday. The losses followed growing concern about future regulation and the pace of corporate investment.

Meanwhile, the incoming Democratic majority is preparing greater congressional oversight of Trump’s business interests and technology companies. The election results have prompted plans for investigations into Trump-linked crypto businesses, although the new Congress will not convene until January.

The post Donald Trump Blames Midterm Results for $3 Trillion Wall Street Loss appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• A potential Strategy Bitcoin buy remains unconfirmed because Saylor’s chart post disclosed neither a purchase size nor a new holdings total.
• Strategy last acquired 811 BTC for $65.5 million, lifting its reported Bitcoin holdings to 849,327 coins as of November 1.
• Bitcoin near $75,900 traded below Strategy’s latest $80,846 purchase price, yet remained just above its $75,451 aggregate basis.
• The November 2 acquisition used MSTR stock-sale proceeds, while cash funded a separate $208.2 million repurchase of STRC shares.

Michael Saylor revived attention around a possible Strategy Bitcoin buy after sharing the company’s familiar accumulation chart on X Sunday. He captioned the post, “Connecting the dots,” but gave no purchase amount. He provided no updated holdings. Bitcoin traded near $75,900 as it struggled to regain $76,000. 

That level sat slightly above Strategy’s overall average cost of $75,451 per coin. The message followed the company’s latest disclosed BTC purchase and a separate STRC repurchase. Investors will watch the next official filing.

Saylor has repeatedly posted the chart before weekly disclosures. Still, the latest message does not confirm that Strategy bought Bitcoin during the past week. It renewed attention on its acquisition pattern. A purchase report would normally identify the coin amount, average price, funding source, and reporting period.

Strategy Bitcoin Buy Signal Follows Familiar Saylor Pattern

The Strategy Bitcoin buy idea gained attention because Saylor’s tracker often precedes company updates. Strategy typically releases its treasury activity through a Form 8-K. Those reports give investors a formal record of purchases and financing decisions. They also separate confirmed transactions from signals shared on social media.

The company’s last confirmed acquisition covered October 26 through November 1. Strategy bought 811 BTC for $65.5 million. It paid an average of $80,846 per Bitcoin, including fees and expenses. The purchase lifted its reported holdings to 849,327 BTC. Strategy reported an aggregate purchase price of $64.08 billion for the entire position.

For now, a fresh acquisition remains an expectation, not a confirmed event. Sunday’s post did not state whether any coins changed hands. It also did not say whether the company raised new capital. That distinction matters while the Bitcoin price remains below the latest purchase price. Market participants need an official disclosure before treating the chart as evidence of a completed acquisition.

Michael Saylor has built a public narrative around steady Bitcoin accumulation. The tracker shows prior additions across market cycles. Yet the format alone offers limited detail about timing and size. A new filing would clarify whether Strategy extended its treasury during the latest reporting week.

Funding Behind the Last Strategy Bitcoin Buy and STRC Deal

The November 2 filing showed how Strategy financed its latest confirmed purchase. The company sold 1,178,552 MSTR common shares through its at-the-market program. Those sales generated $164 million in net proceeds after commissions. Strategy allocated $65.5 million to Bitcoin and added $98.5 million to its USD Cash balance.

The financing structure matters because it separates the BTC acquisition from the STRC transaction. Strategy did not sell preferred shares during that reporting period. Instead, it used existing USD Cash to repurchase 2,092,035 STRC shares. The repurchases totaled $208.2 million. STRC closed Friday at $99.84, just below its $100 stated amount.

The last Strategy Bitcoin buy arrived at a higher level than the current Bitcoin price. BTC traded near $75,900 on Sunday, while the company paid $80,846 per coin in its most recent purchase. However, the spot price remained roughly $449 above Strategy’s blended acquisition cost. That comparison remains important for investors assessing its treasury exposure.

Strategy held about $4.79 billion in its designated dollar reserve on November 1. It also reported $132.7 million in separate cash holdings. Those balances, along with future common-stock sales, could shape its purchasing capacity. Any new Strategy Bitcoin buy would also show whether management changed its financing mix after the STRC repurchase.

The company’s future disclosure may reveal another BTC addition, no purchase, or a different capital move. Michael Saylor’s post did not resolve those possibilities. It only placed the next reporting window under scrutiny as Bitcoin traded near Strategy’s average cost.

The post Strategy Bitcoin Buy Watch Builds as Saylor Hints at Purchase appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Vitalik Buterin says ETH’s store-of-value case rests on decentralization, security, and long-term stability.
• Buterin backs retaining EIP-1559 even if ETH fee burns remain under 10% of the break-even level indefinitely.
• He says 2021–2023 fee burns were driven largely by crypto speculation, making them a weak ETH valuation floor.
• Buterin warns a fee-focused model could demand 700,000 ETH yearly for R&D and interventionist governance.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has argued that ETH should be valued primarily as a store of value rather than through the amount of transaction fees the network destroys. In a November 8 series of posts on X, Buterin outlined three reasons for shifting the focus.

He questioned whether fee burns reliably support ETH’s valuation, warned that maximizing fee revenue could undermine decentralization, and said Ethereum’s security offers a stronger foundation for long-term holders.

However, Buterin stressed that Ethereum should retain EIP-1559, which burns the base fee paid on transactions. He added that holders should not be concerned even if burns remain below 10% of the break-even level indefinitely.

Buterin Questions Whether Ethereum Fee Burns Support ETH Value

Buterin challenged the assumption that annual fee burns establish a dependable valuation floor. Under a simplified discounted-cash-flow approach, burned fees can represent economic value accruing to holders, but that calculation depends on sustainable demand.

He argued that exceptionally high burns during 2021–2023 largely came from activity within crypto, including speculative trading and digital collectibles. If ETH lost 90% of its value, he reasoned, much of the spending power behind those fees could decline alongside it.

Consequently, the apparent valuation floor would weaken during market downturns, precisely when investors would want protection. Although tokenized real-world assets could generate demand from outside crypto, Buterin said mature businesses were unlikely to recreate speculative peaks that once produced roughly $180 million in burns in a single day.

Higher Ethereum Fees Could Threaten Decentralization

Buterin also examined what optimizing Ethereum for fee-based valuation would require. Supporting a hypothetical market capitalization of roughly $270 billion through such a model, he argued, could push Ethereum toward the operating structure of a large corporation.

He estimated that a revenue-driven strategy might require approximately 700,000 ETH annually in protocol-funded research and development. Maintaining that system could also require more interventionist governance over spending and development priorities, creating tensions with Ethereum’s decentralization and resistance to capture.

Higher gas fees would make Ethereum more expensive to use. Buterin warned that this could exclude people who most need private, secure, and censorship-resistant transactions. Ethereum’s EIP-1559 specification confirms that the network burns transaction base fees, while validators receive priority fees. The mechanism reduces circulating supply but does not guarantee that ETH becomes deflationary.

ETH Store-of-Value Case Centers on Security and CROPS

Instead, Buterin connected ETH’s store-of-value potential to Ethereum’s CROPS principles: censorship and capture resistance, open-source development, privacy, and security. The Ethereum Foundation formally established censorship resistance, open source, privacy, and security as central priorities in its March 2026 mandate.

For holders, Buterin said the priority is preserving assets reliably over time. That requires conservative security decisions, greater stability in the core protocol, reduced political intervention, and secure private transfers with limited dependence on intermediaries.

He added that holding ETH becomes more useful when assets remain directly on Ethereum’s base layer and can be exchanged without trusted middlemen or used as collateral.

Buterin also connected the argument to potential disruption from artificial intelligence. As technologies and institutions change, he suggested, dependable decentralized infrastructure could become increasingly valuable to people seeking long-term asset protection.

The post Vitalik Buterin Backs ETH as a Store of Value Over Fee Burning in the AI Era appeared first on Blockonomi.

Alongside the rest of the market, shares of JPMorgan Chase tanked at the end of the previous week, but there’s more to the story. JPM’s decline also came after reports emerged that Senate Democrats are preparing a fresh investigation into the banking behemoth’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Although there’s no real connection with Bitcoin, we decided to still cover this and highlight the awkwardness, as JPM’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, has spent years bashing the crypto industry.

JPMorgan Faces New Epstein Scrutiny

CNBC reported after the Blue-nami in the US midterms that Democratic staff on the Senate Finance Committee plan to examine how senior JPM executives handled Epstein as they take control of Congress early next year. Mary Erdoes, CEO of the bank’s Asset & Wealth Management Division, is expected to be among the high-profile names in the investigations.

“The US government had damning information ​about Epstein’s crimes that it failed to share ​with us or other banks. We regret any association we had with ‌him, ⁠but we did not help him commit his crimes,” commented a spokesperson from the bank.

The market reaction was immediate as JPM shares tanked by over 4% to under $340 on Thursday. The sell-off essentially erased the stock’s post-midterm rally.

Although the bank continues to deny any wrongdoing, it previously agreed to pay $365 million in settlements related to Epstein.

The Irony

We admit there’s no official confirmation that JPM has done anything wrong, and we don’t expect it to come to light if it did, because it’s one of the world’s largest banks. And we know how banks are treated in almost any situation (recall the 2008 banking crisis and the subsequent lack of any real consequences). Nevertheless, the irony is still worth pointing out.

JPM’s long-serving CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been bashing BTC for years. He has called it a “fraud,” “worthless,” a “pet rock,” and a “decentralized Ponzi scheme.” All bad and, in some cases, illegal names. He also advised investors to stay away from crypto and told lawmakers that if he were running the US government, he would “close it down.”

The hypocrisy is glaring when we look at what the bank has done lately. It now lets institutional clients use BTC and ETH as collateral; it supports crypto-related services; it participated in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF infrastructure; and it recently projected that bitcoin could outperform US large-cap stocks and gold over the next 10-15 years.

But there’s another contrast. Bitcoin has no CEO, board of directors, wealth-management division, or customer relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – or anyone else, for that matter. The protocol itself cannot make a questionable client decision, hide internal correspondence, or become subject to congressional scrutiny over corporate conduct.

People or companies using BTC can still appear in investigations and criminal records, but reputational and governance risks belong to institutions and individuals, not the decentralized Bitcoin network itself.

The post JPMorgan Stock Slides on Epstein Probe Fears: Bitcoin Has No CEO to Drag Into the Scandal appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The Nasdaq-listed company built around an actively managed XRP treasury has released a detailed report on the XRP Ledger’s push into tokenized finance.

The data suggests that while RLUSD has become an increasingly important dollar-denominated settlement asset, its growth is not necessarily coming at the expense of XRP.

RLUSD Growth Runs Through XRP

CryptoPotato reported yesterday on the heated debate online between some XRP Army members, who claim that Ripple’s leadership has not taken any steps to support the cross-border token’s price valuation. Evernorth’s report also takes a side but tries to explore the question from a different angle.

It said that approximately $400 billion in real-world assets and nearly $300 billion in dollar stablecoins have now been tokenized globally, but only around $39 billion can currently be traded, settled, or pledged directly on the chains where they reside. The thesis is that the next phase of tokenization will be less about simply recording assets on-chain and more about making those assets usable.

XRPL has made substantial progress on that front, as tokenized value on the network has grown from $1.76 billion in February to over $5 billion as of October 20. This puts the Ledger at sixth place among all networks and fourth among public blockchains, said Evernorth. Meanwhile, the number of accounts issuing new Multi-Purpose Tokens rose from four in January to 24 in October, and 98 MPTs were issued in a record month.

Here’s where things get more interesting for the XRP Army. In 2024, only 10.5% of XRP trading on XRPL’s native DEX involved stablecoins or fiat-backed tokens. That figure jumped to 50% in 2025 and has reached 86% so far in 2026. Moreover, Evernorth said 92% of the $1.65 billion worth of RLUSD swapped on XRPL’s native exchange this year traded against XRP.

“The dollar isn’t taking liquidity away from XRP. It trades against XRP,” the report argued.

Wall Street Experiment Grows

Evernorth began trading on Nasdaq under the XRPN ticker on October 12 after completing its merger with Armada Acquisition Corp. II. It entered the public market with approximately 473 million XRP and roughly $300 million in gross cash proceeds.

The company later selected Ripple, Coinbase, Kraken, and BitGo to help deploy that treasury through institutional strategies rather than simply holding the tokens passively. More recently, it arranged an equity facility with Cantor Fitzgerald that could raise approximately $80 million, with additional XRP purchases listed among the possible uses of the capital.

The post XRP on Wall Street: Evernorth Reveals a Huge RLUSD-XRP Link appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s price weakness is quite telling as the asset is just hours away from closing in the red for the fifth consecutive week.

Looking at the altcoin weekly scale is also a painful view, with HYPE, NEAR, BCH, and XLM leading the pack in terms of double-digit losses. XRP, LINK, and ADA are not far behind.

BTC Weak Below $76K

October ended with the most severe hack against a crypto company in terms of USD losses, with bad actors siphoning $6.3 billion from Binance. Bitcoin’s reaction was immediate as the asset tumbled from roughly $81,000 to $76,000 in an hour or so. The subsequent rebound attempt wasn’t very successful, as BTC was stopped at $79,000.

It entered US mid-term election day on Tuesday from another area of weakness, struggling at $78,000. The Democratic sweep didn’t really help, and the cryptocurrency plunged to a then-seven-week low of $75,800. On Wednesday afternoon, though, the entire landscape changed when BTC, alongside Wall Street, skyrocketed to local peaks, with bitcoin touching $81,000.

This massive leg up was followed by an even more profound leg down. A day later, bitcoin erased all gains and even dipped below $75,000 on Friday for the first time since the August breakout rally. It has since struggled to stage a major recovery, and it currently sits inches below $76,000.

Its market capitalization has remained at $1.520 trillion on CMC, while its dominance over the alts has touched 60% again.

Alts in the Red Weekly

Since the past 24 hours haven’t brought any major price moves within the altcoin space, we will focus on their weekly performance, which was quite painful. While ETH, BNB, and XMR are down by a more modest 1%-3%, others, such as XRP, SOL, DOGE, LINK, and ADA, have plummeted by up to 8.5%.

Even more violent declines are evident from NEAR (-15%), BCH (-13%), HYPE (-12%), and XLM (-11%) from the largest caps. ENA has plummeted by over 18%, ONDO is down by 12%, and PUMP has slumped by more than 14%.

TRX and BTW are among the few exceptions in the green. ZEC is also up by 2% weekly, but it was stopped at $1,330 yesterday.

The total crypto market cap has shed approximately $100 billion in a week, and it’s down to $2.550 trillion on CMC.

The post Double-Digit Altcoin Losses Mount as BTC Shows Weakness at $76K: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s mining industry is showing unusual weakness, even as the network remains highly valuable.

With the difficulty metric still below its October 2025 record more than a year later, the focus has shifted to whether miners face a temporary downturn or whether capital and electricity are permanently migrating elsewhere.

Unwanted Record Hit

According to on-chain data, the Bitcoin mining difficulty reached an all-time high of almost 156 trillion on October 29, 2025. As of press time, it stood at just over 148 trillion, which is still 5% below that peak and hasn’t been able to break it ever since. This means that the current period without a new difficulty record has now exceeded the previous longest stretch, which lasted roughly 364 days between August 2011 and July 2012.

Back then, Bitcoin’s price collapsed by roughly 94%-95%, while another exceptionally long difficulty downturn in 2021 followed China’s sweeping ban on domestic crypto mining, which forced a substantial portion of global hash rate to relocate. Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard, noted that the current slowdown has happened without anything remotely comparable.

In an update on mining, which he reshared now, he noted that the current period has become the longest in Bitcoin’s history. His explanation, though, is structural.

In part, he blamed it on Bitcoin’s pre-programmed halvings. Since the block subsidy drops by 50% roughly every four years, BTC’s price must increase fast enough to compensate miners for the reduction. He estimated that mining economics require the cryptocurrency’s value to appreciate by almost 19% annually over four years, before accounting for dollar devaluation and the growing opportunity cost created by AI infrastructure.

If expected returns are below that threshold, allocating more capital and electricity toward mining becomes progressively less attractive.

More Lucrative Alternative

Ammous argued that Bitcoin miners no longer have the same monopoly over cheap power and data-center infrastructure they once enjoyed. AI companies are competing aggressively for precisely those resources, potentially offering miners a more profitable use for their facilities.

Core Scientific is a prime example, as the company recently said it plans to fully exit the Bitcoin mining space by the end of the year and enter 2027 as a dedicated AI and high-performance computing colocation provider. It has already reduced its mining fleet by almost half as it redirects electricity and data-center capacity toward infrastructure customers.

The financial incentive is clear: colocation revenue jumped 58% QoQ to $215.4 million in the third quarter, up from $15 million a year earlier.

However, Ammous doesn’t think this is necessarily bearish for BTC. In fact, he noted that if mining becomes less attractive than simply holding BTC, capital that might have gone toward machines, facilities, and electricity could instead flow directly into Bitcoin. He also expects declining electricity consumption to weaken one of the asset’s most persistent criticisms, and that of the network behind it.

The post Bitcoin Mining Enters a New Reality: Even the China Ban Wasn’t This Bad appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple’s native token has fallen toward $1.15 for the first time in several months, yet several indicators are starting to move in the opposite direction.

Perhaps the most bullish factor is that whales are accumulating, aligned with recovering pressure, which has prompted multiple analysts to predict the current decline might be reaching its final stages.

Bought The Dip

According to popular analyst Ali Martinez, large holders returned to the XRP scene once again after the asset was rejected at $1.34 earlier this month and crashed to the aforementioned low of $1.15. On-chain data show whales have awakened during this period, accumulating nearly 16.5 million tokens. The analyst believes this creates a striking divergence between falling prices and growing large-wallet exposure.

Fellow Ripple commentator BankXRP highlighted another potentially important divergence on Binance. The 14-day moving average of XRP’s Taker Buy/Sell Ratio is climbing back toward 1.0 even while the token’s price keeps dropping. The metric tracks aggressive buying relative to selling, suggesting buy-side pressure is beginning to recover despite continued weakness in spot prices.

BankXRP separately described current fear across the XRP community as unlike anything he had seen before. That fits the broader sentiment picture: social mood around XRP dropped to its weakest level since July, which Martinez previously argued could be contrarian from a constructive perspective.

CrediBULL Crypto is also leaning toward a rebound, saying XRP’s next major move is likely a rally of more than 40%. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that lower-timeframe price action has been difficult to navigate recently.

One More Drop?

Celal Kucuker, though, is not certain that the cross-border token has bottomed. In a recent analysis, Kucuker commented that XRP could still test the $1.05-$1.10 region before reversing. Once the move breaks the descending trendline, he expects a much more aggressive advance toward a rather mind-blowing target of $4.15, which could mimic the token’s major 2024-2025 rally.

Dark Defender has repeatedly outlined $1.12 as the crucial support, as the level acted as resistance throughout the July and August declines. Although XRP dipped below it in August on a few occasions, it finally rebounded well above it, and the analyst now expects the former ceiling to serve as a major floor.

He maintained that the broader Elliott Wave structure remains intact while XRP holds that region. He believes the current weakness represents the latter stages of Wave 2 rather than the start of a prolonged collapse. He calls for an eventual Wave 3 expansion, with targets well above current levels. Some of them, though, sound quite unreasonable at the moment.

The post Ripple’s XRP Is Bleeding, but Whales Are Buying: Are Bulls Preparing for a Violent Reversal appeared first on CryptoPotato.