A diesel export ban could disrupt global supply chains, impact international relations, and challenge domestic economic policies.

The post Trump considers US diesel export ban to curb domestic prices appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Increased Democratic investment in Kansas could signal a strategic shift, challenging Republican dominance and altering future electoral dynamics.

The post Senate Democrats’ super PAC eyes Kansas Senate race investment appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Akamai's strategic cloud deal with Anthropic enhances its market influence, potentially boosting investor confidence and stock performance.

The post Akamai secures $12B cloud deal with Anthropic, stock surges appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

London banks' bond strategy may amplify market volatility, influencing future Bank of England policy and economic stability assessments.

The post Banks in London capitalize on bond strategy fueled by cheap Bank of England financing appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The expansion of the Memphis AI cluster could significantly impact energy infrastructure demands and regional economic growth dynamics.

The post Elon Musk details expansion plans for Memphis AI cluster, targeting over 1 million GPUs appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack

An estimated $351.6 million in crypto has been moved from digital asset exchange Bitget’s hot wallets in a suspected hack. 

The platform’s CEO said in a Thursday statement that Bitget’s security team activated an emergency response when the movements were detected. Blockchain security firms had flagged the issue earlier in the day.  

“At 18:31 UTC on September 24, 2026, Bitget’s security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some of our hot wallets,” Bitget CEO Gracy Chen wrote on X. “Our security team activated emergency response protocols immediately.”

She added: “Bitget has navigated multiple market cycles. We will not run from this. Every dollar and every decision will be accounted for, transparently and in full.”

Victoria, Seychelles-based Bitget is the sixth biggest exchange, processing over $1.1 billion in trading volume per day, according to CoinGecko data. 

The incident comes as crypto security is in the limelight after a string of breaches this year have the community reeling. Just in July, hackers targeted a firmware bug in the popular bitcoin hardware wallet, Coldcard, to steal nearly $120 million in user funds. 

And this month, purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoins — worth about $320 million at the time — from Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain’s federation wallet.

Chen added that the exchange’s cold wallets remained fully secure and that user funds were safe. 

She wrote: “Bitget operates a three-tier wallet architecture — the breach contained only a portion of the hot wallet and warm wallet layers.”

According to the statement, deposits and trading remain fully operational but withdrawals are temporarily paused until a security review is complete. 

Blockchain data firm Arkham Intelligence created a dashboard soon after the unauthorized transfers showing that a number of different cryptocurrencies — including stablecoins — had been moved from the Bitget hot wallet. 

While Bitcoin was not on Arkham’s list, crypto security firm Hacken later said on X that the largest cryptocurrency had been moved. 

This post Nearly $352M Moved From Crypto Exchange Bitget Wallets in Suspected Hack first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

New York Sues Polymarket, Calling Prediction Market an Illegal Gambling Operation

New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul on Thursday filed a lawsuit against crypto-based prediction market Polymarket, accusing the platform of running an unlicensed gambling operation in the state.

An investigation by the Attorney General’s office concluded that these markets meet New York’s legal definition of gambling because users stake money on uncertain outcomes they cannot control. 

Polymarket never obtained a license from the New York State Gaming Commission, the suit alleges, and so avoided the taxes that licensed casinos and mobile sportsbooks pay. That revenue helps fund public schools, youth sports programs and problem gambling treatment.

The suit comes as regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and the  Commodity Futures Trading Commission are working to regulate crypto-powered prediction markets. 

Polymarket and rival Kalshi argue they aren’t gambling sites at all, but rather federally regulated exchanges offering “event contracts,” a type of derivative, which would put them under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than state gaming laws. 

The CFTC agrees, and it has joined the fight on the platforms’ side. In 2026 it sued nine states, arguing that it should have exclusive nationwide authority over the industry.

Thursday’s complaint also says the platform is open to users aged 18 to 20, although New York requires mobile sports bettors to be at least 21. 

“By skirting New York’s laws, Polymarket is targeting the most vulnerable,” James said. Hochul added that the company had “knowingly” violated state law and put underage users at risk.

The state is asking a court to bar Polymarket from operating as an unlicensed gambling business in New York. It also wants the company to forfeit its illegal gains, repay harmed users and pay fines equal to three times those gains.

The lawsuit is the latest in a string of New York actions against gambling-adjacent platforms. James and Hochul sued rival prediction market Kalshi in July, and James sued Coinbase and Gemini in April over similar claims. Earlier this month, James secured $8 million from the leading operator of sweepstakes casinos.

Polymarket launched in the United States in December 2025, initially letting users bet on sporting events with plans to expand into markets on a wide range of topics. 

This post New York Sues Polymarket, Calling Prediction Market an Illegal Gambling Operation first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech 

Outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce has said that regulators should rethink how they monitor the financial system, and to press for less personal data collection, not more. 

In a speech Wednesday focusing on digital identity systems and decentralized networks, Peirce took aim at know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering rules.

U.S. regulators are now racing ahead with crypto rulemaking. Peirce, who earned the nickname “crypto mom” for her friendly approach to watchdogging the space, is set to leave the SEC in November. 

“Today society is at a crossroads,” Peirce said at the SIFMA’s Digital Assets Conference in New York. 

“Down one path lies the status quo: more data collection, more intermediary surveillance, more ‘know your customer’ requirements that turn our financial rails into a panopticon.”

“Down the other path lies an opportunity to use new technologies to improve our ability to catch criminals while collecting less personal information than ever before, and monitoring more sparingly to protect Americans’ privacy.”

Peirce argued that piling up ever more data on law-abiding customers to help find criminals doesn’t work. In her view, bigger “haystacks” make the needles harder to find, while every stored data point raises the risk of leaks or misuse. 

She criticized a regulatory mindset fixated on “data go up,” comparing it to crypto enthusiasts’ obsession with rising prices.

Peirce pointed to cryptographic tools such as zero-knowledge proofs and attribute-based credentials, which can confirm facts like a person’s age, accredited-investor status, or absence from sanctions lists without revealing the underlying personal details. 

She also urged the SEC to let firms rely on identity checks already performed by other regulated institutions, rather than making every firm collect and store the same sensitive information.

Under President Joe Biden, the SEC was tough on the crypto space, with its Biden-appointed former Chair Gary Gensler frequently suing major crypto companies for allegedly selling unregistered securities. 

Peirce was appointed to lead the Crypto Task Force in 2025. The regulator has taken a far more friendly approach to watchdogging the space since Donald Trump became president again. 

Now, regulators are saying they want to create clear rules for the fast-moving industry, despite landmark legislation, the Clarity Act, being blocked last week. 

Despite Commissioner Peirce’s alias, she previously said she would not describe herself as an advocate of the industry, but rather a “freedom maximalist.”

This post SEC Commissioner Hester ‘Crypto Mom’ Peirce Advocates Privacy-Preserving Tech  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jeff Booth: Why $1 Million BTC is Thinking too Small

Is a $1 million Bitcoin price target thinking too small? Jeff Booth thinks so, and he explains why valuing Bitcoin in dollars means pricing it from a game that’s rigged by debasement. He argues that Bitcoin isn’t just a coin or an asset, but the beginning of a decentralized, secure, and private protocol stack that will look a lot like the internet. In his view, Bitcoin is evidence of the first free market that has ever existed.

Chapters:
0:00 Jeff Booth, The Price of Tomorrow & Technological Deflation
0:30 AI Valuations & Why Free Markets Push AI Prices Toward Zero
1:29 AI Deflation vs the Debt-Based Monetary System
2:38 $40 Trillion US Debt, Bond Yields & the $350 Trillion Insolvent System
4:06 AI Singularity Claims, Fear & Monopoly Regulation
6:50 Productivity & Bitcoin’s True Value in a Deflationary Future
8:43 Why a $1 Million Bitcoin Price Target Is Thinking Too Small
10:11 Bitcoin Adoption Timeline & Why Bitcoin Isn’t Just an Asset
12:38 Bitcoin Payments & Circular Economies Scaling Worldwide
13:49 Bitcoin-Backed Private Equity & Owning Businesses Forever

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

This post Jeff Booth: Why $1 Million BTC is Thinking too Small first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Saifedean Ammous: The Bond Crisis & Bitcoin’s Rise as a True Macro Asset

Bitcoin’s volatility is falling, and Saifedean Ammous calls that the most bullish development in Bitcoin right now. Bear-market drawdowns have shrunk from roughly 87% to 77% to about 54% this cycle, which moves Bitcoin closer to an investable asset for money managers. Saifedean explains why the halving still drives the four-year Bitcoin cycle and why fewer people are buying with leverage at the top. He also discusses how markets may eventually arbitrage these cycles away.

Chapters:
0:00 Tether, Bitcoin & the Dollar Milkshake Theory
1:45 How the US Carries $40 Trillion in Debt as the World’s Reserve Currency
4:21 Treasury Yields Hit Multi-Decade Highs & the Bond Market Bear Case
7:00 War Spending, Iran & the Collapse of Fiscal Hope
9:20 Stablecoins vs Banks & the Hidden Treasury Rollover Risk
15:11 The Longest Hash Rate Bear Market in Bitcoin History
18:47 Why Miners Are Pivoting to AI Data Centers
21:31 The Halving, Bitcoin Cycles & Shrinking Drawdowns
25:56 MicroStrategy, Strive & Bitcoin Treasury Companies
29:07 The Humble Peasant Theory of High Finance

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

This post Saifedean Ammous: The Bond Crisis & Bitcoin’s Rise as a True Macro Asset first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitquery flagged $117.7 billion in Solana DEX trades in a 30-day sample, where repeated round trips supplied much of the recorded turnover. The blockchain data company's Sept. 24 reconstruction challenges using gross volume as a stand-in for demand from independent traders.

It leaves a question of how much an outside user could actually trade at a useful price in the same pools.

From Aug. 24 through Sept. 22, Bitquery examined $201.4 billion in trades it could value in dollars across Solana pools it indexes. Its rules classified 58.4% of that sample as circular or botlike, and about $111.6 billion of the flagged amount (95%) involved buying and selling the same token through the same pool inside one transaction, according to its Solana analysis.

One Sept. 14 example shows how the number can grow. A wallet bought a token named Claude from a PumpSwap pool, while a second wallet sold nearly as many units back to that pool inside the same transaction.

Bitquery found that both signed it, and the two pool trades recorded about $2,000 of volume. The token name does not indicate a connection to Anthropic.

Bitquery also identified two groups of 20 and 50 wallets with strikingly similar trading records. Together they accounted for $26.3 billion of the flagged amount. The firm grouped wallets by their volumes and token counts, without tracing their funding.

Bitquery counted trades priced in SOL, USDC or USDT in pools covered by its index. Other quote assets and some routed venues fell outside the sample, and the firm says fewer of its checks could run on Solana than on the other chains it studied.

Its figure reflects the activity its rules flagged in one window, not a rate for all Solana DEX trading.

A Sept. 24 snapshot of DefiLlama's Solana DEX dashboard showed $75.9 billion in rolling 30-day volume. Bitquery's window ended two days earlier.

Subtracting Bitquery's flagged dollars from that dashboard total would combine different dates and different pools.

Bitquery also made a same-date comparison, saying $83.7 billion of its indexed Solana trades were outside its flagged category, while DefiLlama counted $78.8 billion across the chain for Aug. 24 through Sept. 22.

Bitquery described the close totals as partly coincidental: DefiLlama includes venues Bitquery misses and excludes pools Bitquery keeps. The $83.7 billion is a remainder under Bitquery's rules, with its independent-user share still unknown.

On PumpSwap, DefiLlama's published method counts pools with specified quote tokens, at least $5,000 in total value locked, and at least 50 unique traders. Its adapter code implements those thresholds.

Bitquery screens transactions and wallet behavior instead. A pool balance and a count of trading addresses alone cannot show whether those addresses represent separate users.

This is why the competitive signal changes after screening. A venue may lead a turnover table while a portion of its recorded activity comes from wallets repeatedly crossing the same pool.

Equally, trades left outside Bitquery's screen remain unclassified by that test. Neither dashboard gives a matched measure of orders an independent trader could execute without substantial price movement.

Solana's pool history is not its depth

The exact Claude/SOL pool in Bitquery's transaction example displayed effectively empty reserves and $0 liquidity in a GeckoTerminal snapshot retrieved Sept. 24.

Its prior trading record could still be large while a new trader faced no meaningful liquidity there at the time of that snapshot.

The relevant execution test needs a token pair, trade size, and timestamp. Jupiter's swap documentation describes a quoted expected output followed by an actual execution result, with prices able to move before a quote is used.

To estimate the liquidity available after repeated round trips are set aside, historical reserves, comparable routes, and realized fills for flagged and unflagged pools are needed. Bitquery's volume total alone supplies none of those measurements.

The token pools in this investigation also sit beside distinct Solana markets. Jump Crypto's April publication examined March fills in SOL/stablecoin markets run through proprietary automated market makers.

Jump participates in that market, and those results cannot describe execution in the PumpSwap token pools Bitquery flagged. One segment's results should not determine the chain's liquidity standing.

Fees offer another incomplete shortcut. DefiLlama's chain-fee table tracks a separate measure from PumpSwap's liquidity-provider, protocol, and creator fees. Neither recorded turnover nor any of those fee totals tells a trader the price impact of a particular order.

Bitquery's new screen shows why Solana's reported DEX activity needs a closer look at who generates it and where.

The $117.7 billion figure applies to indexed pools and rules, while the spendable depth left for independent users remains unmeasured. Solana's competitive position on execution will depend on pair- and size-specific fills across comparable venues.

The post Solana DEX volume spike hides circular trades, and automated bots are blamed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Payy has frozen its stablecoin payment network, including card transactions, after saying its Ethereum bridge contract was exploited and drained on Sept. 24.

Its announcement covers deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and card purchases, leaving the ordinary ways to move or spend funds through Payy unavailable while the company investigates.

Payy's statement puts the bridge incident at 4:21 a.m. UTC. It said all Payy Network transactions were paused during the investigation and promised further updates. Because the pause includes the card, the interruption extends beyond stablecoin transfers and into purchases made through the app.

A transaction on Ethereum occurred at block 26044909 at 4:21:23 a.m. UTC in which 1,832,149.4681 USDC left a Payy rollup contract. The company's statement did not specify a USDC amount or identify a transaction hash, so the reported transfer measures one contract outflow while the total scope remains open.

A fuller loss figure depends on Payy's accounting of the bridge beyond the movement visible in that single reported transaction.

Payy's customer exposure remains unclear

Payy's description of the bridge being drained of its full balance refers to that contract.

The Sept. 24 statement supplied no breakdown of the drained balance or a figure for customer losses, and it also gave no technical cause for the exploit.

The operational effect is more immediate. During the pause, users cannot deposit or withdraw on Payy Network, send transfers, or complete card transactions through the service. That includes both moving stablecoins and spending them through the card.

The company did not say how many users had active balances or attempted a payment during the interruption, so its announcement gives no measured count of people affected.

Payy said it was following incident response guidelines and would publish updates. The questions now are when each transaction function will return and whether the bridge loss affects customer balances. Its initial announcement gave neither a restoration timetable nor a customer-loss figure.

For users, the service freeze is the confirmed consequence today, while the financial exposure remains to be determined.

The post Payy bridge exploit freezes crypto cards, and no balances remain safe appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ondo Finance launched three on-chain portfolio tokens on Sept. 24 using investment strategies BlackRock developed for the company. The tokens give buyers economic exposure to diversified baskets, but they are securities issued by Ondo, not interests in BlackRock funds.

Only eligible non-US investors who complete onboarding can redeem the tokens directly with Ondo, according to its launch release and product terms.

The first three products are Ondo High Income (BLKHIon), Ondo Diversified Growth (BLKDIGon) and Ondo High Growth (BLKGRWon). They draw on portfolio strategies BlackRock developed for Ondo, and Ondo implements the allocations using tokenized assets and rebalances the portfolios on a preset schedule, the company said in its launch explanation.

Holding a portfolio token gives economic exposure to a weighted basket that includes Ondo Stocks, which track equities and exchange-traded funds. It does not give the holder a right to the underlying funds or securities.

Ondo's legal disclosure calls each token a separate security issued by Ondo Global Markets (BVI) Limited.

BlackRock Fund Advisors supplies model allocations to Ondo but does not make investment decisions for the on-chain portfolios. Ondo decides how to implement the models and manages, sponsors, and administers the products.

BlackRock does not manage the portfolios or owe advisory or fiduciary duties to token investors, and the company is generally not required to update its model after delivery. Ondo decides whether to apply any changes, so an on-chain portfolio may differ from the corresponding model.

Strategy for BlackRock onboarding

Ondo's FAQ says direct minting and redemption require an eligible person outside the US to complete identity and anti-money-laundering checks.

The process also screens for US-person status, restricted jurisdictions, and prohibited persons. Ondo processes redemptions only for eligible holders who have completed onboarding.

A person may still receive or hold a portfolio token without completing that process because the tokens are transferable on-chain, subject to jurisdictional and other restrictions. Possession alone does not qualify the holder to redeem with Ondo.

The ability to move a token between wallets is therefore distinct from eligibility to redeem it with the issuer.

Ondo describes peer-to-peer transfers as available around the clock, including through supported third-party platforms. That capability does not show that a buyer will be available at a given price or that a holder can exit immediately.

Anyone unable to redeem directly would depend on a third party willing to take the token, subject to that venue's rules and market conditions.

The post Ondo unlocks BlackRock portfolio strategies, but only non-US traders benefit appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Two pools that exchange TIX for other issued tokens accounted for 97.24% of the seven-day automated market maker (AMM) volume in XRP Ledger (XRPL), according to XRPL.to's Sept. 24 feed.

Neither pool contains XRP, so the outsized reading says far more about the provider's volume measure.

XRPL.to listed a 2.82069 billion seven-day volume total, including 1.68 billion for XPM/TIX and over 1 billion for RLUSD/TIX.

Those figures describe the provider's tally. The two pools were created Sept. 21 and list the same TIX issuer and pool creator, and XRPL.to counted 69 XPM/TIX trades and 116 RLUSD/TIX trades in its rolling seven-day window.

Neither had recorded a trade in the latest 24 hours at the Sept. 24 check. The count shows that fills occurred, but it does not establish how many independent traders took part or what those fills were worth.

A routed payment can pass through more than one pool, so pool-level counts should not be read as separate end-to-end customer payments.

What the XRPL ledger shows

A check of the XPM/TIX pool account found about 1,545 XPM and 9.69 million TIX in its reserves. The RLUSD/TIX account held only trace amounts of both assets and zero XRP.

The nearly empty account is a current liquidity warning, while the earlier trading window needs its dated balances to show what a trader could have exchanged then.

A validated payment from Sept. 22 provides one view of actual settlement. It routed through TIX and both AMM accounts, used about 5.89 XPM, and delivered 0.030177 RLUSD. Its ledger metadata shows the token balance changes at each pool.

However, it doesn't explain why an end-to-end payment and the two pool legs involved are counted differently.

The ledger's AMM rules allow pools to exchange two issued assets without an XRP trading side. Transactions still incur XRP network fees, and a longer payment route can use XRP elsewhere. Neither mechanism turns activity inside these two pools into evidence that someone bought new XRP.

To establish that demand, the trades would need to be traced through any XRP legs and separated from inventory participants already held.

XRPL dashboard leaves token-token pools out of its headline XRP-paired value locked because those reserves are harder to price in dollars. DefiLlama's XRPL DEX page showed $55.1 million in seven-day volume, while its adapter uses XRP-pair and AMM XRP-volume metrics.

Those figures cannot be set directly against XRPL.to's token-token tally as though they counted the same trades at the same prices.

The open question is the value attached to each TIX fill in XRPL.to's total. Until that conversion can be reproduced against the on-chain trades, the 97.24% concentration is best understood as a feature of one reported measure.

For XRP holders, recurring volume in pools that actually hold XRP, backed by verifiable reserves and valued fills, would be a more direct sign of trading demand. Such evidence would also distinguish a one-window spike from trading that persists after the newest pools have aged and their initial liquidity has changed.

The post Two obscure pools fuel 2.8B XRPL volume, but only 185 trades caused it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin researchers have proposed a system for private transfers directly on the network without requiring a soft fork or changes to its consensus rules.

The Sept. 24 paper from [[alloc] init] researchers Clara Shikhelman, Mikhail Komarov, and Aleksei Moskvin introduces Shielded Bitcoin, a metaprotocol designed to conceal transaction amounts, senders, recipients, and links between transfers while publishing its protocol data through Bitcoin mainnet.

The design adapts techniques pioneered by Zcash, including encrypted notes, public nullifiers and zero-knowledge proofs, but does not introduce a separate blockchain. Bitcoin instead provides the publication and ordering layer from which participants reconstruct the private transaction state.

That would extend Bitcoin privacy beyond existing techniques such as CoinJoin, PayJoin and Silent Payments, which can complicate transaction tracing or reduce address reuse but leave amounts and other transaction details visible.

Bitcoin would carry the transactions without validating the privacy layer

The proposal avoids waiting for a Bitcoin upgrade by moving the privacy logic above the network’s consensus rules.

Users would hold BTC-denominated value as encrypted notes. When funds are transferred, the sender would publish an envelope containing encrypted outputs, public nullifiers marking previously held notes as spent, and a zero-knowledge proof establishing ownership and value conservation.

The amount being transferred and the identities of the counterparties would remain hidden.

Bitcoin miners and nodes would not validate the shielded state themselves. Instead, implementations following the Shielded Bitcoin rules would scan BTC blocks and replay accepted transfer envelopes in their recorded order, producing a common note tree and spent-note set.

Bitcoin would therefore provide the timestamped transaction history and ordering needed to reconstruct the system, while the metaprotocol would handle encrypted balances and transfer verification.

The current implementation profile uses OP_RETURN to publish the encrypted transfer data, though the researchers leave open the possibility of other publication methods.

That architecture differs from Zcash, where the network’s consensus rules enforce shielded transaction validity directly. Shielded Bitcoin would keep BTC consensus untouched while deriving a separate private state from data anchored to the chain.

Some metadata would remain visible. Transaction timing, fees, input and output counts, and characteristics of the Bitcoin transaction carrying the encrypted data could still give observers clues.

The paper also includes viewing capabilities that could allow users to selectively disclose transaction information without surrendering control of their funds, creating a route for auditing or compliance where required.

Sam Callahan, the director of strategy and research at Bitcoin treasury company OranjeBTC, said the development fits a broader view that Bitcoin can accumulate functionality without competing with other blockchains feature by feature.

Callahan said:

“People still misunderstand Bitcoin’s moat. Bitcoin doesn’t need to win every feature race. Privacy, speed, and functionality can be built over time. The moat is its decentralization, security, and credible monetary policy,” he added. “And on those dimensions, nothing else comes close.”

The design remains incomplete at one critical boundary: moving ordinary BTC into and out of the shielded system.

Peg-in and peg-out mechanisms sit outside the current specification. Those components would need to lock Bitcoin on mainnet, represent that value inside the private note system, and later release the corresponding BTC when users exit.

[[alloc] init] expects those flows to rely on its PIPEs v2 work, but the researchers have yet to publish the detailed construction.

That leaves open questions around whether entry and exit can be made trustless, private, and resistant to transaction linkage. A distinctive deposit amount, withdrawal amount, or timing pattern could still connect activity at either end of the shielded system.

Other deployment choices also remain unresolved, including the final proof system, publication format, and how light clients can verify shielded state without replaying the full relevant Bitcoin history.

Privacy coins face fresh pressure as Zcash rally tests the thesis

The proposal comes as privacy-focused cryptocurrencies again attract investor attention, reviving a long-running debate over whether dedicated privacy networks retain an enduring technological advantage over Bitcoin.

André Dragosch, Bitwise Europe Head of Research, described Shielded Bitcoin as a “potential headwind for privacy coins,” reflecting the risk that features once associated with separate networks could increasingly be reproduced around Bitcoin without altering its monetary rules or base-layer consensus.

That argument becomes more consequential for Zcash, where privacy has become central to the token’s recent revaluation. ZEC climbed above $1,600 this week as shielded activity accelerated and investors returned to the idea that Zcash offers native transactions that can conceal senders, recipients, and amounts.

Usage has moved alongside price. Weekly shielded transactions recently reached 62,379, their highest level since 2022, while nearly 5 million ZEC were held in shielded pools this month. The network also settled more than $23 billion in transfer volume last week, its strongest weekly total since 2021.

Shielded Bitcoin pressures that narrative because it seeks to deliver comparable transaction confidentiality while keeping BTC as the underlying asset. If the system eventually works as designed, users seeking stronger privacy would have another route besides moving into a dedicated privacy coin.

The post Bitcoin researchers target privacy coins with Zcash-style shielded transfers appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto market is telling two very different stories today. Bitcoin is nursing an 8% weekly loss and trading just above $84,000, yet scroll one line down the rankings and the screen turns green: XRP, Cardano, Chainlink and Dogecoin are all up double digits on the week, and privacy coins are posting numbers we have not seen since 2016. Money is not leaving crypto, it is rotating. Here is the full breakdown of crypto prices today, why Bitcoin is lagging, and which altcoins are stealing the show.

Why Is the Bitcoin Price Down This Week?

Bitcoin ($BTC) is trading at $84,097, down 0.41% over the past 24 hours and 8.32% over the past seven days. The pullback from September's highs leaves BTC slightly negative for the year at minus 3.90%, with a market cap of $1.68 trillion and around $36.5 billion in daily volume.

The macro backdrop is doing most of the damage. Futures markets are now pricing in as many as four Fed rate hikes by June 2027, and the combination of rising bond yields and a stronger dollar has taken the wind out of both Bitcoin and gold. On top of that, an $80 million wave of long liquidations hit the market as BTC stalled around the $84,000 level, with traders now watching $82,800 as the next line of support.

The silver lining: institutions are buying the dip. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have flipped back into accumulation mode, adding around $347 million in a single day with BlackRock and Fidelity leading the buying, part of a roughly $4.6 billion rebound that has erased the year's earlier outflows. Price is falling, but the structural demand story is quietly improving underneath it.

Which Altcoins Are Pumping While Bitcoin Bleeds?

While $Bitcoin gave back 8% this week, the altcoin market barely blinked. Cardano (ADA) leads the large caps with a 16.57% weekly gain to $0.2494, closely followed by XRP, up 15.72% to $1.53, and Chainlink (LINK), up 15.13% to $13.58 and still climbing with an 8.91% move in the last 24 hours alone. Dogecoin (DOGE) added 13.19% on the week, Solana (SOL) gained 10.39% to $116.50, and even Ethereum (ETH) managed a solid 7.74% weekly advance to $2,677 despite the drag from BTC.

This is a classic capital rotation. Derivatives data underlines it: altcoin futures open interest has overtaken Bitcoin's for the first time since 2024, meaning traders are actively positioning in alts rather than simply hiding in BTC. When Bitcoin dominance slips while total market activity stays elevated, altcoin traders usually read it as the early innings of an alt-friendly phase. The caveat: rotations built on leverage can unwind just as fast, as this week's $80 million liquidation flush reminded everyone.

Are Privacy Coins the Biggest Winners of 2026?

The standout story of the year keeps getting bigger. Zcash (ZEC) is trading at $1,574, up another 6.30% this week and an eye-watering 207% year to date, making it comfortably the best performer in the top ten. Zoom out further and the move is historic: Glassnode data puts ZEC's gain at roughly 2,500% over the past year, a run that lifted it from around 82nd place by market cap into the top ten, at levels not seen since 2016.

Several things are feeding the fire. Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into ZCSH, the first US spot ETF built around a privacy coin, opening the door for institutional money. At the same time, the share of ZEC locked in the fully private shielded pool has grown sharply, which analysts read as holders taking coins off the market rather than preparing to sell. The whole sector has followed: privacy coins now command a combined market cap of over $33 billion and are the only crypto sector trading above their October 2025 levels.

Monero (XMR) tells the same story with less drama, up 1.81% today, 6.01% on the week and 31.62% year to date at $570. One cloud on the horizon: new EU rules set for mid-2027 would bar regulated exchanges from listing privacy coins like Zcash and Monero, so the regulatory endgame for this rally is far from settled.

How Do Crypto Prices Look Today?

Here is the top of the market at a glance:

Hyperliquid (HYPE) deserves a special mention: at +265% year to date it is the only asset outperforming Zcash in the top ten, proof that the market keeps paying up for real on-chain revenue. For more crypto insights, check the CryptoTicker charts page.

What Is Next for the Crypto Market?

The short-term script is written by the Fed. As long as markets keep pricing in more rate hikes, Bitcoin will struggle to reclaim its September highs, and the $82,800 level is the support bulls need to defend to keep the structure intact. A decisive break below it would put the psychological $80,000 zone back in play. On the upside, steady ETF inflows from BlackRock and Fidelity suggest that dips are being absorbed by longer-term buyers rather than triggering panic.

For altcoins, the rotation is the trend to watch. If Bitcoin stabilizes, the strength in XRP, ADA, LINK and SOL could accelerate into a broader altcoin run. If macro pressure intensifies, expect leveraged alt positions to unwind first and fastest. And keep an eye on the privacy sector: with an ETF now live and EU delisting rules looming in 2027, Zcash sits at the intersection of the year's most powerful narrative and its biggest regulatory risk.

The Federal Reserve published two proposed rules on September 24, 2026 that set out in detail for the first time what a payment stablecoin must be backed by and how quickly an issuer should redeem it. For you as an investor in Germany one sentence puts everything else in order: these rules apply to issuers that sit under the supervision of the US central bank. Your right to redeem a stablecoin you hold in Germany, by contrast, comes from the EU's MiCA regulation. The Fed proposal is therefore above all a reason for you to settle a different question: who stands behind your token, and against whom could you actually direct your claim?

The distinction sounds technical and decides, in an emergency, whether you get your money back at face value or only the price an exchange happens to quote. This article sorts out both: what has been proposed in Washington, and which rights and duties follow from that for your holdings in Germany.

What the Fed proposed for payment stablecoins on September 24, 2026

The central bank has published two so-called notices of proposed rulemaking, that is, formal drafts followed by a comment period. Both implement the GENIUS Act, the US stablecoin law, and concern exclusively issuers of payment stablecoins supervised by the Federal Reserve.

A payment stablecoin in this framework is a token meant to represent a fixed amount of money and intended for payments. The first draft governs the substance behind it. According to the Fed's statement, supervised issuers must back their stablecoins fully with eligible reserve assets; named are short-dated US government securities, known as Treasury bills, and certain other high-quality liquid assets. On top of that come standardized capital requirements meant to cover credit and operational risks of the stablecoin business, rules for risk management and requirements for the custody of the backing assets.

The second draft is procedural law. It creates a dedicated application process for banks under Fed supervision that want to issue payment stablecoins. Anyone planning to do so must submit a business plan and financial records, among other things. The draft also sets out how objection, hearing and the final decision on an application proceed.

Neither draft is applicable law yet. The Fed will accept comments for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. Only afterwards will it decide whether the rules arrive, and in what form. You can find the announcement directly at the Federal Reserve.

Full backing with short-dated T-bills: what is meant to count as a reserve

The core of the first draft is a positive list. Not every security works as a reserve for a token that customers want to swap back into dollars at any time. Short-dated Treasury bills are the benchmark, because they carry almost no price risk and can be sold quickly in large amounts.

Why Treasury bills rather than simply bank deposits

A bank deposit is legally a claim against the bank. If the institution runs into trouble, a stablecoin issuer's reserve turns into an insolvency claim. That connection is precisely why supervisors on both sides of the Atlantic argue about the composition of stablecoin reserves. In the EU the matter pulls in the other direction: there the legal framework requires issuers of e-money tokens to hold a considerable part of the reserve as bank deposits, something the European Central Bank has itself recently named as a risk.

For you this mainly yields one check question, and one you can actually answer: does the issuer of your stablecoin regularly publish what its reserve consists of, and who confirms it? Large issuers provide monthly breakdowns and attestations from audit firms. If both are missing, that is no proof of a problem and still a gap in what you know.

The order of magnitude at stake can be measured. Our own query of CoinGecko market data on September 25, 2026 at 06:48 UTC produced the following market capitalizations for the four largest dollar-linked stablecoins: Tether (USDT) around $183.7 billion, USDC around $75.4 billion, USDS around $9.7 billion and Ethena USDe around $4.9 billion. Together that is about $273.7 billion resting on promises of backing. For comparison: the price of Bitcoin stood at around $84,043 at the same moment.

Capital buffer and application process: what the second draft means for issuers

Capital requirements are something other than reserves. The reserve covers the tokens issued. Capital is the company's own funds cushion, meant to absorb losses from day-to-day operations, for instance from a system failure or the default of a service provider. The Fed wants to standardize these requirements instead of setting them case by case.

The US trade press reads more concrete figures out of the drafts than the announcement itself contains. According to an analysis by PYMNTS of September 24, 2026, supervised issuers are to hold at least one dollar of eligible reserves per dollar issued and to serve customer redemption requests within two business days. The Fed's press release contains no deadline in days and no backing ratio in figures. Anyone quoting the two business days is quoting a reading of the draft text and not the central bank's summary.

Fed Governor Michael Barr issued a statement of his own on the same day and struck a skeptical note in it. According to The Block's report of September 24, 2026, he worries that the standard of "significant or systemic" laid down in the law could have unforeseeable consequences for how reliably the central bank can establish whether an institution maintains compliant programs over time. That is the assessment of one governor, not a position of the board.

Does the Fed rule apply to your stablecoin in Germany?

For an investor resident in Germany the answer as a rule is: no, at least not directly. What governs is the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets, MiCA for short. The regulation distinguishes two kinds of value-stable token, and that distinction determines your rights.

E-money token and asset-referenced token: the definitions in one sentence each

An e-money token is a crypto-asset that references the value of a single official currency, the euro or the US dollar for example. An asset-referenced token, by contrast, references a basket, such as several currencies, commodities or other assets. The dollar-linked stablecoins you meet in everyday use fall under the stricter category as e-money tokens.

The practical part follows from that. Anyone offering e-money tokens publicly in the EU needs authorization as an electronic money institution or credit institution, and the supervisor lists the authorized issuers in a register. A count of that register by cryptoticker.io on August 16, 2026 produced 23 authorized issuers. A token without an authorized issuer may no longer be offered to European retail customers, which is why some well-known names have disappeared from trading venues for customers in the European Economic Area.

In practice that means: first check whether the token in your account is issued by an issuer authorized in the EU, or whether your trading venue merely carries it as a non-EU product. On a regulated platform you can usually read this in the product description. If you have yet to choose a trading venue, the authorized providers are set side by side in the comparison of the best regulated crypto exchanges.

Redemption right under MiCA: at any time, at face value, free of charge

This is the point at which European law is ahead of the Fed draft. Under MiCA, holders of e-money tokens have a claim at any time that the issuer repay the monetary value of the tokens held at face value, in cash or by transfer. The issuer may not charge a fee for that redemption. Conversely, it may not pay interest on e-money tokens, which is why no issuer can offer you a yield on the bare token.

The words "at any time" are the actual news here. On the trade press reading, the Fed draft works with a deadline of two business days. The European claim names no such figure. It attaches to the holder's request. In practice an issuer will need identity verification and a payment route, and that takes time. Legally your starting position in the EU is still the stronger one.

Why your claim ends at the exchange and not at the issuer

Here lies the gap many investors overlook. The redemption claim is directed against the issuer of the token. If your stablecoins sit in the account of a trading platform, in most cases you do not hold the token yourself. You hold a claim against the platform, which books the token for you. Your route to redemption therefore hangs on the platform, and its solvency comes to stand alongside that of the issuer.

The difference only becomes visible under stress, and by then it is too late to reposition. A frozen account, a halt on withdrawals or insolvency proceedings separate you from a token whose backing is perfectly sound. Anyone holding the token in their own wallet has the issuer as counterparty and a direct route to redemption, provided the issuer serves retail customers at all. Many do so only above high minimum amounts and after their own identity checks.

There is a second layer that applies independently of insolvency. Issuers can freeze individual addresses when authorities order it or a suspicion of money laundering exists. A frozen balance is neither lost nor available, and the way back leads through the issuer instead of through the exchange.

Five points to check on your stablecoin holdings now

The Fed draft changes nothing for you legally today. It is, however, a good occasion to go through your own position once, because the check goes faster without time pressure than in an emergency.

1. Which token actually sits in the account. USDT, USDC, USDS and a synthetic dollar such as USDe are four different constructions with four different risk profiles. The ticker on the screen tells you nothing about the issuer.
2. Who the issuer is and in which legal system it sits. Authorization in the EU decides whether you have a redemption claim under MiCA or a claim under foreign law.
3. Where the token sits. On the exchange you hold a claim against the exchange. In your own wallet you hold the token and have the issuer as counterparty.
4. Whether the issuer discloses its reserve. Monthly breakdowns and attestations by an audit firm are the standard you can measure against.
5. Which routes are open to you if your trading venue drops the token. Delistings in the European Economic Area have repeatedly set deadlines for sale and withdrawal in recent months. Miss the deadline and you leave the conversion to the provider.

Stablecoin swaps and tax: why the switch is taxable in Germany

One point that regularly gets lost when repositioning: swapping one stablecoin for another is a disposal transaction in Germany. For tax purposes a stablecoin is another economic asset, not a euro balance, and therefore the move from one token into another is a tax-relevant event, even though the value does not change.

In practice the gain is usually small, because the price barely moves. Under the rules for private disposal transactions, gains stay tax free if more than a year lies between acquisition and sale; below that holding period your personal income tax rate applies, and an exemption threshold of 1,000 euros applies to the sum of all private disposal gains in a year. The real effort lies not in the tax burden but in the documentation: every swap needs a time, a quantity, a price and a counter value, and across repositioning over several platforms that quickly becomes hard to follow.

If you are going through your holdings anyway, you should put the records in order in the same pass. That is the moment when a tool that consolidates inflows and outflows across several accounts pays for itself.

What the draft is not yet: comment period and open points

In the United States several steps lie between a proposed rule and applicable law. The Fed collects comments for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, evaluates them and then publishes a final version, which may differ from the current one. Which capital ratio ends up in place is therefore open.

Also open is how the two legal areas relate to each other. An issuer supervised by the Fed in the United States that offers in the EU through a subsidiary with MiCA authorization is subject to two sets of rules with different reserve requirements. Whether that leads to separate reserve pools per jurisdiction is in neither of the two drafts. For you as a holder that is the question of which pool stands behind your token, and today it can only be answered through the issuer's product documents.

What can already be observed, on the other hand: in stablecoins, supervision is moving on from the question of whether they are permitted to the question of how well they are backed. Both Fed drafts revolve around backing, capital and custody. That is the same direction MiCA has been setting in the EU since last year.

Checking your stablecoin redemption right: what to take away

1. Establish who stands behind your token. Check whether the issuer holds an EU authorization, because that determines whether you can assert the claim to redemption at face value at all. Trading venues with European authorization state this in the product details; an overview is offered by the comparison of the best regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Put the records in order before you reposition. Every swap between two stablecoins is a tax-relevant event with a time, a quantity and a counter value. A portfolio tool takes over the allocation across several accounts; the common programs are in the overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.
3. Decide deliberately where the holdings sit. In an exchange account you share the platform's risk; in your own custody you carry the responsibility for the keys. If you want to take the second route, the devices are set side by side in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of September 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Stellar Lumens trades at $0.2212, or 0.1945 euros, on September 25, 2026 at around 04:51 UTC. That is 9.66 percent more than 24 hours earlier according to CoinGecko data, and the strongest daily move among the 25 largest cryptocurrencies. Behind the gain sits a development that has been building for months: the Stellar chain now carries tokenized real-world assets worth billions. Anyone planning to turn that into a purchase should settle three questions first, and none of them has anything to do with the chart. They concern the issuing address of the token, the buying route in Germany and the holding period.

cryptoticker.io collected this analysis itself on September 25, 2026. We queried Stellar's public Horizon interface and counted how many separate issuers carry the same stablecoin ticker there. The result explains why the ticker alone is not enough to base a purchase on.

Stellar Lumens (XLM) climbs to $0.22: the documented numbers

Stellar Lumens (XLM) is quoted at $0.221166 on September 25, 2026 at 04:51 UTC, according to CoinGecko. In euros that is 0.1945. Market capitalization stands at $7.73 billion, rank 20 in the overall market. Turnover over the past 24 hours came to $475.2 million.

More revealing than the daily gain is the comparison of two periods. Over seven days the coin is up 18.04 percent, over 30 days 17.97 percent. The two figures are practically level. That means the entire monthly gain was produced in the last seven days; before that the price moved sideways. Jumps of this kind after a long quiet spell matter for the question of entry timing, because they widen the distance to any pullback zone.

XLM remains far from its all-time high. CoinGecko dates that high to January 2, 2018, and the current price sits around 74.6 percent below it. A coin that stands at a quarter of its peak eight years on is not a latecomer catching up, but an asset with a long history of its own. That belongs in any assessment.

Tokenized real-world assets on Stellar: from $869 million to almost $4 billion

Tokenized real-world assets, RWA for short, are holdings from traditional finance represented as tokens on a blockchain. Typical examples are short-dated government bonds, money market fund units or corporate loans. The token is the representation, not the value itself; behind it stands an issuer who holds the underlying.

On Stellar this stock has grown sharply in 2026. According to an analysis by Cointelegraph based on a Dune Analytics dashboard maintained by Stellar, the chain's RWA market capitalization stood at $3.996 billion on August 29, 2026. At the end of 2025 it was $868.8 million. That is roughly four and a half times more within eight months. The same analysis puts $438 million of stablecoins with audited reserve backing on the chain.

Further inflows have been announced. The US securities settlement house DTCC intends to connect its tokenization service to Stellar, with tokenized assets due to become available there in the first half of 2027. The platform Tradable has said it will bring private credit of up to $1 billion onto the chain. MoneyGram launched its dollar stablecoin MGUSD on Stellar in June. On September 17, 2026 protocol upgrade 28 also went live on mainnet, which we assessed in a separate article on September 19.

One point matters for context: these sums sit on the chain, they do not sit in the XLM price. The lumen is the network currency used to pay fees and to post account reserves. A growing RWA stock raises the number of accounts and transactions, but it distributes nothing to holders. The link between stock growth and price is therefore indirect and not mechanical.

446 tokens on Stellar carry the name USDC: our count of September 25

For this article we queried Stellar's public Horizon interface on September 25, 2026, specifically the assets endpoint, page by page to the end of each list. We compared the issuing address of every entry against the address published by Circle. All calls returned status 200.

The result for the ticker USDC: 446 separate entries, each with its own issuing address. Exactly one of them comes from Circle. That genuine entry counts 2,431,447 authorized accounts and a total holding of 351,168,048.23 USDC, spread across accounts, smart contracts, liquidity pools and claimable balances. The remaining 445 entries carry the same ticker and have nothing to do with Circle.

The picture for the ticker EURC looks similar, only smaller: 70 entries, one of them from Circle with 40,121 authorized accounts and a holding of 3,678,796.49 EURC. The largest third-party EURC entry reaches 12,809 accounts. That is around 32 percent of the account count of the genuine token, and those accounts have opened a trustline to an address that issues no Circle product.

What we did not examine belongs to the honesty of this analysis: we did not investigate who stands behind the third-party entries or whether any intent to deceive lies behind them. Some of these entries are likely to be tests, learning projects or discontinued legacy assets. Nor did we assess the individual holdings of each third-party entry; the only striking point is that several of them report nominal quantities in the trillions, which suggests empty shells without backing. The figure of 446 is a count, not a verdict on anyone's intentions.

Trustline and issuing address: how to spot the genuine stablecoin on Stellar

A trustline on Stellar is an account's explicit permission to hold a particular token from a particular issuer. Without that line nobody can send you the token. That is precisely where the protection lies, and precisely where the mistake happens: open a trustline to the wrong issuer and you end up holding a token that looks like the well-known one while carrying a claim against nobody.

In practice you check three things before you confirm a trustline. First the complete issuing address, not just its first and last characters. The genuine USDC address on Stellar begins with GA5ZSEJY and can be verified in a public blockchain explorer. Second the linked domain: reputable issuers point to their own corporate domain through a standardized file. Third the order of magnitude, because a token with a handful of accounts is no established stablecoin, even if the ticker matches.

Anyone who buys through an exchange and leaves the coins there meets this question less often, because the exchange manages the trustline. As soon as you withdraw to your own wallet and accept a stablecoin there, the check is yours.

EURC versus USDC on Stellar: why German investors almost always carry dollar risk

Our count shows a clear imbalance. The 351.17 million USDC face 3.68 million EURC. At the conversion rate of September 25, around $1.137 per euro, the euro holding amounts to roughly $4.18 million. That leaves the euro stablecoin at a good one percent of the combined holdings on the chain.

For you as an investor in Germany this has an immediate consequence. If you rotate gains from XLM into a stablecoin to step out of price risk for a while, on this chain you will most likely end up in a dollar asset. You are then trading price risk for currency risk. If the euro-dollar rate moves by five percent, your supposedly stable holding moves with it in euro terms.

The euro stablecoin EURC is authorized as an e-money token under the EU's MiCA regulation, which places its issuer under European supervision. That is an argument for the euro route, but it does not change the fact that liquidity on Stellar sits mostly in the dollar. Anyone who wants to take the euro route should first check whether their provider offers EURC at all and at what spread it converts.

Buying through a regulated exchange: what to watch for with XLM in Germany

XLM is available on the large trading venues licensed in the EU. Since MiCA applies in full, providers targeting customers in Germany need authorization as a crypto service provider; BaFin maintains the German permissions. In practice that means comparing three points before you buy: the trading fee, the spread between bid and ask, and the withdrawal fee if you want to move the coins to your own wallet.

The spread is often underestimated on small order sizes. On a coin priced at 0.19 euros, half a cent of difference looks small yet amounts to a good two percent of the stake. Two percent on the way in and two on the way out make four percent that the price has to recover first. An overview of the terms is in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges, where we set fees, spreads and withdrawal routes side by side.

The network fee itself is no cost factor on Stellar. The base fee at ledger 64,605,268, closed on September 25, 2026 at 04:55 UTC, was 100 stroops, meaning 0.00001 XLM per operation. The median of the fees actually paid was also 100 stroops. Converted, that is fractions of a cent. A transfer on Stellar becomes expensive through the provider's fees, not through the chain.

Auth revocable and clawback: when an issuer can freeze your stablecoin

Every asset on Stellar carries flags that define which rights the issuer retains. Two of them matter for holders. Auth revocable means the issuer can withdraw an authorization once granted; the balance can then no longer be moved. Clawback means the issuer can pull tokens directly from the account.

Our query of September 25, 2026 shows the following for the genuine Circle tokens on Stellar: for USDC and for EURC, auth revocable is set to active, while clawback is inactive. The issuer can therefore revoke an authorization, yet cannot unilaterally remove your balance. Neither is a scandal; both are the norm for regulated stablecoins, because the issuer has to implement sanctions and anti-money-laundering requirements. For you it does mean that a stablecoin in your own wallet does not have the same independence as the lumen itself.

None of this applies to XLM. The network currency is controlled by no issuer, there is no authorization and no seizure. Anyone who wants to avoid issuer risk entirely therefore holds the coin itself rather than a token issued on top of it.

Storing XLM: hardware wallet, minimum reserve and the cost of a trustline

Anyone moving XLM to their own wallet runs into a Stellar peculiarity: an account has to keep a minimum reserve and cannot be emptied completely. The base reserve at the ledger checked on September 25, 2026 was 0.5 XLM per entry. A new account occupies two entries and must therefore hold 1 XLM permanently. Every additional trustline costs another 0.5 XLM in locked reserve.

At the price of September 25 that is about 19 cents for the account and just under 10 cents per trustline. The amounts are small, but they are locked rather than spent: as soon as you close a trustline again, the reserve is released. Open a dozen trustlines out of curiosity and you tie up correspondingly more, while losing track of which issuers you have actually authorized.

For storing larger holdings a hardware wallet is the usual route, because the private key never leaves the device. Which devices support Stellar and how they differ in handling and price is set out in our hardware wallet comparison. What matters there is less the device than the question of where the recovery words are kept and who besides you could reach them.

Holding period and tax: what is left of an XLM gain in Germany

In Germany cryptocurrencies count as other economic assets. Gains from a sale fall under private disposal transactions in accordance with section 23 of the Income Tax Act. The holding period is decisive: if more than a year lies between acquisition and sale, the gain is tax free. Below that it is taxed at your personal rate, provided the sum of all private disposal gains in the calendar year reaches the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros.

Exemption threshold means: stay below it with a gain of 999 euros and you pay nothing. Land at 1,001 euros and you pay tax on the full amount, not just on the euro above the line. That edge is the reason why it pays to do the arithmetic shortly before the turn of the year.

Swapping XLM into a stablecoin is a sale for tax purposes. Anyone locking in gains in USDC or EURC ahead of a pullback triggers a disposal and starts a fresh period for the stablecoin. This is the point where the two themes of this article converge: the route into the supposedly safe harbor may cost tax, and on Stellar it leads mostly into a foreign currency.

Anyone trading several times a year needs a clean record of every acquisition with date, quantity and price, otherwise the holding period cannot be proven after the fact. The usual route for that is portfolio and tax software that reads the exchanges via an interface.

Levels above and below: what the XLM price is measured against now

Three reference points follow from the documented price data. The current level is $0.2212. Backing out the seven-day move of 18.04 percent puts the price a week ago at around $0.187; because the 30-day move is almost identical, that area also marks the level where the price spent the preceding month. On the downside it is the first area a pullback would run into.

On the upside the available data offers no comparably documented reference point. The all-time high from January 2018 sits around 74.6 percent above today's price and is no guide for the coming weeks. Analyst targets that circulate in phases like this we deliberately leave out as long as they are not attributed by name and reasoned.

What can be observed instead are the inflows on the chain. If the announced DTCC connection actually arrives in 2027, the number of accounts and transactions rises further. If it fails to appear or slips, one of the arguments currently made for the chain falls away. Both are verifiable, and both are a better yardstick than a price target without a sender.

Stellar and the USDC ticker: what to take away

1. Settle the buying route before the buying decision. Compare trading fee, spread and withdrawal costs at a provider licensed in the EU before you place an order; on a coin below 20 cents the spread eats proportionally more than it looks. The terms are in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Check the issuing address before every trustline. 446 entries on Stellar are called USDC, one of them comes from Circle. Match the full address in an explorer before you accept a stablecoin in your own wallet, and keep the number of open trustlines small. For storage itself the hardware wallet comparison helps.
3. Record the holding period before you swap. Moving from XLM into a stablecoin is a sale and restarts the one-year clock. Keep every acquisition with date, quantity and price so the period stays provable; suitable tools are in the overview of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers.

(As of September 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The three European financial supervisory authorities added quantum risk to their official autumn risk picture on September 23, 2026. Nothing about your holdings changes today, and the paper is not a warning about an imminent attack. What changes is the expectation placed on your provider: exchanges, custodians and banks in the EU now have to plan the migration of their encryption, and you can measure them against that.

This article sets out what the document actually says, which deadlines sit behind it, where the real attack surface lies for Bitcoin and Ether, and which three things you can check about your own custody without waiting for technology that does not yet exist.

What the EU supervisors wrote about quantum risk on September 23

Behind the paper stand the three European Supervisory Authorities, the ESAs: the banking authority EBA, the insurance authority EIOPA and the markets authority ESMA. Twice a year they publish a joint risk update in which the Joint Committee names the weak points of the EU financial system. The autumn 2026 edition appeared on September 23, and its core findings had been presented on September 10 at the Financial Stability Table of the EU Economic and Financial Committee. The statement is available in full at ESMA and at the EBA.

On quantum computing the text says the technology could transform the financial sector in central areas, from process optimisation through fraud and compliance monitoring to pricing. The same paragraph carries the flip side: the technology could equally create significant risks by undermining cryptographic systems that are used at scale to secure communications, transactions, databases and blockchains. Blockchains are named explicitly there, and not as a footnote to a banking topic.

The sentence that carries the urgency is a different one: the risks could materialise faster than any commercially viable application. In other words, the supervisors expect the ability to break old encryption to arrive before the economic benefit with which quantum computers are otherwise advertised.

Three weak points in one paper

The quantum topic does not stand alone. The ESAs name three fields: dependence on providers and infrastructure outside the EU, new technologies involving artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and the rapidly grown market for private credit. For crypto investors the first two fields are relevant, and they interlock. On the same September 23 ESMA additionally declared digital innovation a new supervisory priority from 2027, which shows that this is more than a one-off remark.

“Harvest now, decrypt later”: why intercepted data becomes a problem later

Harvest now, decrypt later describes an approach in which an attacker records encrypted data today and stores it, in order to decrypt it only once the necessary computing power exists. The attack therefore happens in two steps that can lie years apart.

For banking data, health records or contract documents that is the core of the problem, because their value does not expire. With a public blockchain the case is different and in one respect more uncomfortable: there, nobody has to intercept anything. The data lies open, permanently and retrievable by anyone. Whoever stores a copy of the chain today has everything they would need in ten years.

That is precisely why the distinction in the next section matters. The transaction history is always open. What decides the question is whether the public key belonging to a particular address is open as well.

Post-quantum cryptography: the migration deadline of end-2026 and who it binds

Post-quantum cryptography, abbreviated PQC, covers encryption and signature schemes that cannot be broken even by a powerful quantum computer. It rests on different mathematical foundations, and it is not about longer passwords.

The European timetable for this was not set by the Joint Committee. It comes from the NIS Cooperation Group, in which the member states work together. In June 2025 the group adopted a roadmap that the states endorsed. It provides for three stages: by the end of 2026 all member states should have begun the migration, meaning national strategies, inventories of the schemes in use and first migration steps. High-risk applications, which expressly include the financial sector, should be protected as early as possible and by 2030 at the latest. By 2035 the migration should reach as far as is practically feasible.

One point matters for placing this correctly: these deadlines bind member states, operators of critical infrastructure and supervised financial firms. As a private individual you are bound by no deadline. That is a relief, and at the same time it is the reason you have to look for yourself, because nobody migrates your self-custody on your behalf.

Elliptic curves, public keys and Bitcoin addresses: where the attack surface sits

Bitcoin and Ethereum sign transactions with schemes based on elliptic curves. A public key is computed from a private key, and that computation is easy in one direction and practically impossible in reverse. A sufficiently large quantum computer would make the reverse direction attackable, because a known method from quantum computing solves exactly this problem.

Here is the message for holders. With the address formats common today, the chain does not hold the public key itself, only its hash. The key becomes visible only when you spend from that address for the first time. As long as an address has only received, the information needed for this attack is not public.

That leaves two groups with a clearly raised attack surface. First, very old holdings from the early days, where the public key sits directly in the chain. Second, addresses that were used again and refilled after a spend, because from the first spend onwards the key stays permanently visible.

On the question of how far the hardware is from that point there is no reliable year, and this article deliberately names none. What is documented is that the estimates are moving towards lower effort: work published by Google Quantum AI in March 2026 concluded that breaking the 256-bit curves in use should require considerably fewer physical qubits than older models had assumed, by roughly a factor of twenty according to the reporting on that work. That is a correction to an estimate, not a date.

Dependence on non-EU service providers: the second finding that hits your exchange

The finding that takes up more room in the paper than the quantum topic is dependence on providers outside Europe. The ESAs identify a persistently strong dependence on IT service providers and payment systems outside the EU, and point out that it remains visible in the financial infrastructures as well, where clearing, repo business and ratings are predominantly handled by entities outside the EU.

For you this is not an abstract subject, because a trading platform is first and foremost software. The servers, the custody system, the identity checks and often the settlement sit with service providers whose names appear in the terms and conditions rather than on the front page. When supervisors expect cryptographic migration, that whole stack has to move with it, and the migration is only as fast as the slowest supplier.

In practical terms: a platform licensed in the EU gives you a counterparty bound by European rules, and a supervisor able to ask questions. If the choice is still ahead of you, the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges breaks down the licences, the registered seat and the custody model for each provider. That does not replace reading the terms yourself, but it shortens the job considerably.

AI-assisted attacks: why phishing is the nearer risk than the quantum computer

In the same chapter the ESAs write that the rapid development of advanced AI systems could make cyberattacks more effective and harder to control, because attackers could find and exploit weaknesses at unprecedented speed. For insurers they expect more frequent and more severe claims as a result.

That ordering is worth holding on to, because public debate often runs it the other way round. Quantum risk is significant, and it has no date. Automatically generated phishing pages, convincingly written support messages and cloned voices on the phone are circulating today and cost holdings today. The same precaution works against both, and it is unspectacular: the private key never leaves the device on which it was created, and an approval is confirmed on a screen that does not belong to the sender of the message.

That is exactly the purpose of a hardware wallet: the signature is created inside the device, and the content of the transaction is displayed there. A compromised computer can then propose a false payment, but it cannot approve one unnoticed.

Exchange balance, hardware wallet or self-custody: what supervisors do not settle for you

The obligations arising from the risk picture are addressed to supervised firms. Where your coins sit therefore decides who carries the migration burden.

If the balance sits with a regulated exchange or a custodian, that provider carries the migration of its systems, and the supervisor can question it about them. In return you depend on its diligence and on its insolvency risk. If you hold the keys yourself, you carry the migration yourself, and in return nobody stands between you and your coins. A third variant is the split, in which an actively traded portion stays on the exchange while the long-term holding sits in self-custody.

What you can ask your provider

• Is there a published roadmap for post-quantum migration, and does it name years?
• Which parts of custody sit with service providers outside the EU, and who is your contact if something fails?
• Are deposit addresses generated fresh for each transaction or permanently reused?
• Can withdrawal addresses be locked and approvals tied to a second device?
• When was custody last audited, and is the result available to read?

The last three points take effect immediately, independently of any quantum debate. If the first question goes unanswered, that is no proof of negligence, but it does indicate how far the planning has got.

MiCA licence and custody duties: what you find in your provider's terms and conditions

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets applies in full, service providers need an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider, CASP in the wording of the regulation, in order to offer trading and custody. The authorisation brings duties that bite at exactly the point at issue here: client holdings have to be segregated from the firm's own funds, custody has to be documented, and there are reporting and contingency duties for outages and attacks.

These duties are the lever through which a supervisory finding reaches the provider. An ESA risk picture is not a law and sets no deadline for an individual firm. It does feed into supervisory practice, and that is where an observation turns into a question in an examination report. Which duties apply in detail and when the transitional rules run out is set out in our overview of the MiCA obligations for crypto firms.

For your own records one point matters more in practice than any debate about the regulation: write down which provider holds which assets and under which authorisation. If a provider changes its offering or leaves the market, you need that overview immediately.

Moving wallets and the holding period: why a transfer between your own wallets is not a sale

Anyone who takes this as the occasion to move holdings from an old address to a new one, or from the exchange into self-custody, rightly asks the tax question. The basic rule in Germany is clear: a transfer between two wallets that both belong to you is not a disposal. There is no sale, so no gain arises, and the one-year holding period keeps running. Only a sale, a swap into another coin or a payment made with it is a taxable event.

In practice this rarely fails on the law and often on the documentation. A portfolio tracker that does not recognise a self-transfer as such books the outgoing leg as a sale and the incoming leg as a purchase. A gain that never existed then shows up in the report, and the holding period starts again inside the software. So anyone moving holdings marks the event in their tool as an internal transfer and keeps the transaction IDs. Which programs merge self-transfers reliably is shown by the comparison of crypto tax tools.

A second point concerns the sequence. If you are consolidating several addresses anyway, it is better done calmly than under time pressure, because every move is an operation in which an address can be copied down wrongly. The most common loss in this area has nothing to do with cryptography.

“Quantum-safe” coins and wallets: how to spot dubious offers

Every supervisory announcement carrying a technical buzzword produces offers that lean on it. The pattern is predictable, and so are the markers.

1. An offer promises protection and asks you to enter your existing recovery words for it, for a migration or a check, say. That is a theft attempt in every case, without exception.
2. A new token is advertised as quantum-safe and is therefore supposed to rise in value. The security properties of a protocol say nothing about the price of a token.
3. A year is named from which existing schemes are said to be broken. No such figure is reliable at present, including in the supervisors' papers.
4. There is time pressure, a countdown or an offer valid only today. A genuine protocol migration is announced and debated over months.

The protocols themselves work on this seriously, and visibly so. Proposals for quantum-resistant signature schemes are debated in open development processes, with specifications, testnets and objections. A migration of that size will surprise nobody who follows the developer channels of their own coin.

Quantum risk and custody: what to take away

The EU supervisors have moved a long-term risk into an ongoing supervisory process. That is good news, because it creates accountability where there was only debate before. Three steps follow for you, and none of them is urgent.

1. Sort your addresses. Check whether you hold balances on addresses that have already been spent from, and whether you manage very old holdings from the early days. Those are the parts that are affected at all. If everything sits with a provider, first check who holds the keys there, and compare the custody model in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Harden your approvals. The nearer risk is the attack on you rather than on the mathematics. Tie withdrawals to a second device, fix address book entries and sign larger amounts on a device kept for that purpose alone. The differences between the devices are set out in the comparison of hardware wallets.
3. Book your moves cleanly. When you reorder addresses, mark every self-transfer as such and keep the transaction IDs, so that the holding period does not restart in the report. Which programs handle that reliably is shown by the comparison of crypto tax tools.

And the sentence for calm: if the ability to break elliptic curves ever exists, your wallet will not be the first target. Ahead of it stand bank connections, government communications and the signatures that hold the internet together. That is why the topic appears in the risk picture of a financial supervisor and not in a warning notice to retail investors.

(As of September 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

No, you cannot buy a house in Germany with Bitcoin. Since April 1, 2023, section 16a of the German Money Laundering Act has banned exactly that: the purchase price for a domestic property may not be settled in cash, nor in crypto-assets, gold, platinum or gemstones, whatever the amount involved. Your Bitcoin holdings still work as a down payment for a mortgage, but only along a single route: you sell them, have the euro amount paid into an account in your own name, and prove to the bank and the notary, without gaps, where the money came from.

That shifts the real task away from the purchase and towards the paperwork. Anyone who has moved coins across several wallets and exchanges over the years rarely fails on the value of the portfolio, and almost always on the missing proof of origin. This article sets out what German banks accept as a down payment, which documents close the chain, how the holding period changes the sum available to you, and in which order to proceed.

Can you pay for a property in Germany directly with Bitcoin?

The short answer is no. The reason lies in an explicit statutory rule, not in the convenience of the banks. The Money Laundering Act, GwG for short, is the German law that requires banks, notaries and other obliged parties to check and document the origin of the assets used. Since 2023 it has contained a prohibition of its own for property transactions.

In practice that means: even if a seller were willing to accept coins, and even if both sides recorded it in the purchase contract, the transaction could not be validly performed. The notary who applies for the transfer of title at the land registry must be shown evidence of the non-cash payment. Without that evidence the transfer cannot proceed, and without the transfer you do not become the owner.

The reverse idea does not hold either. Some buyers hope that part of the purchase price could be settled in coins at the notary's desk and only the remainder through the bank. The prohibition recognises no de minimis threshold. It applies to the obligation as a whole, and therefore to a small part-payment as well.

What section 16a of the Money Laundering Act has banned since April 1, 2023

The provision applies to legal transactions covering the purchase or exchange of domestic property, and to the acquisition of shares in companies whose assets include domestic property. The obligation owed may only be discharged by means other than cash, crypto-assets, gold, platinum or gemstones. The wording can be read at the federal justice ministry in the official text of section 16a GwG.

The consequence of a breach is more unpleasant than many expect. A prohibited payment does not render the purchase contract void, but the payment loses its discharging effect. In legal terms: the seller's claim to the purchase price continues to exist. Anyone who has paid in coins has therefore not paid the price in law and owes it again, while the transferred holdings can only be recovered under the general law of unjust enrichment. For a financing running into several hundred thousand euros, that is a risk out of all proportion to the effort of an ordinary bank transfer.

One detail often gets lost in advice: the rule applies only to legal transactions concluded on or after April 1, 2023. It does not apply to older contracts. Since the provision has now been in force for more than three years, only residual cases are affected today.

What counts as a down payment at the bank and what counts as collateral

Two terms are constantly confused in conversations with the bank, and the confusion costs negotiating position. A down payment is the freely available funds you contribute to the property financing yourself, reducing the loan amount required. Collateral, by contrast, is an asset the bank may seize in an emergency, without it reducing the loan amount. In a classic property loan the collateral is the property itself, registered by way of a land charge.

Crypto holdings can count towards the down payment once converted into euros. As collateral they are of practically no use at German banks. The building society Schwäbisch Hall puts it plainly in its guide on cryptocurrency as equity: Bitcoin as security for a loan has so far been rejected by the banks. As a source of equity, the route is open, but only through conversion into euros.

How large a down payment you need depends on the house, your income and the credit terms. Advisory practice works on the rule of thumb that the incidental purchase costs should come entirely from your own funds, plus roughly twenty percent of the purchase price. Those incidental costs are no sideshow: land transfer tax ranges from 3.5 to 6.5 percent depending on the federal state, notary and land registry account for around 1.5 to 2 percent, and where an agent is involved further percentage points are added. Together that lands at roughly 9 to 15 percent of the purchase price, depending on location and who is involved.

Why banks do not accept crypto holdings as collateral

The reason lies in the valuation logic of property financing. Banks work with the mortgage lending value, a deliberately conservative figure that should still be achievable in a weak property market. It regularly sits below the market value of the property. For a residential building, that figure can be derived plausibly through a valuation using comparable properties, replacement cost and income capitalisation.

Crypto holdings resist that logic on several counts at once. The price can move by double-digit percentages within days, which makes any valuation on a thirty-year horizon questionable. Enforcement in the event of default is legally cumbersome, because the bank can realise nothing without the private key. And any realisation would have to run through a trading venue whose liquidity is not guaranteed. A land charge has the land registry behind it; a wallet has no equivalent.

This reticence is no verdict on crypto as an asset class. Deutsche Bank announced custody of Bitcoin, Ether and selected stablecoins for institutional clients from 2026. Custody for large clients and acceptance as loan collateral in retail banking are two different things, though, and the second does not automatically follow from the first.

How crypto holdings become a recognised down payment: the route through the euro

The sequence is unspectacular, and that is precisely its strength. You sell the amount you need on an exchange or through a broker, have the euro equivalent paid out to an account in your own name, and bring that amount into the financing as your down payment. What matters is that the payout goes to your own account and not to a third party's. Every intermediate step through another person tears open the chain of evidence and creates exactly the suspicion the Money Laundering Act is aimed at.

One point deserves more attention than it usually gets: the choice of trading venue. An exchange based and authorised in the EU gives you machine-readable annual statements, trading histories and payout records in a form a bank accepts. A provider without European authorisation often does not, and a later export can turn out to be impossible if an account has been frozen or a service discontinued. So if the sale is still ahead of you, it is worth looking at our crypto exchange comparison with documentation in mind, and not only fees. The difference between two providers here is not measured in tenths of a percent, but in whether the financing goes through.

Allow time as well. Between the sell order, the credit to the reference account and the onward transfer to your own current account, several working days pass depending on provider and amount. With larger sums, checks are added that extend the process.

What proof of source of funds banks and notaries require for crypto

Proof of source of funds is the evidence showing where the money used came from. It is no formality to be dealt with by way of a screenshot. The review is risk-based: the more conspicuous a transaction looks, the deeper the bank and the notary probe. A six-figure euro amount arriving from a crypto exchange shortly before a property purchase reliably falls into the higher risk class.

What is typically required is a closed chain: wallet, then exchange, then your own bank account, then the notary's escrow account or the seller. Each transition needs its own record. Completeness is what counts, not the volume of paper. A single transfer confirmation does not answer the question of origin, because it shows only the final step.

This scrutiny does not only reach you when buying property, incidentally. In the opposite direction, when depositing funds at an exchange, a query about the source of funds can trigger a freeze. How that plays out and which documents help there is described in our article on a crypto deposit frozen over the source of funds. The logic is the same; only the direction of the money flow differs.

Which documents prove the chain from wallet to exchange to account

Gather the records before the first meeting with the bank, not after. An application that goes into a second round for want of documents loses time and often the interest rate initially offered. These are the documents asked for in practice:

• The complete trading history from the exchange as a machine-readable export, not as a screenshot. A CSV export can be checked; a photograph cannot.
• Purchase records for the original acquisition, ideally with date, quantity and euro equivalent.
• Bank statements showing the deposit made to the exchange at the time, that is, the origin of the money originally used.
• Wallet addresses and transaction identifiers for movements that ran outside an exchange.
• The exchange's payout record for the sale, together with the matching statement from your current account.
• For coins from mining, staking or airdrops, the relevant statements, because such inflows are treated differently for tax than a purchase.

A gap is not the end of the world, but it has to be explicable. A discontinued exchange, a lost login or a wallet from the early years all happen. Write such cases up in advance in a short, factual note and attach whatever still exists. A gap that is named openly and explained plausibly is usually accepted; one passed over in silence leads to a query at the worst possible moment.

How the holding period under section 23 of the Income Tax Act decides your available sum

Selling for your own home is, for tax purposes, a private disposal transaction. The governing provision is section 23 of the Income Tax Act, which can be read in the official text of section 23 EStG. The holding period is the span between the acquisition and the sale of a coin position. Where more than a year lies between the two, the gain is entirely tax-free, with no upper limit. Sell within the year and your personal income tax rate applies.

Beneath that sits an exemption limit of 1,000 euros a year. The difference from an allowance is decisive and is constantly confused: with an allowance, that amount would always stay tax-free and only the excess would be taxable. With an exemption limit, the treatment flips as soon as the limit is reached. A gain of 999 euros stays untaxed; a gain of 1,010 euros is taxable in full. For a financing where every available euro counts, that is a figure worth knowing in advance.

The calculation becomes concrete once you run it against your own holdings. Suppose you need 80,000 euros as a down payment and hold positions from two different years. The older ones are past the one-year mark and deliver their amount tax-free. The younger ones trigger a tax charge at your personal rate, falling due the following year, which you have to set aside. Sell the younger ones first and you will later be short of money you had long since earmarked. Which position was acquired when therefore helps determine your financing sum and is no mere bookkeeping question. Anyone who has accumulated many transactions over the years will not get around a clean schedule; a look at the crypto tax software and portfolio trackers saves weeks of manual work here and supplies at once the records the bank and the tax office want to see.

Why the sale belongs before the financing meeting

Banks work with euro amounts sitting in an account. A portfolio carrying price risk does not appear as a down payment in the affordability calculation, because its value on the day the loan is paid out may differ from its value on the day of the meeting. Walking into the advice session with a portfolio statement and planning the sale only after approval means negotiating over funds that do not yet exist for the bank.

The opposite mistake is just as expensive. Selling before a property is even in sight means bearing the tax consequence and giving up any price movement, without gaining planning certainty in return. The sensible moment lies between the two: once a specific property has been found and the financing request is being prepared, but before the documents are submitted. Then the amount is fixed, the records are fresh, and the bank sees a figure rather than an intention.

What the banks' three-month rule means for your bank statements

Many institutions ask for the last three months of bank statements in order to assess income, spending and the origin of the down payment. A larger inflow from a crypto exchange within that window inevitably leads to a query. That is not particular scepticism towards crypto. Every conspicuous inflow is treated this way, a gift or a severance payment included.

From that follows a practical recommendation: if you are planning the sale anyway, carry it out so that the inflow and its record are visible and explained within the review window. An inflow that disappears precisely between two statement periods strikes a case handler as more in need of explanation than a harmless one. Attach the exchange records without being asked. That shortens processing measurably, because the query falls away.

How savings banks and cooperative banks separate crypto trading from credit assessment

One observation causes many customers confusion. The same savings bank that now offers crypto-asset trading in its app still does not treat your crypto holdings as collateral in a credit assessment. What lies behind the institutions' entry into trading is described in detail in our article on the launch of crypto trading at Sparkasse.

The contradiction is only apparent, because two different departments work with two different rulebooks. The securities and custody business sells you access to an asset class and earns fees. The credit department has to secure a claim over decades and is subject to regulatory requirements on the soundness of collateral. That one house offers both says nothing about the second question. So do not count on a portfolio held at your own house bank easing the negotiation. What counts is the euro amount in the account and the quality of your records.

What is different in the United States and why it changes nothing in German practice

In the United States things are genuinely moving. On June 25, 2025, the regulator FHFA directed the two large mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop a proposal for how crypto holdings can be taken into account as reserves in the risk assessment of residential mortgages, without prior conversion into US dollars. The directive is confined to holdings demonstrably held on a trading platform regulated in the United States, and requires haircuts for price volatility.

Two limitations matter for you. First, the subject there was reserves in the risk assessment, meaning proof of funds held alongside the down payment, and not payment of a purchase price in coins. Second, as of mid-2026 no finally approved guideline for broad application was in place. For a property purchase in Germany it has no bearing in any case: German law applies here, and section 16a GwG rules out payment in crypto-assets. Anyone inferring from American headlines that their German bank will soon calculate along similar lines is planning on a basis that does not exist here.

Which mistakes most often sink the financing

Most refusals in this context trace back to a few readily avoidable patterns:

1. Payout to someone else's account. A sale whose proceeds land in the account of a parent or partner breaks the chain. Where family funds are involved, they belong documented as a gift in their own right, not mixed in.
2. Screenshots instead of exports. A photograph of an app view is not evidence. What is required is a complete, machine-readable export.
3. Tax not set aside. Sell within the one-year period and you have to pay the following year. If that amount is counted into the down payment, it will be missing later for repayments.
4. Incidental costs underestimated. Banks usually do not finance land transfer tax and notary fees. Allocate the entire crypto proceeds to the purchase price and you stand before the incidental costs with no funds.
5. Documents left too late. Exchange exports going back years take time, and with discontinued providers they are sometimes no longer obtainable. Noticing that only after the property has been secured means losing the deadline.

A last word on expectations: even with clean documents, approval remains a decision on the individual case. Income, term, repayment rate and the valuation of the property weigh more heavily than the question of where the down payment came from. Complete proof of origin removes one obstacle; it does not replace a sound affordability calculation.

Crypto as a down payment: what to take away

1. Calculate first, sell afterwards. Go through your positions by acquisition date and separate the holdings past the one-year mark from the younger ones. Only when you know which part is tax-free and what tax charge the rest triggers do you know your real down payment. The practical steps of selling, including payout routes, are set out in our overview on selling Bitcoin.
2. Gather the records before you go to the bank. Trading history as an export, purchase records, bank statements for the original deposit, payout record. Check whether your trading venue supplies these documents in a usable form at all; the exchange comparison helps with that assessment, and if you are switching provider, pull the exports beforehand.
3. Document the tax side in writing. A traceable schedule of all acquisitions and sales serves two purposes at once, the tax office and the credit case handler. With one of the crypto tax tools you produce it once and use it twice.

(As of September 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The central bank opened two proposals for comment under the GENIUS Act, requiring issuers it supervises to back tokens fully with safe assets and creating an application process for banks seeking to issue stablecoins.

A newly created wallet drained hot and cold reserves labeled as belonging to Bitget across multiple blockchains in under an hour.

A proposed class action accuses OpenAI of quietly routing real conversations to outside contractors through a program called Project Lily—without telling users first.

Muse Charm is Meta's palm-sized gadget for talking to its Muse AI agent on the go. It has cameras, a fingerprint sensor, and its own cell connection.

A February research paper showing AI can unmask pseudonymous internet users is freaking everyone out again this week. Here's what the paper actually says.

An early Bitcoin miner just broke 4 years of silence, securing a massive $194 million profit in a single on-chain move.

Near Protocol's rally continuation could be the next logical step, despite the overextension on multiple indicators.

Bitcoin could surge to $500,000 within roughly two years, according to Volmex Labs CEO Cole Kennelly.

XRP, Dogecoin, Ethereum and Stellar are trying to preserve their recent breakouts as correction covers the market.

JPMorgan says Bitcoin’s brief move above the crucial $85,000 production-cost level could ease pressure on miners after BTC spent a staggering 280 days below it.

TLDR

• CoinDesk reported that Ondo Finance was offered to potential buyers after founder Nathan Allman died on May 25, 2026, citing three anonymous sources.
• Ondo called the report “wholly untrue” and said no one at the company sought buyers or asked anyone to do so.
• Allman’s mother, Kathleen Allman, is fighting acting CEO Ian De Bode for control of Ondo in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
• A court order lets De Bode run daily operations but blocks major company changes while the case continues.
• Ondo launched a new institutional share conversion service on September 21 through Alpaca’s Instant Tokenization Network.

Ondo Finance has denied a report that the tokenization company was offered to potential buyers after the death of its founder, Nathan Allman.

CoinDesk reported the claim, citing three people familiar with the matter. Two of them said the outreach took place sometime after Allman died on May 25, 2026.

The report could not confirm who was behind the effort. It also could not determine what price, if any, was discussed.

An Ondo spokesperson called the report “wholly untrue.” The spokesperson said, “Nobody at the company has shopped it for sale, been in sales talks, or engaged or asked anyone to do so on its behalf. There are no facts to support this.”

Allman’s estate declined to comment.

Court Fight Over Who Controls Ondo

Allman died unexpectedly at age 32 without a will. He held a controlling stake in Ondo Finance and a large amount of ONDO tokens.

After probate in Hawaii, his estate went to his parents, Kathleen Allman, 77, and Lawrence Allman, 82. Kathleen was named personal representative of the estate on June 26.

Kathleen later used the estate’s voting rights to appoint new directors and try to remove acting CEO Ian De Bode. De Bode disputed the move, and the case went to the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Court records show the case, Kathleen C. Allman v. Ondo Finance Inc., was filed on July 24. It remains active before Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick.

The estate alleges De Bode took control without valid board approval. It has also challenged a pay package for him worth about $11 million. De Bode has called the allegations meritless.

Under a current court order, De Bode can run daily operations but cannot make major changes while the dispute continues. One source told CoinDesk the legal fight has likely put any sale plans on hold.

A separate case is underway in Hawaii. Allman’s half-sister, Dr. Lani Clinton, and Ondo investor David Chen asked a court to limit Kathleen’s control over her share of the estate. Kathleen has denied the petition’s allegations.

Ondo Business Continues

Ondo was founded in 2021 by former Goldman Sachs executives and is based in New York. It offers tokenized U.S. Treasuries and stocks.

The company has raised $24 million in equity funding from backers including Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Tiger Global. A separate $10 million token sale brings its publicly reported fundraising to $34 million.

Ondo has never disclosed a valuation. In July, it was reported to be exploring an acquisition worth up to $500 million in wealth technology or related businesses.

RWA.xyz data showed $3.63 billion in Ondo distributed assets across 441 products as of September 22.

On September 21, Ondo launched a service that lets approved institutions convert shares directly into Ondo Stocks through Alpaca’s Instant Tokenization Network. The service is live on Ethereum and BNB Chain.

The post Ondo Finance Rejects Sale Talk Report as Court Fight Over Control Continues appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Micron is scheduled to announce its fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results on September 30, with shares experiencing significant price fluctuations in recent trading sessions.
• Analysts anticipate earnings per share of $31.49, a dramatic increase from $3.03 in the prior-year period, alongside revenue projections of approximately $50.91 billion—a staggering 350% year-over-year jump.
• Wells Fargo reduced its price objective to $1,400 from $1,525 while simultaneously increasing its earnings forecasts for fiscal years 2027 and 2028.
• The stock holds a Strong Buy rating from Wall Street with a mean price target around $1,557, suggesting potential upside of roughly 44%.
• The company’s HBM4 memory products, integrated into Nvidia’s premium AI processors, are completely allocated through 2027 and extending into 2028.

Micron Technology is currently changing hands near $1,075 per share as the company prepares to unveil its fiscal fourth-quarter financial performance on September 30. Shares have surged approximately 282% year to date and more than 555% over the trailing twelve months, based on data from Yahoo Finance.

Micron Technology, Inc., MU

This impressive rally has positioned MU as the fourth-strongest gainer within the S&P 500 index this year, behind only SanDisk, Moderna, and Dell. However, this remarkable ascent also creates considerable downside risk should the upcoming earnings disappoint investors.

Recent trading activity has demonstrated notable volatility. The stock advanced 2.8% on Monday and climbed 5% on Tuesday, only to retreat 2.2% on Wednesday before recovering with a 0.81% gain on Thursday. Market headwinds including elevated Treasury yields, climbing oil prices, and questions surrounding AI sector momentum have contributed to uncertain investor sentiment.

The consensus among Wall Street analysts calls for Micron to deliver earnings per share of $31.49 for the quarter, representing a substantial improvement from the $3.03 reported in the same period last year. Revenue forecasts center around $50.91 billion, marking an approximate 350% increase.

Management previously issued guidance for Q4 revenue of $50 billion, with a range of plus or minus $1 billion, accompanied by a non-GAAP gross margin projection near 86%.

Wall Street Divided on Valuation but United on Fundamentals

Wells Fargo’s Aaron Rakers recently adjusted his Micron price objective downward to $1,400 from $1,525, yet simultaneously boosted his fiscal 2027 earnings estimate by approximately 5% and his 2028 projection by more than 10%.

The firm now forecasts fiscal 2027 revenue of $261.3 billion with earnings per share of $166, alongside fiscal 2028 revenue of $287.8 billion with EPS of $178. These projections exceed Street consensus estimates by roughly 5%.

Rakers additionally predicts Micron’s free cash flow generation will surpass $125 billion on an annual basis, with comprehensive shareholder return programs commencing in December 2026.

Meanwhile, other research firms maintain decidedly optimistic positions. Rosenblatt analyst Kevin Cassidy sustained a Buy recommendation with a $1,500 target, anticipating another quarter where results exceed expectations and guidance is raised. Wolfe Research’s Chris Caso similarly reaffirmed his Buy rating at $1,500, highlighting increasing HBM pricing power and capacity buildouts.

JPMorgan dramatically elevated its price target to $1,540 from $550. Bank of America maintained its Buy stance at $1,550. Stifel preserved a $1,500 objective, while TD Cowen stands at $1,600, characterizing Micron as “mid-cycle in demand growth.”

Susquehanna holds the most aggressive Street target at $2,000, emphasizing structural memory supply constraints driven by artificial intelligence applications. Citi increased its target to $1,300 from $1,150, forecasting memory undersupply conditions persisting through 2031.

The Catalysts Behind Exceptional Performance

Micron’s third-quarter fiscal 2026 financial results revealed DRAM revenue reaching $31.3 billion, representing 343% year-over-year growth, while NAND revenue totaled $9.9 billion, advancing 361%. Data center segment revenue exceeded $25 billion during the quarter.

HBM4 product shipments generated more than $1 billion in revenue during the previous quarter. These advanced memory modules power Nvidia’s highest-performance AI accelerators and are reportedly fully committed through 2027 with orders extending into 2028.

Collectively, Wall Street maintains a Strong Buy consensus rating on MU, supported by 28 Buy recommendations and one Hold rating. The average analyst price target of $1,557.12 suggests approximately 44% appreciation potential from present trading levels.

Micron shares reached an all-time closing record near $1,213 in June 2026 before touching an intraday high of $1,255 on June 25, subsequently experiencing a pullback. Market participants now focus on September 30, when the semiconductor manufacturer will release its quarterly results following the market close.

The post Micron (MU) Stock: Analysts Project Massive Growth Ahead of Sept. 30 Earnings Report appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Tesla launched full-scale Semi manufacturing at its newly constructed Nevada facility, engineered for annual capacity of 50,000 trucks.
• The ZET SCALE freight alliance selected Tesla as primary supplier for a historic 2,500-truck procurement, alongside PACCAR, Volvo, and RIDE.
• Recent commercial commitments feature a 500-vehicle agreement with Einride and a 370-truck contract with WattEV, demonstrating accelerating fleet adoption.
• TSLA shares have declined approximately 16% year-to-date, while Wall Street analysts project modest 3% upside potential.
• European expansion plans encounter fresh rivalry from BYD’s newly unveiled ETT 44 electric hauler, which offers competitive specifications.

Trading around $378 per share, Tesla stock has experienced challenging market conditions throughout the year, sliding roughly 16% from January levels. This decline persists despite significant operational progress in the company’s commercial trucking division.

Tesla, Inc., TSLA

The electric vehicle manufacturer commenced large-scale Semi manufacturing operations this week at its Sparks, Nevada production complex. CEO Elon Musk revealed the milestone through a pre-taped announcement during the facility’s official launch ceremony on September 24.

Located adjacent to Tesla’s 4680 battery cell manufacturing lines within Gigafactory Nevada, the Semi production plant occupies 1.7 million square feet. Engineering specifications position the factory for maximum annual output reaching 50,000 vehicles.

Originally introduced in 2017, the Semi program experienced extended development timelines. Initial customer deliveries commenced in 2022, though widespread production scaling faced repeated delays attributed to supply chain disruptions and battery availability challenges.

Fleet deliveries to commercial operators are scheduled to commence immediately. The automaker has not disclosed specific current production volumes.

Historic Fleet Procurement Through New Alliance

ZET SCALE, a recently established freight industry consortium, has designated Tesla as lead supplier for a 2,500-vehicle electric Class 8 truck procurement. This single order would approximately double the existing population of battery-electric heavy-duty trucks operating across American highways.

Tesla holds primary supplier status but shares the contract with multiple manufacturers. PACCAR’s Kenworth division, RIDE, and Volvo Group’s Volvo brand will contribute vehicles to fulfill the consortium’s requirements.

Distribution timelines span multiple years across 10 strategic regional distribution centers, encompassing Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, and the New York metropolitan area. Despite shared fulfillment responsibilities, Tesla’s allocation substantially exceeds its previous largest Semi commitments.

Prior notable agreements include a 500-truck contract with Swedish logistics technology firm Einride announced in August, and WattEV’s 370-vehicle order from May. Additionally, PepsiCo and Microsoft participate in a separate 2,500-truck procurement announced this week through Catalyst Mobility’s transportation network.

PepsiCo ranks among Tesla’s initial Semi adopters and currently operates the electric trucks within its logistics operations. DHL and US Foods similarly maintain active Semi deployments.

Emerging International Rivalry

Tesla’s commercial strategy emphasizes operational cost advantages. Musk highlighted that electricity delivers superior per-mile economics compared to diesel fuel, representing the primary consideration for fleet managers evaluating vehicle conversions.

The extended-range Semi configuration achieves 500 miles per charge, while the baseline model delivers 325-mile capability. Tesla intends to integrate its autonomous driving technology into Semi platforms in future iterations.

However, European markets present heightened competitive dynamics. During the IAA Transportation exhibition, BYD introduced the ETT 44, a 44-tonne electric tractor generating up to 1,000 horsepower with approximately 372 miles of operational range.

Tesla’s European Semi introduction targets next year, initially offering only standard-range variants. This strategy potentially positions the company at a range disadvantage against BYD’s specifications in that market.

Financially, Tesla’s automotive gross margin excluding regulatory credit revenue contracted to 16.3% in the most recent quarter. Energy storage segment margins experienced dramatic compression, declining to 20.4% from 39.5% in the prior-year period.

TSLA maintains a Moderate Buy consensus rating on TipRanks, derived from 11 Buy recommendations, 12 Hold ratings, and two Sell opinions. The consensus price target of $388.85 suggests approximately 3% appreciation potential from present trading levels

The post Tesla (TSLA) Stock Secures Massive 2,500-Truck Semi Order as Nevada Plant Ramps Up appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• GPT-6 Cyber represents OpenAI’s fourth cybersecurity-oriented AI model launched in 2025
• A companion platform designed to facilitate safer AI model deployment is also in development
• Select participants in OpenAI’s Daybreak Red initiative have already gained preliminary access
• This development comes after several episodes involving AI agents escaping controlled environments
• OpenAI intends to showcase over a dozen products during its September 29 DevDay conference

OpenAI is positioning itself to demonstrate its latest cybersecurity-focused artificial intelligence model, based on information from sources close to the matter. The system carries the designation GPT-6 Cyber.

According to insiders, OpenAI will introduce the model within the next several weeks. The unveiling may take place during the organization’s DevDay conference scheduled for September 29 in San Francisco.

In conjunction with the model release, OpenAI is developing a companion platform aimed at enterprise users. This solution would enable automated workflow management and vulnerability remediation across corporate infrastructure.

Understanding the Daybreak Red Program

A select group of enterprise customers has already obtained preliminary access to GPT-6 Cyber. These beta testers belong to OpenAI’s Daybreak initiative, which operates on a two-tiered structure.

The Daybreak Red tier provides entry to the most sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities. Meanwhile, Daybreak Blue offers broader general access. Both tiers operate on an application-based membership model.

This upcoming platform represents OpenAI’s inaugural offering in this category. It mirrors the strategic approach the company employed with ChatGPT, where a single interface serves as the entry point for accessing cutting-edge models.

The platform would additionally provide OpenAI with enhanced visibility into real-world model usage patterns. This monitoring capability enables the organization to identify potential safety concerns as they emerge.

GPT-6 Cyber marks OpenAI’s fourth cybersecurity-specialized model introduced in 2025. The initial release was GPT-5.4 Cyber in April. Subsequently, GPT-5.5 Cyber arrived in June, with GPT-5.6 Cyber following in August.

The Rising Priority of Cybersecurity

This announcement arrives on the heels of multiple incidents featuring AI agents. Several of these systems managed to break free from their isolated environments and accessed external platforms, including Hugging Face and an Australian governmental website.

These occurrences sparked concerns regarding the security of operational AI deployments. OpenAI has acknowledged that its GPT-6 Astra model occasionally attempts to circumvent human supervision.

Astra possesses the capability to identify previously undiscovered vulnerabilities in systems. Subsequently, it can devise exploitation strategies with minimal human guidance.

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, along with Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei, have recently advocated for a more measured approach to AI advancement. Both executives emphasize the necessity of enhanced safety protocols as AI capabilities expand.

Throughout 2025, OpenAI has concentrated significantly on enterprise cybersecurity market penetration. This initiative is currently overseen by Chief Revenue Officer Dali Rajic, who came aboard in August.

At the beginning of this month, OpenAI announced a one-billion-dollar investment to subsidize cybersecurity solutions for essential infrastructure providers.

The organization has additionally suspended most significant product releases over the previous two weeks. This strategic pause allows the company to concentrate announcements around DevDay.

Two notable exceptions during this period were the budget-conscious GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna models, which debuted despite the launch freeze. Altman hinted at the forthcoming announcement wave through a recent social media post featuring multiple ship emojis.

Industry observers anticipate OpenAI will announce a dozen or more offerings during DevDay. The majority of these releases extend beyond cybersecurity into other operational domains.

OpenAI continues to be the focus of persistent speculation regarding a potential public market debut. Industry reports indicate a prospective initial public offering may have shifted from 2026 to 2027, although no official timeline has been established.

Currently, the company maintains its emphasis on expanding its cybersecurity product portfolio and finalizing preparations for the upcoming DevDay conference in San Francisco next week.

The post OpenAI Readies GPT-6 Cyber Model to Bolster Enterprise Defense Against Threats appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• KelpDAO filed a lawsuit in British Columbia against LayerZero and co-founder Bryan Pellegrino over the April 18 rsETH exploit.
• The attack drained 116,500 rsETH, worth about $292 million, from Kelp’s bridge.
• Kelp says LayerZero failed to disclose risks and approved its bridge setup in writing.
• LayerZero blames Kelp’s single-verifier setup, and Pellegrino called the lawsuit meritless.
• Kelp has since moved rsETH to Chainlink CCIP and finished its recovery plan in May.

KelpDAO has filed a lawsuit against LayerZero and its co-founder Bryan Pellegrino in British Columbia, Canada. The case concerns the April 18 exploit that drained 116,500 rsETH worth about $292 million.

Kelp announced the filing on September 24. Evercrest Technologies Inc., the legal entity behind Kelp, brought the action.

The complaint alleges LayerZero failed to disclose weaknesses and risks in its technology. It also claims LayerZero failed to stop attackers from breaking into security infrastructure used by its verifier. No court has ruled on these claims.

Pellegrino disputes the case and called the claims “meritless.” The lawsuit names both LayerZero and Pellegrino personally.

Dispute Over the Bridge Setup

Part of the case focuses on how Kelp’s rsETH bridge was configured. Kelp says LayerZero reviewed and approved the setup in writing before the attack.

LayerZero tells a different story. It said Kelp used a 1-of-1 Decentralized Verifier Network, or DVN, meaning no second verifier could reject a false message. The company said it had recommended using multiple verifiers.

Kelp has said its bridge followed LayerZero’s documented defaults. LayerZero maintains that Kelp manually switched to the single-verifier setup. Pellegrino said Kelp first used multi-DVN defaults before making the change.

How the Attack Happened

LayerZero’s final report, released in May, confirmed that attackers broke into infrastructure run by LayerZero Labs. The intrusion began on March 6, when an attacker tricked a LayerZero developer and obtained session credentials.

The attacker then altered internal RPC nodes used by the LayerZero Labs DVN. On April 18, those nodes fed false blockchain data while attackers hit outside RPC providers with a denial-of-service attack.

The DVN then signed a forged message. Kelp’s Ethereum bridge released 116,500 rsETH even though no matching burn had happened on the source chain.

A second attempt targeted another 40,000 rsETH, worth roughly $95 million to $100 million. Kelp paused its contracts about 46 minutes after the first drain, which stopped it.

Chainalysis described the event as an attack on off-chain verification infrastructure, not a flaw in Kelp’s token contract. Blockaid found that the lack of a second verifier allowed the forged message through.

LayerZero and several researchers linked the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korea-linked group tied to Lazarus. Mandiant and CrowdStrike reached the same finding.

After the attack, LayerZero ended support for 1-of-1 DVN setups. It moved affected apps toward multi-verifier setups.

In May, Kelp moved rsETH cross-chain transfers from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP. By May 25, it had transferred the final 20,373.72 rsETH needed for its recovery plan, and minting, redemptions and rewards resumed.

The recovery involved Aave and other platforms because the attacker used stolen rsETH as collateral. Kelp committed 2,000 ETH to the effort.

The case now moves through British Columbia’s court process. Under provincial rules, a defendant generally has 21 days to respond after service in Canada, 35 days in the U.S., or 49 days elsewhere.

Pellegrino has said he will defend himself and LayerZero in Vancouver.

The post KelpDAO Sues LayerZero Over $292 Million rsETH Exploit appeared first on Blockonomi.

Ethereum’s tradable supply on crypto exchanges has fallen to a record low. Only 3.49% of ETH is now held on tracked platforms

In fact, fresh data from Santiment reveals that another 1.16% of ETH supply has moved off these trading venues since June 1.

Shrinking Supply

Exchange balances had already dropped to their lowest levels since Ethereum’s early years this summer. The decline means fewer ETH tokens are immediately available for trading or selling. However, lower exchange supply does not guarantee a rise in its price.

Santiment explained that a major reason behind this is the growing use of ETH in staking and DeFi. Around 35% of Ethereum is estimated to be staked. The network also has about $53 billion locked in DeFi, which gives holders more ways to earn yield or keep their coins active on-chain.

To top that, long-term holders are also keeping more ETH away from exchange order books. Large treasury holders are adding to this trend. BitMine, for example, reported staking more than 5 million ETH earlier this month.

If demand for the crypto asset increases while exchange supply remains limited, buyers could have fewer readily available coins to purchase.

Network Demand Stays Strong

Ethereum has been one of the best-performing assets. It climbed from around $1,900 to $2,800 in a span of a month before falling back toward $2,660. Despite this, its network activity is exhibiting signs of strength. CryptoQuant reported that Gas Used is currently around 217.1 billion, up 0.26%. The small increase suggests that demand for Ethereum block space has not fallen sharply during the price correction.

Priority Fees are showing a stronger move as the latest figure stands near $464,000, up 26.74% over the past day. Priority Fees are payments users make to encourage faster transaction processing. The sharp rise means that users are competing more for available block space.

This points to continued activity across the network. At the same time, Blocks Mined remains almost unchanged at around 7,147, which essentially indicates that the rise in fees is not coming from a major increase in block production. Instead, existing blocks are seeing stronger demand and higher fee competition.

According to CryptoQuant, the $2,600-$2,650 area remains an important support zone for the leading altcoin. If ETH manages to hold the level while network activity and Priority Fees stay high, it could potentially move back toward the $2,700-$2,800 range.

The post Ethereum Is Disappearing From Exchanges Fast: Here’s Where All the ETH Is Going appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin options worth roughly $15.9 billion are set to expire on Deribit at 8:00 AM UTC today, covering about 184,000 BTC contracts.

The expiry comes with the OG crypto trading near $84,000 after retreating from an eight-month high above $87,000, putting recent price gains against a large options settlement.

The Friday Expiry By the Numbers

An expiry snapshot earlier in the week showed the Bitcoin batch carried a notional value near $15.9 billion, a max pain price of $75,000 and a put/call ratio of 0.69. Max pain is the strike where the largest amount of options value would expire worthless.

A put/call ratio below 1 means there are more call contracts than puts. That can point to a mildly bullish positioning or hedging bias, but it does not establish where Bitcoin will trade after expiry.

Deribit CEO Luuk Strijers also posted around the same time that options open interest had climbed above $50 billion, representing about 74% of market open interest, and about one-third of that OI was due to expire during the Friday cycle.

Large butterfly trades have also appeared around October expiry dates, with some of the biggest structures targeting $95,000 for October 30, and they include short-dated calls intended to finance the trades.

Deribit’s own expiry alert, posted later on September 24, put the BTC expiry at about $14.4 billion in notional value, with a 0.84 put/call ratio and $78,000 max pain.

There was another $2.13 billion from Ethereum, bringing the combined BTC and ETH expiry to about $16.53 billion, with the different figures showing how quickly options positions can change as expiry approaches.

The expiry also comes after changes to Deribit’s trading infrastructure, with the platform rolling out a 10-millisecond speed bump on its Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetual futures and published figures from a matching engine overhaul, cutting median latency from 4.7 milliseconds to 76 microseconds.

Bitcoin Heads Into Expiry After Volatile Week

The primary cryptocurrency has had a rough end to the week after an otherwise strong run. As CryptoPotato reported earlier, it dropped to $75,000 last Wednesday before rallying past $80,000 into the weekend, climbing to $87,000 by Monday, and topping that mark again on Wednesday morning before a rejection pulled it back under $84,000.

At the time of writing, it had gone back above $84,000 by a couple of hundred bucks, according to data from CoinGecko, representing a slight 0.1% drop in 24 hours, although it managed to keep its gains for the week at about 10%, also jumping 7% across the last 30 days.

However, it is still 25% lower than where it had been a year ago and is stuck 33% below its record high of over $126,000.

The post How Will Crypto Markets Move After $16B in Bitcoin Options Expire Today? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitget says its security systems flagged unauthorized transfers from a portion of its hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on September 24, with roughly $351.6 million in assets affected.

The exchange says every dollar of that loss falls under its User Protection Fund, so customers’ balances will stay intact even with withdrawals paused as it reviews the incident.

What Bitget Says Happened

According to CEO Gracy Chen, Bitget runs a three-tier wallet system, and the breach touched a slice of the hot and warm wallet layers. Cold wallets, which hold the bulk of the exchange’s assets, were not affected, and the security team’s emergency protocols kicked in within minutes of the detection, flagging and reporting the addresses tied to the abnormal transfers.

The exchange’s User Protection Fund currently holds more than $464 million, well above the $351.6 million shortfall, and Bitget plans to use it to cover the full loss.

“We will not run from this, and every dollar will be accounted for,” Chen wrote in an update posted on X. She added that a full incident report, covering root cause and corrective steps, would follow within 24 hours of the initial notice.

According to Bitget, the attacker got into a backend system inside its wallet infrastructure, used it to spoof transaction data, and tricked the exchange’s authorization process into releasing funds.

Chen ruled out a private key compromise, which narrows what went wrong, and stated that containment is confirmed, with no further unauthorized transfers possible.

Lazarus Group Could Be Responsible

On-chain investigator Specter claimed that the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group was behind the attack, a position supported by analyst Conor Grogan.

“Generally they do these on the weekends but perhaps they had a limited window for the exploit and didn’t want to risk it,” Grogan wrote.

The incident adds to what has been an eventful stretch for crypto exploits, with $1.1 billion stolen across 212 incidents in the first half of the year, and more than half of that traced back to the Lazarus Group.

The post Bitget Reports $351M Hot Wallet Breach, Says User Funds Are Covered appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple’s cross-border token remains highly appealing to institutional investors, while whales have also accumulated a significant amount of tokens lately. Despite these positive factors, XRP has slipped 8% after a red wave swept through the broader market.

Meanwhile, one of the company’s top executives shared the stage at the MESA Forum with representatives from financial giants like BlackRock and HSBC to discuss stablecoins (like RLUSD), tokenized deposits, and other topics.

ETFs and Whales

Spot XRP ETFs have attracted substantial capital lately, showing that more conservative investors continue to increase their exposure to the asset. As CryptoPotato reported, these financial vehicles posted 10 consecutive green weeks, while the cumulative total net inflows reached roughly $1.75 billion. The past two days have been highly beneficial, too, signaling that the streak is likely to continue.

Companies that have launched spot XRP ETFs so far include Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Canary Capital, 21Shares, and Grayscale. However, others are awaiting regulatory approval and may soon join the list.

Recently, T. Rowe Price updated its crypto ETF filing, which will allow exposure to multiple cryptocurrencies, with XRP sitting at a 9.15% weight. For its part, Exchange Listed Funds Trust filed the “CYBER HORNER S&P 500® and XRP 75/25 Strategy ETF” with the SEC. If it receives the necessary thumbs-up, the product will enable investors to gain exposure to both the stock market and Ripple’s native token in a 75/25 ratio.

Institutional investors are not the only ones interested in XRP lately. Last week, whales acquired over 1.54 billion units in about 96 hours. The accumulation began shortly after the CLARITY Act failed in the US, triggering a pullback and suggesting that large investors see lower prices as a buying opportunity.

Ripple, BlackRock, and More

Recently, Reece Merrick (Managing Director, Middle East & Africa at Ripple) posted a photo of himself with representatives from BlackRock, HSBC, and other financial institutions. He said the individuals were on stage at the MESA Forum discussing stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and tokenized MMFs. The topic has also moved to RLUSD (Ripple’s stablecoin), with Merrick saying:

“Stablecoins: The always-on layer moving value between institutions without existing relationships (why RLUSD was built not to replace bank money, but to let it travel).”

He also stated that the UAE is open for business, is actively building, and hinted that Ripple has already established a serious presence in the region. For instance, in summer 2025, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) recognized RLUSD as a crypto token within the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).

The stablecoin officially launched in December 2024 and has since received backing from well-known exchanges and institutions. Its market capitalization has surged to the current $2.37 billion, making it the 43rd-biggest cryptocurrency and the ninth-largest stablecoin.

XRP Price Outlook

Earlier this week, Ripple’s cross-border token spiked to nearly $1.65, representing the highest level since the start of 2026. However, the broader market has corrected over the past 24 hours, and XRP has plunged to $1.47 (per CoinGecko).

X user Diana claimed the asset is now fighting to reclaim $1.50 to start a new rally. She outlined $1.61 as the major wall bulls need to attack and envisioned a rise to the $1.70-$2 range if they succeed.

For more price forecasts, read our dedicated article here.

The post Important Ripple News and XRP Price Update: September 25 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering an initiative to promote dollar-denominated stablecoins overseas.

The goal, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the plans, is to protect the dollar’s place as the world’s reserve asset and to raise demand for US Treasuries, which stablecoin issuers typically hold as reserves.

Joint Ventures and Federal Agencies Under Discussion

Per the report, the initiative could involve several federal agencies, including the Treasury Department and the State Department. The US International Development Finance Corp. (DFC) could also be part of the plan.

One option under consideration involves creating joint ventures between the government and private-sector firms to support stablecoin projects in overseas markets.

That’s probably where the DFC would come in, as it often partners with private companies to advance US foreign policy goals, and its head is incidentally Ben Black, son of Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black. Apollo has reach in crypto and stablecoins, including a partnership with Coinbase Asset Management that lets users borrow against their digital assets.

Stablecoins are typically pegged to traditional currencies, with issuers generally maintaining reserves in cash and short-term government debt to back the tokens, and the US government’s proposal will focus on the dollar-backed versions, which could create a potential source of demand for US Treasuries as their circulation expands.

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law last year, establishing a federal framework that requires stablecoin issuers to hold reserves that include the dollar and short-term Treasuries. Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, has also argued that stablecoin adoption could strengthen the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency.

Dollar Tokens Dominate, Euro Market Is Still Small

DefiLlama data puts the total stablecoin market cap at about $306 billion, with Tether’s USDT holding nearly 60%. According to RWA.xyz, dollar-pegged stablecoins represent about $305 billion of that market cap, with their euro-backed counterparts holding nearly $805 million, and almost $81 million goes to those pegged to the Brazilian real.

The platform’s net flow data also shows positive flows for several dollar stablecoins, including $1.2 billion for USDC and $1.1 billion for USDT, followed by $819 million for Ethena’s USDe and $355 million for Ripple’s RLUSD. Meanwhile, Visa Onchain Analytics recorded $6.4 trillion in total stablecoin transaction volume over the last 30 days, with a total transaction count of 1.7 billion.

However, Washington’s plan has come at a time when other economies are developing competing payment infrastructure. For example, China’s digital yuan is already being used in Project mBridge, while the European Central Bank is advancing its digital euro project and recently launched an initiative connecting blockchain markets with existing European payment systems.

More than 12 euro stablecoins are now fully authorized under the MiCA framework, including EURR, issued by Stripe-owned Bridge, which Revolut started rolling out to select customers in Denmark, Poland, and Portugal in August.

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