China's tech hardware slump highlights the risks of overvaluation and market volatility, impacting investor confidence and sector stability.

The post China’s tech hardware shares slide as valuation worries mount appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

France's crypto tax measures could reshape market dynamics, influencing investor sentiment and potentially affecting Bitcoin's price trajectory.

The post France committee approves stablecoin tax, crypto exit tax for 2027 budget appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Diminished enthusiasm among Trump voters may weaken Republican turnout, potentially shifting key races and influencing future political dynamics.

The post Trump voter enthusiasm wanes ahead of 2026 midterms: Reuters/Ipsos poll appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The lawsuit against BitGo highlights the critical importance of trust and adherence to agreements in maintaining stability in the crypto market.

The post DWF Labs affiliates sue BitGo for $141M over alleged Falcon Finance, ESPORTS token sales appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Rising CDS spreads for AI firms may signal broader market unease, potentially impacting investment strategies and tech sector growth.

The post AI company CDS spreads rise, signaling market caution on tech debt appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

AI Coding Agents Drive Surge in Bitcoin Integration Requests: Breez

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

WhiteBIT Integrates Lightning Network for Fast and Cheap Bitcoin Transactions

The Lightning Network continues to find use cases. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

Greece Plans Crypto Capital Gains Tax: Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coinbase plans to introduce spot borrowing with up to 10x leverage, letting eligible traders borrow against collateral to buy crypto on spot markets, but US customers who do not qualify as Eligible Contract Participants will be excluded.

The exchange's Oct. 7 announcement puts the rollout in the coming weeks. Access will depend on customer eligibility and selected jurisdictions, but Coinbase does not identify those countries, so availability cannot be assumed for every trader outside the US.

For US individuals, a 2021 statement by a commissioner at the CFTC, the US derivatives regulator, describes discretionary investments exceeding $10 million in aggregate, or exceeding $5 million when the transaction is for risk management purposes. That distinction puts the planned service beyond ordinary US retail access.

The restriction applies specifically to spot borrowing, and Coinbase says the product is offered by affiliates and is separate from Coinbase Financial Markets, which offers US derivatives.

For US customers, the margin lenders will be Coinbase Custody International Limited or Coinbase Credit, Inc., even though traders would manage spot borrowing and derivatives exposure through a shared margin portfolio.

Coinbase completed the Deribit migration on Oct. 2, setting the stage for Coinbase's expansion, while the spot-margin plan adds a distinct borrowing option for eligible customers.

Collateral remains exposed

For customers who qualify, Coinbase sets maximum leverage at 10x on selected major assets and 5x on other supported assets.

The company says traders can post collateral in more than 15 supported assets, with those holdings remaining on Coinbase. Loan balances, collateral levels, and margin health will be visible in real time across open borrows.

Keeping collateral on the platform does not protect it from a forced sale. Coinbase warns that borrowed trading magnifies losses as well as gains, that collateral can be liquidated without notice, and that losses can exceed the initial deposit.

The announcement leaves borrowing rates, collateral valuation haircuts, or discounts applied to pledged assets, and liquidation thresholds unspecified. Those terms determine the cost of using the service and when collateral is at risk.

The post Coinbase rolls out 10x spot leverage, but blocks US retail from it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Core Lightning, software for running Bitcoin Lightning payment nodes, has released v26.06.9 with security fixes and a repair for a regression that could delay channel traffic on busy nodes running v26.06.8.

GitHub lists the new release as published Oct. 7, while its versioned changelog carries an Oct. 6 date.

The update gives operators who installed v26.06.8 a fresh decision on upgrading, following the Sept. 27 revoked-channel penalty flaw that was fixed in v26.06.7. The latest patch adds fixes and addresses a regression introduced by that later version.

Bitcoin payment delays and shutdown risk

In v26.06.8, routine gossip, pings, and onion messages counted toward a CPU budget intended for gossip queries. On busy nodes, that accounting could throttle peers and delay channel traffic, according to the maintainers.

V26.06.9 reserves that budget for gossip queries, so ordinary messages no longer consume it, removing the documented cause of this throttling. The regression described by maintainers concerns busy nodes running Core Lightning v26.06.8.

The changelog also describes a fix for a payment contract (HTLC) that reaches its deadline while a channel is shutting down. V26.06.9 now force-closes the channel in that situation, preventing forwarded funds from being lost if the payment is fulfilled late.

For an operator forwarding payments, this fixes a funds-protection problem when payment deadlines and channel shutdown overlap.

Other fixes enforce the limits carried by runes used to authorize calls, so a restricted rune can no longer create an unrestricted one or relist blacklisted runes. Restrictions on the corresponding creation and blocklisting methods now also cover the invokerune and destroyrune aliases.

The listconfigs command now masks several sensitive values, including recovery information and Bitcoin RPC passwords, for every caller. The setconfig command closes a path for injecting configuration lines through persistent option values.

The fixes are available immediately, but maintainers have temporarily held back security tests to make exploit development harder and give operators more time to upgrade.

Nodes that have run master cannot downgrade to a 26.06.x release because their database schema is newer. The release also reiterates that dual funding remains experimental and discourages zero-confirmation channels with untrusted peers.

Maintainers urge Core Lightning users, including those on v26.06.8, to upgrade to v26.06.9 as soon as practical.

The post Core Lightning patches critical security flaws and a Bitcoin payment bug appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin miners are emerging from months of financial pressure as rising BTC prices lift daily industry revenue by 78%.

According to CryptoQuant's weekly report shared with CryptoSlate, total daily mining revenue climbed from approximately $27 million at July's lows to as much as $48 million, following Bitcoin's roughly 45% recovery from $58,000 to above $83,000.

The turnaround is also visible in hashprice, a closely watched measure of mining economics that tracks the expected daily revenue generated by a unit of computing power.

Data from Hashrate Index shows the metric recently climbed above $40 per petahash per second per day, its highest level since January. It has slightly declined to around $39 as of press time.

That marks a significant recovery from the industry's financial difficulties earlier this year. CoinShares previously reported that hashprice fell to approximately $27.70 in June, reflecting a combination of lower Bitcoin prices, persistently weak transaction fees, and mining difficulty that remained elevated relative to revenue.

The subsequent recovery has improved the economics of running mining equipment, although the gains vary considerably across operators depending on electricity costs, hardware efficiency and financing obligations.

Bitcoin's rally reverses months of mining distress

CryptoQuant's Miner Profit/Loss Sustainability indicator shows that the industry's financial position has improved substantially since August.

Between May and August, miners were largely classified as “extremely underpaid,” indicating that mining revenue was insufficient relative to the network's difficulty under the firm's methodology.

That changed on Aug. 21, when Bitcoin reached approximately $76,000. Since then, the indicator has generally remained in its “fairly paid” category, pointing out that mining revenue has recovered relative to the computational resources required to secure the network.

This improvement matters because mining operators receive Bitcoin-denominated rewards while electricity, equipment financing, and other operating expenses are generally paid in fiat currencies.

Higher Bitcoin prices therefore increase the dollar value of mining rewards without necessarily increasing operating costs immediately.

However, the higher hash price also reflects changes in network competition, since each unit of computing power is expected to generate more revenue when fewer miners compete for the same block rewards.

That dynamic helps explain why industry revenue and individual mining economics have improved even though Bitcoin's network hashrate remains below its previous peak.

CryptoQuant reported that network hashrate has recovered to about 962 exahashes per second (EH/s), up from 899 EH/s on July 31, when declining prices squeezed operators' margins.

The rebound has narrowed the network's drawdown from a peak of approximately 18% in late July to 13%, likely because improving returns are encouraging miners to bring more computing capacity back online.

Nevertheless, the financial recovery still depends heavily on Bitcoin's market value rather than increased transaction activity.

CryptoQuant found that daily transaction fees, measured using a seven-day average, rose from approximately $195,000 to $275,000. Those figures remain well below the $400,000 to $800,000 range recorded during parts of 2025.

Consequently, block subsidies still account for most mining revenue, leaving operators vulnerable to renewed pressure if Bitcoin prices retreat or network difficulty rises faster than earnings.

Miner selling pressure eases as profitability returns

Improved mining economics are also beginning to influence how operators manage their Bitcoin holdings.

CryptoQuant reported that extreme miner outflows have not occurred since Aug. 21, when approximately 29,000 BTC moved out of miner-associated wallets as Bitcoin advanced toward $76,000.

Since then, transfers have stayed within their normal range, with the latest daily reading at about 12,000 BTC.

Although wallet outflows don't necessarily translate into immediate market sales, the decline could be an indicator that miners face less pressure to move large amounts of Bitcoin after months of financial strain.

The change is also apparent among some of the network's oldest participants.

According to CryptoQuant, Satoshi-era miners, excluding addresses associated with Patoshi, transferred approximately 600 BTC out of their wallets in September. That was roughly a 70% decline from the approximately 2,000 BTC recorded in January.

Their combined holdings remain substantial at about 590,000 BTC, so changes in their spending activity matter for the market's potential supply outlook.

Meanwhile, addresses holding between 100 and 1,000 BTC have stopped reducing their aggregate balances after months of depletion.

The cohort's combined holdings declined approximately 20% from 64,000 BTC in December 2025 to roughly 51,000 BTC by early September. Since then, balances have remained relatively stable.

That stabilization could be a sign that miners have become less reliant on drawing down existing reserves as operating conditions improve.

For Bitcoin investors, the reduced selling pressure could remove one source of supply that weighed on the market during the downturn. However, the miners have yet to demonstrate a sustained return to accumulation.

Bitcoin's $80,000 support level emerges as a test for mining profits

Meanwhile, emerging constraints also limit how far the industry's financial recovery can extend.

As miners reactivate equipment and network competition intensifies, rising difficulty could compress hash price again unless Bitcoin's market value keeps climbing.

CryptoQuant identified Bitcoin's 365-day moving average near $80,000 as an important short-term support level, followed by its 200-day moving average around $71,000.

A sustained decline toward those levels could test the revenue gains miners have accumulated since July, particularly among operators using older, less efficient equipment.

A durable recovery would be marked by whether larger miners begin rebuilding their Bitcoin reserves while network hashrate continues to recover, suggesting that improving revenues are sufficient to cover operating expenses and support renewed accumulation despite increasing competition.

The post Bitcoin miners escape months of distress as daily revenue surges by 78% appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin faces a new macro headwind from the artificial-intelligence boom as massive infrastructure spending competes for long-term capital.

Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 15-16 meeting showed market participants citing heavy private debt issuance for AI infrastructure as one factor pushing Treasury yields and term premiums higher. Nominal yields rose about 35 basis points across maturities from two to 10 years between Fed meetings.

That complicates things for crypto investors focused primarily on when the Fed stops tightening. Policymakers raised the federal funds target by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4% in September, and most officials judged another increase would probably be appropriate before year-end.

Even when that cycle ends, continued competition for long-term financing could keep borrowing costs elevated independently of the overnight policy rate.

AI borrowing creates pressure beyond the Fed

The financing demands are already large enough to attract policymakers’ attention.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) estimates the five largest technology companies will spend more than $1 trillion on AI-related capital expenditure across 2025 and 2026. Industry projections cited by the BIS put global AI investment at roughly $500 billion today, potentially rising to between $3 trillion and $4 trillion by 2030.

Much of the earlier buildout could be funded from corporate cash flows. That balance is shifting as spending outpaces earnings and free cash flow at some companies, increasing reliance on bonds and private credit. The BIS said debt is becoming a larger part of the financing mix as firms build data centers, buy chips and secure energy infrastructure.

The Fed’s trading-desk manager said spreads on debt issued by major cloud providers remained wide because of the amount being borrowed and the long maturities involved. Market contacts also pointed directly to competition for capital from AI-related private issuance as one contributor to higher Treasury term premiums.

The minutes did not quantify how much of the roughly 35-basis-point rise in yields came from AI financing. Stronger economic data, expectations for additional Fed tightening, geopolitical developments and uncertainty around Treasury buybacks were also cited.

Still, the mechanism creates a potential problem for Bitcoin even after the policy-rate cycle turns.

Treasury data showed the 10-year Treasury par yield stood at 5.28% on Oct. 7, while the inflation-adjusted 10-year yield was 2.92%. Those levels give investors a substantial return from government securities before taking the volatility and drawdown risk associated with Bitcoin.

For crypto, that raises the required return on risk. A pause in Fed hikes could lower short-term rate expectations without providing the same relief at the long end of the curve if companies keep competing aggressively for financing.

The Fed also said changes in real rates accounted for most of the increase in longer-dated Treasury yields during the intermeeting period.

That distinction matters for Bitcoin because real yields reflect the return available after inflation, sharpening the competition between an asset with no contractual cash flow and securities that offer positive inflation-adjusted income.

AI-linked equities have so far absorbed the higher financing costs more comfortably. The Fed said companies benefiting directly from infrastructure spending outperformed the broader market, with stronger actual and expected earnings supporting equity prices even as valuation multiples declined.

The same boom could eventually reverse course

The longer-term risk is that the investment race becomes too successful at creating capacity.

The BIS has warned that the AI buildout ranks among the largest technology investment booms in US history. Its research argues that competition for future market share could push companies to commit more capital than eventual returns justify, while greater debt use increases the risk of financial stress and forced asset sales if revenue expectations disappoint.

That creates a second, very different Bitcoin scenario.

Arthur Hayes, the co-founder of the defunct BitMEX exchange, argues that the data-center race will ultimately produce excess computing capacity and a downturn.

Hayes has repeatedly pointed out that major technological rollouts have historically been overbuilt and expects financial stress to emerge as new capacity comes online, potentially around late 2027 or 2028.

His Bitcoin thesis begins where the current yield pressure ends. If an AI bust threatens heavily financed infrastructure owners, Hayes expects policymakers eventually to respond with liquidity support, creating conditions he believes would favor Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

That remains a speculative path. AI demand could grow rapidly enough to absorb the infrastructure under construction, while higher productivity and profits could validate the spending before debt burdens become problematic.

The BIS nevertheless sees the financing structure as a genuine vulnerability. Investment commitments increasingly exceed internally generated cash, making future returns more important to companies’ ability to service the capital raised for the buildout.

Bitcoin’s next macro test moves to the long end

For Bitcoin investors, the immediate signal is therefore less about the exact meeting at which the Fed stops raising rates and more about what happens to long-term real yields afterward.

A sustained decline in the 10-year yield and term premium would weaken the argument that AI capital demand is keeping financial conditions tight. Strong Bitcoin spot demand amid elevated yields would also show investors are willing to accept the higher opportunity cost.

The opposite combination would be harder for crypto markets. Continued AI-related borrowing alongside high real yields would leave Treasuries and corporate credit competing aggressively for marginal capital even after monetary tightening peaks.

The Fed’s next meeting is scheduled for Oct. 27-28, with officials still focused on inflation and the possibility of another increase by year-end.

For Bitcoin, however, the bigger test may come after the final hike. If the AI investment race keeps the long end of the Treasury curve elevated, traders' expected monetary relief from a Fed pause could prove weaker than in previous cycles. If the spending boom eventually breaks, investors will watch whether financial stress brings the liquidity response Hayes is already positioning for.

The post AI may be keeping Bitcoin’s biggest macro headwind alive after the Fed stops hiking appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Abstract, an Ethereum layer-2 network, says it will shut down on Dec. 15, 2026. In its Oct. 6 announcement, @AbstractChain told users to migrate their assets before that date or lose access to their funds.

The deadline tests a distinction that can disappear behind the phrase self-custody. A holder can retain ownership and the authority to approve transactions while losing the infrastructure needed to execute them. Cube, Inc., the company providing Abstract's services, makes that separation explicit in its updated terms: wind-down does not transfer assets to Cube or the other parties covered by its terms, but the end of normal processing ends transfer access through discontinued services.

A completed exit requires a supported asset route, access to the authorizing wallet, a controlled destination and every required processing or claim step.

A shutdown date is not every route's deadline

@AbstractChain's announcement directs users to the Migration Hub at migrate.abs.xyz or the native bridge at native-bridge.abs.xyz. The public Migration Hub repeats the Dec. 15 notice and lists Native Bridge, Stargate, Relay, Jumper and project-specific instructions.

The general terms identify migration.abs.xyz as the official Hub and bridge.abs.xyz as the existing bridge interface. The Hub at that address also displays the shutdown notice and alternative bridge links. However, the announcement and terms name different interfaces; their addresses alone do not establish interchangeable routes. The Hub links also do not supply a complete map showing which token, NFT or application position can use each one.

The existing bridge interface offers wallet connection, token selection, route priority, gas and slippage controls, with 0x attribution. A visible interface and selectable route still leave the user-specific questions: what can move, where it will arrive and what remains to be done after approval.

Timing also has several layers. @AbstractChain says native-bridge users should expect a three-hour delay. Abstract's bridge documentation describes native ETH and ERC-20 transfers between Abstract and Ethereum, while saying withdrawals can take up to 24 hours. L2BEAT's Oct. 2 contract update tracks an effective execution delay of three hours.

An execution delay and the time needed to finish a withdrawal are different measures. Neither estimate establishes that starting three hours before shutdown will produce a completed exit.

Cube's terms distinguish initiation, completion and claim deadlines, any of which may come before chain discontinuation. A transaction submitted in time can still require a waiting period, destination-chain claim, transaction or fee. The terms also say that any supported completion process continuing after discontinuation would follow its own disclosed conditions and cutoff; it would not provide a way to start new withdrawals for assets left on Abstract.

That makes Dec. 15 the announced chain shutdown date, rather than a universal last moment to click a bridge button.

Wallet access and settlement require different controls

Abstract Global Wallet, or AGW, is a smart contract wallet. Its architecture separates the contract holding assets from an approved signer that authorizes transactions.

The documented setup generates a signer key through Privy's embedded-wallet system and divides it into three shares: one on the user's device, an authentication share on Privy's servers and a recovery share in a backup location chosen by the user. Access to any two shares is required to reconstruct the key.

This design does not make Privy's normal login flow the only documented way to recover signing authority. Abstract describes combining the device and recovery shares if Privy is offline or the original login method becomes unavailable. That option depends on the user having access to those shares.

Recovering those shares restores signing authority, rather than the infrastructure that processes an exit.

Destination compatibility creates another boundary. The AGW FAQ says its contract code is EVM-compatible, but its SDK works only on Abstract. Cube's terms separately warn that an AGW address may not be usable or controlled by its user on another chain.

A familiar-looking address is consequently insufficient evidence that its user controls the receiving wallet.

The same inventory problem applies to the assets being moved. Cube's terms warn that an interface may not show every holding and identify NFTs, staked or locked assets, collateral, liquidity positions and application-held assets as categories requiring review.

Migration also covers only the assets and amounts authorized. Moving the balance visible today does not automatically forward assets received later or resolve another application's position.

Abstract's transaction lifecycle shows why a source-chain success message is not the whole exit. A transaction first receives execution and soft confirmation on Abstract. Batches then proceed through commitment, proof verification and final execution on Ethereum.

L2BEAT's assessment identifies the operating dependencies behind that sequence. Users can submit transactions through an Ethereum queue, but they cannot force the chain's sequencer to process them if it stops. Only approved proposers can publish records of chain state to Ethereum; proposer failure freezes withdrawals, while governance can attempt a replacement through an upgrade.

They leave settlement dependent on continued processing even when a holder can sign.

The execution delay is also configurable. L2BEAT's Oct. 2 update says chain administrators can increase their chain's delay and the owner can set it, subject to a 30-day cap. The currently tracked three-hour delay is therefore a parameter, not an irrevocable completion guarantee.

Cube's terms describe support in similarly bounded language. They commit to commercially reasonable information, assistance and provider coordination during published support windows. An extension or alternative process depends on feasibility and provider or governance decisions, rather than becoming an automatic entitlement to a successful transfer.

What holders agree to

Authorizing a transfer also needs to be distinguished from accepting a contract. The Oct. 6 general terms require an initially unchecked agreement checkbox and affirmative confirmation. Holding assets, connecting a wallet, viewing information or signing a transaction does not by itself accept that version.

The Migration Hub agreement has separate acceptance requirements. Section 17.2 of the general terms describes its limited waiver as concerning actual or attempted use of migration functions after valid acceptance, within that agreement's scope and exceptions. Portal or bridge use alone does not trigger that waiver.

The separate agreement's full waiver scope remains unresolved; the general terms' description supplies only that limited distinction.

The general terms say acceptance does not itself extinguish existing claims. They separately address substantive rules for earlier conduct, dispute procedures and effective opt-outs, subject to mandatory consumer protections. Those provisions do not settle enforceability for every holder.

As the wind-down proceeds, the decisive information will be the supported routes and their initiation, completion and claim cutoffs, alongside availability windows for authentication and signing. Cube identifies @Abstract_Eco, @AbstractChain and the Abstract Discord as its official operational channels, and says wallet, recovery, export, explorer and support functions may end at different times.

The next operational notices will determine how long those parts of the exit remain available.

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Polkadot has a stablecoin of its own. dotUSD has been running on the mainnet since October 8, 2026: a token pegged to the US dollar that has no issuer. No company issues it, no bank holds reserves, no supervisor has authorised it. It is steered by the holders of the network token DOT through the OpenGov voting system.

For investors in the European Union the launch falls at an awkward moment. On that same October 8, the European Securities and Markets Authority published an opinion that takes aim at exactly this kind of token. This piece explains what dotUSD is technically, why its construction collides with the EU crypto regulation MiCA, and which routes are left open to an investor in Germany.

dotUSD: what Polkadot launched on the mainnet on October 8

A stablecoin is a crypto asset whose price is meant to track a stable reference, usually a currency such as the US dollar. USDT and USDC are the well-known examples: there a company stands behind the token, manages reserves and undertakes to redeem it.

dotUSD takes a different route. The proposal underlying the launch states expressly that the token is to have no issuer and to work solely through logic on the blockchain. Polkadot’s own description calls it an overcollateralised stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Overcollateralised means that behind every token issued sits more security than its face value, so that price swings in the collateral do not immediately push the token below the peg.

The large price database CoinGecko does not yet show a circulating supply for dotUSD. The token is listed there under the stablecoins category, but price and supply still stand at zero the day after the launch. How big dotUSD really is cannot therefore be put in serious figures on this Thursday.

Referendum 1944: how DOT governance resolved on the stablecoin

Legally and organisationally, dotUSD hangs on a vote. OpenGov referendum 1944 carries the title “dotUSD: A Native Stablecoin for Polkadot” and is marked as executed following its approval. It was tabled by the Polkadot Community Foundation, which expressly claims only an administrative role for itself in it.

OpenGov is Polkadot’s voting procedure: anyone holding DOT can decide on proposals, and an approved proposal is executed by the chain itself. Responsibility for dotUSD therefore rests with a shifting majority of token holders. That construction is technically consistent and, in supervisory terms, the core problem, as the section on MiCA below shows.

Peg Stability Module: how dotUSD is tied to the dollar in phase one

The launch comes in two stages, and the first looks different from what the term “native stablecoin” suggests. In phase one, users mint dotUSD one for one against USDT, through what is called a Peg Stability Module and subject to a cap. A Peg Stability Module is a contract on the chain that offers a fixed exchange rate between two tokens and so pins the price of the new token to that of the old one.

That means the current stage leaves dotUSD dependent on a third-party stablecoin for its backing. Holding dotUSD means carrying a share of the risk in the USDT reserves behind it. Which stablecoins German providers still offer at all, and how they differ, is shown by our stablecoin comparison.

Overcollateralisation along Liquity v2 lines: what phase two plans with DOT vaults

The second stage is meant to free the token from USDT. Users will then lock DOT in a vault and mint dotUSD against it below the dollar value of the collateral. The proposal gives a collateralisation ratio of 150 percent as an example: lock collateral worth 1,000 dollars and you mint at most around 666 dollars in dotUSD. The worked example in the proposal itself uses a DOT price of 5 dollars and therefore does not reflect today’s market.

Liquity v2 as the model: stability pool, liquidations and redemptions

As the technical basis the proposal names Liquity v2 and its stablecoin BOLD. That brings a price oracle to put the collateral’s price on the chain, a stability pool to absorb undercollateralised positions, plus liquidations and redemptions. A liquidation here means that a position’s collateral is realised compulsorily once its value falls below the required ratio. For the holder that means a sharp fall in DOT can cost the locked collateral, without any action of their own.

The dollar peg is to be held at this stage through two mechanisms: arbitrage, in which traders even out deviations by redeeming into DOT, and a capped buffer of existing stablecoins. Both are market-dependent mechanisms. Neither creates a claim against a counterparty.

E-money tokens and ARTs: what authorisation MiCA requires for a stablecoin

The EU regulation on markets in crypto assets, MiCA for short, has applied since 2024. It divides stablecoins into two classes: e-money tokens (EMTs), which reference a single official currency, and asset-referenced tokens (ARTs), which point to a basket or to other values. Under that scheme a token pegged to the US dollar falls into the first class.

On its page on token issuance under MiCAR, BaFin sets out who may issue such tokens at all. On e-money tokens it states that only credit institutions or e-money institutions may issue them or apply for their admission to trading. For asset-referenced tokens the supervisor requires authorisation in advance, citing article 16(1)(a) read with article 18 MiCAR. In both cases a crypto asset white paper has to be submitted.

Each of these duties presupposes an entity able to discharge it: an institution with a licence, an address for the supervisor, someone answerable for the white paper. That is precisely the place dotUSD leaves empty by its own description. A token without an issuer cannot meet the requirements placed on an issuer, and not out of negligence but by construction. We have set out elsewhere in detail which duties MiCA loads onto companies.

The ESMA opinion of October 8: three months to clear non-compliant stablecoins

On dotUSD’s launch day, ESMA sharpened its position on such tokens. In its opinion of October 8, 2026, reference ESMA75-113276571-1742, the authority writes that crypto asset service providers authorised under MiCA should cease providing services relating to non-MiCA-compliant stablecoins to clients in the European Union.

The scope is drawn widely. All the crypto services in the regulation are covered, singly or in combination: trading platforms, exchange, order execution, custody, portfolio management and transfers. National supervisors are to check that firms do not hold such tokens, do not list them and do not give clients access to them. Technical, contractual and organisational controls are expected, including ones that stop clients from building up or increasing existing positions.

For legacy holdings the opinion names a deadline: national authorities should require a wind-down no later than three months after the opinion is published, and as early as possible. What may continue during that time is narrowly limited to activities needed for liquidation, exchange, withdrawal, transfer or custody of such assets. Even that is to be time-limited, risk-based and closely monitored.

No issuer, no redemption claim: where the risk sits for holders

With a stablecoin that has a company behind it, there is an address a holder can turn to when the peg breaks. With dotUSD there is none. Under the proposal, the dollar peg rests on arbitrage and a capped stablecoin buffer, which is to say on the behaviour of market participants and on program code.

A practical consequence follows: if you hold dotUSD and see the price drift away from a dollar, you have no contractual counterparty from whom to demand the face value. You can sell the token on the market or, in the second stage, redeem it into DOT through the chain’s mechanism. Both depend on liquidity and mechanics working at that moment.

There is also the risk in the first stage. As long as the backing consists of USDT, dotUSD hangs on a token whose availability at MiCA-regulated providers in the EU is currently being wound back. An exchange through a supervised platform in Germany is therefore not a reliable escape route.

DOT at 1.15 dollars: the figures of the trading day

The network token itself reacted to the launch fairly calmly, but better than the market as a whole. DOT was quoted at 1.15 US dollars early on Thursday, 2.85 percent above its level 24 hours earlier. The day’s range ran from 1.01 to 1.15 dollars, so the price sat at the upper edge. Market capitalisation came to around 1.96 billion dollars, rank 51 in the overall market. Over seven days it is down 3.28 percent, over 30 days down 4.39 percent. All figures come from CoinGecko.

That gain falls in a weak market. Total crypto market capitalisation stood at about 2.78 trillion dollars at the same time, 4.69 percent below the previous day. Bitcoin was quoted at just under 82,000 dollars. DOT rising while broad parts of the market give way is striking, but the available data do not pin it on the stablecoin launch alone. The project’s description voices the expectation that demand for dotUSD in phase two will turn into direct demand for DOT, because collateral is withdrawn from free circulation. An expectation is not a measurement.

Buying route and custody in Germany: what works through regulated providers

In practice the position for an investor in Germany reads like this: access to dotUSD through a platform supervised in the EU is not to be expected on ESMA’s stance, as long as the token does not meet the regulation’s requirements. Wanting to hold it anyway leads to routes outside the regulated framework, which means self-custody through your own wallet on the Polkadot chain.

Self-custody: what hangs on the key

With self-custody the holder carries responsibility for the private key. There is no office that resets a lost password, and no deposit guarantee. A hardware wallet keeps the key in a separate device, apart from the computer or smartphone. Added to that is the risk of the vaults in phase two, where a slide in DOT can hit the locked collateral.

Holding period and tax: how gains from stablecoin dealings are taxed in Germany

In Germany crypto assets count as other assets. Gains from a sale within one year of purchase are taxable under section 23 of the Income Tax Act; after a year has passed they stay tax-free. An exemption threshold of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to gains from private disposals; once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable.

Swapping one stablecoin for another crypto asset is a disposal for tax purposes, even when the dollar value stays the same. Minting dotUSD against USDT in phase one therefore sets off a tax-relevant transaction. Income from a vault would have to be assessed separately. This outline is not tax advice, and the treatment of a token without an issuer is not conclusively settled; for larger amounts the case belongs with a tax adviser.

dotUSD: without an authorised issuer, access stays narrow

With dotUSD, Polkadot has launched something that is cleanly described in technical terms and unfinished in regulatory ones. For German investors, day one changes little, because the route through supervised providers remains blocked. Three things are worth doing now:

1. Place your own provider. Check whether your platform holds a MiCA licence and which stablecoins it still lists. For comparison, the overview is with the regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Go through existing stablecoin positions. ESMA’s three-month deadline concerns legacy holdings at service providers, not tokens in your own wallet. Which custody solution fits is shown by the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Document every swap. Each swap from one stablecoin into another is a tax-relevant event. A tax tool or portfolio tracker records date, price and holding period before the tax return comes round.

(As of October 9, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Exodus Wallet costs nothing to download and asks for no account. It still gets paid, just at a point that appears on no fee page: the swap of one cryptocurrency for another directly inside the app. How much that amounts to is in the company’s quarterly report. In the second quarter of 2026, 71.5 percent of all Exodus revenue came from exactly that swap, 18.74 of 26.23 million dollars. Use the wallet only to hold and send, and you really do pay almost nothing. Swap inside it, and you carry the price in the exchange rate without ever seeing it as a line item.

This piece places both sides: what the Exodus Wallet costs and how it keeps your keys. The two belong together, because a wallet that leaves you the keys also leaves you the risk. At the end comes the point at which moving to a dedicated device pays off, and what happens for German tax purposes as soon as you swap in the app.

What the Exodus Wallet is: a non-custodial software wallet on your own device

A software wallet is a program that stores your private keys on your own device and signs transfers with them. In its own filings with the US securities regulator, Exodus describes its product as an “un-hosted self-custodial digital asset wallet”. That draws a clear line against an exchange account: at an exchange your balance sits in the company’s books as a claim against it. In the Exodus Wallet it sits on the blockchain, and only your key moves it.

In practice: no ID, no approval, no minimum amount, but also no office that gives you access back. There are builds for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS plus a browser extension, and they all share the same twelve recovery words. The program supports several dozen networks, among them Bitcoin and Ethereum. How this type differs from custodial and device wallets we took apart in the overview of hot wallets and cold wallets.

71.5 percent of revenue from swaps: where Exodus takes its money from

Exodus Movement, Inc. has been listed on NYSE American since 2024 and therefore has to disclose what the company earns from. The quarterly report to June 30, 2026 shows, on total revenue of 26.23 million dollars, a line called “exchange aggregation” of 18.74 million, or 71.5 percent. In the same quarter a year earlier it was 23.42 of 25.83 million, or 90.7 percent. Across the first half of 2026 it comes to 38.74 of 48.98 million, or 79.1 percent, against 92.6 percent in the half-year before.

The share is falling because Exodus has bought two payment service providers since the start of 2026 and is building a second leg. That changes little about the basic point: four out of every five dollars earned still come from swapping inside the wallet. A wallet that costs nothing to download finances itself through the movement you set off inside it. That is not an insinuation but the provider’s own accounts.

The spread is not on the fee page but inside the rate you are shown

A spread is the gap between the rate at which you can swap and the rate that holds in the market. It is never debited; it is already inside the number the app shows you as the result. That is exactly what separates it from a charge: a charge sits in a table and can be read up before you buy, a spread cannot.

By its own account, Exodus does not carry out the swap at all. It runs through external service providers that the company calls API providers in its reports. The same filing states that revenue rests on estimates, among them an estimate of the “spread captured by the API Provider”. Even the provider books the spread as an estimated figure, then, because it moves with liquidity and volatility. Exodus publishes no fixed rate on its own pages; in third-party reviews it runs roughly between 0.5 and 2 percent depending on the trading pair and the amount, and above that for very small amounts.

Network fee, spread and exchange charge: how to check what a swap really costs

Three kinds of cost get mixed up here, and only one of them lands at Exodus. The network fee pays the blockchain network in question for including the transfer; it goes to the validators, not to the wallet provider, and moves with network load. The spread goes to the swap counterparty in the background, and Exodus takes a share of it. The exchange charge, finally, only arises if you go through a trading venue instead, where it is listed as a percentage in the fee schedule.

The spread can be checked in two minutes without triggering the swap: enter the amount in the app, read off how much you would receive, and work out the equivalent at the current market rate. The gap is your price. Repeat that with a markedly larger amount and you will see how sharply the percentage gap falls with size. The network fee arises on top and stays in place even if you carry the swap out elsewhere.

What a 1,000-euro swap costs: the calculation at 0.5 to 2 percent

A worked figure makes the order of magnitude tangible. Swap 1,000 euros from one cryptocurrency into another and a spread of 0.5 percent costs you around 5 euros, one of 2 percent around 20 euros. The network fee comes on top, ranging from fractions of a cent to several euros depending on the chain. At 10,000 euros the same range puts 50 to 200 euros in play, and that for a single operation that takes two taps in the app.

The range is deliberately wide, because there is no single figure. What matters is less the exact number than the direction: small amounts and exotic trading pairs are expensive in percentage terms, large amounts in liquid pairs considerably cheaper. Shifting larger sums regularly is as a rule cheaper through a trading venue with a published fee schedule, pulling the coins into your own wallet afterwards.

Five swap counterparties in the background: what the terms say about liability

In the first quarter of 2026, five individual API providers each accounted for more than 10 percent of total revenue; together they brought in 14.8 million dollars from swaps. More important than the figure is what the same report says about responsibility. It states that responsibility for the operations running through these providers lies solely with the respective provider and with the user. By its own account Exodus never holds the swapped asset, carries no inventory risk and is not responsible for execution.

A plain consequence follows for a dispute: there is no custodian with whom you could lodge a claim, because no entity holds your balance. At an authorised exchange there is one, with all the duties attached to it. This trade-off is part of choosing a wallet and is set out at greater length in the comparison of software wallets.

Twelve recovery words: how custody works with a hot wallet

A hot wallet is a wallet on a device connected to the internet. On first launch Exodus generates a sequence of twelve words from which all keys can be derived. Whoever has those words has the balance, anywhere and without further checks. The program stores them encrypted on the device and guards access with a password or fingerprint, but the protection ends at the boundary of the operating system.

The realistic attack routes therefore aim at the device: malware that swaps out the clipboard, faked installer files and tampered browser extensions. The countermeasures are unspectacular and effective: take the installer only from the maker’s site, keep the operating system current, never photograph the twelve words and never type them into a form. A step-by-step guide is in the piece on setting up and securing a wallet.

Hot wallet or a device of your own: when a hardware wallet pays off

A hardware wallet is a small device that holds the keys in a chip of its own and signs transfers there, so the keys never touch the computer. The purchase price sits in the low to middle double-digit euro range depending on the model. That outlay stands against the risk of an infected computer emptying the hot wallet in one go.

The rule of thumb that follows is not a prescription but a weighing of amounts. For sums you move within the month anyway, a software wallet is convenient and defensible. For the part of the holding you leave sitting longer, the extra device carries more than it costs. Exodus can be run alongside a device, with the app as the interface and the device holding the keys. What separates the models comes down mainly to the chip, the connector and the number of networks supported.

Staking in the app through a third party: what stays on the device

Staking means depositing coins to secure a network and receiving rewards for it. Exodus offers this in the app but handles it through the service provider Everstake. The quarterly report states that the holder determines the amount and retains full control and ownership of the coins.

This point matters more than it sounds. Staking through an exchange hands the coins into its care and carries a default risk on the provider. Here the power of disposal stays with you, and in return you carry the network’s own risks: lock-up periods, fluctuating rewards and, in some networks, deductions when a validator misbehaves. In Germany the rewards have to be recorded as other income when they accrue, whether or not you sell them.

Reporting duties and authorisation: what applies to wallet providers in Germany

An exchange in the EU has needed authorisation since MiCA, and authorisation brings capital requirements, segregation of client funds and a supervisor that can step in when it matters. Software that never takes your keys in hand holds nothing for you and therefore does not fall into the same category. Concretely that means: there is no deposit guarantee here, no segregation of client funds and no office that pulls back a mistaken transfer.

At the same time the area is not rule-free. Since September 11, 2026 a reporting duty for wallet makers has applied in the EU, which we assessed separately. For your own use nothing changes about the process for now, but something does change about which data on providers will converge in future.

Holding period and exemption threshold: why every swap in the wallet is a tax event

This is where it gets expensive for German users who overlook it. Swapping one cryptocurrency for another is not a neutral event for tax: it is at once a sale of the coins given up and a purchase of the coins received. If the coins given up were bought less than a year earlier, the gain is a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act and taxable as soon as all such gains in a year together reach the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros. Once the threshold is passed, the whole amount is taxable and not just the excess.

The convenience of swapping in the app has a flip side: two taps set off an event that belongs in the tax return, and the coins received start a fresh holding period. Shifting positions often within a year produces a long list of individual cases, each of which has to be evidenced with date, quantity and euro value. The export from the wallet supplies the raw data for that; keeping the allocation of acquisition costs clean is down to you.

Exodus Wallet: the spread decides, not the fee page

The Exodus Wallet is convenient, broadly equipped and, for pure custody, genuinely free. It gets expensive where it is easiest to operate. Three steps bring you to a decision that fits your holding:

1. Work out a real swap before you trigger it. Enter the amount, read off the equivalent, compare it with the market rate. If the gap is above one percent, the detour via a trading venue with a published fee schedule is worth it.
2. Split your holding by holding period. What you move may stay in the software wallet; what is meant to sit belongs on a device of its own from the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Set up the record-keeping before the first swap runs. Every swap is a tax event with its own holding period; a tax tool or portfolio tracker reads the addresses along the way and spares you the reconstruction in spring.

(As of October 9, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

An Ethereum savings plan buys the same euro amount of Ether every month, whatever the price happens to be. A calculation over the past twelve months shows how much that matters: twelve instalments of 100 euros, each bought on the first of the month, worked out at an average price of 1,981 euros per Ether. Investing the same 1,200 euros in one go on the day of the first instalment would have cost 3,318 euros.

That is not a recommendation, because a single year proves nothing about the next one. What it does show is the mechanism: what a savings plan lives on, why it bites harder with Ether than with Bitcoin, and what twelve separate purchases a year mean for tax. All figures here come from daily euro prices, recalculated on October 8.

Ethereum savings plan: an average of 1,981 euros across twelve monthly instalments

A savings plan is a buying machine. You set the amount and the rhythm, the provider buys, and the price on the purchase day decides how much you get for your money. When the price falls, the same 100 euros buys more Ether; when it rises, less. The technical term is dollar-cost averaging: the average purchase price ends up below the mean of the prices, because the cheap months contribute more units than the expensive ones.

How strong that effect turns out depends entirely on how much the price swings over the savings period. For an asset that rises steadily, the savings plan loses against an early lump sum. For one that slumps and then recovers, it wins. Ether did the second of those over the past year.

The calculation in detail: 1,200 euros paid in, 0.6057 Ether in the portfolio

The basis is Ether’s daily euro prices from October 9, 2025 to October 8, 2026. The model buys on the first of each month in that window, twelve times, 100 euros each time and without fees. The result:

• Paid in: 1,200 euros across twelve instalments.
• Acquired: 0.6057 Ether.
• Average purchase price: 1,981.05 euros per Ether.
• Value of that position on October 8 at a price of around 2,300 euros: 1,393 euros.
• Result before tax and fees: plus 16.1 percent.

The average price therefore sits about 14 percent below today’s level. That gap is the whole advantage the savings plan built up in this window, and it comes purely from the path the price took.

The lump sum over the same period: a 3,318-euro entry, 30.7 percent down

The counterpart: the same 1,200 euros, invested on November 1, 2025, the day of the first instalment. The price that day was 3,318.20 euros, so the money bought 0.3616 Ether. Those Ether are worth around 832 euros today, 30.7 percent less than was paid in.

The two routes are 561 euros, or almost 47 percentage points, apart. The savings plan ended up holding 1.67 times as much Ether for exactly the same outlay. The reason lies in the path: Ether was trading near its one-year high on the starting day and fell sharply afterwards. A lump sum at the bottom would have beaten the savings plan just as clearly. Which route comes out ahead is decided by the entry point, and nobody knows that in advance. We ran the same question for Bitcoin in savings plan or lump sum.

A single year proves nothing: the limits of this calculation

Three caveats belong with it, otherwise a measurement turns into a claim. First, the window covers only twelve months, and it began near a high. A window that begins in a trough reverses the result. Second, the example ignores fees; depending on the provider, anything from a few cents to more than a euro goes per instalment, which is already noticeable on a 100-euro instalment. Third, a real savings plan rarely executes exactly on the first of the month; depending on the provider, execution falls on the next trading day or within a fixed window.

None of these caveats overturns the finding, but each shifts it. Only the direction is solid: in a year with a deep slump and a subsequent recovery, buying in instalments clearly beats an early lump sum.

Annualised volatility: 62.9 percent for Ether, 44.5 percent for Bitcoin

Because the savings plan lives on price swings, their size is worth a look. Volatility measures how widely a price scatters around its own trend; it is usually quoted as an annual figure. The same daily prices give Ether an average daily move of 3.29 percent, which annualises to 62.9 percent. For Bitcoin the figures are 2.33 percent a day and 44.5 percent a year.

The range tells the same story. Over the twelve months Ether moved between 1,361 and 3,914 euros, with the high at 2.87 times the low. Bitcoin ranged from 51,474 to 106,651 euros, or 2.07 times. Ether has been noticeably more restless over this period, which strengthens dollar-cost averaging and strains the nerves at the same time. The two go together.

Staking and a burned base fee: what sets an Ether savings plan apart from a Bitcoin one

Beyond the price moves there are two quirks that Bitcoin does not have.

The first is staking. Ether can be deposited in the network to confirm blocks, and it earns a reward for doing so. According to Ethereum’s own staking page, running your own validator takes at least 32 Ether and can hold up to 2,048 Ether; pool solutions exist for smaller amounts. Provable misbehaviour by a validator leads to slashing, in which part of the deposited Ether is destroyed. For a savings plan that means the accumulated holding can later earn something, which a Bitcoin holding does not do by itself. Which providers handle that, and on what terms, is in the comparison of staking platforms.

The second quirk concerns supply. Bitcoin has a fixed cap and an issuance schedule known in advance. On Ethereum, according to the project’s developer documentation, the base fee of every transaction is burned and thus taken out of circulation, while new Ether is issued to validators at the same time. Whether the circulating amount grows or shrinks therefore depends on network load and is not fixed in advance. For a savings plan running over several years, that is one more unknown.

Twelve instalments, twelve acquisitions: the one-year clock runs separately for each

This is where a savings plan becomes something different from a single purchase for tax purposes. In Germany, crypto assets count as other assets under section 23 of the Income Tax Act. A disposal is taxable if no more than one year lies between acquisition and sale.

What counts, then, is the acquisition, and every instalment is one of its own. The instalment from November 1, 2025 reaches its one-year mark on November 2, 2026; the instalment from October 1, 2026 not until October 2027. Selling half your holding in December 2026 therefore means facing holdings of quite different ages, instalment by instalment. Which Ether count as sold is the decisive question, and it cannot be evidenced without clean records for each instalment; for larger amounts it belongs with a tax adviser rather than in a rule of thumb.

The Federal Ministry of Finance restated the cooperation and record-keeping duties in its circular of March 6, 2025, which replaces the version of May 10, 2022. It tightened the position on foreign trading platforms: transaction statements must be retrieved and retained regularly and in full, and missing documents count against the taxpayer. For Bitcoin we broke the holding period under a savings plan down in a separate piece on the savings plan holding period.

Section 23 of the Income Tax Act: gains stay tax-free below 1,000 euros a year

The law names a threshold, and it is worded more sharply than it is usually reported. Gains from private disposals stay tax-free if the total gain achieved in the calendar year came to less than 1,000 euros. At exactly 1,000 euros the exemption no longer applies, and then the whole amount is taxable, not just the part above the threshold. An exemption threshold works differently from an allowance.

The count also runs across all private disposals in a year together, not per coin and not per venue. Selling other crypto assets within a year alongside the Ethereum savings plan puts those gains into the same pot. Keeping records as you go is therefore not paperwork but the basis of your own tax return.

Whether the one-year period survives is politically open. Abolition is under discussion; nothing has been decided so far. Until then the rule applies as it stands in the law.

ETP or real coins: what the difference means for your tax

A savings plan on Ether can be built two ways, and they are not the same for tax. Buying real coins through a trading platform falls under the section 23 framework just described. Buying an exchange-traded product on Ether, an ETP or ETN, means buying a security in a brokerage account, to which the rules for investment income apply.

The practical difference is large. With a security the broker usually withholds the tax itself, but there is no one-year period after which a gain becomes tax-free. With your own coin you handle it yourself, but can sell tax-free after a year. An ETP also carries issuer risk, because you hold a debt instrument and not a coin. Which structure suits what we took apart in certificate, ETN or coin; which brokerage accounts offer such savings plans at all is shown by the comparison of crypto brokers.

Instalment, rhythm, fees and custody: four settings where a savings plan fails

There is little to optimise about the mechanism itself, but plenty about the execution.

1. The instalment has to be sustainable. A savings plan you suspend in the next slump loses exactly the part that makes it work: the purchases at low prices. Better 25 euros that stay than 200 euros that pause in March.
2. The rhythm is secondary. Monthly, fortnightly or weekly changes little about the average price, as long as the period is long enough. More frequent buying does raise the number of fee items and the number of acquisition dates to document.
3. Fees bite in percentage terms. A flat amount per execution hits small instalments harder. At one euro per instalment, a 25-euro instalment pays four percent and a 200-euro instalment half a percent. Over twelve years the difference adds up to a size of its own.
4. Custody belongs settled before anything accumulates. A holding that grows over years eventually reaches a size at which the question of where to keep it is no longer a side issue.

Ethereum savings plan: every instalment starts its own one-year clock

The calculation above is a window, not a forecast. What remains are three points that hold regardless of the price path.

1. Set the instalment and the term before you start. The effect builds over years and across slumps, not over months. Which providers run crypto savings plans and what they charge per execution is shown by the comparison of savings plan providers.
2. Document every instalment from the first one. Date, price, amount, fee and platform, ideally automatically. Which programs pull that from the statements is in the comparison of crypto tax software.
3. Decide on custody early. If you want to hold the position yourself, set that up while the sum is small, not once it has grown large. The devices for it are in the hardware wallet comparison.

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

Ondo Finance launched a platform on October 6, 2026 that makes stakes in companies tradable before they reach the stock market. What trades are tokenised notes, not shares; their value is tied to the price of one common share in the company concerned. Payment comes only once that company has completed a listing, is taken over, or ten years have passed. For anyone holding ONDO or considering a purchase, a new line of business is thereby written into the project, and at the same time a product that meets different rules in Germany than a coin does.

One thing at a time, because three questions hang on this launch that the press release does not answer: what do you legally buy? Who may buy at all? And when does money come back?

What Ondo Private Markets sells: tokenised notes instead of shares

A note is a debt instrument: a paper by which an issuer promises the buyer a payment. At Ondo Private Markets the size of that payment follows the value of one common share in the company the note refers to. Ondo calls that company the reference company.

Ondo's product page states the difference from a share itself, and plainly: the tokens are “not themselves stocks” and give their holders no rights to hold or receive the underlying assets. Buying such a note therefore does not make you a shareholder. There is no voting right, no annual general meeting, no dividend and no claim to delivery of the share itself. What remains is economic participation in the price, mediated through the issuer's promise to pay.

This design is nothing new in finance. Certificates and warrants have worked on the same basic idea for decades, and their best-known risk carries the same name as here: issuer risk. If the issuer fails, it does not help the holder that the reference company is flourishing.

Which documents govern

Ondo names three documents that govern the relationship: the token terms, the subscription agreement and a declaration accepting the token terms together with the repayment claim. In case of doubt, the token terms prevail. For a buyer that means the marketing page is not the contract. What applies is in the terms, which are only available during the subscription process.

The issuer sits in the British Virgin Islands: PM Issuer Co (BVI) Limited

As issuer of the notes Ondo names PM Issuer Co (BVI) Limited, a company under the law of the British Virgin Islands. For tokenised products this is a widespread construction, and it has two tangible consequences for German buyers.

First, the counterparty's seat lies outside the European Union. A dispute over the terms will therefore not automatically be heard before a German court, and the deposit guarantee or investor compensation familiar from a German institution does not apply here. Second, according to Ondo the tokens are not registered under the US Securities Act of 1933. That lack of registration is the reason for the access restriction set out below.

The press release puts a figure in front of the product to explain its market: roughly 87 percent of US companies with annual revenue above $100 million are said to be in private hands. The figure comes from Ondo's own announcement and describes why pre-IPO stakes are attractive as a product. It says nothing about how well this particular product does its job.

Qualifying liquidity event: when the note actually pays out

The product's most important mechanism is its payout date. Ondo pays neither at the end of a term nor on the holder's demand, but upon a qualifying liquidity event. The product page names four triggers: a listing that has traded for six months; a majority takeover; an insolvency; and the expiry of ten years after issuance.

More hangs on that list than it shows at first glance. A funding round expressly does not trigger payment, nor does a takeover offer to individual existing shareholders, nor does a sale of stakes on the secondary market. Yet those are precisely the events at which private companies are most often revalued. A holder can therefore watch their reference company valued at a multiple without any payment falling due.

What is then paid out is the liquidity event price of one common share, less tax withholding and settlement fees. Ondo names no amounts for these. Whether an event has occurred and which price applies is decided by a calculation agent at its reasonable discretion. For an investor that is a valuation they cannot recalculate themselves.

Secondary trading on the Ondo Perps Spot Market: 24/7 without a reference price

Because the payout can be years away, the secondary market becomes the actual way out. Ondo sets it up on its own Ondo Perps Spot Market, open around the clock. Further venues may follow later. The tokens are freely transferable, can be self-custodied and used in DeFi applications, though only to other eligible holders.

Ondo itself notes three restrictions. Trading is subject to maintenance, risk controls and suspension by the issuer. Liquidity may be limited and the spread between bid and ask wide. And there is no public market price for the reference company and no generally accepted comparable value, which is why the secondary market price can deviate considerably from the last private valuation and from the later payout.

That sets the instrument apart from everything traded on an established perp DEX. With Bitcoin or Ether there is a worldwide reference price across dozens of venues. Here buyers and sellers set the price among themselves, on a market the issuer is allowed to halt.

Access for eligible investors only: what the US exclusion means for Germany

The product page carries a “Not Available in US” banner, and it puts the exclusion harshly: US persons are prohibited from subscribing for, acquiring or redeeming the tokens. Behind that stands the missing registration under US securities law. For all other countries Ondo opens the product only to eligible investors, without saying on the page who falls under that.

For German prospects that gap is the practical crux. Access to the primary sale runs, according to Ondo, through selected distribution partners and through Ondo Private Client, meaning a service that is usually tied to minimum amounts and to evidence of investor suitability. Whether a retail investor from Germany passes that test is decided only during the subscription process, and no publicly available document from Ondo answers it in advance.

Clearing that up takes two steps there is no way around: request the subscription documents and look in them for which countries and which investor status are listed. A look at the marketing page is not enough.

Why an exclusion is no substitute for a recommendation

That a product excludes US investors is neither a mark of quality nor a defect. It follows from how the issuer set up its paper legally. What is sold is the same risk, merely to a different circle.

MiCA does not apply to tokenised notes: the legal framework for German buyers

Since 2024 the EU's MiCA regulation has governed the market for crypto assets, bringing authorisation requirements for trading venues, custodians and issuers. That regulation is not the yardstick here, though. MiCA excludes crypto assets that qualify as financial instruments. A note whose value is tied to a share carries exactly the features of a financial instrument, so the rules for securities apply instead of those for crypto assets. We have set out what that means for companies in practice in our overview of the MiCA obligations to 2026.

For a buyer the question of protection thereby turns around. With a MiCA-regulated provider, they can look up whether an authorisation exists and which supervisor granted it. With a security from an issuer in the British Virgin Islands that is not publicly offered in the EU, there is no approved prospectus in which a European supervisor has checked the statements. The checking shifts entirely to the buyer.

A classification in the individual case can only be made by a lawyer or tax adviser with the specific token terms in hand. This article describes which questions to ask, not which answer is right for a particular instrument.

Tax on pre-IPO notes: capital gains tax instead of the one-year holding period

Here lies the difference that can cost or save German investors the most money. For crypto assets such as Bitcoin the one-year holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act applies: hold for more than a year and the gain is sold tax-free. That rule covers private disposals of other assets.

A note does not belong in that category. Capital claims fall under Section 20 of the Income Tax Act, and there is no holding period there after which the gain becomes tax-free. Gains are subject to withholding tax of 25 percent plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax, regardless of whether two months or seven years lie between purchase and sale. How the tax office classifies a specific tokenised instrument depends on the issuance terms; a foreign issuer also does not remit the tax automatically, so the declaration stays with the investor. Anyone holding several such positions over the year needs a schedule recording purchase, sale and deductions for each instrument.

The fact that, according to the product page, the issuer withholds tax before the payout changes none of this. A deduction at source abroad and the German tax liability are two separate matters, which in the best case can be set off against each other through a double taxation agreement.

ONDO price this week: $0.4822 and Thursday's weekly low

The token itself barely reacted to the launch, because the broader market set the tone for the week. ONDO trades at $0.4822, putting it 1.2 percent below the level of seven days ago, according to CoinGecko as of Thursday, 11:55 pm. The weekly high was $0.5106 on October 2, the weekly low $0.4437 on Thursday afternoon, the day of this article. By market capitalisation ONDO stands in 48th place.

The slide to the weekly low coincided with a broad sell-off in which Bitcoin dropped below $81,000 and several altcoins lost double digits. The reasons for that lie outside Ondo, with rising bond yields and outflows from the Bitcoin ETFs.

As an observation, not a price target: above, the weekly high at $0.5106 marks the first hurdle, along with the round $0.50 level. Below lies the weekly low at $0.4437, and beneath it the round $0.44 level. Whether a new line of business carries the token is decided over months, and by whether the notes generate revenue.

From Ondo Stocks to Private Markets: what Ondo has tokenised so far

Private Markets is the provider's third pillar. First came tokenised US Treasuries, then tokenised listed shares and funds. That equities business was called Ondo Global Markets until July 2026 and has run as Ondo Stocks since; in June 2026 the catalogue grew by 173 instruments to more than 430 positions across three blockchains. September brought the Intelligent Portfolios, three tokenised model portfolios following BlackRock model strategies. This offering is being rolled out step by step to further blockchains, most recently to NEAR.

Across these platforms together, Ondo reports by its own account a deposited value of $3.7 billion to $3.9 billion, with sources diverging on the figure, and more than one million holders over time. These numbers belong to the existing business, not to Private Markets, which began on October 6 with a single reference company from the AI sector.

Further sectors have been announced: biotechnology, robotics, defence, energy, space, quantum technology, aviation, logistics, digital assets and cybersecurity. A timetable for them is missing, and Ondo has not named the first reference company either. According to the announcement, secondary trading was due to start in the week after the launch.

How to recognise a legitimate route in

Tokenised pre-IPO stakes are a field in which dubious providers also advertise, because the values are inherently hard to verify. Three features separate a genuine offer from a scam: there is a named issuer with a legal form and a seat. There are subscription documents describing repayment, fees and risks. And there is a clear statement of which circle of investors is admitted. Ondo meets these three points on its product page. Anyone who instead finds only a yield promise and a payment window leaves the product alone and stays with a regulated provider.

Ondo Private Markets: no money flows until the liquidity event

The product extends what can be traded over a blockchain, and in doing so it shifts risks that do not arise with a share: onto the issuer, onto the valuation by a calculation agent and onto a secondary market without a reference price. Checking it for yourself goes in this order.

1. Clarify access before you calculate. Request the subscription documents and look up whether investors resident in Germany are listed and which status is required. If you do not fall under it, everything else resolves itself. An overview of providers that accept German retail investors in the ordinary course is with the regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Read up on repayment and costs. Look in the token terms for the list of liquidity events, for the role of the calculation agent and for the deductions applied before the payout. The ten-year period is the ceiling on your commitment. Whether you want to spread your portfolio more widely alongside it is settled by the comparison of crypto brokers.
3. Get the tax classification in advance. Put the terms to a tax adviser and have them tell you whether the instrument falls under Section 20 of the Income Tax Act. A year of holding makes no gain tax-free here. For recording the positions over the year, the tax tools and portfolio trackers help.

The statements in this article come from the Ondo Private Markets product page and from the report on the launch of October 6, 2026.

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

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

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

Bitcoin staking pays no interest in Bitcoin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has unleashed a scathing attack on Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin over his warnings about AI-driven threats to lattice-based cryptography.

The market is in a deep correction and the possibility of a bullish reversal is certainly lower than before.

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

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

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

TLDR:

• Thailand Bitcoin ETF listings will begin under a domestic framework on October 16, giving investors access to spot Bitcoin and Ethereum through the SET.
• The new rules require passive management, at least 80% net exposure to one digital asset, and custody through SEC-supervised providers.
• Thai securities firms cannot provide margin loans for purchases, while retail clients cannot access overseas digital asset ETFs through local brokers.
• Mutual funds and private funds may invest in Thailand-domiciled digital asset ETFs, but existing investment limits and the initial asset list remain unchanged.

Thailand has approved domestic listings for spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds, with the framework taking effect on October 16. The Thailand Bitcoin ETF framework gives investors access through the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). It avoids direct use of cryptocurrency exchanges. The Thailand Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) limited the first phase to Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

It requires passive management, supervised custody, and risk disclosures. The decision creates a regulated route for digital asset exposure while restricting margin lending and retail access to overseas products. Thailand Bitcoin ETF listings will open gradually under rules designed to control custody risks.

Thailand Bitcoin ETF Rules Set Passive Exposure and Custody Standards

Under the Thailand Bitcoin ETF framework, eligible funds must track one underlying digital asset through passive strategies. Net investment exposure to that asset must equal at least 80% of average net asset value during the fiscal year. The rule keeps the products focused on their stated holdings and limits active portfolio changes.

The initial list contains Bitcoin and Ethereum. The SEC has not opened the SET route to other tokens. Each fund must operate as a Thailand-domiciled product and list exclusively on the SET. That structure gives investors a securities-market channel while keeping product oversight within Thailand.

Fund assets must remain with digital asset custodians supervised by the SEC. Managers must disclose the fund structure, investment method, service providers, and key risks. Investors must also receive an explanation of the product’s features and risks before trading.

The requirements place custody and disclosure duties on regulated parties. They also separate ETF access from direct exchange use. Investors can obtain exposure through brokerage accounts, but the funds still depend on the performance of the underlying assets. The rules do not remove volatility or other market risks associated with Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Thailand Bitcoin ETF Access Faces Limits on Overseas Products

Investor protections also shape the Thailand Bitcoin ETF rollout. Securities firms cannot extend margin loans for purchases. Investors must acknowledge product information before trading, adding a suitability and education step to the account process.

The rules also change how existing investment vehicles can participate. Thai mutual funds and private funds may invest in digital asset ETFs established in Thailand. They previously could invest only in overseas digital asset ETFs. Existing investment limits remain unchanged for these funds.

The SEC has restricted overseas access during the initial phase. Thai securities firms cannot broker overseas digital asset ETF investments for retail clients. Direct investment in overseas funds remains limited to institutional investors and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Depositary receipts linked to overseas digital asset ETFs will also not be issued or sold at this stage.

Attakrit Chimphlapibul, co-founder of Bitkub Group, said the policy follows the path set by United States spot ETF launches. Those products created a regulated route for institutional and retail participation in that market.

Thailand’s SEC said market participants broadly supported regulated access during a public consultation earlier this year. The regulator said domestic infrastructure, investor protection, and education should come before wider public access.

The Thailand Bitcoin ETF framework therefore combines approval with a narrow opening. It permits domestic listings but excludes leverage, overseas retail brokerage, and alternative products. The approach allows the SEC to assess custody, trading, and investor understanding before expanding eligible assets or easing distribution rules.

The move also places Thailand among Asian markets building regulated digital asset channels. Hong Kong and the United States already host spot Bitcoin and Ethereum products. Thailand’s framework differs through its initial limits on overseas exposure and its requirement for passive funds. Further changes will depend on market conditions and infrastructure maturity.

Thailand Bitcoin ETF listings will remain domestic initially, while broader access will depend on regulatory review and infrastructure readiness.

The post Thailand Bitcoin ETF Listings Start October 16 After SEC Approval appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

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

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

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

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

Faster Withdrawals and Wider Blockchain Support

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

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

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

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

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

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

How the MPC Design Works

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

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

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

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

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

Passkey Approvals and What Stays the Same

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TLDR:

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

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

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

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

MiCA Registration and Executive Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Platform Security and Supported Assets

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TLDR:

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

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

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

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

Extended Arc Migration Plan and User Deadline

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

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

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

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

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

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

Process Risks and Arc Features

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TLDR

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

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

Walmart Inc., WMT

Walmart Expands California Fulfillment Network

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

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

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

New Facility Creates Over 1,000 Jobs

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

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

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

Walmart Strengthens Its California Operations

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

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

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

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

Licensed EU crypto firms have until early January 2027 to wind down services for stablecoins that fail MiCA, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said on Thursday.

ESMA set that three-month deadline in an opinion addressed to national supervisors. The opinion covers asset-referenced tokens (ARTs) and e-money tokens (EMTs) that do not meet MiCA’s conditions for a lawful offer or trading in the EU. It names no individual token.

Supervisors are told to check whether a firm lets EU clients buy, trade, hold, or add to such tokens. That check spans every service type, from trading platforms and order execution to advice and portfolio management. Firms offering those services should block new purchases by EU clients with technical and contractual controls.

Custody Comes Into Scope

ESMA first addressed non-compliant stablecoins in a statement on January 17, 2025. That statement told trading platforms to stop offering them, with sell-only access allowed until the end of March 2025. It also said mere custody and transfer of those tokens could continue. Binance kept to that timeline and delisted nine non-MiCA stablecoins, including Tether’s USDT, for European users on March 31, 2025.

After that date, Binance users could only sell those stablecoins through its Convert tool.

Thursday’s opinion brings custody and transfers into scope. Both now sit on the list of services supervisors should review. The opinion also rejects investor warnings as a fix. The 2025 statement had asked firms to run awareness campaigns for EU investors. ESMA now says warnings, disclosures and client acknowledgments would not address its concerns.

ESMA’s 2025 guidance turned on whether a service amounted to a public offer of the token. Thursday’s opinion keeps that public offer analysis and adds a second basis. It cites the MiCA duty for licensed firms to act honestly, fairly and professionally in their clients’ best interests. Serving a non-compliant token should be presumed to breach that duty, ESMA said.

Wind-Down Runs to January

Unlicensed firms hit an earlier cutoff this year. On June 23, ESMA told those unlicensed providers to stop onboarding new EU clients ahead of the July 1 end of MiCA’s transition period. By July 21, fewer than 300 of the more than 3,000 firms serving EU crypto clients held a license, according to CASP Tracker.

Thursday’s opinion targets the firms that made the cut. Those not yet in line may keep limited exit services running to avoid harming clients. The services cover selling, conversion, withdrawal, transfer and safekeeping of existing holdings.

Those exit services should not support new purchases, promotion or trading. They should be time-limited, clearly communicated to clients and closely supervised. ESMA itself will monitor, with each national supervisor, how promptly the opinion is applied.

The post ESMA Sets 3-Month Exit for Non-MiCA Stablecoins, Pulls Custody Into Scope appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple is moving deeper into Wall Street’s leveraged ETF business, with its prime brokerage arm providing swap financing to funds that use derivatives to amplify bets on stocks and indexes.

A recent Wall Street Journal report shows how the crypto company is entering a fee-heavy part of traditional finance where banks have long dominated, while tighter capital rules are creating room for nonbank firms.

Ripple Takes Aim at Leveraged ETF Financing

Ripple entered the business last year through its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, now known as Ripple Prime. The platform is already working with ETF providers and is seeking business from other investment managers, including hedge funds.

Additionally, on October 6, Ripple Prime announced its prime brokerage and clearing and financing service for Brevan Howard, which adds yet another hedge fund to the list of clients.

Leveraged ETFs use total return swaps and other derivative instruments in order to amplify the daily changes in individual stocks or indexes. The swap is provided by a bank or broker at a cost, and the risk is then hedged by purchasing the underlying security.

Morningstar Direct data quoted by the WSJ put the number of US leveraged ETFs at 593, with more than $256 billion in assets. Single-stock leveraged funds account for 426 of them, a category regulators first approved in 2022.

Noel Kimmel, president of Ripple Prime, described swap financing as a “growing and meaningful part” of the business. Nonbank firms such as Jane Street and Clear Street are also gaining ground as banks face tighter limits on the amount of risk they can take.

One example shows why the business can generate substantial fees. The Tradr 2X Long SDNK Daily ETF pays Ripple a fee tied to the overnight bank funding rate plus four percentage points. As of October 7, that worked out to roughly 8% of the fund’s assets on an annualized basis.

The Cost Falls on Leveraged ETF Investors

These financing charges are different from management fees and are captured in the net asset value of the fund. In a situation where leveraged ETFs are held by investors over long periods of time, the swaps costs will come together with daily compounding, and market movements will be very expensive for returns.

Swap financing also carries risk for providers. A sufficiently large one-day decline in an underlying stock could wipe out a leveraged ETF’s equity and leave its counterparty facing losses. Providers therefore hedge that exposure through other asset managers or market makers.

As CryptoPotato reported yesterday, Ripple Prime had expanded its relationship with Brevan Howard to include multi-asset prime brokerage, clearing and financing. The move follows Hidden Road’s earlier expansion into US institutional crypto OTC swaps, cross-margining and financing after Ripple acquired the brokerage.

Ripple’s latest push therefore reaches beyond crypto trading and payments, putting its prime brokerage operation into a financing business that has traditionally generated fees for Wall Street firms.

The post Ripple (XRP) Expands Wall Street Push With Leveraged ETF Swap Financing: Report appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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

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

Major Mainstream Partner

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Developments

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

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

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

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

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

LAPTOP Launch Exposed By Thin Liquidity

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

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

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

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

Founder Wallet Remains Untouched

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About THORChain

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

Users can swap assets here: swap.thorchain.org

Swap | Website | X | Telegram | LinkedIn

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