The predicted tokenization supercycle could reshape financial markets, influencing Base's strategic direction and broader crypto adoption trends.

The post Base creator predicts tokenization supercycle led by equities, non-dollar stablecoins appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The incident underscores the vulnerability of hardware wallets, urging users to reassess security practices and the reliability of such devices.

The post Ledger users reportedly drained of over $86 million in suspected exploit appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Google's potential Ultra mode could redefine app development, enticing developers to upgrade for exclusive features and advanced capabilities.

The post Google is reportedly building an Ultra mode for AI Studio Build appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The rise in tokenized stocks like CRCLb highlights a shift towards decentralized finance, potentially reshaping traditional equity markets.

The post CRCLb tops 30-day market cap growth among tokenized Circle stocks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The EU's anti-corruption strategy could enhance transparency, reduce illicit financial activities, and strengthen trust in governance.

The post EU lawmakers target crypto and opaque ownership in corruption fight 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 is rebuilding its trading platform and bringing back an old name in the process: Coinbase Pro is due to relaunch by the end of 2026, this time as part of a new unit called Coinbase Global Exchange, built on the technology of the options venue Deribit. For investors in Germany the brand matters less than a single number: spot margin with leverage of up to ten times on large assets has been announced. How much of that arrives here depends not on Coinbase but on how European supervisors classify leveraged crypto derivatives.

Coinbase Global Exchange: What Was Announced on October 6

Coinbase has completed the Deribit acquisition on the technical side. On October 1, 2026 the customers of Coinbase International Exchange were migrated to Deribit, and the old platform has been read-only since. Coinbase Global Exchange emerges from the two parts, and in its statement of October 6 Coinbase describes it as joining the American and the international derivatives markets into a single regulated liquidity pool. That claim is the company's own account, not a finding by any supervisory authority.

The announcement fell on October 6, 2026, on the sidelines of the Token2049 industry conference in Singapore. Coinbase had already acquired the Dutch-founded options venue in August 2025 for around $2.9 billion. Fourteen months therefore passed between purchase and completion, spent largely on merging technology.

Coinbase Pro itself disappeared in 2022, in the rebuild that produced Coinbase Advanced. The new version is meant to bundle spot trading, futures, perpetuals, options and equities under one interface, along with a new matching engine, faster order routing and shorter onboarding. Coinbase names no precise launch date, only the end of the year as a target.

Deribit at the Core: $30 Billion in Open Options Positions

Deribit is the reason this rebuild carries any weight at all. By Coinbase's own figures, more than $30 billion of open interest in bitcoin options sat on the venue as of September 30, 2026, and more than a trillion dollars was traded there in the year to October 2026. Open interest is the sum of all contracts not yet closed: the larger it is, the more capital hangs on the prices formed at that venue.

That size feeds back into the spot market, even if you never touch an option. Market makers who sell options hedge themselves in the spot market. When the price of bitcoin moves toward large strike prices, those hedges often amplify the move. On Friday morning bitcoin stood at around $82,570 according to market data from CoinPaprika, and ether at around $2,500. Both therefore sit in a zone where many options expire.

For US institutions, Coinbase is opening access to the Deribit options and the perpetual futures through Coinbase Prime, by its own account in the coming weeks. US retail customers are to follow later in the year, and eligible traders outside the US likewise in the coming weeks. All of these figures are announcements, not functions that have been switched on.

Spot Margin at Coinbase: Ten Times on Large Assets, Five Times on the Rest

The part of the announcement that touches retail investors most directly is the spot margin offer. Coinbase cites leverage of up to ten times on selected large assets and up to five times on further supported assets, and does so shortly after October 6, meaning before the actual Pro return.

Spot margin means this: you buy real coins, but you pay for part of them with money borrowed from the venue. Unlike a futures contract, the underlying belongs to you, you pay borrowing interest for it, and the venue demands collateral. If the price falls far enough that the collateral no longer covers the position, the venue sells it to protect its loan. At ten times leverage a ten percent price decline is arithmetically enough for that, before fees and interest are counted at all.

Coinbase Advanced in Germany: Futures Have Been Running Here Since March 2026

Leveraged trading at Coinbase is nothing new for German users. Since the spring of 2026 the venue has offered futures through Coinbase Advanced in European countries. As the trade publication Decrypt reported at the launch, the offer rolled out in stages from March 9, 2026 across 26 European countries, among them Germany, France and the Netherlands, and runs through an entity licensed under the European markets directive MiFID II. Leverage of up to ten times is available there on selected contracts such as bitcoin and ethereum, fees start at 0.02 percent per contract, and accounts can be funded in euros or in USDC.

The offer covers three designs: contracts with monthly or quarterly expiry, so-called perpetual-style futures, and an index on large technology stocks combined with crypto-adjacent equities and iShares bitcoin and ethereum ETFs. When Coinbase Pro returns, it therefore meets an already running derivatives infrastructure in Europe, not an empty field.

Perpetual-Style Futures: A Five-Year Term Instead of No Term at All

Behind that unwieldy label sits a regulatory construction. Classic perpetuals, as traded on venues outside the EU, have no expiry date. The European variant at Coinbase carries a term of five years. Economically that feels almost identical to a trader, because five years lies far beyond any usual holding period. Formally, though, it is a futures contract with an expiry.

Funding Rate: What the Balance Between Long and Short Costs

Perpetuals and their European relatives hold their price at the spot rate through a balancing payment between the two sides of the market. This funding rate is paid by the stronger side to the weaker one. When many traders sit on the buy side, the buyers pay. On leveraged positions these running costs often decide the outcome more than the direction of the price does, because they accrue regardless of the price and add up over weeks.

The Supervisors' CFD Classification: Ten Times Leverage Can Become 2 to 1

This is the point where the American announcement and German law diverge. The European securities regulator ESMA published a public statement on February 24, 2026 (reference ESMA35-243228190-8024) under which derivatives marketed as perpetual futures are likely to fall within the national product intervention measures for contracts for difference. What matters under that statement is the economic design, not the trading name. Whether a product is traded on an exchange, uses a funding rate or voluntarily offers negative balance protection changes nothing about that, in the authority's view. Our newsroom described this classification in detail on October 3, 2026.

If those measures apply, the BaFin general order of July 23, 2019 governs in Germany. For contracts for difference whose underlying is a cryptocurrency, the order requires an initial margin of 50 percent of the notional value. That corresponds to leverage of 2 to 1. For comparison: with equities as the underlying the margin is 20 percent, and with the major currency pairs 3.33 percent. Crypto thus carries the strictest limit of any asset class.

What Else Belongs to the Leverage Cap

The BaFin order ties the admissibility of such products to further conditions that matter as much in practice as the leverage cap. Positions must be closed as soon as the funds in the account together with unrealized gains fall below half of the total initial margin. The customer's liability is limited to the balance of the respective trading account, so there is no obligation to top up beyond that account. Monetary incentives to enter into a contract are prohibited, with the exception of realized gains and of information and analysis tools. And every advertisement has to carry the prescribed risk warning.

In practical terms: a figure such as ten times leverage, taken from an American press release, says nothing about what your account in Germany will show in the end. Anyone who wants to use leveraged products is better off comparing the limits actually granted and the costs at each provider, for instance in our overview of the best crypto brokers, than relying on the headline of a product announcement.

MiCA Does Not Apply Here: Derivatives Run Under MiFID II

A widespread misunderstanding belongs cleared up at this point. Coinbase has held a MiCA licence from the Luxembourg supervisor CSSF since June 2025 and may therefore offer crypto-asset services across the EU. That licence covers the purchase, the sale and the custody of coins. It does not cover derivatives, because the European crypto regulation expressly does not apply to crypto assets that qualify as financial instruments under MiFID II.

Derivatives therefore sit in a different rulebook with different duties and a different supervisor. A product can come from a provider with a MiCA licence and still be judged under securities law. Anyone who wants to check which permission a provider actually holds looks in the register of the competent authority, not in the product advertising.

Liquidation and Margin Calls: What Really Happens at Ten Times Leverage

Leverage works in both directions, and the mechanics are more unforgiving than they sound. At ten times leverage a five percent rise in the price arithmetically produces a fifty percent gain on the stake. The same five percent downward costs fifty percent of the stake. At a ten percent move the wrong way the stake is gone, and that is before fees, borrowing interest and funding payments.

There is also the fact that liquidations do not happen one at a time. In strained market phases forced sales run through the order book in bundles and amplify the move that triggered them. The price at which your position is closed can then sit well below the liquidation price the venue displayed beforehand. That effect is precisely what explains why a market tolerates leverage on quiet days and not on a single bad morning.

In practice, that shapes the preparation: know the liquidation price before you enter, not afterwards. Project the funding costs over the holding period you have in mind. And keep the stake small enough that a total loss on that position does not tip your portfolio off balance.

Tax in Germany: Futures and Coins Are Treated Separately

For tax purposes a futures contract and a coin are two different worlds, and that surprises many people only at the tax return. Gains from futures count as investment income and are treated as forward transactions, regardless of how long you held the position. There is no holding period there after which the gain becomes tax-free.

With directly held coins, by contrast, the one-year holding period for private disposal transactions applies. The Bundestag rejected the abolition of that period only on October 9, 2026, by 445 votes to 132, so it remains in place. Anyone switching from spot holdings into leveraged contracts gives up a tax advantage that weighs more heavily over a long holding period than any saving on fees. Spot margin sits between the two worlds, because the coins belong to you while the borrowing interest has to be assessed separately. This distinction belongs in a conversation with a tax adviser, not in a rule of thumb.

Coinbase Pro: The Leverage Hinges on the CFD Classification

Until the new platform launches, more remains open than answered for investors in Germany. Three steps are worth taking already:

1. Check which permission your provider holds for derivatives. A MiCA authorization alone is not enough for that; a securities licence is needed. Which venues in Europe work with which supervisor is set out in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Compare the real costs of a spot purchase before you reach for leverage. Spread, order fee and withdrawal costs matter more on long-term holdings than the maximum leverage does. The differences are set out in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
3. Document every leveraged position from the start. Forward transactions and spot purchases run separately in the tax return, and exchange statements disappear after account migrations. How to bring the two together cleanly is shown by the crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

The decisive news of this week is therefore not the return of a brand name. It is the fact that the world's largest listed crypto trading venue is putting its derivatives business on a single infrastructure, while Europe is still settling which rulebook these products may be sold under at all. The answer to that determines whether ten times leverage becomes 2 to 1 here.

(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.)

Bitcoin trades at $82,558, or €73,577, on Friday morning. The all-time high of $126,080 was set on October 6, 2025, which leaves the price 34.5 percent below that mark. Measured in euros, the gap to the record of €107,662 is 31.7 percent, because the dollar has weakened since. Prices are from CoinGecko.

That date is the reason to talk about bitcoin and tax today. October 6, 2025 is now more than twelve months ago. Anyone who bought on that Monday, or in the days that followed, has passed the one-year holding period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. A sale would be tax-free from today. That sounds like an advantage, and with the price down by roughly a third it becomes the opposite: tax-free also means the tax office no longer recognizes the loss.

Bitcoin and Tax: What Section 23 of the Income Tax Act Governs in October 2026

Germany treats crypto assets as other economic goods. They therefore fall under the private disposal transactions of Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, not under the flat-rate withholding tax that applies to equities and funds. That produces the rule almost every investor knows: hold a bitcoin for more than a year and the sale is tax-free. Sell within the year and the gain is taxed at your personal income tax rate.

A private disposal transaction is not triggered only by a sale for euros. Swapping into another crypto asset counts as a disposal as well, and the coin received counts as acquired at the same moment. Its one-year clock starts over. Anyone who swapped bitcoin into ether in May triggered two taxable events, even though no euro changed hands.

The period is counted to the day. A purchase on January 15 starts the clock on January 16 and ends it on January 16 of the following year. What matters is the date of the contractual transaction, not the day the coins arrive in the wallet. On exchange purchases the two usually coincide; on transfers between wallets they do not.

The All-Time High of October 6, 2025: Since October 7 the Paper Loss Is Worthless for Tax

The holding period works in both directions, and that second half tends to get lost. Once the year has run, the transaction is irrelevant for tax. A gain stays tax-free, and a loss becomes unusable in return. It enters neither the loss carry-back nor the loss carry-forward, and it reduces not a single euro of tax.

For someone who bought at the record price on October 6, 2025, that means something specific. Up to October 6, 2026 a sale would have produced a loss the tax office recognizes. Since October 7, 2026 the same sale produces nothing at all. On a €10,000 stake and a 31.7 percent decline measured in euros, that is €3,170 of loss position gone.

The loss also has to be realized. A price decline inside the wallet is nothing for tax purposes. Only a sale or a swap turns a paper loss into a loss that a tax return knows about. Waiting for better prices and letting the deadline pass is itself a decision, even when it does not feel like one.

The €1,000 Exemption Limit: One Euro Above It Makes the Entire Gain Taxable

Gains from private disposal transactions stay tax-free as long as they add up to less than €1,000 in a calendar year. The figure was raised from €600 and applies per person per year. The important word is limit: this is not an allowance from which only the excess would be taxed. Reach the threshold and the whole gain becomes taxable, from the first euro.

The threshold counts across all private disposal transactions in a year, not only crypto. Anyone who sold a coin collection or gold at a profit inside the one-year window alongside a bitcoin gain has to add both together. Spouses are assessed separately, and each has their own threshold.

One sequence is easy to miss: the exemption limit is tested before an assessed loss carry-forward from earlier years is deducted. An old loss will not retroactively push you under the threshold. It reduces the taxable amount only in a second step.

FIFO and Individual Attribution: The Finance Ministry Circular of March 6, 2025 Calculates per Wallet

Anyone who bought in tranches faces the question of which bitcoin actually leave the house on a sale. The Finance Ministry circular of March 6, 2025, file reference IV C 1 - S 2256/00042/064/043, settles this point. The principle is individual attribution: where the separate acquisitions can be told apart, the holding actually sold is the one that counts.

Where individual attribution is not possible, the crypto assets of a trading designation acquired first count as sold first for the purpose of the holding period. Under margin numbers 61 and following, this first-in-first-out method may also be assumed to simplify the valuation. The assessment is wallet-specific. Within one wallet you have to keep the method you chose until every bitcoin in that wallet has been disposed of. Only then may you calculate differently on a new acquisition.

In practice FIFO decides whether a sale produces a loss or a gain. Someone who bought cheaply in 2023 and expensively in October 2025 sells the old, cheap holdings first under FIFO. Those are long past the one-year mark, the sale stays tax-free, and the expensive 2025 holding stays put along with its loss. Anyone who wants to lift that loss instead needs individual attribution, and therefore a wallet structure that supports it. A separate wallet per purchase period is laborious and solves the problem at the root. A tax tool with wallet attribution takes the arithmetic off your hands, but it does not replace the records behind it.

Offsetting Bitcoin Losses: Which Gains a Loss Can Be Set Against

A loss realized inside the one-year window is no blank cheque. It can be offset only against gains from other private disposal transactions, meaning crypto gains in the same year or gains from other assets under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Offsetting against employment income, against investment income from equities or interest, and against current income from staking and lending is ruled out.

If a negative figure remains after that offset, the law knows two routes. The carry-back goes into the immediately preceding year and reduces positive income from private disposal transactions there. The carry-forward runs into the future without a time limit and waits for matching gains. Both require the loss to be declared in the tax return and assessed separately by the tax office. A loss nobody declared does not exist for tax purposes.

The planned reform adds weight to this point. Should future crypto gains fall under Section 20 of the Income Tax Act, old losses from Section 23 could not be offset against them, because the two categories of income stay separate. A loss carry-forward assessed today could then only wait for private disposal transactions that would barely exist in that form.

A Worked Example at €73,577: What a Sale Inside the One-Year Window Costs

Suppose you bought half a bitcoin for €45,000 on February 15, 2026. This Friday that same half bitcoin stands at €36,789, a shortfall of €8,211. The one-year period runs until February 16, 2027, so the loss can still be lifted.

If you made a €6,000 gain elsewhere in the same year on a crypto sale inside the window, realizing the loss cuts that gain to zero. At a marginal tax rate of 42 percent you save roughly €2,520. The remaining €2,211 goes into the assessment and is available next year, or in a carry-back to 2025.

The same transaction with a purchase dated October 6, 2025 looks different. On half a bitcoin the loss would be around €17,000, and it has been unusable since October 7, 2026. The tax saving is zero. The one consolation: a later gain on that holding is tax-free as well, however large it turns out to be.

Four Cases for Bitcoin Holders: Bought in 2024, Bought at the Peak, Bought in 2026, Savings Plan Across the Year End

That fourth row is why savings plans deserve particular attention this quarter. Under the draft, a savings plan running across the year end would split into two groups: instalments up to December 31, 2026 would stay under the old law with its one-year period, and instalments from January 2027 would fall under the new one. A single position in the exchange app would then hold two tax regimes.

Records for the Tax Office: Documentation Duties and the Reporting Regime Since January 2026

The 2025 Finance Ministry circular contains, for the first time, its own section on cooperation and documentation duties, margin numbers 87 to 112. For each transaction you have to document the date, the type, the quantity and the euro value, plus any fees incurred and the attribution method chosen. Anyone using FIFO records that; anyone using individual attribution does the same. In advisory practice the platform, the wallet address and the transaction hash are added.

Since January 1, 2026 the reporting duties under the EU directive DAC8 also apply. Providers report transaction data to the tax administration, which can then reconcile it with your return. The era in which a crypto position simply did not show up is over. The reverse holds too: whatever gets reported, you should be able to explain cleanly yourself.

It becomes awkward with exchanges that have ceased operating, or where you have lost access. Anyone who cannot document the acquisition date of a holding will struggle to invoke an expired one-year period. For missing acquisition data, the ministerial draft provides for a flat 50 percent of the disposal proceeds as the tax base under the future withholding regime. Documenting legacy holdings therefore secures an advantage that cannot be recreated later. Before a sale it is worth looking at the routes for swapping bitcoin into euros, along with the question of which records each platform issues.

Staking and Lending: A Separate One-Year Period From the Inflow

Staking income matters less for bitcoin than for ethereum or solana, but it is not without relevance. Anyone earning income through wrapped-bitcoin constructions or through lending receives income that has to be recognized at its euro value at the time of inflow. For the tokens received, a separate one-year period begins, counted from that inflow.

Sell such tokens within twelve months of the inflow and the gain falls under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. After that it is tax-free. The ongoing income itself is unaffected: it has to be declared in the year of inflow, even if you sold nothing. This double assessment is the most common error in home-made spreadsheets.

The Ministerial Draft and December 31, 2026: What Changes for New Purchases

On October 8, 2026 the Bundestag rejected the Greens' bill on the taxation of crypto assets, printed paper 21/5752, by 445 votes to 132 out of 577 cast. A Left Party motion on the same subject, printed paper 21/5824, also failed; the Greens voted for it, while the CDU/CSU, the AfD and the SPD voted against. The details are in the Bundestag's text archive and in our report on the vote on the crypto holding period.

What matters for your planning, though, is the government's own draft. The Federal Ministry of Finance circulated it for consultation on September 30, 2026, associations had until October 6 to comment, and the cabinet is due to take it up on October 14, 2026. The plan is to assign bitcoin and other exchange crypto assets to investment income under Section 20 of the Income Tax Act. The one-year period would cease for newly acquired holdings, and tax would be charged regardless of holding period at 25 percent flat-rate withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge, around 26.375 percent together. The ministry expects additional revenue of €350 million a year in the long run.

The draft puts the grandfathering cut-off at December 31, 2026. Anything acquired or received after that would fall under the new law. Older holdings would stay with Section 23 of the Income Tax Act and therefore tax-free after a year. Withholding at source by providers is not due to apply until January 1, 2028. None of this is settled: the Bundestag and the Bundesrat still have to pass the law, and cut-off dates have been pushed back more than once in the process. On October 12, 2026 the petitions committee also takes up the holding period in public.

Bitcoin Tax: Without a Sale by December 31 the Loss Expires

The one-year period is not a theoretical matter this autumn. It expires separately for every holding, and it takes the loss with it when it goes. Three steps make sense before the year ends:

1. Sort your holdings by purchase date. Record the date, the quantity and the euro value for each acquisition, and mark which positions have not yet reached the one-year mark. A portfolio tracker with a tax function handles this through the exchange import; checking it stays your job.
2. Go through your loss positions before the period ends. Anyone who bought in 2026 and is down can only realize the loss while the clock is still running. Which routes to a sale deliver the lowest fees and the best records decides the rest.
3. Secure your records for grandfathering. Export the transaction history of every platform you have used and store it outside the exchange. When switching provider, exchanges with a complete tax report help you avoid later gaps.

(As of October 9, 2026. This article is not investment advice and not tax advice. Prices, draft legislation and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy, and check your own tax position with a tax adviser.)

Ethereum price under $2,500: where the market stands

$Ethereum is changing hands below $2,500, a level that has acted as a pivot for most of this cycle. Every time ETH lost it, the market treated the move as a warning sign; every time it reclaimed it, buyers came back quickly. That is what makes the current zone interesting rather than dramatic.

The important detail is how the level was lost. A slow drift lower on thin volume says something different from a sharp liquidation candle. If you are weighing an entry, look at whether the daily closes are stabilising just under the mark or whether each bounce is being sold into.

What is pushing the Ethereum price lower

Three forces usually explain moves of this size. The first is macro: when liquidity tightens and risk assets wobble, Ethereum reacts harder than Bitcoin because its buyer base is more speculative. The second is flows. Spot ETF demand and treasury-style buying have become a visible part of the order book, and when those flows slow, the bid thins out fast.

The third is Ethereum's own supply picture. Lower network activity means fewer fees burned, and the supply stops shrinking. None of this breaks the investment case, but it does explain why rallies have struggled to hold.

Is Ethereum a good buy right now?

The honest answer depends on your time horizon. For a trader, buying into a level that is still being defended means a tight invalidation point and a clear plan to exit if it breaks. For an investor with a multi-year view, sub-$2,500 is a price that looked unthinkable at the top of the last cycle, and accumulating in tranches rather than in one order has historically been the less painful route.

What you should not do is treat a round number as a reason on its own. ETH is cheap compared with its own history; it is not cheap because the chart has a nice figure on it. If you want to compare fees and spreads before you act, our crypto exchange comparison lists the venues we track.

Ethereum price forecast for the months ahead

In the near term, most desks frame the range in the same way. A sustained reclaim of the $2,500 area opens the path back towards the $3,000 region, where the heaviest supply from previous trading sits. Failure to hold puts the next liquidity pockets near $2,200 and then $1,900 in play.

Analysts who are constructive lean on the ETF channel staying open and on staking yields keeping a share of supply off exchanges. Those who are cautious point at the weak fee revenue and at layer-2 networks capturing activity that once paid for block space on the main chain.

Long-term Ethereum forecast

Over a multi-year window the argument for Ethereum is structural rather than technical. It remains the settlement layer for the bulk of stablecoin volume, tokenised assets and decentralised finance, and each of those categories has grown through two bear markets. If tokenisation keeps moving from pilot projects to production, the demand for block space follows.

The bullish long-term targets you will see quoted tend to assume that Ethereum keeps its share of that activity while supply growth stays near zero. The bearish ones assume the opposite: that competing chains and layer-2s keep the value, while the main chain settles for being plumbing. You can read the detailed scenarios in our Ethereum price prediction.

The risks you are taking

Regulation remains the largest single unknown, particularly around staking products and how they are treated in the United States and Europe. Competition is the second: faster chains have taken real market share in payments and consumer applications. And there is the simple fact that drawdowns of 70 percent or more have happened in every Ethereum cycle so far.

Position size is the defence against all three. An allocation you can hold through a bad quarter is worth more than a perfectly timed entry you panic out of.

On Thursday, 8 October 2026, the Bundestag rejected the Greens' bill to abolish the crypto holding period. In a recorded vote, 445 members voted against and 132 in favour, with no abstentions. The existing rule therefore continues to apply: anyone holding Bitcoin, Ether or other crypto assets for more than a year sells them tax-free. The holding period is not saved by this vote, however. The measure that actually decides its future sits as a draft bill at the Federal Ministry of Finance and has yet to reach parliament.

On the same morning, the Bundestag also rejected a motion from the Left party that sought to tax crypto gains as investment income and to allow trading bans on certain coins at EU level. Late in the evening, parliament then passed a law under which German tax authorities exchange data on crypto transactions automatically with other states. What the speakers said, why the SPD position in particular matters for investors, and what you should do now follows below.

Vote on the crypto holding period: how the parliamentary groups voted

The vote concerned the “Bill to close a fairness gap in the taxation of crypto assets” (Drucksache 21/5752) at second reading. The Greens had called for a recorded vote, so it is documented for every parliamentary group who voted which way. A total of 577 voting cards were cast. Because the bill fell at second reading, the rules of procedure dispense with a third reading, and the procedure is thereby closed.

The result follows party lines: the conservatives, the SPD and the AfD against as a bloc, the Greens and the Left in favour as a bloc. The figures come from the voting result on bundestag.de and from the plenary minutes of the 99th sitting. Back in May, the finance committee had already recommended rejection with the same majorities.

What the Greens' bill 21/5752 proposed for the holding period

At the heart of the bill of 5 May 2026 was a single sentence in section 23 of the Income Tax Act: the one-year period for private disposals would no longer apply to crypto assets. Crypto gains would thereby have become taxable regardless of the holding period, and at the personal income tax rate rather than the flat-rate withholding tax. It was to apply to crypto assets bought after 31 December 2025. The Greens reckoned with additional revenue of “at least around 5 billion euros”.

For investors that would have been the strictest of the variants under discussion: at high incomes, gains could have been taxed at up to 45 percent plus the solidarity surcharge, while losses would have remained offsettable only against gains from private disposals. How the holding period works today with recurring purchases and the order of sales is explained in our piece on Bitcoin savings plans, the holding period and the exemption threshold.

Video from the Bundestag: Olav Gutting (CDU/CSU) on the crypto holding period

The debate began at 10:15 and ran as part of a larger tax package from the Greens that also covered inheritance tax, property transfer tax and real estate. Olav Gutting answered for the conservatives from 10:21; the holding period comes up in the second half of his speech.

Speech by Olav Gutting (CDU/CSU) on 8 October 2026, 99th sitting, agenda item 8. Source: German Bundestag. The full debate is available in the Bundestag media centre.

Gutting defended the holding period as a basic decision of tax law rather than a special arrangement for crypto. Private crypto assets, he argued, are treated like other private economic goods: whoever speculates short term pays tax on the gain, whoever holds long term can in principle sell tax-free once the period has elapsed. Anyone who finds that unfair would have to put the question “openly and systematically for comparable cases” and not only for an asset class that happens to be “more politically visible” at the moment. For greater transparency he pointed to the new reporting obligations for crypto exchanges under the EU directive DAC 8.

Key statements from the debate: SPD for the withholding tax, conservatives with an open flank

Parsa Marvi (SPD) delivered the sentence investors should note. The SPD, he said, “expressly shares the aim of bringing more tax fairness to crypto assets” and does not find it “fair that gains from cryptocurrencies are tax-free today after a holding period of one year”. He rejected the Greens' route all the same: the existing flat-rate withholding tax is efficient, so subjecting crypto gains to it is the right course. He expressly welcomed the Finance Ministry's draft bill and said the SPD was willing to bring the project to a conclusion with the coalition in the Bundestag.

Lukas Krieger and Fritz Güntzler (both CDU/CSU) warned that a special rule for crypto would create new inequalities against foreign currencies, precious metals and securities. Güntzler recalled that shares and futures contracts once counted as speculative transactions too and later moved to investment income. “Now we are discussing doing something similar for crypto assets. It is also being discussed within the coalition,” he said. That is not a clear commitment to the holding period.

Isabelle Vandre (Die Linke) likewise called for an end to the holding period, but by a different route: crypto assets should move into section 20 of the Income Tax Act so that the exchanges remit the tax directly, coupled with exit taxation. By her account, only 3 percent of crypto users declare their gains correctly in their tax return. Max Lucks (Greens) countered that section 23 is the right place, and that the only pointless element is the tax exemption once the speculative period has elapsed.

The Left's motion 21/5824 rejected: section 20, exit tax and trading bans

The motion “Regulate crypto assets strictly and tax them fairly” went considerably further than the Greens' bill. Among other things it called for crypto assets to be brought into section 20 from the promulgation of a law, for an examination of a wealth-growth tax on the Dutch model for decentralised transactions, for identity requirements for self-custodied wallets at regulated service providers, and for an EU supervisor with the power to impose trading bans on coins causing high environmental damage, for instance through proof of work. The Bundestag followed the finance committee's recommendation and rejected the motion by a show of hands, with the votes of CDU/CSU, AfD and SPD against the Greens and the Left.

CARF reporting framework adopted: which crypto data the tax office receives from abroad

A decision taken late in the evening has more effect for many investors. The Bundestag approved the law on the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on automatic exchange of information under the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (Drucksache 21/7195), the OECD framework on which the EU directive DAC 8 also builds. CDU/CSU, SPD, the Greens and the Left voted in favour, the AfD against. The contracting states collect tax-relevant data on crypto trading and exchange it: users' names, addresses, countries of residence, tax identification numbers and dates of birth, plus the type of crypto asset, gross amounts, quantities and the number of transactions. Anyone holding coins on an exchange outside the EU should therefore not assume the tax office will remain unaware of it.

What changes for investors after the vote: holding period and exemption threshold still apply

In the short term, nothing changes. Gains from the sale of crypto assets held privately are taxable under section 23 of the Income Tax Act if no more than one year lies between purchase and sale. After that, the gain is tax-free. Within the period, a gain stays tax-free as long as all private disposal gains in a calendar year together remain below the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros. Once it is exceeded, the entire amount is taxable, not only the part above it.

Thursday's vote takes only one of several variants off the table, namely the deletion of the period with taxation at the personal rate from 2026 purchases onwards. For holdings you own today, that was the riskiest variant, because it would have reached back into the current year.

The Finance Ministry's draft bill: the 31 December 2026 cut-off decides

The future of the holding period will be decided by the draft bill on reforming the taxation of certain privately held crypto assets of 30 September 2026. It moves so-called exchange crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether into section 20 of the Income Tax Act, that is, to investment income, for which the separate tax rate of 25 percent plus the solidarity surcharge and, where applicable, church tax applies. That is to take effect for the first time from 1 January 2027, and only for crypto assets acquired after 31 December 2026. From 2028, platforms are to withhold the tax directly.

For existing holdings, the draft means this: whatever sits in a securities account or a wallet by the end of 2026 keeps the one-year holding period. The tricky part is the fallback rule for cases in which the platform does not know the purchase date and purchase price. It is then to assume a purchase after the cut-off and to base the tax withholding on 50 percent of the sale proceeds. What that means in euros is worked through in our piece on the substitute assessment in the crypto tax draft. The ministry estimates the additional revenue at 70 million euros for 2027 and, from 2029, at 350 million euros a year, a fraction of the 5 billion euros the Greens had reckoned with.

Next steps on crypto tax: petitions committee, cabinet, Bundesrat

On Monday 12 October, the Bundestag's petitions committee holds a public hearing from 12:00 on petition 201716, which calls for the holding period to be kept. The procedure and the livestream are set out in our piece on the petitions committee on 12 October. According to the timetable so far, the federal cabinet is to take up the draft bill on 14 October. If it adopts it, the draft becomes a government bill, on which the Bundesrat comments first. According to the draft, the law also needs the consent of the state chamber at the end. The Bundestag then debates it in three readings, and only with promulgation in the Federal Law Gazette does the legal position change. After Thursday's debate it is clear where the majority for it would have to come from: from the SPD, which openly supports the move to the withholding tax, and from a conservative group that, in Güntzler's words, is itself discussing it.

What you should do now: secure purchase records and sort holdings by purchase date

Whatever the law ends up looking like, one thing decides your tax bill in every variant: the evidence of when and at what price you bought. That helps you today with the holding period and tomorrow against a blanket substitute assessment.

• Export the complete transaction history of every exchange and every broker while the accounts still exist. Why that is urgent is set out in our piece on the tax records export at the exchanges.
• Sort your holdings by purchase date. Whatever you buy up to 31 December 2026 would keep the holding period under the draft; everything after that would not.
• Keep a complete record of transfers between wallets and exchanges, so purchase dates can still be documented after the coins have moved. A crypto tax tool does that automatically and calculates the periods per position.
• Do not sell in haste. The Bundestag tightened nothing on Thursday, and a sale inside the one-year period costs tax today that patience can avoid.

How to prepare the documents for the tax office in order is explained in our guide to the crypto tax return in seven steps. With larger holdings or gains, your own case belongs with a tax adviser.

Grayscale will have the TAO of its Bittensor trust held by two houses in future instead of one. The asset manager has added Coinbase Prime as a second custodian, with BitGo remaining primary custodian. The move is set out in an 8-K that the trust filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 5 October 2026. For holders of Bittensor, this is not price news but news about the question of who holds the keys.

The price itself has a weak week behind it. TAO trades at $275.96, which is 10.7 percent below the highest daily value of the past seven days, according to CoinGecko as of Friday, 9:00. Over seven days it shows a loss of 11.99 percent, over 30 days a gain of 6.39 percent. Taken together, the two describe a pullback inside a month that is still in positive territory on balance.

What Grayscale reported in the 8-K on the custody of TAO

An 8-K is the mandatory filing with which an issuer registered with the SEC discloses a material event between two quarterly reports. In it, the Grayscale Bittensor Trust reports two contracts signed and one contract terminated, all dated to the end of the month.

On 29 September 2026, the sponsor signed an amendment to the Coinbase Prime Broker Agreement of 3 October 2025 on behalf of the trust. Coinbase will thereby hold a portion of the trust's TAO. A day later, on 30 September, an amendment followed to the revised custody agreement with BitGo Bank & Trust of 5 June 2026, which brings the trust into that agreement. The older BitGo agreement of 12 March 2025 was terminated on the same day.

One figure the document expressly does not name: how much TAO moves to Coinbase has not yet been determined by the sponsor, by its own account. Anyone reading a split in percent over the coming weeks should check where it comes from, because it does not come from this filing. What is recorded, by contrast, is that the custodians' fees are borne by the sponsor and that fees and expenses are taken in TAO.

BitGo stays primary custodian, Coinbase Prime will hold a portion

The division of roles remains clear. BitGo is and remains the trust's primary custodian; Coinbase joins as a second address. In the language of institutional custody that means a portion of the holdings will sit in a second infrastructure, with its own keys, its own approval paths and its own operations team.

Prime broker is not a synonym for custodian here. A prime broker agreement bundles trading, settlement and custody with one provider so an institutional client can move large quantities without maintaining a separate relationship for every step. The fact that the trust extended precisely that agreement points to trading capability, not storage alone.

Why a second custodian shifts the operational risk of a trust

With a single custodian, everything hangs on one operation. If it fails, the fund stands still, regardless of how healthy the assets inside it are. Two custodians spread that operational outage across two mutually independent houses. The risk has not vanished as a result; it is divided.

Set against that is the second route of attack. Every additional infrastructure brings its own keys, its own staff and its own software, and any of those can become the point of entry. The hacks of 2026 repeatedly hit the software around the edges rather than the cryptography itself. Whether the split is a gain is therefore decided by the quality of the second house, not by the number two.

GTAO is an OTC-traded trust and not yet an ETF

The Grayscale Bittensor Trust runs under the ticker GTAO and trades over the counter, not on a regular US exchange. Grayscale has set out on the road to an exchange-traded fund: the S-1 registration statement reached the SEC on 30 December 2025, and a first amendment followed on 2 April 2026. No approval has come of it to date.

The difference is practical for you rather than academic. A trust traded over the counter can sit permanently above or below the value of its holdings, because the mechanism that continuously creates and redeems shares in an ETF is missing. Anyone who equates such structures with a spot ETF is buying something other than what they think. How the product types diverge in Germany is unpicked in the overview of crypto ETFs for investors in Germany.

Then there is the distribution route. A trust registered in the US is not offered to retail investors in Germany; for distribution to retail clients in the EU, the PRIIPs Regulation requires a key information document, which such products do not carry. The news from the 8-K changes none of that and remains information about the market for you, not a way to buy.

Price of the week: $275.96, 10.7 percent below the weekly high

The daily values of the week trace a clear arc: $292.09 on 3 October, then four days between $304 and $309 with the peak of $308.88 on 7 October, after that $291.29 on 8 October and $268.40 at the start of 9 October. Over the past 24 hours the low stood at $254.82 and the high at $287.30. All values according to CoinGecko, as of Friday, 9:00.

For context: market capitalisation stands at around $3.13 billion, trading turnover of the past 24 hours at around $308 million. TAO is 63.6 percent away from its all-time high of $757.60 from March 2024. The week's pullback therefore falls into a phase that already runs far below the old record.

Circulating supply: 11.34 of 21 million TAO have been issued

Bittensor is capped at 21 million units, as Bitcoin is. Of those, 11,339,646 TAO are in circulation, or 54.0 percent of the maximum. Issuance declines in steps over time, and the timing of the next step depends on the quantity issued rather than on a calendar date. There is no documented date for it at present, and a forecast would be guesswork.

Subnets: what the network pays out its issuance for in the first place

A subnet on Bittensor is a self-contained competition in which providers deliver a particular service, a language model or data preparation for instance, and are rewarded according to assessed quality. The network's issuance is distributed across these subnets, and anyone holding or delegating TAO is economically tied to that distribution.

For the custody question this matters more than it sounds. Delegating TAO rather than merely holding it puts it into a process that requires active use of keys. Between “sitting in a custodian's vault” and “working in the network” lies a noticeable difference in risk profile, and that holds whether a fund or a private individual holds the tokens.

Buying TAO in Germany: a MiCA exchange instead of a US trust

If you want exposure to TAO in Germany, the route runs through a trading platform licensed under MiCA, or through a certificate on the token authorised in the EU. The US structure from the 8-K is not open to you. Which platforms can show a MiCA licence is set out in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

After the purchase comes the same question Grayscale has just answered for itself: who holds the keys. Leave the tokens on the exchange and you carry its operational risk. Withdraw them and you carry it yourself, but the counterparty risk disappears. Which device suits that depends on how much you hold and how often you move the balance.

Two further points belong in the review. Leveraged products on a token that gives up double digits inside a week liquidate quickly; on a decline of 10.7 percent from the weekly high, a ten-times leveraged position is already finished on paper. And for tax, the one-year holding period for private disposals still applies in Germany, whose abolition is under discussion but has not been decided. Spreading several purchases across the year calls for a clean record of the acquisition dates.

Levels above and below: $308.88 and $254.82

Above, the next documented point of orientation lies at the weekly high of $308.88, below that the round level of $300. On the downside, the 24-hour low of $254.82 marks the last place where buyers appeared again, followed by the round 250. These are observation points from this week's price data and not price targets.

What the custody news means for the price cannot be quantified in good faith. An amendment to agreements on custodians is a structural event with no immediate effect on supply or demand. Selling it as a price driver overstretches it.

Bittensor custody: without ETF approval, GTAO stays over the counter

1. First establish whether you are looking for access at all: the US trust is not open to you, while buying directly through a licensed platform is. The licensing position of the providers is listed under regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Settle the key question deliberately before the first purchase runs, not after it. For withdrawing from the exchange, the hardware wallet comparison helps with choosing a device.
3. Set up the record for the holding period with the first purchase, or the acquisition dates will be missing later. Tools for that are in the comparison of crypto tax software.

(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.)

Primary sources: the 8-K of the Grayscale Bittensor Trust of 5 October 2026 and the amendment to the S-1 registration of 2 April 2026, both filed with the SEC.

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Ajay Shinjin helped steal nearly $265,000 in crypto after criminals hijacked BT customers' phone numbers in November 2021.

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.

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Liquidation volume is surging, with a possibility of reaching levels that might start off the bear market.

TLDR:

• DWF Labs affiliates DWF Maas and Falcon Digital sued BitGo for $141 million in London’s High Court.
• The lawsuit alleges BitGo sold Falcon Finance and ESPORTS tokens before their agreed lock-up periods expired.
• The agreements required a three-month lock-up followed by additional vesting restrictions on token sales.
• DWF Labs claims the early sales pushed token prices lower, while BitGo declined to comment.

Two DWF Labs-linked companies have sued crypto custodian BitGo for $141 million, alleging unauthorized sales of locked cryptocurrency tokens. The lawsuit concerns Falcon Finance and ESPORTS tokens, which were allegedly sold before contractual restrictions expired. The dispute comes as BitGo expands its institutional crypto custody services, including arrangements that allow clients to access digital assets through regulated infrastructure.

DWF Labs Accuses BitGo of Breaching Token Lock-Up Agreements

DWF Maas and Falcon Digital filed the lawsuit in London’s High Court, according to the Financial Times. Both companies are affiliated with Dubai-based crypto market maker DWF Labs and are seeking compensation for alleged financial losses. DWF Maas is registered in the British Virgin Islands, while Falcon Digital operates from Panama. The plaintiffs claim BitGo violated over-the-counter agreements involving Falcon Finance (FF) and ESPORTS tokens.

Under the agreements, BitGo allegedly received discounted tokens in exchange for accepting restrictions on their sale. The contracts included an initial three-month lock-up period, followed by additional vesting schedules controlling when tokens could enter circulation.

However, DWF Labs alleges that BitGo transferred the tokens to cryptocurrency exchanges approximately two months before their scheduled release. The plaintiffs argue that these transfers breached contractual obligations and introduced unexpected selling pressure into markets with limited liquidity.

According to the lawsuit, the alleged sales reduced token prices and lowered the value of assets DWF Labs continued holding. DWF representatives reportedly raised concerns with BitGo during April and May but failed to obtain satisfactory assurances.

The companies have nevertheless indicated they remain open to resolving the dispute through settlement. The disagreement concerns restrictions commonly included in private cryptocurrency transactions, where buyers receive discounts in exchange for delayed selling rights.

BitGo has continued expanding its digital asset operations, including custody and settlement services for tokenized assets. The company declined to comment on the lawsuit, and the allegations remain unproven in court.

DWF Labs Seeks $141 Million as BitGo Expands Institutional Services

DWF Labs claims the alleged early sales caused losses across its remaining Falcon Finance and ESPORTS holdings. The plaintiffs are seeking $141 million, although the precise calculation of damages remains unclear.

The lawsuit also raises questions about whether the disputed transfers directly caused the reported price declines. Establishing those losses would require examining transaction records, market conditions, and the contractual restrictions governing both tokens.

Falcon Finance operates within the decentralized finance sector, while ESPORTS is associated with South Korean blockchain gaming project Yooldo. Both assets were subject to agreements intended to control token circulation during their initial trading periods.

Meanwhile, BitGo has continued developing financial services for institutional cryptocurrency clients. In April, the company introduced portfolio-based crypto lending, allowing institutions to borrow against digital assets, including locked tokens.

The service enables clients to access financing while keeping supported collateral within BitGo’s custody infrastructure. BitGo also expanded its regulated international operations after receiving approval to provide crypto custody services in South Korea in August.

The company has also increased its institutional trading capabilities through acquisitions. In August, BitGo completed its $42.5 million acquisition of NYDIG’s institutional trading business, adding derivatives, financing, and capital markets services.

These developments form part of BitGo’s wider expansion following its public listing earlier in 2026. However, the London lawsuit concerns separate token transactions and the contractual obligations attached to those agreements.

The court will need to determine whether BitGo violated the agreed restrictions and whether the plaintiffs can establish their claimed losses. As of October 9, 2026, no ruling has established liability, and the case remains subject to legal proceedings.

The post DWF Labs Sues BitGo for $141 Million Over Alleged Early Token Sales appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Charles Hoskinson rejected Vitalik Buterin’s warning that AI could uncover major weaknesses in lattice-based cryptography.
• Hoskinson argued that decades of research have already tested lattice systems against known attacks and shaped current security parameters.
• He disputed Buterin’s suggestion to increase lattice key sizes by 10 times, calling the proposal unsupported by attack-cost calculations.
• Hoskinson also challenged Ethereum’s hash-only approach and warned against abandoning ML-KEM before a practical attack is found.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has challenged Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s warning that artificial intelligence could weaken lattice-based cryptography. Hoskinson argued that decades of security research already account for known attacks, while Buterin’s concerns lack supporting evidence. The disagreement follows Buterin’s warning about AI threats to cryptography, which questioned the long-term safety of several post-quantum security methods.

Charles Hoskinson Rejects Vitalik Buterin’s Warning About Lattice Cryptography

Hoskinson argued that Buterin’s concerns rely on assumptions about mathematical breakthroughs rather than demonstrated weaknesses in existing cryptographic systems. Buterin had suggested that AI could discover previously unknown weaknesses in lattice-based cryptography within two years.

He compared that possibility with advances in integer factoring that eventually made older RSA security assumptions less reliable. However, Hoskinson rejected the comparison, arguing that factoring breakthroughs depended on specific mathematical properties that researchers had identified and exploited.

He explained that lattice cryptography has undergone decades of research, including improvements in algorithms used to attack these systems. According to Hoskinson, ML-KEM and ML-DSA’s security parameters already account for established attacks and their computational costs.

He also challenged Buterin’s suggestion that lattice-based encryption keys might need to become ten times larger. “Multiply key sizes by ten is numerology,” Hoskinson wrote, arguing that parameter changes must follow measurable improvements in attack methods.

He explained that a 20% improvement in attack efficiency could require approximately 25% larger dimensions under certain assumptions. The dispute comes as Cardano continues its own research into quantum-resistant security. In May, Hoskinson confirmed that Cardano was preparing a governance strategy addressing future quantum computing threats.

Hoskinson also defended the existing process for testing cryptographic systems, pointing to earlier attacks discovered during security reviews. He cited the failures of Rainbow and SIKE, two post-quantum candidates whose weaknesses emerged during public evaluation.

Those cases showed how researchers can spot vulnerabilities before affected cryptographic methods are widely deployed. Hoskinson maintained that new AI-assisted attacks should undergo similar testing before developers abandon established security approaches.

Hoskinson Questions Ethereum’s Hash-Based Security Strategy

The disagreement also concerns Ethereum’s growing preference for hash-based cryptography, which Buterin considers less exposed to certain mathematical attacks. Buterin has argued that AI could accelerate mathematical research enough to weaken lattice-based systems previously considered resistant to quantum computers.

His Ethereum security roadmap places greater emphasis on hash-based signatures, including WOTS and SPHINCS. However, Hoskinson disputed the assumption that hash-based systems are inherently safer because they appear to contain less exploitable mathematical structure.

Vitalik pointed to historical attacks against MD5 and SHA-1, arguing that hash functions have also suffered serious security failures. Hoskinson further questioned Ethereum’s reliance on Poseidon and Poseidon2, which use mathematical structures designed for efficient cryptographic proofs.

He argued that these designs also require careful security analysis because their algebraic properties could become targets for future attacks. The criticism comes as Ethereum continues developing quantum-resistant upgrades alongside improvements to privacy and transaction verification.

Buterin has also recommended caution when using older wallet addresses, although he warned against rushing into potentially unsafe migrations. Hoskinson raised a separate concern about discouraging the adoption of lattice-based encryption before researchers identify a practical weakness.

He pointed to hybrid ML-KEM deployments in browsers and messaging applications, which combine established encryption with post-quantum protection. According to Hoskinson, unnecessary doubts about these systems could delay upgrades while organizations continue relying on older cryptographic methods.

The debate comes as Ethereum developers work toward post-quantum security upgrades planned through 2029. Hoskinson maintained that security decisions should follow tested attacks, measurable costs, and practical deployment requirements rather than predictions about AI breakthroughs.

The post Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson Challenges Vitalik Buterin Over AI Threats to Crypto appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• The UK sanctioned three cryptocurrency exchanges and two payment platforms over suspected Russian financial links.
• The October 8 sanctions package includes 38 new designations targeting financial networks, oil companies and suppliers.
• British authorities linked two targeted businesses to transactions involving the Russia-backed A7 network.
• The A7 network claimed to have processed more than $90 billion during 2025, although independent verification remains limited.
• The UK also sanctioned 12 Russian-linked oil tankers and businesses involved in military supply chains.

The UK sanctioned three cryptocurrency exchanges and two payment platforms on October 8 over suspected Russian sanctions evasion. The 38 new measures also cover oil companies, vessels and military suppliers.

UK Names Crypto Firms and Payment Operators

The list names Xeltox Enterprises, a Canadian-registered firm behind Cryptomus, Heleket and Certa Payments, and Kyrgyzstan-based TokenSpot. It also includes Processing KG, operator of VexPay, and Tsunami Payments. Processing KG director Ulan Bukabaev also faces sanctions.

The UK suspects two targeted businesses of handling payments involving A7, a Russia-backed financial network. The United States sanctioned the A7 network earlier this month over suspected illegal financing. British officials provided no transaction totals for individual listed companies.

A7 Stablecoin Network Faces More Restrictions

The A7 network uses a ruble-backed digital token called A7A5. The UK says it helps move funds despite restrictions on Russian banks. A7 claimed to have processed over $90 billion during 2025, British officials said.

The $90 billion figure comes from A7 and remains unverified. Blockchain researchers have questioned whether reported A7A5 transfers reflect payments between independent users. Authorities have not said every newly sanctioned exchange handled the token.

Financial Sanctions Limit Crypto-Related Payments

UK sanctions freeze designated firms’ assets within British jurisdiction. Financial institutions cannot process prohibited payments involving those firms. Separately, Kyrgyzstan’s USDKG stablecoin shutdown followed earlier UK sanctions against its issuer.

The action follows earlier British sanctions against crypto services suspected of handling Russian funds. Officials previously targeted Grinex and Garantex. Other governments have restricted related platforms as they investigate suspected sanctions avoidance.

Wider Package Covers Oil and Supply Chains

Beyond cryptocurrency, the UK sanctioned Russian oil producers Zarubezhneft and INK Capital. Its latest list also covers 12 tankers linked to Russia’s shadow fleet. Officials say these ships help transport oil under arrangements designed to avoid restrictions.

The announcement names 17 people and businesses tied to supplies for Russian weapons production. Japan separately expanded sanctions on October 2, including restrictions on the Garantex exchange. These restrictions follow Japan’s Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act and related rules.

UK officials also named suppliers of machine tools, electronics and other goods used in missile and drone production. The government says the designations seek to restrict funds and equipment reaching Russia during its war in Ukraine. Those named face the applicable UK restrictions.

The post UK Targets Crypto Payment Networks as Russia Sanctions Expand appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SpaceX (SPCX) stock gains 4.10% to $167.15 in Friday’s pre-market trading.
• Apollo and PIMCO emerge in talks over SpaceX’s proposed chip financing deal.
• SpaceX’s nationwide spectrum acquisition supports broader Starlink Mobile coverage.
• SpaceX seeks $40 billion to fund Nvidia chip purchases and expand AI capacity.
• AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon shares decline following SpaceX’s spectrum deal.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) stock climbed 4.10% to $167.15 in Friday’s pre-market trading, gaining $6.58 after Thursday’s 4.19% decline. The recovery followed reports of a $40 billion Nvidia chip financing plan and a nationwide wireless spectrum acquisition. Both developments support SpaceX’s expansion into artificial intelligence infrastructure and mobile communications.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

SpaceX Acquires Nationwide Spectrum for Starlink Mobile

SpaceX announced an agreement Thursday to acquire nationwide low-band wireless spectrum licenses from Grain Management. The acquisition covers up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum within the 800 MHz frequency band. Consequently, the company expects to improve Starlink Mobile coverage across the United States.

The new frequencies can penetrate buildings and other obstacles more effectively than higher-frequency wireless signals. SpaceX plans to combine satellite connectivity with terrestrial infrastructure to deliver broader mobile coverage. However, the company must obtain final Federal Communications Commission approval before completing the transaction.

The announcement also increased pressure on established American telecommunications companies during Thursday’s extended trading session. AT&T shares dropped 5.7%, while T-Mobile declined 5.9% and Verizon fell 5.3%. These declines followed SpaceX’s announcement of plans to compete more directly in domestic mobile services.

SpaceX Expansion Builds on Public Listing and Satellite Growth

SpaceX entered public markets in June 2026 through an initial public offering that raised approximately $86 billion. Since then, the company has continued expanding its financing activities and satellite communications operations. Its latest initiatives extend beyond traditional rocket launches and commercial space transportation.

Federal regulators approved plans for 15,000 next-generation Starlink Mobile satellites designed to support direct-to-device connections. The proposed network would complement the newly acquired spectrum and existing satellite infrastructure. Together, these assets could expand connectivity across rural areas and densely populated markets.

SpaceX also faces substantial funding requirements as its computing and telecommunications projects expand. The Nvidia financing remains under discussion, while the wireless spectrum transaction requires regulatory clearance. Both developments represent significant additions to the company’s infrastructure investment plans.

SpaceX Seeks $40 Billion for Nvidia Chip Purchases

SpaceX is negotiating with banks and asset managers to secure $40 billion for Nvidia artificial intelligence processors. Reuters reported that the company plans to combine approximately $10 billion in bank loans with $30 billion in investment-grade debt. The financing would support the company’s growing computing infrastructure requirements.

SpaceX has approached PIMCO regarding the financing arrangements. Apollo Global Management could lead the transaction and distribute the debt across financial institutions. However, the companies have not publicly confirmed the proposed financing structure.

The initiative follows Musk’s plans to expand computing capacity across his artificial intelligence operations. His xAI business aims to more than double Nvidia chip deployment at its Colossus 2 facility by December. Morgan Stanley estimates that artificial intelligence infrastructure will require $1.5 trillion in external financing by 2028.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock: Climbs as Nvidia Deal and Spectrum Buy Advance appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• MARA Holdings transferred 996.105 BTC worth approximately $81.13 million to Galaxy Digital.
• Blockchain records have not confirmed whether Galaxy Digital sold the transferred Bitcoin.
• MARA sold 23,093 BTC for approximately $1.6 billion during the first half of 2026.
• The company’s Bitcoin holdings stood at 35,577 BTC on June 30, down from 53,822 BTC at the end of 2025.
• MARA is expanding into AI and high-performance computing while managing its Bitcoin treasury and debt obligations.

MARA Holdings transferred 996 Bitcoin, valued at $81.13 million, to a wallet linked to Galaxy Digital, according to blockchain tracker Lookonchain. The October 9 movement follows months of Bitcoin sales by the miner. However, available records do not establish whether Galaxy Digital sold the coins.

Transfer Raises Questions About Bitcoin Sale

Lookonchain identified the sending address as MARA Miner and the receiving address as Galaxy Digital. The transaction involved 996.105 BTC. Galaxy Digital offers trading and custody services, so a transfer to its wallets does not necessarily represent a sale.

Neither company had explained the purpose of this movement in the reports reviewed. The transfer represented about 2.8% of MARA’s 35,577 BTC holdings reported for June 30, although that balance may have changed since then.

MARA Holdings Reduces Bitcoin Treasury

MARA held 53,822 BTC at the end of 2025, compared with 35,577 BTC on June 30. Recent data on Bitcoin miner selling pressure showed fewer extreme outflows across the wider mining sector.

MARA Holdings sold 23,093 BTC during the first six months of 2026, raising approximately $1.6 billion. Its filing said these sales helped fund operations, manage cash needs and support future investments.

The company used $912.8 million to buy back about $1 billion in convertible debt. Its June holdings also included 4,742 BTC lent to third parties and 4,528 BTC pledged as loan collateral.

Bitcoin Market Faces Fresh Pressure

Bitcoin recovered above $82,000 on Friday after declining during the week. Separately, US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $484.9 million in withdrawals on October 7. Those figures describe broader market conditions, not the purpose of MARA’s transaction.

MARA Holdings stock gained about 2% before Friday’s opening bell, approaching $10. The share movement followed Bitcoin’s rebound, although the transfer has not been tied to any confirmed sale.

AI Expansion Remains a Corporate Priority

MARA Holdings is increasing its focus on artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Second-quarter revenue fell 27% to $174.9 million, while the company recorded a $611.3 million net loss.

The strategy comes amid expanding demand for AI data centers and computing infrastructure, with new construction and technical hiring accompanying industry investment. MARA has identified digital infrastructure as its primary growth focus.

For now, the latest wallet movement adds to its record of active Bitcoin management. The company has not disclosed whether these particular coins supported trading, custody, or financing activity.

The post MARA Holdings Sends $81M to Galaxy—What Next? appeared first on Blockonomi.