The incident highlights the vulnerability of DeFi protocols to centralized issuer actions, emphasizing the need for diversified asset management.

The post Tether froze 1.45 million USDT in THORChain vaults, then reversed course three hours later appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Overreliance on AI could heighten cyber risks and market volatility, impacting economic stability and necessitating strategic recalibration.

The post JPMorgan CEO warns America is leaning too hard on AI appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Hinson's vote may sway voter sentiment, potentially boosting Democratic chances in a tight Iowa Senate race amid healthcare concerns.

The post Ashley Hinson criticized for vote increasing Iowans’ health insurance costs appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The incident underscores the critical importance of purchasing hardware wallets from official sources to ensure asset security.

The post Bitcoin holder loses 80 BTC worth $5.2 million after moving funds to reseller-bought Ledger appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Market speculation intensifies, potentially impacting investor behavior and market dynamics, as merger rumors between Tesla and SpaceX swirl.

The post Musk suggests SpaceX could hit $1 quadrillion valuation, merger speculation rises appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin ETFs Shed $729M in Two Days as Investors Reverse Course

U.S. investors this week reversed course, cashing out $729 million from spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds — putting downward pressure on the leading cryptocurrency’s price. 

Funds managed by BlackRock, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and ARK 21-Shares all experienced significant outflows on Wednesday and Thursday, according to data from Farside Investors. 

Investors had started the week by selling close to $90 million in shares but then bought nearly $119 million on Tuesday. 

The rest of the week has seen outflows following news that the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates. Other negative news includes the price of Brent crude jumping following renewed attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. 

U.S. President Trump also hinted that talks with Iran weren’t bearing fruit — a sign war in the Middle East could continue. 

Bitcoin’s price recently stood at a little over $82,688, down more than 3% over a seven-day period. The leading cryptocurrency has rebounded slightly over the past day, jumping nearly 2% over 24 hours. 

Still, the coin was fast closing in on $90,000 last week. Investors are expecting decent returns as the month dubbed “Uptober” has historically delivered for bitcoin speculators. 

The price of bitcoin has been particularly sensitive to geopolitical headwinds this year — especially since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, leading to an oil price surge. 

Oil prices going up tend to lead investors to bet on the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. And with higher interest rates comes less liquidity for the price of bitcoin to do well. 

Still, that’s not always the case: the Fed last month talked tough on getting inflation down and raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point and bitcoin’s price rose in the following days. 

Bitcoin’s price is 34% below the all-time high of $126,080 it touched in October. It has spent most of 2026 in a bear market but analysts are now increasingly pointing to evidence of a bull market following a rally in August and September. 

This post Bitcoin ETFs Shed $729M in Two Days as Investors Reverse Course first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Ledger Warns Buyers Not to Set Up Wallets From Reseller After Users Report Losses

Hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger has said that it is investigating loss of user funds after customers in South East Asia reported issues with devices bought from a reseller. 

The Paris-based company on Friday advised customers who’d bought from vendor CryptoBilis within the last 90 days to not set up their devices. 

Ledger did not reveal how much money users had lost but one blockchain investigator, Specter, wrote on X that he’d traced theft addresses following social media posts and that over $86 million had been lost. 

The issue comes following a number of data breaches this year in the crypto world and a huge hack of popular Coldcard hardware wallet devices in July. 

“Ledger is investigating reports of loss of funds from users in South East Asia who purchased products from a reseller named CryptoBilis,” Ledger said via its support X account. 

Ledger added that it had asked CryptoBilis to pause all sales and shipments of Ledger devices.

“If you have set up your Ledger device, consider moving assets to a new Ledger signer (with new seed). We will continue to inform customers of updates as the investigation progresses,” the company said. 

In a statement to Bitcoin Magazine, Ledger said that based on the information to date, the incident is isolated specifically to this reseller in this specific market. 

“No reports were made of products purchased directly from Ledger, and Ledger’s infrastructure, systems and services were not compromised,” the company added. 

CryptoBilis is a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-based hardware wallet vendor, according to its website. The company did not immediately respond to questions from Bitcoin Magazine. 

The crypto industry is still reeling after hackers in July were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users. 

The products, made by Canadian company Coinkite, had a firmware bug which led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

Galaxy Research said in the months following the attack various attackers were able to exploit the bug independently. 

In a separate incident, hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor last month reported that close to 81,000 customers had their details leaked after its third-party fulfillment partner had data stolen. 

Criminals have been targeting data this year, with scammers getting hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails. 

This post Ledger Warns Buyers Not to Set Up Wallets From Reseller After Users Report Losses first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

UTXO’s Loren Asmus: The $300T Bond Market Is Bitcoin’s Next Frontier

Bitcoin is not a trade, says Loren Asmus of UTXO Management. It is a structural allocation that deserves a place in a portfolio because of its risk-adjusted returns. He shares what he heard at the Bitcoin Treasuries conference, why institutions that get involved tend to stay in, and why education is the real barrier.

Chapters:
0:00 Bitcoin Treasuries Conference: The Mood and Takeaways
1:54 How Institutions Have Reframed Bitcoin Since the ETFs
2:55 From “Getting Laughed At” to a 2.5% Allocation Study
5:15 Volatility, Drawdowns, and Where Bitcoin Fits in a Portfolio
7:09 UTXO’s Hedge Fund and Preferred Income Strategy
8:33 Why the Bond Market Is the Bridge: Bitcoin as a Credit Default Swap on Debasement
9:52 The Real Barrier Is Education, and Where the Money Comes From
12:45 Buying Opportunity or Warning? A Long-Term Allocation View
14:14 Underwriting an Asset With No Cash Flows: The Denominator
16:10 Why Institutions Stay In Once They Buy, and Final Thoughts

This video is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investments in digital assets involve significant risk and may result in loss of capital. Both UTXO Management and BTC Inc., producer of BMTV, are owned by Nakamoto Inc. (NASDAQ: NAKA)

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

This post UTXO’s Loren Asmus: The $300T Bond Market Is Bitcoin’s Next Frontier first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Core developer responds to AI & Quantum Risk

Has AI really changed Bitcoin’s address security, or is it just fear-mongering? Bitcoin Core contributor Antoine Poinsot of Chaincode Labs joins Grace Remington and Sean Hagan to respond to Justin Drake’s viral post. He explains why security researchers need evidence before making claims, and what’s actually at stake with quantum computing risk. He also shares why preparing early matters more than reacting out of fear.

Chapters:
0:00 – Antoine Poinsot Responds to Justin Drake’s Bitcoin Address Security Claims
1:05 – What the Failed Summer Soft Fork Taught Bitcoin
2:35 – BIP 54 Consensus Cleanup: Fixing Long-Standing Bitcoin Bugs
3:44 – Why Bundle Four Fixes Into One Soft Fork
4:53 – Building Consensus to Activate BIP 54
6:53 – How Quantum Theft or Frozen Coins Could Break Trust in Bitcoin
9:08 – BIP 360 vs. BIP 361 vs. P2TR v2
10:38 – Why Hiding Public Keys Behind Hashes Is a Red Herring
11:52 – Lessons From the Coldcard Incident
12:29 – Reducing Single Points of Failure With Multisig and Liana

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

This post Bitcoin Core developer responds to AI & Quantum Risk first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Building the Berkshire Hathaway of Bitcoin | Twenty One Capital CEO Rapha Zagury

Twenty One Capital holds roughly 43,000 Bitcoin but trades at a discount, and CEO Rapha Zagury is working to fix that. He breaks down how to calculate Twenty One’s mNAV, why he doesn’t love the metric for an operating company, and whether share buybacks could be on the table. He also explains how Tether’s backing gives Twenty One permanent capital, a key edge over other treasury companies.

Chapters:
0:00 – Twenty One CEO Rapha Zagury on Building the Berkshire Hathaway of Bitcoin
0:53 – What Twenty One Looks for in Bitcoin Acquisition Targets
3:10 – Twenty One’s Five Pillars and Tether’s Backing
6:57 – mNAV, the 30% Discount and Share Buybacks
9:38 – Would Twenty One Issue Preferred Stock Like Strategy?
11:01 – Building a Bitcoin Capital Markets and Energy Trading Arm
12:48 – Why Bitcoin Is the Best Collateral for Lending
15:49 – Bitcoin’s Strength vs. Gold Amid Macro Uncertainty
19:21 – Institutions as Bitcoin’s Next Big Buyers
21:30 – Hash Rate Bear Market, AI and Bitcoin Mining Opportunities

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

This post Building the Berkshire Hathaway of Bitcoin | Twenty One Capital CEO Rapha Zagury first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Ethereum open interest in Binance’s ETHUSDT futures contract was 2.27% higher in ETH on Thursday, Oct. 8, over the last 48 hours, even though its USDT-denominated value had fallen 6.58%.

Open interest measures outstanding futures exposure. For traders assessing exposure remaining through the price decline, coin quantity separates changes in that exposure from changes in its valuation.

Bitcoin’s futures book provided a different version of the same distinction. Over those matched timestamps, Binance’s BTCUSDT open interest fell 1.45% in BTC units, compared with a 5.97% decline in USDT value. Most of that value decline came from repricing under the accounting method used below.

The common Oct. 6 starting point captures earlier growth as well as Thursday’s contraction. Both open-interest quantities contracted on Oct. 8. From midnight to 21:00 UTC, ETH-denominated exposure fell 2.85% and BTC-denominated exposure fell 3.03%.

Ethereum open interest: more ETH, less USDT value

The ETHUSDT hourly records show open interest rising from 2,279,556 ETH to 2,331,355 ETH across the fixed 69-hour window. Its value fell from approximately 6.175 billion USDT to 5.768 billion USDT.

The BTCUSDT records show quantity declining from 94,297 BTC to 92,927 BTC, while value fell from approximately 8.083 billion USDT to 7.6 billion USDT.

The comparison runs from Oct. 6, 2026, at 00:00 UTC to Oct. 8 at 21:00 UTC. Each series contains 70 matched hourly observations, with timestamps marking period ends under Binance’s open-interest statistics definitions. Percentage changes are calculated by dividing the ending observation by the starting observation, subtracting one and multiplying by 100.

The units matter. Binance describes USDⓈ-M trade size in base-asset quantity and its perpetual products as linear contracts quoted and settled in stablecoins. For ETHUSDT and BTCUSDT, quantity is expressed in ETH and BTC, while the corresponding valuation is in USDT. USDT’s dollar peg makes the latter a useful dollar-value proxy.

Dividing each value by its coin quantity produces an implied valuation per coin. That ratio fell from 2,708 to 2,474 USDT per ETH and from 85,718 to 81,784 USDT per BTC. These are valuations implied by the open-interest records, rather than separately observed spot prices.

Separating quantity from repricing

First changing the outstanding quantity at the initial implied valuation, then repricing that ending quantity, separates the two contributions to the value change.

For ETH, the extra quantity would have added about 140.3 million USDT at the initial implied valuation. Repricing the ending quantity then subtracts about 546.5 million USDT, leaving a net decline of about 406.2 million USDT.

For BTC, the reduction in quantity subtracts about 117.4 million USDT at the initial implied valuation. Repricing subtracts a further 365.6 million USDT, producing the approximately 483 million USDT decline. On this accounting basis, lower valuation explains most of Bitcoin’s decrease.

This order assigns the interaction between quantity and valuation to repricing. Reversing it changes the allocation, while preserving the net change; the contributions are an accounting convention rather than uniquely identified economic causes.

Both quantities contracted on Oct. 8

ETHUSDT entered Oct. 8 with 2,399,634 ETH outstanding and reached 2,331,355 ETH. That midnight-to-21:00 interval shrank the book by 2.85%, yet the ending quantity remained above the Oct. 6 baseline.

BTCUSDT began Thursday at 95,833 BTC and reached 92,927 BTC by 21:00 UTC. That 3.03% contraction was larger than its 1.45% cumulative decline because earlier growth offset part of Thursday’s reduction.

Open interest is a stock of outstanding exposure at a particular time. Liquidations are activity occurring during a period, and new positions can offset closures.

Funding and weekly data answer different questions

The ETH funding history records Oct. 8 settlements of −0.003319% at 00:00 UTC, +0.000509% at 08:00 and +0.002629% at 16:00. The BTC funding history records −0.000992%, −0.001185% and +0.003445% at those same times.

Those are settlement rates eight hours apart. The API decimals are converted to percentages by multiplying by 100, so ETH’s latest observed rate of 0.00002629 becomes 0.002629%.

Under Binance’s funding payment rules, positive funding means longs pay shorts. Both contracts had positive funding at the latest observed Oct. 8 settlement, at 16:00 UTC.

Broader market context also needs its own clock. Trading technology provider Talos’s Oct. 8 State of the Market report labels its main weekly window Oct. 1–7. It reports aggregate open interest rising 5.7% to $46.3 billion for BTC and 0.6% to $27.4 billion for ETH, alongside seven-day liquidations of $366.5 million and $323.3 million, respectively.

Those weekly aggregates cover a broader market scope than the two Binance contracts and end earlier than the fixed Oct. 6–8 comparison. Talos separately notes falling Binance BTC-USDT perpetual open interest into Thursday’s move.

What the remaining exposure means

Binance still had 2.331 million ETH and 92,927.720 BTC represented in these outstanding contracts.

Assessing how vulnerable that exposure is would require separate account, leverage and positioning information.

The next useful distinction is whether coin quantity continues to fall or a lower valuation again drives most of the headline value change.

The post Ethereum open interest rose 2.3% in ETH on Binance as its dollar value fell 6.6% appeared first on CryptoSlate.

OpenAI, Google, and Meta are competing for AI-related internet domains as cryptocurrency firms pursue their own digital naming rights.

The three technology companies are among 13 applicants seeking control of the .agent domain extension, making it one of the most contested names in the latest expansion of the internet's address system.

The competition emerged after the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) revealed 1,615 applications on Oct. 7, marking the first application round for new generic top-level domains since 2012.

OpenAI submitted applications for 15 extensions, including .agent, .agi, .asi, .gpt, .model, .skill, .voice and .mcp, according to the application records.

Alphabet's Google is competing for several of the same names, including .agent and .mcp, while Meta is pursuing .agent alongside extensions associated with its artificial intelligence products.

The competition extends beyond individual brands. Seven applicants are seeking .agi, a reference to artificial general intelligence, while five applications target .mcp, the abbreviation for Model Context Protocol, a standard developed by Anthropic for connecting AI applications with external tools and data.

Anthropic itself applied for just two extensions, .anthropic and .claudeleaving the contested .mcp name to other applicants.

The applications reflect how technology companies are positioning themselves for a future in which AI agents increasingly interact with websites, software services and potentially financial infrastructure.

Operating a successful top-level domain registry could allow a company to manage registrations and collect fees for addresses using that extension, subject to ICANN's rules.

The financial stakes can be substantial. Each standard application carries a $227,000 evaluation fee, and competition for particularly valuable names could eventually lead to auctions.

Google's registry subsidiary paid $25 million to secure .app in a 2015 ICANN auction, illustrating how expensive contested extensions can become.

Crypto firms join the fight for internet naming rights

The competition has also drawn cryptocurrency companies seeking extensions associated with digital assets, blockchain networks and online payments.

ICANN's preliminary contention data shows 11 applications for .bit, making it one of the most contested individual names alongside .agent.

Five applicants are seeking.crypto, while .wallet and .dao attracted four applications each. The .bitcoin, .btc and .nft extensions each received two applications.

The interest reflects an effort to secure naming infrastructure that could eventually connect conventional internet addresses with blockchain-based identities and financial services.

The Cardano Foundation said on Oct. 8 that its application for .ada was advancing to the next stage of ICANN's process, potentially bringing the blockchain's name into the global internet domain system.

Frax Finance also disclosed an application for.frax, outlining ambitions to connect internet naming with on-chain ownership, payments and AI-driven commerce.

The applications introduce another dimension to the emerging competition between AI and crypto infrastructure providers, particularly as autonomous software increasingly gains the ability to initiate payments and interact with digital wallets.

However, approval of a crypto-related domain would not automatically enable blockchain transactions or wallet functionality. Such services would require additional technical integrations.

None of the contested domains has been awarded.

The post OpenAI, Google and Meta battle for AI internet domains as crypto firms target .bitcoin and .wallet appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The PancakeSwap pool for 79AU, 79thVault’s token, lost $14.35 million in USDT on Oct. 7 through two selling wallets, according to a Bitquery investigation published Oct. 8.

Bitquery found that 79% of the pool’s liquidity-provider receipts had been burned. But a permission inside 79AU let tokens leave the pool without payment. Those tokens were then sold back for USDT, bypassing the need to redeem a liquidity receipt.

PancakeSwap’s V2 documentation describes LP tokens as receipts representing a provider’s share of a pool. They are separate from the two assets traders exchange inside it.

The exchange’s liquidity guide describes ordinary redemption: a provider selects a share to remove and receives both paired tokens. Sending receipts to an inaccessible address prevents their redemption. It does not disable swaps, since trading exchanges the underlying assets without cashing in a liquidity position.

In PancakeSwap’s archived pair contract, separate operations handle LP redemption, swaps and updating recorded reserves to match token balances. The swap operation checks token input without consuming LP receipts. The reserve-update operation reads balances from the underlying token contracts. Burning LP receipts does not rewrite those contracts’ balance rules or revoke a privileged address’s token permissions.

What remained exposed

At 12:53 UTC on Oct. 8, Bitquery identified two pull-authorized addresses: the deployer and a newly authorized wallet. Read-only simulations from either allowed removal of about 95% of the pool’s remaining 79AU. The read-only tests moved no funds.

The same snapshot showed one wallet holding the unburned 21% of LP receipts, with ordinary redemption rights over that share.

Establishing whether 79AU’s reported exposure has ended requires a fresh check of that transfer permission.

The post Locked liquidity did not stop this $14 million crypto pool drain appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Polygon's surging USDT0 holder count masks shrinking balances and suspected scam activity amid its broader push into stablecoin payments.

An Oct. 7 investigation by blockchain analytics firm Bitquery found that addresses matching scam patterns accounted for 58% of the net growth in Polygon's USDT0 holders since August 2025, raising questions about the quality of adoption figures promoted by the network.

The findings challenge Polygon's recent celebration of surpassing 8.1 million USDT0 holder addresses, the highest among blockchains included in a Token Terminal comparison.

According to Bitquery, roughly 998,000 of the 1.71 million addresses added over the preceding 13 months exhibited patterns associated with address-poisoning scams.

The growth came as USDT0 supply on Polygon fell 41%, from $1.35 billion to $798 million. Addresses holding at least $10 also declined 42%, from approximately 1.24 million to 720,000.

Bitquery found that 48% of holders controlled less than one cent, while 65% had neither sent nor received the token during the preceding year.

The investigation also identified approximately 1.42 million addresses matching an address-poisoning pattern, with sample-based verification supporting an estimate of 1.1 million scam look-alikes.

Address poisoning involves scammers creating wallet addresses that resemble legitimate payment destinations and sending tiny transactions to potential victims, hoping they mistakenly copy the fraudulent addresses when transferring funds.

These addresses can retain fractional token balances, allowing them to count as holders. Bitquery cautioned that its classification was probabilistic and did not quantify losses from the suspected scams.

The findings reflect Polygon's August 2025 upgrade from bridged USDT to native USDT0, which preserved existing token balances and contract addresses. About 67% of current holders first received Tether before the upgrade.

Polygon's payments ambitions face a measurement problem

The findings arrive as Polygon increasingly positions itself as a stablecoin payments network, competing for payment processors, institutional liquidity and cross-border settlement activity.

That strategy has coincided with significant transaction growth.

Blockchain analytics platform Growthepie recently reported that Polygon processed more wallet-to-wallet stablecoin transactions over seven days than Ethereum's mainnet, and more than Base and Arbitrum combined.

The metric excludes decentralized finance contracts, although transfers associated with automated activity, including address poisoning, could still contribute to transaction counts.

Meanwhile, DeFiLlama data shows Polygon holds approximately $2.93 billion in stablecoins, with Circle's USDC accounting for $1.62 billion, or 55.29% of the market.

Tether remains the network's second-largest stablecoin, with approximately $795 million in supply, representing about 27% of the total.

The figures suggest that Polygon's broader stablecoin activity has developed differently from Tether's shrinking capital base, although Bitquery's findings do not establish whether genuine USDT0 payment volumes have declined.

The post Polygon’s 8 million USDT0 holders face scrutiny as 58% of growth matches scam patterns appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A hypothetical strategy of backing the favorite on prediction market Polymarket in every scored 2026 US primary would have lost 4%, even though those candidates won 87% of the time, according to blockchain data provider Bitquery’s scorecard dated Oct. 9. The result separates two questions for election bettors: who is most likely to win, and whether their contract is worth the price.

Bitquery found that the candidate with the highest study reference price won 238 of 273 Senate, House and governor primaries. But its hypothetical strategy of putting $1 on each favorite at the study’s reference price lost four cents per dollar.

The strongest favorites did much of the work behind the headline accuracy rate. Candidates priced at 90 cents or more won 177 of 182 races. Among favorites priced between 50 and 90 cents, however, 71% won despite an average price of 77 cents.

An outcome share pays $1 when it wins and nothing when it loses. Buying an expensive favorite therefore leaves little profit on a winning share, while a losing share wipes out its purchase cost. Enough losses can outweigh many correct calls.

Putting the same dollar amount into every race also buys different numbers of shares. A cheaper winner produces a larger payout for that stake than an expensive winner. Counting correct predictions treats every race equally; calculating returns must account for those different payouts.

Reference prices limit the betting conclusion

Bitquery averaged trades during the 24 hours before 12:00 UTC on voting day. When a candidate had no trade in that window, it used the last trade within the preceding 30 days. For races that went to a runoff, it used the runoff date.

Those averages, and potentially stale fallback trades, are reference prices rather than guaranteed buy quotes at the cutoff. The published methodology does not specify a full adjustment for spreads, slippage or fees. Polymarket’s current fee page lists a politics fee range of 0% to 1%, but does not establish the charges on the historical trades in this sample.

The study excluded nine markets because some settled before voting, some lacked usable prices and one lacked a settlement record. It covered primaries in the 50 states using Polygon trade data, leaving out Polymarket’s US app and other venues such as Kalshi.

For November’s prediction markets, the distinction between forecasting and pricing remains useful. The measured primary record itself may not carry over: Bitquery cautions that general elections attract more money and polling than small, local contests.

The post Backing Polymarket’s primary favorites would have lost 4%, new audit finds. appeared first on CryptoSlate.

First Coldcard, now Ledger. Two months after more than $116 million drained out of Coldcard Bitcoin wallets, the world's best-known hardware wallet is in the spotlight. Since Friday morning, 9 October 2026, users in Southeast Asia have been reporting empty wallets on X and Reddit. On-chain analysts now count more than $86 million that has flowed to a handful of collection addresses. Ledger has confirmed an investigation and halted one of its official distributors: CryptoBilis, a reseller that sells Ledger devices in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The most important point first: based on everything known as of Friday evening, Ledger itself was not hacked. The supply chain was. The trail leads to devices sold through a single middleman. If you bought your Ledger directly from the manufacturer, there is no indication so far that you are affected. For everyone else, there are clear steps, summarised further down.

Ledger Hack: What Happened on 9 October

The first major alert came from the pseudonymous blockchain investigator Specter at 12:24 UTC. He had followed up on reports from Ledger users about drained wallets and published ten collection addresses on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron that, in his view, received funds from hundreds of victim wallets. His total: more than $86 million. A quarter of an hour later he added that he had not yet been able to determine the exact number of affected wallets. A second analyst, tanuki42, puts the losses at more than $72 million and is asking victims to contact the volunteer emergency group SEAL 911. The analytics firm MistTrack spoke of almost $90 million in the afternoon.

The analytics platform Arkham, which now labels the collection addresses "Ledger Theft", shows what the pattern looks like. On Friday morning, the Tron address tagged TBkcU received ten USDT transfers in quick succession, each between $500,000 and $2.4 million. Around midday two more deposits of $740,000 and $508,000 arrived at two other addresses. These are not small investors losing a few hundred dollars. These are wallets in which people kept their savings.

At 13:32 UTC, Ledger responded through its support account. The company said it is investigating reports of losses among users in Southeast Asia who bought products from CryptoBilis. As a precaution it has asked the reseller to pause all sales and shipments of Ledger devices. Anyone who bought there in the past 90 days and has not set up the device yet should not do so. Anyone who already has should move their assets to a new Ledger device with a new seed phrase.

What the statement leaves out is telling: a number, a cause and the word hack. Ledger neither confirms the $86 million nor explains how the seeds ended up in someone else's hands. Neither the total nor the cause has been independently confirmed so far. The only established facts are the halt at the reseller and the advice to its customers.

Part of the loot may still be frozen. According to MistTrack, stablecoin issuer Tether has already frozen USDT on addresses linked to the thefts. How much is affected is unclear. There is no such lever for Bitcoin and Ether: once funds have left, only an exchange can still stop them when the thief tries to cash out.

Update 16:30 UTC: The attacker has started laundering. According to Onchain Lens, 430.2 ETH, roughly $1.07 million, went into the Tornado Cash mixer across four wallets. Following Tether's freezes, the attacker is also swapping USDT into USDD, a Tron stablecoin that Tether cannot freeze. The longer this goes on, the smaller the share of the loot that can still be recovered.

How the Wallets Were Emptied: The Implant Inside the Device

The most concrete explanation so far comes from a man the crypto world knows from a very different context: Mark Karpelès, former head of the Mt. Gox exchange that collapsed in 2014. Karpelès has been examining tampered Ledger devices for weeks and had already shown photos of a modified Nano X in September. On Friday afternoon he put the new cases into context in a series of posts. His description: an extra chip sits inside the casing, reads what appears on the screen, records the seed phrase at the moment the device displays it for you to write down, and transmits it.

The dangerous part: according to Karpelès, such a device passes Ledger's genuine check. The actual secure element is real, it generates the seed correctly and signs properly. It is simply being watched. In his words, the only way to detect the implant is to open the device. Earlier versions gave themselves away with sloppy shrink wrap, the new one is far better made and hidden under the display. The most obvious tell is an antenna cable that looks clearly out of place inside. Ledger has a support page with photos of what the inside of a genuine device should look like, and Karpelès is asking CryptoBilis buyers to open their device and share pictures.

One detail from his posts should alarm anyone who orders hardware wallets online. His own test device had struck him as suspicious because it was listed on Amazon at half price and shipped from Malaysia instead of Japan, where he had ordered it. The origin was the warning sign before he ever opened the case.

Whether every case goes back to an implant is still open. The developer 0xQuit considers it just as possible that some victims fell for phishing, and calls it irresponsible to speak of a Ledger hack. At the same time, security researcher CyberScrilla is warning about a fake Ledger site that ranked at the top of Google Search and, by his account, had more than a million visits in 30 days. It asks for the seed phrase. There is no confirmed link to the $86 million, but the rule applies regardless: a seed phrase never belongs in a website or an app.

It is just as important to understand what this attack is not. It is not a firmware bug like at Coldcard, where a predictable random number generator gave away the seeds. It is not an attack on Ledger's servers and not remote access to every device worldwide. It is an attack on the path a device takes from the factory to you. That is also where the reseller comes in. Whether CryptoBilis itself introduced tampered devices, whether there was an offender in its warehouse, or whether the reseller was itself supplied with counterfeit goods is not known. So far Ledger has only halted sales and has made no accusation.

Ledger in Second Place: Hardware Wallet Incidents of 2026 Compared

How big is this case by comparison? In the afternoon, the on-chain service Chain INK compiled all hardware wallet incidents of the year in one list. Only two of them have demonstrably cost customers money so far: Coldcard and now CryptoBilis. Coldcard is still ahead in total losses at $111 million, and other counts put it as high as $130 million. Less than a day in, the Ledger case already ranks second at $87 million, and the count is still running.

The real difference lies in the second number. At Coldcard, the damage was spread across more than 5,200 wallets, around $21,000 per wallet on average. At CryptoBilis, Chain INK counts 98 wallets, which would mean almost $890,000 on average. Even if Specter's estimate of several hundred victim wallets is confirmed, the average remains many times higher than in the Coldcard case. That fits the pattern of an implant: the attacker knows every seed created on the tampered devices and strikes selectively where it pays off.

Three more entries on the list are left out of the table because they did not hit any customers: two lab attacks using a laser on the chip, at Tangem and on the Trezor Safe 7, and a BitBox02 flaw the manufacturer found and fixed in its own audit. The common thread of the table is a different one. Five of the six incidents did not come through the device but through third parties: a reseller, a fulfilment provider, a shop plug-in, an email provider, a sales partner. On top of that come fake letters with QR codes that have been sent to wallet owners for months. Chain INK sums it up: nobody had to crack a seed phrase this year.

Ledger and the Supply Chain: Not a New Problem

The attack route is not new. In December 2020, unknown actors published the names, postal addresses and phone numbers of around 270,000 Ledger customers from a data breach in the summer of 2020. In spring 2021, customers then received supposed replacement devices by post with a letter from "Ledger". Anyone who opened one found an extra memory chip soldered on. In December 2023 it was the software's turn: a tampered update of the Ledger Connect Kit library redirected wallet connections on numerous DeFi sites for several hours. Tether froze part of the loot back then as well. And in May 2023, the Ledger Recover service, which lets users store encrypted parts of their seed with third parties, cost the company a great deal of trust within its own community.

Each of these cases had a different cause. What they have in common is that the core never failed, meaning the secure element, but everything around it did: customer data, software suppliers, distribution channels. For Ledger, that is more uncomfortable than a firmware bug. A bug in the code can be fixed with an update. A reseller network in which an official partner can ship tampered devices cannot be repaired with an update. How Ledger supervises its authorised resellers is a question the company will have to answer in the coming days.

What CZ Advises, and Why the Tip Does Not Help Here

The most prominent comment of the day came from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, better known as CZ. At 14:01 UTC he wrote that, based on the information so far, it appears to be a supply chain attack at a single vendor, and that a small number of people probably bought fake or tampered Ledgers. In a second post he offered a security tip: leave a new hardware wallet for a couple of weeks before moving any meaningful amount to it, and follow the news during that time.

That sounds sensible but does nothing against this particular attack. An implant that captures the seed phrase during setup knows your wallet from day one. The attacker has no reason to sweep a $50 test transfer and give himself away. He waits until the wallet is worth it. If you test small amounts for two weeks and then move your savings over, you have gained nothing. The only protection is a device that verifiably came straight from the manufacturer.

Then there is the question of who is handing out advice on safe custody. In November 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty in the United States to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering programme at Binance, a violation of the Bank Secrecy Act. He stepped down as CEO of the exchange and paid a $50 million fine, while Binance itself settled with US authorities for $4.3 billion. In 2024 he served four months in prison, and in October 2025 US President Donald Trump pardoned him. Zhao was not charged with fraud. Still, the founder of the largest centralised exchange, a business built on third-party custody, giving self-custody advice is a bold move.

Bought a Ledger? Here Is What You Should Do Now

Whether you need to act depends almost entirely on where your device came from. Go through the following points in order.

Bought from CryptoBilis in the past 90 days, not yet set up: Do not switch it on, do not set it up. Ledger explicitly advises against it. Keep the device, packaging and receipt, and contact Ledger through its official support page.

Bought from CryptoBilis and already set up: Treat your seed phrase as known. Buy a new device directly from the manufacturer, create a new seed on it and move all your coins, and do it now, not after the investigation. Adding a passphrase on the old device is not enough if the implant reads whatever appears on the screen.

Bought on a marketplace, second-hand or at a suspicious discount: The same risk applies, even without CryptoBilis. If you bought through Amazon, eBay, Shopee, Lazada or classified ads, you do not know which route the device took. The same advice applies as above, at least for larger amounts.

Bought directly from Ledger: As things stand, there is no indication that devices from the Ledger shop are affected. Still, check that your device generated a new seed on first start and that no pre-printed recovery card with words was included in the box. A seed you did not create on the device yourself is never yours alone.

Already lost funds: Save the transaction hashes and the address the funds went to, contact SEAL 911 and file a police report. If USDT was lost, also notify Tether through its support, because Tether can freeze balances on attacker addresses as long as they remain there. The faster you act, the better your chances.

If you hold larger sums, consider a multisig setup, meaning a wallet that needs two or three devices from different manufacturers to sign. A single tampered device is then no longer enough for a theft. Which devices are suitable and where to get them directly from the manufacturer is shown in our hardware wallet comparison. After the Coldcard case we also explained in detail which hardware wallet you can still buy with a clear conscience.

Why We Do Not Ship Hardware Wallets

This case shows why the distribution route matters as much as the device. CryptoTicker does not sell or ship hardware wallets. Our comparisons and product pages describe the devices, and the purchase happens with the provider. For Ledger, OneKey and Tangem, the buy button leads directly to the manufacturer's official shop, so the device goes from the manufacturer to you without any stop in between. After today, exactly this route, with no third-party warehouse in between, is the most important property when buying a hardware wallet. A discount of a few dollars at a middleman is no compensation for the risk that someone opened the case before you.

What You Should Take Away From the Ledger Case

Two of the best-known hardware wallets in two months, both times damage in the region of $100 million, and both times the failure was not where the marketing promises security. At Coldcard it was randomness, at Ledger, as things stand, it is the route from the factory to the customer. None of this is an argument against self-custody. On an exchange your funds would face entirely different risks. What follows is that a hardware wallet is only as secure as its origin and the moment the seed is created.

Three rules remain. Only buy directly from the manufacturer. Always create the seed yourself and never accept one that was already in the box. And spread large holdings so that a single device cannot give everything away. Ledger has promised updates on its investigation. We will update this article as soon as the cause and the size of the losses are confirmed.

Bitcoin traded at around $83,100 at midday on Friday, October 9, 2026 (CoinMarketCap). On Thursday the price had slipped as far as $80,337, its lowest level since mid-September. Standard Chartered, the British bank, is nonetheless sticking to its year-end target of $100,000. For the Bitcoin price prediction that leaves a gap of some 20 percent to close by December 31, with ETF investors currently withdrawing money rather than adding to their positions.

$729 million out in two days

US spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $484.9 million on Wednesday, October 7, and a further $244.1 million on Thursday, according to daily data from Farside Investors. BlackRock’s iShares fund alone saw $207.7 million pulled on Wednesday; on Thursday the largest single outflow was the $197.1 million that left Fidelity’s fund. October therefore stands at roughly $407 million of net outflows after six trading days, following the $2.65 billion of inflows September had delivered.

We set out why the price dropped below $81,000 on Thursday in our report on the crypto crash. The reasons behind that first large day of outflows are covered in our analysis of the ETF withdrawals.

Standard Chartered: $100,000 by year-end

Geoffrey Kendrick, head of digital assets at Standard Chartered, confirmed his year-end target of $100,000 at the end of September, Yahoo Finance reported. The figure is already the product of two cuts: for the end of 2025 Kendrick had called for $200,000. Bitcoin missed each of his year-end targets for 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Measured against today’s price, reaching $100,000 would require a gain of a good 20 percent over barely 12 weeks. That is not out of the question. In the third quarter the price rose from $58,566 to $83,576, a gain of roughly 43 percent in three months (daily closing prices, CoinMarketCap). Back then, however, billions were arriving through the ETFs month after month. That tailwind has been missing so far in October.

Bitcoin price prediction: the levels on the chart

Around $87,100 is the level on the upside. Bitcoin reached it intraday on October 2 and has not traded higher since the summer. From today’s price that is just under 5 percent away. Only a close above it would show that buyers have regained the upper hand after the pullback.

Around $80,300 is the level on the downside, Thursday’s intraday low. The 50-day moving average runs just below it at roughly $79,800. If that zone holds, Thursday’s slide was a pullback within the uptrend that has been in place since the summer.

Around $75,800 is where the 200-day moving average sits; we calculated both lines from daily closing prices. Should the zone around $80,000 give way, that would be the next support, roughly 9 percent below today’s price.

Two paths to year-end

The path to $100,000 runs through the funds. If ETF flows turn positive again and bitcoin closes above $87,100, the $100,000 mark comes within reach. Bitcoin last traded there in mid-November 2025. The record high of a good $126,000, set on October 6, 2025, sits roughly 52 percent above today’s price and belongs to a different order of magnitude for this year.

The path back below $80,000 opens if the outflows persist. The 200-day moving average around $75,800 then comes into view, and the bank’s target slides into next year, as it did in each of the three years before.

What this means for investors in Europe

US spot bitcoin ETFs are generally not directly tradable for retail investors in Germany. If you want to buy bitcoin itself, our comparison of bitcoin savings plans lists the providers and their fees. A savings plan spreads entry over time and takes the question of the right day out of the equation, which matters in a week like this one.

On tax, the holding period still applies: in Germany, gains on bitcoin held for more than a year are tax-free. The Bundestag rejected a motion to abolish that period on Thursday, and we have summarised the details of the vote. If you still hold bitcoin bought at last year’s peak, our article on bitcoin tax explains what matters now when it comes to losses.

Bitcoin: What to take away

Three points sum up the situation. First, the $100,000 target stands, but it assumes a gain of a good 20 percent in twelve weeks, and Kendrick’s year-end targets came in too high three years running. Second, ETF flows turned in October: after $2.65 billion of inflows in September, $729 million left in two days. Third, as long as the zone around $80,000 holds, the uptrend since July is intact, and a close above $87,100 would be the signal for the next leg.

Whether entering at the current price is worthwhile is assessed in our analysis Is bitcoin a good buy at current prices? Crypto assets are highly volatile and a total loss is possible. This article is not a recommendation to buy or sell bitcoin.

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.

Bitcoin bounced after dipping to around $80,000. Traders are placing increasingly high odds BTC slips further before October is over.

Starknet is "actively considering" becoming its own blockchain, a move it says would make it the first fully quantum-resistant network by 2027.

The DWF Labs-linked firms allege in London’s High Court that BitGo sold discounted Falcon Finance and ESPORTS tokens roughly two months before their lock-up expired, cratering the value of their remaining holdings.

Mashinsky owes New York $25 million if he fails to forfeit another $10 million, and $10 million more if he doesn't serve his full sentence.

Ledger asked reseller CryptoBilis to pause sales and urged recent buyers not to set up their devices, as an onchain investigator tracked more than $86 million in suspected thefts.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao advises a two-week freeze on new devices after an $86 million exploit hits Ledger.

Ethereum reserve on Binance drops to its six-month low with over 10 million ETH withdrawn from the exchange in just three days.

Shiba Inu sees rare pause in token-burning activity, with $0 SHIB burned within timeframe.

As XRP rules commodities tokenization, Stellar flips Ethereum in RWA fund growth, capturing record inflows amid a $4 billion surge.

Crypto hardware wallet maker Ledger is investigating reports of stolen funds linked to an authorized reseller in Malaysia.

TLDR:

• Hinkal joins Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program to advance privacy-focused digital asset payment applications.
• Zero-knowledge proofs help verify transfers without publicly exposing transaction amounts, senders or recipients.
• Existing integrations include Polygon Wallet, Tether’s Wallet Development Kit, Turnkey and Avvio.
• Screening and viewing keys aim to balance transaction confidentiality with regulatory and audit requirements.

Hinkal has joined Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program, bringing blockchain privacy infrastructure into a global payments initiative focused on digital assets. The partnership connects Hinkal with Mastercard’s ecosystem as stablecoins expand into payments, settlements, and commercial transactions.

Hinkal provides infrastructure that allows platforms to process private stablecoin transfers without exposing transaction amounts or counterparty relationships publicly. Its technology uses zero-knowledge proofs to verify transfers while keeping sensitive transaction details confidential. 

The integration could help businesses explore onchain payments without making their financial activity visible to everyone on public blockchains.

Hinkal Brings Privacy to Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program

Mastercard’s Crypto Partner Program connects blockchain companies with its payments teams and a broader network of industry participants. Members include stablecoin issuers, blockchain infrastructure providers, crypto card enablers and companies supporting digital asset transactions.

According to an announcement, the initiative supports practical digital asset applications through partner collaboration, industry connections and go-to-market opportunities. Selected members can also access financial institutions across Mastercard’s issuing and acquiring network, alongside regulatory and compliance support.

For Hinkal, joining the program creates an opportunity to bring confidential transaction infrastructure into payment products. Rather than requiring companies to build privacy systems independently, Hinkal allows wallets and platforms to integrate its technology through software development kits (SDKs) and APIs.

The infrastructure supports private settlements and payouts across fintech platforms, payment providers and wallets. Hinkal operates across Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, TRON and other major EVM-compatible networks.

Existing integrations demonstrate how the technology can fit into products already serving users. 

Polygon Wallet offers Private Send powered by Hinkal, while Tether’s Wallet Development Kit includes its private-send functionality. Turnkey wallets can also integrate privacy through Hinkal’s SDK, and Avvio operates private payments through its interface.

These integrations allow partner platforms to maintain their products while adding transaction confidentiality as a feature.

Why Does Stablecoin Payment Privacy Matter?

Stablecoins can transfer value around the clock, but public blockchain transactions can expose financial relationships and payment amounts. That transparency may create challenges for businesses handling payroll, supplier payments, treasury movements and other commercially sensitive transactions.

Hinkal addresses this issue through zero-knowledge proofs, which allow a network to verify transfers without publicly revealing their underlying details. Its system keeps transaction amounts, senders and recipients confidential from public observers.

However, privacy does not mean eliminating compliance oversight. Hinkal says funds undergo screening before entering its system, while viewing keys allow users and businesses to share transaction histories with authorized auditors or regulators.

This approach aims to balance confidentiality with the oversight required for regulated financial activity. It could prove useful as payment providers explore stablecoins for cross-border transfers, business transactions and settlement flows.

Mastercard’s program provides a framework for connecting these technical capabilities with established payment infrastructure. However, Hinkal’s membership does not itself confirm a direct Mastercard product integration or a commercial launch.

The post Mastercard Adds Hinkal as Stablecoin Privacy Takes Center Stage appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• More than $86 million in reported crypto losses are linked to suspected fake or tampered Ledger wallets.
• Ledger told reseller CryptoBilis to pause sales and shipments while the investigation continues.
• On-chain analyst Specter traced funds across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and TRON from hundreds of victim wallets.
• CZ described the incident as a suspected localized supply chain attack, not a confirmed Ledger-wide exploit.

Ledger is investigating more than $86 million in reported cryptocurrency losses involving users in Southeast Asia who purchased hardware wallets from reseller CryptoBilis. The affected devices are suspected of being counterfeit or tampered with before reaching customers.

Ledger has instructed CryptoBilis to suspend sales and shipments while the investigation continues.

On-chain analyst Specter traced stolen funds across Ethereum, TRON, and Bitcoin, identifying inflows from hundreds of victim wallets. The findings point to a possible supply chain attack involving one reseller, rather than a vulnerability affecting Ledger hardware wallets across the board. 

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, also warned users who recently purchased Ledger devices.

How the Ledger Hardware Wallet Attack May Have Happened

The reported incident raises concerns about how compromised hardware wallets can expose crypto holdings. 

Hardware wallets typically keep private keys offline, reducing their exposure to internet-based attacks. However, that protection depends on users receiving genuine devices that have not been manipulated.

If counterfeit or tampered devices were distributed through a reseller, attackers could potentially compromise wallet security before customers began using them. 

The provided information does not establish exactly how the suspected devices enabled the reported thefts. Ledger’s investigation will need to determine the compromise method and identify the affected products.

Specter’s on-chain analysis identified multiple theft addresses receiving funds from victims across three major blockchain networks. 

The identified addresses include Bitcoin addresses beginning with bc1q, TRON addresses beginning with T, and Ethereum addresses beginning with 0x. This cross-chain activity suggests the reported losses extend beyond a single cryptocurrency.

The scale of the incident remains significant, with reported losses exceeding $86 million. However, the available information does not provide a final breakdown by blockchain, the number of confirmed victims, or the total amount recovered.

What Ledger Users Should Know About the $86M Crypto Theft

Ledger’s instruction to CryptoBilis to pause sales and shipments represents a precautionary response while the investigation proceeds. It does not establish that Ledger’s entire hardware wallet product line has been compromised. 

CZ similarly described the available evidence as pointing toward a localized supply chain attack involving one vendor.

For cryptocurrency holders, the incident highlights a security risk that extends beyond software vulnerabilities and exchange breaches. Purchasing hardware wallets through trusted channels can help reduce exposure to counterfeit products. 

Users should also follow official manufacturer guidance when verifying devices and setting up wallets.

Anyone concerned about a recently purchased device should avoid entering existing recovery phrases into unverified software or websites. A recovery phrase can provide direct access to the funds controlled by a wallet. 

Users who suspect compromise should follow official security guidance and consider moving assets to a verified, secure wallet.

The investigation also highlights the role of blockchain analysis in tracing stolen cryptocurrency across networks. Specter identified multiple addresses associated with the reported thefts, giving investigators potential leads for tracking fund movements. 

CZ said he expects industry participants to help trace and recover the assets.

For now, the key distinction is between a suspected reseller-level compromise and a confirmed vulnerability in Ledger’s broader hardware wallet systems. The investigation must establish how the devices were compromised, how many users were affected, and whether any funds can be recovered.

The post Ledger Investigates $86M Crypto Losses Linked to Suspected Fake Wallets appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Netflix (NFLX) stock gains 0.54% to $71.96 as reports of workforce cuts emerge.
• Netflix reportedly plans to cut 5% of its global workforce as early as next week.
• The proposed layoffs could mark Netflix’s largest workforce reduction since 2022.
• Growing competition from YouTube pushes Netflix to review its operating costs.
• Netflix’s October 20 earnings could provide more details on restructuring plans.

Netflix (NFLX) stock gained 0.54% to $71.96 on Friday morning, adding $0.39 after recovering from earlier lows near $70.40. The increase followed reports that Netflix plans to reduce its global workforce by approximately 5%. The reported restructuring comes as the streaming company faces stronger competition and prepares for its upcoming earnings report.

Netflix, Inc., NFLX

Netflix Plans Workforce Reduction as Restructuring Takes Shape

Netflix plans to eliminate approximately 5% of its workforce, with an announcement possible next week. Reuters reported the development on Friday, citing the original report and people familiar with the plans. Netflix declined to comment when Reuters requested confirmation of the proposed workforce reduction.

Netflix employed approximately 16,000 full-time workers at the end of 2025, according to company figures. Based on that headcount, the proposed reduction could affect approximately 800 employees across its global operations. The company has not disclosed which departments or locations would face reductions under the reported restructuring plan.

The potential cuts would mark Netflix’s largest workforce reduction since its restructuring efforts in 2022. During that period, the company eliminated hundreds of positions after subscriber losses disrupted its expansion plans. Those layoffs followed slower revenue growth and changes in consumer demand across the streaming industry.

Netflix Faces Growing Competition Across Streaming Services

Netflix continues to compete with established streaming platforms and digital entertainment services for audience attention. Meanwhile, YouTube has expanded its share of viewing activity and advertising spending across the entertainment market. Traditional media companies have also pursued consolidation as they seek stronger positions in digital distribution.

In response, Netflix has expanded its operations beyond traditional subscription streaming to diversify revenue sources. The company has increased its investment in advertising services, live programming, and gaming experiences. These businesses provide additional growth opportunities as competition places greater pressure on subscription-based services.

Netflix also pursued a reported $72 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, although the proposed transaction collapsed. The unsuccessful deal marked a departure from the company’s longstanding focus on expanding through internal development. Its reported restructuring now places renewed attention on operating expenses and the efficiency of existing businesses.

Netflix Expands Technology Investment Ahead of Earnings

Netflix acquired InterPositive, an artificial intelligence filmmaking company founded by Ben Affleck, in March 2026. Bloomberg reported that the transaction could reach $600 million, including payments linked to future performance. The acquisition supports Netflix’s efforts to improve production workflows and expand its technical capabilities.

InterPositive develops tools that help filmmakers modify existing footage during the post-production process. Its technology supports background adjustments and object removal without requiring teams to recreate entire scenes. Netflix has not established any connection between this acquisition and the reported workforce reductions.

The company will release its next earnings report on October 20, providing another update on business performance. Management will also have an opportunity to address operating costs, growth priorities, and developments across its services. Until Netflix confirms the reported restructuring, the timing and final scale of the potential layoffs remain unannounced.

The post Netflix (NFLX) Stock: Rises as 5% Workforce Cuts Loom appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR) stock rebounds 1.85% to $9.90 in pre-market trade.
• Bitdeer AI secures an eight-year agreement for a new 60MW data center in Malaysia.
• The new A103 facility will expand Bitdeer’s Malaysian AI Cloud capacity to 71.5MW.
• Bitdeer reaches 95% of its 350MW AI Cloud capacity target ahead of its 2028 goal.
• Bitdeer AI secures over 70% customer commitments for its upcoming Malaysian facility.

Bitdeer Technologies Group (BTDR) stock rebounded Friday after its AI division announced a major data center expansion in Malaysia. Shares gained 1.85% to $9.90 in pre-market trading, recovering $0.18 after Thursday’s 6.54% decline to $9.72. The company secured an eight-year agreement for a 60MW facility, expanding its infrastructure for high-performance computing services.

Bitdeer Technologies Group, BTDR

Bitdeer AI Secures 60MW Data Center Agreement in Malaysia

Bitdeer AI signed an eight-year data center services agreement covering its new A103 facility in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. The project will add 60MW of computing capacity to the company’s existing campus. Furthermore, the facility will support liquid-cooled NVIDIA systems designed for large-scale computing workloads.

The company plans to equip A103 with infrastructure supporting NVIDIA’s next-generation Vera Rubin platform. Bitdeer expects to energize the facility during the first quarter of 2028. Meanwhile, the project will use existing power, cooling, and networking infrastructure to support deployment.

A103 will operate alongside the company’s A101 and A102 facilities at the Cyberjaya campus. Together, the three facilities will provide approximately 71.5MW of cloud computing capacity. This expansion strengthens Bitdeer’s Malaysian operations while increasing infrastructure available for future customer contracts.

Bitdeer Technologies Group Expands Secured Capacity to 333.5MW

The latest agreement increases Bitdeer AI’s secured data center capacity to approximately 333.5MW. Its facilities span Malaysia, Norway, and the United States under ownership arrangements or executed service agreements. Consequently, the company has secured approximately 95% of its planned 350MW capacity target.

Bitdeer aims to deliver its targeted computing capacity by the first quarter of 2028. The company continues developing infrastructure to accommodate growing demand for advanced computing services. Its active pipeline for cloud capacity now exceeds an estimated $10 billion.

According to Chief Financial Officer Michael G. Potter, the Malaysian expansion supports the company’s infrastructure development schedule. Existing campus resources will help Bitdeer streamline construction and equipment deployment. The company also plans to reserve additional computing capacity for customers seeking next-generation systems in 2028.

NVIDIA Deployment Supports Malaysian Cloud Expansion

Separately, Bitdeer AI has secured customer commitments covering more than 70% of capacity at its upcoming Malaysian cloud facility. These agreements will support a multiyear revenue backlog linked to infrastructure services. The commitments provide contracted demand ahead of the facility’s planned operational launch.

Bitdeer AI is also procuring NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 systems for its Malaysian operations. The equipment will expand GPU computing resources and support larger customer workloads. Furthermore, the deployment forms part of the company’s broader effort to increase scalable computing capacity.

Bitdeer continues expanding beyond its existing operations into cloud infrastructure and advanced computing services. Its Malaysian projects combine contracted capacity, new equipment, and established infrastructure to support that expansion. The latest 60MW agreement advances its 2028 development target as BTDR stock recovers from Thursday’s decline.

The post Bitdeer (BTDR) Stock: Secures 60MW AI Cloud Expansion in Malaysia appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• DELL stock reached $580 on October 9, extending its year-to-date gain to about 361%.
• Goldman Sachs maintained its Buy rating and $570 target despite ongoing AI hardware supply constraints.
• Dell booked $60.9 billion in AI server orders and ended the latest quarter with a $95 billion backlog.
• Trump’s brokerage account sold up to $1 million in Dell shares during August, according to disclosures.

Dell Technologies (DELL) stock rose to $580 on Friday as Goldman Sachs maintained its Buy rating and $570 price target. Shares gained 0.95% during early trading, extending their 361% year-to-date rally despite new disclosures showing President Donald Trump’s account sold Dell shares. The latest developments follow a period of strong AI server demand, which has supported Dell’s earnings growth and rising valuation.

DELL Stock Trades Above Goldman Sachs’ $570 Price Target

Goldman Sachs analyst Katherine Murphy reiterated her Buy rating on Dell Technologies, citing continued demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure. The bank maintained its $570 price target despite concerns about memory shortages and limited supplies of other computer components.

Murphy expects these constraints to continue into 2027, although Dell’s purchasing scale could help it manage supply pressures. At $580, DELL stock traded approximately 1.8% above Goldman’s target, following a gain of $5.45 from Thursday’s closing price.

The shares remained below their 52-week high of $595.51, while Dell’s market capitalization stood near $365.31 billion. The company’s latest financial results provide context for the rating, as demand for AI servers continues supporting revenue growth. Dell reported $60.9 billion in AI server orders during its fiscal second quarter, bringing its outstanding order backlog to $95 billion.

Quarterly revenue increased 58% from the previous year to approximately $47 billion, while adjusted earnings per share reached $7.04. The company also raised its annual revenue forecast to $192 billion, reflecting stronger demand across its infrastructure business. However, analysts remain divided on the stock’s valuation following its rally.

Recent Wall Street price target revisions show Susquehanna targeting $700, while RBC Capital maintains a $640 objective. TD Cowen has a Hold rating and a $550 target, placing its valuation below the current market price. Earlier analyst expectations for Dell stock also reflected confidence in AI demand, although concerns about valuation remained.

Trump’s Dell Stock Sales Draw Attention as AI Demand Grows

The latest DELL stock gains coincide with financial disclosures showing that President Donald Trump’s brokerage account sold Dell shares in August. According to a federal ethics filing released October 8, the account sold between $500,001 and $1 million in Dell stock on August 21. A second transaction on August 28 involved another $15,001 to $50,000 in shares.

The disclosures followed several public statements in which Trump encouraged Americans to purchase Dell computers. Trump’s account previously purchased between $1 million and $5 million in Dell shares during February, before the stock’s subsequent rally.

However, the White House said the president does not personally direct investment decisions within the accounts. Spokesman Davis Ingle said the holdings are independently managed through discretionary arrangements and computer-based trading models.

The Trump Organization also stated that neither Trump nor his family approves individual transactions. The disclosures follow earlier attention surrounding Trump’s public support for Dell, including statements made during the launch of Trump Accounts.

Meanwhile, Dell’s operating performance remains closely tied to spending on AI data centers and enterprise computing infrastructure. Recent Dell stock analyst upgrades have reflected expectations that the company’s AI server backlog will support future revenue.

For Dell stock, the next financial results will provide further evidence of how quickly those orders convert into sales. Memory shortages, delivery schedules, and profit margins will also remain important measures as Dell works through its outstanding orders.

The post DELL Stock Hits $580 as Goldman Sachs Maintains Buy Rating Despite Trump’s Share Sales appeared first on Blockonomi.

Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet has rebuffed fears that AI could break Bitcoin’s cryptography in the coming months.

He said there is no sign of an imminent breakthrough that could break the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), the cryptographic system used to secure Bitcoin transactions.

Is Fear Overblown?

Guillemet went on to explain that if asymmetric cryptography were broken, “Bitcoin will be the least of our problems.” Internet security, banking systems, secure communications, and critical infrastructure could all face serious problems. While he admitted that recent mathematical advances are impressive, the exec said they do not represent a practical breakthrough against ECDSA.

“And if your logic is that nothing can be trusted until it’s proven unbreakable, congratulations. By that standard, nothing is safe, including hashes.”

Guillemet urged people to follow cryptography research and take potential risks seriously. But he warned against treating theoretical progress as a sign that a cryptographic crisis is just months away.

The comments come after Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake made a startling warning about the potential risks AI poses to cryptography. Drake urged the industry to calmly prepare for “bunker mode” and said crypto holders should consider moving funds to fresh addresses whose public keys have never been exposed. He believes ECDSA could potentially be broken within months rather than years.

Drake cited recent mathematical breakthroughs and OpenAI’s latest release as reasons to take the risk seriously. However, he added that holders should not rush into moving their assets, while warning that a hurried migration could do more harm than good. The researcher called on major crypto platforms to strengthen their cold storage security and urged the industry to accelerate its shift towards hash-based cryptography. He said the industry should prepare without panicking.

Theoretical Threats Can Wait

While Vitalik Buterin also believes that the rapid progress in AI-assisted mathematics could pose new risks to existing cryptographic systems, he warned against rushing into wallet migrations. The Ethereum co-founder asserted that moving funds without proper planning could create fresh risks for users.

Meanwhile, prominent Bitcoin developer and Casa co-founder Jameson Lopp said that worrying about cryptographic breaks is getting ahead of ourselves. He added that the industry has “much more pressing actual issues to deal with.”

“Theoretical future problems can wait.”

The post AI, ECDSA, and Bitcoin’s Endgame? Ledger CTO Pushes Back Against Cryptographic Apocalypse Predictions appeared first on CryptoPotato.

What goes up must come down, right? Bitcoin and the crypto market certainly proved that thesis right in the past week after gaining serious traction in late August and September.

Our Market Update from last Friday showed a 2% increase in the largest cryptocurrency, which traded near $86,000 at the time. The first signs of weakness occurred later that night when the asset tumbled below $84,000. Nevertheless, it recovered to over $84,000 on Saturday and climbed to $85,000 on Sunday. It even tried to take down the familiar yet stubborn resistance level at $87,000 on Monday morning, but to no avail.

That’s where the actual troubles began. In the following hours, bitcoin dipped to $85,000 but quickly rebounded to $86,600. However, that was another fake-out, and the cryptocurrency slumped again: this time, to under $84,000. After another unsuccessful bounce-off, BTC experienced its most severe crash since the mid-August breakout.

In the span of just a day or so, it crumbled to under $80,400, reaching its lowest price tag since September 21. We dived into what could have brought this decline and found at least six reasons, which you can read in this article. Some of them include substantial profit-taking, ETF outflows, macro developments, and the FUD started by major transfers from wallets linked to the US government.

After losing nearly $7,000 in days, BTC was due for a more profound rebound, which took place today, with the asset climbing to over $83,000 as of press time. However, it remains to be seen whether this is another dead-cat bounce or an actual recovery.

The weekly scale is still in the red, though, with BTC dropping by over 3%. ETH has slumped by more than 8%, XRP is down by 8.6%, while ZEC, DOGE, LINK, RAIN, XLM, and BCH have marked double-digit declines. Naturally, the total crypto market cap has plummeted by over $150 billion since last Friday.

Next week is expected to be even more volatile as the CPI numbers for September will be announced on Wednesday.

Market Data

Market Cap: $3.050T | 24H Vol: $113B | BTC Dominance: 56.6%

BTC: $85,670 (+1.9%) | ETH: $2,710 (+0.4%) | XRP: $1.51 (-4.8%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

These 3 Factors Could Shape Bitcoin’s Post-Midterm Performance. The US midterm elections are right around the corner, and history shows BTC has overperformed in the first 12 months after they conclude. However, XWIN Japan warned that past gains do not necessarily translate into a repeat.

Charles Hoskinson Disputes Vitalik Buterin’s Warning Against Lattice Cryptography. In a verbal debate on X, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson disputed Vitalik Buterin’s concerns over lattice-based cryptography, suggesting that there’s no credible attack that has been identified against it. Hoskinson argued that hash-based cryptography is not inherently safer.

While America’s CLARITY Stalls, Russia’s Crypto Market Gets Official Operators. Although the US failed to move forward with the CLARITY Act, Russia has registered its first digital asset operators, marking a significant move toward a more regulated crypto market overseen by the local central bank.

Arthur Hayes: AI Is Overbuilt, and Bitcoin Could Benefit From It. The former CEO of BitMEX doubled down on his belief that the AI industry is overcrowded and predicted a crash in data centers that can ultimately benefit BTC.

Metaplanet Sold 10,000 BTC – Then Bought Back Even More: Here’s Why. In its Q3 filing, the largest Asian corporate holder of BTC said it had sold 10,000 units during that period. However, it bought back 11,000 (at slightly higher prices) and said the idea was to prove that its treasury can be easily converted to cash if necessary.

3 in a Row: Strategy Ramps Up Bitcoin Purchases as Holdings Hit 848,000 BTC. The overall largest corporate holder of the cryptocurrency announced its third purchase in a row and, perhaps more importantly, its bitcoin stash reached a new all-time high of 848,000 units.

Charts

This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.

The post Bitcoin Crashes, Strategy’s BTC Stash Hits Record High, CPI Looms: Weekly Crypto Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Today, we examine Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid in greater detail.

Ethereum (ETH)

This week, the broad crypto market entered a correction. ETH was no different, closing the week 9% lower. The price may also test the support at $2,400 soon if sellers continue to maintain the pressure.

This correction comes after Ethereum tested the resistance at $2,800 and failed to break above it. This highlights that the bullish momentum is losing its strength, which could provide bears with an opportunity to take over, even if for a short period.

Looking ahead, Ethereum may continue to correct in the near term, but on a macro scale the price action remains bullish with clear higher highs and lows. The only unknown is for how long sellers will control the price action before bulls make a return.

Ripple (XRP)

After another failed breakout at the $1.6 resistance, XRP entered a pullback and retraced by 10% this week alone. If nothing changes, then the price could easily return to the $1.3 support, which is the closest level where buyers could be interested again.

This cryptocurrency has to stay above $1.3 if it wants to maintain a bullish bias long term. Losing that support level would turn the chart bearish and see it fall back towards $1. Hopefully buyers will not allow it.

Looking ahead, wait for XRP to test and confirm $1.3 as support before taking any action, since buyers need to prove themselves again if they want this cryptocurrency to eventually break above $1.6.

Cardano (ADA)

After the recent breakout above $0.23, ADA tested this key level during its ongoing pullback, closing the week down by 7%. So far, this support held well, and buyers could consolidate here before their next major move.

If bulls continue to perform this month, then the next key target will be found at $0.33, which can act as a magnet for buyers. Since July, any pullback in Cardano’s price action has been a buy signal.

Looking ahead, ADA’s uptrend in the past few months has been consistent and is likely to continue in the future. However, as the price hits higher and higher targets, the likelihood of a significant correction also increases.

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin is down 5% this week as the price curved down with the rest of the market as soon as it reached $800. The current correction could see the price land on the support at $690.

While this correction is nothing out of the ordinary, bulls will have to hold the price above $690 if they want to maintain the uptrend which began at the end of August.

Looking ahead, BNB made steady gains in the past few months, and this momentum will remain intact as long as the key support is not lost. If so, the next major target for buyers will be found at $900. That’s also a key level where sellers may return in force.

Hype (HYPE)

Hyperliquid has been struggling to break the resistance at $97, and this week, sellers managed to take over and send the price into a correction towards $85. If nothing changes, the price may land on the key support at $76 in the coming weeks.

Due to this price action, HYPE also closed the week 6% lower. While this is nothing major considering its historical volatility, the price is slowly approaching the lower boundary of its uptrend.

Looking ahead, if HYPE fails to hold the price within the uptrend channel, a major correction could be waiting. For that to be confirmed, the support at $76 has to fall. To avoid that, buyers need to return and break the resistance at $97 to finally reach the key psychological level at $100.

The post Crypto Price Analysis Oct-09: ETH, XRP, ADA, BNB, and HYPE appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin holders have taken profits worth $1.03 billion in a single day, in what appears to be the second-highest realized profit recorded in 2026.

According to Santiment, the figure came close to this year’s peak of $1.04 billion, following Bitcoin’s recent climb above $87,000.

Profit-Taking Surges

The spike suggests many investors are cashing in on recent gains. Santiment’s network realized profit and loss metric tracks the gains or losses investors lock in when Bitcoin moves on-chain. A sharp rise in realized profits can point to increased selling activity across the market.

Such spikes often appear before short- to medium-term market cooling periods. Heavy profit-taking can add pressure on prices, while a further decline may push more traders and leveraged positions to exit. But it is important to note that the latest reading does not confirm a major reversal. The large profit-taking wave suggests Bitcoin’s recent rally is facing a fresh test.

The September rally has lost steam. Bitcoin’s price briefly plunged near $80,300 on Friday. It has since recovered but continued to trade below $82,700. But the transfer of 12,267 BTC from a US government-linked wallet, worth around $1.01 billion, on October 8 further raised concerns about more selling. The stash was seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hacker and moved to unidentified addresses. However, there is no confirmation that the government sold any coins.

On the institutional side of things, US-listed BTC spot ETF flows tumbled as well. These products pulled in around $2.65 billion in net inflows last month, but the trend has reversed in October, and nearly $410 million has flowed out so far. The outflows have especially picked up pace over the past two days. Wednesday saw a significant $487 million leave the market, followed by another $244 million on Thursday.

Breathing Room?

Despite the short-term turbulence, BTC reserves on Binance have continued to drop. Data shows the exchange’s Bitcoin holdings fell from 705,520 on September 21 to 664,831 on October 9. That’s a decline of 40,689 BTC, or 5.77%, in just 18 days. Lower exchange reserves can mean fewer coins are readily available for trading, potentially easing selling pressure if the trend continues.

Meanwhile, Daan Crypto Trades believes that the crypto asset has flushed out a good chunk of leveraged positions. The trader has now identified $83,000 as a crucial level to watch. A move back above it could bring the mid-range and recent highs back into play, with plenty of liquidity still sitting above $87,000. But if it fails to break through $83,000, bears could stay in control.

The post Bitcoin Sees Second-Biggest Profit-Taking Day of 2026 After Climbing Past $87K appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin tanked from $87,000 to under $81,000 in just a few days and dragged almost all altcoins with it. As typically happens, those with over-leveraged positions got the worst of it, as the excessive open interest was attributed to the quick price moves.

Lookonchain highlighted several large positions caught in the volatility, including an Ethereum whale that lost almost $70 million and AguilaTrades, whose trading return ended with losses on both sides.

$70M ETH Position Wrecked

Let’s begin with the biggest whale caught in the net of the market crash. An anonymous trader with a massive long position of 28,716 ETH was wiped out during the crash, with the greenback equivalent of $69.69 million. What’s even more impressive is that the whale has not abandoned the bullish bet.

According to the on-chain resource, the trader subsequently opened another ETH long and now holds 78,955 ETH (worth over $195 million) in a fresh leveraged position. The new liquidation levels sit at just under $2,300. It’s worth noting that the altcoin tanked from over $2,700 to $2,400 before it rebounded by around a grand and now sits at around $2,500.

Machi (Machi Big Brother) has lost $8.44 million over the past week, pushing his account value to under $1 million. As of press time, he still holds a 9,950 ETH long position worth over $24.6 million, with the liquidation price sitting at $2,431.

AguilaTrades’ Unsuccessful Return

Lookonchain further updated on the return of AguilaTrades. After more than six months on the sidelines, the trader opened a BTC long. However, he was caught by the market crash as well and closed the position at a $331,000 loss. He changed his mind and opened a 40x short on 200 BTC worth roughly $16.35 million.

The market, though, flipped the script. Shortly after he turned bearish, the short position was wrecked, leaving him caught on the wrong side of both market moves. The latest update from the analytics resource indicated that his total losses for the day stand at $545,000.

AguilaTrades(@AguilaTrades) returned to trading after more than 6 months of inactivity, only to get liquidated and lose $545K in just one day.

Poor guy!
https://t.co/2FywxlntZA https://t.co/j10B3v7brK

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 9, 2026

The post One Whale Lost Nearly $70M in ETH – Another Got Wrecked Long and Short appeared first on CryptoPotato.