Big Tech's AI-driven borrowing surge may strain financial stability, prompting investor caution and potential reevaluation of credit risks.

The post Big Tech is borrowing hundreds of billions for AI, and bond investors are getting cautious appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The proposed tax on crypto swaps in France may dampen investor sentiment, impacting Bitcoin's market outlook and regulatory landscape.

The post French finance panel backs taxing Bitcoin-to-stablecoin swaps in 2027 budget appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

AI's potential to exploit software vulnerabilities highlights the urgent need for robust security measures across blockchain ecosystems.

The post Ava Labs explores backup cryptography as Sirer flags AI security risks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Microsoft's Decision-1 AI model could revolutionize decision-making processes by enhancing efficiency and reliability in business operations.

The post Microsoft launches Decision-1, an AI model built to make fast calls appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Investor confusion over revenue metrics highlights the complexities of financial reporting, impacting market perceptions and IPO valuations.

The post OpenAI and Anthropic count revenue differently, and investors are confused appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

‘We Know Where It Is’: Treasury Secretary Threatens To Freeze $1B of Iran’s Crypto

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the American authorities will soon seize $1 billion in crypto from Iran. 

Speaking on Newsmax’s NPolicy Summit in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Bessent added that economic sanctions on the Middle Eastern country were working. 

Iran has been using bitcoin — and other cryptocurrencies — to skirt around U.S. sanctions. The U.S. in April started targeting crypto wallets linked to the Iranian regime, Bessent said at the time. 

“What we have done has never been seen before,” Bessent said Thursday on Iranian sanctions. 

“We’re probably going to seize $1 billion of crypto this week,” he continued. “We know where it is. We are isolating them. We did have a maximum pressure campaign, now we have an absolute isolation campaign and it’s working.”

Bessent didn’t reveal what cryptocurrencies the U.S. will seize or how. 

It would be very hard — if not impossible — for the U.S. to freeze Iran’s bitcoin unless it keeps it on a centralized exchange. 

Bitcoin, being censorship resistant, cannot be frozen. But many other cryptocurrencies, including Tether’s USDT, can. Bessent previously said the feds had seized Iran’s crypto in the form of the popular stablecoin. 

Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year.

The Financial Times last month reported that the Middle Eastern country was using bitcoin to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy.    

U.S. President Donald Trump revived his “maximum pressure” campaign weeks after returning to office. A national security memorandum signed in February 2025 put the Treasury on a sustained campaign against Iran’s shadow banking, money laundering and sanctions-evasion networks.

This post ‘We Know Where It Is’: Treasury Secretary Threatens To Freeze $1B of Iran’s Crypto first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Here’s How Not To Screw up Your Bitcoin Privacy

Just one transaction can compromise years of discreet Bitcoin activity, Cake Wallet’s chief operating officer has warned. 

Speaking on the Bitcoin Rails podcast this week, activist Seth for Privacy talked about different ways of protecting one’s privacy when using Bitcoin and said that focusing on privacy was a must for the West. 

Bitcoin privacy is a hot topic again ever since the developers of private coin mixer Samourai Wallet went on trial last year and were subsequently imprisoned. 

But just this week, the U.S. Department of Treasury scrapped two long-stalled crypto surveillance proposals, handing a major win to privacy advocates and the digital asset industry.

“If you ever spend your no-KYC coins with one of your KYC coins — which if you just let the wallet do its thing, it could do because it doesn’t know the difference — you immediately connect all of the non-KYC Bitcoin that you spend in that with your identity,” Seth said, referring to UTXO management, also called “coin control” by some wallets. 

Bitcoin wallets don’t hold a single balance but a collection of separate unspent transaction outputs — UTXOs — each one a discrete “coin” from a specific past transaction. 

When you send a payment larger than any one UTXO, the wallet picks several and combines them as inputs to the same transaction — an easy mistake to make, Seth highlighted. 

Seth added that unlike in the global South, where people have experienced more oppressive states, citizens in the West will need to “feel pain” in order to realize how important privacy is.

Still, he added that attitudes were changing and people were getting more serious about protecting their privacy. 

“It has been shifting, in the last five or six years a lot of people — even in the West — are starting to think [privacy] really matters, we really need to think about this seriously now,” he said. 

Cake Wallet is a privacy-oriented, self-custody, open-source wallet. The wallet earlier this year integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into its platform. 

Using the second layer solution is not only faster and cheaper, it also offers more privacy than Bitcoin’s main chain. 

While Cake Wallet supports other cryptocurrencies, including privacy coin Monero, Seth for Privacy added that he’d love it if the digital coin didn’t exist. 

“If Bitcoin’s privacy got good enough that you could use it and have at least almost as good privacy as Monero without massive hoops to jump through, and Monero ceased to exist, that’s fine,” he said. 

“I would much rather the thing that more people use has better privacy than a more niche tool that has perfect privacy, and that’s something that less people are using because it’s less well known.”

This post Here’s How Not To Screw up Your Bitcoin Privacy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) now lets institutions delegate account tasks while retaining control of their primary signing keys.

The PermissionDelegationV1_1 amendment went live on Oct. 8 at ledger 107,524,865. It lets account owners assign specific transaction permissions to other accounts.

The upgrade mirrors the division of responsibilities in traditional finance. Treasury departments, compliance officers and asset managers can operate under different levels of authority.

For example, a stablecoin issuer can let its compliance team approve counterparties while a separate account executes payments. Owners can modify or revoke delegated permissions without exposing their primary signing keys during routine operations.

Vet, an XRP Ledger Foundation contributor, said the change lets asset issuers and treasuries manage account responsibilities in a way familiar from traditional finance while protecting their primary keys.

The framework does not support custom spending limits or asset-specific delegation restrictions. XRPL developers also warn against delegating PaymentBurn until fixCleanup3_4_0 activates. A flaw can let authorized accounts mint issued tokens in certain circumstances.

XRPL's tokenized asset market expands

The controls arrive as XRPL's real-world asset market grows.

An Oct. 7 RWA Foundation snapshot puts XRPL's year-to-date growth in tokenized asset value at about $3.7 billion, excluding stablecoins. It leads BNB Chain's $3.5 billion, Stellar's $2.8 billion and Solana's $2.2 billion.

The four networks account for roughly $12.2 billion of the $14.9 billion recorded across the chart's 10 blockchains, highlighting competition for tokenization activity.

The figures track changes in tokenized asset value, including issuance, redemptions and valuations.

Meanwhile, RWA.xyz's Oct. 9 network table lists about $4.54 billion of represented real-world assets on XRPL and $499 million of distributed assets, excluding stablecoins. XRPL ranks 10th by distributed asset value.

Under RWA.xyz's definitions, represented assets use blockchain records but remain on the issuer's platform. Distributed assets can move between holders outside that platform, including through permissioned transfers.

In July, Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on XRPL, following approval from the Central Bank of Ireland.

Eligible investors can access the fund through tokenized holdings. The share class retains the conventional fund's investment objective, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections.

The launch involved institutional custodian Komainu and tokenization infrastructure provider Licuido, with the fund's underlying assets held by BNY Mellon.

Ripple subsequently announced investments in Licuido and transfer-agency technology provider ZILO. The investments expand its capabilities in digital asset issuance, fund administration and collateral management.

RippleX lays groundwork for round-the-clock collateral transfers

The next stage of XRPL's institutional infrastructure development focuses on using tokenized assets as collateral outside conventional banking hours.

In an Oct. 8 technical article, RippleX outlined five capabilities: Permission Delegation, Atomic Batch, Confidential Transfers, Dynamic Multi-Purpose Tokens and Sponsored Fees.

RippleX illustrated the idea with a hypothetical bank borrowing stablecoins against $50 million in tokenized money market funds on a Sunday evening.

The bank could pledge fund shares for stablecoins, with the collateral and payment settling together. Ripple has also positioned its RLUSD stablecoin as a cash leg for delivery-versus-payment settlement.

Atomic Batch is now live: BatchV1_1 activated on Oct. 9 at ledger 107,540,993. Its all-or-nothing mode lets linked transfers succeed together or revert together.

Confidential Transfers would hide Multi-Purpose Token transfer amounts while giving selected parties, including auditors and regulators, access to the information.

Dynamic Multi-Purpose Tokens would let issuers update designated token properties as financial instruments change. Sponsored Fees would let third parties cover charges and reserves for institutions unable to hold XRP directly.

RippleX says the combination could move tokenized assets into secured financing and liquidity management.

Permission Delegation and Atomic Batch are live, while ConfidentialTransfer, DynamicMPT and Sponsor still await validator approval. Those remaining upgrades would supply the privacy, token-update and fee-sponsorship components of RippleX's plan.

The post XRP Ledger lets institutions share account duties without sharing their keys appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson accused Vitalik Buterin of undermining quantum-resistant cryptography with speculative warnings about AI-driven mathematical breakthroughs.

In an Oct. 9 post, Hoskinson challenged the Ethereum co-founder's skepticism toward lattice-based cryptography, arguing that decades of security research had already accounted for the technology's known weaknesses.

He warned that encouraging developers to abandon established approaches could slow the adoption of protections already being deployed across internet infrastructure, leaving systems exposed to future quantum attacks.

The criticism follows Buterin's warning that AI-assisted mathematical discoveries could weaken cryptography designed to resist quantum computers.

Buterin said Ethereum's long-term “lean” roadmap has moved toward hash-based signatures and proofs, avoiding lattice-based designs.

Hoskinson rejected that reasoning, accusing Buterin of being too invested in Ethereum's existing research direction to reconsider its approach.

“The case against lattices is the GNFS story, a.k.a. a hunch about ‘structure,' and a multiplier pulled out of thin air,” Hoskinson wrote.

The dispute concerns post-quantum alternatives to the elliptic-curve signatures used by Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Hoskinson challenges the mathematical case against lattices

Buterin's concern draws partly on the history of integer factorization, where mathematical advances such as the general number field sieve dramatically improved techniques for attacking RSA encryption.

He suggested that AI could deliver decades of comparable mathematical progress in a much shorter period, potentially revealing unexpected shortcuts against lattice-based systems.

Hoskinson said the number field sieve emerged from techniques involving arithmetic relationships and smooth numbers, while no comparable mechanism has been demonstrated against the lattice problems underpinning modern post-quantum standards.

The Cardano founder pointed to more than four decades of research, including advances in lattice reduction and sieving algorithms, that have progressively improved attacks without producing a general breakthrough capable of defeating properly configured systems.

The US National Institute of Standards and Technology standardized ML-KEM for key encapsulation and ML-DSA for digital signatures in 2024. Hoskinson said their security parameters account for those known attacks.

Hoskinson also rejected Buterin's illustrative suggestion that multiplying key sizes by ten might protect public-key encryption against AI-driven mathematical advances.

“Multiply key sizes by ten” is “numerology,” Hoskinson wrote, arguing that security parameters must be adjusted according to measurable improvements in attack algorithms.

A change in attack efficiency might justify moderately larger parameters, while a fundamental mathematical breakthrough could require replacing an algorithm altogether.

Ethereum's hash-based strategy faces its own questions

Hoskinson also challenged the assumption that hash-based cryptography offers greater protection against unforeseen mathematical discoveries.

He cited historical weaknesses in MD5 and SHA-1 as evidence that hash functions can contain exploitable structures, although those failures do not establish vulnerabilities in modern constructions such as SHA-256.

His criticism extended to Poseidon and Poseidon2, hash functions designed for efficient use in zero-knowledge proofs and relevant to Ethereum's longer-term cryptographic research.

The Ethereum Foundation has funded research into Poseidon's resistance to algebraic attacks, including investigations using Gröbner bases and other cryptanalytic methods.

Hoskinson argued that these designs also present potential targets for AI-assisted mathematical discoveries, questioning why lattice-based systems should face greater skepticism.

Hash-based signatures can provide quantum-resistant transaction authorization. Lattice techniques also support key encapsulation for encryption and other advanced cryptographic constructions.

Abandoning lattice research could therefore limit options available to developers building privacy systems, secure communications, and other applications requiring those capabilities.

The post Hoskinson says Vitalik’s AI warning could delay the internet’s quantum defenses appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A correctly signed Ethereum transaction can still deliver a financial result its user would never have accepted under a meaningful loss limit. Ethereum Foundation research published Oct. 5 examines how Ethereum transaction assertions could enforce rules over the outcome, widening the checks available to wallets and protocols.

The decisive question is who supplies those rules and whether the app or service assembling the transaction can weaken them. A check can measure what happened and reject a result below a minimum, yet offer little financial protection if the same transaction builder chooses a permissive minimum.

As of Oct. 9, EIP-7906 remains a draft. It was created Feb. 21, 2025, and depends on EIP-8141's frame transactions. The Hegotá upgrade record lists EIP-8141 as scheduled for inclusion and EIP-7906 as considered for inclusion.

Ethereum already enforces some financial limits

Uniswap v3 has a concrete safeguard today. Its swap router rejects an exact-input swap when the amount received is below the minimum receipt, amountOutMinimum. For an exact-output swap, it rejects spending above the maximum input, amountInMaximum. These are execution-time conditions supplied in the call parameters.

The distinction between having a condition and choosing a sound value appears in Uniswap's own single-swap guide. Its simplified example sets the minimum output to zero, explicitly warns that doing so is risky in production, and points developers toward a software development kit, a price oracle or another data source for a safer value.

A minimum receipt is a token quantity, not a judgment about whether the trade is a good bargain. If a builder sets a floor that permits a very small receipt, an outcome just above that floor passes. Deriving the floor from an already poor quote would preserve that poor bargain while enforcing the limit correctly.

Other protections address different parts of the problem. Earlier this year, the Ethereum Working Group announced the Clear Signing standard on May 12, 2026. It provides structured descriptions that wallets can present to users, with independent reviews and attestations and wallet-selected trusted sources. It helps a signer understand the requested action. That description does not itself impose a minimum financial result.

Simulation predicts effects against a selected chain state. The state can change before the transaction reaches a block. Meanwhile, guards for Safe smart accounts can check parameters before execution and the Safe's final state afterward, blocking transactions under configured rules.

What Ethereum transaction assertions would add

EIP-7906 proposes a broader view of the transaction's effects. It builds on EIP-8141's ordered frames, which separate validation and action steps, and adds read-only POST_TX frames at the end. Assertion code would inspect the resulting state and reject execution that violates its rule.

The proposed instructions divide that work into three operations: TXTRACE enumerates specified net changes and events, TXDIFF retrieves values by key, and EVENTDATACOPY makes event data available to the assertion. Their defined scope includes native ETH balances, storage changes, newly deployed contracts and code hashes. Token-balance checks would need to interpret the relevant contract storage and enforce the selected limit.

That could make policies possible beyond the minimum output of one swap. An account could require its control configuration to remain intact, or a policy could restrict approvals and check effects across contracts involved in a route.

The view is still a net result. Multiple writes to one storage slot collapse into its starting and final values; a slot restored to its original value disappears from the net-change enumeration.

Who must require and protect the check

The proposal does not require every transaction to contain an assertion. An account relying on one must configure its validation logic to require the specific POST_TX frame without a bypass.

A protocol has a related obligation. Its protected function would need to enforce the exact required assertion, rejecting ordinary transactions and frame transactions with missing or incorrect checks. In settlement flows where a solver chooses the trade's execution route, protecting a user's outcome requires the signed order or settlement protocol to bind the solver to the policy. The proposed solver guarantee applies to one transaction on one network.

The policy must also survive the actions it is supposed to judge. EIP-7906's security guidance calls for immutable, non-upgradeable assertion targets. Otherwise, a transaction could alter the enforcement contract after validation and before the final check. The guidance also makes clear that validating the intended target depends on validation occurring before state changes.

Even unchanged assertion code can read a compromised reference. The specification warns about prices, registries, proxies and other state that the execution body can modify before the assertion runs. If a trade shifts the price used to decide whether its own result is acceptable, reading the real final state does not rescue the comparison.

EIP-7906 recommends reference values fixed at signing or drawn from the state at the transaction's start. Both approaches keep the execution body from rewriting the reference. The usual oracle risks remain because earlier transactions in the same block can move that starting state.

A rejected outcome would still cost gas

Under the proposal, a failing POST_TX check would revert the execution body. The transaction would remain in the block. The gas payer would remain charged for consumed gas, and changes in the initial validation steps, known as the validation prefix, would remain committed. These can include payment approval or account creation.

Actions meant to be protected must sit in the part that the assertion can roll back. Putting untrusted execution in the committed validation prefix would leave it outside that protection.

The check also needs enough gas to finish. EIP-7906 warns that enumerating changes and events can exhaust its budget and requires an incomplete out-of-gas check to be treated as assertion failure.

The Foundation describes potential applications in delegated agents and solver settlement. CryptoSlate's September coverage of AI wallet permissions already discussed deterministic limits and required assertions.

A meaningful implementation would make the required limit and its reference clear before authorization, then prevent the builder from weakening either. Ethereum could enforce a safety condition perfectly while still enforcing the wrong financial bargain.

The post Ethereum’s proposed safety checks could still let a bad trade through appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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.

Starknet (STRK) trades at $0.0721 on Friday midday, 6.4 cents, and has gained 68.4 percent in seven days. On October 15, the next monthly tranche from StarkWare's unlock schedule comes free: 127 million STRK. At today's price that is $9.15 million, or 1.7 percent of the circulating supply. Measured against daily turnover of around $470 million, the tranche amounts to about two percent of a trading day, making it the smallest unlock we have calculated in this series so far.

The real question is therefore whether the date can lift or press the price at all. Anyone holding STRK or considering an entry has three things to settle: how large the tranche really is, how it relates to liquidity, and whether the layer 1 idea behind the rally has even been decided. All three can be checked with public figures, and that is where this article starts: you need no paid tracker for it, only the price, the circulating supply and the daily turnover of your venue.

What happens to STRK on October 15

StarkWare's unlock schedule provides for a tranche of 1.27 percent of the originally created supply on the 15th of each month. Total supply is 10 billion STRK, and 1.27 percent of that is exactly 127 million tokens. Under the published plan, the recipients are early contributors and investors, with the general public excluded. The series runs until March 15, 2027.

Vesting describes the stretching of a token allocation over time: the tokens already exist but are locked contractually or technically and are released in fixed steps. An unlock therefore creates no new tokens; it makes existing ones tradable for the first time. That sets it apart from inflation through mining or staking rewards, where total supply itself rises.

Circulating supply currently stands at 7.42 billion STRK. Around 2.58 billion tokens therefore remain locked, 25.8 percent of total supply. Of that remainder, six of the monthly tranches up to March 2027 account for 762 million STRK between them. Measured against today's circulating supply, that is 10.3 percent spread over half a year. Whatever is locked beyond that follows other deadlines and continues after this series ends.

The rally before the date: 68 percent in seven days

STRK has gained 24.6 percent in 24 hours, 68.4 percent in seven days and 126.8 percent in 30 days. Market value stands at $535 million, which corresponds to rank 112. What stands out is less the price than the turnover: at $470 million in a single day, almost the token's entire market value changes hands within 24 hours, around 88 percent. A reading like that signals short-term speculation and not calm reallocation.

The distance to the upside remains large despite the rally. The all-time high of $4.41 dates from February 20, 2024, shortly after the airdrop; the price today sits 98.4 percent below it. Seen from the other side, STRK has more than tripled from its low of $0.0222 on August 18 this year. Both numbers belong together if you want to place the current move: a gain of 68 percent off a low that is seven weeks old looks different from a gain of 68 percent off a yearly high.

StarkWare's revised unlock schedule: 1.27 percent a month

The plan in force today is not the first one. Under the original version, around 1.3 billion tokens would have come free in one go on April 15, 2024, roughly 13 percent of total supply. After criticism from the community, StarkWare revised the plan in February 2024 and split it into two phases, as Decrypt reported at the time: first 0.64 percent or 64 million tokens a month until March 15, 2025, then 1.27 percent or 127 million tokens a month for the following 24 months.

One thing about that matters above all: the date on October 15 is the 20th step in a series that has been running for two and a half years, at a rate unchanged since March 2025. A price reacting to a figure known since February 2024 is not reacting to news. Which is exactly why the order of magnitude rewards a look more than the date does.

Unlock against daily turnover: $9.15 million meets $470 million

The token count on its own says nothing. 127 million tokens sound like a lot, yet they only become selling pressure once the market cannot absorb them. The measure for that is the ratio of the tranche's dollar value to daily turnover. With STRK, $9.15 million stands against $470 million of turnover, which is 1.95 percent. On the arithmetic, the entire tranche equals about 28 minutes of normal trading.

That calculation deliberately assumes the worst case, namely that every unlocked token is sold on the first day. In practice that rarely happens, because allocations to contributors and investors are often held on or run down over weeks. As an upper bound the figure still serves, and an upper bound of two percent of a trading day is simply not an issue with STRK. Anyone treating selling pressure as the main risk here looks past the actual risk: it lies in turnover almost as high as the entire market value, and in a justification for the rally that has no decision behind it yet. Daily turnover never spreads evenly across all venues, and what counts is the turnover where you trade yourself.

Working out the token count yourself: how to proceed

You need three values, and all three appear on every larger price page: the current price, the circulating supply and turnover over the past 24 hours. Add to that the unlock rate from the project's published plan. The calculation runs to two lines.

1. Dollar value of the tranche: token count times price. With STRK that is 127,000,000 times $0.0721, or $9.15 million.
2. Ratio to liquidity: dollar value divided by daily turnover. $9.15 million divided by $470 million gives 1.95 percent.
3. Ratio to the holding: token count divided by circulating supply. 127 million divided by 7.42 billion gives 1.7 percent.

As a rule of thumb from the cases we have calculated in this series: below roughly ten percent of a daily turnover, an unlock sits in the noise. Above a whole daily turnover it becomes a topic in its own right, and from several daily turnovers upward it governs the price action around the date. STRK sits at the very bottom of that scale with just under two percent. A tool that puts circulating supply and unlock dates next to the price helps here; which ones do that job is covered in the comparison of analytics platforms.

Diverging token counts for the same date: where the gap comes from

Anyone researching this date runs into different figures. There is a comprehensible reason for that: some services calculate the percentage on the total supply of 10 billion, others on the circulating supply of 7.42 billion, and others again combine several deadlines in a month into one line. The same rate thus produces three different token counts, without any of the services calculating wrongly.

So the same short test applies to every unlock figure you read somewhere: divide the token count by the total supply and see whether a round percentage comes out that appears in the project's plan. With 127 million and 10 billion it is a clean 1.27 percent, and that rate appears in the revised version from February 2024. If something else comes out for you, the service is calculating on a different base or counting something in that does not belong to this tranche. The rate from the project's plan is more reliable than the token count on an overview page.

Eli Ben-Sasson's layer 1 push: quantum resistance targeted for 2027

The occasion for the rally comes from a consideration by StarkWare chief Eli Ben-Sasson rather than from the unlock date. He has floated converting Starknet from a layer 2 on Ethereum into a chain of its own. A layer 2 is a second layer that bundles transactions off the main chain and anchors the result there; with that it also takes on the main chain's security assumptions and its timetable. A layer 1 is an independent chain with its own validator set that sets its own rules.

Ben-Sasson's reasoning, as Bankless relays it, aims at cryptography: advances in quantum computers and AI could undermine today's security assumptions, and as a chain of its own Starknet could carry out cryptographic changes whenever it judged them necessary, instead of waiting on Ethereum's roadmap. He names quantum resistance by 2027 as the target; on what has been communicated so far, Ethereum is working towards 2029. Where Ethereum itself stands is covered in our Ethereum analysis.

From layer 2 to its own chain: validators, security and open questions

None of this has been decided. On the publicly documented state of affairs, this is a consideration the company says it is examining; a formal governance proposal and a vote are absent, and the route there is open too. Anyone justifying the rally with a completed switch is justifying it with something that does not yet exist.

Technically the step would be substantial. A chain of its own needs its own validator set, its own incentive structure for those validators and its own security base; the borrowed security of the main chain would fall away. At the same time, dependence on that chain's timetable disappears. Whether the trade is worth it is a judgement call and no calculation, and it will not be settled in a day. For the coming months that means the price is running on an expectation whose fulfilment hangs on a decision still outstanding, and whose implementation would then take years.

You can watch this at two places, both of them public: the project's governance forum, where a genuine proposal would surface first, and the company's technical publications. As long as nothing appears there, the idea remains a statement by the person who made it, and it belongs in every assessment of the price as exactly that.

The counter-check: the same measure at CARV, deBridge and Allora

How small the STRK tranche is shows up in a comparison with the cases we have calculated in recent days. At CARV, 38.8 million tokens met a daily turnover of $1.3 million on October 10, on our calculation of October 4. At deBridge, the 618 million DBR of October 17 corresponded to around ten trading days of turnover and 10.4 percent of circulating supply, on our calculation of October 5. And at Allora, 160.2 million ALLO come free on November 11, on our calculation of October 8 some 62.8 percent of the circulating supply at the time.

Against those three, STRK stands at 1.7 percent of circulating supply and two percent of a daily turnover. The same type of date, the same measure, results a factor of thirty apart. That is how you can see why a token count in a headline is of no use: 127 million is a bigger number than 38.8 million, and the smaller number is still the heavier case.

The holding period under section 23 EStG and the unlock date: the position for German holders

For tax purposes, a project's unlock date has nothing to do with your own holding. What governs is when you bought. Under current law, gains from the sale of crypto assets are tax free as a private disposal transaction under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act if more than a year lies between purchase and sale. Sell within the year and your personal income tax rate applies, and the allowance for all private disposal transactions in a year sits at 1,000 euros. Once it is exceeded, the whole gain is taxable, and the part above the threshold is not treated separately.

In practice, with a rally like this one: a sale after seven days of price gains falls almost always inside the one-year period and is therefore taxable, while a holding from the summer of 2025 has the period behind it already. Whether the holding period stays as it is remains open, however. The Bundestag rejected its abolition on October 9 by 445 votes to 132; we wrote up the situation and the further steps in our article on the Bundestag vote. For you, that means only one thing: keep your purchase and sale data in a form you can document later, whatever rule ends up applying.

Part of that is the question of whether your venue lists STRK at all and under whose supervision it operates. Since the European MiCA regulation took effect, providers targeting customers in the European Economic Area need an authorisation; which exchanges can show one, we have put together in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges. Check that with the provider itself before a purchase, because trading pairs and authorisations change.

Starknet: the unlock weighs two percent of a trading day

With STRK, the date on October 15 is the quietest quantity in the whole picture. What moves the price is an idea without a decision and a turnover that churns almost the entire market value. Three steps follow from that:

1. Calculate the tranche against liquidity before you fear a date. Price times token count, divided by daily turnover. Which tools put circulating supply and dates next to the price is covered in the comparison of analytics platforms.
2. Separate the justification from the decision. The layer 1 consideration is a statement by the StarkWare chief, with no governance decision behind it. Where you can trade STRK and at which fees is shown by the comparison of crypto exchanges.
3. Keep your purchase data documented. In a rally, the one-year period decides the tax burden. Suitable tools for that are in the comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

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

The bitcoin price stands at $82,991 on Friday afternoon, 3.2 percent above the low of $80,427 the market saw on Thursday. The trigger was not a headline from the crypto industry but one from the oil market: on October 8, Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that the United States would not attack Iran before the midterm elections on November 3. Brent eased in response and traded 0.7 percent lower at $103.53 a barrel in early Friday dealings.

Bitcoin price today: $82,991 after the low at $80,427

The figures as of the afternoon of October 9, on CoinGecko data: bitcoin trades at $82,991, a gain of 0.59 percent within 24 hours. The daily high was $83,398, the daily low $80,427. Market capitalisation comes to around $1.67 trillion.

That spread of almost $3,000 between a single day's high and low is the real finding. The spread shows a market processing the news flow in jumps rather than in order. Anyone who left a sell order resting with a limit just under $81,000 last evening was filled. Anyone selling the same position at midday today would receive roughly $2,500 more per bitcoin.

That leaves the price 34 percent short of the record high of about $126,200. It sits around 43 percent above the year's low of just under $58,000 in early July. Bitcoin is therefore neither at the floor nor close to its best mark, but roughly in the middle of the range this year has opened up.

Trump's pledge to the oil market: what was actually said on October 8

The announcement came over Truth Social and was brief. Washington would not attack Iran before the November 3 election, and talks with Tehran were under way and, in Trump's words, productive. As recently as Wednesday, the same sender had explicitly weighed fresh air strikes. A few hours separated the two statements.

Two points in that report get lost in the headline, and both matter more to the assessment than the pledge itself. First, the American naval blockade of Iran remains in place. Second, Washington is moving additional troops into the region. A pledge to do nothing before an election date shifts the risk into the period after November 3. It does not ease the situation.

The oil market acknowledged that with corresponding restraint. Brent had risen by more than four percent on Thursday to above $104. Friday's decline to $103.53 takes a small part of that back, and no more. Reuters reported in parallel that the blockade stays in place despite the pledge, and that attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz have reached their highest level since the conflict began in February. On top of this, Hurricane Isaias off the American Gulf coast threatens production there.

Anyone reading the oil price as the pacemaker for the bitcoin price therefore has to work with a pledge that carries a date. The pledge runs until November 3.

From barrel to bitcoin: the four stations of the oil channel

That a commodity price should act on a cryptocurrency sounds far-fetched at first. The connection runs through four stations, and each one can be followed.

Station one: oil drives headline inflation

Energy sits in every transport route and every production step. When the oil price rises, headline inflation rises with it within a few weeks. That rate is the number central banks have to explain in public.

Station two: inflation sets the rate path

The American central bank responds to firming inflation with higher policy rates, or at least with an announcement that it will not cut. Precisely that appeared in the minutes of the September meeting, published on October 7: a majority on the committee considers a further rate increase before year-end appropriate.

Station three: the rate sets the price of risk

Higher rates make fixed-income investments more attractive. Money that earns four or five percent without price risk migrates away from assets that make no running payment. Bitcoin pays no interest and no dividend.

Station four: risk assets move together

At the end of the chain, bitcoin sits in the same drawer as technology stocks. When the oil price falls, the pressure at station one eases, and the chain slackens all the way through to the end. Precisely that was visible on Friday.

That chain also explains why the connection is not visible every day. Each station takes time, and other forces work alongside it at each one. On days with heavy news flow from the industry itself, such as an exchange collapse or an approval decision, that news overlays the oil channel entirely.

Since the low of October 8: the bitcoin price in direct comparison

On Thursday, bitcoin slid as far as $80,427, and within 24 hours leveraged bets worth more than $1.16 billion were closed out by force. We wrote that up on October 8 in our analysis of the setback on the crypto market.

Against that reading, three things have changed within a day. The price sits $2,564 higher. The $80,000 level has passed its second test, having already held in the previous week. And the composition of the market is different: after a liquidation wave of that size, a substantial part of the leveraged positions is no longer there.

What has stayed the same is the pressure from the rates side. The Fed minutes of October 7 stand unchanged in the room, and the expectation of a further rate increase before year-end has not dissolved through Trump's Iran pledge. The expectation merely becomes less pressing if the oil price does not climb further.

The October ETF balance turns negative: $484.9 million in a single day

On October 8, the American spot bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $484.9 million. The breakdown by provider shows it was no isolated case: BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust lost $207.7 million, Fidelity $105.1 million and ARK 21Shares $101.7 million. Those figures were reported by wallstreet-online on October 8.

What is notable is less the sum than the sign of the month. It was the first day in October to turn the monthly ETF balance negative overall. As late as September 30, the funds had nine consecutive trading days of inflows behind them.

Why that figure weighs more than a daily move

ETF outflows mean bitcoin sold. They are no reading of sentiment. When an investor hands back units, the fund has to give up the coins it holds. Those sales run through regular trading venues and press the price there, regardless of what investors on futures exchanges currently expect. A single outflow day of almost $500 million amounts to roughly 5,900 bitcoin at a price around $82,000.

Friday's recovery therefore does not rest on new money from the funds so far. Whether the ETF flows turned on October 9 can only be documented after the close in New York.

Futures market after the liquidation wave: funding between 0.0018 and 0.0050 percent

The funding rate states what holders of long positions pay to holders of short positions so that the price of the perpetual futures contract sticks to the spot price. A high positive value means many investors are betting on rising prices and giving up money continuously for it.

The readings for October 9 diverge depending on the data source, and the spread belongs in the assessment. Blockchain.news gives 0.0018 percent per eight hours and calls the value neutral. Tokenpost arrives at 0.0027 percent, equivalent to 2.9 percent a year. CoinGlass shows a rise from 0.0017 percent on October 7 to 0.0050 percent. All three values sit far below what is usual in a hot phase of the market.

Open interest, meaning the sum of all unclosed futures positions, has fallen by 3.79 percent within 24 hours on the same data.

The two together describe a market that has been cleared out. The recovery to $82,991 did not come about because investors bought in afresh and heavily leveraged. What carried it was the easing selling pressure. A state like that is more stable in the short run than a rally on credit, though it also brings less momentum.

Anyone using leveraged products will find the financing costs and the liquidation rules of the individual platforms in our comparison of perp DEX providers. At ten times leverage, a counter-move of ten percent is enough to close the position. From the current price, that would mean a decline to around $74,700.

The levels for the bitcoin price: $80,427 below, $87,000 above

Three levels can be justified from the current price action, and none of them is a forecast.

$80,427, the daily low of October 8

That number is the deepest point of the current move. The level has been tested once so far, and it held. If the price falls below it, the floor of this recovery is gone, and the next round level sits at $75,000.

$83,398, the daily high of October 9

Here Friday's recovery stalled for now. A close above it would be the first technical signal that the buying side is doing more than closing the gap.

$87,000, the September high

The decline began from that level. Analysts cited by wallstreet-online speak of a trend reversal only above this mark. Until then, every upward move remains a recovery within a downtrend.

The $84,000 level, named in several market reports as a signal threshold, sits between the daily high and the September high. It does not, however, emerge from the price action; it is a rounded orientation.

Our assessment: the oil channel carries, the blockade stays the risk

In the view of the editorial team, Friday's recovery is better founded than most counter-moves of recent weeks, and at the same time less well secured than the price figure suggests.

In favour speaks the chain of evidence: Brent eased by 0.7 percent to $103.53, open interest on the futures market fell by 3.79 percent, and funding rates sit between 0.0018 and 0.0050 percent per eight hours, in neutral territory. The market is rising without fresh leverage, and that is a more sustainable state than a credit-financed advance.

Against it speaks the construction of the pledge itself. The pledge covers a period up to November 3, the naval blockade remains in place, troops are being moved, and attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz stand at their highest level since February. Hurricane Isaias could hit production on the American Gulf coast at short notice. Each of these points can push the oil price back above $104 within days, and then the chain from section three runs backwards.

There is also the rates side, which an item of foreign policy does not settle. The Fed minutes of October 7 remain the frame within which everything else takes place.

Our assessment weighs the situation and is no buy or sell recommendation. A total loss is possible at any time with crypto assets.

Buying route, leverage and holding period: what German investors have to calculate now

The buying route under MiCA

Since the European regulation on markets in crypto assets, providers of crypto services need authorisation to operate in Germany. Before money goes to a trading platform, a look into the supervisor's public register belongs to the routine. Which providers hold an authorisation and how their fees work out, we have set side by side in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

The holding period and the allowance

A sale within one year of purchase is a private disposal transaction. The gain from it is charged at your personal income tax rate, provided the sum of all such gains in the calendar year exceeds the allowance of 1,000 euros. After a year has passed, the sale is tax free.

At the current price level, that concerns many holdings built up this year. A sale today at $82,991 triggers tax; the same sale after the one-year period has run does not. That difference can be larger than the price move an investor is currently watching.

Booking losses correctly

Losses from private disposal transactions can only be offset against gains from the same category of income, in the same year, the previous year or later years. For that, the tax office needs a complete schedule of purchases and sales with date and price. Tools that generate that schedule from exchange data, we have set side by side in our overview of tax tools.

Bitcoin price: below $80,427 the recovery tips over

The recovery to $82,991 hangs on a pledge with an expiry date and on an oil price that can move four percent within a day. As long as Brent stays below $104 and the price above the low of $80,427, the move carries. Three things follow from this for the coming days.

1. Fix the level before it is tested. Note $80,427 as the number below which your assessment was wrong, and $83,398 as the number above which it is confirmed. Anyone working through a trading platform with limit orders will find the fee models in the comparison of crypto exchanges.
2. Measure the leverage against the range rather than against a feeling. The daily range of October 8 came to almost $3,000, around 3.6 percent. Leverage of 25 is wiped out twice over by that on the arithmetic. The liquidation rules of the individual providers are in the comparison of perp DEX platforms.
3. Look up the purchase date of every position. For holdings whose one-year period runs out in the coming weeks, a sale today costs tax and in a few weeks' time costs none. The schedule for that comes from the tools in the tax tool comparison.

The next hard date for the oil channel is November 3. Until then the pledge holds; after that it is up for review.

(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.)

On October 8, 2026, the United Kingdom added several crypto payment platforms to its sanctions list. The services affected are Cryptomus and Heleket, both belonging to the Canadian-registered Xeltox Enterprises, along with the Kyrgyz platform TokenSpot. If you hold a balance there or settle payments through a service like this, the most important news is also the most awkward: the British measure does not bind you in Germany, yet it can still close your payout route.

A sanctions listing is an administrative measure. It carries no finding of guilt. The state imposing it freezes assets within its own jurisdiction and bars its own banks and service providers from doing business. For investors in Germany, the binding document is therefore the entry in the European Union's consolidated list. The British list has no force here. That distinction goes missing in the coverage time and again, and it decides whether you have to act or merely watch.

What the British Foreign Office listed on October 8

The measure forms part of a larger Russia package with 38 new listings, reported by CoinDesk on October 9, 2026. In crypto, the report names two strands. The first concerns Xeltox Enterprises, the Canadian-registered company behind Cryptomus, Heleket and Certa Payments. The second concerns TokenSpot, based in Kyrgyzstan.

There are also two payment service providers and one individual: Processing KG, operator of the VexPay service, the firm Tsunami Payments, and Ulan Bukabaev, a director of Processing KG. According to the report, the British government justifies the listings on the grounds that the platforms and payment services may have helped Russia circumvent financial sanctions.

That conditional is not there out of politeness. Sanctions law works to a standard of suspicion, without requiring proof of guilt. The British reasoning speaks of reasonable grounds to believe that the company supported the Russian financial sector. Whether that holds will not be settled by a criminal court; in a dispute it falls to an administrative challenge against the listing.

Why the names get muddled in the reports

Several reports speak of three sanctioned exchanges, others of one company plus TokenSpot. Both can be sourced, because Cryptomus and Heleket appear in the British entry as alternative names for the same firm. An alternative name is a further name under which a listed entity operates; it is not a separate entry, but it carries the same legal effect. So anyone searching for "Heleket" and finding nothing may simply have searched under the wrong name.

Xeltox Enterprises: Cryptomus and Heleket appear as a single entry

Cryptomus is primarily a payment processor rather than a conventional trading venue. Merchants embed the service in their shop, the customer pays in cryptocurrency, the service settles and credits the merchant with the amount. Heleket operates on the same technical foundation. One entry is therefore enough to capture both brands.

In practice that means two things. First, matching the brand name on your payment page is not enough; you need the name of the company standing behind it. Second, a single listing can hit several services at once that appear to have nothing to do with one another.

You will find the operating company's name in the terms and conditions, in the imprint or in the service's privacy policy. That detail is the key to every check you make afterwards. Without it, you search the lists past the brand name.

TokenSpot and the A7 network: what the A7A5 stablecoin has to do with it

A stablecoin is a token whose price is pegged to a currency, usually the US dollar. A7A5 is pegged to the Russian rouble and belongs to the so-called A7 network, a cluster of payment structures that Western governments say serves to circumvent financial sanctions.

According to the CoinDesk report, the British Foreign Office stated that two of the newly listed firms had settled or enabled transactions connected to A7. In the same announcement, the British government points to the network's own claim that A7 moved assets worth more than 90 billion dollars in the previous year. The report qualifies that account elsewhere: blockchain analytics firms dispute that actual activity around A7A5 runs that high. The report gives no solid counter-figure.

For your own reading, that matters more than it sounds. A figure drawn from a sanctioned network's self-presentation carries no weight as a market number. It is evidence of how the network presents itself, and no measure of its volume.

Asset freeze, payment ban, internet block: the legal effects a listing triggers

According to the report, the assets of the named entities in the United Kingdom are frozen, and British financial institutions are prohibited from settling payments to, from or through several of the firms. For users outside the United Kingdom, that payment ban is the consequence you actually feel.

The reason sits in the infrastructure. At some point, a crypto payment service needs a bridge into the banking system to pay out euros or dollars. That bridge often runs through correspondent banks, meaning banks that settle payments abroad on behalf of other banks. When a major financial centre drops out as a conduit, payouts become slower, more expensive or stop altogether, without your own balance ever having been officially frozen.

A British listing does not apply automatically in Germany

Since leaving the European Union, the United Kingdom has maintained a sanctions list of its own. An entry there binds British persons and companies. In Germany, the EU regulations on Russia apply, and what binds you is the entry in the consolidated EU list, which you can reach through the official EU Sanctions Map.

In practice, the lists tend to trail one another rather than move in step. In August 2026 the EU added the exchange HTX to its list, after the United Kingdom had already listed it in May; we described the case at the time in our article on the EU transaction ban of August 21, 2026. Whether the EU follows suit on Cryptomus, Heleket or TokenSpot is open for now. Which is exactly why the list you look up yourself is worth more than any report about it.

How to actually find an entry in the EU list

Searching the consolidated list usually founders on spelling. What helps:

• Use the operating company's name; the service's brand name rarely appears in the list.
• Try the legal form with and without its suffix, so with and without "Ltd" or "CJSC".
• Search the registered address as well, because alternative names often converge on the address.
• Add the name of the managing director if media reports name them; individuals are listed separately.
• Watch the date of the last update, because a new listing appears only once it is published in the Official Journal.

The EU framework: which dealings are already barred to investors in Germany

Whatever treatment the three platforms end up receiving in the EU, prohibitions already apply to you. The EU sanctions against Russia now also cover services around crypto assets, and have done for some time. Transactions with entities on the EU list are barred to persons in the EU, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly means this: the route through a third service that forwards the payment stays prohibited too.

Breaching EU sanctions is a criminal offence in Germany under the Foreign Trade and Payments Act, not a mere administrative fine. The penalty in an individual case depends on intent and scale and belongs in the hands of a specialist lawyer. For your decision, the direction is enough: running a payment through a listed service risks more than a blocked account.

A second front runs in parallel and has nothing to do with Russia. Stablecoins are subject to their own rules in the EU, and the supervisor has set deadlines by which exchanges must drop unauthorised tokens from their offering. So anyone holding a balance in stablecoins checks two things at once: whether the provider is clean, and whether the token itself remains tradable in the EU.

A balance on a listed platform: what to watch in the payout route

A platform whose assets are frozen is not the same as a user whose balance is frozen. Even so, the practical damage almost always starts at the payout route, and long before any authority has even heard your name.

If you hold a balance at one of the named services, work through it in this order. First secure evidence of the holding and the recent entries, meaning the account statement, the transaction list and the addresses you transferred to. Then test a small withdrawal instead of moving the entire holding in one booking; that way you spot a blocked route without tying up the full amount in it. Only then move the remainder, to a provider authorised in the EU or into your own custody.

Own custody, often called self-custody, means the private keys to your coins sit with you and not with a company. A sanction against a service provider does not reach a wallet whose keys you hold yourself. You pay for that advantage with full responsibility for the backup, and that trade-off belongs on the table before any decision.

One limit remains. If the platform itself is on the EU list, you may no longer deal with it at all, not even to get your money out. In that case the route runs through a release from the competent authority, and not through a quick withdrawal. That is the main reason to check the list before you move anything.

Merchants accepting crypto: the role the payment processor plays

For online shops that accept cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, the news hits a different nerve. The shop rarely picks an exchange; it picks a payment processor, and that processor determines which routes the money travels. Cryptomus was widespread in that role, particularly among smaller merchants and services with an international audience.

Anyone running a shop should therefore know three details from their contract: the company behind the payment module, where that company is based, and the bank or institution through which the euro payout runs. If one of those details is missing from the paperwork, that is already a finding, independently of any sanctions list.

If it turns out the processor belongs to a listed group, the payment route needs closing, and watching it is no longer enough. Outstanding receivables and balances in the processor account then belong in a schedule you keep. Cases like these are wound up over months, and anyone whose figures are not in order loses them twice.

MiCA licence and the BaFin register: how to recognise a regulated provider

The EU has ordered the market for crypto assets with a regulation of its own, known by the abbreviation MiCA. Anyone offering crypto asset services in the EU needs authorisation from a national supervisor and is entered in its register; in Germany that supervisor is BaFin.

An authorisation is no guarantee against losses. It does shift two things in your favour. There is a supervisor that can compel an institution to provide information, and there is a registered seat in the EU where claims can be enforced. With a processor registered in Canada and an operational trail in Central Asia, both are missing. For an overview of the houses that can show European authorisation, see our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

What the supervisor does not take off your hands

No register tells you of its own accord that your provider is in trouble. The duty to check stays with you, and it costs two or three glances a year: once when setting up the account, once on a report like this one, and once when a payout takes longer than usual.

Sanctions lists: only the EU entry binds you

The British listing of October 8 is a signal. It issues you no instruction. What you make of it comes down to three concrete steps:

1. Establish the name and check the list. Take the operating company's name from your service's terms and conditions and search for it in the consolidated EU list. If you do not find it there, no prohibition applies and you decide freely. For a move to a house with European authorisation, our comparison of crypto exchanges helps.
2. Separate your custody. Do not leave long-term holdings with a payment processor whose business depends on someone else's banking relationships. For the devices that do the job and what they cost, see the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Get your records in order. Pull out transaction lists and account balances while access still works. You need that data for your tax return anyway, and in a wind-up it is your only evidence; you will find the tools for it in our overview of crypto tax tools.

Over the coming weeks, watch one thing above all: whether the EU takes over the British entries. Until it does, your position is unchanged, and any decision you take calmly now beats one that a blocked payout takes for you.

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

The Pharos airdrop expires on October 25, 2026. Anyone who has not collected their PROS by then will not get them later: in its own claim notes, the project states that unclaimed tokens revert to the Pharos Foundation after the cut-off date and that the airdrop page closes afterwards. Counting from today, October 8, that leaves 17 days.

No one can carry out the step that matters on your behalf. It takes a few minutes, no extra tokens and two actions: connect your wallet to the claim portal and press a button. A deadline like this is almost never missed out of laziness, but because nobody sent a reminder.

In German, this date has so far appeared only as a line item in weekly round-ups. This article answers the questions that come before it: who is eligible in the first place, how the claim works, what to make of the fake sites doing the rounds, and which tax rules apply in Germany.

The deadline: what happens to unclaimed PROS on October 25, 2026

The schedule appears in the claim portal's user guide and splits into three stages. Registration ran from April 23 to April 25, 2026, followed by a preparation phase until April 28. The claim phase has been open since April 28 and ends on October 25. Those are the 180 days the project cites in its FAQ.

Airdrop, in brief: an airdrop is a free allocation of tokens to selected addresses, usually as a reward for early use of a network. The allocation does not arrive in the wallet by itself. As a rule, you have to go and collect it.

Two things about this deadline deserve attention. First, the project gives no time of day for October 25. The final day is therefore not a point you can plan around, and waiting until the evening means relying on an assumption. Second, the wording provides for no extension and no grace period. The project's own advice is to claim as early as possible.

Who is eligible: the four groups in the Pharos airdrop

According to the project and the trade press covering it, four groups qualify. First, testnet participants who completed tasks and daily check-ins there. Second, contributors to the "Stake Before the Stake" campaign. Third, Discord community members holding an assigned role. Fourth, users who took part in the quests through the OKX wallet campaign.

The fourth group is why this date matters to German-speaking holders. OKX promoted the PROS distribution to European users in German in May 2026. If you joined then and lost track of it afterwards, you may be sitting on an allocation you no longer remember.

Holders who qualify several times over are consolidated into a single entitlement, according to reporting on the registration launch. So there is one collection, not several. If you believe the eligibility result is wrong, you can appeal through a form in the portal; the project explicitly provides for that route.

Instant claim or lock-up: the multipliers expired long ago

At registration in April, every eligible holder could pick one of two routes. One was immediate collection from April 28. The other was a voluntary lock on the allocation in return for a bonus: 30 days paid 1.05 times, 60 days 1.12 times and 90 days 1.2 times the original amount. Anyone who made no selection during registration was assigned to immediate collection, according to the project.

For today, that has a reassuring consequence. Even the longest lock of 90 days from April 28 ended in late July. Whichever route you picked back then, your tokens have been unlocked for months and the claim button is ready. There is no waiting period left, only the deadline.

The 0.05 PROS gas fee is already sitting in your wallet

A common obstacle with airdrops is the network fee: collecting requires a balance in the right network, and anyone without one fails at the final button. Pharos headed that off. The claim fee is 0.05 PROS, according to the project, and that amount was allocated to eligible wallets in advance.

So you do not have to buy tokens to get at your tokens. Connect the wallet, accept the terms, collect. Being that clear about it is not a given, and it removes one of the classic stumbling blocks from the deadline.

The claim route at Pharos: how to proceed now

The process comes down to a handful of moves, and the first one matters most.

Open the claim page directly. Type the portal address into your browser bar yourself, or use a link you have already confirmed through the project's official channels. Do not use a search ad and do not use a link from a private message.

Connect the right wallet. The eligible address is the one you used at the time on the testnet, in the campaign or in the Discord promotion. Any other address will show you no balance, even if it belongs to you.

Read the screen before you confirm. The portal shows your allocation and the collection method you chose. Only then comes the confirmation in your wallet.

Confirm the tokens arrived. After collection, the amount shows up in your wallet and in the network's explorer. Reconciling it takes a minute and saves you wondering whether the transaction went through.

We saw the same pattern at a recent expiry deadline: the article on the Sonic claim deadline of October 15 describes the identical sequence for a different project.

Fake claim pages: how to tell the real address apart

A publicly announced expiry date is a gift to fraudsters. The date is fixed, the target group is known, and haste lowers caution. The usual scheme is a copied page under a similar-sounding address, plus an ad placed above the genuine search result or a direct message with a friendly note about the closing deadline.

Three rules keep you clear of it. One: the route to the portal always runs through the official project address, never through an ad and never through a message that approaches you. Two: a genuine claim never asks for your recovery words, your private key or an upfront payment. Three: read the approval your wallet puts in front of you. An unlimited approval for an unfamiliar contract has no place in collecting an airdrop.

If you already keep your credentials and approvals away from your everyday device, you have the shorter lever here. For the devices that do that job, see the hardware wallet comparison.

Region blocking in the claim portal: what Pharos says about restricted regions

One point to settle before the final day: the project notes in its FAQ that access to the airdrop page may be blocked in certain regions for compliance reasons. Detection is based on the IP address, and the full list of affected regions sits in the terms, according to the portal.

Which countries are on it cannot currently be documented from the source, because the linked terms page is unreachable. In practice: open the portal early enough and see whether it lets you in. If access fails, you still have time for the project's appeal route. On October 25, you will not.

Tax in Germany: the inflow of an airdrop and your tax return

For tax purposes, an airdrop is not a gift without consequences. In Germany, the treatment depends on whether something was given in return for the allocation, such as completing tasks on a testnet or in a campaign. That is precisely what applies to this airdrop's eligibility groups, which is why the rules are worth a look before you collect.

We have written up the detail in our guide to the taxation of crypto airdrops. A binding assessment of your own case comes from a tax adviser, not from an article.

In practice, one thing counts above all: record the date of the inflow, the number of tokens and the price on that day. Reconstructing that price later is laborious, and without it you have no basis for any subsequent calculation.

PROS after the claim: price, circulating supply and the weight of the expiry

To put the scale in context: PROS trades at around 0.67 US dollars on Wednesday morning, roughly 0.60 euros. Market capitalisation stands at a good 90 million dollars, which earns the token rank 311 in the overall market. Circulating supply is 135.6 million PROS out of a total of one billion. Daily turnover comes to just under 3.9 million dollars. The price has fallen well back from its high of 1.13 dollars, and sits clearly above its low of around 0.32 dollars.

Two readings follow. If you are eligible, an allocation in the hundreds of tokens is worth a two-figure euro sum, and proportionally more for larger allocations. For the market, the thin daily turnover leaves little room if many eligible holders collect and sell at the same time shortly before the cut-off. No price target follows from that, and none of these figures is a reason to rush a decision you were going to take anyway.

Pharos airdrop: after October 25 everything goes to the Foundation

An expiry deadline is the simplest way to lose money: by doing nothing. The countermeasure costs a few minutes, and the window closes in 17 days.

1. Find out today whether you are eligible. Connect the wallet you used back then on the testnet or in the campaign to the official portal and look at the result.
2. Collect the tokens as soon as you see them. Do not wait for a better price, because an expired deadline has no price. What you do with them afterwards you can decide at leisure, for instance through one of the venues in our overview of crypto exchanges.
3. Write down the inflow date, the number of tokens and the price straight away. You need those three figures for your tax return. For the tools that track them automatically, see the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.

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

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.

Executives are war-gaming the political fallout of a major AI-driven cyberattack and preparing to brief Congress fast if and when necessary.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal wants Cantor Fitzgerald to open its records on Tether and on how much Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's family has earned from its business deal.

The crypto platform filed for designated contract market and futures commission merchant licenses, which would let it run its own regulated event-contract venue instead of relying on overseas partners.

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.

Avalanche founder Emin Gün Sirer has warned that AI could uncover critical vulnerabilities in the XRP Ledger.

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.

TLDR

• Eli Lilly stock gains 0.62% as new Phase 3b findings highlight treatment gains.
• Combined therapy changes 482 proteins versus 140 with Taltz alone by Week 36.
• Gene activity shifts span 467 genes with both drugs, versus 16 on Taltz alone.
• Taltz and Zepbound deliver improved skin clearance and weight loss at Week 36.
• Researchers report consistent safety findings, but no new approved indication.

Eli Lilly and Company stock rose 0.62% to $1,176.80 on Friday, gaining $7.20 during the trading session. The company announced new Phase 3b findings showing broader biological responses from combined Taltz and Zepbound treatment. The results expand earlier evidence of improved psoriasis symptoms and weight reduction among adults living with psoriasis and obesity.

Eli Lilly and Company, LLY

Eli Lilly Reports Stronger Phase 3b Results for Taltz and Zepbound

Eli Lilly released new exploratory findings from its TOGETHER-PsO Phase 3b clinical trial examining two existing prescription medicines. Researchers compared the combined use of Taltz and Zepbound against Taltz alone in adults with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. The study also included participants with obesity or overweight alongside at least one additional weight-related medical condition.

The latest analysis identified broader changes in proteins and genes among participants receiving both medicines compared with Taltz alone. By Week 36, researchers identified changes involving 482 proteins in the combination group, compared with 140 in the other group. Similarly, gene expression changes affected 467 genes with combined treatment, against only 16 genes with Taltz alone.

These biological differences appeared as early as Week 12, according to the pharmaceutical company’s newly released findings. Researchers also identified stronger reductions in inflammatory immune activity among participants receiving both treatments over the study period. Eli Lilly presented the findings at the 2026 Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference in Las Vegas.

Combined Treatment Improves Skin Clearance and Weight Reduction

The latest findings build on earlier clinical results showing better treatment outcomes among participants receiving Taltz alongside Zepbound. At Week 36, the combination delivered superior skin clearance and meaningful weight reduction compared with Taltz alone. Furthermore, participants maintained or improved these clinical benefits through Week 52, according to Eli Lilly’s previously reported findings.

The analysis also examined neutrophils, which play an important role in the body’s inflammatory immune response. Researchers found that combined treatment produced greater changes in inflammatory pathways associated with these immune cells. Changes in certain neutrophil-related markers partly explained the additional improvement in psoriasis severity scores among combination-treatment participants.

The TOGETHER-PsO trial included 274 adults across multiple clinical research centers, with participants divided equally between two treatment groups. One group received Taltz alone, while the other received Taltz and Zepbound through injections under the skin. Both groups also received guidance on reducing calorie intake and increasing physical activity throughout the clinical study.

Eli Lilly Expands Research Into Psoriasis and Obesity

Eli Lilly designed the study to examine the relationship between metabolic health and inflammatory skin conditions. Approximately 61% of Americans with psoriasis also experience obesity or overweight alongside another weight-related medical condition, according to Lilly. The findings provide additional research into how treatments targeting different biological processes may influence both conditions.

Taltz works by blocking interleukin-17A, an immune signaling protein involved in inflammation and several related inflammatory conditions. Zepbound targets GIP and GLP-1 receptors, helping regulate appetite and support weight management in eligible adults. The two medicines therefore act through different biological pathways, providing the basis for investigating their combined clinical effects.

Eli Lilly reported that the combination’s safety findings matched the established safety profiles of the individual medicines. The exploratory results do not establish a new approved indication for using the medicines together. The company continues examining the relationship between immune and metabolic processes as researchers assess broader approaches to psoriasis management.

The post Eli Lilly and Company (LLY) Stock: Rises as Taltz and Zepbound Show Promising Results appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• ASTS stock plunges 12.01% as BlueBird satellite deployment remains a key focus.
• AST SpaceMobile targets 45 satellites by early 2027 to expand mobile coverage.
• The company needs 45 to 60 satellites for continuous service in key markets.
• AST SpaceMobile reports $3.7 billion in funding to support satellite expansion.
• Commercial satellite service could generate nearly $1 billion in annual revenue.

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. stock dropped 12.01% to $50.10 on Friday, losing $6.83 during the trading session. The decline comes as the company works to expand its BlueBird satellite network and prepare commercial broadband services. Its satellite deployment targets remain central to future revenue growth and the company’s long-term business plans.

AST SpaceMobile, Inc., ASTS

AST SpaceMobile currently operates 13 spacecraft in orbit, according to its second-quarter 2026 update. The company needs a substantially larger constellation to provide continuous mobile coverage across its target markets. Management expects to reach approximately 45 satellites by early 2027, supporting its planned commercial network expansion.

AST SpaceMobile Targets 45 BlueBird Satellites by Early 2027

AST SpaceMobile reported 13 spacecraft in orbit during its August 10, 2026, earnings call. The company estimates that continuous broadband coverage requires between 45 and 60 satellites across major international markets. These markets include the United States, Europe, and Japan, where the company plans to introduce satellite-based mobile connectivity.

The BlueBird network aims to provide broadband services directly to standard smartphones without requiring special equipment. AST SpaceMobile plans to extend mobile coverage into areas where traditional cellular infrastructure remains limited. Its technology could support telecommunications providers seeking broader network coverage without building additional ground infrastructure across remote regions.

The company has established partnerships with more than 60 mobile network operators across different international markets. These telecommunications partners serve more than 3 billion subscribers, creating a substantial potential customer base. Commercial availability depends on satellite deployment, network integration, regulatory approvals, and agreements with participating mobile operators.

AST SpaceMobile Revenue Targets Depend on Network Expansion

AST SpaceMobile generated $31.5 million in revenue during the second quarter of 2026, according to its financial results. Government contracts and infrastructure projects for commercial partners provided revenue during the reporting period. The company continues developing its satellite network before launching commercial mobile broadband services at a larger scale.

Over the previous twelve months, AST SpaceMobile recorded approximately $100 million in revenue from its existing operations. Management has outlined an ambitious target of nearly $1 billion during its first year of commercial service. Achieving that target requires substantial network capacity and successful service agreements with telecommunications companies across multiple geographic regions.

The company’s valuation also reflects expectations surrounding its future commercial operations and satellite deployment progress. AST SpaceMobile trades at approximately 147.7 times sales, compared with around 3.0 times sales for the S&P 500. Is approximately $600 million annual net loss highlights the financial demands of developing a global satellite communications network.

AST SpaceMobile Funding Supports BlueBird Satellite Deployment

AST SpaceMobile estimates that each satellite will cost approximately $21 million to $23 million, including launch expenses. The company intends to develop a constellation exceeding 90 satellites, extending beyond its initial continuous coverage requirements. Based on those estimates, 90 satellites would require approximately $1.89 billion to $2.07 billion in combined satellite and launch costs.

The company reported more than $3.7 billion in pro forma cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash following recent financing. This figure incorporates $1.15 billion in gross proceeds from convertible senior notes issued during July 2026. Management expects those financial resources to support additional satellite launches, manufacturing expansion, and the broader network development program.

AST SpaceMobile continues to face financial and operational challenges as it expands its satellite infrastructure. A shareholder class action alleges that the company misrepresented aspects of its capital resources and liquidity position. Satellite manufacturing schedules, launch execution, and commercial network activation remain important factors influencing its future financial performance.

The post AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (ASTS) Stock: BlueBird Launches Hold the Key to Future Gains appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Amazon (AMZN) stock surges 2.70% to $260.92 despite another round of job cuts
• Amazon reportedly cuts fewer than 1,000 jobs across the US, UK, and India
• Fresh layoffs affect customer service, marketplace support, and engineering teams
• Amazon’s earlier restructuring plans covered approximately 30,000 job cuts
• Amazon targets former employees for AI and cloud roles despite fresh layoffs

Amazon (AMZN) stock surged 2.70% to $260.92 during Friday’s intraday trading, gaining $6.86 despite reports of fresh workforce reductions. The company reportedly eliminated fewer than 1,000 positions across several business units in three countries. The latest layoffs extend Amazon’s restructuring efforts following approximately 30,000 previously announced job cuts.

Amazon.com, Inc., AMZN

Amazon Announces Fresh Layoffs Across Retail Operations

Amazon employees in the United States, India, and the United Kingdom reported receiving job termination notices this week. According to Business Insider, workers received emails Tuesday confirming the elimination of their positions. The reductions affected several departments, including customer service, marketplace support, and engineering teams within retail operations.

Employees shared information about the layoffs through an internal Slack channel containing nearly 37,000 members. Their messages identified affected departments and raised questions about the company’s ongoing restructuring process. Workers also sought clarification about severance packages, internal job opportunities, and the possibility of further reductions.

Amazon confirmed to Business Insider that it eliminated a limited number of positions, primarily within its Stores division. The company linked the changes to organizational restructuring and efforts to improve operational efficiency. Amazon also said it would provide support to affected employees during their employment transitions.

Amazon’s Previous Job Cuts Total Approximately 30,000

The latest reductions follow Amazon’s January announcement of approximately 16,000 job cuts across its global operations. Company leadership outlined plans to simplify management structures and reduce unnecessary administrative processes. The restructuring also aimed to increase employee ownership and improve decision-making across business divisions.

Amazon previously announced another 14,000 corporate job reductions in October 2025, expanding its workforce restructuring program. Together, those two announcements covered approximately 30,000 positions, representing nearly 1% of its reported 1.56 million employees. The reductions reached Amazon Web Services, retail operations, Prime Video, and corporate human resources functions.

The company also targeted its People Experience and Technology division during the broader workforce adjustments. These changes affected several major operations rather than concentrating reductions within one business segment. Amazon continued reorganizing departments while maintaining investments in technology and other priority business areas.

Amazon Expands AI Hiring Despite Workforce Reductions

Amazon has also pursued recruitment initiatives targeting specialists in artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Last month, reports indicated that the company sought former employees, including workers affected by earlier layoffs. The recruitment effort focused on professionals with experience in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related technologies.

AWS Vice President Swami Sivasubramanian leads the company’s artificial intelligence agent organization and its recruitment initiative. The program, called Swami’s Boomerang Reengagement Initiative, aims to reconnect Amazon with former technical employees. Its recruitment efforts operate alongside the company’s broader restructuring and workforce reduction measures.

Amazon’s latest layoffs and specialized recruitment efforts reflect separate changes across its business operations. The company continues adjusting staffing within retail while pursuing technical expertise for artificial intelligence development. Meanwhile, its recent workforce changes span multiple countries and several divisions across its global operations.

The post Amazon (AMZN) Stock: Surges as Company Announces Fresh Layoffs appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• IonQ shares fall 0.33% to $39.32 despite a major quantum networking breakthrough.
• Researchers achieve over 1,000 entanglement events per second using light links.
• The new quantum interconnect surpasses the earlier trapped-ion record fourfold.
• IonQ’s breakthrough supports DARPA research into faster quantum hardware links.
• New system sales in Maryland and South Korea highlight early commercial demand.

IonQ (IONQ) stock slipped 0.33% to $39.32 during Friday’s intraday session, losing $0.13 despite a new quantum computing breakthrough. The company achieved more than 1,000 entanglement events per second between two different quantum systems. The development advances IonQ’s efforts to connect quantum processors and build larger computing networks.

IonQ, Inc., IONQ

IonQ Achieves Major Quantum Interconnect Milestone

IonQ announced that its researchers achieved entanglement rates exceeding 1 kilohertz through a photonic connection. The experiment linked a trapped ion qubit with solid-state quantum memory using light to transfer quantum information. This connection allows separate quantum components to share information and operate within a larger computing system.

The company reported that its demonstration exceeded the previous trapped-ion interconnect record by more than four times. IonQ researchers worked with collaborators from Duke University, including research associated with company co-founder Chris Monroe. The results establish a new performance benchmark for connecting trapped ion systems with other quantum hardware.

IonQ Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi identified quantum interconnects as essential infrastructure for larger computing networks. He compared future quantum systems with traditional data centers that connect processors, memory, and networking equipment. The company aims to use similar architecture to expand quantum computing capacity beyond individual processors.

IonQ Advances Quantum Memory and Networking Technology

IonQ conducted the experiment using an end-to-end connection between a trapped ion system and a silicon vacancy qubit. The setup incorporated its existing quantum memory technology and transmitted quantum information through a photonic interconnect. This approach combines the coherence advantages of trapped ions with efficient light connections from solid-state memory.

The achievement also supports IonQ’s participation in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s HARQ program. DARPA seeks to develop high-speed quantum connections that support different types of quantum computing hardware. IonQ expects its technology to support trapped ions, neutral atoms, and superconducting systems using suitable conversion devices.

Meanwhile, IonQ continues to expand commercial applications for its quantum memory and interconnect platform. The company announced its first commercial system sale to the University of Maryland in April. It followed that agreement with a second system sale to South Korean technology company SDT in September.

IonQ Stock Performance Meets Expanding Commercial Operations

The latest announcement adds to IonQ’s research activities as the company develops quantum networking products. Its technology targets connections between separate quantum devices rather than relying entirely on individual processors. Such connections form part of the infrastructure needed to distribute computing tasks across multiple quantum systems.

IonQ also develops hardware that supports different approaches to quantum computing through its interconnect architecture. The company expects this flexibility to create applications in modular computing and networked quantum sensing. However, commercial deployment depends on further engineering, system integration, and performance testing across supported hardware platforms.

The latest technical results strengthen IonQ’s quantum networking roadmap and add evidence from operational hardware testing. Its commercial agreements also demonstrate early demand for the company’s memory and interconnect systems. Friday’s stock decline occurred despite these developments, reflecting a weaker intraday performance following the announcement.

The post IonQ (IONQ) Stock: Quantum Breakthrough Hits 1,000 Entanglements Per Second appeared first on Blockonomi.

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.

Bitcoin’s on-chain regime model from BIT has returned to a 67% net-long position for a second consecutive month, with five indicators now in territory historically associated with bull markets.

The reading suggests a potential recovery in Bitcoin’s cycle, although a recent $7,000 price decline and two important on-chain price levels leave room for further weakness.

Five Bitcoin Indicators Turn Bullish as Model Raises Exposure

In an October 9 post, BIT explained that its rules-based model moved from 100% net long on October 1, 2025, to 33% on November 1, before dropping to zero on December 1. It remained there through most of the subsequent drawdown before returning to 67% on September 1, 2026.

The model has now maintained that allocation for two consecutive months, with BIT noting that five indicators have simultaneously entered historically bullish territory, a combination last seen in October 2025.

First is Bitcoin’s short-term realized price, which provides an estimate of the average cost incurred in buying units recently. BTC dipped below this level to $112,300 in October 2025 but jumped above it to $68,800 in August 2026, and this measure is now at $74,319, taking Bitcoin above its cost basis.

The second measure, the True Market Mean, tracks the cost basis of active capital. It stands at $77,460, compared with BTC’s price of approximately $82,000 in the latest CoinGecko data. BIT argues that sustained trading above this threshold would strengthen the bullish interpretation.

The other three are Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV), which compares market value with realized value, and stands at 0.20; the Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL), which measures investors’ paper gains and losses, and has turned positive for the first time since October 2025; and the Value Days Destroyed (VDD), which tracks the movement of coins based on their age and value, which has also turned bullish.

However, BIT cautioned that the model is not fully invested because some indicators have yet to turn bullish and others have only recently crossed their thresholds. Furthermore, the firm pointed out that a sustained break below both the short-term realized price and True Market Mean would be an early warning that recovery is losing track.

Bitcoin Retreat Tests the Bullish On-Chain Reading

The model’s improving signals contrast with Bitcoin’s recent price action. As mentioned earlier, CoinGecko data put the OG cryptocurrency at around $82,000 at the time of writing, down 4.5% over seven days and more than 32% in the past year.

Bitcoin fell nearly $7,000 after failing to break above $87,000, with the decline coinciding with substantial US government BTC transfers to Coinbase Prime, spot ETF outflows totaling $731 million on October 7 and 8, and profit-taking exceeding $1 billion in realized gains.

The post These 5 Bitcoin Indicators Have Turned Bullish for the First Time Since 2025: Report appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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.