AMD's Helion blueprint could democratize AI infrastructure, reducing vendor lock-in and enabling flexible, cost-effective AI deployments.

The post AMD launches Helion open rack blueprint for agentic AI workloads appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The lack of consensus on AI accountability in workplaces poses operational risks, highlighting the need for clear policies and oversight.

The post Wharton study finds managers can’t agree who’s to blame when workplace AI fails appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

AI funding in politics raises questions about influence and regulation, highlighting tensions between industry ties and policy integrity.

The post Anthropic-backed AI group puts $3.5 million behind Scott Wiener’s House run appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Investor skepticism over AI profitability could lead to a broader reevaluation of tech stock valuations, impacting future market dynamics.

The post AI fatigue drives chip stocks to their longest losing streak since May 2025 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Nadella's warning highlights the need for transparent AI oversight to prevent unpredictable risks, urging a shift in AI governance design.

The post Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns against trusting opaque AI to police AI appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

The Amount of Bitcoin on Exchanges Is Shrinking. Is a Rally Imminent?

Bitcoin’s price could be due a move upwards as the supply of the leading cryptocurrency on exchanges shrinks. 

That’s according to a researcher at data firm CryptoQuant, who wrote in a Monday report that bitcoin on exchanges has dropped to 2.67 million from 2.8 million since February. 

The price of bitcoin was recently $83,485, unmoved over a 24-hour period but up 8% over the past 30 days after having its best quarter in years. Its surge in August and September has led a number of analysts to declare the bear market is over.  

“If buying demand continues to improve while exchange supply remains low, BTC could benefit from a supply-demand imbalance, creating favorable conditions for a longer-term upward trend,” the report by on-chain researcher Rei Researcher read. 

It added: “More importantly, in recent weeks, bitcoin has recovered from its lows while exchange reserves have continued to decline. This is a notable development, suggesting that the supply readily available for trading is decreasing even as the market recovers.”

The report further noted that it was possible investors were taking bitcoin off exchanges to put in cold storage solutions. 

Bitcoin’s price was mostly trading under $65,000 for the first half of 2026. The coin spent most of this year in a bear market following the all-time high of $126,080 it hit in October 2025. 

But that all changed in August. News that the U.S. Treasury would double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations, weakening the dollar but strengthening bitcoin and other non-yield bearing assets. 

Now, the so-called debasement trade — where investors throw money at an asset to hedge against a currency losing its value — is hot again. Bitcoin is benefiting from the trade, analysts say, as it did in 2024 and 2025. 

Bitcoin’s price is still more than 30% below its record. 

This post The Amount of Bitcoin on Exchanges Is Shrinking. Is a Rally Imminent? first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Trezor Reduces Number of Resellers Following Ledger Drainage Incident 

Hardware manufacturer Trezor has said it has reduced the number of resellers it works with following supply-chain incidents related to its competitor Ledger. 

The Prague, Czech Republic-based company added in a Tuesday post on X that it was in the process of checking which vendors it works with. 

It added that there were no reports of any issues with Trezor devices. “Let us be very clear: there is not a single piece of evidence that Trezor devices have been compromised,” the company wrote. 

“This is a preventive step, taken out of an abundance of caution.”

Signing device manufacturer Ledger last week said it had started an investigation after customers in South East Asia reported they’d lost funds after buying from Malaysia-based reseller, CryptoBilis. 

Ledger then said that one of the impacted users’ devices contained an unauthorized hardware implant. 

More reports of what appear to be tampered devices have since surfaced on social media but Ledger said Tuesday that only devices sold through CryptoBilis have been linked to lost funds. 

It added that it had only confirmed an unauthorized hardware implant in one affected user’s device. The implant, according to Ledger, was able to read a seedphrase when it appeared on the device. 

Ledger did not reveal how much money had been lost but blockchain investigator Specter said $86 million had been drained from devices. 

“We have not confirmed the total number of affected users or the total value lost,” Ledger added on X. “Figures circulating online come from third parties and Ledger has not fully verified them.”

Ledger did not respond to Bitcoin Magazine’s questions. 

CryptoBilis has also stopped selling devices, Ledger added, and advised customers who bought from CryptoBilis to not set up their devices and contact the Ledger support team. 

Criminals have been targeting hardware wallets this year. Hackers in July were able to steal close to $120 million in bitcoin from Coldcard users due to a firmware bug in the devices. 

Canadian company Coinkite, which makes the popular products, said that the bug led to faulty seed generation, allowing hackers to guess investor seedphrases. 

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. 

Scammers earlier this year were able to get hold of customer information via crypto wallet Ledger’s payment processor Global-e to send phishing emails.  

This post Trezor Reduces Number of Resellers Following Ledger Drainage Incident  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strive Buys More Bitcoin, Crosses 30,000 BTC Mark 

Nasdaq-listed Strive isn’t slowing down with its bitcoin buys.

The company now has more than 30,000 BTC after buying 3,311 coins last week, according to a Tuesday filing. 

Strive now holds 32,773 coins worth $2.7 billion at today’s prices, keeping its position as the  fifth biggest publicly traded bitcoin company, according to Bitcoin Treasuries. 

Strategy, Twenty One, Metaplanet, and MARA all hold more bitcoin than Strive.  

Strive’s stock (ASST) was trading slightly lower on Tuesday. Unlike other treasuries, though, Strive shares are up significantly this year: year-to-date, ASST has risen by close to 60%. 

A number of top bitcoin treasuries have seen their stock plummet this year since the price of bitcoin took a hit. Some top treasuries have had to sell bitcoin or rethink their model altogether. 

Dallas, Texas-based Strive debuted as an official bitcoin treasury last year, following in the footsteps of software company Strategy, the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin. 

Unlike Strategy, though, Strive hasn’t used debt to buy the cryptocurrency. CEO Matt Cole has described the company as debt-free with zero margin requirements and zero encumbered bitcoin.

Like with other digital asset treasuries, the idea is that investors can get amplified returns from Strive’s stock. 

In January 2026, it completed the acquisition of Semler Scientific in an all-stock deal — the first instance of a publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company acquiring another such company. 

The company was founded by former Ohio gubernatorial candidate and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. 

This post Strive Buys More Bitcoin, Crosses 30,000 BTC Mark  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Alex Gladstein: How The Bitcoin-AI Convergence Impacts the Fight for Freedom

Is the biggest AI risk really the end of humanity? Alex Gladstein says no: the real danger is AI centralized in the hands of dictators, governments, and a few large corporations. In this interview, the HRF Chief Strategy Officer explains why “AI will kill us all” claims are largely propaganda, and why local AI on your own laptop and phone could be a huge win for human rights. Tune in to hear his vision for AI that’s in our control.

Chapters:
0:00 – Alex Gladstein on Freedom AI vs. Corporate AI
1:26 – How HRF Trains Human Rights Activists to Use AI
2:57 – The Freedom Stack: Encrypted Inference, Open Weights and Local AI
5:45 – The Real AI Risk: Centralization in the Hands of Dictators
8:20 – HRF and Bitcoin Park Hackathons for Activists
9:57 – Why CBDCs Are a Tool of Repression
12:35 – Living on Bitcoin in Kenya With Tando and M-Pesa
15:25 – Building Your Own Freedom Tech With AI Agents
17:39 – Venezuela After Maduro and Bitcoin as a Lifeline
20:25 – What “Freedom Money” Really Means

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 Alex Gladstein: How The Bitcoin-AI Convergence Impacts the Fight for Freedom first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Matt Dines: Why a Rising Dollar is Bullish for Bitcoin

The dollar is rising, and so is Bitcoin. Matt Dines says that’s a bullish signal. The Build Asset Management CIO explains how capital is leaving the old post-World War II offshore dollar system for a new U.S.-led Western Hemisphere financial system. He makes the case that Bitcoin is part of that system’s future, and covers what the DXY is really telling investors right now.

Chapters:
0:00 – Matt Dines on France’s Bond Crisis and the ECB’s Pontes CBDC Bridge
2:11 – How the Strait of Hormuz Disruption Rewired Global Trade
3:22 – French-German Spreads and European Contagion Risk
4:23 – Bank of England’s Digital Gilt and Tokenized Sovereign Debt
5:54 – Why Dollar Up, Bitcoin Up Is a Bullish Signal
7:47 – Signals to Watch Before Pressure Hits Bitcoin
10:25 – Treasury Buybacks and the Coming Bond Market Repricing
12:50 – Why Treasury Is Buying Back Old, Illiquid Bonds
14:28 – How Buybacks Pull Capital Into the Dollar and Bitcoin
15:40 – Why the Buybacks Aren’t QE and What It Means for Bitcoin

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 Matt Dines: Why a Rising Dollar is Bullish for Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Australia's markets regulator proposed extending retail leverage restrictions to crypto-settled derivatives amid mounting losses among investors trading risky financial products.

On Oct. 12, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) announced it wants to expand its existing contracts-for-difference (CFD) rules to cover qualifying derivatives settled through digital assets, closing a regulatory gap that lets economically similar products face different restrictions.

The proposal follows ASIC's finding that 68% of retail CFD clients lost money during the 2023–24 financial year, with combined losses exceeding A$458 million ($325 million), including A$73 million in fees. The figures cover CFD trading across asset classes, rather than cryptocurrency derivatives alone.

The Australian regulator is also seeking to extend its existing investor protections for another decade, keeping them in force until 2037, subject to government approval.

Australia targets leveraged crypto products and margin practices

Under ASIC's existing framework, CFDs are generally covered when transactions are settled in cash or through offsetting obligations between counterparties.

However, some derivatives with similar characteristics can settle through transfers of digital assets, potentially placing them outside the current product intervention order.

ASIC wants to eliminate that distinction by extending the definition to qualifying digitally settled contracts, regardless of whether their underlying exposure is linked to cryptocurrencies, traditional assets, interest rates or market indices.

The change could force affected brokers and derivatives platforms to comply with existing leverage restrictions, standardized margin close-out arrangements, negative balance protections and limits on promotional incentives.

For CFDs referencing cryptocurrencies, the current maximum retail leverage is 2:1, meaning investors must provide at least half the value of their positions as initial margin.

Other contracts face different limits depending on the underlying asset, ranging from 5:1 for shares to 30:1 for major currency pairs.

The proposed expansion would therefore depend on a derivative's underlying exposure and contractual structure, rather than automatically imposing the cryptocurrency leverage cap on every product settled using digital assets.

Some fixed-expiry crypto futures and options would remain outside the framework.

ASIC Commissioner Alan Kirkland said existing restrictions had materially reduced investor harm, particularly by limiting excessive leverage.

During the first six months after the protections took effect in March 2021, aggregate quarterly retail losses declined 91%, from A$372 million to A$33 million.

The regulator also recorded an 87% reduction in quarterly margin close-outs, although subsequent reviews showed that most retail CFD investors continued losing money.

ASIC's latest proposal would tighten how brokers calculate initial margin, following a sector-wide investigation that identified firms offsetting customers' opposing trading positions to reduce collateral requirements.

Under the proposed clarification, brokers must calculate the minimum margin separately for each CFD, preventing them from using one position to reduce the initial collateral required for another.

The regulator said its intervention over margin-netting practices led 28 issuers to refund more than A$36 million to affected retail customers.

Additional changes target CFDs linked to options, where investor losses have been particularly severe.

ASIC found that 85% of retail clients trading CFDs over options lost money during 2023–24, prompting proposals to clarify margin requirements and examine whether some products should remain available to ordinary investors.

The regulator is specifically seeking evidence on contracts that could expose traders to losses exceeding the options premium, including structures with potentially unlimited downside exposure.

It has yet to decide whether those products should face further restrictions or an outright prohibition.

Australia's ASIC also wants tighter conditions for promotional discounts, requiring permitted offers to be available on substantially equal terms to retail customers and prominently displayed on brokers' websites and trading platforms.

The proposals would require firms to retain records of qualifying discounts for seven years after the offers end, while ensuring educational and research tools are not used to encourage prohibited trading activity.

The existing CFD intervention order expires on May 23, 2027. ASIC argues that a further 10-year extension would give firms greater regulatory certainty while preserving the regulator's ability to revoke the restrictions earlier.

However, the amendments remain under consultation, and industry feedback could change their final scope.

ASIC is seeking submissions from brokers, trading platforms and consumer groups by Nov. 9, including information about which digitally settled products would be affected, expected compliance costs and whether firms would need a transition period.

The post Australia moves to close crypto derivatives loophole after retail traders lose A$458 million appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A London judge rejected Chinese fraud victims' bid to use English law to claim more than 61,000 seized Bitcoin.

In an Oct. 12 ruling, High Court Justice Mark Turner sided with British prosecutors, determining that Chinese law must govern ownership claims over the cryptocurrency, currently worth approximately $5 billion.

“The applicable law is Chinese law,” Turner wrote in the judgment, rejecting arguments that English property and trust principles should determine the investors' entitlement.

The decision leaves thousands of victims facing a potentially difficult recovery battle, as proving they lost money to the fraud does not automatically establish ownership of the Bitcoin acquired with its proceeds.

How a Chinese investment fraud became a $5 billion Bitcoin dispute

The case stems from investment schemes operated by Zhimin Qian through Tianjin Lantian Gerui Electronic Technology and associated businesses between 2014 and 2017.

According to the judgment's agreed factual background, the schemes collected approximately 40.23 billion yuan (£4.1 billion) through at least 128,409 investment contracts.

However, the court cautioned that the number of contracts should not be mistaken for the number of individual victims.

The records also revealed substantial repayments to some participants. Approximately 34.1 billion yuan (£3.4 billion) flowed back to investors during the scheme's operation, although others received nothing.

Qian converted part of the proceeds into Bitcoin, including purchases of more than 100,000 BTC through an account on cryptocurrency exchange Huobi, alongside over-the-counter transactions conducted in China.

After fleeing China in 2017, she relocated to Britain, where authorities subsequently seized devices, private keys and other assets linked to more than 61,000 Bitcoin.

The recovered cryptocurrency became the subject of civil recovery proceedings initiated by Britain's Director of Public Prosecutions under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Chinese investors later sought to establish ownership of the coins, arguing that English legal principles could let them trace their stolen investments into the cryptocurrency Qian acquired.

They argued that fraudulent investment contracts could be rescinded, creating trust-based ownership interests that followed the money into Bitcoin.

British prosecutors opposed that approach, maintaining that the original transactions and alleged acquisition of ownership rights occurred in China.

Turner agreed, finding that the investors, perpetrators, payments and cryptocurrency purchases were overwhelmingly connected to China.

The judge also rejected the argument that Bitcoin's eventual presence in Britain should determine which country's property laws applied.

Instead, he focused on the legal relationships established when the investors collected the investments and later converted them into cryptocurrency.

That conclusion defeated the investors' attempts to rely on English law or combine English and Chinese legal principles to establish their claims.

Victims must now prove ownership as recovery battle enters next stage

The next proceedings will determine whether Chinese law recognizes the ownership interests investors assert in the recovered Bitcoin.

Under Section 281 of Britain's Proceeds of Crime Act, claimants must establish a proprietary interest in assets targeted for recovery, rather than merely demonstrate that criminals owe them compensation.

Turner emphasized that the provision “does not create any broader compensation scheme” for people who suffered financial losses through criminal conduct.

Consequently, investors may need to establish how Chinese law treats fraudulent investment contracts, whether ownership rights survive the conversion of stolen funds into cryptocurrency and whether those rights extend to the particular assets held by British authorities.

The scale and structure of Qian's operation could complicate those proceedings. The scheme involved multiple bank accounts, investment arrangements and repayments, leaving individual claimants with potentially different financial histories.

The judgment also leaves the precise operation of Chinese law unresolved.

Although Turner decided that Chinese law governs the underlying claims, the court has yet to receive evidence establishing its relevant provisions or the factual basis of each investor's asserted ownership.

The victims advanced an alternative argument that English law should apply until Chinese law was formally established.

Turner rejected that submission, distinguishing the choice of governing law from the evidence needed to establish its contents.

“The two should not be conflated,” he wrote.

The litigation also involves receivers appointed to Tianjin Lantian Gerui at the initiative of one alleged victim. Those receivers have asserted separate claims over assets held by British prosecutors.

Turner described the validity of that route as “a question for another day,” leaving another potential complication for the eventual distribution of the cryptocurrency.

Lawyers representing the fraud victims plan to appeal the ruling, according to the Financial Times, potentially prolonging the dispute over the seized assets.

For British authorities, the decision removes one proposed route investors sought to use to establish ownership under English law. It does not determine how much Bitcoin, if any, will ultimately remain available for government recovery.

Turner said he would hear further submissions on the precise order implementing his judgment.

The court will need to establish the applicable Chinese property rights and examine individual claims before it can determine which portions of the cryptocurrency belong to successful applicants.

The post A $5 billion Bitcoin fortune is at stake, but UK court says being defrauded isn’t enough to claim it appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Researchers have cut the estimated computing cost of a specialized quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction by 82% to $59.

Data from the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge showed that improvements in graphics processing software reduced the projected expense from approximately $320 during StarkWare's first mainnet demonstration in August to $67 in September and $59 as of Oct. 13.

The breakthrough could make a specialized Bitcoin protection method more affordable as developers seek ways to safeguard cryptocurrency holdings against future quantum computers without waiting for changes to the network's underlying protocol.

The public competition, organized by StarkWare, Yukon Research, and Eigen Labs, used AI-assisted coding tools to accelerate the computational searches required for the transactions.

Its latest benchmark recorded more than 1 billion verified candidates per second on an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU, up from an initial rate of approximately 146 million.

However, the $59 figure remains a hardware-dependent estimate based on simulated GPU workloads rather than a completed production transaction. Bitcoin network fees are separate, while some computing stages still rely on provisional assumptions.

StarkWare said the improvements make its proposed emergency protection method considerably cheaper to prepare, with researchers now targeting a computing cost below $10.

Quantum computing advances intensify Bitcoin security race

The development builds on research by StarkWare's Avihu Levy, who demonstrated in August that Bitcoin could support a quantum-resistant spending arrangement under its existing consensus rules.

Known as Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB), the method uses hash-based cryptography and a computational puzzle to secure specially prepared Bitcoin holdings against attacks on conventional digital signatures.

The approach lets holders do the required calculations off-chain before spending their coins, potentially offering protection while developers work on broader changes to Bitcoin's cryptographic infrastructure.

That research has gained urgency as advances in quantum computing challenge previous estimates of how much computing power attackers would need to compromise cryptocurrency security.

In March, Google Quantum AI reported that future quantum computers could break the elliptic-curve cryptography used by Bitcoin with substantially fewer resources than previously estimated.

Its researchers calculated that certain attacks could theoretically complete in minutes using fewer than 500,000 physical qubits under specified hardware assumptions, a roughly 20-fold reduction from earlier estimates.

Although such machines remain beyond publicly demonstrated capabilities, the findings have increased pressure on blockchain developers to prepare before quantum attacks become practical.

The potential exposure is substantial.

According to a study by Glassnode, approximately 6.04 million BTC, representing 30.2% of Bitcoin's issued supply at the time, had public keys already visible on-chain.

The figure included 1.92 million BTC exposed through their underlying address structures and another 4.12 million BTC exposed through practices such as address reuse and previous spending activity.

A sufficiently powerful quantum attacker could theoretically derive private keys from those exposed public keys and gain control of the associated coins.

The threat has fueled debate over how quickly Bitcoin should adopt quantum-resistant cryptography, particularly given the complexity of introducing changes across a decentralized network.

QSB could offer an interim option, but it protects only eligible coins whose conventional public keys remain hidden until they are moved into specially constructed outputs.

That requirement leaves already-exposed holdings vulnerable if a capable quantum attacker emerges before owners can complete a secure migration.

The method also faces practical deployment restrictions. Although QSB transactions comply with Bitcoin's consensus rules, ordinary network relay policies reject them, requiring direct submission to miners willing to process them.

MARA's Slipstream service provided that route during the August demonstration.

Still, StarkWare continues to favor a broader Bitcoin protocol upgrade for long-term protection. Researchers must now demonstrate the latest computing savings in complete transactions and establish dependable miner access before QSB can become a practical fallback for holders.

The post Bitcoin’s quantum-safe protection gets 82% cheaper as researchers race to secure 6 million exposed BTC appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Sky.money reported more than $4.4 billion of stablecoin liquidity in its Peg Stability Module in an Oct. 9 explanation of the conversion mechanism. The PSM gives holders a direct route between USDS, Sky Protocol’s dollar-linked token, and USDC at a one-for-one rate.

Those measures answer different questions. Token circulation describes the stock of holdings. Conversion inventory describes what a holder can receive on a particular exit route. Fresh external dollar demand concerns money entering from outside the token system. Borrowing against collateral and upgrading an existing token can change individual token counts without establishing a matching inflow of bank dollars. A swap through existing inventory moves liquidity between holders or token forms; it does not by itself establish new issuance.

Sky describes direct USDS–USDC conversion in both directions through liquidity already held inside the protocol. The mechanism supplies the conversion itself, so it does not need to find another trader willing to take the opposite position.

At the settings described in the October explanation, the direct PSM leg has no protocol swap fee or slippage. A routed trade can still incur costs elsewhere: if it passes through another token pool before reaching USDC or USDS, that leg follows the pool’s own pricing, liquidity and fees.

The $4.4 billion figure describes aggregate stablecoin liquidity disclosed on Oct. 9. A USDS exit depends on the USDC inventory available on that route at the time of the transaction.

Sky also reported about $1.6 billion in cumulative USDC–USDS volume processed through Uniswap routing by Oct. 6, following its July 8 integration. Cumulative turnover can include movement in both directions and repeated conversions; it does not measure net USDS issuance or new dollars deposited into crypto.

Borrowing and migration change what a supply increase means

A separate Ethereum converter connects DAI and USDS. Sky’s developer documentation says the two tokens share an issuance source and that holders can convert between them in either direction without liquidity restrictions. That statement applies to the DAI–USDS converter, rather than to the availability of USDC in the PSM.

The accounting implication is straightforward: a holder can change an existing position’s denomination. An increase in USDS considered alone therefore need not represent additional money entering the wider system. Understanding the economic change requires following the DAI side of the conversion as well.

USDD is a separate collateral-backed stablecoin whose borrowing and migration routes add two more ways a token count can change. Its vault documentation describes depositing collateral, minting USDD debt and repaying the tokens plus stability fees to release collateral. Users can also withdraw collateral while maintaining sufficient coverage. This creates spendable liquidity for someone who wants to retain a collateral position, alongside an obligation to repay.

The borrower’s new ability to transact is economically useful. It can be created against assets already held, however, so each newly issued token does not require a corresponding new bank-dollar deposit. The pledged assets support the debt; their valuation is a different measure from the stablecoin inventory available to satisfy an immediate conversion request.

USDD also offers a migration route from USDDOLD into an equivalent amount of new USDD, with gas costs and no deadline. Here, a higher count in the new token can reflect an upgrade of an existing holding. Comparing old and new contracts separately can obscure whether the underlying economic position has increased.

A supply comparison needs consistent observation times and stated token coverage, including how it treats legacy tokens and holdings that back other tokens.

USDD’s PSM instructions make the immediate constraint explicit. The mechanism offers one-for-one conversion between USDD and supported stablecoins, with no service fee but network gas costs. Users must check the displayed quantity of the target token and keep their swap within that available amount.

A holder seeking USDT needs the inventory that can deliver USDT. An aggregate collateral valuation cannot substitute for that balance, just as a debt position’s backing cannot automatically be treated as an uncommitted pool of redemption cash.

Receiving USDC is a separate step from receiving bank dollars

USDC issuer Circle describes a more direct fiat connection in its USDC issuance and redemption process. Eligible businesses deposit dollars into Circle accounts to obtain newly minted USDC. Returning USDC for dollars removes the redeemed tokens from circulation. Circle says the backing consists of highly liquid cash and cash equivalents, with most reserves invested in the Circle Reserve Fund, whose portfolio can contain short-dated Treasuries, overnight Treasury repurchase agreements and cash.

A purchase on an exchange can instead draw on USDC already held by the exchange. Circle says an exchange may mint additional tokens when it needs more inventory. A buyer’s demand for USDC therefore need not trigger a new issuance transaction each time.

Access also differs between a protocol conversion and bank redemption. Circle Mint is an institutional product that is unavailable to individuals and small businesses through that service. Eligible retail holders in the European Economic Area have a separate direct route with Circle France.

Circle’s MiCA redemption policy, last updated Sept. 15, requires eligibility, identity and transaction checks, along with an EEA bank account that can accept USD for a USDC redemption. For eligible EEA retail holders, the policy gives a five-business-day timeframe unless discrepancies arise. It also permits deferrals during a stress event that prevents reserve rebalancing between Circle France and Circle LLC.

For a USDS holder seeking bank dollars, obtaining USDC through the PSM completes the token-conversion leg. The issuer and banking route still has to complete the cash leg. A stablecoin conversion balance and a bank payment are separate stages of access to dollars.

The post Sky’s $4.4 billion liquidity disclosure shows why USDS cash-outs need a separate bank route appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ethena’s USDe, a synthetic dollar targeting $1, has 51.2% of its backing allocated to DeFi and institutional lending, according to risk assessor LlamaRisk’s October 12 assessment. The allocation figure does not measure actual borrower drawdowns or cash available for immediate withdrawal. For holders, usable reserve assets and access to an exit near the peg are separate tests.

Eligible counterparties can redeem USDe directly with Ethena, subject to its conditions. Other holders rely on secondary markets for an exit. Withdrawing USDe from sUSDe, its staking vault share, requires a separate unstaking process. A lending position can have excess collateral while supplied stablecoins remain borrowed. Recovering those assets depends on available pool liquidity or the applicable loan agreement’s recall and redelivery provisions.

The global snapshot reports $4.76 billion of backing against 4.76 billion USDe outstanding. Its lending allocations are 36.9% DeFi and 14.3% institutional, alongside 24.9% liquid stablecoins, 17.6% crypto basis and 6.0% real-world assets.

LlamaRisk discloses partial Aave DAO funding and its independent Ethena proof-of-reserves attestation role. It says it received no protocol or affiliated-entity compensation for this assessment.

The diversification itself predates this snapshot. Ethena’s March governance discussions already described lending deployments, and CryptoSlate covered the broader backing shift in August.

When lending assets become redemption assets

Ethena’s DeFi lending policy describes reviewed markets with excess borrower collateral, conservative loan-to-value parameters and exposure limits subject to governance and Risk Committee review. Those safeguards aim to limit losses. Aave and Morpho’s withdrawal mechanics determine whether underlying assets are available to recover.

Under Aave’s withdrawal rules, a supplier can take out only the amount available in a pool that has not been borrowed. Morpho’s market design also makes sufficient liquidity a condition for withdrawal.

For institutional lending, Ethena describes stable-asset loans backed by collateral worth more than the amount borrowed, including liquid BTC and ETH. Qualified custody and triparty arrangements, in which an independent agent holds and administers collateral, are designed to protect the protocol’s claim. Counterparty eligibility and aggregate exposure limits are subject to committee oversight.

LlamaRisk’s April review framework examines collateral ratios, custody segregation, enforceable security interests, liquidation rights, recall notice and redelivery timeframes. On Ethena Governance, its March review of the Maple and Anchorage agreements found no material contractual deficiencies. The individual terms and commercial thresholds remain confidential.

The Anchorage agreement reviewed in March was with A1, Ltd., a Cayman Islands group entity distinct from the OCC-chartered Anchorage Digital Bank. Maple’s agreement was through Delaware-based Protocol Pool Operations Alpha LLC.

The collateral, custody and legal safeguards are intended to mitigate credit risk. Their public descriptions do not establish the exact timetable for recovering lent assets under the reviewed institutional agreements. For a holder’s exit, protection of recovery value and the timing of delivery therefore need to be assessed together.

USDe redemption and sUSDe withdrawals

Holding USDe does not automatically provide access to Ethena’s primary redemption facility. Its published terms reserve that service for eligible Mint Users who have completed know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks, other onboarding procedures and whitelisting. An ordinary holder needs to become an eligible Mint User to redeem directly, or use a secondary-market exit.

The terms describe conditional redemption into supported digital assets representing a pro-rata portion of reserves, capped at $1 in notional value per USDe and subject to fees and other conditions. Receiving a backing asset is a different step from receiving dollars in a bank account. Ethena’s order process uses signed prices and operational acceptance checks, so a nominal redemption framework does not make every requested order executable.

LlamaRisk’s October 12 assessment of the Ethereum contract lists PYUSD, USDC, USDG, USDT, USDm and USDtb as enabled stablecoins, plus DAI with smaller limits. It reports an aggregate redemption ceiling of 20 million USDe per block, against 200 million for minting, and 2 million in each direction for DAI. These are contract ceilings, not available cash. The issuer can suspend minting and redemption without the controller’s 24-hour wait.

This access is central to Ethena’s peg-arbitrage mechanism. An authorized participant can buy USDe at a discount on an external market and redeem it for backing assets. The incentive to close that gap depends on being able to obtain a usable quote and receive the assets. Secondary-market sellers rely on that arbitrage channel, as well as the liquidity of the venue where they sell.

sUSDe adds another stage. It is an ERC-4626 vault share, representing a proportional claim on USDe in the staking contract. Rewards increase the USDe represented by each share. Its relevant exchange rate is USDe per share, rather than a fixed $1 target for sUSDe itself.

Ethena’s current staking guidance describes a governance-set dynamic cooldown between one and seven days. Its technical documentation places pending unstaked USDe in USDeSilo before withdrawal. The guide gives a range rather than establishing the active October 12 setting. Completing that process delivers USDe; selling or redeeming that USDe is a further step, with its own liquidity and eligibility conditions.

The reserve buffer and the checks that matter

Ethena’s reserve fund is intended to absorb negative protocol revenue and backing shortfalls. LlamaRisk’s September assessment put it at about $62.1 million. A loss buffer serves a different purpose from assets ready for immediate settlement.

Ethena’s reserve-fund policy says its ongoing allocation of protocol revenue is 0%, with revenue directed instead to incentives and promotional distributions. That allocation applies to new revenue; the fund’s existing balance is a separate measurement.

September’s position mapping identified Aave, Morpho, Jupiter Lend and Kamino exposures, alongside Maple, FalconX, Kraken, CBAM and Anchorage institutional positions. Those detailed venue weights remain historical.

Blockworks Advisory’s March cooldown analysis makes the liquidity-accounting distinction explicit. It separates withdrawable lending positions from those constrained by utilization, and explains that cycling USDtb already held as USDe backing through USDe minting and redemption creates no net liquidity.

Ethena’s institutional-lending policy describes committee-reviewed limits without specifying a numerical cap or floor.

For holders, the observable lending test is available unborrowed liquidity alongside the amount supplied to each market. Institutional recall and redelivery disclosures need to sit alongside collateral quality. A collateralized position and a position that can deliver settlement assets on demand answer different questions.

Redemption eligibility, accepted orders and the active sUSDe cooldown complete the exit test.

The post More than half of Ethena’s USDe backing is allocated to lending appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Zcash traded at $1,184.90 on October 13, 2026, 8.2 percent lower than 24 hours earlier. The trigger came from the futures market, not from the project itself: after a rally that had carried ZEC to $1,332 on October 12 and left it as the only one of the ten largest coins with a weekly gain, leveraged long positions unwound. A second date is running in the background that many holders have yet to note: on October 20 the developers decide on the activation height of the network upgrade NU7.

This article puts the two together. First the numbers behind the setback and the level that will settle the next few days. Then the NU7 roadmap, what it changes technically, and which part of your balance it actually affects.

Zcash price falls to $1,184.90, down 8.2 percent in 24 hours

The price of Zcash stood at $1,184.90 at 12:57 UTC on October 13, 2026. That is 8.16 percent lower over 24 hours and 14.16 percent lower over seven days. Trading turnover came to $1.05 billion, market capitalisation to $19.35 billion. cryptoticker.io compiled this data itself on October 13, 2026.

The intraday range was wider than the daily close suggests. On the ZEC/USDT pair at Binance, the 24-hour high was $1,315.44 and the low $1,123.43, on turnover of more than 209 million USDT; those figures come from a reading taken by The Crypto Times at 11:15 UTC. High to low is 17 percent, inside a single day.

The level that settles the next few days

The intraday low at $1,123 is the level that counts now. It does not come from a chart pattern: it is the point where selling exhausted itself, and from there the price recovered around 5 percent. Hold above it and the setback stays a correction inside the multi-month uptrend. Break below it and the next tested floor is missing, because the previous zone from September sat markedly lower.

For context on the level: the all-time high for Zcash is $5,941.80, set on October 29, 2016. From today's price that is almost 80 percent away. Anyone who bought ZEC this year is sitting on one of the strongest years among the large coins despite the setback; anyone who bought in 2016 is not.

From weekly gain to weekly loss: the price was still $1,332 on October 12

On October 12 we described here how Zcash stood as the only one of the ten largest coins with a weekly gain, at $1,332 at the time. A day later that sentence no longer holds. From $1,332 to $1,184.90 is 11.0 percent, and over seven days ZEC is now down 14.16 percent. The special status has gone; the year-to-date record has not.

The reasoning has changed too. Last week, ETF speculation and a short-covering wave drove the price; both are forces that work upwards as long as new money keeps arriving. Since Monday the same mechanism has been running the other way. What was a driver yesterday is selling pressure today, and that explains why the setback happened without a single piece of bad news out of the project.

One point from the previous week is unchanged: Winklevoss Asset Services has filed an S-1 for a spot ETF on Zcash, listing venue Nasdaq, custodian Gemini, ticker WINK. Filed is not approved, and an application moves no price once it is a week old. As an explanation for today's move it is therefore out.

Liquidations of $17.4 million to $26 million: how futures amplify the spot price

The Zcash futures market holds around $2.4 billion in open contracts, according to CoinGlass data evaluated by The Crypto Times on October 13. Open interest is the sum of all futures positions not yet closed. For comparison: the entire market capitalisation of Zcash is $19.35 billion. That is one dollar of open futures exposure for every eight dollars of market value, a high reading for a coin of this size.

The number of positions wiped out varies with the moment of measurement. One snapshot put liquidations at around $26 million within 24 hours, a later one at around $17.4 million, in both cases predominantly on the long side. Binance, Bybit and OKX were affected. We give both figures as a range, because the count depends on the window and any single smoothed number implies more precision than the source supports.

The mechanism in three sentences

A leveraged long position posts only a fraction of the position value as collateral. If the price falls far enough that the collateral no longer covers the losses, the exchange sells the position automatically at the market price, regardless of what the holder wants. That forced sale hits the same order book that is already thin, pushes the price a little further and triggers the next position. This chain reaction, not a headline, is what explains days with a 17 percent range.

Two practical conclusions follow. First, a day like this says little about the project and a great deal about positioning. Second, the liquidation price is the only price that really matters for a leveraged position; it is shown in the position overview of the platform concerned and shifts with every margin top-up. If you use leverage, the terms and liquidation rules of the venues are in our comparison of perpetual DEXs; if you do not, skip this section, because nobody who owns their coins outright gets liquidated.

NU7: the activation height is decided on October 20

Alongside the price action, the roadmap for Network Upgrade 7, NU7 for short, is moving ahead; it is the ninth major network upgrade for Zcash. It has been live on the public testnet since October 4, 2026, activated at block height 4,465,026. That does not yet apply to the main network. The project's official upgrade page records a single unambiguous sentence on this: the activation height for NU7 has not yet been set.

An activation height is the block number from which the new rules apply. That height is the actual switch: only with it does a target date become a deadline that exchanges, mining pools and wallet providers can plan around. According to the reports available, this decision is due on October 20, based on the experience from the testnet. November 5 is on the table as the target date for mainnet activation, so far as a plan rather than a commitment.

What that means in practice for the timetable

As long as no height is set, operators on the main network need do nothing, and nothing can go wrong. From the moment it is set, a hard deadline runs: any node not running the new software by that block number follows a different rule set afterwards. October 20 is therefore the more interesting date for holders than November 5. That is when you learn whether the November plan holds or slips.

A second point concerns the software itself. The old zcashd node does not support the expected consensus changes and is being retired; if you run your own node, you move to Zebra, the Rust implementation from the Zcash Foundation. ASIC miners, according to the project, need change nothing themselves, because they do not verify consensus rules and the block header is likely to stay unchanged; responsibility lies with the mining pool they are connected to.

From 75 to 25 seconds: what NU7 changes about the block interval

The most conspicuous change in NU7 is the pace of the blockchain. The target interval between two blocks drops from 75 to 25 seconds, to one third. For users that mostly means one thing: a transfer gets its first confirmation three times faster on average. Exchanges that require a fixed number of confirmations for a deposit will credit balances correspondingly earlier, provided they do not raise their thresholds at the same time.

The other side of the ledger belongs here too. Three times as many blocks mean three times as many block headers for every node to store and transmit. The reward per block falls accordingly, while the payout over time stays the same. For mining pools that shifts the ratio between fixed costs per block and revenue, and smaller pools feel it first. The project also lists mechanisms around fees whose final wording sits in the candidate ZIPs and can still change up to the set activation height.

Sprout pool: legacy ZEC can no longer be spent after activation

This is the point where NU7 turns from a protocol matter into a task for individual holders. Zcash has had several shielded balance pools over the years. The oldest is called Sprout. ZEC still sitting there and not moved before NU7 is fully activated can no longer be spent afterwards. This is about access, not about the price, and only very old holdings are affected.

You are affected if you put ZEC into a shielded address years ago and have not moved it since, typically in an old desktop wallet or a backup on a hard drive. You are not affected if you hold your ZEC at an exchange, keep it in a current wallet with a unified address, or transferred it at some point in recent years. You can recognise such a holding by a receiving address that begins with "zc"; modern shielded Zcash addresses begin with "u" for unified address or with "zs" for the Sapling pool.

Moving it is an ordinary transfer between your own addresses. For tax purposes in Germany it is not a disposal, as long as the coins belong to you before and after; economically nothing happens. Technically it needs wallet software that can still read the old pool, and that is exactly why it is easier before a set activation height than after one.

Shielded pool: 4.97 million of the 16.98 million ZEC sit shielded

Of the roughly 16.98 million ZEC in circulation, around 4.97 million sat in the shielded pools at the time of the evaluation, about 29 percent. The maximum supply is 21 million ZEC. That share is the most important metric for Zcash alongside the price, because shielded balances are the actual purpose of the project: amount, sender and recipient stay hidden there, while with a transparent address they sit publicly in the blockchain.

The share matters for reading the price for a sober reason. Shielded holdings mostly sit in self-custody rather than on exchanges, so they are not short-term selling supply. If the shielded share rises, it narrows the tradable float; if it falls, material moves towards the venues. No forecast follows from that, but it does explain why Zcash reacts so sharply in both directions.

What self-custody means here in concrete terms

If you want to hold larger ZEC balances through the transition, separate two things: the trading balance and the long-term balance. The trading balance sits where you buy and sell. The long-term balance sits on a device whose keys you hold yourself, with a recovery phrase secured on paper. Check a device's support for shielded addresses before you buy it, because practically every device handles transparent addresses and not every one handles shielded ones.

Holding period and the tax office: one year separates tax-free from taxable

For investors in Germany the setback is a tax matter too, because the rally of recent months leaves many positions deep in profit. Gains from the sale of crypto assets count as private disposals under section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. If more than twelve months lie between purchase and sale, the gain stays tax-free. Below that it counts as income and is taxed at the personal rate, above the annual exemption limit of 1,000 euros for the total of all private disposals.

That produces a calculation with nothing to do with the price chart. Someone who bought ZEC eleven months ago and sells now pays tax on the full gain. Someone who waits a month pays nothing. On a holding that is up three figures this year, that difference is larger than any single week of price movement. What counts is the acquisition date of each individual tranche, not the average of the portfolio. Tools that track the deadlines per tranche and produce a report for the tax return take that bookkeeping off your hands, and our crypto tax software comparison lists them.

Two traps belong with this. First: swapping ZEC into another coin is a disposal and restarts the clock for the new coin. Second: moving between your own addresses, for example out of the Sprout pool, is not a disposal, but it should still be documented so the acquisition date remains traceable later. For larger amounts a tax adviser settles this, not an article.

Zcash against the market: rank ten, $19.35 billion market value

Zcash stood at rank ten among the largest crypto assets by market value on October 13, 2026, at $19.35 billion. The 8.16 percent setback that day was markedly sharper than the market as a whole: Bitcoin was up 0.61 percent, Ether down 1.27 percent. The gap is there over seven days too, 14.16 percent for ZEC against 3.67 percent for Bitcoin. cryptoticker.io compiled this data itself on October 13, 2026.

The pattern fits the explanation from the futures market. A coin with high open interest relative to its market value moves more than the market in both directions, because the same inflow and outflow meets a smaller order book. Last week Zcash was the winner of that leverage effect, this week its loser. For a holder that says less about Zcash than about the size of position they can stomach.

Our assessment: the futures market weighs more than October 20

In the editorial team's view, October 20 is a date for operators and only secondarily a price event. The evidence: the official upgrade page names no activation height to this day, the November 5 target is a plan and not a commitment, and the change itself concerns the block interval, a parameter that takes no ZEC away from anyone and adds none. Against that stands open interest of $2.4 billion on a market value of $19.35 billion; that ratio produced a 17 percent range in a single day on October 13, with no headline required.

The case against: if the target date slips noticeably at the October 20 decision, that would be the first real disappointment in a story that has run on expectation for months, and then the date would indeed land in the price. And the one group for whom the roadmap counts regardless of the price are holders of old Sprout balances: for them it is a deadline with loss of access at the end, and that does not wait for a price recovery. Neither case contains a recommendation to buy or sell; with crypto assets a total loss is possible.

Zcash before October 20: without a height the date stays a plan

1. Check legacy holdings before a height is set. Open old Zcash wallets and backups and look for shielded balances from the Sprout era. If you find something, move it into a current address. A device that handles shielded addresses is in our hardware wallet comparison.
2. Establish the acquisition date per tranche. Note for each ZEC position when you bought it, and mark the tranches that reach the twelve-month threshold in the coming months. Crypto tax tools track these deadlines automatically.
3. Measure leveraged positions against $1,123. Compare your liquidation price with the intraday low of October 13. If it sits above, the position is due on a second slide like today's. The terms of the venues are in the perpetual DEX comparison.

(As of October 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

A Bored Ape costs less today than it has in years. On October 13, 2026 the lowest asking price for the famous ape collection stood at 5.12 ETH, just under $12,900. In May 2022 it was 153.7 ETH. That is a fall of 97 percent, and the Bored Apes are no exception: almost all the large NFT collections on Ethereum sit far below their records, and several have lost another two thirds over the past year.

The timing is notable. On Saturday Yuga Labs celebrates ApeFest in Charleston; at the same time Blur, once the largest NFT marketplace on Ethereum, is announcing its closure, and Igloo, the company behind Pudgy Penguins, is shutting down its own blockchain Abstract. We queried the prices of the eight best-known collections at CoinGecko and show who is holding up, who is falling and what lies behind the decline.

NFT prices in October 2026: the large collections at a glance

What we measured is the so-called floor price, meaning the lowest price at which an NFT from the collection is currently offered. It is the usual yardstick for the value of a collection, because it shows what entry costs at a minimum. Retrieved on October 13, 2026 between 16:11 and 16:13 CEST through the interface of CoinGecko; the dollar values follow the ether price at that moment.

The column on the far right measures the price in ETH, not in dollars. That matters, because ether itself has fallen too: in dollar terms a Bored Ape has lost around 59 percent over twelve months, in ETH terms 32 percent. Anyone who paid for their apes in ether is therefore better off than someone counting in dollars or euros.

CryptoPunks hold up, Pudgy Penguins and Moonbirds fall furthest

The most stable are the CryptoPunks. At 31.29 ETH, just under $79,000, they sit 75 percent below their record from August 2021, markedly less than all the others. The punks of 2017 are among the oldest NFT collections on Ethereum, and many holders will not part with them. That supports the price, but it also makes the market thin: on the day of our query, punks worth a mere 70 ETH changed hands.

The younger favourites were hit hardest over the past year. Pudgy Penguins cost 36.33 ETH at their December 2024 peak. Today it is 2.19 ETH, down 72 percent in twelve months alone. Contributing to that were the end of the mobile game Pudgy Party in June and the news of October 6 that Igloo is switching off its blockchain Abstract on December 15. What holders there have to do now is set out in our guide to withdrawing funds from Abstract, and the consequences for the PENGU token in our PENGU price prediction.

Moonbirds and Doodles stand 99 percent below their records from the spring of 2022. A Moonbird cost around $930 on October 13, a Doodle around $550. For both, only a handful of NFTs changed hands on the day of our query, together not even 13 ETH.

Why NFT prices are falling: less trading, fewer marketplaces

The most important reason is simply absent demand. Nowhere is that clearer than at Blur. In 2023 the marketplace had overtaken incumbent OpenSea with zero fees and rewards in its BLUR token. According to CoinDesk, monthly trading volume fell from around $1.43 billion in March 2023 to less than $7 million in March 2026, a decline of more than 99.5 percent. On October 12 Blur announced it would close the website on November 12; the Blend lending product will then arrange no new loans. Everything on that is in our article Blur closes on November 12.

On top of that, the speculation has moved on. Anyone betting on ape pictures in 2021 is more likely today to be buying memecoins or trading with leverage. NFTs have become a market for collectors who genuinely want to own a collection. That fits with the restructuring at the big houses: Yuga Labs is concentrating on Bored Apes and the game world Otherside, and Igloo, after the end of Abstract, entirely on Pudgy Penguins. Which marketplaces still have trading worth mentioning after Blur's retreat is shown in our overview NFT marketplaces in 2026: who still trades.

ApeFest 2026: a ticket for 0.74 ETH

The low prices have an unusual side effect around ApeFest on October 17 in Charleston. Admission goes to anyone holding a Bored Ape or a Mutant Ape, with one ticket per NFT. A Mutant Ape cost just 0.74 ETH on October 13, around $1,860. A Yuga-adjacent post of October 11 even advertises that buyers from this week will get their ticket free of charge. Why hardly anyone from the German community is flying over all the same is written up in our article ApeFest 2026 in Charleston.

Buying an NFT at a low price: what matters

Low prices do not mean things cannot go lower still. An NFT produces no income; its price depends solely on whether somebody else will pay it later. Anyone who still wants to buy should know four points:

1. Check the trading: the lowest asking price is of little use if there is barely any trading. Bored Apes and Pudgy Penguins each came to more than 200 ETH of turnover on the day of our query, Moonbirds to less than 4 ETH. In thin trading a sale can take weeks.
2. Compare the fees: marketplaces charge different fees, on top of which come creator royalties and the network fee. Which platform costs what is shown in our NFT marketplace comparison.
3. Clear out approvals: in September, attackers exploited old marketplace approvals connected with the Limit Break Payment Processor to drain NFTs. Anyone who used to trade on several marketplaces should revoke approvals they no longer need before their next purchase.
4. Store them securely: valuable NFTs belong on a wallet whose keys have never been online, meaning a hardware wallet, ideally bought directly from the manufacturer. Why the purchase route matters is shown by the current case in which MediaMarkt and Saturn stopped selling Ledger devices; which devices exist is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

For tax purposes there is no separate rule from the German authorities for NFTs. In practice tax advisers mostly treat sales like other private disposals under section 23 of the Income Tax Act: gains within one year of purchase are taxable, and after that as a rule tax free. This is not tax advice. Anyone with many purchases and sales gets to a clean statement faster with a crypto tax tool.

NFT prices in October 2026: what to take away

The NFT market in the autumn of 2026 is as cheap as it has been in years. Bored Apes, Mutant Apes, Azuki, Doodles and Moonbirds sit 97 to 99 percent below their records, Pudgy Penguins have lost almost three quarters in a year, and only the CryptoPunks are holding up comparatively well. At the same time the number of marketplaces is shrinking: Blur closes on November 12, Abstract on December 15. For collectors that is an opportunity, for speculators a warning sign. We will keep this overview going and update the prices at the turn of the month.

Blur is switching off its website on November 12, 2026. The marketplace, which at one point served more than seven out of ten NFTs traded on Ethereum, announced the step on October 12 via its channel on X; CoinDesk reported on it on October 13. For you that means open bids, listed collectibles and above all outstanding loans from the Blend lending product need a decision before that date. The contracts on the Ethereum blockchain keep running; the interface does not.

The BLUR token has reacted sharply to the announcement: $0.0123 on the morning of October 13, down 33.9 percent within 24 hours and 39.4 percent over seven days. The token's all-time low stands at $0.01228. The price is therefore sitting practically on it.

What Blur switches off on November 12 and what keeps running

What goes dark is the blur.io website, meaning the interface through which traders browse collections, place bids and list items for sale. The smart contracts on Ethereum stay in operation, according to the CoinDesk report. Smart contract refers to the program code on the blockchain that actually settles a trade and records the transfer of ownership. Front end refers to the website in front of it, which makes offers visible and matches orders.

That separation decides what you are left with after November 12. An NFT in your wallet belongs to you regardless of whether the marketplace still runs a website: ownership sits in a contract on the blockchain, not in a provider's database. When the interface disappears, what disappears with it is the convenient route to buying and selling in this one place. Anyone wanting to sell then needs a different venue.

Blur took no fees from traders. Token Terminal shows zero dollars of protocol revenue for the past three years, as CoinDesk reports. Whether the operator earned money through the lending business or by other routes cannot be read from that, and the report makes no statement on it. The website itself still carries the promise of zero marketplace fees and a lifetime volume of more than $7.4 billion.

Blend: why outstanding NFT loans have to be settled by November 12

Blend is Blur's lending product: a holder deposits an NFT as collateral and receives ether for it, while a lender earns interest on it. From November 12 Blend will no longer arrange new loans. Anyone who does not repay an outstanding loan by then lets it run into default. With a loan against collateral, default means the deposited collateral passes to the lender.

Blur intends to provide a tool of its own after the cut-off date with which balances can be withdrawn from Blend. The company has given no date for it, according to the CoinDesk report. The gap between the shutdown and a tool without a date allows only one conclusion: repayment before November 12 is the route that does not depend on an announcement.

A loan against a collectible is no sideshow. Anyone who deposited an NFT as collateral two years ago, and whose market price has fallen since, faces the question of whether repayment makes economic sense at all or whether default would be the cheaper option. That calculation depends on the item's current market value, on the size of the remaining debt and on your tax position, not on a general rule.

From market leader to run-off: Blur's trading volume since March 2023

Blur launched at the end of 2022 and took on the market leader of the day with a model that charged no trading fees and rewarded heavy traders with tokens. In March 2023 monthly trading volume stood at around $1.43 billion according to the DefiLlama data cited by CoinDesk, and more than 70 percent of Ethereum NFT trading ran through this one marketplace. In March 2026 it was less than $7 million a month. The decline amounts to more than 99.5 percent.

$22.9 million in the protocol: our assessment as of October 13, 2026

How far the marketplace has already emptied out can be read from the funds still sitting in its protocol. On October 13, 2026 that was $22.9 million. A week earlier there was still $26.8 million, a year ago $81.5 million, and at the peak on March 9, 2024 it was $215.9 million. Against that peak roughly 89 percent has flowed out, against the same day last year roughly 72 percent. cryptoticker.io gathered this assessment itself on October 13, 2026, based on DefiLlama's protocol data for Blur.

The figures show two different movements. The long outflow over twelve months is the drying up of NFT trading as a whole. The loss of just under four million dollars in the week of the announcement is the response to it: anyone with a loan outstanding is pulling their collateral out while the interface for doing so is still standing.

BLUR token at the level of its all-time low

After the announcement the token lost more than 20 percent and stood at around $0.015, as CoinDesk presents it; Coingape reported more than 30 percent. Our own query on the morning of October 13 produced $0.0123 and a loss of 33.9 percent over 24 hours. The spread between the figures is explained by the timing of each measurement; the price fell further over the course of the day.

Two metrics are more notable here than the percentage. First, market capitalisation stands at $35.7 million, while tokens worth $63.6 million changed hands in 24 hours. Turnover therefore exceeds total value by a wide margin, which points to a wave of selling rather than to calm trading. Second, the price is at the level of the all-time low of $0.01228. From its peak of $5.02 on February 14, 2023, the token is more than 99 percent away.

One peculiarity remains for token holders: according to the CoinDesk report they keep control of the so-called fee switch, meaning the vote on whether the marketplace charges trading fees in future. A voting right over the fees of a marketplace without a website is, however, a right with no discernible value as long as nobody runs a new interface for it.

Blast, Blur and the retreat of a whole team

The step does not stand alone. On October 2 the Blast network announced its wind-down; according to CoinDesk it was developed by the team behind Blur and goes back to founder Tieshun Roquerre. Blast managed more than two billion dollars at its peak and came to about $32 million at the time of the announcement. Users there have until October 26 to withdraw their funds through the familiar interface. Blast's developers cited operating costs exceeding revenues as the reason. For Blur itself, no such justification has been stated publicly.

Two shutdowns from the same circle within two weeks make a pattern with practical consequences for you: deadlines from different projects can overlap. Anyone with funds at both Blast and Blend has two dates, October 26 and November 12, and no shared interface to remind them. We described the same mechanics in October for another deadline, when Galxe's Gravity Alpha ended on November 1.

Token approvals: the underrated risk after a shutdown

Anyone trading through a marketplace will as a rule have granted its contracts an authorisation, a so-called token approval. That approval allows the contract to transfer a particular NFT out of the wallet as soon as a sale goes through. Such an approval stays granted even when the website disappears, because it sits on the blockchain and not on the website.

From that follows a task that applies to every old approval, quite apart from Blur: old approvals that are no longer needed should be revoked. Through an approval checker, of the kind common blockchain explorers offer, you can see which contracts still have access to your collection and revoke individual approvals. That attackers work deliberately with faked approval prompts is something we described last week in the case of the fake Shiba Inu airdrop of October 12.

Two points matter here. First, every revocation costs network fees on Ethereum, because it is a transaction. Second, around every announced shutdown there circulate messages that use a deadline as leverage and lead to a copied site. You revoke an approval only through an address you have typed in yourself, never through a link in a message.

NFT custody without a marketplace: wallet, keys, records

After November 12, access to your collectibles hangs on your wallet alone. Anyone who has managed their NFTs through a marketplace interface so far should therefore check three things: whether the wallet address holding the items belongs to you and not to a custodian, whether you can restore access to that wallet independently of any single app, and whether the backup of that access is kept somewhere you can reach it if it comes to that. For the custody of larger holdings we keep a separate overview of hardware wallets compared.

For reselling you need a different venue. Which marketplaces carry Ethereum collections, what fees they charge and how they handle creator royalties is set out in our overview of NFT marketplaces. One point that is regularly overlooked in Germany: the European MiCA regulation covers crypto assets, but not NFTs as individual items, as long as they really are unique and not interchangeable with one another. Authorisation under MiCA is therefore not a criterion you can take for granted at an NFT marketplace the way you can at an exchange.

Tax in Germany: holding period, default and records

For tax purposes the German authorities regularly treat gains from the sale of NFTs by private individuals as a private disposal under section 23 of the Income Tax Act, with the familiar one-year holding period. A default on a loan against collateral is not a neutral event in this context, because the collateral changes owner, and that can have the effect of a disposal. How your case is to be classified depends on holding period, acquisition cost and the structure of the contract.

In practice that means one thing above all: the records should be secured now, not at tax-return time. Once the website is switched off, trading history and loan overview will no longer be available there for download. Anyone who has not already recorded their purchases, sales and lending transactions in a portfolio tracker or tax tool should export the documents before November 12.

Our assessment: a retreat with notice

In the view of this newsroom, Blur's retreat is the consequence of a business model without a revenue source, not of a sudden collapse. The evidence is set out above: zero dollars of protocol revenue over three years according to Token Terminal, a trading volume that has fallen from $1.43 billion a month to under $7 million, and protocol funds that have shrunk by around 89 percent since the peak in March 2024. A marketplace without fees needs growth to justify token rewards; once the growth fails to appear, the case for running it falls away.

Against that, the market as a whole is not disappearing: the contracts on Ethereum keep running, the collections stay tradable, and other interfaces exist. What ends is an era of cheap trading incentives. We draw no valuation of the BLUR token from this; with a price at its all-time low and a voting right over a business that is no longer running, the risk of a total loss for investors is real.

Blur shutdown: bids and Blend loans run until November 12

1. Settle loans and bids. Check by November 12 whether a loan in your name is outstanding at Blend, and decide deliberately between repayment and default. Open bids and listings are withdrawn in the same move. If you need a new venue for selling, the alternatives are in our overview of NFT marketplaces.
2. Revoke approvals and sort out custody. Withdraw old token approvals through a blockchain explorer and make sure access to your wallet works independently of any single application. For larger holdings it is worth a look at the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Export your records. Save trading history and loan overview before the shutdown and transfer them into a tax tool or a portfolio tracker, so that holding periods remain provable later on.

(As of October 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Anyone opening Immutable's home page today finds no game characters and no NFT collection, but a marketing platform for game studios: 800 games, 35 billion data points, a tool for analysing Steam images. The blockchain the company became known for appears only as one product box among several. According to our own assessment, around $11.2 million sits on it, practically the same amount as in January.

The IMX token has nonetheless had a good month: a gain of 40.5 percent in thirty days, measured in euro. This piece sorts out both sides. It works through the blockchain, the token, the applications, the access route and the trading venues available in Germany. The figures on locked capital were gathered by cryptoticker.io itself on October 13, 2026 from DefiLlama's public data.

What Immutable is today: from NFT platform to toolkit for Steam studios

Immutable started out as a technology provider for games with blockchain items. The best known of them is the collectible card game Gods Unchained, in which cards exist as tradable tokens. That period is also the source of its reputation as the address for Web3 gaming.

Its own home page tells a different story today and advertises marketing and data tools for games companies: an audience analysis, a tool for measuring performance, an AI assistant for growth, plus a free analysis service for Steam thumbnails which, by its own account, has evaluated more than 25,000 such images. As the basis for this, the page cites 35 billion data points from more than 800 games across PC, Steam, consoles and mobile devices.

The customer examples given there are conventional games companies. Ubisoft is named with a title said to have reached 2.8 times the purchase rate on launch day, and a studio called 1047 Games with more than 300,000 Steam wishlist entries in under two months. Blockchain does not feature in those examples. The Passport and Chain products are still on the list, but without a single figure beside them.

That is the most important observation for anyone holding IMX: the company increasingly earns its money from tools for games without a blockchain. What that means for the token is set out further below. We attempted an assessment of the wider sector in our overview of the four companies in Web3 gaming.

Immutable zkEVM: the technology behind chain ID 13371

In the provider's technical documentation the blockchain is called Immutable zkEVM and described there as the blockchain for games built on Ethereum. The main network carries chain ID 13371, the test network 13473. The access point for programs is rpc.immutable.com, capped at 25 requests per second on the free tier.

zkEVM stands for a network that executes Ethereum contracts and secures its work with cryptographic proofs. For developers that means anyone working on Ethereum brings their tools and contracts with them. The connection to Ethereum runs through bridge contracts, which the documentation describes as audited and monitored.

What is missing from that documentation is notable. Immutable X, the company's older network, no longer appears there. Anyone reading the current papers finds only one blockchain. So anyone still holding items or tokens from the old environment should check where they now sit rather than rely on old instructions.

Sponsored network fees through Passport: why players pay no gas

The network's native currency is IMX, or tIMX on the test network. Players notice little of it, and that is deliberate. Immutable offers to take on the network fees: the documentation puts it as players never paying fees thanks to gas sponsoring. This is made possible by Passport, the in-house login and wallet solution, which creates an account without the usual recovery phrase.

For onboarding new players that is the obvious answer, because nothing keeps casual players away as reliably as being told to buy cryptocurrency first. For demand for IMX the same decision has a flip side: if the studio covers the fees, the player does not need the token. Use of the blockchain therefore grows independently of how many people hold IMX.

$11 million since January: the capital on the blockchain is standing still

Total value locked, or TVL, measures the capital deposited in a blockchain's applications. For Immutable zkEVM we assessed the trajectory from DefiLlama's public data, with three verified readings.

On January 1, 2026 it held $11.57 million. On April 1 it was $11.16 million, on July 1 $10.94 million, on October 1 $11.22 million, and on October 12 $11.22 million. Over more than nine months, then, the figure has moved by less than four percent. The highest level ever measured stands at $21.23 million in July 2025.

Such a trajectory is unusual. Most blockchains swing with the market, often by multiples. Here almost nothing moves, and that suggests the capital is held by a few fixed positions rather than by investors coming and going. In the ranking of blockchains by locked capital, Immutable zkEVM sits in 78th place.

Among the networks built for games that is still second place. Ronin comes to $11.90 million, Immutable zkEVM to $11.23 million, Beam to $1.23 million, Oasys to $0.24 million and Xai to $0.01 million. How that looks in detail at Ronin is broken down in our ecosystem piece on Ronin. The position of the whole category can be summed up in one sentence: gaming blockchains together move less capital than a mid-sized protocol on Ethereum.

Quickswap V3 and KAIO: the two applications with capital worth mentioning

Behind the $11.2 million there are essentially two applications, according to the DefiLlama data. The decentralised exchange Quickswap V3 holds $11.23 million, and KAIO, a provider in the field of tokenised real-world assets, $6.27 million. The fact that both figures together exceed the value of the blockchain is a counting effect: capital working in several protocols at once is counted only once for the value of a blockchain.

What follows from that is a thin layer of provision. As a DEX, meaning a decentralised exchange, there is effectively one available. A lending market with capital worth mentioning is absent, as is a launchpad of its own for new tokens. What does exist is what the blockchain was built for: trading in game items that exist as tokens. Marketplaces for them run on the in-house order book technology that studios build into their games.

For investors that is the most important limitation. Anyone looking for DeFi in the usual sense, meaning loans, interest or derivatives, finds little on Immutable zkEVM. Where NFT trading still takes place at all is written up in our overview of the NFT marketplaces in 2026.

IMX: 98 percent below the 2021 high and 40 percent up on the month

The token figures, gathered on October 13, 2026 from CoinGecko: IMX stands at €0.15. Market capitalisation is around €140 million, which means 214th place among all cryptocurrencies. There are 904,472,049 tokens in circulation out of a maximum of 2 billion, or 45.2 percent. Valuing the entire supply at today's price gives around €309 million.

The trajectory points both ways. Over thirty days there is a gain of 40.5 percent, over seven days a loss of 8.8 percent, over one year a loss of 69.7 percent. The price is 98.2 percent away from its peak of €8.49, reached on November 25, 2021. Around €7.8 million was traded within one day most recently.

Those 98.2 percent are not evidence of failure; they are a reminder of the starting point. The peak fell at the height of NFT enthusiasm, when collectibles dominated the news. More telling is the distance between market value and usage. Around €140 million of market capitalisation stands against $11.2 million of locked capital.

More than half of the tokens are, in addition, not yet in the market. When and how those roughly 1.1 billion IMX enter circulation will help decide whether a rising price holds.

Gods Unchained and the 800 games: what Immutable puts in the window

Gods Unchained is still running and can be reached through its own site. The collectible card game remains the best-known title built on Immutable, and it is also the oldest. The figure of 800 that the company advertises today, by contrast, refers to the data base of the marketing platform covering games of every kind, including those without a blockchain.

That distinction is decisive and often gets lost in summaries. A studio using Immutable's audience analysis tools never touches the blockchain. A number that mixes the two says little about the network. Anyone wanting to check the state of it is therefore better off looking at locked capital and at activity in the explorer.

A comparison over time shows the direction. Two years ago Immutable was synonymous with games on the blockchain, and Illuvium was among the most frequently named titles. What became of that generation is traced in our review of Web3 gaming. Today the blockchain comes last in Immutable's product list.

Bridge, explorer and network data: the route onto Immutable zkEVM

To do anything on the blockchain you enter the network with chain ID 13371 and the access point rpc.immutable.com in your wallet. Anyone playing via Passport can skip this step, because the login creates the account itself. For the standalone route, any wallet that permits custom networks will do.

Balances come across from Ethereum through the bridge contracts. explorer.immutable.com serves as the public register of all transactions and contracts. There you can check whether a transfer has arrived and which address sits behind a game item before you grant it an approval.

One peculiarity applies to game items: technically they belong to you, but they hang on the game that issues them. If a studio shuts down operations, the token stays in the wallet and loses its purpose all the same. That holds for such items generally and is not down to this blockchain.

IMX against the euro: which authorised exchanges run the trade

For investors in Germany what counts is whether a token can be bought against the euro and at a provider with European authorisation. cryptoticker.io checked this question itself on October 13, 2026 by querying the public trading registers of several exchanges.

The result is better than for many smaller tokens: Kraken lists IMX against the euro and against the US dollar, and Bitvavo lists the euro pair as well. At Coinbase, IMX is available only against the US dollar and against the stablecoin USDT; a euro pair is missing there. Anyone wanting to buy without a conversion step therefore has two authorised addresses to choose from. Which of them suits you and what the order costs in each case is shown in our exchange comparison.

A note on game items: they are bought in the game itself or on a marketplace, not on an exchange. Which marketplaces are worth considering for that today is set out in our marketplace comparison.

What argues against IMX: supply, dependency and a market without growth

Four points belong on the other side. First, supply: more than a billion IMX are not yet in circulation, and every release meets a market with around €7.8 million of daily turnover. Second, the dependency on a handful of applications, since the locked capital effectively hangs on a single exchange on the blockchain. Third, the gas sponsoring, which decouples usage from demand for the token. Fourth, the direction of the company, whose visible business today consists of marketing tools for games without a blockchain.

For tax purposes, German law treats IMX like other crypto assets as an other asset. Gains from a sale within one year of purchase fall under the private disposals of the Income Tax Act and are taxable above the exemption limit; after one year has passed the gain remains tax free. The same basic pattern applies to game items that exist as tokens, though valuation is harder there because no continuous price exists. Individual cases are a matter for tax advice.

And the fundamental point stands: a total loss is possible. A token whose network has been sitting at the same level of capital for nine months needs more than one good month to sustain higher prices.

Our assessment: the blockchain no longer carries the company on its own

Immutable has made a decision, and it stands openly on its own home page: growth is to come from data and marketing tools for game studios, not from game items on the blockchain. In business terms that is understandable, because 800 games as a data base is a larger market than the second-largest gaming blockchain with $11.2 million of locked capital.

For IMX the same decision cuts both ways. In favour: a company with a viable business can run its blockchain for longer than one without. Against: none of the advertised tools needs the token, and players' network fees are sponsored anyway. The 40.5 percent jump in thirty days changes none of that as long as locked capital stays at eleven million dollars. The direction can be checked against precisely that figure. This is expressly not a recommendation to buy or sell.

Immutable: $11 million in capital, 800 games in the window

Three steps if you want to look at IMX more closely:

1. Choose a venue with a euro pair. Two authorised exchanges list IMX directly against the euro; at a third you need the detour via the dollar or a stablecoin. The terms are in the exchange comparison.
2. Keep custody separate from the game login. A Passport account is meant for the game, a wallet of your own for your holdings. Which one is suitable is shown by the software wallet comparison.
3. Record purchases and game items. With tokens from games in particular, the one-year period later becomes an arithmetic problem if the records are missing. Suitable programs are listed in the comparison of tax tools.

(As of October 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin stood at roughly $83,200 at midday on Tuesday, or $83,212.80 and €74,361.20 to be exact, according to Kraken data. That is a gain of 1.8 percent on Monday's close of $81,737.20. The striking part is not the number itself but its surroundings: Bitcoin is, at this moment, the only one of the eight largest coins trading higher over 24 hours.

Ethereum is down 1.3 percent over the same period, XRP 2.2 percent, Solana 3.6 percent, Dogecoin 2.6 percent, Shiba Inu 4.5 percent and Polkadot 7.2 percent (CoinGecko, as of October 13, midday). Over seven days the gap is wider still. That spread is the real reason for this article, and for private investors in Germany it carries a very specific tax consequence, set out further below.

Where the Bitcoin price stands at midday on Tuesday

The night was restless. Bitcoin fell as low as $80,951.20, marking the low of the day, recovered to $84,053.10 and settled just above $83,000 by midday. The distance between the daily low and the daily high is $3,101.90, or 3.8 percent. For a Tuesday without a major scheduled event, that is a wide range.

In euro terms BTC stands at €74,361.20, with a daily high of €75,146 and a low of €72,568.40. The price is 34 percent below its all-time high of $126,080. Trading volume on Kraken over the past 24 hours came to 2,409 BTC across 166,327 individual trades, with a volume-weighted average price of $82,667.32. The current price therefore sits above the daily average, which means buyers in the second half of the day paid above the mean.

Seven days compared: 2.8 percent versus 11.9 percent

For the weekly view we indexed Kraken's daily closing prices since October 6 to a common starting point. The result: Bitcoin is 2.8 percent below its October 6 level, Ethereum 7.4 percent, XRP 9.0 percent and Solana 11.9 percent. All four curves broke down together on October 7 and 8, but Bitcoin found its footing at a markedly higher level.

The gap between Bitcoin and Solana is therefore 9.1 percentage points over seven days. Anyone holding €10,000 of Solana on October 6 has around €8,810 today; the same amount in Bitcoin is worth around €9,720. That is no longer noise, it is a difference that shows up immediately in a portfolio overview.

The mechanism behind Bitcoin's relative strength

In market analysis, relative strength simply means that an asset loses less than the rest during a downward phase. The pattern rarely arises from good news about a single coin. Almost always it comes from the structure of the buyer base.

For Bitcoin, a substantial part of that base has consisted of regulated fund products since the ETFs were approved. Their inflows and outflows move in daily steps and follow allocation decisions, not minute charts. Altcoins, by contrast, depend far more on leveraged trading on derivatives venues. When the market falls, positions there are liquidated by force, and every forced liquidation produces a sale that triggers the next. That is how two hours can deliver a loss that takes Bitcoin two days.

Then there is the direction of the money. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a net outflow of around $485 million on October 7, according to consistent reports, and outflows over the week added up to roughly $681 million. Bitcoin is still holding up better than the rest. Above all, that says one thing: the altcoins are currently missing the buyer who is still there for Bitcoin even in a week of outflows.

What has changed since yesterday's article

Yesterday the question in this slot was whether Bitcoin would hold the $82,500 level (as set out in our Bitcoin forecast of October 12). The answer one day on: the level held, but only narrowly and not without interruption. The price fell overnight to $80,951.20, which is $1,548.80 below that level, and worked its way back from there.

A brief undercut followed by a quick return is read differently in the market than a close below. The October 12 daily close came in at $81,737.10, also below $82,500. Two touches from beneath in two days weaken a level rather than confirm it. For the coming days, $82,500 is therefore no longer support but a zone the price has only just reclaimed.

The levels that count now, and why

On the downside there is the daily low at $80,951.20. It is the point where buyers stepped in overnight, and at the same time the round $81,000 area that already held on October 8 (daily low back then: $80,328.60). Two lows in that neighbourhood within five days make it the first dependable support zone.

On the upside there is the daily high at $84,053.10. Above it sits the October 11 close at $83,675.60, which has already been passed, and beyond that the October 12 high at $84,250. The zone between $84,050 and $84,250 is therefore the next test. If it gives way, the October 4 and 5 level of $86,500 to $86,900 comes into view.

Wednesday's inflation print and the Fed on October 28

On Wednesday, October 14, the US Department of Labor publishes the consumer price index for September at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. It is the last inflation reading before the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, which according to the Federal Reserve's calendar takes place on October 27 and 28. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland's nowcast most recently stood at around 3.6 percent headline inflation year on year and about 2.4 percent for the core rate.

In practical terms for you: the 3.8 percent range Bitcoin has already covered today can repeat itself within half an hour on Wednesday afternoon. Anyone holding an order close to the current price should know it can be triggered in that half hour without anything fundamental having changed in the underlying picture.

Switching into Bitcoin: what the holding period costs in Germany

This is where the most expensive mistake is being made right now. The reflex on seeing the chart above is: out of Solana, into Bitcoin. For tax purposes in Germany that swap is not a reallocation but two things at once, namely a sale of the altcoin and a purchase of Bitcoin.

Private disposals are governed by section 23 of the German Income Tax Act. For crypto assets held privately the rule is: if more than twelve months pass between acquisition and disposal, the gain is tax free. Below that it is taxed at your personal income tax rate, provided the gains from all private disposals in the calendar year together reach the exemption limit of €1,000. An exemption limit is not an allowance: at a gain of €1,001 the full amount is taxable, not just the one euro above the line.

For the swap that means two things at the same time. First: if you have held your Solana for more than a year, the sale is tax free, and that is the good part. Second: the Bitcoin you receive in exchange counts as acquired on that day. For those coins the twelve-month clock starts at zero. Anyone who already holds Bitcoin from 2024 and buys more now ends up with two positions on two different clocks. Which of them is sold first next time is determined by the first in, first out principle, which the German tax authorities apply separately for each wallet.

Loss offsetting: what altcoin losses are worth on your tax return

The flip side is the more interesting one for many. Anyone who sells Solana, XRP or Shiba Inu at a loss inside the twelve-month window can put that loss to use. Only against gains of the same kind, however, meaning other private disposals in the same year. Offsetting against employment income or against interest on a savings account is ruled out.

If a loss remains at the end of the year, it is not forfeited. It can be carried back to the previous year or carried forward into later years, again only against private disposals. The form matters here: the loss has to be declared in the Anlage SO schedule of the tax return, otherwise the tax office does not formally assess it, and a loss that has not been assessed is not available the following year.

In concrete terms for the current case: Shiba Inu is down 0.8 percent over 30 days and 12.7 percent over seven days, Dogecoin 12.5 percent over seven days. Positions dating from the summer are therefore partly in the red and still inside the window. Anyone intending to sell there anyway would sensibly first look at which realised gains have already accumulated this year. A portfolio tracker with a tax function works out that comparison position by position, holding periods included.

Buying route and custody under MiCA

Anyone who does buy Bitcoin in this situation has a clearer legal position than two years ago, thanks to the European regulation on markets in crypto assets. Providers targeting retail clients in the EU need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider, granted and supervised in Germany by BaFin. Authorisation says nothing about the price, but a great deal about custody, complaint procedures and what happens to your coins if the provider becomes insolvent.

On the buying route itself, three items decide the actual cost: the trading fee, the distance between the buy and sell price, and the fee for withdrawing to a wallet of your own. The second of those appears in no fee table, yet in thin trading it quickly costs more than the fee itself. Which providers are authorised in Germany and how their terms look side by side is set out in our crypto exchange comparison.

For custody the old principle is unchanged: coins on an exchange are a claim against that exchange, coins on your own hardware wallet belong to you directly. Anyone planning to hold larger amounts for months in order to reach the twelve-month mark has the quieter route on a wallet of their own, but then has to document the acquisition dates themselves.

Our assessment of the relative strength

In the view of this newsroom, Bitcoin's relative strength is currently dependable, but it is not a buy signal. Three documented points support it: Bitcoin is down 2.8 percent over the week against 7.4 to 11.9 percent for the three large altcoins, it holds a gain of 8.6 percent over 30 days while Shiba Inu loses 0.8 percent over the same period, and it is today the only large coin up over 24 hours.

Against it, just as clearly: the strength is relative, not absolute. Bitcoin stands 34 percent below its all-time high and has lost ground over seven days as well, only less. Around $681 million flowed out of the ETFs in one week. A phase in which Bitcoin falls less than the rest has regularly been, in market history, a phase in which investors reduce risk, rather than the start of a new advance. What follows from that is an observation and not a recommendation: the gap between BTC and the altcoins is currently a statement about risk appetite in the market, not about the quality of individual projects.

Bitcoin at $83,200: Wednesday sets the next level

The picture at midday on Tuesday can be summed up in three steps, all of which come before Wednesday's inflation print.

1. Keep the zone between $80,951 and $84,053 in view. Everything so far has played out inside that daily range. A daily close above or below it is the first real piece of information; everything in between is movement without a message.
2. Look up the holding period for each position before swapping. Twelve months decide tax exemption under section 23 of the Income Tax Act, and a swap into Bitcoin resets the clock to zero for the new coins. A tax tool with a portfolio overview delivers that comparison position by position.
3. Calculate the total cost of the buying route, not just the fee. Trading fee, price spread and withdrawal costs together make up the price you actually pay. The authorised providers and their terms are listed in the exchange comparison.

(As of October 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Crypto assets are highly volatile and a total loss of the capital employed is possible. This text is no substitute for tax advice.)

The Nasdaq-listed asset manager bought the Bitcoin at an average of about $84,500 during a rough week for the market, lifting its total stash to 32,773 BTC.

Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says many AI researchers have taken up smoking to signal their faith in AI.

Bitcoin dipped below $81,000 before buyers stepped in, but the Fear and Greed Index says traders aren't convinced yet.

Trezor is ending reseller authorizations on January 1, 2027, after Ledger confirmed that wallets sold by a Southeast Asian retailer carried a hidden implant that sent out users' recovery phrases.

AnyPS5 is working to get any PS5 game running natively on PC—and gamers are hoping it'll work for the next instalment of Grand Theft Auto.

Hardware wallet giant Trezor is severing ties with a significant portion of its authorized resellers following the massive Ledger supply-chain security scare, introducing stricter controls to protect customers from potential attacks.

SEC report exposes who really owns Nasdaq's new XRP stock, revealing massive stakes held by Chris Larsen, Ripple, and SBI Holdings.

Tesla still boasts nearly a billion dollars worth of Bitcoin years after Elon Musk directed the electric vehicle maker to invest $1.5 billion in the leading crypto asset.

Ripple has minted another 19.6 million RLUSD on Ethereum amid heightened treasury activity, with the latest transactions coinciding with a major institutional custody breakthrough.

Canton Network hosts S&P’s historic on-chain swap using a fully tokenized index following the launch of Ripple’s new custodial gateway.

TLDR

• Goldman Sachs (GS) stock rises 0.27% as Q3 revenue jumps 23% to $18.68 billion.
• Goldman Sachs reports $5.29 billion in Q3 profit as earnings reach $17.01 per share.
• Equities revenue surges 72% as stronger financing and derivatives lift results.
• Investment banking fees climb 21% as mergers and underwriting activity rebound.
• Goldman Sachs returns $4.49 billion to shareholders and declares a $5 dividend.

Goldman Sachs Group (GS) stock rose 0.27% to $896.36 during Tuesday’s intraday trading, gaining $2.41 after retreating from earlier highs. The bank reported third-quarter revenue growth of 23% to $18.68 billion, driven by stronger trading and investment banking activity. Meanwhile, net earnings reached $5.29 billion as its major business divisions delivered improved annual results.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., GS

Goldman Sachs Reports Strong Q3 Earnings Growth

Goldman Sachs reported diluted earnings per share of $17.01, up from $12.25 during the same quarter last year. However, earnings declined sequentially from $20.98 per share in the second quarter. The bank recorded an annualized return on average common shareholders’ equity of 18.7%.

For the first nine months of 2026, the company generated $56.24 billion in revenue and $17.55 billion in earnings. Its book value per common share also increased 4.2% during the period to $372.64. These results reflected stronger banking operations and improved profitability compared with 2025.

Operating expenses increased 20% annually to $11.31 billion, primarily due to higher transaction costs and employee compensation. Meanwhile, provisions for credit losses reached $368 million, reflecting impairments related to wholesale loans. Despite these costs, the bank improved its nine-month efficiency ratio to 59.4% from 62.1%.

Investment Banking and Equities Support Revenue Growth

Global Banking & Markets generated $13.46 billion in quarterly revenue, representing a 32% increase from the previous year. Investment banking fees climbed 21%, supported by higher completed merger transactions and increased underwriting activity. Stronger initial public offerings and secondary share sales also contributed to the division’s performance.

Equities revenue surged 72% annually, supported by stronger financing operations and derivatives trading. Meanwhile, fixed income, currency, and commodities revenue remained largely unchanged despite mixed performance across trading products. Higher currencies and commodities revenue helped offset weaker mortgage, credit, and interest rate activity.

Asset & Wealth Management revenue increased 14% from the previous year, supported by higher management and incentive fees. Increased average assets under supervision contributed to stronger recurring fee income during the quarter. However, weaker investment returns and private banking revenue partly offset the division’s growth.

Goldman Sachs Announces Dividend and Capital Returns

Goldman Sachs declared a quarterly dividend of $5.00 per common share on October 12, 2026. The company scheduled payment for December 30 to shareholders of record on December 2. The announcement followed continued capital distributions through dividends and share repurchases.

During the third quarter, the bank returned $4.49 billion to common shareholders through its capital return program. Share repurchases accounted for $3 billion, while common stock dividends represented the remaining $1.49 billion. The company also maintained its shareholder payout strategy alongside increased investment banking activity.

Meanwhile, average global core liquid assets increased to $574 billion from $555 billion in the previous quarter. Headcount also rose 3% sequentially, reflecting the timing of new graduate recruitment. However, the investment banking backlog declined from the second quarter despite stronger completed transactions.

The post Goldman Sachs Group (GS) Stock: Gains as Q3 Revenue Jumps 23% and Profit Hits $5.29B appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Microsoft (MSFT) stock gains 0.84% as Surface AI innovations take center stage
• Microsoft introduces Surface Pro 12-inch and Laptop 13-inch with advanced AI features
• New Surface devices combine improved battery efficiency with portable designs
• Microsoft highlights built-in 5G connectivity for secure mobile productivity
• Microsoft’s new Surface Mouse brings haptic feedback to improve user interactions

Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) stock rose 0.84% to $545.68 during Tuesday’s intraday trading, gaining $4.53 as shares advanced. The stock briefly climbed above $550 before retreating toward $545 as trading activity fluctuated. Meanwhile, Microsoft highlighted its latest Surface devices and expanding AI computing capabilities during an NYSE Live interview.

Microsoft Corporation, MSFT

Microsoft Expands Surface Lineup With AI Computing Features

Sandra Andrews, General Manager of Microsoft Surface, discussed the company’s latest hardware developments during the NYSE Live interview. She highlighted the Surface Pro 12-inch and Surface Laptop 13-inch as Microsoft’s newest additions. Both devices focus on portability, computing performance, connectivity, and support for emerging AI applications.

Microsoft designed the devices for professionals, students, and other users who need flexible computing solutions. The company combines lightweight hardware with modern processing capabilities to support everyday tasks. Furthermore, the new Surface lineup reflects Microsoft’s continued investment in personal computing and hardware development.

Andrews explained how modern computers combine central processing units, graphics processors, and neural processing units. These components handle different computing tasks and support AI functions directly on devices. Consequently, Microsoft continues developing hardware that supports local processing while maintaining security, responsiveness, and computing efficiency.

Microsoft Highlights Battery Life and 5G Connectivity

Microsoft also emphasized battery performance and mobility as important features across its latest Surface devices. Andrews explained that improved battery efficiency helps users maintain productivity throughout their working schedules. Meanwhile, lightweight designs support professionals and students who frequently work across different locations.

The company also highlighted built-in 5G connectivity as part of its approach to mobile computing. This technology allows compatible devices to access cellular networks without relying on public Wi-Fi connections. As a result, users can maintain internet access while traveling or working away from traditional offices.

Microsoft continues combining mobile connectivity with hardware improvements across its Surface product lineup. Andrews identified reliable connections and portability as important requirements for modern computing devices. These developments support Microsoft’s broader effort to improve productivity across different working environments.

Microsoft Introduces Haptic Features and Improved User Experience

Microsoft also discussed its new Surface Mouse and the integration of haptic feedback technology. Andrews explained how haptic interactions provide physical feedback during navigation and other computer activities. The technology supports Microsoft’s efforts to improve device interactions within the Windows ecosystem.

The interview also covered Microsoft’s participation in the DPAA Global Video Everywhere Summit. Andrews discussed how direct product demonstrations help customers understand device design, functionality, and craftsmanship. These experiences allow users to examine hardware features and evaluate different computing capabilities.

Microsoft continues developing Surface hardware alongside its wider AI and Windows computing initiatives. The latest product discussions covered device performance, wireless connectivity, battery efficiency, and user experience improvements. These developments demonstrate Microsoft’s ongoing focus on hardware innovation and AI-supported personal computing.

The post Microsoft (MSFT) Stock: Rises as Surface Pushes AI Innovation appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Apple (AAPL) stock gains 0.72% to $343.43 as new smart home devices debut.
• Apple partners with LG and Schneider Electric to expand its smart home lineup.
• New AI-powered cameras offer 2.5K video, smart detection, and secure storage.
• LG’s smart lock enables automatic door access through iPhone and Apple Watch.
• Apple’s new smart home accessories launch in December, with more arriving in 2027.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) stock rose 0.72% to $343.43 during Tuesday’s intraday trading, gaining $2.46 despite retreating from earlier session highs. The advance came as Apple announced a new smart home product lineup developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. The expansion introduces AI-powered home security, climate control, and connected accessories through Apple’s existing Home ecosystem.

Apple Inc., AAPL

Apple Expands Smart Home Portfolio Through LG Partnership

Apple introduced its Home Collection on Tuesday, expanding its smart home ecosystem with connected cameras, thermostats, smart locks, and sensors. The company partnered with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric to develop accessories compatible with its Home app. The collaboration strengthens Apple’s position in home automation while extending its hardware ecosystem beyond traditional personal devices.

The new lineup includes four LG cameras, offering indoor monitoring, outdoor security, package detection, and intelligent video recording. Each camera supports video resolution up to 2.5K and can identify people, pets, vehicles, and delivered packages. Furthermore, supported iCloud+ subscriptions provide encrypted video storage and access to ten days of recorded events.

Apple also introduced AI-powered video descriptions and natural language search capabilities for customers using eligible iCloud+ plans. These features allow users to locate specific recordings without manually reviewing extensive footage. Meanwhile, local storage supports continued recording during internet disruptions, improving reliability across connected home security systems.

Apple Introduces Smart Locks and Automated Climate Controls

LG’s new Smart Deadbolt Lock uses Ultra Wideband technology to detect approaching users and automatically unlock compatible doors. Users can also manage access through Apple Watch, iPhone, PIN codes, or traditional backup keys. Additionally, the Home app allows households to provide temporary access to guests and receive door security notifications.

Apple expanded its climate control portfolio through new smart thermostats developed with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. Both devices support automatic temperature adjustments based on household activity, occupancy, and daily routines. Moreover, compatible energy plans enable cleaner heating and cooling schedules while providing detailed household energy consumption insights.

The accessories support Matter and Thread connectivity, allowing customers to integrate different devices within one connected home system. Users can manage security cameras, temperature settings, and smart locks through Siri or the Home app. Furthermore, Apple designed the installation process around a single iPhone tap, removing separate application and account requirements.

Apple Sets December Launch for New Home Accessories

Apple plans to introduce its Home Collection in December, with additional accessories scheduled for early 2027. LG’s indoor camera starts at $199.95, while its outdoor camera starts at $299.95 in the United States. The video doorbell starts at $249.95, and the smart deadbolt lock carries a $349.95 starting price.

LG and Schneider Electric will offer smart thermostats starting at $199.95, with separate temperature sensors costing $39.95. Apple will distribute the accessories through its online store, retail locations, and Apple Store application. The company also plans professional installation services through ADT for American customers seeking additional setup assistance.

The launch builds on Apple’s existing support for thousands of Matter-certified and compatible third-party smart home products. Apple has previously integrated home controls across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and HomePod devices. The latest expansion adds dedicated security and climate products while strengthening its partnerships across the connected home market.

The post Apple Inc. (AAPL) Stock: Climbs as LG Partnership Expands AI-Powered Home Devices appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Citigroup stock drops 3.79% to $126.93 despite reporting $5.2B in Q3 profit.
• Citigroup’s third-quarter net income jumps 40% as revenue rises 8% annually.
• Services revenue climbs 15% to $6.6B, supported by stronger banking activity.
• Credit loss provisions increase 6% to $2.6B as the bank builds more reserves.
• Citigroup returns $4.1B to shareholders despite a 10% quarterly profit drop.

Citigroup Inc. (C) stock plunged 3.79% to $126.93 during Tuesday’s intraday trading, losing $4.99 despite stronger third-quarter earnings. The banking giant reported a 40% increase in net income to $5.2 billion for the third quarter of 2026. Revenue also increased 8% to $23.8 billion, supported by growth across several major business divisions.

Citigroup Inc., C

Citigroup Reports 40% Profit Growth in Third Quarter

Citigroup reported earnings of $2.85 per diluted share, compared with $1.86 during the same quarter last year. The increase reflected higher revenue, lower reported operating expenses, and fewer outstanding shares following repurchases. However, the bank also recorded higher credit loss provisions, which partially offset its earnings growth.

Operating expenses declined 2% to $14 billion, compared with $14.3 billion during the third quarter of 2025. The previous year’s expenses included a $726 million goodwill impairment linked to Citigroup’s agreement to sell part of Banamex. Excluding that charge, operating expenses increased 3%, reflecting higher compensation, deposit insurance costs, and transaction-related spending.

Citigroup recorded $2.6 billion in credit loss provisions, representing a 6% increase from the previous year. The amount included $2.2 billion in net credit losses and a $369 million reserve build. The bank attributed the additional reserves to changes in its economic outlook and continued portfolio growth.

Citigroup Services Revenue Climbs 15% as Banking Operations Expand

Citigroup’s Services division generated $6.6 billion in revenue, representing a 15% increase from the previous year. Treasury and Trade Solutions contributed $4.9 billion, supported by stronger deposits, higher fees, and improved transaction activity. Cross-border transaction values increased 10%, while commercial card spending also climbed 10%.

Securities Services revenue increased 13% to $1.7 billion, supported by higher fees and stronger interest income. Assets under custody and administration grew 16%, reflecting new client assets and changes in market valuations. Consequently, Services net income climbed 27% to $2.6 billion, despite higher compensation and operating costs.

Citigroup’s total loans reached $820 billion at quarter-end, representing 12% annual growth across several business divisions. Deposits increased 9% to approximately $1.5 trillion, supported by expansion within its Services business. The bank also reported $3.3 billion in non-accrual loans, representing a 12% decline from the previous year.

Citigroup Returns $4.1 Billion to Shareholders Despite Stock Decline

Citigroup returned $4.1 billion to common shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the third quarter. Its book value per share increased 7% to $115.61, while tangible book value per share climbed 6%. These figures reflected continued capital generation as the bank expanded its lending operations.

The bank reported a Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 12.8%, unchanged from the previous quarter. However, its supplementary leverage ratio declined to 5.0% from 5.2% during the same period. Citigroup also reported an 11.5% return on average tangible common equity, compared with 8.0% one year earlier.

Despite stronger annual earnings, Citigroup recorded a 10% quarterly decline in net income from the second quarter. Revenue also fell 4% sequentially, while credit loss provisions increased 3% over the same period. Tuesday’s stock decline contrasted with annual profit growth and continued expansion across the bank’s core businesses.

The post Citigroup Inc. (C) Stock: Slides Despite 40% Surge in Net Income and $5.2B Q3 Profit appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Broadcom stock has fallen approximately 28% from its yearly peak despite continued growth in AI semiconductor revenue.
• Broadcom reported $16.7 billion in fiscal third-quarter AI chip revenue, representing 221% annual growth.
• CEO Hock Tan warned that financing constraints could slow AI infrastructure expansion despite strong demand.
• Broadcom’s partnerships with OpenAI, Google, Apple, Apollo, and Blackstone support its long-term expansion plans.
• Broadcom’s elevated valuation and rising AI infrastructure costs remain central concerns for investors.

Broadcom (AVGO) stock remained under pressure on October 13 after closing Monday at $354.73, down 1.88%. Shares have fallen about 28% from their $495 yearly peak. The retreat contrasts with continued growth in artificial intelligence chip sales amid rising questions about expensive infrastructure projects.

Broadcom Inc., AVGO

Broadcom Stock Retreats as AI Funding Faces Questions

Chief Executive Hock Tan raised concerns about investor expectations at a Singapore conference this week. He said financing could limit data center expansion even as chip demand remains strong. Semiconductor stocks declined following the discussion.

Other chipmakers faced similar selling. Nvidia shares also retreated amid questions about OpenAI’s revenue figures and Microsoft’s new AI processor. Broadcom itself fell 4.35% on October 8, before another decline on Monday.

Fresh funding reports added to those questions. The Wall Street Journal reported that Broadcom was seeking more than $50 billion to finance custom chips developed with OpenAI. The report described potential financing, not a completed transaction.

AI Partnerships Support Broadcom Revenue Growth

Broadcom reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of $29.6 billion in September, an 86% annual increase. AI semiconductor revenue reached $16.7 billion, up 221% from a year earlier. The company reported $13.7 billion in quarterly free cash flow.

The wider chip industry continues to face pressure. Intel stock also weakened as investors weighed financing concerns and losses at its manufacturing unit. Broadcom, meanwhile, introduced additional AI networking products for the October Open Compute Project summit.

Its OpenAI agreement covers 10 gigawatts of custom accelerator deployments through 2029. Broadcom also works with Google on custom chips. Separately, an Apollo- and Blackstone-backed platform targets more than 20 gigawatts of AI computing capacity through 2028.

Valuation and Forecasts Remain in Focus

Broadcom’s share price has declined despite these agreements. The company extended its Apple chip relationship through 2031, including a reported $30 billion purchasing commitment. Investors continue weighing the expected sales against the capital required to support future projects.

Recent research on AI stock concentration also showed how heavily major indexes rely on technology companies. Broadcom trades at about 31 times expected earnings, compared with a cited sector median near 23. Such estimates can change with prices and profit forecasts.

Broadcom expects fourth-quarter revenue near $34.8 billion, with AI semiconductor sales reaching $21.7 billion. Those figures represent company guidance rather than reported results.

The post Broadcom (AVGO) Stock Faces Another Test as Valuation Concerns Grow appeared first on Blockonomi.

Blur will shut down its frontend on November 12, 2026. But the NFT marketplace won’t disappear. Its protocol will keep running on-chain, and the BLUR token will still control the fee switch.

The same date also marks a change for Blend, Blur’s lending platform. It will stop matching new loans, giving borrowers until then to repay or risk default. Users who still have assets on Blend will get a withdrawal tool after the deadline, according to the announcement.

What Happened to Blur?

Blur raised $11 million in seed funding in March 2022 and emerged as a major rival to OpenSea, targeting professional NFT traders. After launching in October, it attracted users with zero marketplace fees, bulk trading tools, and token rewards. Its BLUR token launch in February 2023 brought a wave of activity, while Blend later expanded Blur into NFT-backed lending. By December 2023, it commanded 80% of the NFT market’s share.

Blur still maintained its lead in Q1 2024 after recording $1.5 billion in volume. However, falling NFT activity and declining lending demand gradually weakened its position. By 2025, OpenSea was recovering market share, while Blend went in the opposite direction. In April 2026, KuCoin removed BLUR cross-margin trading. Two months later, Binance placed the token under its “Monitoring Tag.”

Shutdowns in 2026

2026 has seen several crypto and Web3 platforms announce shutdowns or wind-downs. NFT platform Nifty Gateway and social collecting app Rodeo announced plans to wind down, while Foundation announced its closure in April after a sale fell through. Meanwhile, Blur’s news comes less than a fortnight after Blast announced it would close on October 2.

Interestingly, both projects were created by Blur founder Tieshun Roquerre, better known as Pacman, and developed by the same team. Blast, an Ethereum scaling network, also revealed it was ceasing operations just over two years after launch. It said that “the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense.” Activity on the network had faded, which left it unable to cover its running costs.

The post Blur Is Pulling the Plug on Its Frontend, but the On-Chain Protocol Lives On appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The November 2024 election, which saw Donald Trump become America’s 47th president, triggered a major cryptocurrency rally. After all, the Republican presented himself as a strong supporter of the industry throughout his campaign, promising to make the USA a global crypto hub, promote innovation, establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve, ban the creation of a CBDC, and implement a more favorable regulatory framework for digital assets.

During his nearly two years in office, he fulfilled several promises, but other decisions have increased geopolitical tensions and negatively affected financial and crypto markets. With that in mind, we asked three of the most widely used AI-powered chatbots to assess how Bitcoin might react if the Republicans lose the midterms next month. Here’s what they had to say.

Pullback on the Way?

According to ChatGPT, if Republicans lose control of Congress (especially both chambers), BTC could face short-term selling pressure. Specifically, OpenAI’s platform expects a 5-10% drop immediately after the potential news, while a 15% fall was described as “a stress scenario.”

At the same time, ChatGPT said this would not mark the start of a new bear market and would likely be followed by a substantial rebound. It also claimed that if the result is already priced in, BTC might barely move south.

The latest polls suggest Democrats have the upper hand ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Prediction market Kalshi, for instance, currently assigns Republicans less than a 30% chance of winning Congress despite Trump’s promises for a $5,000 payment if they maintain control.

Perplexity shared a similar view, expecting that a possible loss for Trump’s party could lead to a short-term correction in Bitcoin and not automatically trigger a crypto crash.

Meanwhile, the chatbot warned that a collapse is not completely out of the question and may occur only if election results align with falling ETF inflows, higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, or a major deleveraging event.

Google’s Gemini agreed with the thesis, estimating that a short-term correction after a Democratic midterm victory is a realistic possibility.

“However, unless accompanied by a major macroeconomic shock (like hawkish Federal Reserve pivots or liquidity contractions), such a pullback would represent a temporary price adjustment rather than a fundamental trend reversal,” it added.

The Historical Data

Not long ago, popular analyst Ali Martinez noted that the US midterm elections have historically preceded a major drop in Bitcoin’s price. He reminded that after the 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 elections, the cryptocurrency fell 72%, 65%, 52%, and 27%, respectively.

At the same time, Martinez doesn’t think this could stop BTC’s overall bullish move, viewing a potential drop after the elections as a perfect buying opportunity.

The post What Will Happen to BTC if Trump Loses the US Midterms? (3 AIs Analyze) appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Jameson Lopp has argued that no type of Bitcoin loss is solved by handing the asset to a third party.

It led to a spat with analyst Willy Woo and other X users over whether professional custodians are safer in practice than individuals holding their own keys.

A Custody Argument Plays Out on X

In a post on the social platform, Lopp took aim at the claim that an ETF removes the worry of losing BTC.

“There is objectively NO type of loss that can be solved by giving your bitcoin to a third party,” he wrote. “Third party custody is exposed to every self custody risk PLUS MORE!”

A user named Dima conceded that custodians carry every individual risk plus counterparty risk, but countered that most people are undone by their own mistakes, such as lost seed phrases and phished wallets. Furthermore, some ETF custodians now offer bankruptcy-remote segregation, meaning customer assets are kept apart from the firm’s own, which exchanges once lacked.

Lopp rejected the idea that most people can’t self-custody, suggesting they just aren’t willing to put in the effort, and said that segregation “doesn’t do jack if the underlying asset is lost.” He used his firm, Casa, as an example, noting that it has many older clients and consultants who do the work for them.

Woo then posted the numbers: 1.57 million BTC lost through self-custody, 1.51 million on exchanges and none through custodians of spot ETFs. The figures came from a December 2025 report by River. A modern regulated custodian, he wrote, does a better job than “moms and pops at home.”

The security advocate replied that ETFs haven’t existed long enough to suffer a catastrophe, and that nearly all of them use the same custodian. He then asked if Woo would rather have risk spread across thousands or millions of amateur custodians, or concentrated with one professional.

Coinbase Custody, which most spot ETFs use, has gone more than eight years without losing coins, Woo pointed out, while self-custody lost 136,000 BTC and exchanges 13,000 BTC in that time. He called the choice a false one: a person’s own self-custody and a professional custodian each depend on a single party doing its job, and the custodian wins because of lower risk of physical coercion through acts like wrench attacks.

Coinbase’s Record Is Contested

Lopp’s next reply called the never-lost-coins claim one that “seems to be in dispute,” pointing to Ari Paul’s recent allegation against Coinbase.

As CryptoPotato reported in September, the BlockTower Capital founder posted on X that Coinbase had “lost” $25 million belonging to his firm years ago and later alleged that it had covered up repeated hacks, affecting at least a dozen other firms and more than $1 billion.

However, Paul’s claims are unproven, and he says multiple legal processes regarding it are ongoing. Coinbase Support also replied under his post that it had messaged him directly to look into the issue.

The post Do Bitcoin ETFs Remove Custody Risk? Analysts Disagree appeared first on CryptoPotato.

After ending September with massive gains, Cardano appears to be struggling again, losing almost 12% in the past week alone.

But new data suggests that it could face more downside pressure as whale selling and weaker network activity raise concerns about its price outlook.

ADA Price at Risk?

According to crypto analyst Ali Martinez, large holders have sold more than 110 million ADA over the past five days. This adds selling pressure as the token approaches a key support level. To top that, network activity is also slowing. Daily active addresses have dropped 41.36%, after falling from 27,248 to 15,977. The decline indicates fewer users are interacting with the Cardano network.

All eyes are on the $0.24 support level. Martinez believes that a break below it could push ADA toward $0.21, near the lower boundary of its rising channel.

Despite the drop in daily active addresses, Cardano recently set a new transaction record for the first time in five years. During Epoch 660, the network handled 1,780,896 transactions, beating its previous high of 1,566,974 from November 2021. That works out to an average of 83.83 transactions per block, which is a new all-time high for the network.

While short-term signals exhibited a mixed picture, Crypto Patel is sticking to a much more optimistic view of ADA. The analyst believes Cardano could still have plenty of room to run. The analyst is now watching $0.2887, a level the crypto asset needs to close above on the two-week chart to confirm the breakout. If that happens, ADA’s rally could extend toward $0.50, $1, $2, $3, and eventually $5.

Other Developments

Beyond its price action, the ecosystem has seen a couple of notable developments. The Cardano Foundation rolled out CIP-0113, a new token standard for regulated assets last week. It lets issuers set rules on who can hold their tokens and freeze or seize holdings when required. The move could make it easier for banks and fund managers to bring assets like bonds and funds onto Cardano.

Additionally, the foundation’s digital identity project, Veridian, has become an independent Swiss company. It has also tokenized its shares on Cardano and plans to build identity tools for businesses, governments, and AI agents.

The post Cardano Under Pressure: Falling Network Activity Adds to ADA Selling Concerns appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Panama City, Panama, October 13th, 2026]

Ricchezza Coin and the Ricchezza Network are preparing for a planned fourth-quarter 2026 launch, entering a cryptocurrency sector long dominated by two companies, Ricchezza believes there is room for a third approach.

Built as a proprietary privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain, Ricchezza Network is being designed around a straightforward principle: Privacy by default. Disclosure by choice.

One company helped establish demand for private digital transactions. The other one demonstrated the potential of zero-knowledge technology and shielded transactions. Ricchezza is entering the market with a different proposition: transactions designed to remain private while allowing users to selectively disclose information about a specific transaction when they choose. Ricchezza calls this selective auditability.

A business may want transactions hidden from competitors while retaining the ability to provide necessary information to an auditor. An investor may value financial confidentiality while needing to document a particular transaction. An individual may simply believe personal financial activity should not exist on a permanently transparent public ledger. Ricchezza is designed around the idea that privacy and accountability do not have to be opposing concepts.

The project is also developing Ricchezza Vault, a privacy wallet incorporating encrypted messaging, with the goal of creating an ecosystem where users can privately communicate and transact from the same environment.

Ricchezza’s founders recognize the significance of challenging established privacy networks.

“Monero proved that people want privacy. Zcash proved what zero-knowledge technology can do. We respect what they built—but we didn’t spend years and our own money building Ricchezza just to become number three. We’re coming to change the standard.” — Alex Dominguez, Founder, Ricchezza Coin / Network

Dominguez says the project’s philosophy can be summarized simply:

“The next generation of financial privacy shouldn’t force people to choose between being exposed to everyone and being accountable to no one. Your money should be nobody else’s business—until you decide otherwise.”

Ricchezza Coin will be the native asset of the Ricchezza Network, with a maximum supply of 60 million coins. The project is progressing through development, security review and launch preparation, with the team targeting a Q4 2026 launch.

Ricchezza is betting that the next generation of blockchain privacy will not simply be about secrecy, It will be about control. Private when users want privacy. Auditable when users choose accountability.

About Ricchezza Coin / Network

Ricchezza Coin is the native cryptocurrency of the Ricchezza Network, a privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain designed around private transactions, selective auditability and a privacy wallet ecosystem incorporating encrypted messaging.

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