Payward's acquisition of a European bank could enhance its financial platform, but regulatory hurdles and integration challenges loom large.

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Pill's skepticism may temper market expectations, potentially leading to a more cautious monetary policy approach unless inflation surges.

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The shift to custom AI chips by Big Tech could reshape the semiconductor industry, challenging existing market leaders and altering investment dynamics.

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Rising gilt yields signal potential for sustained higher borrowing costs, impacting economic growth and influencing Bank of England's rate decisions.

The post UK four-year gilt yields rise amid rate hike expectations appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Escalating Houthi-Saudi tensions may lead to airspace closures, impacting regional stability and international aviation market expectations.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Kraken Parent Payward Wins Full Dubai License, Plans UAE Launch

Crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company Payward has said it has plans to launch in the United Arab Emirates. 

After receiving full market approval from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority, Payward said Tuesday that Payward can now operate as a regulated virtual asset service provider serving retail, professional and institutional investors. 

It follows a preliminary approval in May that allowed the company to complete its operational set-up ahead of onboarding clients.

At launch, Kraken clients in the UAE will be able to trade spot and margin with dirham-denominated pairs and fund and withdraw directly in dirhams. 

They’ll also have access to on-chain staking, xStocks tokenized equities and Krak for crypto transfers, while institutional clients gain OTC spot trading and Kraken Prime. Crypto derivatives and new yield products are expected later in 2026 and into 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

Payward holds more than 100 licenses and registrations worldwide, spanning Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

The expansion comes as the company increasingly makes a number of deals. In September, Bloomberg reported that Nasdaq Inc. was investing $100 million in Payward in a deal valuing the company at $21 billion. Kraken will distribute Nasdaq’s tokenized stocks on its own platform, according to the report.

Payward and SoFi Technologies also recently announced a deal to route SoFi customers’ crypto orders through Kraken Prime, Kraken’s prime brokerage arm launched in 2025, and to list SoFi’s stablecoin on the exchange.

Kraken, like other crypto exchanges, is pushing into the traditional finance world, allowing users to trade stocks, bonds and other assets. The company has sold its app as a “primary account for everything.”

This post Kraken Parent Payward Wins Full Dubai License, Plans UAE Launch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Researchers Build First Working Post-Quantum Defense for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

Whether or not quantum computers will break Bitcoin one day is a hot topic. 

But what about second-layer solutions like Lightning? 

Well, researchers from East Texas A&M University, North American University, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Florida Institute of Technology have been working on that. 

In an announcement Tuesday, the team of researchers said that they built what they describe as the first full post-quantum security design for the Lightning Network.

As first uncovered in a research paper in September, the team said they added post-quantum cryptography to Lightning’s communications, payment requests and related systems, implemented in Rust-Lightning. 

It works like this: The solution layers new quantum-resistant cryptography on top of Lightning’s existing cryptography rather than replacing it. It uses ML-DSA digital signatures and ML-KEM key exchange, post-quantum algorithms standardized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, alongside the classical methods Lightning already relies on. 

In this hybrid design, an attacker would have to break both the new and the old cryptography to compromise a connection or forge a payment request.

According to the team led by Dr. Ahmet Kurt, an assistant professor in East Texas A&M’s Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, it took about three to four months and roughly 11,000 lines of code — and it’s a complete working implementation, not just a small demo.

Lightning lets users make fast, cheap Bitcoin payments through a network of off-chain channels instead of recording each one on the blockchain. 

Its cryptography could eventually be broken by powerful quantum computers, and that risk exists even if Bitcoin itself gets upgraded, because Lightning has its own communication and payment systems, the team said. 

They added that their work demonstrates that Lightning’s off-chain systems can begin preparing for the quantum era independently while others focus on solutions for the mainnet. 

Quantum researchers have warned that a time will come when Bitcoin’s software — which underpins the biggest and strongest computer network in the world — will need to be upgraded to deal with quantum computing. 

While some crypto VC firms have urged action, top developers in the space have argued that many of today’s quantum computers have limited capabilities.

Still, they have noted that their development could arrive unexpectedly — just like advances with artificial intelligence — and have started developing some solutions, including top Bitcoin infrastructure firm, Blockstream. 

This post Researchers Build First Working Post-Quantum Defense for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

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.

Zerohash rewards can compound after fees, while eligibility rules and unstaking delays limit access to the service and funds.

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Shunyet Jan describes Binance’s perpetual pricing method, while 21Shares’ certificate adds issuer-only recourse, affiliated note terms and costs beyond the 1% fee.

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FIU plans withdrawal guidance through DAXA with operators’ cooperation as website restrictions raise access concerns for existing users.

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SkyAI reports about 80% of the required cash and approximately 600,000 SOL retained, while its proposed tender still carries waivable conditions.

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Metaplanet plans to raise $329 million to refinance Bitcoin-backed loans and fund share buybacks after its stock has declined 90% from its peak. On Oct. 13, the Japanese Bitcoin treasury company announced plans to issue ¥52 billion ($329 million) in unsecured, zero-coupon Euro-yen convertible bonds due in 2031. Expected to close on Oct. 29, the…

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PENGU is the token of the Pudgy Penguins brand, and the brand is losing its technical foundation: Igloo, the company behind the penguins, is shutting down its own layer-2 blockchain Abstract on December 15, 2026. Anyone who leaves holdings on it until then will not be able to reach them after that date. For holders of PENGU and of Pudgy Penguins NFTs, that is the only hard deadline in the whole process. Everything else about it can wait. The current price level and the ranges appear on our Pudgy Penguins price prediction page.

What remains of the ecosystem is quickly listed: a brand with plush toys in retail, a free browser game, 8,888 images on the Ethereum blockchain and a token with a market value of just under $500 million. All figures are as of October 14, 2026.

Where Pudgy Penguins comes from and what Igloo earns from it today

Pudgy Penguins launched in July 2021 as a collection of 8,888 drawn penguin images on the Ethereum blockchain. An NFT is a proof of ownership for a single digital object, stored on a blockchain and therefore transferable on its own. After a change of owner in 2022, Luca Netz took over the project and rebuilt it in a direction rarely seen in the industry: away from the pure collectible, towards a licensing brand with physical products.

Plush penguins have been in retail since 2023. The sales launch ran through 2,000 Walmart stores in the US, and by July 2026 the plush toys were in more than 1,800 Target branches according to publicly available figures. This toy business is the part of the company that brings money in, and it is the reason the blockchain is now going: Igloo paid for the blockchain out of the brand's earnings.

Abstract shuts down on December 15, despite 325 million transactions

Abstract went live as a mainnet in January 2025. A layer-2 blockchain is a network of its own that settles transactions cheaply and passes them on to Ethereum in bundles for security. The bet behind it: the penguins' audience, people with no crypto history, would find their way into blockchain applications. Technically the bet paid off. According to the team, Abstract processed more than 325 million transactions, counted four million wallets, and the projects on it generated over $40 million in revenue combined. Brands such as Disney and Red Bull Racing were present.

Commercially it did not pay off. The team cites stagnating growth, a limited supply of financial applications, thin liquidity, little institutional participation and a smaller budget than the competition. The announcement came on October 6, 2026 through Abstract's channels and those of the company's chief executive. On the day of the announcement, roughly $76 million were still on the network according to data service DefiLlama, as CoinDesk reported.

Abstract was not the only case that week. Blast had already given up its own layer-2 blockchain on October 2, because operating costs exceeded revenues.

Why Igloo is giving up its own blockchain and selling no token for it

Chief executive Luca Netz has explained the decision publicly. Igloo financed the blockchain for around 18 months and lost an eight-figure sum over two years in the process. He rejected the obvious way out, a token of its own for Abstract or an initial offering to the community: “Even after a loss in the eight figures we could have launched a token or pursued an initial offering. In the end we decided against it,” he wrote. A token only works, he argued, when something drives demand for it.

That reasoning is the more interesting part of the news for investors. A company that could have issued a token and does not forgo fresh money and accept the retreat instead. The funds, according to Netz, now go entirely into the penguins, into the NFT collection and into PENGU. We covered what this about-turn means for the token in detail in our article on the Abstract shutdown.

The Migration Hub and the bridge's three-hour delay

There are two routes for the move. The first is the Migration Hub, which Abstract runs at the address migrate.abs.xyz. The second is the network's own bridge, where the team says around three hours of delay should be expected. A bridge is a service that locks a token on one blockchain and releases a counterpart on another.

Two points here deserve attention. First, the team has itself warned about fake migration pages and about people posing as staff. Open the hub only through Abstract's official channels and never type in an address someone sends in a message. Second, users reported that a waiver of class action rights has to be confirmed before the move. Anyone moving holdings of any size should read that text before agreeing.

How to check which blockchain your PENGU sit on

PENGU does not exist only on Abstract. The token is present on Solana, on Ethereum, on BNB Chain, on HyperEVM, on Hyperliquid and on the Robinhood Chain. Only the holdings on Abstract are affected by the deadline. Three steps settle whether this concerns you at all:

1. Open the wallet holding your PENGU and look at which network is selected there. If it says Abstract, you are affected.
2. If the tokens sit in a customer account at an exchange, the deadline does not normally concern you, because the exchange handles custody. A short question to the provider settles it.
3. The same applies separately to NFTs: a Pudgy Penguins NFT on Ethereum stays where it is. A collectible minted on Abstract has to move.

PENGU in figures: 62.86 of 88.89 billion tokens in circulation

PENGU trades at $0.0079, or 0.0071 euros. That gives a market value of roughly $497 million, which means 118th place in the field of all crypto assets. There are 62.86 billion tokens in circulation and the maximum supply is 88.89 billion. Between those two numbers sit a good 26 billion tokens still to be released. The team and company allocations follow a staggered plan with monthly releases, and each one raises the circulating amount.

The distance to the peak is large. On December 17, 2024 a PENGU cost $0.0684, which is 88.4 percent above today's level. Over a year the token is down 70.0 percent, while over the past 30 days it is up 13.2 percent, with 5.7 percent added within a day. Trading turnover of roughly $173.6 million in a single day shows that the token trades liquidly despite the retreat.

The 8,888 Pudgy Penguins NFTs and the floor price of 2.39 ether

The original collection still comprises 8,888 pieces, spread across 5,059 holder addresses. The floor price, meaning the cheapest piece currently offered, stands at 2.39 ether. At an ether price of $2,513 that is around $6,000 to get in. The value of all 8,888 pieces together therefore comes to about $53.4 million, and 73 penguins changed hands within a day.

That ratio is the real finding: the collection is worth around a ninth of the token. Anyone thinking about the ecosystem thinks about PENGU first and about the images only afterwards. Which venues for NFTs are even still open in 2026 is set out in our NFT marketplace comparison.

Pudgy World in the browser, after Pudgy Party was shut down in June

Little is left of the ecosystem's gaming side. Pudgy Party, a mobile game, arrived in 2025 and was discontinued on June 12, 2026, before its first birthday. It vanished from the iOS and Android app stores with no wind-down period, and no refund was promised. Netz gave figures for it: the game had cost millions, a sequel would have demanded a further $2.5 million, and the number of active players had fallen to a little over 200.

What remains is Pudgy World, a free browser game running since March 2026 and reachable without installation. Alongside it, outside projects also used Abstract, among them the gaming platform YGG Play as well as Gigaverse and Cambria. Some of them have already announced a switch to the Robinhood Chain.

Where investors in Europe can get hold of PENGU

For a purchase from Germany what counts above all is whether a venue offers a euro pair, because otherwise an additional conversion applies. Two venues list PENGU directly against the euro: Kraken with the pair PENGU/EUR and Bitvavo with PENGU-EUR, there from a minimum order of five euros. Beyond that the token is listed at large international exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, OKX, Bybit and Crypto.com, mostly against dollars or stablecoins. Before buying it is worth a look at the fees and at the distance between the buy and sell price, which for a token of this size is considerably wider than for Bitcoin.

MiCA and custody: which licence stands behind the euro pairs

The Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, MiCA for short, has applied in the European Union since December 30, 2024. The regulation requires service providers serving customers in the EU to hold authorisation from a national supervisor; in Germany that is BaFin. Which providers hold that authorisation is listed in the supervisor's public registers, and a look inside belongs before a first purchase at a provider you do not yet know.

Custody is a separate question from licensing. When tokens sit in a customer account at an exchange, the provider holds the keys. Holding them yourself requires a wallet of your own, and a move from one blockchain to another additionally requires a receiving address on the destination network. The differences between the devices are set out in the hardware wallet comparison.

Holding period and tax: what a move to another blockchain triggers

In Germany crypto assets count as other assets within the meaning of section 23 of the Income Tax Act. A gain on sale stays tax-free when more than a year lies between acquisition and sale; within the year the personal tax rate applies, and an exemption limit of 1,000 euros applies to the sum of all private disposals in a year.

Swapping one crypto asset for another starts the clock again, because a swap counts as a disposal for tax. Whether bridging the same token to another blockchain is treated the same way has not been conclusively settled; there is no established line from the tax authorities on this case so far. Anyone moving PENGU off Abstract should therefore record the transaction with the date, the amount, both addresses and the price on the day of the move. Those records cost ten minutes now and later decide whether an existing holding can be proven. Tools for that appear in the comparison of tax software and portfolio trackers. None of this replaces tax advice.

What is left of Abstract after December 15

After the shutdown nothing usable remains of the blockchain. Holdings still on it at that point are no longer reachable according to the team, and that applies to tokens as well as NFTs. Staff from engineering and the ecosystem are helping projects switch to other networks, not individual users with forgotten holdings.

Two risks remain beyond the deadline. The first is supply: 26 billion tokens are still due for release, and every tranche meets a market that already values the token 88.4 percent below its peak. The second is dependence on a single brand. PENGU no longer has a technical job to do in a network, now that the network of its own is going; its value hangs on demand for the Pudgy Penguins brand. A total loss is possible with a token of this kind.

Our assessment: $497 million in market value against a shut-down blockchain

From the newsroom's point of view the retreat is the more honest of two bad options. The evidence sits in the figures: of the roughly $76 million still on Abstract on the day of the announcement, about $3.9 million were left as of October 14 according to DefiLlama. Capital has therefore left the network almost entirely within a week, and a network without capital carries no applications. A new token would not have stopped that outflow but paid for it with fresh money from investors.

Against that stands what the brand now lacks. The $497 million market value of PENGU rests, as of December 15, on plush toys, a browser game and 8,888 images. The toy business in 1,800 Target branches is a real business, only it pays no dividend to token holders. Holding PENGU means holding a bet on the brand, not a share of revenue. That gap between brand success and token value stays open, and it is why we name no price direction here. An assessment of the four large companies in blockchain gaming, Igloo included, appears in our review of the Web3 gaming companies.

PENGU after December 15: the brand stays, the blockchain goes

The deadline is the only point where holders themselves decide anything in the coming weeks. Three steps are enough:

1. Sort the holdings. Check by the end of November whether any PENGU or NFTs of yours sit on Abstract, and move them out via the official route. If everything sits at an exchange, a question there is enough; which providers work how is shown in the exchange comparison.
2. Settle custody. Decide before the move where the tokens are going and set up the receiving address beforehand. The devices for that appear in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Secure the records. Note the date, the amount and the price of the move so the holding period stays provable later. Suitable tools are listed in the comparison of tax software.

(As of October 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitway (BTW) hit an all-time high of $2.77 overnight into Wednesday, putting it 50.03 percent above where it stood 24 hours earlier. No announcement from the project explains the jump. Something else matters more: what BTW costs right now depends on where you look. On the two largest venues the token trades at around $2.61, on a third at $1.50. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on October 14, 2026, drawing on the prices and order books of the venues themselves as well as public market data on BTW; 16 trading pairs across 13 venues were reviewed.

Bitway at $2.77: a 50 percent daily gain while Bitcoin stands still

With a market value of roughly $7.26 billion the token is the 19th largest cryptocurrency by market value. Over seven days BTW has gained 118.98 percent, over 30 days around 255 percent. The all-time high of $2.77 came in the early hours of October 14.

This move stands alone. Bitcoin trades at $83,395, 0.35 percent below the previous day, and Ethereum at $2,503.74, down 1.17 percent. A broad upswing across the market that might have carried BTW along is therefore absent.

What does not hold up as an explanation

The project launched an interest-bearing staking programme on August 13 that offered a base rate of 8 percent in USDT plus a bonus of 4 percent in the provider's points. That programme expired on September 1 and does not explain today's jump. The publicly available documentation on the token lists nothing new for October 14. The fundamentals of the token are set out in the project documentation on BTW.

In practice that means buying a price move here, not a piece of news. The distinction counts at the next reversal, because there is no documented trigger to anchor an expectation to.

91.3 percent of daily turnover sits with two venues

Across all 16 trading pairs, daily turnover adds up to roughly $167.5 million. Of that, $95.4 million runs through Gate, or 56.95 percent, and $57.5 million through Bitget, or 34.34 percent. Together these two venues carry 91.3 percent of all trading.

The rest is spread across eleven further addresses. MEXC accounts for 2.72 percent, the decentralised venues on BNB Chain for around 2.7 percent combined, DigiFinex for 1.52 percent and HTX for 0.89 percent. After that it thins out sharply: Toobit 0.38 percent, KCEX 0.27 percent, BitKan and Ourbit 0.12 percent each, Poloniex 0.02 percent.

Turnover ratio: 2.31 percent of market value

Set daily turnover against market value and the turnover ratio comes to 2.31 percent. For this token that is a strikingly high figure. cryptoticker.io measured a turnover ratio of 0.55 percent for BTW on October 11, 2026; the details of that survey appear in the October 11 report on daily turnover and the token release. Trading has therefore multiplied since then, and at precisely two addresses.

Concentration at this level is above all a question of access. If one of the two venues is unavailable to you, perhaps because you cannot open an account there, practically only the other one remains for an order.

The price gap: $2.61 at Gate, $1.50 at DigiFinex

Here lies the real finding of the day. At Gate BTW costs $2.6116, at Bitget $2.6165. Those two values are less than half a cent apart, so the market between them is in balance. At DigiFinex a price of $1.4951 stands at the same moment. That is 42.75 percent below Gate, a gap of 43 percent when rounded.

Nor is the gap a snapshot taken mid-way through a fast move. The daily high at DigiFinex is $1.5294 and the daily low $1.3649. That venue did not join the upward move at any point: while BTW ran from $1.756 up to $2.7996 at Gate, the price there moved in a range whose upper bound still sits below the daily low of the large venues.

A quote is not a price as long as nobody trades

The term price gap describes a state in which the same asset is quoted at the same time on different venues at markedly different prices. Traders normally close such a gap within seconds, because the difference can be turned into money. When it stays open for hours, the precondition for that is usually missing, namely tradable goods on both sides.

An order book with no bid and no ask

That is exactly the case at DigiFinex. In the order book for BTW there is neither a bid nor an ask, so no offer to buy and none to sell. The quoted price of $1.4951 is therefore the price of the last trade, not a price at which anyone could buy or sell now.

The distinction has practical weight. A portfolio tracker that pulls this venue as its source will show a position 43 percent below what the large venues quote for the same token. In the other direction, an optically low price is worth nothing when nobody there is selling.

How to spot an empty book

Open the order book in the trading window and look at the top line on both sides. If no quantity appears there, or a zero, trading is dormant. A second clue is the daily range: if it diverges sharply from the range other venues show for the same token, something there is not keeping up.

The top of the book carries $732 on the buy side

At the two large addresses, too, the book is thin at the surface. At Gate the best buy side holds 280.3 BTW, which at a price of $2.6102 comes to roughly $732. The best sell side holds 146 BTW, about $382. At Bitget both sides hold 89.18 BTW each, around $233.

These figures describe only the best price level in each case, not the depth of the whole book. What they show is the amount at which the first price level is used up. Anyone buying $2,000 of BTW at Gate in one go clears the top level several times over and reaches into the ones above it.

The spread is tight, the quantity behind it small

The distance between the buy and sell offers at Gate is 0.13 percent. That sounds like a liquid market and at the surface it is one. What decides the matter, though, is how much stock stands ready at that tight distance, and in this case that is a few hundred dollars.

Partial fills and the spread: one order runs across several price levels

A market order takes everything in the book until it is filled. With a thin book that means the first part of an order executes at the quoted price and the rest at progressively worse ones. The difference between the price seen and the average price paid is called slippage.

A limit order guards against that. It sets the maximum price to pay and accepts that the order may be filled only partly or not at all. For a token swinging 59 percent between daily low and daily high in a single day, that is the quieter option.

Leveraged products sharpen both

Futures contracts without an expiry date, known as perpetuals, exist on BTW. There the position value is multiplied via a margin deposit. If the price moves against the position, it is closed out forcibly as soon as the margin is used up. With a daily range of $1.756 to $2.7996, even modest leverage is enough for that.

Licensing and trading pair: the purchase route from Europe

BTW trades predominantly against USDT, that is against a stablecoin rather than against euros. A purchase from Germany therefore runs in two steps: euros into the stablecoin first, then the stablecoin into BTW. Each step costs a fee and a spread, and the first step moves funds into a foreign currency.

The second point is licensing. Under the EU Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, providers addressing customers in the EU need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. cryptoticker.io reported on October 11, 2026 that none of the venues listing BTW holds such authorisation. Before placing an order, check in your provider's register which supervisor your account sits under, and bear in mind that EU deposit and investor protection does not apply outside it. An overview of providers with EU authorisation appears in our comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.

What runs differently with an account outside the EU

Without EU authorisation there is no claim to the regulation's disclosure and custody duties, and in a dispute the law of the home country applies. That is not a reproach to the providers but a consequence of where they are licensed. It is one item on the list before money moves.

27.08 percent in circulation and the next release on November 2

Of a maximum supply of 10 billion BTW, 2.708 billion are in circulation, or 27.08 percent. The remaining 7.29 billion tokens are still locked and arrive on a fixed schedule. The fully diluted value stands at roughly $26.79 billion, 3.69 times today's market value.

The next release is set for November 2 and covers 101.63 million BTW. That equals 3.75 percent of the amount circulating today and 1.02 percent of maximum supply. A release is not a sale, but it does raise the supply that can be sold. The figures on circulating supply and the release schedule can be checked on the market data page for Bitway.

Custody: two blockchains, two contract addresses

BTW exists on BNB Chain and on Ethereum, each under its own contract address. The risk there is mixing them up: tokens sent to an address on the wrong blockchain are usually lost. Before every withdrawal, check which blockchain the exchange specifies for the transfer and which one the receiving wallet expects.

Anyone who does not want to leave larger holdings on a trading account holds them in self-custody. The keys then sit with the holder, and so does responsibility for securing them. Which devices qualify depends on the amount and on how often the holder trades.

Tax: the one-year deadline and the swap into stablecoins

In Germany, gains from selling crypto assets fall under private disposals. Sell within a year of buying and the gain is taxable; after a year has passed it stays tax-free. An exemption limit of 1,000 euros per calendar year applies to these transactions as a whole.

One point matters on the route via USDT: swapping a stablecoin into BTW counts for tax as a sale of the stablecoin and a purchase of the token. The one-year clock for BTW starts with that swap. Frequent reshuffling in a token with this swing range accumulates a correspondingly large number of individual transactions to document at year end. This section does not replace tax advice.

The daily range from $1.756 to $2.7996

On the upside the all-time high of $2.77 is the mark against which the move can be measured; the highest daily level traded at Gate was $2.7996. On the downside the daily low is $1.756, and at Bitget the day opened at $1.783. Between those values lie 59 percent.

The current price of around $2.61 therefore sits some 6 percent below the daily high. Whether the move holds can be read from the turnover ratio: should it fall back towards the 0.55 percent of October 11, interest has faded, and the thin book then works in the other direction.

Bitway price gap: 43 percent difference depending on the venue

Three steps to make something of this day:

1. Compare the price at two addresses before placing an order. If they differ markedly, trade at the address with the higher turnover and attach a limit. Which venues work at which costs is shown in our crypto exchange comparison.
2. Separate custody from trading. Anything meant to be held longer does not belong on a trading account, if only because a token with 16 trading pairs depends on individual addresses. Suitable devices appear in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Document every transaction from the first swap on. The one-year clock runs per purchase, and the route via USDT creates two transactions instead of one. Tools for that appear in the comparison of tax software and portfolio trackers.

November 2 stands as the next documented date in the calendar. Until then the question remains open whether a price rise of 255 percent in 30 days without a nameable trigger will hold.

(As of October 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Dogecoin price stands at $0.084464 on Wednesday morning, or 0.075351 euros. Where it sits matters more than the level itself: 5.6 percent above $0.0800. That mark is the low of February 6, and on Tuesday it was tested for the first time in eight months. On the upside the 50-day line at $0.0876 caps the room. The two lines are 9.5 percent apart, and Dogecoin has been stuck in that corridor since October 9.

There is also a shift among the largest holders that the price data does not show yet: addresses holding more than 100 million DOGE now control 69.74 percent of the supply, against 70.02 percent on September 1. That sounds marginal, and on 156.32 billion DOGE in circulation it works out at roughly 438 million coins, about $37 million at the current price. This article places both lines in context, measures the Bitwise fund wind-down against daily turnover, and shows what an investor in Europe can realistically check at the mark.

Dogecoin price on Wednesday morning: $0.084464, 5.6 percent above the February low

The figures behind this level come from CoinGecko. On Wednesday morning DOGE trades at $0.084464, 0.58 percent below the previous day. The daily high was $0.085161, the daily low $0.082997. In euros that is 0.075351, with a daily range of 0.074051 to 0.075982 euros. Market capitalisation stands at $13.20 billion, turnover over the past 24 hours at $457.96 million.

The decline over the past week is clear: on October 7 DOGE stood at $0.093678, 9.8 percent above today's level. From the interim high of $0.095843 on October 5 the gap is 11.9 percent. The all-time high of $0.731578 from May 2021 sits 88.45 percent away. Keep that span in view and the past few days read differently: the pullback remains a pullback inside a long distance to the record.

Turnover ratio is the term for daily turnover measured against market capitalisation. For DOGE it stands at 3.5 percent today. For comparison, measured the same morning: Bitcoin 1.6 percent, Ethereum 3.2 percent, Solana 4.5 percent, XRP 2.0 percent. DOGE therefore trades more actively than Bitcoin but more quietly than Solana. That figure is exactly what counts for the question of whether a mark holds: the higher the turnover at a line, the more reliable whatever happens there.

The $0.0800 mark dates from February 6 and held on Tuesday

Where a mark comes from decides how much it is worth. $0.0800 is neither rounded nor derived from a chart pattern; it is the daily low of February 6 this year. CoinJournal names that origin explicitly on October 13 and reports that DOGE hit a daily low around $0.0800 on Tuesday and pulled away from it. The relative strength index stood at about 39 at the time. The relative strength index measures on a scale of 0 to 100 how heavily a period's up days weigh against its down days; below 30 a market counts as oversold.

A reading of 39 means selling pressure on Tuesday was strong but not exhausted. That fits the price action. On October 13 the daily level was $0.082182, the lowest point of the past two weeks. Today the price sits 2.8 percent above it. The mark has therefore carried once, and it carried in a market where the large caps gave ground on the same day.

What that means in practice shows in the distance: 5.6 percent down to $0.0800. Anyone planning an order near that line works with that span rather than a round number. Should the price break below it, no further daily low from 2026 remains as a catch point; the next reference then lies in December of the previous year.

The 50-day EMA at $0.0876 has been the ceiling since October 8

The exponential moving average weights recent prices more heavily than older ones and therefore reacts faster than a simple average. CoinJournal puts the 50-day value at $0.0876 and the 200-day value at $0.0923 on October 13. The price is thus 3.7 percent below the shorter line and 9.3 percent below the longer one.

The shorter line is the more interesting one. On October 8 DOGE fell from $0.088994 to $0.083977 and with that below this area. Since then the price has not closed above it on five trading days. A line that has resisted five times is no longer coincidence; it is the point where sellers show up reliably.

Large addresses hold 69.74 percent: 438 million DOGE less than on September 1

The figure missing from this week's price reports comes from Santiment data and appears at CoinJournal: addresses holding more than 100 million DOGE control 69.74 percent of the supply. On September 1 it was 70.02 percent. The difference of 0.28 percentage points looks small, which is precisely why the arithmetic is worth doing. On 156.32 billion DOGE in circulation one percentage point equals 1.56 billion coins. So 0.28 points amount to roughly 438 million DOGE, about $37 million at Wednesday morning's price.

In absolute terms the large addresses still hold around 109.0 billion DOGE. The direction over six weeks is downward, at a rate of roughly 73 million DOGE or a good $6 million a week. This is not a sell-off but a slow dispersal. Whether the coins given up were sold or merely spread across several addresses cannot be read from the metric, and nobody should claim otherwise.

How concentration affects exit liquidity

The mechanism behind it is rarely explained, yet it determines how violently a mark breaks. When almost 70 percent of a supply sits in very large addresses, the mass of small holders faces little depth in the order book. If a single one of those addresses sells part of its holding, it meets a book that cannot absorb the volume without a price concession. The price then slips not because of news but because of the size of the order.

The reverse also holds: as concentration falls, the same supply spreads across more hands and each individual order weighs less. On that logic the 0.28 points of the past six weeks are a slight easing, not a turn. For a sense of scale: the largest single transfer of the past 24 hours was worth $47.81 million, more than a tenth of total daily turnover across all venues combined. One movement of that size is enough to occupy an order book.

Funding rate at 0.0044 percent: the futures market is empty after October 9

Beyond the chart there is a second angle that often explains more for meme coins: the futures market. The funding rate is the payment holders of long positions make to holders of short positions every eight hours when the futures price trades above the spot price. That rate is the most direct measure of how expensive a bet on rising prices currently is.

At OKX the rate for the perpetual DOGE contract stands at 0.0044 percent per eight-hour period on Wednesday morning. Annualised that is 4.9 percent, and therefore close to the exchange's base rate itself. Open positions on the same exchange add up to 1.08 billion DOGE, or $91.3 million, which equals 0.69 percent of market capitalisation.

These numbers are the counterpart to what happened on October 9. We reported that day that 94 percent of liquidations in DOGE hit long positions. Leverage has largely left the market since: a funding rate near the base rate means almost nobody is still paying for a leveraged bet on the upside. For the mark at $0.0800 that is the most important relief, because the usual trigger of a breakdown, a cascade of liquidations in overstretched long positions, is absent for now.

Bitwise converts $725,870 into cash today, 0.16 percent of daily turnover

Today is the final trading day of the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF on NYSE Arca, and on that day the fund's DOGE holding is converted into cash. We described the wind-down in detail on October 10, with the date still ahead. What can be answered since is the question of weight: fund assets stood at roughly $725,870 on October 7. Against daily turnover of $457.96 million that is 0.16 percent.

That calculation is why the date barely matters for the price. A sale of this size disappears into the day's business. Reading the wind-down as a burden on the price confuses the headline with the amount. Unit holders in the US follow a different timetable: net asset value is determined as of October 21, and payment then runs through the broker. An investor in Europe is generally unaffected, because this US product was never authorised for distribution here.

Ongoing flows in the remaining products are small as well. CoinJournal reports a net outflow of $399,460 from the DOGE spot funds for Monday, October 12, after a week without notable movement. For comparison on the exchange side: on October 11 we reported $57.2 million of net outflows from trading venues over seven days. Fund flows are therefore the smaller part of the picture; movements on the exchanges are larger by a factor of 140.

Blockchain figures: 33,197 transactions, 32 in the mempool, 13.7 million new DOGE a day

The Dogecoin blockchain itself shows quiet operation on Wednesday morning. In 24 hours 1,370 blocks were found and 33,197 transactions processed. The block count implies an average block time of 63 seconds; the protocol targets 60 seconds. Network hash rate stands at 3.3 petahashes per second, difficulty at 48.3 million. There are 482 reachable nodes.

The mempool is the waiting area for transactions that are not yet in a block. For Dogecoin it currently holds 32 transactions. A network with a practically empty waiting area means two things for a holder: a transfer confirms within the next minute, and raising the fee buys no advantage. The median fee is 0.0052 DOGE, less than half a US cent. That the average fee, at 0.2659 DOGE, is fifty-one times higher comes down to a handful of very large payments and says nothing about the cost of an ordinary transfer.

One figure stays unchanged and belongs in any look at the DOGE price: 13.7 million new DOGE are created every day, with no upper limit. Over a year that is roughly 5.0 billion coins, or 3.2 percent of today's supply. For the price to hold steady, demand worth a good $1.1 million has to meet those new coins every single day.

Purchase route, fees and custody: what the spread costs at the mark

Buying near $0.0800 costs more at execution than it does at the quoted price. On a regulated venue in the EU, licensed under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, an instant buy typically costs around one percent, while a limit order in the book costs considerably less. With a 5.6 percent distance to the mark, one percent in fees is almost a fifth of the stretch. That is why the fee models are worth a look before an order goes in, and our crypto exchange comparison covers them.

Custody carries a particularity with DOGE: Dogecoin has no staking, so there is no yield on idle holdings and therefore no reason to leave them on an exchange. Anyone holding for longer moves them to a wallet of their own. At the current mempool the network fee for that runs to fractions of a cent.

For tax, holding period is what counts in Germany: under the Income Tax Act, gains from private disposals of crypto assets are tax-free after a holding period of one year, and below that an exemption limit of 1,000 euros a year applies. For every order that means the purchase date has to be documented, and separately for each partial purchase. Buying repeatedly inside a corridor creates several deadlines. The tools for that appear in our overview of tax software and portfolio trackers.

Our assessment: the corridor holds as long as the funding rate stays flat

From the newsroom's point of view the situation in DOGE is currently less fragile than the price suggests. Three pieces of evidence support that: the funding rate of 0.0044 percent per eight-hour period shows that leveraged long positions have been unwound since October 9, and without them the usual trigger for a break to the downside is missing. Concentration among large addresses has fallen from 70.02 to 69.74 percent since September 1, so distribution has widened slightly. And the Bitwise fund wind-down, traded as a burden, weighs nothing at 0.16 percent of daily turnover.

Against that stands the upside. Five trading days without a close above $0.0876 are solid selling interest, and the running issuance of 13.7 million DOGE a day demands fresh demand every day. As long as the price fails to reclaim the 50-day line, the move remains a sideways move inside the corridor, and none of this is a recommendation to buy or sell. A total loss is possible at any time with crypto assets.

Dogecoin corridor: above $0.0876 the picture turns, below $0.0800 it does not

Three steps to sort the situation out for yourself:

1. Weigh the fee against the stretch. At a 5.6 percent distance to the mark, a one percent purchase fee eats almost a fifth of the way. Which venue runs which model appears in the crypto exchange comparison.
2. Keep the funding rate in view. If it climbs clearly above today's 0.0044 percent, fresh leverage is building and the risk of a liquidation cascade at the $0.0800 mark returns. Where that value can be seen and at what cost appears in our overview of perp DEXs.
3. Record the purchase date for each partial buy. Every order starts its own one-year clock. Which tool tracks that automatically appears with the tax software and portfolio trackers.

(As of October 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Telegram widened access to its own wallet, called Money, on Friday 9 October 2026. Since then, far more users can send and receive Gram directly inside the messenger and pay for digital collectibles with it. The price jumped to $1.4871 that Friday and is back at $1.3761 this Wednesday, according to CoinGecko on 14 October at around 01:00. The gain from the news has been given back in full within five days.

For holders in Europe, the wallet is still the more important half of the story. Money is built to be non-custodial: the private keys sit with the user alone. Telegram cannot view them, cannot reverse a transfer and cannot restore a lost balance. Switching the feature on means taking on a responsibility that someone else carries on an exchange account.

What Telegram changed about the Money wallet on 9 October

Money is not a new product but the new name of the former Gram Wallet. Telegram announced it in July, and a limited launch ran for selected accounts in August. On 9 October that limit largely fell away: access now reaches beyond the selected circle and is being rolled out more broadly across the messenger's audience, which numbers more than a billion people.

The wording matters. Neither Telegram nor the outlets reporting on it say that every account already has the feature. FinanceFeeds states explicitly that the announcement is no evidence of a full rollout, and crypto.news likewise speaks of an expansion beyond the users selected so far. If you cannot see the wallet in your app yet, you have done nothing wrong.

Functionally, Money does two things: it holds and sends Gram, and it buys Telegram gifts and collectible usernames. Transfers from an existing Walt account are described by the provider as a matter of a few steps, credited immediately and without a network fee.

Money and Walt: two Telegram wallets with two custody models

This is where most of the confusion arises, so here is the difference in one sentence per product. Money is the new, non-custodial wallet inside the messenger: the keys sit with the user. Walt is the older wallet service, which continues under its own brand and holds the balance on the user's behalf.

The term behind it: a non-custodial wallet is one in which only the user holds the private key and nobody else can reach the balance. The counterpart is custodial safekeeping, where a provider holds the key and moves the balance on request, much as a bank runs an account.

Both models have a price. With a custodial account you carry the risk that the provider fails, is suspended or halts withdrawals. With your own wallet you carry the risk of losing the key. Which design suits you depends less on the coin than on the sum involved and on how often you move it. An overview of the designs and their pitfalls is in the software wallet comparison.

Non-custodial means nobody can restore your balance

The sentence sounds technical and has a very practical consequence. If the phone is lost, stolen or ends up in the dishwasher, your Gram stands or falls with the recovery phrase, the sequence of words from which the private key can be recalculated. Telegram does not have it. There is no hotline, no ID upload and no form that could retrieve access for you.

A wrongly addressed transfer is just as final. A transaction on the blockchain cannot be cancelled, and with a non-custodial wallet there is nobody who could try on your behalf. The same mechanism has in the past left Gram transfers stuck in the network when a required comment was missing. We took that case apart on the network data at the end of September.

In practice, that means the recovery phrase belongs offline, on paper or better in metal, in two separate places. A screenshot in your photo library is not a backup but a copy in the cloud.

The Gram price this week: $1.38 and 9.5 percent below the weekly high

The figures for the past seven days, all from CoinGecko as of Wednesday 14 October at around 01:00: Gram stands at $1.3761, or roughly €1.23. The weekly high was $1.5198 on 7 October, the weekly low $1.3480 on 8 October. Over seven days that works out to a loss of 9.45 percent, over 30 days a gain of 2.47 percent.

Market capitalisation is around $3.89 billion, which corresponds to rank 32. Roughly 2.83 billion Gram are in circulation. Trading volume over 24 hours is around $31 million, so less than one percent of market capitalisation. The all-time high of $8.25 dates from 14 June 2024, leaving today's price 83.3 percent below it.

On the move on the day of the news itself, the figures diverge, and we are not smoothing them over. In the report linked above, crypto.news puts Friday at around nine percent. Our own count of CoinGecko's hourly values comes out somewhat lower: from $1.3762 at 01:00 to $1.4871 at 14:00, so a little over eight percent. Depending on which start and end point a newsroom picks, a different number comes out. The range from just under seven to just under nine percent describes the same event.

The Toncoin to Gram rename in June played out almost identically

For this article we set CoinGecko's daily values around this year's two big Telegram stories side by side. The pattern repeats strikingly closely.

On 15 June 2026 Toncoin was officially renamed Gram after a community vote passed; what the switch meant for holders in Europe is something we described on 27 September in Toncoin is now Gram. The price stood at $1.7529 that day, the highest point of that week. Two weeks later, on 29 June, it was at $1.5864. That is 9.5 percent lower.

On 9 October 2026 Telegram opened the Money wallet and the price rose to $1.4871. Five days later it is at $1.3761, so 7.5 percent lower. Two pieces of news, both read as milestones, and both times the premium was eaten up within two weeks.

A second point from the same rename is still visible today: the official guide recommended displaying "Gram (prev. Toncoin)" for a transitional period of three months. CoinGecko still carries the name in exactly that form four months after the cut-off date. The blockchain itself is still called The Open Network, or TON. Only the token's name and ticker were changed.

A wallet opening rarely carries the price for longer than a day

Why does news like this fizzle out? With infrastructure stories the mechanism is almost always the same. A wallet creates no additional demand for the token, it only lowers the barrier to using it. On the day of the news, buying comes from traders reacting to that very headline, and selling comes from the same traders as soon as the headline has run its course.

Add to that the size of the market. With daily volume of around $31 million against a market capitalisation of $3.89 billion, even a mid-sized sale moves the price noticeably. Inflows that come from actual use, by contrast, work slowly: first people have to have the feature switched on at all, then they have to buy Gram in order to pay for something with it.

That is exactly why the cautious wording of the announcement is no side issue. As long as there is no evidence of how many of the more than one billion accounts really see the wallet, the usage effect remains an expectation rather than a number.

Our assessment: distribution decides, not the announcement

From the newsroom's point of view, the Money opening is the most important Gram story since the rename, and it still does not justify a higher price while three pieces of evidence are missing. First, no source gives a figure for how many accounts actually have the wallet today; FinanceFeeds explicitly treats a full rollout as unproven. Second, the market itself shows that it does not trust the news: 7.5 percent below the high of the news day, on volume of less than one percent of market capitalisation. Third, 15 June offers a directly comparable case in which 9.5 percent was gone after two weeks.

There is a serious argument on the other side: a payment route built into a messenger with this reach starts from a different position than an app you first have to download. If Telegram really does switch the feature on across the board over the coming months, demand will come from payments rather than from a headline. That cannot be evidenced today; it can be measured later against the network's transaction counts. None of this is a recommendation to buy, and a total loss remains possible with any token.

Buying Gram in Europe: exchanges with MiCA authorisation

A wallet is no substitute for a way to buy. You still get Gram through a trading venue, and now that the European MiCA regulation applies in full, providers actively targeting customers in the EU need an authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider for it. MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets, which sets authorisation, capital requirements and disclosure duties uniformly across Europe.

In practice that means two things for your purchase. Before your first deposit you should check whether the provider holds a MiCA authorisation from a European supervisor, because deposit protection questions, complaint routes and tax documentation all depend on it. And you should look at total costs rather than the stated order fee alone: with smaller altcoins the larger share of the cost regularly sits in the spread, the gap between the buying and the selling price. Which venues hold the authorisation is set out in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges below.

Holding period and tax: what a transfer into your own wallet triggers

Moving from an exchange into the Money wallet regularly raises the same worry. The reassurance first: a transfer between two wallets that both belong to you is not a sale. In Germany it triggers no taxable event and does not restart the holding period under section 23 of the Income Tax Act.

Documentation is what counts. For the one-year holding period, the date of acquisition is what matters, and you have to be able to evidence it once the coins no longer sit on the platform where you bought them. So keep the exchange's purchase record and note the transaction ID of the transfer. Anyone moving coins between platforms and their own wallet more often loses that thread quickly.

Two points are less obvious. If you buy a digital collectible with Gram, for tax purposes that is a disposal of the Gram and not merely a purchase, because you are handing over a crypto asset. And network fees incurred when sending count towards acquisition costs or disposal costs respectively. With the fee-free transfers from a Walt account that Telegram describes, that item does not arise.

Levels above and below: $1.35 and $1.52

As an observation, not a price target: on the downside the next reference is the weekly low of $1.3480 from 8 October. The current price of $1.3761 sits only about two percent above it, so the distance is small. Below that comes the round level of $1.30.

On the upside the weekly high of $1.5198 from 7 October is the first hurdle, with the news day's intraday high of $1.4871 in between. The fact that this high was sold off completely within five days makes it the obvious yardstick: only above it would the wallet news really have carried the price.

Scams around the name change

A name change is an invitation to fraudsters, and the scheme has run unchanged since June. The official rename guide is explicit: balances never had to be swapped, claimed or moved, and holdings stayed as they were. Any site asking you to "migrate" or "claim" Gram is therefore an attempted fraud.

The wallet opening adds a second variant. Anyone who receives a message offering to help them "unlock" Money and asking for the recovery phrase in the process is dealing with an attack. No genuine wallet, no support desk and no messenger ever asks for that sequence of words. You enter it only in the device itself, when you are restoring a wallet.

An older principle still applies too: a second account with the same name and picture says nothing about authenticity. Always check features in the app itself and follow no link from an unsolicited message.

Money wallet: without the recovery phrase the balance is gone

The wallet opening is good news for how usable Gram is and, so far, none for the price. If you switch the feature on, the backup is what matters most.

1. Secure the recovery phrase offline before you move any balance. Two copies in two places, on paper or in metal, never as a screenshot. For larger holdings a separate hardware solution remains the more robust choice; the designs are in the hardware wallet comparison.
2. Start with a small amount. Send a sum whose loss would not hurt you first, and bring it back once. Only when both directions have worked should the rest follow. For the purchase itself, use a provider with European authorisation, as listed among the regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Record the acquisition date and the transaction ID. That costs a minute during the move and later decides whether you can evidence the one-year holding period to the tax office. The tax tools take the note-keeping off your hands.

(As of October 14, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

One of the world's largest trading banks now holds a stablecoin that is hard to buy through regulated channels in Europe. Standard Chartered began institutional custody for Ripple USD, or RLUSD, on 12 October 2026, and specifically on the XRP Ledger. The mandate sits with the bank's branch in the Dubai International Financial Centre, which is supervised by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. For retail investors in Europe, availability does not change in the short term. What the move does show is where RLUSD is regulated today and where it is not: in Dubai and New York, not in the European Union.

A stablecoin is a crypto asset whose price is pegged to a currency, here the US dollar. RLUSD is issued by Ripple, the company behind XRP. The dollar peg does not hold by itself. It rests on reserves the issuer sets aside and on the promise to redeem tokens at face value at any time. That promise is exactly what the EU has regulated since 2024 under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, or MiCA.

What Standard Chartered launched on 12 October: custody for RLUSD on the XRP Ledger

The bank is adding RLUSD to its custody infrastructure for digital assets. Eligible institutional clients can now hold the stablecoin at the bank instead of keeping it on an exchange or in a wallet of their own. Custody means precisely that: the bank holds the keys and is liable to the client for the balance. It does not issue the stablecoin and it does not guarantee its backing.

Waqar Chaudry, Global Head of Digital Assets in Securities Services at Standard Chartered, framed the step as a response to client demand: institutional clients want to take part in digital asset markets. That is the logic behind the offering. A fund, an insurer or a payment service provider is often only allowed to hold positions if a supervised institution keeps them in custody. Without that route, a stablecoin stays out of reach for such firms, however well it works technically.

DIFC and DFSA: why custody sits in Dubai and not in Frankfurt

The Dubai International Financial Centre is a financial zone with its own law and its own supervisor. The Dubai Financial Services Authority issues licences there and oversees the institutions. Standard Chartered is using this branch because it is authorised for the custody of digital assets.

The difference from a launch in Frankfurt or Luxembourg is more than geographic. A custody licence in Dubai says nothing about whether the stablecoin held in custody may be issued or offered in the EU. Those are two separate questions, answered by two separate supervisors. If you are based in Europe, the Dubai custody arrangement gives you no new access to RLUSD.

RLUSD by the numbers: $2.41 billion market capitalisation and rank 44

RLUSD had a market capitalisation of roughly $2.41 billion on 13 October 2026 according to CoinGecko, at a price of $1.00 and around 2.41 billion tokens in circulation. Some $204 million changed hands over 24 hours. That puts RLUSD at number 44 in the ranking by market capitalisation.

For comparison, same source and same date: Tether stood at roughly $184 billion, USDC at roughly $72.7 billion. RLUSD has grown well, then, but remains a small issuer. Reports on the announcement put the entire stablecoin market at around $306 billion, leaving RLUSD at less than one percent of it. In August its market capitalisation passed two billion dollars for the first time; of that supply, roughly $988 million had been issued on the XRP Ledger, the rest on other blockchains.

That split matters more to the story than it first appears. Standard Chartered is explicitly taking custody of the version on the XRP Ledger. Anyone holding RLUSD on Ethereum is not covered by this offering.

Trading collateral at LMAX: what collateral mirroring means and what is still missing

Alongside custody, the announcement carries a second item, and that one is not yet in operation. Standard Chartered, Ripple and the LMAX Group want institutional clients to be able to post RLUSD as collateral for certain trading products at LMAX. The mechanism is called collateral mirroring: the bank mirrors the value of the eligible collateral to the trading venue while the tokens stay in the bank's custody.

Collateral is an asset you pledge so that your trading counterparty is covered if you make a loss. Normally that collateral moves to the trading venue. Mirroring is meant to remove that step, which lowers counterparty risk towards the platform.

One point decides how to read this: the integration is announced, not launched. According to the reporting, it depends on final documentation, successful testing, applicable law, internal approvals and the question of which jurisdictions are ready. No launch date was given. Readers should therefore keep the custody launch and the collateral function apart.

No entry in the ESMA register: RLUSD is absent from the authorised e-money tokens

This is where it gets concrete for investors in Europe. ESMA, the European securities regulator, maintains a register of e-money tokens for which a MiCA whitepaper has been filed. Only those may be offered publicly in the EU and listed by authorised service providers.

The cryptoticker.io stablecoin overview reviewed that register as of 30 September 2026. The result for RLUSD: no entry. New York and Dubai count as its supervisors there, not the EU. Authorised under the same review are USDC, EURC, Revolut's EURR, EURCV, USDG, EURe, EURI, EURQ and EURAU, among others. You can check the official register yourself at ESMA; it is republished at intervals.

Ripple has secured licences in Europe, and precision pays off here. According to reports, Luxembourg's regulator CSSF granted the company an e-money institution authorisation on 2 February 2026 and a MiCA crypto-asset service provider authorisation on 6 July 2026. On the status of the stablecoin itself, accounts diverge: some reports speak of full MiCA authorisation across 30 countries, others only of a provisional approval. The register check at the end of September shows no entry for RLUSD. We report that for what it is, an open question with conflicting sources.

E-money token and service provider licence: what MiCA keeps apart

Two terms are regularly confused, and the confusion leads to wrong conclusions.

An e-money token, or EMT, is a crypto asset that tracks the value of an official currency. Issuing one in the EU requires authorisation as an e-money institution or as a credit institution, plus a whitepaper that enters the ESMA register. That concerns the product.

A crypto-asset service provider, or CASP, is a company that holds, exchanges or brokers crypto assets. Its authorisation concerns the business, not an individual token. A CASP licence for Ripple therefore permits services in the EU, but it does not automatically turn RLUSD into an authorised e-money token. Which obligations apply in detail is set out in the MiCA licence rules.

Stablecoins in a European portfolio: where MiCA authorisation shows up in practice

In practice that leaves a simple order of checks. First, see whether the stablecoin appears in the ESMA register. Then see whether your provider carries it at all, because a regulated crypto exchange in Europe will usually drop an unauthorised token from its offering before the supervisor asks.

The USDT case showed that this is no grey theory. ESMA has set a deadline of 8 January 2027 for exiting unauthorised stablecoins; what that means in practice is something we described on 8 October in our piece on the ESMA deadline and the USDT exit. The Dubai custody launch has since added a second piece that shows the same dividing line from the other side: institutional routes appear first where supervisors allow them, and for RLUSD that is currently not the EU.

The difference between holding and buying matters. If you already own RLUSD, no rule forces you to sell. MiCA obligations are addressed to issuers and service providers, not to you as a private individual. The bottleneck shows up at the point of purchase, at listing, and in the question of who offers you the token in Europe at all.

Custody risk with stablecoins: issuer, custodian and backing viewed separately

With a stablecoin, three risks sit next to each other and are often lumped together.

Issuer risk sits with Ripple. It is the question of whether reserves are sufficient and whether redemption at face value works even when many holders want out at the same time. Custody risk sits with whoever holds the keys: an exchange, a bank such as Standard Chartered now, or you. Regulatory risk is that a token may be offered in one jurisdiction and not in another.

The news from Dubai improves the second point, for institutional clients of a supervised bank. It says nothing about the backing, and it does not change the third point in Europe. If you would rather handle custody yourself, the devices for it are in our hardware wallet comparison; the price is that losing the keys is then yours alone to bear.

Our assessment: a Dubai signal that makes the EU gap visible

From the newsroom's point of view, the custody launch is the smaller story and the gap behind it the larger one. The evidence: a major bank is building custody in Dubai under DFSA supervision, while the register check of 30 September shows no EU entry for RLUSD and the collateral function at LMAX remains undated. What follows for us is that RLUSD grows where a framework already stands, and European investors still reach it only by detours.

The case against, stated just as plainly: Ripple holds two licences in Luxembourg, and authorisation of the token may yet follow; the register is updated continuously. Anyone betting on that step, however, is betting on an administrative act with an open date rather than on an announced fact. None of this is a recommendation to buy or sell, and with crypto assets a total loss remains possible.

RLUSD in Europe: without an ESMA entry, access stays indirect

Three steps to settle the picture for your own portfolio:

1. Check the authorisation. Look up the ESMA register to see whether your stablecoin is listed as an e-money token. The status and the names are collected in the stablecoin overview with MiCA status.
2. Reconcile with your provider. Check in your account which stablecoins are still tradable and which have been flagged for exit. Which venues in Europe operate under authorisation is shown in the comparison of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Settle your custody. Decide whether to leave balances with your provider or hold them yourself, and write down the recovery. Devices and differences are in the hardware wallet comparison.

The next real test will not come from Dubai but from the register: only an entry for RLUSD as an e-money token opens the regular route in the EU. Until then, custody at Standard Chartered remains an offering for institutional clients in the Gulf.

(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.)

The claim challenges 1,053 loss-making perpetual swap trades from 2018 to 2022 and also accuses the now-closed exchange of deceit.

A Saudi national working at OpenAI allegedly hid an encrypted audio recorder behind a TV in an executive meeting room. OpenAI says its own models helped trace it back to him.

The chatbot app once valued at $1 billion is up for sale in a Delaware court, two weeks after launching new models. If nobody buys it, it shuts down.

Binance will discontinue Binance Pool, Pool Savings, Cloud Mining, and other related services in a retreat from mining infrastructure.

A wallet that received 4,581 BTC in March 2020, worth about $40 million then, moved its stash today when it was worth about $377 million.

Evernorth hits the NASDAQ podium today, facing a $450 million asset markdown as the bell rings.

Hyperliquid whales take profits after successfully shoveling the token at a relatively low price.

A massive Ethereum whale has completely liquidated its 52,001 ETH position, locking in a staggering $24.5 million profit after a series of major sell-offs.

Ripple has secured its first partnership with a South Korean securities firm, teaming up with Meritz Securities to explore institutional crypto custody and tokenization as it expands its footprint in the country's financial sector.

Cryptocurrency market stays under pressure that's coming from bears, but the recovery is still a possibility.

TLDR

• Michael Saylor said Bitcoin has entered a new bull market and will climb back above $100,000.
• Saylor believes Bitcoin bottomed just below $60,000 and is now recovering in the $80,000 range.
• Strategy bought 250 Bitcoin for about $21.5 million, bringing its total to 848,250 coins.
• MSCI is considering rules that could remove Strategy from its global equity indexes.
• JPMorgan estimates about $2.8 billion in investment flows could be at risk, with MSCI’s decision expected Friday.

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he believes Bitcoin has entered a new bull market. He predicted the cryptocurrency will climb back above $100,000.

Saylor made the comments on October 13 during an interview with Bloomberg Television. Bitcoin was trading near $83,000 at the time, about 34% below its record high from October 2025.

Saylor said he thinks the worst of the decline is over. “We hit the bottom around slightly below $60,000,” he said.

He noted that Bitcoin has since recovered into the $80,000 range. He said the price would return to six figures but did not give a timeline.

Bitcoin reached a peak of $126,251 in October 2025. Shortly after that record, the market saw about $19 billion in liquidations, which put pressure on leveraged positions.

The cryptocurrency has traded around $80,000 since mid-August. That followed a long slide from its all-time high.

Saylor pointed to several reasons for his outlook. These include changing monetary conditions, new regulations, and more investment from large institutions.

He also expects Bitcoin to benefit as banks adopt it. He said demand for digital credit products should grow as financial firms expand their crypto services.

Strategy Adds More Bitcoin

Saylor said Strategy plans to add more Bitcoin as the market recovers. The company intends to issue more securities to fund those purchases.

Between October 5 and October 11, Strategy bought 250 Bitcoin for about $21.5 million. The purchase raised its total holdings to 848,250 Bitcoin.

During the same period, the company bought back $192.4 million of its preferred shares.

Saylor said he expects Bitcoin to grow 20% to 30% per year over the coming years. This is his own long-term forecast and not a guaranteed return for investors.

Strategy funds its operations through several methods. These include preferred shares, cash reserves, and sales of common stock.

MSCI Decision Due Friday

Strategy also faces a possible change to MSCI’s global equity index rules. The proposal could remove companies that mainly hold assets rather than run operating businesses.

Saylor criticized the plan and said Strategy should stay classified as an operating company. He called MSCI’s position “a bad precedent for them and for the industry” and asked the index provider to reconsider.

JPMorgan has estimated that removal from the index could put about $2.8 billion in investment flows at risk.

MSCI is expected to announce its decision on Friday. The outcome will decide whether Strategy remains eligible for global benchmarks and the funds that track them.

The post Saylor Predicts Bitcoin Above $100K as Strategy Stock Faces MSCI Index Ruling appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Ledger asked resellers in six Southeast Asian countries and Hong Kong to stop selling its hardware wallets.
• The request covers Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Hong Kong.
• The move follows reports of stolen crypto tied to devices bought through the reseller CryptoBilis.
• Ledger says the only confirmed incidents so far are in Southeast Asia.
• The company says its own systems and direct sales channel have not been compromised.

Ledger, the maker of crypto hardware wallets, has asked resellers in parts of Asia to stop selling its devices. The company is investigating reports that some of its wallets were tampered with before reaching customers.

Ledger is a Paris-based company that makes devices for storing cryptocurrency. Its wallets are sold through its own website and through third-party resellers around the world.

The new request covers sellers and distributors in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as Hong Kong. Ledger asked them to suspend sales and remove the devices from store shelves.

The company shared the update in a post on X on Tuesday.

Where the Investigation Stands

Ledger said the confirmed cases remain limited to one region. “To be clear, as the investigation continues, the only confirmed incidents remain contained to Southeast Asia,” the company said.

It added that it has not verified any loss of funds tied to a device bought anywhere else. “We have not verified a drain linked to a device bought elsewhere,” Ledger said.

The company is still working to find out who altered the devices. It is also trying to determine at which point in the distribution chain the tampering took place.

“The investigation is ongoing to determine who tampered with these devices and where in the distribution chain it happened,” Ledger said.

How the Case Began

The broader halt builds on an earlier step. Ledger first asked a reseller called CryptoBilis to stop sales and shipments of its products.

The investigation became public on Oct. 9. That followed reports of stolen crypto linked to Ledger devices bought through CryptoBilis.

A hardware wallet is a small physical device that stores the private keys used to access crypto. Users rely on it to keep their funds offline and away from online threats.

If a device is altered before it reaches the buyer, an attacker may be able to access the funds stored on it. That is why reports of tampering draw close attention from users.

Since the first reports, users in other regions have also come forward. Some in Europe said they found signs of suspected tampering in devices bought from retailers.

Ledger has not confirmed any of those cases. The company has said its verified incidents remain tied to Southeast Asia.

Ledger also addressed concerns about its own operations. The company said there is no sign that its core systems were affected.

“We have no indication that Ledger’s infrastructure, systems or services or direct sales channel have been compromised,” the company said.

The sales pause in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong remains in place while the investigation continues. Ledger has not said when sales could resume.

The post Ledger Asks Resellers to Pull Crypto Wallets From Shelves in Seven Markets appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Metaplanet announced a ¥60 billion ($380 million) share buyback program covering up to 200 million shares.
• The company plans to raise ¥52 billion ($329 million) through zero-coupon convertible bonds due in 2031.
• About $149 million will repay Bitcoin-backed loans after borrowing reached 17.7% of Bitcoin reserves, above its 10% limit.
• Metaplanet shares have fallen about 36% this year and nearly 90% from their June 2025 peak.
• CEO Simon Gerovich will lend up to 55 million personal shares to support bond investor hedging.

Metaplanet, a Japanese company that holds Bitcoin as a treasury asset, has announced a $380 million share buyback program. The move comes after its stock fell nearly 90% from its peak.

The company also plans to raise $329 million through a bond sale. The money will go toward repaying Bitcoin-backed loans and buying back shares.

Metaplanet Turns to Bonds to Cut Bitcoin-Backed Debt

On Oct. 13, Metaplanet said it will issue ¥52 billion ($329 million) in zero-coupon convertible bonds due in 2031. The bonds are unsecured and will be listed on the Singapore Exchange.

The offering targets investors mainly in Europe and Asia. It is expected to close on Oct. 29.

The bonds pay no regular interest. This lets the company replace part of its interest-bearing debt, which is secured by its Bitcoin, without selling any of its holdings.

As of Sept. 30, Metaplanet owed about $649.5 million under an $800 million credit facility backed by its Bitcoin. That equaled 17.7% of the value of its Bitcoin reserves, above its own limit of 10%.

The company held 44,000 Bitcoin at the end of September. It said further drops in Bitcoin’s price could push that borrowing ratio higher.

Metaplanet plans to use about ¥23.6 billion ($149 million) from the bonds to repay loans in November. That would cut its borrowing to about $500.5 million and lower the ratio to roughly 13.6%, still above its target.

Investors can demand repayment of the bonds after three years. That could force the company to refinance before 2031.

Metaplanet Launches Buyback as Shares Slide

Up to ¥28.3 billion ($179 million) from the bond sale will fund share repurchases under a new ¥60 billion ($380 million) buyback program.

The company also canceled its previous ¥75 billion ($475 million) buyback plan from October 2025. It had not bought any shares under that plan.

The new program allows Metaplanet to buy back up to 200 million shares, or about 14.7% of its stock, through Oct. 13, 2027.

Metaplanet shares have fallen about 36% this year, closing at ¥261 on Oct. 13. The stock peaked at ¥1,930 in June 2025. Strategy, the largest public company holding Bitcoin, is up about 1% this year.

The company generally avoids issuing new shares when its market value falls below the value of its Bitcoin holdings. Buying back shares could help improve that measure.

CEO Simon Gerovich has agreed to lend up to 55 million of his own shares through his family holding company. The shares will support hedging by bond investors, for an annual fee of 0.75%.

Investors who borrow those shares could sell them. That could create selling pressure while the company is buying back stock.

The bonds could also dilute shareholders if converted into stock. Metaplanet has not yet set the final conversion price.

The buyback starts on Oct. 14 through the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s ToSTNeT-3 off-auction system. The company is targeting up to 96.9 million shares for about ¥25.3 billion ($160 million), which could cut its share count by about 7.1%.

The post Metaplanet Stock Falls Nearly 90% as Bitcoin Firm Unveils $380 Million Buyback appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Coinbase published a technical paper on October 13 urging Bitcoin developers to start preparing for future quantum computing threats.
• The exchange holds about 5% of all Bitcoin in custody and is already preparing its own systems.
• Coinbase pointed to BIP-360 and P2TRv2 as flexible designs for adding quantum-resistant signatures.
• It suggested hybrid wallets that support both current and post-quantum signatures.
• The company said debate over lost and dormant Bitcoin should happen separately from technical work.

Coinbase has called on Bitcoin developers to begin preparing for possible quantum computing threats. In a technical paper published on October 13, the exchange said upgrading Bitcoin’s security could take several years.

The company holds about 5% of all existing Bitcoin in custody. It said it is already preparing its own systems for a post-quantum future.

Its work includes talks with Bitcoin researchers, contributions to open-source projects and membership in the Bitcoin Security Consortium.

“We believe it is important to begin preparing well ahead of any CRQC (Cryptographically Relevant Quantum Computer) announcement,” Coinbase said. “Bitcoin consensus changes and ecosystem migrations can take years, so it is important that we begin this work now.”

Why Bitcoin Faces a Quantum Risk

Bitcoin uses elliptic-curve cryptography, including ECDSA and Schnorr signatures, to approve transactions. A powerful enough quantum computer could, in theory, figure out private keys from exposed public keys.

Coinbase did not claim such a machine exists today. It described the threat as a future possibility that requires early planning.

The company said the fix involves more than picking a new signature algorithm. Developers must weigh transaction fees, block space, wallet support and the ability of nodes to verify transactions on their own.

Coinbase Backs Flexible Designs and Hybrid Wallets

Coinbase pointed to BIP-360 and P2TRv2 as designs worth considering. Both separate the transaction structure from the signature scheme, so new algorithms could be added or replaced later.

BIP-360 introduces Pay-to-Merkle-Root, or P2MR. It removes Taproot’s key-path spending option, which exposes a public key. The proposal is still in draft status.

The exchange recommended studying post-quantum algorithms such as ML-DSA, SLH-DSA and FN-DSA once standards are ready. It also named SHRINCS, a compact hash-based design, as a candidate for review.

For the migration, Coinbase described a 1-of-2 hybrid wallet. Funds could be spent with either a current ECDSA or Schnorr key or a separate post-quantum key.

Coinbase also said new systems should work with multiparty computation, or MPC, which large custodians use to protect keys. It warned that stateful signature schemes carry forgery risks if signing records are mishandled, and asked for a stateless option.

Old and lost coins remain an open question. These include dormant wallets, lost keys and Bitcoin from the network’s earliest years.

A separate proposal, BIP-361, suggests gradually restricting older signatures after a post-quantum option becomes available. It remains a draft and has not been activated.

Coinbase said disputes over inaccessible funds should be debated in parallel and should not hold up protections for active wallets.

The paper did not set a migration deadline, endorse a final algorithm or propose an activation date. Coinbase said its next steps will continue through talks with researchers, developers and open-source contributors.

The post Coinbase Paper Outlines Bitcoin Post-Quantum Security Plan appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• New York Fed President John Williams said one more interest rate hike this year will likely be appropriate.
• He said he sees no reason at this time to raise rates again in 2027, but the data will decide.
• Williams said AI chip supply could take more than two years to catch up with demand.
• He expects inflation to move close to the Fed’s 2% target by the end of 2027.
• Bitcoin miners moving into AI could face tougher competition for chips and power equipment.

New York Federal Reserve President John Williams said one more interest rate increase will likely be appropriate this year. He made the comments in an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday, Oct. 13.

Williams also said he sees no reason at this time to raise rates again in 2027. “But you asked 2027, we’ll have to see,” he said.

Another hike would put the Fed’s benchmark rate between 4% and 4.25%, according to Bloomberg. Williams supported the Fed’s rate increase in September and called it “absolutely the right call.”

Why Williams Backed the September Hike

Williams pointed to three drivers of inflation this year. They are tariffs, high energy prices tied to conflicts in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine, and demand from the AI buildout.

He said tariff effects are mostly “in the rearview mirror.” Energy prices, however, have stayed high and are passing into other costs such as airfares and food.

Williams said the economy has proven resilient. He said risks to employment appeared somewhat lower, while risks to inflation appeared somewhat higher.

Unemployment is in the low 4% range, according to Williams. He said wage growth remains subdued and the economy is not overheating.

He expects inflation to come down next year. He said it should move close to the Fed’s 2% target by the end of 2027.

AI Chip Supply May Take Years to Catch Up

Williams said the AI buildout is causing a “pretty abrupt and large increase” in prices for chips and goods that use them. He also sees early signs of higher labor costs in construction.

Asked if AI supply and demand would balance within two years, Williams said, “I think it’s going to take longer.” He added that this assumes demand continues as expected, “and that’s a big assumption.”

He said AI investors are “relatively price insensitive.” He does not expect higher rates to have a deep effect on AI spending.

Williams said high chip prices give makers strong reasons to build more factories, but that will take time. He also expects productivity gains from AI to help lower inflation in the future.

On markets, Williams said the stock market is “very buoyant.” Ten-year Treasury yields are near 5%, and he said higher borrowing costs are affecting home buyers and businesses.

A shortage of AI equipment could affect Bitcoin miners that are moving into AI, according to Cointelegraph. These companies compete for the same chips and power equipment.

Miner IREN signed $2.8 billion in new AI cloud contracts in July. Anthropic also struck a $9 billion compute deal with Bitcoin miner Riot, according to a report.

Cointelegraph reported on Monday that miners pursuing AI projects already face large financing needs. Lenders have also become more selective.

The post New York Fed’s Williams Says AI Chip Shortage Could Last Over Two Years, Affecting Stocks and Crypto Miners appeared first on Blockonomi.

Ethereum is getting most of the attention from crypto traders, while Bitcoin and XRP are facing growing fear. According to Santiment, the world’s largest altcoin by market cap has 2.05 bullish comments for every bearish comment across X, Reddit, and Telegram.

The shift comes as ETH trades above key support, and traders are watching staking demand and upcoming network upgrades.

Ethereum FOMO

The same cannot be said for Bitcoin, however, as it struggles to attract the same confidence. Its bullish-to-bearish comment ratio has dropped to 0.82. Repeated rejection near $87,000, a brief plunge toward $81,000, and heavy long liquidations have added to market concerns.

XRP is also under pressure as it recorded a sentiment ratio of 0.92. The token has fallen more than 9% over the past week, while the $1.40 level remains difficult to reclaim. Santiment explained that this contrast could matter if prices recover. While fear around Bitcoin and XRP could create opportunities for a possible rebound, high optimism around Ethereum may signal overheating,

Meanwhile, Crypto Patel sees an ambitious upside for Ethereum. The analyst set a long-term target of $15,000 for the current bull cycle. The $1,600 to $2,000 range was identified as a potential re-accumulation zone, with intermediate targets at $3,270, $4,892, and $10,000.

According to Crypto Patel, a confirmed breakout above $4,892 could open the door to a broader rally. However, ETH will need to hold key support levels and overcome resistance to keep that outlook alive.

Mixed Picture

Spot Ethereum ETFs finally saw some money come in after ten straight days of outflows. The funds recorded $24.84 million in net inflows on October 13th, which, interestingly, was their only positive day so far in October. Grayscale’s ETH fund led the gains with $16.3 million, while Fidelity’s FETH raked in another $8.11 million. Other funds posted no flows for the day.

The rebound is a welcome change, but it has barely made a dent in the recent withdrawals. These ETFs still have around $695 million in net outflows so far in October, as investor demand remains under pressure.

A similar trend was seen across spot Bitcoin ETFs, which collectively attracted $175.6 million. Meanwhile, XRP funds recorded no flows for three straight days.

The post ETH Becomes the Crowd Favorite as BTC Slides and XRP Struggles appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Although bitcoin’s price has remained relatively sluggish on a 24-hour scale, without any significant moves in either direction, its dominance over the alts has risen to 60% on CMC.

The reason for this is that most alts are still in the red, especially the mid-cap ones.

BTC Dominance Reaches 60%

BTC was rejected at $87,000 on a couple of occasions at the start of the previous business week, and the second was particularly painful as it began a more profound leg down. It culminated on Thursday evening when the asset slumped to $80,400 to mark a multi-week low.

After losing nearly $7,000 in about 72 hours, the cryptocurrency finally rebounded and tapped $83,000 during the weekend. It remained there for the next 36 hours and even challenged $84,400 on Monday morning. Another rejection followed, though, and the bears seemed in complete control on Tuesday morning when they drove bitcoin to just under $81,000 once again.

Nevertheless, there were two positive outcomes: first, BTC rebounded just as quickly to over $83,000; second, it marked a higher low, which is typically considered a bullish signal. Since then, it has traded sideways between $83,000 and $84,000 and currently sits inches above the lower boundary. More volatility is expected later today when the CPI numbers for September will be announced.

Its dominance over the altcoins is on the rise. The metric tapped 60% on CMC, as most altcoins have struggled over the past few days. In the meantime, bitcoin’s market cap hasn’t moved much and stands at $1.670 trillion.

Alts Struggle, BTW?!

Most larger-cap alts continue to be in the red today, with ETH sliding back down to $2,500, XRP slipping further away from the $1.40 level, and SOL dropping to $107. RAIN has plummeted by almost 10%, while QNT is down by 7.5%. Further losses are evident from ADA, HYPE, LINK, XLM, NEAR, TAO, DOT, and others.

In contrast, ZEC, XMR, TRX, and BCH are slightly in the green, while BTW has skyrocketed by 47% to over $2.60. On the other hand, TIA, M, CRV, and RENDER have dropped by somewhere between 8%-10% daily.

The total crypto market cap has declined by another 0.5% to $2.790 trillion on CMC.

The post Bitcoin Dominance on the Rise as Altcoins Retreat Ahead of CPI: Market Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

OP, the native token of Optimism, climbed nearly 20% at one point in the last 24 hours after Uniswap announced that Unichain will hand its production operations to OP Enterprise.

The rally came as Bitcoin and several major altcoins faced renewed selling pressure, giving OP a rare boost.

Unichain Handover Sends OP Higher

CoinGecko reported in a post on October 14 a 19.4% daily gain for OP that took it to $0.1621, linking the move to Uniswap’s announcement that Unichain would transition to OP Enterprise.

However, at the time of writing, it had given up some of those gains and was trading at around $0.156, still a 14% jump in 24 hours and 28% in seven days. It also gained 64% in 30 days but remains down nearly 68% from a year ago.

Trading activity also rose alongside the price. OP recorded around $226 million in 24-hour volume, a 128% increase from the previous day. The last time the token went higher than it did today was in mid-May when it touched $0.166.

Uniswap’s October 9 announcement explained that Unichain’s testnet migration was scheduled for October 13, with mainnet migration set for October 29. The transition leaves Unichain’s chain ID, contracts, balances, and existing Uniswap v2, v3, and v4 deployments unchanged.

Under the arrangement, Optimism will operate the production infrastructure, including sequencers, remote procedure call services, monitoring, and incident response across mainnet and testnet. Unichain users are not expected to face changes to their existing experience.

The handover also prepares Unichain for native interoperability across the OP Stack. Once that functionality goes live, users will be able to transfer assets, starting with ETH, between Unichain and other OP Stack networks without relying on a bridge.

OP Rallies as Wider Market Struggles

The price move stands out against the conditions reported by CryptoPotato yesterday. Several major altcoins lost ground, with NEAR falling roughly 10%, Zcash dropping more than 6%, and both Cardano and Hyperliquid shedding around 5%. Ethereum also briefly dipped to $2,400 before recovering above $2,500.

Zcash seems to have turned things around, recouping more than 4% in the last 24 hours to go above $1,250, while NEAR dumped another 4% and was hovering just above $5 at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin had fallen as low as $80,850 before rebounding toward $84,000, while daily liquidations across crypto markets exceeded $800 million.

The post Optimism (OP) Price Jumps Nearly 20% as Unichain Moves to OP Enterprise appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 13th, 2026]

Bybit Co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou has outlined the latest stage of the company’s expansion from a crypto exchange into The New Financial Platform, highlighting new products and collaborations across traditional and digital markets.

The updates were presented during Bybit’s latest biannual “Keynote with Ben” session titled “Make Your Move”, where Ben discussed the convergence of financial markets and the company’s approach to building for that shift. Held outside the usual studio format, in a gathering with a live audience, the keynote brought Ben together with selected guests to discuss changes in the financial landscape, new technologies and the products shaping Bybit’s next phase.

Four Years of TradFi Expansion, With Stocks Now Live and mStocks Ahead

Four years after entering traditional finance with contracts for difference (CFDs) in 2022, Bybit has established itself as the largest crypto CFD platform, with trading volume reaching as much as $100 billion at its peak. On Oct. 12, the company expanded further into traditional markets with the launch of stock trading for eligible users, providing access to more than 1,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs. Users can trade using USDC, with fractional shares and 24/5 access covering U.S. pre-market, regular and after-hours sessions.

Bybit is also developing mStocks in collaboration with Mantle, with a targeted launch in November. The tokenized stock product is designed to be backed 1:1 by real stocks, with plans to support round-the-clock conversion between eligible stocks and mStocks on Bybit, as well as decentralized exchange trading through automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pools on Mantle. Converted mStocks are also expected to be transferable into Bybit’s Unified Trading Account (UTA) for use as trading collateral, subject to applicable terms and conditions.

Bybit launched IPO Express in June, giving eligible users access to selected IPO opportunities at the offering price through tokenized representations of the underlying securities. The service launched with SpaceX and is designed to extend Bybit’s access beyond secondary-market trading into selected primary-market opportunities.

The latest developments build on Bybit’s expansion into perpetuals, pre-market products, foreign exchange and options. Its TradFi offering now spans more than 600 products across equities, ETFs, indices, commodities and FX. TradFi perpetuals have recorded more than $180 billion in trading volume, while recent additions include Forex Perps and Perp Options, an industry-first options product built on TradFi perpetuals.

Bybit is continuing to develop new perpetual products linked to AI computing and commodities, extending its range of instruments beyond conventional crypto markets.

Extending the Platform into Payments

Beyond trading and investing, Bybit has expanded its payments infrastructure to help customers move funds with greater flexibility. Bybit Pay and Bybit Card support crypto and fiat transfers, merchant payments and everyday spending. The service now connects users with more than 5,000 merchants across 15+ countries and supports transfers to bank accounts and e-wallets, alongside QR payments and other payment services. Bybit has issued more than 4 million Bybit Cards, extending the platform’s use beyond financial markets into payments and spending.

Security and Regulatory Infrastructure

The expansion has been accompanied by investment in security, compliance and technology infrastructure.

In the first half of 2026, Bybit said it intercepted more than 30,000 suspicious withdrawal requests, protecting users from more than $700 million in potential losses.

Bybit also secured five new licenses and regulatory approvals across European Union, the Cayman Islands, Indonesia, South Africa and El Salvador during 2026. These regulatory developments support the company’s efforts to expand its presence across different markets, subject to local requirements.

The company launched Bybit AI in September as a conversational assistant across trading, account management and customer support, with further development planned around the platform’s wider financial services.

“Bybit is all about giving you the speed and scale you need when you Make Your Move. We have brought trading, investing, payments and AI together, and we are continuing to add more markets and more ways to use them. We built the platform. Now it is about giving people the financial freedom to make their own move,” said Ben Zhou, Co-founder and CEO of Bybit.

Building Beyond the Exchange

Four years after entering TradFi, Bybit now combines crypto markets with stocks and ETFs, derivatives, commodities, FX, selected pre-IPO access, payments and AI-powered services. The company’s focus is increasingly on bringing these capabilities together within a single platform while continuing to expand market access, product depth and the infrastructure supporting them.

For Bybit, the development of The New Financial Platform represents the next stage of its growth beyond crypto and into a broader role across global financial markets.

Watch the full keynote here: https://www.bybit.com/en/press/live/keynote-with-ben-h2-2026

#Bybit / #NewFinancialPlatform

About Bybit

Bybit is The New Financial Platform.

We believe every person should have access to every financial opportunity on earth. That’s why we’re building the first intelligent platform that connects anyone, anywhere to the world’s finance.

Trusted by more than 80 million users worldwide, Bybit brings together investing, trading, payments, and wealth-building in a single secure and intelligent ecosystem. Through the combination of AI-powered technology, deep global liquidity, robust security, and transparent operations, Bybit makes global finance more accessible, efficient, and empowering for everyone.

Built for everyone. Powered by intelligence. Open to the world.

Learn more at Bybit.com

For more details about Bybit, please visit Bybit Press

For media inquiries, please contact: media@bybit.com

For updates, please follow: Bybit’s Communities and Social Media

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[PRESS RELEASE – Moscow, Russia, October 13th, 2026]

A7 International enables businesses and individuals to pay invoices with digital assets, while recipients receive a regular bank transfer, reflecting A7’s international positioning and expanding the geography of settlements available to foreign clients.

In two years of operation, A7 has become one of the key players in the international settlements market. Founded in 2024 to serve the foreign economic activity of Russian businesses, it currently serves around 15,000 companies, processing 10+ trillion roubles in 2025 alone. The services A7 offered domestically sparked interest among businesses from other countries, prompting the company to come up with a new product for foreign clients.

The launch of A7 International marks a new stage in A7’s journey. In response to requests from foreign entrepreneurs, the company is expanding its positioning and creating an export offering for businesses in various countries. It is a remote service compliant with local legislation on digital assets and available only in those jurisdictions where cryptocurrency circulation is permitted.

“We are presenting not just a new product in the lineup, but a new image of A7. We have adapted our service so that it can be used remotely from anywhere in the world. This is precisely the key demand of market participants today. They want to be able to transfer money around the world in a few clicks in the shortest possible time – directly from your smartphone, without lengthy paperwork, hidden fees, or unjustified holds on funds. And we are packaging this demand into a convenient and competitive form,” said Chairman of Bank PSB Petr Fradkov.

The mechanics of the service are simple: the client transfers USDT, and A7 arranges a bank transfer via SWIFT using the counterparty details specified in the invoice. The recipient does not need to accept cryptocurrency or open a crypto wallet: the funds arrive in their bank account.

To submit an application, you need to register in your personal account on the website a7.biz. Individuals undergo identity verification (KYC), and companies undergo corporate data verification (KYB). Then the client uploads the invoice and the necessary documents. The built-in algorithm automatically recognizes the invoice data and helps fill out the application.

“The system operates as follows. AI analyzes the sender and beneficiary, jurisdictions, and key risk factors of the transaction. Based on the verification results, a risk profile of the payment is formed and the available options for processing it are determined. The system compares compliance requirements with the capabilities of the existing payment infrastructure. After that, it recommends the optimal payment route taking into account its cost, speed, reliability, and applicable restrictions. Routing dynamically adapts to changes in conditions and the availability of payment channels. Data accumulated over the years makes it possible to continuously improve the quality of decisions made by the system,” noted A7 CEO Ilan Shor.

At launch, A7 International accepts USDT on the TRON network. Bank transfers are available in US dollars, euros, Chinese yuan, and UAE dirhams. Other currencies are available by prior agreement. The commission is 0.3% for both businesses and individuals. After uploading the invoice, the client sees the final cost of the payment, including commission, in advance.

Payment execution time is from one business day. After the operation is completed, the client receives a SWIFT message or another confirming document. For currency and customs control, the service also provides closing documents.

The presentation of the service took place on a symbolic date and time — October 13 at 13:13.

Video of the official presentation and Customer journey here.

About A7

A7 is a global financial technology company specializing in international payments and settlement solutions for international trade. It was established in 2024 with the involvement of PSB Bank.

A7 is developing an independent global payment infrastructure across more than 100 countries, combining global financial expertise, advanced technology and regulatory compliance. The company’s products include international payments, digital financial assets and promissory notes.

A7 Group works with 15,000 clients, with around 2,000 transactions processed through the system every day. In 2025, approximately 19% of Russian companies’ cross-border trade settlements were processed through A7. In October 2025, A7 received an AA(RU) credit rating with a Stable outlook from ACRA.

The post Meet A7 International, an Innovative Global Platform Designed to Reinvent the International Payments Market appeared first on CryptoPotato.